I mentally noted that the giving away had been relatively recent, since the tea party was after Phoebe was widowed.
“Unfortunately,” Ramona said, “the other two women she invited, Sally Molinari and Neva Sheffler, they tend to be judgmental, something I try never to be. Nice women but dreadful talkers. Not mean, not really, not on purpose, but they do like a bit of gossip, so they told everybody she was hoity-toity, putting on airs or maybe a little crazy. I mean, what royalty would live on this block? That’s the kind of thing they said. It wasn’t right, if you ask me, because we had been drinking her tea and eating her little cakes. Not right to bite the hand that feeds you, as they say. If you can’t say something nice, keep your mouth shut. And also, royal blood doesn’t mean you are still rich. It’s about the past. It doesn’t have anything to do with now. I’ve seen the movies, the ones showing how after the Russian Revolution, all those big-shot aristocrats were down and out in Paris.”
I tried not to smile, not so much at Ramona’s insistence on her charitable heart, but at the image of those émigrés. It was an image I remember Phoebe invoking all those years ago, when she was married to Sasha’s dad. Not that she said she was the missing czarina, but she identified with the threadbare former rulers of the universe. The wheel goes round, she’d say—too often—and where you wind up, nobody knows, and life was one long game of roulette. She hoped that what had gone down had to come up. Something like that.
I had seldom paid attention to her genealogical flights of fancy, her supposed past. I was too enraptured by the ones having to do with my future, like her ridiculous assurances that I could have been a famous dancer if I’d started lessons sooner. Even then, I knew her words were pure nonsense. Along with every other little girl in my neighborhood, I had taken ballet lessons early on, and I was the one at recitals turning the wrong way or falling down. “No, no,” Phoebe would say, “there’s still time. Modern dance, that’s it. You’d be elegant.” And then she’d find another glamorous and unlikely future for me—astronaut, secretary of state, courtesan.
“I hope I’m not sounding harsh, or mean-spirited,” Ramona said.
“Not at all, not at all.” I murmured further understanding and approval of the high moral ground on which she stood. “I was wondering if she—” I began, but Mrs. Fulgham was not finished.
“Some people don’t bother to consider the mental anguish somebody else might be going through, and why she might make things up, or exaggerate. I understand, because I’ve gone through it myself.”
“Of course,” I said. “But I was wondering—”
“Not that I myself made things up afterwards. I need to make that clear. So easy to misunderstand each other, isn’t it?”
“Of course,” I said again. “In fact, just so I’m clear—those other women, Sally and Neva—are they in the neighborhood, too?”
She nodded vigorously. “I thought I said—sure, they live on this block. Well, if you count all four sides of it. Sally’s over there, across the street.” She pointed toward the living-room window, aiming her finger to the left. “First house from the corner,” she said, “and Neva’s house is behind Phoebe’s. Their backyards touch, so to speak. Both been here for a long time, too.”
“Was Phoebe friendly with either of them before the tea, do you think?”
Ramona’s head pulled back a minute amount, but enough to convey the idea that I’d insulted her. “She wasn’t unfriendly, if that’s what you’re saying. And I’m sure—I mean a back-fence neighbor, you talk to sometimes. It’s summer and hot, and everybody’s barbecuing, but I don’t know if there was more than that. And Sally?”She shook her head. “Not more so than Phoebe was with me, and I was right next door. She wasn’t a neighborly type, if you don’t mind my saying so. Standoffish, you know? Didn’t let anybody get too close, even if somebody tried. But it takes all types, and a man’s home is his castle, and a woman’s, too. And she made that tea for us.”
I wrote down both the neighbors’ names and nodded. “Thanks. This is helpful. About those other neighbors—”
“If you’re wondering because she left something to them in her will, well, I’d be surprised, is all.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
I’d almost forgotten my supposed mission. “Why is that?” I prompted, though I was sure she’d be surprised—and angry—because she hadn’t been left anything.
She lit another cigarette again without asking, and inhaled deeply. “I mean,” she said in a cloud of exhaled smoke, “her possessions were quite special. Heirlooms, some of them, but even the ones that weren’t had meaning for her. Her treasures, she called them, making it a joke, but underneath, I think they were. The things she collected—beautiful things, and so many. I can understand why she was proud. They were all souvenirs of her life, her adventures. Everything had meaning for her.
“I was so touched when she gave me the eagle. Do you see how beautifully it’s made, with every tiny talon clear as can be? And the flag with its ripples? And when you’d compliment something, she’d tell you all about where she found it and what was going on with her at the time. That little eagle had been a gift during the Vietnam War. A suitor, or maybe one of her husbands. She said his name, but I don’t recall it. So every single object was a treasure to her, because they held her memories.” She inhaled, looked down, shook her head, sighed out the smoke. “And what else do we have, when you get down to it?”
“Yes. So true,” I said, leaving the politics of why the other neighborhood women should not, by Ramona’s rights, have inherited any of those memory-treasures. “I guess you must have been in her house several times, enough times to learn about the different pieces.”
