Death Will Pay Your Debts

by Elizabeth Zelvin

  I swiveled for a better look. Cindy was too short to stand out in a crowd. She looked even tinier standing next to a guy in a gray suit who must be Natali. He was taller than I expected. Cindy was wearing a black pantsuit and a ruffled white blouse that I had never seen on her. I wondered how they got along. I wondered if they were carrying their guns. I wondered if they were here to keep an eye on anyone in particular. If so, I hoped it wasn't Barbara.

  The service was very ecumenical. They picked the kind of prayers that hardly anybody objects to, like the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-Third Psalm. The music was Bach, which sophisticated New Yorkers don't think of as religious, even when it is. People who had known her talked, including her husband and her sister. I'd been to funerals where the cousins and in-laws did the eulogies because the real mourners would have broken down. Not these two. Interesting, as was the fact that they might have been talking about two different people.

  While Sophia wasn't on display, she hadn't quite departed yet. She'd be cremated today. I guess that meant the autopsy was done. Later in the week, her ashes would be deposited up at Woodlawn in the Bronx in something called a cremation garden. I was glad to hear Sophia wasn't going to end up languishing on the top shelf of a closet or get popped into a cubby that looked like a gym locker.

  "We're going to the interment service," Barbara whispered when they announced that.

  "Woodlawn's in the Bronx," Jimmy said.

  "I don't suppose Cindy's ever left a spare pair of handcuffs at your apartment?" Barbara asked.

  "Very funny," I growled back at her.

  "I didn't say I wouldn't go," Jimmy said. "I want to go."

  Barbara subsided, muttering, "Of course he does. It's for Saint Sophia."

  On a rational level, I could see how Cindy wouldn't tell me stuff she knew officially. But I wasn't feeling rational about it. I wanted to know if someone, preferably multiple someones, had a better motive than Barbara and no alibi for Sophia's death. I wanted Cindy to need my help investigating. I wanted her to think of telling me as a form of telling herself. I wanted her to trust me.

  Sophia's recovery from alcoholism and compulsive spending had not been public knowledge. You could spot the program people who got up and spoke, but what they actually said was very guarded.

  "I talked with Sophia on the phone every morning for seven years, and she always had words of wisdom and encouragement for me." Obviously a sponsee of Sophia's in AA, since she hadn't been solvent in DA that long.

  "Sophia's life was beautiful because she chose to live in abundance, not in deprivation. I was privileged to watch her let go the gift of desperation and receive the gift of clarity. She embraced her vision and inspired others to do the same." Maybe her sponsor or her pressure relief gal. She used all the DA buzz words.

  Near the end, the husband, Larry Kane, announced that he and Sophia came from different traditions, but that she had been very much part of his family. She had loved celebrating the Jewish holidays, and he thought she would have been pleased for his in-laws to honor her by saying the traditional Jewish prayer of mourning. His brother, Rabbi Seymour Kahn—"I told you!" Barbara whispered—would recite Kaddish. About a third of the men took yarmulkes out of their pockets and mumbled along.

  "It's so ancient most of it is not even Hebrew," Barbara whispered. "The words are Aramaic."

  "Now let's see if they do the Serenity Prayer," I whispered back.

  "Shh," Barbara whispered. "The rabbi just said the family will be sitting shiva. Let's get the address. We'll go to that too."

  "Very ecumenical," I said.

  "Right," Jimmy murmured, leaning in on Barbara's other side. "Sounds more like the Civil War to me. Both sides want to do it their way."

  In other words, another dysfunctional family reacting to the crisis of Sophia's death by galloping off in all directions. Why was I not surprised?

  The service ended with another burst of Bach and an invitation to adjourn to a room where everyone could greet the chief mourners. We picked up directions to the rabbi's luxury condo on East End Avenue, where the Jewish contingent would be sitting shiva, and to Woodlawn for the interment of the ashes. I looked around for Cindy, but she and her colleague had already left, probably while the eulogies were going on. As I knew from AA, not every extemporaneous speaker is either succinct or audible. The cops had better ways of finding out who thought ill of the dead.

