“Irma, this here’s my friend Kiki.”
I took the woman’s rough hand and shook it. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to us.” A wonderful smell of bacon and onions filled the air as we followed Irma into her kitchen. Through an archway to our left, four children under the age of ten sat on a sagging sofa and watched a flickering television.
We pulled up chairs. I watched Irma cook and realized the dish she was making was very similar to one I’d seen in a magazine. I made mental notes because it smelled so good. Mert shocked me by speaking Spanish to her colleague.
Why on earth had I taken French in high school? “Jacques has the red crayon” hadn’t gotten me anywhere in life. Somehow I doubted it ever would come in handy. At least not at the rate my life was going.
I caught “señora” and “señor” and my last name as they rattled along.
Mert translated. “Irma didn’t find George, but she knows the woman who did. The other gal’s afraid to talk with us. The police have already been to see her. She ain’t talking with them neither. She’s worried she’ll be deported.”
“I don’t want to cause any trouble, Mert. Please, reassure her. I just need to know if Irma’s friend saw anything suspicious.”
Mert and Irma exchanged accented volleys. Both waved their hands in the air. I was beginning to think they’d forgotten me, when Mert said, “There’s one thing. She doesn’t want to get her friend in trouble—”
The Latina raised her eyes to mine. Her mouth was set tightly, and her fist clenched the wooden spoon.
How could I convince her to talk?
I crossed my heart in a childish gesture. I raised a hand as if taking the pledge. I broke down and begged, “Please. Por favor.” That used up every bit of my Spanish vocabulary.
Finally I offered my little finger. “I pinky swear.”
Irma’s face relaxed and we met halfway, linking small digits. She tapped the wooden spoon against the side of an iron skillet. “Ho-kay. It was woman’s scarf. Silk. My friend, she say, she find scarf in el hombre’s mouth. The color was, how do you say?”
Mert translated, “Aqua and black. Striped. Like a zebra.”
Back in my BMW, Mert hesitated. “I’ll be jiggered. And the manager took the scarf, and musta hid it afore the police got there. Sounds pretty suspicious-like to me. Whatcha reckon happened?”
“Sheila,” I said tiredly. “The assistant manager was on duty. He called the manager when it happened, and I’d bet anything the manager called Sheila. Probably knew her from some charity board. She used her money and connections with the police chief to protect George’s reputation.”
“Unless he was into flying solo, your hubby wasn’t in that hotel room alone,” said Mert. “That sound like him? Was he a wild man?”
“Huh, George thought patterned boxers were obscene.” I stared out my windshield at the line of cars clogging Highway 40. “I’ll have to tell Detweiler what we learned. And I have to figure out how to tell him without getting an illegal alien in trouble. That’ll be tough. I’m not sure I can pull the ‘protect my sources’ gambit twice. I’ve got information, but I can’t share it. And without what we’ve just learned, he can’t turn this into a murder investigation.”
I thought for a minute.
Mert heaved a tired sigh. “Okay. I’ll go to a pay phone and call in an anonymous tip. You s’pose that’ll work?”
“Absolutely.” I sent up a prayer of thanks for such a terrific friend. “Of course there’s nothing stopping me from snooping around too. I always did like Nancy Drew.”
“Not me,” Mert cleared her throat. “She ain’t my type. I always had a hankering for them Hardy Boys.”
Pamela brought me an offer for the house and counseled me to accept. She didn’t have to ask twice. I was on it like needles on a pine tree. In what I’m sure was an act of charity, she also helped me find a small place to rent. I would be able to pay back Bill as soon as the paperwork cleared. But I still needed money for Anya and me to live on.
I was willing and eager to work. But where? And at what?
Dodie became the most unlikely of saviors. I’d been going on an endless and humiliating round of job interviews when she stopped by.
“I need help at the store.” She watched me tape a packing box shut.
