Gone But Knot Forgotten

by Mary Marks

  CHAPTER 8

  Saturday I woke to Crusher’s beard tickling my face as he kissed me. I rolled into his arms.

  “Babe, I want to wake up like this every morning. Marry me.”

  I wanted to wake up every morning like this too. I mean, who wouldn’t? But what did I really know about this man? “We should get to know each other better.”

  “What’s to tell? I’m forty-eight years old, never been married, and have no kids. I was born in Brooklyn and went to yeshiva until I turned eighteen. Then I left home, traded my black hat for red boots, and joined the Israeli Army Special Forces. I left the army and traveled around the world, working security for El Al. I came back to the States when I hit forty.”

  I stared at him with my mouth slightly ajar.

  “What? You want more? I’m not a heavy drinker and I don’t do drugs anymore. Five years ago I opened the bike shop. Sometimes the cops come around and hassle me. I’ve even been busted a couple of times, but they’ve never proved anything. Why do you think that putz Beavers has such a hard-on for me? Trust me, babe, I’m a nice guy.”

  I propped myself on my elbow and looked at him wide-eyed. “You’re seven years younger than me?”

  His laughter rose from deep inside his barrel chest and shook the bed. “If age is the only thing you’re worried about, we should call the rabbi tomorrow.”

  He pulled my body closer when the phone rang. I reluctantly picked it up.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” said Lucy. “You ready for another day at work? Birdie and I will be over in five minutes.”

  Holy crap! I’d completely forgotten about going to Harriet’s. The clock on the dresser read nine. “Uh, Lucy? Can you come in half an hour instead?” I flapped my hands frantically, motioning for Crusher to get out of bed. ”I just woke up and it’ll take me awhile to get ready.”

  “Babe.” Crusher reluctantly moved his six-foot-six body to an upright and vertical position.

  “Who’s there?” Lucy said. “Did I hear a man’s voice in the background?”

  Darn.

  “No, no one’s here. I just cleared my throat.”

  “I don’t believe you. Birdie and I are on the way.”

  Before I could tell her to wait, she hung up the

  phone.

  “My friends said they’ll be here in five minutes, which means ten, fifteen if I’m lucky. If I take a really fast shower and get ready, maybe you can hide in the bedroom until we leave. I don’t want them to know you were here. I could give you an extra key and the alarm code to lock up. Would you help me out here?”

  The skin tightened around Crusher’s mouth. “You ashamed of something?”

  I hurried out of bed. “No, I’m just not ready to face questions I don’t have answers for.”

  He thought for a moment and then looked at me. “No.”

  “No what, for God’s sake?”

  “No, I’m not that guy. I’ve already met your friends, remember?”

  Time was slipping by. “Fine.” I grabbed my bathrobe and huffed my way into the shower.

  Three minutes later I toweled off while Crusher showered. The doorbell rang. “Just a minute,” I shouted, even though I knew they couldn’t hear me.

  I jumped into my jeans and a T-shirt and ran to open the front door with wet hair. Two men wearing suits and serious expressions stood there. The older one was obese and the younger one seemed bored.

  The fat one pulled out a badge. “Mrs. Rose? I’m Detective Gabe Farkas and this is Detective Frank Avila from the West LA Division of the LAPD. May we come in?”

  I opened the door wider and stepped aside. “What’s this about?”

  “You’re the executor of Mrs. Harriet Oliver’s estate?”

  I nodded. “You said West LA. Did something happen at Harriet’s house?”

  “No. The house is fine.”

  What, then? I led them to the kitchen. “I’m making a pot of coffee. My friends will be here shortly.”

  “Go ahead. This will only take a minute.”

  I filled the carafe with water.

  “We received a call this morning from the mortician at Gan Shalom Memorial Park. He used to work as a coroner’s assistant and noticed something suspicious about Mrs. Oliver’s remains.”

  I put down the carafe so abruptly water spilled over the edge. “What did he find?”

