Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  “What was that, hon?”

  Ronnie looked up and gasped; she had not realized she spoke out loud. “Er, nothing.”

  Loni shook her head. “Dakota’s been in the deli with Chloe more than once. She seems like a really sweet girl, but her home life isn’t so good, which is probably why Lorraine Witz is suspicious of her.”

  Loni arched a brow at Ronnie. She had heard.

  “Anyway,” Loni continued, “Dakota’s working at Two Witt to pay for her schooling. She entered the nursing program at Jacksonville University last year.”

  “She must have seen something, why else would she call her best friend?” Ronnie posed.

  “Well, don’t ask me. Alice didn’t have a lot of details, and I haven’t been able to get in touch with her since.”

  Ronnie swallowed. What did the girl see? She had looked so frightened that brief moment as Ronnie was walking to Lorraine’s room. “I wouldn’t mind talking to that girl myself.” How to do that, though, without arousing suspicion? Nora Daily seemed a formidable figure, and despite Lorraine’s own stubborn streak Ronnie wondered if the grieving mother would be successful in ousting the fan club president from Two Witt. Nora was probably screening all incoming calls.

  Loni’s eyes lit up, like a switchboard, Ronnie noticed. “Why? Do you suspect something happened?”

  “Uh, no,” Ronnie lied. “Wait here a sec.”

  She scrambled to her feet and dove into her bedroom, finding her discarded phone receiver on the rug by her bed. When she returned to the living room she found Loni had turned on her boom box and was now pawing through an opened box of compact discs. Seconds later, a synthesizer broke the silence as Geddy Lee sang the opening line of “Tom Sawyer”.

  Ronnie leaned against the doorway. “I have their new one if you’d rather listen to that,” she said.

  “In a bit, I love this song,” Loni said, and adjusted the volume.

  “Well, never mind that now.” Ronnie perched on the sofa, her elbows braced against her knees, her hands folded over the phone. “How would you like to hear the juiciest bit of gossip since Eve told Adam about that talking snake?”

  Ronnie smiled at Loni’s reaction—a child on Christmas morning never looked so jubilant.

  “Juicy, you say?”

  Ronnie nodded. “So juicy you’ll have to carry a towel with you for the next week.” With that, Ronnie launched into the Reader’s Digest version of the previous night’s events—the bickering, the wailing, and the cookie. By tale’s end, Geddy was now eluding the Canadian police in his uncle’s red Barchetta, and Loni was staring, open-mouthed, into the space over Ronnie’s shoulder.

  “You have to promise me, though,” Ronnie added, “that you won’t breathe a word of this until I say it’s okay. What I need you to do is keep an ear out for anything related to Allayne that seems strange. If Lorraine’s suspicions are correct, then we’ll take what we have and go to Lew with it, but we can’t let anybody know we may have the upper hand. Okay?”

  Finally Loni gasped. “That cookie, is it here?”

  Ronnie tucked her hands behind her back, hoping Loni wouldn’t see her fingers crossed. “Uh, no. Gina has it safe somewhere, but you can’t tell her what I told you, either.”

  “Oh.” Loni now looked disappointed, and for a brief moment Ronnie felt sorry that the older woman was going to have a time fighting her temptations. Would Loni be able to sleep tonight, knowing she had an item for which the National Enquirer would have gladly killed?

  “Do you think,” Ronnie began, “that you could get a hold of your friend’s daughter right now? Maybe she could arrange for me to meet with—”

  But the phone rang in Ronnie’s hands, surprising them both. Ronnie pressed a button on the second ring to hear Lorraine Witz’s forceful voice, sounding as if nothing tragic had happened, scolding an unfortunate soul in the backyard.

  Oh, dear. Ronnie hoped the woman was not expecting a status report on the investigation that she had commissioned. Perhaps in the maelstrom of grief she experienced last night, the woman had forgotten. Maybe she could throw away the cookie with a clear conscience.