The couple buying my house fell in love with my furniture. With Pamela’s help, we came to an accommodation and I sold most of it. That extra money would tide me over until I got a job. Roger was helping me transfer my things into Mert’s garage until I could move into my new home, a smallish brick box set on a crumbling street in a diverse neighborhood. The new place needed a major cleaning and paint job. I was up at dawn and busy every moment of the day and getting more panicky by the minute because I hadn’t found employment.
Dodie continued, “I don’t know your situation, or if this appeals to you, but I talked this over with my hubby Horace, and I’d like to make you a business proposition.”
I’d never seen Dodie outside of Time in a Bottle. She moved about like a wild animal in an unfamiliar environment. As she talked, she paced my living room floor, while turning her key chain over and over in her meaty hands. Having a six-foot-tall linebacker wearing a lopsided floral dress and following a path round and round in circles made me nervous. My kingdom for a tranquilizer dart. As she walked, she scratched various body parts intermittently. This seemed to be a nervous habit, but given her hirsute physique it could have been fleas. Later I would learn that Dodie had grown up dirt poor, like I had, and her method of overcoming her fear of poverty was to attack financial matters head on.
Mine was to run and hide. Head down in the sand, bottoms up. Not a very secure or smart position. And not one that seemed to be working.
But she wouldn’t let me take cover.
She asked what I thought I needed to survive.
I told her I didn’t know.
“Let me guess. You went straight from under Mom and Dad’s roof to under George’s, with a brief layover in a college dorm.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Unemployed and clueless. Pitiful combination, sunshine.” She rattled off a Yiddish proverb and translated it for me: “Ask advice from everyone, but make up your own mind.” With a grunt, she added, “When you decide what to do, call me.”
___
True to his word, Detweiler phoned a couple of weeks after our meeting at Bread Co. His frustration leaked from every word. “The housekeeper working that day at the Ritz-Carlton has moved back to Mexico, a place called Toluca. I’ve heard rumors she found an article of clothing in the room, but I’m not at liberty to say what. But no one saw another guest with your husband, and no one saw anyone leaving the room.”
“Which leaves us … where?” I prayed the housekeeper moved to Mexico of her own free will and hadn’t been deported.
“That leaves us bupkis. Nowhere.”
What little I knew about Yiddish was right down there with Jacques and his red crayon, so I refrained from explaining that bupkis literally means “goat droppings.”
“How about fingerprints?” I tried to be helpful.
“We’ve got fingerprints.”
“So can’t you track someone down with those? They do it all the time on television.”
“Yeah,” he said, extending the word to two syllables. “We call that the CSI effect. An unreal expectation based on a television program. See, unless a suspect committed a crime before, or unless the individual has had prints taken for a job or what-have-you, the prints aren’t in our system. So, okay, we’ve got prints from the room—lots of prints—but when we ran them they didn’t match anyone.”
“Any luck on finding out who or what ‘orb’ is?”
“No.”
I stood in the middle of my empty living room. The house had been sold, my culled-down belongings were in Mert’s garage, and for the past two weeks I’d been fixing up my new domicile. The landlord had “graciously” allowed me to both pay rent and make
improvements. I didn’t want my daughter to see the place before I spruced it up. She’d go into shock. Bad enough her whole life had turned upside down and her dad was dead. Adding a move to the slums was going to be a crushing blow—unless I could provide enough eyewash to distract her.
Temporarily, Anya was staying at Sheila’s. Valentine’s Day had come and gone, delivering a pang as I remembered how George always sent me a dozen red roses. The Easter holidays were nearly upon us. Sheila was taking my child to Florida for spring break. I’d called my mother and sister just to check in. and succeeded only in re-opening old wounds of family strife and sibling rivalry.
I had never felt so alone in my life.
And now, now I’d let George down all over again. I was failing at helping Detweiler catch his killer.
I could hear the detective breathing softly into the phone and waiting.
“Is there anything more that can be done?” I whispered. My throat tightened and ached.
“You could exhume the body and pay to have more tests run.”
