The Cluttered Corpse

by Mary Jane Maffini

  Half an hour later, my single accomplishment had been to get Sweet Marie into the holding tank with Truffle. They’d make me pay in the future, I knew, but sometimes you have to look after number one, two, three, and four.

  I had sung all the songs I knew. I had tried all the kids’ games I brought with me. The books had already been flung against the wall, the crayons were strewn on the carpet. I had rocked, cuddled, hummed. I’d tried healthy treats, switched to ice cream, briefly considered brandies all round.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing worked. Nothing. On the rare occasions when I’m watching Sally’s kids, I get Jack to come with me. He plays a great game of giddyap. But Jack was on the spy mission with Sally, and I was in way over my head.

  At seven thirty I caved and called Lilith. “I know you’re busy, but this is a disaster.”

  “Whoa. What’s that noise in the background? Are you at a riot or something?”

  “You might say that. I’m babysitting at Sally’s.”

  “Explains it.”

  “But can you save me?” I said. “I’m down on my knees. I’ll crawl over broken glass.”

  “Reinforcements on the way.”

  The kids stopped in mid howl as Lilith walked through the door. Maybe it was her turquoise spiky hair. Of course, it could have been the piercings. Then again, she was toting a plate of what smelled like Toll House cookies, the universal comfort food. Could have been that. The children, shuddering and sniffing, stared. Then baby Savannah reached out for Lilith. Dallas and Madison clustered around asking what was on the plate.

  “Thank Rose too,” I said.

  Lilith settled everyone in minutes. And I couldn’t figure out how she did it. She had the touch. Even I calmed down. A quarter of an hour later, all three rug rats were deep in sleep on the sofa. I carried the sleeping children upstairs, one by one, worrying with every creak of the stairs that a child would wake up, setting off a domino effect. Savannah’s eyelids fluttered, but she snuggled into her crib, thumb in her rosebud mouth. Madison and Dallas squirmed a bit as they were tucked into their beds, but that was it. I watched their sleeping faces, still streaked with tears, for a moment and was thankful for the miracle of sleep. When I came downstairs, the dogs had been released from captivity and were curled up on the sofa with Lilith. Lucky, they hadn’t chosen that night to play Where’s Charlotte?

  “I think we should have brushed their teeth and washed their faces, but I was afraid of what that would trigger. I’ll let Sally handle it.”

  I stared around at the remnants of my babysitting kit. Who had I been kidding? I’d always been a lousy babysitter. Jack was a natural, Lilith was a natural. I was a natural disaster.

  “So.” Lilith chuckled as she handed me a Toll House cookie. “How’s this biological clock I hear so much about?”

  “Let’s say, my alarm just went off.”

  The evening out had obviously been good for Sally. She was glowing and relaxed when she and Jack returned from their mission. “Are the kids all right?”

  “Sleeping like angels. As are the dogs.” I was relaxing in the chair giving the impression of being in charge. Lilith departed once order had been restored. She’d left the rest of the Toll House cookies, and they had been keeping me company.

  Truffle had wakened long enough to give Jack a big kiss, but was already curling up on the best chair.

  “Wonderful. You want to hear about the spy mission?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Sally laughed. “You were right. There is definitely something going on with that Dwayne and the singer, unless you want to call her a piano player.”

  “She’s a piano player too?”

  “She was playing jazz piano and singing kind of updated jazz stuff.”

  Jack said, “‘Popsicle Toes’. Diana Krall kind of stuff. She was pretty good. Sally thinks something is going on between her and Dwayne, but I didn’t notice it.”

  “What do you ever notice?” Sally said, rolling her eyes.

  “Lots of stuff.”

  “Brakes? Handlebars? Cycling shoes?”

  “Boys and girls!” I said. “Back to the point of the exercise.”

  Sally slid onto the sofa. “You sure did some cleaning up, Charlotte.”

  “It was nothing,” I said.

  In fact, Lilith had insisted on helping me to get the crayons out of the carpet and pack up the rest of the disaster. She’d even run the vacuum cleaner. I owed her big-time. Not the first occasion when I’d been in her debt either.

