Getting Old is the Best Revenge (14 page)

Jack pays the check. We cross the street, slip off our shoes, and stroll along the cool sand, arms entwined around each other. Mmm. It feels so good.

"Now," he says.

"Now what?" I've already forgotten.

"My surprise."

"Great, fire away," I tell him.

"My old friend, Paul Levitt, has a house in Key West. He's going off to New York on a five-day business trip. And we can have his condo. It's gorgeous. You'll love it. Right on the water. Incredible view. There's so much to see and do there. Hemingway's house, with its dozens of cats. Truman's southern White House. Nonstop Cuban music. The food. The romantic nights. The very, very romantic moonlit nights." He laughs and hugs me tight. "That's if we ever get out of the bedroom."

I stand there, shocked at my unbelievably mixed feelings. Why am I not instantly happy about this? After all, we've been talking about getting away for months.

"Wow!" I say. "When?"

"I don't know. He'll get back to me as soon as his trip is firmed up."

"Jack. The girls and I are leaving on our bingo cruise in one week. Are you sure it won't conflict?"

He is just too happy to be concerned. "It will work out. Not to worry, darling."

I am worried. Ridiculously, I am reminded of words in a Jimmy Durante song of more than fifty years ago. "Did you ever get the feeling that you wanted to go and you wanted to stay . . . ?" That's me, and I don't like that "me."

23

Girls on the Job

T
ry to look inconspicuous," says Evvie as the

girls crowd in on one another.

"Look relaxed," I add, though I should talk. I'm nervous. We have purposely picked the end of the day. Happyland closes in an hour. Our reasoning is that there will be fewer visitors around to witness what we will be trying to do. The downside is, we will also stand out more because of the smaller number of people.

If we're spotted, we're in big trouble. If Jack knew what I was doing, he'd think I was mad. But there is no point in talking to Morrie unless we can find some proof of what I believe.

I told the girls to dress casually so they wouldn't stand out. Of course, Sophie's idea of casual is a bright purple pair of capri pants with a matching beribboned top, purple heels--and guess what color sun umbrella?

"Do you see it yet?" I ask anxiously. We're trying to find the Pirate Cave ride where poor Mrs. Johnson was found dead, lying across what I have since learned was a treasure chest.

"This is gonna be a waste of our time," says Ida, baking in the hot sun and jumping from shady spot to shady spot.

"I hope not. Maybe we'll get lucky and hit upon something."

"The police probably didn't or it would have been in the paper," Sophie says.

I disagree. "Just the opposite. If they did, they wouldn't give that information away, and besides, they weren't looking."

"Yeah," says Evvie, "and what's with a pirate and a parrot anyway?"

A couple of men are coming in our direction carrying ladders and toolboxes.

"Duck!" says Evvie.

We move as fast as we can and hide behind an empty hot dog stand.

"We'd better locate the Pirate Cave, fast," says Evvie.

"Maybe we should spread out a bit," I say, thinking five nervous women are going to call too much attention to ourselves. "A couple of you go on some rides," I suggest.

Bella eagerly waves her hand in the air. "I'll volunteer."

"Anybody else?"

No one answers. "Well," I say, "we'll be going into a dark cave. Who doesn't want to do that?"

Ida immediately says, "I hate dark places."

"I love them," says Sophie, shivering with expectation.

Bella jumps up and down. "Let's hit the merrygo-round first," she says, linking her arm through Ida's.

Ida snarls, "I'm going to hate this."

They head toward the rides, Bella pulling Ida like an excitable two-year-old with a reluctant nanny. I hear Bella as they turn a corner. "What about that ride that turns you upside down?"

Poor Ida, I think.

"There it is!" Evvie points across a patch of grass to a dark cavelike structure.

Yellow police tape surrounds the entrance. So, the ride is closed, and no one is nearby. A break for us.

We quickly climb the stairs and follow the tracks inside. We turn on the flashlights Evvie was smart enough to suggest we bring.

"How can you walk in those shoes?" Evvie asks Sophie.

"Don't you worry about me, I'm an expert. I can walk anywhere on heels."

"The chest!" Evvie cries. We've reached the section with the illuminated treasure chest. There's a skeleton lying near it. And across the chest is more yellow tape, indicating where the body was found.

We are silent for a moment as we think about poor Mrs. Johnson.

"Look around," I say in a low voice. I think how strange it is that her body wasn't found in one of the gondolas. Why would she have gotten out?

"What should we look for?" Evvie asks.

"I have no idea. Something that doesn't seem to fit."

"Help," says Sophie, "I'm caught." Sure enough, her heel is caught in the train track. Evvie and I pull at it as Sophie
kvetches
about not hurting her expensive shoe. After much tugging we get her free.

"You ruined my favorite shoes," Sophie says, exactly as we knew she would.

"I told you to wear sneakers," Evvie says, annoyed.

"And I told you I'm not a sneaker kind of girl."

We begin searching. Evvie is carefully examining the ground. Sophie, seating herself next to the skeleton, is having a picnic going through all the "jewels" in the chest. She pushes the yellow tape out of her way so she can dig farther down.

"
Oy,
if only this stuff were real," she says longingly, twirling the skeleton's long rope of pearls.

I examine the chest itself. A lot of graffiti has been scratched along the sides.

"Eeek," Sophie screeches. "Get over here!"

We scramble next to the chest beside her. She raises a diamond ring up high for us to see.

"What?" asks Evvie.

"This is real. Really real! My God, this thing's worth a fortune!"

