Ladies Lunch Club Murders

by David Bishop

  “One of the girls in our lunch group mentioned it two days after Sarah was killed. I’m not sure which one it was who first said it. The next day, a waitress in the local breakfast diner mentioned that bubble gum and fruitcake were somehow involved in the first two murders.”

  Jack drew his lips in. “How broadly is this known?”

  “I can’t speak to that, Mr. McCall. All the victims being in our lunch group means any scuttlebutt about them finds its way to one or more of us. Mary Alice and I read mysteries a lot. We exchanged the really good ones back and forth. Some of the other gals too. Shirley Germaine reads them all the time, although cozy mysteries are her thing. What’s going on now is our own real-life mystery. … The whole town’s talking. So, what’s the truth of it?”

  “Yes. Certain items were found at the scenes. As far as it goes, that much is correct. Now, what that means with respect to why they were killed, or who committed the mur—”

  Ann cleared her throat. “We’re still working on that. Homicides have lots of teaser kinds of things. Most of them end up meaning nothing.”

  Norma Taylor went to her refrigerator, opened it, and used the door to fan herself. “I guess after death, a person no longer has need of their zealously kept secrets.”

  Jack pushed back from the table and crossed his legs. “Certainly not if those close to the victim want the killer found. At this point, we don’t know what will be important and what won’t, but anything you tell us could be critical.”

  Ann added, “We can assure you once we get on the trail of this murderer, something will click with something we found or learned, and that’s when it’ll be important. So, please, hold back nothing.”

  Norma took out the iced tea pitcher, closed the door, and refilled all three glasses. “Mary Alice had a rather serious heart attack last year. The husband of one of the gals in the lunch club said that a younger, healthier person might have survived the electric shock in the spa, but not a woman with a weak heart. He isn’t a doctor. I think he was a medic in the military.”

  Jack looked at Norma after she sat down. “Mary Alice was born Lennox and changed her name to Phelps. We’re thinking that once her brother became a politician, her desire for privacy led to her changing her name. We’re guessing the name choice, Phelps, has some kind of connection to someone. What can us about that?”

  “Yes, I know the truth on that part of it—at least some of it. She swore me to secrecy, but, well, I guess it doesn’t really matter and might help you in some way. … Now, detectives, you’re going to need to excuse me for a few minutes. I’ve had two cups of coffee and at my age—”

  Jack and Ann sat quietly, their eyes on Norma Taylor while she walked down the hall.

  12

  Jack looked at Ann and shook his head. “So much for keeping the bit about the fruitcake and that stuff quiet until we’re qualifying a suspect.”

  Ann smiled. “Yeah, small town, blah de blah. Norma just flushed, she’ll be back soon.”

  Norma Taylor came into the room and settled back into her chair at her kitchen table. “Excuse me for having to leave you, nature called.

  “Not a problem.” Jack smiled. “You were telling us about Mary Alice’s name change.”

  “Oh, yeah. Once when Mary was drunk—I only saw her drunk twice. I mean can’t stand up drunk. One of those times she told me she wasn’t born Phelps. She waved me off when I asked her birth name—even drunk out of her skull she didn’t tell me her brother was the governor. I left it alone—her business—ya know. A month or two later, she told me the Phelps story.”

  Norma drank from her iced tea and used her napkin to wipe her lipstick print off the glass—more from nerves than neatness. The drink had wet her lips, maybe wet her memory too.

  “In Mary’s junior year in college she fell in love with a man. They planned to marry after they graduated and got their feet on the ground in their chosen careers. Mary graduated with honors and went to work for some bigtime investment firm—stocks and bonds, stuff like that. Her first night of drinking and celebrating included sex with her new boss, an older man she described as debonair and sophisticated. A wealthy senior vice president—and a married man. Won’t young women ever learn about the folly of that sort of thing?”

