My mother and sister approached the casket. I knew my mother would say a quick, silent prayer for the eternal repose of Dizzie Oliver’s soul. Kate, less spiritual, checked out Dizzie’s burial gown and the color of her fingernail polish.
I hoped my own examination of the body would be less obvious as I walked to the front of the room. I glanced sideways. Matthew Oliver, the Hot Air King, had ended his conversation with the grubby guy and now reigned like a royal holding court as visitors paused at the settee to offer their condolences. I made a mental note to stop and express my sympathy after I got a good close look at Dizzie.
I spotted it right away—the reason Kate’s attention was drawn to Dizzie’s fingers. Someone had thought it would be terribly clever to paint her nails the exact same shade as her soft, baby blue gown.
Okay, I thought. Not exactly a mistake, but the color certainly flew in the face of whatever dignified look McGerrity’s makeup artist was trying to achieve. Dizzie might have liked it, even if the gown wasn’t to her taste. And her hair was certainly gorgeous. It fanned out on the satin pillow her head rested upon—in much the same way it floated in the water when I first saw her submerged in the sink at the salon—like her lovely brown locks were blowing in a gentle breeze.
The earrings were small, gold, and tasteful, and not at all like the huge thin hoops Dizzie favored. The only other jewelry she wore was a plain gold wedding band and a tiny gold cross that hung from a thin chain and rested just below her collarbone. Alone with Dizzie, I took my opportunity and bent into the casket slightly, pretending to examine the cross. There were no marks on Dizzie’s neck. There was nothing the makeup artist had needed to conceal except for the pallor of death, and the coloring used for that purpose had been sheer and minimal.
“She looks great, doesn’t she?” Matthew Oliver whispered. I jumped.
He had come up beside me, and I hadn’t noticed. “She’s beautiful,” I said quickly. “But Dizzie was a pretty girl anyway. I’m so sorry, Matthew. We’ve never met. I should introduce myself. I’m Colleen Caruso. I, um …”
“Found the body?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Must have been quite a shock for you,” he muttered. “But she sure looks good now, right?”
Almost lifelike, I thought, but didn’t say. I wasn’t going to be a complete dolt. Besides, I had a mission to accomplish.
“Her hair is lovely,” I told him. “They do fine work here.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
I pretended to brush a small strand of Dizzie’s hair off to the side of her face. Someone called to Matthew, and he excused himself. I looked behind me. There was nobody waiting to view the body. I leaned in again and reached out to Dizzie’s head to part her thick, coarse hair. Her scalp, unfortunately, was too dark to show whether there were bruises from someone’s hand forcibly holding her head down. I dug my fingers in a little deeper and began to part various sections of hair more toward the crown.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” a voice behind me whispered.
I whirled around, both startled and embarrassed, to find Ron Haver standing there with a half-grin on his face.
“I was fixing her hair,” I lied.
“Who do you think you’re fooling, Colleen? Look what you did! It’s like you’re examining her for head lice. You Fleming women are the craziest people I’ve ever known.”
He looked wonderful in his dark suit and blindingly white shirt. Very distinguished. Extremely respectful. And so not in tune with Kate’s off-the-shoulder, pseudo-mourning black blouse and skintight black jeans.
“And you’re crazy for dating a Fleming girl,” I shot back, forgetting momentarily I had just insulted myself with my comeback. I turned my attention back to the casket and smoothed Dizzie’s hair into place. I hadn’t messed her up too much, thank God. She still looked lovely, even if the look wasn’t completely the real Dizzie. I glanced at her neatly folded hands, so serene and angelic for her final send-off. Something jogged a memory.
Dizzie’s wrists were completely bare.
Her bracelets were all missing—most notably the stunning Tiffany bangle she bought for herself for a mere eleven thousand bucks.
“They’re gone,” I whispered. “Her bracelets are gone.”
“People aren’t usually buried with all their jewelry, in case you didn’t know,” Haver said.
