by Peg Cochran
The Olds started up as soon as Lucille turned the key. No matter what Frankie kept saying, she didn’t need any new car, she thought smugly, as she backed out of the driveway. The Olds was running just fine.
Janice was opening the front door when Lucille got to the agency. The phone began to ring almost before Lucille was over the threshold. Fortunately, Janice grabbed it before Lucille had to do anything.
There was a coffee maker on a sideboard so Lucille decided she would make some. She might be a little confused about the telephone, but coffee she could do.
“That smells so good,” Janice said, smiling as she accepted a cup from Lucille.
The phone rang and Lucille stopped in her tracks. She scurried over to her desk and stared at the blinking light, finally reaching out a finger and pushing the button.
“Hello, Dingledyne, Mingledorff, Hoogerwerf and Rumble, can I help you?”
She turned around to see Janice smiling at her approvingly.
Lucille felt a glow of triumph. Her mother was right—there was nothing like the satisfaction of a job well done.
The caller asked for Janice, and Lucille froze trying to remember what Janice had done the day before to transfer the call. She pressed a button, wincing as if she expected the phone to blow up in her hand.
The phone behind her began to ring.
“Janice Karpinsky. How can I help you?”
Lucille high-fived the air. She’d done it.
“What do you mean, he’s not there?” Janice said. “But I can’t. I have an appointment in half an hour.” She looked at her watch, then covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Psssst, Lucille,” she hissed.
Lucille spun her chair around a little too fast and went full circle, only to find herself facing her desk again. She made a half turn until she was able to look at Janice.
“Yeah?”
“We have a crisis.”
Lucille sat up a little straighter. A crisis? And Janice was coming to her? The only crises people came to her to solve was when they couldn’t find anything in the fridge to eat or they were out of clean underwear.
“Joe blew off his nine o’clock appointment. He was supposed to show a house. Do you think you can do it? It’s nothing really—just take the potential buyer around and make sure they don’t steal anything.”
Lucille was already on her feet. “Sure, sure, no problem.”
Janice took her hand off the mouthpiece. “I’ll have someone there in ten minutes. No problem.”
“Thanks, Lucille. You’re a lifesaver.”
No one had ever called her a lifesaver before, Lucille thought. Now she really had to go out and get that pantsuit. If she was going to be showing houses, she should be dressed like one of them executive types.
“Here’s the address.” Janice handed her a slip of paper. “The house belongs to Felicity Schmidt.” She lowered her voice. “I hear it’s a divorce case.”
Felicity Schmidt—the name rang a bell with Lucille for some reason. She was halfway to the Olds when she remembered—Felicity had been at the Weigh to Lose meeting with her. She was the one Dotty had picked on. Lucille felt her blood boil again. It wasn’t fair—all on account of the poor woman couldn’t resist a bag of circus peanuts.
Lucille took a deep breath. Maybe she was on her way to becoming a real estate agent after all. It just went to show that because you started at the bottom didn’t mean you had to stay there. Pretty soon someone would be making coffee for her.
Lucille pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the address Janice had given her. It was a nice tree-lined street in Summit where the front lawns had been cut to identical lengths, the house windows shone brightly and autumn-themed wreaths hung from every door.
Lucille scanned the house numbers until she found the one she was looking for. She pulled into the long driveway that wound around in front of the house. She stopped and gave a whistle. This was some place Felicity had. Now that she was getting divorced, Lucille wondered what would happen. Had her husband made her sign one of them pre-nups Lucille kept reading about in Star magazine?
Lucille thought it was criminal that men could get away with that—sure, they worked hard and brought home the money, but the women worked hard too—taking care of the kids, cooking the meals, cleaning the house and doing the grocery shopping.
Unless, of course, they were one of those women who wore pantsuits to work and made their own money. Lucille was glad she was making some money of her own. Not that Frankie would stiff her . . . besides, there was no way they’d ever be divorced.
Lucille broke out into a bit of sweat dealing with the lock box, but she finally managed it and got the front door of the house open.
You could have held a party in the foyer, it was that big. Lucille looked around, wide-eyed. She could fit her whole family in this space with room for more.
She looked at her watch. The prospective buyers should be coming along soon. Maybe she ought to look around first so she knew where things were.
She walked into a large room that opened onto a huge kitchen. She supposed this here was what they called a great room. Janice had told her it was open concept and Lucille had been picturing something like a cabin with only screens in the windows, like them bungalows in the Poconos.
This was no bungalow. The oven was big enough for both the Thanksgiving turkey and the ham plus the lasagna she made every year. It wouldn’t do to run out of food on Thanksgiving of all days.
Lucille looked over her shoulder and then opened the refrigerator. There wasn’t much in there—what did they do when they wanted a snack? She supposed they ordered in a lot, like those young kids on those television shows Bernadette liked to watch.
On the other side of the house was the living room. Floor-to-ceiling windows were draped in heavy silk curtains gathered at the top. They put Lucille in mind of the lining in the coffins over at Ippolito’s Funeral Parlor and she shuddered. She sure wouldn’t want no drapes like that. All you really needed was a pair of sheers and maybe a shade for when the sun came in.