  Norma Taylor used a napkin to dry the glass sweat from her hand. “I met Mary Alice in the buttoned-up period of her life. She was a voluptuous woman, real shapely in her youth. A knockout, the boys said in my day. It’s a shame, the walls we women build around our own passions, as we age, simply because of losing our perkiness. Sarah Sims used to say, ‘my boobs went from 34-C to 38-long, but I make up for it with fashion and technique.’ It’s funny how different people … Mary Alice lost her man and became Aunt Bea from Mayberry. Conversely, when Red’s husband died, she hung an open-for-business sign around her waist.”

  Norma sipped her tea, looked out through her screened lanai over the top of the house behind hers, and into the clouds.

  “Ahh… you were talking about Mary Alice Phelps.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Mr. McCall, my mind wandered. Philosophical reflections come with age. As I remember it, back in my day, very few young women had abortions. At least the ones who avoided doing things done by girls from the wrong side of the tracks—a concept sacrificed to the sexual revolution. Mary had her baby and lost the man she loved. She stayed on her job, working for her son’s married father, and prospered—financially speaking, while her prospects for happiness withered. Aside from her work, Mary lived life as if her emotions had received a lifetime incarceration.

  “When her son grew to school age, she got him in the best boarding schools money could buy. She showered him with the best of everything and, well, if you know the novel Mildred Pierce, Mary’s life was similarly dashed against the hard rocks of loneliness. On numerous occasions I heard Mary Alice describe her son as the male version of Mildred Pierce’s spoiled daughter … Veda, I think was her name.”

  Jack sat up straight. “And you’re telling me her brother didn’t know his sister had a child out of wedlock? The governor didn’t know he was an uncle?”

  Norma shook her head. “I can offer nothing as to what the governor knew or didn’t know back then, or today for that matter. I didn’t even know he and Mary Alice were related. … Maybe there’s something in Mary’s diary.”

  Ann reached over and touched Norma’s forearm. “Does any woman keep a diary anymore?”

  “Some from my generation. Mary did. At least that’s what I think it was. Every so often she’d come over, unlock her file cabinet, and leave with a book in her hand. It looked like a diary kind of thing. Later, or the next day, she’d bring it back and lock it up again. … Mary and I saw each other at least once every day. God, she was a dear friend. She’d let her hair down some, and talk more openly when it was just the two of us, particularly after we’d tipped a few.”

  Ann smiled. “We don’t want to keep you all day, but what else can you tell us about her?”

  Norma gripped her empty tea glass. “Lots of things, but I doubt they’re of any interest.”

  Jack’s eyebrows went up. “Toss ‘em out, randomly, as you think of ‘em.”

  “Butter pecan was her favorite ice cream. Jimmy Stewart was her favorite movie star, but she got all squirmy whenever we watched a Burt Lancaster movie. She loved the stories of novelist James Cain. He was the author of Mildred Pierce as well as The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Double Indemnity. With Mary’s encouragement, I became a fan of James Cain. If I remember correctly, Cain wrote twenty-three stories from which twenty-nine films were made—or something like that. Mary was a fabulous gin rummy player. We played for hours. We played the card game hand and foot as a team against some of the other ladies in our lunch club.”

  “Anything else?”

  After Ann asked, Jack added, “Things Mary kept hidden?”

  “I’ve already told you about her son, about the young man Mary Alice loved and hoped to marry, and what littl
e I know about the man who fathered her child. The way I saw it, Mary Alice didn’t have a great number of problems. What she did have was a great knack for saving ‘em up. Life throws shit at all of us. Most people shake it off as it comes and move on. Mary saved up her problems and used ‘em to flagellate her mind.”

  “More philosophical reflections?”

  Norma Taylor looked over at Ann and smiled.

  Jack brought them back to the relevant. “What was the name of her son’s father?”

  “She never said. I asked a couple times. She’d just look sad and say, ‘It doesn’t matter—he willingly provided the sperm and I willingly accepted it. After that, he grudgingly provided whatever else I forced out of him.’ I’m sure you can gain access to her working life through social security or the IRS, or whatever you police people do. She worked the same place all her life. Her boss there was the poppa.”

