by Diane Kelly
She turned her head and took a gander. “My goodness! It looks like an auto showroom over there. Becky must’ve finally got her divorce settlement.” Her smile faltered. “I hope she didn’t go crazy and blow all the money at once. After all these months of being forced to scrimp, it would certainly be tempting.”
Another voice rang out in the cold night as Gayle ventured out of her house, too. “Hey, girls!”
Roxanne and I waited for her to catch up. She ambled toward us with a lilting gait. Funny, I didn’t notice her limping the night of Nelda’s memorial service.
When she reached us, she held up her hands. In one she held a glass jar of garlic-stuffed olives. In the other she held a jar of sweet pickles. “I asked Bertram to pick up something ready-made at the grocery store for me to bring to the poker game, and this is what he came home with. I suppose I should’ve been more specific. Men, huh? You can’t live with ’em, you can’t trust ’em to run your errands for you.” She shook her head but smiled at the same time, letting us know she forgave her husband’s ignorance.
Her hands full with the soup pot, Roxanne dipped her head to indicate Gayle’s leg. “Your knee acting up again?”
“Something fierce!” Gayle grimaced. “That’s why I couldn’t cook. I couldn’t bear to stand up long enough to make anything. My doctor gave me some new pain meds. Problem is, they throw me for a loop. I can’t tell up from down or left from right. I took a pill a few minutes ago. Y’all might have to roll me home later in Mary Sue’s wheelbarrow.”
We joined forces and headed up the walk to Mary Sue’s porch. With everyone’s arms full of food, I turned and used my elbow to press the doorbell. Ding-dong rang out inside. Mary Sue opened the door and offered us a big smile and some help. “Welcome, ladies! Goodness, you’re loaded down. Let me take something off your hands.”
Gayle shoved the jars in Mary Sue’s direction. “Take these. I’ve got to get off this knee before I accidentally say a word or two I shouldn’t.”
Mary Sue took the jars of olives and pickles and gave her friend a sympathetic look. “Your bad knee giving you trouble again?”
“Sure is,” Gayle said. “Woke up Wednesday morning feeling like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.”
The very thought made me cringe. I’d hit my thumb with a hammer before, and it was pure agony. I could hardly imagine that pain multiplied several times over.
Roxanne jerked her head to indicate the Dolans’ driveway. “Take a look at the new cars over there.”
While Gayle ambled into the house, Mary Sue stepped out onto the porch, shielding her eyes from the porch light to get a better look. “Wow! Those cars are beauts. I’m glad to see Becky treating herself and her girls. She certainly deserves it after all she’s been through.”
Roxanne was less approving. “I just hope she hasn’t been hasty.”
We entered the house, greeted a second time by the enticing aroma of cornbread baking. We made our way to the kitchen, where Gayle had already taken a seat on one of the six padded chairs and propped a leg up on another. Roxanne set her large pot down on top of the stove and removed the oven mitts. Her long, pointy nails were freshly manicured, the plum polish she’d worn to the memorial replaced by a dark red, high-gloss variety.
While Roxanne arranged the food and Mary Sue poured glasses of punch for everyone, I stepped over to the oven to reheat the hors d’oeuvres Colette had made.
“My cornbread needs just a minute or two,” Mary Sue said. “Feel free to pop your tray in there alongside it.”
I did just that, noticing that the top of the cornbread in her cast-iron skillet had just begun to brown.
The doorbell rang again and Mary Sue hurried to the front door, opening it to reveal Becky on the stoop with a platter of brownies covered in cellophane in her hands. Mary Sue took one look and said, “My, don’t those look delicious!”
I had to agree. I also had to admit I was relieved. If one of the ladies had produced a peach pie for tonight’s poker party, I’d have been concerned. But it seemed clear now that whatever had been trapped under Nelda’s body as she lay on the landing had nothing to do with the peach-pie recipe.
Becky raised her platter. “These brownies aren’t as good as Lillian’s peach pie,” she conceded, “but I did include my own special ingredient.”
“Love?” Mary Sue asked.
“Liquor.” Becky grinned. “Amaretto, to be precise. It makes them fudgy and gives them a nice hint of almond.”
