The Curse of the Holy Pail #2 (20 page)

"Only on paper, Ms. Grey, only on paper." When I failed to respond, he continued. "Meet me tomorrow, Saturday. First thing in the morning." It had not been an invitation, but a gentle demand.

"I ... uh ... I can't," I said, stuttering. "I have appointments most of the day."

"You have an appointment at six A.M.?" he asked in a mocking tone.

"Ahh ... no," I said, a bit spooked. The urge to hang up on him had been strong. Talking to dead people wasn't my thing. "I think you should call the police. Really, I do."

He chuckled. "Can't, Ms. Grey. A little matter of fraud. And besides, I am dead."

I sat stunned and speechless. A bump on a log was more mobile.

"Then six it is," he said with confidence. He rattled off an address in Santa Ana. I mechanically jotted it down, telling myself the whole time there was no way in hell I was going to meet this man. "And Ms. Grey," he added, "don't bring the police, bring coffee. Good, strong coffee. I prefer Ethiopian."

The call had been just over an hour ago. I had thought of little else since. Rummaging in my purse, I located Dev's card and my cell phone. Before I could switch on the phone, a bark sounded in my ear, followed by a squeal shooting out of my mouth.

It was Wainwright. I had been so lost in my thoughts about Porter, I had forgotten that the dog was in the back seat. Greg took Wainwright almost everywhere with him. Since coming to my house, the poor animal had developed a bad case of cabin fever. Tonight when I stopped home to give him a quick walk, I crumbled before his sad, imploring eyes. Besides, Dad loved the animal and treated him like one of the family whenever Greg and I visited.

Wainwright barked again, this time louder. Turning, I saw JJ, my stepbrother, standing on the sidewalk a few feet from the car. He had his eyes on the dog, nervous even though he'd been around the animal before.

"You gonna sit in there all night?" JJ yelled at me.

I reached across and rolled down the window halfway, swearing that my next car would have power windows. Wainwright poked part of his big yellow head out the window and whined. No matter what I thought of JJ, Wainwright, at least, recognized him as extended family.

"I'll be right in, JJ," I told him. "I need to make a personal call." I was thinking I should contact Dev Frye, in spite of what Porter had said.

"Jesus, Odelia, I wanna eat," JJ whined. "Horten won't let us eat until you get your fat ass in there."

JJ is in his early sixties. He was actually married once, decades ago. He has children who cannot stand to be near him, which is not hard to believe. Most of the time, he survives by sponging off Dad and Gigi. Tonight, he was dressed in khaki shorts-period. Seeing the dog was friendly, he approached a few feet, but still kept his distance.

"Whaddya so fat now you can't get out from behind the wheel?" He snickered at what he thought was a brilliant remark.

Ignore him, I told myself. He isn't worth the effort.

With a deep sigh, I stashed the phone back in my purse and jerked open my car door. JJ was already heading for his place at the dinner table when I extracted the dog from the back seat.

However simple and bare the outside of the house was, the inside was its opposite. Gigi believed that more was more, and the more from yard sales and flea markets, the better. Greg, following his first visit to my family, announced that Gigi redefined the word kitsch and lowered it to a new level. Personally, I think he was too kind.

Entering the house, I smelled glazed baked ham. My mouth started to water. Wainwright licked his chops and gave off a little moan. He was no fool. My dad was a soft touch when it came to begging, and Greg wasn't around. Tonight, table scraps would flow like cheap beer. Just to make sure, the dog sidled up to my dad, nudged his leg, and wagged his tail. I had to laugh. He reminded me of Greg when he wanted to have sex.

As soon as I set foot into the kitchen, JJ started piling a plate up with ham, green beans flecked with bacon grease, and mashed potatoes made from instant flakes. Without a word, he carried it into the living room to watch TV.

My father was standing beside his chair at the table, waiting for me. One gnarled hand stroked the dog's head. Dad beamed, his wide, fleshy face breaking into a genuine glow when he saw me. He was of average height and slightly stooped, like punctuation that can't make up its mind if it's a question mark or a parenthesis. Like many men his age, he had a pot belly but no butt and had to use suspenders to keep his pants up. I hugged him tightly and he kissed my forehead.

