Murder On The Mind

by L.L. Bartlett

CHAPTER 19

  The morning started with sunny skies and warm temperatures, the kind of day that makes you mistakenly think winter’s gone for good. As a kid a trip to the Broadway Market on Good Friday had been a tradition for me. Though grown, I was no less delighted.

  Richard seemed nervous about taking the Lincoln to that part of town, so we ended up in Brenda’s Taurus. Cars jammed the side street, waiting to get in the ramp garage. We circled around, looking for a place to park, and ended up on the roof.

  We walked down three flights of stairs and entered the Market. Young and old people of all ethnic backgrounds packed the seedy-looking warehouse space. The market’s worn, concrete floors and walls of peeling paint couldn’t dispel the holiday spirit.

  Stalls and kiosks were scattered across the floor and clustered around the edges of the room. Vendors sold wooden Ukrainian Easter eggs, tacky ashtrays, cigarette lighters and other trinkets, Lotto tickets, and Easter plants. We passed meat counters where people lined up four or five deep, waiting to buy their holiday roasts or fresh Polish sausage.

  You don’t mess with a woman bent on shopping, and Brenda had a purpose. Richard and I were soon separated from her in the crowd. I wandered the place in a pleasant fog, comparing the present-day Market with the one I remembered. Paranoia struck when I remembered Sophie Levin’s warning about danger in even innocent situations. I found myself searching the crowd for a woman with a small boy. Not shadows of my past, but Sharon Walker clutching her crossbow, dragging her young son behind her.

  Pausing at a candy counter, I studied the offerings. “You getting anything for Brenda?” I asked Richard.

  “She doesn’t go in for that kind of silliness.”

  “Well, if you don’t buy her something, I will. Then I’ll look like a hero on Easter morning.”

  He frowned, then bought her a two-pound box of assorted chocolates. But he made me carry the bag so she wouldn’t suspect anything.

  By the time we caught up with Brenda, she was loaded down with grocery bags—more food than the three of us were capable of eating. “That’s the beauty of owning a freezer,” she quipped. “Now what else do we have to get?”

  “A butter lamb,” I said.

  “Which is?”

  “Butter in the shape of a lamb. It’s a Polish Easter tradition,” Richard explained.

  “What are the pussy willows for?” she asked, seeing a woman pass by with an armful of them.

  “Dingus Day,” Richard said.

  “Yeah. You buy them and hit Richard with them on Easter Monday. Then you go to a tavern, drink beer, and have fun.”

  She looked skeptical. “Why?”

  “It’s Polish tradition,” Richard said.

  “But you’re not Polish,” she said.

  “I’m half Polish,” I said.

  “Well it doesn’t show,” she teased good-naturedly. “Oh, eggs! We have to get eggs.”

  “What for?” Richard asked.

  “Coloring, of course. And we have to get the dyes, too.”

  Richard looked at me and frowned.

  “You can be such a stuffed shirt, Richard,” Brenda said. “But Jeffy and I are determined to have fun.”

  “I’m not opposed to having fun. I’m just not very artistic.”

  “You don’t need to be, my love.” She patted his cheek and he faked a smile. Then she started off in the direction of a poultry stand. “It’s all settled—egg coloring after lunch. Wait until you see what I got. We’ll have a feast guaranteed to clog your arteries.”

  We got the eggs, and the dyes, and started for home. And lunch was a feast. Brenda laid the cold cuts on a platter and we made deli-type sandwiches out of ham, tongue, sliced beef, bologna, and liverwurst. She bought Polish rye bread with caraway seeds and set out a jar of horseradish that brought tears to the eyes and cleared our sinuses. For dessert, she bought fresh placek—that wonderful, sweet, crumb loaf—and sugar cookies, which tasted terrific with hot, strong coffee. I ate more in one sitting than I’d eaten in months. For the first time in a very long while, I felt happy, and it was the company as much as the good food.

  After eating too much, we all felt logy. I volunteered to clean up while Brenda and Richard headed for the bedroom and a nap. I was glad to give them a chance to be alone. I’d been monopolizing too much of Richard’s time.

  I hit the mattress, too, but sleep didn’t come quickly. I kept thinking about Sharon Walker, her crime, and the small boy who’d witnessed it. And wondered what in hell I could do about it.