Polkacide (15 page)

She let out another great
sigh. "No, no." When she lifted her head off the table, her face
was flushed from the blood that had rushed into it. "We'll both do
it. Maybe I can still push some of his buttons."

"Button-pushing is good." I sipped my
coffee.

"You're sure we need to do
this?" Peg grimaced. "We can't just hire a private detective or
something?"

"I don't think there
is
one in town," I said.
"Plus which, only the police can help us get what we need the
most."

"What's that?"

"A toxicology report on
Dad." I felt a nervous flutter in my stomach at the thought of what
it would take to get that report.

Just then, I noticed Stush
standing beside the table again, this time with a tray of food.
When I looked up, he had a blank expression on his face, but he
quickly broke into a mammoth grin. "Deliciousness has
arrived."

"Looks wonderful as usual."
Peg took a deep whiff of the steaming stuffed pepper soup when it
touched down in front of her. "
Smells
incredible, too."

Stush lowered my chicken and
waffles halfway to the table, then stopped and held it before me.
"You'll clean your plate this time, hon?" He raised his eyebrows
and spoke in a chiding tone.

I nodded and smiled. "Yes, Uncle
Stush."

"You'd better, or you won't
get any babka for dessert." He lowered the plate the rest of the
way, then pointed at his eyes with his index and middle finger.
"I'll be
watching
you, sweetheart."

"I know you will, Uncle
Stush."

He patted my head lightly.
From anyone else, the gesture--and some of what he said--might
strike me as patronizing or sexist...but coming from Stush, they
just struck me as affectionate. I'd known him all my life; he was
like family, in a
good
way.

I watched as he wandered
off, tray in hand, and then I turned back to Peg. She'd already
started her soup and had a spoonful in transit.

"So we're agreed?" I said. "We'll talk
to the police?"

Peg sighed. "Okay." She blew
on her spoonful of soup. "But it
won't
be fun."

Chapter 23

Otto Duranko could not have been any
nicer. From the moment we walked into his office, he was welcoming,
jovial, and perfectly courteous. He instantly put me at
ease.

Peg was another story. She
sat stiffly in one of the padded green chairs in front of his desk,
kneading her polka-dotted red cloth sling purse, big eyes gaping
from behind her matching magnifying glasses.

I couldn't blame her. He
wasn't giving her any reason to tense up--any
visible
reason--but they had
major
history between
them. I know how
I'd
feel, sitting across from my ex, asking for his help
investigating the murder of the man I'd
left
him for.

Not fun at all.

"So good of you to join me,
ladies." Otto dropped his tremendous girth into the big black
leather chair behind the desk. Rolls of fat strained at his khaki
uniform shirt and bulged over and under the chair's chrome frame
and black plastic armrests. "I feel like a thorn between two
roses."

I smiled. "Thank you for seeing
us."

Peg just grunted in assent.
"Mm-hm." Clearly, it was up to me to do the heavy lifting, at least
for now.

"How long has it been,
Lottie?" Otto folded his hands on the desk in front of him. "Not
counting your dad's wake, that is."

"
Too
long." I nodded. "Time flies,
doesn't it?"

"It certainly does." His
small blue eyes peered at me through silver wire-framed glasses
with little oval lenses. "My condolences on your loss." He spared a
glance at Peg. "Both of you."

Peg grunted again.
"Mm."

I wanted to tell her to jump
in any time now, but of course I couldn't. "Thank you, Chief
Duranko." I gave him a small smile.

"So." Otto smiled back with
utmost pleasantness. "To what do I owe the honor?" There wasn't a
trace of malice in his high-pitched voice. That voice was another
talked-about part of his legend, along with his weight and tendency
to shoot first, ask questions later. People said they'd mistaken
him for a woman over the phone; listening to him, I could believe
it.

I cleared my throat and
leaned forward. "It's about my father, actually. About his
death."

Otto nodded. "Go on."

I suddenly felt
uncomfortable and shifted in my chair. "I, uh...I think there could
have been..." Now that I'd come to the tricky part, I was having
trouble getting the words out. "What I mean to say
is..."

"He was murdered." Peg's
voice took me by surprise. "We think somebody killed
him."

Otto blinked his little blue eyes in
her direction. "It was a heart attack, wasn't it?"

"He went to the cardiologist
two weeks before," said Peg. "Clean bill of health across the
board."

Otto shrugged. "That doesn't
mean anything."

"Certain poisons can mimic a heart
attack."

Otto frowned. "That's kind of a
stretch, isn't it?"

"Well, there's more." Peg
reached into her bag and pulled out a double-folded sheet of paper.
"This came in the mail the day before he died." She got up and
handed the paper over the desk.

Otto unfolded the letter and
pressed it down on the desk blotter. He took his time reading; his
eyes bobbed from the bottom of the page to the top twice, then once
more for good measure.

This time, it was his turn
to grunt. "Hm." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with
his thick fingers. Then, he leaned back; his chair creaked as it
tipped toward the wall. "Why am I just now seeing this?"

Peg hesitated. Her past with
Otto had held her back, of course, but she wouldn't tell
him
that.

Better for me to get back
into the mix. "We wanted to be sure before we came to you," I
said.

