One Foot In The Gravy (6 page)

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Authors: Delia Rosen

BOOK: One Foot In The Gravy
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“Because—and I’m just spitballing here—Rhonda might not have been the only one he was chocolatecoating.”
“Ecch. Don’t.”
“Since when are you so priggish?” She could picture Grant smirking, his handsome lips curled to one side, his strong jaw showing just the hint of manly five o’clock shadow, his gray eyes soft and . . . reading an email while he talked to her.
Pop!
“I have been known to eat a
Mars Bar
or
Hershey’s Kiss
from time to time,” I told him. “I don’t want to think of Hoppy and Rhonda when I’m feeling indulgent. But getting back to his harem, do you have any idea who else might be in it?”
“That’s one reason I’m calling,” Grant said. “The other being how the hell are you?”
“We already covered that,” I reminded him.
“No, I mean really.”
“I’m
really
busy. Trying to grow the business. Last night didn’t help.”
“I can see where it wouldn’t,” Grant said. “Like selling the house from
The Amityville Horror
.”
“God, DB, it’s not
that
bad,” I protested. “I mean, we survived a van with leeches painted on the sides.”
“Come again?”
“Never mind,” I said. My brain had moved on. “Other women, other women . . . I don’t know, but let me ask Thom and the waitstaff.”
“Thanks. Obviously, it would be women who were at the party last night and within earshot of his proclamation. Deputy Chief Whitman makes that to be Hildy Endicott, Mollie Baldwin, Helen Russell, and of course Lolo.”
“Hildy and Mollie are members of the Foxes,” I said. “Helen I don’t know.”
“Sister of John Warden Russell, founder of the—”
“H3 Group,” I took a wild guess. “The venture capitalists.”
“None other. She’s the majority shareholder.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” I said. “And thanks.”
“What for?”
“For the image of a power tool being stuffed up Hoppy’s nose,” I said. “You know, there was a box of tools in the corner of that room.”
“We know. The drill was in there—forensics found blood samples belonging to the victim—but no fingerprints except those of the electrician, and those were smudged.”
“Wiped clean or was the perp wearing gloves?”
“We don’t know,” Grant said. “But that’s a good get: Deputy Chief Whitman noted that Ms. Endicott was wearing gloves and that they were smudged. She claimed it happened when the roof came down and she was covered with dirt. It’s possible. She was nearby.”
I thanked Grant again—this time for real—and hung up. There was a lot to think about and a lot I didn’t want to think about ever again. First, though, I had a call to make. One that might point me in the right direction.
Chapter 5
According to the morning paper—or rather, the morning online paper, which isn’t a paper—the Hopewell funeral was being handled by the most upscale place in town, the Hubbard Eternal Rest Home. It might just as well have said “Bluebloods Only” on the big, carved wooden sign on the lawn. No one else could afford them. My father and uncle had been buried by Chan’s, the same Asian family that provided us with our whitefish.
That raised the question of who was paying for this. It was obviously coming from Hoppy’s estate, but I needed to find the executor. I could probably find that out from the courts, but I had always wanted to check out Hubbard and this was a good excuse.
I drove over to the old mini-plantation house on Church Street, which was literally around the corner from the deli, which was on Fourth Avenue N. I pulled into the U-shaped drive that ran in front of the mansion. The outside smelled lightly of the rose bushes that lined the facade. Inside, not only did the intensity of the light plunge from sun to real candles, it smelled of vanilla from those candles.
I stood in the foyer while my eyes adjusted to the relative darkness. A surprisingly round, jolly fellow all in black seemed to materialize in front of me, like a returned bowling ball. The three holes were his face and two hands.
“How may I direct you?” he asked.
“I wanted to find out about the Hopewell memorial,” I told him.
“The service is tomorrow at ten a.m.”
“Will family be present?” I asked.
“I really couldn’t—”
“Oh, I’m not asking you to break any confidences. It’s just I didn’t really know the deceased except as a fellow merchant and I’d like to know who I’ll be addressing.”
“I was
about
to say that I really couldn’t tell you because I do not possess that information,” the man informed me with the same conviviality. I realized he was probably trained to be cheerful no matter what grief walked through the door. “You would have to inquire at the law office of Mr. Solomon Granger, who made the arrangements.”
Ah, good old Solly. A transplanted WASP from New Hampshire who had chased an ambulance to Nashville and stayed. He came down about the same time as my father. He was one of the attorneys who had been helping to put together the Royce deal. Big windfall for him if it went through. He didn’t care for the sight of me, and made no effort to pretend when I walked into his office.
