Mummers' Curse

by Gillian Roberts

  Many of the houses around here were never on the market. They were inherited, passed on to family, sold directly to a known quantity, preferably a relative.

  In contrast, my parents had left home, hearth, and offspring for the sunshine of Boca Raton, and Mackenzie had loped out of the Louisiana Bayou for college m Texas and crime-busting up north. He had a brother in San Diego, a sister in Minnesota, and other siblings and siblings-in-law scattered hither and yon. The thing was, neither of our families found it odd that we were fragmented, but the Devaneys would have considered it heretical, close to tragic.

  I contemplated these various cultural norms so intently that I missed my stop, and in walking several blocks, I had more chance to wonder why they called our climate temperate, when it was anything but. Maybe it meant the climate had a temper. A bad one.

  My favorite part of Ninth Street was the market, where buying food was personalized and close to enjoyable. As opposed to the sterile all-business atmosphere of a supermarket, this marketplace is a blur of noise and movement as people push their way between small shops and stalls set out at the curb. Vendors hawk specials; chickens squawk; cottontail rabbits and piglets and lambs hang limply from butchers’ hooks; fish gleam in woven baskets; and the aromas of oregano and ripe cheeses flavor the air. The Italian Market, we used to call it, but it has become more international, with Puerto Rican specialty shops and a definite Asian edge. Today, the market seemed tired, dazed, recuperating from New Year’s parades official and traditional, both the one up Broad Street and the nonstop hometown revelries afterward on Second—known as Two—Street.

  I passed a building with a large and colorful mural on its side. It depicted the market and, looming in front of it, Frank Rizzo, former police chief and mayor. The scale was odd—the stores, small, and Rizzo, enormous, hundreds of times his size. A new Wonder of the World, the Colossus of South Philly.

  Vincent lived on a side street of flat-faced shallow homes that rose abruptly from the pavement. No trees, no front lawns, no grass or low bushes softened the meeting of hard surfaces. Each home had three marble steps leading from pavement to front door, a window to the left of the door, and two windows facing the street on the second floor. Some were natural brick, others had been painted or stuccoed over. All were lovingly maintained, except for one whose paint was peeling and crackling, but it was for sale and would undoubtedly be brought up to speed once it found an owner.

  Philadelphia’s row houses were the local equivalent of New York’s high-rising railroad flats. Manhattan Island had nowhere to go but up, but here, with all the space in the world, when quarters for workers were required, we expanded horizontally. Two or three bedrooms, one bath upstairs, living room, dining room, kitchen, one behind the other, downstairs. Houses sharing common walls to conserve heat and expense.

  Over the years, the people of Vincent’s neighborhood had personalized their addresses in ways apartment dwellers never could, with window boxes, shutters, wrought-iron stair rails, metal awnings, and aluminum or fake stone siding. Each street of homes wore many faces, and for better or for worse, South Philly was an idiosyncratic patchwork. At this time of year, it was particularly exuberant with colored lights outlining doors, windows, and rooflines above which, often as not, sat Santa and all his reindeer and below which were front-window Nativity scenes. That and last night’s snow moved the neighborhood to within shouting distance of a Currier and Ives.

  I banged a brass knocker attached to an evergreen front door. The brick facade of the house was the color of aged burgundy, and its shutters matched the door. I could tilt sideways and peek through lace curtains into a living room dominated by a heavily decorated Christmas tree and the spastic sounds of TV cartoons.

  I banged more heavily and pressed the doorbell, twice. The noise of cartoons raged on, but I also heard human voices.

  Vincent’s face appeared at the same window I had peered into. Not a subtle lookout system. I waved and pointed at the door.

  He looked resigned, not thrilled, to see me.

  “I’ve been calling you,” I said as soon as he admitted me. “We have to talk.”

  His son, a bowl of pink-and-yellow dry cereal on his lap, sat on green carpeting in the middle of the precise room with its yellow brocade sofa and end chairs. Even TV snacks were color-coordinated here.

