Icing Allison

by Pamela Burford

  “Well, I mean, the guy has expenses, you know? I have to cover whatever he lays out. It’s only fair. Dispensations, I think he called it.”

  Martin said, “Disbursements.”

  “Right!” Nick said. “Disbursements.”

  Skye’s expression hardened. I sensed she had not had an easy life and was accustomed to bad news. “How much?”

  “Just fifteen thousand. That’ll cover every—”

  “Fifteen grand?” She gaped at him. “Where are you going to come up with that kind of bread?”

  “I thought... well, you said you had some money put aside...”

  “You have seriously lost it if you think I’m handing over my life savings to some crooked lawyer who’s just out to fleece you.”

  “It’s an investment,” Nick whined. “Can’t you see that, bunny? Think about how much we’ll have once that prenup is history.”

  Skye’s face contorted with disgust. “After Allison died, all you could talk about was how rich we were going to be. I should’ve known all along it would never happen, not with a loser like you calling the shots. Story of my life.”

  “You’re just hormonal,” he said. “It’s normal. I’ve been reading up on pregnancy. Your emotions are all over the place. I get that. I’m here for you, bunny. We’re in this together. Don’t pull away from me now. I need you. We need each other. And the baby needs—”

  “I’m so sick of hearing about the baby!” She punched him in the chest. He stood there and took it.

  “Miss,” Detective Cookie Kaplan said, “if you don’t want to be arrested for assault, you’ll need to leave the premises immediately.”

  “This is police brutality!” Skye hollered back, while Nick struggled to shove her arms into her coat. “I’m going to report you to your boss. They’ll take away your badge. Yours, too,” she told Howie, who was still sitting in the booth, serenely sipping his beer and munching on Cajun curly fries. “For not doing anything to stop this blatant injustice.”

  She continued to squawk as Nick escorted her out of the pub. The only remaining patrons were the two detectives.

  “We’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes,” Howie told Martin.

  “No rush, take your time.”

  I introduced myself to Cookie, who had a firm handshake and a ready smile. She asked me to join them and became my friend forever by pushing the basket of fries in front of me as I took a seat across from her.

  “Beer, Jane?” the padre asked from behind the bar, where he was shutting down the register.

  “No, thanks. I’m still working on this.” I indicated my tequila.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Cookie said. “The Death Diva, right?”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not as gross as most people think.” You can imagine the reactions I was accustomed to dealing with.

  “Oh, I think it’s really cool,” she said. “You saw a need and you created a whole career out of it. Totally original. What’s not to love?”

  I decided I really liked Detective Cookie Kaplan.

  “You know,” I said, “I’m glad I ran into you guys. There’s something that’s kind of bothering me. It’s probably nothing.”

  Howie said, “Usually when I hear those words, it’s not nothing.” He gestured for me to continue. Howie Werker was a tall, tasty, dark-skinned man in his early forties. Not to mention buff: He ran marathons in his spare time.

  Okay, don’t get too excited. He’s married, remember? And I happen to really like his wife. Not that I’d mess around with a married man under any circumstances. I sort of had the chance a couple of months ago with Dom and I put on the brakes. Not that Dom is married, but he’s engaged. More or less. To my knowledge, he and Bonnie have yet to set the date. And no, I don’t know what that means or how I feel about it, so let’s just drop the subject, okay? Sheesh.

  “It’s about Allison Zaleski.” I popped a curly fry into my mouth.

  “What a tragedy, to die so young and in such a horrible way.” Cookie shook her head. “I never met her, but everyone who did says she was nice.”

  Howie said, “That had to be rough for you, finding her like that. How are you doing, Jane? Are you all right?”

  My eyes stung with a burst of raw emotion I was helpless to suppress. My reaction shocked me. I thought I had this whole thing under control. It’s not as if I were a stranger to death and dead bodies. But this was different. Allison haunted me. I saw her when I closed my eyes to sleep. I saw how she looked under the ice, almost like one of her own photographs. A figure under glass, serene, unmoving.

