by Rita Lakin
The doorbell rings. “I’ll get it,” Sophie calls. As she opens the door, we hear her voice turn all sugary. “Well, hello there. Please do come in.”
“Bet you five dollars.” Evvie smirks.
“No bet. It can only be—” I call out, “Is that you, Mr. Slezak?”
Evvie and I return to the living room and there he is—gold chains gleaming.
“Good morning, beautiful ladies,” he says, saluting us with his dirty white Panama hat as he snoops around. “I see by your hard work you are earning stars in your crown.”
Evvie snarls at him, “Jews don’t get stars in crowns!”
“Well, so call it a mitzvah, this good deed.”
“My Stanley used to say, ‘One mitzvah could change the world, two could make you tired,’” Sophie adds.
“Why are you here, Mr. Slezak?” I ask.
“Leo, why do you fight calling me Leo?”
“So, Mr. Slezak,” Evvie says deliberately, “tell us what you want.”
“I need a set of keys. The family, such nice people, gave me the listing.”
Evvie groans. We forgot to warn Jerry.
“Grave robber,” Evvie mutters.
“You’ll leave the furniture for a while? A property always shows better with a little interior décor.”
“What difference will that make,” Evvie says, losing her patience. “You’ll never sell it anyway.”
“How can you show such cruelty?” He pleads, “Don’t I live here, too, among you? Am I not one of us?”
Evvie smirks at his pathetic parody of The Merchant of Venice.
“I work my buns off for you ladies. And why haven’t you taken advantage of my ‘Save Your Family Grief’ program? A little rider added to the will about disposal of assets—”
“I have,” chirps Sophie.
“We’ve already saved our families from grief, thank you,” I inform him. “We have it in our wills to give our apartments to the first homeless people they see, rather than let Sunrise-Sunset Real Estate get their paws on it.”
Leo shrugs. He tried.
Evvie unclasps an extra key from her key ring and tosses it at him. “Don’t slam the door on your way out.”
“I’ll walk you,” Sophie says, almost drooling as she clutches at his arm and apologizes for our rudeness.
An hour goes swiftly by and we are making good progress. The refrigerator is almost emptied when a familiar doggie bag catches my eye. “Evvie, look. From dinner . . . our last dinner together. Remember, Francie took home the chocolate cake. She never ate it.”
“That’s not like her.”
“Maybe she never got the chance.” We look at each other considering what that means. For a moment I hesitate, and then I say what’s been on my mind. “There’s something I want to discuss with you. Something really serious.”
Evvie looks at me, alarmed.
“Coincidences. I’ve been thinking there have been too many. Selma and Francie.”
“What are you talking about?” Evvie asks, now more puzzled than alarmed.
“The birthdays for starters. Selma and Francie both died on the night before their birthday. Both were very healthy. Both died suddenly of heart attacks. With no history of heart attacks that we know of. They both died alone. Both were trying to reach for the phone. And there’s something about that damn phone that’s driving me up the wall and I can’t remember what it is.”
“But isn’t it possible? Couldn’t it have happened like that?”
“Yes. However, Miss Marple and I agree—we don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Oh, you and your mystery books—”
“I learn a lot from them. What it’s beginning to sound like is an M.O.”
“Again from the mysteries?”
“As in ‘modus operandi,’ the method used in a crime.”
“A crime?” Now the worry lines appear on her face.
“As in murder—”
The doorbell rings and we both jump.
“Later,” I say as I go to answer, hoping it isn’t Sophie again.
Surprisingly, it is Harriet Feder, carrying a small basket.
“Come on in,” Evvie calls out warmly.
“I hope I’m not interrupting. I took the day off, and I thought maybe I could help in some way.” She indicates the basket. “A snack for the hard workers.”
“Thanks, Harriet, that’s really very thoughtful. You’re not sick . . . ?”
