The Big Kill

by Elise Sax

  I swallowed a piece of pot roast. “A little bit.”

  Joy laughed. “She’s diplomatic, Roman. Did you notice? Not at all like her father. Gladys, your dad didn’t have a diplomatic bone in his body.”

  Roman nodded. “That’s what I liked about him. I always knew where he stood, even if I didn’t want to. He told me in no uncertain terms.”

  “We loved you father,” Joy told me. “He was so full of life. And so talented.”

  “Yes, so talented,” Roman agreed.

  “Did everyone like him?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” Roman asked.

  “I mean, is it possible that…I mean, is there a chance that… well, maybe that my father’s accident wasn’t an accident?”

  Nobody blinked. Nobody breathed. Forks hung in the air, halfway to mouths. “Why?” Joy asked, finally. “I thought it was ruled an accident. Have you heard something different?”

  “Do the police suspect foul play?” Roman asked, concerned. “I find that hard to believe. Your father was so full of life. Everyone loved him.”

  “Everyone loved him,” Joy agreed.

  “Even Steve? I got the impression he was jealous of my father.”

  Roman laughed. “Steve? He didn’t want any of the trappings of family and responsibility that Jonathan had.”

  “No, Roman. I think Gladys is right,” Joy interrupted. “Steve never managed to finish a book. He had nothing to show for himself, literary-wise. It would be normal for him to be jealous, and maybe just maybe he did something about it.”

  Roman speared a chunk of pot roast with his fork and put it into his mouth. “I don’t think jealousy is a reason to murder.”

  “Of course not, honey,” Joy said. “You have me curious, Gladys. I think it’s time to get the whole gang together. Roman and I can help you talk to the others and find out more about your father’s accident. Call me crazy, but I think it’ll work. Let us help you. How about an informal dinner party tomorrow evening? Would you like that, Gladys?”

  All the suspects together in one place? Damn right, I would like that.

  “Is that a good idea, Joy?” Roman asked. “It’s been years since we’ve been together.”

  “Exactly. It’s time to catch up and talk about Jonathan’s passing once and for all,” she said. “And Gladys, feel free to bring your significant other. A little bird told me that you’re engaged.”

  It had been a successful day. I had managed to talk to four of my father’s five friends from the list my mother gave me. For whatever reason, they had all welcomed me with one level of enthusiasm or another. I guessed it was a testament to my father that they would take time out of their day to talk to his daughter who was uninvited and unexpected in their lives. Or they felt guilty. It was one or the other, and I was determined to find out which.

  On my way home, I stopped off at Bridget’s. She was doing jumping jacks when she opened the door. “Still no labor?” I asked.

  “Just the farting kind.” She huffed and puffed. I took her by the arm.

  “How about you take a break and sit with me on the couch?”

  “Okay. I’m tired, anyway.”

  I brought her a glass a water and got one for me, too. I told her all about my father’s friends. “Well?” she asked. “What’s your gut telling you? Which one did it?”

  “I’m not even sure there was an ‘it’ that was done.”

  “Men,” she said, as if that said it all.

  “So far I have one motive and that’s jealousy. That would mean Steve did it.”

  “Or the weird porcupine, dragon guy,” Bridget suggested. “But in this political climate, the uber rich couple probably did it.”

  Bridget rearranged her body on the couch, putting her swollen feet on my lap. I started to massage them. “Have you decided on a name for the baby, yet?” I asked. She had gone through the name of every labor rights activist since the beginning of time.

  “Not, yet. A name is important, Gladie. What if Martin Luther King had been named Adolph? Totally different outcome.”

  “You have a point.”

  “I wish my feet weren’t so swollen. Then, I could help the young people take on those fascist, authoritarian, jack-booted nasty people who invaded the town.”

  “DICK.”

  She pushed her hoot owl glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Yes, DICK. Decency in Cannes Kids. How dare they think they can decide what’s decent and what isn’t.”

  “I think it was the dildo thing that brought them.”

  “I wonder where Ruth got all those dildos.”