  “So she continued to work with him, for him, right?”

  “Yes, Detective McCall. She’d say, ‘That gave me job security, good income, and investment tips. The more he helped me make money in the market, the less I’d squeeze him to pay for things for our son.’ That was her plan and she worked it to perfection. The man apparently had something of a conscience, which kept him off-balance. Or perhaps he came to know that helping Mary make money in the market was how to keep the lid on the whole son thing so his wife and the company didn’t find out. While it worked, sadly, it also provided Mary with a daily dose of guilt.”

  Again, Ann touched Norma’s forearm. “Did the father and the son know each other?”

  “Oh, yeah. They knew each other. As the boy grew, Mary would bring him to the office, take him to the annual company picnic, stuff like that. Her son only knew his father as his mother’s employer. When her son got older, Mary told him, ‘I don’t know who your father is. I’m ashamed of that, but it’s a fact.’ That was part of her deal. He was frightened of how the son would react if he learned who his father was. So, in the end, that was part of Mary’s leverage over the father. Still, Mary believed the boy had a right to know. She spoke of leaving her son a letter, putting it with her will, telling the boy the identity of his father.”

  “Did she do that? Is there a letter with her will?”

  Norma turned toward Ann. “From the way she talked, I’d say yes.” After staring at Ann for a moment, Norma added, “But she could have being speaking of her intention to do it, I don’t know. Have you found her will?”

  “Not yet, perhaps in that file cabinet.” Jack intertwined his fingers. “But there was no doubt as to the father’s identity?”

  “At first, sure, he accused Mary of sleeping around enough to not know who the father was. When DNA testing became easily available, Mary took a gob of hair from her boss’s hairbrush at work and her son’s when he came home. She had the test run and presented the proof to the father, her boss. By the time the boy was old enough for school, the father had accepted the situation. He ponied up the money in return for Mary agreeing to stay on the job and continue to be a top producer. He covered the school costs, gave Mary a good base pay, and, the way Mary said it, ‘he pointed me toward numerous excellent investments.’ Mary knew she could destroy his marriage, maybe even get him fired from his top job. She longed to take him down, but she remained pragmatic.”

  “No pictures?”

  “None of the father. At least none she ever showed me. The ones of her son were only him or, in a few, Mary and him. More specifics might be in her diary, if that’s what the book turns out to be. Maybe something else in her file cabinet will tell you more.”

  Norma turned her tea glass in a circle, lifted it and used her napkin to sop the glass sweat from the table. She’d done that frequently.

  “Probably a dozen times, Mary said, ‘that boy ended up just like his daddy. That apple didn’t fall far from the tree. They could both charm the knickers off a nun.’ I know full-well sometimes she came over just to look at the boy’s pictures in the file cabinet. After that, she’d ask for a drink and we’d settle down in my living room recliners and watch some movie. We must’ve watched Mildred Pierce ten times over the years. Joan Crawford played Mildred, and Joan and Mary Alice often cried together over their disappointing children.”

  Ann brushed a crease out of the shoulder of her blouse. “How did you first learn of the pictures of the boy? Did Mary Alice show them to you?”

  “No. Not at first anyway. Once when she brought back items to put into the file cabinet, she dropped a stack of pictures. I saw them and asked. Several days later, she got sloshed and, that’s when she told me the story and showed me the photographs. Anticipating your next question, no, she never mentioned her son’s name. I asked, but she just shook her head. ‘You knowing won’t change anything.’

  “I wanted so much to understand Mary. To comfort her, but she’d have none of it. I’d say, ‘Talk to me. You’ll feel better after getting it out.’ … Most of what I’ve told you, I learned in bits and pieces. Things she’d mention or let slip out after she’d be on the sauce for an hour or so. I didn’t betray her. I kept her confidences one hundred percent until … now. Often it seems Mary wanted to punish herself. She’d say things like, ‘I don’t deserve to feel better.’ I felt so bad for her. She chose to blow up her life over one foolish act, done as an ambitious young career woman. Or maybe as a horny young woman celebrating her first big-time, big-paycheck job. Either way, she was never able to … reshuffle her life and deal herself a new hand.”

