Full Bodied Murder

by Christine E. Blum

  “I guess I’ll leave the bottles out for our recycle bin poacher, Inez, now that Rosa’s gone. They are starting to pile up out there and I don’t want folks to get the wrong idea,” she said, leaving me wondering how many meanings there could be for lots of empty wine bottles left at the curb.

  With the mention of Rosa’s name everybody got silent and I started thinking that I should leave. Even if they believed I had nothing to do with her death, I had poisoned the street by discovering it.

  “I think maybe this was too soon, I’d better go,” I said, heading for the door.

  “You’ll do no such thing, my dear, we all need to stick together, don’t we girls?” Peggy took head-nodding roll call and didn’t continue talking until she was satisfied that everyone was on the same page.

  “Good, now let’s not have anything spoil Halsey’s first Wine Club.”

  I felt a little better; I could curl up in that fleece-covered bosom and feel very safe. But I’ll admit, not knowing her, I was a bit leery of how quickly Peggy had gotten over the brutal violence that had occurred just a few doors from her. Maybe that was just Peggy, or maybe she had a reason for wanting to change the subject.

  Sally, who was a retired nurse, gave me a soothing pat on the back and then introduced me to Cassie, “sassy Cassie,” she whispered. Cassie looked about my age, seemed to be a fun dresser, today sporting over-the-knee riding boots, black leggings, and a belted white blouse open one more button than most would. I guessed that she was a fashion experimenter. Sally had told me that Cassie is Carl’s new, younger wife, a good catch as he is the owner of a handful of hardware stores that affords them a really nice, if nouveau riche life: a house in the mountains, a boat in the Marina, and cars that get upgraded every year.

  “I brought bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with Marcona almonds and Saga Bleu,” she happily said, proud of her French pronunciation of “bleu.” “Have one, or two, hell eat a bunch, you probably need it after the mu-, er everything, they’re yummy,” she said, thrusting the tray at me. I thought that I detected a hint of “Valley Girl” in her slightly loud voice, but my only source was Moon Unit Zappa and that was a long time ago.

  Cassie looked at me with a glint in her eye, and her dimpled smile told me that she loves feeding people and making them happy. And she didn’t mind being noticed for doing so. Attention was her drug of choice.

  With bacon-ensconced date in hand, I next met Aimee. Dressed in a pink Polo shirt with the words “Chill Out” embroidered on it, Aimee was around thirty and had cherubic cheeks that changed color like a mood ring. Sally had briefed me on her beforehand too. Unlike Cassie’s French-manicured nails, Aimee’s red knuckles and short nails gave away her daily food service labors at the frozen yogurt shop she owned in a nearby strip mall. She worked increasingly longer hours recently, as she was also helping her boyfriend Tom through medical school. Tom had put his career on hold when his mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, getting on-the-job training tending to her while picking up odd mechanic gigs to get by. Now that she had succumbed, he was even more resolute to get back to his calling.

  With all the tough living going on around her, Aimee still had the wide-eyed innocence of a child, and a knack for asking the questions everybody else wanted to, but didn’t.

  “You must be in shock after seeing Rosa with a knife in her back, and all that blood, did the cops have any ideas on who did this horrible thing?” she asked in a voice that was high enough to be that of a ten-year-old girl’s. In a strange contrast she gave me a motherly kind of hug.

  I heard some gasps in the room, a reaction to Aimee’s outright bodacious question, although I also noticed that the group had circled the wagons closer around me and the Jordan almonds.

  “Aimee, this isn’t the right time,” Cassie said, surveying the group. “Is it?”

  “As Peggy said, let’s get back to wine and unfettered high jinx,” Sally declared.

  Sally sure has an interesting lexicon.

  “No, it’s fine, I’ve certainly told the story enough times to the cops.” I settled down into a soft club chair and began.

  “The front door of Rosa’s house was half open, so believing that I was at Peggy’s, I figured that it was okay if I just walked in.”

  “Sounds logical to me,” Cassie said. The others looked at me with serious faces, which didn’t inspire confidence in me.

