“It brings that day back. I’m glad you’re playing it.” Jill placed her sandwich down and gazed at Jody laughing, pleading for pity from a six-year-old riding her ribs. A smile actually broke on Jill’s lips as Jody flailed wildly and comically, calling, “Haalp! David, saaave me!”
Shrieks from the children, who thought that was hilarious.
It was still hilarious. Smiles edged to the mouths of all four residents.
“I never realized how really funny she was,” Charlie murmured; and Gary, noticing that Jill wasn’t eating, rose to get her a Coke.
“Fuel up,” he ordered. “How much time do you have?”
“Ten minutes.” She thanked him for the Coke.
Ramu commented, gently, that it must be hard, going through the usual duties with “this horrid business” at hand. “You seem like you’re going by rote. Running your motor on automatic pilot.”
“Kinda.” She managed a smile for him; looked around at the others and shrugged. “That’s how they train us, right? So you can do it all by rote, even if you’re half dead from fatigue?”
Three nods, and then Charlie jumped up to the TV. “I changed my mind. I’m turning this off. It’s depressing after all.” His hand went to the button and then stopped. He looked back at them, torn.
Which prompted a weary discussion of which was worse: keep the video on, or turn it off and try to eat in more depressing silence.
They kept it on. Turned the sound down and tried to distract Jill by talking about cases. Charlie’s patient who arrived for a pregnancy checkup in labor, and had to be sent up for delivery. Ramu’s fourteen-year-old complaining that her stomach was big and couldn’t understand how she’d gotten pregnant; he’d had to explain. Gary’s patient last week who’d insisted she was carrying the next Messiah, and was gently dispatched to Psychiatry.
“We pointed out that it was April, not December,” Ramu said with a kindly smirk. “That’s when she agreed to go.”
“Whatever happened with that woman who brought in her pregnant dog?” Gary asked Charlie.
“We sent her to the animal clinic. She had five puppies.”
“Who? The woman?”
“No, the dog, stupid.”
The others’ voices dimmed as Jill scrolled her phone, checking her remaining clinic appointments. Not too many. Things would thin out by twelve-thirty, she figured.
And started to worry about Edna Polsen.
Celie, turned low on the tape, was hugging a four-year-old and singing “Inky Dinky Spider” to him. David’s camera panned to Jody a few feet away, ensconced in a huge green beanbag reading Dr. Seuss to older kids. The two had exhausted themselves, but were happy.
And Jill bit her lip, remembering Ray Zienuc saying that Edna hadn’t even heard Jody was dead. That was last night, when she scolded Alex through the door. Had she heard yet today? Or was she shut off from news, living in her own little world?
If so, how to tell her? Much less ask questions about last night?
It was ten before twelve. In less than an hour she’d be headed to Edna’s.
Jill fretted…
14
Edna Polsen was delicate and fussy in an archaic way. Rather like those 1930s films about society types who thought being madcap was cute. (Depression? What Depression?) She was also truly nutty - “Oh hel-lo, you’re Jody’s lawyer, no, friend, no, doctor who called?” - out of tune like the baby grand she now sat at, her bony fingers pounding the keys, her milky blue eyes greatly excited to be recalling the past.
“…very dear friends, Mister Polsen and Cole Porter,” she twittered as she plinked at Anything Goes. Her wispy pink hair was uncombed, and her foot tapped the beat as she bounced on the stool, a kimonoed and vaguely gnomish figure in a dusty, shadowed parlor.
The subject cheered her, diverting her mind from the tragic business that Jill had come about. In fact, Jill worried that she was getting too diverted as she worked off her upset.
Ten minutes ago, in the most gentle way possible, she’d told Edna that Jody was dead, murdered. Had watched the frail woman crumple in shock. Go to pieces.
“That’s what all the commotion’s about,” she’d wept shrilly, clutching a dainty hanky. “People milling out on the sidewalk, and Misty barking and barking.”
Jill had then asked if Edna heard anything upstairs last night, and never got an answer. The tears grew more pitiful, and Jill had said, Yes, take a moment if playing calms you.
Mistake.
Now Jill sat, in her navy scrubs with her wet from the rain parka still on, by the piano on a lumpy chair, trying to be patient and starting a slow burn.
