Blessed Is the Busybody (8 page)

“My father took me to the opera.”

“At the compound we live our own melodramas.”

As nutty as it seems, Ray’s a good guy, and some of his friends aren’t so bad. But Ray lost a screw or two in Vietnam, and now survivalism is second nature. I clarified. “Ray’s very responsible. When we visit, he locks up his guns and shaves off his beard. That’s how much he loves my girls.”

“A prince among men.”

Actually, I thought Lucy might like Ray. But so far my father wasn’t certain that the route to Emerald Springs from the compound in Indiana was either land mine or guerilla free. So regretfully, he had stayed away. I consoled myself with the knowledge that there was a better chance of his visiting Ohio than our last home in D.C.

Lucy is not one to hesitate. She pushed open the door and strode right in, and I followed in her wake.

My description had been way off base. The room was smoky, yes, but larger than it appeared from the outside. Someone had paid attention to lighting. There were no dark corners for clandestine meetings or drug buys. Stainless steel chandeliers with low-wattage bulbs hung over nearly every table, and a long strip of lights adorned the back side of the bar. Alan Jackson serenaded us from a modest jukebox in one corner, but at a moderate level, so conversation was still possible. There were no peanut shells on the floor and more amazing, no trash. The floor itself was battleship gray tile that looked almost new. The beige laminate tables were either occupied or clear.

Since I knew about Mudwrestling Mondays here, I wasn’t surprised at the low stage that ran from one corner in the back to the other. I
was
surprised at the four women in matching baby doll pajamas who approximated a chorus line as Jackson wailed “Don’t Rock the Jukebox.” Two of them carried teddy bears. Two sucked their thumbs.

Lucy was transfixed and momentarily mute.

I wondered who had performed the night Ed came here to see Jennifer. “Live entertainment,” I said. “The hallmark of a classy joint.” I looked for a seat out of sight and far away from a seventy-something drooler whose hands were busy under his table.

“Somebody needs to talk to that second dancer from the right. With that complexion she shouldn’t wear pink.” Without consultation Lucy chose a table right in the center of things and dropped into a ladder-back chair. “I need a drink.”

Modest drinker that I am, I thought that sounded like a fine idea. So did a buxom brunette dressed in a royal blue satin wrapper and feathered high-heeled mules. She had napkins on our table along with a basket of pretzels before I could point out the too-close-for-comfort drooler to Lucy.

“What’s with the nightwear?” Lucy leaned closer to look at the brunette’s name tag, which rode the woman’s right breast like a surfer at the apex of the perfect wave. “Keely.”

Keely had a Jersey accent. Or maybe Brooklyn. “Pajama party. Didn’t ya know?”

“I sleep in the buff,” Lucy said.

“Oh, that’s too bad. Gordy don’t allow nudity here.”

I for one was glad Gordy—whoever he was—had standards.

“Who are the dancers?” Lucy asked.

“Dunno. Some ladies from town. There’s a talent contest.”

She took our order and left. I leaned over the table. “If I look closely, will I recognize anybody?”

“One of the dancers looks a lot like a woman I sold a house to last month.”

I glanced up at the stage, averted my eyes, then glanced again. None of the Green Meanie moms were there. I’d been hoping, at the very least, to catch a brand new side of Crystal O’Grady.

“No one from the church,” I said. For this blessing, I said a silent thank you.

“I think they’re having fun.”

Before Lucy could begin planning “our” act, I headed her off. “What’s the best way to find out about Jennifer, do you think?”

“We could try Keely. She must have known her.”

“It’s daunting to discuss murder with a woman who’s dressed like a film noir mistress.”

“What do you think she has on under the robe?”

“I don’t know, but I hope she doesn’t get close enough to the old guy over there for us to find out.”

“You mean the old guy petting his dog?”

For a moment I thought this was a brand-new euphemism, then I glanced around and saw that indeed, the head of a golden retriever was peeking out from under the drooler’s table.

“You allow pets?” Lucy asked, when Keely returned with a sex on the beach for Lucy and a glass of red wine for me.

“Dave’s dog, you mean? Just him, that’s all. Bud’s like our mascot, you know? Nobody complains. Dave and Bud don’t stay long. Drink one beer, watch the show, and leave. They don’t hurt nobody.”

