A Glimmer of Death
Page 14
Maybe one of Vinton’s powerful gin and tonics would loosen her tongue. Charlie was dead and maybe Juda would finally give up some of what she knew. It was worth a chance, especially if Vinton was mixing the drinks and urging her on. I agreed and followed him over to her place.
Juda lived in a small, plain, two-family house built in the 1930s that had probably been a one-family house once upon a time but, like so many places in Grovesville, had been divided into apartments. It wasn’t grand, like some old houses, but plain and cheaply built. If her family had had money, it hadn’t been put into the property. Her apartment was on the first floor, with stairs leading up to a smaller place on the second. Vinton rang the bell, then took out a set of keys when she didn’t answer. When he opened the door, I gasped and stepped back. The place stank of nutmeg, but only I could smell it.
Chapter 14
“Juda? You in there?” Vinton couldn’t control the panic in his voice as we stepped into Juda’s first-floor apartment. He glanced from side to side in the narrow, tidy living room. “Maybe she’s in the bedroom? Maybe she’s still asleep. I’m going to check.”
“I’ll wait here,” I said. Juda was dead; there was no doubt about that. My question was how did she die? Had she been shot like Charlie Risko, or was it something else? Was the same person responsible, or was I imagining more than I should, jumping ahead of myself? The smell of nutmeg was everywhere, but not as strong as it had been when we entered. Was it waiting for us to find her body, acknowledge that she had left this world? Juda was Vinton’s friend, and he needed to find her. I sat on her couch, waiting for him to scream. He stumbled out of the hallway instead, his face ashen, his hands covering his mouth to keep his scream inside. “Juda’s in the bedroom, Dessa. She’s dead.”
He slid down on the couch beside me. I took his hand, held it without speaking, and he began to cry.
“What do you think happened?” I waited a while before I asked.
“She didn’t wait for me.” His tone was solemn; my heart stopped.
“What do you mean, Vinton? Tell me what you mean.” Did they have some kind of suicide pact?
“I should have known how sad she was. I gave her that damn bottle of gin, and she promised she would wait, crack it open with me, and I’d make us some gin and tonics.” He stopped, caught his breath, and went on. “Those pills she was always taking to sleep, even before Charlie’s death. I should have known after Stuart that it was more than she could handle. I let her down like I let him down. I should have known.”
“Do you think she killed herself?”
“Of course she did! That bottle of gin I gave her was nearly empty. Her pills were gone. With booze and pills, just like Judy Garland. Juda loved Judy Garland. Always trying to be dramatic, like some kind of damn singer or something. With booze and pills!”
“Judy Garland died from an accidental overdose, she didn’t kill herself,” I said, as if that might offer solace, but it did no good. He rolled his eyes and cried again, for Stuart and Juda. Tears came to my eyes, too, because that kind of sadness touches everyone who is there. When he was finally able to speak, I suggested he call the police and tell them what had happened: That he and a coworker had come to visit his friend and found her dead in her bedroom. The two of us sat there weeping and waiting for the cops.
I was grateful they weren’t the same officers who had interviewed us after Charlie Risko’s murder. That would have been a mess. God only knew what they’d make of another sudden death. They were women this time, the older one around my age and the younger a rookie just hitting her twenties. Both were polite and sensitive, patiently taking our names and addresses, briefly interviewing us separately to determine our relationship to the deceased. The older one, a lean, no-nonsense woman with a hairstyle she didn’t waste time on, was in charge and introduced herself bluntly: “I’m Doyle,” she said. It was a down-to-earth delivery of a name that suited her well.
After thoroughly surveying the bathroom and kitchen, Doyle told us to avoid touching anything if we had to go into those rooms, but declared the bedroom strictly off-limits until her “crew” had time to go through it. When Vinton went to the kitchen for a glass of water, I pulled Doyle aside and asked if she thought it was suicide. She was surprisingly candid.
“Mr. Laverne, he’s the one who called it in, right? He mentioned she’d been depressed, and signs in her bedroom point to that. But we need to wait for an autopsy to officially declare it.”
“What signs?”
“Half-full bottle of gin, open bottle of Ambien, the pills gone. That combination can do you in. That’s what it looks like to me.” She dropped her gaze, unwilling to comment further without authority, then changed her mind. “Was the lady involved in a relationship that went sour? There were some photographs of a man in her room. One of him riding a motorcycle. A couple of them riding together. Looked like it had been a while ago. Was he her lover or something?”
“Or something,” I said. Juda Baker was dead. Far be it from me to share what came down to office gossip.
“Is there a possibility that he could be next of kin?”
“He’s, uh, recently deceased,” I said quickly, without going into detail.
“We’ll look into that. Meantime, you and Mr. Laverne should sit here on the couch until the ME comes to pick up the body. We’ll collect any evidence that’s there, ask you a few more questions, then you can be on your way. Okay? Who had the keys to get in?”
“Mr. Laverne did,” I said, just as Vinton was joining us. He was still shaken, his hand trembling as he put his water down on the coffee table.