  Bridget had a point. Dildos were sort of a one-item purchase. I had never heard of them being sold in bulk. “Ruth’s pretty old,” I said. “Maybe she’s collected them over the years.”

  “I don’t believe in judging a woman’s sexuality.”

  “Me, either,” I said, totally judging her sexuality.

  Bridget squirmed on the couch, again. “I think my farting labor is back.”

  “I’ll put the fan on.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Sometimes people call me a witch. Sometimes they call me a yenta. Well, not in this town. In Cannes, there are only twelve Jews, so most of the town doesn’t know what yenta means. But if they did know what it meant, that’s what they would call me. Yenta. Busybody. Well, I’m here to tell you, bubbeleh, you got to be a yenta if you’re going to do this job right. You smile, you’re nice, you have good manners, and all the time, you’re watching and listening and thinking real hard. Because that’s our job. We’re yenta, the matchmakers.

  Lesson 97, Matchmaking advice from your

  Grandma Zelda

  Sand. Sand. Sand. The next evening, I was getting ready for the dinner party, and it was getting harder to avoid my grandmother, who squinted at me every time I was close to her, as if she was trying to see into my brain. I didn’t know how long I could hold out. I had to discover quickly if my father was murdered, who murdered him, and why. If it dragged on, my grandmother would find out and suffer from not knowing what happened to her son. I owed it to her to get to the bottom of my father’s death and to do it secretly.

  “You look nice,” my grandmother said, coming into my room. I was wearing a little black dress with black strappy high-heeled sandals. My frizzy hair had been tamed and hung down in long curls. I had dosed my eyelashes with a double batch of mascara, and I was even wearing expensive lipstick that Lucy had given me.

  Sand. Sand. Sand. “Thank you, Grandma. We’re just going out to a dinner party. You know, grownup couple stuff.” Sand. Sand. Sand.

  Spencer finished tying his tie. “How about me, Zelda? How do I look?”

  “You look like fried chicken and mashed potatoes.” It was the biggest compliment she could give him. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes were her favorite foods, and she was right. Spencer looked yum-yum. He was perfectly dressed in his perfectly tailored suit. He had been over the moon when I told him that we had been invited to a real dinner party, just like normal, grownup people. He had looked into my eyes with the pride of a man, believing that his woman had decided to be a contented, suburban wife, who liked to dress up and eat chicken breasts with a white sauce.

  Poor Spencer. He still didn’t realize who he was dealing with.

  My grandmother was a different story. She was squinting at me so hard that her nose looked like it had eaten her eyes. I hurried Spencer out of the room and waved goodbye to her with my back turned. Sand. Sand. Sand.

  It had been a pretty good day. Bridget had had a break from farting labor. DICK and the bubble gum bandits were reasonably quiet. But it was widely believed that they were holding back while they planned their newest attacks to combat the other, and Draco had turned up after school and was a big help to me with inputting matchmaking data into my laptop. I felt good about turning his juvenile delinquent energies into lawful, productive habits. Add to all of that a good hair day and Spencer’s fingers dancing up my thigh, as we drove to Roman and Joy’
s mansion, and I was feeling mighty fine.

  “Zelda was right,” Spencer told me, driving out of the Historic District. “You look smokin’ hot.”

  “She said I look nice.”

  “Then, she was wrong. Nice doesn’t cut it. You look smokin’ hot. Tell me you’re not wearing panties.”

  “I’m wearing the big kind of underpants that come three to a pack and suck my fat into my pancreas.”

  “Nobody talks dirty like you, Pinky. Nobody.”

  When we arrived at the mansion, a valet took Spencer’s car. “Wow, fancy, Pinky,” Spencer said, putting his hand on my lower back. “Is this one of Harry’s friends?”

  “Uh, sort of.”

  The truth of the matter was that Spencer was going to kill me when he found out that I had dredged up my father’s past and was spying on his friends because I suspected one of them had killed him after I had seen a suspicious note, even though the police had ruled his death an accident. Spencer wasn’t going to be pleased that my foray into being a normal grownup was a total lie. So, other amateur sleuths might have thought I was stupid to bring Spencer with me. I could have brought Lucy and told the suspects that she was my lover, instead of Spencer. But Lucy only had a Taser, and Spencer knew Judo and had a lot of muscles and the ability to arrest whoever he wanted. I would have been more comfortable if he was armed, but, since he was off-duty, he had left his service revolver at home in a safe next to our bed. Still, weighed against each other, Spencer was the wiser choice over Lucy.

