The Killer Wore Cranberry

by J. Alan Hartman

  That made fifteen for dinner. The dining table seated ten, twelve if you doubled up seats at the head and foot. So I called the caterers again to bring another table and more dishes than Mama’s good china, from Grandma Miriam, could serve. I vetoed Alan’s suggestion of paper plates with turkeys on them.

  Between Mom, me and Alan, we couldn’t scrape up half the stemware needed, even if I gave the kids plastic cups. Another call to the caterer, who had to be used to this. She knew enough to ask about tablecloths, which I never thought of, and silverware.

  “See? No problem.” Alan smiled, glad to get back to his football game. Crisis averted.

  The problem was that now there’d be nothing of Mama’s at her own dinner. I made sure her picture—the one I used in the missing persons poster—had a prime spot on the sideboard, and another on the fireplace mantel in the living room. Another table would be set up there for a bar, again thanks to Dad. I decided to use the big Chinese urn from the hall as a centerpiece for the dining room. Filled with fall flowers, it wouldn’t look like an umbrella stand. And I wouldn’t have to look across at my father presiding at his end of the table, surrounded by his loving family. Everyone but Mom.

  * * *

  They were coming. Caterers and waitstaff with extra chairs I’d forgotten to order, and bins and boxes, cartons and Styrofoam coolers. Too soon afterward, the company arrived, with wine and liquor and bottles of blackberry brandy and Tums. I dashed away a tear. “See?” I nudged Alan. “They do remember Mom.”

  After Dad had his hired bartender pour a tiny amount of what used to be an after-dinner aperitif in everyone’s glass—not as pretty as Mom’s cut crystal—he tapped his with a spoon to get their attention. He held his glass up to the framed photograph. “To Leesie,” he said.

  The guests turned to the fireplace, except for Nana Anna, whose wheelchair couldn’t turn in the crowd, and Mrs. Markoff, who couldn’t see which way Dad pointed but she downed her glass anyway. So did Nana Anna, who held it out to her aide for a refill. The aide, a Russian woman with broken English, refilled her own while she was at it.

  The rest of us raised our glasses, even the kids, who got ginger ale.

  “To Lisa.”

  “Rest in peace, Mrs. M.”

  “We miss you.”

  “Why can’t we have wine like everyone else?” one of Carl’s kids whined. Then Hartley poured his ginger ale in the bowl set aside for Mrs. Markoff’s Butch, who was out of harness, so off-duty.

  The aide said something with a lot of z’s, downed her second brandy, then tossed her glass into the fireplace. So Carl’s other kid tossed her glass into the fireplace. At least they weren’t Mom’s good stemware.

  Dad snapped his fingers for one of his hirelings to sweep out the glass and said, “Well, now we can get down to the serious drinking.”

  Alan tapped his glass to mine. “To life, this time. Our life,” he whispered in my ear before kissing the brandy from my lips.

  Rochelle herded the children out of the room lest they be contaminated. Instead of letting them seeing adults converse politely over cocktails, she set them down in the den with their game consoles and DVDs. Maybe I gave her too much credit for thinking serious drinking—Carl stood right behind Dad at the makeshift bar—didn’t make a good influence. Maybe she wanted the kids away from me and Alan, living in sin, loving in public. More likely it was my father’s new wife’s son and his partner. Dillon had his mother’s penchant for self-improvement: blond streaks, a fake tan and a bad implant job. He was still short and pudgy. Shavon looked like a model from GQ, a Black model.

  My old-school father—an all-white private school—choked on his Maker’s Mark when Dillon proposed a toast to their upcoming marriage, now that it was legal. I begged to be invited to that wedding.

  One of the servers started passing unidentifiable tiny tidbits and stuff on skewers. Platters of crudités and cheese and crackers appeared on every surface. I stood guarding Mom’s place on the mantel.

  Nana Anna almost mowed the dog down with the wheelchair when she spotted the caviar. Her aide ignored her to flirt with the bartender. Dad flirted with his wife, and his other wife, and the aide. Dillon and Shavon shared a sofa and a plate, while Stan fetched food for himself and Mrs. Markoff. Alan and his father had chairs in the corner. The kids came back nagging for food, but Rochelle didn’t want them to ruin their appetites before dinner.

