by Rita Lakin
“Or we can sit on the seat with our feet up,” Sophie suggests.
“With the lid open or shut?” Bella wants to know.
Ida closes her eyes, exasperated. “God, give me strength,” she prays.
After a few minutes, Sophie whispers, “Isn’t it ten minutes yet? I can’t even breathe in here, it’s so crowded.”
Ida says, “Okay, I think we’re safe. I doubt whether Harvey or his boys would walk into the ladies’ room.”
More noises from the other stall. Ida hears the flushing of the toilet. “Shh. Who did that?”
“Me,” Bella confesses. “Might as well use the facilities.”
All quiet at last. The girls and Rico walk around the enclosed car wash, making sure they’re alone. It is a black, clouded, starless night and they need to use their flashlights. Sophie and Bella cling to each other as they cautiously head back to his car.
“I don’t know,” Ida says. “Sitting in that small car all night is going to be a hardship. Is there anyplace else we can hang out without being seen?”
Rico says, “There are three other parked cars. We can hide between them if we bend down, but that’s not much better.”
“Not with my arthritic knees,” Sophie complains.
“Mine, either,” Bella adds. “I’ll never be able to get up again.”
Ida shrugs. “Could we stay in the bathrooms until we hear something?”
“Not good—we won’t be able to see or hear.” Rico sighs. He walks around surveying their options. He looks down the empty car wash tunnel. “But we have time. If we’ve guessed right, it’ll be the nephews who made copies of their uncle’s keys. Los stupidos will probably wait till around midnight.”
He grins, getting an idea. “Might as well give my bug a bath. It could use it.” He adds, “And the price is right.”
Ida looks askance at him. “Are you sure you should do this? What do you know about how a car wash works?”
“Piece of tortilla,” says their new partner. “What’s to know? You press a button and it washes.”
He gets back into the bug and drives slowly. The girls follow him as he makes his way to the front of the car wash. He gets the car into the starting position, lining it up with the conveyor belt.
Sophie knocks on his window. “Could I ride along? I always wanted to be inside a car when it’s getting washed.”
“Me, too,” Bella says happily.
He waves them in.
Sophie takes the front seat next to him, and Bella the back.
He rolls down his window and calls out to Ida, “Wanna come along for the ride?”
Ida, never the adventurous one, folds her arms. “No, thanks.”
Rico tells the girls to stay put as he jumps back out of the car and studies his wash options from a list on the wall. “Might as well get the extra wax job.”
He turns to Ida. “Okay. First, I’m gonna look for the faucets to turn on the water. Ida, you can help. Go in that little room over there and flip open the switch to start the motor.”
She gives him a dirty look, but rather than argue, she heads for the small room. With her searchlight, she stares at the wall filled with switches.
She sticks her head out the door and calls in a heavy whisper, “Which one? There’s a lot of them.”
He calls back to her, “How many are there?”
Ida dutifully goes back and counts. She calls out to him, “Twenty-four.”
“Then switch them all on.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
As she does so, all the lights in the entire car wash suddenly go on, illuminating the entire scene. Moments later, a deafening noise follows.
Ida races out of the storage room in a panic and confronts Rico, who is on his hands and knees still searching for a water spigot. “What was that sound?”
The expert shrugs. “Must be a hydraulic drive or a water pressure pump.”
“Oh, swell, now we’re all lit up and making enough noise to wake the dead.”
A muffled scream comes from the girls as the conveyor belt starts to move the car along its rail. “Get on! Get on!” Sophie shouts.
“Hold your caballos, I’ll be right there. I found the water.” He quickly turns the water on. “Rightsy tightsy, lefty loosey,” he recites as his reminder.
He rushes back to the wall facing the moving bug and starts pressing all the buttons. The car wash begins doing its thing.
He runs along the walkway as the bug passes him on the conveyer belt, shouting after them, “Sophie! Bella! Whatever you do, don’t open the windows!”
They can’t hear him above the noise. Sophie opens her window. She calls, “What did you say?” as a huge wave of water hits her.
“Close the windows. Close them!” Rico shouts.
Terrified, the now soaking wet Sophie does so.
Ida rushes down the walkway to reach Rico, who is still following his precious bug. Ida sees the girls, their hands smacking at the closed windows, their faces twisted in horror. She sees them mouth “Help!”
Then they disappear under the flapping wings of the foamlike washing mechanism. The car is enveloped by globs of soapsuds.
Ida sneers at Rico. “Some terrific idea. Now everyone in the street can see and hear us!”
They turn to look at the cluster of people watching them. Bag ladies and drunks enjoying the free show. The audience members wave gleefully.
“Good show,” one of them calls, waving his gin bottle.
Ida grabs tightly on to Rico’s arm. “Now see what you’ve done. The police will be here any minute.”
Rico removes her clutching arm, reassuring her and changing his earlier tune. “Not to worry. No way any of those weirdos out there have cellphones, and besides, even if they did no one around here ever calls cops. And cops never come around here at night. It’s too dangerous.”
“But the alarm. Won’t it go off?”
“Only if you’re climbing the fence.”
“Well, you and your big idea about washing your stupid little car. The crooks won’t come near us now with all this light and all this commotion.”
