by Rita Lakin
So, I decide to walk. Even though this is an industrial area, maybe I’ll find something of interest. I find myself relaxing. A few hours to myself. What a luxury. To my surprise, I see a bookstore sign up ahead and that gets my attention.
A huge red banner announces the Grand Opening Today: J. Marley’s For Mysteries. The proclamation under it defiantly states “Who’s afraid of Barnes & Noble?” I move closer to read all the captivating information splashed across the window in Day-Glo paints. Party! Free! Exciting Panel Discussion! Special Famous Mystery Guests! Come as your favorite sleuth! And indeed, cheerful participants are crowding in wearing a wide array of costumes. Apparently I’m just in time and I join the throng.
A jovial and diminutive gent, dressed in a costume right out of a Dickens novel and wearing a name tag—J. Marley, Proprietor—stands at the doorway waving us in.
Once inside, I admire this charming little shop, done up as a classic Victorian English gentleman’s library with wonderfully uncomfortable horsehair sofas and high-backed wing chairs slipcovered with hunting scenes. A drop-leaf oak side table set up in front of the small gaslit fireplace holds the makings of a proper English tea—crumpets, cucumber sandwiches, scones, trifle—all of it looking delicious. I look closer. Alas, not real.
Seats are being set up for the panel discussion in a large adjoining conference room and I am lucky to get one of the last chairs. There is much friendly banter as strangers get acquainted by guessing one another’s identities. I sigh happily. How lucky to have accidentally found this place. I am prepared to have a very good time.
J. Marley moves up to the front podium. He makes a delightful welcoming speech which not only lauds his own bravery for opening up an independent shop, but also the courage of those who come here willing to pay retail! “Those megawarehouses that call themselves bookstores don’t scare me. True book lovers will gather where others of their ilk assemble, and you here today are proof of that.” This gets a round of applause. He grins mischievously. “I do hope you’re not only here for the free punch and entertainment. You will buy something.”
Marley now turns to the group seated onstage. “Today’s guest speakers, the world’s greatest detectives, will address the intriguing subject of ‘How To Solve A Murder.’ And allow me to admit what trouble it was getting them here, since they all exist only in the febrile imaginations of some of the greatest mystery writers of all time.”
There is a nice round of applause.
“How fortunate I was to find this amazing group of players who swear they are being channeled by their literary originals.”
Marley indicates a delicate elderly lady in a modest print dress and very sensible black laced shoes, who all the while has been attending to her knitting. With a flourish he introduces, “Miss Jane Marple!”
Miss Marple smiles primly. “I bring you a message of regards from St. Mary Mead.”
“And now, Monsieur Hercule Poirot,” says Marley with vivacity.
Poirot stands up, tips his bowler and bows stiffly. “Bonjour. I, too, wish to extend salutations. From Hastings and, of course, Miss Lemon.”
Miss Lucy Pym is next and she is all atwitter. “Oh, I do appreciate the applause. It’s because of my new book, isn’t it? You readers do want some new thing, don’t you?” With that she quickly sits back down, blushing.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
“Yes, yes,” he says intolerantly, “if we must exchange these tiresome greetings, then I shall, of course, mention Dr. Watson, who even as we speak is chasing my deerstalker hat which the winds blew from my head.” This brings much laughter and Holmes sneers nicely at it.
“Last, but not least, Lord Peter Wimsey.”
Lord Peter wipes his monocle, then smiles. “Regards, of course, from her ladyship, the former Harriet Vane. And Bunter would be sorely tried if I neglected to mention him. A pleasure to be here in the Colonies again.”
The discussion begins with amusing questions from the floor, answered wittily by the sleuths. But I hear nothing because of the roaring in my ears as I listen to person after person chat about murder.
A pathetically weak voice calls out, “I have a question.”
To my astonishment, I am rising, and although I don’t recall doing it, I am the one who spoke. I stand transfixed. What am I doing? All eyes are on me. I can hear my own breathing, and suddenly, I blurt out: “I’m investigating a real murder! Two murders, actually. And I desperately need help!”
