Sleuthing Women II

by Lois Winston

  Keicia was ready with a pitcher of iced rose petal rooibus, Anastasia’s favorite tea, hot or cold. She’d also prepared what her menu called African Grilled Sandwich, what Anastasia insisted was simply the grilled cheese of her youth, with tomatoes, and mayo.

  “It’s the added chutney that matters,” Keicia would say.

  “Just a tweak, it hardly counts,” Anastasia would say, as both women would laugh as if it were the first time they’d recited the lines. And since they’d had no serious differences of opinion since they met at Berkeley High, they made the most of this one.

  “You sounded a little desperate,” Keicia said now. “I hope it’s not the unpacking, if you know what I mean.”

  Her friend seemed to shimmer in the light from the windows, but Anastasia saw that it was all about Keicia’s clothing, as usual. Beads and sequins from the bodice of her short sleeveless dress were the trigger for the light show. “I do know what you mean and it’s only five percent of the unpacking this time.”

  Keicia lifted her iced tea glass in a toast. “Big improvement over yesterday’s twenty percent. I’m glad to hear it.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “So what is it? Your friendly shrink is ready to listen.”

  Anastasia was happy to match the softer tone. “A young woman is on her way to my worktable, for starters.” She looked up from what was left of her sandwich and focused on Keicia’s wall of posters. Make tea, not war, caught her eye. Why not Make tea, not murder, she thought. She gave Keicia the short, nameless version of how Paul Babcock’s latest client had met her end, and how she was expected to look into the circumstances. Anastasia shook her head. “It’s very sad. She was about to be married this weekend. The whole wedding party was at the Abrey, celebrating, and now the bride—”

  “Terry? Terry and Lucas?” Keicia started, her drink escaping her fingers, knocking the glass into a salt shaker, spilling tea on the tabletop.

  Anastasia looked up, startled herself. She’d forgotten the groom’s name. Maybe this was a different wedding. “I’m not sure. The bride is Terry Corbett. Her mother is Laura. I don’t know too much more.”

  Keicia uttered what sounded like “Oh, my God” in a soft, incredulous voice. “My niece, Jessica, is supposed to be a bridesmaid for Terry. Jessica has been all over this wedding. I mean, not Jessica’s wedding, although she’s engaged herself.” Keicia was agitated to an extent I hadn’t seen too many times. “She and Terry lived together until Terry moved in with Lucas.” She sighed. “The poor girls.”

  By “poor” Anastasia figured Keicia meant the bride, the maids, and probably even the boys who were part of the wedding. Plus Terry’s family and friends. All of them needed some kind of blessing, if only from Dziva. She thought back to her notes, thinking it would be too insensitive to pull out the wedding party list—the suspects, in Caroline Babcock’s mind. Was there a Jessica on the list?

  Anastasia made one more attempt to debunk the story that her best friend was related to a bridesmaid whose official duties ended prematurely with the bride’s death. “Is your niece called Jessie? Jessie Bates?”

  Keicia nodded, agitated now. “Yes, Jessie Bates, and her roommate, Shannon Leonard, is a bridesmaid, too. They’ve known Terry a long time, from Cal.”

  Anastasia felt her theory of coincidence slipping away. She wished she could start the day over, go home and unpack her boxes.

  “I had no idea,” Anastasia said. “I’ve never met anyone in the group. And her last name is different from yours, of course.”

  “How could you have known?” Keicia paused, appeared to be remembering something. “Oh my God, did you say Terry was murdered? Was anyone else hurt, or . . . anything?”

  Anastasia drew in her breath and covered Keicia’s hand with her own. “No, no. I’m so sorry I said anything. I shouldn’t have. It was a huge breach. I never dreamed you’d know anyone or I wouldn’t have—”

  “How was she murdered? At the Abrey? That’s such a great neighborhood, I can’t imagine someone getting mugged there.”

