by Joanne Fluke
And if all that weren’t bad enough, I have to spend an entire week feeling like a blimp next to my cousin Joanie, a perfect size two—and that’s after giving birth to Dexter.
Suffice it to say, the last time I wore a size two, I was in preschool.
All of which explains why I turned down that cheeseburger. I simply had to shed a few pounds before Florida.
True, I was feeling a bit hungry, but I made up my mind to stop off at the market and buy myself a nice healthy 100-calorie apple. That would tide me over till dinner. No burgers for me. No way. No how.
Okay, so I didn’t stop off at the market for an apple. I stopped off at McDonald’s for a quarter pounder. What can I say? I got in my car with the noblest of intentions, but the smell of Maxine’s burger hounded me like a hari krishna at an airport, and I couldn’t resist.
After licking the last of the ketchup from my fingers, I drove to the home of Garth Janken, Seymour’s recently deceased customer. Janken lived in the megabucks north-of-Wilshire section of Westwood, a bucolic bit of suburbia, which—in the interests of protecting the innocent and staving off a lawsuit—I shall call Hysteria Lane.
The houses were straight out of a Town & Country spread, dotted with gracious elms and white picket fences running riot with rosebushes.
At this time of year, however, landscaping took a backseat to Christmas decorations. Clearly the people on Hysteria Lane took their decorating seriously. No mere Christmas-lights-and-a-tree-in-the-window on this block. Everywhere I looked, I saw animated Christmas figures. Santas waved, reindeers nodded, elves pranced. For a minute I thought I’d made a wrong turn and wound up at Disneyland. A far cry from my own modest neck of the woods, where the only animated figure I’d ever seen on a lawn was Mr. Hurlbut, the guy in the duplex across the street, after he’d had one eggnog too many.
The theme of Garth Janken’s house was Christmas in Candyland. I could tell this was the theme by the gold-embossed CHRISTMAS IN CANDYLAND banner draped out front. Candy canes and sugarplums dotted the pathway to the front door, and perched on the roof on a carpet of pink flocking, amid a jungle of even more candy canes, was an elfin creature that I assumed was either the Sugarplum Fairy or Mrs. Claus after gastric bypass surgery.
As I climbed out of my car, I saw a mailman approaching. I decided to question him, hoping he’d seen something that would get Seymour off the hook.
“Excuse me.” I flashed him my most winning smile. “Can you spare a few minutes?”
“I’m afraid I’m sort of busy right now,” he said, sorting through some letters. “These weeks before Christmas are nuts.”
He was an energetic guy, in a pith helmet and USPS shorts, tanned and well-muscled from toting all that mail in the sun. What a difference from my mail carrier, a somewhat less than motivated employee who manages to deliver my Christmas cards just in time for Valentine’s Day.
“I promise it won’t take long. I’m investigating Garth Janken’s death.”
“You a cop?”
“No,” I demurred, “I’m a private investigator.”
He looked me up and down, taking in my elastic waist jeans and unruly mop of curls lassoed into a scrunchy.
“You’re kidding, right?”
I get that a lot. There’s something about elastic waist jeans and scrunchies that tend to take away your credibility as a P.I.
“No, I’m not kidding. I’m representing Seymour Fiedler of Fiedler on the Roof Roofers, and I want to ask you a few questions about Mr. Janken’s death.”
“Man, what a mess,” he said, shaking his head. “They’ll never get the blood out of the driveway.” He looked over at the Jankens’s house and sighed. “Poor Mrs. Janken. Such a nice lady. I hope she’ll be okay.”
“Do you know if Mr. Janken had any enemies?”
He barked out a laugh.
“Ring a doorbell on this street, you’ll find an enemy. Garth was an attorney. One of those sue-happy characters always threatening to haul somebody into court. Just about everybody disliked the guy.”
“Anybody dislike him enough to want to see him dead?”
He blinked in surprise.
“You think what happened to Garth was murder?”
“Possibly.”
His eyes took on a guarded look.
“Hey, I don’t want to go accusing anybody of murder.”