  And then there were her videos. Just a couple of gal pals schmoozing, sharing confidences. That’s what it felt like anyway, watching them.

  I grabbed a paper napkin and dabbed the corners of my eyes, mumbling an apology.

  Howie slid his arm around my shoulders and gave me a brisk, wordless hug. He glanced up and said, “You were there too.”

  Only then did I notice Martin had joined us, sliding onto the bench next to Cookie. He nodded grimly.

  I cleared my throat. “So, um, here’s the thing. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “Our favorite words,” Cookie said, lightening the mood. “Do proceed.”

  “Well, I’ve been watching these, um, video diaries Allison made.” I didn’t tell them how I’d come across the videos and I hoped they wouldn’t ask. I mean, they were cops, and I was in possession of something that didn’t strictly belong to me. But I’d known Howie a long time. He’d had my back during a couple of sticky situations. So I figured I wasn’t about to get hauled to the hoosegow. This despite the bar-trivia team name these two had assigned themselves: Let Us Win or We’ll Arrest You.

  “So when you say ‘video diaries,’” Cookie said, “that means, what, she made them for herself?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. She’s the only one in them and she’s just, you know, talking. Well, it’s like she’s addressing this guy Jim, but he’s definitely past tense. I think he’s dead. Anyway, one of these videos contains something that’s kind of disturbing.”

  “Disturbing how?” she said.

  “Something was left in her mailbox,” I said. “A Barbie doll. Headless. Well, that’s not accurate. The head was there, it just wasn’t attached to the doll’s body.”

  The detectives looked at me. They looked at each other, then they looked back at me. “Okay,” Howie said, “that’s creepy, sure, but...” He shrugged, and I read his mind. What are you getting yourself so worked up about? Maybe he thought finding Allison’s body really had sent me over the edge. He added, “That’s the kind of prank a kid might pull.”

  “Okay.” Cookie leaned forward, forearms on the table. “Tell me more about this Barbie.”

  Thank you! I was liking this woman more and more.

  “Had someone messed with it in any way?” she asked. “Altered it? I mean, besides yanking the head off.”

  Howie looked suddenly interested. I could tell this possibility hadn’t occurred to him, and that bothered him. Martin, meanwhile, simply sat and listened. I knew I could trust him not to spill the beans about how he’d helped me hack into Allison’s flash drive.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” I said. “Someone had messed with it. It was a blonde Barbie, but the hair had been colored black.”

  “Dyed?” Howie asked.

  “No, like with a Sharpie. It was crudely done. And they chopped off some of the hair to make bangs.”

  I didn’t have to state the obvious. The doll had been changed to look like Allison Zaleski.

  “Okay, I have to say this,” Cookie said. “That woman who was here a little while ago? Beating up on her boyfriend?”

  “Ex-boyfriend, by the looks of it,” Howie said. “That was Allison’s husband, by the way, the guy that hustled her out. Nick Birch. I notified him when her body was found.”

  “No kidding.” Cookie’s eyebrows shot up. “Looks like Nick’s been a very bad boy. Anyway, that woman obviously did the same
thing to her hair that someone did to that doll. The dye job, the bangs.”

  “Her name is Skye Guthrie,” I said. “She was a friend of Allison’s. She wants everyone to believe she was her best friend, but I’ve watched a bunch of these videos and Allison only mentioned her a couple of times, and not in a best-friend kind of way. More like a ‘here’s this hanger-on I have to tolerate’ kind of way.”

  Cookie said, “A hanger-on who claims to be your bestie and makes a baby with your husband. Lovely.”

  “So you can see why I was concerned, right?” I said. “I mean, someone made this doll look like Allison—a decapitated Allison—and left it in her mailbox.”

  Howie and Cookie consulted each other via silent detective woo-woo.

  “That’s kind of threatening, right?” I said. “It rattled Allison, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Well,” Howie said, “she didn’t report it to the police, as far as I know.”

  “No,” I said, “she threw the doll away. It’s long gone. She thought you guys wouldn’t take it seriously.”

