by Leslie Karst
Once we’d placed our dinner orders—kalua pork with coleslaw, sticky rice, and a tunafish-spiked mac salad for me, a burger and sweet potato fries for Evelyn—we sat back to sip our drinks. I’d branched out from my usual bourbon-rocks to try the dark rum and fresh lime juice special I’d seen posted on the board, and Evelyn had opted for an iced tea.
“You don’t worry the caffeine will keep you awake?”
“That’s actually why I ordered it,” she said, “since I’m feeling a little sleepy right now. But then, of course, around midnight when I want to go to sleep, I won’t be able to.” Her lips formed a smile, but it was a moment before the rest of her face caught up with it.
“Sounds like me,” I said. “I’ll be standing at the line flipping medallions of pork when all of a sudden I feel like I’m about to nod off. But then once I’m home in bed, I’m wide awake, as if my body’s been shot up with speed or something.”
“My mom used to say the same thing.” Evelyn reached out for her glass, but instead of taking a drink, she turned it slowly around on the polished wood tabletop.
“How long was she a cook?” I asked. “Was it something she’d done for a while?”
“Well, when I was little, she worked as an administrative assistant for this tech firm that made some kind of computer hardware. She hated it, but it paid really well. Stan, my stepdad, was in nursing school at the time, so he wasn’t making any money.”
“You have a stepdad?”
“Uh-huh. Though he and my mom got divorced about five years ago.” This last bit was accompanied by a sneer.
“I take it you weren’t terribly heartbroken by the split?”
She snorted. “Not hardly. He basically used my mom to support him while he was in school, then dumped her once he graduated and found a younger woman. I haven’t seen him much since he got remarried.”
“Ah, got it.”
“Anyway, after he left, Mom quit that job and started cooking, which is what she’d wanted to do all along. And she really loved it. Until she ended up at Tamarind.”
The server approached our table bearing two large plates. “Oh, good, here’s our food,” I said, and Evelyn leaned back and let the gal set them down. She reached out for the plate to touch the hamburger and then the fries, popping one of the hot, crispy sticks into her mouth. “Is there mayo on the burger?” she asked the waitress.
“It’s here on the table,” the server said, and placed the caddy with mayo, mustard, and ketchup in front of Evelyn.
She busied herself with dressing her burger while I tasted my pork. Sweet, smoky, and fall-off-the-bone tender (though there was of course no bone, this being pulled pork). Yum.
“What restaurants had your mom worked at before Tamarind?” I asked between bites.
“She started out at IHOP, and then moved on to a California cuisine–type place. But she was super happy when she got the job at Tamarind. She really wanted to learn to cook Southeast Asian food.”
“But then she ended up hating the kitchen culture there.”
“Right.” Evelyn licked a gob of mayonnaise off her thumb, then dunked a fry into the ketchup she’d squirted onto her plate. “But at around the same time she was trying to decide whether to stick it out or quit, she heard that this pop-up space downtown was about to open and was looking for tenants. Since they supplied all the equipment and Mom would just have to pay a nightly fee for use of the space, she realized it was something she could probably afford. And she figured it would be a good way to see if her idea for The Curry Leaf was popular. She was hoping she could maybe eventually open an actual restaurant of her own.”
“But from what you said before, it ended up being pretty stressful, even though it was just a few nights a week.”
“Uh-huh.”
I poured a glug of soy sauce onto my rice. “She wasn’t running it all alone, was she?”
“No way. She had three other people working for her.” Evelyn took a bite of burger, raising her finger to indicate a further thought.
“And that’s another thing that was stressing Mom out, actually,” she went on after swallowing. “The woman who was the other main cook quit a few weeks ago after some big argument, and Mom hadn’t found anyone yet to replace her.”
“Ugh. So she was having to do that job as well as her own.” I was well acquainted with the situation from years of working in the restaurant business and having to cover for absent employees. “No fun, that. You know what their argument was about?”
