“How do you think he’d handle it?” Bertie said. “Would he act all indignant or play it cool?”
“Girl, you know he’d be smooth as velvet. An African Denzel Washington.”
Like a pair of schoolgirls at a slumber party, the two women giggled at the thought of rattling the unflappable doctor. Taking another swallow of rum from her glass, Ellen found the doctor’s number, hit the “call” button, and thrust the phone into Bertie’s hand.
“Oh my God! I can’t believe you did that!” Bertie squealed. “Quick. Hang up!”
But it was too late.
“You have reached the office of Dr. Momolu Taylor at the Princeton Avenue Health Clinic,” the doctor’s voice purred. Even on the tinny speakers of Ellen’s cell phone, he sounded sexy. “I’m away from the office, but if you leave me a message, I will return your call.”
Thank God it was the answering machine. Bertie could have hung up. But, perhaps due to the fact that she had now consumed nearly half a bottle of rum on an empty stomach, she decided to leave a message instead. Pulling herself up, she spoke carefully and clearly into the telephone.
“Dr. Taylor, this is Bertie Bigelow. As I told you when we met at The Loft, I am thinking of having my husband’s memoir published. Delroy wrote a nice profile on you, but he had some questions I was hoping you could help me with. Something about your citizenship papers?” Despite her best intentions to sound professional, Bertie hiccupped. “Oops. Sorry about that. One more thing. Are you related to any people named Ponder? My girlfriend swears she knows a guy who looks just like you. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience.”
As Bertie hung up the phone and set it on the coffee table, Ellen roared with laughter.
“At your earliest convenience? Negro, are you kidding me? Your mama sho ’nuff taught you some manners.”
“Now look what you made me do, Ellen! What can I possibly say when the man calls me back?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ellen said. She waved her hands grandly in the air, like the Pope blessing a supplicant. “Our work here is done, my child. Let’s call Harold’s Chicken Shack and order some wings.”
For the rest of the evening, Bertie and Ellen drank rum, pigged out on fried chicken, and watched bad movies on TV. Neither woman said another word about Bertie’s fire, the murders, Dr. Momolu Taylor, or the Hot Sauce King. By the time Bertie collapsed in a soggy stupor on the futon in Ellen’s spare room, she was feeling no pain.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2013—7:00 A.M.
Bertie awoke with a start, heart pounding as she surveyed her unfamiliar surroundings. It took a minute to adjust to her new reality. Ah, yes. I’m at Ellen’s. Ah, yes. I’ve been burned out of my home. Ah, yes.
She glanced over at the alarm clock on the end table. It was early—seven a.m. The sun was just beginning to fight through the leaden gray clouds outside. Ellen, a notoriously late sleeper, did not have to teach at Metro College until the afternoon. As for herself, Bertie knew there was no way she would be able to go to work that day. She dug her cell phone out of her purse and left a quick message on Hedda Eberhardt’s answering machine, cancelling her classes for the day and explaining about the fire. Although her absence was likely to get her in more hot water with Dr. Grant, Bertie would just have to deal with that situation later. She still had three weeks to make her case before the faculty disciplinary committee met to review her conduct at the Christmas concert. Hopefully, by that time her life would have become a bit less chaotic.
As she collected her clothes and folded Ellen’s futon back into its regular position, Bertie mulled over her options. She could sit around her friend’s apartment for another several hours waiting for her to wake up, or she could get dressed and go back to her house. The firemen had said she would be able to get into the place in the morning, and this was certainly morning.
Moving carefully on tiptoe, Bertie took a shower, got dressed, and gathered up the rest of her things. Then, on the coffee table next to the remains of last night’s chicken dinner, she left a note to say she’d gone home. Pulling Ellen’s door shut quietly behind her, Bertie wrapped her coat tightly around her shoulders and stepped outside into the cold. Thank goodness her trusty Toyota fired up immediately. As she waited for the engine to warm up, Bertie went over the mental “to do” list she’d composed for the day.
1) Meet with the fire marshal.
