Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  We stood in silence, made less awkward by the trumpet music, while Janice sobbed on Jim’s shoulder. I finally came to and brought her a glass of white wine. I also put a tumbler of water on the coffee table in front of her. Too little, too late, I thought. Josephine knew how to take care of visitors. She’d serve food and drinks with one hand while taking her guests’ coats with the other. In a situation like this, with a young woman whose murdered husband lay in a casket below us, Josephine would have attempted to carry the widow to the couch while pouring her drink.

  Although it didn’t take Janice long to compose herself, the mood for technical talk had passed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, dabbing at her eyes, “I guess it’s just starting to hit me that Eric is gone.”

  Jim continued to sit close to her, giving her alternating drinks of wine and water. Ever the altar boy, I thought.

  Connie and Leder and I took seats in the living room across from Jim and Janice and talked about friends we had in common on the West Coast. Janice had seen the flower arrangement from some of our California dinner group.

  “I’m sure you were responsible for that Gloria,” she said. “Thank you. I never would have thought of calling them.”

  “I talk to Elaine Cody regularly,” I said, “and it was no trouble for us to contact people. Everyone was truly sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” she said, in a soft voice, a great contrast to her usual sharp tones. Janice was showing us a whole new side of herself, subdued and vulnerable. With no apparent thought about the position of her legs or whether a piece of lint had landed on her jacket, she sat on the couch and unceremoniously pulled tissues from the box Jim had found for her.

  Connie seemed mellow also, asking about various memories I had of the old Revere. We’d all been, separately, to the big one-hundredth birthday celebration held on the beach in July. Revere Beach was the first public beach in the United States and even though the two miles of amusements were gone, the three-mile stretch of sandy beach remained. The city went all out for the anniversary, with games and music, and a fireworks spectacular by the same group that produced the Boston Pops Fourth of July concert every year on the Esplanade in Boston.

  “Four of my Saint Aidan’s boys won second prize in the sand castle competition,” Jim said. “I helped them build a scale model of the gas gun, one inch to one foot. It was spectacular. Even had little buttons for control panel lights.”

  “Did you get any good data from it?” Connie asked, with the widest grin her tiny mouth could handle. “Maybe we can use it.”

  “Here we go again,” Janice said, and we all fell silent for a moment.

  We got back to non-lab talk and made a plan to go to Kelly’s Roast Beef, at the Point of Pines end of the Boulevard and have a picnic on the beach before it got too cold. Unless one of us is in jail, I thought.

  After about a half hour, we heard a knock on the door. I thought it might be Rose who I knew would still be in the building. I was half right. I opened the door to Rose and Matt.

  I hoped my face showed only a third of the surprise and pleasure I felt. Matt was wearing a different suit, a darker blue, newly pressed. He looked newly shaven, too, and had as comfortable an expression as if his presence were expected.

  Rose spoke up to set everything straight.

  “Matt came just as we were closing up,” she said. “He saw the lights and all the cars and thought we might still be here. He was right.” At this last phrase, she swept her arms across the room to encompass the party, and looked as if she might take a bow.

  Matt greeted everyone and went over to Janice. He knows how to treat a victim, I thought.

  Rose took over as hostess, refilling glasses and serving Matt sparkling cider at his request. I guessed he considered himself on duty although I had no reason to believe he drank otherwise.

  My first apartment party didn’t last much longer, ending with our making plans for getting to Saint Anthony’s for Eric’s funeral service the next morning.

  Leder, Connie, Janice, and Jim left at the same time. I heard Jim offer to drive Janice home, but she said she was fine. Rose reminded her that a limousine would pick her up in the morning. I may have imagined it, but I thought I heard Connie utter a soft but firm “no thank you” to Leder.

  Matt had stayed behind and Rose was talking to me with her face, her dark eyes darting from me to Matt to the door. I understood her as only friends do, and talked back. The gist of the eye-to-eye conversation was Rose’s noting how Matt was still here and wanted to be alone with me, and my answering, no that’s not it and please don’t go.

  Rose ignored my unspoken but clear request, and excused herself.

  “Well, I have a busy morning,” she said. “And Frank isn’t feeling that well, so I’ll be going.”

  I walked her to the door, keeping my eyes and jaw busy telling Rose what I thought of her behavior. Matt was standing in the living room, his hands in his jacket pockets. He had abandoned his pleasant look for a more serious one. I offered him more cider.

  “No, thanks,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to look around.”

  “You want a tour?” I asked, not quite ready for this request.

  “You can call it that,” he said, smiling in a way that made me feel foolish. Evidently I was missing some obvious point.

  “You’ve just had the prime suspects in a murder investigation in your home,” he said. “Not a good idea. I couldn’t believe it when Rose told me you were entertaining them up here. I waited downstairs to give you some time, but that doesn’t mean I approve.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” I said, “Leder suggested it. And I thought you agreed it would be good if I could have a conversation with them tonight.”

  I heard my feelings of anger and dismay coming through as I stood with my arms straight down by my side and my voice came out high and whiny. I came within seconds of giving in to my desire to stamp my feet.

