The Stiff and the Dead (34 page)

“I'm sorry to hear that, but—”

She looked at Jagger. “Oh shit. You think I have something to do with Leo's croaking.”

It wasn't a question.

Jagger looked at her with the look that made you tell the truth. Look out, Hildy!

“Did you?” he asked, bending toward her. Looking deeper.

“Jesus H. Christ. I can't even kill a mosquito in the summer.”

“You can't!” I said happily.

Jagger leaned next to me. “Easy does it, Sherlock. Don't get involved.”

I pushed at his arm. “She can't kill a bug, Jagger. How could she kill Leo?”

He rolled his eyes. “Do you know how many convicts on death row ‘could never kill a fly'?”

I almost asked how many.

Instead, I turned to Hildy. “You didn't have anything to do with it?”

She shook her head.

In my gut I knew she was telling the truth. Then I caught the hot Mustang behind her. “How . . . how could you afford—”

She looked over her shoulder. “Oh. That.”

Jagger said, “Yeah, that.”

I poked him again.

“My grandfather . . . Popi, I used to call him. I loved him. He was always there when I needed him as a kid. Then, he got sick a while ago. My mom stuck Popi in a nursing home and wouldn't tell me where he was. That's another reason I was leaving. I was so pissed at her for that. She was always jealous of our relationship. Popi had come to stay with me a few times last November.”

“Did he take digoxin?”

She looked at me as if some snake had crawled out of my mouth like in an alien movie. “What the hell?”

Jagger said, “We noticed a prescription bottle in your apartment.”

“Oh, in the drawer. Yeah, that was his. You opened the drawer?”

“Pauline needed a tissue.”

She looked from him to me. “Oh.”

“What about the car? Your job?”

I had to call in sick today. No question.

Hildy looked pissed. “You know, I don't have to tell you two anything.”

“Rather tell it to the police?”

“Jagger!” This time I nearly knocked him down with my shoulder punch. “Stop it. She's only a kid.”

He raised his hands. “Take it easy, Sherlock.”

“Hildy, how could you afford all of this?” I looked at the car and her outfit.

“I'm only telling
you,
Pauline, because I like you.” She turned away from Jagger and said, “My Popi died. The will was read a short time ago. My mom and her three sisters thought they'd get it all. Popi wasn't rich until he won the lotto two years ago and saved most of it.”

“And he left some to you.” I looked back at Jagger as if to say, “Nyah-nyah.”

He shrugged.

“No. He left me all of it. When I found that out, I hightailed it out of that damn job even though Leo was gone. I hated it. This morning I checked out of my hotel room. Oh, I called in the day the money came. You know the day I was sick and you two came over.”

I nodded. “So you're moving away.”

“I'm going back to see my mom. Maybe give her some of the money. Shit. She is my mother, even if she sent her goon after me.”

I touched her arm. “That's nice. The seeing your mother part. Not the goon part.”

Jagger groaned. “A freaking fairy-tale ending,” he said, coming closer. “Why was the name ripped off the prescription bottle?”

She looked at me. “I was so pissed that my mom wouldn't tell me where he was, then he died. I was so sad and angry. I did it in anger. Ripped the name off but saved the bottle for a memory. I even put aside all the clothes I'd had on when I found out he was dead and never wore them again. And his slippers. Popi had left a pair of slippers at my place. I still . . . wear them.”

I patted her arm.

Jagger came closer. “Don't leave town until Lieutenant Shatley has talked to you—”

“Jagger!”

He looked at me. “Relax, Sherlock. I'll give him a call. He'll see her today and check out an alibi and her story.”

Hildy moved closer, gave me a hug. “Thank you for everything.”

Through my vision blurred with tears, I smiled and said, “Have a great life, kid. You deserve it.” I looked over her shoulder to see Jagger's face.

If she didn't murder Leo,
it said.

As I watched Hildy drive off from Jagger's SUV, I turned to him. “That isn't a story. It's the truth.”

He shook his head.

Twice.

After Jagger dropped me off, and I explained my “outfit” to Goldie and Miles without going into details of where Jagger and I had been, I took a shower worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records.

