Polkacide (30 page)

He sniffled against the back
of his hand. "Chicken pot pie and baked corn casserole. You want
some?"

I widened my eyes and nodded eagerly.
"Yes, please."

"What's the soup?" said
Peg.

"Ham, green beans, and potatoes."
Stush managed a little smile and rubbed his hands
together.

"I'll have a cup of that and half a
club sandwich." Peg raised her half-empty coffee cup. "And keep the
coffee coming, please."

"You bet." Stush tapped the
table twice, then walked away.

"Okay." Peg turned her full attention
back to me. "What's next is, give me your phone."

It only took a second to
guess what she wanted it for. "You want to call Adrianna?" I pulled
the phone out of my pocket and put it on the table. "But I thought
you didn't speak Polish."

She reached over and picked
up my phone. "But I know someone who does." She looked toward the
kitchen, then slid her eyes back to meet my gaze.

"Uncle Stush?" Thinking
back, I knew she might be right. After all, he'd come over from the
old country. I could remember him carrying on conversations in
Polish with the old-timers at the diner.

Peg drummed her hands on the table.
"The question is, can we trust him to keep it under his
hat?"

"I guess so." It was true
that we were like family to Stush. I'd known him all my life, and
he'd never, ever steered me wrong. "Does it matter?"

"It might." Peg sighed. "He
does gossip a lot."

I shrugged. "We don't have
to tell him where we got the number, do we?"

"Let's give it a try." Peg
looked over her shoulder, where Stush was approaching with a fresh
pot of coffee. "Hey, Stush. Got a minute?"
"I always have a minute for you two lovely ladies." Stush smiled as
he refilled our cups. He seemed to have recovered some of his
composure. "So what can I do for you?"

"Sit down, please." Peg slid across
the bench, making room. When he sat beside her, she showed him my
phone. "Could you do some translating for us? In
Polish?"

Stush frowned, then raised
his eyebrows. "I suppose. Who will I be talking to?"

"A woman in Poland," said
Peg. "Her name is Adrianna."

Stush spread his hands. "Well, what's
it all about?"

"No clue." Peg shook her
head. "Something to do with Eddie Sr., we think."

Stush met her gaze, then
looked at me, then looked at the phone. "All right then. I'll do my
best, but it's been a while. I'm a little out of
practice."

"I'm sure you'll do fine." Peg dialed
the phone, then held it up to her ear as it rang. "Just see if you
can find out what she wants."

"Will do." He took the phone
when she offered it. The next word out of his mouth was not in
English. "
Witam
?"

Stush listened a moment,
then said something else in Polish into the phone. Then listened
some more. As the conversation continued, he stared into space with
an unfocused look in his eyes.

Peg and I watched him as he
spoke, then listened, then spoke again. For once, I wished I'd paid
more attention when I was little, and my great-grandparents had
rattled off their fluent native Polish in my vicinity.

"
Co
?
Chcesz
jego autograf
?" Stush's mopey face
darkened. "
Cóż, jesteś już za późno, moja
droga
."

The familiar word,
"autograf," caught my attention, but nothing else made sense to my
untrained ear. I shot Peg an inquisitive look, and she just shook
her head. She didn't seem to be faring any better.

Stush and Adrianna went back and forth a few
more times, and then he raised his voice.
"
Nie mogę ci pomóc. Muszę teraz iść. Nie
ten numer ponownie.
"
He shook his head in irritation.
"
Nie mam nic więcej do powiedzenia. Dzień
dobry.
"

I recognized the last two
words he'd said--
Dzień dobry
meant "Good day"--and that was it. By the time he
pressed the button that ended the call, I still had no idea what
the conversation had been about.

"Oh, dear." He wagged his head as he
handed the phone back to Peg. "So sad."

"What's sad?" said Peg.
"What did she say?"

Stush sighed. "She's a fan
of Eddie Sr. She was calling to ask for his autograph." His face
seemed to grow longer by the minute as waves of sadness rolled
through him. "She didn't know he was dead."

Peg looked as disappointed
as I felt. "Well, thanks for trying, Stush."

"It's the least I can do."
He patted her hand and slid out of the seat. "I just wish I
could've saved Eddie. It breaks my heart that he's
gone."

"Gone but not forgotten." Peg smiled.
"Just you wait till the big tribute at Polkapourri."

Stush scooped up the
half-empty coffee pot. "He was an angel, you know that? A real
angel." Slumping, he shambled off toward the kitchen, the coffee
pot bouncing against his thigh.

Peg leaned toward me and whispered.
"He wasn't such an angel, you know."

I frowned. "What do you
mean?"

"Listen, Lot." She stared at
the table. "There's something I should tell you. Something about
Eddie Sr. and me."

I didn't like the way she'd
said that. "The two of you?" My frown deepened.

She sighed, propped her
elbow on the table, and leaned her chin in her hand. "The reason
Lou got him blacklisted from recording contracts?" She raised her
eyebrows and nodded slowly. "Because Eddie and I
slept together
."

My jaw dropped. I was dumbstruck.
This, I couldn't believe.

"It only happened once." Peg held up a
single index finger. "A moment of weakness. But once was enough.
Lou found out, and he went after Eddie."

I still didn't know what to
say. I just gaped at her as she spun her incredible
story.

"I always felt bad about
that," said Peg. "Lou let me off the hook after a while, but
he
never
forgave
Eddie. Neither did Eddie's wife. She hated him right up until her
dying day."

I looked away as I struggled
to process what she was telling me. I'd never imagined she was so
promiscuous. Lou, Otto, now Eddie Sr.: was there a man in town
she
hadn't
slept
with?