“Not really. But I do know Mom was pretty upset by the whole thing. They’d been friends before she even started The Curry Leaf, so that was hard.” Evelyn set her hamburger on her plate and wiped her hands on the napkin in her lap, smearing red ketchup all over the white cloth. “I guess if I’d been a better daughter, I would have talked to her more about it, and maybe …” She shook her head, as if trying to free the memory from her brain.
“Look, Evelyn, you really shouldn’t—”
“I know, I know. I shouldn’t blame myself. Mom’s the one who chose to do this to herself.” She picked up the burger again and took an angry bite, but almost right away her jaw stopped moving. She set the burger back down.
“Buh whah if,” she started, then finished chewing before going on. “What if there was somebody else there that night? Somebody who wrote that note.”
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“I mean that I think someone must have forged it. Or forced Mom to write it. Ohmygod,” she said with an intake of breath. “Maybe she even wrote Evelyn on purpose, as a clue so I’d know it wasn’t really from her.” Realizing how loud her voice had become, Evelyn stopped and cleared her throat. “Because,” she went on more quietly, leaning across the table so I could hear her, “there’s no way Mom would have committed suicide.”
“You realize what you’re saying, right?”
She nodded.
Neither of us spoke. A falsetto voice coming over the speakers was singing “Winter Wonderland,” accompanied by an ukulele and slack-key guitar, but I barely noticed when the song came to an end.
“Detective Vargas did look concerned when you said that about your mom never calling you Evelyn,” I said after a bit. “And I saw him write a note in the file about it, too. But if you’re right—and that’s one hell of an if—an even bigger question remains. Who would want to kill your mother, and why?”
Evelyn shook her head. “I have no idea.”
Chapter 6
The next morning, the pungent aroma of coffee once more filled the house. I could get used to this, I thought as I made my way down the hallway to the kitchen. Evelyn stood at the counter spreading butter onto a piece of whole-wheat bread, with Buster and Coco sitting expectantly at her feet.
At my approach, she turned. “Good morning. Want some toast?” She held out the plate, and all four canine eyes tracked its path like a hypnotist’s patient following the swing of a pocket watch.
“Sure, that sounds perfect.” I accepted the plate and set it on the table, then made a beeline for the coffee maker. “How’d you sleep?”
Evelyn popped another slice of bread into the toaster. “Not great,” she said with a shrug.
“Insomnia?”
“Uh-huh. I tossed for at least an hour after I went to bed, but then finally fell asleep.”
“Do you think it might be hereditary?” I asked as I poured half-and-half into my mug. “You told Detective Vargas yesterday about your mom suffering from insomnia.”
“Doubtful.” Evelyn took a sip of coffee as she waited for her bread to toast. “Mine isn’t so much insomnia as this thing called non-twenty-four.”
“Nine twenty-four?”
“Non-twenty-four, a sleep disorder some blind people get, especially if they have no sensitivity to light, like me. It’s kind of complicated, but basically what happens is that since we can’t detect the light of the sun, our internal body clocks get out of sync, and we can end up not being able to sleep at night and the
n feel sleepy a lot during the day. It’s kind of like having jet lag all the time.”
I winced in sympathy. “That sucks.”
“No kidding.” Evelyn buttered her toast and brought it and her coffee to the table. “Speaking of sleeping—or rather the lack thereof—I was thinking that maybe this morning before the memorial service we could stop by my house to pick up my pillow, since the detective said it was okay to go back there now. I forgot to bring it when I left in such a hurry the other day. I’m kind of a princess and the pea when it comes to having the one I’m used to. Would that be okay?”
“Of course, no problem.”
She reached out a hand and I took it in mine. “Thanks, Sally. It really means a lot, having your support right now.”
After finishing our breakfast, we took the dogs for a walk, then headed over to the house Evelyn had shared with her mother out near Branciforte Avenue.
I pulled into the driveway behind a Subaru hatchback with a BUY LOCAL bumper sticker on the rear window. Jackie’s car. Or rather, Evelyn’s now, no doubt. There had been no talk by anybody of a will or trust, but even if Jackie had died without one, her only daughter would inherit her estate.
