by J. D. Griffo
“Aunt Helen,” Jinx started. “No offense, but you spent most of your life in a convent and not mixing in with the public, so maybe Gram’s right about this.”
Popping a muffin into her mouth, Helen rolled her eyes and shook her head. She leaned forward, pointed a bony finger at Jinx, and asked, “What do you think I did when I was a nun? Kneel on a pew and pray the day away? For ten years, I taught English at St. Dominick’s to girls on hormonal overload, and then I counseled battered women for the next twenty. In between I got a degree in social work and ran a homeless shelter. Along the way, I learned a thing or two about how to read people.”
“Wow, Aunt Helen!” Jinx cried. “I had no idea.”
“That’s ’cause you never asked!” Helen shouted back. “Don’t assume you know anything about a person until you learn the facts.”
“And what facts do you know about Marion?” Alberta asked. “That he put his arm around Beverly at a wake?”
Waving her hand dismissively at Alberta, Helen replied, “It’s not what he did, it’s how he did it.”
“Ladies, can we focus, please,” Joyce interjected. “Alberta, what proof do you have that Beverly’s love for Marion was unrequited?”
From underneath her chair, she pulled the notebook and plopped it onto the table in between the bottle of vodka and a box of muffins. Since the cover of the notebook was a picture of several kittens battling over balls of pastel-colored yarn, it didn’t quite have the dramatic effect Alberta was hoping it would.
“Marion didn’t love Beverly back because she was a crazy cat lady?” Helen asked. “That doesn’t bode well for you, Berta.”
“No, smarty-pants!” Alberta yelled. “Because it’s filled with all of Beverly’s passwords, and they’re all variations on Marion’s nickname, Duke.”
“Ooh, Gram, it’s like the smoking notebook!”
Helen picked up the notebook, opened it up, and randomly started reading in a voice devoid of emotion. “Beverly and Duke, Bev and Duke, Bev loves Duke, Bev Loves Duke forever . . . and that’s spelled with the number four, I heart Duke . . .”
“We get the point,” Joyce said. “You could be right, Alberta.”
“Thank you.”
“Then again,” Joyce added. “You could be wrong.”
“How can I be wrong?” Alberta shouted. “The proof is right there.”
“We don’t have any more proof than we did before,” Joyce stated.
“Oh, come on! Beverly was like a teenager, she was in love with Marion or at least had a severe crush on him,” Alberta said. “These are not the writings of a woman in a happy relationship with a man.”
“I think you might be right about that.”
Helen’s comment stunned the group into silence. It wasn’t often that she agreed with her sister, and they were all anxious to find out why this time was different.
“Have you noticed that all the passwords start with Bev and none of them say Duke loves Bev or Duke and Bev forever, spelled correctly or not?” Helen observed. “Now this doesn’t actually tell us if they were or weren’t having an affair, but I’m pretty sure it tells us that their relationship was one-sided. Marion might have been sleeping with Beverly, but he definitely didn’t love her.”
Jinx popped two muffins into her mouth at once. “Boy, do I have a lot to learn about men.”
“I think we all do,” Alberta said, a bit dejected. “I read over that notebook a couple times already and never picked that up.”
“Berta, that’s because I learned more about men while in a convent than you ever did while in a marriage.”
Downing her glass of vodka, Alberta whined, “And here I thought Marion was a gentleman.”
“Don’t judge the guy too harshly just yet, hon,” Joyce said, refilling Alberta’s vodka glass. “Who knows what really lurks inside anyone’s house.”
“Oh my God! That’s it, Aunt Joyce!” Jinx cried. “Are you free tomorrow morning?”
“I’m retired, sweetie, I’m free every morning!”
“I’ll pick you up at eight,” Jinx said. “It’s time we found out what’s lurking inside Beverly’s house.”
CHAPTER 13
Aiutati che Dio ti aiuta.
Even though it was risky, Jinx had decided that the only way to break into Beverly’s condo in broad daylight was to act as if it was a completely natural thing to do and not something illegal. So, while Joyce stood in front of her holding a bag of groceries as camouflage, Jinx used a bobby pin to fiddle with the lock to the front door.
