by Angela Zeman
“Oh, yes. The morning he dropped us off at Pearl’s, immediately after Solly’s death.” She looked at me and waited.
Gradually the idea sank in. I stared at her, wanting to be sure I understood what she was getting at, hoping it was okay to feel the massive relief blooming in me.
She continued patiently. “Someone’s trying to make it look bad for Pearl. The invoice and box, with her initial on it, and with her medicine mixed with his saccharin in it, as if she’d hurriedly traded some of her pills for his—this neat little package was meant for the police to find. Only he—or she—underestimated the efficiency of the police and was a little late. The house had already been searched.”
I pushed away the toast. “That prowler. The peeping tom we chased from Solly’s house!”
She nodded. “It’s a big house, and the storm was noisy that night. A few extra creaks and bangs would never be noticed. By the time we arrived, I’ll bet the pillbox and invoice had already been put into place. He was probably sneaking back to his car and only returned to the window to eavesdrop on what we said, in case it was something to his interest.
“Bella reported no break-in,” I said.
“I know. I’d love to examine that back door. I regret I didn’t think of it when we were there after the funeral.”
Doubt flickered through my mind. Still … should Mrs. Risk be so sure of Pearl’s innocence?
She walked over to the stove, picked up a steaming kettle and poured hot water into two cups. “Sorry, dear, I forgot the tea. Let it steep a moment.” She walked back and put a cup near me. A pungent flowery perfume drifted into the air.
“Blackberry leaves, dandelion root, and rose hips,” she murmured when she saw me sniffing the tea suspiciously. “Do you remember how Pearl said she hired a detective to find Bella?”
“Yes. Boy, that backfired.”
“You haven’t heard that anywhere else, have you?”
“No. But I get most of the gossip in the shop, and I’ve been out with you a lot lately.”
Mrs. Risk grinned. “I know. Remember that little gathering I had when you were in Simon Lutz’s office? I invited the chattiest people in town—Mayor Harper, Horace Arsdale the banker, Barton Peacock, Black Dan, Lena and the other shopkeepers.” She laughed. “We had quite a party. I learned about Bella’s impact on our little community.”
“What impact?”
“Oh, she was well remembered. Don’t forget, Bella stayed at the Inn until just a few days ago. Bart told me she had become well liked there. She’d also favorably impressed the few from whom she purchased things. She truly had arrived in rags, and brought nearly nothing with her. She must’ve leaped upon Pearl’s phone call as her financial salvation, if nothing else.”
I felt my eyebrows lift.
Mrs. Risk’s restless fingers began to pick at an end piece of bread. “It looks like she went out of her way to charm whomever she met. That says something about her.”
“It says she planned to stay around a while.” I shrugged.
“Or she could’ve been happy to be here. Relief makes one grateful. Gratitude makes one charming.”
“Plans to milk a sucker make one careful,” I said, mimicking her softly instructive tone.
“The point is—”
“Yes. What WAS that point?” I said, deliberately stuffing my mouth full of toast and jam.
“The point is that I haven’t heard one word from anyone that contradicts the impression that Bella showed up on Pearl’s birthday unannounced … and unexpected.”
“So?”
“Pearl was in a weakened, shocked condition the day after Solly’s death. I’d given her some wine. She was vulnerable. She told us the truth about Bella’s arrival. She’s let everyone else believe otherwise.”
I took a deep breath. “That just makes my point. Think about it. Pearl, who you insist is not a liar, lied by letting people think things that weren’t true.”
She said nothing.
I continued, “Can’t you see that she could just as well lie to us about those other things? These lies could be an indication of Pearl’s guilt!”
Finally she smiled and said only, “You are a delight to instruct, my dear. The daughter of my heart.” She leaned over and to my intense embarrassment, kissed the top of my head.
I reared back, alarmed. “Hey!”
She scooped up the dishes and the jam and swept off for the kitchen.
Undecided whether to feel resentful or flattered, I left the table and found my clothes. While I was dressing, I heard her call out, “Why won’t you allow Charlie to get closer to you? You’re obviously attracted to him.”
With a short laugh, I shouted back, “It wouldn’t be fair to Charlie. I harbor lustful feelings for Michael.”