The master bathroom was off the bedroom—what Janice had called on sweet. She would have to remember to use that term when she was showing the buyers around.
The tub looked bigger than the above-ground pool Frankie had brought home one especially hot summer. You couldn’t actually swim in the pool, but they had all crowded into it enjoying the cool water.
Lucille walked through to the bedroom and gasped. The bed appeared to be the size of a football field and was heaped with pillows. Lucille thought of her and Frankie’s bed—they’d always meant to trade in their old double for a queen, but somehow with this expense and that expense had never gotten around to it. What a luxury to stretch out on something like this. She was tempted to try it out and then she remembered her status as a professional woman and decided against it.
The doorbell rang and Lucille scurried back to the foyer to let the potential buyers in.
They appeared to be in their early thirties. Sheesh, Lucille thought, how did such a young couple come by enough money to buy a house like this? She thought of Bernadette and Tony in the two-bedroom Cape Cod they’d had to scrape every penny together to buy.
The woman had glossy brown hair swinging to her shoulders with those fancy highlights Flo was always trying to talk Lucille into. She was wearing slacks and a sweater—probably cashmere by the looks of it. Her outfit was very simple but Lucille could tell it was expensive. It seemed the simpler the garment, the more it cost, which made no sense to Lucille, but then there were a lot of things that didn’t make no sense to her.
The man was wearing a business suit and looked impatient.
“I suppose you want to look around.”
The man exhaled through his nose, making him sound like a horse ready to gallop.
“This here’s the kitchen,” Lucille said as she led them into the room.
The woman looked around, her eyebrows raised. “We’ll have to replace the cabinets,” s
he said, turning to her husband. He nodded.
Lucille couldn’t see nothing wrong with the cabinets, but she knew better than to say anything.
Lucille showed them the great room, the living room, office, guest rooms and finally led them into the master bedroom.
The woman stuck her head into the bathroom.
“That’s what you call on sweet,” Lucille said with pride. “It’s real estate talk for a bathroom off the bedroom.”
The woman looked Lucille up and down. “I know that.”
Fine, Lucille thought. She’d keep her mouth shut from now on.
“What about the closets?” the woman asked Lucille.
Lucille grabbed the nearest doorknob and pulled. She found herself in a walk-in closet with clothes neatly arranged on double rods, shoes all together on a shoe rack and shelves holding folded sweaters and handbags.
The woman stuck her head in and sniffed. “Not very big, is it?”
The closet was only the size of her own bedroom, Lucille thought. She wouldn’t know what to do with one that big—she and Frankie sure couldn’t fill it with their things.
Lucille was about to close the closet door when something caught her eye—a handbag sitting out on one of the shelves. It looked familiar, and Lucille took a step closer. It was a designer bag with initials all over it, and right under the clasp were more initials—this time stamped in gold—DBG.
It was Dotty Garibaldi’s handbag.
What on earth was it doing in Felicity Schmidt’s closet?
Chapter 9
Lucille was only scheduled to work until noon that day, and she was glad. Showing houses was more tiring than she expected, and she would be happy to get home and put her feet up for a bit. She and Ma could have lunch and watch General Hospital together. Maybe she ought to make an extra sandwich, Lucille thought, in case cousin Louis dropped by again. According to her mother, he’d become quite the regular. That figured—cousin Louis could smell food a mile away, so why not from beyond the grave too?
The phone was ringing when Lucille walked into the house. She didn’t even have time to take off her jacket.
“Yo.”
“It’s me, Flo.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Why do you always assume something is wrong when I call.”
Because it usually is, Lucille thought, but she didn’t say it.
“Listen, did you get the message from Weigh to Lose?”
“What message? I haven’t checked yet. Besides, I think the answering machine is on the blink.”
“There’s a meeting this afternoon. It looks like Dotty’s husband is taking over. He probably doesn’t want to lose out on that Oprah appearance and the chance to franchise—it could make him millions.”
“Are you going?”
“Yeah. I don’t have much time left before my wedding to get in shape. Are you coming?”
“Yeah, sure. But listen, I gotta tell you something.”
Lucille could hear someone calling for Flo in the background.
“Later. I’ve got to go. Why don’t you meet me at my aerial yoga class? It’s above the Old Glory.”
“Sure,” Lucille said, wondering what on earth was an aerial yoga class.
One thing she knew for sure—she wasn’t going up in no plane or hot-air balloon—she was afraid of heights. Now one of them big planes—that was different. They said it was like sitting in your own living room, and they had stewardesses who brought you drinks and a meal. Lucille could sure go for that. Besides, when she finally got to go to Italy, how would she get there if she didn’t go up in a plane?
“I’m hungry, Lucille,” Theresa said as Lucille was hanging up the phone.
“How about I make you a nice ham sandwich and we can watch General Hospital?”
“Don’t put too much mustard on it. I don’t like too much mustard.”
“Fine.”
Lucille made the ham sandwich for her mother but made a salad for herself on account of she wanted to save her slice of bread for later. The guidelines said you could eat as many fruits and vegetables as you wanted, so Lucille added some nice tomatoes, cucumbers, a few chunks of Italian sausage—sausage was from the meat column, after all—along with some cheese to her salad. And since vegetables were unlimited, she popped a serving of French fries into the oven to have on the side.
