Sandy Gingras - Lola Polenta 01 - Swamped

by Sandy Gingras

  “Kind of,” I say. I zip to the bathroom and brush my teeth. I let Dreamer out and stand with her in the yard. When I come back, Miss Tilney’s got the coffee going. Her newspaper is spread out on her lap, and she’s reading.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “No problemo,” she says. “I can’t wait forever.”

  “What’s up?” I ask her.

  “I’ve decided that I’ll help you with your inquiries,” she tells me. She folds her paper and creases it with one neat fold. “Do you want my help or not?” she asks. “I know everything. I could be a better P.I. than Joe. Plus, you could use my insider info.”

  “Why don’t you go to the police if you have… info?” I ask.

  “Police-schmolice,” she says waving her hand.

  The coffee is done. She gets up, steps over Dreamer, looks in my cabinet and takes the only mug. She fills it up, adds half-and-half and grabs two sugar packs from my glass canister. “Help yourself,” she says to me. “I see everything… I hear everything,” Miss Tilney proclaims sitting down again.

  “I thought you were deaf,” I tell her.

  “That’s my M.O.”

  “Your what?”

  “Don’t you know anything? Everyone has to have a cover. People treat you like you don’t exist if they think you’re deaf. Especially if you have blue eyebrows. They say anything around you.

  “If I wear my Miracle Ear, I can hear a pin drop,” she tells me and takes a slurp of her coffee.

  I pour some coffee into a wine glass for myself. It’s weird, but it’s all I have.

  “You have an interesting lifestyle,” Miss Tilney says as she watches me try to drink my coffee.

  “This whole lost soul thing… it’s all a front,” I tell her.

  “Uh huh,” she says.

  “Maybe you CAN help,” I say sitting down carefully on my cot. “Do you know anyone who has a cow?” I ask her.

  “Nope. Why?”

  “There were cow hairs found near Ernie’s body.”

  “Somebody told me that, but I didn’t believe them.”

  “And what do you know about Dick and Richie?”

  “Oh, them,” she rolls her eyes.

  “What did Ernie have on them?”

  “Ernie knew a lot of stuff. He’d go into people’s houses when they were gone,” she says like she’s appalled.

  “That was his job, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but he’d sit down on their couch, open their drawers, stuff like that. He made himself at home. It was an invasion of their privacy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen him do it.”

  “So it’s not an invasion of privacy when you’re looking in people’s windows?”

  “I’m just looking at their furniture. I’m thinking of starting a consulting business. There’s nobody that does interior design for mobile homes. The layout is very narrow. You have to think real efficiently, and use built-ins like you’re on a boat,” she proclaims.

  “So what did Ernie know about them?” I ask her again.

  She leans forward in my cardboard chair. “Dick and Gladys re-did their living room, okay? All this mauve and aqua over-stuffed furniture, glass topped tables, dolphins cavorting all over the place. Who would trust someone with a dolphin table?”

  I shrug.

  “Then Richie and Susie went right out and did the same thing. I mean, it’s the same idea, just on a much smaller scale. They don’t have a double-wide like Dick and Gladys; they have a little round-about that they dragged down from Pennsylvania. But the same stupid dolphins, the same carved aqua legs on their coffee table. And it’s so 90’s!” she announces. “I mean I could understand maybe if it was the hottest trend, but mauve? Please.” She settles back into her chair. When she talks, she kind of hops around even though she’s seated. I’m a little worried that she might tip her coffee all over herself.

  “So that makes you think their investment business is a fraud?”

  “THEY are frauds,” she says, as if it’s obvious.

  “You have any evidence of this?”

  “Well, one night, late, I saw Richie and Susie’s cart was parked at Dick and Gladys’. I actually passed Ernie near Dick’s trailer as I drove by. ‘Nice night,’ I told him. ‘Nice night for a walk,’ he told me back. That didn’t fool me. That man was never out walking. He was a vehicle kind of guy. He was either in his car or on his cart or on that mower. The grass was like stubs when he was alive. He massacred it just about every day. So, I went on for a bit, then did a u-turn and went back. I knew something was up. I just knew it.