  “When did this happen?” Cookie asked.

  “The video’s date-stamped November twentieth,” I said, “so probably that same day.”

  She said, “Do you know if she showed the doll to anyone else?”

  “Just Nick, as far as I know. He told her he knew nothing about it.”

  “You know that Allison’s death was an accident, right?” Howie said. “I mean, I think I know where you’re going with this.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with it,” I said. “It’s just disturbing, like I said.”

  Martin finally spoke up, addressing Howie. “Question. How did Nick react when you gave him the news? About Allison.”

  “He was stunned,” Howie said. “Distraught.”

  “You do know he’s a professional actor,” Martin said.

  “I know he’s an actor. As for how professional...” Howie rocked his hand. “From what I hear, Leonardo DiCaprio has nothing to worry about.”

  “Still,” Martin said, “it’s something to keep in mind.”

  Cookie turned to me. “What would you like us to do, Jane?”

  Now that she was asking me directly, I felt a little embarrassed. What Howie had said was true. The authorities had judged Allison’s death to be purely accidental. She’d drowned. There’d been no evidence of trauma or anything suspicious. She’d been alone in the woods and had made the fateful decision to walk across ice that turned out to be too thin to support her weight. Then she’d fallen through and had been unable to make it out.

  Only a sip remained of my tequila. I lifted the snifter and drained it. “Would it be possible for you guys to look into this a little? Like ask a few questions, see if anyone, I don’t know, had it in for Allison?”

  Howie leaned back. He was thinking about it.

  Cookie didn’t have to give it much thought. “Sure, no problem. I don’t know how much time I can give it, but I’ll make some discreet inquiries.” She gave Howie a significant look.

  “Sure, okay,” he grumbled. “I’d only do this for you, Jane. Don’t expect anything to come of it.”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “It was an accident.”

  7

  Pick a Card, Any Card

  “I DON’T KNOW how I let you talk me into this,” Lenny Ahearn said.

  “I didn’t have to do much talking,” I said. “The pile of cash Wendell dangled in front of you was pretty darn eloquent.”

  His grunt conceded the point but said he didn’t have to like it. We stood in the rear of one of the visitation rooms at the Leonard T. Ahearn and Sons Funeral Home, where a wake was in progress. Several dozen friends, relatives, and fans of the late Wendell Webster crowded the front of the room, viewing Wendell’s remains. It should come as no surprise, given what I do for a living, that my business relationship with Lenny went way back. Many of my assignments took me to this very funeral home, and we regularly referred customers to each other.

  “I don’t know,” Lenny fretted, “I try to maintain a dignified atmosphere at this place. In the end, all you have is your reputation, right?” He tossed his hand toward the business end of the room, where Wendell was laid out.

  I guess laid out isn’t entirely accurate in this case since the dearly departed wasn’t lying in a satin-lined coffin. A wake like that would have been altogether too prosaic for the likes of Wondrous Wendell, sleight-of-hand magician extraordinaire. Wendell was a showman to the end. When the octogenarian’s “bum ticker” had presaged his imminent demise, he’d engaged me to arrange a sendoff that would not soon be forgotten.

  Wendell’s body had been posed in a sepulchral tableau vivant in the place of honor where his coffin should have sat. The funeral-home staff had done an amazing job, despite Lenny’s reservations. Wendell sat behind a cloth-draped table on which playing cards had been fanned out. Behind him hung a red velvet stage curtain embellished with his stage name in lights: Wondrous Wendell.

  His white hair was slicked back as usual. He wore his customary performance attire of salmon-colored suit and a bowtie imprinted with playing cards. Dark sunglasses had not been part of his magician’s getup, but he wore them now, at Lenny’s insistence. Likewise, Wendell had never, to my knowledge, performed on a stage flanked by RIP floral arrangements, enough to perfume the entire room. Well, I guess there’s a first—and in this case, last—time for everything.

  The magician’s pose was eerily lifelike. He sat forward a little as if playing to his audience. One hand rested on the tabletop. The other was raised, displaying a card: the seven of spades. His smug grin, even with the opaque sunglasses, conveyed an unmistakable query: Is this your card?

