The Mutual Admiration Society

by Lesley Kagen

  I tell Birdie, “I’m really sorry to have to break this bad news to you, honey.” I have to prepare her. She is going to take this very, very, very, very hard, but the sooner I get it out of the way the better. “But . . . well . . . it looks like Mister McGinty is guilty of kidnapping and murdering Sister Margaret Mary.”

  Whatever Birdie is trying to tell me, she jammed her mouth so full of gooey chocolate I can’t understand a word of it. Could be that she didn’t understand what I said and wants me to repeat myself or maybe she did understand and she’s too frozen with shock and sadness to throw herself down on top of Daddy’s pretend grave and turn on her waterworks, which is what I thought she’d do considering how much she’s always liked Mr. McGinty as much as me, and as much as our dear daddy did.

  Our mother enforcing her #1 Commandment—The Finley Sisters Shalt Not Visit the Cemetery—is nothing new. She’s always frowned upon Birdie and me wanting to head over here bright and early to watch Mr. McGinty dig fresh graves or mow the grass or plant trees and flowers, but “Good Time Eddie” Finley? He never gave his “babies” a hard time about spending time in Holy Cross. He would laugh and joke at the breakfast table, “Get off the girls’ backs, Lou-Lou. Jimmy’s brain might’ve gotten a little scrambled when he stepped on that land mine, but he’s still the good Scotch egg he’s always been. Ha . . . ha . . . ha.”

  That wasn’t only a great Daddy joke, it was a true one. And even if it turns out that he is a kidnapping murderer, Mr. McGinty will always be a good egg in my book, and recently I have discovered that he’s not one of the stingy kind of Scots. Unlike most everybody else around here who can’t wait to brag about their charitable acts, our shy friend would never toot his own horn. That’s how come I only found out last week that he did what he did.

  Birdie and me were hanging out with him, playing with Pyewacket and checkers and cards, the way we usually do, because his shack is our other home away from home, when he suddenly remembered that he’d forgotten to sharpen his TOOLS OF THE TRADE in his shed. Once he left, my sister did, too—she took one of her trips to parts unknown, because petting Pye always derails her brain—so I took the opportunity to go scrounging through his desk drawer. I was looking for an envelope so I could send off for this booklet in the back of the Superman comic book that’d teach me “How to Become a Ventriloquist”—Throw Your Voice! Fool teachers, friends and family—because that’d be such a handy talent to have in my line of work. That’s when I came across his checkbook in his desk drawer. Of course, I know that I shouldn’t have, but what choice did I have? It’s not my fault that it’s my second nature to snoop. I peeked at the part in the front where he writes down what he’s been spending his money on and boy, oh, boy! You’d never guess it by looking at him or the way he acts or the rusty Ford he drives, but Louise really missed out on a huge payday when she wouldn’t put Mr. McGinty on her plate. He could afford to take her to the Taj Mahal for supper!

  FACT: Our friend has got $201,789.05 keeping itself warm in the vault at the First Wisconsin Bank.

  PROOF: He wrote check #2315 to secretly pay Mr. Patrick Mullarkey & Sons, whose business it is to carve cemetery markers, to create the beautiful and very expensive one Birdie is currently loving on.

  So right about now, our dearly departed father is probably not looking down from Heaven and giving his “babies” two thumbs up while we’re sitting on top of his pretend grave talking about how guilty Mr. McGinty is. No, I’m positive that Daddy wouldn’t want Birdie and me to continue solving the crimes that are going to make his old and good friend since they played on St. Kate’s basketball team together get sent to the Big House to die. The old and good friend who’s also our godfather who’s been treating Birdie and me like we’re his real daughters since Daddy’s been gone.

  And just when I didn’t think my heart could feel any more ganged-up on, I notice that the flowers Birdie and me placed last week against this gorgeous tombstone that Mr. McGinty secretly gifted to us have seen better days. I need to add on a #10 on my TO-DO list: Stop at Bloomers for a pink rose bouquet. Daddy never said, but I think they must’ve been his favorites. They’re what he always brought Louise after they’d have a screaming match over his drinking—he was a bartender, for crissakes!—and his card playing—what’s wrong with having a hobby?—and also when our mother would get her Irish up over him spending too much time with Suzanne “That French Slut” LaPelt—she was his barmaid!

  Any idiot knows that leaving kaput flowers on a grave is the same as rubbing a departed’s nose in the fact that they’re dead, but I have no clue when I’ll have the time to fetch fresh ones, so God forgive me, I reach over and grab a few of the fresh, fluffy white ones that are lying on top of the grave of Daddy’s next-door neighbor, who Mr. McGinty told us was a carpenter:

  DENNIS MARK WILLIAMS

  MARCH 2, 1898–APRIL 11, 1940

  MAY HE SLEEP IN THE ARMS OF ANGELS

  So I guess now, on top of my already long list of sins, I can go ahead and add grave robbing. Covering up evidence, too. Because when I placed the white flowers I stole from Mr. Williams on top of Daddy’s pretend grave, I spotted something buried deep in the grass next to one of the hawk feathers that Birdie finds and brings to him because she can’t leave them anymore in his pants pockets. It was an L&M butt. That’s the kind Louise Mary Fitzgerald Finley smokes, because those are her first two initials. Charlie, who keeps track of these sorts of things, told me that L&Ms are the most popular brand around here, but this coffin nail belongs to our mother. I recognize her Revlon red lip prints on the filter, I’ve seen them a million times. Louise misses Daddy, too? Enough to visit him? That’s just too hard to believe on a morning when everything has been just too hard to believe. And if she does stop by here, I’m sure it’s not to honor her wonderful husband or pay her respects. She probably just comes to tap one of her cigarettes over his pretend grave and say, “Ashes to ashes.”

