Flipped For Murder

by Maddie Day

  “Heard you were digging in the library archives yesterday.”

  “So? It’s a public library.” I smiled to try to soften my remark. No point in getting heated up about a police officer asking me questions. “A very nice public library, too.”

  “Yup.”

  “Have you made any progress in finding Stella’s murderer?” I asked.

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Is there something specific you wanted to ask Robbie?” Jim asked with a frown.

  “You don’t need to go all lawyer on me now, Shermer. I was only making polite conversation.”

  Right. I gave a little laugh, then spied Don walking toward us. Uh-oh, again. I was not going to ask him about my father . . . or about the quarry incident. I was not. Not here, not now.

  “What a beautiful service it was,” Don said with a mournful air after he’d said hello. “Just beautiful.” He wore a dark suit with a tie featuring little pictures of his hardware store on it, and the wind wasn’t being nice to his comb-over.

  I looked at him. I wanted to say, “Seriously?” But I kept my mouth shut. The service struck me as impersonal, full of institutionalized ritual meaningless to me, and the church had smelled of funeral flowers. Well, who knew? Maybe Don really had found it beautiful. And I supposed the faithful of the church found comfort in the ritual.

  “How are you, Don?” Buck asked.

  “Just feeling sad about poor Stella, bless her soul.” He shook his head. “And poor Roy, there.” He pointed with his chin.

  I glanced at Roy and a bad thought popped into my head. “Does he inherit Stella’s house?” I asked, looking at the three men one by one. Roy wouldn’t have killed his own mother to get her house. Would he? He was the one who found the body, after all.

  “I would assume so,” Jim said. He narrowed his eyes and studied my face like his brain just lit on the same idea as mine. “Depends on if she left a valid will. If not, he’s next of kin. Buck, you know anything about a will?”

  Buck hesitated for a tiny, little minute. “Not at liberty to say at this time.”

  I’d bet a gold-plated sand dollar his hesitation meant he didn’t know bug-all about the will.

  My stomach let me know in no uncertain terms it was lunchtime as I surveyed the funeral reception spread laid out in the American Legion hall. I didn’t see a sign indicating who the caterer was. Somebody must have paid a nice chunk of change for all this food, though. I slid into line behind Corrine Beedle, who was too busy chatting up the man in front of her to notice, and grabbed a plate. A couple of minutes later my plate was heaped with crispy fried catfish from a chock-full warming pan, a pile of coleslaw glistening with mayo, and a nice mound of potato salad. Holding a plate with the same offerings, as well as a couple of rolls and a hunk of the squash casserole I’d taken a pass on, Corrine glanced to her left and noticed me at last.

  “Robbie, good to see you.” She held up her plate. “Food looks good, doesn’t it? Come on, let’s sit down together.”

  I said hello, while at the same time noticing Jim waving from a table across the room. “Join Jim and me, then.” I led the way, with Corrine’s heels clicking on the linoleum behind me. Two men approached the table before we got there. Don, holding a bottle of beer, sat and began talking to Jim. The other stood with his back to me. When we drew closer, I saw it was Ed Kowalski.

  “Ah, Robbie, Corrine.” Ed, also gripping a beer bottle, raised his Stroh’s in salute. He wore a pin on his lapel that looked like a cat’s pawprint and had BCAS written across it.

  “Ed, Don, lovely to see you both,” Corrine said. “Sit on down, Ed.”

  Ed turned a chair around and straddled it.

  Don smiled at me, but he didn’t include Corrine in the afterglow. “Madam Mayor,” he said curtly.

  “Well, I’ll be a corncob’s cousin. So you’re finally talking to me again, Don?” Corrine set her plate on the table and extended her hand. “What’s past is past, right?”

  Don shook her hand, but it looked like it was the most reluctant move he’d made in a long, long time.

  “No hard feelings?” Corrine kept hold of his hand for way longer than necessary.

  “No hard feelings,” Don said, grimacing. After Corrine relinquished it, he wiped his hand on his pants leg and loosened his tie.

  “What’s the pin for, Ed?” I asked.

