by Delia Rosen
“You’re both pains,” Barron snarled, the alcohol finally showing its ugly face. “I’m gonna clear the air so you’ll both stop busting my cojones, all right? You want to know about Fiji? I got sued by an investor who said I didn’t deliver what I promised. I caught a break when his Jag went under a big semi hauling a bottom dump trailer. I’m thinking of going back. Lippy’s trumpet case? It was a ratty thing that smelled like every sandwich he ever ate off it. You know, Gwen. You saw it. Lippy left before I did. He went one way, I went the other. That’s all I know about Lippy and all things Lippy, except for that goddamn song he was humming which made me put my iPod on.”
“What song was it?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t care, and I’m going to tip a kidney,” he said, sliding past us. “Then I’m going to get some canvas from storage. Then I’m going to bed. Good night.” He closed the bathroom door with a defiant slam.
“Well—that didn’t tell me much,” I said broodingly.
“I hope you don’t consider it a wasted night,” Yutu said.
I smiled thinly. There was nothing more fragile—or annoying—than the male ego being needy, unless it’s the male ego being belligerent. I didn’t consider the night a waste, but I also didn’t feel like holding his hand or kissing him good night. What I felt like doing was punching the bathroom door with the side of my fist and asking that tub of seawater— I strode to the bathroom door and pounded it with the side of my fist.
“What about Tippi?” I yelled.
I heard a flush and then the door opened. “Who the hell is Tippi—and what are you still doing here?”
“Tippi is Lippy’s sister,” I said.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Barron smirked. “Are their parents Skippy and Dippy?”
“You’re not funny,” I said.
“Well, what about her?” Barron asked, appearing genuinely nonplussed.
“Did you kill her or have her killed?” I demanded.
He moved past me, headed toward the door I’d used earlier. “Yutu—get your friend outta here before I call the cops.”
“Call them!” I dared. “It’s already twelve-twenty and no one in my circle has been arrested yet, far as I know.”
Barron turned. “You’re crazy. Go. Now.”
I stormed toward the exit. “Good night and have a safe trip home,” I snapped at a befuddled Yutu White as I went out onto the deck.
“G’night,” he said confusedly to the back of my neck as I walked indelicately into the chain, unhooked it, dropped it, and stalked down the plank.
At least now there would be no awkward parting.
Chapter 14
The night was not finished with me.
When I got home, I found Thom sitting on my front stoop. Her head was thrown back and she was looking at the stars. She continued to stare even after I pulled into the short driveway next to her ancient Volvo.
“Is everything okay?” I asked as I hurried over.
She smiled. I didn’t like the look of that. It seemed a touch extreme, almost like a birthday party clown. I didn’t say anything else until I was right beside her. I sat on the stoop.
“Thom? What are you doing here?”
She turned and leveled that big grin on me. It was definitely not the smile she had when she won a few bucks in Lotto.
“Sitting.”
“I can see that—but why?”
“Jesus led me here. I heard his voice when I turned on the ignition. Then I saw him. There.” She pointed toward my lawn.
“I see,” I said. Something was seriously off with my manager. “Why don’t you come inside and tell me more about it?”
“In a minute.” She took one of my hands between hers. “Gwen—do you know what?”
“What?”
She said, “The earth is not happy.”
My palm grew sweaty between her cool fingers. “Who said so?”
“Jesus.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t Jesus. You heard Mad say that.”
“Who?”
“Madge Ozenne—the other day, at the deli. She was sitting with the other Wiccan, Ginnifer. The woman you knew. Remember?”
“The one who was with the Satanist!” she said with a big, disapproving wheeze.