  Farkas glanced quickly toward Avila and then back at me. “As he laid out the bones in the coffin, he noticed a crack in the hyoid. The bone split apart when he tugged the ends. He got curious and looked at the fracture under a magnifying glass. He believes the break occurred before death, so he notified us.”

  I knew it. Something bad happened to Harriet. I shuddered at the vision of her body reduced to bones. Although I knew the answer to my next question from watching a hundred cop shows on television, I needed Farkas to confirm it. “What exactly is the significance of a broken hyoid bone?”

  “The bone in the throat breaks when someone is strangled.” Crusher had walked into the kitchen in time to hear the last part of the conversation. He wore clean clothes from an overnight bag: jeans, a black T-shirt, a red bandana on his head, and his feet were bare.

  I looked at Farkas. “Is he right?”

  He measured Crusher with a surprised glance and nodded.

  “Are you telling me Harriet Oliver was strangled?” I felt woozy and wobbled a little.

  Crusher reached me in two steps and put an arm around my shoulders, supporting me like a huge bear, smelling faintly of lemon verbena soap. In real life I stood five feet two inches and wore a size sixteen, but standing next to him, I became a petite size four.

  Farkas cleared his throat. “The coroner picked up her remains an hour ago. He wants to examine this new evidence.”

  “It’s not new evidence,” I said. “It’s evidence he missed in the first place. And anyway, her funeral is scheduled in two days. Monday. You can’t make her miss her own funeral.”

  Farkas scratched the side of his head with his finger. “Well, yeah, the coroner can do pretty much whatever he wants.”

  I jammed my fists on my hips and thrust my head forward, preparing for a fight. He raised a calming hand. “But the exam won’t take long. He just wants to confirm the mortician’s findings. He assured us Mrs. Oliver will be returned by Monday.”

  “Well, what about the stupid coroner? With three whole weeks to examine her body, how could he miss such an obvious clue?”

  Farkas took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Now, far be it from me to criticize the overweight. They are my people, but this poor man needed to lose some serious pounds.

  Detective Avila opened a file and looked inside. “The autopsy report shows an unknown cause of death. The coroner wrote cardiac failure as a probable cause.”

  “I know what the report says, Detective. I have a copy. Just so you know, your heart always stops beating when you die. Cardiac failure occurs in one hundred percent of deaths. What the report doesn’t say is why everyone assumes she died of a heart attack. The coroner didn’t have an organ to examine. Were there medical reports in the file indicating she suffered heart problems?”

  The detectives looked at each other but didn’t respond.

  I put my hands on my hips and leaned forward. “Exactly. Someone at the county coroner’s, who should have known better, got lazy and screwed up. At least the mortician paid attention, thank God. Otherwise, evidence of Harriet’s murder would have been buried along with her body.”

  Farkas closed his eyes briefly. “Look, I can understand your frustration. The shooting at the LA airport happened around the time Mrs. Oliver’s remains were discovered. The coroner processed an unusual number of bodies that week. Stuff happens. Things sometimes get overlooked.”

  I opened my mouth to complain, but he kept on talking.

  “Right now we consider Mrs. Oliver’s house to be a crime scene. Nobody can go inside until we’re through investigating. I’m asking you to pleas
e give me the key to the house.”

  “How long will your people be there?”

  “Probably a couple of days.”

  “Some very valuable items are sitting in her house. I hired private security guards to watch the premises twenty-four/seven. I don’t want to leave the house unprotected.”

  Avila took a wide stance and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “We’ve already talked to Hector Fuentes. He can stay, but he can’t enter the house.”

  I blinked. “Who the heck is Hector Fuentes?”

  “Malo,” Crusher said.

  “Oh.”

  I pulled Harriet’s house key out of my purse and held it up. “I want you to call the minute you’re finished with the house.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will.”

  I wasn’t through with him yet. “And good luck with your crime scene, Detective. You’re ten months too late. We’ve been all over the house and our fingerprints are everywhere. But I did save you the job of vacuuming. Your forensics people will find a million dead flies to process in the vacuum cleaner.”