She shrugged. “I’d stopped by, as I said, after she lost her husband. Brought a cake one time, asked her to go to a church social with me another. She declined, invited her over another time, but she couldn’t make it. So no, not that often.”
“And about those other visitors, the ones you didn’t know. Did she talk about them with you? Tell you their names, or how they came to be in her life?” She did it for whoever was associated with a pathetic-looking, flag-waving eagle, I mentally reminded the universe. For heaven’s sake, she could do it for the humans in her life as well and make my mission easier.
“You mean that day when we had the tea?” Ramona asked. “Did she talk about her other friends that day?”
“That day or any of the other days when you stopped in, or had a little chat outside.”
“No. Never.”
Nice that she’d needed to know which date I was talking about in order to say no, never.
“Not that I mentioned taking note of them to her, you see. I didn’t want her to think I was prying, and if she’d wanted me to know, she’d have told me. It’s only that I’d hear the automobile door and think it was somebody for me—the houses are close, as you can see. Her driveway and carport are right beside mine, and almost in my living room. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know. They were quiet, the visitors. And most times, they went out somewhere else. No carrying on. I didn’t mean to suggest any such thing.”
“No, no, of course. One last question: The night she passed away, were you home?”
“It was a weeknight, wasn’t it? Which night, do you recall?”
“A Thursday evening.” Unless happenings were a lot more dramatic on Hutchinson Court than I had reason to think, it was difficult for me to believe this woman wouldn’t recall in minute and excruciating detail where she’d been, what she’d seen, and what night of the week it had been when her secondary source of entertainment, her next door neighbor, had killed herself.
“Oh wait, of course. It was a Thursday. Yes, I saw her briefly. She was all gussied up. High heels and lots of jewelry, and I must say, though events proved otherwise, that I would never have suspected that she was feeling low. She was cordial and seemed quite contented.”
“What was she doing when you spoke with her?”
“Taking the trash to the
curb.”
“In her high heels and jewelry?”
Ramona Fulgham grimaced. “What are you going to do when there’s no man of the house? I remember because she said she always forgets until it’s too late at night to want to go outside and take care of it. I understood, because when your husband passes away, things like that become sad reminders of what he would have done. Not that I would have wanted to take out the trash in my dress shoes, or with clean hands and all. Don’t want those smells on us, do we? I try to do it in the afternoon if I’m going out at night, like I was that night. But then, I’m not—I was not, I guess—Phoebe Ennis. To each his own.”
Again I agreed, and waited while Mrs. Fulgham spent a moment looking as if she were remembering all the glorious Thursday nights that somebody else had taken the trash can down to the curb. “Did she in any way mention her plans for the evening?” I finally asked.
“Not in any detail, not with anything specific. But I do recall she said something about having a surprise visitor. Just like that, she said, or maybe I said something about how pretty she looked, and she said, ‘Ramona, I was all prepared to have a quiet night home alone, but in fact, I have a surprise visitor this evening.’ And she winked at me, and I knew that was my cue to keep my mouth shut, so I said I hoped it was a good surprise, and I didn’t ask anything, and she just winked again and didn’t say anything more.”
“She didn’t make it clear whether it was a male or female?”
Ramona Fulgham shook her head. Then she raised her eyebrows. “But…that wink, you know. And the good earrings—those diamond studs of hers. And the shoes.”
“You think it was a man, then.”
She raised her eyebrows once more and didn’t bother to say anything.
“When she went out with her women friends, did she dress differently?”
Ramona’s eyes widened, then she frowned, squinted. And then she sighed. “I suppose you’re right. She pretty much looked like that no matter who was coming calling.” She frowned again.
“And I suppose you didn’t have a chance to find out who, in fact, it was. Didn’t you hear the car pull up?”
“It was Thursday!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Bingo night. I saw her because I was getting ready to go—waiting outside for my ride. It was Theresa’s turn to drive, and she’s always on time, so off we went.”
“What time did Theresa show up?”
“Seven P.M. sharp, like always. Takes fifteen minutes, then you have to buy in and find a good place. Theresa and me, we like to sit at the table right in front of the caller. Easier to hear, you know, and Theresa’s beginning to have problems with that. And we have regular friends who sit there, too, so there’s a little talk, catching up on everybody’s doings. It’s fun, and then, you’re ready to roll at seven-thirty.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to ask Ramona, unless it was about Bingo. Interview over with no real information except a deeper conviction that people can use a staggering amount of words to say nothing.
Despite my impulsive decision about the stiletto heels, I was convinced that, as Gertrude Stein had said about something else, there was “no there there.” And if there was nothing there to be revealed, then maybe this dull interview was actually progress, because it proved my point.
“Thank you so much for your time,” I said as I stood up. “I hope you did well at Bingo that night, too.”
She smiled. “I’d been on a winning streak, but that night capped it. Won my age times ten. I won’t say how much that was, but it’s a night I’ll always remember.”
