Mummers' Curse (8 page)

Give us all a drink of gin.

Or better give us something hot,

A steaming bowl of Pepper Pot.

“What could be more appropriate for our Miss Pepper, huh, Barbs?” He sounded feverish, manic. “It’s probably named for Mandy’s family.”

Nothing was named for my family, except me.

Barbs continued to look apprehensive. I didn’t blame her. Vincent was rushing out words in a nervous torrent, as if he were on amphetamines or his first date.

Or as if he were nervously trying to stave off a deserved accusation.

“Truly, I’m not hungry,” I said. “Thanks, but—”

“It’s traditional,” Vincent said. “New Year’s Eve open house with Philadelphia Pepper Pot soup. New Year’s Day, too. Lots of people, they don’t make it anymore, even on Two Street. Nowadays, it’s more cold cuts, but Barbs and me, we like traditions.”

I wish something more glamorous than a soup made of the muscular lining of beef stomach bore my family name. Prince Orloff got veal, Melba got a peach dessert, Caesar got a salad, and I got tripe soup. Oh, it’s historically interesting, being said to have turned the tide of the American Revolution. When Washington’s troops were starving, often deserting, all the cook had on hand was tripe, peppercorns, and scraps. His improvised soup saved the day and maybe the whole campaign at Valley Forge. Maybe, therefore, the country.

I’m glad we’re no longer a colony of Great Britain’s, but all the same, tripe is tripe. I had never tasted the stuff, and had no desire to begin today. Nonetheless, Barbs was headed into the kitchen, so I followed Vincent to a door in the dining room, and down a staircase. Under fluorescent lights, boxy banquette seats lined two of the narrow room’s paneled walls and faced an oversized TV and a collection of CDs and tapes on another. The floor was covered with black-and-white vinyl squares.

“Did this myself,” Vincent said. “Look here.” He lifted the seat of one of the benches to reveal toy storage. “Kid’s supposed to use this room to play, make his messes, watch his TV—put in an entire entertainment center, but does he? No, he has to be where the action is. Barbs and I—we escape down here from him, he’s such a terror.” His pride in both his handiwork and his son was evident.

“Maybe when he’s older.” I inspected the paneling. “You’re really good with wood, aren’t you?”

His look was wary, on alert. I couldn’t imagine why until I remembered that he built his club’s frames because of his carpentry skills. Everything in any way related to the fatal parade must feel fraught with dangerous meaning now.

“We have to talk fast,” he said. “I told Barbs all that food on purpose, to delay her.”

“Why?”

He turned away, walked over to the entertainment center, and ran an index finger over the TV screen, as if removing dust. “Damn,” he said. “I can’t explain. That’s the problem, you see?”

“Not at all. Not any of it, starting with why you said you were with me.”

He turned to face me. “If I swear I didn’t do a thing to hurt Jimmy Pat—never would in this lifetime—could you believe me?”

“I already do.” Kind of. Mostly. Pretty much.

“Good. But I can’t say where I was.”

“So you weren’t in the parade, beside him?”

“Why don’t you believe me!” It wasn’t a question and it wasn’t plaintive—it was an accusation. “What am I, a liar?” He slammed his fist into a wooden support beam. “How come I’m on trial, even with you? Why do I have to justify my every—”

“Hey!” I held my hand up like a traffic cop. I also maneuvered so that he was no longer between me and the staircase. “I’m not the enemy. Simmer down.”

He took several deep breaths. “Sorry,” he said.

So was I. I’d caught a glimpse of an explosive temper I would not have suspected.

“I’m really…strung out. But I couldn’t have done it, even if I’d gone crazy and wanted to. It’s easy enough for people not to know if somebody ducks out for a minute. Guys do it, you know, to take care of calls of nature or get a little cheer.”

What he was saying was that nobody had a clue where you were at any given time when thinking back. What he didn’t say was that it was therefore easy to concoct any alibi you liked.

“I was away, and I wasn’t toting a gun or hurting anybody. They tested me last night. There wasn’t any residue on my hands.”

Would there have been on a man wearing gloves? I’d have to ask.

“Anybody could have done it, anybody who was there, or watching.”

Very helpful.