"Happy birthday, little lady," he said. "You look like a million bucks."

"Thanks, Daddy," I answered, locking my eyes onto his. They were green like mine. The way he smiled told me he had his hearing aid turned on for the occasion.

Gigi shuffled in from the kitchen with a salad of iceberg lettuce and tomatoes smothered in Thousand Island dressing. Her usual bouffant hairdo looked freshly done and had a pinkish glow to it, like it had been rinsed in Pepto-Bismol. She was spindly, the sharpness of her structure emphasized by tight turquoise knit pants and a clingy synthetic top. Over the years her features had taken a downward turn, as if molded out of melting wax. I looked behind her and was pleased to see that my stepsister, Dee, was nowhere in sight. Dee was in her mid-sixties with a family of her own. She lived only a few miles away, but seldom visited.

I said hello to Gigi and thanked her politely for having me over for dinner. Zee would have been proud of my civility. But the politeness was shaky at best. I knew it was just a matter of time before my stepmother opened her mouth and I'd be fighting for control. It didn't take long.

"Where's that cripple boyfriend of yours?" she asked, eyeing the dog with disfavor. She put the salad bowl down on the table with a thud.

My stepmother believes that Betty Crocker is a real person, and that Martha Stewart is her illegitimate daughter. She also thinks Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are real, too. Married to each other, of course, and running a diner outside of Birmingham, Alabama.

I swear to you, she told me so.

I took a deep breath. Dad glanced at me and I saw caution flash in his eyes as clearly as a flare at a highway accident. We took our seats and started passing the food.

"Greg is in Minneapolis," I explained. "His uncle died."

"Was he a cripple, too?" Gigi asked.

"Hate to disappoint you, Gigi," I said, flashing a polyester smile, "but accidents resulting in spinal injuries aren't genetic." "

I like that Greg," my father said with a nod to the ham he was placing on his plate.

"Me, too, Daddy." I hesitated, wondering if I should say anything about the proposal.

Gigi pointed her fork at me. "For a minute, I thought that cripple dumped you and stuck you with the damn dog."

"Figures," JJ added, coming into the kitchen to load up his plate again, "she couldn't even hang on to a cripple. Shit, he was probably afraid she'd squash him in the sack."

"JJ, that's enough," I said through clenched teeth. "As a matter of fact, Greg asked me to marry him."

My father looked up and smiled. Instantly, he looked younger and happier than I had seen him in years. It made me glad I had said something, even if the circumstances were not exactly prime for such news.

"Cripples can't screw, can they?" Gigi asked. She looked to my father. "Horten, can cripples screw?"

Dad looked at Gigi in undisguised horror. For a minute, I actually thought he would lose his temper. But he didn't. I love my father dearly, but he has no backbone.

Turning to Gigi, I announced, "Since you're interested, Greg and I have a perfectly wonderful sex life."

"Didn't know you were into kinky stuff, Odelia," JJ said with a leer. "I hear lots of girls line up for guys like that. Kind of a freak thing."

I started to rise, but felt my father's hand reach under the table and gently squeeze my knee. Follow my lead, he was telling me. His head was bent over his plate and his face was slightly flushed. His other hand was busy shoveling food into his mouth.

Gigi lifted a can of generic beer halfway to her lips and stared at my father. "Well, I guess half a man's better'n none." My father flinched, but kept eating.

"Don't worry, Ma," JJ said, "it'll work out. Greg's half a man and Odelia's double a woman."

I slammed down my fork.

My father's hand left my knee. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it move to his hearing aid and turn it off.

I counted to ten. Then to twenty. On twenty-one, I turned to my father and coaxed him into turning his hearing aid back on. I did my best to ignore Gigi and JJ, but I didn't have the luxury of a hearing aid to shut off at will.

I asked my father about Chappy Wheeler. Did he remember the show? Surprisingly, he did remember it, telling me that he and my mother had watched it faithfully.

