The Stiff and the Dead

by Lori Avocato

  As a bit of a chubby kid, I paid no attention when Daddy called me that. But lately—okay, since my sixteenth birthday—I wanted to run out of the room screaming when he used it. Thank goodness I hadn’t fit the bill of a round, stuffed donut since then. Now—ta-da—I was a size four.

  Still, he meant well, and I loved every balding cell in his body. He could call me whatever he wanted—but hopefully, not in front of my friends though.

  Daddy was a hardworking silent type who’d retired after forty years in a factory making tiny parts for airplane engines, and now he spent his days golfing when it wasn’t winter and reading the newspaper the rest of the year. The guy had no real hobbies, but the paper took hours to get through. Not that Daddy wasn’t a good reader, it was just that he read everything—and sometimes out loud. When my mother gave him a project to do around the house, he took his time so you could count on not seeing him for days to months.

  Like Houdini, my mother spun around and handed me a plate with a Dagwood-size ham sandwich on it. I never saw the woman even take the bread out of the breadbox. “Thanks, Mom.” I sat across from Daddy, knowing she’d produce some beverage very shortly. Most likely milk, since Mother accused me of not having enough calcium for my age. Not even close to menopause, I always insisted that I took calcium pills, which she said is hogwash compared to getting it naturally.

  I took a bite of my ham, mustard, lettuce and tomato sandwich. When she wasn’t looking, I slipped out the hothouse tomato and stuffed it between the folds of my turquoise paper napkin. Matched the Formica countertops. January wasn’t tomato month in Connecticut.

  Yesterday’s left-over ham tasted wonderful. Me, I’m no cook. Actually take-out food had become one of the basic food groups where I was concerned, and, as much as I hated to admit it, I loved hospital food. Thank goodness Miles cooked when he wasn’t at work. Truthfully, I think the only reason I remained alive was that my mother still fed me. For now, I had to hurry and talk to Uncle Walt, since I needed to head back to the office to get Goldie.

  “Where’s Uncle Walt?” I asked after washing down a bite with the milk Mom had snuck in front of me.

  Daddy never looked up from his paper. From where I sat I could see that he was mentally doing the crossword puzzle. “Should be back soon. Some lady called for him.”

  Mother shook her head. “Tell us something new, Michael.”

  I figured Uncle Walt was real hot with the ladies nowadays, then I laughed to myself. “Mind if I wait?” I looked up to see both glaring at me with shock and confusion on their faces. Where’d that come from? My parents not only didn’t mind if I waited, they usually—no, daily—suggested I move back in with them.

  That’s when I’d miraculously find myself back at the condo I shared with my roomie, Miles Scarpello. Often, I wouldn’t remember the trip back but knew I made it at warp speed.

  Mother sat down with a cup of coffee in her hand. Ready to ask where hers and Daddy’s sandwiches were, I caught a glimpse of the black wrought-iron clock with golden hands above the stove. Eleven forty-five. They never ate lunch until noon or dinner before six. Breakfast was at 6 A.M., before they went off to daily 8 A.M. mass at the Polish church, Saint Stanislaus.

  Hope Valley was very ethnic and neighborhoods and Catholic churches divided up where the immigrants had settled.

  “Actually, Stella,” my father said, “didn’t Walt mention some funeral?”

  She took a sip of coffee and set down her salmon-colored Melmac cup on its saucer. Mother always used cups and saucers, not mugs. Melmac had been our family’s dinnerware since before my birth. It was a tough, hard plastic created in the 1940s, used by the army in WWII, and which then became popular in the fifties and sixties, when my parents must have bought theirs. “Funeral? Oh, that’s right. One of his buddies from the senior citizens center passed away.”

  Or was murdered.

  I gulped. “A lady?” A long shot, I knew, but if she said yes, then I wouldn’t have that murder issue to think of right now.

  “Henry Wisnowski.”

  I dropped my sandwich onto the Melmac dish below.

  “Watch out, Pauline!” Mother was up in a jiffy and wiping the crumbs off the table. Good thing I didn’t spill my milk.

  Of course, if murder were involved, I would have a lot to cry about over that milk. I shuddered, reliving my last brush with murder, despite the fact that Jagger had come to save me.

