Death by Deep Dish Pie (17 page)

“Turn that damned thing off!” Sally screamed at her children. The background went silent. “And get yourself something better to eat than that! For God's sake, we've got perfectly good pop-tarts going stale in the cupboard!”

I shuddered at that. I could imagine what bar food leftovers Harry, Larry, and Barry were munching for breakfast—but I didn't want to.

A click, a hiss, a sucking sound, then an “ahhh.” Sally was having her first cigarette of the day. “Now, whadya want, Josie?” Sally sounded much calmer.

“I want you to come work for me today. In my laundromat.”

“What? You know I can't do that! What in the hell would I do with Harry, Larry, and Barry, for God's sake? I can't just leave them alone!”

“Bring them with you,” I said. “They'll be fine.”

There was a crashing sound. “Damn it, Barry! I mean, Larry!” Sally screamed.

I winced and tried to push away the feeling that maybe my idea wasn't so brilliant. But I went on. “Sally, now listen to me. You bring yourself and your kids and all of your dirty laundry right over here. No smoking inside the laundromat, but you can smoke out back—so long as you clean up the butts. I can't abide with litter around my building,” I said firmly. “I have activities for the kids to keep them occupied.”

“But Josie—”

“And a TV when they get tired of that—but Jerry Springer is definitely off limits. You can catch up on all your laundry, for free—I'll give you a bypass key to the washers and dryers.”

“What's the catch?” Sally asked gruffly, but she sounded interested. I knew she hadn't had a chance to catch up on laundry, or probably didn't have enough quarters around even if she had the time. She'd been wearing the same T-shirt to work in for three days.

“The catch is you'll have to fill in for me—”

“Aww, Josie, now—”

“Nothing hard,” I said quickly. “Just give people their orders when they come in. I've taken care of all of the laundry orders. The stain tip sheet laminated on the front counter covers how to deal with the most common stains—you know, dirt, pop, beer, blood.” In Paradise, a la Mrs. Beavy's blouse, wine stains are a specialty item. “If there are any stain emergencies the sheet doesn't cover, just take the item, write a note to me with the person's name and phone number and problem, and safety-pin it to the item—”

“But, Josie—”

“The safety pins and notepaper are under the counter, Sally. You can do this,” I said. “Other than that it's a matter of making change and making sure everyone behaves, which is usually not a problem.”

There was a crash, a slap, and a wail in the background. Sally, though, was silent. Finally, Sally said, “Why're you asking me to do this, Josie? You know I've got to work on the theatre—”

“And I know you can't do it until Bubbles can watch the kids tonight, and I know I've been busting my behind working for you every night, and now I've got some other business to attend to, and I don't want to leave my laundromat unattended all day.” I could leave for an hour or so at a time, if I really had to—that's one of the beauties of the business I own—but I don't like to. And what I needed to do would take more than an hour. “Plus, you'll get caught up on your laundry for free. C'mon now, you owe me, and you know it.”

“Oh, so if I don't come, too bad for me tonight—” Sally started, her voice hard and sour, built up with caked-on layers of years of disappointment.

“I'll be there tonight either way,” I said quietly.

There was another silence. “You really think the boys'11 be fine in the kiddie corner?”

Another crash and squeal in the background.

Still, I said, “I'm real sure, Sally.”

Forty-five minutes later, Sally, Larry, Harry, and Barry were the first customers at my laundromat.

While I gathered Larry, Harry, and Barry around the kiddie table, Sally started toting in her laundry. The little boys examined the washable markers as if they'd never seen such tools before, which given how distracted and harried Sally always was, they may not have. I explained to them that the markers were for the coloring books and drawing paper
only.

And Sally kept on toting in laundry. I swear she had the triplets' and her entire wardrobe, and maybe a few items from her neighbors in the Happy Trails Trailer Park, too. When she finally finished, I stared at her three baskets and seven extra-large garbage bags stuffed with laundry.

“Sally, you're gonna have to limit yourself to three washers at a time,” I said. My laundromat only has twelve washers, after all.