“How are you doing, hon?” Joyce asked, her eyes surveying the open courtyard and her lips barely moving.
“They make it look so easy on TV,” Jinx grunted.
“Uh-oh,” Joyce groaned.
“Just give me a second,” Jinx said, “I think this might be working.”
“Time’s up,” Joyce said. “Hello there, ma’am.”
“Jinx, is that you?”
Frightened, Jinx whipped around until she saw the elderly woman staring back at her. “Ruthanne! I am so glad to see you.”
Without waiting for the older woman to reply, Jinx took a deep breath and concocted a story that was fully detailed, very convincing, and a complete fabrication.
“Me and my grandmother, who you probably remember from our last visit,” Jinx started.
“Italian, snazzy haircut, could stand to lose a few pounds,” Ruthanne stated.
Ignoring the urge to snap at Ruthanne for her less-than-flattering comment about Alberta, Jinx continued. “My grandmother couldn’t be here today because she accidentally broke her foot.”
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Ruthanne remarked. “Can’t lose any weight sitting on your rump with a broken foot.”
In less than five seconds Jinx’s expression changed from friendly to fierce. Just as she opened her mouth to yell at Ruthanne for speaking rudely about her grandmother, Joyce coughed loud enough to remind Jinx she needed to steer the conversation away from getting revenge for Alberta and back to a way of getting into Beverly’s condo.
Taking a deep breath, Jinx continued her fake explanation of why she and Joyce were there in the first place. “Even though my grandmother was laid up, she was still trying to get in touch with Beverly, but she couldn’t reach her. We started to get worried that something bad had happened to her like maybe Beverly had fallen and broken her hip and was lying on the floor half-dead or in a coma unable to get to the phone. Then we remembered that we had an old key to Beverly’s condo, so since my grandmother is stuck on the couch, my Aunt Joyce and I thought it would be nice to bring over some groceries for Beverly, you know, in case she hadn’t eaten in a few days, but when we got her and realized that our key wasn’t just old, it was the wrong one, and it doesn’t work.”
Ruthanne was so desperately trying to keep track of what Jinx was saying that she didn’t even notice she was holding up a straightened-out bobby pin and not a key. She was also touched by the fact that they would care so much about Beverly that they’d go to such trouble to find out if she was okay.
“But I’m afraid it’s all for naught,” Joyce said. “Because we don’t have the right key.”
Pulling out a ring of keys from her housedress, Ruthanne declared, “Well then, this is your lucky day! I’m the building manager and I’ve been dying for an excuse to go inside Beverly’s place and see what’s going on.”
As giddy as a child on the last day of school before summer vacation, Ruthanne let them into Beverly’s condo. She flicked on the lights and Jinx and Joyce both squinted their eyes instinctively out of fear that they would actually see the woman’s dead body on the living room floor. But all they saw was an empty room.
“Just as I expected,” Ruthanne said, snidely. “The woman has no taste.”
Jinx and Joyce tried not to get pulled into a conversation about Beverly’s sense of style or lack thereof, but they did feel as if they had stepped into a living room that hadn’t been redecorated since Shabby Chic was a design breakthrough.
As Ruthanne continued to rant about the ugliness of the all-beige furnishings and accessories, Joyce put the groceries down on the kitchen table and then followed Jinx into the bedroom. Ruthanne was just entering the room when she heard Joyce scream.
“Oh my God, is she dead?” Ruthanne shouted, clutching the doorjamb.
“No, I saw a snake!” Joyce shouted, her dark skin almost the color of Jinx’s olive complexion.
“A snake!” Jinx screamed, jumping on the bed.
“Not on my watch!” Ruthanne cried.
The second Ruthanne was out of the room, Joyce grabbed Jinx’s shaking hand and told her that she had lied, there was no snake, she just screamed as a diversion to get Ruthanne out of the condo.
“Why did you need a diversion?” Jinx asked, jumping down off the bed.
Joyce got on her hands and knees and pulled out a cell phone that was wedged between two shoeboxes underneath Beverly’s bed. “To retrieve this.”
