Her Brother's Keeper

by Sara Hoskinson Frommer

  “Our little town has been shocked by the death of David Zimmerman, a man most of us didn’t know until he arrived for what was to have been a joyous occasion, the marriage of his niece, Rebecca. We learned in the newspaper account about his failings, all most of us ever knew about him. But as a boy, he’d rescued his sister from bullies. In recent times, he was a dependable and valued worker to his employer. We’ll never know what would have happened in the rest of his life.

  “Was it his time to die? We don’t know that, either. But let the words of Ecclesiastes bring you comfort.” And he read the familiar passage about a time for every purpose under heaven. Well as she knew the words, Joan almost couldn’t hear them anymore without hearing the song they had become.

  From there he moved to words about the love of God and the importance of love. Her mind wandered, but she was able to join in again to recite the Lord’s Prayer.

  The organist ended the brief service with more Mozart. Joan assumed it was more, but in fact she hadn’t heard a thing before the service. Now she was listening. After the beginning of the Requiem, he broke into the “Alleluia” from Exsultate, Jubilate. It seemed an odd choice, in the circumstances. Had anyone warned this man that he was playing a service for a murder victim? But maybe it didn’t matter. In any case, it should make Alex happy.

  “You have my check?” Joan asked Fred. He patted his pocket and promised to take it up to the organ loft.

  What next? It wasn’t like a wedding, with a cake to celebrate the occasion, or even a funeral for someone beloved in the community, possibly with a meal afterward prepared by friends and family. For Dave, this was the extent of it. Joan felt at loose ends. She’d already greeted most of the people. She was glad to see Eric trot down the chancel steps toward them, his robe flapping around his legs.

  “Thank you,” she told him. “Thank you for keeping it so simple. You really heard me.”

  “I not only heard you, but agreed with you. Now be gentle to yourself. You did all you could.”

  “I’d better thank the people for coming.”

  “Sure, if you want to. But don’t put more pressure on yourself.”

  She smiled gratefully. “Oh, maybe you’ll know. The roses—did someone donate them for this service? Or are they for Sunday?”

  He glanced over at the flower stand. “No idea. Maybe there’s a card.”

  “Of course.” She’d have to check. But Andrew appeared at her elbow. “Andrew, would you take a look at the flowers up there? Look for a card?”

  He nodded and loped off. She saw him look, but rather than bringing anything back, he raised his hands and shrugged.

  She’d have to wonder. She turned back to find Pete and the others waiting.

  “We hate to rush off like this,” Pete said. “Is there anything we could do for you while we’re here?”

  She thanked him and told him how much it meant to her that he’d closed the shop.

  Jeff hugged her hard. “You find the jerk who done this to Dave, I’ll break his neck with my own hands,” he growled.

  Not the kind of thing she could very well thank him for. “I know you cared.”

  “You better believe it!”

  She hoped he would never hear that Helga was holding the bloody knife in her hand.

  “I don’t suppose those flowers came from you?” she asked Pete. He’d hardly had time. But he shook his head, as did the other two.

  “Nice touch,” Howard said.

  For a murder, Joan thought. “Have a good trip home. And thank you again.”

  After they left, Joan looked back and realized that Eric had left, too. And she hadn’t given him the check she’d written for him. She’d have to mail it to him. Probably just as well. A lot less awkward all the way around. She could put in a note about using it for the church if he preferred. But maybe not. The man could use a new pair of shoes for himself, she thought.

  “Aren’t you going to take the flowers home?” It was Chrissy, waiting near the door.

  “I don’t know that I can. They might be for the church. For tomorrow.”

  “No,” Chrissy said firmly. “They’re for Dave.”

  “Chrissy, you didn’t!”

  “I had to. I didn’t just like him. I loved him.” The tears spilled.

  “Oh, Chrissy.” Joan held out her arms, but Chrissy kept her distance. “I had no idea it was like that.”

  “We weren’t ready to announce it yet, but . . .”

  “I see. I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

  Chrissy wiped her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Chrissy, you should take the flowers.”

