Death of a Toy Soldier

by Barbara Early

  Othello went to check out any changes. He circumnavigated the entire apartment, sniffing, then swiped his cheek against corners and odd surfaces he found important. I wished reclaiming my life could be as easy.

  In truth, the murder in our shop, followed by Dad’s subsequent amnesia, cast strong doubt on whether our lives would ever be the same.

  As I busied myself scrambling eggs, the worries kept scrambling my brain. Was Dad’s memory loss a harbinger of more problems to come? How long would he be able to keep working? Would we need to find alternate living arrangements for him? I couldn’t even think the words. Nursing home. There, I thought it. But tears threatened to tumble out, and my throat felt as if I was trying to swallow a llama.

  Still, I forced a smile as I set two plates of sunny yellow eggs on the table for Dad and me. We had this moment. We were together right now, and I was going to enjoy every bit of it.

  “Keep your sunny side up, Lizzie,” Dad said, as he dug into his eggs. “Things will work out yet. Come out of your shell and be eggs-cited about the possibilities.”

  “I guess the yolk’s on me,” I said.

  “Omelet you get away with that one.” He picked up the newspaper.

  “What is it with you and the papers lately? You were practically buried in a stack of them at Parker’s house.”

  He folded the paper and set it back on the table. “I’m going to wager that you won’t buy that I was catching up on the funny pages.”

  “At another time, maybe.”

  “Too bad, because I did catch up on the funnies. I also reread the news stories about the murder. The newspapers are woefully behind what we know from our little investigation. But . . .”

  “But?”

  “A bit of an anomaly kept cropping up when I thought about the wake. It’s why I wanted to talk to Miles about the attempted break-in and why I’m not ready to let that go as coincidence.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “See, when you get to be my age, sometimes you find yourself reading the obituaries. I hadn’t recalled seeing Sy DuPont’s. So I went back and checked. Good thing Parker had all the old issues in his recycle bin. But Sy’s obituary wasn’t in the Advertiser or in the Buffalo News.”

  “Could it have been in some other paper?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “If it was, I can’t find it.”

  “So the guys who tried to break in learned the old man had died and that the house would be empty, but not from the newspapers,” I said. “Funeral parlor? Online notices?”

  “They told Miles they had read it in the obituaries.” Dad scratched his cheek. “It’s why I want Miles to find out a bit more. There might be nothing there, but . . .”

  I got up to clear Dad’s plate but stopped to press my finger into his stomach like he was the Pillsbury Doughboy. “I know. You feel it in your gut.”

  By the time Cathy arrived for her shift at the shop, we’d made all the yellow tape disappear, although Dad had insisted on rolling it up and keeping it, saying it might make for a great Halloween display next year. I put his macabre souvenir into the cupboard while mouthing a prayer that next October would find us all here, still in business.

  Someone had already mopped up the pool of blood where Sullivan O’Grady had died, but I thought I could still make out a sticky residue between the tiles. After I’d mopped over the same area seven or eight times, Cathy came up behind me.

  “I don’t think you can wash away what happened with a mop,” she said.

  “Does the shop feel different to you? It’s like something changed. A stain I can’t get out.”

  “Maybe Sully’s still here,” she said. “That would be cool.”

  “Cool?” I couldn’t hide the disdain in my voice.

  “Not that he died here. But think about it. Every other business on this block is haunted. Strange footsteps. Shadows. Some say Millard Fillmore still goes to the office every day and his door swings open. Visitors to Jack’s place say they’ve heard children playing and laughing when nobody is there.”

  “Not this again,” I said. When it came to hauntings, I was happy to be labeled a skeptic. None of the businesses had been haunted until ghost hunting became popular on the cable channels.

  “I know,” Cathy said, apparently not getting my meaning. “Why don’t any of those kids ever come over here? You’d think they’d want to play with all the toys. Like maybe we’d come in sometime to find the old rocking horse moving, at least. Something.”

