Scot & Soda

by Catriona McPherson

  “John Worth’s an alcoholic?” the neighbour said. “Well! He’s leading a double life then, young man. He might be twelve-stepping down there in L.A. but he takes a glass of my eggnog every Christmas when he comes home and a beer in the yard at the Fourth of July too.”

  Todd and Kathi tsk-tsked and I thought it was safe to join in.

  “Your momma,” the old lady said. “Did you say you were Reba’s boy? And Reba would be … ?”

  Before she put two and two together and got IMPOSTER we smiled and waved and headed back to the Jeep.

  “So that puts John Worth in the clear,” Kathi said. “If he was passed out drunk. And if all the noise and drama we’ve been hearing about was just his friends bringing him home, maybe Tam’s death is nothing to do with him.”

  “Are you serious?” I said. “What better way to move a body than to pretend it’s a drunk?”

  “Wait a minute!” said Todd. “You think John was one of the four carrying the drunk and the drunk was dead Tam?”

  “No,” I said. “I think John Worth is in the clear, because I think the reason his heart packed it in is that he was framed and the tension of it nearly killed him.”

  “Where’d you get that from?” said Todd.

  “It’s what that neighbour lady just said about people showing up outside polite visiting hours and dumping down presents ‘all nasty.’”

  Todd and Kathi looked back at me blankly.

  “What’s the nastiest way you could deliver a casserole?” I asked.

  “Ohhhh,” said Kathi. “In a garbage bag.”

  “Bingo. We should have seen it before now. Tam was on John Worth’s porch. But not with John Worth’s permission. When he realised, he dumped him in the slough. But the nightmare wasn’t over. Someone kept delivering costumes. We saw Becky getting rid of one on Saturday and then another one got delivered. I really think this is the answer.”

  “You’re right,” said Todd. “I think you’re right. And it clears up one question that’s been bugging the snot out of us, doesn’t it? Why was he left where he was for four days and then redumped? Why was he not just dumped immediately?”

  “Because it wasn’t the same person who killed him, dressed him, stashed him, then dumped him in the slough!” Kathi said.

  “Who was it?” said Todd.

  “Either Original Mo, Also-Mo, or Joan,” I said. “Duh.”

  “Or Patti,” said Todd, “coming out of hiding to dish out punishment after all these years then going home to see her mama. Hey,” he added, at our looks, “I can dream.”

  Twenty-Five

  Let’s check them all again,” said Kathi. “You said Mo Heedles puked at the memory of Tam Shatner’s gapped teeth? Maybe she put a mask on him. Maybe she has nosy neighbors too, who’re willing to say she was busy all night last Saturday.”

  “And we know she has a nephew,” Todd said. “So she has a sibling. Who might have a spouse.”

  “So?” said Kathi.

  “I’m trying to get up to a total of four people who’d help her move a corpse,” he said.

  Mo Heedles’s neighbours were out. And Mo Heedles was out too. However, the nephew was there. He gulped when he saw us and I wondered again if Todd was right. Did this man fancy me? He was certainly staring. And he was certainly pretty. But he was wearing cycling shorts.

  “What?” he said. “Gotta do something in the off-season, don’t I?”

  So at least he knew it was unacceptable to be wearing cycling shorts.

  I smiled at him, as bland a smile as I could muster. But it worked wonders on him. He beamed at me.

  “Aunt Mo just dashed out for two minutes,” he said. “You wanna come in and wait? You’re the … who are you?”

  “Trinity Solutions,” said Kathi. “We’re exploring the possibility of a joint venture.”

  She was good. That was so vague that no matter what Mo Heedles’s business interests might be, we could be part of it.

  Inside, he stood in front of the fake fireplace bouncing on his cleats, seemingly quite at ease. But since we were all sitting in a row on a squashy sofa and eye level with the padded bit of his shorts, he was the only one.

  “Could I trouble you for a glass of water,” Kathi said eventually, purely to get rid of him.