The audience holds its silence for a moment before bursting into appreciative applause. Marley, chortling, says, “And what a clever opening gambit from the lady sitting next to Charlie Chan.”
It’s as if everything that has been troubling me has surfaced without my permission. To my horror, I am the center of attention.
Miss Pym pipes up. “Well, best left to the police, dear, I always say.”
“But they don’t believe me. And I think the murderer lives among us.”
“Madam. Don’t let’s shilly-shally here. Where is your proof?” Holmes says with disdain.
“That’s just it. I don’t have any.”
“Dastardly clever, the killer, eh, what?” comments Lord Peter.
“Yes. He hasn’t made any mistakes yet.”
“He will eventually. They all do,” says Miss Marple sagely, not even missing a stitch.
“You must use the little gray cells, Madame, and all will be revealed.” Hercule Poirot plays with his thin, waxed mustache.
“Suspects. Who are the suspects? Do not waste our time with frivolity!” Holmes bullies me.
“Well, there’s Denny, our handyman . . .” I say hesitantly.
There is a burst of rude laughter from both audience and panel.
“Yeah, and he lives in the Bates Motel!” screams someone from the audience.
“And his dead mother done it,” howls another.
“You better not take a shower, lady,” shouts another.
“Order. Order,” says Marley, clapping his hands to calm the waves of laughter.
Holmes tamps down the tobacco in his pipe, chortling. “He’s as much a cliché as the ‘butler who done it.’”
I try to keep my voice steady. “There’s also the real-estate man who goes after the property of the deceased.”
Miss Marple tut-tuts. “Quite nearly as bad as the janitor person.”
“Is there a redheaded man on a bicycle?” asks Holmes snidely.
“No.”
“Perhaps a vicar who’s had a bit too much port?” asks Miss Marple.
“Of course not.”
“A headmaster who has absconded with school funds?” asks Miss Pym.
“No. No. No.”
“I say—surely the bloke left a weapon? A croquet mallet? A spade? A lead cosh?” Lord Peter winks at me.
Now everybody is hooting with appreciation for what they think is my impassioned playacting.
I stand up, furious. “Stop it. This is real!”
“But they aren’t,” snickers someone in the audience.
“But did the dog bark?” adds another wag in the crowd.
I can’t believe it; I’m actually starting to cry.
Marley wipes his tears, too—of laughter. However, he decides that I have taken up enough of the panel’s time. He interrupts, making an assumption. “Well, good luck with your novel, lady. Any other questions?”
I am briefly applauded and then forgotten. The panel continues on.
I look around befuddled. I run out of the conference room and back into the quiet library section and throw myself down into one of the armchairs.
Shaking and crying, I just sit there unable to move. Whatever got into me to do that!
I am handed a handkerchief. I look up to see a tall man peering down at me. He’s in his seventies, with a full head of hair, the colors of iron and steel, and a lovely smile.
“I believed you,” he says.
“Why? No one else did!”
I use his handkerchie
f gratefully.
“May I?” he asks indicating the chair next to me.
He has a gentle, deep voice with just the faintest touch of an English accent. Still snuffling, I nod.
“I’m sorry they upset you,” he says. “But I don’t think they were making fun of you.”
“I know. It was all a game and I was spoiling it.” I look up into his eyes. Such twinkling blue eyes. “What am I going to do about my murders? Someone has to find the killer.”
He takes my hands and holds them gently. “If I were a mystery writer, I’d suggest that you look for someone who is behaving out of character. Who is behaving in a way that is alien to his or her personality?”
The man smiles at me, and for a moment I think I know him. “Thank you,” I whisper gratefully.
“And don’t forget,” he says, now grinning, “the killer is always the one least suspected. As Holmes would say, ‘It’s elementary.’”
I get up, and return his handkerchief, then head for the door.
“Gladdy?” the velvety voice calls after me.
I turn, startled. How does he know my name?
“It is Gladdy Gold, I presume? May I buy you a cup of coffee?”