Edna smiled coquettishly. “Would you care to guess where Mister Polsen and Cole Porter met?”
“I couldn’t imagine,” Jill said, irritably shifting her weight. Her running shoes were wet, too.
“Well! It wasn’t when Mr. Polsen produced Cole’s earlier shows -- that’s what everyone thinks.” And she batted her crinkly eyes, becoming again the dare-anything showgirl she’d just said she was, back when the music was better and sin was really sin, oh yes! Such fun except for the police – “brutes!” - who’d once herded every girl into the precinct. How was she to know there was illegal gambling going on?
“So!” she insisted musically. “Guess where my honey and Cole met. Come on.”
Jill politely raised her eyebrows. Another mistake.
“They met in the French Foreign Legion! Woo-hoo! Did you know Cole Porter was in the French Foreign Legion? You see, he finished college in 1913, and, well, couldn’t find himself as you young folks say nowadays. So when horrid World War I broke out he learned French in a godamighty hurry and joined up. Can you picture silly martini-face in the desert?”
She laughed her tinkly laugh and rattled her piano: “Now heaven knooows… And then, well! Along came Mr. Polsen, two years younger and simply dreading those winters in nasty old Europe, so he too joined the Legion and the rest is history. They used to tell me - I was much younger - that they found the only piano in the Sahara.”
“The only piano in the Sahara.” Jill repeated slowly, feeling ready to blow. She peeked at her watch. 1:17, dammit!
Mistinguette (“call her Misty, everyone does”), the elderly white poodle who’d knocked herself out barking when Jill arrived, was back on the sofa snoring. Also wheezing loudly, an awful sound. There was no sign of a TV or a computer. The only good thing about the piano was that it drowned out the wheezing.
“Truly!” Edna trilled. “Want me to play Fifty Million Frenchmen for you? It’s less well known, Cole wrote it in ’29 when he was very drunk. Oh dear, I’ll need the sheet music for that.”
“Ah, Mrs. Polsen, I’d prefer it if you tell me…”
She had pulled herself up, still twittering, to riffle papers on top of the piano, raising dust, tinkling the lamp’s dangling crystals. A cracked mirror blended her image with reflected, glam portrait photos on the opposite wall, all from long ago. This was Edna’s world. In this dim parlor with its musty velvet and tassels she could hide, insulate herself from everything new and frightening – including her, Jill suddenly realized.
Edna had remembered more than expected. Cole Porter’s graduation year. Her husband two years younger than Porter. The French Foreign Legion as a way to dodge World War I. Was all this dithering an act? A fragile person’s attempt at avoidance?
Enough. Jill stood up with a hand on some sheet music. “Did Jody like Cole Porter?” she asked, trying to steer Edna back.
The milky blue eyes brightened and papers flew. “Jody loves Cole Porter!” Edna lowered herself determinedly back to her stool, spread new sheet music before her, and began to play; began to sing, oh God. Plinkety-plink. “Fifty Million Frenchmen know a thing or twooo…”
Jill groaned, and leaned forward on the piano. “Mrs. Polsen,” she said, a bit too forcefully. “Jody needs you to help find out who killed her.”
Edna’s hands stilled on the keys. She looked at Jill with he
r eyes rounded, the corners of her little mouth turned down. “Oh dear,” she said. “Oh dear.”
Contrite as a child. Jill must have sounded scolding, and the surprise was that it worked. More gently, she searched Edna’s eyes and asked, “Do you want to help? Answer some questions for me?”
“Oh, yes.” Fervent and sorrowful. Edna looked away, out the French doors to the rainy balcony beyond. She dabbed at her eyes with her hanky again; looked earnestly back to Jill. “With all my heart.”
There should have been someone there to play the Hallelujah Chorus.
Jill walked around the piano so that her back was to the glass doors. Before Edna she placed today’s newspaper, and her phone which she explained also worked like a tape recorder. (“Oh my,” Edna said.) She hit the Record button, had Edna speak the newspaper’s date, and from a grandfather clock feet away had her verify the time.
Edna peered back at the newspaper with surprise. “April already?”
“Yes,” Jill said hurriedly. Her heart started to pound. “Mrs. Polsen, did you hear anything last night? Anything unusual?”