“No. I just can’t get over Francie. . . . I started to go to work and then I said the hell with it. The hospital can manage without me for a day or two. Considering how low the pay is, anyway. Then I sat around the apartment feeling depressed. I need to do something.”
“We’ll take all the help we can get,” Evvie says.
“We’re just about to start on the dishes,” I tell her.
“I’ll pass them down, you put them in the cartons,” I say as I head towards the kitchen cabinets.
“OK. Keeping busy will help.”
“How’s your mother?” Evvie asks.
“She’s fine. The usual aches and pains. I just wish I could find a way to make her accept being in that chair. She was always such an independent person.”
Evvie and I exchange glances. To us, Esther Feder seems quite happy in that chair as long as she can boss everyone around. Especially Harriet.
We all work quietly for a while, then Harriet starts to clear the knickknacks off a corner shelf. She picks up one of many birthday cards that still linger there as a silent reminder. “This must be from Denny. He always sends such sweet, simple cards.” She looks inside and smiles. “How does he always remember? I know the cards he sends me are always on time.”
“That’s easy,” Evvie says. “About five years ago, we had a crafts class in the rec room and Denny attended. He made this birthday reminder calendar and it got him so excited, he went to each and every person in Phase Two and got them to mark down their dates.”
“That’s right. I remember when Mother and I moved in, he came and asked for ours. What a sweet boy.” She smiles wryly. “Not a boy. He’s actually about my age. The poor dear. He must be suffering terribly right now. Wasn’t he the one who found both Selma and Francie’s bodies?”
Evvie says, “Now that you mention it, you’re right. Both times he was on his way up to fix something . . .” She turns to me as she says meaningfully, “What a coincidence.”
“Thank God he has keys to all our apartments. Who knows how long poor Francie would have lain there, if he hadn’t gone in.” Harriet stops, aware of our tension.
Just then there is a knock at the open kitchen window. It’s Ida. “Harriet,” she calls in a snippy voice, “your mom wants you.” She still hasn’t forgiven her for the bank.
“Oh,” says Harriet, looking at her watch. “She must be waiting for her lunch. Call me later.” She leaves.
“I forgot the board gave Denny those keys. Another coincidence?” Evvie asks.
“Speaking of lunch,” says Ida through the window. “I have it ready and waiting in my apartment. Take a break.”
“Maybe we should,” Evvie says. “Right now, I need to get a breath of air. But somehow I lost my appetite.”
Suddenly a comment Sophie made jogs at my memory. “Go on ahead. I’ll be with you after I lock up.”
Alone in the apartment now, I am in a turmoil of emotion. I hurry to the kitchen sink. Sophie, in her dithering, talked about it being dirty. Crumbs, she said. I see tiny bits of debris. I touch them. They are soft, like the texture of cake. Brown cake crumbs. I pick them up and smell them. It’s chocolate. I know it is.
Two thoughts pop into my head. 1) Sophie’s right. Francie would never leave a dirty sink. 2) If she didn’t eat the chocolate cake from Continental, where did these crumbs come from? And now I keep hearing words repeating in my head. Death by chocolate. Death by chocolate.
15
Making a Decision
I am waiting for Evvie in her apartm
ent. She’s getting ready for swimming. We had dinner together last night and breakfast this morning because she wanted to talk about the bombshell I threw at her yesterday, and we are still talking. If you call going around in circles talking.
“I’m almost ready,” she calls from the bedroom.
“No hurry,” I call back. I am on her sunporch skimming through one of her many movie magazines. While my apartment is a study in simplicity with a few nice antiques, a small collection of prints, and too many books, Evvie’s place is a cluttered tribute to showbiz. If my sister “missed the boat,” as she is fond of saying, she has certainly kept up with the ebbs and tides of her lost profession. Evvie wanted to be Doris Day. But Doris Day didn’t have Joe Markowitz for a husband, who insisted she stay home and be a proper wife and cook and clean and care for the children. She had her one-week shot as a torch singer, performing in a small club in Jersey, and she was pretty good. (She swears Doris sang there, but I doubt that.) But then the war ended, and the guy she had met and married on a romantic weekend, before he shipped out for Korea, came home. That was the end of her career.