“That's fine,” Sally said dreamily. She started loading a washer, settling in for the day as if she and the kids were on a vacation somewhere rare and wonderful, and I reckoned that maybe for her, this was true. “I do have a question, though.”

“What's that?”

“Harry got ink on his good go-to-church-and-visiting shirt,” she said.

I sighed. I really wanted to get on with my investigating, but I couldn't deny Sally stain advice, any more than I would another customer. “Is it ink from a regular ball-point pen?”

“Yes. He's always drawing and . . .”

“Soaking in milk for a few hours can remove ink stains. But hairspray will take it out, too, and that's faster.”

“Hairspray?” She looked around. “You got any here?”

“No, but hold on.”

I left my laundromat, went next door to Cherry's Chat N Curl. She'd just opened for business and already had a customer—Todd Raptor.

She had him set up in a chair in front of the mirror and was attempting to trim the back of his hair, but he was hollering into his cell phone and gesturing wildly. “Look, I'm doing the best I can, given the situation here! How was I to know this would happen?” He stopped, glared at Cherry. “Would you hurry up? I haven't got all day.” Then he went back to hollering into his phone. “I'll get the situation under control, okay? The deal will go through!”

Cherry looked like she wanted to stab Todd with the scissors. She sidled over to me.

“What do you want?”

“Hairspray,” I said, “the cheapest you have.”

“I don't sell cheap items,” she said.

“Look, don't take your customer problems out on me,” I said. “How about just selling me the least expensive hair-spray you have?”

“Fine.” I followed her over to the checkout counter. Behind it was a display rack of hair products. She plucked up a bottle of hairspray and started ringing it up.

I leaned forward. “What's he all upset about?”

Cherry shrugged. “Apparently he's working on some kind of deal with his employer. And it's not going well. And to think I thought he was a hottie! He's just an overgroomed, career-obsessed, cell-phone junky with anger management issues and . . .”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Cherry never did handle well her crushes getting, well, crushed with doses of reality. “Did he happen to say his employer's name?”

She rolled her eyes. “His employer is on speed dial. But he called someone right before that, when he didn't think I was listening, and introduced himself as being from Good for You Foods International.”

I lifted my eyebrows at that.

“What?” Cherry said.

“Nothing.” Although, truth be told, I thought it was more than a little interesting that Todd worked for another food company and had been hanging out with the Breitenstraters and Alan had just announced a new health-food pie line, right before he died.

“Well, that'll be $12.50,” she said.

“What! You call that cheap hairspray?”

Cherry grinned. “Inexpensive.”

I paid, left Cherry with a still-hollering-in-the-cell-phone Todd, and went back to my laundromat, and told Sally to simply douse the ink spot with the hairspray.

“How much do I owe you for it?” she asked.

I looked at her three kids, who were coloring with the markers—especially the new neon-colored ones Trudy had donated—as if they were the most marvelous toys ever invented.

“Don't worry about it,” I said.

For the first time ever, I actually felt every last bit of my fear of Sally drain away, and a bit of sorriness for her took its place. I showed her the switches for the ceiling fans and skedaddled out of there before my sorriness could take over my judgment and I started offering her free use of my laundromat anytime.

A while later, I was getting out of my little Chevrolet in front of Mrs. Beavy's house. She was only two blocks away from my laundromat—she usually walked over—but Mrs. Beavy's house was just my first stop.

Sally started loading clothes into washers, humming happily.

Now I walked up the narrow path that bisected Mrs. Beavy's tiny lawn in front of her two-story house. There was a narrow bed of flowers—petunias and marigolds—edging either side of the path, and the flowers bloomed merrily. They were well watered and fading blooms had all been pinched off—but I noticed stray weeds and grass in between the flowers. That made me a little sad. Mrs. Beavy had always been a perfectionist about the condition of her home and yard, but it was getting tougher for her.

As I got to the porch, a white-and-black cat jumped down from the porch swing, stretched, and stared at me, and jumped behind the neatly trimmed shrubs. The main door was open behind the screen door. I could hear kitchen sounds—running water, clinking dishes—and a television on too loud, just like Sally's had been. Fortunately, this one was tuned in to Dr. Phil, who was advising a young man that keeping secrets about his past lifestyle wasn't fair to his fiancee.