“If you’ve come to make peace, take your pipe and—”
“I haven’t,” I assured him as his receptionist shut the door behind me. “It’s about Hoppy Hopewell.”
His long, pinched face became only slightly less pinched beneath his close-cropped white hair. “What about him?”
“He nearly fell on me yesterday night.”
“That would be a claim for Mrs. Parker’s—”
“I’m not here to make claims or sue or apologize or any other wrong guess you’re apt to make,” I told him. “I just want to know the disposition of the chocolate shop.”
Okay, I pulled that one out of my fundament. But it was the only way I could think of to get the information I wanted.
“Ah,” Solly said, with a trace less hostility than he had displayed heretofore, though the pinched expression was fixed. “Would you care to sit?”
I wouldn’t, but did. Accepting any form of hospitality from this
shlang,
this viper, boiled my derma.
“The shop has been left to someone,” Solly said.
“I figured that. Are we going to play twenty questions?”
He smiled humorlessly. “I’m not permitted to say who the new owner is. As for selling it, I was going to place an advertisement in the Sunday press, but I see no reason why I can’t share this information with you. Pending pro forma probate of the will, I have been instructed by the individual in question to field offers. These are to be made through an attorney, in writing, with a decision to follow by August 24th.”
“That’s four months from now—”
“Correct.”
I counted quickly. “And three days. Significance?”
“None that I’m aware of. None that is relevant to a potential purchaser. That’s what I was told.”
I thought,
If I told you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge....
“Are you interested?”
“That will depend on the price.”
“That I cannot yet divulge. Are you still represented by Mr. Dag Stoltenberg?”
I nodded. His great-great someone-or-other had left the textile industry before the Civil War to become the first in a long line of lawyers. Those were all the credentials my father needed to retain him. He had history, like an apprentice in the old country.
“Excellent.” Solly almost smiled. “If you are still interested after Sunday, I’ll expect to hear from him. Not you.”
“Suits me. You got a ballpark for me?”
“To buy?” He chuckled.
I didn’t chuckle back. And people thought my jokes were bad.
“As I said, that number will be in the public notice,” Solly replied.
“Fine, one more thing. When’s probate?”
“Friday.” His smile was genuine now. “Whatever information you’re looking for, for whatever prurient reason you want it, will not be available to you for another three days.”
He rolled the “r” in the “three.” It made me shudder. I got out of there as quickly as my sore feet would allow.
I had
bupkis
from my morning adventure, nothing actionable except for a date: August 24. The good news was, the date was so unrelated to anything logical that it had to be significant.
I went back to the deli and went online. The family histories of all the ladies were listed in the Greater Nashville Social Diary. None of them had a birthday on August 24. None of them had a child born on August 24. One of them probably had an anniversary with Hoppy Hopewell on August 24.
Which left me with nothing I didn’t know before: that someone who stood to gain from Hoppy Hopewell’s death may or may not have been at Lolo’s party, and that there was a chance August 24 was connected to whoever was the beneficiary of Hoppy’s largesse. Which may or may not have been someone at the party.
The scope of what I didn’t know made my head hurt. It figured, though. Of all the things that could give a former accountant
shpilkes,
it had to be a number.
 
 
By now it was lunchtime and I went to help. That meant working the counter, since my feet were too achy to waddle between tables. Fortunately— or maybe it was God looking out for me—Hildy Endicott had a craving for tongue. I was certain now that God had cooked this one up for me. She was the biggest
yenta
of Lolo’s group,
Hildy—short for Hildegardebeth, a cruelty with no sane explanation—was a fifty-year-old divorcée. Shortly before my arrival in Nashville, her sixty-two-year-old husband had left her for a younger man. But there were no hard feelings. Dwight Endicott had also left her with half the family fortune, made in magazine publishing when magazines were still being published. She was actually quite friendly with Dwight and his boytoy Gavin. She was, in fact, a pussycat, as far as I could tell. Even so, dogs knew enough to circle wide around them.
I braved the thickening crowd clustered around twenty wooden tables to bring Hildy’s Deluxe and a Coke to her booth.
“Gwen,” she said, patting the back of my hand and gazing up with Pound Puppy eyes as though we were old friends sharing a bitter new reality. “How are you doing?”
“Devastated,” I lied.
“I know. Can you set a minute?”
I
sat.