Evvie and I look at it. It certainly looks real, but then again so do the pearls and gold jewelry.

"Are you sure?" I ask.

"You ask a woman whose son Jerome is the best jeweler in Park Slope, Brooklyn?"

"So?" Evvie says, unimpressed. "What has that got to do with you?"

"He taught me everything. This is a two-carat emerald-cut diamond with four flanking baguettes. I'd bet anything on it!" She puts it on the edge of a finger and waves it up and down. "Finders keepers!"

Evvie snatches it off her hand. "Don't be ridiculous. This could be evidence of a possible murder."

Now I'm getting excited. Did Elizabeth Johnson drop the ring? Unlikely. A ring like that wouldn't fall off. Did the killer try to take it, then drop it? Not probable. Mrs. Johnson was left for dead. Or maybe she wasn't dead yet. Is it possible she took that ring off to leave a clue? But what? I imagine her lying there, almost helpless, reaching out--what could she reach? I look at the skeleton, its bony hand dangling inside the chest. I shine my flashlight along the surface and I pray I'm right. Sure enough, I find two letters faintly carved into the brown paint.

"Look at this," I say, pointing to the scratching. "I bet she didn't die right away. I bet she took her ring off and used the diamond to carve a message."

"
HL,
" Evvie says, squinting to read it. "That's not the beginning of a word. Maybe she only had time for initials."

"My God," I say. "I think we finally found some real evidence. Do you know what this could mean?"

Evvie gets it; Sophie looks puzzled.

"She knew her killer!" I explain. "She knew the name of the man who killed her!"

"Let's get out of here!" Evvie carefully slips the ring into the little change purse in her bag. "Let's get to a phone and call Morrie!"

Sophie sulks. "Well, that ring should be my reward for finding it."

"Wait." Evvie stops. "Maybe we should leave it here and tell Morrie where to find it. After all, the cave is a crime scene now."

"I was thinking about that," I say. "We should call Morrie now and then come back and stay here until he arrives."

"If we had a cell phone," Sophie says, "but you . . ."

"Don't start. Besides, we wouldn't get reception in here anyway."

"Maybe staying isn't such a good idea," says Evvie. "I don't want us to get caught in this creepy place."

"We can't leave the ring here. Anything could happen and it might be lost forever. What if some one else finds it? Okay. We take it with us. Besides, I'm sure experts will be able to tell that it's hers."

"Yeah," adds Sophie, "then we can tell them to go look at the chest." She high-fives us. "Boy, are we good."

We move off fast, Sophie moaning, "Wait for me," as she tiptoes carefully on her preposterous high heels.

We find Ida throwing up in the bushes while Bella is high up above her, shaking her seat backward and forward, laughing hysterically, on something terrifying called "The Black Ride of Death!"

24

Morrie and Me

I
'm surprised to see Morrie standing in a rather badly neglected lot on Oakland Park Boulevard, not ten minutes from the police station. It's taken him three days to get back to me since I gave him the ring we found. He called me this morning on his cell phone, informing me that he was very busy but he could give me a few minutes if I could meet him at this address.

Something awful must have happened here. Yellow tape surrounds what used to be a Greek diner, now long abandoned. Police cars are leaving, as are an ambulance and a few other, unmarked vehicles.

I can't resist. As I step out of my car I ask, "What's going on?"

"You don't want to know," Morrie says, still jotting down details in his notepad. Then he glances over at me and laughs. "Knowing you, Ms. Curiosity, of course you do. You want all the gory details of this crime scene. Kids broke into the deserted diner to have themselves a party--drugs, booze, knives--"

I hold my hands up. "Stop. Got the picture."

"Hungry?" he asks.

"A little. Why? Are you inviting me to lunch?"

"Well, here's this diner." He points at the pathetic remains behind us. "We could order some blackened moussaka."

"Or hundred-day-old pita? I think I'll pass."

"Wanna share mine?"

With that he sits down on a bus stop bench, takes out a sandwich, and offers me half. "Chicken salad, with my own secret dressing." His long legs stretch practically out to the curb.

I sit down next to him and accept the sandwich. "Boy, you cops sure know how to live big."

He tears his napkin in half and hands me a tattered portion. He takes out his water bottle, I take out mine. Ignoring the incongruity of our backdrop, we sit contentedly chewing and drinking for a few moments.

"Am I on the clock yet?" I ask. I'm excited. I know this time I've given Morrie a real lead. I lean forward in anticipation.

"Ready when you are, sweetheart," Morrie says in his best Bogart imitation.

"What did you find out in Sarasota Springs?"

"I had to make up some far-fetched story about a robbery bust and a tipster who said he heard a very expensive diamond ring in the take had been found in the Pirate Cave at Happyland. And, being such a genius, I put one and one together and remembered that a Mrs. Johnson from their precinct had died on that ride. I didn't dare tell them the tip came from my father's nosy soon-to-be bride, who should never have been in that cave at all, investigating a case that isn't a case, in a city where she doesn't live."

"Ignore the bride thing, that remains to be seen," I say quickly.

"What does?" Morrie asks, feigning innocence, knowing my blushing always gives me away. He's finished with his half of the sandwich and tosses the wrapper in a nearby trash barrel.

"Let's stick to the facts," I say in my most hardboiled tone. "Did they track the ring to Mrs. Johnson?"

"Yes, it was definitely hers."

"I knew it!" I want to jump up and down with joy. "And what did they say about the initials on the chest?"