She appeared suddenly in the bedroom door as I struggled to shove my feet into my now stiff leather boots. “You do not. You treat Michael like a nice brother.”
“Michael’s too smart,” I admitted, serious now. “He’s so educated that I feel like ‘lil’ Abner’s sister around him.”
“Education isn’t only something purchased from a college, contrary to popular opinion, and does not always equal intelligence. You’ll seem as educated as he is in a few years. You’ve learned so much already, and miles from any university. That’s an apt analogy, by the way. When I met you, you were like, as you say, ‘lil’ Abner’s sister.”
She disappeared around the corner again.
“What’s an ology?” I grumbled at her. I knew, but asked it to be difficult.
Ignoring my question, she called out, “But about Charlie. He’s a good man. Sensitive, bright, a wonderful sense of irony—”
I rounded the corner and found her sweeping ashes. “Here, let me help.” I took the broom from her to finish the job. “What’s this fixation you have on matrimony?” I complained.
She picked up Jezebel’s dish. “You’re joking, aren’t you? I was discussing sex, not marriage. You, my dear, appear to be a volcano ready to explode.”
“Look. Give out advice on other stuff all you want. My sex life needs no help from you!” I propped the broom in its place in the corner and gingerly lifted up my coat. It was—now that I could see it in the light—dry but crusty with dirt. I latched the door behind me on my way out, careful to avoid the guard bushes.
I began beating the coat against the pathstones, ignoring the sharp twinges that stabbed my back and side with every movement, finding relief from my frustrations in the exertion. A cloud of dust rose all around me. I’d need another bath. I beat harder and took a fierce joy in it, to the detriment of my coat.
A second later I heard the door open behind me. A voice called out, “I phoned Daniel earlier. He said that friend of his—do you know, I think it’s a girlfriend. Anyway, his friend who likes to help him at your shop wouldn’t mind pitching in today if you’d like to take a day off. To help me with my inquiries.”
She needs a chauffeur, I thought sourly to myself.
As I stood thinking, I noticed that the day was truly glorious, she was right about that. The sun filtered through the naked tree branches and illumined the carpet of fallen leaves, bathing the woods in liquid gold. The Sound sparkled like a fairy tale sea—calm, perfectly fresh, perfectly kissed on every wavelet by the dancing sunlight. Like the stage lights would dance on Pearl’s glittering dress the night of her come-back … or downfall.
I trudged back to her door, which stood open but empty. She hadn’t waited for my answer. Inside, wrapped in her cloak and clutching her newly loaded basket, she was bending to say good-bye to Jezebel, who hadn’t even meowed at me all morning.
I laughed at myself, unable to help it. Like Charlie, I was not just willing, but eager to take her where she wanted to go. I enjoyed the ride so much! I took a deep breath to relax the muscles in my side, shrugged myself into my coat, and led the way.
As I slid under the steering wheel and pumped to loosen the clutch, I tensed for the inevitable complaints about my car, but for
once, they didn’t arrive.
I brightened. “Where first?” Like I had to ask. I turned left at the lane’s end before her answer.
“Pearl’s.”
19
WE ARRIVED TO CHAOS.
“What’s up?” I asked Steve Graham, surprised that it was he who opened Pearl’s door to us. Since I last saw him at Solly’s disastrous dinner, his shiny bright Boy Scout image had tarnished. He trudged into the house’s back regions looking too tired to answer. We followed him, ending up in Pearl’s family room.
Ilene sat quietly coiled in an easy chair, a camcorder glued to one eye, ready (we discovered later) to film Pearl doing each piece of her routine so she could review herself on demand.
Zoë had created the most mess, with sewing tools and sequined material draping the furniture. Costume sketches shared space with scripts and half-empty coffee cups, soda cans, old scrapbooks, bowls of popcorn, a half-eaten sandwich, and heavy orange electric extension cords. A typewriter lay in the middle of the floor like a metal animal nested in balled up sheets of paper. Everyone stepped over it as they moved back and forth across the room.
