by Rita Lakin
“I didn’t tell them any of that. The story was improbable as it was. I stopped while I was ahead.”
“But the HL on the treasure chest was a clue! It proves she was murdered and that she knew the killer.” I am so upset, I can hardly speak.
“Gladdy, be reasonable. I went out on a limb for you to get the ring to that precinct. I could not justify having more information about the cave. And besides, there is no way to tell for sure whether the diamond had etched out any letters. She could have dropped the ring accidentally when she fell.”
“That ring didn’t just fall off her finger. The initials are evidence, and now the cops don’t know about it. It would at least make them investigate the possibility of there being a murder!” Having finished my sandwich, I squash my napkin with a vengeance.
“And maybe it wouldn’t. Probably someone else at some other time carved those initials.” He tries to take my hands and hold them to comfort me. I don’t let him.
“Forensics could tell us all that.”
He grins. “Forensics, huh?”
Yeah, Morrie. This old broad has heard about forensics. Every twelve-year-old who watches TV knows, too.
“And how did the guys in her precinct explain her body being out of the gondola?”
“They probably assumed she was walking along the track and had a heart attack and fell down and landed on the treasure chest. That’s also when her ring dropped off her finger.”
“Morrie! That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she walk on the track? She was in the gondola. She would have just slumped in her seat.”
“Maybe they thought she was in pain and got out to go for help and she fell over. You’re asking me to second-guess what others might think.”
“Ridiculous. If she was in pain, she would have stayed put ’til the car rolled back outside and she could call for help, or at least end up outside so someone would see her.”
Morrie is getting annoyed. I am furious. He will not take me seriously. If this came from some young rookie cop—a male—he’d listen.
“Gladdy, listen to me. I did what you asked. I made enquiries at each precinct. If there had been any kind of anomaly, the medical examiner would have picked it up. From my understanding, Margaret Sampson was only a few feet away from her golfing partners. Josephine Martinson was alone in her private spa; the staff at the front desk would have known if anyone went in there. Elizabeth Johnson was with a whole group of children when she died. No one saw anything. There was nothing to see.”
I feel so discouraged.
“Look,” Morrie concludes, “this isn’t in my jurisdiction. I have a caseload of my own that keeps me busy twenty-four/seven. Even if I believed these cockeyed ideas of yours, there’s nothing I can do. I was only trying to protect you.”
I attempt to calm down. I turn my back on him so I won’t say the angry things that are bubbling up in me.
“Gladdy, do you hear what you’re saying? You think there’s a killer husband in Boca, a killer husband in Sarasota, and another one in West Palm Beach.”
I wheel around. “Yes. And they could be connected.”
I am stopped by the arrival of a tiny, bent-over senior, probably in her late eighties, carrying a sun parasol. She sits down gingerly next to us. We wiggle about to give her room. “You waiting long for the bus?” she asks.
We inform her we aren’t waiting, but no bus had been by for quite a while.
I pull Morrie back to our discussion. “What if they all know HL? And hired him for the job?”
“I thought you said Mrs. Johnson knew who it was by the initials you insist she carved.”
“I don’t know how to explain that, but in some way they were all connected to the same…” I pause. The woman is definitely listening in. “The same contractor for the job to be done.”
“Boy, what a coincidence that would be.”
“That’s my point. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. These men either knew each other or had some link and exchanged information on this…contractor, or they met somewhere and worked it out and hired the same…contractor. Can’t you at least check bank accounts to see if there are similar large withdrawals in each of their accounts?”
“Gladdy, come on…”
Just then the bus arrives. The woman pulls herself up by holding on to the side of the bench, closes her umbrella, and begins to climb the steps. She turns to Morrie. “You should listen to your mother, young man, and stay away from building contractors. They’ll steal you blind.”
When the bus pulls away, Morrie unfurls that long, slim body. “Gotta go. I hear you and the girls are going on a bingo cruise. Just have a good time and forget about all these imagined conspiracies.”
He tries to give me a quick hug, which I do not return. He heads for his car. Then he turns and winks at me. “Hey, Gladdy, when are you going to make an honest man of my dad?”
Exasperated, I wave him away. He gets into his car. In frustration I take a swipe at the photo on the bench of an ugly bail bondsman in his equally ugly ad.
Morrie’s car pulls up alongside me. This time he looks serious.
“What?” I say to him. “You’re going to apologize and say how wrong you are?”
He pauses, then in a low voice he says, “I wasn’t sure I should tell you. I Googled you…”
“What is this Google nonsense, anyway?”
“It’s a way to find out information on the computer about everything and everybody.”
I laugh nervously. “So what big secret did you find?”
“I know what happened to your husband. You might want to tell Dad.” He gives me a wan smile and drives off.
I stare at him, dumbfounded.
25
The Hero in Fiction
Four A.M. I open my eyes and peer at the clock. Why do I always do that? I know it’s still dark and I should be sleeping. I turn over and I turn over again. Close my eyes and give myself an order to dream of something else. Fat chance. I’m back in that accursed alley again. I pull myself into a sitting position. Not this dream again. I keep thinking there must be a statute of limitations on how many times I get to relive this one.
