The Goodbye Body (28 page)

I sat for a long while, lost in highly irrational plots to expose the FBI on
60 Minutes
or in
Newsweek.
To start a grass roots letter-writing campaign to Congress. To punch Gary Billings in the nose, dig up J. Edgar Hoover and do the same, and then move to a country that lacked the financial and technological resources to keep dossiers on its private citizens. I finally calmed down and considered the conversation. Gary Billings was an FBI agent, sent to Farberville to keep an eye on Dolly. She’d apparently gone about her typical business until Petti arrived at the Fritz Motel on Sunday. That afternoon, she’d invited me to house-sit, and on Monday was on her way to Dallas or Atlanta while Petti was being murdered, but not by Sara Louise and Madison.

Sara Louise had come in an attempt to ingratiate herself with the family, dragging Madison along as part of her cover story. She could have learned where Petti was going, and presumably why, but she’d chosen to drive instead of fly in order to give herself an excuse to stay at Dolly’s house. But Gary had told me that she hadn’t come to kill Dolly. The detectives had searched the house and found nothing as damning as a second set of ledgers on the premises. Did the vandal at the Book Depot think she’d hidden them there? Was she alternating calls to me with calls to the home office in Manhattan, so to speak, demanding money in exchange for the ledgers that she’d squirreled away in Atlanta or Miami?

It was as good a theory as I could come up with, although it was hard to believe Dolly would be so reckless. Surely she knew there was no island too small or country too big to ever feel safe again. Some of the Velocchios might end up in prison, but not all of them. They might consider blackmail as treacherous as cooperating with the federal prosecutors.

In that I’d never taken it upon myself to delve into mobster philosophy, I drove to the bookstore, merely for comfort. Jorgeson had not only locked me out but also barricaded the doors with yellow tape, which might be good for business if and when I was allowed to reopen the store. I’d have some tidying up and dusting to do, but perhaps my science fiction hippie could be coerced into helping—if he’d recovered from finding the store quite so spooky. I sat in the parking lot and debated my options. Gary had told me all that he was willing to share. Daniel and Lucy could be anywhere, looking at properties, shopping, or attending a matinee. There was no way to find Cal unless he drove by in his van. That left Nick and Sebastian, headquartered at Manny’s PerfectPools.

I left my car where it was and walked half a block to Sally Fromberger’s health food restaurant. She came out of the kitchen with plates for the two diners in the corner, then spotted me and froze. “Oh my gawd, Claire,” she gasped, then banged down the plates on their table and hurried over to hug me. “I’m so glad you’re okay! You must be going out of your mind! Let me fix you a cup of camomile and rosehip tea. Sit down right here. I’ve been so worried about you!”

“I’m sorry I don’t have time for a cup of tea,” I said. “I came in to use your telephone directory.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you in danger?”

“I’m not going to look up the number of the police department. I just need an address.”

“Now?”

“Well, yes,” I said, trying to hide my irritation. “That would explain why I came in and asked for your directory.”

If her eyes widened any further, surgery might be required. “Are you sure you’re not in danger? I can throw the customers out, close the blinds, and lock the door. No one will know you’re here.”

“No one cares that I’m here, Sally. The directory?”

“I think you need a cup of tea,” she said firmly. “You’ve behaving very oddly. That’s not to say any of us wouldn’t after finding a body in the freezer, and then having a house-guest steal a car and get herself killed at the country club. The woman who owns the house should be ashamed of herself! Here you are doing her a favor, and she can’t bother to come back and sort all this out. If she dares set foot in here, I’ll refuse to serve her.”

“Is the directory behind the counter? Shall I get it myself?”

The two customers in the corner were ignoring their alfalfa sprouts and tofu burgers in order to gawk at me. Sally glared at them until they turned away, then brought me the directory. She seemed determined to stand over me, but I raised my eyebrows and waited until she reluctantly started for the kitchen.

Once I’d found the address for Manny’s PerfectPools, I closed the directory and left before Sally could bear down on me with tea and sympathy, as well as thinly disguised curiosity. Okay, brazen curiosity. Sally’s much easier to tolerate when she’s organizing local events and browbeating the innocent into serving on committees. Her weapon of choice is a clipboard.