“Er, yes. I heard a crash.”
Jill blinked at her. Edna still wore the expression of a sorry six-year-old, but seemed more…there. Connecting better.
The frail voice was hesitant. “I turned out the light at ten-thirty, as I always do. And there I was, drifting off, and I heard it. Crash!” She thrust her bony hands wide to show how crashes crashed. “Then there was stomping around and I thought, Oh, Jody’s had some drinks and dropped something.”
Jill’s breath caught.
Ten-thirty…I was drifting off… That would make the crash and stomping – struggle - around eleven. Jody fighting for her life. Struggling to free herself from her attacker. Jill saw again the torn sweater coat, the flung African violets.
Her heart thudded with rage and her lips were dry. “Did you see or hear anything after that?” Her voice shook.
“Yes, Celie going up those stairs.” Edna pointed out the French doors. “Celie is Jody’s friend, you know. A darling girl.”
“Celie Jarrett.” It wasn’t a question. The head was aching, trying to keep Edna focused.
“Yes!” The reddened, crinkly eyes re-animated. Edna smiled sweetly and dove for avoidance again. “Oh, you should hear those two sing Cole’s What Is This Thing Called Love. Jody’s voice is better, of course. So sweet and sad– ”
“What happened after you saw Celie on those stairs?” Jill leaned closer, pressed her clammy palms on the piano. The sleeping poodle wheezed.
“Er, another crash, a bigger one.” Edna jolted, grew distressed. “It’s too much, what goes on up there. The noise, the parties, those girls and their boyfriends fighting. Celie came back down awfully fast, probably because that dreadful man was after her.”
Jill stared.
“Dreadful man,” she repeated, holding her breath. Her pulse rocketed.
“Well, I think it was him. That bad actor Rick fellow Celie lives with. They’re always fighting, and why they have to have their rows here in the wee hours is beyond me. If I’ve asked Jody once I’ve asked her fifty times, tell Celie her boyfriend’s – ”
“What is Rick’s last name?”
“Fowler. As in foul weather.”
“Did you see his face?”
“Whose face?”
“Rick Fow-ler’s,” Jill said, very slowly. Don’t yell, keep her calm. Her head whirled. “Did you see his face?” she repeated.
Edna’s fingertips went to her mouth. “Well, no. You see, my bed faces the window but I was so sleepy. I’m not even sure it was Rick. I’d assumed, you know, because Celie and Rick fight and…oh dear, all I really saw was dark hair, dark pants…” She hesitated. Her brow furrowed. “But there was something. Yes, I think there was something about him-”
From the hall outside came men’s voices. The unmistakable clamor of cops and CSU people coming back, talking over the squawks of their radios, stomping up to where Jody had lived.
It broke the spell.
“Oh!” Edna’s hand went to her throat. Misty jumped off the sofa and ran yapping to the door.
“Police,” Jill said ruefully. “That’s still a crime scene up there.” Dammit, dammit! Edna was lost. Jill hadn’t mentioned Celie’s death, or her crime scene on the side of the house, or comparison samples probably being sought upstairs.
My bed faces the window. “Okay if I see your bedroom, Mrs. Polsen?”
No response. Clomping upstairs now. Edna clutched her sheet music to her and peered fearfully at the ceiling. Misty’s shrill yapping was torture and Jill’s head pounded. She grabbed her still-recording phone and ducked into Edna’s bedroom. Same layout as Jody’s first floor one, only Edna’s bed had a clear view of the iron stairs. By day someone coming down would have been visible, but at night, with Edna sleepy…
Jill took pictures of the room and the view, two of them from next to Edna’s pillow.
“Misty, stop that!” came from the next room. Jill went back and found Edna by the front door, fanning herself with her sheet music. The noise in the foyer had thinned. Some last big feet pounded up the stairs.
Edna gave her an agitated look. “He was jealous, you know.”
“Who was jealous?” Jill clutched her phone.
“The other one, Jody’s boyfriend Eric. He was horribly jealous because she loved another man - Misty, I said stop that! – and she wanted to get away but lived in fear of Eric’s temper, which is no excuse in my book - and Mr. Polsen agrees with me. ‘Any man who makes a woman afraid of him isn’t a man,’ that’s what my honey says about that.” Edna fanned herself, and peered up at the clomping.
