A Fine Fix

by Gale Deitch

  The dining room was as big as my condo, with a table that could seat the President’s cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff combined.

  We left with a promise to return the next day with a contract for Barbara Lewis to sign and to collect a twenty-percent deposit. Happy days were here again. Even Zach’s disposition had improved. He smiled the entire way home. Well, until I mentioned stopping by the Schwartz house.

  “Do you want to go with me?” I asked. “I want to see how Mrs. Schwartz is doing, and I barely got a chance to speak to Ally.”

  Zach’s face fell. “I—I don’t know. I wouldn’t know what to say to them. We can’t change anything.” His voice jittered like a bowl of Jello. He shifted in his seat.

  “Zach, what’s wrong?” I put my hand on his. “You seem nervous. Of course it’s going to be uncomfortable visiting them. Mr. Schwartz hasn’t even been gone twenty-four hours. But Ally and her mother are going to need friends to rally round them and give support.”

  “I know. It’s just that things like that are hard for me. But you’re right, we should visit. Let’s go.”

  I wondered what really made Zach so nervous. Why was he afraid to see Mrs. Schwartz? Or was it Allison? I knew Zach well, and I’d rarely seen him quite so disturbed. Maybe he knew more about last night than he would admit.

  Chapter Six

  Graciella, the Schwartzes’ maid, opened the door and led Zach and me through the house to the upper terrace, where Ally and her mother were lounging with tall glasses of iced tea. Both wore large Jackie-O type sunglasses and skimpy bikinis over their well-oiled, tanned skin. Ally’s body was perfect as ever, curved in all the right places, and as firm and smooth as my top-scoring salmon mold in the Johnson and Wales final exam. Mrs. Schwartz, on the other hand, appeared skeletal, reminding me the bones left on the platter of Peking Duck Mr. Wu had carved at my table on my last visit to his restaurant.

  It stunned me to find them here overlooking the pool where Mr. Schwartz’s dead body had been found. Yellow police tape still ringed the perimeter.

  “Trudie, dear.” Mrs. Schwartz held out a hand to me. “How considerate of you to visit us. Come, sit down. You too, Zachary.”

  I took her hand and held it a moment. “I brought you some meringues.” I extended the cellophane-wrapped platter of white-peaked cookies I had whipped up this morning while waiting to call Zach. Thinking about Mr. Schwartz’s death and all the chaos that followed, I had beaten the egg whites with a vengeance. It had done wonders to relieve my stress.

  “So lovely of you, Trudie. Graciella, please set these out for us all to enjoy. And refill the pitcher please, would you? We’ll need more glasses.”

  Zach mumbled his regrets to Mrs. Schwartz and then pulled a chair up next to Ally.

  “How are you doing, Mrs. Schwartz?” I stood above her. My body cast a shadow across hers as she peered up at me. “I’m so sorry about Mr. Schwartz. Such a wonderful man.”

  “Oh, Trudie. You don’t know. You just don’t know.” She lifted her sunglasses and dabbed at her puffy eyes with a tissue. Then she pulled a cigarette from the pack on the side table, lit it, and inhaled audibly before lifting her head to release a stream of white smoke.

  I turned to Ally and bent down to give her a hug. She wrapped her arms around me and held on, her body shaking with silent sobs. “I can’t believe Daddy is gone.”

  “I know, honey. It’s hard to believe.” I stood up again. “He was so helpful to us yesterday, insisting on carrying in equipment from the van.”

  “He was my great, big, huggable, teddy-bear daddy,” she said in a child-like voice. “That’s what I always called him.” She sniffled. “Come, sit with me, Trudie.” She patted the empty space on her lounge.”

  I sat down on a deck chair, worried that if I set my butt on the side of her lounge chair, we would both tip over.

  “Tell me,” I said to Ally, noticing my own reflection in the huge lenses of her sunglasses. “What’s going on with the investigation? Do the police know anything yet?”

  She shook her head, her golden ponytail swaying back and forth, gleaming like corn silk in the sunlight. “Nothing. They can’t even do the autopsy until tomorrow. Something about a backup in the morgue. Can you believe it?”

