by Noreen Wald
As the Three Tenors, accompanied by the organist and a string quartet, filled the cathedral with the moving refrain of “Ave Maria,” Venus wept like a woman who’d lost her one true love. I felt certain that she cried for Carita, not Charlie. The torrent of tears gushing from Wanda and Ashley confused me. Why, if Ashley was, as I suspected, [email protected], would Wanda be wailing like a banshee? To further complicate my theory, I spotted Dr. Nujurian, two pews in front of ours, slouched and seemingly suffering from such grief that her perky persona had morphed into a head-to-toe black and white portrait of inconsolable misery. Even her pillbox hat had fallen forward onto her forehead. Would, by some sick twist of fate, Dr. Assisted Suicide turn out to be both a mystery writer and Charlie’s cupcake? What could have driven each of these women to reach heights of sadness that defied rationality? Especially since the senator’s widow had walked down the aisle appearing as cool as a chunk of dry ice.
Midway through the senator’s second eulogy, I dozed off. My daydream was worse than any nightmare. I found myself back in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza, dressed as a leprechaun, serving a pitcher of green beer. Rickie Romero laughed as the two poisoned panelists, their faces contorted in pain, rose up from the floor. A dead Holly Halligan sang a sorrowful “Danny Boy.” I tried to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. The corpse of Charlie Fione stretched a long arm toward me, grabbing my hair, pulling me close to him, and whispering in my ear, “Let me rest in peace.” A swell of organ music jerked me awake. I stifled a scream, startling my mother.
In the center aisle, the cardinal and the altar boys circled the senator’s golden urn, the smell of incense wafted through the cathedral, and from the altar Father Fione led the faithful in the Roman Catholic Church’s centuries-old prayer for the dead. “May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.”
Thirty-One
The long line of black limousines stretched up Fifth Avenue from St. Patrick’s to the Pierre Hotel. The funeral directors, moving rather frantically, separated those mourners who would be going aboard the Ashes Away cruise from the more fortunate and much larger group who now were free to go on with their own lives. Edwina Carrington Fione, still an ice matron, emerged from the cathedral with the governor, who escorted her to the lead limo. Charlie Fione’s urn was nowhere in sight.
Mrs. Casey, wearing black and looking like the subject of a 1950s Norman Rockwell painting, exited on the arm of the mayor, reveling in his undivided attention. Each time I concluded that the widow Fione was a total creep, another example of her devotion to detail or her concern for people would astound me. I waved and the old lady winked at me. “Isn’t this one grand funeral, Jake?”
Modesty, Gypsy Rose, Mom, and I had been assigned to car number seven, but as its driver pulled up in front of the cathedral, Dennis Kim arrived, brakes screeching, and double-parked his Rolls Royce—its top was down—alongside the last of three open and overflowing flower cars. “Jake, your chariot awaits!” he yelled across the gladiolas.
We were embarking from a Chelsea pier, where an almost carnival atmosphere prevailed. At noon, the sun had warmed the city and the cloudless sky was baby blue. The Hudson River seemed to sparkle in the sunshine. And on its west bank, even New Jersey appeared picture perfect.
Venus DeMill climbed up the gangplank behind me. “An Ashes Away cruise can cost more than a first-class crossing on the Queen Mary,” she said. I turned and smiled, nodding. She wrapped an arm around Maurice Welch’s thick waist. “After we’ve tucked our poor darling Carita into the ground for her long sleep, we’ll be honeymooning on the Queen. Sailing as soon as Maurice collects his refund from Holly Halligan’s estate and his money for ghosting that deadbeat Charlie Fione’s book from Pax Publishing. For sure, Edwina isn’t going to ante up.”
“My dear,” Maurice said, “Jake doesn’t need to hear all this. We’ve come to bury Charlie, not berate him.”
Ignoring her fiancé, Venus pointed her index finger at Dr. Nujurian, who’d just stepped out of limousine number four, followed by Ashley Butler and Wanda Sparks. “That’s the bitch who at Holly’s command killed on commission. But never again. I just heard on the limo’s radio that the doctor’s license to practice has been revoked by the state of New York. No wonder she was crying.”