  “You can see right up people’s Venetian blinds if you get close, even if they’re shut. I saw them all around the kitchen table. They were counting money. There were piles of cash they were taking out of a cookie jar shaped like a big hamburger.”

  “A hamburger?”

  “I think Richie and Susie needed money last year when their daughter had to have surgery. Maybe they took it from other people’s retirement funds.”

  “That’s not really evidence of anything.”

  Miss Tilney says, “What do YOU know?” She gets up and puts my plastic take-out mug in the sink. “They have those nice Tiki head mugs on sale over at Beachcombers. They’re REAL. You might want to consider getting some so people don’t think you’re a plastic kind of person.”

  “I’m not a plastic person, I just have a plastic mug.”

  “Whatever,” she says. “The mugs come in all shades of earth tones and black, but don’t get the mustard colored one. Nobody wants to drink their coffee out of a mustard colored mug.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “When are you going over there?” Miss Tilney asks. “Because I could pick up a few things too.”

  “I’m not,” I tell her. “My mother is taking me furniture shopping today. She should be over in a little while.”

  “Oh good,” Miss Tilney says. “I’ll come with you.”

  “But…,” I say.

  “Everyone these days takes an interior designer shopping with them, don’t you know anything? I won’t charge you a dime this first time.”

  Chapter 38

  “Marie says she thinks there might be some more birdhouses in the swamp,” Joe tells me as we’re taking our walk.

  “In the swamp?”

  “That’s what she said. She said Ernie like to go out there every day and check on his birdhouses.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. I asked Marie if he liked birds, and she said she didn’t think so.”

  “Is there a path or anything out there?” I’m looking at the swamp now thinking it just looks like a wall of reeds and muck.

  “Yup. I think only the Mosquito Control people go out there though. Let’s go and see if there are any birdhouses.”

  “Now? I have to go shopping.”

  “I’ll go myself then.”

  “No,” I insist. “I’ll go with you tomorrow.” I eye the swamp suspiciously.

  “Meanwhile, I’ll keep my eyes open for more birdhouses.”

  “Be careful,” I say. “George said he’d look too. He hired me, you know.”

  “Really?” Joe asks.

  “To look into William’s church thing.”

  Joe looks at me.

  “He thinks it’s making his mother fat.”

  We walk on. The heat makes the pavement all shimmery. There’s a smell of a dead animal nearby. “Fat?” he asks.

  “And brainwashed.”

  “Hmmm,” he says.

  “There’s a service every night. I’m gonna go check it out.”

  “I’ll go with you. I’m due for a good spiritual uplift.”

  I shouldn’t involve him, I know I shouldn’t. But he wants to be involved, and I have to admit, I like having him around. It’s like having another father—a friendly one.

  “I looked up your Detective Training Institute,” Joe says.

  “You did?
”

  “Very interesting,” he says. He winks at me. “You know what tomorrow night is?” he asks.

  “No. What?”

  “It’s Wednesday.”

  “And…”

  “If it’s midnight, and it’s Wednesday, and you want to rest your bones…”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “We should go.”

  “We should.” The whole idea of that rest stop at midnight is awful.

  When we get back to my trailer, my mother is already there. She drove herself in a rental car. Miss Tilney is leaning up against the hood talking to her. Her eyebrows look brown today. Maybe she’s having an anonymous blend-into-the-crowd kind of day. Mean Muumuu is also there with George. “It looks like a party,” Joe says.

  Even Mean Muumuu looks semi-normal. She’s wearing a dress that’s less tent-like and she doesn’t look so big or depressed. My mother can have this kind of effect on people. She’s like a mother hen with a magnet under her wing. Everybody gets sucked under there, and everybody feels her warmth, whether they want to or not.

  “Your mom is great,” George tells me. “Tell her thank you for me.”

  “For what?”

  “She’s taking my mom shopping today. William’s away at church.”