  “Ronnie, it’s Lorraine. Glad I caught you,” she said before Ronnie could greet her. “Listen, I just wanted to let you know about the funeral tomorrow at Beth-El Synagogue in Mandarin. We’re having it at eleven, and after that we’ll be sitting shivah back at the house later in the afternoon to give enough people to make the drive.”

  Ronnie thanked her for the information, wondering all the while what Allayne would have said of the arrangement.

  “Now, is this the public memorial?” Ronnie asked, holding the phone slightly away from her so Loni could also listen. She owed the deli owner that much; the silence of the town gossip did not come cheap.

  “Oh, my, no! Immediate family and friends only, plus we have some Southwest Memorial people flying in. They shut down production for the rest of the week, I don’t know if you heard.”

  “I hadn’t. That’s rather thoughtful of them.”

  Lorraine snorted. “Laney made that show what it is. If you ask me, the network should have blacked out the time slot in her memory. They’ll be getting an earful from me tomorrow, I promise you that.”

  Ronnie said a silent prayer for the network brass, the producers and cast of Southwest Memorial, and anyone else who happened to get caught in the path of Hurricane Lorraine.

  “Of course, the shivah will be open to members of Allayne’s fan club, provided people are dressed appropriately,” Lorraine continued. “There’ll be a list at the door, Nora’s taking care of that. I don’t want just anybody wandering around the house out of morbid curiosity. And I’ll expect you and your family to come to both.”

  “Of course,” Ronnie echoed. The invitation sounded more like a business arrangement. “Do you need us to bring anything?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Worman’s on the Northside is catering everything. Just bring yourselves.” Then Lorraine rang off before Ronnie could say goodbye. Ronnie stared at the dead receiver for a full second, eyes widened with amusement, before setting it on the sofa beside her.

  “Well,” she said, breathless, “she certainly appears to have come a long way from last night.”

  Loni frowned. “I can’t believe she didn’t think to call Dick and me to handle that Chivas thing.”

  “Shivah,” Ronnie corrected her.

  “Whatever.” Loni waved a hand. “I’ve catered weddings of up to two hundred guests, and I know how to cook kosher. I’d have been happy to provide food at cost.”

  “Maybe Lorraine wanted something specific,” Ronnie said with a shrug. “I don’t know anything about shivahs, maybe there’s some kind of protocol only a Jewish establishment can perform.” She noticed the explanation did little to appease Loni.

  “I’ve never been to a Jewish funeral before,” Ronnie mused. “I don’t know how comfortable I’m going to feel, either, knowing it probably wasn’t in Allayne’s final wishes. I imagine she would have preferred her ashes scattered over some Southern California cliff with people shaking tambourines and chanting Buddhist blessings.”

  Loni looked at her, horrified. “Ron, honey, you can’t say such things!”

  “Why not?”

  Loni reached behind her and silenced the music. “Ron, to suggest that a Jewish person, even a non-observant one like Allayne, be cremated, considering…” She gestured wildly until Ronnie picked up the connotation.

  Soon Ronnie was mortified. “Oh… right.” Silently she thanked Loni. At least now she would not make the mistake of saying that at Allayne’s shivah within earshot of Lorraine. “Well, if you like,” she added, “I’ll give you a rundown of who shows up, and what’s going on with the show. If I hear anything.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.” Loni reached into her purse and plucked a plastic card from a zippered compartment. She handed Ronnie the card that officially proclaimed Loni was a paid member of the Allayne Witt Fan Club, author
ized by Allayne Witt with a mimeographed signature done in gold ink. “I’ll see you there. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Chapter Seven

  The next day’s newspaper provided a full front page in the lifestyle section dedicated to Allayne Witt’s humble beginnings in local theater, on through her triumphs as one of daytime television’s most popular actresses, to her valiant battle with the cancer to which she tragically succumbed. Allayne smiled up at the reader from a blurred color photo, holding aloft a crystal, tear-shaped trophy that proclaimed her soapdom’s best actress of the last decade, by whom the article had not said.

