by Tony Dunbar
“Or a glass of wine?”
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of eating vegan food?” Tubby asked. They were having a late lunch at Mayas on Magazine, which served Latin fare, heavy on vegetarian and other food totally free of anything unhealthy, all of which was surprisingly delicious in Tubby’s experience. Raisin hadn’t been to the restaurant before.
“No, I don’t want a drink, but suit yourself.” He waved at the waiter, who quickly came over.
Raisin got his wine and was ready to order. “Is this paella good?” he asked.
Assured that it was, he nevertheless ordered Pampas, a grilled skirt steak salad with cotija cheese, asparagus, and other interesting ingredients.
Tubby gave it up and ordered a Caipirinha to drink, which had sugar and lime slices and other things he didn’t know about. And he experimented with Coconut Curry Fish, which was tilapia in a yellow coconut sauce over jasmine rice.
“Swell spot,” Raisin commented, looking over the walls decorated with faux-Mayan art.
“Very cozy,” Tubby said. “Did you notice the paella for twenty people on the menu?”
“I did. Who has a pan that big? You know, there are a lot of attractive women in here.” Many of them were enjoying pitchers of margaritas.
“Right,” Tubby said. “It’s a happening place.”
“So, have you broken up with yours?”
“She may have broken up with me,” Tubby said. “She said I’ve been leaving her out of the loop on too many things. And she’s right.”
“Like the fact that you had an old girlfriend in Mississippi.”
“Yeah, but the last time I saw Faye Sylvester was years ago,” he said, unconsciously fudging. “It was all over with us.”
“You mean the last time before last month, when you decided to look her up again?”
Drinks came.
“Well, screw it,” Tubby said. “I probably deserve to be dumped.” He brushed some salt off the rim of his glass.
“You’re certainly right, but you can’t concede that to Peggy. Most men deserve to be dumped. If that were the test, where would anybody be? I’m obviously no exception.” Raisin had been dumped about fifteen times by beautiful professional women who eventually got tired of a guy who, though always attentive, witty, and good looking, was content to be supported and determined to be free to exit stage-left at any time.
“Anyhow,” Tubby began. “Maybe it’s over. Maybe not. The bigger news is me finding two dead bodies.”
“Nothing pretty about that,” Raisin agreed. “But you have to blot that sort of thing out, don’t you, Tubby? I don’t mean that you harden your heart. You’ve naturally got to feel it in the gut, but you’ve got to work with it, too. You can be sad, you can be mad, but those pictures don’t have to stay in your mind every day.”
“You may have said something profound, my friend.”
“Wow!” Raisin exclaimed, but he was talking about the plate of chilled steak and salad that was placed before him. Aromas of the Andean alta plana filled the air.
Tubby’s curry peaked in a lofty soup and had a sauce the color of buttercups. “Let it go,” Raisin counseled. “You can’t be weighed down by the human condition. You should, of course, have told your girlfriend. But a man has got to keep living despite the unpleasant things he sees, right?”
“Would the gentlemen care for a refill?” their waiter asked.
“And the unpleasant things he does,” Raisin added.
CHAPTER 16
Two days later, Tubby learned that Ednan had been released from jail. He interpreted this to be the positive outcome of his brilliant legal defense, without any rhetorical shots even being fired. It was a great victory and an omen that practicing law was still the right job for him. Exalted and reinvigorated, he called up Rev. Buddy Holly and suggested that they drive over to Faye Sylvester’s cabin to see if they could learn anything to explain her murder and point to the murderer.
“I suppose you know she has a sister, and you should get her permission,” the preacher said.
“That’s why I’d like you along,” Tubby told him.
“To ask her?”
“No. As an excuse not to.”
Two hours later, they were bouncing up a dirt road in Holly’s Frontier pick-up, on their way to Sylvester’s cabin. Holly had called the sister anyway, but she hadn’t answered her phone. They half-expected to find her at the end of the driveway, but the cabin stood silent and empty in the dense pine woods.