2) Call the insurance company.
3) Call the gas company and get the heat turned back on.
4) Call Dr. Momolu Taylor and apologize.
What was I thinking, calling up the doctor in the middle of the night talking trash? Bertie asked herself. Honestly, this is absolutely the last time I drink hard liquor.
As she pulled in front of her house, the fire marshal was already standing on her front porch, clipboard at hand. The man was tall and stoop-shouldered, with gray hair and an impish smile.
“My name is Abe Rattner,” he said, bending down to shake her hand. “I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”
“Just give it to me straight,” Bertie said tartly. “There’s nothing to laugh about here.”
The marshal’s cheeks turned beet red. “My boss is always telling me to be less flippant when dealing with the public. Honestly, I was just trying to make you smile. Things go down so much better with a smile, don’t you think?”
When he did not perceive even the glimmer of a smile on Bertie’s face, Abe Rattner pulled out his clipboard, cleared his throat, and forged ahead.
“The good news is that you had the presence of mind to install a sprinkler system in your home. Thanks to your foresight, the damage was confined to the basement. The bad news is that this fire was no accident. But whoever did this was an amateur or they would have known to disable the system before starting the fire.”
“Someone did this on purpose?” Bertie said. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Kids, probably. We found the remains of a plastic gasoline container down in the basement. Sad to say, we’ve seen a number of similar fires in your neighborhood over the past few months. I’ve notified the police. An officer from the bomb and arson unit should be in touch with you in the next day or so.”
Bertie nodded bleakly.
“I’ve checked out your gas and electric lines. You should have electricity by this afternoon, and the gas company will send a man sometime today to restart your furnace. In the meantime, you’re welcome to go inside, assess the damage, and contact your insurance company.”
Without waiting for a response, Rattner tipped his hard hat and walked back down the stairs. As he got into his car and drove away, Bertie hesitated on her porch, reluctant to face the devastation she was sure to find inside. Though Ellen had nagged her repeatedly to purchase a security system, she’d never quite gotten around to it. Who needed a burglar alarm when you had the O’Fallon sisters next door? Apparently, she did. Despite her bedrock belief in the fundamental good nature of human beings, something evil had happened here, right in her own house.
Bertie took a deep breath, unlocked her front door, and stepped inside. Ignoring the acrid smell of smoke in the air and the burn marks on the walls, she raced upstairs to the music room. When she saw that her Steinway grand piano had survived, Bertie’s heart soared. Thanks to the sprinkling system Delroy had convinced her to install, the instrument stood intact in the center of the room, its heavy plastic cover encased in a thin sheet of ice. Gently, she rolled back the cover and ran her finger over the keys. Severely out of tune, of course, from its unexpected encounter with the elements, but still functional.
Shivering in the cold, Bertie continued on to the third floor. Although her bedroom smelled faintly of smoke, she was relieved to discover that nothing had burned. She changed into a pair of old jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of work boots. Grabbing a pair of rubber gloves and a box of Hefty bags from the kitchen, she trudged down to
the basement to inspect the damage. Although the room remained structurally intact, Delroy’s African mask collection had been reduced to ashes along with his books and most of his files. Dragging an old electric heater out of the closet by the front door, Bertie hauled it downstairs and plugged it in. The fire marshal had promised her she’d have power before the end of the day. Sure enough, the heater sprang to life when she hit the “on” button, sending a small blast of warmth into the frigid room. Hopefully, someone from the gas company would arrive to turn on her furnace soon. In the meantime, Bertie was determined to get her house in some kind of order. After spending a minute rubbing her hands together, she began the unpleasant task of sorting through the debris scattered across the basement floor.
Two hours later, Bertie was throwing out the charred remains of what had once been Blackstone’s Law Dictionary when a thin manila folder caught her eye. Despite the odds, at least one of Delroy’s files had managed to survive the fire. Although much of it was missing, she could tell the file contained papers related to Dr. Momolu Taylor’s biography. On a sheet of note paper, Delroy had written check Taylor’s status with USCIS in red. Then he’d circled it.