  His face softened as he patted the pawprint pin. “Brown County Animal Shelter. I volunteer with the cats and dogs nobody wants. I feed the strays and pet them. Take them to get their shots. Animals are so much easier to deal with than humans, don’t you think?”

  “I just took in a stray this week,” I said. “You remind me that I should get him to the vet to make sure he gets whatever shots he needs.” I sat and took a bite of the catfish. The coating was crisp and the flesh firm and succulent. I tasted a hint of dill and maybe a dash of hot pepper.

  Ed cleared his throat. “How are you all liking the catfish?” His face looked redder than usual. Maybe that wasn’t his first beer of the day.

  I swallowed the bite in my mouth. “It’s delicious.”

  “Great catfish,” Jim mumbled through a mouthful.

  “Do you know who catered?” I asked.

  “Why, we did. Kowalski’s Country Store.” He beamed. “Usually, the ministry buys and cooks the meat, and supplies bread and drinks. Other church members are called to provide side dishes and desserts. To the family of the deceased, this is a great blessing in their time of sorrow.” He appropriately lost the smile. “But as a prominent business owner and permanent deacon of Our Lady, I was asked to take over the ministry’s role. I told them I might as well provide the sides and desserts, too. It was the least I could do.” He folded his hands around his beer bottle as if it were a holy icon.

  “That was very generous of you, Ed,” Jim said with a wry smile.

  A full-figured young woman in a black skirt and white blouse straining at the buttons circulated with a tray of full plastic glasses. “Wine or cider?”

  I took a cup of red wine, as did Jim, while Corrine helped herself to cider.

  “I’m on the job, you know,” she said. “The mayor is always working.”

  Don grimaced and looked away, taking a swig of his beer. Then he looked back at Corrine. “I’m surprised you didn’t offer remarks during the service. About your valuable assistant and how much you’ll miss her.”

  Jim and I exchanged a quick glance.

  “I didn’t feel called to do so. I’ve expressed my feelings privately to her son, of course.” Corrine took a sip of her cider.

  “Oh, of course,” Don said.

  I looked from face to face. “So, who do you think killed Stella? You all knew her better than I did.” I sipped my wine and waited.

  “I’m putting money on some long-lost lover who came back to see her and knocked her off when she spurned him.” Ed pursed his lips and nodded slowly, as if he’d given the matter great thought.

  “Really?” Corrine dismissed that idea with a wave of her hand. “No, it’s going to be someone local, mark my words.”

  “Come on,” Ed said. “We all know she wasn’t America’s sweetheart, but a killer right here in South Lick? I don’t think so.”

  Don swallowed and stood. “Excuse me, folks. I’m going to see if Roy is all right.”

  I watched where he headed, curious if that was only an excuse to avoid the topic, but, in fact, he beelined it for Roy, who stood alone, somehow in possession of a beer in each hand. Catching sight of Adele on the other side of the hall, I waved. She waved back and returned to her conversation with the couple she sat with. I still needed to talk with her about Roberto and Mom. Not here, though. And I was still hungry. But after I took a bite of the coleslaw, I wished I hadn’t. The cabbage was limp and a little sour, and a greasy mayo overwhelmed any other flavors. I returned to the fish, not sure I should even try the potato salad.

  Corrine looked up at Ed. “When are we going shooting ne
xt?” She winked as she pointed a finger gun at him.

  Ed’s gaze darted at Jim and then at me. “Fall’s my busiest season; you know that, Corrine. Probably can’t get out until next month sometime.”

  “It’s ruffed grouse season right now. And quail opens November eighth. Your loss.”

  “You have fun without me, then.” Ed eyed me. “You have any plans to serve catfish, Robbie?”

  “Not with this delicious dish five miles away. I’ll let you corner the market.”

  “Excellent plan,” Ed said. He took a swig from his beer.

  “People are loving my gourmet burgers, so that’s a good niche for me.” I smiled across the table at Ed. “And my breakfasts, of course.”

  He blinked a few times with an unpleasant pull to his mouth. “Of course.”

