THE SPELLMANS STRIKE AGAIN

by Lisa Lutz

The next time Morty and I met for lunch, he wasn’t up for an outside excursion, so I brought the deli to him. Still, he was only eating soup.

  “Have you ever done any party planning before?” Morty asked, as if I were at a job interview.

  “Well, I’m working on a baby/bridal shower right now,” I replied.

  “Good. Good,” Morty said. “Take out a pen and paper.”

  I followed his instructions.

  “First things first. I want you to do my eulogy.”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me,” he said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I replied. “I’m not really good with words that way.”

  “Who cares? I’m writing it.”

  “Oh,” I replied. “So you’re going to write your own eulogy?”

  “And you’re going to deliver it.”

  “Can I say no?”

  “You’d deny a dying man his last wish?”

  Sigh.

  “Good,” Morty replied. “You’re not a Jew, but the guilt still works. Now take out a pen and paper and let me dictate.”

  Morty ate a few more spoonfuls of chicken soup and contemplated the words he wanted to leave the world with.

  “How should I begin?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “ Friends and family’—no, that’s too serious.”

  “It is a funeral, Morty.”

  “So? It doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun.”

  “What’s your goal with this speech?”

  “I’d like you to impart some of my wisdom to my friends and family.”

  “Okay, let’s start with the wisdom part,” I said.

  “Good thinking,” Morty replied. Then he started thinking.

  My pen was poised over the pad of paper for about five minutes until Morty broke the silence.

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  “You don’t say?” I replied.

  “Why aren’t you writing?” Morty asked.

  “I’m not going to talk about breakfast in your eulogy.”

  “Let’s not think of it as a eulogy. You’ll be delivering my sage advice.”

  “Is that the kind of wisdom you want to leave people with? Breakfast? Really?”

  “We’re brainstorming, Izzele. Are you going to argue with me the entire time?”

  “I hope not.”

  “I’d also like you to wear a dress. Something in a bright color that’s festive.”

  “I can’t wear a festive dress to a funeral.”

  “It’s always ‘no’ with you.”

  “Let’s get back to the speech,” I suggested, mostly to detract from the subject of my wardrobe.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Morty said. “We’re losing focus.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “I just need a good opening line,” Morty said.

  “How about ‘Ladies and germs,’” I said.

  “That’s good. I like it.”

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only speech Morty and I had to prepare. Gabe and Petra’s wedding was nearing and I was part of the modest bridal party. Petra has tattoos and wore a silver 1920s flapper dress. As you can imagine, we were given free rein with our wardrobe, as I think it should be. It was an evening wedding, so I got away with wearing black. Henry told me I looked lovely. Morty told me I looked like I was going to a funeral.

  “Don’t even think of wearing that to mine,” he said when he saw me.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” I replied. “Do you have your toast prepared?”

  Morty patted his breast pocket. Once the festivities were under way and the revelers were appropriately booze soaked, Morty got up to the microphone and delivered verbatim another speech we had tangled over for the last few days. It was remarkably brief but met the requirements I’d insisted upon—it included the phrase “l’chaim” and excluded the words “shiksa,” “body piercings,” “tattoos,” and “let’s see how long this lasts.”

  Morty lied at the end and said, “I couldn’t be happier for the two of you,” then he raised his glass, a toast was made, and Henry made me dance with him, until I stepped on his toe and told him that if he felt particularly attached to his feet, we should probably keep this activity to a minimum.

  Even with Morty’s reservations about the couple in question, he looked happy that night. He worked the room at a snail’s pace, but he said hello to each and every guest, which ultimately was good-bye.

  A few weeks later, Morty entered the hospital for the last time. I was still allowed to bring him deli food. But he’d eat only a bite here and there.

  The cancer Morty had was a brain tumor, a glioblastoma multiforme, they call it. One day, when I was visiting him, he showed me the brain scan.

  “There it is, Izzele. The thing that’s killing me. What does it look like to you?”

  “A butterfly,” I replied.

  “Funny, isn’t it?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Let’s work on my speech.”

  “I want to be clear on something, Morty. Just because you’re writing it, don’t forget that I have to deliver it.”

  “Remember when I went away the last time?”

  “To Miami?”

  “Remember that list I gave you?”

  “Yes.”1

  “Maybe we should go with that list. Can you find it? We’ll make some adjustments here and there.”

  “I’m not going to tell people to stay out of prison at a funeral.”

  “See? It’s always ‘no’ with you.”

  Other good-byes had to be said, as well. Len and Christopher had packed up all of their belongings and their move to New York was only a week away.

  I brought Henry to the good-bye party. Len, even after all these years, still had trouble with cops, so he didn’t warm to him right away. However, he did manage to say that Henry was the most well-groomed man he’d ever seen me with.

  “You have no idea,” I replied.

  Then we talked about his plans for New York. I suggested Benson! The Musical. Christopher suggested I pour myself another drink and stop talking about it. When we left, Len promised me orchestra seats for every theater production he was in. It was a promise he wouldn’t keep. Thank god.

