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

by Leigh Ellwood

  “You’re serious?”

  Caitlin shrugged. “You won’t know anybody there, it might look better if you didn’t show up alone, I don’t know. I’ve never been to one of these things.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Jason said, thinking how amazing a friend he had in Caitlin. On a Saturday night, with numerous possibilities for amusement available to her, and she decides to accompany him to something so...

  ...whatever.

  “So,” Mitch drummed his fists on the register counter after Caitlin ducked outside toward the nearest pay phone. “What are we doing tonight? Movie? Putt-Putt? The beach?”

  Jason grinned slyly and put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. “You up for something new?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “Good. Ever sat shivah?”

  Chapter Seven

  Caitlin studied a fly crawling along the other side of the front passenger car window, tapping the glass until the insect spread its wings and disappeared. “You know, we really ought to bring something.”

  “Bring what?” Gooch’s eyes were fixed on the street light above them. When it turned green, he gunned the motor and the car lurched forward.

  “Gooch, watch it!” Caitlin cried as she was thrust back and forth in her seat, the seat belt cutting into her bare shoulder. Mitch and Jason fared no better as they were tossed about in the back.

  “Sorry,” Gooch grumbled. Jason could tell his friend was still miffed for letting himself be talked into crashing a total stranger’s shivah. In Phoebus, of all places, too, which meant a nail-biting drive up Interstate 64 through the oft-congested Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. Braving maniacal traffic to perch on a couch and make niceties with a strange family of mourners was not a prime way to spend a Saturday night, Jason knew, but he promised to make it up to his friends. He backed up his word with his uncashed paycheck.

  “What do you mean, bring something?” Mitch asked. “I don’t think shivahs are BYOB.”

  Caitlin reached under her seat for the latch and pushed her seat back until Mitch’s body nearly folded in two like a cot. “Hey!” he screamed as the bucket seat flattened his shoes.

  Gooch eased onto the acceleration lane and merged carefully into the interstate traffic. “Kids, don’t make me stop this car,” he warned, his demeanor lightening. “I swear I’ll turn this thing around and we can forget about Busch Gardens.”

  “What you need to do is stop at a Farm Fresh so we can pick up a cake or something,” Caitlin said. Grudgingly she eased her seat back to its original position and ignored Mitch’s continued yelping. “We can’t show up empty-handed, especially since we don’t know the guy.”

  “Why?” Gooch asked aloud to nobody in particular, though his line of vision in the rearview mirror was aimed specifically at Jason. “Yeah, we didn’t know the guy, but now we have to feed his relatives? Hell, let’s wash a few cars while we’re there. Mow the lawn.”

  “Gooch.” Jason returned the driver’s glare, then softened. “I have my reasons for doing this. I know you guys didn’t know Bart...I didn’t know him all that well myself, but I feel this is something that I gotta do, you know, and I’ll tell you I’m happy I don’t have to do it alone.”

  Mitch rolled his head, glancing from the view of the Chesapeake Bay to his best friend. “Oh, man,” he cried, “that’s so beautiful!” He leaned over to crush Jason in a bear hug but was pushed away.

  “Really, bud,” Mitch added, more seriously, “it’s nice you’d do this for the guy, but why do it at all? Send his mother a card, pray a rosary. Why take the trip?”

  Caitlin and Gooch joined in with similar queries, and reluctantly Jason told them about the disturbing phone call from that morning, among other suspicions.

  “Whoa,” said Caitlin, stunned. She twisted around to face Jason. “Who would do that? That makes no sense.”

  “Not me,” Mitch said innocently.

  Gooch signaled to shift to the far right lane before the car descended into the tunnel. “I think your dad’s right. This murder was probably a random act of violence, and some wacko saw your name in the paper and thought he’d get off trying to scare you.”

  “My name’s not in the phone book, though. That’s what bothers me.”

  “So he called all the Greeveys. Scared a lot of people.”