  Ann cleared her throat. “Hm mm, the name Phelps. You were going to tell us what was behind that choice.”

  “Oh, sure, I forgot. Mary’s love of her life, the young man from college, was named Philip. I remember her saying it was spelled with one ‘L.” That it was Greek in origin and meant, loosely translated, lover of horses … something to do with some kinda animal. And, no, she never told me Philip’s last name. Anyway, she took Phelps as a derivation of Philip. To sum up my dear departed friend: Mary Alice had a life of financial success and romantic failure. Find her killer. Please. She deserves at least that measure of justice.”

  Jack and Ann talked with Norma Taylor another fifteen minutes, but nothing more came of it. Norma did say that Mary Alice had been the bookkeeper for a limited partnership made up of four ladies in the lunch club. They used it to buy and operate a one-screen neighborhood movie house in a town just outside the retirement community. The four ladies worked in the theater. Norma identified the four owners: Maria “Mitzi” Welz, Janet “Jan” Davis, Shirley Germane, and Sarah Sims, better known as Red Rider.

  Jack asked, “What do you know about the theater arrangement?”

  “I know the other ladies; they were all in our lunch club. Mary Alice talked about it some, chit chat, you know, now and then. Being their bookkeeper and our unofficial lunch club investment advisor, she knew all about it. They set it up so only the original four had votes in the operation of the partnership. If any of their interests passed to others, no matter how, the voting rights did not transfer—only the original partners would ever vote on decisions. When the third died, the last one would sell the business and the building—they owned them both. The proceeds of the sale were to be divided four ways among the last surviving partner and the heirs of the other three.”

  “Did Mary Alice tell you whether or not she thought they should sell?”

  “She advised them to sell, but it was their decision.”

  “Why did she think they should sell?”

  “I hope I get this right. Being a broker all her life, Mary Alice was a genius at investment stuff. She told them the offer they received would net each of the four about a hundred-thousand-dollars. With that they could earn six percent a year safely investing in something they could sell anytime. They’d have less risk, more liquidity, and, as each of them died their heirs would have the money right away rather than having to wait until there was only one partner left and the property was sold. … I’m not sure I got all that right.
Like I said, Mary Alice was the investment guru, not me.”

  13

  Lieutenant Ann Reynolds pulled her state vehicle into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant for a quick lunch.

  Jack looked around after they unwrapped their burgers. “This is a long way from Season’s 52.”

  “You got that right.” Ann dumped their to-share fries onto a spread napkin. “Welcome to the cop’s real world. At least on work days.”

  “So, French letters, you were going to explain.”

  “Oh. It’s no big deal. That’s an old-fashioned term for a condom, a rubber.”

  Jack pointed a fry at Ann. “I’ve never heard it.”

  “It’s European, old-fashioned.” Ann’s lips pleasured her straw as she took a drink of soda. “Way back, the British Army referred to them as French letters while passing them out to their soldiers going on liberty in France—put it in an envelope lads—you know.”

  “Gotta love the French. The race of romance.”

  “Seems so. I mean, the world has a French kiss, and back before the word syphilis was used, it was believed to be spread by French soldiers, so it was called the French disease. Another theory says syphilis was brought to Europe from America by the crew who returned with Christopher Columbus.”

  Jack swallowed a bite of his cheeseburger. “And just how do you know so much about this stuff?”

  “I’m a bit of a fanatic about trivial information and about sex … which is not at all trivial.” She shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

  “How’s this for a bit of trivia? I got my first overall look at Florida when we flew from DC into Orlando. I never realized how flat Florida was. At least the part we flew over, but heavily treed.”

  “And swampy. Don’t piss me off, McCall. I know a hundred places where I could ditch your body with little to no digging required.”