Sis Boom Bah

by Jane Heller

  I was dying to reach out and yank the picture off the table so I could study it, study the man. Instead, I squinted at it in an effort to sharpen my vision.

  What I could see was that it was a relatively dated photo, taken a few years ago when Joan was younger and thinner and Jeffrey was not only beardless but minus any glints of gray at his temples. I could also see that the man was older than his cohorts; he had a full head of silvery hair, heavy bags under his eyes, and leathery, wrinkled skin. And, finally, I could make out that three of them—Joan and Jeffrey and the man—were standing together, arm in arm, Joan in the middle, on a white sandy beach, palm trees in the background, crystal-clear turquoise water beyond.

  Where were they when the picture was shot? I wondered, having never known Florida’s waters to be such an intense blue-green or its beaches to consist of such snowy, powdery grain. And who was the man? Was he one of the other doctors in Jeffrey’s medical group? Had I run into him at the office on Osceola Street? In the photo, he seemed awfully chummy with Jeffrey and Joan. Was it possible that he was the silent partner in Heartily Hirshon?

  No, I decided. A doctor would never be a partner in a business that promoted another doctor, would he? With those big egos doctors have?

  If only I could divert Joan’s attention away from me, I thought, away from where I’m sitting, I could grab the damn picture off the table and get a good look at the guy.

  Suddenly, I felt something rubbing up against my legs.

  I was startled until I realized it was only Sheldon, the cat. I leaned down and petted him, and as I did an idea came to me.

  “Sheldon. You’re such a sweetie pie,” I cooed. I was hardly a cat person; cats made my eyes itch. Nevertheless, I continued to stroke the animal and murmur loving words to him, even as I kicked Ray, to signal him to keep Joan talking about the vitamins. “Come here, you darling kitty. Come to Deborah, Sheldon.” I picked up the cat, gave him a few kisses and hugs and purring opportunities, and then, when Joan wasn’t watching, set him down on top of the skirted table, where he proceeded to knock over all the photos.

  “Oh, my! I’m sorry! He’s so frisky he just jumped out of my arms,” I said apologetically as Joan sprang to her feet to gather up the cat and prevent further destruction. “Let me put everything back,” I offered. “You help too, Ray. I mean, Bob.”

  “No. I’ll take care of it,” Joan insisted.

  “But it was my fault,” I protested, while Ray and I scrambled to set the plastic frames in order.

  Naturally, I tried to take my time with the photo of Joan, Jeffrey, and the mystery man before placing it right-side up on the table. Who is this person? I said silently, racking my brain for an answer. I know I know him.

  Before I could figure out how I knew him, Joan snatched the photo out of my hand and flung it onto her chair.

  “I’ve told you about the vitamins,” she said testily. “I have nothing to add. Please leave.”

  “We will, Joan,” I promised, “but I wonder if I could ask you who—”

  “Out,” she barked. “Now.”

  She marched herself and Sheldon out of the room, which was our cue to follow her. When we got to the door, I decided to go for broke.

  “Just tell me this,” I said. “Were you Jeffrey’s partner in Heartily Hirshon?”

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” she snapped. “I was Dr. Hirshon’s nurse.”

  “What about the man in the photo?” I said. “Was he the other half of Heartily Hirshon?”

  Joan pretended not to understand which masterpiece in her “gallery of photos” I was referring to.

  “You and Dr. Hirshon were with this man on a beach,” I persisted. “It was just the three of you. In the Caribbean, maybe. Since you all seemed like friends, I thought the man might be—”

  “That’s enough,” said Joan, who proceeded to throw me out of her house. Ray-Bob too.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  After getting booted out of Joan’s house, Ray and I grabbed a pizza at Luna’s, an Italian place next door to the Flagler Grill. He said he was heading north for the weekend on his motorcycle—to Daytona Beach for the last few days of the annual March ritual known as “Bike Week.” I told him I’d miss him. He told me not to meddle in Joan’s or anyone else’s affairs until he got back and could pose as my accountant again.