But the memories and dreams live on in her movie posters and recordings of Doris Day.
“I still don’t think it was murder,” she says as she comes out, rubbing on suntan lotion. She’s only said that eleven times by my last count.
“But it is a possibility,” I say, feeling like a broken record myself.
“It can’t be anyone who lives here.”
“I didn’t say it was. I only said it might be.”
We walk out her door and head down the stairs.
“I refuse to accept the possibility it could be Denny!”
“I never said it was.”
“But he does have all the keys and he was the one who found them both.”
“It could be a coincidence—”
“Which you don’t believe in.”
“But it could be.”
We say our usual hellos to the usual gang and make our way down the path, passing our ducks in their pond, carefully avoiding the poop on the path.
“Look.” Evvie grabs me. “There’s Denny in his garden.”
“So? He’s usually in his garden at some time or other during the day.” Denny sees us and waves.
“Does he look like he could kill anyone?”
“No, Ev, I don’t think he could. But the truth is, anyone is capable of murder if provoked, or if they believe they have a strong enough motive.”
“Or is crazy.”
“He’s retarded, Ev, not crazy.”
“The Kronk is crazy.”
“We don’t know that she’s crazy. Maybe she’s just eccentric.” Evvie has forced me into this role of devil’s advocate and now she’s driving me crazy.
“Is she dangerous? Is she capable of murder?”
“Who knows? Nobody has even seen her in years.”
“But she might be. She could be a raving maniac by now.”
We arrive at the pool. I shush her. “Quiet. Drop the subject now. I don’t want anyone else to know what we’re talking about.”
We greet everyone, drop our towels and pool shoes, and wade into the pool. I’m glad I didn’t tell Evvie about the chocolate crumbs. I’d never hear the end of that discussion. But I do feel I have to do something about my suspicions.
“Hey, girls, c’m’ere, I’ve got another great joke,” calls Hy as he and Lola bounce up and down together at three feet deep.
Evvie whispers to me as she starts to get in. “Well, if the murderer has to be one of us, I hope it’s Hy. I would love to see him in Alcatraz.”
“Alcatraz is closed.”
“Whatever.”
Of course Hy has to “playfully” splash us before he begins his joke. “There’s these three guys standing in a bar boasting of how great they are in the sack. The Eye-talian says he rubs olive oil on his wife before sex and she screams with pleasure for an hour. The Frenchie says he pats butter on his wife and she screams for two hours. The Jew says he schmears chicken schmaltz on his wife and she screams for six hours. The Eye-talian and the Frenchie are impressed. ‘How did you get your wife to scream for six hours?’ ‘Easy,’ he says, ‘I wiped my hands on the drapes!’ Didya get it, didja?”
A few of us actually laugh.
I glance over at Enya sitting in her usual place. When Hy is most vulgar I look at her, hoping she isn’t listening to him. She seems oblivious.
Tessie swims by me. Chubby as she is, in water she’s as buoyant as a sponge. She does her usual laps. I get an idea. I wait until she is through and I follow her out to where her chaise is parked between the Feders and the Canadians.
I speak very softly. “Listen,” I say, “you cleaned out Selma’s apartment after she died, didn’t you?”
She responds to my seriousness. “Yes, I did. Why?”
“I’m just curious about something. Do you recall seeing anything at all that was odd or unusual in the apartment?”
“Not that I can remember.” She pauses. “You think there’s something wrong?”
“I’m not sure, but I do want you to give this some serious thought. We’ll talk later.”
As I pass Harriet, she gives me the smallest of nods and an OK sign as if she guessed what I said to Tessie and was giving me her approval. I start to walk toward her, then stop. Esther is tugging at Harriet’s arm.
