Polkacide (20 page)

I frowned. "Polkapourri is a gold
mine?"

"It
could
be, for a
crook
like him." She hitched a thumb
in Nunzio's direction. "He's always wanted to milk it for
every
penny
.
Charge everyone admission, charge five bucks for a beer, ten bucks
for a plate of halupki. He thinks the
city
should take it over, so he can
skim the cream right into his pockets instead of waiting for
Lou
to dole out the
city's cut."

"He's tried to take it over
before?"

Peg nodded. "Your father
always held him off. With Lou gone, Nunzio probably thought he
could swoop in and snatch it right up. Then
you
came up with the move to
Valhalla
." Peg grinned
and pointed an index finger at me. "Nunzio was
wrong
. Your dad would be
proud
of you."

Not if he knew there
was
no move. "Nunzio's
connected, right? He's mobbed up, isn't he?"

"That's what they say." Peg
folded her arms over her chest. "I'd be more surprised if he
wasn't
."

"So he could put out a hit on someone,
couldn't he?"

Peg stared into space. "Like Lou, you
mean?"

I nodded. "Maybe he got sick
of waiting for a bigger cut. Like you said, maybe he thought he
could snatch up Polkapourri with Dad out of the way."

"I don't know." Peg cocked
her head to one side. "What about the death threat letter, then?
'CAN'T YOU KEEP A SECRET, LOU?' What would that have to do with
Nunzio wanting to take over Polkapourri? And what about when the
letter mentions an 'understanding?'"

I shrugged. "We need to talk to
someone about him. Who do we know who's friends with
Nunzio?"

"I can think of one person off the top
of my head," said Peg. "He played cards with Nunzio just yesterday,
in fact."

I smiled as the name came to
me. "Eddie Sr."

Peg raised an eyebrow. "Keeping in
mind that he's a suspect, too."

"Not much of one if he was
planning a reunion with Dad. Why would he kill him if he was going
to play a concert with him?"

"Maybe he killed him
because
of the reunion,"
offered Peg. "Maybe it brought back too many bad old
memories."

"Assuming Father Speedy
didn't do it." I gestured in the direction of Saint Casimir Church,
just a few blocks away. "Talk about holding a grudge."

"A priest?" Peg scowled. "I don't
know."

For a moment, the two of us
stood silently, staring at the floor. I hated that I was having
this conversation at all, dealing with my father's murder. At the
same time, it seemed like working on the mystery was keeping him
alive somehow. Or maybe it was just keeping me from dwelling on the
fact that he was gone forever, leaving so much unsaid between
us.

It was keeping me from
dwelling on other things, too, like the ominous silence from L.A.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I checked the voice mail yet
again...and saw, yet again, that Luke hadn't left a message. There
was no missed call from him, either. Whatever was going on out
west, I was out of the loop. If it wasn't for the search for my
father's killer, I'd have been out of my mind with worry by
then.

Swallowing hard, I pocketed
my phone and looked at Peg. Before all this started, I never
would've thought I'd be glad for her company...but I was. I'd once
thought of her as a clown and a fly, goofy and pesky and
incompetent. But she'd turned out to have a good head on her
shoulders; if not for her, Dad's murder might never have been
discovered. I was feeling a little less hateful toward her each
day.

So I guess Dad was getting his wish
about the two of us getting closer, after all. Even if he'd had to
die to make it happen.

Chapter 29

Peg and I were still
standing in the middle of Polka Central when the front door flew
open and Eddie Jr. burst in. He did not look happy.

"Oh, God." When he saw us, he closed
his eyes and winced. "I am so sorry I'm late. What a
morning."

Peg planted her hands on her
hips and glared. "A phone call would've been nice, Ed.
Required
, in
fact."

"I know, I know." Eddie
grimaced and pawed at his rumpled brown t-shirt. It was so
wrinkled, it looked like he might have pulled it out of the hamper
for a second or third wearing. "It's my
dad
. His car's still in the
shop
, and he needed me to
drop him off at another doctor's appointment."

Peg pushed her glasses higher on her
nose. "Didn't you take him to the doctor yesterday?"

"Different doctor," said Eddie.
"Rheumatologist yesterday, urologist today."

Peg sighed. "Just call next time, all
right? Let me know if you're going to be late."

"I didn't know till the last
minute. It slipped his mind." Eddie scrubbed his fingers over his
spiky black crewcut and scowled. "I don't know what it is with him
these days. He hasn't been himself since Lou died."

I gave Peg a meaningful
look, and she caught it. At last, we had an opening.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Ed." Peg's
tone shifted from commanding to sympathetic. "You mean he's been
upset?"

"I don't know. More
absent-minded than usual, I guess." Eddie shrugged. "More distant.
Like he's always a million miles away, even when he's sitting right
across from me."

Peg walked over to him. "So you think
he misses Lou?"

"They weren't best buddies,"
said Eddie, "but I guess enemies can have just as much of a hold on
people. Or maybe Lou's death is forcing him to face his own
mortality."

Peg reached out and touched
his shoulder. "He hasn't said anything to you about it?"

Eddie shook his head. "He
wrecks the car, he disappears without telling anyone, and he
doesn't apologize or explain what the problem is."

I frowned and stepped closer. "He
wrecked the car?"

"Yeah." Eddie nodded.
"That's why it's in the shop. He flipped it a few days ago out past
MacGruder's Dairy. Said he swerved to miss a deer, but who
knows?"

Peg put both hands on his
shoulders and gazed into his eyes. "And he hasn't said a word about
Lou's death and how it's affecting him?"