The front door was locked, but Tubby had that problem taken care of before Holly climbed the steps.
The house was still full of the odors of dinners cooked and a woman’s domestic life. The lights still worked. Tubby strode immediately through the living room into the kitchen. The dried blood stains on the floor had been cleaned up, which meant that somebody had been inside since the sheriff and his men left.
The kitchen drawers were open, and a quick check showed that there were no carving knives about. Since the murder weapon had been a sharp object, the lawmen had probably confiscated anything matching that description.
Holly looked aimlessly though the kitchen cabinets while Tubby refreshed his memory of the layout of the place. Through the kitchen were a small pantry and a separate utility room with a washer and drier. And there was a door exiting to the back porch and yard. Off the living room were two bedrooms, one tidy and kept for visitors, he surmised. The other had clothes in the closets and cosmetics on the dresser, so it was the one Faye used. He began there.
He went through the underclothes and socks in her dresser, avoiding memories of Faye in those very garments. He checked the pockets of her jackets hanging in a closet and the pants folded neatly on the built-in shelves. In the dresser there was only a small amount of jewelry, including a simple gold bracelet he remembered her wearing at a softball game the day they met, an old framed picture of a grim couple, at their wedding perhaps, and a little scrapbook with pictures and colorings, all resembling the collections of a young teenage girl. They were the sort of mementos his daughters kept. In the bathroom, the only things that looked like prescription drugs were birth control pills.
He moved into the living room, where Holly was studying the books stacked on a tall shelf beside the fireplace. “She read mysteries,” he observed. “Julie Smith. And here is a book of Bonhoeffer’s. I gave it to her as a present. It doesn’t look like she read it though. I don’t really think we should be here,” he added.
The lawyer ignored him. He gave the guest room a discreet toss and found nothing more interesting than some old Cosmopolitan magazines in a plastic bin under the bed.
Back in the living room, Holly was seated on the sofa leafing through what appeared to be a photo album.
“She got a lot of letters from her students and their parents,” the preacher said. “Most are thanking her for what she taught them and her positive influence.”
Tubby sat beside him on the couch and looked over his shoulder. Many of the letters were fixed in place by clear plastic sheets that adhered to the pages of the album. He could read some of the phrases as Holly flipped quickly through. Most began with words like, “Ms. Sylvester, We are so thankful that you took the time with Jody to convince him he could actually accomplish something great,” and, “Dear Miss Sylvester, you were my nicest teacher in the 6th grade.”
“She had a lot of admirers,” Tubby said.
“Undoubtedly,” Holly said, wiping an eye. “She was the best teacher I had.”
Tubby wondered how attached the headmaster had been to his star teacher.
One letter was loose and fell out. He picked it up and held it up to the light. It read:
“Miss Sylvester,
“You were a real asshole. My life is now a complete shitshow.”
It was unsigned. He tossed the paper to Holly. “A shitshow?” he asked.
“Hmmm, just guessing, but that could be a letter from young Carter Kabatsin, who did have some trouble and got a sh
ort suspension. But he’s returned for his senior year. Or it could be from one of a dozen other boys.”
“Why did Carter get kicked out?”
“He mouthed off, mostly. Nothing out of our run-of-the-mill. He got mad at his teachers and threw books around, as I recall. His father took it personally. Maybe he wrote the note.”
“They both came to the funeral, right?”
“I did see them, yes.”
Suddenly Tubby was very tired of being in this place. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
The day had turned cloudy and a high-altitude wind was twirling the black tops of the pines.
“So, what did we learn?” Holly asked as he climbed into his truck.
“Not much, I guess,” Tubby admitted. “Some students loved her, and some students hated her.”
“That’s part of the job description.”
“Her boyfriend, the man killed with her, did you notice anything belonging to him? Any clothes? A toothbrush? Boots? A letter?”
“Can’t say that I did,” Holly said, starting the engine.