  Chapter Eleven: Bruce

  "I wish they'd said the Serenity Prayer." I recognized the speaker from meetings. Her nose ring and purple-streaked hair clashed with her red power suit but matched her shoes, purple pumps with ornamental silver buckles. Her skirt was short enough to show off tattoos that started at her ankles and ran up in the general direction of her crotch. I edged closer.

  "Oh, please, Grace. Like all those lawyers and politicians were going to hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya.'"

  I recognized this guy too. He had a receding hairline over a bony skull, a wispy soul patch, and nerdy glasses with tortoise-shell frames.

  "Honestly, Dennis," Grace said. "The Serenity Prayer is not 'Kumbaya'!"

  "What's wrong with 'Kumbaya,' anyway?" This one was an Asian woman with flowing black hair, dressed in a skirt down to her ankles, Ugg boots, and a black pashmina shawl around her shoulders. She looked like she was going to a protest march right after the funeral.

  "Hi, I'm Bruce." I eased myself into the circle. "I'm a grateful recovering anonymous person." I had to say it, or they wouldn't give me their names in exchange.

  "Pamela," the "Kumbaya" fan said. "It's a beautiful folk song that's become symbolic of peace and community, which is another way of saying fellowship, and sneering at it is nothing but 'contempt prior to investigation.'"

  "I investigated," Dennis said. "Seven summers at a left-wing camp when I was a kid, so don't talk to me about folk music and politics."

  "It sounds cool," Pamela said. "Why did you stop going?"

  "I discovered beer," Dennis said.

  I felt an arm slide through the crook of my elbow as Barbara joined me. A quick look over my shoulder told me Jimmy had found Dan and Eleanor. The circle widened to include them, and everybody started exchanging names and disorders.

  "So you all knew Sophia from the rooms?" Barbara asked.

  "I'm actually her cousin," a big blond guy said. "Brent, alcoholic. She twelve-stepped me two years ago."

  "Right," Pamela said. "You talked at the thing."

  "You did a great job," Barbara said. "Moving and anonymous. That must have been a challenge."

  "Thanks," Brent said. "The roof would fly off if the family knew I went to meetings. There are certain institutions that we all consider important, even if we don't actually agree on them: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Grandpa's will. To tell the truth, I'm hiding from the rest of the Schofields."

  "Are there a lot of you?" Barbara asked.

  "In my generation, now Sophia's gone, just Agape, her little sister. But my Uncle Miles and my Uncle Simon are around here somewhere, and so is Grandpa. Except for Aggie, they're all tall and fair like me and Sophia. Compared to Larry's family and Sophia's motley crew of friends, the Schofields stick out like corn in a potato field. But maybe they sneaked off for a drink. No surprise there. It runs in the family."

  Grandpa's will? I'd have liked to hear more about that.

  "When did you last see Sophia?" Barbara asked.

  "We were there when she died," Pamela said.

  "Oh, no! It must have been awful."

  "It was," Pamela said. "We'd all been to a meeting, and we went out afterward for coffee." She looked around the circle.

  "Brent, you're in DA too?" Barbara asked.

  "Sophia thought I should be," Brent said, "so I was trying it."

  "I meant to pick up my coffee and leave," Grace said. "I really needed to get back to work. Now I wish I had, but you know how it is when you get to talking."

  "What kind of work do you do?" I asked.

  "PR," Grace said.
"Same as Sophia. We were talking about pooling clients and going into partnership. I don't know what I'll do now."

  Maybe she'd scoop up Sophia's clients. I wished for the thousandth time that Cindy would talk to me about the case. Okay, I wished that she would talk to me, period. There's a limit to the number of nosy questions an amateur can ask. On the other hand, we could ask different questions. Didn't Cindy realize how helpful I could be to her? For example, the detectives might not even know that Grace existed. She made it sound as if she'd lose by Sophia's death, but in reality she could have thought she'd benefit.

  "What meeting was it?" Jimmy asked. "I live in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd been to every meeting there is, but I can't think of one at lunchtime on Thursdays, which it would have to be if you were all having coffee at two or whenever."