  On Friday, my mother asked me to go with her to the Treasure Coast Mall so she could buy a new outfit for her date with Fred.

  “He’s taking me to a movie and dinner tonight,” she said. “He must be very sophisticated.”

  “Fred? He’s sweet, but I don’t know about sophisticated.”

  “When a man his age says he’s taking you to a movie and dinner—not dinner and a movie—that’s sophisticated. It means he doesn’t care if he misses the early bird special.”

  After plowing through the racks of the other women’s clothing stores in the mall, we ended up at Dillard’s, where my mother spotted dozens of outfits she wanted to try on. Leaving her in the hands of a perky young saleswoman, I dashed over to the shoe department, hoping to find a pair of sandals. I was perusing the “sale” table when I literally bumped into another woman.

  “Are you hurt, Mrs. Hirshon?” asked the salesman who’d been trailing after her and the shopping bags she was toting.

  Mrs. Hirshon? My head shot up when I caught the name, obviously.

  “I’m fine,” she told him in a rather tough, no-nonsense manner, then glared at me.

  “Please forgive me,” I apologized to her, as I tried to remain calm. “I must not have been watching where I was going.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t worry about it.” She turned to the salesman and dangled a beige Bruno Magli pump from her index finger. “Do you have this in a six double-A?”

  “I’ll check, Mrs. Hirshon,” he replied. “Is there anything I can help you with, ma’am?” he asked me.

  “Yes. I’ll have what she’s having,” I said quickly. I hadn’t worn a size 6 shoe since I was 6.

  He gave me a funny look and disappeared into the back room.

  “It’s a beautiful pump,” I commented, following her as she made her way around the table.

  “They’re all beautiful.” She sighed wistfully, then took a seat. I took the seat next to her.

  She was a petite little thing, about Sharon’s height and weight, with one of those extremely short unisex haircuts women are wearing now. Her hair was dark and so were her eyes—big, brown eyes that had a sad, haunted quality. An addict’s eyes.

  “I hope you don’t mind my asking,” I said, “but are you by any chance Francine Fink Hirshon, the late Dr. Jeffrey Hirshon’s former wife?”

  “What of it?” she said, her tone nonchalant but her expression surprised, as if she didn’t expect to be recognized, having moved away from Stuart years before. “Do we know each other?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “I’m Cathy Mayer. I lived down the street from you in Sewall’s Point. We used to go shopping together when you were still married to the doctor. My condolences, by the way.”

  She stared at me. “I don’t remember you.”

  “Oh, that’s okay.” I shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t remember me, either. I’ve changed a lot since you left town. Time hasn’t been so kind to me. I’ve had my own marital troubles, if you know what I mean.”

  “Let me guess. Your husband left you.”

  “For a twenty-year-old.”

  “God. I hope you nailed him for every dime he was worth.”

  “Is that what you did, Francine? Nail your ex-husband?”

  She smiled. “Let’s just say he’s no longer cheating me out of what belongs to me.”

  “Is that so?” Maybe it was Francine who was Jeffrey’s partner in Heartily Hirshon, I thought, wondering how I could have forgotten about her. Maybe she got sick and tired of begging him for her cut of the profits. Maybe she really did hire a hit man to kill him while she kept a low profile in Aspen. Maybe she came back to Stuart to colle
ct—and while she was here she popped into Dillard’s for a few pairs of shoes. “How did you manage to turn your financial picture around, Francine? I wouldn’t mind a few pointers.”

  She stared at me again. “I still don’t remember you, Carol.”

  “Cathy.”

  “You were a neighbor?”

  “Yes. My children loved coming over to your house, especially at Halloween. They said you gave out the best candy.”

  “Your children are deranged. Jeffrey and I always spent Halloween in the Bahamas. On our boat. Make that, my boat. Make that, my house. Make that, my everything in Jeffrey’s estate.”

  My jaw dropped. “He left you all his assets in his will? Even though you’re divorced?”

