by Sandra Balzo
Like I said, a good shit, our MaryAnne.
‘Where’s Elaine today?’ I asked, more because I was wondering what she’d told the other women than that I really cared. ‘Isn’t she part of your league?’
‘Elaine? I’m afraid she doesn’t play on Thursday, even in the club’s round-robin. Because of Gabriella, you see.’
‘Gabriella?’ The woman in question had gotten a straw from the condiment cart and was settling into a chair across from . . . I’d forgotten her name already. ‘What is your other friend’s name?’
‘The brunette? Why, Jane Smith.’
Yeah, like I’d remember that one. ‘So, Gabriella and Elaine don’t like each other?’
‘It’s more that Gabriella and Elaine’s husband liked each other . . . better.’
I pictured my dentist ex-husband, Ted, with his hygienist. Same old song, in Brookhills, yet someone new was always humming along, thinking they’d composed it.
I snapped back to the moment. ‘Making Elaine the “ex” that Gabriella mentioned?’
‘Yes, poor thing. One morning she forgot her tennis racket and rushed home to get it? Robert and Gabriella were in his and Elaine’s marital bed doing the tangled tango.’
A variation on the ‘horizontal mambo’, no doubt. At least my ex-husband had been considerate enough to do his hygienist off-campus. Though, come to think of it, in the dental chair I’d bought him.
‘Did Elaine suspect?’ I honestly hadn’t. In retrospective, I probably should have, but . . . ‘You know, with Gabriella in the same tennis league and all?’
‘Honey, that was the genius part. The two of them rotated? Elaine was our fourth on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, with Gabriella covering Thursday and Friday.’
‘So when Elaine was playing on Monday . . .’
‘Or Tuesday or Wednesday, Gabriella was playing on Robert. Or vice versa.’ MaryAnne wasn’t even bothering to keep her voice down.
‘That’s awful.’ But, as MaryAnne had characterized the cloak-and-dagger cover story, also brilliant. Except . . . ‘If Gabriella wasn’t married, herself, why didn’t Robert just go to her place?’
‘She says it was because people in the lovely, gated community where she lives would talk.’
‘But you don’t believe that?’ Personally, I could see that a gate guard or neighbor might notice the same car, containing the same man, arriving each week.
MaryAnne shrugged. ‘Our Gabriella likes to win. “Doing it” in Elaine’s house, with Elaine’s husband . . .’
‘Proved she had.’
‘As surely as if she were a male dog peeing on another’s territory,’ MaryAnne said.
That explained a lot of things, Frank-wise.
‘And then there’s the rush, of course.’
‘Rush?’ I repeated. ‘As in, haste?’ Given this group and their two-hour tennis matches, followed by leisurely coffee or even lunch, there should have been plenty of time for a ‘quickie’. Or even a longie.
‘No, honey.’ MaryAnne permitted herself a small smile, probably at my naiveté. ‘I’m talking about the adrenaline rush of the “game”. I remember it very well from my days of playing hide-the-bottle.’ Another smile, but this one self-deprecating. ‘Or illegal substance. I swear,’ MaryAnne continued, ‘poor Elaine was an absolute wreck. She lost fifteen pounds and didn’t have them to lose. When it first happened, I insisted she stay with me for a while and, after a week or so, I thought she’d turned the corner. Then she went home and the other Choo dropped.’
As in Jimmy Choo, the shoe designer. All I could do these days was visit the high-end shoes at Saks Fifth Avenue, like I was touring a museum. Once a salesperson even let me touch one. ‘The “other Choo” being?’
‘Elaine got the house and the lion’s share of their investments.’
‘What’s so terrible about that?’ I’d have killed for a deal like that. Not literally, you understand.
‘As it turns out, their house had a hefty mortgage on it to start with, then lost half its value in the housing crash. And the investments? Sunk into a Midwestern, Madoff-like Ponzi scheme.’
‘And here I was feeling bad about not striking a deal like that with my ex. Though there were no investments to be had anyway. Just a used water pic.’