“Me neither.”
The woods there are thick, and it would have been hard, even had they been looking, for either of these two trespassers to spot the third who was squatting uncomfortably behind a downed tree. The man got up as Holly’s truck bounced away toward the blacktop. He dusted his round behind. Parting the branches and straightening out his chubby figure, he made his way to the cabin to have his own look around.
* * *
The preacher dropped Tubby off next to the lawyer’s flashy Corvette parked in the school parking lot. A quick handshake, and Tubby fired off on Highway 90 headed for the Interstate. Passing the last of the casinos in a blur, he left Mississippi behind him without a thought. He was putting Faye Sylvester to final rest in his mind. The pine forests, where he had sometimes imagined a life with her, were brooding and oppressive now. As the shadows lengthened, he longed only for the bright lights of the big city.
Soon enough, he exited onto the familiar Claiborne Avenue off-ramp to his own home under the live oak trees. Where he immediately noticed Peggy O’Flarity’s Mercedes parked outside. Feeling an urgency to see her, he unlocked the front door and walked quickly through the house. He found her reading an old New Yorker on the back porch. A pair of drugstore glasses were perched crookedly on her nose. She turned to smile when he appeared in the doorway, and for a minute he just stood there, admiring the view.
“Hey,” he said. Had her eyes always been that green?
“Hey yourself,” Peggy replied. “How are you?”
“Great, just great, everything is fine.” He stepped onto the porch. “And you?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I’ve been better.”
Apprehension replaced Tubby’s sense of well-being. “Right,” he said noncommittally. “This has definitely been a rough couple of months all around.”
She looked away. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked hopefully.
“In a minute,” she replied. “I’d like a little guidance on where we go from here.”
“Well, I’m not sure I know what you mean…”
But he did. And he knew where he wanted things to go. He was missing her. He groped in his mind for some more effective words of apology. But apologize for what? Didn’t he have the right to do what he damned well pleased without asking for her permission? It wasn’t as if they were married… and hadn’t he had enough of that, by the way?
“Mean? Well, I was a bit taken aback when you finally decided to let me know you’d been to visit an old girlfriend, quite some time after the event. Not to mention her death! What do you mean, what do I mean? How in the hell would you feel if I’d been to visit an old boyfriend and didn’t even have the courtesy to let you know beforehand?”
Courtesy. Tubby was awash in courtesy. She was making excellent points.
“Look, okay, maybe…”
“Never mind.” Her voice was low. He took a step toward her, afraid she going to cry. But that wasn’t Peggy’s style.
“I’ll take that drink now,” she said.
Tubby turned on his heels and went into the kitchen to open a bottle of the Chardonnay he kept for her.
She was standing when he returned, staring out the screens into his back yard. He set her wine down and walked up behind her.
Taking a chance, he slipped his arms around her waist, and miraculously, answering his prayer, her body relaxed and leaned, almost imperceptibly, against him. It was enough. He leaned down and nuzzled the back of her neck, inhaling her scent. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Truly sorry. It was all very stupid of me.”
Her body softened and Tubby gently pulled her into him and resisted, momentarily, the temptation to cup her breasts with his hands. She sighed and his hands slipped up from her waist. She did not object. He wanted her then, felt the need for her growing, as his lips, not so gently now, burned into her neck, traveling up to her ear and suddenly parting her lips as she twisted to face him.
It was all he could do not to take her then and there on his porch swing. He managed to steady himself and sweep her up in his arms. The bed in his guest room seemed miles away but as he finally laid her across it, her eyes flickered open briefly. “Welcome home,” he told her.
“You’re quite the fool,” she whispered softly.
