Read One Foot In The Gravy Online
Authors: Delia Rosen
One Foot In The Gravy (20 page)
Chapter 25
I called Lolo as soon as the hour was decent. For her, that was after noon.
“Everything’s set,” she said joyously. “The Foxes will convene at the deli at seven.”
“Wonderful,” I said, trying to match her gushquotient.
“What will you be bringing to the party?” she asked.
I knew she didn’t mean kosher pickles. She was telling me that in order for a plebian non-member to attend, I better have tribute for the queen.
“The Nashville Police file on Lizzie Renoir’s murder,” I said coldly.
“Poor Lizzie,” she said. “We will find the assassin!”
I had to wonder if it was just spinsters and widows, or if every rich person in Nashville had an overwrought sense of theatrics.
Lolo asked if I would mind having sandwiches prepared, and I told her I would have Thom call to set it up. My manager would make sure she knew this was a paying gig, or they’d be eating candy bars and soda from the newsstand down the street.
I had assigned myself boiling oil duty during lunch: fries, onion rings, all things crisped in grease. It was hot and bad for the skin but it was mindless, robotic. I would go to the mini-freezer behind me, dump the pre-measured portions into the wire baskets, watch them bubble for two or three minutes depending on what they were, then pull them up when the timer went off. Then
Whap, whap, whap
—lightly bump the basket against the back of the fryer, below the fan, to knock off excess oil and then dump it in the tray to scoop, plate, and serve.
Whap, whap, whap
—lightly bump the basket against the back of the fryer, below the fan, to knock off excess oil and then dump it in the tray to scoop, plate, and serve.
As I tried to organize the facts of the case, something my mother used to say popped into my brain:
The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.
Too true. This case was like one of those paintings they used to show us in Art 101, like “The Murder of Crows” by Degas. The heart of the thing was defined by negative space. What we knew about the killings came from the things we could eliminate. That was progress, but it was a frustrating kind. Fortunately, whenever it threatened to drive me crazy, my brain went to the happy place of Solly’s woes and the sun came out, a little.
After lunch, I told Thom about the after-hours gig and she asked if I wanted her to stick around.
“I can handle it,” I said. “Let’s just make sure the food is ready and the register isn’t closed out.”
“Will your other friend be attending?” she asked with a wink.
At first, I wasn’t sure who she meant. When I did, I said, “Sugar!”
“You forgot to invite him?”
“Not him,” I said, and scooted into the back. I put in a call to Rhonda Shays. She wasn’t a member of the literary group but I thought it would be useful to have her there. She would keep the Foxes from becoming too cozy.
“
You
are inviting
me
to something social?” she said. Her tone was a cross between shock and bemusement.
You
are inviting
me
to something social?” she said. Her tone was a cross between shock and bemusement.
“I am,” I said. “On behalf of Lolo.”
“Why doesn’t she call me herself ?”
“I’m afraid her outreach skills are a little brittle due to the murder of her housekeeper,” I said.
I could hear Rhonda suck air through her teeth. “Oh, dear, of course. How thoughtless of me. Yes, yes, I’ll be there. Anything we can do to help find the culprit must be done, must it not?”
“It must.”
Excellent,
I thought. Having one more crazy lady in the room would keep everyone off balance. If anyone were hiding something, there was a good chance they’d slip. If not, the agitation might help enflame their deductive skills.
I thought. Having one more crazy lady in the room would keep everyone off balance. If anyone were hiding something, there was a good chance they’d slip. If not, the agitation might help enflame their deductive skills.
Seven o’clock took forever to arrive.
After a day of chewing over the same-old same-old, I was hungry for any fresh scraps I could find. Grant had stopped by at five. There was no peck this time, but that was fine; I knew, and he probably noticed, that Thom was watching. Also, I probably smelled like old, soggy funnel cake.
We stepped outside so I could air out. He said he had just been given a videoconference briefing by an agent from the Memphis field office of the FBI.
“Our attorney friend is doing things by the book,” he told me. “Cooperating with the local Feds, giving them access to whatever information they are entitled to.”
“Anne Miller’s address?”
“Hasn’t got that,” Grant said. “As I suspected, all contact was limited to email. They’re going to try and track that down. But if she was using a local cyber cafe in a big city, that may not help very much.”
“Wouldn’t she have had to pay with a credit card?”
“Some of them use access cards that you buy on-site. Those can be paid for with cash.”
“Which is exactly what a terrorist would use. I’d’ve thought they would shut those kinds of anonymous Internet things down.”
“BPOL says they’re trying. Whatever the equivalent of the ACLU is in Germany, they’re fighting it. Any intrusions on privacy and personal rights are not taken lightly by the children of their postwar, post-Soviet society.”
“I prefer our balance of freedom and paranoia,” I said.
Grant smirked. “You’re a strange New Yorker.”