"So now you know." She
shrugged and sat back. "I thought I should tell you,
since...well..." She looked out the window and straightened her
polka-dot glasses. "It might come out at some point, and it doesn't
look good."

"But it doesn't matter, does it? It
happened a long time ago, right?"

"Yes." Peg nodded.
"And...no."

I scowled at her in
confusion.

"We, uh..." She cleared her
throat and patted her frizzy afro. "We had a relapse recently.
Eddie and I. It just happened."

"How recently?"

Peg lowered her voice. "Three weeks
ago." She blushed and stared down at the table.

Peg was right; it didn't
look good. She was one side of a love triangle, and the other two
sides had just been murdered.

Then again, she couldn't
have killed Eddie Sr. "You have an alibi." I nodded. "Otto said
you're in the clear."

"That's what he
said
, but he might change
his tune if he can't find a suspect. Don't think for a minute he
wouldn't love to lock me up and get me out of his hair once and for
all."

I closed my eyes, trying to
wrap my head around what I'd just heard. Not only had Peg just
confessed to sleeping with Eddie Sr. three weeks before Dad's
death, but she thought the chief of police might try to frame her
for Eddie's murder.

On the one hand, she'd given
me new reason to dislike and mistrust her; on the other, she'd
passed along a massive dose of paranoia. Otto didn't like her, but
would he actually try to frame her for murder? And would he try to
drag me in after her?

"Okay." I opened my eyes. "So we need
to keep trying to find the killer."

Peg nodded. "We need to find
him before the police do. We need to guarantee they won't need
another suspect."

I rubbed my temples and
winced. "I don't even know where to start at this point. Adrianna's
a dead end, and we have no idea where the missing recording
is."

"First things first." Peg
pulled a pen and a little blue spiral-bound notebook, four inches
long, from her polka-dotted bag. "We need to map out the
Polkapourri responsibilities, and you need to meet with your
family. If we don't get the ball rolling, the festival's dead in
the water."

Just then, Stush arrived with the food
we'd ordered. "Here you go, ladies. Enjoy." When he'd put the
plates and bowl on the table, he stared at them, looking weepy.
"That was one of Eddie's favorites, you know. Chicken pot pie and
baked corn casserole."

"Say, Stush." Peg talked as she wrote
in the little notebook. "Could you bring us some takeout
containers?"

"But why?" Stush looked profoundly
confused. "The food's here now, and so are you."

"Not for long." Peg kept
writing. "Bring the check while you're at it, would
you?"

Stush looked offended. He snorted and
stomped off toward the kitchen without saying a word.

"I'll go talk to Eddie Jr.
Maybe he'll think of a clue. Maybe he can get me in to search his
dad's house before the police lock it down." Peg scribbled some
more and flipped to the next page in the notebook. "You get the
family in one place and lay it out for them. Give them their
Polkapourri assignments."

The pot pie smelled great. I
was tempted to dig out a forkful, but I had a feeling Peg didn't
want me to waste time eating. "I'll see what I can do."

"Great," said Peg. "Make it
six o'clock tonight at Polka Central."

Stush brought Styrofoam
containers, and we loaded them up. The second we'd closed the last
takeout box, Peg was out of the booth, scooping up her purse and
the check. "We can do this, you know.
All
of it."

"Just be careful." I stacked up the
takeout boxes and followed her to the cash register. "Remember that
death threat you got."

I nearly dropped the boxes of food
when Peg stopped, snapped around, and thrust her face in my
personal space. She lifted both eyebrows and stared out through her
giant polka-dot glasses, more wide-eyed than ever.

"Why do you think I'm in such a
hurry?" she said.

Chapter 45

It took some fast talking to
get the Furies, Mom, and Baba Tereska to show up at Polka Central
by six o'clock. To be honest, I was surprised they all made
it...but would they stay? Could I get my point across in spite of
the ruckus whipped up by the ADHD Dozen, whom they'd set loose to
run wild through the gymnasium?

And was there any chance at
all that my family would agree to help with Polkapourri? I didn't
exactly have high hopes.

But I had to give it a shot.
When everyone had arrived, I walked up the steps to the stage. I
intentionally didn't look off to the side, in the direction of the
back door; it was hard enough just
being
there, knowing Eddie Sr.'s dead
body had been dumped outside. The cops may have released the crime
scene, but the awful memories would never, ever fade.

"Okay, everybody!" I walked to the
center of the stage and raised my arms. "Please quiet
down!"

Mom and Baba Tereska sat on folding
chairs up front and listened politely. My three sisters, however,
were too busy chasing and yelling at their kids to pay
attention.

"
Hey
!" I spoke up louder and clapped
my hands. "Listen up, you guys!"

Still, the gang continued
their noisy scramble around the gym. Ellie was actually screaming
at the top of her lungs at the three-year-old Un-Twins, Jamie and
Derek.

"
Quiet
!" This time, I yelled louder
than ever, but the results were the same. "Everybody
quiet
!"

Then, suddenly, Baba Tereska
got up from her chair and turned to face the crowd in the gym. She
stuck her pinky fingers in her mouth, took a deep breath, and let
loose her patented ear-splitting whistle.

It got everyone's attention just like
when we were kids. All three sisters and all twelve children
stopped what they were doing, fell silent, and looked in Baba's
direction.

"
That's enough, you people
!" For
someone with chronic lung problems who sometimes needed oxygen
hoses up her nose just to breathe, Baba sure had a loud voice.
"
Listen to what Lottie has to say!
It's important!
"