The South and their vocabulary. I actually missed people who
aksed
me a question or said
sí
when they meant
yes
.
“Sure, honey pie,” I replied. I could be Southerncharming too. I slid into the seat opposite her. Hildy adjusted the plate so it was a micrometer nearer. I don’t understand why diners do that. “This must be awful for you,” I said. “I barely knew poor Hoppy, but you. . . .” I let the statement hang there, like an apple waiting to be picked.
“Yes, me. I never got to set that rat’s plaster.”
“Right,” I said, trying to conceal my surprise. This pussycat had issues!
She looked down at her coleslaw. “I know the other ladies talked about it when they came in here. I don’t blame them. They warned me.”
No need to ask if whatever she was talking about happened on August 24. It didn’t sound as though Hoppy left anything for her except grief. Still, I wondered if she knew how to use a power drill.
“You know, Hildy, we all do silly, impetuous things,” I said.
Coax, coax.
“But I was supposed to
know
better,” she said, her voice cracking.
I pushed the Coke toward her. She sipped it by leaning her mouth over it. Maybe she never went to finishing school, or just skipped lunch there. “Well, you know now,” I said. I was beginning to think it would be possible to have an entire conversation without knowing what she was talking about.
“Do you know, my dear, it’s much more difficult being a divorcée than a wife,” she said with icy indignation.
My dear
meant she was going to discourse. I had to get her back on track. At least, the track that was closer to where I wanted to go.
“It’s just difficult being a
woman,
” I suggested, and clasped the hand that was still on mine.
That made her melt.
“Yes!”
she gushed.
“No woman, married, divorced, or widowed, should have to deal with the likes of Hoppy Hopewell. The dog.”
Hildy discovered her sandwich and her appetite. She began to eat. “It’s not that I am above speculation,” she said around a tongue that wasn’t hers. “But he said he was going to use the money to expand and that I would be a silent partner.”
“Men like women who are silent.”
“Oh,
yes they do,
” she said, showing teeth.
“‘This is a growing market, Hildy. ’ ‘I need to hire more help, Hildy.’ ‘I need a woman’s counsel, Hildy.’
All lies, all rubbish. What he wanted was to buy into another business, one to which he did not wish his name attached.”
That was something. I leaned forward, whispered conspiratorially, “I hadn’t heard about that!”
“I only just found out myself.” She sipped more Coke.
“There’s a straw,” I said, helpfully pointing to the one sticking from the other side.
“I never use them,” she said. “In
The Matter of the Black Wasp,
a lothario poisoned his women with arsenic pellets concealed inside straws. It terrified me as a child. Young girls are so impressionable.”
“Aren’t they,” I said.
Oy.
I shouldn’t have distracted her. “This business of Hoppy’s,” I said. “Weren’t there mobsters involved?” I thought, if anyone was going to shove a drill up a man’s nose it was
La Cosa Nostra.
“Were there?” she said with horror.
“I thought so,” I said. “You know, that business—”
“Importing exotic vegetables?”
I stared at her blankly. I wondered if I looked less dumbstruck than I felt. I cast off any pretense of knowing what the hell I was talking about.
“I’m confused. Why didn’t he want his name attached to that?”
“He was afraid that if people found out he was importing healthful foods it would be a tacit admission that chocolate was
un
healthy,” she said.
“Is that really a news flash?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You hear all these conflicting reports, don’t you?”
Not about a product loaded with sugar and fat, but I let it pass. “Go on,” I told her. “About the new business.”
“It was highly, highly risky,” she said. “There were problems with customs, an unreliable work force, global warming. That’s why he didn’t want to put his own money into it. African Horned Cucumber, Jelly Melons, Adzuki Beans—I would never have invested in something so . . . so
foreign
.”
“How did you find out?” I asked.
“By purest happenstance,” she said. “An attorney for McDonald’s sent a letter saying we couldn’t use the name
Hoppy Meals
for our enterprise. I had my attorney, Solomon Granger, look into the matter.
That
was how I found out! I wanted to confront my
partner
the night of the party but he avoided me. By dying.”
The way she spat out the word
“partner”
made me pretty sure she hadn’t been the one who put a drill bit in his frontal lobe. The woman was still nursing way too much unreleased anger.
I slumped from the effort of pulling all that out, then rallied and excused myself. I paused before standing.
“What do you know about power drills?” I asked. For another hour or so, only the police, myself, and the killer would know it was the murder weapon. I watched carefully to see if she flinched.

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