Nolan gulped and slid his finger under the collar of his shirt, pulling it out slightly to get more air. He was having trouble breathing. Maybe he really was having heart palpitations. “A fancy term for a plug?”
Heaven nodded affirmatively. “And there were lots of big, thick cables plugged into those floor plugs and by chance, or on purpose, one of those cables had exposed wires right near where it entered the plug. When the water reached the floor pocket, it also reached Evelyn Edwards’s feet. Now what do you think, Nolan? Was that homicide?”
“Maybe the rag got stuck in the sink by accident?”
“I thought about that,” Heaven said. “It was a paint rag, and there were lots of painters around. But I checked with a foreman, and he said that the workers didn’t use that backstage bathroom. The outdoor workers use the Porta Pottis. The indoor workers use the lobby john.”
Nolan drummed his fingers on his desk. “Yes, but if you were a painter who had gone to the wrong john and dropped a paint rag when you washed your hands and forgot to turn off the water, then someone is electrocuted because of the rag and the water, you probably would not mention it, would you?”
“No, if I were that painter, my lips would be sealed, you’re right about that.” Heaven couldn’t wait any longer. “What did Evelyn Edwards have on you?”
“Why would she have something on me? Why are you so suspicious?”
“Because you recommended her for a job that plenty of locals could have done. She moved here and suddenly seemed to be on the fast track, introduced to the right people, all that jazz, pardon the pun,” Heaven explained. “Sooner or later someone would have noticed she had some mighty nice connections.”
“I slept with her at a convention.”
Heaven perked up; she never thought she’d get a confession so easily. “You’ve been in public life for twenty years. You wouldn’t do anything that stupid. Come up with a better lie.”
Nolan looked sheepish. “Clinton had been in public life a long time, too, remember. He thought with his dick: so did I that trip. It was a Convention and Tourism meeting in Dallas. She was, well, she was nice-looking and I must have got hammered on margaritas. I swear I don’t do, didn’t do, that kind of thing when I went out of town.” Nolan hung his head. “This is so trite. Evelyn called me the next week and said she had decided to move to Kansas City, that there seemed to be unlimited possibilities up here. I tried to talk her out of it but she wasn’t hearing it. She was blunt. Unless I helped her get established, she visits my wife and chats about certain things I whispered in her ear.”
“How sleazy,” Heaven said with a little grin. “Are you a screamer, Nolan?”
Nolan fidgeted. “She was playing the odds that certain things I did would be familiar to someone else who had shared intimate moments with me. I didn’t want to take the chance. I told myself she was certainly qualified, she ran her own event-planning business in Tulsa. What would be the harm?”
Heaven felt sad. “First a gig, next some cash. Where would it all end? Is that what you wondered, Nolan? And so you decided to put an end to Evelyn before she further damaged your life.”
“Heaven, I swear to you I did not electrocute Evelyn Edwards.” Nolan got to his feet.
“Why did you tell me about the sex part?”
“I trust you. After all, you’ve been through some, some . . .”
“Scandals? Yes, Nolan, I do know about finding yourself in embarrassing situations. But what makes you think I won’t be a sister and tell your wife?”
“I promise you I’ll tell her myself. Just give me until we get the dedication weekend over.”
“Does Bonnie Weber know?”
“I don’t know. Does she?”
“If she doesn’t know today, she will soon. Heads up, Nolan. She’s good at what she does.”
“Lots of people didn’t like Evelyn Edwards. Just before she died, I saw her arguing with your buddy Mona Kirk. Mona was steaming.”
Heaven stopped at the door to Nolan’s office. She turned back. “So were you, as I recall. Mona was plenty mad because we were being ripped off. I’m sure she’ll be just as mad when she learns you’re the one who created the situation. Good luck, Nolan.”
Heaven continued down the hall to the elevator, trying to look cooler than she felt. She was going to kill her friend. Why hadn’t Mona mentioned she’d talked to Evelyn that night?
Why?