  I wiped my hands with a towel and used it to open the restroom door, then propped it open with my foot while I tossed the towel into the wastebasket. Working as a chef created clean-hand habits that endured even when I wasn’t cooking. Letting the door shut behind me, I was about to head back to the reception when I paused in the deserted back hallway to examine a large black-and-white mosaic laid into the white-tiled floor. A black circle of tiny tiles held an ornate capital E, also in black, on a background of tiny white tiles, with a squished black ornate C written through the E. The hall wasn’t heated and I rubbed my hands together to warm them as I examined the mosaic. I heard footsteps and turned.

  “This used to be the Elite Club Casino back in the Roaring Twenties,” Don said, also gazing at the mosaic.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I said, fanning my face with one hand. My thudding heart wasn’t only from my being surprised, though. I was alone with a man who’d known my father.

  “Sorry.” He moved to the other side of the circle. “Didn’t mean to. I love this building. Built in the heyday of the spas, more than a hundred years ago.” He’d removed his tie and unbuttoned his jacket, and his comb-over could have used freshening up.

  “This mosaic is pretty cool. So the E with the C is for Elite Club?”

  “It is. They gambled and drank and danced up a storm. There was another Elite Club down in French Lick, but this was the mother ship, the first one built.” He pointed to the wall. “See that button?”

  An old-style push button in a small frame was set into the wall at about my eye level. Somebody kept the fixture’s brass polished and it, along with the tile, made me want to put on one of those dropped-waist flapper dresses with the fringe, add a forehead band, and sip a glass of moonshine.

  “After Prohibition started in 1920, they’d sometimes get raided by the cops. If the police showed up, the receptionist would push the button, which set off a signal letting customers know they needed to split out the back door.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “Quite the system.”

  I mustered my inner courageous being and took a deep breath. “Don, I have a question for you about what happened not a century ago, but a few decades ago.”

  He glanced at me for the first time since we’d been in the hallway. “You do, do you?” His eyes looked as worried as the first time I met him.

  “You knew my father, Roberto Fracasso.” I tried to keep my voice from wobbling. I shivered, whether from the chilly air or from nerves I couldn’t tell, and clasped my left elbow with my right hand.

  “I did.” He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. “You look just like him, you know.”

  “I saw a picture of you and my mom with him. I wished you’d said something to me about him. After I moved here, I mean.”

  “I figured your mother would have told you.”

  “She never did. And now I can’t ask her.” I swallowed and blinked away sudden moisture in my eyes. “I read about the quarry accident, and how you saved him.”

  “Yeah.” Don looked down at the tiles again.

  “How bad were his injuries? The news article said something about a possible spinal cord injury. Was he in the hospital long? Was he paralyzed?”

  “He survived and then went back to Italy.”

  “That’s all you know? Didn’t you visit him when he was hospitalized?”

  “I didn’t.” His mouth slid to the side like he was chewing the inside of his lip.

  “Mom must have.” I pictured her sitting at his side, holding his hand, stroking his brow.

  “I guess she must have.”

  “Did Roberto know about me? Have you had any contact with him since then?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, and no. You’re asking too many questions.”

  “Really? I find out after twenty-seven years who my father is. I discover you knew him, were friendly with him. Yeah, I have questions.”

  “Robbie, that was a long, long time ago. Your mom dumped me for him. You think I’d want to ‘keep in touch,’” he said, surrounding the last words with finger quotes, “with this ‘so-called friend’? With the handsome foreigner who stole my girl?”

  Chapter 18

  When I returned to the reception hall, after Don turned and strode in the opposite direction, after I’d recovered a semblance of calm, I was grateful to see people were leaving. I needed to be in the store before closing time at two-thirty, so I walked out with Jim, but declined a ride home. This was the kind of day my brain needed a bit of fresh air and exercise to recover from, even though my too-short stroll didn’t do much to clear the mind. I was still rattled by my encounter in the hall with Don.

  “How was lunch? Quiet?” I asked Phil ten minutes later, who was wiping down the tables. “Seemed like everybody in town was at Stella’s service.”