Rats. I hate it when people are discreet.
Then he took a deep breath and continued.
“But Mr. Cox sure looked like he wanted to kill him sometimes.”
Yippee. He wasn’t so discreet after all.
“Mr. Cox?”
He pointed across the street to a mock Tudor house with an elaborate display of animated reindeer out front.
“Willard Cox. He and Garth were always at each other’s throats. Especially this time of year, over the Christmas decorations.”
“They fought over Christmas decorations?”
“It’s nuts, I know. But the neighborhood association gives out an award for the best decorations, and the competition gets pretty fierce. Folks around here will do anything to win. You know what Garth’s dying words to his wife were? Not ‘I love you’ or ‘Hold me close.’ No, his dying words were, ‘Call in a decorator and finish the roof!’ Which is exactly what she did as soon as the police let her.
“Anyhow, Garth always won the contest and it drove Willard crazy. Before Garth and his wife moved here, Willard used to take home the prize every year. He was constantly accusing Garth of stealing his ideas and sabotaging his displays. Last year he claimed Garth beheaded his Santa Claus. Things really blew up a few months ago when Garth ran over Pumpkin.”
“Pumpkin?”
“Willard’s dog. Willard and his wife used to keep Pumpkin out in the front yard. She barked a lot and Garth was always complaining about her. One day Pumpkin got loose from the yard while Garth was backing out of his driveway, and he ran her over. He claimed it was an accident, but Willard was convinced he did it on purpose. That’s when I thought he was gonna kill him.”
Wow, this guy was a fount of information, Wolf Blitzer with a mailbag.
But the fount was about to run dry.
“Hey,” he said, checking his watch, “I’ve really got to go now.”
“Just one more question.” I trotted after him as he started up the street. “You ever see anybody up on the roof in the days before Mr. Janken’s death?”
“Nope. Nobody but the roofers.”
Sad to say, it was an answer I was to hear over and over again in the days to come.
I thanked him for his time, and headed back to Candyland to speak with the bereaved widow.
Cathy Janken was a real-life version of the sugarplum fairy on her roof—a delicate blonde with porcelain cheeks and enormous blue eyes. She came to the door in a pastel pink sweat suit the same color as the flocking on her roof, her platinum hair caught up in a wispy ponytail.
I gazed at her enviously. Sure, her husband had just died. But on the plus side, the woman actually managed to look skinny in a pink sweat suit. If I dared to wrap my body in pink velour, I’d bear an unsettling resemblance to the Michelin man.
“Mrs. Janken?” I asked, trying to figure out if her ashen pallor was a result of grief or sunblock.
“Yes,” she said, blinking out into the bright sunshine. “Can I help you?”
Something told me she might not want to talk to me if she knew I was a private eye, not when she was in the midst of suing my client for several million dollars. So I’d decided to try another tactic.
“I’d like to speak with you about your husband’s unfortunate demise,” I said in my most professional voice. “I’m an insurance investigator with Century National.”
I flashed her my auto insurance card which I’d cleverly had laminated on my way to McDonald’s. It’s amazing how laminating things makes them look official.
“You representing Seymour Fiedler?” she asked.
“Yes, I am.”
Doubt clouded her baby blues. “I don’t know if I should be talking with you. What with the lawsuit and all.”
“I’m afraid you have to, Mrs. Janken. California state law. Plaintiff in a wrongful death suit must give a deposition to the defendant’s insurance representative.”
A law I’d just made up on the spot. But she didn’t know that. At least I hoped she didn’t.
“Okay,” she sighed. “C’mon in.”
Bingo. She bought it!
She ushered me into her living room, a fussy space done in peachy silks and velvets.
Above the fireplace was a framed portrait of Cathy and a fleshy man with dark, slicked-back hair, a feral grin, and a predatory gleam in his eyes that even the artist couldn’t quite camouflage. Presumably, the late Garth Janken. I could easily picture this barracuda fighting tooth and nail to win the Christmas decorating contest.
