Buried in Beignets

by J. R. Ripley

  She tapped her front teeth with the nail of her right index finger. ‘A day or two ago?’ She wagged her head. ‘I know it was fairly early. Before nine, I’m sure. I was walking to work and passed them on the street.’

  ‘Where was this?’ Ha! Wait until I threw this in Detective Highsmith’s face. I had a brand-new suspect for him!

  ‘On Main, right outside Wilbur Realty.’

  ‘Did you hear what they were arguing about?’

  Laura shook her head. ‘No. They clammed up as I went by. And I don’t know either of them on a personal level so we didn’t so much as say hi. I nodded, they nodded back and on I went. They both looked angry, though.’ She lifted a shoulder. ‘Sorry I can’t be more specific.’

  I leaned back in my chair. So the two men had been arguing on the street. That was something. I’d need to look into this further. ‘Thanks, Laura,’ I said. ‘You’ve helped. A lot. And I don’t mean just fixing my bike chain.’

  She rose and gave me a body wrapping hug. ‘You hang in there, Maggie. I’m sure everything will work out.’

  She tapped the space over my heart. ‘Maintain positive energy; let the power of the universe speak.’

  I promised I would, though I wasn’t sure I’d understand what the universe said. I’d studied French in school, not Universe 101.

  I rolled my bike out the door and waved. It was time to check on Clive.

  A Quick Fix

  If your bicycle chain comes off while on the go, continue pedaling slowly and move the front derailleur up as if you are going up to the larger chain ring. Don’t move the derailleur all the way as if you’re making a true gear change, just move it enough to cause the chain to slip back onto the smaller ring. Continue to pedal slowly for a few turns to ensure the chain is firmly set. You can now continue riding – just watch out for Johnny!

  To fix your chain manually on a multi-speed bicycle like mine, first park the bike someplace stable. Next, press the rear derailleur, located near the rear sprocket, forward to release some tension from the chain. Hopefully, you’ve got a rag or a shirt of your ex-husband’s around you can use to keep your hands clean.

  With your other hand, lift the chain and place it on top the small chain ring. Release the rear derailleur, lift the back wheel off the ground and manually turn the pedals until the chain is set. If this doesn’t work, walk it over to Laura’s Lightly Used. If she’s around, and she usually is, she’ll get you fixed up in a jiff.

  EIGHT

  Mesa Verde Medical Center is small as hospitals go – a simple, yet elegantly designed, adobe-styled one-story butterscotch-brown building on the edge of town, a couple of miles from my café. I left my Schwinn in a slot at the bike rack and rushed through the automatic doors.

  ‘Maggie Miller,’ I said, sagging against the counter. It had been a long, hot ride. My eyes cast around for a drinking fountain. There was one off to the left between the men’s and ladies’ rooms. ‘One sec.’ I raised a finger. I raced over, grabbed my fill of cool water then hurried back.

  ‘Can I help you with something? Is there some sort of emergency?’ The brunette was perched on a tall cushioned stool behind the reception counter. She was wearing a teal pantsuit so I guessed she wasn’t a nurse. Her features were a bit on the mousy side and I noticed a small diamond or at least a reasonable-looking fake piercing her left nostril. Ouch, that had to hurt. I’d practically fainted when my mom had me get my ears pierced at age five.

  Speaking of fainting, ‘I’m here to see Clive,’ I said.

  ‘Clive who?’

  She had me there. What was Clive’s last name? I scratched my head trying to remember. Had he even told me? ‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted finally. ‘He’s tall, has red hair and freckles. Like me,’ I said pointing to my face. ‘He saw a dead body and fainted.’

  Recognition lit the receptionist’s face. ‘Oh, of course. Mr Rothschild.’

  ‘That’s it!’ Now I remembered. Clive had told me his last name. My head bobbed up and down. ‘Can I see him?’

  The receptionist, whose name tag identified her as Halley, glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. A green and blue stooped-over image of Kokopelli occupied the center of the clock – flute glued to his lips. Kokopelli’s image was as ubiquitous around Arizona as tumbleweed. Kokopelli is a Hopi word. Andy told me it means humpbacked flute player or some such thing. He is supposed to be a prankster, storyteller and, most of all, fertility god. Maybe Mesa Verde was trying to build up its maternity department.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Halley said. ‘You’ve just missed visiting hours for the afternoon. If you could come back between seven and nine tonight?’

