Murder on Memory Lake

by J. D. Griffo

  “What are you talking about?” Helen asked.

  “Jinx and I have decided that we’re going to find out who murdered Lucy,” Alberta answered. “And the two of you are going to help.”

  Standing in front of Lucy’s casket, Helen and Joyce exchanged quizzical looks. After a moment they shrugged their shoulders at the very same time.

  “Sounds like fun, if you ask me,” Joyce declared.

  “Just remember that I volunteer at the animal shelter on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Helen said. “So you’ll have to work around my schedule.”

  “Then it’s official,” Jinx announced. “The Ferrara Family Detective Agency is now open for business.”

  After they finished saying their prayers, Alberta lingered next to the coffin by herself. She stared at the woman she had known almost her entire life for what would be the last time. Alberta had buried many people in her life—her husband, her parents, very close friends—and she knew the suffocating weight grief could have on a heart. She wasn’t feeling that now. What she was feeling was different, but just as unwelcome because it was the presence of her own mortality. She was basically the same age as Lucy. They had lived very similar lives, their journeys were almost identical, so Lucy could easily be standing over Alberta’s dead body. The thought was both sobering and humbling. Who could have done such a thing to her? Alberta tried to think if there was anyone in her life who hated her so much that they would stab her in the heart, and she came up empty. What could Lucy have done to wind up in a state of eternal slumber? Who did she cross or what did she know that had gotten her murdered? Alberta would start to get answers sooner than she thought.

  “Gram, I just found out something exciting,” Jinx whispered as she pulled Alberta away from the white marble casket and next to a beautiful display of yellow and pink flowers.

  “What, lovey?”

  “I was walking by the funeral director’s office and I overheard him talking to Enza,” Jinx explained.

  “You mean you eavesdropped.”

  “Only if you choose to look at it that way,” Jinx admitted.

  “Well, eavesdropper, what did you hear?”

  Jinx leaned in to sniff one of the flowers and motioned for Alberta to do the same. They looked like they were two women remarking on the bouquet’s beauty and not amateur detectives getting their first break.

  “Enza is going to be tied up tomorrow morning at the bank closing out her mother’s accounts and dealing with all the financial stuff,” Jinx whispered.

  “Why is that exciting?” Alberta asked, just as quietly.

  “Because while Enza’s away, we’ll be able to break into Lucy’s condo and do some investigating.”

  Alberta jerked her head away as if the flowers had suddenly become a target for a hungry bumblebee. “You’re pozzo! That’s crazy, we can’t do that.”

  “Of course we can,” Jinx corrected, grabbing her grandmother’s hand and leading her over to the next floral display, a huge heart made out of red carnations with a sash across it that read “Beloved Grandmother.” Once again, Alberta was reminded that she could easily be the one laying inside the white satin-lined coffin instead of Lucy.

  “But that would be breaking and entering,” Alberta stated. “That’s illegal.”

  “Gram, if we have to become criminals to solve this crime, that’s what we’ll have to do,” Jinx replied. “I’ll pick you up at eight. Wear rubber-soled shoes so you don’t make any noise.”

  Alberta knew she should refuse to participate in Jinx’s plan, but she didn’t want to disappoint her or herself. She couldn’t really explain it, but she felt as if she had no other choice. “Bene,” Alberta said, “And don’t forget to wear gloves so we don’t leave any fingerprints.”

  Jinx positively beamed. “Sounds like this won’t be your first time at the rodeo, Gram.”

  Alberta tried to hide her smile, but Jinx’s enthusiasm was infectious. “I’ll see you at eight, partner.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Cattivo tre fa frutti cattivi.

  When Alberta crawled through the back window over the garage that was attached to Lucy’s condo, she wasn’t thinking that she could be arrested for breaking and entering. She wasn’t thinking that she was desecrating a dead woman’s home. Her only thought was that she had to go on a diet.

  “Push harder, Jinx!” Alberta yelled. “My fat ass needs some help.”

  “I’m pushing as hard as I can,” Jinx grunted, her shoulder strategically placed underneath Alberta’s buttocks. “You really carry your weight well, Gram, I never would have thought you weighed so much.”