“Sweetheart,” she says, “I think I need more lotion.” Since she is covered up to the neck, this seems unnecessary, but Harriet gets out the cream and works it into her mother’s face.
“No,” she says, “on my shoulders. I feel the sun through my robe, pull it down.”
“Mom,” Harriet says with a patience beyond Job’s, “you can’t get a burn through clothes.”
Esther looks toward me, slyly. “You don’t want them to see the marks.” Harriet throws me a weary look over her mother’s head. Her glance says, See what I put up with. Mine says, You have my deepest sympathy. I change my mind about approaching. She has enough to deal with. “Talk to you later,” I tell her and jump back into the pool.
Evvie paddles over to me. “What was that all about?”
“Later,” I say to her, too. I am putting everyone on hold until I can figure out what to do.
Evvie says, “Irving didn’t bring Millie down today. I think we better check.”
“Good idea,” and we both leave the pool.
“So, where are you going?” Ida calls after us.
“We’re gonna look in on Millie.”
“OK.”
You may have noticed by now that everybody keeps tabs on everybody else. The Lanai Gardens FBI is always on the alert; God forbid somebody should miss something. Especially since our behavior is so predictable that any small deviation is cause for complete attention by a mob of people—especially the girls.
We arrive at Millie’s. When we walk in we immediately see how frazzled Irving looks. He is sitting at the dining room table, the remains of breakfast still there, his head in his hands.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“She had a bad night. I was up until maybe four A.M.”
“What was she doing?”
Irving looks embarrassed. “She was yelling at the children.”
Poor Irving. He’s been living with Millie’s hallucinations so long, he talks about them as if they were real. They’re real to Millie, so he goes along.
“Why was she yelling?” Evvie asks.
Irving shakes his head, and turns red.
“They want to do disgusting things with him and I won’t let them.” Millie shambles into the living room, her hair disheveled, her robe a mess. Looking coy one moment and furious the next, she bends over her husband. “Don’t they, lover boy?” She runs her fingers wildly through the few strands of his hair.
Irving has always been a very shy man. Millie used to tell us funny stories about how he would undress in the closet when they were first married. He’s never used a curse word in his life
and now his demented wife is talking unashamedly about sex in front of other people.
“The children like to fuck!”
Irving pulls away from her and hurries out to the kitchen, holding his hands over his ears. Millie laughs as she watches him go. It is more like a cackle. Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease. The Millie we are looking at bears no resemblance to our old friend.
Then once again, that peculiar symptom—suddenly, the light goes out in her mind and the catatonia returns. She starts to fall down, but Evvie catches her. Balancing her between us, we walk her back to bed and tuck her in.
We join Irving in the kitchen. He is standing at the stove with a tepid cup of tea.
I start carefully. We’ve been down this road before and he always cuts us off at the pass. “Irving. Maybe it’s time—”
“No.”
“Maybe you need someone to come in during the days.”
“You all help . . . .”
“You need more. You have to be able to sleep. You can’t watch her twenty-four hours.”
He says what he always says. “I’ll think on it.”
We start for the door. “We’ll get one of the girls to come and spell you, so you can take a nap,” I say.
He nods and we leave.
“I can do it,” Evvie volunteers.
“No,” I tell her. “I have other plans for us.”
16
Keystone Kops and Nosy Neighbors
Do you think we can make our getaway without anybody noticing?” Evvie is whispering, as if that would help.
We are walking very quietly down the stairs from my apartment on the third floor. “Ha ha,” I say, “fat chance.”
Ida’s door flings open and she steps out onto the walkway. She sees us round the second floor stairwell and calls down to us over the banister. “Where are the Siamese twins off to now? First it was dinner, then breakfast. Now out to lunch I suppose?”
“Here we go,” I say. “Send in the clowns!”
Evvie sighs. “If three-nineteen is out, can three-fourteen be far behind?”
And sure enough, Sophie’s head pops out of her kitchen window. “So where is everybody off to?” she calls out.