Getting Old is the Best Revenge (15 page)

"I didn't tell them any of that. The story was improbable as it was. I stopped while I was ahead."

"But the HL on the treasure chest was a clue! It proves she was murdered and that she knew the killer." I am so upset, I can hardly speak.

"Gladdy, be reasonable. I went out on a limb for you to get the ring to that precinct. I could not justify having more information about the cave. And besides, there is no way to tell for sure whether the diamond had etched out any letters. She could have dropped the ring accidentally when she fell."

"That ring didn't just fall off her finger. The initials are evidence, and now the cops don't know about it. It would at least make them investigate the possibility of there being a murder!" Having finished my sandwich, I squash my napkin with a vengeance.

"And maybe it wouldn't. Probably someone else at some other time carved those initials." He tries to take my hands and hold them to comfort me. I don't let him.

"Forensics could tell us all that."

He grins. "Forensics, huh?"

Yeah, Morrie. This old broad has heard about forensics. Every twelve-year-old who watches TV knows, too.

"And how did the guys in her precinct explain her body being out of the gondola?"

"They probably assumed she was walking along the track and had a heart attack and fell down and landed on the treasure chest. That's also when her ring dropped off her finger."

"Morrie! That doesn't make any sense. Why would she walk on the track? She was in the gondola. She would have just slumped in her seat."

"Maybe they thought she was in pain and got out to go for help and she fell over. You're asking me to second-guess what others might think."

"Ridiculous. If she was in pain, she would have stayed put 'til the car rolled back outside and she could call for help, or at least end up outside so someone would see her."

Morrie is getting annoyed. I am furious. He will not take me seriously. If this came from some young rookie cop--a male--he'd listen.

"Gladdy, listen to me. I did what you asked. I made enquiries at each precinct. If there had been any kind of anomaly, the medical examiner would have picked it up. From my understanding, Margaret Sampson was only a few feet away from her golfing partners. Josephine Martinson was alone in her private spa; the staff at the front desk would have known if anyone went in there. Elizabeth Johnson was with a whole group of children when she died. No one saw anything. There was nothing to see."

I feel so discouraged.

"Look," Morrie concludes, "this isn't in my jurisdiction. I have a caseload of my own that keeps me busy twenty-four/seven. Even if I believed these cockeyed ideas of yours, there's nothing I can do. I was only trying to protect you."

I attempt to calm down. I turn my back on him so I won't say the angry things that are bubbling up in me.

"Gladdy, do you hear what you're saying? You think there's a killer husband in Boca, a killer husband in Sarasota, and another one in West Palm Beach."

I wheel around. "Yes. And they could be connected."

I am stopped by the arrival of a tiny, bent-over senior, probably in her late eighties, carrying a sun parasol. She sits down gingerly next to us. We wiggle about to give her room. "You waiting long for the bus?" she asks.

We inform her we aren't waiting, but no bus had been by for quite a while.

I pull Morrie back to our discussion. "What if they all know HL? And hired him for the job?"

"I thought you said Mrs. Johnson knew who it was by the initials you insist she carved."

"I don't know how to explain that, but in some way they were all connected to the same . . ." I pause. The woman is definitely listening in. "The same contractor for the job to be done."

"Boy, what a coincidence that would be."

"That's my point. I don't think it's a coincidence. These men either knew each other or had some link and exchanged information on this . . . contractor, or they met somewhere and worked it out and hired the same . . . contractor. Can't you at least check bank accounts to see if there are similar large withdrawals in each of their accounts?"

"Gladdy, come on . . ."

Just then the bus arrives. The woman pulls herself up by holding on to the side of the bench, closes her umbrella, and begins to climb the steps. She turns to Morrie. "You should listen to your mother, young man, and stay away from building contractors. They'll steal you blind."

When the bus pulls away, Morrie unfurls that long, slim body. "Gotta go. I hear you and the girls are going on a bingo cruise. Just have a good time and forget about all these imagined conspiracies."

He tries to give me a quick hug, which I do not return. He heads for his car. Then he turns and winks at me. "Hey, Gladdy, when are you going to make an honest man of my dad?"

Exasperated, I wave him away. He gets into his car. In frustration I take a swipe at the photo on the bench of an ugly bail bondsman in his equally ugly ad.

Morrie's car pulls up alongside me. This time he looks serious.

"What?" I say to him. "You're going to apologize and say how wrong you are?"

He pauses, then in a low voice he says, "I wasn't sure I should tell you. I Googled you . . ."

"What is this Google nonsense, anyway?"

"It's a way to find out information on the computer about everything and everybody."

I laugh nervously. "So what big secret did you find?"

"I know what happened to your husband. You might want to tell Dad." He gives me a wan smile and drives off.

I stare at him, dumbfounded.

25

The Hero in Fiction

F
our a.m. I open my eyes and peer at the clock.

Why do I always do that? I know it's still dark and I should be sleeping. I turn over and I turn over again. Close my eyes and give myself an order to dream of something else. Fat chance. I'm back in that accursed alley again. I pull myself into a sitting position. Not this dream again. I keep thinking there must be a statute of limitations on how many times I get to relive this one.

