He Done Her Wrong: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Eight) (Toby Peters Mysteries) (13 page)

A woman with a sickly purple dress and tears in her eyes rushed for the happy couple, threw her arms around Ralph’s neck, and began to laugh and cry. Others joined her with greater restraint, congratulating Ralph and Anne, who looked over them with a pleasant smile in my direction.

I wanted to think that her look across the crowded room was one of regret and nostalgia. I knew it probably had a tinge of fear in it. A scene of some sort was a distinct possibility, but I wasn’t planning one. My only thought was to feel sorry for myself, give Anne a little guilt, and needle Ralph if I got the chance. Then I had a killer to catch.

Anne excused herself and came through the small crowd in my direction. She looked full and beautiful as she took my hand with a smile. Gunther faded back a dozen steps.

“What are you pulling, Toby?” I could see that her grin was fixed and false.

“Pulling?” I said innocently. “Nothing. You invited me. I’m here.”

“Why did you bring a midget?” she whispered. The purple lady had pulled away from the cluster around Ralph and now took Anne’s arm and gushed, “I hope you’ll be happy, so happy with Ralph. He deserves it.”

“Gunther is not a midget,” I explained. “He’s a little person and my friend. I told him about the wedding, and he thought I should have a friend with me.”

Anne glanced at the immaculate Gunther and then at me as a waiter with red eyes and a runny nose offered us some sparkling drinks on a tray. Anne took one, sipped, spilled a little, and laughed lightly.

“Don’t embarrass me here, Toby. Don’t do it.”

The warning in her voice, beyond her fine white smiling teeth, was clear and present. I wondered what she had to threaten me with.

“You mean,” I said, grabbing a handful of tiny, crustless white bread sandwiches with something green inside them from a passing tray, “you won’t invite me to your next wedding?”

I gulped a finger sandwich or two, turned to watch Gunther accepting a drink from the stooping waiter, and listened to Anne say, “I think it would be best if you kissed my cheek and walked out of my life now. I invited you for one reason only, to make it clear to you that you are no longer part of …”

Ralph had broken out of his circle of well-wishers and had stepped beaming next to Anne with a curious look at me.

“Ralph,” she said, her voice showing a little strain as she reached up to wipe a stain from the corner of his mouth, “This is Toby.”

Ralph’s sincere small smile didn’t flicker. He put out his right hand and shook mine firmly. I gobbled the last of the sandwiches.

“I’m glad you came, Toby,” he said in a deep baritone. “Anne’s told me a lot about you, almost all of it quite sympathetic. I admire you in many ways.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to sound sullen.

“Haven’t I seen you …?” he began.

“In the hall outside of Anne’s apartment a few months back,” I said. “We had just had a tumble when you rang. I had to throw my pants on and run.”

Ralph shook his head and put his arm around Anne’s shoulder. His hair was perfect. It was probably done by the Westmores.

“That doesn’t serve you well, Toby. May I call you Toby?”

“Sure, may I call you Mr. Howard?”

“Toby,” sighed Anne. “Please go now.”

People kept sticking their head into the conversation to say congratulations or have a good honeymoon. I folded my hands in front of me and tried not to act like an ass, but the moon would probably be full that night, and I wanted to go out with a bang.

“Howard?” I said. “I think the Three Stooges are named Howard, aren’t they? You related?”

Ralph looked at me as if I were a pathetic puppy who had just been caught peeing on the new carpet. I felt like it.

“Toby,” Anne sobbed, clutching Ralph’s hand.

“Hold it,” I said. “Let’s stop it there. I’m sorry. I’m a bad loser. I’ll get out. If you ever need … well, if you.”

I blew out some air, shrugged at Anne and Ralph, and turned to leave. Gunther was waiting for a sign from me. He put down his almost finished drink and stepped in my direction.

“Toby,” Anne said softly. “Take care of yourself.”

I put up my right hand and waved. It would make a nice parting gesture. Tragic, shoulders down. I felt better. The purple lady caught me at the door and kissed my cheek.

“Your sister is beautiful,” she sobbed.

“Right,” I said and hurried out the door with Gunther at my side.

We went to Gunther’s car without a word and said nothing for five blocks.

“He seems a decent person,” Gunther tried.

“Right.”

“Don’t you want her to be happy?”

“I don’t know.”

We were quiet for four more blocks then and I said, “Yeah, I want her to be happy.”

“Which means?” Gunther prompted.

“I stay out of their life.”

I tried to talk Gunther into stopping for tacos. I wanted to drown my grief in half-a-dozen tacos and a gallon of Pepsi. Gunther said he would go, but he couldn’t hide the revulsion. It wasn’t the tacos as much as the places I liked to eat them. I told him to forget it, and we went back to the boardinghouse, where we had dinner in my room prepared by Gunther: tuna and cheese sandwiches with a bottle of wine Gunther had saved from last Christmas.

Gunther listened to my tale of Ressner and the Grayson murder and commented that the sun, if it ever came out, might improve my outlook on life.

My outlook wasn’t improved by Mrs. Plaut barreling through my door with a new chapter of her never-ending book on her family. Mrs. Plaut was convinced that I was an editor and part-time exterminator. She wasn’t sure whether I exterminated rats, mice, and bugs or people or both. She really didn’t care as long as I paid my fifteen dollars-a-month rent, read her manuscript, and didn’t destroy her furniture. She had, over the past year, removed almost every doily, photo, and handmade item from my room to protect them from the odd assortment of visitors who tramped through.