  “Thanks, lovey,” Alberta replied. “I think.”

  Wedged in between the open window frame, Alberta grabbed onto the inside windowsill for leverage as she tried to hoist the rest of her body through. Witness to her struggle, Jinx squatted, then rose up with all her strength. Alberta finally tumbled through the window and landed on the carpeted floor with a thud.

  “Ah, mannaggia!” Alberta cursed under her breath.

  Jinx grabbed hold of the windowsill, pulled herself up, and with a contortionist’s dexterity made it through the window to land on both feet next to Alberta’s unmoving and slightly twisted body.

  “Show-off,” Alberta teased.

  “Are you all right?” Jinx asked as she helped Alberta get back up on her feet.

  “I’m fine,” Alberta replied, grimacing and rubbing her hip. “I just have to cut back on the pasta.”

  She looked around the room that was filled with boxes from QVC, mismatched pieces of furniture, and even a refrigerator that looked like it came from the year of the Flood and felt like she was having a senior moment. “Jinx, where the hell are we?”

  “Unless Lucy was a major hoarder, I’d say this is the spare room.”

  Jinx opened the door slowly and listened to make sure they were alone. When she was satisfied that they were the only ones in the condo, she motioned for Alberta to follow down the flight of stairs that led into the living room. Lucy’s condo was actually a townhouse situated on a hill so the garage behind the building was actually a flight above the entrance in the front. Upstairs was the spare room, the garage that also doubled as a laundry room, and a small sitting area. Downstairs was the living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. None of the architecture was high-end and the furnishings were modest, but it was a nice, spacious condo and exactly the type of home Alberta considered buying before she became the recipient of Aunt Carmela’s final wishes.

  Instinctively Alberta and Jinx split up, with Alberta taking the living room and Jinx going into the bedroom. Alberta rummaged through a pile of magazines on the glass-topped coffee table and then pulled out a wicker basket underneath one of the end tables that was filled with paperbacks when it suddenly dawned on her that she had no idea what she was looking for.

  “Jinx!” she cried. “What the hell are we looking for?”

  “Evidence,” Jinx cried back.

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “I don’t know, Gram, I guess it’s like pornography, we’ll recognize it when we see it.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Alberta resumed her search and opened a drawer in the media console that housed Lucy’s flat-screen television when Jinx’s comment finally resonated. “I don’t think Lucy would have any girlie magazines lying around.”

  “No, not real pornography, it’s just a phrase,” Jinx shouted. “Look around for anything suspicious, anything that looks like it doesn’t belong here.”

  Once again rummaging through the drawers of the console, Alberta was overcome with such strong emotion she almost fell over. She wasn’t sure if what she and Jinx were doing was wrong or right, but she knew that it was exciting. And she hadn’t felt excited in years. When she heard voices on the other side of the front door, her excitement swiftly shifted into fear.

  She ran into the bedroom on tiptoe so she wouldn’t make any noise even though, as instructed, she was wearing her rubber-so
led, Easy Spirit casual wedges, grabbed Jinx’s arm, and fought the urge to scream. “Somebody’s trying to get in.”

  “That’s impossible,” Jinx said. “Enza told the funeral director she wouldn’t be free until late this afternoon.”

  They both heard two voices having a conversation outside the front door followed by the telltale sound of a key entering the keyhole.

  “She lied,” Alberta announced.

  Knowing that they wouldn’t have enough time or be able to be quiet enough to race up the stairs and crawl back out the garage window, Jinx pulled Alberta back into the bedroom and into the large closet. Jinx slid the sliding door closed and they camouflaged themselves the best they could behind the rows of Lucy’s clothes.

  Alberta breathed in deeply and felt as if Lucy was in the closet with her. The faint scent of Shalimar, Lucy’s signature fragrance since she was old enough to be allowed to wear perfume, still lingered in the air. She closed her eyes and imagined the woman standing next to her ready to hurl yet another insult her way. Alberta shook her head and opened her eyes, determined to stay alert and not reminisce.