  "It was a new meeting," Dennis said. "Sophia started it as a double winners meeting with a focus on DA as well as alcoholism."

  "I'm only in DA," Eleanor said. "I didn't go."

  "I only went because Sophia was speaking that day," Dan said.

  "I'm in both programs," Jimmy said, "and I'm right around the corner. I wonder why she didn't tell me about it."

  "You're new in the program," Eleanor said.

  "In DA I am," Jimmy said. "I've been in AA for eons."

  "She was your sponsor," Eleanor said. "She probably wanted to keep this meeting for herself in case she needed to let her hair down."

  "What did she talk about that day?" I asked.

  "It was our monthly step meeting," Dennis said. "She spoke on the fourth step."

  "She still struggled with resentments," Pamela said, "even with all her long-term recovery."

  "In our family," Brent said, "if you let the resentments go, they'll give you a dozen reasons to resent them all over again. Believe me, I know. She didn't name names, but I was taking notes for when I get to the fourth step myself."

  "I guess you all told the cops you knew her from the program," Barbara said. "That must have been embarrassing."

  Dead silence. Oops. I guess they hadn't.

  "Is Sophia's sponsor here?" Jimmy asked. "I'd be devastated if one of my sponsees died."

  "Sophia was looking for a new sponsor," Brent said. "She'd had the same sponsor for years. But a few weeks before she died, Judith relapsed and dropped out of sight."

  Whichever program you're in, if you relapse, you're supposed to keep coming back. But it's a helluva lot easier to slink away. And while you're out there, you don't give a damn about getting back on track.

  "That's so sad," Barbara said. "Judith?"

  "I shouldn't have told you her name," Brent said. "Look, I've got to go. The family is going over to Uncle Simon's for a bit of a private wake. I'm not looking forward to watching them all get hammered, but they'd be upset if I didn't show my face. I don't want to hurt my mother's feelings, and I don't want to offend Grandpa Schofield."

  We spent so long talking to the program people that not only Sophia's family but also their friends and workmates dispersed before we could get around to schmoozing with them.

  "Don't worry," Barbara said, "we'll get another chance to mingle when we go up to Woodlawn. And Jimmy, you're going. You need closure."

  "I said I'd go," Jimmy said. "I don't need you to tell me I have grieving to do."

  "I took a copy of the driving directions," Barbara said.

  "I don't think we should drive," Jimmy said. "Do you know how much gas costs these days? We have to get used to taking the subway. We talked about putting in an ad to sell the car. The garage alone costs as much a month to rent as a house in Omaha or Toledo."

  "You talked about it," Barbara said, "I didn't. But if we do, I want that money to go to baby things and starting a college fund."

  "I'm not having this conversation now." Jimmy wheeled and stumped off toward the crosstown bus, not looking back to see if we were following.

  "My God, Barbara," I said, "what is happening? This is not the way you two talk to one another."

  "It is now." She was close to tears. "Right now, it looks like I might be having this baby alone."

  "No!" I put my arm around her. "Jimmy would never walk away from you. He just needs time to get used to the idea. Right now he's in shock about the Sophia thing. So maybe he's a little slow. You have to be patient."

  "It's not fair," Barbara said, lip trembling. "While I'm pregnant is the one time I'm supposed to get taken care of. And everything's going to get worse. When I stop throwing up, my back will start to hurt, and my clothes won't fit, and I'll have to turn sideways to get through a doorway. When that ends, I'll be responsible for a little person who depends on me completely. I'm not saying I mind. But Jimmy doesn't say a word about the joy of it. I thought we'd be able to share that. But he's gotten so grumpy and negative. All he seems to be thinking about is how to fit a kid into his frigging spending plan. Oh, and whether it'll grow up to be an alcoholic. I'm scared of that too, but I don't want to be reminded all the time."

  "I don't know what to say," I said. "Have you been sharing about this in meetings?"

  "Of course," she said, "but they just say one day at a time and keep the focus on yourself. I know all that, and it's not enough. If Jimmy can't help with the baby, I'll have to make enough myself to support us, and if I don't have help, I won't be able to get my master's so I can make a better living."