I drove across town to an industrial area and parked in front of a metal building. Weeds, gravel, and chain-link fences dominated the landscaping. A van at the far end of the lot gave me a flicker of optimism that Nick and Sebastian might be there. I had no idea what I was going to ask them, then reminded myself that my undeniable quick-wittedness would see me through. I pushed open the door and went inside what was basically a warehouse. The smell was pungent and the air thick with dust. A counter with a cash register indicated that Manny made some retail sales, but I presumed most of his business came from service contracts.

“Hello?” I called.

The only response was the scurrying sound of startled rodents, a sound I knew too well. I forced myself to go around the counter and into an office, where I found an elderly lady grumbling under her breath as she sorted through stacks of papers. “Hello?” I said more loudly. “Are you Miss Groggin?”

She spun around. “Who are you?”

“I’m looking for Nick and Sebastian.”

“Why?”

I hadn’t been so intimidated since third grade, when I’d been berated for dirty fingernails in front of the whole class. I couldn’t recall the sadistic teacher’s name, but she’d had the same white hair in a bun, thin lips, and beady eyes. “I need to ask them something. Are they here?”

“You think lazy bums like them work on a Saturday afternoon? Go look for them at a bar or pool hall. If Manny only knew how sloppy and rude they are, he’d have never let them so much as set foot inside this shop. Manny’s a real professional.”

“He was called away for a family emergency, right?”

“So they told me. I’ve worked for him for seventeen years, and not once has he ever taken a vacation without giving me warning so I could make plans of my own. Last summer I went to the Galapagos Islands. No one told me I had to clamber in and out of a rubber dinghy and hike up mountains just to look at giant tortoises. A giant tortoise is no different from the ones I find in my backyard, only bigger. And some of the young Europeans on the boat behaved scandalously, as if none of the rest of us could guess what they were doing under a blanket in a deck chair. This summer I’m going on a bus tour of antebellum houses in Louisiana and Mississippi. We’ll be staying in four-star country inns with such basic amenities as bathtubs and down comforters.”

“Manny didn’t tell you that he was leaving?”

Miss Groggin shook her head hard enough to dislodge a hairpin. “I came in Monday morning and there Nick was, sitting in this very chair, making a mess of the invoices and work orders. He told me he was in charge until Manny came back. He was so snooty that I almost turned around and left, but I know how much the business means to Manny. And to me, too, since I’ll have a nice pension when I retire. I told Nick to move his butt, then explained the procedure and gave him the service schedule for the week. He was polite enough after that, although he didn’t fool me. If he’d paid any attention to what I told him, I wouldn’t be working on a Saturday afternoon, trying to sort through the bills and the checks. I don’t understand why he finds it so difficult to keep the paperwork in the folder I gave him. He seems to enjoy wadding it up and stuffing it in his pocket instead.”

I put my hands behind my back in case my fingernails had a trace of dirt. “And Sebastian?”

“I have no idea about him. As far as I can tell, Nick hired him from a homeless shelter or the unemployment office. I had a nephew like that many years ago. He blew himself up making pipe bombs in his bedroom.”

“Sebastian didn’t work for Manny?” I asked, puzzled. “I was told that he did.”

“And you were told that the Easter Bunny laid chocolate eggs.” Miss Groggin’s eyes narrowed. “Friends of yours, are they?”

“Not at all,” I said hastily. “I’m house-sitting for Dolly Goforth. They came by last week to clean the pool, and I wanted to ask them a few questions.”

“Ah, yes, I saw your photograph in the newspaper. You looked as though fire ants had crawled into your panties. All I can say is that it’s a good thing you found the body in the freezer instead of the pool. Dead flesh is a carrier of all kinds of vile insect larvae and fecal contaminants. Manny would have to drain the pool and scrub it down with muriatic acid. Even then, you couldn’t be sure you might not be swimming with maggots. Some microscopic worms burrow under your skin to lay their eggs.”

I was beginning to feel queasy, but I took a breath and said, ‘Then you don’t have addresses for Nick and Sebastian?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” she said, now gloating as if she could sense my physical discomfort. “Ask them yourself on Monday, if they show up.”