“Yum!” I said. “I can’t wait to try one.”
Before closing the door, Mary Sue took another glance across the street. “We couldn’t help but notice the new cars in your driveway.”
Becky beamed. “Sporty, aren’t they? The convertible’s mine. After driving that ugly old station wagon for twenty-five years, I figured I deserved to treat myself. I’m surprising the twins with the Mustang next time they come home from college.”
“They’ll be thrilled.” Mary Sue relieved her guest of the dessert and gave her a soft smile. “We assume your divorce finally got settled?”
Becky grunted. “I wish. My spiteful soon-to-be ex-husband is still dragging things out. It’s ridiculous. The two of us hardly had two nickels to rub together in the first place. Guess he’d rather give the money to the attorneys than to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Mary Sue said. “But we’re happy for you, no matter where you got the money for the cars.”
Becky removed her coat and cleared up the mystery. “It came from the life insurance on Mom.”
Mary Sue cocked her head in question. “Those fixed-rate policies we bought from Andy Walsh all those years ago? When he first went into the insurance business?”
“That’s right,” Becky said. “Dad had bought a two-hundred-thousand-dollar policy on Mom and took out another on himself. He made me an equal beneficiary under both policies. Andy took care of the claim for us, made sure we got our check right away.”
I’d almost forgotten about the forms Carl and Andy had discussed at the wake. They must have been referencing the claim forms for Nelda’s life-insurance policy.
“I’m glad they didn’t keep you waiting,” Mary Sue said. “You hear horror stories about big insurance companies delaying payments for weeks, if not months.” She lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “I hate that Nelda had to go, especially in an unexpected accident, but it’s also awful to think that if she’d fallen just a few weeks later, you and your father wouldn’t have received a single dime.”
Becky’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”
“You didn’t know?” Mary Sue said. “Those policies expire automatically once the insured turns seventy-five. Mine lapsed a couple of years ago.”
“Mine, too,” Gayle chimed in.
“Ditto,” Roxanne said. “Nelda was the baby of our bunch.”
An odd look flickered across Becky’s face. Was she bewildered by the coincidence? Or could her strange expression be a combination of anxiety and guilt? Had she already known that the policy was about to expire? I took an involuntary step backward as a terrifying thought struck me. Becky might have killed her mother for the insurance proceeds. She might have thought nobody would put two and two together, and she could be worried now that she’d become a suspect given the fortuitous timing of her mother’s death. Heck, for all I knew Becky and Carl conspired to kill Nelda. They both stood to benefit from her death. Due to her pending divorce, Becky had been having money troubles. Maybe doing away with her mother had seemed like an easy solution to her financial woes. Carl might have done away with his wife so he could pursue a relationship with Dulce. Maybe Becky and Carl had followed Nelda over to the flip house and one of them had stuck out a foot at the top of the stairs to trip Nelda while the other gave her a push.
Bzzzzzzz. Before I could give the theory any more thought, the oven timer went off, letting us know Mary Sue’s cornbread was done. The phyllo squares should be nice and warm, too.
As I pulled the oven
open, Mary Sue turned our attention to more enjoyable matters. “Those appetizers smell absolutely delicious!”
I placed the cookie tray atop the stove. “I can’t take any credit. My roommate made them. The red beans and rice and the fruit salad, too. I’m handy with a hammer, but kitchen tools confound me.”
Mary Sue gestured into the oven. “Would you mind grabbing the cornbread while you’ve got the oven open? That pan weighs nearly ten pounds. I just about break my wrist every time I lift it, but it bakes the cornbread perfectly.”
I pulled the cast-iron skillet from the oven, too, setting it atop a trivet. The motion gave my wrist and forearm a real workout. A kettle bell had nothing on this pan.
We piled our plates with food. Mary Sue fixed a plate for Gayle so she wouldn’t have to stand on her hurt knee. We took seats around the kitchen table and dug in. For the second time that week, I found myself feasting with friendly folks. While their delicious food went down easily, the fact that one of them might be a murderer was becoming much harder to swallow.