  “You know who could’ve made that call?” Caitlin mused. “Jordy Brock. He’s such an asshole. He’s called me before and said stupid things. That sounds like something he’d do.”

  Jason shook his head. “I know Jordy’s voice, and that wasn’t it.”

  Caitlin flipped back around, facing a stream of red lights illuminating in the hazy glow of tunnel lights. The Pearl Jam song playing softly on the radio fizzled into grating static as the station signal was lost, so she turned down the volume. “Yeah, he probably doesn’t watch the news, either. He can’t even name all seven Supreme Court justices.”

  “Caitlin, I can’t name all seven Supreme Court justices,” Jason said, “and history is my best subject.”

  “Oh, come on,” she baited him. “O’Connor, Ginsburg, Thomas, Scalia...”

  “Dopey, Sneezy, Doc,” finished Gooch to a chorus of groans. “All right, all right. Next stop, Phoebus,” he said, eyeing an overhead exit sign.

  “Stop if you see a grocery store,” Caitlin wheedled. “We really should take something with us. I think it’s a Jewish tradition that you bring food, like you’d do for a wake. Really.”

  Mitch patted his pockets. “I don’t have much cash right now. It’ll have to be something cheap.”

  “Like what?” Gooch retorted. “Little Debbies?”

  “We are not bringing Little Debbie snacks to a shivah,” Caitlin said tersely. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Why not?” Mitch prodded. “How do we know it isn’t customary to bring individually-wrapped snack treats to a shivah? We just might be neglecting some ancient Jewish tradition by not bringing a box of Fudge Rounds. How do we know Little Debbie wasn’t Jewish?”

  “Because ancient Jewish tradition has been around a lot longer than Little Debbie!”

  Jason reached over and stroked her shoulder. “Relax, he’s just yanking your chain. Although,” he tossed a wink to his friend when he thought Caitlin was not looking, “I’m sure Fudge Rounds are kosher.”

  He did not move his hand fast enough. Caitlin slapped it so hard it stung the rest of the drive to Bart Scarsdale’s house.

  According to the four-inch obituary in the Virginian-Pilot, the late Bart Scarsdale was forty-two years old, a native of Phoebus—a tiny area of Tidewater bordering the Strawberry Hill area near Hampton—and a graduate of Old Dominion University where he had earned his accounting degree. At the time of his death he was his own boss, working out of the house he shared with his elderly mother, Edith Birnbaum Scarsdale.

  Aside from his mother, Bart left behind three sisters—Esther, Diane, and Lisa, one brother, Jonathan, a handful of nieces and nephews, and aunts, uncles, and cousins too numerous to name in the short space provided. He was preceded in death by his father, Bart Senior, and died a childless bachelor.

  In lieu of flowers, people were requested to make donations to the Temple Beth-El of Hampton, where Bart and Mother presumably attended services. Shivah would be sat at the house; call for directions.

  The directions Caitlin gleaned from the sniffling voice over the pay phone at the Dairy Queen brought the Mustang to a quiet neighborhood of white vinyl-sided homes cordoned off by rusted chain-link fences; some lawns were decorated with requisite middle-class trimming—chubby garden gnomes, plastic geese bent over for a taste of grass, wooden cutouts of polka-dotted fannies bent over in the grass. The Scarsdale lawn in contrast was spartan, the grass recently mowed and a low train of azalea bushes blooming around the house.

  “How do they get to temple?” Mitch wondered aloud. “I thought Jewish law said that you had to walk to services. They can’t be walking to Hampton every weekend!”

  Jason s
hrugged. He did not know of Bart’s religious practices, or how observant he was. Scarsdale did not sound like a Jewish name, perhaps he was only half-Jewish. There was so much he did not know about the man who beat him at a trivia contest by one question, and he anticipated learning something tonight, especially if that something could help solve his murder.