MaryAnne laughed, if a tad grimly. ‘Strange as it sounds, Maggy, I’ve been on both sides of the money equation and I’d choose yours. You were able to keep your friends, but “ladies” like us –’ she quirked one thumb at herself and the other toward the Barbie table – ‘we’d drop you like a hot potato if your money ran out.’
‘Maybe they would,’ I said as I put her latte on the counter, ‘but not you, MaryAnne.’
‘I surely hope not.’ She took the drink. ‘Not to resurrect what can’t be a pleasant topic for you, but I understand the body found under the platform was another real estate agent. One who worked for your partner?’
‘I didn’t know the sheriff had released her identity,’ I said, glancing over at MaryAnne’s table. ‘Do they know?’
‘I’m not sure what Gabriella and Jane might have heard, since we drove separately? I caught it on my car radio though the broadcast just gave the woman’s name, not her affiliation.’
‘Of course, I’d forgotten. You’d have known Brigid from showing your house.’
‘I’d met her, certainly, but I was under the impression Sarah was taking care of everything, including my open house on Friday.’
I’d say that was a pretty safe bet now.
MaryAnne might be down-to-earth, but she still expected the boss to handle her listing personally. And who could blame her, especially when the only other option was an unlicensed apprentice?
‘Well, that’s neither here nor there,’ MaryAnne continued. ‘I did know Brigid, both from Kingston Realty and from Sapphire. I must say, though, that given the hours the girl kept there, I’d have been concerned about her being assigned to my affairs.’
MaryAnne had me nearer the beginning of her reply. ‘You hang out at Sapphire?’
I didn’t mean the question the way it came out, but MaryAnne laughed, not even a ‘tad grimly’ this time.
‘Maggy, my dear. I may be sixty-five but I’m not dead?’
‘You’re sixty-five?’ I gasped. ‘Holy shit. I had you pegged fifteen years younger.’
‘Thank you. It’s the result of eating exactly what I want, exercising moderately and consulting an excellent foreign surgeon quarterly.’
To my eye, nary a tell-tale of lift nor tuck nor plump. ‘As the woman at the next table said in When Harry Met Sally, “I’ll have what she’s having”. And I can’t see a trace of work.’
‘That, my dear, is why she’s excellent. I’ll be happy to give you her name when and if you should ever need it. Now, you were saying about Sapphire?’
I held up my hands, palms out. ‘I have no standing because I’ve never been there, yet, ‘but I had the impression it . . .’
‘. . . is a meat market where only Kobe beef need apply? The glitzy ladder of perceived upward mobility? Ultimate mecca of the perennially self-absorbed? Guilty as charged. But, honey, what a moneymaker.’
‘I was going to say “draws a younger crowd”, but . . . wait a second. “Guilty as charged”? MaryAnne, do you own Sapphire?’
‘Yes, of course, though with a partner? I was brought in to decorate the place and management couldn’t pay the bill. The rest, as they say . . .’ MaryAnne was staring out a platform-side window. ‘Whatever do you suppose they’re about to do?’
I turned in time to see a tow truck carrying a white Toyota rumble over the railroad tracks. ‘Is that your car?’
‘Of course not. I buy only American. I meant them.’ She pointed.
Two people crossed in front of the far window. One had a pickaxe over his shoulder, the other a shovel. ‘I have no clue.’
Pushing through the swinging service gate and crossing to the platform door, I hoped for some kind of public-works excavation.
But, please God, not the exhumation of yet another body from an impromptu grave. What I hadn’t expected was the coffeehouse equivalent of Caddyshack. ‘There’s a prairie-dog colony in our lawn.’
‘Treasure hunters, more likely.’ MaryAnne had followed me.
I stepped out onto the platform where I could see even more holes. Three on the grassy islands of the parking lot, several others yet closer to the building and along the sidewalk running up to the yellow police tape. ‘The news coverage must have mentioned the money that supposedly went missing all those years ago.’
‘And connected it to your hidden room. Did you know it existed?’
‘MaryAnne, until yesterday, I knew nothing about our Mafia, their room or their loot.’ Not to mention Sarah’s problem with her apprentice, nor the fact Brigid Ferndale was dead.
Ignorance, I realized – and not for the first time – truly is bliss.