“All I know, it wasn’t me. I thought I could cut out for a few minutes, nobody’d notice or care…and look at this mess. If I
lie
and say I was there, then they say I did it because of stupid stuff. Jimmy and me, we were always having contests, friendly rivalries, you know, but they don’t understand. If I tell the truth, I can’t prove it.”

“All the same, I can’t cover for you.”

“Why not?” He seemed astounded.

“Why are you asking me to?” I had to know, and quickly. We were racing ahead of the speed at which soup reheats, but also, whether or not Vincent knew it, ahead of Obenhauser.

“Barbs…she’s an insanely jealous woman.”

This wasn’t exactly news. Barbs hadn’t tried to be subtle about her suspicions upstairs. But all the same. “Jealous of me?’

“God, no!” He smiled.

For a nanosecond, I was relieved that his wife didn’t consider me a threat. But that was instantly replaced by burning resentment that the idea seemed ridiculous, laughable, to Vincent. What was I, chopped liver? At thirty-one, I was older than he by half a decade—maybe more, but so what? Didn’t that give me seasoning?

“The thing is, I used to go with Dolores. Jimmy Pat’s fiancée. In high school. Six years ago.”

Dear Lord, he
was
young. I had assumed that with a house, a wife, a toddler…

“You know how wives are about old girlfriends.”

Wifely attitudes are not my special area of expertise, but I did think that high school romances were like training wheels on your first bike. Valuable helps for getting up to speed. Beyond that, they provided fodder for scrapbooks, reason to mist up at old songs, and cause to act out during a midlife crisis. Vincent was too young for the last option, and I couldn’t believe he was honestly suggesting that his wife, his real-time love, the mother of his son, thought he might have killed Jimmy Pat in order to get Dolores back or avenge her being claimed by another. That was ludicrous, or at least I sincerely hoped so.

“So what?” I finally asked. “What relevance does that have?”

“Everybody knows. It’s not like the cops aren’t going to find it out right away.”

“Find what out? That was then and this is now. What does high school or Dolores have to do with this murder?”

“Nothing. But, see, when I ducked out—before anything happened, Jimmy Pat was fine—I checked, because, well, I left to see…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Her.”

“Dolores?”

I had spoken in a normal tone, and he winced and glanced up the staircase before he nodded. “Why?”

He shook his head. “She was in distress. I can’t explain. Made a solemn promise.”

“To her?”

“To myself and my God, that’s who.”

“Okay, so tell the police the truth. She’s your alibi. Let her tell the secret, whatever it is. It can’t be as bad as murder.”

He shook his head again. “I can’t.” He looked toward the staircase.

“Barbs will have to understand.”

“Dolores dropped me. Dolores is that kind of girl, being so pretty, being a Grassi, having everybody look up to her, her family, having things easy, whenever she wants them. Fickle, you could say. But in the end, even if you know all that about her, and I did all along, being dropped still hurts, and hurting makes it different, not really over, you understand? Barbs still worries about it, but when Jimmy Pat started dating Dolores, what, was I not supposed to see him, my best friend, because of who he’s with? I adjusted, but Barbs, we could go out with Jimmy Pat and Dolores a million times and she’s still never relaxed.”

I couldn’t help but note that he hadn’t said his feelings for Dolores were no longer romantic, only that he’d adjusted to being with her as Jimmy Pat’s girl. I wondered if Barbs’s suspicions were justified, even if it was only dumb yearning on Vincent’s part.

“As long as Dolores makes it clear why you were looking for her,” I said, “then Barbs won’t have anything to be upset about. Am I right?”

“She can’t. Dolores can’t. Wouldn’t. It’d shame her, asking to secretly see me while she’s engaged and all. And now, with Jimmy Pat…”

“But she asked to meet you?”

“What did I say? Didn’t I say that?” The temper was back on a high simmer, ready to break into a boil.

“Whoa,” I said again and waited till he stopped overreacting. “She asked to see you at a specific time, right?”

“But, the thing is,” he said, “she wasn’t there, so I didn’t see her and she can’t say where I was, so why stir up a hornet’s nest, create shame? Because you know, people will talk—if it’s me, and then Jimmy Pat dead and all.”

“You never found her?” He shook his head.

“So after a while you gave up, went back, and found Jimmy dead?”

He nodded mutely, sorrowfully.

“Bottom line is, you have no alibi.”