Roxanne reached down, retrieved a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey from her purse, and spiked her punch with a generous dash of the brown liquid. She held up the bottle and tilted it playfully side to side. “I brought my friend Jack along. Any takers?”
Gayle declined. “Wish I could, but I’m not supposed to drink on these painkillers.”
The rest of the ladies lifted their glasses and held them out so Roxanne could add a shot or two to their drinks. I declined. With a murderer potentially in our midst, I wanted to keep my wits about me. Besides, while these ladies only had to walk across a circle later to get home, I’d have to drive across town. I wasn’t about to take a chance on safety.
When Roxanne pulled the bottle back, Becky wagged her finger for a triple shot. “Keep it coming, Roxy. It’s been a heck of a week.”
We spent the next few minutes chatting amiably as we polished off our food and sipped our punch.
I managed to slip in the question Collin had told me to ask, performing my job as a mole to the best of my abilities. “Any of y’all notice anything unusual around the neighborhood lately?”
“Like what?” Mary Sue asked.
I raised my shoulders. “I don’t know. Strangers coming around, maybe an odd car cruising by.”
“Not me,” Gayle said. “Why?”
Why, indeed? Fortunately, my mind coughed up a quick response. “Construction sites sometimes attract thieves,” I said. “People looking for tools or materials to steal. I want to make sure our flip house doesn’t become a target for criminals.”
“The only thing I’ve noticed,” Roxanne said, lifting her glass, “is that my drink is empty.”
Hmm. Was she trying to change the subject away from crime?
She rose from the table and headed to the glass pitcher of fruit punch on the counter. After filling her glass, she said, “Might as well put on some party music while I’m up.” She eased past us into the living room, where she rifled through record albums lined up on a shelf next to a record player. She pulled one of the albums out and removed it from its sleeve. “Johnny Cash’s greatest hits. Now we’re talking.” She loaded the album onto the record player, set the needle, and raised her glass over her head, performing a sassy sashay back to the kitchen.
Mary Sue turned to me. “Roxanne’s husband was a session musician. He played with a bunch of the top country-western stars back in the day.”
“Sure did,” Roxanne said. “That man played a mean bass guitar. Played the dulcimer and the mandolin, too. Instead of bringing me flowers after we’d bicker, he’d serenade me.”
Mary Sue cut her friend a knowing grin before turning to me. “In other words, he played Roxanne, too.”
Roxanne hooted and lifted a glass in her late husband’s honor. “Did he ever!”
Hoping the liquor might have loosened their lips, I decided to see if they might be willing to spill the beans about Bertram’s long-ago arrest. Roxanne had provided the perfect segue. “I heard Johnny Cash got arrested a couple of times, spent some time in prison.”
“Prison? No,” Roxanne said. “He played music in prisons, even recorded an album in Folsom Prison out in California. But he never did any time. He got arrested twice back in the midsixties, though. Once was in El Paso, something to do with drugs he’d brought up from Mexico. The pills were prescription medicine rather than illegal drugs, so his sentence was suspended. He got arrested another time in Starkville, Mississippi, for public intoxication and trespassing, some silly business about him wandering onto private property to pick flowers.”
I sipped my drink and did my best to sound nonchalant. “The sixties sound like a wild time. What about y’all? Any of you ever get arrested? Your husbands, maybe?”
Gayle eyed me, her gaze narrowed. Uh-oh. Had I been too obvious?
Roxanne hooted again. “I had a run-in or two with the law. Some bar owners don’t take too kindly to women dancing on the tables. But I always managed to sweet-talk my way out of trouble.”
Gayle offered nothing, but rather than push the issue further and risk raising suspicion, I let the matter drop. Detective Flynn should find out soon enough why Bertram Garner had been arrested all those years ago. I stood. “Can I take anyone’s plate?”
Becky and I cleared the table together, rinsing the dishes and putting them into Mary Sue’s dishwasher. A quarter of the cornbread remained, so I covered the cast-iron skillet with aluminum foil. Becky removed the plastic wrap from the platter of brownies and placed it on the table along with a stack of fresh napkins. Everyone grabbed a treat and retrieved bags of spare change from their purses, stacking the coins in front of them like poker chips.