  Ronnie held the section before her as Gina steered the Thunderbird onto the interstate for the long drive to Jacksonville’s upscale, old money Mandarin neighborhood. It had never occurred to Ronnie to return Lorraine’s call and ask directions to the synagogue, leaving the sisters at the mercy of a dubious map printed from the Internet.

  “We’ll be fine,” Gina was saying as she adjusted her rear-view mirror. “Once I get onto San Jose Boulevard I can figure things out from there.”

  “How far in advance do you suppose the paper had this obit ready?” Ronnie asked as she flipped to another page to continue the article. “I know newspapers write advanced stories for elder statesman, but it seems kind of morbid to do it for everybody.”

  “Considering our recent history with that newspaper, Ron, I’m surprised you don’t find the whole thing morbid.”

  “Well, the continuing war coverage doesn’t help, either.” Ronnie flipped to the comics section, read Cathy, then tossed the paper in the back seat. The remainder of the drive passed in relative silence, with only the occasional remark about the weather and changes in the landscape neither sister had noticed on their last trip to the city bouncing between them.

  They passed the synagogue a good forty minutes before the appointed time, and both sisters agreed to wait it out at a nearby coffee shop with a bite to eat. Ronnie sat in an uncomfortable chair at a round table that rocked from a lame leg. She tugged at the hem of her black knee-length skirt as Gina, looking svelte in a crisp, black jacket and matching slacks, handed her an insulated cup.

  “When were you going to tell me that I got fat?” Ronnie grumbled at her. She looked with disdain at the slight abdominal bulge protruding over her lap.

  “You look fine,” Gina scoffed as she dumped the contents of two tiny pink envelopes in her coffee. “You probably washed that dress enough for it to shrink a bit.”

  “No, I dry clean this dress. It’s my stomach, and my ass. How come they don’t shrink in hot water?”

  “Now, I thought it was fashionable to have some junk in the trunk,” Gina remarked playfully. “Just look at J-Lo.”

  “It’s difficult not to, she’s all over the damn place,” Ronnie cracked. She glanced at the cinnamon roll Gina set between them with some disgust, but peeled away a sticky strip of dough anyway. She could feel the fat padding her thighs with each bite. “I can’t believe Nana didn’t want to come,” she said. “I’d have thought she wanted to be here for spiritual support.”

  “Yeah, I thought that was a rather lame excuse that she gave, helping Mrs. Lewis organize a ladies’ guild banquet that isn’t happening for months yet,” Gina agreed. “I bet she has plans with Ethan Fontaine today.”

  Ronnie snickered. “Imagine, choosing a date with him over going to a funeral.”

  “I’d rather date Ethan Fontaine than go to a funeral,” Gina sighed. “I hate funerals, especially for people my own age.”

  Ronnie saw no reason to argue that point. Fortunately for both of them, funerals were not a common occurrence in their family. Their parents, Nana, and Arthur were relatively healthy people, and instances of crime and accidents in the Ash Lake area were rare. The last funeral Ronnie attended had been Jim’s.

  Jim’s funeral. Ronnie retained little memory of it. She remembered neither the pungent array of lilies and store-bought flowers by the steps to the altar of the old church, the American flag draped over the closed casket during the Mass, nor the dulcet tones of the dirges selected by her mother because she was too distraught to plan anything. Everybody had to remind her of the day. If asked—and why anyone would want to know, anyway—Ronnie knew she would not be able to describe the attire in which Jim was laid to rest. A suit? His dress blues? Ronnie dared not look; she had spent much of the Rosary vigil sitting in the funeral home’s lobby with Elliott, who did not want to see his uncle dead in a box, either.

  “Ron?” Gina prodded.

  “Huh?” Ronnie returned to the coffee shop and idly brushed away a few flecks of congealed white sugar sticking to her bodice.

  “We need to go.” Gina tapped her watch.

  “Right.”

  ~ * ~

  “Immediate family and friends, huh?”

  Somebody clearly had neglected to inform Allayne’s adoring public.