Hmmph. I could only hope that Owen was watching TV for once, but of course instead his nose'd be stuck in a book, which is one of the things I love about him, and remembering that made me start to go misty-eyed . . .

I knocked on Mrs. Beavy's door frame before I totally lost my good sense.

Mrs. Beavy came to the door. She was still in her daisy-patterned cotton housecoat and yellow fuzzy slippers, but she looked both surprised and pleased to see me.

“Why, hello, dear!” she said, opening the screen door. Then she noticed her pink blouse on the hanger I was holding up in my left hand. As I stepped into her living room, she clapped her hands together delightedly, letting the screen door slam shut. “Oh—you got the stain out! How did you do it, Josie? You are a genius!”

Mrs. Beavy waved me toward the kitchen at the back of the house as she started hobbling up the stairs, which started directly in front of the front door and ran flush against the wall. “Just let me get this hung up,” she called, “then we'll chat. Help yourself to a slice of buttermilk pie and some ginseng tea in the kitchen!”

I walked through the tiny living room, its vintage 1930s couches and chairs and coffee table and end table (all bought secondhand when Mrs. Beavy was a newlywed in the 1940s), worn spots covered with doilies, every doily a different color, giving the room a zany polka-dotted effect. I went over to the tiny portable TV—on top of the nonworking console TV—and turned off Dr. Phil. Then I cut through the dining room to the kitchen at the back of the house.

I barely made it through the dining room because it was stuffed with Paradisites' offerings for the Paradise Historical Museum. I knew Mrs. Beavy's rooms upstairs and her attic were filled with “historical” items, too.

The tea lightly perfumed the air with a sweet spiciness that mingled nicely with the lavender soap that usually scented the tiny kitchen. Mrs. Beavy already had out one white china cup—with just the tiniest chip on the top of the handle—ready for her cup of ginseng tea.

I helped myself to a plate and another tiny cup from the cabinet to the left of the sink, glancing out the window over the sink at the detached two-car garage that ate up most of the backyard. Over the top of the garage was an apartment, which had been added for Mrs. Beavy's mother-in-law, who had only occupied it for five months (God rest her soul). It was now the official location of the Paradise Historical Society's archives and holdings (although half of the holdings had crept into Mrs. Beavy's house), since the society had no funds for a museum and since Mrs. Beavy had been the president every year for the past thirty years.

I got the buttermilk pie out of the fridge, cut myself a small slice, and put it on my plate. I went back to the table, poured tea into my cup, and sat down on one of the avocado-vinyl-covered dinette chairs. The tea certainly smelled good. I decided to let it cool before trying it.

I took in the tiny kitchen in a single glance, shaking my head in wonderment as I thought of Mr. and Mrs. Beavy raising eight kids in this tiniest of the tiny houses on Plum Street, with its crowded kitchen and living room and dining room, and no basement, and three bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs. There'd never been money—or space—for a washer and dryer. And now Mrs. Beavy, even though she was eighty-something and arthritic—hobbled on over to my laundromat every week to do all her laundry except her undies (which she did in the privacy of the one bathroom). I wondered if there was a face-saving way I could offer to do her laundry for her at the same price she paid to use my machines—and knew she'd see right through me and never accept it.

I took a bite of the buttermilk pie—mmm. Heavenly. A flavor that Breitenstrater Pie Company didn't make—and even if they did, I knew they wouldn't do as good a job as Mrs. Beavy. I finished the pie.

Then I took a sip of the tea—and immediately spewed it across the table. It was cool enough—but the taste was odd-earthy and musky. I got a paper towel from a roll under the sink and cleaned up my mess. This tea was going to need sugar—a lot of it. I dosed my tea with a generous helping from the rose-patterned ceramic sugar pourer that Mrs. Beavy kept by her toaster on the counter.

By the time Mrs. Beavy came into the kitchen, I was back at the table sipping my tea as if it was the best thing ever. In truth, with the sugar, it wasn't so bad.