  She leaned closer. “Listen, toots. Do yourself a favor. Get cozy with your ex’s lawyer. Sleep with him if you have to. Just make sure he doesn’t change a word of hubby’s will, no matter what hubby wants. The truth is, men don’t really care about the will, unless they plan to remarry. They’re too busy fucking. So they forget all about the piece of paper. Then they die—and you’re rich. Of course, I got lucky. I didn’t have to wait it out. Mine died sooner rather than later.”

  “That was lucky,” I said, amazed at Francine’s heartlessness. I couldn’t wait to tell Detective Gillby.

  “Here we are, ladies,” said the shoe salesman, scurrying toward us carrying two boxes.

  “You have the six double-A?” said Francine excitedly.

  “I have both the six double-A’s,” he said, beaming.

  Francine grabbed her pair and tried them on. “Oooh,” she moaned with pleasure. “They fit like they were made for me. I’ll take them.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “You can have mine too.”

  And then I scrammed.

  Before meeting my mother back in women’s dresses, I found a pay phone and dialed Gillby’s number. He wasn’t in his office, so I left a message.

  Later that night, while my mother was out on the town with Fred, I was alone at the cottage, trying and failing to place the man in Joan’s photograph. Even if Francine did inherit Jeffrey’s estate, even if she did hire a hit man to speed up the probate process, there was still the matter of Jeffrey’s secret business partner, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that Joan’s beach pal was the guy. There had to be something fishy about him or she wouldn’t have reacted the way she did, snatching the photo away from me, pretending not to know what I was talking about when I asked who the man was, ordering Ray and me to leave so abruptly. But what was the real story? I certainly couldn’t make sense of it.

  On Saturday morning, my mother called to tell me about her date.

  “It was very pleasant,” she said.

  “Pleasant? That’s it?”

  “Well, it was more than pleasant, but I don’t want to jinx it by rhapsodizing about it.”

  “Ah, so you liked Fred, and he liked you.”

  She sighed. “He told me I had eyes the color of the Florida Marlins’ uniforms.”

  “That’s very romantic, but the Marlins’ uniforms are teal,” I pointed out.

  “Deborah. He meant blue and you know it.”

  “Of course he did. I’m glad the date went well, Mom. When do you think you and Fred will see each other again?”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m seeing him right now, dear. He’s out on the porch, reading the paper and drinking his orange juice and Metamucil. He stayed over last night.”

  “Mom!” I was shocked.

  “I can guess what you’re thinking,” she said unashamedly. “That I’m behaving like Sharon, jumping into a relationship with a man I just met. But your sister has a history of being pathologically impulsive when it comes to men; I’ve lived alone, always denying my need for companionship. There’s a big difference.”

  “Yes, there is,” I conceded, still taken aback by my mother’s new candor and straightforwardness.

  “Heart attacks really do change you,” she went on. “They force you to realize that you’d better seize the day or it might seize you.”

  “I can appreciate that, Mom, but—God, I don’t know how to ask this of my own mother.”

  “Go ahead and ask, dear.”

  “Well, I’d heard that it’s not uncommon for people who’ve had a heart attack to be afraid of having sex, afraid it might bring on another attack.”

  “Yes, but who said anything about my having sex? I simply said that Fred stayed over last night.”

  “Oh. I misunderstood.” Boy, was I was relieved. Nothing against Fred, but it’s creepy to imagine your parent having sex. I don’t care how grown-up you are.

  “Now, for the second reason I called. Fred has requested that you have dinner with us tonight, dear. He wants us all to go to 11 Maple Street. I told you he was sophisticated.”

  “You may be right.” The food at 11 Maple Street is considered on a par with the best restaurants in south Florida, its setting a charming historic house in Jensen Beach. I had eaten there on special occasions over the years and was ecstatic to be invited back. “I doubt we’ll get in though. It’s Saturday night, in season. They’re usually booked a week in advance.”

  “Fred says we won’t have any trouble reserving a table, dear. One of his grandsons is a waiter at 11 Maple Street—his oldest daughter’s boy.”

  More small-town overlap.

