Caught Dead in Philadelphia

by Gillian Roberts

  “Mother Cole,” Sissie said, obviously pushing for daughterly status, “we must rush.” Her voice was at its most cultivated, and it floated and lounged above the earthy sounds of the masses below it.

  When it was my turn, Mrs. Nichols accepted my words passively.

  At the doorway, C.K. Mackenzie monitored the room with singular apathy. He yawned as I approached him, then belatedly covered his mouth with his hand. “Feelin’ all right tonight?” he said softly when I was near. “No more hysteria? Haven’t heard from you, so I figured you were still intact.”

  “I’m fine. And what brings you here?”

  “I’m supposed to do this sort of thing. In movies, detectives always appear at funerals, viewings, you know. They experience epiphanies.”

  “And have you?”

  “Not even a minor truth became obvious. I’m ready to drop, anyway.”

  I believed him. His eyes, half shut, had lost their wattage. His normal slouch was exaggerated, drooping dangerously near to a crawl.

  “You leavin’ too?” he asked.

  We nodded farewell to the slick funeral director. “I’m doing the right things,” C.K. muttered as we walked. “I run around and collect things that don’t add up. I sit with Ray and try to make it add up anyway. I go back and forth to the Playhouse, her modeling agency, the bastions of the rich—”

  “I gathered as much,” I said. “Everybody I meet seems to be spending time with you on a daily basis.”

  “We read reports and talk,” he droned on, barely acknowledging me. “And nothing. I came here tonight, studied the list of visitors, carefully scrutinized everythin’, and instead of revelation, I get fatigue.” We were down on the sidewalk. “Want a lift?”

  His car, for no apparent reason, smelled of popcorn.

  “Maybe it’s no good being officially labeled ‘detective,’” I said. “You go around trying to force people to tell you things. They clam up. But I stand still, knowing zilch, and people come on to me, force-feeding me tidbits. Maybe I find out more than you do.”

  I thought that’d tantalize him, but he was less than intrigued. He scratched his head and stared at his ignition key. “Like that dark-haired fellow?” he finally said. “Saw some heavy action between you two. He doesn’t seem your type, though.” Mackenzie yawned and began driving, very slowly.

  I almost asked Mackenzie which parts of my household inventory made him deduce what my type might be. But he was right; Eddie wasn’t my type, and as fascinating as it is hearing myself described, I was not the topic at hand.

  “Eddie, that dark-haired fellow, is an actor. At the Playhouse. He wants to talk to me about Liza.”

  “I know who he is. I talked to him. He isn’t a suspect. He was working all day Monday. He’s clean. And I think he was coming on to you in a kind of creepy way, considerin’ the circumstances.”

  “He has something he wants to say. To me. Not to the police.”

  “I’ll just bet. And who could blame him for his preference?” We waited for a light to change. Mackenzie rested his head on the steering wheel.

  “About Liza. He wants to talk about Liza.”

  This time my somnolent driver attempted to smother his yawn by holding his lips together. He looked like a blowfish.

  “I’m serious, Mackenzie,” I said. “And you’re barely listening. This could be important stuff. Also,” I said, forcefully, so that it would penetrate his stupor, “Sissie Bellinger has twice been at me, asking what Liza said, what I know.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, barely moving his mouth. “People love firsthand tellings. That’s what sells all those magazines in the supermarket, you know?”

  “It’s more than that. Hayden Cole is behaving suspiciously. He practically kidnapped me yesterday. I forgot to tell you.”

  “Forgot?” Mackenzie shook his head. “Forgot a kidnapping?”

  “Well, it was almost one. He made me ride around with him, and he questioned me.”

  “Made you? Forced you? Dragged you? Hit you?”

  “Well, his man, this Haskell creep, yanked me.”

  “And Hayden? What did he do?”

  “He, ah, he told him to stop.”

  “Wow,” Mackenzie said; then he yawned again.

  I sat up straight for my final offering, hoping it would trigger some sympathetic response.