  “Give them a break, it’s Thanksgiving,” my half-brother Carl slurred around his third or fourth drink, which earned him a glare. And another drink from the bartender when Rochelle turned her back.

  Carl’s son waited till his mother went to fill a plate of healthy carrots and celery for him before sticking his finger in the caviar. He licked it and spit it out, then wiped his hand on the dog. He didn’t like the sushi roll either, and ground it under his foot into Mom’s Persian carpet. Carl’s daughter fed her carrots to Butch.

  Did the pricey caterers do clean-up? My father would pay for it, one way or another, I swore to myself, smiling at Alan’s father across the room instead of throttling my half-sibling’s spawn.

  Dad started to give one of his grandkids a sip of his drink, most likely to stop the whining so he could get back to his story about my mother’s bad driving. Which was not what I’d intended for this day.

  Rochelle batted his hand away before I could shove a canapé in his mouth. Both the liquor and the canapé landed on the front of his cashmere turtleneck on the way to the antique carpet. The bartender hurried over with a towel and a fresh drink.

  “How long before dinner?” I asked the chef in the kitchen. “I wanted the company mellow, not totally wasted.”

  He shrugged. “Family, huh? I’ll speed up the soup.”

  Someone, likely the brats, had rearranged my seating cards. No way was I sitting near them, or Nana Anna, the aide, Mrs. Markoff, Dad, his snooty daughter-in-law or either of his two living wives. I put Alan and his father back to my right, Dillon and Shavon on my left. Dad could have his mother beside him. Let him cut her food, because the aide was already singing “Gott Bliss Amerika.”

  Not today.

  We were uneven in numbers, not seated in alternate male/female polite fashion, and I didn’t give a rat’s ass. Which looked like something stuffed in the flowers I’d spent an hour arranging. No, that was Mrs. Markoff’s wig the gremlins must have crammed among the chrysanthemums. I hurried it back to the living room and onto her head before announcing, “Dinner is served.”

  I always wanted to say that. And “Go to hell,” with a few worse words thrown in, but I held them back. I smiled again at Alan’s father. Let him think I was the village idiot, rather than the sadist who inflicted this torture on strangers.

  It got worse. Of course.

  * * *

  “Is someone going to give thanks?” Alan whispered to me when everyone found their places at the table.

  It was Thanksgiving. I tapped my glass with my spoon. “Thank you all for coming. And thank you, Dad, for doing the cooking.” Everyone laughed. “And while we gather today to remember our losses, let us take a moment to count our blessings of friends and family and good food.”

  After a five-count of silence, I heard Shavon murmur, “In the name of the fa—Ooph.” Dillon must have kicked him. So Black guys could blush.

  The servers went around filling goblets with ice water, cider, hard cider or an autumn lager from a local micro-brewery. Soft rolls, breadsticks and olives were already on the table.

  Stan handed Mrs. Markoff a roll. She put it in her purse. Hart snatched an olive and flicked it at his sister. She crumbled a breadstick in his hair.

  The first course was butternut squash soup, artistically garnished. Nana Anna took her teeth out, picked up her bowl and slurped it in. Little Hartley tried to do the same but his father smacked the top of his head. You’d think Carl had committed child abuse the way the boy and the wife cried out. Meanwhile, Lori smelled her soup, then declared, “This looks like baby
poop.”

  Rochelle pasted on a smile. “We don’t use that kind of language at the table, darling.”

  “Daddy always says he won’t eat your tofu shit.”

  So Carl tapped her head too. Darling started to cry, then gulp, then retch. Everyone on that side of the table jumped up and away. Too late. The dog, being a dog, tried to clean it up. Carinne gagged. Someone behind the flower arrangement laughed. Rochelle scooped her daughter out and up the stairs with mother-in-law Susan trailing behind to help.

  Stan gave Mrs. Markoff another roll. “For later, dear.”

  Carl’s mother, wife and daughter returned in time for the salad course, and different wine selections. Lori wore a different blouse, my favorite ivory silk, sleeves rolled up and the hem knotted at her knees.

  Nana Anna yelled at my father. “What’s in this? You know I can’t chew hard things, Harry. I told you a hundred times.”