“They aren’t buried with any jewelry at all, are they? I mean, I’m sure the earrings, the wedding band, and the cross will be removed before they plant her, right? So what difference does it make if she wears her usual jewelry or not?”
“It would be pretty tacky to decorate Dizzie with every piece of jewelry she owned.”
“I suppose,” I said, but I also knew Dizzie would have insisted she be displayed with her absolutely favorite Tiffany bangle on her wrist at her own wake. Besides, to be truthful, Dizzie Oliver was tacky. It was part of her charm. “Still …”
“Don’t speculate about it in your column, Colleen. I don’t want to have to arrest you for interfering with a homicide investigation,” Haver warned me before leaving to join up with Kate.
Ah-ha! I thought, but didn’t say. Someone told him about the bracelet, and he was curious about it, too. I wondered if that bangle had something to do with the murder. If Dizzie got herself killed in the course of a robbery, the thief could have pawned the bracelet. Ron Haver might be able to track that person down. I thought back once again to the crime scene. As I recalled, I hadn’t noticed anything on Dizzie’s wrists, but I wouldn’t have had the presence of mind for that fact to register. I didn’t check Dizzie’s wrist for a pulse. I didn’t notice if she wore a wedding band. I couldn’t remember anything about her earrings.
Whoever killed Dizzie had to have taken her jewelry. I imagined the county prosecutor’s office was very interested in their whereabouts.
That meant I was interested, too.
5
Sara was the member of the household most affected by the heat. She had been miserable and extremely testy all summer long—even more so than usual. She took the initiative and spoke to her father about it when he picked her up at the house to take her out to dinner one night. The kid put Neil on a tremendous guilt trip over the tropical conditions inside the house, so much so that both he and his lawyer approved the repair of the central air.
I let a little more than a week pass after Dizzie’s funeral before calling the Hot Air King to come look at the unit. Because it was the last week of September, Matthew Oliver was able to spare the time from his busy heating and cooling schedule to check out my problem personally. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find him at my door early on a Thursday morning, rather than sending over one of his crew. I had specifically devoted an entire column to Dizzie Oliver’s death, and he had to have been curious about the woman who discovered his wife’s body.
“How ya doin’, Mrs. Caruso?” Matthew said when I opened the door. He barely glanced at me before going directly to the thermostat in the living room and lowering it. “What’s coming out of the vents? Hot air? No air? What’s going on?”
I realized he was shorter than his late wife by at least three inches, and Dizzie Oliver hadn’t been a tall gal by any stretch of the imagination. Matthew had very dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a few scars on his face, which I attributed to teenage acne. His clothes were what I assumed all the employees at HAK Heating and Cooling wore: khaki pants and a tan golf shirt. The letters HAK were embroidered on the breast pocket, with an embroidered gold crown floating above it.
“I don’t know what kind of air comes out,” I told him. “It just doesn’t cool down in here. No matter how much I lower the thermostat, the temperature never falls below eighty degrees.”
I had on capri pants and a T-shirt, but even that wasn’t light enough to keep me cool inside the house. I purposely kept the windows shut tight. I wanted the Hot Air King to experience the full effect of the faulty unit. The outside temperature held at about
seventy-six degrees. Inside, the thermostat read eighty-nine.
“This,” he announced, “is not good.”
A rocket scientist, I thought, rather unkindly. I considered the ordeal he had gone through over the past week and a half and felt ashamed of myself. The poor man just buried his wife, I told myself. Have a little sympathy.
He lowered the thermostat to sixty degrees and went to the vent near the front door. A stream of warm air blew out.
“Okay, where’s your unit?” he asked.
I led him out the front door and to the side of the house, where the massive unit had been placed years ago by the original owners. While he examined it, he kept shaking his head. I knew what was coming. “You’re gonna need a whole new unit. I’ll have to check out the furnace to see if that needs to be replaced, too.”