  The boy turned toward me. “Hi,” I said, remembering my manners. “Chipper, isn’t it?” His name was Vincent, Junior, and they were avoiding the Little Vincent syndrome, although I think they could have found a more appealing substitute than Chipper. “I’m Amanda Pepper, and we met when your dad brought you to see where he worked, remember?”

  Chipper squinted and said, “Hi.” Then, since I was not nearly as interesting as a cartoon, he turned away.

  “Kids!” Vincent raked his hair with his fingers. “No manners.” I didn’t think his son’s deportment was what troubled him. “We’ve told him a thousand—”

  “I have a question, Vincent,” I said. “I need to know why you’re using me as an al—”

  “Barbs, this is Mandy Pepper, remember her?” Vincent spoke too loudly and emphatically. His nervousness bounced off the pale green walls. I turned and saw her, plump and apprehensive, in the arched entry to the dining room. “Teacher at Philly Prep? You met at the diner that night?”

  “Sure,” Barbs said quickly. “Good to see you again. Excuse the mess. We weren’t expecting anybody. Take off your coat, why don’t you?”

  I unbundled myself and looked around. It was not a house where I’d drop outer garments on a nearby chair, even if I were staying for two minutes. Barbs put out her arms and I handed most of my wardrobe over.

  “Your house looks beautiful, and that’s a gorgeous tree.” Enough niceties. We had a murder suspect here, the posse was on his trail, and I’d been given oblique and short-lived permission to save both the day and the friend. “I’m sorry to barge in,” I said. “I left messages on your machine, but perhaps it isn’t working?”

  Without commenting on the condition of her answering machine, Barbs left, arms full of my coat, hat, and bag. She was back in two or three seconds.

  “I called all morning. I was worried.”

  Barbs’s eyes flitted from her husband to me, and she rubbed the knuckles of one hand with the other. Perhaps she had a tic. Perhaps arthritic pain. More likely she was suspicious of both her husband and, now, of me. Of having had the vacuumed rug pulled out from under her secure world.

  “Why?” Barbs asked after a too-long pause. “Why would you worry?”

  Hadn’t Vincent told her he was in trouble? Had he told her he’d been with me? What reason would he have given for seeking me out during the parade, and wouldn’t she know it wasn’t true? No wonder she watched me warily. I tried to ease her palpable fear. “I guess, considering what happened to…to Jimmy Pat,” I said. “Practically in front of me. It leaves a person twitchy.” That should be sufficiently obvious and nonthreatening.

  “You were there, then?” she blurted out.

  So I’d been right. She didn’t believe her husband. She knew his story was suspect.

  “I told you she was!” Vincent said sharply.

  “I meant…” she began lamely, then she gave up looking for a face-saving edit. She blinked a few times and switched to a hostess mode. “Did you enjoy the parade?”

  “Did you enjoy the parade?” Vincent echoed. “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play? Jimmy Pat got killed, Barbs, so how could she enjoy the parade?”

  Whereupon he took my elbow, steering me away. Barbs stood with her mouth agape. “Sorry,” he said to her. “Didn’t mean to be short. Kid’s making me nuts. Those shows! Come down—but bring coffee or something?”

  “Sure, Vinny,” Barbs said overeagerly.

  I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to atone for spousal disbelief. Her spouse was lying. But instead, I said, “Please don’t bother yourself. I don’t want a thing.” Actually, I felt the vague naus
ea of too little sleep, and the idea of food was not pleasant.

  “Any fruitcake left?” Vincent asked.

  “No, please, I really don’t feel like eating.”

  “Or how about whatever’s left of your Christmas cookies, or the Bûche de Noël? Hey!” he said with special emphasis. “It’s lunchtime, so how about Pepper Pot?” He put a finger up and declaimed:

  Here we stand at your front door

  Just as we did the year before.

  Open the door and let us in,

  Give us all a drink of gin.

  Or better give us something hot,

  A steaming bowl of Pepper Pot.

  “What could be more appropriate for our Miss Pepper, huh, Barbs?” He sounded feverish, manic. “It’s probably named for Mandy’s family.”

  Nothing was named for my family, except me.