  But he was going to kill me.

  As far as I could tell, we were the last to arrive, except for Rachel Knight, who I hadn’t met yet. Joy had pulled out all the stops. There were caterers walking around with trays of champagne and lobster puffs. “Pinky, I’m impressed,” Spencer said.

  “Gladys,” Joy gushed, approaching me. She was wearing a floor-length, print dress and about an inch of pancake makeup. “And who is this handsome man?”

  “This is Spencer Bolton,” I said.

  “Her fiancé,” he added.

  “Yes, fiancé,” I said. It was still weird for me to use titles for my relationships.

  “Gladys, you did well,” she said, eyeing Spencer and motioning for Roman to come over. When her back was turned, Spencer mouthed Gladys? to me. I shrugged. Normally, I wouldn’t let anyone get away with calling me by my full name, but sometimes it was just easier not to correct a person over and over.

  “Oh, there you are,” Roman said, smiling. “Steve, Adam, look who’s here!”

  Adam and Steve looked pretty much like they did when I had seen them the day before. Adam had moved up from sweatpants to baggy jeans, and thankfully, Steve had left Lady Philomena at home. Steve was happy to see me, but Adam still had the lost look on his face. I introduced everyone to Spencer, and I popped another puff into my mouth.

  “We were so happy to have Gladys contact us after so many years,” Joy told Spencer.

  “She looks a lot like her father, except for the coloring,” Roman said.

  Spencer arched an eyebrow and pursed his lips. It was clear that he was catching on that this wasn’t the dinner party I had sold to him. I side-stepped away from him. “I’ve been thinking about your insurance,” I said to Steve because I was less afraid of a long sales pitch about insurance than I was of Spencer finding out that instead of a contented suburban wife, I was a nosey parker killer hunter.

  Steve smiled big. “I thought you would be interested so I prepared a prospectus for you. I’ve got it in the car. You want me to go get it?”

  “After dinner,” Joy told him. “Dinner’s ready. Shall we?”

  The dining room table was decked out in exquisite china. Servers outnumbered the guests two-to-one, and one of them pulled a chair out for me, and tucked it under me when I sat. I could still feel Spencer’s eyes on me, but I kept my eyes averted. I could practically hear the cogs in his brain turning.

  We were served something I thought was pâté. Roman lifted his glass of wine. “Here’s to old friends,” he said. “I’m so glad that we’re finally all together, again.”

  Everyone took a sip of their wine, except for Adam. “We’re back together when you finally decided we were worthy,” he spat and attacked his pâté with his fork.

  “That’s not fair,” Joy said.

  “It’s sort of fair,” Steve said, still sipping his wine.

  “So, how do you all know each other?” Spencer asked.

  “We used to be friends,” Adam told him. “Before Roman became a snooty National Book Award winner.”

  That was the first time I had heard anything about Roman’s success being the impetus for the group’s estrangement. Before that moment, they had only spoken about my father’s death for the reason they all broke up.

  “That’s not fair,” Joy said.

  “It’s sort of fair,” Steve said.

  “Roman has never let his success go to his head,” Joy insisted.

  “You’ve got twelve people serving chopped liver, Joy. To me, that spells success that’s gone to his head,” Adam said.

  “It’s pâté from France,” she said, obviously insulted.

  “So, how do you all know each other?” Spencer asked, again.

  All heads turned toward me. “Didn’t Gladys tell you?” Steve asked and whistled long and slow.

  “They were my father’s best friends,” I said. My voice was hoarse, and I took a sip of wine.

  “You know what?” Spencer said, brightly. “I haven’t washed my hands and neither did Gladys. Gladys is very diligent when it comes to personal hygiene. She wouldn’t think of eating without washing her hands, first. Isn’t that right, Gladys?”