Otto scrubbed a hand over
his bristly gray crewcut. "And
are
you?"

Kinda sorta
was what I thought, but what I said was, "Yes, we
are. We're convinced." Sounding confident was a must.

"Why is that?" said Otto.
"Have you found more evidence?"

Peg tapped a finger on the
corner of his desk. "Lou was severely depressed for a month before
he died. Something was bothering him. Something was going
on."

Otto folded his arms over his chest
and rocked his chair back and forth. "Such as?"

"Something
bad
." Peg tapped her
finger on the desk. "Something to do with that letter, I'll
bet."

Otto sighed. I could tell he wasn't
getting on board with us.

So I tried to sweeten the
pot. "My sister said he was acting strange. He left a job
unfinished at her house."

Otto rocked his chair. The way it
squeaked sounded a little like nails scratching a
chalkboard.

"My other sister said she
saw him having a big argument with someone outside the Falcons." I
blurted it out even as I thought better of it. At least I left out
Eddie Sr. for the moment...but I realized as I said it what Otto's
next question would be.
Who did he argue
with?

Except that wasn't what Otto
said next at all. Leaning forward, he plucked a little white cloth
from his desk and used it to clean the lenses of his glasses. For a
long moment, he frowned at his glasses and didn't say a
word.

Then, he sighed. "What do you want me
to do, ladies?"

"We'd like a tox screen on my father,"
I said. "We want to find out if he was poisoned."

Otto's brows shot upward.
"Is
that
all?"

Peg tapped the desk. "What
do you have to lose, Otto?"

He snorted and kept
polishing his glasses. "Do you have
any
idea how much red tape it takes
to exhume a body? How much
time,
effort,
and
taxpayer
money
are
involved? How many
asses
I have to kiss to make it happen?"

Peg smacked the desk with
the flat of her hand. "Do
you
have any idea what a
hero
you'd be if you solved the
murder of the Prince of Pennsylvania Polka? The murder no one else
even thinks
happened?
"

"Hm." Otto held up his
glasses and checked them against the fluorescent ceiling light. He
rubbed one lens a little more, checked again, and put the glasses
back on. "Margaret, I think you've got a zebra problem."

She sighed and threw herself back in
the chair. "How's that?"

"Say we hear hoofbeats
approaching." Otto drummed his hands on the edge of the desk. "What
do we expect to see?
Horses
, right? Because that's
usually
what makes the
sound of hoofbeats."

Peg looked at me and shook
her head. We could see where this was going.

"How often do we see
zebras
instead? Not that
often, right? Because they're not nearly as common, are they?" Otto
leaned as far forward as his massive belly would let him. "Same
thing goes for heart-attack-mimicking poisonings, ladies. Which is
why, when something walks and talks like a heart attack, we figure
it's a heart attack. Because that's
almost
always
what it is."

Peg stared at him for a long
moment, and he stared back. Their expressions were unreadable--to
me, at least--but the tension in the air was thick.

Fifteen years ago, she'd
left him for another man. Now here she was, asking him for help to
find that man's killer...and he was refusing. Was it because of the
complications he'd mentioned, or what had happened fifteen years
ago? Did he hate her that much? Or was there more to it than
that?

He'd never remarried. Was it because
he'd never gotten over her? Did he have feelings other than hate
for her?

Peg leaned forward and
touched his desk again. "Please, Otto." Her polka-dotted purse slid
from her lap to the floor, and she didn't bother to pick it up.
"Please help me. I
know
somebody killed him. I can
feel
it in my gut."

"Anything's possible,
Margaret." He reached over and patted her hand. "Except digging up
your dead boyfriend."

Peg snatched her hand away.
"You're
loving
this, aren't you? I come in here begging for help, and you
just
spit
in my
face."

Otto spread his arms wide.
"There's no spitting! I'd tell
anyone
the same thing in this
situation."

"Maybe." Peg got up from her
chair. "But you wouldn't get this much
satisfaction
out of it, would
you?"

"That's not how it is,
Margaret." Otto got up, too. "Stop acting like everything revolves
around
you
."

"How
long
, Otto? How long are you going to
hold on to this
grudge
against me? How long are you going to keep
punishing
me?" She grabbed her purse
from the floor. "Isn't it about time you
got over
it?"

With that, Peg yanked open
the door and stormed out of the office. She left Otto bug-eyed
behind the desk, heaving with rage, face knotted in a
snarl.

She left me there, too,
backing away from him. "Um, thanks." I shrugged and tossed off a
weak little wave. "We'll let you know if anything else turns
up."

Then, I spun and hurried
after Peg.

Otto must have thrown or hit
something after I left, because I heard something heavy hit the
wall.

Chapter 24

Peg didn't say another word
till we were back in her white Oldsmobile. "I told you it wouldn't
be fun."

"At least we tried." I
buckled my seat belt fast; she was already speeding out of the
parking lot. "We couldn't
not
try."

"I
knew
he wouldn't help me." She
clenched the wheel in both hands and hunched forward, glaring at
the road ahead. "He waited
fifteen
years
to stick it to me like
that."

Peg was driving sixty in a
twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone. I needed to get her to calm down and
refocus. "So now we know what we need to do next, don't
we?"