Confusion whirled. Wasn’t she a widow?
Awkwardly Jill said, “Uh, I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Mrs. Polsen. I was under the impression your husband was deceased.”
She was offended. “I should say not! Why, Mr. Polsen is right here with me all the time!” She pointed back to the mantle. “In that lovely urn. Always there to keep Misty and me company and discuss every single thing. Isn’t that right, Misty darling?”
The dog, limp from exertion, whimpered at her feet. Jill, limp from Edna-stress, gave her her card.
“Thank you, and please call if you remember anything else?”
“Of course. Now if you’ll excuse me, dear, I must nap. Please tell those policemen if they want to see me, they can’t. I’ve never forgiven those brutes. Tell them not to even knock!”
15
“That dreadful man... Well I THINK it was him. That Rick fellow…”
“Did you see his face?”
“Whose face?”
Jill went down the house’s steps. The rain had stopped and turned to gloom as she hit the sidewalk, moving fast, half seeing the TV vans and police cars, the blur of crowding fans and reporters and cops trying to keep order. WE LOVE YOU JODY AND CELIE, scrawled signs on the wrought iron rail, most with bouquets or teddy bears. One furry-faced little guy caught Jill’s eye and she stopped. The paws held red sweetheart roses, and from a ribbon around his neck hung I ♥ JODY.
She would have loved this one, Jill thought, touching the bear, the roses…
Then she felt in her pocket for her phone, feeling disappointment press down on her. What, really, was in that recording? The crash crashed around eleven. That was good. But who had been up there with Jody? And could Edna be off about the time?
Oh damn.
She’d been surprised at the date, even. April already? Oh my. An unreliable witness. “Deceased? I should say not! Mr. Polsen is right here with me in that lovely urn.”
Some crying teens bumped into Jill as she thought crazily: But Edna saw someone. How clear was she going to be if the cops finally got to her? They’d keep trying - or they’d ask Jill to plead again with her. Edna liked me, Jill thought, remembering the “Now if you’ll excuse me, dear.”
She repocketed her phone and looked yards ahead. Inhaled sharply.
A tearful cr
owd pressed against the house’s wrought iron service gate. She edged closer and craned over shoulders. Beyond the gate was the brick walk to the yellow-taped, horrific tented area, busy with CSU people going in and out, combing the still-wet walk, garbage bags, and ivy.
Celie’s crime scene.
Nausea gripped. A terrible shiver of sorrow and revulsion. Jill had seen plenty of knife wounds, and knew none could match the savagery that that hideous dagger would inflict. S-shaped, as hard plunging in as pulling out - and multiple stabs! It must have taken strength.
Tears of horror welled. Celie, oh God, you were too sweet… Jill wheeled, eyes shut, trying not to picture her mutilated body, the raw, gaping knife wounds.
They stayed in her mind. Shook her to the core. Grimly, she opened her eyes, turned back involuntarily – and saw a face she recognized.
A woman leaning on the rail, weeping. Mid thirties in a trench coat and boots, beige dress longer than her trench and drooping almost sloppily. A laptop bag over her shoulder.
Deborah Wylie.
Jill blinked. It was almost two, she had to get back. But a force took hold of her.
She edged through others and reached to tap the hunched shoulder. “Hi,” she said softly, and gave a faint smile.
The reddened, amber eyes took in the long, dark ponytail, the navy scrub pants under the parka, and it registered. She’d been in a fog. Her face crumpled. “You’re here…” She bent her head, mopped her eyes with her tissue.
Jill touched her arm. “Let’s walk a little.”
Deborah’s bloodshot eyes peered back to the house. “I should see Edna. She may not have even heard. Lives in her own world.”
“She’s heard.”
There were dark rings under Deborah’s eyes, as if she hadn’t slept. “You went in? Comforted her?”
“Tried to, yeah.”
Another sorrowful look at the house. “I should see Edna too. Was trying to get myself together.”
“Maybe later. She’s resting. I have to catch a cab on Lexington. You?”
EMBRYO 5: SILVER GIRL (EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller) Page 7