I put on my bathrobe because I feel chilled. This nightmare comes with a caveat: Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
It usually hits me on anniversaries. Thanks a lot, Morrie. You and your darn Google. This is the dream I don’t share with anyone. Not even with Evvie or the girls. Not even with my own daughter, Emily.
No point trying to push it away. It just pushes back. So I close my eyes and experience it as quickly as I can bear. Gevalt, big-time.
I’m standing in a dark street. No, I wasn’t there when it happened. But I’ve had to relive the real nightmare so often, it seems as if I were. Does that make sense? No, nothing makes sense. That it happened at all will never make sense.
My dream and my reality always take place not far from Columbia University. Near Riverside Drive and 124th Street.
I see an alley with a coffee shop on the corner. A shortcut during the day, treacherous at night. This night, my husband, Jack, works late at his office. He’s finishing the last polish on the newest edition of his textbook. Now he heads home. It’s New Year’s Eve and our daughter Emily’s eleventh birthday. He carries her present, always a book. (Like my father, always a book.) Jack and I invariably chose for Emily’s birthdays the novels we most enjoyed at her age. His present is Captain Horatio Hornblower. That night mine was to be For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Jack hears a scream. From that dark alley.
I hear it, too. In my dream, I’m there.
“Don’t go,” I cry out, knowing what lies ahead.
He rushes into the blackness. There is a student. Her book bag has spilled over. There is a man. I can’t see his face.
I try to run to help Jack, but the street has turned to quicksand and my legs keep treading; I cannot move.
I hear Jack shout a warning at the girl: “Run, Patty!” It’s one of his own students. An eighte
en-year-old girl. She runs and then a shot rings out.
And that’s when I always wake up.
Enough of that. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.
You can grieve until you are an empty shell of yourself. Like Enya Slovak, who survived the concentration camps and sleeps in a bedroom with photos of her murdered husband and children on the dresser and will never smile again for the rest of her life. I once told her that I really believed her family wouldn’t want her to keep suffering. She said, “What do you know?” If she lived a million years, her torment wouldn’t match what they went through.
I chose my husband’s way. To smile at each miracle of a day.
But in my dreams I do what Enya does. I cry.
I never gave Emily For Whom the Bell Tolls. And the police never found Jack’s killer.
26
Getting Ready to Go
My first stop is at Bella’s, where her entire wardrobe lies across her bed awaiting our opinions. The girls are already there. I survey the matching ensembles. Light peaches and neutral beiges and whiter-than-whites. Liquid lavenders and lemony yellows, all the pastels blending into the pastel bedspread in her pastel bedroom. It’s a wonder when she gets her light-skinned little body into bed at night that she doesn’t disappear altogether.
Her hands fluttering, she whimpers, “I don’t know what to take.”
“Take it all,” says grandiose Sophie. “Ya never know what you’ll need.”
“No,” says Ida, stamping her foot, beyond irritated by now. “How many times do I have to tell you? The staterooms are tiny. Not only do we store all our clothing in our rooms, according to the ship’s brochure, we also have to keep our suitcases there, too.”
“Big deal,” says Sophie, fluffing out a long sea-green chiffon evening gown and holding it against Bella for effect. “We have no problem, since there’re only two of us in our room.” She puts her arm around her roommate, who leans into her lovingly.
Ida grimaces, forming her hands into claws, ready to strangle her, but Evvie holds her back. Sophie will not stop rubbing it in that she had the winning ticket and that the other three of us will have to share a smaller room. At the same time, she is still sore that she was forced to share in paying for all our tickets.
I decide to leave them at it. Each bedroom will play out its own packing drama; now that I’ve seen one, I’ve seen enough.
The telephone is ringing when I get my door open. It’s Angelina Siciliano calling to ask if I got her check. I say yes and thank her. I wait for her to express some gratitude for what we did for her, but that isn’t going to happen.
I ask how things are, and now there is a lilt in her voice. Her sister, Connie, has moved into their house, and “Guess what?” Angelina says. “Elio is taking me on a second honeymoon. All the kids will take care of their aunt while we’re gone.”
I feel good about what she is telling me, and I congratulate her on this happy turn of events. But with murder still on my mind, no matter how hard I try to get it off, I can’t resist this opportunity to ask questions about her late cousin Josephine. “Did she ever mention knowing someone with the initials HL? A friend? Someone who worked for her? Would you think for a moment…?”
“Are you kidding?” Angelina stops me, says sarcastically, “HL? JK? XYZ? How would I know? Once she got rich, she forgot she ever had a famiglia. You think she’d invite us to her ritzy parties? Or how about a swim at her fancy country club? Hah! We were like chewing gum under her shoes. She never let us meet anyone she knew. The disgraceful way some people act to other members of their family.”
This from the woman who didn’t speak to her own sister for fifty years?
The moment I hang up, the phone rings again. This time it’s Jack. “Can you meet me right now?” From the anxious tone in his voice, I don’t ask questions. He tells me where, and after a brief hair comb and a dab of lipstick, I am out the door.