  I know I should tell my partner in crime what I found, but because Birdie won’t reach the same conclusion I have, I bury it deeper in the grass. If I showed that evidence to her, ya know what she’d do? She’d take it as proof that Louise is not as crummy of a mother as I tell her she is and that would be disastrous. If we have to run away, the tighter she’s tied to our mother’s apron strings, the harder it will be for me to convince her to take off for California.

  This is all my fault.

  If only I’d minded my own beeswax, our friend wouldn’t be in this hot water. I’m so very sorry, Daddy, but when I started this investigation, how was I supposed to know that Jimmy “Good Egg” McGinty might turn out to be guilty and that your kid, the one who I’m supposed to be giving tender loving care to, might wind up being the key witness for the persecution, who would make sure that your best man paid the price for his crimes?

  Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute.

  I’m assuming again!

  The only thing really written in stone around here are birthdays, deathdays, and heavenly hopes. And while it is looking very bad for Mr. McGinty, Modern Detection warns all the time in the same chapter that warns all the time about assuming, “If an investigator jumps to a final conclusion without clearly establishing means, motive, and opportunity, their entire case could be in jeopardy.”

  FACT: We got the medal evidence, but Birdie and me only got two of the three main ingredients that a gumshoe is supposed to have before they hand a suspect over to the cops on a silver platter!

  PROOF: Mr. McGinty’s means are his strong arms, and he had the opportunity, because he hardly ever leaves his post at Holy Cross at night, except to play bingo every Saturday and to eat his supper at Fish Fry Friday, and today is Thursday. But what would his motive be? Like my sister would say, Why . . . why . . . why . . . why? would he do our principal in?

  This is very unprofessional conduct for the president of a detecting and blackmailing business to admit to, but ya know what? I honestly don’t give a crud what evidence Birdie and me have foun
d out about Mr. McGinty so far, and my tummy, for once, agrees with me. Modern Detection does, too. “Perhaps the most vital of all the TOOLS OF THE TRADE an investigator possesses is his gut instinct.” Until we discover the why of the crime, Mr. McGinty is only around 66% guilty, so that’s at least a little ray of hope at the end of the tunnel. If we keep our noses to the grindstone, The Mutual Admiration Society could find another person who we don’t like so much that we could blackmail for $$$$ or earn a big reward for when we turn him in to the cops for kidnap and murder.

  Q. Could we still get one of those and-they-all-lived-happily-ever-after endings to this case, instead of one of those really Grimm ones?

  A. Without a doubt.

  14

  A TURN FOR THE WORST

  Well, like a famous guy named Johnny whose hobby it was to roam around America planting fruit trees might say, How do ya like them apples? (Joke!)

  Things are really starting to look up around here, which is a nice change of pace. Of course, I know that just because I’m hopeful The Mutual Admiration Society won’t ever find out why the caretaker of the cemetery isn’t guilty of those crimes, doesn’t mean that we won’t and that he isn’t. The time might come that, like it or not, we’ll have to face the music and admit to ourselves that Mr. McGinty is the kidnapper and murderer after all.

  But until then, I’m praying that after Birdie, Charlie, and me talk to a few other people in the neighborhood, we’ll come across a different bad guy to pin the crimes on. One who has all the ingredients we need to prove that he’s the guilty party, including the motive, which means that Birdie and me gotta chop-chop and get to work. Only we can’t do that until she’s done with her visit with Daddy, because that’d just be asking for her to go unruly on me again if I bug her when she’s hugging, kissing, and whispering into his gravestone, and that’s fine. I don’t mind waiting a little longer, because it’d be much better to explain my new plan to search for another suspect later, during our Mutual Admiration meeting. That way I won’t have to repeat myself to Charlie.

  We don’t have time anymore to get together in his bomb shelter, which is the other location where we conduct our business, and that’s a crying shame. It’s cool and soundproof and Birdie likes it down there, too, because there are a lot of canned goods. But as Modern Detection states: “It’s important for a detective to remain flexible during an investigation, for you never know what challenges might arise.” Daddy agreed with him. “Ya need to roll with the punches, kiddo,” he used to tell me, so that’s what we’ll do. Get together for a very quick meeting on Charlie’s back porch about what’s already happened this morning, and then we have to be on our way up to St. Kate’s, so I can confess to Father Ted before his 1:00 p.m. quitting time. I’ll fill the both of them in on my brand-new plan on the fly, and once I get my confessing out of the way, the three of us will roll up our sleeves and get busy working on THE CASE OF THE MISSING NUN WHO MIGHT BE KIDNAPPED AND MURDERED BUT BY SOMEBODY WHO IS NOT MR. MCGINTY.