  He handed me his business card. “Can you give me the key now?”

  As Farkas and Avila walked toward their car, Lucy and Birdie arrived at my front door. Lucy pointed to the detectives. “Is one of them the man’s voice I heard over the phone?”

  “No,” said Crusher from the kitchen.

  Lucy and Birdie stepped inside. He stood in his bare feet, chopping potatoes.

  Lucy raised her eyebrows and looked at me. “Okaaaay, then.”

  While Crusher cooked, we drank our coffee and talked at the kitchen table.

  Lucy said, “I’ve been thinking. You know the three of us took one whole day to search the downstairs. We’ll probably spend another day going through the upstairs. If the killer came alone, how many days do you suppose he spent rummaging through Harriet’s house?”

  I put my cup down. “I see where you’re going, Lucy. While the killer searched the house, Harriet’s body lay in her closet. He could’ve hunted for several months after he killed her, returning multiple times.”

  Birdie grabbed her braid. “Mercy. While the body decomposed?”

  Crusher put a large plate of scrambled eggs, cottage fried potatoes, and half a loaf of challah, dotted with little black raisins, in the middle of the table. He took one look at our faces. “Come on, ladies. Forget the gory details for now and have something to eat.”

  My grandmother always used to offer food as comfort. “You remind me of my bubbie.” I smiled. “Thanks for going to all this trouble, Yossi.”

  He bent and kissed me. Right in front of my friends. So much for keeping our relationship on the down low. Crusher had just marked his territory.

  I blushed, Lucy raised her eyebrow, Birdie tittered, and Crusher sat and ate. A lot. So did I, in spite of the disturbing new information that my old friend, Harriet Oliver, had been strangled to death.

  CHAPTER 9

  Since Farkas had barred us from returning to Harriet’s, Lucy and Birdie went home.

  When we were alone again, Crusher said, “I like your idea this morning about becoming better acquainted.” He put his hand up the back of my T-shirt and fiddled with the snaps on my 36 DD bra. “Let’s spend the rest of the day getting to know each other a lot better.”

  My body vibrated like a violin string, but duty called. Now that I knew Harriet had been murdered, I wanted to examine her personal papers. I pointed to the cartons of mail on my living-room floor and the stack of papers Birdie had gathered from Harriet’s desk yesterday. “I have to sort through all this.”

  Crusher grunted and withdrew his hand. “Okay, I’ll be back later.” He put on his boots (at least a size sixteen) and a flannel shirt against the cold (a lot of plaid for a man his size).

  I frowned. “How do you know I’ll even be here later? Are you trying to move yourself in? Call me conservative, Yossi, but aren’t we jumping into this relationship a little too fast?”

  “Too fast for who? I told you four months ago I wanted you to be my woman.”

  “Yeah, but we’d only known each other for two weeks.”

  “Look, Jacob loved Rachel the moment he set eyes on her. Then he worked for fourteen years before he could have her. As far as I’m concerned, I’m ready. If you’re not, then I’ll wait. I’m your Jacob.” He pulled me onto his lap and kissed the crease in my neck, sending chills through my body. “Just please don’t make me wait fourteen years. I’ll be an old man by then.”

  I knew the biblical story well. Even as a little girl I’d hoped for a Jacob of my own, someone who’d love me forever. However, starting with my divorce from Aaron Rose, through a couple of failed relationships, to my breakup with Beavers, I scored 0 for 4 in the lifetime commitment department. I was so over the notion of undying love.

  I kissed him and then stood. “I guess I’ll see you later.” I smiled.

  After Crusher left, I went in the bedroom to straighten up. I noticed, with some irritation, he’d hung his good clothes in my closet and left his grooming kit on my bathroom counter. I picked up his double-edged razor and studied the little red hairs sticking to the blades. I squirted some of his shaving foam on my fingertips and breathed in the lemony masculine scent so different from my oils and sweet perfumes. Could I make room for him in my closet? In my life? By leaving his stuff here, Crusher, aka Yossi Levy, invited me to consider the answer.