  “Some people have all the luck.” I checked the aisles again to make sure everything was ready for the hopefully paying public. More than once, I felt edgy, as if I were being watched. When I spun around, nothing was there. Nothing except that infernal monkey with the cymbals.

  We flipped the “closed” sign to “open” three minutes before our normal opening time of ten AM. Then we waited.

  Dad headed back upstairs to tinker with some recent acquisitions, which the police had accepted from the UPS man and left just inside the door. Perhaps he was psychic, because the first time the bell sounded, Peggy Trent walked in, carrying a basket.

  I was tempted to sic her on my father, but he’d been through enough these past few days, so I explained that Dad wasn’t working this morning and left it at that.

  “But he is doing okay?” she asked. “I heard he blanked out the night that poor man died.”

  “Concussion, the doctor said. His memory is starting to come back, little by little.”

  “One can only hope,” she said. “I wanted you to know that the town is here for you. For you both. If you need anything, please let me know.”

  “I’ll do that.” I took the basket she held out. Somehow she’d transported a gorgeous batch of blueberry muffins halfway across town while they were still warm. Despite not liking Peggy, I would admit that the woman could cook. “And thanks for the muffins.”

  “You’re welcome.” She paused at the door. “I will need the basket back. Maybe you and your father could return it, and then stay for dinner, when he’s feeling better.”

  “I can ask if he’s up to it. And I’ll make sure you get your basket back. Thanks.”

  And the persistence award goes to Peggy Trent.

  Shortly after she left, a couple of customers wandered into the shop. Out-of-towners, I think. They’d oohed and aahed and got their fingerprints all over a bunch of our most expensive merchandise, sniffed all the Strawberry Shortcake paraphernalia, and then purchased a vintage Lite-Brite for twenty bucks.

  The next time the door opened, Ken walked in. He removed his hat and looked around, then came to the counter. I’d been so bored, I was going through our candy display, checking expiration dates. It’s a tough job, but I considered it my duty to dispose of any expired candy appropriately. So far I’d consumed two giant Pixy Stix and three packets of Pop Rocks and could barely stand still.

  “Everything okay this morning?” he asked.

  “Just ducky,” I said. “We’ve been swamped, can’t you tell?” I waved my hand around the empty shop.

  “Folks will come back when they’re ready. You’ll probably see a few lookie loos, too. Some are morbid that way. Don’t let them get to you.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Now that he’s back home, has your father remembered anything?”

  “You mean, did he walk into the place and have a eureka moment, suddenly recalling whodunit? Oh, absolutely. But we didn’t want to bother you with the details.” I rolled my eyes. “I would have called you if he had.”

  “I deserved that. You’ve given me no reason to believe you’ve been anything but candid with me. But I did want to check in. It’s not always easy to return to what has become a crime scene.”

  “I admit,” I said, “the place feels weird. Like some wax museum exhibit of what was once home. Everything looks the same, but it feels like a cold, lifeless copy.”

  “Give it time,” he said.

  I bit my lip and nodded. “In the spiri
t of full disclosure, I should say that Dad’s come up with something. Not a memory. It’s another theory, and I know you said . . .” I paused, wondering if I could verbalize Dad’s idea about the missing obituary without implicating Miles.

  Ken exhaled loudly. Or was that a sigh? “Listen, I’m sorry about that, too. I was tired and the investigation wasn’t going well. I should have been more patient yesterday. So, yes, I would be interested in your father’s little theory.”

  His little theory? I ignored the suggested slight and told him about Dad’s discovery about there being no obituary. I almost had Ken out of the door when Dad came hobbling down the stairs, shouting, “I remember!” His face blanched when he rounded the corner and saw the new chief listening intently.

  A few minutes later, the three of us were gathered around the kitchen table while Cathy watched the shop. Not that we had many customers to watch for.

  “So what exactly did you remember?” Ken had opened his notebook and held his pen at the ready.