The Ashes Away company’s captain, in a Gilbert and Sullivan full-dress uniform, reached out for my hand and I climbed aboard. The Valhalla was some ship. An immaculate white wooden character boat, circa the 1920s, designed and built when the rich really were different from you and me. Dennis took us on the grand tour. Magnificently maintained, the seventy-five-foot-long craft featured gleaming mahogany decks, brass railings, and highly polished steps leading to beautifully appointed salons and cabins. But not an inch of fiberglass. She also had four heads and, while smaller, each was as impressive as the Waldorf-Astoria’s ladies’ room.
As Modesty, Mom, Gypsy Rose, and I followed Dennis down to the posh grand salon, a piano player greeted us with a medley of New York songs. A candlelit buffet table, spanning the width of the ship, had been laid with fine linen, sterling silver, bone china, and covered with gourmet food that had been supplied from the River Cafe. According to our carefully charted itinerary, we would be disembarking at that same restaurant’s dock after having cruised around the Battery, then flinging Charlie’s ashes overboard before we sailed under the Brooklyn Bridge.
But at the moment, what remained of Senator Charlie Fione could be viewed in the petite salon. The golden urn stood alone, centered on a small carved table that had been placed in front of heavy maroon velvet drapes, shutting out any sunlight. Tall baskets of lilies flanked either side of the oak table, as did three pairs of equally tall candles, their flickering lights providing the salon’s only illumination. Bamboo and cane folding chairs, arranged in neat rows, indicated that Edwina might be planning on a formal goodbye prior to her late husband’s final fling. The eleven-by-fourteen photograph of the dead senator and the former president that I’d seen in Edwina’s Waldorf Towers apartment had been propped up in front of one of the draped portholes.
Suddenly I felt sick. My mother, speaking for all of us, said, “Let’s get out of here.” We returned on deck, where I gulped the clean, fresh spring air and watched our fellow passengers board.
Would this Ashes Away cruise upset Hunter Green? Certainly it would have to bring back bad memories of his wife’s final voyage. He was coming aboard now, along with Wanda Sparks. Deep in conversation. His arm around her shoulder. Well, he had been her mentor, introducing her to Rickie Romero and brokering her ghostwriting assignment. I suppose they still could be close friends. Yet…
“Why, Dennis Kim.” Ashley Butler’s honey-sugared-ham accent jarred me. “How surprised and delighted I am to see you! I’ve been dreading mal de mer and worried about this old vessel sinking, but with a gentleman like you aboard, I do feel ever so much safer.”
Modesty twisted her chain into a knot. Her obscene gold cross stuck straight out and poked Ashley in her left breast. “And I do hope that you can swim.” She mimicked Ashley’s drawl. “This yacht is yar, but she has no lifeboats.”
Dr. Nujurian emerged from below. “Isn’t this just a super day for a burial at sea?” she asked of no one in particular, while standing at the starboard deck rail and staring out across the Hudson. “Death can be such an uplifting experience.”
“You really should experience it firsthand,” Modesty told her. The doctor spun around, then recognizing Modesty and me, scurried back down to the salon.
Some stragglers, including several senators and Donald Jay, embarked. The captain called Mrs. Fione over to review the passenger roster. Putting on gold-framed reading glasses, she scanned the list and announced, “Thirty-six. I think that’s everyone.”
“Hoist anchor,” the captain ordered the first mate. The crew released the lines and I thought: Ben missed the boat.
>
Thirty-Two
The Valhalla slowly cruised down the Hudson as her passengers milled about, looking uncomfortable. Most of the Washington contingent had gravitated to the well-stocked bar, located in an alcove in the main salon and manned by an efficient young bartender dressed in a navy blazer. Martinis seemed to be the Ashes Away crowd’s drink of choice. Gypsy Rose had decided to “try and eat a little something; that’s quite a buffet.” And Mom, agreeing—“it would be a sin to waste all that shrimp”—joined her. Then Modesty had gone off to “have a word” with Hunter.