With great trepidation I walk quickly over to Phase Four. Jack said he’d leave Phase Six and meet me halfway. I don’t pay attention to the many scattered palm fronds the wind blew off the trees. Or that I have to hold my sweater close to me, because that wind is blowing hard. I am aware only that something serious is on his mind.
Did Morrie decide not to wait for me and tell Jack what he found out about my husband?
He’s already standing next to the prearranged park bench. Before I can even catch my breath, Jack blurts it out. He knows we are leaving on the cruise next Sunday afternoon. And now he informs me he has the use of his friend’s house in Key West that very same week.
I can hardly hide my relief. Morrie didn’t tell him.
He puts his arms around me. “I know I shouldn’t ask you to give up the cruise. But I want you to be with me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“The girls would be disappointed,” he says softly.
“Yes, they would.”
“But it’s such a great offer. I don’t want to lose it.”
“I see…” I feel my throat tightening and I can hardly swallow.
We hear someone coming down the path and we sit down demurely next to one another on the bench.
Jack hesitates. “You could tell them something came up and you have to make other plans…”
“They’ll have a fit.”
Jack gets up, paces. “Do you really want to go on that cruise? Truth?”
“No.”
He comes back to me and stares into my eyes. “Glad, we’re not kids anymore. If you don’t do what you really want to do at this stage of your life, when will you?”
“Don’t…you aren’t being fair…It’s more complicated than that.”
“Okay, they’ll be mad for a while, but they love you and want you to be happy. They’ll understand…They’ll get over it.”
“I don’t think they will.”
“Now, that’s silly.”
“Please don’t ask me to choose.”
“I guess that’s what I am doing.”
“I won’t be able to choose you this time.” I bow my head. This is awful. How can I explain how I feel? My back is to the wall and I can’t deal with the pressure. I want to beg him to back off. For now.
Jack doesn’t move. “Honey, I’m trying to understand, but I can’t. What’s this really about?”
I see the expression on his face. “It’s only a cruise!” he says. “They’ll be back in a week. What’s the big deal?”
I need to say something. “They won’t be able to manage things alone,” I blurt. “I’m their designated driver!”
He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. He tries to laugh. “These aren’t kids, Glad. These are grown-ups.”
“That’s what you think,” I say weakly. “Please. There’ll be other weeks, other places we can go.”
“And you’ll find another excuse. You’ve been putting me off for a long time,” he says petulantly.
I want to reach out and touch him, but the distance is too far. There is coldness facing me for the first time.
“I guess I’m tired of being reasonable. Either you want me—or you don’t.”
“Honey, I promise when I get back…”
“Do you know how long we’ve been planning to take a trip? How many times you’ve found an excuse not to go?”
“Jack, please, next time…”
But he’s walking away from me. I can’t believe it. I want him to come back. This is just a difference of opinion, isn’t it? I feel tears welling up. An icy voice inside says, You’ve lost him. Now you don’t have to tell him.
The bench has that same ugly bail bondsman ad I saw the day I met with Morrie. I feel like that mean face is following me everywhere. Like some kind of evil totem.
27
Gossip
Are you sure this is the address?” I ask Ida.
“Positive.” She looks again at the piece of paper in her hand. “Barbi wrote it down for me.”
I pull into the minimall on University Avenue.
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Sophie bounces up and down in the seat behind me. “I know where we are. There’s Moishe’s Deli.”
And indeed it is. A place where we’ve eaten many times. The address we want is two doors away. For a moment we stare at the window. It’s totally covered with some kind of pale gray paint, so no one can see through it. I remember the last time we were in this mall, that location was a shoe store.
We get out of the car and move closer. “Look there.” Bella points.
In the right-hand corner of the window is a small, printed sign:
GOSSIP by Appointment Only
and a phone number.
“This is where Casey and Barbi work?” Evvie tries in vain to see through the paint. “Weird.”
Bella ventures a guess. “Maybe they’ll be dressed as gypsies and have a crystal ball.”
A few days ago Ida ran into Barbi in the laundry room. They got to talking and Ida mentioned our case. And how frustrated I was, unable to get enough facts. Barbi suggested that she and her cousin might be able to help. And here we are, because after that dismal meeting with Morrie, I can’t think of anything else to do.
I put my hand on the doorknob. “I hope we aren’t wasting our time.”
Bella is happy. “No matter what, it won’t be a total nothing. We can always go next door for a nosh.”
The door is locked. I see a doorbell and ring it.
Casey opens the door. Barbi is right behind her.
“Welcome,” Barbi says.
Sophie gasps. I hope the rest of my troupe can keep from reacting. What I am immediately aware of is the way the cousins are dressed, and what this huge open space behind them looks like.
“We’re running a little behind. Would you mind waiting a few minutes?” Casey leads us to a round white table and chairs. “We’ve set out a petite refreshment for you. I hope you like chai and scones with orange marmalade.”
We sit down like obedient children. The girls are flummoxed. Even I am in awe.
The cousins leave us and move across this huge, seemingly empty room, where they sit at two computers.
The girls start whispering all at once.