CHAPTER 17
It was nearly eleven o’clock the next morning when Tubby opened the front door to retrieve his newspaper. It was the sort of spring day that was so perfect you yearned for an excuse to be outside – the sun was up, the sky was blue, some early monarch butterflies fluttered from yard to yard. His pretty next door neighbor knelt, tending the first-of-the season flowers she had planted along the low wrought-iron fence that ran by her sidewalk. Her hair was tied up in a red bandana, and her baggy blue jeans were rolled high above her shapely ankles. She wiped her forehead, leaving a smudge, and waved her gloved hand at him. He waved back.
Since it was probably snowing in Boston, the superiority of New Orleans was proven by a couple outfitted in T-shirts and shorts who were walking under the trees across the street, plastic cups gripped in their hands.
A lot of people in New Orleans, Tubby noted as if for the first time, carried their drinks with them as they rambled about the town. Never get caught short, that was the ticket. But not the passerby being pulled along by her large golden-haired dog. She had both her hands full, just staying upright. All in all, a perfect Sunday morning.
He retrieved his newspaper from the yard and pulled it out of its plastic sleeve as he walked up the steps to open the door. He was enjoying one last deep breath of sweet olive-scented air when he saw the headline:
MASS MURDER IN THE FRENCH QUARTER
SIX VICTIMS OF GRISLY SLAYING
CELEBRATED NEWCOMERS TARGETED
He read the news with shock and fascination as he closed the door behind him. The Sultan and all of his entourage had been murdered. He was halfway across the living room when he reached the last paragraph.
“A 25-year-old man,” the paper reported, “has been detained by police for questioning in connection with the crime. He is Ednan Amineh, whom a witness described as a handyman at the residence. No charges have been filed, a police spokesman said.”
“Good God!” Tubby exclaimed. He slammed the door. “Peggy, we may need a defense fund!”
Peggy had prepared a little speech for Tubby, but with all of this excitement and Tubby’s obvious readiness to bolt out the door, this did not seem like the right time to give it.
She had to admire his energy as he scrambled for his clothes and ran for his car. She would have preferred to stay in bed.
CHAPTER 18
Once again, Tubby Dubonnet made his way through the metal detectors and the other security harassments to visit his client at Central Lock-up.
Thereafter it took nearly forty minutes for the guards to find Ednan and bring him down. It seems the men were fed their lunches at 1
0:30 in the morning. Tubby stewed, checking the same emails again and again.
When Ednan was finally led into the room, he grinned at his visitor sheepishly through the weighty acrylic barrier.
“How are you doing?” Tubby asked through the phone.
“It’s not too bad here, but this all makes no sense. They arrested me again last night, and I didn’t do anything.” The client cracked his knuckles and shrugged helplessly.
“What exactly didn’t you do?” Tubby asked to be sure.
“Kill all them people. They were my job, you know. Why should I kill them?”
“You shouldn’t kill them. Why did the police arrest you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Ednan waved his hands in the air helplessly. “When all this happened I was in the courtyard, out in the back. I didn’t know anything. I was just in the wrong place.”
“Why were you even there?”
“I got a job through my cousin. He works for somebody who works for the owner of the house. And he tells me they need a landscape man. So I went over and got the job. They paid good, so why would I kill anybody?”
“What did you do, on your job?”
“I was trimming the bushes and pulling up the weeds in the flower garden,” Ednan explained. “And I’d hose off the bricks in the courtyard. And anything else they told me to do.”
“Who is they?” Tubby asked.
“Oh, well, there was the big boss, Mister Bazaar, but I only saw him if he sat outside in the afternoon for some tea. He was always drinking tea. There was a whole lot of women who were there, too. And some boys, but I don’t know about them.” He scoffed when he said ‘boys.’ “Those boys never told me what to do,” he added.
“You were there after dark? Why was that?”
“That was every night. They have lots of lights on back there. And I was in charge of being sure they turned on. They was automatic, see, but they didn’t always work. I got another job in the daytime, with my uncle in Violet, collecting rent, but me coming over at nighttime was fine for these people. They stayed awake all the time.” Tubby appeared quizzical. “Really!” Ednan told him. “There was music and lights on every night, even after I went home.”