23
Lust in the Heat
Don’t you just love the name Fuddruckers?” I say.
“Works for me,” says my mystery man.
We have just been seated in this overly bright popular hamburger hangout and the stranger has promised he’ll tell all once we get our coffee. We drove around in his spiffy 1985 Cadillac ’til we found this place, and all the while he remained stoically quiet. I can hardly wait.
He smiles benignly at me as I study him while pretending to read the menu.
Dignified comes to mind. Built like a teddy bear, the way I like them. What am I thinking? Who is he and why am I blathering on like this? I feel rattled, and skittish.
The coffee is served by someone who looks young enough to be my great-granddaughter. Good, I think, now we can get started.
“Do I know you?” I decide to get the old ball rolling. And he does look familiar.
He takes a sip of his coffee. “We met briefly fourteen years ago. At a New Year’s Eve party at Lanai Gardens. We were all standing around the pool in Phase Five drinking the obligatory inexpensive champagne in paper cups.”
“Fourteen years ago and not since?”
“Unfortunately, no. But under the circumstances . . .”
Unfortunately? Interesting, that. Now I’m beginning to realize I am unconsciously mimicking his British accent. “Should I apologize for not remembering you?”
“Nonsense. I was just one in a dreadfully large group of people, but you—you were unique. You wore this lovely pink flowery dress and a matching hat with ribbons. Roses, I believe. I remember thinking you looked simply fetching.”
“Did your wife mind that you thought me fetching?” I might have been fetching then, but I am fishing now.
He smiles. “I belong to the Jimmy Carter school of adultery. I lust only in my heart. And rarely. You were one of those rare occasions. You were sitting alone on a bench, sipping your bubbly and looking rather pensive. There was an aura about you. . . .”
With a sharp pain, I remember now. It wasn’t me being pensive it was me responding to bone-chilling sadness. It was the anniversary of my husband, Jack’s, death. No matter how many years had gone by, that date would always remain devastating for me. I would never get over it. How could I? Now here I was, uprooted, trying to get through my first New Year’s Eve in a place far from home. I felt totally lost and adrift.
I had been at loose ends when Evvie had called me from Florida, begging me to fly down from New York and stay with her. Joe had left her and she was threatening suicide. I forced myself to stop thinking about myself and focus on her. Came down for a visit and never left. But that night was hell.
“Jack,” I murmur aloud. Moaning in memory of my beloved. It’s been so long since I’ve allowed myself to think of him.
“So, you do remember,” he says, delighted.
“What?” I am having trouble pulling myself back into the present. “What did you say?”
“I never thought you’d remember my name. It was long ago and our meeting so brief. I’m awfully flattered. Funny we should meet like this. Just the other day, my son Morrie happened to mention your name. You know, the police officer?”
I quickly put it together. “Your name is Jack,” I say, looking closer at this tall, tall man. “Of course. Jack Langford.” The recently widowed Jack Langford, or so I’d heard. But where? And from whom? The final click. Bella. Who knew his wife in Hadassah.
He almost blushes. He’s that pleased.
He reaches his hand out across the table and we shake formally.
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it,” Jack Langford says, “that we’ve lived in the same place fourteen or so years and have never occasioned upon each other.”
“Well . . . Phase Two and Phase Six . . . We are separated by Three, Four, and Five.” I sound positively idiotic.
“And speaking of Phase Two, that which you implied in the bookstore—your friends were murdered?”
We were on safer ground than talking about early lust. If safer is the right word when dealing with murder. “I’m afraid so.”
“And Morrie doesn’t believe you?”
I quickly come to his son’s defense. “I have no way to prove my suspicions. It sounded far-fetched to him.”
“He always was stubborn. Takes after his father.”
“Well, you gave me good advice. I’m going to look at everybody and see who’s behaving differently.”
Jack senses that he is upsetting me and changes the subject. He begins to ask me all sorts of lovely questions about myself, and I have a lot to ask him, too.
We have all these years of catching up to do and we talk and talk until I finally realize just how long I’ve been away. The girls must be worried.