  I look over at our little shopping group. “That’s great,” I say. “That’s good.” Holy Molies, I think, Miss Tilney, my mother, Mean Muumuu and me…

  Joe is standing next to my mother hinting around that he could go too. He’s saying something about how good he is with an Allen wrench. “We need a girl’s day out,” my mother says, patting him on the shoulder, “but we’ll be sure to give you a call when we get home and you can come over with your… thing.”

  He looks at me and winks.

  My mother tells him, “One day with my husband and I’m exhausted. I’m just not used to male energy anymore. Do you know he took me on one of those air boats? It’s like being on a rocket ship. I thought it was going to be a scenic tour of the Everglades. I didn’t even see what the Everglades look like. It was all a green blur. And I thought my ears would fall off from the noise and the vibration.”

  “Didn’t they give you ear muffs?” he asks.

  “Nonetheless,” she tells him.

  “Let’s get cracking then,” Miss Tilney says.

  Everyone turns to me. “I’ll go put Dreamer in the house,” I say.

  “I’ll check on her and walk her,” Joe tells me. I hand him a key.

  “I’ll cool down the car,” my mother says.

  “I’ll boost everyone in,” Joe says.

  Just then, a cop car trolls past. It slowly crunches down the street. The cop pauses to stare at us. We stare back, suddenly hushed and serious. Then the car rolls on.

  Joe says, “They go by every hour.”

  “And there’s a fat cop that sits in a chair by the pool sometimes, “Miss Tilney says.

  “I’ve seen him,” Joe says. “He was in the weight room the other day.”

  “What was he doing?” I ask.

  “Eavesdropping,” Miss Tilney answers “I’ve seen him in the laundry room and the clubhouse, and he was standing by the door for the ladies poker luncheon yesterday.”

  “He’s been following me around,” Joe tells me.

  “Following?” I ask.

  “Well, being a presence.”

  “That’s to make everyone feel safer,” my mother pipes up.

  “Safe?” Miss Tilney asks. “Who can feel safe? There’s a killer loose.”

  Chapter 39

  “Your father is driving me simply insane,” my mother says to me. I’m in the backseat with Mean Muumuu. But, she’s smiling when she tells Miss Tilney, “What was he thinking about putting me in that air boat? Goodness.”

  “Those ARE wild,” Miss Tilney says. “Let’s go to IKEA. I’ll give you directions.”

  My mother has always had a Volvo. “This is so high up,” she says bouncing in her seat. Miss Tilney turns on the radio. She gets it to some station playing rock songs in a trilly over-orchestrated way. I think “Free Bird” is finishing, although it’s hard to tell. Then it’s a Stones’ song. “You can’t always get what you wa-ant,” my mother sings in her lilting church voice. Mean Muumuu hums tunelessly next to me. Miss Tilney is tapping her fingers on her armrest. “But if you try sometime…,” they all sing. I look out the side window at strip malls, at the combinations of places that make no sense to have side-by-side: a Sherwin Williams paint store, a dance studio, a radiology outpatient lab, a party balloon store…

  “Your poor husband,” my mother says over her shoulder to Mean Muumuu.

  I expect her to be mad, but she just leans forward and says, “Well, they haven’t charged him with anything. But they keep asking him questions. It’s very difficult.”

  She has kind of an overly-careful way of speaking, like a drunk person.

  “What do the police want with him?” my mother asks. My mother is a police wife. She knows exactly what they want. She’s just playing dumb. Go Mom, I think.

  “They want to know where he was in the picture. Why Ernie had the picture. William can’t remember. He goes many places doing the Lord’s work. He’s an emissary of God.”

  “That’ll keep you on your toes,” Miss Tilney says brightly.

  “Since we don’t have an established church yet, William goes many places to preach, beyond our temporary church, at all times of the day and night.”

  “Busy, busy,” Miss Tilney says.

  “Was Ernie blackmailing him?” I blurt out.

  She doesn’t miss a beat. I wonder suddenly if she’s on some kind of drug. She says, “All we have is going toward the construction of the church, where we’ll live and work.”