  Graciella emerged with a tray, handed Zach and me our beverages and set the pitcher on the table along with the meringues, which she’d arranged on a silver platter.

  “We can’t even plan the funeral.” Mrs. Schwartz held her palms up in helplessness. “People are asking, and I can’t tell them a thing. Can’t put the obituary in the Post yet either. I told Detective Goldman this morning he should know it’s our law. Jews must be buried immediately, and autopsies really are not allowed unless absolutely necessary.”

  Her comment surprised me. The Schwartzes were not observant Jews, as far as I knew. Certainly not kosher, as there hadn’t been an issue with my serving shellfish or meat and dairy together when Mrs. Schwartz and I had planned the menu for last night’s party. In crisis situations, however, sometimes people revert to their religious beliefs. “I think there’s some sort of petition you can file to block an autopsy, if it’s for religious reasons,” I suggested.

  “Yes, Detective Goldman did say something like that. But I do want to find out how my dear Melvin d-d-died.” Her bottom lip began to quiver, and a low, almost baritone, moan emerged from her throat, a sound I had never heard from a human being.

  Mrs. Schwartz dabbed her eyes again and glanced toward the house. “Graciella, please bring that bottle of bourbon so I can sweeten my tea a little,” she called then turned back to me. “Anyway, the detective said that a judge may deny the petition. When a suspicious death occurs, they usually insist on doing an autopsy. Goldman can’t even push poor Melvin to the front of the line. Says he has to wait his turn.

  “By the way, Trudie. I’ve left a check for you in an envelope on the kitchen table. It’s the balance of what I owe you. Be sure to take it when you leave.”

  “That really isn’t necessary, considering the food was barely touched.” I was being polite by objecting. Zach and I could really use a boost to our account. The twenty percent deposit had barely covered our food costs, and we still had to pay the bartending agency for sending Bradley.

  “Nonsense. You both worked very hard, prepared all the food and set up everything beautifully. What happened last night was not your fault, and you shouldn’t suffer for it.”

  “Well, thank you. That’s very kind.” I was relieved but also ashamed to admit, even to myself, that despite the awful tragedy of Mr. Schwartz’s death, I had worried that we would never get paid.

  “Graciella,” she yelled toward the house. “Where is that bourbon?”

  The maid scurried out, the half-empty bottle balanced on a tray, one hand on the neck to keep it from falling. She poured a little in the glass, but Mrs. Schwartz grabbed the bourbon and, hand shaking, poured it into her tea until it almost reached the rim.

  “What brought Detective Goldman here this morning?” I asked her. “Didn’t he get everything he needed last night?”

  “Evidently not.” She took a long swallow of her tea. “For some reason he thought my head would be clearer this morning after I’d slept. I was perfectly lucid last night, wasn’t I, Trudie?”

  “You were…upset. What kinds of questions did the detective ask?”

  “Oh, you know. The obvious. He asked if Melvin had heart problems. Oh no. I told him Melvin used to brag about how strong his ticker was.” She laughed. “The only thing we had to be careful with was his severe allergy to peanuts.”

  Mrs. Schwartz had informed Zach and me about her husband’s allergy. We’d been especially careful when planning the menu and purchasing the food and made sure that none of our ingredients had been produced in factories that use peanuts in their products.

  “Then Detective Goldman went through the list of guests and our relationship to them.” She took another sip of the tea. “He even asked about you and
Zachary. What did he think? That you poisoned Melvin? Fed him peanuts? Hah. I told him he was barking up the wrong tree.”

  Where did the idea of poison come from? Surely not from Goldman. That word, spoken so casually in relation to Mr. Schwartz’s death, made the hair on my arms stand at attention. If the autopsy results indicated that the cause of death was poison or even the result of his allergy, A Fine Fix would forever be linked and our reputation washed down the drain.

  A silence hovered around us, heavy as the humidity in the air. A crow squawked across the patio and alighted on a tree limb.

  Zach paled as he and Ally exchanged a glance. “Are you staying with your mom?” he asked her.

