I didn’t have to guess what had brought her to town. “I’m sorry for your loss.” With little else I could say, I fished a business card from my tote and handed it to her. “If there’s anything I can do while you’re here, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“Charmaine Digby,” she said, reading my card. “Yeah, I remember you from Duke’s.” She flicked the card at me. “And what exactly do you think you can do? Bring my boy back?”
“I-I’m sure there will be a coroner’s investigation after the …” I couldn’t bring myself to say autopsy to Russell’s mother, and I immediately regretted opening my big mouth.
Tears pooled in her dark eyes as the cords in her neck tightened. “There damn well better be. I want some answers!”
Looking as tentative as a man embracing a porcupine, Andy draped his arm over his mother’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Mitzi shrugged him off. “Russ was a good swimmer. That needs to be included in that investigation,” she said punctuating her statement by stabbing a stubby index finger two feet from my nose. “My boy could swim like a fish.”
Andy blew out a weary breath. “He could drink like a fish, too.”
“Dammit!” She looked up at him, teardrops spilling onto her cheeks. “Why am I the only one in this family who’s shedding a tear over your brother?”
“Maybe because you weren’t around for all his screw-ups and all the times I had to bail him out of jail. He was a drunk who couldn’t hold down a job. Hell, Dad even had to fire him … twice!”
Mitzi straightened, her chin jutted out like she wanted to ram it into the chest of her second-born. “Russell was not a drunk. He was in recovery and had been sober for three years.”
“How would you know?” Andy smirked. “It’s not like you’ve been around to check up on us.”
“Because I’m a recovering alcoholic and he was my sponsor.”
Holy crap. That had to mean that Mitzi Falco Walther lived nearby, and from Andy’s wide-eyed stare, this revelation came as news to him.
Pulling a tissue from her purse, Mitzi wiped her eyes. “Thank you for meeting me here.” She sniffed, her head held high. “I thought you might want to talk to the police with me, but I can see that I’m wasting your time.”
I watched Mitzi bolt past Andy. As she climbed into a white sedan and sped away, I looked up and saw that he had the same grim expression on his face as my ex had when he handed my divorce attorney the keys to the Jag.
I felt like I needed to say something to cut through the tension Mitzi had left in her wake. “Sorry to intrude on you and your mom. I’m sure you had a lot to talk about and my being here didn’t help.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s been a long time since I had anything to say to her.”
He turned to leave.
“Andy,” I called after him.
The lack of focus in his eyes as he looked back at me told me he was emotionally spent, but at least I had his attention.
“Do you think Russell was drinking again?”
“I don’t know. I hardly saw the guy.”
“He’d been living at the house with you, right?”
“Off and on for the last few months.” Andy licked his lips and then pressed them together. “I can’t really tell you too much.”
True, but that seemed like a deliberate choice.
He glanced over at the little boy with the ball. “Russ spent a lot of time on his boat.”
I handed Andy the business card his mother had thrown back in my face. “If you find any bottles or cans in his room, will you let me know? It could be important to our investigation.”
He stared down at the card. “There’s definitely going to be an investigation?”
“Of course.” One way or another.
He slowly nodded his head. The way he was drawing back his unshaven upper lip as he slipped my card into his shirt pocket gave me the distinct impression that this didn’t come as good news.
Sitting down again to eat my tuna sandwich, I watched Andy walk back to his truck. Clearly, he was a man caught in the middle of twenty years of family drama between his mother and his brothers. But what I’d just witnessed had raised my antennae because I’d seen a man with something to hide.
* * *
Six hours later, I arrived at Eddie’s. Since Steve’s pickup wasn’t in the parking lot and Rox was behind the high luster oak bar, I walked past a speaker reverberating with the Doobie Brothers rocking out China Grove and slid my butt onto my usual barstool.
“Hey, you’ll never guess who I saw today,” Rox said, placing a white bar napkin in front of me.
“Mitzi Falco.”
“Damn, girl. You’re good.” She held up two bottles. “Chablis or chardonnay?”
I pointed at the bottle of chardonnay. “I’m not that good. I ran into her during my lunch break.” I didn’t want to mention anything about Andy being there. Port Merritt’s gossip circuit was probably already heating up about Mitzi being back in town and I had no desire to throw another log on that fire.
“Didn’t really have a chance to say much more than hello.” Which was almost true. “Any idea where she’s living these days?”
After setting the glass of wine on the napkin, Rox rested her elbows on the bar. “I only saw her for a minute at the Red Apple, but a few months back someone mentioned something about her living in Bremerton.”
Bremerton was also home to a naval base, almost an hour away to the south. The largest town on the peninsula, Bremerton could have served as the perfect location for a woman who wanted to start a new life without being too far away from her old one.
I sipped my wine while Rox refilled a pitcher for the middle-aged guys in matching bowling shirts congregated in front of a flat screen TV.
When she returned to my end of the bar, I tried to pick up where we left off. “Bremerton, huh? I guess I never thought she’d be living that close.”
“I think that’s a recent development. There were rumors earlier this year that she married someone who works for the shipyard.”
“Did you hear anything about the boys attending the wedding?”