  Just as he came back with three little bottles of flavoured water too cold to drink—practically too cold to hold in your hand—but bogging anyway, so who cares, his aunt returned. She had a phone clamped between ear and shoulder and was listening intently as she let herself in.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Oh! Uh-huh.”

  Then she saw us.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said and hung up without any leave-taking. She laid the phone down in the key, glove, and pen bowl on the stand just inside the door. Actually she didn’t. She shoved it so hard into the middle of the key bowl that it was submerged. It made me feel warm towards her, that she might be ashamed of her basic little flip phone. It didn’t go with the cathedral ceiling and the moleskin love seats.

  “Hello again,” she said to Todd and me. “And hello to you too,” she said to Kathi. “I see my nephew has offered refreshments. Now then, what can I do for you today?”

  “Well, Ms. Heedles,” said Todd, “it’s still Tam Shatner and what happened to him after the reunion.”

  “Who?” said the nephew, unconvincingly. Mo moved her hand just ever so slightly to tell him to dial it down a notch. It wasn’t very plausible that his aunt hadn’t mentioned the sudden death of a classmate to him.

  “But it’s not just Tam anymore,” I added. “It’s Patti Ortiz now too, and what happened to her after graduation. Can you help us with any of that?”

  “It’s so long ago,” Mo said.

  “But it’s still reverberating,” Todd countered. “And it makes a difference. If Tam killed Patti and ran away, then what happened to him last week was rough justice. But what if Tam knew who killed Patti and that knowledge got him murdered? There’s no justice in that, is there?”

  “Patti’s dead?” Mo’s face was drawn up into stricken lines and her eyes were filling. “I always hoped she’d just gone off to have a better life somewhere.”

  “Talk us through it,” Kathi said. “Graduation night.”

  “Where would I even start?” Mo said.

  “Tell us about Tam Shatner,” said Todd. “What kind of boy was he? You were on the senior class council with him. You must have known him well.”

  Mo shook her head. “I told you,” she said. “He was John’s friend. I didn’t know him and I didn’t want to.”

  “He certainly does seem to have caused some trouble,” I said.

  Mo waited to hear more, with a mildly questioning look on her face. She was being careful this time, not like our first interview when she spat his name and cheered his murder.

  “The yearbook, for instance,” I said.

  Mo sprang to life. “Oh, that yearbook! The committee tried to pin him down to get a picture and he couldn’t be pinned. They were at their wits’ end. It’s a black mark on a yearbook committee’s record to have missing students, you know.”

  “We do know,” said Todd. “We heard that.”

  He was right. We really had heard that, almost word for word, from Joan Lampeter only an hour ago.

  “Did he hate having his picture taken?” said Kathi in an innocent voice that was so close to over-the-top I could feel giggles bubbling up inside me.

  “No,” said Mo. “He was just obstinate. Nothing delighted him more than to barge into a big group shot where he didn’t belong, once it was all set up, and there was no time to retake it. I think he’s in our yearbook here and there, just to stick it to the committee even more.”

  “What a pain in the ass,” Todd said.

  “And of course it all took much longer than it does now,” Mo sai
d. “It wasn’t tap, tap on your iPhone and upload the best ones. Not back then.”

  I couldn’t help looking over at the key bowl and its half-submerged flip phone. I don’t know if she saw me.

  “No wonder you didn’t invite him to the party after graduation,” Kathi said. “That’s right, isn’t it? He wasn’t there?”

  “Patti was there,” said Mo Heedles, oddly. “She was there at the graduation and she was there at the—”

  “—old Armour homestead,” Kathi supplied.

  That set her back a bit. She frowned at Kathi. “Are you from Cuento?” she said. Subtext: How do you know where our parking place was?

  “I married into old Cuento society,” said Kathi. And Mo Heedles was off, spinning her social Rolodex trying to place Kathi in her network somewhere. Her eyes rested on the sk logo on Kathi’s polo shirt and narrowed slightly. “I own the Skweeky Kleen laundromat,” Kathi explained. “Attached to the Last Ditch motel?”