I froze. When Thom exhaled, I smelled a trace of alcohol on her breath. That was the biggest surprise of all. Thom wasn’t just a teetotaler, she was a one-woman temperance movement. That was one of the reasons she and her husband Otis split thirty-three years before: she refused to allow alcohol in her house. Ironically—or intentionally, or both—Otis, who was career army, later married a South Korean girl whose father was one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of makkoli, Korean rice wine. Thom actually showed me a photo of the couple honeymooning on the Sea of Japan near the DMZ. I think she kept it as a way of reminding herself what she had sacrificed for her beliefs. So the idea that she willingly took a drink— “Out of curiosity,” I said, “did you have more than frozen yogurt with Luke and Dani?”
“What? No! I had two T-bird milk shakes at that new place, DesseRt.”
A brocha, I thought. That’s one of those not-quite-translatable words my Uncle Oskar used to say pretty frequently. It literally means “a prayer” but, depending on the inflection, really means so much more—typically the opposite, that whatever prayer you’re planning to say isn’t going to help.
“Thom,” I said carefully, knowing that this was going to hurt her, “the ‘R’ is for ‘rated adult.’ Those drinks are made with Thunderbird—wine.”
The poor woman looked like she’d been hit in the face with a sack of matzo brie. She gasped, just guttural sounds, until she could find her voice. “My Lord! My Lord!” she wailed. “I have forsaken thee!”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t know!”
“Oh, God! My God!”
I put my arms around her and held tight. I was going to have some very harsh words with Dani and Luke when I got to the deli. They probably meant well, but Luke had known Thom longer than I had. They should never have let our resident teetotaler order an alcoholic dessert. Twice.
“Sweet Jesus, I’m a lush!” Thom cried.
“You’re not,” I said. “You didn’t know. It was an accident.”
She began to sob. “God will punish me!”
“No, you will. And I won’t let you do that.”
“Oh, God. Then—then I didn’t see Jesus under that willow tree?”
“Maybe you did,” I said comfortingly. “The two things are probably totally unrelated.”
“No, no, no—I’m drunk!”
“It’s just the tiniest little buzz,” I assured her. I squatted and took her by the arm. “You’re blameless. And you’re coming inside.”
“No, I have to pray. Pray!” she shouted to the stars.
“Fine, but you’re doing it inside.”
Thom struggled to fold her hands. I let her as she rose unsteadily.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven—forgive me my grave trespass . . .”
Thom was not a tiny woman, but somehow I helped her stand. It wasn’t a warm night, but she was perspiring. I honestly didn’t think the squirt or two of alcohol had done this to her as much as it released the overpowering guilt and humiliation she felt for everything else that had happened.
She continued to pray, at a faster whisper now, as I opened the door. By the time we got inside she was trembling. She tried to get on her knees but I managed to dump her on the sofa instead. She sat, bent her forehead to her folded hands. I stood to straighten my back. Thom was packed pretty full. Zaftig, as they say.
The place still reeked of Aramis, of Dr. Sterne, of the stink of the deal I’d made with him. If I put their bloody hearts on a scale, I didn’t know who I disliked more right now: Sterne, his lawyer, or Barron. At least my ex was moving down on the chart. I guess that’s progress.
That anything bad should happen to so kind and blameless a person is unconscionable, I thought. Though
I wondered obliquely if, in my own way, I’d done something just as stupidly thoughtless to Sally and her coven.
I was too tired to think about that now, or anything else. I got Thom to lie down, took off her shoes—and then she came back to life.
“I’m so ashamed,” she said, weeping.
“About what?” I asked softly. I knelt between the sofa and the coffee table.
“Going to prison.”
There was a paper napkin from my sandwich still on the table. I gave it to her to blow her nose. “You didn’t go to prison,” I said. “You went to jail . . . and it was just a holding cell. That’s not the same thing.”
“It had ugly iron bars and obscene words scratched in the wall and a stainless steel toilet,” she said. “And prisoners. It had prisoners. That makes it a prison. God was punishing me for having judged Tippi.”
“Not true,” I assured her. Where was she pulling that stuff from? “Thom, this has been a long, exhausting day and that’s just a couple of teaspoons of bum wine talking.”