  As the president of our society, I feel it’s my responsibility to come up with a few names to toss into the ring before the meeting, but all I can think of is one. #2 on my SHIT LIST.

  Q. Is it asking too much to make Butch Seeback be the one I saw skulking around the cemetery last night with the dead body?

  A. Signs point to yes.

  Of course they do, because as much as I’d love to get that vicious kid sent out of the neighborhood and straight over to the House of Good Shepherd Reform School until he can be permanently sent to prison—mark my words, someday he will end up committing even worse hideous crimes than skin upholsterer Ed Gein—there is no denying the facts:

  Butch isn’t as skinny as the guy I saw last night. The high school dropout is built more like the safe at the First Wisconsin Bank on North Ave. (Another spot I might have to heist someday.)

  The initials on the back of the St. Christopher medal are J. M. and his aren’t. (Almighty God bestowing upon that turd the initials of B. S. only goes to prove once again what a great sense of humor He has, which is exactly what I’m banking on when I step into the box at St. Kate’s to do my Shirley Temple confession.)

  Seeback definitely wasn’t the one who shouted out, “I’m warning you! Watch yourself! You’re treading on dangerous ground!” last night. (His voice is as recognizable as mine.)

  While Birdie finishes up visiting with Daddy, instead of trying to keep everything that I gotta do in my head, I take my stubby pencil and my navy-blue detecting notebook out and use the back of the gravestone Mr. McGinty bought for us to update my list. Daddy won’t mind. In fact, I’d bet my allowance, if I got one, that he’s feeling a whole lot better about the direction the investigation is going now, which is good, because I don’t like to picture him rolling over in his grave, if he could.

  QUESTION OR SURVEIL

  Mr. McGinty.

  Kitten Jablonski.

  Butch Seeback.

  Mr. Johnson.

  Suzie LaPelt.

  Whenever someone says that famous saying “Killing two birds with one stone,” it reminds me of my sister and I gotta reach for my Tums, but it seems to me, that’s what we have to do next.

  Killing bird #1. After the very short Mutual Admiration meeting, the three of us will race over to St. Kate’s before Father Ted leaves to go to Lonnigan’s for his lunch of Jameson’s neat.

  Damnation!

  I hate the hoops this mother of mine makes me jump through. It would save so much time if I could just sign the book in the church lobby as proof that I went to confession, but I tried that once already and it didn’t work. Louise outfoxed me. She checked with her biggest confidential source in the neighborhood who she can always count on to rat me out—#5.

  SHIT LIST

  Gert Klement.

  Butch Seeback.

  Sister Margaret Mary.

  The grease monkey who fixes cars at the Clark station and tries to peek in the little girls’ room window when you got to stop to tinkle because your sister can’t make it home from the Tosa Theatre after she drinks a large root beer.

  Brownnoser Jenny Radtke.

  What’s-his-name.

  Radtke, the kid who is always the only one left standing next to me during a spelling bee, was only too happy to snitch to Louise last week that she saw me “loitering around the Milky Way with Birdbrain and Cue Ball” during the time I was supposed to be loitering around the confessional with Father Ted. (I got off easy, because Louise doesn’t know that making me go to bed without one of her “gourmet” suppers is not a punishment.)

  Killing bird #2. When I’m at church, it’s going to cost me, but I’ll have the chance to question Kitten Jablonski. She’ll be there, without a doubt, because same as me she’s always one of the last kids to confess on Thursday and she always saves me a spot in line. I’m hoping that my confidential source will be able to give me some names to add to a new list that I’d love to make in my navy-blue detecting notebook: VERY LIKELY SUSPECTS THAT AREN’T MR. MCGINTY.

  Long as I got my pencil out, I remove my most important list from my shorts so I can add on the new #10 and #11 and change #2.

  TO-DO

  1. Take tender loving care of Birdie.

  2. Solve whatever happened to Sister Margaret Mary for big blackmail or reward bucks.

  2. Hope we don’t find out why Mr. McGinty kidnapped and murdered Sister M & M and concentrate on finding someone else who did.

  3. Make Gert Klement think her arteries are going as hard as her heart.

  4. Catch whoever stole over $200 out of the Pagan Baby collection box.

  5. Practice your Miss America routine.

  6. Learn how to swim.

  7. Be a good dry-martini-making fiancée to Charlie.

  8. Do not get caught blackmailing or spying.

  9. Just think about making a real confession to Father Ted, before it’s too late.

  10. Stop at Bloomers for pink roses for Daddy.

  11. Think up a catc
hy slogan for Louise that might help her beat Mrs. Tate in the election so she doesn’t blame Birdie and me when she loses.

  After I make sure the updated list is safely tucked back where it belongs, I crane my head around the corner and say to Birdie like I’m walking on eggshells, because ya never know with her, “Honey? I’m sorry, I don’t want to rush you, but—”

  “It’s okay, Tessie.” She stops patting her sticky hands against Daddy’s gravestone and polishes it back up with the bottom of her T-shirt. “I know we gotta have our meeting with Charlie now.”