  “Go on,” Peggy urged, the most serious of all of them.

  “It was dark inside, all the shades were drawn, I let Bardot loose and heard her bounding to the back of the house. I figured that you all were in the backyard, so I chased after her to make sure that she didn’t bolt out of the house and jump on all of you.

  “I remember running into a narrow table and there were some letters under an opener and I was just about to read the address when I heard Bardot give off a pained whimper. So I quickly raced to her.”

  “So you touched things?” Peggy asked.

  I nodded and swallowed. I was getting clammy and scared all over again.

  “If only I’d taken another second and seen Rosa’s name on the envelopes. I would have turned tail and gotten out of there, and not be in this mess.”

  “That would have been worse, the cops would still have found out that you’d been in the house, it would look really bad for you, honey,” Peggy informed me.

  I visibly recoiled and gasped.

  “And Rosa might still be lying there facedown with a knife in her back. You did a good thing finding her, Halsey,” Sally soothed.

  “Are the cops satisfied with your recount of events, are they done with you now, Halsey?” Peggy asked.

  I could see her wheels turning and I couldn’t tell if she was with me or against me.

  “I don’t think so, they haven’t said much but there’s a patrol car watching my house 24/7,” I said. “God, how could they think that I did it?”

  “Of course you didn’t, honey, they’ll come to their senses,” Peggy replied, not just to me but also to the room. They all took a cue from her and nodded.

  Aimee decided to try and lighten the mood.

  “So, is your husband or boyfriend joining you?”

  The other ladies mimed shock but sidled even closer again to me so as not to miss a word of my response. This apparently was the real good stuff to them.

  “I pack light so I divorced the husband before I moved,” I flippantly explained. “And I haven’t had time to get a boyfriend yet.” I saw Cassie’s whispering men’s names to Sally and I quickly admired a decoupage Jesus Peggy had on her wall to divert attention.

  No such luck. Now that this was out in the open, they barraged me with questions. Cassie was fixing me up with her brother, cousin, manager at the hardware store, etc.

  “What happened, sweetie,” Peggy said proffering the dish of Jordan almonds to me.

  “I think I need a glass of wine if I’m to tell the whole sad tale.” I sighed. To which at least three of the girls opened bottles.

  I was told that a couple of Peggy’s girls live in the Pacific Northwest and she has become partial to Oregon wines. I can’t remember ever trying one. She had decanted a peachy Viognier with a complex aroma. In other words, delicious. I could have stuck with that the entire time, but those bottles were soon drained and we were on to a fresh, spicy Pinot Noir.

  It seemed that before I’d moved in, Sally had told them about my computer skills, and they had elected me archivist of the wines we tasted at each club. I’d decided to handle this with a photo album of wine labels taken with my iPhone.

  These girls knew their wines. With me, up until recently I either liked the wine or I drank it quickly.

  We spent the next three hours sharing, commiserating, laughing, showing off, and even bickering a bit. I was too new to the group to understand the “oil and water” dynamics yet.

  With the clunk of the fourth wine bottle into the trash, I had enough liquid courage to ask, “Uh, who was Rosa, and was she also part of this wonde
rful group?”

  “In a way, honey,” Peggy answered. “See, here we separate our trash into three bins: waste, grass and plants, and recyclables. The bottles we throw away are worth five cents a pop, it is charged at point of purchase and is a way for the city to make some money and encourage recycling.”

  “It is also a great way for needy people to put food on the table. They get to the bins first, collect the bottles, and exchange them for cash at a recycle center,” Aimee said.

  “Like Inez,” Cassie added. “She’s a hard worker, I see her sometimes go up and down Rose several times in a night. And she’s good for information, she’s how I knew that the Bergers were getting a divorce.”

  I was having trouble keeping all this straight in my mind.

  “Rosa was a sweet woman who unfortunately was hit with some tough breaks,” Sally said to me while trying to diffuse the situation.