  “At a restaurant,” he said, still with the tone of a parent displeased with his daughter’s choice of friends. “Even a bar. In a public place. Not in your home.”

  He had moved to the kitchen and was looking at my cabinets, on top of my refrigerator, under the sink. He picked up my phone receiver, then replaced it when he heard a dial tone. He walked toward my bedroom, looked in the closet and under the bed, out the window and down at the street. I could hear cars starting up and pulling away, but they didn’t distract me from trying to figure out what Matt was doing.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked. My voice was small and weak as I followed him around my apartment.

  “I’m doing a sweep,” he said, “making sure you have no surprises tonight. What’s in here?”

  Matt had walked through my bedroom, past my exercise bicycle to the small hallway. He looked up at the trap door with a questioning look.

  “Isn’t that funny,” I said, trying to restore normalcy to this strange turn of events. “This corridor seems to have no purpose except to lead to the attic.”

  Matt didn’t respond. He pulled the ladder to the trap door, hooked it to the edge, and started climbing.

  “No one went up there,” I said. “No one left the kitchen and living room area. And even if they did...”

  “No one that you saw.”

  “Do you think someone planted a bomb or something?”

  “It’s not my job to guess, just to cover all bases.”

  His voice was cold and patronizing, and I felt like a whipped child. I stood in the hallway, my arms across my chest, and listened to Matt’s footsteps across the length of the attic floor. When he came down a few minutes later I saw small piles of dust on his shoes and on the shoulders of his dark jacket. This can’t get much worse, I thought.

  He brushed himself off.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and reached out to help him. I pulled my hand back half way to his shoulder when I saw his gaze. I felt the way I did when I was little and didn’t understand why Josephine
was screaming at me. I thought I’d built up resistance over the years to the feeling of helplessness when someone expressed disapproval of me, but at that moment in the presence of Matt’s displeasure, my adult resources failed me.

  We walked back through the bedroom and living room toward the door without speaking.

  Matt took a business card from his inside pocket, wrote on it, and handed it to me. He checked the lock on the door.

  “If you see or hear or so much as feel anything strange, call me at that number,” he said, and walked out.

  FIFTEEN

  Eric’s murder was not good for my health, I decided. In the past week, I’d been through more emotional upheavals and sleepless nights than my average year since Al’s fatal car crash.

  I’d worked hard all my adult life to overcome feelings of inadequacy instilled in me from birth. When you grow up afraid of your mother, there’s not much hope of facing the world with confidence. You end up willing to do anything to please people, even bus drivers or waiters you’ll never see again.

  Not that Josephine ever laid a hand on me. She kept control through intimidation and verbal abuse, making it clear that my birth was an accident she wasn’t happy about. It was a long time before I realized that I wasn’t the cause of her miserable life—the villain was the utter lack of opportunity for an intelligent but poor immigrant woman at the beginning of the twentieth century.

  I kept reminding myself of all the good that came from her threats. I got all A’s in high school because I sincerely thought she’d kill me if I didn’t. I went to college for the same reason. Josephine was convinced that education was the way out of the kind of life she had. How she’d become enlightened about that, I’d never know.

  I often had arguments with myself about the consequences of Josephine’s domination. Would I rather be a self-confident housewife who never left her kitchen or a professional scientist afraid of her own shadow?

  I made a different choice each time, depending on my mood. Once in a while I made a resolution to be a professional scientist not afraid of her own shadow. On that Saturday morning after Matt’s scolding, I was just about to make a new decision when the phone rang.

  It was nine A. M. and Peter was calling for one last check on my schedule for the evening. He’d bought tickets for the Wonderland dinner dance anyway, since it was for charity, and wondered if I’d be able to fit it in.

  “Rose and Frank are going,” he said, throwing in a carrot. “And there’s room at their table.”

  Here was Peter offering me an easy way out. I didn’t have to work very hard to please him—he already liked me. No fear of rejection to worry about. Just a nice pleasant relationship with clear rules. I could hardly remember why it hadn’t worked with Peter during our first lifetime together.

  “What time?” I asked.

  “Cocktails at six,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at five-thirty. But if that’s too early for you, we can go later. Dinner’s at seven-thirty.”

  I heard the surprise and pleasure in Peter’s voice and mentally pictured him tearing up the other nine points he’d written out to convince me to go with him. It felt good to please someone.

  “Five-thirty’s fine,” I said.

  “Are you awake?” Peter asked.

  “Am I awake? Yes, why?”

  “Well, I guess I’ll call you at this time more often.”

  “Don’t press your luck,” I said, and heard his laugh trail away as we hung up.

  Perfect, I thought, no time for any other decisions for a while, except what to wear to a dinner dance.

  ~*~

  I was hanging my black knit dress on the shower rod for a quick amateur steaming when I heard the intercom buzzer and Rose’s voice.

  “So, I assume last night didn’t go so well?” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  I couldn’t believe Rose heard what had gone on after she left. Matt hadn’t actually screamed at me the way Josephine used to.

  “Well, since Peter just called to say we’re on for tonight, I guess your evening with the prince of detectives was less than a grand slam.”

  Rose never did well with metaphors, but I got her meaning.