  “Then listen to this one, C.K. Hayden’s mother followed it up by telling me that her little boy wouldn’t hurt a fly and that he’d better become senator because he’s all goodness and light. She’s weird.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “And she told me all that, too, even though I am an official detective. He was a good little boy. Citizenship award every year. Perfect attendance record. Dean’s list at Franklin and Marshall. Right fraternity, right—”

  “Doesn’t it make you suspicious? Why is she pouring his innocence all over you? I mean, my brother-in-law was in the same right fraternity at F&M as Cole was, but I don’t rush around making sure you know that. What’s its relevance? Any of it?”

  But he was on a roll, and as soon as my interruption ended, he resumed his sentence. “…law firm. Right father. Right mother. Nice baby, nice boy, nice man…”

  Mackenzie was driving five miles an hour. He even lacked the energy to press on the gas pedal.

  “It’s the way she said it that’s important, Mackenzie! Wake up! Why should she talk to me that way?”

  Have you ever noticed how we rush to fill vacuums? Energy vacuums included? As if there’s a base level that must be maintained at all costs. So the lower-keyed Mackenzie got, the more manic and expressive I became, just so there’d be evidence of life in the car. I gesticulated, I emphasized, I trilled, I pleaded. “Hayden quizzes me, Mama prompts me,” I said. “Isn’t it all obvious? What’s his alibi for Monday? Did you check it out?”

  He stopped in midyawn. His ego was obviously still hearty. “What kind of question is that? Of course I did. He was with some dumb—the Thursday Club. Except they meet Mondays. Late breakfast, then a conference with his campaign manager.”

  We were finally in front of my house. C.K. put the car into neutral and rubbed his eyes.

  “Yes, but I mean really check. Was he with other people every single minute? And wouldn’t they cover for him, anyway? As his campaign manager would, wouldn’t he? Were there any breaks in time, long enough to get to my house?” I felt inspired, considered myself one of the great orators. My honeyed words, my persuasive powers, would convince the slow-witted detective.

  He stared at me, his mouth half-open.

  “Look!” I said, eyebrows rising to convey the message. “The suburban clique is too worried—look how hard they’re pushing me! If you really go over his schedule Monday, minute by minute—and Sissie’s, too—you might find something.”

  “My, oh, my,” he said. “Havin’ fun, aren’t you? Look at you now! Perky little lady sleuth. Nancy Drew’s all grown up.”

  I shriveled and tumbled from my podium. “I resent that.”

  “Hold on, now. I have been on this for four straight days with almost no sleep. There’s a lot of pressure you don’t know about, family bein’ so prominent and all. But I know my business. I’m good at it. Your business is teachin’ English. You’re good at that. But your part of my business is over. Stay out. I appreciate your good intentions, but this is my job.” He ran out of steam.

  “Good night,” I said stiffly, getting out of the car. “Do get some sleep. It’s supposed to rejuvenate brain cells.”

  “I’ll wait till you’re inside,” he said, sagging over the steering wheel. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the funeral. All us detectives go to those things, too.”

  I went into my house, fuming over the way my tax dollars were being wasted on that dimwit. I wondered how and why I had ever, even for a moment, found him the least bit appealing.

  Nine

  I overslept, waking in time to do no more than ready myself for the funeral. I straggled downstairs to make coffee, then
shuffled back up, cup in hand, complimenting myself for mastering coffee without cigarettes for six straight days, and they hadn’t been the easiest of days.

  This one wasn’t going to be any easier. I brushed my teeth carefully, concentrating on them, not the impending funeral. I’d seen death firsthand now, seen it on my living room floor. But I’d blurred it, pushed it as far away as I could all week, pretending it could be solved and sponged from my life. Last night I’d turned away from Mrs. Nichols’s grief and what it represented. Today, it would be solemnized and ritualized, and I would have to face it.

  But later. Meanwhile, there were less significant problems to consider. Mackenzie wasn’t really insignificant yet, but his insufferable behavior had certainly reduced his stature. I would have to face him, too, but that was a face I could prepare. I practiced cold and haughty expressions in the bathroom mirror. The cat jumped up and watched me have a significant interchange with my reflection.

  “Can’t talk, Mackenzie,” I murmured. “Must run now. Back to my real life, you know.” And of course, my very tone would remind him that I am an academic, a civilized woman whose life is not compatible with a flatfoot’s. “Good luck and good-bye, Mackenzie!”