  I leaned over the counter. Halley took a step back. ‘Please.’ I locked my hands together. ‘I rode all the way out here. I don’t even have a car. I drive a Schwinn.’

  ‘I’m sorry, miss, but—’

  I cut her off before she could dismiss me completely. ‘You don’t understand. Clive is my dearest friend and I feel responsible for what happened to him today. I mean, if I hadn’t screamed when I saw the dead guy in the box—’

  Halley raised both hands in the air. Her head turned side to side. ‘Would you excuse me a moment?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. Anything to make Halley happy. The receptionist disappeared through a door between two low filing cabinets.

  I drummed my hands on the counter and waited. Several minutes later, Halley returned with a man in a white coat and matching trousers. He had short-cropped black hair and a day’s worth of stubble along his strong chin. I pegged him at my age, give or take, with a deep olive complexion.

  ‘This is the woman I was telling you about, Doctor.’

  I smiled at the two of them.

  The doctor nodded and came around the counter toward me. He gazed into my eyes but something told me this wasn’t love at first sight. He pulled out some odd-looking device from his front pocket and aimed it at my pupils. ‘I’m Doctor Vargas,’ he said, his voice as calm and deep as a Rocky Mountain stream. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Uh, fine,’ I replied. I glanced at the receptionist, who continued to watch us closely. ‘Can I see Clive now?’ That Rocky Mountain stream of his sounded a bit like Antonio Banderas as it trickled in my direction.

  He laid a cool hand against my forehead. ‘Any dizzy spells, blurred vision? Palpitations?’

  I bit the inside of my cheek. ‘No, I mean, not really. I was a bit on edge there this morning what with the dead guy and all. And the medic, or whoever that woman was, did think I might be in shock and having some sort of …’ I snapped my fingers as I thought. ‘What did she call them?’ I scrunched up my brow. ‘Poor oral confusion?’

  His brow shot up to match mine. ‘Do you mean poor end-organ perfusion?’

  ‘Yes, that was it!’ His hand reached for my wrist and he felt for my pulse, which, of course, I had – a pulse, that is.

  ‘Can I see Clive now?’ I asked as he let go of my arm.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Maggie Miller. I own Maggie’s Beignet Café on Laredo.’ I fluttered my drooping lashes. ‘The grand opening’s tomorrow. You two should come.’

  Halley got busy with some paperwork. Dr Vargas guided me to a chair in the visitors’ lounge near the front. We sat. I could see my Schwinn through the window.

  ‘What is your relationship to Mr Rothschild?’

  I fidgeted. What was with all the questions? Were the staff of Mesa Verde like this with all the visitors? ‘We sort of discovered a dead body together.’

  He nodded as if that made sense, which it didn’t, so I explained. After I’d finished my spiel, he rose, took a deep breath and let it out again. ‘Do you have some identification?’

  I quickly pulled out my driver’s license and held it out, very discreetly placing my thumb over the spot that gave my date of birth. That was nobody’s business but my own.

  He laid a gentle hand on my shoulder and led me back to the counter. ‘Halley, would you g
ive me a visitor’s pass, please? I think it will be all right for Ms Miller to check in on Mr Rothschild.’

  ‘Thanks, Doc,’ I said.

  ‘Room twenty-two, East Wing.’ Halley pointed over her shoulder.

  Dr Vargas shook a finger at me. ‘Keep it short. Technically, I shouldn’t be allowing this at all.’ He laid his hand on my shoulder and looked deep into my eyes. ‘And if you feel any disorientation, confusion, any unusual symptoms of any kind,’ his fingers pressed into my flesh, ‘do not hesitate to call me.’ He handed me his card.

  I shook his hand up and down, clipped the visitor’s pass to my blouse and took off down the hall.

  Room twenty-two was at the end of the corridor. Mesa Verde was laid out in a U-shape, with reception and emergency services at the bottom of the U and rooms running up the sides. ‘Hi, Clive!’

  Clive looked up. He was clutching a fork at the end of which was something that looked like brownish-pink chicken. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Maggie!’ Clive’s red hair was a mess and his green eyes looked like nervous insects looking for some safe place to escape to.