Evelyn walked quickly up the brick pathway to the front porch. “Nice place,” I said, trotting behind her. And it was indeed nice, much bigger than I would have expected for a single mom who ran a part-time pop-up restaurant.
She unlocked the door, then hesitated on the threshold. I waited, watching the emotions play across her face: fear, apprehension, sadness, then finally, determination. Jaw clenched, she stepped inside, and I followed her into the dimly lit room.
Only three days had passed since the house had been closed up, during which time various police personnel had been in and out of the place. Nevertheless, it smelled musty—and of stale dog. The drapes were drawn shut, left as they must have been the night Jackie had died. I resisted the urge to fling them open. It wasn’t my place to change anything. Besides, we were going to be there only a few minutes.
The living room was large, though sparsely furnished. A wall-mounted TV and a newish-looking couch upholstered in brown fabric dominated the center of the room, and the corner near the fireplace had been set up as a reading area. It was a cozy nook, with a well-worn recliner, floor lamp, and side table stacked with paperback books.
Evelyn started across the room but suddenly stopped, then skirted a spot on the beige carpet. Where she found her mother.
Following after her, I studied the carpet for any signs that might remain of the death and was taken aback to see distinct blotches of color. I crouched down to get a better look. It appeared that someone had tried to clean them but had done a poor job of it, for the carpet still bore several pale-purple stains.
Could it be blood? But then I immediately realized, no, it was the wrong color. Dried blood had more of a brown, rusty hue. And, besides, Vargas would surely have mentioned it if the police had found blood at the scene.
I scurried to catch up to Evelyn, who was heading up the stairway. “This is my room,” she said, opening the first of two doors off the upstairs hallway. The shades were open in here, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the bright light.
Evelyn went to the closet and began running her fingers over the tops, skirts, and pants hanging inside. “I might as well get some more clothes while I’m here, too,” she said.
While she decided what she wanted and laid them out on the bed, I took in the room’s contents. Several plush dog toys, their stuffing poking out of rips in the fabric, were on the floor, as well as a denim jacket that lay crumpled in the corner by the closet.
The covers of the single bed had been drawn up in a halfhearted attempt to make it neat, and a pair of faded jeans, as well as some sort of boxy electronic device, lay on its wrinkled, blue bedspread. Next to me stood an antique-looking dresser with an open jewelry box on top. Several bracelets and earrings were scattered across its oak surface, along with three bottles of perfume, a carved sculpture of a rearing horse, and a bowl of highly polished stones. Beside the dresser sat a tall, wooden floor lamp.
A small desk had been squeezed between the bed and the dresser, its surface cluttered with a docking station and several more electronic devices I didn’t recognize. Above it hung a shelf lined with large, thick books.
“What color is this shirt?” Evelyn asked, holding up a V-neck top.
“Hot pink,” I said with a laugh. “Very bright.”
“Yeah, that’s the one I want. I have it in yellow too, so I wanted to make sure. This’ll go better with the black leggings.”
She set the shirt on the bed and headed for the dresser, and as she rummaged through the items wadded up inside, I studied the wall hanging tacked above the bed. It was made of several different fabrics, and a variety of crocheted designs poked out from its surface. Reaching out to touch it, I was surprised by the softness of the yarn used to create the three-dimensional effect.
Once she’d finished choosing her clothes, Evelyn collected her pillow—as well the machine on the bed (a digital book player, she told me) and a stack of blue plastic boxes (book cartridges for the player)—and I helped her carry everything downstairs. Turning the corner into the living room, I noticed a shelf of vinyl LPs tucked away behind the stairwell that I’d missed before. An old-school turntable and pair of speakers sat next to them atop a low table.
“Oh, wow, look at all the records!” I laid the clothes I held on the back of the couch and knelt to scan their titles. It was hard to read in the dark room, but they looked like mostly jazz and jazz vocals.