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I’m still not dressed for church,” I said. “Later.”

  “I can hardly wait. See you.”

  What would I do without Rose, I wondered. There was no one else like her in my life, maybe because we knew each other as young girls, dressing alike and talking about our hair and every little thing that matters when you’re ten or eleven years old. I almost regretted the time away from her, but it didn’t seem to have affected our closeness.

  I clicked on my weather radio and looked out the window at the same time. The consensus seemed to be rain all day. I was still like a newcomer to New England weather and enjoyed the sound and feel of rain. Years of near-drought conditions can do that. Of course, I had to admit it had been nice to plan outdoor events for any day between Easter and Thanksgiving and be ninety percent sure it wouldn’t rain.

  For the funeral I settled on a long wide skirt and high leather boots, both a deep gray, hoping I didn’t look too much like a cowgirl. To give the outfit a decidedly metropolitan slant I pinned a stylized silver initial G in a modern setting to my sweater. I got my gray raincoat and matching hat from the hall closet and headed for the church.

  It had taken me a while to determine my mode of transportation for the funeral. I didn’t like either image of myself in Eric’s funeral procession—behind the wheel of an otherwise empty black Cadillac, or high up on the seat of the burgundy four-wheel drive I still hadn’t gotten rid of. My compromise plan was to walk the short distance to Saint Anthony’s and then ride with someone else to the cemetery.

  ~*~

  Robert Galigani, looking like a younger version of Frank, led Janice and Eric’s parents past about fifty mourners, to the front row of the church. After seeing the rosary in Eric’s hand, I expected a full-blown funeral mass but there was only a brief service, and I had the idle thought that it was a waste of the great cathedral-like size and atmosphere of Saint Anthony’s not to have a high mass with all the trimmings.

  In the lobby of the church I approached Jim Guffy and asked if I could ride with him to Holy Family Burial Grounds.

  “Sure,” he said. “I get it.”

  I had no idea what he meant, but focused on the fact that I had a ride to the cemetery. In the parking lot, Jim’s vehicle was easy to spot, a high-riding black mini-van with overlapping bumper stickers competing for space. Fish-like symbols, and a half-dozen cartoon mascots for neighborhood sports teams covered the back bumper and spare tire cover.

  After clearing out duffel bags and balls of various sizes and stitching patterns, and adding a yellow and black funeral sign to his collection, Jim helped me up onto the passenger seat. I sat just below a swinging Saint Christopher medal.

  It wouldn’t have occurred to me to interrogate Jim on the long slow ride to the cemetery, but his opening remarks indicated that he had a different idea.

  “Are you going to ask me about Eric?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you’re working on the case with the police, so I figure you’re here to ask me some questions.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I really did just need a ride, Jim. I didn’t think my jeep would fit in with a funeral procession.”

  “I certainly had no respect for Eric, if that’s what you want to know,” Jim said, apparently intent on treating me like an investigating officer. “You have to love the sinner but not the sins. I’m offering special prayers for his soul.”

  I straightened up on my seat and turned to look at Jim, as far as my seat belt would allow. His face had a pinched look, his forehead marked with frown lines, his chin thrust out toward the steering wheel. As Jim talked on, using phrases that reminded me of catechism classes, like “mortal sin,” “state of
grace,” and “submission to the will of God,” I was struck as much by his demeanor as his words. His attitude was angry and self-righteous, markedly different from the low-key temperament he’d maintained even during our dinnertime debates in California.

  As I sat in Jim’s van, I had no desire to enter into a discussion of Eric’s morals. The best I could think of was what I considered a neutral statement.

  “No one deserves to be murdered,” I said, as we pulled in behind the line of parked cars on the cemetery driveway.

  Jim helped me out of the van and we stood next to each other during the brief service around Eric’s closed casket, displayed next to a mound of dirt and flowers. Holy Family was on Washington Avenue, less than a mile from Charger Street, and the three-story gas gun building where Eric was murdered was visible through the heavy atmosphere.

  Although the rain had dwindled to a light mist, we stood under enormous black umbrellas provided by Galigani’s. As I watched tiny black sparrows take cover in the bushes and trees of the cemetery, I felt sad for Eric’s parents and sad that I hadn’t done as much as I should have to find his murderer.

  I also couldn’t get Jim’s tirade out of my head and I wondered if his anger was the kind that justified murder in his mind.

  ~*~

  Following a plan laid down by the group in my living room the night before, we went from the cemetery to a coffee shop on Route 1. Jim had been quiet on the second lap of our trip, possibly feeling that his preaching was falling on deaf ears.

  “Thanks for inviting me,” I heard Andrea say to Jim as we were getting into a red leather-like booth. “It makes me feel part of things to be here.”

  Andrea’s eyes were red and puffy. She stuffed tissues into the pocket of her rain poncho and drew a chair up to the end of the table. I wondered if she called Matt to tell him her story about Leder’s phone call to his wife. I had no intention of asking her, however, not wanting to encourage her to think of me as an accessory to the information. The other four of us sat in pairs across from each other, Connie and Leder on one side, thanks to aggressive posturing by Leder, and Jim and I on the other.