I cringed. Neil was going to have a fit, but I held out a sliver of hope that Matthew Oliver would take pity on me and give me a break. After all, I had tried to save his wife’s life and had given a full account of my rescue efforts, as fruitless as they were, in my column.
Inside, we trudged down to the basement, where the elderly furnace resided.
“This,” Matthew declared as he switched on his flashlight and pointed its beam at the relic, “is no good either. There’s no way to hook up a new unit to this thing. You’re gonna need them both, Mrs. Caruso—a new central air unit and a new furnace. You can figure on spending around ten to twelve thousand dollars—maybe more, depending on your square footage.”
The basement grew dark and fuzzy around me. Now I was the one who was shaking her head no, like Jack the Ripper was coming after me and there was nowhere to run.
“I think I need a drink of water,” I said, feeling nauseated and light-headed all at the same time.
The Hot Air King took my arm and led me upstairs to the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took a gulp. It didn’t seem to help. I knew I needed something a little stronger. I reached for the diet tonic water and took out the bottle of gin I kept in the cabinet above the sink.
“Um … Mrs. Caruso …” Matthew said.
“Oh, please! This little repair will cost a fortune! You might as well call me Colleen.”
“Sure. Okay. Colleen. Don’t you think it’s a little early in the day for gin, Colleen? I mean, I understand getting a new furnace and air conditioning can seem a little expensive …”
A little expensive? Who was this guy kidding? Twelve thousand dollars—or more, depending on square footage—was beyond belief. I figured the entire installation would probably top out at around fifteen thousand. Our house wasn’t a small one—none of the houses in our section of Tranquil Harbor were. My model, I knew, contained the least square footage of all the models offered in our development, but it wouldn’t have been considered small by any stretch of the imagination. I knew Neil was going to go ballistic. He’d whine and complain and fight tooth and nail to not pay for it.
“You don’t understand,” I told him. “My ex is responsible for all the repairs on the house and believe me, he won’t be happy … and his lawyer won’t be too thrilled, either.”
I pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Matthew joined me.
“Maybe I can knock off some money. Let me see what I can do. Meanwhile, give me your husband’s number. I’ll talk to him.”
“Ex,” I said automatically. “I’ll give you his number, but don’t expect anything like a rational conversation. As soon as he hears what it’s going to cost him, he’ll be screaming his head off.”
I took a sip of the gin and tonic. The world began to come together again. I thought I could get used to this drinking-in-the-morning thing.
“Mind if I have one of those?” Matthew asked.
I couldn’t imagine why Matthew Oliver would want a drink. He wasn’t forking over megabucks for repairs. Then I remembered again that the poor guy had just buried his wife. Of course he would need a gin and tonic. Under the circumstances, he probably needed plenty of them. I made him a drink and sat back down.
“Please excuse my bad manners. I should have offered you something the minute you walked through the door,” I told him. “Dizzie was so nice and such a talented beautician. It must be awful for you trying to get back into the swing of things after what you’ve been through. Are you holding up okay?”
He took a big gulp before he answered. “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s a little on the quiet side at home, if you know what I mean. I guess I’ll just have to get used to it. It’s funny. We were only married for a few years, yet I can’t remember what I used to do at the house before she moved in.”
Matthew finished the drink quickly and got up to make himself another. I didn’t object, but I was surprised. I wondered if he was an alcoholic or had recently turned to booze to ease his pain, though he didn’t seem particularly upset. Actually, he had been surprisingly pleasant the entire time he’d been in the house.
“Did the police get in touch with you about what happened to poor Dizzie?” I asked.
He shook his head no.
I took a few more sips of my own gin and tonic before getting up the nerve to ask, “Do they have any idea who would have wanted to kill her?”
“They’re not saying. They questioned me, of course, on the day you found the body. I understand they always question the spouse when things like this happen.” He said it like people were found floating in sinks filled with water every day of the week.