  The cat stopped in midwash. “I said Mackenzie, not Macavity, you dumb beast.” He resumed his toilette.

  “Or,” I mumbled, dental floss between my teeth, “call me if you ever need help again, Mackenzie. Eddie’s information really broke open this case, didn’t it, though?”

  I hoped it did. All I knew about Eddie was that he was a two-bit player in a semiprofessional group of actors, an intense, scared rabbit who followed me, then ran away. I didn’t even know his full name.

  Finding that out intrigued me more than dental hygiene. I put down the flosser, risking gum disease. Maybe my accumulated plaque would bring me to an interesting, single, periodontist. It would please my mother.

  I went to find the playbill.

  It was still next to the bedroom telephone. I scanned it while I put on panty hose. No Eddie in the starring roles. Then I found it. He gave himself his full Edward, which seemed much too formal for his style. Edward Bayer. One of the minor players, part of the team of dull names.

  I pulled on a navy turtleneck dress before it hit me. Before I heard it, instead of just seeing it.

  “Edward Bayer,” I said out loud, stunned. “Edward Bear.” The real, the honest-to-Milne-given name of Winnie the Pooh.

  I whirred around my room, pulling shoes out of the closet, running a comb through my hair, slapping appropriate, I hoped, makeup on my face. “Thank you, niece Karen, for endless evenings with that bear. I’ll share my good citizenship award with you.”

  I glanced at the playbill again, then turned it over. Mackenzie’s various phone numbers, written in firmly blockish characters, faced me. Given his energy level last night, I was certain he hadn’t rushed out at dawn to sniff for clues.

  “Take that, Mackenzie,” I said, punching my index finger into his telephone number. “So the big professional who knows his business examined lists of names, talked to everybody, and still found nothing. So I’m just an English teacher who should stop playing sleuth, am I?” I reached for the telephone.

  Then I paused. Why waste my golden moment of triumph on the phone? I’d see him in less than an hour. And I wanted to see him. Wanted to watch his sleepy eyes open in wonder. Wanted to wait patiently while he searched for humble, apologetic words. I deserved to see it firsthand.

  I practiced gloating while I walked to my car. A lot of things made sense now. Eddie was the reason for Liza’s lies about staying with me. She used them for both her mother and Hayden.

  Eddie had been with her Sunday night. After the Playhouse performance. He called me the one in the middle. After him. Before the killer.

  But why not Edward the Bear as killer?

  I considered Eddie as a potential menace as I drove. He could be afraid, like all the others, that Liza had told me something important. But I couldn’t see the danger in talking to him at the cemetery, in full view of other people. He was a coward at heart. He wouldn’t do anything there. And for a coward to come forward that way, to promise to go to the police, which frightened him, must mean he had something important to say.

  I was one of the first to arrive at the funeral home, and I was ushered to a seat near the front of the chapel. I looked around at the sprinkling of faces. Some were familiar. The pregnant high school friend was there, next to a beefy young man. Sarah Halvorsen sat alone, stiff and withdrawn.

  “Early, aren’t we?” a familiar voice said. Sissie wore something dark and silky that whispered along with her as she slid in next to me. “Not many here. Why? Maybe too early, is all. Or she wasn’t as popular as she liked to…” I was not in the mood, never had been, for the woman’s soliloquy, but there was no polite exit.

  “Exhausted,” she said, “rushing all the time. Too much, too much. Extra rehearsals, running around, the fair tomorrow night. And of course, I am still Petey’s mother.”

  I have nothing firsthand to say about mothering, so I nodded and stayed silent. Sissie didn’t mind.

  “Wherever are the Coles?” She glanced at her watch, and as if on cue, they entered, seating themselves across the aisle. Sissie waved. Hayden finally noticed, smiled, and stayed put.

  “Poor man’s going through hell,” Sissie whispered. “I try my best to ease the pressure, poor Hay, but…” She shook her head and paused, surprising me while she waited for a response.

  “You’re very close, aren’t you?” I murmured, looking around. Where was Eddie?