I finally turned it off when I thought I heard one of the neighbors banging on the pipes because I'd used up all the hot water in the complex. While still wrapped in my towel, I faked a scratchy throat and called the manager of the clinic.

Then I snuggled into my red flannel nightie with the black ribbons on the sleeves and crawled into bed. Thank goodness Goldie and Miles had taken care of Spanky and gone off to work. I'd shoved Jagger's clothes into a plastic bag to remind me to wash and return them, after the urge to save them as a momento threatened. I shut my eyes.

Peace, quiet and
sleep.

Ring. Ring.

Thank the good Lord for answering machines. I rolled over.

Beep.
“Pauline? Pauline, is this you? No, it doesn't sound like you. Maybe it's your gay roommate. Miles? Is that you, Miles? Or Goldie. Is that you, Goldie? The voice is too high maybe for a man. I can't tell who is talking. Is this that machine?”

Beep.

I smiled and kept my eyes closed, wrapping the covers tighter. How wonderful to be in my own bed. Dorothy had it down pat. There was no place like home.

Ring. Ring.

“No!” I shouted to my pillow.

Beep.
“Pauline? Pauline is this you?”

I rolled my eyes. My mother really was an intelligent woman, but sometimes she didn't come across that way when it came to electronics. They still didn't have cable, cell phones, cordless phones, or a VCR.

“Okay. Whoever this is, tell her she needs to go to that Helen woman's for dinner tonight. Daddy and I can't go. We have to go to Mary's daughter's ballet recital. Uncle Walt says he has to go to Bingo. That Helen woman invited us to celebrate her . . . oh, my Lord . . . engagement to Stash. The fool. When will those men learn to think with their brains and not their—”

My eyes flew open.

Beep.

“Mom!” I yelled out, then laughed until that was the last thing I remembered.

From a distance I could hear the ringing of the phone yet again.
Leave me alone, Mom
, I thought. Then I realized the room was dark now. I opened my left eye to see the digital numbers: 5,1, 0. I had slept all day!

Well, my mother would say that my body needed it. If she only knew. Then I sat up in bed with a jolt, remembering mother's phone message.

I had to go to Helen's house for dinner.

Maybe I'd slept through it. Since the phone kept ringing, I grabbed the phone before the machine got it. “Hello.”

Uncle Stash's voice was filled with so such excitement that I couldn't say no to dinner at seven.

I did say that I needed more time, and we settled on seven thirty. Great, I thought, after hanging up. I needed more time to fully wake up and make myself look presentable.

I decided that for Helen I'd settle for partially awake and looking human.

Once ready, I took care of Spanky, then left a note for my roomies telling them I'd be back in a few hours. They both had my cell phone number if need be. I thought about Jagger and wondered what he'd done today. Maybe gave all his info to the police along with clearing Hildy. I really hoped that last part was true.

When I stepped outside, the cold air slapped my face, waking me up. Okay, as much as I didn't want to go, I'd do it for my uncle. Stash was not my favorite, but he was family, and we'd always had a close-knit family. I'd do my part and be very polite about it.

Uncle Stash had given me directions to where Helen stayed. I'd corrected him on the phone, saying that he must have meant where she
lived.
No, he'd said, where she
stayed
since giving up her apartment to move to Florida with him.

Helen sure didn't let any grass grow under her feet.

I pulled into the parking lot of the Family Suites. It was a small complex on the Hartford side of town where people rented efficiency apartments for a month at a time. The parking lot wrapped around the back of the building. Helen's place was on the first floor at the far end of the unit. Past a snow-covered wrought-iron patio set, I could see my Uncle Stash sitting on the living room couch through the French doors. The curtains hadn't been pulled, but the parking lot bordered the woods, so I guessed not many folks came back here.

I shut off my car and walked to the front door of #43. I could hear jazz music coming from Helen's. Okay. Maybe she wasn't all that bad. But her marrying my uncle still got under my skin. The wind sent my hair flying, reminding me how cold I'd been last night, so I stepped closer to the door and poked at the doorbell.

The chimes had only rung once when the door flew open. Helen stood there, purple hair sprayed like a rubber wig, a rather tight red dress revealing a little pooch of an abdomen, thick black glasses with rhinestone sides, and heels that Peggy never could have maneuvered in.