“Andy and Nate were loyal to their dad right to the end,” Rox said. “As far as I know, they haven’t talked to Mitzi in years. They definitely didn’t have the relationship with their mom that Russell had.”
“Really. Why do you say that?”
“Back in the day Mitzi used to be quite the drinker.”
No shit, Sherlock. Today was one of the rare times I had seen her sober.
“The Falcos lived across the street from Tammi Renner. Remember her from junior high?”
Not really, but I nodded to keep Rox talking.
“Tammi had a huge crush on Russell …”
Who didn’t?
“… and she thought he was all kinds of wonderful to drive his mom home and take care of her when she’d had one too many.”
“He was probably the only one of the boys old enough to drive,” I said.
“Yeah, but I’d always thought that it was more than that. You know, how some kids take after one of their parents more than the other one?”
“Yep.” Russell had certainly followed in his mother’s footsteps when it came to racking up a bar tab.
Based on what Mitzi had said today about Russell acting as a sponsor to support her through her recovery process, it sounded like they had both turned over a new leaf. At least until Russell’s efforts had been cut short last Saturday.
Rox’s gaze shifted to the door. “Hey, Steve. The usual?”
“Sure,” Steve eyed my wine glass as he sat down next to me.
I picked up the glass by the stem, holding it out of his reach. “Contrary to what you might think, this is not your usual.”
“You’re right, because only a girl would drink wine with pizza.”
I looked up at Rox as she set a foamy glass of beer in front of Steve. “I think I was just insulted.”
“I know
you were,” she said, winking at Steve on her way to the tap to refill another pitcher.
“Then again, there’s no pizza in front of me. There could have been had you been on time.” After I took a sip from my glass, I smiled sweetly.
“Sorry.” Reaching past me, he snagged a laminated menu from a rack at the end of the bar. “So what sounds good?”
I knew what I wanted more than anything else. “How about some conversation?”
Staring intently at the menu, he loudly exhaled. “Here we go.”
“Okay, I’ll start. I saw Mitzi Falco today.” I watched his face for a reaction. “Oh, excuse me. Mitzi … what’s her new married name … ?”
He angled his head toward me. “Is that supposed to be my cue?”
“Walther as you and I both know because she came to see you today.”
“Do you have my office staked out or something?”
“No, but it’s not a bad idea.”
“Did you kids decide what you want?” Rox asked, her pencil poised over her order ticket.
Steve ordered his favorite three-meat supreme pizza without asking for my input, so I took that as a clue that I wasn’t going to get much of anything that I wanted tonight. Then, as soon as Rox headed for the kitchen with our order, he picked up his beer and spun on his barstool to face me. “We’re not having this conversation here.”
He started walking toward a table in the back, and I grabbed my wine glass and followed him.
Leaning back in his chair, he stretched out his long legs under the table and folded his arms. “Okay, so you saw Mrs. Walther today.”
“And Andy … at Broward Park.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed, carving a crease between his eyebrows.
“Don’t give me the stern eyebrow look.”
Staring at me, his expression didn’t change.
“And don’t assume that I wasn’t working because I was.”
“Did I say anything?”
I waggled my finger at his brow. “Yes.”
He shook his head, but I saw a flicker of an uptick at the corner of his lips so I knew he wasn’t totally annoyed.
“And you were at the park … why?”
“I stopped there for lunch after delivering a subpoena. That’s when I saw Andy and his mother.”
He leaned toward me. “Since her oldest son just died, I wouldn’t make too much about her being in town.”
“Did she mention that Russell had been three years sober? Or the fact that he was a good swimmer?”
Steve shrugged a shoulder—his usual non-answer.
“Unless he recently fell off the wagon, I don’t think alcohol had anything to do with his death.”
“As I seem to have to remind you, there will be an autopsy and we’ll find out soon enough.” He reached for his beer.
“I know, but don’t you think it’s strange that Andy portrays Russell as this major screw-up, and his mother credits him for being her AA sponsor?”
“Family dynamics can be complicated, Chow Mein. Relationships can be complicated. You of all people should know that.”
“Yeah.” I should and I did, but were we talking about me and my mother, or the new friends with benefits phase in Steve’s and my relationship?
I didn’t need him to read anything into the apprehension that had to be etching a path across my face, so I stared into the depths of my wineglass.
“You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden,” he said, tapping my foot with his. “Was that enough conversation for you?”
“For now. If I want to talk some more, I know where to find you.”
His eyes darkened. “You can also find me if you don’t want to talk.”
If he was trying to improve my mood he knew exactly what to say.
“I could even pick up some ice cream on the way home. You know, if you save room for dessert.”
Yep, exactly what to say.
I drained my wineglass and scurried into the kitchen to ask Rox to make that a pizza to go.
Chapter Nine
“Are you going to stare at that menu all day or are you going to order somethin’?” Lucille asked, squeaking by me in her orthopedic shoes.
Ninety-year-old Stanley, one of Duke’s more senior regulars, sat next to me at his usual barstool. He stirred another sugar into his decaf. “Yeah. What’s up with you? Off your feed?”