  Anastasia shook her head, almost to the point of pain. “She wasn’t mugged, or anything like that. I should have made it clear. Really, it’s only Paul’s wife who thinks Terry was murdered. The police are checking, but—”

  “The police? This is awful. You never think something like this could happen. I can’t imagine how Laura is feeling right now. Terry’s mother. I’m going to call her.” Keicia dug her phone from a wildly striped bag hanging on the back of her chair, put it on the table, then closed her eyes, abandoning the phone call project.

  “Do you know her well?” Anastasia asked.

  “I wouldn’t say well, but we’d all go to the big game together and party afterwards. It was fun because Laura went to Stanford, so she’d be rooting for the Cardinals, and all the rest of us would be for the Cal Bears, of course, and ragging on her.” Keicia choked up. “I actually knew Terry better than her mother, since Jessica brought her around here a lot.” She waved her arm to indicate her entire cafe, and wrestled a crumpled tissue from her bag.

  Anastasia signaled the barista to bring her boss some water. She didn’t want to leave the table right now. “I’m so sorry,” she said, handing her friend a packet of tissues.

  Anastasia mentally ran through the story, as she’d told it to Keicia, hoping she’d said nothing callous. It wasn’t uncommon for people in her profession to use expressions that seemed clinical and impersonal. She’d dealt with enough cops to know that they often handled otherwise unspeakable situations with a flip remark, their way of coping with the worst human society had to offer. Another reason she preferred working in an isolated embalming room to being the point person upstairs, as Paul was.

  Dziva’s barista of the day, Simone, came by and exchanged their pitcher of water for a fresh one. Anastasia had gotten used to Simone’s red Mohawk, and had stopped teasing her about the many bejeweled holes in her face.

  “Everything okay here?” she asked, pouring the water. “You look, like, all tense.”

  “We are all tense,” Anastasia said. “We’ve had some sad news.”

  Simone’s face took on a sympathetic expression. “Well, crap. Let me know if you need anything else. I can bring some cookies?”

  “A few chocolate macadamias would be nice,” Keicia said, and Simone smiled.

  “You have the best help,” Anastasia said, when Simone walked off.

  “Do the police know who did it?” Keicia asked.

  No small talk. Anastasia got the point. The cookie request was for Simone’s benefit and to get rid of her. “This is all very new. I think it happened early this morning. I got the call around eleven.”

  Anastasia sat back, waiting for Keicia to settle down. She was upset with herself for revealing as much as she did. It was unprofessional in the extreme. She knew she could count on Keicia to keep things to herself, but that was no defense. Keicia wasn’t really her shrink; there was no confidentiality clause in effect. Maybe she should consider engaging a therapist. She glanced around the shop. No one seemed to have been paying attention to them. People were on their phones and at their laptops. A group of men in business clothes sat going over documents, using the HANDICAPPED table as if it were in their office. She was sure they weren’t eavesdropping. Best of all, a noisy, fussy kid at the counter distracted many of the customers. Simone was trying to quiet him with a chocolate lollipop.

  “I’m going to call Jessie,” Keicia said, fingering her phone.

  “They’re still at the Abrey as far as I know.”

  “Still at the hotel? How come?” Keicia asked.

  “The police are asking them to stay until they sort things out.”

  “Police don’t ask,” Keicia said, as if she knew from experience. “This must mean they’re suspects.” Her voice reached as high a volume as possible without shouting.

  Anastasia could only imagine what her friend’s tone would be like if she remembered that Anastasia was one of the people who was about to que
stion them.

  FOUR

  Anastasia drove off. Her sandwich was not settling well; she kept retasting the chutney and the butter from the grill. For the first time in ages, she passed by Nabom’s Bakery without stopping for her favorite turnovers. She and Keicia had parted on dubious terms. Anastasia couldn’t or wouldn’t answer any direct questions about whether Jessie was a suspect. Instead, she pleaded with her friend to be patient and let the police do their jobs.

  “And you, too, I suppose,” Keicia had said, apparently recalling that little detail of Anastasia’s report, that she’d also be investigating. Her look and words were as close as anyone could get to Et tu, Brute.