“You shouldn’t say that,” she chastised me. “They’re not ‘bums,’ they’re called ‘homeless persons’ or ‘unfortunates.’”
“Okay, sorry,” I told her. “You need to go to bed now. Me, too. We can discuss circumlocution in the morning.”
“Discuss what?”
I stopped saying anything. I stood, listened while she mumbled about a bris she’d once witnessed—I wasn’t so fond of them myself, more for the gawking tantes gathered around than for the screaming kid—and when Thom finally shut her eyes, I stood there until I was sure she wasn’t getting up again. Her voice got hazy, her lips began to move without speaking, and then she was out.
Exhausted, I went to my own bed to crash.
Which was how I awoke: with a crash.
It was daylight—the clock said five fifty-three—and the sound had come from outside. I was still dressed so I hurried to the window to see what had happened. My fuzzy brain processed the looming presence of K-Two in my driveway. She was just getting out of a red pickup that had seen better days. The sound I’d heard was apparently the tailgate clattering hard when she hit the brakes.
I made my toilette then went to check on Thom.
Who wasn’t there. Which I should have realized when I didn’t see her car in the driveway, but then it took awhile for me to be fully awake. I tried her cell phone, got no answer, and hurriedly dressed.
I waved to K-Two as I came out the door. She was busy breaking out a big, cushy lawn chair, a boom box, and a book on gardening.
“Thanks for coming,” I said as I fished for my keys.
“Thanks for this gig,” she said. She handed me a business card with her number on it. “In case you need to reach me,” she said.
“Thanks.” I tucked it in my jeans—the repository for business cards that ended up reappearing as wadded balls after laundering.
“Is there anything you need me to do?” the mixed martial artist asked.
“Just guard the fort,” I said. “I left the door unlocked in case you need to use the bathroom.”
“Thanks, but not necessary,” she said. “Dr. Sterne said he has a key.”
I looked at her. “He’s got a key?”
“Yes and he said he’d be here this morning. That’s all I was told.”
I just smiled tensely at her, got in the car, and headed to the deli—praying everyone else behaved themselves on the road. I was very awake now and very annoyed. Sterne had said he would be in touch today—he hadn’t specified where and how. Gai kukken afen yam, I thought, remembering what Uncle Oskar used to say when someone was seriously out of line. Go take a dump in the ocean.
Thom was at the deli. As I walked in the front door, she was moving through the tables like a human tornado, wiping the tops with a shpritz of dish soap from a dispenser and a sponge and elbow grease. She didn’t acknowledge me as I entered, just concentrated on her work. I would have let her be except that I knew what she was doing.
I walked over beside her.
“Hey, Thom.”
“Hey.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Not sure,” she said. “Two hours, maybe.”
“You want to talk about this?”
“Nothing to talk about,” she said without stopping.
“I think there is.”
“I did something stupid and immoral,” she said. “A whole bunch of things, in fact—”
“One by accident, the others because you’re human.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said absolutely. “I’m mortified by this entire week. I don’t know how I’m ever going to atone.”
“Don’t you think that process is well underway? You regret what happened, you won’t do it again—what else can you do?”
“Beg, on my knees, in church, for God’s forgiveness.”
“Okay,” I said. “So go.”
“Just like that? Waltz on out? That would compound my sins.”
“What if I didn’t give you a choice?” I asked.
She finally looked at me. The change in her demeanor was dramatic. That had hit her hard. “Please don’t do that,” she practically implored me.
“All right, I won’t,” I assured her.
“That—that would be terrible,” she said.
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“My whole life I’ve been a caregiver. For Otis, when he let me. For your dad and uncle, for Stacie. For the staff. I don’t want anyone looking after me.”
“Is that what you’re mad about?” I asked. “Because you put yourself in the hands of Luke and Dani and it didn’t work out?”
She sat heavily in one of the chairs. She seemed more exhausted than sad. “I don’t know. I feel like my life has been turned upside down. I was arrested , Nash. I had wine. I prayed to Jesus this morning and for the first time in my life it didn’t make me feel better. I don’t know what to do!”