* * *
Heaven had meant to go back to the cafe, she really had. But instead she found herself on Eighteenth and Vine, looking up at the windows of what had been Evelyn Edwards’s office. Heaven looked around guiltily. Bonnie Weber would be furious with her if she found out Heaven was conducting her own little investigation.
Heaven walked up to the street-level door as if she belonged there, hoping it wasn’t locked. It wasn’t. She climbed the stairs quickly and passed a young black man in a suit. He looked back at her. “Are you looking for the accountant?”
Startled, Heaven said, “No, why?” loudly.
He cocked his head. “Oh, well, I’m the accountant who has an office up here. I just thought . . .”
The building wasn’t that big. It could be that Evelyn and the accountant were the only two offices on the second floor. How was she going to explain her presence? Heaven caught sight of a sign on a door out of the corner of her eye. “I’m going to see about some hair extensions,” she said, and turned away. A white chick with short red hair going to see about hair extensions. Yeah, sure. She hoped he didn’t think about it too hard.
There were only four offices: the accountant, the hair place, a door that read “J.J. Maloney, ESQ.,” and one with yellow crime scene tape still stretched across it. Surely Bonnie was done with the place. Probably no one from the city had time to clean out a dead woman’s office when there were so many other things to be done before the weekend. For the first time Heaven wondered about Evelyn’s body. Was it still in the morgue waiting for an auntie or a distant cousin to be found? Did anyone who jumped rope with her when she was a little girl know she was gone? Was there an ex-husband, a lover, perhaps a child?
Heaven turned the handle on the office door, and to her surprise, it opened. For a minute, she thought the police had tossed the place the way they do in the movies. But she remembered Bonnie saying she had gone through Evelyn’s office herself. No way would she leave it like this. A guy maybe, but Bonnie was precise. Heaven walked over to the desk. The drawers were pulled out, the papers scattered. A file cabinet was pushed over on its side and files had fallen everywhere. A mirror had been pulled off the wall and lay cracked on the floor.
“Seven years bad luck for someone,” she murmured out loud. She reached down to pick up the mirror. The mirror back, a thin sheet of wood, fell off, and several shards of glass fell to the floor.
Two photographs fluttered out as well. Heaven sat down in Evelyn’s chair and leaned over to pick up the snapshots. The same man was in both of them, a big, joyous-looking guy. A little girl and a woman were standing beside the man, different ones in each shot. Everyone looked vaguely familiar. Were these hidden photos what someone had torn up the office looking for? Or was there something else, something that had already been found and removed?
Heaven stared out the window for a long time, clutching the photos. Suddenly she was watching Eighteenth and Vine in 1940. It was easy to imagine the street in early afternoon filling up with the players in this musical scene, bar owners opening the front doors to let in fresh air, musicians coming around, looking for advances on money they hadn’t made yet, drug dealers in double-breasted suits and fedoras reading the newspaper and grabbing some barbecue for breakfast. Perhaps this major renovation effort had stirred up all kinds of powerful memories, little moments stuck away in the corners of these streets, convection waves of riffs, heartaches, all-night jams.
Heaven looked longingly over at the file cabinet. Maybe she had time for a quick peek. She glanced at her watch and shook her head, telling h
erself to resist the temptation. She slipped the photos into her jacket pocket and left.
You could tell they were from Eastern Europe. Nowhere else on the planet did they manufacture such ill-fitting menswear. The man and the boy were probably father and son. They had the same nose, the same ears set apart from their heads just a shade too much. They paused at the door of Cafe Heaven, then walked in.
Heaven heard a soft “Allo?” coming from the dining room.
“Are you the piano tuner?” she yelled through the pass-through window. The man and his son looked at each other, unsure. “I’m sorry, I was expecting a piano tuner,” she said. Suddenly, Heaven appeared in the flesh, not a disembodied voice, before the strangers in the dining room. She wanted to figure out what the two wanted before they had a chance to make their pitch. It wasn’t an easy one to guess. Maybe they were truck farmers, new in the area, with some baby lettuce or early vegetables. But those clothes. Truck farmers would not be wearing bad polyester suits that looked straight out of the seventies. “I’m Heaven Lee,” she said, and extended her hand.