  “The place looks a lot better than when we left.”

  “Stop teasing, Sally. Tell me what you saw.”

  Sally stretched like a cat. “You were absolutely right, Charlotte. This guy seems to be besotted with that girl, whether she’s a singer or piano player. And even if Jack is useless as an observer, I’m not. This girl’s way, way, way too young for him.”

  Jack said, “She didn’t look that young to me.”

  “Pu-leeze,” Sally said.

  “I did see her,” I said. “I thought early twenties. Anyway, it doesn’t matter how old she is. He’s married to Emmy Lou. He shouldn’t be…”

  Sally’s mind was made up. “That didn’t stop him from putting his paws all over this chickie.”

  I turned to grill the second witness. “Did he put his paws all over her, Jack?”

  “He gave her a couple of hugs. They seemed harmless to me. Affectionate.”

  “Sleazy,” Sally said. “Gave me the willies.”

  Jack sat up straight and stared at her. “No. He seemed friendly and sort of supportive. Something seemed to be bothering the girl and he was cheering her up. Like a friend or an uncle. That’s my opinion, Charlotte.”

  Sally snorted. “Some uncle. If ever a man had sex on his mind, he did. This is a very beautiful girl.”

  I piped up. “That’s what I don’t get. Emmy Lou’s beautiful too. She’s very appealing, and Dwayne gave the impression of being crazy about her.”

  Sally said, “Didn’t look that way to me. This guy’s wife is heading for either life in prison or a one-way ticket to a psych ward, so he gets to play around with the staff. That is so vile.”

  Even though I’d suspected it and sent out the two spies, I suppose part of me had been hoping I was wrong. “What do you mean by ‘play around’? Did they leave together?”

  “Not exactly,” Sally said.

  “Not at all,” Jack added. “She left after her second set. Said good-bye to the other people there. He gave her a hug. He stayed. She went home or wherever.”

  I said, “I guess the jury’s still out then.”

  Sally gave it her best sneer. “This jury convicted him.”

  “Guillotine at dawn,” Jack said. “But I’m not so sure. I hug you guys sometimes. That doesn’t make me sleazy.”

  “That’s different,” Sally snapped. “We’ve been friends since we first went to school for heaven’s sake.”

  “Maybe they’ve been friends too. You can’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Big age difference for friends,” I said.

  Sally said, “I can so jump to conclusions. I do it all the time and I’m always right.”

  There was some truth to all of those assertions. Sally made up her mind instantly and there was no changing it. And she was usually, if not always, right.

  “I give up. But Charlotte, you might be happy to know that we have the singer’s name if that helps in any way. He introduced her before each set.” Jack handed me a cocktail napkin with a name written on it.

  Bryony Stevens.

  I said, “Looks like you’re not so useless after all, Jack.”

  “He’s quite the little detective,” Sally added.

  “I’m not little,” Jack said. “But I did find out something from talking to the bartender.”

  “Wait until you hear this,” Sally said. “You might not be pleased, but at least it will clear something up for you.”

  I sighed. “Couldn’t one of you say
what it was, rather than—”

  “Dwayne had an alibi,” Sally chirped.

  “For the entire afternoon,” Jack said. “I got in a conversation about bikes with the guy behind the bar and in the course of it, I asked him about the stuff that happened with Emmy Lou and Tony. It came out that Dwayne was in the restaurant all day. Never left until you showed up, Charlotte, because they were short of staff, they had some kind of disaster in the kitchen, and they had a full house at lunch. Anyway, until some chick showed up at around five, he was in full view of everyone, helping out with the cooking.”

  “Oh. But that’s one person. Why are you shaking your head, Sal?”

  “We talked to our server too. Apparently Dwayne was there. All day. Until you arrived, wearing your espadrilles, according to our server who was female and knows such words.”

  I sat back and pondered this. On the one hand, it was good. I didn’t really want Dwayne to be guilty, even if there were some strange pesky behaviors. But it left me without a good theory to explain why Emmy Lou was acting the way she was.