They can hear the muffled sounds of Bella and Sophie screaming at them, begging to be let out.
Now the wax is spraying. The two girls look distorted by the pattern of the zigzagging wax buildup.
Ida yells, “Rico, get into the car and stop them!”
“I can’t,” he says, “there’s no way for me to jump on. It’s too slippery.”
“Then turn the damn thing off!”
Rico shouts to the girls as he runs alongside them. “I’m going to shut you down. Just, whatever you do, don’t touch the steering wheel.” He motions with his hands imitating the steering wheel and shaking his head from side to side.
The girls add their own signals. Sophie and Bella are both nodding their heads up and down and pointing to something somewhere behind Rico’s head.
Suddenly Sophie turns the steering wheel toward him as hard as she can.
“No!” Rico yells, “Don’t do that! I said don’t touch the wheel!”
Too late. Rico’s car jumps the tracks and everything comes to a grinding halt.
Rico groans. “We’re stuck! I’ll never be able to get my car out.”
And Ida adds, “And we’re gonna get caught here like rats in a trap. I can see the headlines now: ‘Four Stupid Crooks Arrested for Breaking and Entering.’ ”
Rico sloshes his way over to his car and opens the door. The residual water inside splashes onto him.
He pulls the girls out and yells, “Why did you do that?”
They are wet and grinning. Sophie says, “We wanted to show you.”
“What’s so damn funny?”
The two girls pant and point again.
“Squirrel,” Sophie says, almost incoherently through her laughter.
“Squirrel,” Bella says, giggling and trying to squeeze the water out of her sweatshirt.
Rico and
Ida look behind them to where the girls are waving.
And there’s the candy machine with a squirrel squeezing its way out of the coin slot with quarters in its mouth.
Ida and Rico can hardly believe their eyes as the little varmint slides up a water pipe heading for the roof with its ill-gotten gains.
“Case solved,” Sophie says gleefully.
I shake myself. I must have dozed off. Jack is snoring away at the other end of the couch. The movie we were watching is long over. There’s another classic film on now. I touch his shoulder, trying to wake him gently.
He jumps up, startled.
I smile. Watching an old black-and-white movie is better than any sleeping pill. I check the time. It’s a little past midnight.
We wander into the kitchen. I boil some water for tea to help us wake up.
Jack looks out the window. Still no light at Bella’s. “We must have missed the girls coming home. She’s probably asleep by now.”
By now all of Lanai Gardens is out cold as well. As we sip our tea, we try to decide what to do about Joyce.
Jack straightens up his shirt and runs his hands through his hair. “I’m going over to her place. I don’t care if I do wake her. This madness has got to end. Maybe catching her half asleep, she’ll let down her guard.”
“Okay, but finish your tea. Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, I’m going to play the alpha male and I won’t let her talk me into a stupor. Joyce needs a tougher approach.” Jack grabs a sweater from the closet, kisses me on the cheek, and heads out.
I stand on the walkway watching Jack head for Phase Three. Just as I’m about to go back inside, my eyes are caught by a bilious green VW bug pulling up in front of our building.
To my immense surprise, out pop Ida, Bella, and Sophie, all of whom are in great spirits. They are laughing and saying loud good-nights to their driver.
My imagination is piqued. I hurry downstairs to catch them. By the time I get there, the driver has turned a corner.
The girls greet me happily.
“Hey, late birds, where have you been all day and half the night?” What’s this? They look disheveled and Bella and Sophie look wet? Is that possible? Where would they get wet? And what are those strange things they’re wearing? Sweatshirts with hoods?
Ida is haughty. “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you.”
Sophie chimes in, “We were on our first case.”
Bella finishes, “And we solved it. We were good!”
The girls high-five each other.
Sophie says, laughing so hard she can hardly get the words out, “And we caught the thieves. Well, not really, but on Rico’s phone camera. The squirrels did it!”
“Shh,” I say, “you’re waking the neighbors.”
Bella hiccups.
I ask an obvious question. “Were you girls out drinking?”
Bella giggles. “We were celebrating. I love near beer.”
“Where were you? And who’s Rico?”
Ida looks smug as she answers me. “He’s our chauffeur.”
Bella adds, “And our new partner.”
Before I can make any sense of what they’re talking about, I am suddenly aware of Jack running toward me. He looks as if the devil himself were chasing after him.
“What?” I ask. “What’s happened?”
Jack barely nods to the girls.
“I knocked on Joyce’s door and as I did, it swung open. I called out to her. She didn’t answer. All the lights were on. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went inside. And I found Joyce.
“She’d dead, Gladdy. Joyce is dead!”
By now enough people have been awakened by the unusual nighttime activity that a sizable crowd in bathrobes is witness to these latest arrivals. A patrol car pulls up and I’m surprised to see Morrie step out of it along with a policeman. The paramedic unit arrives right behind them in their truck.
Morrie greets us. “I know you didn’t expect to see a detective answer the 911 call, but when I saw the address and Dad’s name as the one who called it in, I decided to come. What happened?”
Jack answers him. “It’s Joyce Steiner. I went to see her”—he looks at his watch—“half an hour ago. I found her on her kitchen floor, dead.”