  “Relax, Dad.” I put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  Dad closed his eyes as he began talking, probably to help his concentration. “I was down working in the shop when the phone rang. I picked it up, and the voice on the other end said, ‘Hello, this is Sullivan O’Grady.’”

  “When was this?” Ken asked. “How did you respond?”

  “I don’t remember,” Dad said.

  “Had you ever talked to him before?” Ken asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Dad said.

  Ken scribbled that down. “You don’t know when this was?”

  Dad shook his head, then looked at me. “I answered the phone quickly because I didn’t want to wake up Betsy. I mean Liz.” Dad leaned aside to Ken. “She hates the name Betsy.”

  “So probably during the night,” Ken said.

  “I’m not much of a napper,” I said, “so you can pretty much bank on it being during the night.” If Dad’s slip of that nickname was meant as a diversionary tactic, it wasn’t going to work. I pressed him further. “Do you remember why you didn’t want to wake me? Was there something you didn’t want me to see or know about?”

  Dad thought about this for a second, then shook his head. “I think it’s just because you get grumpy when you wake up in the middle of the night. Always have.” He turned to Ken. “Once she stomped around for days . . .” He trailed off when Ken didn’t smile.

  “This was the night he was killed?” Ken asked. “Did you ask him to come to the shop?”

  Dad shrugged.

  Ken stared down at his notebook. “Well, I can recheck the phone records from the shop. Nothing stood out the first time, but now that we know O’Grady phoned here, maybe we can identify the number he was calling from.” He closed his notebook. “Might be something to go on.”

  ###

  The rest of the day brought just a handful of customers and even fewer sales. The coupon would run in the evening paper and hopefully draw a few bargain hunters out. At the end of the day, instead of kicking my feet up to spend time with Dad and Othello, a nice bowl of popcorn, and our well-worn DVD of The Muppet Christmas Carol, I was getting ready for an unnecessary cooking lesson with my ex and his mother, a woman who thought of me the same way a chicken farmer might regard a bird flu epidemic.

  In fact, when I got there, Mrs. Wallace had taken a supervisory position on a stool at the kitchen island with a stack of magazines next to her. She nodded and said, “Hello, Elizabeth.” She then proceeded to ignore me. That, I could handle. In fact, I preferred it to conversation.

  Jack tied an apron around his waist and then tossed me one. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to learn to cook, so I thought I’d start with something I knew you liked to eat. Cheese ravioli,” he said, in his luscious food porn voice.

  My stomach gurgled and my heart started racing. “Ooooh.”

  His mother sighed and flipped the page of her magazine.

  I’d cooked a passable cheese ravioli at home before, opting for premade pasta and a sauce I whipped up in a slow cooker. But that wasn’t what Jack had in mind as he made a well in a pile of semolina for fresh eggs and we made our own pasta. If real life were a Hallmark movie, I’d have fumbled trying to roll the dough, and Jack would have come up behind me and put his arms around me to help roll it out perfectly. Then we’d kiss and both end up covered in flour. He must have seen the movie too, because that’s exactly what happened. All except the kiss. And that might have happened if Jack’s mother hadn’t been sighing and slamming magazine pages.

  The cooking lesson was interesting, though, from the zigzag pasta cutter and the sauce made from fresh tomatoes and herbs. Hours passed before we—all three of us—sat down to sample our creation, but the ravioli was scrumptious. I couldn’t get enough of the sauce, heaping it on my pasta and dipping my bread into it.

  I think we were halfway through dinner before I realized that none of us was talking. I glanced up from my clean plate and Jack was smiling. I set my fork down. “This is wonderful.”

  “You were the cook tonight,” he said. “So all compliments go to you.”

  “No, it’s this recipe and those ingredients. I’ve never cooked anything like this in my life.”

  “With a little more practice,” Mrs. Wallace said, “you’ll learn not to overwork your pasta.”

  And right then I knew two reasons why a long-term relationship with Jack would be impossible. The first was, of course, his mother. The second was that I was sure to get incredibly fat. The first was the deal-breaker. I was willing to risk the second.

