Wendy Delaney - Working Stiffs 01 - Trudy, Madly, Deeply

by Wendy Delaney

  The creases around his warm brown eyes deepened.

  “I’ve been working on Trudy Bergeson’s case—”

  “Have you.” He sharpened his gaze. “I wasn’t aware that this had already been made an official Coroner case.”

  I knew I’d just made a rookie mistake, so I thought I’d better fess up before I dug myself too deep a hole. “It’s not exactly official.”

  The woman carrying the duffel opened the rear door of the truck canopy and glanced back at us over her shoulder. “Henry,” she said softly. “If we want to make the one-fifty ferry, we need to go.”

  Dr. Zuniga winked at me. “My wife, the clock watcher.”

  I edged closer. “I’m sorry, but do you think this will become a Coroner case? Because there are some extenuating circumstances that—”

  “Frankie will get my report tomorrow morning,” he said as he lifted the cases into the rear of the truck. “But I didn’t see anything conclusive that would indicate a cause of death other than Mrs. Bergeson’s rather advanced heart disease, which could certainly have led to cardiac arrest.”

  “There was nothing conclusive.” Okay. “Was there anything that struck you as odd? Anything that didn’t fit?” I said, using Kyle Cardinale’s words.

  Dr. Zuniga pursed his lips, hesitating. That would be a yes.

  “Not typical,” he said thoughtfully, “but I wouldn’t call it terribly odd.”

  But something he found was niggling at him. I could see it as clearly as the roadmap of lines on his face.

  “She had a secondary needle mark next to her intravenous needle site. Her chart didn’t indicate any recent injections, but it happens sometimes. Usually a less experienced nurse. Probably nothing to be overly concerned about, but we’ll run the usual labs. We’ll know more in four to six weeks.”

  I may have only been on day three of my job, but I was already sick of that answer.

  Chapter Seven

  Saturday afternoon, I took a seat in the chapel of Tolliver’s Funeral Home four rows back from a narrow table draped with an antique white, lace-edged runner. Two porcelain vases filled with red roses, carnations, and white calla lilies bookended the luminescent ceramic urn sitting center stage on the table, next to a framed photo of a smiling Trudy. Flanking the table, long ivory tapers atop brass candlesticks softly flickered while gentle strains of Mozart were pumped through the wood grain speakers mounted in the corners of the chapel. Since it was the hottest day of the year, pumping some air-conditioning into the room would have been a more effective mood enhancer.

  “It feels like we were just here for Rose,” Aunt Alice grumbled, easing down onto the padded folding chair to the left of my grandmother.

  Gram answered with a pat of her younger sister’s hand, but I knew that most of the senior crowd in attendance shared Alice’s sentiments.

  Marietta wiggled her hips into the aisle seat next to me.

  “Mah, isn’t this cozy,” she said, fanning herself with Trudy’s memorial brochure.

  “Yeah, cozy.” In a sweat-dripping-down-my-back kind of way that had me regretting my decision to squeeze into my black Nordstrom Rack pantsuit with the help of some control top panty hose to minimize the damage of the last ten pounds I’d packed on. Marietta wore a curve-hugging pomegranate knit dress with a V-neck that minimized nothing.

  A couple of hours earlier, I’d made an effort with the hair dryer and beaten my hair into submission long enough to twist it into a chignon, plaster it with hairspray, and call it good enough. Not according to my mother, as she would attest if she’d stop with the sidelong glances at my hair and actually say what she was thinking.

  I felt a tug on a strand that had escaped from my chignon, and turned around to fire on yet another hair critic.

  Steve’s face split into an evil grin as he took the seat behind me. He wore a charcoal business suit—probably the same one he wore when he had to testify in court. With his lean, athletic body, Steve could wear anything and look great, but with the cut of the suit, the pressed cornflower blue shirt, and his short, cropped, finger-combed dark brown hair, he looked finger-licking good.

  He would have looked even better if Heather Beckett hadn’t sat down next to him and given me the stink eye.

  “Hey,” I said to Steve. Heather? Seriously?