  Jagger.

  My heart pitter-pattered. Once Goldie and I made a bet that Jagger was FBI, but there was never a definitive answer from him. Not only wouldn’t I don nursing scrubs again, but sadly, I’d never have to work or see Jagger again.

  “Pauline? What is wrong with you?”

  My eyes fluttered. I’d gotten stuck in a Jagger-induced moment. “Wrong? Nothing, Mom. Well, I have a new case—”

  “Case, smase.” Mother got up and reheated hers and Daddy’s coffee. “When are you going to go back to nursing? The job you’d trained for all those years. Even a master’s degree. You made such a nice nurse.”

  Nice? After thirteen years, I’d hoped for “excellent” or at least “well-qualified.” “Mom, I have a job. It’s investigating.” I wiped the napkin across my lips.

  Two slices of hothouse tomato fell onto the Melmac dish.

  Mother looked at me. “If you didn’t want tomatoes, you should have said so, Pauline Sokol.”

  And you still would have put them on. “I didn’t think of it.” Since you materialized the sandwich before I saw the ham come out of the Saran wrap. “I have to go take Goldie to the doctor. Tonsillitis.”

  “Can’t his boyfriend take him?”

  Mother loved Miles and had grown to love Goldie too. She even baked them apple pies for Christmas and gave them each condoms as stocking stuffers. I know she had the best intentions in mind, but. . .

  I had to get out of there.

  I hurried over and gave my mother a peck on the cheek as I shoved the dish into the sink, thankful Melmac was indestructible, although it did stain and burn. But not my mother’s set. Then I kissed Daddy on the forehead. “See ya.”

  Once in the driveway, I took a deep breath, hopped in my car, shoved it into reverse and hit the pedal. A loud clank hit the air. I swung around to see Uncle Walt getting out of a 1963 Ford Thunderbird roadster—a convertible, no less. The white exterior sparkled, and the red interior, which I could still see even with the top up, was immaculate, as was the driver.

  I knew cars, since Uncle Walt was a car buff and I read all his magazines, mostly in my mother’s john. I flew out of the car. “Anyone hurt?”

  Uncle Walt came around from the passenger’s side. “You can’t hurt someone in a vintage car like this at that speed, Pauline. They don’t make them like this nowadays. You should know that.”

  I stared at the Thunderbird’s bumper. Not a scratch. Mine, however, had a dent, which needed a good plastic surgeon.

  I looked at the purple-haired woman sitting behind the wheel. Wearing dark glasses the size of Where’s Waldo’s, she sat there fluffing her hair in the rearview mirror. I wondered if the crash had dislodged any of the strands. Didn’t look it—she had to have had a can of hair spray all over that coiffure. Silver rhinestones sparkled from the frames of her black glasses, but they were nowhere near as bright as the gems hanging from her earlobes and around her neck. And wrists. And fingers. Well, four out of ten fingers.

  Uncle Walt, you dog.

  He looked in the window. “Helen Wanat, this is my niece, Pauline Sokol.”

  Helen. Helen something. So this was the woman Henry Wisnowski and now apparently Uncle Walt fancied. Hmm.

  I reached my hand out to shake hers. Firm grip for a senior. “Favorite niece, that is,” I said.

  Uncle Walt and I laughed. Helen looked at both of us as if we were whacko. “Family joke,” I added. I leaned near Uncle Walt while Helen went back to the mirror to wipe some fire-engine red lipstick from her tooth. Very white tooth. Original if I ever
saw one.

  Uncle Walt looked at his watch. “Oh boy, eleven fifty-five. You coming in for lunch, Helen?”

  Never looking away from the mirror, she said in a rather deep voice, “We just ate at the restaurant, Walty.”

  I could only stare. Walty?

  He shrugged. “How about you, Pauline?” He released my grip and started to turn as if he thought if he didn’t make it in by noon, Mother wouldn’t serve him. Of course, that idea wasn’t far from reality.

  “Mom fixed me a sandwich earlier.”

  He froze. “It’s not noon.”

  “You got me on that one. No telling what she was thinking. Anyway, I came here to talk to you.”

