by Peg Cochran
The bartender shrugged. “Please yourselves. I just hope you don’t expect no frilly coaster and a slice of lemon. This here ain’t that kind of place.”
“How are we going to find out who Tiffany is sitting with?” Lucille asked, turning around to look in their direction.
“They’re sitting right by the ladies’ room. One of us can go powder her nose, and on the way out we ought to be able to get a good look at whoever that is Tiffany is cozying up to.”
“You go,” Lucille said. “I don’t have my compact with me. I rushed out of the house without it.”
Flo sighed. “You don’t actually have to powder your nose, Lucille. No one is going to know. Just go into the ladies’ room, wait a couple of minutes and then come back out again. Wash your hands if it will make you feel any better.”
“Okay.”
Lucille got to her feet and headed toward the back of the bar. The guy sitting with Tiffany had dark hair, but that was all Lucille was going to see until she came out of the ladies’ room.
She cracked open the door to the bathroom. It was dark. She felt around for the light switch and flipped it on. The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the bar was built back in the sixties. The floor was wet with bits of toilet paper stuck to it, and the water in the toilet bowl was rust-colored. The sink had only one tap—cold. Lucille quickly rinsed her hands, but she couldn’t exactly wash them on account of the soap dispenser was empty and hanging half off the wall. There was one of them cloth towel dispensers, where you pulled the towel and a new section appeared. Lucille gave it a tug, but the section that was dispensed was just as gray-looking as the previous one. She shook her hands a couple of times, and then ran them up and down her slacks.
Lucille opened the door and stepped out, her eyes on the booth where Tiffany was sitting. She paused for a moment and pretended to fiddle with the clasp of her handbag. It was Joey sitting opposite Tiffany, just as they had suspected. And they was looking pretty cozy, too. As Lucille passed them, she noticed Tiffany slide something across the table to Joey.
Lucille hurried back to where Flo was sitting. “We were right. It’s Joey.”
Flo had finished her ginger ale. “I wonder why they’re meeting here? Why didn’t Joey go to Tiffany’s house now that Sal is about to be six feet under?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re going to her place after.”
“We can drive by Tiffany’s house later and see if Joey’s car is there. Meanwhile, I’m starved. You want to get something to eat?”
“Sure.” Lucille had a yen for some pizza, but she couldn’t show her face in Rocky’s no more.
“You want to go back to the Old Glory?”
“Yeah.” It was Friday, and Lucille knew it was old-fashioned of her, but she still didn’t eat meat on Friday. The church said it was okay now, but she couldn’t let go of what she’d grown up with. The Old Glory did a nice tuna fish sandwich. Obviously the cavemen must have caught fish, so she could get right back on her diet.
• • •
Old Glory was a lot busier than it had been earlier that morning. Flo and Lucille got the last table—the one near the swinging door to the kitchen.
The waitress dropped a couple of menus on their table without even stopping. Lucille already knew what she wanted, but she waited while Flo scanned the menu. Flo closed it with a decisive snap.
“I’m getting the house salad with grilled chicken, how about you?”
“I’m having the tuna sandwich.”
Flo arched an eyebrow. “I thought you were on a diet, Lucille.”
“I am. It’s called the Paleo diet, and all I gotta do is stick to eating what the cavemen ate.”
“You mean like nuts and berries and grilled mastodon?”
“I don’t know about that . . . what did you call it? . . . mastodon, but I get to have meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, bread and stuff like that.”
“Let me know how it works.” Flo patted her stomach. “I wouldn’t mind dropping five pounds myself.”
The waitress brought their order and Lucille realized she was starving.
Flo picked at her salad, ferreting out the slices of red onion and pushing them aside.
Lucille pointed at Flo’s plate. “Don’t you like onions no more?”
“I love them, but I’m going out with Richie tonight and I don’t want any lingering smell.”