I ended the conversation with my thanks and sank down to my knees on the carpet of the empty room in the empty house. No way would Sheila sit still for an exhumation, especially one that was little more than a witch hunt. All that was left of our life as a family was this vacant building and my beloved scrapbooks. A tear rolled down my cheek and splashed onto my hand.
It was left to me to find out who or what ‘orb’ was.
And I needed to find out who was with George in that hotel room. I could no longer avoid the truth; my husband was involved with another woman.
What I needed was a name.
Suddenly it dawned on me. Time in a Bottle would be the perfect cover for investigating George’s death. Everybody who was anybody patronized the store. The wealthy elite of St. Louis moved in a circle as tight as a pair of control-top panty hose. Surely one of them knew who my husband was seeing, who the aqua-and- black-striped scarf belonged to. And it would be easy enough to discover what they did know. People record their personal and social lives on their scrapbook pages. Someone, somewhere, had to have seen my husband with his girlfriend.
Okay, Detweiler was stymied. But I could snoop around on my own. Who would suspect me? I was just a mom.
Shoot, I was as good as invisible.
I called Dodie and named a figure.
She laughed, a deep rumble like thunder. “I couldn’t pay Martha Stewart that much, sunshine. Welcome to the real world. Who do you think I am, your fairy godmother? I can’t promise you that in salary, but …” She limned out a plan that had me working as a freelance scrapbook consultant, as well as full-time help in the store. Dodie figured I could also teach classes, especially to newbies who wanted to start scrapping. The benefits were slim, but mindful I had a child, Dodie compensated with flexible hours.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was a plan
Kiki’s list of supplies
for beginning scrapbookers
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get started scrapbooking. Many people become overwhelmed and buy what they don’t need, neglecting what they do need. Here are basic supplies which will be enough to create a nice scrapbook:
1. Scissors: Get a pair of scissors with large blades, and a pair with tiny blades for small cuts.
2. Adhesives: Buy several kinds. HERMA Dotto Removable Adhesive is super for beginners because you can reposition items until you get them exactly where you want. In addition, buy a package of photo splits and a liquid adhesive such as Elmer’s Craft Bond, which dries clear and doesn’t run.
3. An 8” × 8” album: Try the Perfect Scrapbook by Jill A. Rinner. Although 12” × 12” is standard, 8” × 8” is less intimidating for a beginner. Plus, you can trim your 12” × 12” paper and use the extra for mattes.
4. A paper trimmer: Choose one that cuts 12” paper.
5. A craft knife: X-Acto makes a good one with replaceable blades.
6. Archivally safe pens: Sakura has a great line called Pigma Micron.
7. A pencil and an eraser.
8. A ruler: Get a metal one so you can’t cut through it.
9. A paper kit: Buy a package with several sheets of coordinating papers and embellishments. The best kits show you what you are buying so you know if you like all the patterns and colors. If you are making a specific album, take your photos along when you shop for a kit. Hold the pictures up to the paper—you’ll quickly see if they look good together.
10. A half-dozen sheets of archivally safe paper: Buy white (or ivory) and solids that match your kit. The white can be used for journaling. The solids make great photo mattes.
That’s how I came to be standing in a cardboard box, six months to the day that George died.
“This has to be the most embarrassing moment of my life.” I stared through two peep holes. Covered in white and silver paper with an enormous white bow on top, my prison was wrapped like a gigantic bridal shower gift. The container and I were situated on a narrow grassy strip in Elizabeth Witherow’s back yard. In front of me was a flower bed thickly planted with fragrant petunias, salvia, geraniums, and marigolds. Behind me a collection of koi splashed around in a pool at the foot of a trickling fountain. The running water made me need to tinkle. A dangling length of ribbon held the front flap of the “gift” closed. When Dodie pulled the ribbon, the front wall would open flat, and I would burst from my hiding place.
At least, that was the plan.
Geez, was it ever hot inside. The heady sweetness of the flowers filled the air. The blossoms warmed in the sun while bees buzzed about busily gathering pollen.