  “No, they’re for his family.” Her jaw was set.

  “Thank you. It means a great deal. But wait just a moment.” Joan went up to the flower stand and brought back the simple vase. She pulled out one white rose. “You keep this one, okay? To remember him by. And we’ll think of both of you when we look at the rest.”

  Chrissy nodded, tears welling up again. She accepted the rose and left, alone. Patty seemed to have disappeared.

  But maybe they don’t even live together. I know so little about these people, Joan thought. How could I have missed what was going on between Chrissy and Dave? Or was Chrissy imagining it? Alex could blow up his kind of flirting into more than it meant. Could Chrissy have done the same thing?

  She looked over at the corner where Ketcham had been sitting, but he was gone. Had he missed that whole exchange?

  Chapter 26

  At home, Joan set the flowers on Grandma Zimmerman’s old table. She wondered again whether Dave had even known he’d won this girl’s heart.

  And how had Patty reacted? She and Dave had been dating by the end of the year they’d spent in Oliver. Was she jealous of her daughter? Or was it only natural to look sad when an old boyfriend had been murdered? Not to mention the man her daughter had considered herself engaged to.

  She felt Fred’s touch on her shoulder and turned toward him.

  “You okay?”

  “I guess. The whole thing felt so weird.”

  “Yeah. Was that Jeff the guy who scared you on the phone?”

  Jeff. She’d almost forgotten Jeff. One look at him and she’d understood why he and Dave had the Elmer Fudd joke between them. Though the last thing he’d said had sounded more like the kind of threat that worried her. “You hear what he said?”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t want to cross him in a dark alley, would you? But in the daytime, he’s all bluster.”

  She nodded slowly. “Maybe. Or maybe the sweet face is a front. Still, there’s no way Jeff hurt Dave.” Why couldn’t she just say murdered him? Or stabbed him? But the words stuck in her throat.

  Fred nodded. Maybe he even understood her problem. He seemed to see right through her at the oddest times.

  Andrew poked his head into the kitchen. “Okay if I come in?” He’d changed back to jeans. Joan hoped he’d hung up the elegant suit, but she didn’t ask. Aside from wanting to treat him like the adult he was becoming, she knew it must have been hanging since he first tried it on. Not a crease on it this afternoon.

  “Come ahead,” Fred said, and started the coffeepot.

  Andrew pulled mugs out of the cupboard without being asked. “Did I hear right?” he asked. “Was Chrissy telling us she and Uncle Dave were kind of engaged? She’s not all that much older than I am.” And he was older than you, he didn’t say.

  Joan nodded. “I think so. She thought so, anyway.”

  He gave her a funny look. “She oughta know.”

  Joan’s eyes met Fred’s. “People can fool themselves sometimes,” he said.

  “You think she was making it up?”

  “Not making it up,” Fred said. “But he came on strong to some people.”

  Especially women, Joan thought.

  “Maybe she got it wrong,” Fred said. “Or took him more seriously than he meant.”

  “Maybe.” Andrew clearly wasn’t buying it.

  “We’l
l never know,” Joan said. And that was the worst of it. There was so much they’d never know now about her brother.

  “I wish I’d known him better.” Andrew was reading her mind. “Don’t you have some pictures of him when he was younger?”

  “Some, if I can remember where.”

  “Let’s look at ’em. To remember him by.”

  He was reading her mind. “Okay. I think I even know where to look.”

  She did. Fred’s coffee was still perking when they spread out the family albums on the big table. In fact, her parents had taken plenty of pictures of their firstborn as a baby and small boy. By the time she’d come along, their enthusiasm (and probably their available time) had shrunk. Her own small self was represented by far fewer baby pictures, but she thought Dave looked protective of her even in those.

  “He really loved you, didn’t he, Mom?” Andrew pointed to one in which Dave was supporting her on a playground horse that rocked on a spring.

  She smiled. They were sweet pictures. From before she could remember, but good to see anyway. And later came the big brother who soon would have done his best to protect her from the bullies. The only pictures of him doing that were in her own mind, but they were vivid.