“And I am very glad to meet you. I am Sergei Vangirov and this is my son, Louis Armstrong Vangirov,” the older man said as he took Heaven’s hand and pumped it up and down.
“Great name, kid,” Heaven said with a grin. Louis smiled back. Now that the introductions were over, silence and smiling ensued. I guess I’m going to have to pry it out of them, Heaven thought. She turned toward the father. “What can I help you with? If you have a green card, you could start bussing tables tonight. Monday nights are busy here, and we can always use another busser.”
“No, we have come for the open performance program,” Mr. Vangirov said firmly. “Louis is a great jazz piano player. He will play for you now.” With that announcement, Louis went over to the piano and sat down, a serious look on his face.
Heaven knew when she was whipped. Louis would play now. She would listen now. “Okay, Louis, let ’er rip,” she said as she sank onto a dining room chair near the small stage. She could use a break anyway. The elder Vangirov stood at attention by the side of the piano, discussing what Louis should play with his son in a tongue that Heaven guessed was Russian or at least somewhere in that Slavic vicinity.
The next twenty minutes were amazing. First, Louis played perfect stride piano in the style of Eubie Blake. Then a Count Basie tune, “One O’Clock Jump.” Then he went right into a Jay McShann classic, “Jumpin’ the Blues.” As his father was announcing a Thelonious Monk piece, Heaven stood up and waved her arms. “I give. Save it for tonight. I would be honored if Louis would play here tonight, but you understand I don’t pay anyone. This is an open mike night, a chance for talent to play or sing or perform in front of an audience. Your son is a prodigy, Mr. Vangirov. He should have a recording contract. How old is he?”
Louis swiveled around on the piano bench and beamed at Heaven.
“Eleven years. Yes, yes, he is gifted,” Mr. Vangirov agreed. “I know no money, but a chance for Kansas City to hear Louis.”
“Louis, do you speak any English?”
Louis ducked his head and spoke rapidly to his father in their native tongue, whatever that was. “He only knows some jazz slang that he has picked up from recordings,” the father explained apologetically.
“Give the drummer some. Give the bass a taste,” Louis said woodenly to Heaven with a hopeful expression. She gave him five, and he slapped her hand joyfully.
“Mr. Vangirov, how did your son learn to play like that? And what are you doing here—in Kansas City, I mean?”
“From recordings mostly. We live in Belorussia, in Minsk. I loved the jazz always. I found few recordings and in the fifties and sixties, many jazz musicians come on goodwill tours. I once met Louis Armstrong,” he stated proudly. “From the very beginning, Louis could play perfect after hearing something once.” Mr. Vangirov remembered the second question. “I saved so we could come to Kansas City, New York City, Chicago. We found out when we get to New York about the Eighteenth and Vine celebration. We will hope that Louis can play next weekend when they open the museum. Louis wants to be a part.”
“Boy, have you come to the right place,” Heaven said. “I’ll introduce you to the person who can make that happen, another piano player, he’ll be here tonight. Now I have to get back to work. Come early, about six-thirty, and I’ll feed you. The show starts at nine, and we’ll get you on early so Louis can get to bed. I forget, how old are you, kid?”
Louis knew that one. “Eleven years.”
Mr. Vangirov grabbed her hand and pumped again. “Thank you, thank you. We are so proud.”
Heaven walked them to the front door, finally retrieving her hand. “And so am I to break Louis in Kansas City. See you later.”
As the pair walked across the street, they paused in front of Sal’s Barber Shop. “How’d I do, Pop?” the boy asked in decidedly broken English, but English nonetheless.
“The tempo was off a little on the McShann piece. I think you were rushing—”
The young man broke into his father’s critique. He knew he’d rushed the first part of the McShann. “No, I mean, how’d I do? Do you think she bought it?”
The father slapped his son on the back and pulled him into a hug. “Of course. Louis, you’re a pro.”