  “You see?” Jack said. “Sometimes you are way off base. Are those Toll House cookies?”

  “I’m not wrong. I’m incomplete,” I said. “Or my theory is.”

  Jack leaned forward, probably salivating, “Can I eat one?”

  “Don’t get distracted. Here’s the thing: he might have been there, but where was Bryony Stevens?”

  Jack’s hand stopped short of the cookies. “You didn’t tell us to ask about that.”

  Bringing flowers as a gift?

  Make sure they’re in a vase or container,

  even if it’s an empty jam jar.

  17

  Naturally there was no Bryony Stevens listed in the phone book. Or in the online listings. A quick Web search turned up a site and a few articles praising the jazz singer. Aside from a series of photos of Bryony at the microphone, always wearing the same red dress, the Web site didn’t give much detail. Although you could click on the link and hear her sing. I did that. The girl had talent, no question about that. Her voice was smooth, almost fudgy, soft and sweet, but with a haunting edge. There was no address, no telephone number, no booking information. Nothing but an e-mail address in the contact section. If she had something going with Dwayne, I wasn’t going to blow my cover by contacting bryony@bryonystevens.com and asking her what she knew about Emmy Lou Rheinbeck and Tony Starkman.

  I took the dogs for their midnight constitutional, made my to-do list for the next day, brushed, flossed, set out my outfit for the morning, and hit the hay.

  For once, my subconscious gave me a break. I needed the sleep, but a bit of inspiration would have been good.

  My to-do list was full. I had to touch base with Dwayne to see if the bookcase project was a go with payment up front and to see if there was news about Emmy Lou. Then I needed to check back with Gary Gigantes. I wanted to follow up on Ramona’s lead on high school yearbooks. I had to return Rose’s plate that had contained the Toll House cookies. A trip to Hannaford’s was on my list since the fridge had an empty echo. And it goes without saying, I was itching to find out all about Bryony Stevens.

  When I picked up the phone to call Dwayne, I found that he’d returned my message at two thirty in the morning.

  “Go for it,” he said. “I’ll write a check to Gary Gigantes and leave it at the house for you to pick up.”

  I figured that Dwayne would be sleeping when I set out, but I let Gary know I’d deliver the check later in the morning.

  My first stop was Woodbridge High School. I figured I’d get a better reception there than at my old school, St. Jude’s. Getting into the school wasn’t the piece of cake I’d expected. In the main office I produced picture ID, and recorded my name, address, telephone number, reason for visit. Even the time. I resisted the urge to make witty remarks about how dangerous I was as I waited for Eve Renfrew, the school librarian, to collect me from the office.

  “Any friend of Ramona’s is a friend of mine,” she remarked as I followed her to the secret hiding place of old yearbooks. She was about my age and had her blonde hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail that bobbed as we sidled past tables full of teenagers who were more interested in each other than whatever they were studying. The library was a hum of hormones. Took me back to the bad old days at St. Jude’s. Of course, that was why I’d chosen Woodbridge High for the yearbook hunt.

  I found myself in a pleasant interior room where the yearbooks and other archival materials were held, along with filing cabinets and a photocopier.

  “We keep them here, because they’d walk away otherwise. Kids find their parents or their boyfriends’ parents. Or they find their teachers and decide to add some facial decoration with a Sharpie,” she said, bringing me the books from 1978 through 1984. In case. “Have fun. Don’t feel you have to rush. I’ll be out here in the trenches.”

  I could see why Ramona liked her. Same no-nonsense approach and sense of humor. I could have used some of that.

  I leafed through the old yearbooks, gasping at the hairstyles from time to time. So much mousse. So many mullets. Some of the students looked vaguely familiar to me. Woodbridge is a fairly small city and chances are some of these kids lived and worked in the area. Of course, they’d be in their forties now and if fortune had smiled on them, they had better hair. I started at the end of the 1983 yearbook and found Emmy Lou Wright almost immediately. The luminous smile and the shining green eyes hadn’t changed much. Emmy Lou was heavier now and had long ago ditched the feathered hairstyle for her expensive bob. She’d wince if she saw this picture, although it was certainly the least of her problems at the moment.