Snatches of conversation rose through the salon’s open hatch—which looked more like a small skylight—to where Dennis and I stood portside, watching the city slip by. We’d passed Battery Park and were approaching Wall Street. Mrs. Casey was talking to Dr. Fatima Fione-Epstein and her loud, gravelly voice carried well.
“Fatima, the reason that the Irish and the Italians don’t commit suicide isn’t religious. It’s not their Catholic faith. It’s their diet. Potatoes and pasta. Starch contains an antidote to depression, you know.” Dr. Fione-Epstein’s response was lost in a waterfront church’s chimes.
“That’s an interesting theory,” I said to Dennis, “but not one that I could agree with. Have you met Mrs. Casey yet?”
“No, but I’m looking forward to it.” He smoothed my windblown hair.
“Dennis, while we have a moment alone here, I need to tell you something.”
“Well, right now we aren’t ships just passing in the night, are we?” Dennis kissed my forehead, then smiled. “We’re on the same deck, but I’d hoped for a more romantic occasion then a cremation cruise to discuss our future.”
“I don’t want to talk about us,” I said. His glorious, gold-flecked eyes clouded. “I mean, I do, but not here, not now.” I reached up, cupped his face in my hands, and kissed him. Deeply.
“Soon?” He pulled me closer. “Is that a promise?” He kissed me again. Madly.
I came up for breath. “Truly, Dennis, that’s a promise.”
“Okay, what else is on your mind?”
“I’m not sure if I can prove all this, but I know who poisoned the panel and I know who killed Carita and I think I even know why.”
“And a lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing,” Wanda Sparks announced, coming up behind us from the stern. I wondered how much of our conversation she’d overheard. “Modesty is back there, quizzing Hunter as if she knows that he’s the killer. And he’s innocent, of course. Jake, you would do well to remember that what we perceive to be the truth often isn’t. Your Ghostwriters Anonymous program taught me that.”
“Hunter Green has an airtight alibi for Carita Magenta’s murder,” I said. “Modesty knows—er, has been told that.”
“Yes,” Wanda said. “But I don’t.” She gripped the railing. “Your friend is so besotted with Rickie Romero that she’s convinced herself that Hunter had me kill Carita in order to retrieve the Faith diamond. Such insanity.” She laughed. “As if I would have drowned Carita before she’d eaten her lasagna.”
“Maybe not so insane,” I said, thinking my thunderbolt had fizzled. “How do you know about that full plate of lasagna, Wanda? It wasn’t mentioned in the papers or on TV. Rickie told Hunter; that’s how I know. But I don’t think Hunter—or Venus—would have told you. Jesus, you were there, weren’t you?”
Though I couldn’t fathom how she had another tear left to squeeze out, Wanda resumed her god-awful weeping. “I can’t seem to stop crying. I’m so scared. Jake, I swear I didn’t kill Carita. The apartment door was open. Her head was in that old purple tub; her big butt sticking up out of it. I panicked and ran back down those stairs fast as I could. I just wanted to help Hunter; he doesn’t even know I was there. Rickie betrayed my love, but Hunter’s been so good to me and—”
“Wanda, tell me, what were you doing at Carita’s?”
“Looking for the Faith diamond. Hunter wasn’t the only one who figured out where Rickie had stashed it.” She shook her head. “I wanted Hunter to have it. That bastard Rickie had no right to it, did he?”
Dennis chuckled. “Well, strange as it might sound for me to bring up ethics, from a legal—or any other—point of view, that diamond is still stolen property and not yours to give to anyone.”
I wasn’t done with Wanda.
“When you arrived, Carita was already dead. Did you see anyone else? This is important.”
She hung her head. “Yes. As I was leaving, Rickie was turning the corner; I don’t think he saw me.”
“Or maybe he did, but didn’t say anything in order to protect you,” I said as the Valhalla rounded the tip of Manhattan Island. “So Carita Magenta had been murdered well before Romero appeared on the scene? Wanda, you can be a witness in his defense!”
“Jake! Come down here!” my mother screamed through the hatch.