  “Apples, celery, walnuts and—”

  “Raisins, yeck.” Hart spit two out at his sister, who knocked a bottle of wine out of the bartender’s hands when she threw a punch at her brother. The rosé went flying. Only half landed on my white silk blouse.

  Stan laughed. Now I remembered why I divorced him.

  Mrs. Markoff shouted, “What’s happening? Is the roof leaking?”

  The bartender thumped a fresh bottle on the table and walked out.

  I had enough. I pushed my chair back and stood up. Everyone went silent while they waited to see what I did. First I removed the Chinese urn before the only bit of my mother got destroyed. Then I grabbed both children by their collars. “Out! You are not fit to eat with adults. My mother made your father eat peanut butter in the kitchen if he couldn’t behave, and I will not have you ruining this day.”

  Alan applauded, but Rochelle started to yell. “How dare you!”

  “I dare because someone has to. Because this is my house. My mother’s house. And she will be shown proper respect, today of all days.”

  Her mother-in-law, Dad’s first wife, Susan, having partaken of every libation offered, told her to shut up. “They’re my own grandchildren and I love them dearly, but you don’t see me taking them to a restaurant, do you? They’re savages.”

  “I won’t stay for this…this travesty of a Thanksgiving.”

  “Great,” Carl told her. “Take them and go. Dad can give me a ride home.”

  Now my father raised his glass to Carl. “So you finally grew a pair, son. I’m proud of you.”

  Alan’s father patted my hand. “You absolutely must come to California and straighten out my grandchildren. Those heathens make your niece and nephew look like angels.”

  I smiled. And the dog passed wind.

  “I didn’t do it!” shouted Nana Anna, Mrs. Markoff and Hartley all at the same time.

  Things got a little better after that. Dad handed the Russian aide a hundred-dollar bill to take the children to the kitchen. I prayed the caterer didn’t quit.

  No, a line of uniformed staff came in to clear the table and put out fresh plates and glasses. While we waited for the main course, Nana Anna said, “I always thought once babies aren’t so cute anymore, they should be kept in meat lockers until they are twenty-one.”

  Dad swallowed his new wine wrong. Carinne went as pale as a tanning bed permitted.

  “You okay, Dad?”

  “Fine. And look at that turkey! What a beauty.”

  The chef himself carried a huge golden bird out to a waiting tray table and took a serious-looking knife from an assistant. I guess Alan wouldn’t get to carve after all. While we waited for the servers to place the other dishes on the table for us to pass and serve ourselves, I apologized for my outburst. “This day means a lot to me, a kind of closure.”

  Her nose still firmly out of joint, Rochelle said, “Well, I am sick of hearing about your sainted mother. Carl says everyone but you believes she died seven years ago. Get over it already.”

  I could sense Alan ready to get between me and the chef’s carving knife. I took a deep breath. “They never found a body.”

  “There was blood, for heaven’s sake, and her purse was missing. Obviously she got killed during a robbery.”

  “And some petty thief turned into a body-snatcher? There wasn’t enough blood. The police said she might have fallen and hit her head, then wandered away.”

  “Well, she did drink a lot.” Rochelle turned her glass upside down to indicate at least someone knew her limits. “And she took a lot of pills.”

  “She was sick, and Stan was coming to help organize her meds, weren’t you, Stan?”

  “I only wish I’d gotten there sooner,” he said. “Maybe I could have helped.”

  “Besides,” I added, “if she did get lost, someone must have found her. I’ve always believed someone knew where she was.”

  “Who wants the wing?” Dad asked.

  “Look how they made the mashed potatoes into a turkey shape,” his wife exclaimed. “How clever.”

  “And the candied sweet potatoes as a nest!” his first wife chimed in.

  So we all admired the two kinds of stuffing, the Brussels sprouts with pearl onions, the purple cauliflower, the gravy with no lumps. And the new wine.

  The staff disappeared and we started passing plates and helping to serve each other, like real family and friends, until a casserole came my way that didn’t match the other dishes and wasn’t on the menu I’d carefully chosen.

  There it was, Mama’s kugel. Egg noodles with buttered and browned breadcrumbs, covered with a lattice of cheddar cheese strips, all melted together. It even smelled like Mama’s kugel. I turned to Alan. “I thought we agreed to give up on finding the right recipe.”