“No way. I’m positive this isn’t the most embarrassing moment of your life. Not by a long shot,” said Dodie, talking to my eyeballs, her garish mouth larger than the jaws of a giant carp. “And remember, I’m paying you big money to do this. Big money.”
Big money, I thought, huh. My salary was peanuts, but to me it was a king’s ransom. This special event would bring in extra—enough to pay my rent with a little left over to take Anya to see that new Pixar movie.
I adjusted my body, as I struggled to see the garden and the pretty table set up directly across from me. The eye holes drilled into the cardboard were small. I faced the blinding sun. St. Louis is known for manic-depressive extremes of weather, and this spring was no exception. We had four inches of snow on St. Patrick’s Day. Hail pelted us two weeks later. Here we were the last week in May with a scorcher. My prison had warmed to a temperature so hot that sweat dripped into my eyes. I flapped my arms to dry my pits, but I didn’t have much room to move around. Angry bees tapped persistently on the outside walls. I was standing in their salad bar.
“I hear the guests coming. Remember to hop out and scream, ‘Surprise!’ Okay?”
Like I would forget what to do.
The moment of my liberation couldn’t come quickly enough. I counted the seconds until my escape. Sweat moistened my waistband and trickled down the backs of my calves. My bra was soaked from perspiration. I strained to listen as distant voices grew louder. I heard women giggling, talking all at once.
In a stage voice, Dodie said, “Merrilee Witherow, what have we here? Another gift for you? The tag says this present is for our little bride-to-be. Don’t just stand there! Open it!”
Yes, I begged Merrilee silently. Please, release me, let me go!
Ribbon rubbed against ribbon. A sliver of light sliced the top of my chamber and grew steadily larger. The panel fell slowly. I waited until the flap was parallel to the ground before leaping out. I lunged forward and yelled, “Surprise! It’s scrapbook time!”
Staring in speechless astonishment was a seated row of neatly dressed women, cool and collected in their linens and silk.
I brandished a big photo album open to a page announcing, “Merrilee’s Bridal Shower” in large gold letters.
What a sad sight I must have been. My clothes dripped with sweat. I could tell my mascara had smeared under my eyes, and my curly hair stuck
out like a ’60s Afro. I probably looked like Bozo the Clown after an all-night binge.
The guests’ eyes traveled down and up my body. Their faces reflected shock and awe. While my personal grooming stunned them, the capper was the geeky gift bows Dodie had insisted on pinning all over my clothes.
No one moved. The women gawked at me, their faces blurred by the sweat in my eyes. I struggled to keep a huge smile plastered across my face.
Okay, maybe it looked like a grimace, but I tried, I really tried to smile. Sweetly.
An insect crawled along the back of my knee. I held my pose until that nasty sweat bee jabbed his stinger into my flesh. Then I yelped with pain. I dropped the album as I reached behind to swat him. I aimed to kill, but I missed by a mile. He was a poor sport. He must have called in reinforcements. My whole body was attacked by sweat bees.
“Ow!” A dozen angry flying objects zapped me. A zillion volts of venom pulsed through me. “Ow!” I hopped from one foot to another. Molten lava raced through my flesh. The throbbing pain made me dizzy. A bee landed on my neck. “Ow,” I stepped to one side, then the other, trying to dodge my torturers. Searing stingers plunged into my skin. A bee nailed me under my arm. Another punctured my lower lip. One landed under my ear. I slapped at them furiously.
“Get off my flowers!” An angry woman in a purple silk A-line dress shouted. “Move it! Now!”
I staggered like a drunk, battling bees, clutching my painful stings.
Dodie screamed, “Watch out! Pay attention!”
“Ow!” The insects swarmed me. Desperate to escape, I hopped back into the box. A bee sank his stinger into my eyelid. “Ow!” I swatted at him. My cardboard jail rocked side to side. Other bees took up the chase.
Dodie chanted, “Be careful! Be careful!”
But I heard, “Bee! Careful!” I spun and writhed, bumping each wall of the box in turn.
Paper, Scissors, Death Page 4