“Mr. Gunther, Mr. Peelers,” she said in a very businesslike way. She clutched the pages to her nonexistent bosom and pursed her lips before placing the pages on the corner of the table where we were sitting.

“Cousin Dora’s Indian attack,” she said, patting the stack of papers.

“Cousin Dora was attacked by Indians,” I said sympathetically.

“Cousin Dora attacked the Indians,” she corrected. “It’s all in here. There are some in the family, particularly Uncle Tucker, who opined that the Indians had it coming. Others thought otherwise.”

“Really,” I said, downing the rest of my glass of celebration wine and holding it out for a refill from Gunther.

“Dora, you must know, was not really a cousin by birth but by marriage. I leave it to you to decide.” She pulled her cloth robe around her and glanced at the nearly empty wine bottle.

“Would you like a small glass, Mrs. Plaut?” I asked gallantly.

“No,” she said, “but I’ll have a small glass of wine.”

Gunther climbed off the chair, found a reasonably clean glass, and poured. Mrs. Plaut downed it.

“Your comments and suggestions will as always be greatly appreciated,” she said and left.

A few minutes later Gunther said goodnight. I did the dishes, finished the wine, raced Mr. Hill the accountant for the bathroom, lost, and went back to my room to read about Cousin Dora:

Oh, said Cousin Dora or something like that I don’t know for sure, the Indians are coming. And they were, a ragmuffin band of six or so from near Yuma. They came every Saturday like railroad men to trade pelts and empty bottles to Uncle Tucker for whatever he would give, which was not always much but neither were the pelts. Uncle Tucker was known to opine that some of the pelts belonged not to fox but to animals of a lesser ilk. In fact he said some of the pelts might be those of cows reported missing from the farm of the Grangers who lived the other side of the ridges.

Cows are strange creatures. Just recently a cow in Minnesota was given a special supply of sugar by President Roosevelt to cure its insanity.

When the Indians came through the door they were feeling mean because they had no bottles and only a few pelts.

Uncle Tucker said he would trade them a pig but not the pig named Homer, which Cousin Dora talked to, but one of the other pigs that had no name and if traded would not be likely to get one.

The Indians hemmed and hawed as Indians used to do before they made the trade and left but not before one of them either did or did not make a lewd suggestion to Cousin Dora who was particularly attractive to Indians because she was fat and some Indians like women who are fat but not sassy. Cousin Dora was sassy. The Indian was just paying a stupid compliment I would think but Cousin Dora did not so think. She entreated him to remain for supper and so he did because he didn’t want to miss a free meal though he might have thought different had he tasted Aunt Jessica’s cooking which was reputed not the best in the family though probably within bounds in Arizona. The other Indians went and after dinner this one wanted to leave too but he was considerable smaller than Cousin Dora and Uncle did not have a mind to quarrel with her.

I don’t quarrel with God or Cousin Dora he said often sometimes when it made little or no sense but this time it did. The Indian tried to get away but it weren’t any use. Dora sat him down and told him the run of things and he understood mostly. Here the story diverges. Uncle Tucker, whose mind went to putty in 1916, remembered that the Indian wanted to go most strongly. Aunt Jessica remembered only his weeping and talking strange. Cousin Dora simply confessed when asked that she kidnapped the Indian who she said was named Ira Glick. I do not think that was really his name though it may have sounded something like it in Indian.

Next day when the other Indians came back and requested the return of Ira Glick Uncle Tucker was in a mood to argue since it was only God and Cousin Dora he didn’t quarrel with. He didn’t mind quarreling with Indians, peddlers and Aunt Jessica. He was even heard to quarrel with the mule though he denied in later years that he did anything but scold the animal in detail.

The Indians said they would not leave without Ira Glick but Cousin Dora said no no you must leave without Ira Glick. He is staying. They got mad and talked Indian according to all accounts and said they would be back with something that would change the mind even of Cousin Dora. They reckoned without Cousin’s stubborn nature inherited by her through her father’s side of the family and not through the Plauts.

Dora fled with Ira and was not heard of again for seven years when she returned and demonstrated three offspring which to hear tell displayed the worst of both the savage and the cousin. All three were fat and red of face and lolled around till even Uncle Tucker said enough since Aunt Jessica refused to speak to Dora and threw them out.

The last we in the family heard of Dora Glick she was reported to have been sheep ranching near the Pecos and that Ira Glick had run away but had not joined his tribe. Some, not Uncle Tucker and that is for sure, say Ira Glick went into the political business and became governor of Arizona just before it achieved statehood. I do not think Indians can be governor but they may have thought him to be Jewish with such a name.

When I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining, the pages were scattered all around the floor. Since they weren’t numbered, I didn’t worry about the order. I picked them up, tapped them straight, and placed them on the sofa.

I brushed my teeth and tongue, shaved, breakfasted on Shreddies mixed with Wheaties, dressed, and told myself that I had a killer to find and maybe a murder to prevent. But first I had a car to buy.

I took a Monday morning bus with the people going to work late and got to Arnie’s by ten. He was in his oil-smelling office screwing something into a glob of metal.

“How much for the ’38 Ford without a trade? My Buick died in the desert.”

A customer pulled in with a big black car and honked his horn. It was loud. Arnie lifted his eyes to the customer, waved, and kept on fiddling.

“Two twenty,” he said. “That’s a favor, since you’ve got no trade-in.”