  For a few moments all they heard was muffled sounds and footsteps, until Enza and her guest entered the bedroom. It was as if Alberta and Jinx had a front-row seat at a performance neither they, nor anyone else, was invited to.

  “I swear to God, Donny, I could just kill my mother!” Enza shouted as she entered the bedroom.

  “Looks like somebody beat you to it, babe,” Donny, whoever he was, replied.

  Alberta and Jinx looked at each other, their eyebrows raised as a silent signal that they were both surprised to hear a man who wasn’t Enza’s husband call her “babe.”

  “Well, I can’t wait to find out who did it, so I can kill them for denying me my right as my mother’s daughter!”

  There was a creaking sound as someone jumped on the bed.

  “You might not have the collection, but you can have all of this.”

  The voice belonged to Donny and clearly he was sprawled out on Lucy’s bed inviting Lucy’s daughter to join him.

  “Oh please, I can have you anytime I want,” Enza said dismissively. “But right now what I want is that collection.”

  Alberta was shocked, not by the brazenness of Enza’s comment, but by how much she sounded like her mother. Cattivo tre fa frutti cattivi, she thought to herself—bad fruit falls from bad trees. She didn’t like to harbor such ill will toward the dead, but Lucy had not been a very nice person while she was alive, and it appeared by what Alberta was overhearing that her daughter had inherited that trait.

  “Donny first, the friggin’ collection later.”

  They could hear Enza walking around the room, pulling open the drawers of Lucy’s bedroom chest. “You lasted about three minutes this morning, what makes you think I want to go for seconds?”

  Ignoring the insult or just immune to it, Donny replied, “I was just getting warmed up this morning, you know I like to start my day with a quickie.”

  Alberta and Jinx heard the sound of a belt buckle being undone and then the sound of their own hearts starting to beat more rapidly. They both wanted to slide open the closet doors and run from their hiding space before Donny could undress any further when they heard another creaking, this time when Enza started to slide back the closet door on her own.

  Jinx held Alberta’s gloved hand and squeezed it tight as light from the bedroom sprayed into the closet. Together, they leaned to the left to get as far away from the sudden illumination as possible without taking a step or making any noise, but they both knew that they were seconds from being exposed and there was absolutely no way for them to escape. In that fearful moment they both learned a detective’s most valuable lesson: The importance of having an exit strategy. In the next moment they learned the second most important lesson for anyone considering a career in undercover detective work: Sometimes it’s all about luck.

  Just as Enza started to slide the closet door open even farther, her cell phone rang. “Oh for God’s sake!” she exclaimed. “It’s Vinny.”

  Alberta was conflicted. She was thrilled for the interruption, but disappointed to hear that Enza, like herself, took the Lord’s name in vain.

  “Hi, Vinny, how are you?” Enza said, her voice suddenly a combination of distraught and demure. After a pause, she continued, “Of course, that’s no problem, I’ll be right there.”

  When she spoke again it was obvious that Vinny was no longer on the receiving end. “I have to go to the friggin’ police station to sign some papers.”

  “Cool beans, babe,” Donny sighed. “I’ll wait for you here. The food in the fridge is still good right? Your mother hasn’t been dead that long?”

  “You can’t stay here, you idiot! You’re posing as one of my mother’s lawyers!” Enza yelled. “If somebody finds you here alone, they’ll figure out I’m not happily married with a sick husband and a kid in college, but saddled with a deadbeat loser and a college dropout.”

  Alberta and Jinx looked at each other and at the same time mouthed, “Oh my God.”

  “Your husband’s gotta be sick if he thinks you’re happily married,” Donny replied.

  Furious, Enza slammed the closet door shut and told Donny to put his pants on. “I’m taking you back to the hotel and I’ll pick you up later.”

  “Whatever you say, boss lady,” Donny replied, slapping his belt buckle back into place.

  Alberta and Jinx waited a full minute after they heard the front door slam shut before emerging from behind Lucy’s clothes and the closet door. The bedroom looked exactly the same except for the rumpled comforter on the bed, but somehow the room was tarnished. The exotic scent of Shalimar replaced by the crass innuendo of Enza’s and Donny’s words.