  “I was surprised to see you at Uncle Sy’s wake, Elizabeth,” Mrs. Wallace said. “How did you say you knew him again?”

  “It was really Dad who had wanted to go,” I said.

  Mrs. Wallace pushed her half-eaten plate of food away. Her loss. She folded her hands in front of her. “And how did your father know him?”

  Oh, great. So much for me trawling for information. Instead I was going to get the third degree. “I gather Dad had answered a number of calls at Sy’s address throughout the years.”

  “Of course,” she said, then shook her head. “Uncle Sy always did have an active imagination. Sometimes he called the police. Sometimes he called the family, and we’d have to go walk around the whole house to make sure nobody was trying to break in, then hold his hand until he got his wits about him. The old coot. It became insufferable near the end.”

  “Is that why you hired a home health aide?” I asked.

  She put her hand on her chest. “I didn’t hire him. Sy did that on his own.”

  Jack shifted a piece of ravioli around on his plate. I had a feeling I had hit upon a sore subject. He looked up. “Actually, we hadn’t seen Uncle Sy in quite some time.”

  “How long is some time?” I asked.

  “I don’t see why that should matter,” Mrs. Wallace said. “We’re a family, and all families have difficult members, right? No need to go airing our dirty laundry to just anybody.”

  Jack sat up straighter. “I’d hardly call Liz just anybody.”

  “I didn’t mean to pry,” I said. “Only I have to admit I’m curious about your uncle and his relationship to Sullivan O’Grady.” I dipped the serving spoon back onto the plate and chose two plump raviolis.

  “Oh, so now they’re supposed to have had a relationship?” she said, raising her volume.

  “I didn’t mean to suggest . . .”

  Jack pushed back from the table. “Not fair, Mother.”

  She glared back at him for several moments, and I worried I was about to witness something akin to Godzilla and Mothra doing battle over Tokyo. I’d be playing the part of Tokyo. Finally, her shoulders slumped. “Guess I’m still burnt up over that whole situation. When I think of what we did for that man over the years. And then . . .”

  And then what? I was afraid to ask it aloud, for fear of being accused of more prying. So I dug into my ravioli instead.

  “I spent the better part of my life
at that man’s beck and call,” she said. “Shovel his walk? Call Gladys. Need someone to drive him for his colonoscopy and endure his flatulence in the car all the way home? Why not call Gladys?”

  Gladys? So that was her first name.

  “Mother, you haven’t shoveled in years,” Jack said, “and I hardly think Liz expects an explanation.”

  “No.” She put up her hand. “I won’t have anybody questioning what happened between us and Uncle Sy. Let’s get it all into the open.”

  “Mrs. Wallace, you really don’t need to . . .” I purposefully trailed off. I felt guilty for my little deception, because I did want her to go on.

  “I suppose you think we’re all a bunch of greedy relatives, poised to jump on whatever we can get out of his death.” She turned again to me. “If that’s what it looks like, there’s no one to blame except Sy. I remember the first time I shoveled his walk. I must have been ten years old. I would have been happy for a quarter. But what does dear Uncly Sy do? He winks at me and says, ‘I’ll remember that, sweetheart. And when this old man is dead and gone, you’ll know how much I appreciated it.’ It’s like he was conditioning us—all of us—to take care of him, with promises of something nice when he kicked off.”

  “He couldn’t have been that old when you were ten,” Jack said.

  His mother’s face froze. “That geezer was always old.”

  “I’m sorry you had so much difficulty.” I tried to keep my voice suitably meek. “I didn’t mean to make you rehash any of this. I’m more interested in the aide.”

  “I’m getting there,” she said. “Eventually his pleasant personality had whittled the group down to just a couple of us he could still count on to run errands. Then the phone call came. Two AM, mind you. Could I come right over? He heard a noise. Well, that old house has been groaning, popping, and settling for decades. I hadn’t been sleeping well, and I’d just had a procedure of my own.” She leaned closer to me and whispered, “A female thing.”