  “She had lousy luck with men, one was her brother, a junkie and overall stinker, and the husband she stupidly chose, who was a friend of her brother’s. What is it they say about ‘fruit from the poisonous tree’?” Peggy harumphed. “Don’t get me wrong, Rosa was a lovely woman, so giving. I tried many times to convince her to stop giving her brother money, for Ray’s own good. And, I’ll admit it, I was tired of seeing all the riffraff on our street.”

  “PEGGY,” they all shouted.

  “Anyway, we got together and decided that Rosa would be our charity.” Aimee proudly beamed.

  “What Aimee means is that we all separated our recyclables and gave them to Rosa before anyone else could get them, not that we have anything against Inez,” Sally explained and the others smiled at me.

  I’m starting to think that you could retire after a deal like that from this group.

  “So why . . .” I trailed off, utterly confused and saddened.

  “That’s the big mystery,” Cassie said and the others nodded. “If it were up to me, I’d point the spotlight on the shitty men in her life. Poor honey.”

  “And Rosa had those two cute little, tiny dogs, what is going to happen to them?” Aimee added wide-eyed, and a bit teary.

  “I didn’t see any dogs when I was there,” I said, looking around the room.

  “Got to go make dinner for Carl,” Cassie abruptly announced, popping up out of her chair like a Whack-A-Mole contestant. She lifted up her white blouse and gave her leggings a tug, which I couldn’t help thinking was also an excuse to show off her impressively flat tummy. She was quickly out the door.

  I wondered if “dogs” was some kind of safe word. It seemed to me that Cassie would be one of the last to leave an audience, um party.

  The rest of the group got up and quickly dispersed as well. I guess it was dinnertime and they all had responsibilities. I for once didn’t, so why was I feeling like the circus had just left town. A Jordan almond or two might make me feel better....

  “How about we two single gals have one more drink?” Peggy asked, bringing the elusive banana bread out from the kitchen.

  She was back in grandmother mode and my mouth started watering at the aroma. But then I remembered her husband’s last meal, cooked by Peggy, and I asked if I could take a slice home instead. Just in case.

  So began my initiation into The Rose Avenue Wine Club. I staggered home proudly clutching an engraved tiny silver flask, my new member gift.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning I stepped out, a little bleary-eyed from Wine Club, to get the paper and heard yelling coming from Marisol’s direction. Now what?

  I hopped off my stoop to investigate, not really thinking that my ex-husband’s boxers and a wifebeater, albeit a pink one, might not be appropriate Rose Avenue attire. Marisol was yelling, more like a high cackle, at two people in the driveway of the house with all the surveillance cameras. There was that guy again, he was way over six feet, lean, and dressed in tight tailored pants, a pleated shirt also tight, and pointed brown leather shoes. I could finally see part of his face, and while on paper you might say that he was handsome, there was also something disturbing about his looks that I couldn’t pinpoint.

  He wasn’t saying much, but his girlfriend was giving Marisol the business punctuated with a heavy Eastern European accent. My guess is that someone had been caught spreading breadcrumbs too close to the Lamborghini. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself but I was desperate to get a better look at this guy. He held his head down, and his long straight hair covered most of his face.

  Imagine Fabio’s evil twin.

  I suspect that the obscurity was intentional. Then, slowly, he brushed his hair back and stared straight at me.

  I could hear a siren in the distance, and wifebeater be damned, I wasn’t missing this. He was making me feel self-conscious, and when I followed his eyes down, I realized that my nipples were standing at full attention from the cool morning. I draped one arm across my chest and looked back at him defiantly.

  At that point, the screaming woman picked up the garden hose and aimed it at Marisol. Well, that was all I needed to see, she may be a witch or something, but this was not going to turn into a WWE Smackdown. I ran in and grabbed Bardot, put her on a long leash, and explained the situation in Lab language.

  “Get ’em!”