  He shrugged. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  Someone had to bring it. I looked around. Everyone was eating, even Nana Anna, with her teeth in. Mrs. Markoff leaned toward Stan, who explained what was on her plate in clock-face directions. The only one not meeting my eyes was Carinne, Dad’s current wife.

  “You! You took my mother’s recipe file!”

  “I only meant to borrow it, because Harry kept saying how it was better than mine. I would have brought it back, I swear, but then she was gone. I thought you’d be happy I made her company dish.”

  “Mom would never have let that notebook out of her hands, much less loaned it to you! You stole it!”

  “Now, Mira,” Dad soothed, “don’t go off looking for more villains. It was just a mistake.”

  “That she ended up with Mom’s files, with my grandmother’s notes and some pictures I cherished?”

  Dillon looked at his mother in horror. “You kept her mother’s heirloom?”

  “Well, I couldn’t very well return it to a dead woman, could I?”

  “Dead?” I shouted. “You already knew she was dead?”

  “No, sweetheart. She means missing. Don’t you, Carinne?”

  Now Susan, Carl’s mother, chimed in. “Of course she means missing. How could we know Lisa was dead?”

  “We?”

  No one was eating. The kugel sat in front of me like a smoking gun.

  Then Mrs. Markoff pushed her plate away and straightened her wig, as if she could see better. “The mistake was letting me wipe up the blood. I couldn’t see all that good, even then. I thought I got it all.”

  “The cops used special lights and chemicals to find it,” Alan told her while Dad groaned.

  “You killed my mother, Mrs. Markoff?” Even I found that hard to believe.

  “Oh, no, Mira. I came after, when I heard Anna scream.”

  Nana Anna killed my mother?

  Now Shavon and Dillon got up. “Stop talking! We’re lawyers. We’d be disbarred if we knew about a crime and didn’t report it.”

  “Sit down,” Dad ordered. “You can claim client privilege. Dillon, you represent your mother and me. Shavon, I’m hiring you to protect Susan, Carl and Mrs. Markoff from any possible charges.”

  “You all…?”

&n
bsp; He held up a hand before I could sputter the rest. “No one killed your mother. She’d been drinking and taking no one knew how many pills. Bottles were all over the kitchen table.”

  “I put them there, mostly empties, so Stan could see what she’d been taking. The police thought a burglar grabbed them to sell.”

  “Well, it looked like she was trying to commit suicide to us.”

  Now I was speechless. It was Alan who demanded a complete explanation. Rochelle got up to leave. “This has nothing to do with us or the children. Come, Carl.”

  He pulled her back. “I helped move the body. What else could I do when Dad called? Leave it to my mother and grandmother and the half-blind neighbor?”

  Rochelle started to cry, then Susan, then Carinne.

  I banged on the table. “Tell me what you did to Mama, all of you. Now, or I am calling the police!”

  So they started, all at once. Dad took control, as usual.

  Carinne and Nana Anna, he said, had an argument about who made the best kugel and how. This was before Anna went into the assisted living. Dad couldn’t stand the constant bickering, so he drove over here to ask my mother for her recipe. “I was paying her insurance policy. It was the least she could do.”

  They saw all the pill bottles lined up, and two empty bottles of blackberry brandy. “Leesie said she was all right, but she was none too steady on her feet. She fetched the looseleaf, but wouldn’t give it to Carinne.”

  His wife took over. “Some papers were falling out. I went to pick them up but she thought I was trying to snatch the damn notebook. She pulled back, then kind of slipped. Or passed out.”

  “She tripped over your foot!” Nana Anna shouted. “I saw it.”

  “But she hit her head on the edge of the table,” Dad resumed. “Carinne screamed, Mrs. Markoff came running. I rushed for the phone to call an ambulance, but we all knew she was dead.”

  “They’d think I killed her,” Carinne sobbed.

  “No, once they saw all the pills and booze, they’d think she killed herself. She was sick and her mind was going. That’s what I believed happened. I knew her suicide would devastate you, honey. And you wouldn’t get her money or the insurance I made her take so you could keep up the house.”