I did not flee to my car, but I certainly wasted no time wandering around the front room to admire the nets and brushes. Manny must be a prince, I thought as I sucked in quantities of fresh air. That, or he locked her in the office in the morning when she arrived, and released her at five o’clock. I would have thrown away the key.

I had no one else left to question, so I drove back to the house. The police car hadn’t moved, and the officer who’d been snoring earlier was still at it.

I was obliged to ring the doorbell, since Sara Louise had taken the house key with her the previous afternoon. I made a note to look through the drawer in the table in the hall for a spare one.

Caron finally opened the door. “Nice of you to come back so quickly. Did it occur to you that Inez and I are trapped here? We might have liked to get away for a while, but the only car in the driveway was the police car. I doubt they would have given us a lift to the mall. Besides, what could be more entertaining than to wait around for a sniper to get us in the den—unless Dolly had the windows redone with bulletproof glass? Do mobsters do that?”

I edged around her. “Did anyone call?”

“Two television stations, four newspapers, and some pervert who asked to be alerted if we found another body. Would you like to know what he wants to do with it? It’s too gross.”

‘Then let’s not discuss it. What are you and Inez up to? Is the tango in or out?”

“We’re thinking about it,” Caron said as she followed me into the kitchen. “We don’t have to sign up until Monday.” She took a pint of ice cream out of the freezer in the top of the refrigerator, found a spoon, and perched on a stool. “What do you think? Are we going to be cool or moronic? I don’t want to spend the next two years of my life being called Thumper.’ That would be too humiliating.”

I put on the teakettle, then sat down across from her. “That won’t happen if you quit.”

“So you’re saying I should quit?”

“No, but you have to weigh the risk. Based on what I’ve heard, if you make fools of yourselves, you’ll have to slink around the back halls until graduation. If you win, Rhonda will be the one slinking. The third option is not to take this so seriously. Win or lose, the world will continue to rotate on its axis. Some children in Africa will starve, and others will be rescued by international relief agencies. Congress will continue to find ways to waste money and whine about the deficit. Some species will become extinct, but scientists will discover new ones. Threats of nuclear warfare will arise. California will have earthquakes. A mousy microbiologist will discover a cure for a fatal disease. What goes on in the halls of Farberville High School for the next two years will be of no significance.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t quit?”

So much for eloquence, I thought as I straightened a ribbon on the flower arrangement. The flower arrangement that hadn’t been there when I left the house. There was no card. “Where’d this come from?” I demanded.

Caron stopped sucking on her lip and eyed me curiously. “I’d guess a florist shop.”

“They were delivered?”

“Inez and I didn’t climb over the wall out back and go down to Thurber Street to buy them, if that’s what you’re thinking. One of the cops brought them to the door.”

“I’ll be back in a minute.” I went down the hall and out to the driveway. The officer in charge of the perimeter scrambled out of the car.

“Something wrong, ma’am? Did you see somebody?” He pulled out his gun and waved it unsteadily. “Do I need to call for backup? Erwin, wake up, dammit! We’ve got us an intruder.”

I was weaving to stay out of his line of fire. “Calm down. There’s no intruder. I just need to ask you a question. Who brought the flowers to the house earlier this afternoon?”

Visibly disappointed, the officer lowered his gun. “An old black guy. Said they were for you, ma’am. I hope I didn’t do anything wrong by bringing them to the door.”

“Did you see what he was driving?”

“He parked on the street, so I didn’t get a good look at his vehicle. I got a glimpse of a white van when he drove away.”

“Go back to your comic book,” I said. “I’ll scream if I need you.” I returned to the kitchen, muttering under my breath. Caron was no longer there. She’d put the ice cream away, but the spoon remained on the island in a puddle of gourmet goo. I rinsed it off and wiped up the minor mess. Cal was having a fine time, I told myself angrily. He must have known that sooner or later I’d call Aunt Bessie’s Bloomers and, if I’d saved the scrap of paper, the Fritz Motel. Was he teasing me, or threatening me? And if the latter was the case, why? Could the charade with Petri’s body and this influx of flowers be intended to drive us out of the house so that someone, Velocchio or fed, could search the house for a set of ledgers?