Cathy perched her wee bottom on a silk moiré sofa, and I took a seat across from her on a dollhouse-sized armchair. I teetered on it cautiously, hoping I wouldn’t break the darn thing, whose arms were as fragile as twigs.
Resting on a coffee table between us was a cut glass bowl of candy canes.
I happen to have a particular fondness for candy canes, along with just about anything else containing the ingredient sugar, but no way was I going to have one, not after that burger I’d just scarfed down.
“Help yourself,” Cathy said, gesturing to the bowl.
Somehow I managed to say no.
“Garth loved those things.” At the mention of her husband’s name, her eyes misted over with tears. “I always told him they’d ruin his teeth, but he couldn’t resist. ‘Just one,’ he used to say. ‘It’s not going to kill me.’
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “If only he hadn’t gone up on that roof!”
Suddenly the mist in her eyes became a downpour, and she was crying her heart out.
Now I happen to be a world class cynic, but it was hard to believe the sobs racking her body were an act. For whatever reason, Cathy Janken seemed to have genuinely loved her husband.
“Can I get you something?” I asked. “Some water?”
“No, I’m okay.” She took a hankie from the pocket of her sweatpants and blotted her tears. “I’ve been like a faucet ever since the accident.
“So,” she said, forcing a smile, “how can I help you?”
I took a deep breath and began my spiel, choosing my words carefully. She seemed awfully fragile, and I didn’t want to start her crying again.
“We at Century National are very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Janken, but we don’t believe our client is responsible for your husband’s death. Mr. Fiedler insists every shingle was firmly nailed down when he completed the job.”
“They certainly weren’t nailed down when Garth fell.”
“Actually, there’s a distinct possibility your husband’s death was not an accident.”
“What?” Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Can you think of anyone on the block who might’ve wanted to see him dead?”
“No, of course not. True, Garth had his differences with some of the neighbors. He could seem tough on the outside, but he was a pussycat underneath. You just had to know how to handle him.”
Something told me “handling him” involved lots of fishnet stockings and peekaboo lingerie.
“But I can’t believe anybody wanted him dead.”
“Not even Mr. Cox? I was talking to your mailman just now, and he said there was quite a bit of animosity between the two of them.”
“Willard Cox is certifiably insane!”
Her porcelain cheeks flushed pink with anger.
“Last year he accused my husband of beheading his Santa Claus! Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous? The head probably fell off in the wind. The year before that, he said Garth stole the nose off his Rudolph. He was just jealous because Garth kept beating him in the decorating contest. He even accused Garth of bribing Prudence Bascomb.”
“Prudence Bascomb?”
“President of the homeowners association. She judges the contest each year. Garth didn’t have to bribe her. Garth won because his decorations were the best!”
I wasn’t about to say so out loud, but I wasn’t convinced Garth’s decorations were the best on the block. I’d seen the prancing reindeer on Willard Cox’s lawn and they looked pretty darn impressive. I wondered if Garth had indeed been bribing the judge. I could easily imagine the barracuda in the portrait with payola up his French cuffs.
“I’m telling you,” Cathy said, as if sensing my doubts, “Willard Cox is crazy.”
“I heard he accused your husband of purposely running over his dog.”
“Can you believe it?” Once again, her cheeks were dotted with angry pink spots. “He ran around telling everybody that Garth was a dog killer! Garth threatened to sue him for defamation of character. That finally shut him up.”
“So do you think it’s possible that Mr. Cox might have wanted your husband dead?” I asked.
She chewed on her pinky, and gave it some thought.
“I hadn’t really considered it before, but I suppose so.”
“And are you certain nobody else on the block might have wanted him…um…gone?”
“No. Nobody on this street is as crazy as Willard. The man is nutty as a fruitcake.”
She was wrong about that. It turned out that Willard Cox had some stiff competition in the nutty-as-a-fruitcake department. As I would, much to my regret, soon discover.
Chapter Three
“Feliz Navidad, honeybun!”
Kandi Tobolowski, my best friend and constant dinner companion, raised her margarita in a toast. We were seated across from each other in our favorite Mexican restaurant, Paco’s Tacos, a colorful joint famous for their yummy margaritas and burritos the size of silo missiles.