  MERRIWEATHER

  I would like to report that after the physical evidence in the Merriweather case miraculously reappeared, his release was imminent. I would like to report that, but I cannot. The steps in the legal process continue to keep Merriweather behind bars. First Maggie had to convince the DA to retest the evidence. Since it had been missing for eight years, the chain of evidence was in question. We needed the evidence tested to rule out Merriweather, but because it had been missing for so long, the prosecution could argue that it was in some way contaminated. Eventually, a judge agreed to have the clothing from the crime scene and Demetrius’s jacket tested. Those tests took three months to complete. The result was that there was no DNA evidence connecting Merriweather to Elsie Collins.

  However, in the court system, that doesn’t mean he’s innocent. Maggie filed a motion to vacate the original verdict and Merriweather was released. But two weeks later, he was arrested again and new charges were filed, based on the same circumstantial and eyewitness testimony of the previous trial. The DA stood by his original conviction, which means that Merriweather will face yet another jury trial, in part because we never could come up with another viable suspect. The white male who was seen exiting Elsie’s house was as useful to us as a ghost.

  The trial is months away as I write this. One day I expect Demetrius to be free. But now he isn’t. I continue to visit him, mostly to help kill the time. Sometimes I bring a quiz, but he always passes. I’m certain there are things about the real world that will shock him once he’s out, but we’ll worry about that when the time comes.

  Here’s another detail in my story that you might find interesting: A few months after the Merr
iweather verdict was vacated, Rick Harkey retired and moved to Florida. We noted a marked increase in business after that.

  The goal of my job is to solve cases, uncover secrets, and get to the truth. Sometimes the truth unfolds perfectly, liked a quartered piece of paper. Sometimes, even, a mystery is solved. But mostly, the universe doesn’t fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Pieces will always be missing. In my work we look around and ask questions and find that, in the end, there are just more questions. If you’re looking for a standard mystery, with a surprise ending and a villain, a punishment, and a wrap-up of events, I can’t give it to you. That’s not how the real world works. Most mysteries I’ve encountered remain unsolved. Most questions I ask are left unanswered.

  What I can give you is this: a moment in time when questions hung in the air and lives felt whole and life-altering decisions were made. I can give you that. But that’s all.

  BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

  Rae and I somehow managed to pull off the bridal/baby shower. I wouldn’t call it a brilliant success; “adequate” would be a more appropriate word. Having no knowledge of these sorts of things, and with my mother being curious about how we would manage without her, Rae and I were left to our own devices, which meant we were slaves to the Internet and relied heavily on our previous party-planning experiences.

  I made Magic Punch. We couldn’t find pink and light-blue Lifesavers, so we opted for Jelly Bellies. Only, instead of buying the candies in those specific colors, Rae purchased twenty variety boxes and made us pick through each and every box for the pinks and blues. Eventually, I refused to continue the painstaking task when I realized the point of it all was so Rae would have the remaining colors for her sugar stash. I drove directly to the Candy Store off Polk Street and bought the appropriate supplies.

  Jelly beans dissolve faster than hard candy, we soon discovered. Dropped in a vat of vodka, limeade, and sparkling water, they reduced quickly and bled in such a fashion that the punch bowl looked more like a science experiment than a beverage. Still, it was the only booze we offered, so guests partook. After three almost-choking incidents, we decided to sift out the partially dissolved Jelly Bellies and rename the concoction “Lime Surprise.”

  We played bizarre games. One involved making wedding dresses out of toilet paper. Rae thought the idea was amusing but couldn’t stand behind the waste, so she purchased the most earth-friendly recycled bathroom paper she could find. The result was a tragic mess of shredded light-brown squares, precariously connected by weakening serrated edges. The draping bore no resemblance to anything like formal wedding wear. In fact, it didn’t even resemble a mummy or a shipwrecked person at the end of a long journey. It barely even resembled toilet paper wrapped around a person, to be honest.

  Then we played a game Rae had found online in which we asked Maggie trivia about David and she had to put a piece of bubblegum in her mouth whenever she got an answer wrong. Being siblings of the groom, we had no problem in arriving at twenty difficult questions. We also saw this as an opportunity to semi-publicly humiliate our brother. After five questions and four giant gumballs down, my mother called a halt to the game, which was probably wise since Maggie appeared to have reached her gum capacity. In case you’re curious about the questions, the ones we managed to get out before Mom put the kibosh on the game are as follows:2

  1) What was David’s first girlie magazine?

  2) How many times has David had his teeth professionally whitened?

  3) Given the choice between losing his hair or his little toe, what would David choose?

  4) Why was David sent to the principal’s office in the eighth grade?

  5) What hair band did David worship in the midnineties?

  Trust me, you don’t want to know questions six through twenty.

  Maggie seemed to have had a pretty good time, even though she couldn’t partake of the Lime Surprise. She thanked us profusely and promised that there would be no bridesmaid-dress nightmares in our future. She kept her word.