  “I can’t believe the things that came out of their mouths,” Alberta remarked.

  “I know!” Jinx replied. “We have to find out what kind of collection Lucy had.”

  Clearly, Alberta and Jinx interpreted those words very differently. Alberta was upset by the way that Enza spoke of her recently deceased mother and wondered if her own daughter, Lisa Marie, would carry the same anger and resentment in her voice after Alberta passed away. Worse, would she even mention her name? It was quite troubling to think that Alberta’s death might not rouse any emotion in her daughter at all. But Jinx, ever the pragmatist, was excited at being unexpectedly handed information that could help them uncover why Lucy was killed, if not who did the deed.

  “Maybe somebody killed Lucy for her collection,” Jinx surmised. “Whatever that might have been.”

  Now that they had been given a reprieve, Alberta and Jinx continued to search the condo for clues, anything that could lead them to whatever it was that Lucy had been collecting. Unfortunately, while Jinx searched the bedroom with renewed focus, Alberta wandered the living room aimlessly filled with memories of her own fractured relationship with her daughter.

  Absentmindedly she moved into the adjoining galley kitchen area, thinking of the time she and Lisa Marie argued over how to properly polish Grandma Marie’s silverware. Alberta insisted the only way was with a combination of white vinegar and baking soda, while Lisa Marie proposed the absurd notion that ketchup would bring back its luster. Very quickly all thoughts of silverware were abandoned and replaced with a litany of every stupid idea the other had ever uttered. Alberta shuddered at how ugly she had sounded yelling at her daughter and how easily it was for Lisa Marie to mimic her tone. She threw out her hands to the side and shook them in an attempt to repel the memory from her mind and accidentally knocked over a pile of papers on the kitchen table.

  “Dammit!”

  “What’s wrong?” Jinx yelled from the bedroom.

  “Nothing . . . I’m maldestro . . . a klutz, I knocked over a bunch of papers.”

  Jinx entered the kitchen and joined Alberta in picking up the fallen debris. “No worries, let me help so I can feel useful, I didn’t find anything in the bedroom,” Jinx announced dejected
ly.

  “Maybe there’s nothing here to find,” Alberta said.

  “Oh, how wrong you are, Gram!”

  Jinx held up a small piece of paper that to Alberta looked like a business card with a key attached to it. “What’s that, lovey?”

  “This, Gram, is our first real clue!” Jinx exclaimed. “It’s a key to a storage unit that I guarantee you houses Lucy’s collection.”

  Alberta felt a wave of pride waft through her achy body for her accidental achievement. Maybe there was still some life left in the old girl yet.

  CHAPTER 8

  Belle parole non pascono il gatto.

  “I cannot believe you lied to me, Alberta!” Helen shouted from the driver’s seat of the car. “Sisters aren’t supposed to lie to each other.”

  “Oh, Madon!” Alberta shouted back. “You should talk! I had to find out you were leaving the convent from Father Sal.”

  “He’s got a big mouth, that one!”

  “And you, Sister Helen, have a tight one!”

  Sitting next to Helen in the front seat of her aunt’s beige Buick LaCrosse, Jinx just smiled and looked out the window. She was already used to the bickering that went on between her grandmother and her aunt and knew that it was part of their normal conversation. The sound was different than the fights her mother and Alberta had. Those were filled with one main ingredient: anger. Jinx had grown to enjoy Alberta and Helen’s verbal sparring, because she knew that despite the volume of their voices they loved each other.

  “You could’ve just asked me if I would mind driving the getaway car,” Helen said. “You didn’t have to lie to me and say that you needed a lift to the hairdresser. I should’ve known the two of you wouldn’t go to the same beauty parlor. Adrianna might be good enough for you, Berta, but she would be lost trying to work on Jinx’s beautiful hair.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Helen,” Jinx beamed.

  “I have beautiful hair too!” Alberta protested.

  “You do not!” Helen shouted. “You have old lady hair that you try and make look pretty. You should cut it short and simple like I do and not worry about it.”