"I remember that show," Gigi chimed in. She was through eating and was now smoking at the kitchen table while the rest of us ate. "That Chappy Wheeler was real handsome. Tall and blond, and very serious."

Even JJ got into the act. "Hey, isn't that the guy who was murdered?"

"Yep," his mother said, taking another puff.

"Yeah, I remember," JJ said. He scratched the stubble on his chin. It sounded like sandpaper. "He was a real big fag. Probably got himself killed by another fag."

Gigi turned on her son. "Chappy Wheeler was not a homo," she snapped.

"He was so, Ma. Everyone knew it." JJ picked at the ham, stuffing a small piece into his mouth. "Hell," he said, speaking with his mouth full, "I was just a kid when he was killed, but I remember. Everyone talked about it for months."

"Chappy Wheeler was not a homo," Gigi insisted. "He was married to that cute girl on the show. The one who played the schoolteacher. Oh, what was her name?" Gigi snapped her bony fingers as she tried to think.

"Catherine Matthews," I said, filling in the blank.

"Huh?" Gigi asked, looking at me vacantly.

"Catherine Matthews," I explained, "was the actress who played Lorna Love on the show."

Gigi pointed a finger at me like she was accusing me of stealing her dentures. "That's right, that's right. Pretty little thing, blond and tiny. They were married in real life. That proves he wasn't a homo. Had a little girl, too. Poor thing was born after her daddy was murdered."

I was in shock, though I don't know why. Celebrity scandal was exactly the type of stuff Gigi and her family thrived on. I should have realized that the murder of a television star would be something they would remember. War, famine, Nobel Prizes-no. But Hollywood murders-absolutely. Gigi once made a pilgrimage to Bundy Drive, to the site where the Simpson murders occurred, and complained to the police because she couldn't see a chalk outline of the two bodies.

I looked over at her. Gigi's eyes were closed, and she was mumbling to herself, no doubt trying to conjure up sleazy details she had read in the tabloids fifty years earlier. Grudgingly, I had to admit that I was impressed by her recall faculties.

My father watched the whole thing like a favorite TV drama while he fed bits of ham to the dog. I looked at him and he shrugged. Beyond watching The Chappy Wheeler Show weekly, he was in the dark.

"Now I remember," Gigi said, slapping her hand down on the table. The green beans gave a little hop in their serving bowl. "Yes, I remember. It was that midget."

"Midget?" I asked.

"Yes," my father said, "there was a midget. He played Chappy's friend." He smiled at me, happy to assist in any way he could.

"The midget did it," Gigi said with enthusiasm.

"You mean the midget-I mean, Lester Miles, the actor -killed Wheeler?" I asked. "But I thought the murder was never solved."

"No, no, no," Gigi said, waving her hand impatiently in the air. "The midget married Lorna. I mean-not Lorna-oh, now I've forgotten. You're confusing me."

I rewound and replayed what Gigi just said in the depths of my mind until it clicked.

"You mean," I said slowly to my stepmother, "that in real life Chappy Wheeler was married to Catherine Matthews?" Gigi nodded, her pink hair bobbing. "Then after Wheeler died, Lester Miles, the actor who played Hi on the show, married Catherine?"

"Isn't that what I just said?" Gigi snapped. "And not too long after poor Chappy's murder either. Always thought that was a bit suspicious."

For once, I didn't doubt my stepmother. Odd, though, none of this was mentioned in the memorabilia I received through Joe.

"You know what else?" Gigi asked, tapping my arm with a finger. "That Lester fella wasn't a real midget."

"He wasn't?" I asked.

"No, not a real midget at all. I read somewhere that he just played one on TV. In real life, he's really six feet tall."

SEVENTEEN

THE HAM AND GREASY green beans rolled around in my stomach like a roller derby. We had sat down to dinner about six. Looking at my watch, I saw that it was almost eight and I was halfway home. On the seat beside me was a pink bottle of Pepto-Bismol. I had picked it up at the mini mart when I stopped for gas. I took periodic swigs from it and tried not to think about Gigi's hair. The dog was sprawled on the back seat, snoring.