“Aunt Joyce, you’re amazing! This has to be Beverly’s, it’s got a cute little kitten on the phone case,” Jinx cried. “But oh no! If this is her phone, then there’s no way Beverly left town voluntarily.”
“You’re right,” Joyce agreed. “Who leaves town without their phone?”
And who has a hatchet handy?
“Where is it?!”
Upon seeing Ruthanne run into the room wielding a hatchet, Jinx and Joyce screamed and backed into a corner of the bedroom.
“I think I saw it slither into the bathroom!” Joyce shouted.
Dutifully, Ruthanne ran out of the room in search of her prey, leaving Jinx and Joyce alone holding each other tightly and crammed in between the wall and Beverly’s dresser. After a few seconds they tiptoed out of the room and passed the bathroom just in time to see Ruthanne step into the shower with the hatchet perched over her shoulder.
“What kind of woman owns a hatchet?” Jinx asked, as they ran out of the condo.
“Well, truth be told, I kept a butcher knife in my desk when I was working on Wall Street,” Joyce said. “A girl’s gotta protect herself.”
“There’s only one way we can help protect Beverly,” Jinx declared.
“How’s that, sweetie?”
“Find out what’s on this cell phone.”
* * *
Three hours later, after not being able to reach Jinx or Joyce on their cell phones, Alberta panicked and called Vinny. She quickly regretted her decision.
“What are you talking about, Alfie?” Vinny growled. “Are you ladies doing something you’re not supposed to be doing?”
What did she expect when she called a cop to tell him that her granddaughter and sister-in-law might be missing and that it somehow might be related to Lucy’s murder? Did she think he was going to respond calmly and disinterestedly? Or was he going to react the way he did, concerned and suspicious that Alberta and company were sticking their big Italian noses where they didn’t belong? Now Alberta needed to backpedal to throw Vinny off the scent.
Unfortunately, her attempt at dismissive laughter sounded strangely reminiscent of what Ida Lupino would’ve sounded like had she been cast as an ingenue in a film noir movie in the 1950s. It just didn’t work. It also made Helen pause her game of solitaire to give her sister a look that confirmed just how unconvincing she sounded and made Lola stroll in from the living room to investigate.
“We’re not doing anything that we shouldn’t be doing, Vinny, trust me,” Alberta said, hoping her white lie would work. “I’m just concerned because Jinx and Joyce went out this morning, I haven’t heard from either one all day, and they’re late for canasta.”
“Canasta?” Vinny mocked. “I didn’t think anybody still played that. Do you follow it up with a game of mah-jongg?”
“Don’t get smart with me, Vincenzo,” Alberta replied. “Canasta is a game of skill—you should try it sometime.”
“Maybe one of these days you’ll have to invite me over,” he quipped. “Now, don’t think I haven’t forgotten why you called. Why in the world would you think Jinx or Joyce would be in danger?”
“Have you forgotten that Lucy was murdered and her murderer is still running around out there somewhere?”
“Of course, I haven’t forgotten,” Vinny said, not bothering to disguise his resentment. “What do you think me and my guys have been doing every day since you found her body in the lake?”
Duly chastised, Alberta apologized and softened her tone. She knew that Vinny was holding his own investigation separate from hers, but she also knew that Tranquility hadn’t seen a murder in decades so his investigative skills were probably rusty. Although she knew that she should, she didn’t want to reveal that they were looking into the murder on their own, because she knew he was going to tell her to keep their noses out of police work, and he wouldn’t be entirely wrong. They had no business doing what they were doing other than that they felt compelled to bring a criminal to justice. And in Alberta’s case, to regain a feeling of self-worth that had been eluding her for years.
Vinny’s reaction would also be a blow to her ego. She knew that Vinny, like most of the other men in her life, would tell her that she wasn’t qualified to be an investigator. For starters, she was a woman, plus she was too old, too dumb, too fat, and too everything else to solve this mystery. She wanted to prove Vinny, and by extension every other man in her life, wrong.