Jack puts his arm around my shoulder. He leads Morrie and his team to Phase Three. A little parade follows. The girls are a little farther behind us. The straggling group of neighbors timidly continue the march. Word has seeped out about Joyce. Naturally, they are now wide-awake and fascinated by these goings-on.
Morrie talks quietly, so only Jack and I can hear. “Could you tell anything?”
Jack answers, “No, not much. From the hallway I could see her lying there. I carefully moved close enough to take her pulse. She was gone.” And knowing what Morrie would say next, the ex-cop adds, “Except for the doorknob, I touched nothing else.”
We arrive at Phase Three. Jack and I are the only ones who are allowed to go upstairs with Morrie, the cop, and the paramedics.
Jack and I stand in the little hallway, keeping our distance, as Morrie carefully enters the kitchen.
I try hard not to look at Joyce’s dead body being checked out by the paramedics. They concur. The woman is definitely dead. They are about to cover her face and take her away, and I don’t want to watch that. I turn and concentrate on what Morrie’s saying instead.
Jack is aware of my feelings and he continues to hold me for moral and physical support. I think of Joyce this afternoon alive in the kitchen activity room fearfully standing there being threatened by a furious Arlene. I can still picture the look of pity on Joyce’s face. And now, she’s gone.
How will this affect Arlene?
“It looks as if she was in the middle of eating some pie when she collapsed,” Morrie comments, and the cop takes notes of what he says.
I shudder seeing a half-eaten slice of key lime pie there on the table. With a fork on the plate. A crumpled napkin beside it. A bitter reminder of this afternoon. Along with two almost-empty glasses of what looks like water.
“She may have had company,” Morrie continues, indicating the glasses. “Before, during, or after her demise.”
He turns to us. He looks at the expression on my face. “You know something?”
I don’t want to say anything. I fear it will make things bad for Arlene. But it’s my nature. I can’t hold back important information.
I fill Morrie in about Arlene’s behavior at the cooking class this afternoon.
“So the pie may have come from that kitchen? It doesn’t look like she baked anything here tonight. No wrappers to show she brought it from some store. Maybe it was carried up wrapped in that napkin next to the plate.”
He turns to his father. “Why were you going up to see Mrs. Steiner this late at night?”
“We’d decided to finally face her with the fact that we no longer believe Joyce accidentally found her old friend. We believe she purposely talked Seymour into moving out and letting her in. I intended to ask her if that was the truth. And if so, where was Seymour?
“When there was no response to my knocking and I found the door open, I felt something was wrong and that was why I entered the apartment.”
Morrie turns to one of the paramedics. “What does it look like, Dan? Her heart?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You’ll have to leave it for the ME to tell you.”
Morrie addresses the cop who came with him. He points to what’s on the kitchen table. “Phil, bag it all. Just in case.”
I have to know. “Just in case what?”
He turns to us. No longer just chatting with his father and his new stepmother, all business now. “You report an angry incident this afternoon. You tell me you were going to see her, wanting important information late at night. You find her door open.
“I have to take into consideration as to whether any of these possibly suspicious events played a part in her death. Was Mrs. Steiner alone when she died? Why the two
glasses? Why was her door left open? Was Mrs. Steiner so bereft she had a heart attack?” He pauses. “Enough to commit suicide?”
He hesitates. And I’m horrified, sensing what he’ll say next.
“Or was it murder?”
I gasp. Oh, no, it couldn’t be.
Morrie turns to Phil again. “Nothing is to be disturbed until I send in the team. We need the photographs, the fingerprints. Meanwhile, I want this door locked and no one is allowed to enter.”
We exit the apartment and watch his cop assistant attach the all-too-familiar yellow crime tape on Seymour Andrews’ apartment door.
Big trouble ahead.
Needless to say we didn’t get much rest that night. Morrie questioned us some more. He wanted to know if Joyce had any relatives. I told him there was a daughter, Stacy, living in California, but I didn’t know her last name. Morrie was sure he’d find it when they went through her belongings.
We got into bed, exhausted, but then couldn’t fall asleep. There was so much to think about and discuss. One thing was for certain: too late now to get Joyce to tell us where Seymour was. Next there will be Leah to deal with. We decide not to mention our theory about Seymour being deceived by Joyce. It would upset her needlessly. We have to find a different way to locate Seymour.
And poor Arlene. How will she take this horrible news? She couldn’t have hurt Joyce. Yet I still have that picture in my head of her standing there with that knife. Could she? Please let that autopsy determine natural causes.
I make coffee waiting for Jack to get dressed and join me. My mind is reeling with things that must be done.
I wonder if the girls have heard the news already via the grapevine.
I have to call Evvie and tell her what’s going on.
There’s a knock on the door. Eight in the morning and it’s already beginning. I open it to the girls standing there. Serious expressions on all three faces. They appear uncomfortable.
I invite them into the kitchen. They turn to Ida, waiting for her to speak for them all, and when she doesn’t immediately, I start to pour them coffee. They sit down quickly, as if I might change my mind and chase them out. Guilt might have a lot to do with their behavior.