  Gooch parked alongside a house three doors down, and Caitlin volunteered to carry in the carrot cake that everyone agreed upon buying during their quick detour at a nearby superette. “Look at me,” Gooch grumbled, gesturing to his New York Mets t-shirt and loose-fitting jeans, the cuffs ratted and long over worn Nikes. “I can’t go in looking like this. At least you guys are still in your work clothes.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Caitlin, dressed casually in a tight pink shirt and white shorts which nicely set off her long tanned legs, slipped an arm through Gooch’s. She kicked up a sandaled foot and wiggled her toes, all polished a bright, pearlized pink. “I’m not exactly dressed for mourning, either, but it’s not like we’re going to see any of these people again.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  Jason flipped open the gate latch and pushed the door open with a piercing squeak. “We aren’t going to be here long, I promise. We’ll pay our respects to Bart’s mom, and meanwhile I’ll see if I can’t get some answers.” Mitch arched an eyebrow. “Do you even know which questions to ask?”

  Jason swallowed. “Hardly.”

  They were greeted with a blast of cold air and the faint scent of cooked cabbage wafting in from the unseen kitchen. A tall, dark-haired woman with a chubby face smiled painfully at them, grasping the front door with a pale hand which poised to slam it back in their faces if she correctly suspected any of them were there to sell candy bars for their church youth group.

  “Hello,” she said nervously in a raspy voice. Her teeth were a perfect row of white in between bright red lips, and Jason, standing closest to her, caught the aroma of a glass of wine recently drunk. His eyes drifted to the wispy doily crowning her head.

  “We-we’re here to see Mrs. Scarsdale,” he said slowly, craning his head back to indicate his friends cowering behind in a straight line. “I-I knew her son.” It was not a complete lie, but Jason still felt a twinge of guilt for having said it aloud.

  “Oh, certainly. Come right in, please.” The woman’s face softened as she escorted the four teenagers into a foyer floored with black and white checkerboard tile. “We’re all in the den, this way.”

  The woman led the four down the hall into a large, mauve-carpeted room. Caitlin and Gooch hung back while Jason took notice of his surroundings and the people gathered in the den to memorialize Bart Scarsdale. A shivah candle burned on a table in the center of the room.

  “I’m Lisa Haldeman, by the way, Bart’s sister,” she informed them, whirling around suddenly to meet Jason’s extended hand. She studied the huge gold-plated class ring with the onyx stone and COLLEY AVENUE SENIOR HIGH etched around it in bold block letters that Jason wore. Thick as his fingers were, the collegiate-style ring still appeared a bit large for the boy’s hand.

  “Exactly how did you know my brother?” she asked, her reddened eyes sweeping the group clustered together in the hallway. “You guys look awfully young to need the services of an accountant. Unless you’re all in a rock group, or something.”

  Caitlin tittered nervously at this, loud enough to attract the attention of a few mourners in yarmulkes whispering among themselves. She clutched the pastry box for protection and looked to the other three to concoct an explanation that would not get them evicted.

  Lord, forgive me this one white lie, Jason prayed quickly, knowing fully well it was bad enough to compound deception with more untruths. “Actually, we’re more acquaintances of your brother than friends,” he explained shakily, hoping Lisa Haldeman would mistake the rattling timbre in his voice for grief. “Bart spoke to our accounting class at school last semester, sort of as a Career Day appearance, and I’d kept in touch with him once to ask questions and just sh-, uh,” he stopped himself before he could say shoot the breeze, thinking it inappropriate, “er, chat about stuff. I’ve been considering going into accounting myself.”

  Lisa nodded throughout the entire monologue, interjecting with an occasional “uh-huh” and “yeah.” “You know you should, it’s a great career. I work out of a firm in Richmond.” Her gaze darted to Gooch and Caitlin, who huddled together in the back looking very much like rabbits caught in a snare. “And you guys, too? You’re going into accounting?”

  “Oh, no, no,” Gooch blurted. “My mom won’t even let me have a checking account. Ow!” He rubbed the lower right rib where Caitlin had elbowed him.