“Of course, I know that you’re working around the clock to find Lucy’s killer,” Alberta said, trying to find the right combination of fear and humility in her voice. “But the fact is that the killer is still out there, and that’s why I’m worried.”
Alberta waited for Vinny to yell at her and tell her that she was worrying about nothing and that Lucy’s murder was an anomaly in an otherwise peaceful enclave, but the yelling never came.
“You have a right to be worried,” he said quietly. “Just between you and me, Alfie, we haven’t made much progress. DNA results haven’t yielded anything significant, no witnesses, all our interviews haven’t given us any new leads. Frankly, I’m surprised that the rest of the community hasn’t been making more of a fuss about things. I think we have a few more days before all hell breaks loose and people start demanding answers that I just don’t have.”
Maybe I should share my information with Vinny, Alberta thought. Looking at her sister, it was as if Helen could read Alberta’s mind and she knew that she was on the verge of telling Vinny what they had discovered. She wasn’t about to let that happen. And she wasn’t going to be subtle about it. The fork hit Alberta in her shoulder so hard it made her drop the phone. “For Crise sake, Helen! What the hell are you doing?”
As Lola scurried out of the kitchen anxious to get away from the sisterly squabbling that would undoubtedly follow, Helen scrambled to the floor to pick up the phone before Alberta could get to it and covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “You were about to tell boyfriend number one what we found out,” she whispered harshly. “And that would’ve screwed up Jinx’s plan to solve this crime without the police’s help.”
Ignoring most of what Helen said, Alberta replied, “Boyfriend number one? Who the hell is boyfriend number two?”
“Marion, of course,” Helen disclosed. “And for all I know there’s a boyfriend number three that you haven’t told us about yet.”
“Ah, Madon, you’re pozzo!”
“And you’re an idiot if you think Vinny is going to let you continue your private investigation after you show him all your cards.”
Reluctantly, she knew that Helen was right. Vinny was an old, trusted friend, but he was also the chief of police. She grabbed the phone out of Helen’s hand and was desperately trying to think of something to say to cover up the commotion when she was literally saved by the bell. Seconds after the front doorbell rang, Jinx and Joyce ran into the kitchen.
“Sorry we’re late, Gram!”
Greatly relieved to see her granddaughter and sister-in-law alive, she quickly got rid of the
fuzz. “They just showed up!” Alberta cried exuberantly. “Looks like one case has been solved.”
She put the phone back into its cradle and before she spun around she started yelling at the latecomers. “Do you know how worried I’ve been? Haven’t you checked your cell phones? I thought the two of you were the killer’s latest victims!”
Jinx hugged and kissed Alberta, knowing that such physical affection always got her out of a jam with her grandmother. This time was no exception.
“I was helping Aunt Joyce set up her cameras around the lake and it took longer than we expected,” Jinx explained.
“Oh right, your photography,” Helen said dismissively. “Still doing that?”
“Yes, I’m still doing that, Hel,” Joyce replied. “You know how much I love my art.”
“I also know how much you love your money,” Helen added.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Joyce announced. “I will not apologize for being rich.”
After retiring early from a long and financially successful career, Joyce devoted much of her spare time to her favorite hobby—painting. Her forte was painting landscapes and she would often get up at dawn to capture the lake at sunrise and paint undisturbed while most of the town was still fast asleep.
But she also wanted to capture how the lake looked during the night. It was Helen who gave her the inspiration when she said, “Why don’t you take a picture of it? It lasts longer.” That snide remark gave Joyce the idea to buy a camera that she could program to rotate and take pictures at ten-second intervals at various times throughout the night. She then could paint landscapes based on the photos without losing any sleep. Now, her paintings were bestsellers at local fairs and showcased in small art galleries throughout the area. So, Helen had inadvertently helped Joyce make more money, even though Helen was quick to point out that Joyce had more money than God. And since she was once a former Bride of Christ, she should know her ex-father-in-law’s finances.
“If we could move on from discussing my net worth, you might be interested to know that Jinx and I found another clue,” Joyce began. “We found Beverly’s cell phone underneath her bed.”