  Mo’s nephew had been sitting quietly but he shifted in his chair then and recrossed his legs. He also put down his little bottle of disgusting orangey water and folded his arms. Which was interesting. Which bit of what Kathi had just said made him need to hug himself?

  “A good business, if you get the location right,” Mo said.

  “But getting back to Tam?” said Todd. “Was he there at the party that got Patti into so much trouble?”

  Mo shot a look towards the front door. Was she thinking of making a bolt for it? “I can’t recall,” she said. If only she had just said I don’t remember. I mean, we still wouldn’t have believed her but at least there wouldn’t have been that echo of every shameless politician running down the clock at some hearing.

  “I’m not surprised,” Todd said. “I blacked out at my high school graduation too. And college. Medical school. Wedding. And like you said, it was different back then before smart phones. Maybe there aren’t any pictures to jog your memory.”

  “Pictures?” said Mo. Her eyes slid to the other side, away from the front door. I guessed that the drawer in the bookcase held her photo albums. “Thankfully, no. No pictures of the four of us that night in our party dresses with our hair wrecked and our make-up running. I would have bought the negatives and destroyed them if there were.”

  “But I’ll bet Mrs. Ortiz would have liked one,” I said. “Even if Patti was dishevelled. The last photograph ever taken of her daughter?”

  Mo nodded and heaved a sigh heavy with sorrow. Then she caught her breath. “Mrs. Ortiz,” she said, “isn’t quite the mothering angel she makes herself out to be.”

  “Oh, we know,” said Todd. “We heard. We even wondered if she was capable of killing Tam Shatner. At her age. But then the police— Have you heard the news?”

  “The police what?” said Mo.

  “The police reckon it’s suicide,” he said.

  Mo sat back in her seat. “Suicide?” she said. “Thomas, you mean?”

  “Who else?” said Kathi.

  “Suicide?” Mo repeated.

  “Which is going to be a relief to a lot of people, I imagine,” I said. “John Worth, for one.” Mo sat forward in her seat again. “Did you know John was in hospital after a massive heart attack?” I added.

  “Did I know?” said Mo. She sent a panicked look to her nephew. “I might have heard something. Or maybe I’m thinking of someone else.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” said Todd. Mo couldn’t crack his sarcasm code though and she merely gave him a grateful smile.

  “I reckon it was the strain of an old friend dying after the reunion,” Kathi said. “I mean, if John Worth persuaded Tam to come and then Tam got murdered … ”

  “Did he?” I asked, all innocence. “Persuade him, I mean.”

  “Who else would have?” said Kathi. “Everyone hated him except his friend John. Isn’t that right, Ms. Heedles?”

  “Ummmm,” said Mo. She sucked at this game. “That’s right.”

  “But John said he didn’t know Tam was coming and he ran him out of the party as soon as he showed his face,” I said. “Right, Mo?”

  “Ummmm. Yes, that’s right, now I remember.”

  “Aunt Mo,” her nephew chipped in, “maybe you should go for your rest. It’s been a busy day.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Todd. “We didn’t mean to detain you. We’re just chatting. Although … now that I think about it again … who was it who said that Tam stayed at the party? Danced and visited all night long?”

  “I don’t recall,” said Mo again, in a smaller voice.

  “Wait, wait,” I said, “I think, that is, I’m almost sure, it was you, Mo. Wasn’t it?”

  “I can’t remember.” Her voice was close to a whisper.

  “Can’t remember whether he was there?” Todd said.

  “Or can’t remember what you said?” added Kathi.

  “I really do need to go and rest,” said Mo, standing up in quite a wavering fashion and making her way towards the bedrooms.

  Her nephew was left gaping at all three of us, absolutely unequal to this beyond awkward situation. “You didn’t get to talk about your business venture,” he said at last.

  I couldn’t work out if he was clever at acting dumb or too dumb to act clever.

  “We can come back,” Todd said. “When this current situation has died down completely. Your aunt is just the kind of investor we’re looking to attract.”