Lucille smiled to herself. She had a feeling that it wouldn’t be too long now before Flo became Mrs. Richie Sambucco. The thought gave her a bit of a pain just under her heart—Richie had been attracted to Lucille way back when they was in high school and then again when they met up years later after Richie joined the New Providence police force. It had been nice knowing that she still had it, as Flo put it. But she was happy with her Frankie and she was a grandmother now—she couldn’t go having feelings for other men. It wasn’t right. Still, it had been kind of nice.
They finished their lunch and Flo tossed her napkin on the table. “I’m ready to go, how about you?”
“Sure, sure.” Lucille picked up the crumbs on her plate with a wet fingertip.
Lucille’s car was still in the parking lot where she’d left it earlier that morning.
“Let’s take my car,” she said. “Yours is so conspicuous.”
“And yours isn’t?” Flo raised her eyebrows. “A decades-old white Oldsmobile that sounds like it’s dying every time you start it up.”
Lucille felt her shoulders get stiff. You didn’t go making fun of the Olds. You could make fun of Lucille as much as you wanted—she could take it. But not her baby.
Flo sighed. “You’re probably right. We’ll take your car. Besides, if Tiffany saw us outside her house earlier, it won’t look like we’ve come back and are stalking her.”
Lucille paused with her hand on the door handle of the Olds. “You know, if Tiffany did deposit a nice, fat insurance check when she went through the drive-through at Wells Fargo, then she probably has the deposit slip in her purse.”
“What are you thinking, Lucille?” Flo said with a note of alarm in her voice.
“Nothing. I’m not thinking nothing. Just that I’d like to know if she really did cash in on Sal’s death. It would give her what the police call a motive.”
“I don’t see how we’ll ever find out.”
Lucille drew a circle on the pavement with her toe. She looked at Flo from under her lashes. “If we could get into the house . . .”
“No!” The word exploded out of Flo. “We are not breaking and entering, Lucille. I already told you that.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have to.”
Flo stared at Lucille with her head tilted. Lucille could tell she was interested even though she was acting all pissed off like.
“This is what we do. We go pay a call on Miss Tiffany. No breaking and entering necessary.”
“What?” Flo demanded. “Go ring her bell? Like we’re best friends or something.”
Lucille was already shaking her head. “We pay what they call a condolence visit.”
Flo was starting to look interested in spite of herself. “You think that would work?”
“Sure. Frankie and me have been going to Sal’s forever. It’s like they’re family. What could be more natural than paying a visit to express our sympathies?”
“But how is that going to help? You can hardly ask to take a look inside Tiffany’s purse.”
“I know that.” Lucille sniffed. Sometimes Flo could act so superior it set her teeth on edge. “But where does a woman usually leave her purse? In the kitchen, right? You come in through the garage, drop your purse on the counter or on one of the chairs around the table.”
“Yeah, so? If she invites us in, she’ll probably take us into the living room. What do we do then?”
“It’s like this, see. In most houses the powder room is off the kitchen somewhere, right?”
“I still don’t see . . .” Flo looked around. “People are starting to stare
at us. We’d better get in the car.”
Lucille got behind the wheel and Flo slid into the passenger seat.
“Okay, so you were saying something about the powder room?”
“Yeah.” Lucille turned the key in the ignition and the Olds coughed, sputtered and finally caught. “I ask to go to the bathroom. Instead, I sneak real quiet like into the kitchen and take a peek into Tiffany’s purse.
Flo still looked doubtful, but Lucille could tell she was starting to warm to the idea.
“Come on, Flo. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. No harm done, right?”
“Well . . . okay.”
Flo turned toward Lucille, and Lucille could tell she was getting excited. “We ought to take a plant or some flowers or something. That’s what people do when they call on the bereaved.”
Lucille smacked the steering wheel. “Great idea. We can pop over to the A&P and pick up one of them bouquets for Tiffany.”