  Fewer and fewer pictures as they grew older. It was true of her own children as well. Here, widely separated by their ages, were portraits of their first formal dances. A few pages later, Andrew exclaimed, “There’s Chrissy! How’d she get in here?”

  Joan looked. “She didn’t. That’s her mother, when she and Dave were dating.” But he was right. Chrissy was a dead ringer for Patty in her younger years.

  “She’s blonder than Chrissy.”

  “Yes.” Patty had always been a natural blonde. Was she still, or was she helping it along by now? It didn’t seem to matter. Maybe Dave had fallen for the girl he once knew when he saw her daughter, and Chrissy’s darker hair hadn’t mattered.

  “You think she was jealous?” He was still reading her mind.

  “Maybe. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Was she his first love?”

  “Would I know?”

  He laughed. “You mean, like does Rebecca know my secrets?”

  “Something like that. And you’ve got to remember how much younger I was. Dave sure didn’t confide in his kid sister.”

  “Any more than Rebecca told me anything. First I heard about Bruce was when you did.”

  “I told you as soon as I knew.” She smiled at him.

  “Yeah.” He flipped some more pages, but there were no more pictures of Dave after the last high school dance. Her own continued, though. A few during college, then graduation, then a couple of Ken. Their wedding pictures were in a separate scrapbook, she knew, but here were baby pictures of Rebecca and Andrew. And the last family portrait before their father’s death. Alone, she’d taken very few.

  “You two got shortchanged,” she told him. “There’s Rebecca’s college graduation, and yours from high school.”

  “Yeah. And the ones I took of you and Fred when you got married. We don’t have Rebecca’s wedding yet.”

  Had they even taken any? She’d blanked that out, too. She hoped someone had done it.

  He must have seen her face. “They took some ahead of time. Bruce’s mom hired a photographer, remember?”

  “No,” she confessed. “I hardly remember the wedding. You think they’ll give us any?”

  He laughed. “Rebecca will, but even Bruce’s mom would . . . well, his dad would, anyway.”

  “His dad’s a sweetie.”

  “Hey,” Fred objected. “What am I?”

  She stood up and kissed him. “You’re mine.”

  “All right then.” He poured her a mug of his potent brew.

  Andrew pulled another package of Fred’s sweet rolls out of the freezer. “Okay to heat these up?”

  Calories again. But his timing was great. She nodded, and he stuck them in the microwave.

  Sitting at the table with her men drinking Fred’s coffee and not even trying to resist his rolls, Joan felt sad again for Dave. Except for that old one of his childhood family, she hadn’t found any pictures among the papers they’d brought back from Pontiac. It was as if he’d never had a life. And now he never would.

  “You all right, Mom?”

  “No, but I will be.” She managed a smile. “Someday I’ll remember more about the wedding than the murder.”

  “At least you saw the wedding.”

  More or less. “And I heard Bruce play for Rebecca.” That she did remember. That and the murderous look it evoked from his mother. If that woman ever had any reason to go after anyone, Joan wouldn’t have put murder past her. “Did you know he was going to do that?”

  “Well, sure. I had to give him the violin.”

  “That’s right.” It came back to her now. “How did you keep it from the rest of us?”

  “The minister helped us hide the fiddle. Honest, Mom, that’s what Bruce calls it.”

  He would, of course. But it was a pretty ritzy fiddle. “I don’t remember seeing it after the wedding.”

  “Oh, the minister took charge of it then. Locked it in his study. I was glad I didn’t have to worry about it.”

  Me, too, Joan thought. Andrew had been too interested in Sally and Kierstin to be trusted with a valuable instrument.

  “You two mind if I take off for a while?” Fred asked.

  “Go right ahead,” Joan told him, knowing he didn’t really mean Andrew. “I’ll be fine.” The sadness had faded. Andrew was helping, of course.

  “If you’re sure.” He pulled on his coat and gloves and wrapped his scarf around his neck.