  Heather had chewed him up and spit him out our junior year in high school. I thought he was too smart to fall for her act back then. He certainly hadn’t gotten any dumber in the last seventeen years. At least I hadn’t thought so before today.

  “Steve, honay.” Marietta turned and took his hand. “Oooh,” she purred. “Now don’t you clean up well.”

  “Have you met Heather?” Steve asked.

  A smooth deflection move since it required Marietta and anyone within earshot to acknowledge Heather’s existence.

  I aimed a smile at my former nemesis. It may even have appeared to be sincere.

  “I’m sure ah have,” Marietta said in a tone of indifference that registered loud and clear on Heather’s face.

  My mother can be quite condescending at times, especially while channeling her inner Southern belle. This was one of those times and I didn’t mind one bit.

  Steve met my gaze. The tic in his cheek told me that he didn’t share my opinion.

  Marietta sighed as she turned to face forward. “Lovely man.” She leaned into my shoulder. “You two never—”

  “No.” And not something I wanted to discuss, especially with him sitting right behind me.

  “I didn’t know Steve was seeing Heather again,” Gram whispered in my other ear.

  “That makes two of us.” Again, not a subject for conversation today. “Oh, look.” I pointed across the aisle at Sylvia Jeppesen. Steve wasn’t the only one who could make a deflection move.

  Gram waved at Sylvia, one of her exercise buddies from the senior center. “Who’s that sitting next to her?”

  “Who’s sitting next to who?” Aunt Alice chimed in.

  “Looks like Wally,” I said.

  Wally Deford was eighty if he was a day. He drank decaf, always had two eggs over easy for breakfast, and used to be a pie happy hour regular before his wife passed away back when I was at culinary school.

  Two rows back from Sylvia and Wally sat Port Merritt’s newest couple from the surviving spouse contingent, Jayne Elwood and Ernie Kozarek, with Gossip Central’s Lucille and Kim in the seats directly behind them, no doubt to be within striking range should anything incriminating come up in conversation. Eddie, Rox, and Donna Littlefield, one of my best friends from grammar school, sat in the rear, behind Nell and her new boyfriend.

  There was no Dr. Cardinale in attendance, but the surviving family members of the names he’d provided me were well-represented. So was the hospital with a very stoic-looking Warren and Virginia Straitham sitting two rows back from Steve and Heather, along with Laurel and several members of the nursing staff.

  “Really … Wally and Sylvia.” Gram folded her arms under her ample breasts. “I’ve heard the rumors, but … you know how people can be. Always leaping to conclusions.” She arched an eyebrow at me.

  At least I was being paid for coming to my conclusions.

  “Aren’t they cute together,” Marietta said, fanning herself again. “When did they become an item?”

  I’d venture a guess that it was sometime after Howard Jeppesen drew his last breath.

  “All this is just wrong,” Alice protested.

  Duke patted her on the knee. “Give it a rest, honey, and let’s just get through this.”

  She pulled out a handkerchief from her handbag and sounded like a Canadian honker as she blew her nose. If we were all very lucky, that would be all we heard out of my great-aunt for the next hour. Except there was absolutely nothing about today that felt lucky.

  A minute later, Curtis Tolliver, the funeral director, led Norm Bergeson and his three daughters and their husbands to their seats in the front row. After the family was seated, Curtis
turned, his beady eyes locked on my mother as he smoothed back his hair.

  Uh oh.

  His fleshy face was flushed as he pressed his hand into hers and leaned close. “Very nice to see you again, Ms. Moreau.”

  “Marietta, please,” my mother said, well aware that he was looking down her dress, especially since he had done the same exact thing at my grandfather’s funeral.

  His lips stretched into a wolfish grin as a bead of sweat trickled down his temple. “Miss Marietta.”

  She fanned herself with her other hand. “Curtis, honay, ah know you’re terribly busy right now, but could ah trouble you for a teensy bit more air conditioning?”

  “Of course,” he said deferentially. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  She leaned in, grazing his hand with her double Ds. “Ah’d be ever so grateful.”

  That was an empty promise if I’d ever heard one.

  “Mary Jo,” Gram whispered as soon as Curtis disappeared from view, “I didn’t raise you to be such a … a ….”