  As the synagogue came into view, Ronnie saw the parking lot was now flooded with people—mostly women—ranging the entire spectrum of age, with the occasional bored young boy clinging to his mother. Many carried flowers, and as Ronnie steered the car gently through the mourning fan base she noticed the bouquets were being deposited at the base of a tree planted in the bright green grass near the synagogue’s front entrance.

  Gina whistled. “You think this many people will ever show up to your funeral? There has to be at least two hundred people milling around the property.”

  “Maybe, if it turned out I owed that many people money.” Ronnie spotted an empty space next to Danny’s Porsche and turned to park, dislodging a mourner in a T-shirt bearing a silkscreen photo of Allayne and her co-star superimposed over a red heart. Brantwood and Bethany 4-Ever curled over the picture in red cursive.

  “You think we’re overdressed?” Ronnie quipped.

  They pushed through a throng gathered at the front door, guarded by a very large, unsmiling man who asked for identification. “If you’re not on the list, you ain’t coming inside,” he growled.

  Ronnie was digging for her driver’s license when she heard Lorraine’s voice from inside the open door. “They’re fine,” she called. “They were invited.” And the sisters were granted entrance, Lorraine tugging distractedly at their arms. Ronnie got the immediate impression that Lorraine was annoyed with the clamor outside the building. Perhaps, in her eyes, not as many fans had shown up as she had hoped to pay their respects to Nurse Bethany.

  “Nora’s idea, the bouncer. Oy. And all those flowers,” Lorraine grumbled “Don’t these people know you’re not supposed to have flowers at a Jewish funeral? You’re supposed to keep it as simple as possible.”

  This Ronnie noticed. The inside of the synagogue bore no resemblance to what little she recalled of Jim’s service. Looking down, she also saw Lorraine was wearing black canvas sneakers, an unusual choice to accompany the black dress and veiled pillbox hat she wore. Lorraine looked a good thirty years older, her face devoid of makeup and her eyes red.

  Lorraine caught Ronnie’s stare and twisted a heel. “These, oh. In Jewish custom, girls, the seven in the immediate family designated to mourn have to observe a few rituals. No leather shoes or makeup, for one. These were all I could find on such short notice.”

  “Ah.” Ronnie nodded, feeling a catch in her throat. Were they supposed to be wearing veils in the synagogue as well? Would they be asked to leave?

  She felt a jab to her arm. Gina handed her a scrap of material, which unfurled in Ronnie’s palm. She recognized it as one of Nana’s black lace mantillas.

  “How’s this for a blast from the past?” Gina whispered as she settled a similar one over her own head.

  “Yeah.” Bless Nana for hanging onto to such relics of the pre-Vatican II church.

  To Ronnie’s relief, Lorraine did not appear offended by their headdress. “Girls, there’s something I want to ask of you,” she said, her expression serious.

  “Anything,” Gina said.

  Lorraine put a hand
to her heart and squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “Jewish custom dictates that the deceased’s son recite the Kaddish during the service. You know Laney had no children, and since Danny is also Jewish he has agreed to do it.

  “There’s no other immediate family, aside from Marlene, who is here, and Laney’s father’s been dead for years,” Lorraine continued, “and I would like more mourners to round out the seven. I would like to ask if you and Gina would mourn Laney with me.”

  “Wha—?” Ronnie bit her lip. How stupid she must have sounded! She took a moment to regain her breath and said, “Wow. Uh, I don’t know what to say.” She glanced nervously at Gina, who offered no solution in her complacent expression.

  Ronnie leaned slightly over Lorraine’s shoulder to see that Danny, staid and handsome in a dark suit and black yarmulke, was already seated in the area of the synagogue reserved for the mourning family. The slim, pale brunette sitting with him could only be Allayne’s cousin Marlene from Ponte Vedra, Ronnie guessed. She looked around for Nora Daily, and found the off-redhead steeled against her seat in the back of the sanctuary, a look of displeasure creasing her face.