“I’m innocent, I swear on my son’s head. But when the cops kept asking me where I was, I panicked. All I could think of was you were there, I was there, why couldn’t I have been looking for you? Why won’t you cover for me?”

“Because it isn’t true.”

“It could have been true.”

“Besides, my—” I faltered, as always searching for the missing term for the Mackenzie roommate. Society’s word makers don’t create nice labels for things they aren’t sure they want to have, like romantic partners living together while legally single. “The man I live with was with me,” I said. “And he’s a cop. On this case.”

Vincent looked as if I’d slapped him, as if I’d taken away his only chance at avoiding the guillotine. And I suddenly wondered if perhaps he had shot his old buddy.

Who had ever said or known
when
it had happened? Why was Vincent so eager to establish that he was away when nobody yet knew when that should have been? Maybe he was in the parade the whole time, next to Jimmy Pat, close enough to brush by on a twirl and plant a bullet. Maybe it did matter enough who became Captain of the club, whose father didn’t die young, who wound up with Dolores Grassi. Maybe the wearing of the frame suit was the final straw.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Truly. Even if I don’t understand why you’re in this mess, I’m sorry you are. But my hands are tied. Aside from ethics, there’s no practical point to my lying. It won’t work, not for a minute.”

“Oh, God,” he said, “what am I going to do?”

“How about trying the truth?” I asked softly. “It’s so much easier.”

“I told you. I’m not going to shame her, particularly now that he’s dead, it would be…” He might have explained more, but just then, after an overly loud warning knock—what did she think/fear was going on down here? And why warn us so loudly that she was about to witness whatever it was?—Barbs began her descent carrying a tray laden with steaming bowls and baked goods.

That was the end of Mission: Devaney. It hadn’t been a particularly rewarding time. I still didn’t know whether I believed my fellow teacher and friend. I only established that he had a temper sudden and fierce enough to make me wonder, and what seemed a long-lasting yen for Dolores Grassi.

Ah, yes. I also established that I wasn’t at all fond of Pepper Pot soup.

Five

IT WAS NOW LATE MORNING. BARBS’S SOUP AND FRUITCAKE lay heavy, greasy, and overly present on the floor of my stomach, and even so, provided scant insulation against the cold. I had no idea what I should do next, so I called home for further instructions from My Leader, who wasn’t back yet.

Which is when I remembered that I didn’t have or want a leader. But neither did I have a sense of direction, and I would have liked that.

I reconnoitered and figured out that I was pretty much nowhere. And so was Vincent, far as I could see.

I didn’t understand. Shouldn’t a decently working marriage be able to withstand the innocuous truth? So maybe he carried a torch for an old girlfriend. Not optimal, but was it such a world-shaking big deal? Did it really matter all that much as long as he held the torch and not the girl?

Or was Barbs onto something, and was Vincent lying? What was it really with the old girlfriend, his good, now dead, guy-friend’s fiancée? Did he mean he wouldn’t shame Dolores with the truth, particularly now that her fiancé; was dead, because he wanted to stay in her favor? Or because the truth would reveal him as a man having an assignation with his best friend’s fiancée, and make him seem even more suspicious?

Dolores seemed the key to everything. If Vincent were telling the truth, then where had she been? Why was she “in distress,” as he’d put it? Why had she summoned him if admitting it publicly would “shame” her?

Still, I was certainly not going to barge into her home and demand answers while she was in mourning.

The night we’d all gone with Vincent to Melrose Diner for coffee, I had remarked on her luxurious black-brown hair, more out of awe than admiration, although I didn’t say so. I was rendered momentarily silent by how high and wide it flung itself, like a self-contained organism, an other that accompanied her, not something that grew out of her head. She was a small, delicately made, and fragile-looking woman—until you factored in the hair, which added a good half a foot to her height.

She had a natural flair, a gift, she said with innocent pride. And she could make my tresses just as bouffant as hers. Dolores, it turned out, was a hair stylist at a place called Salon d’André. The name had stuck because it seemed to combine a lot of pretension with no imagination. I envisioned André in a pencil-thin moustache and a beret.

I assumed it wouldn’t be difficult to find his salon.

It wasn’t, particularly after I finally looked it up in a phone book and got on a bus. That came after a half hour of cold and aimless wandering.

It wasn’t until I reached the store that I remembered it was Sunday.