I was feeling better about the place. They were kind to animals. There was only a one drink minimum. “Keely, we were wondering if you have a little time to talk?”

“Sure. What about?”

“Jennifer Marina.”

Keely had a kewpie doll mouth, which was a match for slicked down black hair and wide blue eyes. “You know Jenny?”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the nickname.
Jennifer
had been one thing.
Jenny
brought the body back to life. Jennifer had been a woman with friends who had shortened her name to something perky and hopeful.

“I’m the one who found the body,” I said.

“Oh . . .” Keely plopped down next to Lucy and leaned over. “How did she look? I mean, Jenny was real careful about that. She always wanted to look a certain way, you know?”

I considered my options.
Pale. Naked. Dead.
“Sad.” It was the best I could do. “Like she didn’t deserve to be there.”

“She didn’t. I won’t say she was nice, like somebody who went out of their way for you, you know? But Jenny wasn’t the worst, either. She was fair. She didn’t cop tips that didn’t belong to her. She did her share.”

I felt my way. “Did you get to know her? Did she tell you much about her life?”

“Why do you want to know?”

It was a fair question. “I’m just trying to understand. Trying to put the whole thing in some sort of perspective.”

That seemed to make sense to her. “She did talk a little. I guess nothing was a secret. She wasn’t from here. She hadn’t been here that long. I think she didn’t plan to stay long, either. She was just here to make a little money. She had kids.”

“Kids?” Lucy said. “Here? What happened to them after, you know . . .” Lucy, who swore she was never going to have children of her own, sounded fiercely maternal.

“Oh, they’re not here,” Keely said. “They’re in foster care. Jenny told me they were in Pennsylvania or some place like that. Funny thing is, she was a foster kid, too. In Pennsylvania or some place like that.”

Somehow Jennifer’s children and her need to make money were connected in Keely’s mind. I probed. “Was she sending the foster family money? Is that why she needed this job?”

“She was saving up so she could get the kids back. She went to jail and lost custody, then she couldn’t show the courts she had a way to take care of them, once she got out. So she was working here. Sometimes she danced, too, for extra tips.”

I wasn’t sure a judge would think dancing at Don’t Go There was a route to model parenthood, but it was a little late to test my theory. “Do you know why she chose Emerald Springs as a place to earn money?”

Keely shrugged and for one terrible moment I was sure the satin wrapper was going to slip off her shoulders. “She never said. But Sax’ll know. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Who’s Sax?”

She inclined her head toward the bar. “The bartender. Jenny was living with him. He got her the job.”

I hadn’t paid attention to anyone on that side of the room. Now I turned and saw the man in question. “Sax?”

“Sax Dubinsky.” Keely got to her feet. “Just don’t talk to him while he’s busy.”

That last part had the ring of “Don’t pet the rottweiler while he’s eating.” Sax was at least six foot four, and nearly as broad. He had more hair than Rip Van Winkle after his nap, and even from a distance I could see his tattooed arms were in plain view and extraordinary.

Lucy thanked Keely, who nearly stopped my heart with another careless shrug. When we were alone again, Lucy raised one perfectly exercised brow. “How do we gauge when he’s not busy?”

“We don’t, at least not from here.”

“Get your drink.” Lucy stood and started toward the bar. I yearned for a disguise.

Sax was not dressed for the pajama party, and my gratitude was unbounding. A white tank top that bared the artwork on his arms and clung to a paunch the size of Cleveland was bad enough. I couldn’t imagine what the man slept in, or box springs sturdy enough to hold him.

I insisted on the end of the bar farthest from the stage and closest to the door. We perched on stools side by side, and I tried to look like somebody else.

By the time Sax got to us, Lucy had finished her drink. Up close he was even more formidable. He had bushy graying hair tied at the nape with a leather shoelace and half covered with a red bandanna. He didn’t have a full beard, rather long twin corkscrew curls sprouting from each side of a cleft in his chin. I imagined them rolled and tied in rags at night, the way the sisters tied their hair in
Little Women.
Amy, in particular, would be proud of Sax.

“You want another?” he asked Lucy. “Sex on the beach, right?”

For a moment Lucy looked as if she wished she’d asked for a Manhattan or cosmopolitan. Something about the way Sax said the words made my skin crawl, too.