  “Still,” I say.

  “Oh,” my mother says, “William is building a church?”

  “He’s overseeing the building. It’s really a renovation. It was a Jiffy-Lube and several outbuildings we’re converting. It’s very spacious and well-located.”

  I say, “Ernie used to blackmail people for all sorts of things I think—not just money. Influence, power, control…”

  “Maybe he wanted a jiffy-lube,” Miss Tilney says.

  May just turns and looks out the window. “Did you see the picture of his car?” I ask her.

  She nods.

  “Did you recognize the place?”

  She turns and looks at me. Her eyes are really very intelligent. “It looked like nowhere to me. I don’t know what they think, but they’re wrong. It looks like anyplace you’d stop along any road.” She says it like she doesn’t know, doesn’t care.

  I nod at her, but I think she’s lying. I think she knows something about that place and what William was doing there. But she’s not telling. I wonder if William knows she knows. I wonder if Ernie told her where William was and what he was doing there. I wonder if Ernie was blackmailing her instead of William. I think her whole world is William. I think she’d do anything to protect him, including walloping Ernie with a golf club. I get a funny knot in my stomach.

  “Where’s his temporary church?” I ask her.

  “Life Fitness,” she says.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “It’s over on Route 30 in the Acme Plaza,” she says.

  “What is it, a nutritional place?” my mother asks politely.

  “It’s a gym,” Miss Tilney pipes up. “They do jazzercise and what’s that thing where you do like a continuous sit-up for an hour?”

  Nobody says anything.

  “You know, you know…,” Miss Tilney says, “and you sit on that big rubber ball?”

  We all stare forward while my mother steers along the crowded road.

  “Pilots,” Miss Tilney yells.

  I look around for a plane swooping out of the sky or something.

  “Pilates,” Mean Muumuu says.

  “That’s it! It strengthens your core,” Miss Tilney says, patting her belly.

  We stream along past acre
s of strip malls.

  “Turn here, turn here!” Miss Tilney yells pointing. “Oooh, look how big it is. I’ve never been here. They just opened this IKEA. All the girls at Aqua Babes went after their luncheon last week. I couldn’t go because I had a hair appointment.”

  My mother cruises along looking for a parking space. She passes by two good ones. “What’s wrong with those?” I ask.

  “I need two spaces for this van,” she tells me.

  “No you don’t,” I tell her. “And it’s an SUV, not a van, and it’s not even one of the big ones. It fits just fine in one spot.”

  “It uses twice the energy and twice the space of a normal car,” she explains to Miss Tilney. “My husband rented it for me. He said we might need the cargo area. It’s called a Cargo Van,” she explains.

  “It’s a Toyota SUV,” I tell her. I might as well be talking to a palm tree.

  “Oooh, there’s two spaces,” Miss Tilney yells. “There’s three. Do you think you need three?”

  I sink back in my seat.

  “Pull the van in there,” Miss Tilney instructs.

  My mother steers in like she’s driving an 18 wheeler.

  “Good job,” Miss Tilney announces after my mother stops the car. She’s parked kind of sideways, centrally located between the two spots. Miss Tilney opens her door and looks out, “You only needed the two spots.”

  We all stream into IKEA. Everyone gets a cart except Mean Muumuu. “Why do we all need carts?” I ask.

  “You never know,” my mother says.

  “Don’t buy me anything,” I tell her.

  “Just a few necessities,” she says.

  “Like what?” I insist.

  “Mugs, plates…”

  “Another spoon,” Miss Tilney says.

  “Okay, okay,” I say, “but just kitchen things. A few. And cheap. I may not be staying.”

  “Okay,” my mother agrees. “Pots and pans…”

  “One pot.”

  “One pot?” she asks me.

  I sigh. “You see how this steamrolls?” I ask her. “I want to be able to just pick up and go,” I tell her.

  “Go where?”

  “I don’t know.” I wheel my buggy back and forth.

  “If you leave,” Miss Tilney says, “can your mother have your trailer?”