I put on my bathrobe because I feel chilled. This nightmare comes with a caveat: Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

It usually hits me on anniversaries. Thanks a lot, Morrie. You and your darn Google. This is the dream I don't share with anyone. Not even with Evvie or the girls. Not even with my own daughter, Emily.

No point trying to push it away. It just pushes back. So I close my eyes and experience it as quickly as I can bear.
Gevalt,
big-time.

I'm standing in a dark street. No, I wasn't there when it happened. But I've had to relive the real nightmare so often, it seems as if I were. Does that make sense? No, nothing makes sense. That it happened at all will never make sense.

My dream and my reality always take place not far from Columbia University. Near Riverside Drive and 124th Street.

I see an alley with a coffee shop on the corner. A shortcut during the day, treacherous at night. This night, my husband, Jack, works late at his office. He's finishing the last polish on the newest edition of his textbook. Now he heads home. It's New Year's Eve and our daughter Emily's eleventh birthday. He carries her present, always a book. (Like my father, always a book.) Jack and I invariably chose for Emily's birthdays the novels we most enjoyed at her age. His present is
Captain Horatio
Hornblower.
That night mine was to be
For Whom
the Bell Tolls.

Jack hears a scream. From that dark alley.

I hear it, too. In my dream, I'm there.

"Don't go," I cry out, knowing what lies ahead.

He rushes into the blackness. There is a student. Her book bag has spilled over. There is a man. I can't see his face.

I try to run to help Jack, but the street has turned to quicksand and my legs keep treading; I cannot move.

I hear Jack shout a warning at the girl: "Run, Patty!" It's one of his own students. An eighteenyear-old girl. She runs and then a shot rings out.

And that's when I always wake up.

Enough of that. Don't cry for me, Argentina.

You can grieve until you are an empty shell of yourself. Like Enya Slovak, who survived the concentration camps and sleeps in a bedroom with photos of her murdered husband and children on the dresser and will never smile again for the rest of her life. I once told her that I really believed her family wouldn't want her to keep suffering. She said, "What do you know?" If she lived a million years, her torment wouldn't match what they went through.

I chose my husband's way. To smile at each miracle of a day.

But in my dreams I do what Enya does. I cry.

I never gave Emily
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
And the police never found Jack's killer.

26

Getting Ready to Go

M
y first stop is at Bella's, where her entire

wardrobe lies across her bed awaiting our opinions. The girls are already there. I survey the matching ensembles. Light peaches and neutral beiges and whiter-than-whites. Liquid lavenders and lemony yellows, all the pastels blending into the pastel bedspread in her pastel bedroom. It's a wonder when she gets her light-skinned little body into bed at night that she doesn't disappear altogether.

Her hands fluttering, she whimpers, "I don't know what to take."

"Take it all," says grandiose Sophie. "Ya never know what you'll need."

"No," says Ida, stamping her foot, beyond irritated by now. "How many times do I have to tell you? The staterooms are tiny. Not only do we store all our clothing in our rooms, according to the ship's brochure, we also have to keep our suitcases there, too."

"Big deal," says Sophie, fluffing out a long seagreen chiffon evening gown and holding it against Bella for effect.
"We
have no problem, since there're only
two
of us in
our
room." She puts her arm around her roommate, who leans into her lovingly.

Ida grimaces, forming her hands into claws, ready to strangle her, but Evvie holds her back. Sophie will not stop rubbing it in that she had the winning ticket and that the other three of us will have to share a smaller room. At the same time, she is still sore that she was forced to share in paying for all our tickets.

I decide to leave them at it. Each bedroom will play out its own packing drama; now that I've seen one, I've seen enough.

The telephone is ringing when I get my door open. It's Angelina Siciliano calling to ask if I got her check. I say yes and thank her. I wait for her to express some gratitude for what we did for her, but that isn't going to happen.

I ask how things are, and now there is a lilt in her voice. Her sister, Connie, has moved into their house, and "Guess what?" Angelina says. "Elio is taking me on a second honeymoon. All the kids will take care of their aunt while we're gone."

I feel good about what she is telling me, and I congratulate her on this happy turn of events. But with murder still on my mind, no matter how hard I try to get it off, I can't resist this opportunity to ask questions about her late cousin Josephine. "Did she ever mention knowing someone with the initials HL? A friend? Someone who worked for her? Would you think for a moment . . . ?"

"Are you kidding?" Angelina stops me, says sarcastically, "HL? JK? XYZ? How would I know? Once she got rich, she forgot she ever had a
famiglia. Y
ou think she'd invite us to her ritzy parties? Or how about a swim at her fancy country club? Hah! We were like chewing gum under her shoes. She never let us meet anyone she knew. The disgraceful way some people act to other members of their family."

This from the woman who didn't speak to her own sister for fifty years?

The moment I hang up, the phone rings again. This time it's Jack. "Can you meet me right now?" From the anxious tone in his voice, I don't ask questions. He tells me where, and after a brief hair comb and a dab of lipstick, I am out the door.

With great trepidation I walk quickly over to Phase Four. Jack said he'd leave Phase Six and meet me halfway. I don't pay attention to the many scattered palm fronds the wind blew off the trees. Or that I have to hold my sweater close to me, because that wind is blowing hard. I am aware only that something serious is on his mind.