  THE SUNDAY-NIGHT DINNER SMACKDOWN

  If you’ve been paying attention, you know that certain family issues have remained unresolved. The weekend following the bridal shower, we had one more torturous meal and a lengthy dinner negotiation in which most primary matters were finally settled.

  David had only one agenda item for the evening: figuring out how my parents could keep their house. He wrote down a number on a piece of paper and handed it to my father. David repeated his zero-interest loan offer to help with the mortgage, which my father rejected.

  “How is it that you have all this money, David?” Mom asked.

  David shrugged his shoulders as if it were also a mystery to him.

  “We don’t need all this space with Rae going away to college,” Mom said.

  “I’m not going away,” Rae replied.

  “You were accepted at Yale,” Mom said. “That’s quite a commute.”

  It’s true. Yale did accept Rae, even after she informed them of her legal troubles.

  “I sent them a rejection letter,” Rae replied. “I’m going to Berkeley and living at home,” she said with a tone of finality there was no point in arguing with.

  “You can retract your rejection letter to Yale,” my mom said.

  Rae chuckled to herself. “You wouldn’t say that if you read it.”

  My mother glared at Rae. “You should have consulted me first.”

  “Would it make you feel any better if I told you that Fred’s going to Berkeley too?”

  It made everyone feel better, but no one admitted it except Maggie.

  “I think that’s great. And I’d be happy to give you some part-time work if you behave yourself and stay out of my desk.”

  “See? Everything is going according to plan,” Rae said.

  If you thought about it, it was going according to Rae’s plan.

  “So, what do you say?” David asked. “According to Isabel, business has improved since Harkey skipped town. You can stay in the house if you want to.”

  I decided that someone had to be the voice of reason and point out at least one drawback of this plan.

  “That means four more years of Rae under the same roof.”

  My father sighed and nodded, as if taking in the full meaning of the situation. Rae was oblivious to the inherent insult in this line of conversation and interjected her own demands.

  “I want to move into the attic apartment. I need more space,” she said.

  “Don’t we all,” I replied.

  Over the blandest sponge cake in the history of desserts, a deal was brokered. Between Rae staying local, the new business from Harkey’s absence, and a generous no-interest loan from David, 1799 Clay Street would remain in the Spellman name. While all our lives moved forward it was comforting to have one thing remain the same.

  I suppose there are a few other things I should mention. I almost suffered a housing crisis of my own. Bernie and Daisy broke up for good. Although I never got the complete story, it had something to do with a poker game that went on for two weeks, and while it wasn’t mentioned, I have a feeling hookers played into the saga as well. Just when my old friend tried to be “roomies” again, Henry suggested I move in with him.

  I agreed and immediately bought one of those vacuums that look like science fiction pets. They roam your apartment sucking dirt on a random and endless loop. I figured that would partially compensate for any extra messes I made. I named it Arthur. I thought Henry would take a liking to Arthur, but he didn’t. Still, Arthur seemed a key ingredient in the success of our relationship, so I insisted that he stick around. Sometimes I pet Arthur and talk to him like he’s my dog.

  Until the end of Rae’s probation, I would go to the community garden at least once a week. On my last visit there, the entire staff was wearing JUSTICE 4 MERRI-WEATHER T-shirts. When I drove Rae home, she asked me if I finally forgave her for the “file-room incident,” as we would forever call it. I told her I did. Then she told me that she’d
left a hundred more T-shirts of varying sizes in the trunk of my car. I asked her how she got the keys, but she didn’t answer. I did, however, finally discover how Rae always managed to have an unlimited supply of slogan wear. Fred Finkel’s dad, it turns out, is the business-logo king of Oakland.

  I was glad for the shirts, but in truth, they were a constant reminder to me that Merriweather wasn’t free.

  Rae graduated high school without event. Although I’m fairly certain she was involved in an elaborate senior prank that turned the bushes in front of the school into papier-mâché igloos. As with almost everything she does, she got away with it. Fred took her to senior prom. I made sure dozens of photos were snapped. While she looked lovely in my estimation, I could only hope that years of fashion evolution would one day make this particular outfit an embarrassment worthy of blackmail. Perhaps you think I should be beyond all that, but I’m still me. Any more personal growth and I might become unrecognizable. We wouldn’t want that, would we?

  THE EULOGY

  Four months after he returned to San Francisco, Morty died in the hospital with his friends and family by his side. I don’t know what his last words to Ruthy were, but his last ones to me were, “We have an agreement. Capisce?”

  “ Capisce’?” I said. “When have you ever used that word before?”

  “An agreement is an agreement.”

  I couldn’t argue with him. About that agreement . . .

  I wore a light-blue sundress in the middle of a particularly chilly fall. My attire was a shock amid the crowd full of dark mourning attire. Ruth understood that my clothing was a sign of respect, even if most of the congregation found it unusual. I stood in front of the synagogue and explained that the words I was about to speak were not mine but Morty’s. I further explained that if anyone found the words inappropriate for the occasion, they should take it up with him.

  Ladies and germs,1

  I would like you to know that I had a good life. I also had a long life, for a man who had no interest in the2 exercise and ate deli meats several times a week.