  "I'll help with the baby," I said.

  Barbara was snuffling up tears by now, but this made her laugh.

  "I can't picture you at Lamaze or parenting classes," she said. "Or changing a diaper. Do you really mean it?"

  I patted her on the back and handed her a bandanna.

  "Here. Blow. I think Jimmy will come through for you. You just have to hang on."

  "You're a good friend, Bruce," she said. "Though much as I love you, I don't want you to see me giving birth. You know how you can help me?"

  "Whatever you want."

  "Remember back when you first got sober, how investigating a murder kept you from drinking again?"

  It hadn't happened quite that way, but I've never been able to convince Barbara my sobriety wasn't entirely due to her nagging me into becoming an amateur sleuth.

  "Help me find out what happened to Sophia," she said. "I'd hate to think it had anything to do with program. You can go to AA and DA meetings with the people we met. I can't. I can keep my ears open when we go to Woodlawn, though. I'm not saying we should take any risks. But we can ask a few innocent questions."

  "There are no innocent questions," I said. "Can't we just leave the investigation to the cops?"

  "Do they have any leads?" she asked. "What is Cindy telling you?"

  "Nothing," I said. "She seems to have decided the boundary between me and her job is the Great Wall of China."

  It sounded like Jimmy still hadn't warned her about the damage his fourth step might have done. I couldn't exactly blame him. I'd have been scared to have that conversation myself. She'd freak out if she knew he thought she'd been jealous. Maybe that was one reason he was pushing her away. I wished he'd tell her. Maybe then he'd stop going off on her.

  "The Jewish side of the family will be at the husband's brother's house," she said, "not at Woodlawn. I took a copy of the schedule.. Jimmy didn't say if he would go to that, and now I'm afraid to ask him."

  "He'll cool off," I said. "He's got a lot on his mind right now. You know, you've gotta leave him a few choices, Barb."

  "I don't feel like I have so many choices myself right now," she said. "But I know you're right. I'll try."

  Chapter Twelve: Bruce

  By that evening, things between the two of them were close enough to normal that Barbara was able to mention the shiva visit. At first, Jimmy flat out refused to go.

  "It's too much," he said. "We've already paid our respects, and we're going to Woodlawn. Unless you want to go up there without me."

  "No, Jimmy."

  Barbara's obvious distress made me feel terrible.
r />   "Come on, dude," I said. "Getting there will be no big deal. It's only a stone's throw from where we grew up." The Kahns lived in a luxury condo on East End Avenue, walking distance from where I still lived in my parents' rent-controlled apartment. "If we go tomorrow morning, I'll even give you breakfast first."

  "You don't have to do that," Barbara said. "They'll have lots of Jewish comfort food: bagels and lox and chopped liver. I love that stuff. I'd better call my OA sponsor and commit to staying away from it."

  "I hate the idea of being stuck in someone's apartment," he said when she went off to make her phone call, "with Barbara putting pressure on me to act as if I'm comfortable with all the Jewish stuff. I'll have enough of that when the Roses become my in-laws."

  "What, you don't like bagels?" I said.

  "Cut it out," he said. "You know it's not the bagels, and it's not the Judaism either. If I learned one thing in parochial school, it was how to look respectful when someone's praying and my mind is a million miles away. It's the schmoozing."

  "But schmoozing is the essence of investigation," I said. "You schmoozed just fine at the memorial today."

  "I can schmooze when I have to," Jimmy said. "Like when we go to Woodlawn. Sophia used to say there were plenty of drunks in her family. They'll probably lay on some kind of refreshments after the interment. But the Schofields are WASPs. They're more likely to let a guy finish his sentences. Barbara's folks think conversation is the art of interrupting."

  "I heard that," Barbara said. "Jimmy, I keep telling you we interrupt because we're so excited about what you have to say. It's a sign of enthusiasm!"

  This was the kind of kidding they normally did all the time. This time, Barbara looked apprehensive and Jimmy looked as if he was not amused.