MaryAnne craned her neck to see around the corner. ‘Interesting psychology, Maggy, don’t you think? The logical place to prospect would be the room where Brigid was found, but the police have that taped off, so people are digging wherever else they can.’
There weren’t enough psychiatrist’s couches in Brookhills to analyze this particular brand of nutsiness. ‘Do you remember exactly what the news reported?’
‘I heard it on WTVR’s FM radio affiliate?’ MaryAnne said. ‘They updated the discovery of the body by identifying the woman as Brigid Ferndale, and then segued into this special they’re doing – The Mystery of Romano’s Raid, or some such title.’
WTVR was the local television station where Kate had once worked and aspired to work again. The newspaper editor had probably given them an exclusive.
But . . . ‘Romano’s Raid?’ I repeated. Apparently ‘The Brookhills’ Massacre’ had lost out, less to sensitivity and good taste and more to alliteration and brevity. ‘Sounds like a Burt Lancaster movie.’
MaryAnne laughed, retracing her steps into the depot. ‘Well, I’d best get back to our table. You hang in there, honey.’
‘MaryAnne, wait.’
She turned.
‘I’m planning to visit Sapphire tonight. Any chance you’d like to come with me?’
MaryAnne studied my face. ‘You’re going to Sapphire?’
‘Hey, I’m . . .’ I almost said twenty years younger than you, which – though true, would not have been advancing. ‘. . . not dead, either, you know.’
‘You’re a mere youngster, Maggy. But I was wondering, why Sapphire? Everyone who goes there wants something, whether it’s a trophy wife, a rich husband, an investor, a new job or just plain strange.’
‘Strange?’
‘Strange stuff,’ she explained. ‘Though I don’t think that’s your style, especially with that lovely sheriff at your beck and call?’
Strange . . . ohhh, stuff. I got it. MaryAnne did have a way with words.
The owner of what she herself called a ‘meat market’ raised her eyebrows. ‘So, if you’re not looking to hook-up personally or professionally, information must be what you’re after – more specifically, about Brigid. And you, my dear, think I can help?’
‘I’m “guilty as charged”, too,’ I said. ‘But you own the place and –’ I glanced over at her table where the two other women were still talking and beckoned MaryAnne to join them – ‘I understand it may be the last place Brigid Ferndale was seen alive.’
After saying it so bluntly, I feared I’d overplayed my cards. MaryAnne was a business-owner. Given that, was it wise to tell her that a murder victim might have been offed after leaving her establishment?
Apparently so. MaryAnne’s eyes flash-fired with excitement. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ I canted my head. ‘But I can’t say more now. Are we on?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for . . . the . . . world! Shall we meet there at, say, eleven thirty?’
‘Eleven thirty?’ Bad enough the place didn’t open until ten. Doesn’t anybody else sleep? Or have to get up the next morning?
‘It is a tad early?’ she said. ‘But on a Thursday night the crowd will be down, and I have a six a.m. spin class at my spa the next morning.’
I almost asked if she owned the spa, too.
MaryAnne had started for the table again and me, for the service area, when she spoke to my back. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Maggy, but one question?’
‘Sure.’ Turning toward her, I caught the swinging gate so it couldn’t smack me in the butt.
‘You have to know people are talking, right?’ Again, she quirked a thumb toward her tablemates.
‘Talking?’
MaryAnne moved back a step, then stage-whispered. ‘For now, honey, they find you interesting. The accidents, the body count, the –’ finger-flicking air quotes – ‘“investigations”?’
I didn’t know what to say. So for a change, I kept silent.
MaryAnne continued, ‘And, therefore, so long as any related “inquiries” don’t involve them or their friends personally, your curiosity is just that – a curiosity. Even a diversion?’
A diversion. From what? Leading their lives of glitzy desperation? ‘By them, I assume you mean Brookhills’ elite?’
‘Or those who consider themselves to be such?’ She held up her hands. ‘For my part, I think you’re a . . . do you know what a mensch is? It’s a Yiddish expression.’
Yiddish. From our numero uno Southern belle?
‘An unrepentant, overly officious intermeddler?’ It was how Pavlik described me, so I figured it was as good a guess as any.