Yes, because I’d kicked off my lunch hour with a drive-by of Tolliver’s Funeral Home, where I had a sighting of Dr. Zuniga’s canopied truck. The forensic pathologist’s igloo on wheels parked in Tolliver’s lot meant only one thing—Russell Falco’s autopsy was underway.
I might be the kind of deputy coroner who never got any closer to dead bodies than their blue file folders, but I’d heard enough grisly details from Karla to know what was happening four blocks away, and my stomach was churning.
Of course, last night’s wine, greasy pizza, and ice cream had given me three more reasons to pop another antacid and search the menu for something unlikely to make a sudden reappearance on my leather sandals.
“I’m fine,” I said, tucking the roll of antacids back in my tote.
Lucille narrowed her eyes at me as she topped off Stanley’s coffee cup. “You sure? Cause you don’t look so good.”
Stanley pointed his thumb at me. “She’s eating antacids.”
I glared at Stanley for ratting me out.
He pushed his thick horn-rimmed glasses back up his bulbous nose. “What? You are.”
Lucille’s gaze softened. “Aw, hon. Are you hung over?”
I handed the laminated menu to her. “I’m not hung over, and I’ll have two eggs scrambled.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re hung over all right.”
“I’m not hung over!” I said, raising my voice, and then I looked past Lucille and caught a scowl from my great-uncle Duke.
Darrell “Duke” Duquette, a twenty-year Navy veteran sporting a silver crew-cut, pointed his stainless steel spatula at me through the cut-out window above his grill. “You’re hung over? I swear, girl, you’re trying to get yourself fired from that new job of yours.”
Stifling a sigh, I slid off my stool to avoid exchanging barbs with the man from twelve feet away.
After I pushed open the swinging kitchen door I almost ran into my great-aunt Alice. She stuck her nose in my face and sniffed me.
Not quite as appealing as when Steve had done it, especially since he hadn’t been frowning at me like a disapproving school marm.
“You smell minty.” She cupped my face with her hands and peered into my eyes. “A little bloodshot, but lately that’s normal.”
Swell. My new normal.
Smiling, Alice patted my cheek. “Hello, sweetie.” A second later, she slanted her gaze toward her husband of fifty-two years. “Get off the girl’s case.”
Duke pulled an order ticket from the aluminum wheel over the grill and waved it at me. “What’s this then?”
Alice snatched my lunch order ticket from his hand and sucked in air as she read it. “Eggs! Oh, honey, are you pregnant?”
“No!” I could say that unequivocally having woken up this morning with some pre-menstrual bloat to accompany my queasy stomach. But beyond that, I didn’t need any pregnancy speculation out of one of the three people who knew that I’d been seeing Steve. “Sheesh, you two, can’t a girl order a couple of eggs? I could just be back on my diet.”
Duke rolled his eyes and then cracked two eggs onto the grill. “Sure.”
Okay, since I was eating cookies in this kitchen yesterday, that was a stretch even though it should have been true.
“Everything’s fine,” I said, trying to ignore the image in my head of Russell being filleted by Dr. Zuniga.
Alice arched an eyebrow. “I seriously doubt that. Your mom is still in town, isn’t she?”
I nodded. At least we weren’t talking about me anymore.
“Is she still planning to marry Barry?”
“Who knows?” I hadn’
t given up hope for kiss off week to work its magic, for both their sakes.
My great-aunt clucked her tongue. “I wish that girl would stop making these rash decisions.”
Me, too.
“She just got divorced,” Alice added.
Me, too—a month after my mother.
Alice opened the refrigerator I was standing next to and pulled out a pound of butter. “There’s no reason to rush into a new relationship. Anyone with an ounce of sense would know that now’s the time to take things slow.”
I thought about Steve and me. Had I rushed into something? Maybe not a real relationship, but a sex buddy fling I had no business thinking about? Day and night. “Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it.” Alice headed back toward her butcher block work table in the middle of the kitchen.
Given the fact that I didn’t have a crumb of prior experience with casual sex, truer words had never been spoken.
Duke plated my scrambled eggs. “Okay, what gives? You don’t show up for lunch yesterday and today you’re green around the gills.”
I took the plate from him and grabbed a fork from a drawer behind me. “Russell’s autopsy is today, probably going on right now.”
“Jeez! Sorry I asked. You don’t have to … you know … actually see anything, do you?”
I shook my head. “My job ended with calling the doctor who’s doing the … you know.” I didn’t want to say the word one more time today. I didn’t think Duke had the stomach for it any more than I did.
His eyes tracked Lucille as she tacked another lunch order to the wheel in front of him. “Poor bastard.”
“What do you know about Russell since he came back to town?”
“Nothin’ much. Came in to eat once or twice a week. Flirted with all the girls, but that was nothin’ new.”
I speared a mouthful of egg with my fork. “Since you’re so interested in people who are hung over …”
Throwing a couple of hamburger patties onto the grill, he shot me a dirty look.
“… did he ever look like he’d been drinking?”
Duke shook his head. “I think he’d put those days behind him.”
Mitzi would certainly agree.
Leaning against the counter behind the grill, he turned to me as I chewed. “Or am I wrong about that? Was he drinking that night?”
Wendy Delaney - Working Stiffs 02 - Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles Page 9