“Hon, you need to give yourself time,” I said, as Newt arrived. He was smart enough to wave and keep going toward the kitchen. I held Thom’s hand. The sponge in it squished. We both looked at each other and laughed.
Sometimes, all it takes to set the world right is a funny sound and some tiny bubbles.
We were still laughing when Luke arrived. He, too, wisely scooted into the back as Thom and I went about our dining-room prep.
Chapter 15
It was a who’s who of “Hey—let’s return to the scene of the crime!”
I’m sure it was coincidental, but five of the seven diners who we all remembered being there the morning Lippy was murdered were back. They were all regulars, and maybe the stars had aligned this way before; it’s just that I’d never noticed it.
There was our mail carrier Nicolette Hopkins, who was just starting her route, bus driver Jackie and her grease monkey gal-pal, Leigh—Thom tried hard not to make a face when they arrived holding hands—Ron Plummer of Plum-Tree advertising, and recording mogul Fly Saucer, who was always trying to find new ways of getting Raylene to notice him.
And there was one thing more to bring that tragic morning back. Lippy’s trumpet case.
Nicolette found it in a big brown paper bag stuffed in her wheelie mail-sack thing, which she left parked outside by the door. She noticed it when she was paying, brought it back inside, and left it on an empty table for two. I took it into my office to call Grant while Nicolette sat at the end of the counter to wait. Resting on the flattened bag, the case sat there like a thing alive, latent with mystery like the monolith in 2001. I could swear I heard it hissling, like Lippy.
I made the call, then looked the case over. I looked around the side of the lid, didn’t see any wires or anything. It could have been booby-trapped to explode or release a toxin or something. I took a letter opener from the pencil holder, put the point under the lid, and raised it slowly. Nothing happened. I lifted it completely. The brass hinges made a slight squeaky whine like air being let out from the end of a balloon. I lower
ed my desk lamp and looked inside.
It was a crappy case, all right. The felt was worn where the trumpet had rested and frayed where it met the wooden boards of the case. I noticed, then, a faint, familiar smell.
The slightly warped top of the case was lined with paper—wallpaper, it looked like and I sniffed around the lid. The smell was strongest in one corner and I felt it; the surface was a little lumpy. I used the letter opener to pick at it. The corner did not yield so I dug harder. It came away, dropping tiny particles of white into the case.
Paste. That was what I had smelled, hidden under the odor of old grapefruit juice. Cheap, five-and-dime white paste. The kind Lippy would buy—if he had bothered to repair the flap. Given the rips and hanging threads elsewhere in the case, I couldn’t see why he would have. I looked closer at the underlying wood, which was covered with clumps of paste. I used the letter opener to chip it away. It wasn’t old and dry like one of those kindergarten projects with colored paper and macaroni. It still had a waxy quality. Someone had repaired it, and recently. I took a safety pin from my desk drawer and opened it. I used the pin point to gently stab the chunks of paste and remove them. I didn’t want to damage the underlying wood in case anything was there. If there was any evidence in the paste itself, like hair or skin, it would still be in the case somewhere when the police lab went over the contents. It just wouldn’t be under the flap. I was curious, I had a right to do this, and if Grant didn’t like it—well, once again, Uncle Oskar said it best: Meshuga zol er vern un arumloyfn iber di gasn. He should go nuts and run through the streets.
I removed a flat, ivory-colored chunk, like a stepped-on piece of feta, and froze. It wasn’t on the wood that I found something. It was on the tuchas end of one of the paste chunks. Two smudgy blue markings—handwriting, in ink? They looked like “pp.” It could have been part of Lippy or Tippi. A letter for his sister? My mind jumped to words like “happening” and “apparently.” Did this have something to do with the treasure he told Tippi about? I looked again at the smear. It could also have been an “rr” that ran. For Barron? I took a picture with my cell phone.