  “Well…” I started. Spencer slapped his hand onto mine and gave it a hard squeeze. “I don’t want to interrupt dinner,” I continued. “but yes, cleanliness is next to godliness, and I’m a big fan of godliness. Love me some godliness. Heaven. Heaven is great. I’m sure hell isn’t so bad, either. Probably not a lot of hand-washing in hell, though. But heaven is probably germ-free. Right? I mean there might be those good germs that make mushrooms and yogurt, but not the bad ones that give you diarrhea and make you upchuck. Those are bad germs. So, none of those in heaven next to God. Because God probably doesn’t want diarrhea. Come to think of it, why did he create diarrhea? Was that an oversight? Like making the appendix and wisdom teeth? Lots of diarrhea in this world. I guess that means it’s not next to godliness. Oh, well. Yes. Diarrhea. What was I talking about?”

  Spencer stood and pulled me up by my hand. “We’ll be right back,” he said and tugged me out of the dining room.

  “We don’t even know where the bathroom is,” I whispered when we left the room. He pushed me into what looked like Roman’s office and shoved me up against a wall.

  “We’re not going to the bathroom, Pinky. That was a ruse about washing our hands so I could speak to you.”

  “Oh, right. I caught on to that but lost it somewhere.” I ran my finger over his lips. “Have I told you how sexy you are tonight?”

  “Pinky, if you think seducing me will work, you’re right, but first let’s talk about what we’re doing here.”

  I put my hands on my hips and stomped my foot on the floor. “My father was murdered, and one of those people in there killed him.”

  “What do you mean he was murdered? Do you have proof?”

  “I have a feeling,” I said.

  His eyes locked onto mine and didn’t let go. “A feeling?”

  “A strong feeling, and I found a note.” I took it out of my purse and showed it to him.

  “This doesn’t say much.”

  “It’s a clue.”

  “Pinky, it’s been two months since you last tripped over a dead body. Now you’re going back decades to find one because you have Miss Marple withdrawals. I can’t help feeling you’ll do anything to avoid thinking about our house and wedding.”

  He was probably right. “I like flooring, but I like sleuthing better.”<
br />
  “What about me? How much do you like me?”

  His cocky grin disappeared and so did his ample self-confidence. “You’re my best friend.”

  Spencer’s eyes widened. “Really? More than Bridget? More than Lucy?”

  “I love Bridget and Lucy, but I can’t live without you.” I gasped with the weight of my confession. Searching myself, I found that it was true. “But I can live without bamboo flooring and a custom-made couch,” I added.

  “I’m planning on ravishing you daily on that custom-made couch, Pinky.”

  “You are?”

  “And I plan on watching Padres games, lying on that couch.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Okay. Go ahead and be Miss Marple. It’s in your blood to be nosy. You can’t push back the tide, and I can’t un-nosy Gladie Burger. Or should I say, Gladys?”

  “No, you should definitely not say Gladys.”

  “Let’s get back. We’ve been washing our hands for seven minutes. They must think we’re insane germaphobes. They’re probably right.”

  He took my hand and kissed it. We made our way back to the dining room. “And Pinky,” Spencer whispered to me. “Ditto. You’re my best friend, too. And I probably can’t live without you, either. God help me.”

  When we sat back down at the table, the pâté plates had been removed, and bowls of lobster bisque had been served. I tried to remember not to slurp. The atmosphere had gotten even more icy, but the wine had loosened lips even more.

  “I’m sure a guy like you needs insurance,” Steve told Roman. “You couldn’t call me and throw me some business?”

  “I’m sorry, Steve. It didn’t occur to me, actually.”

  Steve dropped his spoon into his bowl. “Of course it didn’t. Let’s be honest here, okay? You guys never treated me with respect, because my writing was crap and I gave it up. So, now I’m in insurance instead of poetry, and that means you have to forget my name. Am I right?”

  “No, of course not,” Roman said.

  Adam barked laughter. “Yes, he’s right. What am I going to talk about with an insurance salesman? You sold out. You’re living on a different planet than I am. And Roman is living on his own planet away from all other life forms. Writing one book isn’t being a writer, Roman.”