“Give me your address and telephone number so I can get in touch with you if I need to. You were a friend of the deceased?”
“Yeah. We were very close.” I squeezed his hand, reminding him I was there. He acknowledged me with a slight, quick nod.
“Juda Baker lived alone?” Doyle asked.
“Yes.”
“You know who the landlord is, and who lives on the second floor?”
“Ms. Juda Baker did,” he said, hesitated, and then added, “This was her house . . . as far as I know. She didn’t rent out the second floor, kept it for storage.”
As far as I know. Had Doyle picked up his hesitation?
“Storage of what?” I asked without thinking. Vinton hit my knee hard with his, like a parent reminding a child to keep her mouth shut. It was too late. Doyle picked up my question.
“Of what?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Do you have the keys?”
“To the second floor? Not with me.”
“As far as you know, the second floor was only used for storage, right?”
“As far as I know.” Vinton emptied his face of expression.
“And you’ll turn them over to us as soon as you can, right?”
“Of course.”
Doyle tilted her head to the side like the wise old bird she was, then added, with a trace of sarcasm, “So, as far as you know, does the deceased have any family?”
Unbowed, Vinton said, “Not as far as I know.”
Doyle glared at us both, ordered us to stay where we were, and left the apartment.
We sat on the couch squeezed together like scared kids waiting for the worst to come, and it came—in the person of the medical examiner accompanied by four gloomy assistants who carried away Juda’s remains. Since there was no family of record, Vinton solemnly played that role, signing official papers and offering any information they needed.
Despite Doyle’s warning about touching things, I went to get a glass of water. As I always do when I wander into a stranger’s kitchen, I looked around to find out what I could. As all chefs—and folks who cook—believe, you can find out everything you need to know about a person by her kitchen, but not necessarily the appearance. Overly neat says one thing, excessively messy says something else. (I swing between the two.) It’s what’s in the kitchen that counts. Juda Baker’s did not disappoint.
Grubhub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats had recently made inroads down Grovesville’s narrow streets, and Juda was a regular. Nearly every Chinese, Indian, Thai, Japanese, and Mexican restaurant in town was represented in her overflowing kitchen can. Two Entenmann’s cake boxes peeked over the top along with an unopened bag of black jelly beans. Hidden behind a stepladder was a back door, probably a fire escape, which led to both the second floor and outside.
Juda Baker was a lonely soul. I knew that the moment I met her, but many people were, including me. But she’d often made references to family—a Swedish grandmother, wealthy family members, trips she’d made to far and exciting places. She either imagined these things or was lying, plain and simple. Or maybe it was a bit of both. There were no posters, souvenir glasses, or plates from far and exciting places. She had lived and died in this small, dismal space, eating her meals while watching the small TV next to the mayonnaise jar on the counter, always trying to be somebody she wasn’t. Shaken at the sorrow that surrounded her, I sat down on one of the two rickety chairs at the kitchen table. Guilt swept over me as I recalled her small, faint smile the last time I’d seen her. Had she been reaching out, looking for a friend in her own self-conscious way? Why hadn’t I reached out more?
I knew that loneliness could bring its own solace, reminding you of the good things you had and that may come again. It was unfair to judge her now. After all, if I were found dead in my bedroom, how would my life look to someone wandering into my kitchen? A slight, unwelcome smile pushed itself out as I considered that. For one thing, Juniper would be sniffing around, crying, begging for Temptations rather than my company. His whining would alert Julie, my neighbor next door. Aunt Phoenix would show up before my head hit the floor good. Lennox Royal would miss my cakes, inquire about my whereabouts, and feel compelled to investigate. Except for Vinton, Juda had no one, and maybe that was why she clung to Charlie Risko. He was something to hold on to. Their connection was a mystery that died with her.
“They just took her out. Juda’s gone,” Vinton said, pulling me from my thoughts when he came into the kitchen and sat down beside me. “I wish you’d had a chance to know her. Lots of secrets, lots of pain. But a person worth knowing. She didn’t let people into her life easily, except for one. I don’t need to tell you who that was.”
“I wish I’d had a chance to know her, too,” I said, which was the truth. “But she never spoke to me, she was never friendly.”
“Friendship is hard for some folks, Dessa. Especially if you’ve never known love.”
“Do you know anything about her family?”
“Like about her Swedish grandmother?” He chuckled. “Who knows? Maybe she did have some rich old family somewhere and a Swedish grandma, but she never told me anything about them. She couldn’t accept who she really was. People lie about all kinds of things, Sunshine. You should know that by now.” He added the last with a snap that surprised me.
Doyle came in to tell us that the medical examiner needed to do an autopsy but that her death was most likely a suicide, maybe accidental but not a crime scene, and we could go. Someone would be in touch with Vinton later, regarding what to do with the remains. He promised to look through papers Juda had left with him for information about family. Before we left, he stepped back into Juda’s bedroom and lingered a while, saying good-bye in his own way. His glimmer was deeper than it had been, which worried me. He didn’t need to be alone tonight.