Even my car feels better after a day away from— dare I admit it?—the girls. The new tire makes me feel like I’m driving on air. C’mon, who’s kidding whom?
And just because Jack Langford said hello. No, he didn’t just say hello; he said he lusted after me. Had been attracted to me. Intimating that if he hadn’t had a wife, he would have made a pass. Never mind it was fourteen years ago. Very flattering. Alas, wasted, since I never even knew it. And I was a mere sixty-one then. Truth? When’s the last time any man looked at me? As a woman. At what age did I become invisible? I think this is one of the hardest things to deal with when getting old. Men no longer look. Not in that same way. That sly I-can’t-wait-to-get-into-your-pants look. Gone forever. I’ll never again feel that extraordinary wild passion of reckless youth. That’s the true unfairness of age. No matter how old, you still remember it, but you can’t have it anymore. Youth belongs to the young. And what a waste. They don’t appreciate how tenuous is this gift, and how carelessly they abuse it.
So, I’m attracted to someone! I thought I packed that emotion away in mothballs with my winter coats.
I think about what Jack said to me when he dropped me off at the garage. “After all, I might have been sprightly back then, but now I’m just an elderly gentleman. Surely you couldn’t be interested?”
“And what am I—a spring chicken?” That was the pathetic retort I was able to come up with to hide my absolute amazement. I wanted to jump up and down and say you bet I’m interested, you cuddly darling, you. But sanity prevailed. Good breeding prevailed.
“Call me!” I shouted after him as he drove away. I could see him grinning as he vroomed off like a teenager in a hot rod.
“You’d be proud of me and Harriet. We partnered and together we came up with our first clue.” Evvie is jabbering at me even before I get out of my car.
“Really? Sounds like you girls were busy.”
“We talked to Tessie and she remembered something she found in Selma’s apartment when she cleaned up.”
“This could be important!”
“She said she found a little piece of wrapper stuck to the bottom of the dining room chair. She recognized it as a piece of bag the Meals on Wheels people use to deliver. She didn’t think anything of it at the time. But, now she wondered. She couldn’t remember Selma ever being a customer of Meals.”
This was something real. At last. “Then we’ve got to call them! They’d have a record of the food going out on that date and who delivered it to her.”
“Way ahead of you, sis. Harriet called. Nobody remembered anything.”
I’m disappointed. But it would explain why Selma would open her door. The murderer must have knocked and offered her a delicious meal. I was beginning to see a pattern. Someone offered Selma food. Selma, who dearly loved to eat. Someone offered Francie chocolate cake. Someone who knew she loved chocolate. This someone knows us very well. I shiver as if he just walked over my grave.
And what did Greta’s soaped message on my car mean, if anything at all? Or were they just the ravings of a poor lost soul?
At dinner I tell the girls about the unusual party at the bookstore. But I do not say one word about Jack Langford.
24
Death by Dumpster
T he first blazing rays of Florida sun were about to light up the sky. But in those few moments while Dawn played coy, a hand scribbled erratically in a whitewash paint: I SAW YOU KILL 2—YOU DEVIL YOU.
Anxiously, Greta Kronk skittered away from the door, the small paint can wobbling from her bony wrist. Her heart was pounding because she knew what a terrible chance she had taken. She pushed her wild black hair back into the fiercely colored magenta scarf that encircled her face, and pulled her voluminous lavender dancing skirts and petticoats around her knees. Were it not for her deceptive clothes, Greta would look like the emaciated wraith she was. She glanced up at the sky and feared she had waited too long, that the light would betray her.
Holding her breath, she moved as quickly as the clumsy skirts allowed her, around the corner to the far end of Q building. Again she looked around. It was all right. This was a wall without windows. She could breathe. Quickly she hid the paint can deep in the first Dumpster. Now she would attend to her regular early morning business—searching all the Dumpsters for treasures. She opened her gunny sack, eager to plunder the riches this morning’s trash would provide. The first thing she found was a twisted soup strainer. Good, she thought, this I can use.