  “Close? Almost family. Our parents had Sunday dinners together before we were born. Spent summers at Cape May together, celebrated holidays, were law partners…”

  Sissie switched gears to her theater woes. “Really nervous about Sarah. Stick of wood. Wish the other hadn’t taken the country thing, but who knew? Could have finished the run and gone away. Said she would. Who could have known?”

  It did no good to pay attention to her. My mind hopped back over her words, trying to sort them out. “The other” shouldn’t have taken that role, but then who could have finished the run and gone away? Not that same other. Liza? Liza had said she’d go away? “Who do you mean…” I began, but I gave up. Sissie wouldn’t clarify anything. She was good at talking, not at saying anything. I returned to my increasingly difficult search for Eddie’s dark head. The pews were filling with neighbors, actors, a sprinkle of polished faces that must have been from the modeling agency, and a group of well-dressed men who came up to Hayden before finding seats.

  He greeted them politely, but after they’d moved off, he sat rigidly, running his hand across his collar, brushing imaginary specks off his lapel. His mother sat next to him like a monument.

  The chapel became so full I couldn’t see more than a row or two behind me. I couldn’t even find Mackenzie, who was surely slouching in a rear pew.

  A swell of solemn music announced the service. I felt a lurch of fear, a desire to run away.

  “They asked Hayden to give the eulogy. Poor taste, I think. Declined, of course,” Sissie whispered.

  I tensed up, afraid of what I was going to hear, of what I was going to have to learn, once and for all. But I needn’t have worried. The minister had no real knowledge of Liza, and his all-purpose, impersonal words were vague and meaningless, filled with tributes to the life hereafter and laments for those cut down before their time.

  They didn’t penetrate the wall around my emotions. I was safe in my fortress, and I relaxed a little.

  Afterward, we filed out slowly. I had to wait for all those behind me to leave, and by the time I edged out into the daylight, only a handful of people were around. A line of filled cars waited to leave for the cemetery.

  “Oh, Miss Pepper! Can I ride with you? Please? I don’t have a car.” It was Stacy Felkin, the student who had idolized Liza. Her mascara again smeary, she blew her nose and looked up at me. “The other kids left alr
eady. They forgot about me.”

  “Of course,” I said. Who could deny her passage? It wasn’t far from the truth to say that she was Liza’s one true mourner. “I’m parked around the corner.”

  “Mornin’,” a voice drawled. “Or afternoon, to be precise.” His smile was open and guileless, his blue eyes bright. It became difficult envisioning him as the humbled wreck of my morning fantasies.

  “Hello,” I said coolly. I introduced the detective and the student.

  “I saw him at school,” Stacy said, blowing her nose again.

  “Are you more rested today?” I asked C.K. It was hard to tell with this man.

  “Ah, yes,” he said with another smile. “Slept twelve hours. I feel great. You ladies want a lift to the cemetery? My car’s right here.”

  Stacy paused in her attempt to remove the smudges around her eyes. “You’d drive us?” she said, ready to adopt another hero on the spot. I didn’t want to be around to see how she’d adapt to Mackenzie’s shuffling, drawling style.

  If the aroma of popcorn was still in the car, it was smothered by Stacy’s perfume, a musky scent reminiscent of Liza’s. We drove in silence through gray city streets and then into and through the dull-green park ringing the city.

  Stacy’s pocketbook was drilling a large cavity in my hipbone. I pulled it out from between us and handed it to her. “Pretty bag,” I murmured.

  She regarded it lovingly. “It’s like the one Miss Nichols carried. Almost.”

  With every breath I inhaled a Stacy-mutated variation of Liza’s scent. Stacy’s hair was a scraggly version of Liza’s mane. Stacy’s peasant dress imitated one of Liza’s favorite costumes.

  “And see what my mother gave me for my birthday?” Stacy fumbled at her neck. She held up a heart-shaped locket. “I asked for it three months ago. It’s like Miss Nichols’s. Almost.”

  Mackenzie maneuvered the car through the cemetery gates. The gravesite wasn’t far away. I could see a group clustered around it, but no Eddie.

  “I see the other kids, Miss Pepper,” Stacy whispered, although we weren’t close to the grave yet. “I can get a ride home from them. Thanks, sir.”