“Why don’t you let me take you to my place, and I’ll make us something to eat,” I suggested as we left the building. I could tell he was too upset to drive.
He looked puzzled. I wasn’t sure if he heard me. “Listen, I need to ask you a favor first, a big one,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. After what we’d both been through, there was nothing I wouldn’t have done.
“I need you to go with me back to her place, upstairs to the second floor, before anyone else does. To make sure her things are . . . in order. Will you do that for me?”
I stopped dead, facing him in the dim light from the streetlamp. “To the second floor? The storage area?”
“It was more than that.”
“What do you mean, make sure things are in order?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, turning back to Juda’s place. “We were drunk the night she gave me the keys to her place. It was years ago, when we first got to be close. She said I was the only one she could trust. I didn’t know if it was friendship or the vodka, but something was bothering her. She said there was stuff upstairs that was too embarrassing for people to see and made me promise to get rid of it if something happened to her.”
“I don’t think so, Vinton,” I said. This sudden request made me uncomfortable. “You should have told the cops before we left. You shouldn’t have lied to them.” I headed back to my car; he grabbed my arm.
“Dessa, please. Please. I don’t want to go up there alone. I lied to the cops, yeah, and I’ll let them know what I find. I’ll break that part of my promise to Juda, but I need to know why she was worried.”
“But if the building belonged to her, why would it matter?”
“Because I lied when I said the building belonged to her. It belonged to Charlie, which means everything in it belongs to Tanya, and Tanya would be the last person Juda would want sniffing around her stuff when she’s dead.”
Something didn’t seem right. Call it the gift warning me or the simple fear of breaking the law. “Vinton, I . . .”
“I owe Juda this, Dessa. I wasn’t there for her like I should have been, like I wasn’t there for Stuart. I can’t do this twice. I need to know what she had in there, why she was so concerned.”
“Let me think about it,” I said. We went and sat in my car for a while, and Vinton lit a cigarette as I “thought” things over. I finally had to admit to myself that I was as curious as he was.
Yet I felt like a thief as we crept back into the house and upstairs to the second floor. I knew the cops had left but halfway expected Doyle to jump from the shadows and yell for us to halt or be arrested for breaking and entering. But the house was quiet, eerily so because of Juda’s death. I glanced at Vinton, wondering again if I could trust him. How well did I really know him? As well as any of them, I realized.
He stepped into the apartment and turned on a dim ceiling light. The blinds were closed, a good thing, since nobody was supposed to be in here. He stood aside, like a gentleman, letting me enter first, and I stepped into the shadowy room. It was too late to change my mind. For better or worse. I touched my mother’s amulet; stroking it when I was anxious was becoming a tic.
An empty bottle of vodka sat on the shabby coffee table next to a shabbier couch. The table, chair, and taped cardboard boxes and a file cabinet across the room seemed to be the only furniture up there. It was a dusty, grimy place, not at all like the stylish woman who appeared each day in her fashionable clothes and trendy knockoffs. Vinton collapsed on the couch, sending up a cloud of dust. He sneezed, then sighed. Picking up the empty vodka bottle, he turned it upside down.
“Listen carefully, Dess, this is what happened,” he said, like a professor explaining a difficult theory to a dull-witted student. “Juda sat up here, by herself, drank all this vodka, went back downstairs through that door, had som
e gin, then took the pills.” He glanced at me, waiting for a nod of understanding. “The gin alone wouldn’t have killed her. It was the chaser. Something got to her up here. She went back downstairs to put herself to sleep to forget. Forever.”
It was a small, perfectly square room, more like a large attic. A door on the far side must have led to the kitchen of the apartment below. When my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized it was a shrine to Charlie Risko. This was Juda’s private world, a door into the shadowy places of her mind she didn’t want people to see or know about. This was what she wanted to protect, even after death, especially after death. There were several sealed cardboard boxes printed with his name. A wall was filled with large photographs of Charlie, taken at various times in his life. A narrow table leaning against another was loaded down with things I quickly recognized: the motorcycle jacket he wore to work, the helmet and black leather gloves he was so proud of—things that were always together, ready for him to slip on or off.
That dumb helmet, his funky jacket. All of it. I already dropped it off with somebody who actually might want his crap.
Tanya had delivered Charlie’s things. The question was when.
“Have you been up here before?” I asked Vinton, but he didn’t answer. He tore open a cardboard box and began going through it, pulling out copies of the photographs I’d seen at Harley’s place, more provocative than the ones I’d seen, several nude ones of Louella that made me cringe.
“Must have told that kid this crap was ‘art,’ and she was young and foolish enough to believe him,” he said, tossing them on the floor. He went through another folder filled with compromising photographs of Stuart and a man he didn’t recognize. His face twisted in anger as he tore them up, tossing them in a pile on the floor with the others. “This is the stuff he collected on Stuart, left it with Juda. I don’t know what he wanted her to do with it. Show it to me, hurt me even though Stu was dead. But Juda, bless her heart, wouldn’t do it.”