Pearl’s short hair, damp with perspiration, looked as if she’d been pulling at it with both hands. She was barefooted, and wore stretch tights beneath an oversized sweater. A flicker of wariness darted across her face at the sight of us before she waved a bright hello. Suddenly she turned around to point at a kid in jeans and sweat shirt hunched on a short stepladder jammed into the furthest corner of the room. Obeying what was obviously a signal, he switched on the big boxy spotlight in his hand.
Immediately illumined, “Boy,” exclaimed Pearl to the room at large, pacing short steps and yanking her hair distractedly at the same time. “So much is different now from when I was a kid. Now eating’s a sure way to an ugly death, condoms are mentioned in casual conversation because sex will kill you, and smoking’s another of the thousand no-nos that we used to enjoy. Every day they condemn another piece of our lives, no more this, no to that.
“Audrey Hepburn, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s,’ talk about glamour, that long cigarette holder. Liz Taylor, Lauren Bacall. ‘Got a light?’ Yeah. We all wanted to look glamorous so we lit up. Even Lucy smoked! Well, thank goodness the surgeon general printed all those warnings on the packs. I don’t know about you, but as soon as I read that, wham! Those cancer sticks went right into the wastebasket. No, I’m kidding. It’s hell to quit.
“Even the cigarette companies are finally admitting that maybe, just possibly, under certain circumstances, nicotine could be just a teensy bit addictive. Of course, they decided this after government research revealed that nicotine’s more addictive than heroin. What a waste of time and taxpayer money, by the way. Anyone who flew anywhere a few years ago, when smoking on airplanes was okay, could’ve told them that. Remember how you couldn’t smoke on takeoff? Remember, what was the first thing the pilot announced the absolute first moment after we hit the wide-open air? He said the smokers could light up now. He didn’t say, hey you junkies, it’s okay to shoot up now, did he? No. He knew the drug addicts would be fine for a few drug-free hours. Not the smokers. He was preventing mutiny on his ship.
“And gone are the days of guys loitering in drugstores with their palms sweating until the rest of the customers left. I don’t know, it was kind of sweet the way they’d whisper to the pharmacist, all embarrassed, A condom, please.’ Forget it. Now condoms’re stacked by the register with the chewing gum and the Enquirer. The whole world can watch you browsing. ‘Oh, look. They got my favorite kind, grape flavored! I should get a couple. No, I’ll take a dozen. Big date tonight.’
“You know what I read on the condoms boxes when I was waiting at the checkout line the other day? Interesting reading. One box advertised, ‘New shape.’ Boy, things MUST have changed! I’d like to see that!”
While she talked, the kid slipped first one, then another colored sheet of plastic into his arc light. He would aim at her, flip a switch, and her skin would turn blue or green or gold or rose as she barked out lines. Throughout this light-show, Zoë held up lengths of various material next to Pearl’s face. The fabric reflected each shade differently, turning deep fuchsia when the blue hit it, or brown under the amber shade, for instance, making it obvious why they were going through these color tests.
Each time, Zoë would take notes then wave his light away, and he would turn it off. She would trundle away again, to sort through other material and they’d begin again.
Through all this, Pearl’s face reflected intense concentration. “Listen to this bit,” she said to nobody.
“Eating is totally different. When I was growing up everything was made with 100% sugar, 100% butter. Real cheese. We cooked with schmaltz. Today to find schmaltz you have to go to a museum. Remember mayonnaise? The last beef I saw was in a John Wayne movie rerun cable tv. Nowadays, my doctor doesn’t tell me what I can eat, my accountant does. He goes food shopping with me. I point at something, he reads the label, figures the fat gram percentages and tells me yes or no. I had a birthday a few months ago, the cake was tofu.
“And when I try to fry something, the margarine won’t melt in the skillet, it shrivels. It leaves shmutz on the bottom of the pan that you have to scrape off. What can you fry in shmutz? It doesn’t matter. These days, fry is the other ‘f’ word. The really dirty one.”
Simon Lutz entered the room, one hand clutching a plate of cookies, the other a pot of coffee. He saw me, reddened, then ignored me. “Want some fresh?” He waved the pot at Pearl, sloshing the steaming coffee dangerously close to spilling.
Pearl shook her head.