  Before he could say anything else, Helen turned back, stuck her head out of the window and blew a kiss. I guessed it wasn’t for me. She did nod in my direction, though, as I said, “Nice meeting you.”

  Once inside, Uncle Walt must have remembered that he did in fact eat after the funeral since he didn’t touch Mom’s coleslaw with vinegar. He told us that the Wisnowski family put on a pretty nice spread at the Polish Falcon Club. He apparently reconsidered and began to eat a ham sandwich. I smiled to myself when he slipped the hothouse tomatoes out and, more clever than myself, shoved them into the pocket of his black suit jacket.

  I only hoped he remembered them soon after leaving the table. Not like me.

  Uncle Walt and I excused ourselves and went into his room under the pretense that we were going to look up Helen’s vintage Thunderbird in one of his magazines. Once I walked through the doorway into the “brown” room, I slunk into the overstuffed chair by the window. Mom kept the room clean, and Uncle Walt was almost a neat freak, although not as bad as Goldie or Miles. No one was as addicted to clean as Miles was.

  Uncle Walt methodically took off his suit jacket and removed the tomatoes, which he wrapped in a tissue and then set on the end table. He reached over and switched on a lamp whose shade was a still life of Niagara Falls. Any second now, I expected the water to cascade onto his brown carpet. I looked at the dresser near his bed.

  Uncle Walt had saved me financially during my last case when he miraculously produced a wad—and I’m talking a four-figure wad of cash—from a secret drawer. That’s how I bought my first surveillance camera.

  “So, Pauline, need more money?” He hung his jacket over the wooden butler near the closet door.

  “Hmm? Oh, no. I don’t need money.” Well, I do, but this time I have to earn it. “No, Uncle Walt, I actually came to you on official investigator business.”

  “You mean how I know Henry was murdered?”

  If my teeth weren’t “original,” I’d be wearing them on my lap. I reached up to push my jaw shut. “Well, actually, yes.”

  Uncle Walt beamed. Suddenly, he looked as if he had a purpose in life—and that was to help me with my case.

  Most times I didn’t know what I was doing, but being a stubborn Pole, I persisted. I sure didn’t need an eighty-year-old “helping” me out.

  “He was cremated, you know.”

  How could I? “No, actually I didn’t.” I shifted in my seat at the thought. No body. Difficult investigation.

  Uncle Walt settled on the bed and pulled at his suspenders a few times. “You need answers, Pauline, and I’m your man. But one thing I need to know is, why are you asking about Henry’s murder?”

  Two

  Just as Uncle Walt was about to spill the beans as to why he thought Mr. Wisnowski was murdered, my cell phone went off. Thank goodness, too, since, honoring the confidentiality of my case, I had no idea what I would tell him as to why I was interested in Mr. Wisnowski’s death. It also gave me time to try to think of a lie about that. Lying was not in my top-ten mastered skills.

  Catholic school and all.

  A scratchy, pathetic voice wheezed from the other end. Goldie’s appointment. I told Uncle Walt we’d talk real soon, scurried out the door before having to stop for a cup of tea and some kind of homemade dessert, and headed back to Scarpello and Tonelli Insurance Company.

  That’s where I found Goldie curled up in the fetal position on his zebra couch, looking very much like a baby boy—no, girl. I leaned near. No, boy. His mascara—okay, girl—had smudged off onto the sleeve of his gold-and-white-striped blouse. Either way the guy looked pitiable.

  I wrapped him in a faux fox jacket and hurried him out to the car, whispering to Adele on the way what I was doing. I didn’t want Fabio to come bustling out of his office and insist Goldie stay to do some stupid work. That’d be like Fabio. As for me, my nursing instincts collided with my womanly intuition, which bombarded my motherly desires every time I ran across someone who was ill, and I had to help.

  And darling Goldie was a mess.

  I pulled up to the entrance of the Hope Valley Clinic and told him to get out and wait for me on the bench outside the door. Of course, with the number of elderly that frequented the place, he’d be lucky to get a seat. Still, it was a perfect clinic when you felt like crap. Not only could you get treated, but they also had a pharmacy and medical supply store on the same floor, owned by the same crafty conglomerate.

  “Am I gonna die, Suga?”