  A handful of mourners dabbed at their eyes. Whether their tears sprang from grief or irrepressible giggles, it was impossible to say. Many snickered openly and offered irreverent commentary. Most simply goggled in astonishment. For their part, Wendell’s fellow magicians appeared to admire their late colleague’s sense of style. They sized up the display as if contemplating how to outdo it when their time came.

  I must say, I’d never seen so many cell phones at a wake. Everyone in attendance, it seemed, felt compelled to snap pictures of Wondrous Wendell’s final, sold-out performance. No doubt the images were already flooding every nook and cranny of social media.

  Wendell had known precisely what he’d wanted and had been willing to shell out boatloads of cash to make it happen. I’d been the go-between, negotiating with Lenny and finally managing to convince him to make the magician’s final wish a reality. Lenny wasn’t the only one making a tidy profit. My commission would keep me in Fruity Pebbles and orange soda for years.

  I nudged the funeral director. “This thing is going viral even as we speak, Lenny. I’m telling you, after today you’re going to have people banging down your door, wanting to attend their own funerals.”

  I couldn’t tell whether that prospect cheered Lenny or appalled him. He was in his late sixties, his remaining hair mostly still dark. His black suit failed to conceal a slight paunch.

  Norman Butterwick approached us, and Lenny stiffened, bracing himself to defend this vulgar parody of a wake.

  Norman gestured toward the front of the room with his walking stick, this one crafted of ebony, by the look of it, with a handle of silver and inlaid mother-of-pearl. “Never in all my years have I witnessed a spectacle like this.”

  “Well, Norman,” Lenny said, “we, uh, we strive to accommodate our clients’ wishes, no matter how, uh... that is, we try not to judge—”

  “I want you to do this for me.” He wagged his cane toward Wendell again.

  “What?”

  “Oh, not posed with playing cards, of course.” Norman chuckled at the absurd notion and offered a more reasonable one. “I’d be standing at my easel, painting one of my landscapes. I’d be wearing my painting apron, holding a brush...” He demonstrated the pose he was going for: head tilted to one side as he gazed contemplatively at the
work in progress, paintbrush raised, poised for action.

  I nudged Lenny again. “What did I tell you? You’re a trendsetter.” To Norman I said, “The problem is, this kind of thing isn’t compatible with the green burial you arranged.”

  Norman’s white eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “Green burial? There must be some mistake. I look dreadful in green.”

  Lenny spoke up. “‘Green burial’ refers to natural disposition of the remains in a way that minimizes environmental impact. You requested a simple shroud with no casket.”

  “You don’t say!” Norman said, as if he were learning about this intriguing concept for the first time. “I like the sound of that. Let’s do both, the artist pose followed by the green burial.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. This kind of, uh, thing—” Lenny gestured limply toward Wendell “—requires embalming, which isn’t permitted in green burials.”

  “Ah. Well then,” Norman said, “I shall give the matter some thought and apprise you of my decision.”

  As Norman returned to the front of the room, I gave Lenny a reassuring pat on the back. “Don’t worry, by tomorrow he won’t even remember this conversation.”

  “Well,” Lenny said, “at his age, if he’s going to change his mind about what he wants done with his remains, he’d better do it soon.”

  “You do know that Norman’s parents both lived past a hundred, right?” I said. “You could have him flip-flopping on you for a decade or more.”

  An amused male voice interrupted us. “Why the long face, Lenny? Did Wendell miss his last payment?”

  It was Ben Ralston, a local private investigator and a pal of mine. Ben was a middle-aged black man, a bit on the short side but powerfully built. After retiring from the Crystal Harbor police department, he’d established Ralston Investigations. From what I could tell, he’d done pretty well for himself.

  Once we’d gotten hugs and handshakes out of the way, Ben said, “So. Lenny. That’s a hell of a job you guys did with Wendell. He looks like he’s about to jump up and give us all a heart attack.”