  “We brought a little something for you and your family,” she said, stepping forward with the carrot cake. “I wish we could’ve done more, but—”

  But Lisa squealed with genuine delight as she was presented with the boxed dessert. “Oh, how sweet of you! Thank you so much. We’ll have to show Mom.” She motioned for everyone to follow her deeper into the den toward the far corner, where an elderly version of Lisa sat crouched in a dark purple wingback chair. Jason eased into the room of twenty or so people, all enveloped in thin air and engaged in conversations while balancing Styrofoam plates filled with food, while a very uncomfortable Mitch followed suit and lingered near the closest wall.

  Edith Scarsdale was a hefty woman of about seventy-five with a helmet of silver hair and leathery wrinkles underneath her brown doe eyes. Remarkably Jason noticed the resemblance between daughter and mother, but found no evidence of Bart in the woman’s face at all. That was present in several picture frames positioned on end tables and the fake mantelpiece opposite the old woman’s chair. On the wall next to that was hung a long, horizontal frame offering a panoramic retrospective of Bart in school photos from Kindergarten to senior year.

  “Mama,” Lisa shouted nasally into her mother’s ear and Edith came to life. Her movements were robotic, and Jason figured the old woman was either too senile to realize what was happening or else in shock over her son’s death.

  “Mama,” Lisa tried again. “There’s a boy here for you. Jamie Greevey, Mama.”

  “Jason, actually,” Jason corrected her, and Lisa looked up at him quizzically, as if to say That’s not what you told me earlier!

  Jason lowered his hand toward the woman’s lap, and after a few seconds a shaking, wrinkled hand dark with liver spots rose to take it. “I just wanted to say how sorry I am for your loss, Mrs. Scarsdale.”

  Edith Scarsdale only looked at Jason with a frightened expression, as if he were speaking a foreign tongue. Lisa tugged at the old woman’s elbow and thrust the cake box in her line of vision. “He brought a cake, Mama,” she said loudly.

  Grieved, frightened, and deaf, Jason thought as he inched away from the daughter. He glanced over his shoulder. Mitch was chatting with a brunette in black, while Caitlin and Gooch stood together by a bookshelf pretending to look interested in Bart’s choice of reading material.

  “A cake.”

  Jason whirled back around to Edith Scarsdale. Her clouded eyes twinkled with a hint of warmth, and her pale pink lips curled slightly upward. “Wasn’t that a nice thing to do?” she whispered. “To bring a cake. Very nice.” Her gaze drifted from the cake box to Lisa. “We should send a note.”

  Lisa rolled her eyes and straightened. “Ma, he’s standing right in front of you. Thank him yourself.” To Jason, she said, “Don’t mind her. She’s been like this all day. I don’t even think—” she choked on her next words, and Jason nodded in understanding.

  “I’ll put this in the kitchen.” With that, Lisa tore through the collected houseguests, stifling loud sobs all the way out the door, her hip catching the table where the candle burned.

  “Bart likes carrot cake,” Edith confided to Jason with a knowing grin. “Of course, he’s always been fond of sweets. Even when he was little, I’d catch him in the cookie jar before suppertime, his chubby little lips c
oated with crumbs...”

  Jason smiled appreciatively at his hostess, while others within earshot shook their heads sullenly, no doubt convinced that senility had a tight hold on the old woman, he thought. It might have explained why Edith had been by herself when they arrived.

  “God knows I’ve tried to keep Bart on a balanced diet,” Edith prattled on, “but he says he burns the sugar at work.” She touched Jason’s hand, sending a jolting chill up his arm. “I remember you.”

  Jason felt a lump in his throat. Had she seen the paper as well? Was he doomed to be branded as a trivia contest also-ran for the rest of his life?

  “Do you, now?”

  “I do,” Edith replied with resounding determination. “Bart handles your taxes. I remember that time three months ago when you dropped by during Jeopardy with some receipts in a shoebox.”