Heaven went back into the kitchen but her mind wasn’t on her prep work. She took off her apron and yelled “I’ll be right back” to no one in particular as she went out the back door. As she walked down the alley, she tried to second guess the motives of Mona Kirk. She stomped into The City Cat and demanded, “So, what in the hell is this? You just conveniently forgot to tell me where you were just before Evelyn got fried?”
Mona Kirk looked up guiltily and scowled at Heaven. A mother and her young daughter were buying matching cat tee-shirts. They looked over at Heaven with trepidation. Heaven smiled sweetly and started paging through a cat journal while they paid. The minute they left Mona sniffed, “Go ahead, scare my customers off.”
“Answer the question, little missy,” Heaven persisted.
“I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to drag that smarty-pants into that meeting by her ear and make her take her medicine. I’d warned her earlier in the day that we had the goods on her,” Mona stormed.
“Oh, really,” Heaven said. “Earlier in the day, you say? And when was that, if I’m not being to nosy, and obviously I haven’t been nosy enough.”
Mona remained defiant. “I went over to her office in the morning and told her she should just resign because we knew she was a thief.”
“And?”
“She denied it, of course.”
“Mona, what in the world is wrong with you? The woman is murdered ten minutes after you yell at her—for the second time that day. You’re the one who jumped up on the stage and looked for a pulse. Wouldn’t that have been a good time to mention that you’d just been in the theater and she’d been alive?”
“I hadn’t been in there, not really. She was talking on her phone, and I just walked down the aisle halfway to the stage. I didn’t see the water, not that I would have known what water meant. She didn’t even see me until I yelled.”
“What did you yell?” Heaven asked.
“Evelyn Edwards, don’t think you can hide on this stage, you thief. You come in the conference room right now!” Mona said with authority.
“Well, aren’t you the little schoolteacher,” Heaven said. “Mona, you sat and drank with the homicide officer in charge of Evelyn’s case that very night. You told about neither your huffing and puffing at the Ruby nor your trip to her office earlier in the same day. You must be nuts trying to hide anything from Bonnie Weber.”
“I’ve noticed over the years that you don’t always tell Bonnie everything you know,” Mona parried.
Just then four ladies-who-lunch types came into the store, faces flushed from a couple of glasses of Chardonnay. They started ohhing and ahhing over the latest shipment of cat-inspired jewelry. Mona glared at Heaven,
daring her to continue the conversation.
“Only when it won’t make me a suspect,” Heaven snipped as she walked out.
Eggplant Roll-ups
2 eggplants, sliced the long way about ¼” thick
1 lb. ricotta cheese
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup Parmesan cheese
½ cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
¼ cup chopped basil or parsley
¼ cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped
½ cup caramelized onions
kosher salt and ground black pepper
marinara sauce, or 1 large jar commercial marinara sauce
Soften the eggplant slices by placing on a baking sheet and roasting for 4–5 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Cool while you make the filling.
Combine all the ingredients but the red sauce and a small amount of Parmesan. Roll the eggplant slices up with about 2 T. cheese filling in each. Place the roll-ups in a greased baking dish with the sides touching. Cover with marinara sauce, top with the Parmesan. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees, until the cheese is browned and the sauce is bubbling.
Caramelized Onions
4 large, sweet yellow onions
2 T. each butter and olive oil
1 T. kosher salt
1 T. sugar
In a large, heavy sauté pan, heat the butter and olive oil. Peel, split, and slice the onions. Sauté over low heat until the onions start to turn translucent. Add the salt and sugar, and continue to cook over a slow heat for about 1 hour, stirring every 5 minutes or so. The onions should turn the color of caramel sauce.
Marinara Sauce
½ cup each peeled and diced onion and carrot, and diced celery
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. olive oil
2 28 oz. cans Italian-style tomatoes, one crushed tomatoes and one whole tomatoes that you crush with your hands
1 small can tomato paste
1 cup chicken stock
The Cornbread Killer Page 9