Lucy produced a smile. “Yes, and another glass of wine for my friend.”

My glass was half full, but if we were going to wait until Sax wasn’t busy, I guess I needed an excuse. It would only take one sweep of his tattooed arm to clear off our stools to make room for heavier drinkers.

Sax returned a few minutes later, and surprisingly, he lingered. “You here to perform in the show?”

I had been afraid that my new quilted jacket looked at first glance like a bathrobe. “No, just to have a few drinks.” Before I could think of a way to say, “And find out about Jennifer Marina,” Lucy did it for me.

“And we were hoping you could fill in some blanks for us,” she said with another manufactured smile.

“What sort of blanks?”

“Jennifer blanks,” I said. “I found her body.”

Sax didn’t say anything. His sneer peeked out under a sweeping reddish brown mustache. I’m sure his eyes were as big as eyes are supposed to be, but for some reason they seemed at least one size too small.

“So what do you know?” he asked at last.

“Somebody killed her and left her on my porch. She was in town trying to earn money to put her family back together. She lived with you.”

He produced a cloth that had been marginally anchored in the pocket of dark blue jeans and began to wipe the counter. “Sounds like you know enough to pry your little Ivy League ass off that stool and send it home again.”

“It would pry a little faster if I knew why Jennifer was in Emerald Springs in the first place.” When he looked up I turned up my hands in a plea. “Thing is, I’d just feel safer if I knew this didn’t have anything to do with my family.”

“I answered that last question, it would sound like I was the one that put her on your porch. And that never happened.”

This man could have killed Jennifer with one blow. My gaze flicked to his biceps, then back to his face. I’d discovered something. “Jennifer had the same tattoo.” I pointed to the tattoo of a cobra with a skeleton’s head snaking up his arm, but I made sure to snatch my finger back immediately.

His eyes narrowed further. “How d’you know that?”

“Because I saw a lot more of her than I wanted to.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Is that like, ummm . . . a lover’s tattoo? Some kind of twist on a heart with ‘Puff Daddy loves JLo’ inside? That kind of thing?”

He snorted. I think this was Sax’s take on laughter. “You ever hear of the Cobras?”

“It’s a motorcycle gang,” Lucy said. “Gets in the news every once in a while.”

“Good to know somebody reads.” He hung the rag from his pocket again and started to move away.

“You’re saying you and Jennifer Marina were in the same gang? That’s how you got to be . . . friends?” I asked.

He stopped and stared at me as if I needed an IQ transplant.

“Was her husband a Cobra, too?” Lucy asked. “The father of her kids?”

This snort was more pointed. “Rico Marina on a bike?”

“I guess he lives in Pennsylvania near their children,” I said.

“He don’t have nothing to do with those kids. He went to jail for beating Jenny. Now he don’t live nowhere. Rico’s like snot. He oozes here, oozes there, and you can’t get rid of him no matter how many times you blow.”

Our Sax was a bit of a poet. It’s hard not to admire a man with a gift for imagery.

“Do you think he oozed over here to Emerald Springs and killed his wife?” I asked. I wondered if this was the secret Jennifer had shared with my husband, a fear of dying at the hands of her estranged husband. But surely Ed would have passed that on to the police immediately.

Sax’s gaze flicked to the door and his sneer hardened into something more dangerous. “Well, why don’t you ask him?”

Now, when somebody says those words, the subtext is this:
The man in question is now in the room. The man in question is moving in your direction. The man in question will just
love
being asked up close and personal if he is a murderer.

Since I read subtext well, I was off the stool and backing away before Sax spit on the floor in emphasis. Lucy followed my example and right there between us was a hole wide enough for the furious Rico Marina to plug.

Rico was dark-haired with deep olive skin and a wiry build that was at least a hundred pounds lighter than Sax’s. He ignored Lucy and me, like the middle-class, slumming-for-the-night busybodies we were. He leaned over the counter and grabbed Sax by his tank top.

“You killed my wife!” The obscenities that followed ran together into one word long enough to appear in the
Guinness Book of Records
.

I heard the end of the newly coined oath from ten yards away. By the time Rico had drawn a breath and Sax had shoved him into the table closest to the bar, I was almost at the door.