What was USCIS anyway? Idly, she took out her iPhone and tapped the letters into her search engine. Instantly, the insignia of the United States Customs and Immigration Service filled the screen. Suddenly, her drunken prank of the night before seemed a lot less funny. What if Dr. Taylor really did have a secret to hide? Without proper papers, an African was likely to be deported in a heartbeat. Bertie began to comb through the jumble of papers on the floor with renewed intensity. But aside from a few scraps of paper from Taylor’s libel suit against WLS radio, she found nothing more.
An hour later, the doorbell rang. For the next twenty minutes, a burly inspector from People’s Gas went over her furnace and kitchen stove with a fine-tooth comb. When at last he pronounced them safe and turned her heat back on, Bertie nearly jumped for joy. As soon as he left, she fixed herself a hot cup of tea and continued sorting through the debris in the basement. The thought that the fire might have destroyed all the research Delroy had amassed in the course of writing his book was just too much to bear. Surely, she would be able to find something useful amid the debris.
It was nearly dark outside before she struck pay dirt. The scrap of paper was soggy and reeked of smoke, but it was still legible. Written in her husband’s loopy scrawl, it was dated March 13, 2012, a week before his death.
Taylor Bio questions
Relation to Liberian elite—Henries family denies. Omit?
Clinic not listed w/ Lib. ministry. If no listing, omit.
Immigration—no nat. form on record—check w/Theophilous. re legal implications
Clearly, Delroy had run into a series of problems trying to authenticate Dr. Taylor’s history. Although the doctor claimed royal ancestry, the Emir of Kano denied it. What’s more, the African clinic the doctor claimed to have founded was not listed with the Liberian Ministry of Health. Most damning, US Customs had no record of Taylor becoming an American citizen. Clearly Momolu Taylor was not the man he claimed to be, but what did any of this have to do with LaShawn finding isopropyl nitrite at the Princeton Avenue Clinic? Feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, Bertie swept another pile of sooty debris into a Hefty bag and carried it outside.
“How’re ya farin’ with the cleanup, Bertie?” Pat O’Fallon slammed her back door and bustled outside, an oversized trash bag in each hand. “Collie said we should come over and offer assistance, but I said to let you be. Let Bertie have some time to grieve, I said.” Spry as a teenager, despite her eighty-plus years, Pat O’Fallon lifted the lid of the large metal dumpster and flung her trash bags inside. “But now it’s a hot meal you’ll be wantin’. Collie’s got a stew on the burner. Supper’s in twenty minutes. Don’t be late.”
Ten minutes later, Bertie sat at the O’Fallon’s retro Formica-topped kitchen table, nursing a hot cup of tea.
“We thought ya might need a little somethin’ to keep yer strength up,” Colleen warbled gaily. “What with the fire and all.” Dressed in a pink nightgown, a blue chenille robe, a pair of men’s black dress socks, and ratty gray mules, Colleen O’Fallon stood in front of the stove, stirring a black cast-iron pot with a wooden spoon. As the fragrant cooking smells hit her nostrils, Bertie’s stomach growled appreciatively.
“Ya must be starvin’,” Pat said. “How about a wee nip. You’ve had a long, cold day over there, I’ll wager.” Without waiting for a reply, the old woman reached for the bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey standing on the counter and poured a splash into Bertie’s tea.
“It has been a long day,” Bertie said. “My entire basement is a shambles. Thank God the sprinklers came on. Otherwise, the whole house would’ve burned down.”
After ladling a steaming portion of lamb stew onto each plate, Colleen wiped her hands on the dishtowel hanging next to the sink and sat down next to her sister.
“I knew those lads were trouble,” she said. “Back in our school teaching days, we had a few of that sort, didn’t we, Pat?”
“Right hooligans they were,” Pat said.
“Lollygagging,” Colleen said, waving her fork for emphasis. “Those boys. Actin’ like they had nothin’ better to do but stand ‘round the corner in this freezin’ weather.”