I took an eager gulp of my margarita. I’d spent a fairly frustrating afternoon questioning the neighbors on Hysteria Lane about Garth Janken’s death. Willard Cox, my leading suspect, hadn’t been home when I’d rung his bell. The few neighbors who were home on a weekday afternoon were no help whatsoever. They all agreed that Garth had been an unpopular guy, but nobody had any idea who might have hated him enough to kill him, nor had they seen anyone up on the roof in the days before his death—except for Seymour’s roofers in their distinctive red Fiedler on the Roof baseball caps.
So it felt good to be here at Paco’s, mellowing out with my good buddies, Kandi and Jose Cuervo.
“You’ll never guess where Dennis and Kate and I are going for Christmas this year,” Kandi beamed excitedly.
Dennis and Kate were Kandi’s parents, a pair of avant garde freethinkers who thought it “cool” to be on a first name basis with their only child. (My parents, on the other hand, would never dream of letting me call them by their first names. I was practically in college before I even knew their real names weren’t “Mommy” and “Daddy.”)
“We’re going skiing!” Kandi gushed. “In Aspen.”
“Do you even know how to ski?”
“Well, no,” she admitted, “but it doesn’t matter. I can fake it.”
“Kandi, I don’t think you can fake skiing.”
“We’ll take lessons. It’ll be fun!”
She grinned at me over her margarita, and suddenly I was flooded with envy.
Kandi would have fun. I could just picture her sipping hot toddies by a roaring fire, flirting with a cute ski instructor, while I was sipping Metamucil at the Tampa Vistas clubhouse, listening to my father and Uncle Ed fight over who won at shuffleboard.
By now our basket of chips was empty (final score: Jaine, 17; Kandi, 1½), and I was happy to see our waiter approaching with our main courses. I’d debated between the low-cal chicken tostada and a simple grilled mahi mahi. It was an interesting debate. But in the end I went with two deep-fried chimichangas smothered with sour cream.
Kandi, as always, ordered the chicken tostada. Which is why she’s an en
viable size six—on a fat day.
I speared a hunk of guacamole from the top of my chimichanga. Yum!
“So where are you off to for Christmas?” Kandi asked, ignoring her tostada, although how anyone can ignore their dinner—even something as boring as a tostada—is beyond me. “Florida again?”
I nodded wearily.
“What are you going to do with Prozac? You’re not taking her with you, are you?”
Once again, I nodded.
“You’ve got to be crazy. Didn’t the airline threaten some kind of lawsuit last year?”
“Yes, but they never went through with it.”
There’s no doubt about it. Flying with Prozac is as close as you can get to hell without actually dying. Last year, she yowled nonstop for thirty minutes until the flight attendant broke down and brought her a first class meal.
She invariably manages to escape from her carrier and makes a beeline down the aisle for the one person on board violently allergic to cats. Last Christmas, Prozac’s victim was not only allergic, but terrified of cats, and ran headlong into an oncoming beverage cart, knocking a carafe of very bad coffee into the lap of a nearby passenger. Hence the threatened lawsuit.
“I still don’t see why you can’t leave her home and have someone come in and feed her,” Kandi said.
“Last time I tried that, I came back to find kitty pee on every pillow in my apartment. I was lucky I still had an apartment.”
“Can’t you leave her in a kennel?”
“I’m still paying off the medical bills from the last place she stayed. How she managed to bite her way through that kennel attendant’s work gloves, I’ll never know. But the poor guy had to be rushed to the emergency room for stiches. Anyhow, I can never go back there again. I’d be violating the restraining order.”
Kandi shook her head in disbelief.
“Someday I’m gonna see that cat on America’s Most Wanted.”
We plowed through our meals (well, I plowed; Kandi plucked), and as Kandi chattered about her nifty new ski togs and the chalet she and her parents had rented, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself. For once I’d like to spend Christmas with my parents, just the three of us. A nice quiet Christmas, sleeping in the guest room, free from invidious comparisons to my bikini-clad cousin Joanie.