  When I returned home from the restaurant on Saturday night, having gorged myself on three rich, worth-every-calorie courses, I was met by Detective Gillby. He was standing at the entrance to the property, along with several other officers, all of them looking extremely grim.

  “I take it you’re not here to apologize,” I said, opening the gate. “You never did return my phone call from yesterday.”

  “Let’s go inside,” said Gillby. It was a directive, not a suggestion, and he was not in a joking mood.

  He followed me into the cottage; the others remained outside. I asked him if he wanted something to drink while I downed an Alka Seltzer. He declined. We went into the living room.

  “Where’ve you been this evening, Ms. Peltz?” he said finally.

  “Why?” I said.

  “Please answer the question.” He was speaking in his monotone Dragnet voice—the voice he’d used to interrogate me the night Jeffrey was murdered. Not a good omen.

  “I was with my mother and Fred Zimsky, a volunteer here at the House of Refuge. We were having dinner at 11 Maple Street.”

  He nodded, writing in his little notebook. “And your sister? What was she doing tonight?”

  “I don’t keep tabs on her as a rule, but I happen to know that she was coordinating a wedding for the Traubman family.”

  “Who?”

  “The Traubmans. They own half of Boca,” I said, parroting Sharon.

  Gillby wrote in his notebook again.

  “This feels like a formal interview,” I commented. “As if we’re right back where we started, Frank. Maybe you could explain why that is, explain why my sister and I would need an alibi for this particular night, since Jeffrey Hirshon was killed over two weeks ago.”

  “He may have been killed over two weeks ago, but his nurse was killed less than two hours ago.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You’re saying that Joan was—?”

  “Correct.”

  I felt my mouth go dry and my stomach churn. I sank into one of the futons. “How?” I managed, still trying to process this stunning development. “What happened?”

  “It’ll take a day or so for the autopsy results, but if I had to guess, I’d say Ms. Sheldon was shot with a single twenty-two caliber bullet.”

  “Where?”

  “In the chest.”

  “No. Where was she when she was shot?”

  “In the den of her house on Valor Point,” said Gillby. “A neighbor reported hearing a gun go off. When we got there, we found no sign of forced entry and no sign of a struggle. Same scenario as the other
homicide, basically.”

  I held my head in my hands and wondered how on earth I had stepped into such a soap opera. Ha ha. “Any idea who did it? Now that you’ve crossed my sister and me off the list?”

  “Sorry about that, but I had to ask. Because of the Hirshon case.”

  “I understand. Why don’t you sit down, Frank. You look exhausted.”

  He sat on the futon next to mine and cracked his knuckles. “No, I don’t have any idea who did it. What I have are a lot of dead ends.”

  I nodded, imagining how frustrated he must be.

  “Do you have any idea who did it, Ms. Peltz? You’re usually full of ideas.”

  “Actually, I do have something to confess,” I said sheepishly.

  “So confess.”

  “I was in Joan Sheldon’s house—in her den, as a matter of fact. But it was Thursday night, not tonight, and Ray Scalley was with me.”

  Gillby stared at me, shaking his head. “What the hell were you two doing at her house?”

  I explained my theory—Helen Mincer’s theory—about the wronged business associate; how Jeffrey’s vitamin company may have figured in his murder and how Ray and I had gone to Joan’s house hoping to get her to open up about the business.

  “She didn’t want to talk about Heartily Hirshon, per se, just the health benefits of the vitamins,” I said. “She denied being Jeffrey’s partner in the company, but I got the feeling she knew everything there was to know about it—including who the real partner is.”

  I went on to describe the photograph of the man who had looked vaguely familiar to me.

  “Where was this photo?” asked Gillby.

  “On the skirted table in Joan’s den, toward the back, mixed in with the others.”

  He scratched his head. “Funny. There weren’t any photos in the room when we arrived at the crime scene. Not one.”

  “No photos? The woman had a million of them.”

  “Not when we got there.”

  “Then that proves the man standing with her and Dr. Hirshon in the picture was someone I wasn’t supposed to see! Joan probably hid his photo and the rest of them the minute Ray and I left the house.”