  Clive had a nice bed by the window. There was obviously a second bed in the room but it was half-hidden by cream-colored curtains that hung from a track built into the ceiling. ‘Nice place,’ I said. I dropped into the chair at his bedside. A vase of flowers sat on a small table under the window. I glanced at the card. The roses were from Johnny Wolfe. Very sweet. Maybe he wasn’t such a jerk after all.

  Up close, Clive’s face looked like something that had come out of a Silly Putty egg. ‘You look great, Clive.’ I patted the covers. Well, certainly much better than he had passed out against my counter this morning. ‘When are you getting out?’

  I pushed an errant strand of hair from his forehead so it wouldn’t bug him. Unfortunately, my thumb got caught in his eye socket.

  ‘Ouch!’ he squealed.

  I said I was sorry.

  ‘They’re releasing me tomorrow morning,’ he replied, setting aside his dinner tray. His left eye was looking a little red. I thought he might want to get that checked out while he was here. He tugged at some gadget on his arm. ‘They’ve got me hooked up to some sort of heart monitor.’

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘It’s just a precaution, the doctor says.’ He waved a wan hand through the air. ‘It’s nothing, I’m sure.’ He peered at me. ‘How are you, Maggie?’

  I shrugged. ‘You know me – I’m great.’ Of course, Clive didn’t really know me at all. We’d just met.

  But he nodded as if he understood.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the vase of flowers. ‘I see Johnny sent you flowers. He mentioned he’d be coming.’

  ‘You saw Johnny?’

  ‘I bumped into him earlier,’ I answered. ‘So he’s the husband you were telling me about?’

  Clive sipped from his water glass, spilling a drop on his hospital gown. ‘Yes, three years next month.’ He swiped at the material. ‘We were married over the Fourth of July weekend.’

  ‘That’s great. How’s the back of your head?’ Clive had cracked it pretty good when he hit the floor.

  He rubbed it and winced. ‘Not bad. The doctor said there was no concussion.’

  Thank goodness for that, because if Clive sued me my insurance would go through the roof.

  A man’s shouting voice from behind the curtain startled me. ‘Trying to rest over here!’

  ‘So stop shouting!’ I shouted, putting my hands over my ears. ‘Sheesh, you could burst somebody’s ear drums like that.’ I turned to Clive and mouthed, Who is the big mouth?

  Clive motioned me closer with his finger. I sat beside him. ‘My roommate. Though I’m not sure he’s very happy that they moved me in here with him.’

  ‘A bit of a sourpuss, if you ask me.’ Not that anybody had. I kept my voice low.

  Clive shrugged. ‘I believe he’s been here a couple of days. I’ve only spoken to him briefly. His name is Edwin something.’ He was looking at the curtain. ‘I heard one of the nurses talking. He had some sort of heart attack or stroke or something. I feel sorry for him.’

  Suddenly I was feeling sorry for him too. I turned my eyes to the curtain. ‘You think I should apologize?’

  ‘No,’ Clive answered quickly. ‘Let’s just let him rest.’

  I nodded, rose and paced the small room twice before speaking again. What was the social etiquette for broaching the subject of a dead guy in a box? Was there a protocol? Especially when you thought a guy’s husband or even the guy himself might be responsible for the dead guy in that box?

  ‘I don’t know if you heard,’ I said, glancing up at the TV mounted to the wall in the corner – the screen was dark – ‘but that guy in my storeroom was Rick Wilbur of Wilbur Realty.’

  Clive’s head drooped to his chest. ‘Yes, the police told me.’

  ‘The police were here?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, a Detective Highsmith, I believe he said was his name.’

  I stifled a groan. Detective Highsmith. Great. He’d probably bad-mouthed me to my next-door neighbor. If Maggie’s Beignet Café was forced to shut its doors before it had even opened them, I was pretty certain I wasn’t going to be able to rely on Mark Highsmith as a personal reference for my next job.

  ‘I can’t imagine anyone killing Mr Wilbur,’ Clive said, his voice just above a whisper. ‘Especially like that.’ He shook himself. ‘I still can’t get that image of him out of my brain. That was simply gruesome. I’d never seen anything like it before.’