  Barbs continued to look apprehensive. I didn’t blame her. Vincent was rushing out words in a nervous torrent, as if he were on amphetamines or his first date.

  Or as if he were nervously trying to stave off a deserved accusation.

  “Truly, I’m not hungry,” I said. “Thanks, but—”

  “It’s traditional,” Vincent said. “New Year’s Eve open house with Philadelphia Pepper Pot soup. New Year’s Day, too. Lots of people, they don’t make it anymore, even on Two Street. Nowadays, it’s more cold cuts, but Barbs and me, we like traditions.”

  I wish something more glamorous than a soup made of the muscular lining of beef stomach bore my family name. Prince Orloff got veal, Melba got a peach dessert, Caesar got a salad, and I got tripe soup. Oh, it’s historically interesting, being said to have turned the tide of the American Revolution. When Washington’s troops were starving, often deserting, all the cook had on hand was tripe, peppercorns, and scraps. His improvised soup saved the day and maybe the whole campaign at Valley Forge. Maybe, therefore, the country.

  I’m glad we’re no longer a colony of Great Britain’s, but all the same, tripe is tripe. I had never tasted the stuff, and had no desire to begin today. Nonetheless, Barbs was headed into the kitchen, so I followed Vincent to a door in the dining room, and down a staircase. Under fluorescent lights, boxy banquette seats lined two of the narrow room’s paneled walls and faced an oversized TV and a collection of CDs and tapes on another. The floor was covered with black-and-white vinyl squares.

  “Did this myself,” Vincent said. “Look here.” He lifted the seat of one of the benches to reveal toy storage. “Kid’s supposed to use this room to play, make his messes, watch his TV—put in an entire entertainment center, but does he? No, he has to be where the action is. Barbs and I—we escape down here from him, he’s such a terror.” His pride in both his handiwork and his son was evident.

  “Maybe when he’s older.” I inspected the paneling. “You’re really good with wood, aren’t you?”

  His look was wary, on alert. I couldn’t imagine why until I remembered that he built his club’s frames because of his carpentry skills. Everything in any way related to the fatal parade must feel fraught with dangerous meaning now.

  “We have to talk fast,” he said. “I told Barbs all that food on purpose, to delay her.”

  “Why?”

  He turned away, walked over to the entertainment center, and ran an index finger over the TV screen, as if removing dust. “Damn,” he said. “I can’t explain. That’s the problem, you see?”

  “Not at all. Not any of it, starting with why you said you were with me.”

  He turned to face me. “If I swear I didn’t do a thing to hurt Jimmy Pat—never would in this lifetime—could you believe me?”

  “I already do.” Kind of. Mostly. Pretty much.

  “Good. But I can’t say where I was.”

  “So you weren’t in the parade, beside him?”

  “Why don’t you believe me!” It wasn’t a question and it wasn’t plaintive—it was an accusation. “What am I, a liar?” He slammed his fist into a wooden support beam. “How come I’m on trial, even with you? Why do I have to justify my every—”

  “Hey!” I held my hand up like a traffic cop. I also maneuvered so that he was no longer between me and the staircase. “I’m not the enemy. Simmer down.”

  He took several deep breaths. “Sorry,” he said.

  So was I. I’d caught a glimpse of an explosive temper I would not have suspected.

  “I’m really…strung out. But I couldn’t have done it, even if I’d gone crazy and wanted to. It’s easy enough for people not to know if somebody ducks out for a minute. Guys do it, you know, to take care of calls of nature or get a little cheer.”

  What he was saying was that nobody had a clue where you were at any given time when thinking back. What he didn’t say was that it was therefore easy to concoct any alibi you liked.

  “I was away, and I wasn’t toting a gun or hurting anybody. They tested me last night. There wasn’t any residue on my hands.”

  Would there have been on a man wearing gloves? I’d have to ask.

  “Anybody could have done it, anybody who was there, or watching.”

  Very helpful.

  “All I know, it wasn’t me. I thought I could cut out for a few minutes, nobody’d notice or care…and look at this mess. If I lie and say I was there, then they say I did it because of stupid stuff. Jimmy and me, we were always having contests, friendly rivalries, you know, but they don’t understand. If I tell the truth, I can’t prove it.”