  “Prick tease?” I said, filling in the blank.

  Marietta rolled her eyes. “Chahmaine, that’s not very nice. Ah was simply influencing him to make the right decision.”

  “Not exactly the technique we use at the department, but whatever works,” Steve said in my ear.

  Marietta’s full lips curled with satisfaction. “Damned straight.”

  An hour and ten air-conditioned minutes later, Reverend Fleming’s wife played Ave Maria on the organ to accompany Norm Bergeson and his family as they filed out of the front pew.

  “That was a lovely service,” Gram said after I helped her up from her seat.

  “Lovely,” Alice scoffed, sounding like she was rapidly reaching the end of her short fuse. “Is that what you call this?”

  Uh oh.

  Gram gave her sister the please-don’t-say-anything look. Duke stood and offered his hand to Alice. “Now, honey—”

  Alice swatted his hand away. “Don’t you dare ‘now, honey’ me.” She narrowed her eyes at Steve. “This is all wrong and you know it.”

  Standing, Steve touched her shoulder. “I understand how you feel. You lost a good friend.”

  “You need to do something.” Alice’s voice broke as she choked back tears.

  He met my gaze. “I would if I could.”

  But he was in wait mode for the autopsy results as I knew all too well.

  “Time to go,” Gram proclaimed like we were late for dinner. She elbowed me into the center of the aisle, where Heather was standing, waiting, with perfect, blonde-streaked hair, a dark blue, sleeveless sheath, and matching pumps.

  I’d heard from Rox that after Heather’s divorce last year from an advertising executive, she’d moved back home from Boston and was working at a Port Townsend boutique. If anyone ever had needed an employee discount to expand her designer wardrobe, it wasn’t trim, tan, and more perfectly gorgeous than ever Heather. Why wouldn’t Steve want to be with her?

  The bastard.

  “Nice dress,” I said. I knew it sounded lame, but I had to say something to the conniving bitch I’d outed after she tried to steal Rox’s boyfriend back in ninth grade.

  Her gaze lingering on my chignon, Heather responded with a fake smile. “Thanks.”

  “Awkward,” Marietta sang in my ear.

  True, but the queen of awkward silences needed to cut me a little slack.

  “See you later,” Steve said to me as Heather sidled up next to him.

  “Later.” Which translated into another opportunity to make painfully polite conversation with Heather and Steve at the post-funeral nosh-fest at the Bergeson’s that Gram and Alice had helped organize.

  Goody.

  Watching Steve and Heather make their way past Marietta, I noticed that they didn’t hold hands, didn’t touch. It didn’t make me feel any better about seeing them together, but it didn’t make me feel any worse, either.

  “Keep moving,” Gram said, waving me on like a traffic cop. “We need to get Alice out of here before she starts saying things she’s going to regret tomorrow.”

  Easier said than done since Marietta was sauntering down the aisle as if she were working the red carpet at the Oscars.

  She shook Dr. Straitham’s hand and his gaze followed the swivel of her hips as she moved to the next row to schmooze Mr. Ferris, my high school biology teacher.

  I wasn’t the only one watching Warren Straitham’s reaction to my mother. Virginia leveled a cold, hard glare at her husband.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Ferris didn’t have a wife by his side to put out the no trespassing sign.

  Gram extended her hand. “Come along, Alice.”

  With her eyes fixed on Warren Straitham, Alice sidestepped my grandmother.

  Gram sucked in a breath. “Oh dear.”

  “You have some nerve showing up here,” Alice said, her voice cutting through the crowd like a butcher’s knife through butter.

  The tall, silver-haired gentleman in the cheap gray suit blinked. “Pardon me?”

  Alice wagged her index finger at Dr. Straitham. “Don’t think that I don’t know what’s going on.”

  He blanched to a doughy pallor, reminding me of the time I’d caught my ex-husband in the walk-in freezer with Brie, his sous chef. Unlike Chris who’d followed me out the door, all the while trying to spin his dalliance into a palatable confection, Dr. Straitham looked like a human popsicle frozen in place.

  Duke reached for Alice’s hand. “Honey, let’s go.”