  When Anastasia was about half way to Babcock’s, her phone rang through her car speakers. She was relieved to see that it was Marty this time. Paul had been leaving messages, or just hanging up, since she’d left him in the conference room. She turned down the air conditioning fan so she could hear better through the Bluetooth. She went through the story again for Marty—the wedding that was not to be—and felt as though she were rehearsing lines for a play, over and over. Except there was nothing fictional about what had gone wrong.

  “One of the attendants now being held at the Abrey is Keicia’s niece.”

  “That’s going to be tricky,” Marty said, after a low whistle.

  “Ya think?” Anastasia made her way through busy downtown traffic, while she talked, hands-free.

  “How sure are they, I mean the real police, that the bride was murdered?” Marty asked.

  “I don’t know what the status is. I haven’t talked to Paul since I bolted from the mortuary after receiving the list.”

  “Where’re you headed for now?”

  “I’ll call Paul to find out the status, then it’s either to the mortuary, or the hotel, depending.”

  “Meet me at Buddy’s first.”

  “You want ice cream? You never want ice cream.”

  “But you do. Always.”

  “Thanks, but I’d better get to this job, however it turns out.”

  “Buddy’s is on the way, whether you go to Babcock’s or the Abrey. We’ll take twenty minutes, tops. I’ll call ahead and they’ll have it ready.”

  “There’s a rumor that Buddy is going out of business. I suppose we should show our support.”

  “Now you’re talking. Chocolate or pistachio?”

  She pulled around to the left-only lane and headed toward the Berkeley campus and Buddy’s. “Both, please.”

  ~*~

  Marty was waiting for her at a marble-top table in the center of Buddy’s shop. Tall and lean, slightly balding, with a crisp white shirt, befitting a dancing instructor, Marty stood out in the summer Saturday crowd. All around him were heavily decorated T-shirts and backpacks, scuffed shoes, and jeans—torn at the knees, deliberately or otherwise. When she’d first learned his age, nearly nine years younger than she was, Anastasia had misgivings about any future together. Keicia and other friends had gotten her over that hurdle by naming happily married couples with a much greater age spread, and, conversely, couples of the same age who didn’t make it—one example of the latter being Anastasia’s own short-lived marriage with her peer, Sonny Franklin, who still called her Rainbow. In the end, it was up to the particular people, they told her, and they’d been right.

  Besides, Marty was a tough guy to beat, at any age. A few months ago, he’d left a conference in another state, to rush home—Keicia had let him know that Anastasia was upset over the death of her high school chemistry teacher.

  “When you’re upset, I’m upset,” he’d said. It might have been that act of love that sealed the deal for Anastasia.

  “I know you’re concerned about how Keicia responded,” Marty said now. “But give it some time. She loves you and trusts you.”

  “I know. Thanks.” Anastasia ate the small biscotti that accompanied Buddy’s sundaes and motioned for Marty to hand his over.

  “You’re mean,” he said, sticking the cookie into her ice cream. And they laughed again.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Anastasia said, spooning a pistachio nut from the green side of her dish. “I’m supposed to be questioning the wedding party. Or, for all I know the medical examiner has released Terry’s body and I have serious work to do.”

  Marty made a move to take her sundae dish from her. “Okay, then, we’ll just leave the rest of this and you can be on your way.”

  She slapped his hand lightly. “Don’t you dare.”

  Anastasia dreaded the day when a simple ice cream date with Marty wouldn’t be able to make her laugh. Maybe it was his chosen profession—the little dancing she had done told her it was nearly impossible to stay stressed, or even sad, while tapping. Especially if you were still at the talking to yourself stage as she was. She wished she could stand in Buddy’s narrow aisle and do an exercise. Stomp, slap hands on knees, cross over.

  Marty put his hand on hers. “Promise you’ll take it easy. I mean it. Do what you have to do over the next few days, but take care of yourself.”

  “Uh huh.”

  It was a promise Anastasia hoped she’d be able to keep.

  FIVE

  For the second time that day, Paul met Anastasia at the back door of Babcock’s. Cold air rushed out, but was no match for the hot air outside. The myth was that Berkeley was always cool, favored with winds off San Francisco Bay. But in Anastasia’s experience, summer days could be brutal, like today, when the thermometer in front of a bank she’d passed read ninety-five degrees and the air was perfectly still.