  He’d been so quiet, I was surprised he’d decided to join the living. His intense gaze toward Ally seemed to have some significance.

  “For a while,” she answered. I couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses, but I sensed the same intensity in her voice. “We need each other for support.”

  “What do you think happened to your dad?” I blurted, without thinking. A bead of sweat slid down my back. In the burgundy polyester suit I’d worn to my appointment with Barbara Lewis, I roasted like a chicken in the oven, needing to be basted. I gulped my iced tea and held the cool, sweaty glass to my cheek and neck.

  Ally glanced at Zach then lifted her chin. “I don’t have a clue what happened to Daddy.”

  I could smell something going on between these two as if a flounder fillet had been left out in the hot sun.

  “OKAY, ZACH,” I said on the drive home. “Fess up. Something’s going on between you and Ally, and I want to know what it is. Now.” I’d had enough of Zach’s evasiveness. As long as I’d known him, there had never been any secrets between us. At least that’s what I thought.

  “Nothing’s going on,” he said, staring out the car window.

  “That’s a bunch of crab! Come on, I know you like I know the blade of my Santoku.”

  Zach knew I didn’t use obscenities, but he also knew that when I came close, I meant business.

  He leaned back on the headrest, closed his eyes and sighed. “I’ve got this...thing for Allison.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  He hung his head. “Since the first time I met her. When I visited you at school. Remember?”

  “You visited me lots of times. I don’t remember the first time.”

  “Freshman year. You were in class.” His voice was quiet. “I missed you, Trudie. So I went to your dorm room to surprise you. I hadn’t told you I was coming.”

  I nodded. “I know. I missed you, too.”

  “But that day,” he continued, “I walked into your room, and there she was, sitting cross-legged on her bed, studying.”

  “Oh, yeah. Was that Homecoming Weekend? I think I do remember.”

  “Yes. That’s it.” His voice became animated. “Anyway, there was this angel sitting on the bed. She just gazed up at me with those innocent blue eyes and asked if she could help me. I tell you, Trudie, I wanted to dive into those eyes.”

  Uh-oh, I thought. I knew exactly what he was talking about. I was her roommate. Every guy who ever met Ally reacted the same way.

  “Heck, Zach. You’re a man. You were attracted to her. That’s normal.”

  He frowned, his eyes darkening. “No. How I felt that day, and every day since, is not normal. It’s—it’s…” He searched for the right word. “…an obsession.” He put his hand over his eyes and hung his head.

  We were stopped at a light, so I pulled his hand down. “Zach, look at me. It’s okay to have strong feelings for someone and not have those feelings returned. We move on as best we can.” God knows, I’ve had my share of unrequited love.

  He faced me, but his eyes were focused somewhere else. “That first weekend, she asked me to take her to some sorority party. It was one of those uptight sororities, and Allison wanted to make a good impression, didn’t want to bring a jock or a frat boy who would get drunk and embarrass her.”

  “I remember that. You did her a big favor. It was sweet of you.” The light changed to green, and I stepped on the gas.

  “So we went to the party, but she started drinking and drinking, heavily, and ended up embarrassing herself. I made excuses that she was sick, got her out of there and was driving her back to the dorm.” He shook his head and pounded his fist on the dashboard.

  This was a side of Zach I’d never seen before. “Go on,” I urged, keeping my eyes on the road.

  “Ally was upset that she’d messed up and wouldn’t get a bid from the sorority. She started crying and made me pull the car over. Trudie, all I tried to do was comfort her. I put my arm around her and held her. Then she started kissing me and telling me to make love to her. She was unbuttoning my shirt and my pants, taking off her clothes.” He opened his mouth to continue, but just shook his head.

  Zach and Ally? I’d suspected that something had happened between them, but never thought it had gone that far. I tried to wrap my mind around all of this as if I were preparing an egg roll, trying to keep the filling from coming out.

  He found his voice. “I…I tried to pull a condom out of my wallet, but she wouldn’t wait. She kept begging me to do it already, and climbed on top of me.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t hold back. Oh god, Trudie, she was drunk, and I just went ahead and took advantage of her.”