• • •
Lucille had no idea what to wear for this here yoga class Flo had talked her into. Flo had said to wear something she could move in. Well, she could move in all of her clothes—how the heck would she get around otherwise? She peered into her closet and then opened her dresser drawers.
She had a pair of leggings she’d bought back when they were first in style but she’d never worn them. She’d put them on once but Frankie had asked her wasn’t she going to wear pants and she’d taken them off again. They’d been stuffed in her drawer ever since.
She sat on the edge of the bed and began to pull them on. Sheesh, it was a workout just getting into these things. Now she needed a top of some kind. She caught sight of herself in the mirror—she’d better pick a long one to cover up all the stuff the leggings had pushed up and over the waistband. She looked like a tube of toothpaste that someone had squeezed in the middle.
Lucille found an old T-shirt of Frankie’s that she sometimes borrowed. It had his company name on the front—JoFra Exterminating—and a picture of a dead roach on the back, lying upside down, its legs in the air. Underneath, in fading letters, it read, You got ’em? We’ll get ’em.
Finally she was ready. Lucille pulled on her leather jacket, hung her purse from the crook of her arm and went out to the Olds.
She didn’t want to start at first, and Lucille was almost relieved. She wasn’t so sure about this aerial yoga class Flo had talked her into. But Flo had been trying to get Lucille to join her for a couple of weeks now, claiming it did wonders for stretching out her spine and tightening her waistline. Lord knows, she could use that.
There was very little traffic on Springfield Avenue, and in minutes Lucille was pulling into the parking lot. She found a space in front of the Old Glory and got out. The restaurant’s door was cracked open and the smell of frying burgers drifted out.
Lucille sniffed deeply—it sure smelled good. That salad hadn’t done much to fill her up. But Flo said it was best not to have too much in her stomach before class.
Lucille climbed the stairs to the second floor. A door at the end of the hall had a sign that said Namaste Yoga on it. Lucille supposed that was some kind of Indian word—she sure hoped the whole class wasn’t going to be in Indian or she’d be lost for sure.
Lucille opened the door slowly—she could still make a run for it—but the receptionist saw her and waved her in. She motioned Lucille toward a chair in front of the desk.
“This must be your first time,” she said as she pushed a clipboard across the desk toward Lucille. “If you could fill this out for us, please.”
Lucille took the pen and papers the woman was holding out and began filling in the blanks. She stopped dead when she came to Next of Kin. How dangerous was this aerial yoga anyway that they needed to know who was her next of kin?
By the time she had handed the forms back, Flo had arrived and there was no going back.
“Grab a mat, Lucille, and I’ll show you what to do.”
Lucille picked out a mat and followed Flo into the other room, where brightly colored silk ribbons hung from the ceiling. Lucille stared at them in dismay.
She poked Flo. “What are those straps for?”
“We hang from those,” Flo said as she unrolled her mat. “It’s wonderful for decompressing the spine.”
Lucille was perfectly content with her spine the way it was but she’d promised Flo. Besides, working at the real estate agency had shown her that she needed to be open to new experiences. She unrolled her mat like Flo had done and sat down.
“What was that you were going to tell me on the phone earlier?�
�� Flo whispered.
“I almost forgot! You’re not going to believe this. I was showing that Felicity Schmidt’s house today—”
“Showing a house? Wow, Lucille, your career is really taking off.” Flo stretched out on her back. “Is that the same Felicity Schmidt who was in our last Weigh to Lose meeting?”
“Yes, and listen to this. The buyers wanted to see the master bedroom closet, and when I showed them I got a good look inside. And sitting there right on the shelf was Dotty Garibaldi’s handbag.
“What?” Flo sat bolt upright. “How do you know it was Dotty’s?”
“It looked like hers and it had her initials on it in gold.”
Flo whistled. “Do you think Felicity killed Dotty? If she had Dotty’s handbag . . . ?”
“I don’t know,” Lucille whispered back. “Dotty was really hard on Felicity during the Weigh to Lose meeting. Maybe Felicity got pissed off?”
“That’s possible. But what would Felicity want with Dotty’s old purse? What was her house like?”
“It was huge. It had a great room, and Janice says buyers all want a great room. And open concept.” Lucille hoped Flo was impressed with her new vocabulary. “And a bathroom on sweet. That means it’s attached to the master bedroom. And you should have seen her closet! I swear it’s bigger than Frankie’s and my bedroom.”
“From the sound of her house Felicity’s got plenty of money to buy her own purses. Odd that she would have stolen Dotty’s old bag.”
“I know. That don’t make no sense. Felicity’s closet had more shoes and handbags than Macy’s over at the Short Hills Mall. She didn’t need any secondhand purse, that’s for sure.”
Lucille adjusted the waistband of her leggings—it was digging into her stomach. “Unless the purse was a kind of trophy. You know, like them big-game hunters have the heads of the animals stuffed and mounted.”
“Odd sort of trophy, don’t you think?”
“People are odd. You never know.”