“There were boys hanging around yesterday?” Bertie didn’t want to snap at the two old women, but she did wish they would get to the point. “What kind of boys?”
“Black boys,” Pat said. “I came out on the porch and gave ’em a good talking-to.”
“Sure she did,” Colleen said, spearing a potato with her fork. “And do you know what they said?”
“Such filthy mouths on the young people nowadays,” Pat said, shaking her head. “Back in my school teachin’ days, I’d a knocked some sense into ’em long before they got big enough to make mischief.”
Bertie forgot all about her food.
“Let me get this straight. You saw a group of boys hanging around my house right before the fire?”
In a rare moment of harmony, both sisters nodded.
“I told them to push off, but they didn’t,” Pat said. “So I went back inside. I bolted my door, but I kept watching.”
“We both kept watching,” Colleen said. “When we saw the smoke coming out of your basement, we called 911 straightaway.”
“Do you think you’d be able to recognize these boys if you saw them again?”
“They wore trainers with the laces untied and those baggy pants kids favor nowadays,” Pat said.
“Tell her about the handkerchiefs,” Colleen interjected.
“Handkerchiefs?” Bertie said. Once again, the O’Fallon sisters were talking in riddles.
“Not handkerchiefs, you idjit.” Pat shook her head impatiently. “Bandanas.”
“Is that what they call the rags kids put on their heads?”
“Yes, Colleen,” Bertie said grimly. “That’s what they call them.”
“Kids today don’t have a grain of sense,” Colleen said. “Wearin’ a red rag in the middle of winter. What kind of rank idjit does such a thing?”
The Conquering Lions gang, that’s who, Bertie thought. The Lions were the most powerful criminal organization on the South Side, and red bandanas were their signature fashion statement. People who got on the wrong side of the Conquering Lions often ended up in the morgue. Hoping the two sisters hadn’t noticed the sudden pallor in her complexion, Bertie thanked the women for dinner and rushed home.
Chapter Thirty
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2013—7:00 P.M.
Bertie locked and bolted her front door. Wearily, she climbed the stairs to the living room and sat down on the couch. Why would the South Side’s most powerful street gang want to torch her home? If there was any good news, she supposed it was that the Conquering Lions were not trying to kill her. If they’d wanted, they could have shot her dead at any time. Apparently, they’d chosen to set her house on fire
while she was out. Maybe the gang was trying to frighten her. If so, Bertie thought grimly, they had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Bertie pushed herself off the couch and had just begun to climb the stairs to her bedroom when she heard the doorbell ring.
Grabbing her purse, she pulled out her cell phone. If she did not see a familiar face at her front door, she’d call 911 immediately. Raising herself up on tiptoe, she squinted through the peephole. When she saw Detective Kulicki’s pale face looking back at her, Bertie could not remember being happier to see anyone in her whole life. After inviting him inside, Bertie led him up to the kitchen.
“As you can see, someone set my house on fire,” she told him, pointing out the burn marks and water stains that now lined her walls. “I think the Conquering Lions may be involved. My neighbors saw a bunch of kids wearing red bandanas hanging around the block just before the fire began.”
As usual, the detective looked tired and rumpled. He had a bad case of five o’clock shadow and bags under his eyes.
“The Lions rarely engage in arson,” Kulicki said. “Are you sure you don’t know anyone associated with a gang? One of your students perhaps?”
“I’ve seen gang members hanging around the campus,” Bertie said. “But not since Dr. Grant hired additional security guards. The only recent contact I’ve had with gangbangers were the ones I met when I visited the Upward Rise Program last week. Of course, that’s the whole point of the program—to give the boys an alternative to the lives they’ve been living on the streets.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Kulicki said. “I was on the gang task force before I transferred to homicide last year. Jawann Peters, the man who runs the program, has a criminal record as long as your arm. When Mr. Peters became assistant director at the Princeton Avenue Clinic, I warned Dr. Taylor about him. Obviously, the doctor chose to ignore me.”
Melody for Murder: A Bertie Bigelow Mystery Page 17