  I paused to take all this in. He wouldn’t be the first guy to do a thing like that. Only someone like Zach would still feel guilty after all these years. How many guys even remember conquests from their younger days, much less feel bad about them?

  Zach must have taken my silence as some sort of rebuke. “Look,” he spouted. “I’m only human, you know. I was only giving her what she wanted. It might have happened even if she hadn’t gotten drunk. It was pretty obvious I wasn’t her first.”

  “No, she wasn’t a virgin.” I remembered many late nights at school when Ally had stumbled into the dorm room giggling, her clothes jumbled.

  “When Allison came home for Thanksgiving, she called me.” His voice was quieter now. “She was pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?”

  I swerved the car over to the curb and jammed on the brakes.

  “Jesus, Trudie. Are you trying to kill us? It’s a good thing we have our seat belts on.” He turned to me, wide-eyed.

  “If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it long ago. Right now, tell me about this pregnancy.”

  “She was upset. Said she wasn’t like her birth mother and wasn’t going to give her baby away like it was some old sweater she couldn’t use. I didn’t even know she was adopted. She wanted me to go with her to the abortion clinic.” Zach ran his fingers through his hair. “I tried to talk her out of it, told her I would marry her, if she wanted. But she didn’t want that. I suggested adoption. She wouldn’t hear any of it. So, I went with her and it was done.”

  Thoughts sloshed around in my head like milk in a coconut. Something this important and Zach never confided in me? Did he think it would ruin our friendship? After all these years, it hurt that he didn’t trust me enough to tell me. Ally was my roommate, but we were never that close. Even so, why did she have to mess with my best friend?

  I understood Ally’s attraction and her influence over men. In this instance, she had taken advantage of Zach, not the other way around. But she was drunk. He could have refused, no matter how hard, no pun intended. I just couldn’t escape the fact that she was pregnant and Zach, even though he said he tried to change her mind, had helped her get an abortion.

  Watching him, submerged in his guilt and regret, tears came to my eyes. “Oh, Zach.” I reached over and squeezed his hand. Ally surely must have suffered because of her decision to terminate the pregnancy. But it was Zach, and what he had gone through, that I cried for now. Thinking back about Ally’s wild jaunts at school, I wondered if it had really been Zach’s baby.

  “There are other things you don’t know.” His Adam’s apple moved as he swa
llowed. His fist clenched beneath mine.

  “Ever since then, Ally has this hold over me. She asks me to do things for her, and I always do them.”

  With this revelation, I jerked my head up to Zach. My body began to tremble, and the hairs on my arms stood up. “Zach?”

  He turned to face me.

  “Did Ally have something to do with her father’s death?”

  Zach’s eyebrows drew together, and he looked me squarely in the eyes. He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Chapter Seven

  We sat on the floor in Zach’s living room eating a margherita pizza. He and I had a lot of serious talking to do, but we’d been out all afternoon, it was almost seven o’clock, and I was hungry. I think better on a full stomach. I was on my third piece, while Zach had barely finished his first.

  “So let’s go over this again. Ally made some kind of treat for her father and asked you to give it to him at the party?”

  Zach shook his head. “Well, not exactly. Graciella handed me a plastic container she’d found on the foyer table. Taped to the top was an envelope with my name on it.”

  “And—”

  “And there was a note to me from Ally saying she was late for a dinner date but had made these treats for her father because she’d missed his birthday last week. She asked me to make sure he got them.” Zach picked pieces of tomato and basil off his pizza and popped them into his mouth.

  “What kind of treats? Ally doesn’t even like to cook. Why would she make something for her father, especially knowing that we would be catering his party?”

  “Cookie bars. The kind you bake with graham crackers and chocolate chips and coconut. Evidently, they’re his favorites. To tell you the truth, I tried one myself. It was delicious.”

  “Wait a minute.” I put my paper plate on the coffee table and rose to my knees. “Peanuts. Were there any peanuts in this concoction?”

  “I—I don’t recall. I don’t think so.”