"Nope." Eddie looked at me,
then back at Peg. "I wish he would.
Something's
wrong, that's for
sure."

"Maybe if you sat him down and asked
him point blank." Peg held his gaze and nodded slowly. "Maybe then
he would let you in on it."

"I can't do that. As usual,
we're not on the best of terms." He shrugged and looked at the
floor. "I can't see him opening up to me."

"I'm sorry to hear that."
Peg gave his shoulders a squeeze.

"It's not like he isn't
busy," said Eddie. "It's not like he doesn't have enough to take
his mind off things. He's got a new
album
to record, for Pete's
sake."

"A new album?" I said.

"It's his first one in five
years. You'd think he'd be thrilled." Something seemed to occur to
him, and he tipped his head to one side. "Though I guess it
probably still reminds him of Lou."

Peg frowned. "How so?"

"Well..." Eddie looked uncomfortable.
"He got the contract when Lou died."

Peg let go of his shoulders. Her eyes
were wide with surprise. "He did?"

Eddie shuffled his feet,
looking self-conscious. "I guess Lou made a deal with the record
company. He'd only renew his contract if they dropped
Dad."

I frowned. "That can't be
right."

"I'm just telling you what Dad told
me," said Eddie. "It was all part of the bad blood between them.
Dad's record company didn't offer him a new contract, and the
blackballing spread from there. No other company would sign him,
either."

"Dad wouldn't do that." I scowled and
shook my head. "He'd have no reason to. He was already the bigger
success story. No offense."

Eddie waved off my protests.
"Whatever happened, for whatever reason, Dad couldn't release a new
album for five years. He didn't have the computer savvy to sell
music online, so for five years, he made no money off recording.
Then, the day after Lou died, his record company called. He got a
deal just like that." Eddie snapped his fingers.

"Huh." Peg looked at me. "Maybe he
feels a little guilty?"

"Yeah, maybe," said Eddie.

"He got what he wanted, but
only because Lou died." Peg folded her arms over her
chest.

"Who knows?" Eddie sighed. "Look, I'd
better get to work. There's a little glitch with Polish Fly I've
got to deal with."

"What kind of glitch?" said
Peg.

"Nothing to worry about." Eddie headed
for the stage. "I'm sure I can smooth things over."

Peg watched him go. "With
who?"

Eddie spun in mid-stride and
spread his arms wide. "Oh, everyone." He kept walking backward. "We
had a little disagreement."

"About what?" said Peg.

"Me leading the band." Eddie grinned.
"Lou's brother, Dupa, thinks he should be in charge."

It didn't surprise me. Uncle
Dupa had always been a troublemaker. "He always thinks
that."

"Yeah." Eddie rolled his
eyes. "But so does everyone else. They all
quit
and formed a new band,
Polkapants. But there's
good
news."

"What's that?" said Peg.

Eddie pumped his fists in
the air. "Now we have someone to fill the Polkateers' slot on the
schedule!" With a whoop, he spun and charged up the stage stairs.
"Silver lining, people! We've
got
one!"

Chapter 30

When Eddie Jr. disappeared
behind the stage curtains, Peg pulled me outside and closed the
front door.

"Sound to me like we've
found our killer." We were well out of Eddie Jr.'s earshot, but she
still kept her voice down. "Talk about
motive
. The surefire way for Eddie
Sr. to restart his recording career was to kill Lou."

Frowning, I followed her
down the front steps and leaned back against the brick wall. "But
what about the reunion concert?"

"Just a smokescreen to make people
think he would never kill Lou. He had no intention of going through
with it."

"I don't know." I rubbed the
back of my neck.

"He's been acting guilty.
Disappearing mysteriously. Keeping secrets." Peg ticked them off on
her fingers. "Sounds to me like someone who's just committed
murder."

I winced. I still had a funny feeling
that something wasn't right about this.

Reaching into my pocket, I found my
phone. I checked the voice mail and missed calls...but nothing had
changed. Still no word from the West Coast.

"Did Dad really do that?" I gave Peg a sideways
look as I pocketed the phone. "Did he have Eddie Sr.
blackballed?"

Peg shrugged. "There was a lot of bad
blood between them."

"It just seems kind of
extreme, doesn't it? Like Eddie Sr. must've done something pretty
big to bring it on?" I pushed away from the wall. "I can't believe
Dad would ruin Eddie's recording career without a good
reason."

Peg took off her glasses and
cleaned the lenses with her sweatshirt. Without the usual
magnification, her eyes looked small when she met my gaze. "Eddie
Kubiak, Sr.
hated
your father. He
killed
him. I
know
he did."

I sighed. "So what do we do next? Talk
to the police again?"

"First things first.
Polkapourri is in three days." She put her glasses back on and
straightened her sweatshirt. "We need to let everyone know that
we're moving it to Valhalla."

Again with Valhalla. How could I get
out from under my lie? "I'll take care of it."

Peg raised her eyebrows. "Really? It's
a lot of work, and it has to happen fast."

"I've got it." I slashed my hand
through the air decisively. "Nothing to worry about."

"So you'll notify all the
vendors and performers? Contact the police and parking authority?
Arrange for ads in the paper, on the radio, and on TV? Post the
news online?"

"Absolutely." I smiled
confidently.

"You know you've got to
place ads in surrounding communities, right? And get in touch with
all our sponsors? And contact all the volunteers? Arrange to move
all the signage, staging, lights, and sound system to
Valhalla?"

"Of course." I was nodding on the
outside, crumbling on the inside. I felt like I was ready to break
down and confess at any moment.