  I let out the line and Bardot went straight for the offending sprayer. I purposefully pulled her up just before contact, but it was enough to make the point. The Ukrainian lurched back and the running hose went wayward, spraying several neighbors’ cars as they drove by. She then dropped the hose and it convulsed across their lawn dousing each of his luxury cars. The Italian turned off the water and pulled the screaming woman into the house just as a squad car pulled up. At this point the only one who was dry and seemingly self-possessed was Marisol.

  Wouldn’t you know it, one of the officers to arrive was Augie, now catching me at the scene of another potential crime. At least he had seemed to be the nicest of the lot at Rosa’s.

  “Auntie Marisol,” he said with open arms.

  Auntie? His bloodline is connected to the devil in a blue housedress? Maybe kindness is just his subterfuge....

  There were hugs and introductions all around. When his wallet came out with baby pictures, I ran in and quickly threw on some sweats to avoid another trip downtown.

  It seems that the Italian’s girlfriend was the one who had called for police assistance, claiming that Marisol had been trespassing and defacing their vehicles. While the cops went up to their door to get a report, Marisol dashed into her house and returned with cold waters for them.

  Oh, she’s good.

  We could hear her yelling and his deep, slow Italian accented voice coming from the doorway. A few minutes later Marisol’s nephew came back to us and explained that the woman, her name was Tala, had called the police in haste, there was nothing wrong and she was sorry to have wasted their time.

  “He made her say that,” Marisol summed up.

  Ironically, the cops then gave Marisol the option of filing a report, which she reluctantly declined.

  Before Augie left he told Marisol that he might be sending someone over to ask her some more detailed questions about this neighbor. Something about them didn’t seem right, he told her. Marisol gleamed at the prospect and, I must admit, my curiosity was piqued. She then whispered something back to Augie that I didn’t catch, but clearly saw her looking at me a few times during the conversation. I didn’t think that she was praising Bardot’s hose wrangling skills.

  Before heading to his car, he turned to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “How’re you doing? Remember anything else about the afternoon at Rosa’s house?”

  While his tone was that of a caring friend, I noticed that he didn’t say “the afternoon you discovered Rosa’s murder,” my walls were going up.

  “You’ll be the first to know,” I said, shaking my head.

  Right after I tell the Wine Club, the best criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles, and Perez Hilton. Seems like everyone te
lls him everything.

  The other cops had watched this exchange intently, and it took all my will not to give them a defiant finger as they drove off.

  “Well that was fun,” I said to Marisol and got no reply.

  Her pleasant “cop face” was gone and her eyes half closed as she glared at me.

  Et tu, nosy neighbor?

  As I headed back in for breakfast and to give Bardot a bone, I swear I heard a faint “thank you” from Marisol. When I turned to look, she was gone. I was beginning to think that on Rose Avenue, nothing is quite what it seems.

  Chapter 6

  A little further east of Rose Avenue, I pulled to the curb beside a suburban strip mall that seemed to be all about drop off or pick up commerce. I saw a take-out restaurant, a vacuum repair shop, a laundry that specialized in oversized loads, a check-cashing facility, and a liquor store. Cars pulled in and out of the cramped parking lot constantly, no one wanted to stay there a minute longer than necessary.

  When Aimee had invited me to have breakfast with her and see her shop, I was thrilled. Anyone who “tells it like it is,” becomes an instant a friend of mine.

  I rolled down my window to get some air and watched as the two men who ran the vacuum place exited their storefront and ambled over to the Chill Out. They didn’t look like they knew the first thing about domestic science. One of them, trying to be cute I guess, walked up on the hood of an old El Camino parked in front, kept going over the roof and the flatbed part of the truck before hopping off and joining his buddy on the walk. The other guy shook his head, not happy with the performance.

  “Morning, beautiful,” one of them said while plopping down on a seat at one of the precious few tables on Aimee’s patio. They acted like they owned the place.

  I didn’t like their brazen familiarity with her, something wasn’t right. I jumped out of my car and speed-walked to her shop.

  “Halsey, hi,” she said while handing out coffees to her guests. “These are my friends, Ali Baba and Zeke. Guys, meet my sweet new neighbor Halsey.”