  “All the same, I can’t cover for you.”

  “Why not?” He seemed astounded.

  “Why are you asking me to?” I had to know, and quickly. We were racing ahead of the speed at which soup reheats, but also, whether or not Vincent knew it, ahead of Obenhauser.

  “Barbs…she’s an insanely jealous woman.”

  This wasn’t exactly news. Barbs hadn’t tried to be subtle about her suspicions upstairs. But all the same. “Jealous of me?’

  “God, no!” He smiled.

  For a nanosecond, I was relieved that his wife didn’t consider me a threat. But that was instantly replaced by burning resentment that the idea seemed ridiculous, laughable, to Vincent. What was I, chopped liver? At thirty-one, I was older than he by half a decade—maybe more, but so what? Didn’t that give me seasoning?

  “The thing is, I used to go with Dolores. Jimmy Pat’s fiancée. In high school. Six years ago.”

  Dear Lord, he was young. I had assumed that with a house, a wife, a toddler…

  “You know how wives are about old girlfriends.”

  Wifely attitudes are not my special area of expertise, but I did think that high school romances were like training wheels on your first bike. Valuable helps for getting up to speed. Beyond that, they provided fodder for scrapbooks, reason to mist up at old songs, and cause to act out during a midlife crisis. Vincent was too young for the last option, and I couldn’t believe he was honestly suggesting that his wife, his real-time love, the mother of his son, thought he might have killed Jimmy Pat in order to get Dolores back or avenge her being claimed by another. That was ludicrous, or at least I sincerely hoped so.

  “So what?” I finally asked. “What relevance does that have?”

  “Everybody knows. It’s not like the cops aren’t going to find it out right away.”

  “Find what out? That was then and this is now. What does high school or Dolores have to do with this murder?”

  “Nothing. But, see, when I ducked out—before anything happened, Jimmy Pat was fine—I checked, because, well, I left to see…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Her.”

  “Dolores?”

  I had spoken in a normal tone, and he winced and glanced up the staircase before he nodded. “Why?”

  He shook his head. “She was in distress. I can’t explain. Made a solemn promise.”

  “To her?”

  “To myself and my God, that’s who.”

  “Okay, so tell the police the truth. She’s your alibi. Let her tell the secret, whatever it
is. It can’t be as bad as murder.”

  He shook his head again. “I can’t.” He looked toward the staircase.

  “Barbs will have to understand.”

  “Dolores dropped me. Dolores is that kind of girl, being so pretty, being a Grassi, having everybody look up to her, her family, having things easy, whenever she wants them. Fickle, you could say. But in the end, even if you know all that about her, and I did all along, being dropped still hurts, and hurting makes it different, not really over, you understand? Barbs still worries about it, but when Jimmy Pat started dating Dolores, what, was I not supposed to see him, my best friend, because of who he’s with? I adjusted, but Barbs, we could go out with Jimmy Pat and Dolores a million times and she’s still never relaxed.”

  I couldn’t help but note that he hadn’t said his feelings for Dolores were no longer romantic, only that he’d adjusted to being with her as Jimmy Pat’s girl. I wondered if Barbs’s suspicions were justified, even if it was only dumb yearning on Vincent’s part.

  “As long as Dolores makes it clear why you were looking for her,” I said, “then Barbs won’t have anything to be upset about. Am I right?”

  “She can’t. Dolores can’t. Wouldn’t. It’d shame her, asking to secretly see me while she’s engaged and all. And now, with Jimmy Pat…”

  “But she asked to meet you?”

  “What did I say? Didn’t I say that?” The temper was back on a high simmer, ready to break into a boil.

  “Whoa,” I said again and waited till he stopped overreacting. “She asked to see you at a specific time, right?”

  “But, the thing is,” he said, “she wasn’t there, so I didn’t see her and she can’t say where I was, so why stir up a hornet’s nest, create shame? Because you know, people will talk—if it’s me, and then Jimmy Pat dead and all.”

  “You never found her?” He shook his head.