  He shook his head. “Busy. A bus full of seniors came in, and I’m talking a full-sized bus. We were totally booked. Sold out of almost everything, and made a couple three cookware sales, too.”

  “Great news for the bottom line,” I said.

  “You need to order in for tomorrow, if it isn’t too late,” Danna added from the sink, where she was loading up the industrial dishwasher.

  “I guess it’s a good problem to have. We’re heading into the weekend, so I’ll contact the supplier right away.” I put down my purse and tugged at the drawer in the antique desk, where I kept my tablet, but it wouldn’t open. I whacked at it and jiggled it with no result.

  “That drawer all whopperjawed?” Phil asked, moving toward the desk.

  “What?”

  “Whopperjawed. Out of alignment. Stuck.”

  I nodded and watched as he treated the drawer more gently, finally opening it.

  I thanked him and retrieved my tablet. “So I need to order buns, salad stuff, cheese?” After Danna nodded, I tapped those in. “What else? I have plenty of frozen patties.”

  “Pickles. I think we’re okay for breakfast tomorrow,” Danna said. “But order more OJ, eggs, and bread for the weekend.”

  I entered those as Phil sang a song I didn’t recognize, then I took the tablet into the walk-in and did a survey there.

  “How do tuna burgers sound as a Friday special?” I asked as I emerged. “I saw a recipe that looked good, and I might try lamb burgers on the weekend, too.”

  “Sounds delish,” Phil said.

  I added a few more ingredients to my list. “Thanks, you guys. Go on home, I’ll finish up,” I said. “I owe you, Phil,” I added.

  He blew me a kiss. “I will exact an appropriate price from my friend,” he sang to the tune of “Oklahoma.”

  After they left, I locked the door, turned the sign to CLOSED, and sank into a chair. So Don was still angry with Roberto all these years later. And with my mom, I supposed. Damn. I forgot to ask him about her pen. If he owned one, they must have been in touch, so he couldn’t have been all that mad at her. I doodled on the pad in front of me. Bloomington Hospital. Will they give me my father’s records? His Italian address at the time?

  A long, exhausting bike ride would calm me down and clear my brain. I could ride to Bloomington and find their records department. But that would take th
e rest of the afternoon and I had a business to run. I doodled for another minute, then I decided I could call them now and drive over once my ordering and prep were done. Oh, and take the day’s till to the bank.

  Two minutes later I disconnected in frustration. The woman in the records department, a Marie somebody, was distinctly unhelpful. She didn’t care that I said Roberto was my father. More likely, she didn’t believe me, pointing out the obvious that we had different last names, and that she could only release records to proven next of kin. Damn it all to heck and gone. I couldn’t prove it if I couldn’t find him. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to talk to this man who had abandoned me—if he’d even known about me. At the same time, I longed to meet him, see the person I’d gotten half my genes from, especially now with Mom gone. Maybe Adele would sign a statement saying she believed he and I were related.

  I returned to the tablet and jabbed in the order. I’d done fine without a father for twenty-seven years. Another few hours, days, or a lifetime wouldn’t make any difference.

  After I submitted my order, I made a hasty decision. The urge to find out about my father was too strong to put off. I locked the till in my little safe, instead of going to the bank, threw a load of napkins and aprons in the washer, and raced over to the IU Health Bloomington Hospital, the van bouncing on the bumpy road that led out of town to the state route. The Dodge complained on the uphills and rattled down the downs, but I shaved six minutes off the half-hour drive.

  I cautiously approached the door labeled RECORDS. I needed to figure how to examine the records of Roberto’s hospitalization. If I hadn’t already called and been rejected, I might have been able to talk my way into it. Now what was I going to do? I peered at the hours listed next to the door. They closed at four-thirty, which was in ten minutes.

  I glanced to my right as a woman strode down the hall toward me. Slim and fit, she wore purple jeans and a turquoise sweater. She carried a messenger bag slung across her chest, bandolier style, over a badge hanging from a red-and-white lanyard. She looked somehow familiar, but I couldn’t place her. She extended her hand when she got close.