“Yeah, those were my granddad’s. He was really into jazz. When I was little, he used to play his records for me all the time, and we’d dance together in their living room. So when he died, Nonna Sophia gave his collection to me. You like jazz?”
“I do,” I said. “I’m not an expert or anything—I’m more into new wave and Italian opera—but my mom used to play it a lot when I was growing up, and I do have a decent collection of jazz CDs. Nothing like what you’ve got here, though.”
Evelyn came to sit next to me, ran her fingers down the line of records, and pulled one out—Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Songbook. “Here, you gotta listen to this. No one sings like this anymore.”
She opened the lid of the record player, then removed the disk from its dust cover, placed it on the turntable, and set the tone arm carefully onto the vinyl. “You’re just too marvelous, too marvelous for words,” she sang along with Ella’s smooth, silky voice.
“How’d you know that was the right one?” I asked. “That’s amazing.”
Evelyn grinned. “I’ve got them all alphabetically arranged, and I also have these tabs every so often, separating the different sections and artists. Like there’s one here”—she touched a piece of cardboard sticking out slightly from the row of tattered record jackets—“where the Ella section starts. There’s a ton of those, ’cause Grandpa loved her. And I just learn where they all are.”
“I’m still impressed,” I said. “If nothing else, just by how organized you have to be to keep a system like that working.”
“Yeah, I am pretty organized. Especially for a Sagittarius,” she added with a laugh, then shut off the stereo and returned the record to its place. “Oh, that reminds me. I think I know where Mom’s computer is.”
Evelyn trotted up the stairs once again, me following after, and headed into the second door off the hallway. Reaching under the mattress of her mother’s queen-size bed, she extracted a thin, silver MacBook Air with a white FOOD NOT BOMBS sticker affixed to its lid.
“Voilà,” she said. “This is Mom’s not-very-original hiding place for her laptop whenever she goes out. She’s kind of paranoid about it being stolen. Or … used to be,” Evelyn added, sitting down on the bed with a sigh.
I sat next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know this must be incredibly hard for you.”
“Yeah,”
she whispered. Wiping her eyes, she sat up and opened the laptop. “We might as well see if there’s anything important on it,” she said. “Here, can you open her Gmail?”
I took the computer and tapped the space bar to bring it to life. The log-in screen for Jackie’s profile popped up. “Uh, what’s her password?” I asked.
Evelyn shook her head. “I have no idea. Try Coco.” When neither that nor Evelyn, nor Evie, nor Jackie, nor any names of past pets worked, we gave up.
“Well, I bet the tech person at the police station will be able to unlock it,” I said, setting the laptop next to me on the bed. I stood up. “So, I don’t want to be too morbid or anything, but do you know if your mom had a will? Because if so, we should probably look for that as well.”
“I guess you’re right,” Evelyn said, then bit her lip. “She never mentioned anything about it to me, but if there is one, it’s probably in that chest of drawers over there.”
I walked over to where she was pointing and pulled open the top drawer. “This one’s full of jewelry and knickknacks,” I said.
“Try the middle one.”
It was full of files and paperwork. “Bingo! Let’s see. Car insurance stuff, bank statements, utilities … Aha! Found it.”
I removed a large white envelope with the words WILL OF JACQUELINE OLIVIERI typed on its front. Inside was a standard printed will, with the name of an attorney whose name seemed vaguely familiar at the top of the first page.
“What’s it say?” Evelyn asked.
Holding the pages under the light of the bedside lamp, I read the will’s provisions aloud: “I, JACQUELINE OLIVIERI, RESIDENT OF SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, DECLARE THAT THIS IS MY WILL AND THAT ALL PREVIOUS WILLS AND CODICILS ARE HEREBY REVOKED. Next there’s a bunch of boilerplate. Blah, blah, blah … Okay, here’s the important bit: I LEAVE MY ENTIRE ESTATE TO EVELYN JOAN OLIVIERI.” Flipping to the last page, I checked that the document was properly executed and witnessed. “It’s dated March of last year and has all the necessary signatures. I never did much probate when I worked as an attorney, but it looks valid to me.”