  I agreed. You just don’t see a dead guy in a box every day. ‘I did hear that your husband, Johnny, was seen having an argument with him yesterday morning.’ I watched Clive for signs of prevarication or surprise. But as I barely recognize big red stop signs in the road, such subtleties as subterfuge were outside my limited powers of observation.

  ‘Wherever did you hear that?’ He sat up straighter, straining several tubes attached to his right arm.

  ‘Oh,’ I waved a dismissive hand through the air, ‘you know, around.’ No way was I going to give my source away. If Johnny Wolfe or Clive Rothschild, or both, were killers, I didn’t want to put Laura Duval in their line of fire.

  ‘Well,’ said Clive, pulling up the covers, ‘whoever told you that is just plain wrong.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Clive huffed. ‘I’m not saying Johnny didn’t have a word with Mr Wilbur. But it was certainly no argument.’

  ‘So what did Johnny have a word with Rick Wilbur about?’

  Clive tossed his shoulders. ‘The air conditioning, if you must know. Ours has been on the fritz – blowing hot and cold – for nearly a week. Mr Wilbur’s been promising to fix it. He said he’d send somebody around. Johnny was quite upset about the matter. You can’t imagine how unhappy our brides-to-be are trying on wedding gowns in such conditions.’

  I nodded to show my commiseration. We were having the same problem. We probably shared the same ductwork.

  Clive waved a hand in front of his face. ‘The heat, the sweat. You have no idea the damage all that perspiration can do to our inventory.’

  I could well imagine. Wedding dresses can hold a lot of heat. But I could not imagine it being enough reason to knock Rick Wilbur on the head with a rolling pin and stuff him in a box in my beignet café. What I needed was to learn more about Rick himself. Maybe it was time I visited Wilbur Realty.

  A white-haired nurse entered the room. She wasn’t old, just white-haired. Either she was part albino or she liked playing around with peroxide. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’ll have to leave.’

  ‘But Doctor Vargas said—’

  She shook her head. ‘I am sorry, but some of our patients are trying to rest.’ She glanced at the curtain.

  Now I understood. Clive’s roomie must have buzzed the nursing station and complained about me. ‘I’m leaving now!’ I said, a little too loudly.

  ‘About time!’ came a gravelly reply.

 
I threw a scowl toward the curtain, said a more civilized goodbye to Clive and followed the nurse out to my bike. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said once again. ‘Mr Teller is still quite weak though. He does need his rest.’

  I pulled my bike out of its slot. ‘What’s wrong with him anyway?’

  ‘He suffered a stroke. The poor man lives all alone too.’ With that, the nurse retreated to the hospital.

  I hesitated a moment, then hopped on the Schwinn. Maybe I’d send the guy some flowers. Not that I could afford to buy any, but Sis did have some pretty nice flowerbeds around her house. Surely she wouldn’t miss a few petunias?

  NINE

  Not surprisingly, Wilbur Realty occupied a prime piece of Main Street real estate next to Table Rock Bank, which had the big spot on the corner of Main Street and Cocopah Avenue.

  Their offices took up about a quarter of the block with big plate glass windows advertising properties for sale and to rent in Table Rock and throughout the greater north-central Arizona region. Glancing at the asking prices, there weren’t any that I could afford to buy.

  I scratched my head. It looked like I’d be renting for a very long time. Unfortunately, a tug on the door told me the real estate office was closed for the day. I peered through the glass. There didn’t seem to be anybody around. Either they kept short business hours – it was barely after six – or they had shut down as a sign of mourning for their boss, Rick Wilbur.

  I pedaled home, dragged the bike in with me and leaned it against the wall near the door. I cranked up the boxy room air conditioner that dangled precariously from the window beside the dinette set that I’d picked up at Laura’s Lightly Used.

  I kicked off my shoes as I yanked open the refrigerator door. I was famished. Vegetarian haggis isn’t as filling as you might expect. I nuked a couple of frozen enchiladas and quaffed a frozen margarita.

  Arizonans love their margaritas. I’d added a bit of prickly pear cactus juice to the mix for taste. Donna claimed prickly pear cactus was medicinal and sold it in her food store. According to her, it was good for diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, hangover, colitis, diarrhea and benign prostatic hypertrophy – you name it. Heck, maybe it even fended off zombies. I didn’t know about any of that, but as I slid back onto the sofa, I sure thought it tasted sweet.