Confusion reigned in the grand salon. Senators, Crime Writers, and the Fione siblings were cowering by the buffet table and the bar while Ashley Butler and Edwina Carrington Fione struggled in the center of the salon, engaged in a tug of war over Charlie Fione’s urn.
“He’s mine!” Ashley shouted. “I did what he wanted. Now I deserve to spend eternity with him.”
“What happened?” I asked my mother.
“Gypsy Rose was ready to begin channeling. Actually, we think Charlie Fione may be on his way here from the world beyond. The mourners were about to take their seats in the small salon when Ashley suddenly grabbed the urn. Edwina intercepted her before she could climb on deck. I gather Ashley wants to fling herself into the river along with Charlie.”
Dennis moved so quickly, retrieving the urn from the women’s clutches, I don’t think that at first either of them realized what had happened. Then Ashley kicked Dennis in the groin and he dropped the urn. Ashley swooped down, picked it up, and ran into the petite salon. On her heels, I tripped and stumbled, giving Ashley a chance to latch the door behind us.
“No one can stop me from spending eternity with my charming Charlie,” Ashley cried. Her high hair had collapsed along with her features.
“Your charming Charlie murdered Holly Halligan,” I told her, “then committed suicide, and not knowing that Romero didn’t drink, the senator died believing he’d killed Rickie too. And Cupcake, you dressed up as a leprechaun to help him.”
“I had no idea that Charlie planned on taking Holly and Rickie with him! When Romero found Holly Halligan and they threatened to ruin the senator’s reputation, right there at the Plaza, in front of his wife and his fellow Crime Writers, Charlie begged me to help him kill himself. He was dying of cancer anyway. So, yes, I served the poisoned beer. And I’d do it again to protect my Charlie.”
‘To protect Charlie. That’s why you tried to frame Carita Magenta, isn’t it? Dropping the bucket of red paint on me? Mailing those red-crayon threats to Dr. Nujurian? And if the police thought Hunter was the killer, that would have been okay with you too. Just so long as Senator Fione’s reputation was protected. And it almost worked. We were all looking for a killer who had a motive for murdering all three panelists and who had no idea that Charlie was already a dead man.” I played my hunch. “Magenta knew you were the leprechaun, didn’t she?”
“That fat cow Carita spotted me stuffing the costume into the tampon machine. The bitch actually tried to blackmail me.” Ashley lifted one of the tall candles off its stand. “You were such a snoop, Jake, I planned on killing you too.” She swung the candle toward the velvet drapes. They burst into flames, and she smiled. “Now you and this entire ship of fools will burn, along with Charlie and me!” She threw a second candle across the room. I watched in horror as the photograph of the senator and the president caught on fire.
She reached for another candle. I somehow managed to unlatch the door, then jerk it open and roll into the grand salon, screaming, “Fire! Watch o
ut!” before the third candle came hurtling through behind me.
That candle landed on the buffet table and the centerpiece went up in flames. Dennis, Maurice, and two of the senators tried to beat out the fire with their jackets, but it quickly spread from the tablecloth to a satin chair. Then, as one of the candles on the buffet table tumbled over onto the floor, igniting a small fringed rag, Ashley stepped into the grand salon, tossing a fourth candle onto a sofa.
The fire now raged in the petite salon. I slammed that door shut and Ashley, still clutching the um, crawled into a corner of the large room.
The exodus had started. Mom was helping Mrs. Casey, still holding on to her martini, to negotiate the steps up the deck. An unruly line had formed behind them. “Jake,” my mother called. She turned to the man behind her. “Stop pushing. I won’t go without my daughter!” The senator from New Jersey placed his hands on Mom’s butt and shoved her up and out onto the deck.
As the flames swelled, I realized there wouldn’t be enough time for all of us to escape through that exit.
Seeming to concur with my assessment and trying to squeeze in line ahead of the newly senior senator from New York, Dr. Nujurian howled, “I don’t want to die. Let me out of here.”
Hunter’s handsome face appeared in the hatch. “Dennis! Modesty and I can haul some of you up this way. Get them to stand on a chair and have them grab hold of this.” He attached the top of a rope ladder to a cleat and dropped the rest of it down the hatch.