“Come again?”
“I thought all you people were liberals.”
“Okay, listen.” I looked at him flush in his big blues. “First, when you say ‘you people,’ that is taken to mean Jews.”
“It is?”
“It is. Trust me. It’s perceived as a pejorative.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t,” I said. “Second, not all New Yorkers are liberals. It only seems that way because they have the biggest mouths. Some of us are centrists and some are even conservatives.”
“What are you?” he asked.
“That’s fourth-date information,” I said. “You’ll just have to wait.”
“Not too long, I hope.”
“That’s up to you,” I said. I heard myself sounding unusually butch.
What’s up with that?
I wondered.
Are you getting cold feet now that he’s actually showing interest?
What’s up with that?
I wondered.
Are you getting cold feet now that he’s actually showing interest?
That wasn’t something I needed to consider at this time. He asked if the Cozy Foxes meeting was set, I told him it was a go, and then I gave him a little—okay, maybe a somewhat forceful—push toward his car with a fullabaloney story about having to get back to work. But it scared me. I wondered if the ghost of Phil were still hanging over me, ready to haunt any kind of man-happiness I might conceivably find.
Don’t go there,
I warned myself.
You’re not in that relationship, you’re not in the city, you’re not anywhere near “that place.”
I warned myself.
You’re not in that relationship, you’re not in the city, you’re not anywhere near “that place.”
The pep talk barely got through the top layer of skull, so I went back and involved myself in the winding-down operations and started to organize my night-in with the ladies.
Chapter 26
Lolo arrived first.
Before leaving, Thom had explained—after assuring me that Lolo had agreed to pay for dinner—that, as far as anyone knew, that was a precedent established by the society queen herself when the Cozy Foxes began gathering.
“Nobody arrives on time, and the royalty is supposed to come last, right?” Thom said. “With the egos and vanity we got here,
somebody
would try to outlast Lolo . . . so she decided to show up first. That way, anyone who mattered would want to be there pretty early in order to enjoy the radiance of her company that much longer.” It made the same kind of cockamamie sense as everything else pertaining to Nashville’s elite.
somebody
would try to outlast Lolo . . . so she decided to show up first. That way, anyone who mattered would want to be there pretty early in order to enjoy the radiance of her company that much longer.” It made the same kind of cockamamie sense as everything else pertaining to Nashville’s elite.
Lolo was driven by her full-time chauffeur. Harold Jenkins lived on the grounds, in a guest house out back; he had been off the night of the murder, however, his presence at the local multiplex confirmed by several witnesses, a ticket stub, his son Gordon who attended a local trade school and went with him, and a summary of the Jason Statham film he’d gone to see. I had seen Jenkins drive her up before, but I had not yet had the pleasure of meeting him. He was—why was I not surprised?—an older African-American man. The whole setup was straight out of
Driving Miss Daisy
—which, as it happens, I had seen on Broadway with my Uncle Murray. He had come north for a visit and had gotten tickets by mail when he mistakenly thought it was a musical. He sat through it manfully if restlessly, trying to hide his disappointment that it was a drama. I loved it, though, and that made him glad. It was the last show we ever saw together, a string of tuners that began in 1988 with
Phantom of the Opera
. His sheer joy with musical theater led me to the natural assumption that he was gay, though my mother said no . . . he just liked music.
Driving Miss Daisy
—which, as it happens, I had seen on Broadway with my Uncle Murray. He had come north for a visit and had gotten tickets by mail when he mistakenly thought it was a musical. He sat through it manfully if restlessly, trying to hide his disappointment that it was a drama. I loved it, though, and that made him glad. It was the last show we ever saw together, a string of tuners that began in 1988 with
Phantom of the Opera
. His sheer joy with musical theater led me to the natural assumption that he was gay, though my mother said no . . . he just liked music.
I felt a sudden twinge for the home town. I beat it back with a club. I did not want to backslide to where Helen Russell had left me.
As it happens, I still did not meet the chauffeur since he did not come in with Lolo. I offered but she declined.
“I fear the check is already made out in the correct amount,” Lolo said rather snippily, I thought, as she handed it to me.
I offered to feed him for free.
She said that would demean Harold.
I got the ultra-clear impression that whatever I offered, she’d have a reason to refuse. There was no way in hell a servant was going to dine with her.
God, I hope you killed Hoppy,
I thought as she walked to her table, which was the biggest and roundest and most visible in the establishment. Next to Solly, there was no one here I wanted to see fry more.
I thought as she walked to her table, which was the biggest and roundest and most visible in the establishment. Next to Solly, there was no one here I wanted to see fry more.
Hildy Endicott, Mollie Baldwin, and Helen Russell arrived within two minutes of Lolo and within a minute of each other. They drove themselves. Rhonda obviously had not read the
How and Why Wonder Book of Lolo,
so she did not arrive until 7:20, by which time I had already served the sandwiches. I had also not informed Lolo she was invited until she walked through the door.