  She shook him off. “You’re not going to get away with this,” Alice said as she inched closer to Dr. Straitham. “I’m on to you!”

  The doctor’s silver-brown brows drooped, giving him the appearance of a blue-eyed bloodhound. “Alice,” he said in a hushed tone, sounding like a sympathetic man who understood grief, but his thin lips stretched into something else—fear.

  Standing ramrod straight by his side, Virginia flushed a bloody shade of crimson.

  “That’s enough,” Duke growled, taking Alice by her thin shoulders and pointing her toward the exit. “We’re leaving.”

  I grabbed my grandmother by the arm and squeezed out a smile at Virginia Straitham. “See you later.” Maybe.

  “Don’t you think we should apologize?” Gram asked as we filed out of the chapel.

  “No.” Quite enough had been said. And learned.

  Gram heaved a sigh. “What Virginia must be thinking of us!”

  Based on the icy glare Virginia Straitham had directed at her husband, we were the least of her concerns.

  “I hope you’re satisfied,” Gram said to her sister’s back once we’d caught up to Duke and Alice in the foyer. “Ginny will probably never speak to me again.”

  “Or step a foot into the cafe,” Duke grumbled.

  Alice stopped in her tracks. “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you just see what happened?” She locked on my gaze. “Tell me you saw that look on his face.”

  “I saw it.” I had a sick feeling that I had also just seen the face of a murderer.

  * * *

  A half hour after we left Tolliver’s funeral home, my grandmother and I stood at opposite ends of a casserole and cake receiving line in the Bergeson’s compact, U-shaped kitchen.

  Having worked for friends in the catering business I knew from experience that people drink at weddings, but they eat at funerals. Around here, a funeral announcement signals the start of a bake-off that sends the senior set flocking to their recipe rolodexes and ends with lethal volumes of cheese, butter, and chocolate arriving at the doorstep of the bereaved.

  Until Sylvia Jeppesen handed me a weighty glass serving dish with a distinctly fishy odor, Trudy’s reception had been no exception.

  “Chinese noodle and tuna casserole,” Sylvia announced proudly.

  “Yum.” No cheese, no butter, no chocolate—a clear violation of the bereavement food code. At least it had arrived warm unlike the dozen casserole dishes awaiting their turn in the microwave
.

  I pushed aside a raspberry glazed bundt cake to add Sylvia’s casserole to the smorgasbord laid out on the dining room table.

  “Something in here has got to go,” Lucille said, holding a steaming crock pot of Swedish meatballs.

  My vote went to the tuna casserole.

  “Move Ginny’s bundt cake over here.” Lucille angled the crock pot in the direction of an antique sideboard.

  “Ginny?” Picking up the platter with the bundt cake, I scanned the crowd for Virginia Straitham, the last person I expected to see after what had happened at the funeral home. Okay, maybe Virginia ran a close second to her husband.

  Lucille set the crock pot on the table. “Handed it to me just after I got out of my car. Looked like she’d been crying. I heard what happened between the doc and Alice,” Lucille said at half her normal volume. “Do you think he did it?”

  Maybe. I didn’t want to fan any flames of suspicion, so I just shrugged.

  “Did what?” Steve asked, stepping up to the table with a paper plate in hand instead of Heather.

  Not that I would give a second thought to anyone he might be dating. The bastard.

  “Murder Trudy,” Lucille said to Steve in the same stage whisper.

  The tic registered in his cheek. “No.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Then how do you explain what happened?”

  “I don’t,” he said with a casual indifference at odds with the tight cords of tension in his neck. Lifting the lid of Sylvia’s casserole dish, he sniffed and wrinkled his nose at me.

  I shook my head. “Sylvia’s tuna.”

  He replaced the lid and continued clockwise around the table.

  Lucille scowled. “I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously.”

  “And I think certain people around here have been jumping to some dangerous conclusions.” Steve met my gaze. “There’s been nothing to suggest that anyone’s been murdered.”

  Lucille flushed. “Nothing? You didn’t see Trudy the night before she died. I did. And now we’re here again with another one of these damned tuna casseroles, and if you don’t want to see it again in another few months,” she said, pointing her finger at Steve’s nose, “certain people will do something about it!”