  I smiled at him before he stepped out. “Yes—”

  “Oooooooh!”

  I grabbed the faux fur sleeve. “Gold, joking. I was joking. We are all going to die, but not soon.”

  He stepped out slowly and shuffled his gold spike heels on the pavement until he slumped onto the bench between two senior citizen ladies. They each smiled at him.

  I readied to park and saw Helen Wanat pulling into a space. Made me think of Henry Wisnowski and how I hoped to hell death wasn’t going to be knocking on my door very soon. I made a mental note to call Uncle Walt from my cell phone while I waited for Goldie.

  I hurried out of the car and took him by the arm. “Come on, Gold.” As we ambled toward the revolving door, I noticed a giant red circle with a red line across a cell phone much like the no smoking signs. Damn. I’d have to wait a bit to call Uncle Walt.

  The receptionist, a twenty-something bimbo with blonde hair and glasses halfway down her nose, was snapping bubble gum. She looked up without blinking an eye. I assumed she saw plenty of odd characters while working at this clinic and had learned to accept everyone, or she was so jaded that she didn’t notice “not normal.” She shoved a clipboard onto the countertop. “Sign in.”

  Goldie managed to fill in his information. I shoved the clipboard back at her. “How long does he have to wait?”

  She looked over the glasses at me without a crack of a smile. “Until he’s called.”

  I curled my lips so she could see, but figured I was wasting my time. “Duh,” I whispered to Goldie. “Come sit over by the window in the nice sun.”

  He nodded and followed along. When he sat down, the nurse stuck her head out of the door and called, “Goldie Perlman.”

  “Wow. Good timing.” I got up and gave him a hand. We walked to the door, where the nurse took a look at both of us.

  “Who’s Goldie?”

  “The sick one,” I said, patted his arm and turned to go. I swung back before the door closed. “I’ll wait out here after I make my phone call, Gold.”

  He muttered something that sounded like “okay.” The nurse interrupted with “No cell phones on inside the building.”

  Some days I just wanted to scream.

  I went outside and sat on the bench, where I dug around in my purse. The cell phone was hidden on the bottom. I pulled it out and pushed the on button.

  Nothing.

  “Cripes.” I’d forgotten to charge it. This was a major thorn in my paw. I pulled myself up and headed to my car to find the charger that Jagger had given me.

  Next to my car an old rattletrap of a Buick pulled in as I walked to the passenger side, where the charger was in the glove compartment. I was thinking about how Jagger had threatened to have a microchip put on my tooth so he could always find me, when the driver’s side door of th
e rattletrap swung open—and slammed into my chest.

  “Whoosh!” Air flew out of my mouth, which had to be a good thing or I might have been really hurt.

  An older gentleman jumped out of the car. Very spry for a man who had to be in his seventies. “Oh, my, Bellisima young lady, are you-a all right?”

  His heavy Italian accent fit perfectly with his black pinstriped suit, heavy mustache and head of gray hair. Looked as if he’d stepped out of Don Corleone’s parlor after doing “business.” He was rather tall for an elderly gentleman, but I figured he held himself upright with perfect posture and that’s what made him look tall, and very handsome and—I’m sorry to say this, but I noticed—built.

  Helen Wanat passed by and gave an award-winning smile to the guy who’d just winded me. “Hello, Joey.”

  I think she purred.

  Suddenly I wondered if purring at a nice, elderly, handsome Italian man could be construed as cheating on my uncle. She looked at me. I looked down. The print of the door handle of the rattletrap was imbedded in my Steelers’ parka. I was a diehard Steelers fan along with Uncle Walt and hated to see anything happen to my parka. “Accident. It was an accident,” I managed while still a bit short of breath. “How are you, Helen?”

  “Fine.” She looked at me again as if to say that accidents like this probably always happened to me—and she wouldn’t be far from the truth. I turned toward the man who was ogling Helen. “My uncle is a friend of Helen. I’m Pauline Sokol.”

  He held out a gray-gloved hand. I had visions of Adele, wearing her gloves. I shook Joey’s hand. Firm grip. Geez. I hoped my muscles still held up like his and Helen’s when I got to be their age. I figured Joey wore gloves as a statement of his past. He looked very traditional.