“I hadn’t realized you could win that much. I mean not that you’re old—but my age times ten. I hadn’t realized…”
“Oh my, yes. And much more, depending on the game and the place. There’s one coming up that will pay ten thousand dollars. That one’s too rich for my blood, but Bingo’s a fine way to spend a few hours for not much money. Theresa and me, we go with twenty dollars each to spend, and that’s it. So it’s a bargain, too.”
I hadn’t learned much about Phoebe, but the possibilities of Bingo—that was news to me.
Five
* * *
* * *
I had a long night ahead of looking at Phoebe’s detritus, so I thought I’d check out the other two women first. I hoped they were as gossip prone as Ramona Fulgham had insisted she herself was not. I popped in, told Sasha my plan, and popped back out.
We were approaching dinnertime, so I was disappointed when nobody answered my knock at Sally Molinari’s house. Lights were on inside, and music played, but either she was hiding from me, which was unlikely, or she was one of the people who worked hard to disguise the fact that she wasn’t home.
I walked around the corner, then around again, and counted houses until I was sure I was behind Phoebe’s house. Luckily, the architect had been a bit anal, and each house had precisely the same shape and size lot, so that they lined up tidily.
The windows must face each other in the back, I realized. So forget the fence. Unless somebody had huge plantings, a great deal could be observed from the comfort of one’s kitchen window, assuming all the houses had the same configuration as Ramona’s had. Or so I hoped, although I mostly hoped for definitive proof that Phoebe had, indeed, taken her own life. Mackenzie has taught me that most times, whatever seems the logical and obvious explanation of an event is, indeed, the logical and obvious explanation. It is also generally the truth. As upsetting as Sasha would find that conclusion, it would, at least, be a conclusion and something with which she could deal.
I rang the bell and a teen with long hair answered. He said nothing, but looked at me inquisitively, waiting. I introduced myself, and said I was with the offices of Ozzie Bright, which I’d finally realized sounded better than Bright Investigations, and also left some mystery as to what sort of offices they might be. I asked for Neva Sheffler.
He looked surprised. “Mom?” he asked, then “Mom!” he yelled, facing me. “Somebody for you!” He still looked surprised that anyone new would appear at the door for his mother.
A woman with salt-and-pepper hair came out of the back of the house. “Yes?” she asked, but before I could answer, she looked at her son. “How many times have I asked you to come quietly and tell me if somebody’s at the door?”
He shrugged and sauntered off.
Once again, I offered up a string of words in lieu of an honest explanation of why I was there.
“Phoebe Ennis? Why would you be—what is it you’re doing again? Investigating what?”
“There’s some confusion about the disposition of her estate,” I said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. There was the division of the profit on the house to be settled, and I at least was confused about how that would work out, given Dennis-the-Jerk’s personality.
“Really? Then how could I possibly help you?” She waved me in and I looked at the same architectural bones I’d seen in Ramona’s house, but here, bright solids in rust, yellow, and deep green brought the room alive. And rather than being covered and hidden and protected, the furniture showed the comfortable scars of being used. I admired the spray of autumn leaves in a low vase on her coffee table.
“I waxed them,” Neva said. “Remember pressing leaves in elementary school? It’s the same idea. Lasts a long time, too.” Then she smiled expectantly, and held the expression. Enough of meaningless pleasantries, it said. High time for me to make some sense of my presence.
“I was wondering if you knew Phoebe Ennis well, given your location here—her back-fence neighbor, if that isn’t too old-fashioned an expression.”
She shook her head. “We’ve got backyards, and we’ve got fences. But we’ve got dryers, too, instead of those clotheslines our mothers had, so you don’t get that casual back and forth while those ladies clipped and shook out and unclipped and folded, the way my mother said she used to do.”
“So you and she had no chance to become friends.”
Nev
a Sheffler raised her eyebrows, pushed her chin forward, and shook her head gently, side to side, as if evaluating what the word “friend” meant and, more specifically, meant to me. I had to wonder why such an innocuous question required such deliberation. “You realize there was quite an age difference,” she finally said. “I knew her husband more than I knew her—not that I knew him in any real way, either. But I’d see him in the garden. He seemed to like to go out there with a book and sit in the sun, and if I was out puttering, we’d exchange pleasantries. Pity about his dying. Much too young to go.”
“And Phoebe?”
“Pity about her, too, of course,” she said. “She was even younger, and to be in such despair…”
“I meant, did you get to know her at all?”
“We talked,” she finally said. “Now and then. Also mostly after meeting by accident, pruning the roses, raking leaves, or bumping into each other at the market. That kind of thing.”
“But you had tea with her one time, too, I understand.”
She laughed. “You’ve been talking with Ramona. She’s the one can tell you every detail of what’s going on around these parts. She has so little to think about, I swear, she has every minute of her life emblazoned on her brain.”
“She says she didn’t know Mrs. Ennis very well.”
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