Guess Helen was young at heart.

“Come in, dear,” she said, moving to the side.

The place was well lit, decorated in monotone beige and had a small kitchenette to the left of the living room. Helen took my black wool coat. I missed my Steelers jacket, but down took a long time to dry.

“Hello, Pauline,” Uncle Stash said, standing up. “What can I get you to drink?” He looked toward a brass liquor table filled with various bottles. Their age group had cocktails at every function.

“Beer would be fine.”

I followed Helen and sat on the couch, feeling strange. I looked around the room. Even though it was a temporary place for Helen, it looked so impersonal. I would have stuck out a family picture or two. When I looked at the kitchenette, I noticed the stove was empty. No pots or pans on it. Geez. Maybe the invitation was only for cocktails, and I'd starve to death in a few minutes, after sleeping through breakfast, lunch and my afternoon tea and cookie break.

“Dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” she said.

I didn't argue, but wondered how the hell that was going to happen. Uncle Stash handed me a Budweiser still in the can. Helen looked at him, but she never admonished him for not giving me a glass. My first thought was that she didn't have the class someone who looked like her should have had. I wasn't being nice. Maybe I was still mixed up from being tired and groggy.

I took a sip of my beer and set it next to last May's issue of
A Buyers Gallery of Fine Automobiles.
Helen, a car buff? Then I noticed the address label. Uncle Walt's. She must have gotten it somehow when they had been “dating.”

I shuddered.

I loved my Uncle Stash even though I wasn't that close to him. I didn't want to see him get hurt. Uncle Stash had retired from IBM years ago and it was rumored in my family that the guy had some bucks. I know he'd talked about buying stock way back when.

Hmm. Did Helen know the value of “way back when” stock?

The door chimes rang.

More company? I thought no one else in my family could make it. Suddenly my heart stopped. I hoped these two mismatched lovers hadn't planned to fix me up!

“Dinner's ready,” Helen chirped as she got up to answer the door.

The scent of fried rice and egg rolls filled the air. Dinner is ready is right. I smiled to myself as the Chinese food deliveryman gave Helen a dirty look before he left. Must have stiffed him on the tip.

Throughout the entire meal they talked about Florida. I pictured myself hanging from the curtain pull.

Helen went on and on about how sensitive her skin was to the sun and did Uncle Stash have a cover over his lanai.

I pictured borrowing Jagger's gun and shooting myself in the foot.

Then Uncle Stash talked incessantly about Helen. Her hair. Her lovely nose. Her perfect teeth. The way she walked. The way she . . . yadda, yadda, yadda.

I pictured myself drinking every bottle of liquor on her brass table and drifting off into quiet oblivion.

Ring. Ring.

I jumped.

Helen got up to answer the phone while Uncle Stash followed. Geez. Were these two already joined at the hip?

Still, I guessed I was glad that my uncle was happy.

“Oh, dear. Oh, my. Damn it.”

I looked up. She didn't look as concerned as her words sounded.

Uncle Stash asked, “What is it, sugar pie?”

I gagged on a bite of my Moo Goo Gai Pan.

“Okay. We'll come right now.” She hung up the phone. “We have to go take Sophie to the hospital.”

“Is she all right?” I asked.

Helen looked at me oddly, then nodded. “Sophie is our friend from Bingo. She got her toe stuck in the faucet of her bathtub.”

I wasn't supposed to know who Sophie was! But the vision of the large woman attached to plumbing nearly had me busting my sides, trying to keep in a laugh. “Oh. So she is all right?”

“Yes, but we have to go drive her. Her neighbor helped get the faucet off the wall, but it's still on her toe.”

“Jiminy Cricket,” Uncle Stash said.

“Well, you two go ahead. I'll clean up and put the rest of the food away so it doesn't spoil. I'll lock the door on my way out.”

Helen nearly jumped on me. “No!”

Uncle Stash took her into his arms. Senior lovers. Cute.

My Moo Goo Gai Pan worked its way up my throat.

“Don't worry so much about everyone. Sophie will be fine. Pauline is a dear to offer to clean up. You know you don't like to anyway. Let's go. She'll be fine. Besides, she hasn't finished dinner. You don't want to make a bad impression on your soon-to-be family.”