A grin crinkled the area around MaryAnne’s eyes. No Botox there. ‘I’m sure you’re that, too, honey, but no. A mensch means, literally, a human being . . .’
So far, so good.
‘ . . . but it’s come to mean someone with honor and integrity. Someone you’d be happy to spend time with. A guy – or gal – who wants the best for the people around her, and will stand up to secure it.’
I felt vaguely uncomfortable, having pretty much lived my life under the banner of ‘under-promise and over-deliver.’ And sometimes even that set my bar too high. Mensch-dom seemed far out of reach.
‘MaryAnne, you give me too much credit. Essentially, I’m selfish and self-involved. I can’t even remember –’ I waved vaguely at her table – ‘customers from visit to visit. I’m considering sticking name tags on their foreheads as I greet them at the door.’
The crinkling got deeper. ‘Which begs my question, Maggy: If you, like Rhett Butler, truly don't give a damn, why do you continue to be an “unrepentant, overly officious inter meddler”?’
I looked around the coffeehouse. The tables that needed to be wiped. The coffee that needed to be ground. The Barbies, who were just plain . . . needy.
A shrug. ‘I get bored?’
Chapter Eleven
‘I like your style, Maggy Thorsen,’ MaryAnne Williams said. ‘Always have.’
‘Same here. See you tonight?’
‘As I said, I wouldn’t miss it.’ MaryAnne moved on to her table and I got on with the myriad chores I’d let slide as I sat with my tablet of paper, making lists of how to find out why Brigid had died instead of doing what I should have been.
MaryAnne could think I was being modest, but there was a lot of truth in what I’d said.
I did get bored, dammit. I loved planning the coffeehouse. I loved opening the coffeehouse, and even its re-opening. But . . . working there? Not so much.
I picked up a damp rag and crossed to a crumb-covered, coffee-ringed table to wipe it down for the next hungry, thirsty slobs.
Who were, in turn, my bread and butter.
And it’s not that I manufactured the crimes and bodies to escape the mundane. They just seemed to drop into my lap. Or, in the case of Brigid Ferndale, my subterranean room.
And as for the ‘intermeddling’, if I was able to help the people involved, well . . . that made me happy.
And wasn’t that, when you boiled it all down, selfishness? Me, a m
ensch? I didn’t think so.
The chimes on the streetside door jingled and I glanced up from the table I’d been wiping – and wiping and wiping – as I’d been thinking.
A man with a buzz-cut and a muscular physique, but wearing a business suit and topcoat, stepped across our threshold and looked around.
‘Robert,’ Gabriella Atherton called. ‘Over here.’
He turned and caught sight of the ladies who do lunch – and occasionally other women’s husbands – at their corner table.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said, leaning down to kiss the top of Atherton’s head.
Robert. Of course, this was Elaine Riordan’s ex-husband, now Gabriella Atherton’s fiancé. Who dared imply that Maggy Thorsen couldn’t remember names?
Oh, yeah. That would be me.
I approached their table, telling myself I was being a good server, but knowing the nosy truth in my despicable heart of hearts. ‘Can I get you anything? Or, everybody else, refills?’
‘Oh, that would be fabulous,’ Atherton said for both her and . . . Jan . . . Jane? – yes, that was it – pushing their cups toward me.
Robert said, ‘No, thanks. I can’t stay.’ Then to Atherton: ‘I just saw your car and wanted to stop by, say hello. I’m on my way to the courthouse.’
A cellphone blinged the abbreviated signal that indicates a text message and three of the people went digging. Gabriella Atherton and Jane Smith into their purses, Robert Riordan into his suit jacket pocket.
MaryAnne Williams looked on with the pitying – nay, withering – smile of the non-addicted.
Robert said, ‘Mine,’ as though he’d won a coveted, if somehow shady, lottery. He punched one button and then, rather abruptly, a second before plunging the phone back into his pocket. ‘Not important.’
Right.
Gabriella Atherton wasn’t fooled either. ‘Who was it?’
‘Just Elaine –’ he waved his hand a little too nonchalantly – ‘with another question about COBRA.’
‘Cobra? I thought that was a rattlesnake,’ Smith said.
Everyone looked at her.