  Back in the kitchen, I emptied the first cardboard box of mail on the table and sorted through the pieces one by one. Catalogs, ads, and obvious junk went back into the carton for recycling. Only five pieces of mail looked important. I put those in a keep pile. The next two cartons yielded a similar result. When I finished sorting through the mail and the papers from her desk, the keep pile contained seventeen letters.

  I used my white plastic UCLA letter opener on the first envelope. Correspondence from Abernathy, Porter & Salinger dated November 3, about a month ago, advised Harriet her signature was due on some investment transactions. This must have been the letter Abernathy first told me about. He’d become concerned when Harriet didn’t respond. He drove to her house and discovered her body.

  Ten large manila envelopes dating from February through November were sent by Abernathy et al. They contained monthly financial summaries, including income and expense statements. Who was to say those statements were accurate? Harriet’s isolated lifestyle made her an easy target for fraud and embezzlement. I’d hire a forensic accountant to go over all her financials.

  In June, Harriet received two birthday cards. One from a dentist in Beverly Hills and another from Isabel Casco, her college roommate. My eyes stung as I realized how small Harriet’s world had become. Only one friend cared enough to wish her a happy birthday, and it hadn’t been me.

  I came across three pieces of mail dated around the time of Harriet’s death. Although they were in the boxes with the unopened mail, they’d already been opened. The first envelope came from the International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. Lucy, Birdie, and I once visited the museum there. We’d flown to Paducah, Kentucky, to attend the American Quilters Society annual show. Afterward we rented a car and drove in a big circle through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, looking to buy vintage quilts. We made a special trip to the IQSC in Lincoln. Why did the IQSC send Harriet a letter?

  January 17

  Dear Mrs. Oliver,

  Thank you for sending the photo of this fascinating quilt. I won’t be able to authenticate either the age or provenance until I can examine the quilt. Afterward, I can provide you with an appraisal.

  Judging by the signatures on the red and white blocks, you appear to have a friendship quilt. The central block with a circle of thirteen stars on a blue square is especially intriguing. This may indicate the quilt dates back to Colonial times. As you know, the first American flag featured the same design.

  I will send the photo to a friend of mine, who is the curator of American Quilts in the Smithsonian, for her opinion an
d let you know what she says. You may have something rather unique.

  Very truly yours,

  Anne Smith, Curator

  International Quilt Study Center

  Birdie had observed an avid collector of Early Americana should have owned some quilts. According to this letter, Harriet did have at least one and had sought an expert appraisal. A quilt made so long ago would be quite valuable.

  Friendship quilts had been made in some form or another since Colonial times. Occasionally, when a new bride left home or when a friend or relative moved away from their community, loved ones gave them a quilt as both a remembrance and a practical gift. Each friend contributed a block for the top. Sometimes the blocks were signed, like a going-away card, only in fabric. When the industrial revolution and the westward expansion created a mobile population, friendship quilts were assembled for those preparing to travel far from their roots.

  Was this the “old quilt” Estella said she wanted? As soon as the police permitted us to return to Harriet’s, I’d search the upstairs thoroughly. The quilt might be stashed in some drawer or closet. Or maybe it lay on one of the beds underneath the duvet, especially if Harriet knew the best way to store a fragile old quilt was unfolded and out of the light. If the quilt hid anywhere in her house, I’d find it.

  Dr. Anne Smith sent another letter a week later.

  January 28,

  Dear Mrs. Oliver,

  I enjoyed our conversation yesterday regarding your remarkable quilt. Today I consulted with my friend, Dr. Naomi Hunter, curator of American Quilts at the Smithsonian. She is most anxious to examine this possibly historic item of great significance. I will call you to arrange a time when we may come to Los Angeles to visit you.

  Warmest regards,

  Anne Smith

  Judging from the date of this letter, Harriet was still alive on January 27 when she spoke to Dr. Smith. Another letter arrived two weeks later from the Smithsonian.

  February 13