“I’d like some, if you don’t mind,” said Mrs. Risk. She stood there, unnaturally (I thought) composed, considering how they’d repeatedly hung up on her when she’d phoned.
“Me, too,” I said, not wanting the coffee, but not willing to be ignored.
“Sure,” he said brightly, avoiding my eyes. He settled the plate and pot on some magazines on a coffee table. “I’ll get more cups.”
When we both had received coffee, Simon picked a paper off the floor and began to read a joke aloud from it to Pearl, to which Pearl listened with close attention. “Okay, that was the setup,” he said. “Here’s the snapper. First you do a take—”
“Pearl, could we speak for a moment?” Mrs. Risk asked when it became obvious that no one was going to stop unless forced. Simon broke off and glanced at Mrs. Risk in irritation.
I thought I detected a flash of annoyance in Pearl’s face before she recovered. She waved one hand around and replied, “This isn’t a good time, really …” Then her arm dropped to her side. “Okay, a break.”
Simon let the paper slip from his hand back to the floor and, with a long-suffering expression, wandered off back in the direction of the kitchen.
Ilene let the camera drop to her lap.
The young man with the light groaned as he unfolded his jackknifed legs. He slid upwards, braced against the wall. “This is not gettin’ me anywhere.”
Zoë snapped, “I need time to make a decision, anyway. She can’t go on tv looking like a Martian under your expert hand. Go stick some white powder up your nose while you wait, schmuck.”
The boy snapped back at her, “You can’t talk to me like that. Union rules.” He stalked off in adolescent dignity.
Pearl glanced ruefully at us. “I wanted to do this here, instead of traveling to Krasner’s. They’ll let me bring my own light tech, if I pay him. It’s easier on me, but I think it’s a little tough on everybody else.” She picked her way around the mess on the floor, stepped over the typewriter and said, “Let’s go to the living room. Ilene, honey, relax. Please. Don’t just sit there waiting. You make me feel guilty.” Ilene shook her head, smiled faintly, and stayed where she was. The glance she gave us was withering.
We followed Pearl into the living room.
“I can’t give you much time. A photographer’s coming in an hour to do publicity photos to make up a
couple of last second posters.” Her mouth twisted as she looked down at herself. “Too skinny nowadays. Makes my old pictures look like somebody else. None of my dresses fit anymore.” She sighed and looked over her shoulder towards the other room, as if regretting leaving it.
“A lot of work,” said Mrs. Risk companionably as we all found seats. Pearl sank into the sofa with a heavy sigh.
“Well, I’d really begun way before Solly’s … But this’s been my first chance to get back to it. There’s just been so much to cope with since then,” she said softly.
I heard someone being admitted at the front door. A moment later, in strode Dr. Savoia, smile on high beam until he took in Pearl’s drawn face. He frowned down at her through his grey fuzzy beard.
“You’re tired,” he announced to her, as if identifying a foreign substance.
“I am not,” she protested.
He picked up her wrist and began counting with his watch’s second hand. “Excuse me, sweetheart,” he said to Mrs. Risk, who obligingly scooted over to make room for him on the couch.
He punched the stethoscope into his ears and picked up its flat end. After rubbing it against his palm he placed it against Pearl’s meager chest, inside her sweater neckline.
“Now, sweetheart, breath heavy for me. Slower.” He listened. We all listened. Pearl, rolling her eyes, breathed in, and out. And in, and out.
“You need a nap,” was the verdict. Then, as if he’d gotten instant compliance, he twisted and gazed over his shoulder at Mrs. Risk. “Where’ve you been keeping yourself? We had a wine tasting at Harrington’s the other night and you weren’t there.”
Mrs. Risk smiled. “You know me. Early to bed.”
He twisted around to wink at me, recognizing a monstrous lie when he heard one. “Hey, isn’t it terrible how tired the old witch gets these days? Just look at her.” He smacked Pearl lightly on the knee and left his hand there, squeezing it affectionately. “You could use a little of her advice, sweetheart.”
The old witch. Only he could get away with that. I grinned at him, then looked, in spite of myself, at Mrs. Risk. She radiated vigorous health, rather than the exhaustion of someone of middle age who’d stayed up all night.