  Emmy Lou had been a beautiful girl. Of course, I’d already known that. I flicked backward through the pages of her classmates that year, hoping to find a familiar name, someone who might know where Emmy Lou had lived. Every one of the graduating students had completed the statement “In ten years I will be…” Emmy Lou had written, “In ten years I will be R.S.’s wife and the happiest girl in the world.”

  I flipped to the S’s and began to search for anyone with the initials R.S. I gasped. A dark-haired, arrogantly handsome face stared out at me, assessing, daring. The handsome features belonged to someone called Roger Starkman.

  R.S.

  Well, well.

  I checked through the other parts of the yearbook, the clubs, awards, record of adolescent school life in 1980s Woodbridge. I found no evidence that Emmy Lou had taken part in anything. No debating or drama club. No basketball or field hockey. No academic awards. Nothing. Knowing what I did about this high-achieving woman, that struck me as very strange. But of course, people change. Maybe Emmy Lou had been a late bloomer.

  I photocopied the page with Emmy Lou’s picture and the one with Roger Starkman’s too. For good measure, I also copied the pages that had any faces that seemed even faintly familiar.

  Eve knocked and stuck her perky blonde head into the room. “Did you find what you wanted?” she said with an encouraging smile.

  “More than,” I said. “I made a couple of photocopies. I realize I should have checked first.”

  “Hey, what I don’t know won’t hurt either of us.”

  Dwayne had already left when I picked up the check. I cashed it at my bank, dropped off the cash to Gary, and kept going. Next in my circuit was the Down Town Flower Shoppe. I chose a spray of brilliant yellow tulips for Rose and a deep pink azalea with a sympathy card. I zoomed off toward North Elm Street.

  Rose opened her yellow door wearing a smile and sporting a brand-new perm and a jogging suit in an electric shade of purple. She had a fresh pair of sneakers that matched and, of course, her rolling oxygen equipment. She was accompanied by Schopenhauer, who was thrilled to see me.

  “For me?” she said as I handed her the yellow tulips. “You didn’t have to do that, Charlotte.”

  “I wanted to. Those Toll House cookies saved my life last night. I brought your plate back too. Lucky no one ate
it.”

  “That was Lilith’s doing, but I’ll accept your flowers anyway.”

  “Speaking of Lilith, is she around?”

  “She’s out at one of her gazillion jobs. I can’t get them all straight. But you can chat with Schopenhauer and me.”

  A tantalizing smell of cinnamon buns wafted by my appreciative nose. I glanced toward the kitchen and sure enough, I caught a glimpse of a tray of them, the glaze glittering as it cooled.

  “Thought you might drop by,” Rose said.

  I made the coffee and Rose took care of everything else. That’s the arrangement we have. Rose is not as gifted at coffee as she is at stuff that comes out of the oven.

  I heard the follow-up to her daughter’s short visit and the newly made promise of a trip to L.A. and the Universal Studio tour. I guessed that was the daughter’s way of making up for cutting the visit short.

  Rose said, “I’m thinking about it. Been out there before and I can’t breath that valley air. Nothing to do alone in an apartment all day either. You need to drive. And the girls are all so skinny. At least in Woodbridge I can find someone to eat my baking. Never mind, I’ll probably go. Family’s precious.”

  “I’m glad you’re baking,” I said, my fingers twitching for a cinnamon bun.

  “What’s going on? I got a complicated story from Lilith before she tore off last night. I can’t believe you’re involved in another murder. But anyway, I want the lowdown.”

  I filled her in on the most recent developments.

  “Terrible thing,” she said. “I can’t believe it happened on Bell Street.”

  I nodded because by this time my mouth was full.

  Rose said, “I think I mentioned I knew people in that area. Of course, I used to know people all over Woodbridge. That was then. Things have changed quite a bit in my seventy some years.”