Lucille shot out of the parking lot and across the street to the grocery store. She and Flo picked out a nice bunch of multicolored carnations and headed toward Evergreen Avenue and Tiffany’s house.
They pulled up a dozen yards beyond Tiffany’s bi-level.
Lucille turned around to look out the back window. “Sheesh, my neck is stiff. I can’t hardly turn my head no more.”
“You should try yoga. It’s great for keeping you flexible.”
“You mean where they do all those weird poses? No, thanks.”
“You need to keep an open mind, Lucille.”
And you need to keep your mouth shut, Lucille thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t need Flo to get all pissed off right now when she needed her for backup.
“I don’t see no other cars,” Lucille said. “At least not Joey’s car.”
“Maybe Tiffany didn’t come straight home. Maybe she went out to lunch.”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out. We’ve got to go ring her bell.”
Lucille took a deep breath, opened the car door and got out. They went up the walkway to Tiffany’s front door, rang the bell and waited.
“I guess she’s not home,” Flo said when there was no answer to their second ring.
“Maybe the bell is on the blink.” Lucille rapped hard against the door, but although they waited a couple of minutes, there was still no response.
“I’m going to take a peek in the garage window.”
Lucille stood on tiptoe and peered through the small window. Tiffany’s car was in the garage all right, but what Lucille saw made her go weak in the knees. “Flo, come here. Take a look and tell me what you think.”
Flo looked through the glass and gasped. “I think Tiffany is dead.”
Chapter 14
Lucille dropped the bouquet of flowers and sank to the ground. “I’m not feeling so good.”
“Neither am I.” Flo joined her and they sagged against the garage door. “We’ve got to call the police.” Flo began digging through her purse. Finally she upended it and showered the contents onto the driveway. Her hands shook as she tapped out 911.
“What are we going to tell the police?” Flo asked, ending the call and dropping the phone into her lap. “Richie is going to be furious if he finds out we’ve been playing detective again.”
“We just tell them the truth. We stopped by to make a condolence call.”
“But why did we look in the garage window? That seems kind of fishy to me.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Flo grunted. “I think I hear sirens.”
“Me, too. They should be here any minute now.”
Moments later, two police cars pulled into Tiffany’s driveway, one in back of the other. The doors flew open and two officers jumped out. Lucille thought the short, heavyset one was the same guy who had been at the bank the night she and Flo had followed Nicole. She hoped he didn’t recognize them.
Both of them were sweating slightly even though the breeze had a cool edge to it.
“The dispatcher said you found a body,” the heavier one said.
“Yeah. In the car in the garage.”
Both policemen peered through the window of the garage. One of them pulled the radio from his belt and squawked some numbers into it. He turned to Flo and Lucille. “Detective will be here any minute.”
“Please don’t let it be Richie,” Flo whispered to Lucille.
An unmarked car pulled up to the curb and the door opened. Flo groaned.
“I know those shoes,” she said. “It’s Richie all right.”
Sambucco strolled up the driveway shaking his head. He pulled a pack of gum from his pocket, unwrapped a piece and popped it into his mouth. He was smiling, but it wasn’t one of them friendly smiles, Lucille thought.
He stood in front of them shaking his head. “Okay, who let you two out of the loony bin? Sheesh, every time I turn around, Lucille, you’re finding another dead body.”
Lucille bristled. Was that her fault?
“And you.” Sambucco turned to Flo. “I suppose you’re in this up to your neck with your best friend here.” He jerked a thumb in Lucille’s direction.
Flo stood up straight and looked Sambucco in the eye. “We came to pay a condolence call to express our sympathies to Tiffany on the loss of her husband. Is that against the law or something? Because if so, I certainly didn’t know about it.”
For a minute it was a standoff with the two of them staring at each other toe to toe.
“No, no,” Sambucco said finally but he didn’t sound convinced.
“Okay, then.” Flo gave him one last piercing look then turned away.