How and Why Wonder Book of Lolo,
so she did not arrive until 7:20, by which time I had already served the sandwiches. I had also not informed Lolo she was invited until she walked through the door.
“I thought this was a members-only event,” Lolo said to no one in particular, though, after glancing around, her eyes rested accusingly on me.
“My deli, my guest,” I said, feeling a little persnickety myself. “I didn’t think anyone would mind. She was at
your
party, after all.”
your
party, after all.”
“Of course we don’t ‘mind’!” Lolo beamed as Rhonda walked over, her handbag swinging low like an ax, her expression Amazonian, her high heels going click-clack as though she were wearing anklets of human teeth. “How
are
you, dear?”
are
you, dear?”
“Carnivorous,” Rhonda said. “I just took an hour spin class.”
Taking her at her word, I gave her the same deluxe pastrami on rye platters I’d given everyone else. The Cozy Foxes always ate first and gossiped, and despite the murder of someone near to one of them, they did not change their routine. Rhonda ate her sandwich with mustard, actually aiming a kind of vulpine snarl at the squeeze bottle of mayonnaise I’d put on the table for Hildy. Rhonda finished eating at the same time as the others.
“Before we begin, I move that we offer membership to our guest Rhonda Shays,” Lolo said.
The others rubber-stamped the motion by rapping the knuckles of their right hand on the table. I have no idea how that evolved; probably from some Perry Mason
Case of the Rapping Right Knuckles
story.
Case of the Rapping Right Knuckles
story.
“Thanks,” Rhonda said. “Do you have to have actually read a mystery to be a member?”
There was a snapshot of distress on the faces of the other women.
“Or does Nancy Drew count?” Rhonda asked quickly.
“She does,” Lolo said, exhaling lightly. “Very much so.”
I had been watching this drama from behind the counter, where I ate my own egg salad platter. While the other Cozies welcomed their new member—who, surprise-surprise, was loving the attention—I walked over with the folder and handed it to Lolo. She seemed surprised.
“Will Deputy Chief Whitman or the other one be joining us?” she inquired.
“No,” I said. “This is—”
“An unofficial inquiry,” Hildy offered. “A roundtable without warrant.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Mollie and Helen nodded, obviously familiar with the phrases or the works from which she had plucked them. Rhonda looked at me as if to ask where the wine course was.
“I have a question before we begin,” Hildy went on. “Do we know, or do we assume, that the murders of Hoppy Hopewell and Lizzie Renoir are related?”
“In fact, we do not know that,” I said. “We assume it.”
“Based solely on their close chronology and proximity?” Hildy asked.
“Sure, that and the fact that dear Lolo is common to both,” Rhonda said with a smile so sweet, it caused her eyes to pinch.
“By association, we
all
have low cardinals of separation from the deceased,” Mollie pointed out.
all
have low cardinals of separation from the deceased,” Mollie pointed out.
“Thank you, Mollie,” Lolo said.
“I never met your housekeeper,” Rhonda said.
“Can you prove that?” Hildy challenged.
“Ladies, come on—have I met
any
of your housekeepers ?”
any
of your housekeepers ?”
“I’m sorry . . . did you say housekeepers or husbands ?” Mollie asked.
“We have a crime to solve!” I interjected. “Bitchslap not on the agenda.”
Lolo cleared her throat at my language. I didn’t mind when Thom objected; when Lolo did it, I felt like Belle Watling.
Lolo’s reading glasses hung from her neck. She put them on and took a moment to study the official stamp and bar code, to feel the heft of it, then carefully slit the blue tab on the side, which I had fashioned from a Post-it to make it seem virginal and special.
I cleared away her plate and she laid the folder on its slim, accordion spine. She turned the pages carefully, from the top right corner, even though they all sat loosely. The other women looked on patiently.
“Perhaps if you passed them around?” I suggested.
“Yes, of course,” Lolo said. She handed the first few pages to Hildy, who was on her left. Within a few minutes, the contents of the entire folder were circulating. There was only one photo of Lizzie’s corpse in the batch, and Grant had cropped the printout in mid-chest. All the Cozies could see was a headless woman in a robe, her arms akimbo as though she were power-walking and her legs curled fetus-like into her belly. There were “tsks” and averted eyes and quick turnovers as that image made its way around. No one failed to react—save Lolo. Her demeanor throughout was one of composure. It was not serenity; her eyes were moving, her mind was obviously working, and her lips were a tight line. I couldn’t tell whether it was her broad-net sense of noblesse oblige, or the sudden realization that this was the death scene of someone who had been close to her—physically, at least—for several years.
“See here,” said Hildy with a hint of excitement. From the moment she walked in, she had seemed the most eager to engage this thing. “This isn’t right.”