“If there’s anything I can do to help …” I said, even though I had a sneaking suspicion Matthew Oliver didn’t really care for anyone’s help.
He finished his second drink and stood to leave. “I’ll be fine, Mrs. Caruso. If you give me your husband’s number, I’ll give him a call later and explain why you need the new units.”
I went into the den and grabbed a Post-it note from my desk. “This is his cell phone number. Just leave a message, and he’ll get back to you.”
“Will do,” he said, taking the paper. “And don’t worry. Your husband—I mean ex-husband—will come through. When he sees how bad these units are and how downright dangerous that old furnace might be, he’ll spring for it. Plan on getting it all installed early next week.”
It wasn’t until after the Hot Air King left my house that I realized he never even thanked me for trying to save Dizzie’s life. Of course, he could have been preoccupied, especially with all he had been through, but I would have been very interested in the person who tried to save my spouse and wrote about in the newspaper.
I admonished myself again, this time for my own self-centeredness. His wife had most likely been robbed and then murdered, which was about as traumatizing as it got. What did I expect—a medal? Still, his lack of gratitude bothered me.
It bothered me a lot.
* * *
I took pains to dress decently later that morning, forgoing my normal, everyday mommy-wear in favor of tailored pants and a violet blouse for my chat with Ken Rhodes at the newspaper office. I tried my best to go unnoticed as I passed Meredith Mancini’s cubicle, but either the young editor had superhuman hearing, or she saw my reflection in her monitor.
“I need to talk to you before you leave,” she called over her shoulder. She was busy editing one of my stories. I knew she was waiting for the overdue article on the flying lessons.
I continued to Ken Rhodes’s office and walked in without knocking. He gave me one of those looks, one that made me flush from head to toe.
I plowed forward, trying to ignore the tingling in my body. “Matthew Oliver left my house an hour ago. I don’t know how to take him,” I said. “He’s a little sad, but not devastated. Does anyone know where he was when Dizzie drowned?”
Ken motioned to a chair near his desk, and I sat, waiting patiently for him to give me whatever information he had on the Hot Air King. He opened a drawer and fished around for a second before pulling out a sheet of scrap paper. “Matthew Oliver has an alibi for that entire Wednesday morning.
He and his crew met for breakfast at 6:00 a.m. at the Bagel Bungalow out on Route 34. They all left around seven thirty, according to the server. Matthew paid the check with a company credit card. He signed the receipt.”
“Who told you about the alibi?” I asked.
“Ron Haver.”
Ken Rhodes and Ron Haver were close friends from way back in their college days. My brother, Dick, was also friends with the two and had gone to school with both men, but he wasn’t privy to any of the information surrounding Dizzie’s death. Haver was a detective and Rhodes was a newspaper man, so crime had become their main connection of late. Dick, a computer geek, was currently out of the loop.
“Matthew Oliver sprang for breakfast for the entire crew? Why do I find that so hard to believe?” I asked.
“The Olivers aren’t exactly known far and wide for their generosity, I know, but the fact is there’s no way he could have killed his wife,” Ken told me.
I took a moment for his statement to register. Why would Matthew Oliver treat his entire crew to breakfast? Dizzie had told me that her tightfisted husband even resented forking over wages for the hard, honest labor his workers performed day in and day out. “He could have been establishing an alibi.”
Ken got up from his chair and came around the desk. “Could be. Or maybe they were celebrating something and he picked up the tab for the tax write-off. You might want to look into that.”
I took my notebook from my purse and hunted for a pen. “I’m really curious as to the reason why Dizzie Oliver was displayed at her own wake without her favorite bracelet on her wrist. I’m trying to check that out, too.”
Ken offered a pained grin. “Yeah, Ron Haver told me how you checked out Dizzie Oliver’s corpse. Classy move, Colleen.”
I looked up from my notepad. “Thank you.”
“By the way, your hair’s still curly.”
Hide nor Hair (A Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 4