  “I’m sure.” And he was gone.

  “C’mon, Mom,” Andrew said. “You’ve still got me.”

  She plastered a smile on her face for his benefit, but in fact, she felt encouraged. Even if she never found out who killed her brother, she had a family. And now Bruce had joined it, and so far, she’d managed to tolerate his mother, for whom there might yet be hope.

  Chapter 27

  Fred pulled out his cell to call Ketcham. “Okay if I come to the station?”

  “We’re pretty busy here,” Ketcham said. That almost certainly meant Altschuler was at his elbow and would have kept them from talking. For that matter, if Fred had gone in, Altschuler might have rooked him into some kind of boring routine, even while preventing him from learning anything about the one case he cared about. “But I need to take a late lunch.”

  “I’m on my way.” He didn’t need to ask where. When he reached Wilma’s, he headed for the back booth. By the time Ketcham arrived, he’d buried his face in a handy newspaper, just in case he was spotted. No point in getting Ketcham in dutch. Not that there was much of anybody to notice them at this time of day. The place was mostly empty, except for a few college kids who’d found it served better food than the dorms and was a good place to hang out on a boring Saturday afternoon when school wasn’t in session.

  Fred settled for a cup of Wilma’s coffee, but Ketcham nodded when she suggested his usual burgers and fries.

  Once the food had arrived and he could be sure they wouldn’t be interrupted, Fred raised his eyebrows. “Any news?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice. We’ve gone though every last bit of evidence and talked to everyone but your mom. I’m not about to drag her back.”

  “For all the good it would do.”

  “Exactly. Even Altschuler knows that.” Ketcham dunked another fry in his ketchup. “I have to tell you, Fred, at this point I don’t know where to turn. It’s as if someone walked in there, stabbed him, and walked out again without anyone noticing.”

  “The dog didn’t bark?”

  “Nope. It was out back, playing with Laura.”

  “Out back? I thought she was answering the front door.”

  “Not by then. Once you were all over at the church, she took the dog out to play Frisbee in the park. That park is their backyard. All kinds of peop
le go through it, and the dog doesn’t bother barking except if it thinks it’s guarding the house. Laura wouldn’t think anything of strangers there, either. But she couldn’t describe anyone except a mom with some little kids heading for the playground. They wanted to pet the dog, and she was making sure it didn’t bite them.”

  “And that distracted her.”

  “Sure, but she didn’t have anything to be distracted from. She was just out playing.”

  “So she didn’t see anyone come in that back door, either?”

  Ketcham shook his head. “From what I could tell, a herd of elephants could have walked in. All she had to worry about was keeping out of the way while the grown-ups fixed that rehearsal dinner. How was it, by the way?”

  “Miserable. Not the food—but some of the people.”

  “Yeah. I met her, too. And your mother? Had she recovered?”

  Fred shrugged. “She’d lost the whole business. Was perfectly happy, especially when people started telling her what a good cook she was.”

  “She thought she’d cooked dinner?” Ketcham’s eyes lit up, and Fred could see where he was going.

  “No, they were buttering her up about her cooking at home. She’s not going to remember anything here.”

  Ketcham subsided. “Yeah.”

  “You get a chance to check out any of the Pontiac people?”

  “The warden’s not coming up with much. A few altercations. Dave spent some time in solitary after one of those fights. Warden did it as much to protect him as to punish him, though that’s not the official version.” He stopped to chew.

  “That guy out yet?”

  “Nope. A couple of others are, and they’ve done a pretty good job of disappearing. We’re still looking for them.”

  “How about Dave’s friends in town?”

  “Not so much as a parking ticket, even the one who scared Joan on the phone. I’d kind of thought they might have been in prison with him, but they just worked for Pete. And the only reason he knew Dave was their years in school together in Ann Arbor.”

  “College, too?” Fred asked. He knew about the high school.

  “No, they neither one finished college. Pete served three years in the army—never was sent overseas, though, and Dave flunked out at the end of his sophomore year at the U of M. Just high school buddies.”