“What isn’t?” I asked, moving behind her.
She shuffled between two photographs then returned to the first. “This photo caption says the door was jimmied with a four-inch blade.” I looked over her shoulder. It showed a close-up of the impression a knife had made in the softwood. There was an overlaid dotted line with “4 inches” on top and an arrow showing the direction of the thrust. Hildy held up the photo so the others could see. “Why isn’t the paint scratched?”
I moved around for a better look. She was correct.
“Because it’s an old jimmy,” Helen said.
“I knew one of those,” Rhonda remarked.
“The intruder could have been very careful,” Lolo said. Her role in this gathering was obviously that of Devil’s Advocate.
Hildy went to the other photo she had been examining. “No, because—look. The abrasion on the outside of the strike plate is tarnished.”
Bless her Foxy little eyes, she was right. The door had been jimmied once and the point of the blade had scratched the latch element. In which case the newly exposed brass should be shiny. This wasn’t.
“The door has been opened and closed many, many times since it was illicitly pried,” Hildy said.
“Most likely by the occupant who forgot their keys,” Mollie suggested. “Otherwise, it would have been reported as a break-in and replaced. This”—she pointed to the first photograph—“was simply painted over.”
“There’s something else I noticed,” Helen said. She pushed her plate aside—I quickly removed it and the others to another table to give her room—and spread out photographs of the living room and bedroom. “Do you see anything strange?”
The other women leaned forward as one.
“She was renting a furnished apartment?” Rhonda said, crinkling her nose at the decor.
“Cushions and pillows,” Hildy said.
The others nodded.
“What about them?” I asked. I felt like I did as an undergraduate when I walked in on two of my professors debating the relative importance of micro- versus macroeconomics.
“They are undisturbed,” Lolo explained. In addition to the devil, she was obviously the interpreter. “The report speculates that an intruder was looking for something. That may be. If so, it was not something Lizzie hid but something she
had
.”
had
.”
“Couldn’t the thing have already been found so it wasn’t necessary to—”
“Nonsense,” Lolo interrupted me. “One finishes a room before moving to the next. The bedroom and living room were both disturbed but the fluffy contents were not.”
“Look—the hem of the bedspread was not thrown up,” Mollie said, laying out another photograph. “It was all shelves, drawers, and closets.”
“Here’s something,” Rhonda said.
She was tapping a red nail on a photo of a throw rug in the bedroom. We all leaned over the image. There was a scrap of blue ribbon lying on it.
“From one of the overturned drawers?” I guessed, pointing to the chaos of clothes that began on the edge of the rug.
“Do you keep two-inch pieces of fabric with
your
panties?” Rhonda asked.
your
panties?” Rhonda asked.
“A memento,” Hildy said.
“Not from one of the drawers,” Mollie said. “You keep scraps . . . in a scrapbook!”
We went back to the photos of the living room. There was a bookshelf with volumes of French poetry and books about Canadian history.
“Several books are missing,” Lolo said.
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“Lizzie abhorred a vacuum,” she said. “Look there.” She pointed with a bony finger. “She filled an empty space on the lower shelf with a bust of Prime Minister Diefenbaker.”
“I wondered who that was,” Helen said.
I hadn’t. And still didn’t. “So books were removed,” I said. “But if someone were looking for books, why wreck the rest of—”
“Not just books,” Lolo said. “Photographs. Photographs too damning to leave behind.”
“And,”
Hildy said enthusiastically, “we now know the order in which the apartment was ransacked. The perpetrator went right to the bookshelf, took those volumes, then went to the bedroom to search for any other keepsakes.”
Hildy said enthusiastically, “we now know the order in which the apartment was ransacked. The perpetrator went right to the bookshelf, took those volumes, then went to the bedroom to search for any other keepsakes.”
“Then why tear up the kitchen?” Rhonda asked.
“The kitchen wasn’t
searched
,” Lolo said. She pulled out one of the images that showed the floor with utensils strewn about. “They were thrown. In a rage.”
searched
,” Lolo said. She pulled out one of the images that showed the floor with utensils strewn about. “They were thrown. In a rage.”
“Honey, wouldn’t someone have heard that?” Rhonda asked.
“Not necessarily,” I said, making my first useful contribution. “Four college kids lived above her. Two were at their girlfriends’ apartments that night and the other two were drunk. The police have their statements. And the liquor bottles.”
There was a momentary lull in the discussion. Everyone was involved. No one seemed self-conscious or evasive. I had a feeling the killer was not in this room.
Lolo was still considering the kitchen photo. “Lizzie made her own Canadian bacon from pork belly. I’ve seen her do it in my kitchen. You see the bowls in the sink? They were probably for wet brine. The tenderizer was out to dry after she used it to add seasoning.”
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