Mary Sue stood. “Guess I better round up some cards. Can’t very well play poker without them, can we?”
“No need.” I reached into my purse, pulled out the box of playing cards Collin had given me, and placed it in the center of the table.
Gayle looked down at the W engraved on the lid of the box before turning her gaze on me. Her face was tight, her eyes narrowed even more than before. “Detective Flynn gave those cards to you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “He returned them today. He told me you retrieved them from the house. If I’d realized he’d planned to confiscate them from you, I would’ve told him it was unnecessary. They’ve got sentimental value for you ladies. You should have them, Gayle. Take them home with you tonight after we play.”
Gayle’s features relaxed. “That’s mighty kind of you, Whitney. We girls have had a lot of good times with these cards over the years.”
Curious whether Gayle had a key to Lillian’s house and who else might have one, I asked, “I didn’t accidentally leave the house unlocked last Friday, did I? Please tell me that I wasn’t so careless.”
“No,” Gayle said. “You weren’t careless. All the ladies on the block exchanged keys decades ago, for emergencies and whatnot.”
“Not all the ladies,” Becky clarified. “Nobody exchanged keys with my mother. It was a sore spot with her. She felt like nobody trusted her. Of course she had nobody to blame for that but herself. She could be awfully nosy.”
Gayle, Mary Sue, and Roxanne exchanged glances, their looks saying Becky had hit the nail on the head, though none of them wanted to say it out loud.
Turning everyone’s attention to our pending game, Gayle became all business as she selected a deck of cards from the box and glanced around the table. “Jokers wild.”
Gayle expertly shuffled the cards four times, the deck giving off a rat-a-tat-tat sound before she formed a perfectly arched bridge and let the cards fall into place. Despite being good with my hands, I’d never learned to properly shuffle a deck like that. After holding the deck out so Becky could cut it, Gayle dealt us each a hand.
I had a pair of threes, but that was it. I glanced around the table, trying to read the other ladies’ expressions, guess what they might be holding. A soft scowl pursed Mary Sue’s lips. Roxanne ha
d sucked in an anxious lip. Becky’s lips were curled up in a smile, but her eyes were dull. She’s faking. Gayle scratched at her cheek, as if trying to hide a grin. She’s got a good hand, doesn’t she?
We played our first hand. Gayle won, bluffing until everyone else had folded, sacrificing their antes. She held up her cards. A two of clubs. A six of spades. A seven of hearts. A queen of diamonds. And a king of hearts. “Fooled you, girls! I got squat!”
“Wow,” I mused. “You’ve got the best poker face I’ve ever seen.”
Gayle scooped the coins toward herself. “That’s why I win so often. I’m good at fooling people.”
Good at fooling people. Was she fooling the detective about her involvement in Nelda Dolan’s murder, pretending to be innocent when she was actually the one who’d sent her former neighbor tumbling down a flight of stairs?
Gayle handed the deck to Mary Sue, who dealt the next hand. Mine included two nines, the three of hearts, the eight of spades, and a joker. With the joker as a wild card, I had three of a kind. What a great hand! As my mouth tried to spread in a smile, I pressed my lips together to hold them in place.
Mary Sue arranged the cards in her hand and exchanged three of them for new cards. “I’m confused. How did the detective end up with Lillian’s playing cards?”
“He came to see us,” Gayle said. “He wanted to know if Bertram or I had taken anything from Lillian’s house.”
My house, I thought, but said nothing. Gayle didn’t mean anything by the reference. Lillian’s house was how she’d referred to the place for decades. Old habits were hard to break.
“Why?” Mary Sue asked Gayle. “Has something gone missing?”
Yes! Something went missing right from under Nelda’s dead body! My face flamed, hot and red, threatening to betray me and the secret I held. I ducked my chin and stared at my cards with forced focus. The joker stared back at me with an evil grin that said, You really need to work on your poker face. You make a lousy confidential informant.
Gayle dealt Roxanne two new cards before taking three for herself. “He didn’t specify anything in particular that might be missing. He just said it seemed strange that Nelda hadn’t reached for the handrail when she fell. He thought she might have had something in her hands, and that’s why she didn’t grab it.”