  “Where there muck there’s bras,” the nephew said.

  I was then, and I will for the rest of my life continue to be, proud that I didn’t jump, didn’t squeak, didn’t even open my eyes wider or let my breath hitch.

  “What?” said Todd.

  “Where there’s muck there’s bras,” the nephew said. “It’s an old expression. It means women are where the money is.”

  “Sounds kinda disrespectful,” said Kathi. “Like lipstick on a pig.”

  “Black don’t crack,” Todd added.

  I said nothing. I was keeping my cool while a firework show of revelations and connections went off inside me but I couldn’t do that and talk too.

  “Well, we’ll get back to you,” Todd said, finally noticing that I was not in a normal state there beside him. “Or to your aunt anyway.”

  He stood, Kathi stood, I stood and we left.

  “Omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod,” I said, hustling down the path.

  “What’s up?” said Kathi. “You’re walking like that time you drank from the irrigation hose. I’m not getting in the car with you if you’re gonna—”

  “This is mental not digestive,” I said. “And it’s going to blow your brains too when I tell you.”

  “Where are we going while you blow our brains?” said Todd, getting into the driving seat.

  “Home,” I said. “I’ve got a late client.” I was half in the passenger door when I noticed Mo Heedles’s car sitting in the drive, its 09-30-15 TABI decal as large as life in the window. I whipped out my phone and took a picture of it, hoping the Jeep was hiding me from view of the living room window.

  “Shitbags, I’ve got a client too,” Todd said.

  “Don’t say shitbags,” I told him. “Or client!”

  He ignored me. “And you, Kathi. Mel’s coming to you for advice about a yard sale after I take him to the Gap.”

  “Melvin Ball?” I said. “Widowed Melvin Ball? Don’t tell me his horrible children got to you and you’ve turned on him. He only wants to remember Maddy in peace. Don’t bully him.”

  “He booked a cruise and he wants help with his wardrobe,” Todd said. “Kathi’s clearing his house while he’s in Puerto Vallarta.”

  “In case he brings home a souvenir,” Kathi said. “He doesn’t want a new lady friend to find Maddy’s teeth in the nightstand.”

  “They’ll eat him alive!” I said. “A solvent wi
dower on a cruise? They’ll pick him clean.”

  “Never mind Melvin,” said Todd. “I’ll pick you clean if you don’t tell us what’s going on.”

  “Drumroll,” I said. “It was Mo Heedles. She killed Tam.”

  “She was all over the place, it’s true,” Kathi said. “But maybe she’s got early-onset.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Todd, remember when we first met that nephew? He might have early-onset. Or he’s just as thick as mince. Remember how he freaked out at me? And I thought he was a misogynistic queen—Don’t give me that look! They do exist—and you thought he was smitten and shy? Well, we were both wrong. It was because he recognised me and was panicking that I would recognise him.”

  “Didn’t you?” Todd said.

  “I didn’t recognise him until he said that mangled phrase just there. It’s nothing to do with bras. The saying is ‘Where there’s muck there’s brass.’ Muck meaning dirt and brass meaning money. I said that to him, when we first met.”

  “On the phone?” said Kathi.

  “Nope,” I said. “Face to face.”

  “I don’t get it,” Todd said.

  “I was discussing with him how there was good brass to be earned in dirty slough water.”

  “Is there?” Kathi said.

  “Specifically, diving into dirty slough water to pull out corpses.”

  They were as stunned as I could ever have hoped for.

  “He—He—He—He’s the diver that went in and got Tam out?” Kathi said.

  “And pocketed the class ring that would identify the corpse and incriminate his aunty,” I said. “Tah-dah.”

  “Well, dip me in schmaltz and call me a kugel,” said Todd. And since no one could put it better, we rode in silence the rest of the way.

  Twenty-Six

  But what do we do about it?” Kathi said as we were all about to go our separate ways.

  “Hand it over to the cops,” I said. “Let Mo Heedles take her chances in the greatest justice system this world has ever seen.”