Uh-oh, trouble in paradise, Lucille thought. She hoped this didn’t hurt Richie and Flo’s relationship none.
Sambucco cracked his gum. “So you two just happened to look in the garage?”
“Yes,” Lucille said in a rush. “On account of Tiffany didn’t answer the door, and we thought that maybe her bell was on the blink because I remembered that time when we thought Ma wasn’t home, but it turned out—”
“I assume that’s Tiffany in the car. What made you think she was dead?”
“Well, she wasn’t moving, was she?” Flo still had that pissed-off look in her eye.
“Looks like a possible suicide to me,” Sambucco said, moving away.
By now the patrolmen had gotten the garage door up and were waiting by the car for Sambucco. Lucille decided not to get any closer. She’d had her fill of dead bodies lately.
They heard another siren in the distance, and soon an ambulance was crowding into the driveway in back of the patrol cars. One of the officers rushed over and waved the rescue squad away. It looked like they were right and Tiffany wasn’t going to the hospital—she was going to the morgue. Lucille made the sign of the cross and whispered a quick prayer to St. Margaret of Antioch, the patron saint of the dead.
Flo and Lucille watched as Sambucco went to the front door and tried the handle. To everyone’s surprise, the door swung open.
“Come on,” Lucille said to Flo as she began to hurry toward the open door.
“Where are we going?” Flo huffed as she trotted alongside Lucille.
“To check out the scene, what else?”
“Well, listen to you, little miss detective.”
Lucille and Flo stopped at Tiffany’s front door and peered around the edge. The hallway was empty, and they tiptoed inside.
Sambucco stepped out of the kitchen, blocking their way. “Where do you two think you’re going?”
“Nowheres,” Lucille said, fanning herself with her hand. “I was beginning to feel a little faint so Flo suggested maybe a glass of water would be a good idea.” Lucille pretended to sag against the wall.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you touch anything until we confirm what happened. It looks like suicide, but we’ve got to follow protocol until we get the official verdict.”
Lucille fluttered her eyelids an
d swayed to and fro. She could see Sambucco from under her lashes—he was biting his lower lip. She gave a soft groan.
“All right. The two of yous can go have a seat in the living room. But don’t touch nothing, okay?”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Flo said, pushing past Sambucco.
He scowled at them as they went by, but then one of his men called him and he turned on his heel and walked back down the hall.
Flo and Lucille perched on the sofa, which was covered in an elaborate gold and white brocade fabric protected by a plastic slipcover. There was a Sacred Heart of Jesus statue on a small table across the room with a white memorial candle next to it. Lucille’s mother used to burn one of them on her dresser in memory of Lucille’s father. Every once in a while she and Frankie would have to go over and clean the ring of soot it made on the ceiling. One Christmas they bought her an electric candle, but she was having none of it. Lucille made a mental note to remind Frankie they needed to go over there and give the ceiling a fresh coat of paint.
From where she was sitting, Lucille could see into the kitchen. She was itching to check if Tiffany had left her purse in there. They could hear Sambucco out in the hall talking to someone.
Lucille poked Flo, stood up and started to tiptoe toward the kitchen. Sambucco’s voice suddenly got louder, and they both froze. But his voice retreated again, and they made it into the kitchen safely.
“See, I told you,” Lucille hissed in Flo’s ear, pointing to a large black leather handbag on the kitchen chair.
“You’re not going to—” Flo said, but Lucille had already opened the purse and was rummaging around inside.
She pulled out a slip of yellow paper triumphantly and showed it to Flo.
“You know,” Lucille said as she and Flo stared at the figure on the deposit slip, “I think Sambucco is wrong about this here being a case of suicide. I think Tiffany let someone in the house—that’s why the front door was open—and they somehow got her into her car and left her there in the garage with the motor running.”
“Yeah,” Flo said.
“Because why would Tiffany go out and leave the front door unlocked? And why would she commit suicide when she’d just come into half a million dollars?”