  “Where have you been?” Paul asked, by way of greeting her.

  The twenty minutes with Marty had stretched to almost an hour, so it was close to two o’clock when Anastasia arrived at Babcock’s. “I went—” Anastasia began.

  “There’s news,” Paul said. Anastasia had been about to face the consequences of enjoying a double scoop sundae and two biscotti. She was only too happy to let Paul interrupt, instead. “They’re saying that Terry was not murdered.”

  He took a deep breath, during which Anastasia broke in with, “That’s good news. I mean not that Terry is gone, of course, but that she died from natural causes. I’ll bet the family doctor can help with the possibilities, like looking into the medical history of the family.”

  She might as well have saved her breath. Paul ushered her into the mortuary building, still on his own track. “It’s not news that either Caroline or Laura Corbett is satisfied with,” he said. Anastasia’s heart sank, knowing what was coming. “They want you to go to the Abrey immediately, before the police act on this and release the suspects.”

  “But, Paul, the ME has ruled. So, isn’t this a little . . . ?”

  “Obsessive? Yes, but it won’t cost you anything. I want you to chalk up the time you spend, and we’ll add it to your hours of work here.” He managed a small smile. “Win-win.”

  Anastasia blew out a breath. The last thing she wanted was to be paid for sleuthing. “That’s not the point, and I’m sure you know that.”

  He led her back to the small conference room where, earlier today, he’d made out the lists that had by now probably sunk to the bottom of her large purse. Anastasia was formulating further arguments against her involvement in a murder investigation that had been shut down, or not even opened, by the police. She approached the room, and stopped at the threshold. She hadn’t expected company.

  Already seated at the table were two women, both with somber expressions. Anastasia knew Caroline, Paul’s wife, from her professional life on the accounting side of Babcock’s Mortuary and from occasional social functions. Caroline was short and dark complexioned, like Paul. And like Paul, she was always meticulously dressed. Today she wore a sleeveless navy dress with cutouts at the neck. Unadorned, which was unusual.

  “Caroline,” Anastasia said, with more of a question than a statement in her voice, so that Caroline would understand the greeting as “Why are you here?”

  “It’s good
to see you, Anastasia.”

  Paul brewed a cup of coffee from his expensive new system, and placed a mug, identical to the one Caroline was holding, on the table in front of an empty chair. He motioned Anastasia to sit.

  The second woman was wrapped in a black knit dress, no makeup, no jewelry, hands clasped together on her lap, an untouched bottle of water at her place, a box of tissues in easy reach.

  “Anastasia Brent, this is Laura Corbett, Terry’s mother,” Paul said, as if she couldn’t have guessed.

  Ambush, Anastasia thought, and made a note to call Paul out on it later. She turned to look at him and saw that he’d slipped out right after the introduction. She was on her own. Two against one—one a grieving mother, the other her boss’s wife. Technically, her boss also, since Caroline’s name was on the letterhead.

  “Just hear us out,” Caroline said.

  “Please, Ms. Brent,” Laura said. Her voice was that of someone who had been on a crying jag, her eyes still on it. Her narrow features and prim posture made her seem all the more vulnerable.

  “Call me Anastasia, please.”

  The stage was set and Anastasia felt herself being drawn in.

  “I’ve heard that you’ve helped people in this situation before,” Laura said, sounding like a character in “The Godfather”. Anastasia half expected her to pull out an envelope thick with hundred dollar bills. “You have to understand what it’s like. I talked to Terry every day. It was just the two of us. She’s my world.”

  “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Corbett, but—”

  “I spoke to her on Friday evening. She said she’d pulled a muscle lifting weights. She was always trying to improve her body, as if she wasn’t beautiful enough.” Terry’s mother stopped to catch her breath. “I told her she should soak in her fancy tub. I had some Epsom salt sent to her. It always worked for us. You know, Terry knew a lot about medications and things like that. She was high up in her company, in charge of all communications. I know that Big Pharma has a bad reputation, but Terry thought her company was on the right track.”