Polkacide (35 page)

Peg scowled.
"
What
happened
last night? Someone came
after
you?"

"At the motel." I clenched
my hands around the arms of the chair. "Someone came out of the
shadows and ran after me. A man, I think. I barely made it into my
room in time."

"What did he look
like?"

"I couldn't tell." I shook
my head hard. "He was wearing a trench coat and ball
cap."

"So it could've been Father
Speedy?"

"Yeah, sure!" I got up from
the chair. I couldn't sit still another second, knowing Uncle Stush
might be in danger. "Have you at least
called
Stush?"

Peg shook her head and pulled out her
phone. "I haven't slept in two days. I must not be thinking
straight." She dialed and listened, then grimaced. "No answer at
the diner."

My breaths came fast and
short. I felt like I was going to explode. "We've got to
go
!"

"Go where?" Glynne spoke up from the
desk where she was working.

"Stush's Diner!" I already had my car
keys in my hand. "It's a matter of life and death!"

"Should I keep working on
the record?" said Glynne.

"Call my cell if you find
anything!" I shouted as I bolted through the curtains. I didn't
look back, but I heard Peg running close behind.

As we ran the obstacle course of Polka
Central, dodging people and boxes and tables over a soundtrack of
"In Heaven There Is No Beer," I could think only one thought, like
a neon sign flashing in the front of my mind:

Please God, don't let me
lose Uncle Stush, too!

Chapter 52

As we raced off in my red
rent-a-car, I shoved my phone in Peg's face. "Call the cops! Do
it!"

Peg pushed the phone away. "It's a
waste of time."

"Forget about your feud with
Otto and just
call
them."

She grabbed the phone and
stuck it against her ear without dialing. "Hello, police? Can you
come to Stush's Diner right away? We think Father Speedy
the priest
is going to
kill Uncle Stush. What's that?" She pretended to listen. "Why, no,
we don't have any evidence. But we feel very
strongly
that a highly respected
Catholic priest is about to commit his third murder in two weeks.
Hello? Hello?" She tossed the phone in my lap. "They hung
up."

Maybe she was right. In
which case, one question jumped out at me. "How can we stop him
without the cops?" As I whipped the car around a corner onto Solid
Avenue, I floored the accelerator. Luckily, traffic was light at
that time of day. "He's a
killer
, Peg."

"It's two against one." She
cracked her knuckles. "And he's a
priest
."

"A
killer
priest."

"We'll sneak up on him. Follow my
lead." She cracked her knuckles again, louder than the first
time.

I wasn't convinced we could
face a murderer on our own and walk away, but I let it drop for the
moment. "I just can't believe I never thought it could be him. It
never even
occurred
to me."

"Join the club." Peg sighed.
"Lou rarely talked about him. I knew about his addiction, and the
hit-and-run, and how Eddie Sr. blamed him for what happened to his
wife, but Lou said
nothing
about going after him again." She sighed once more
and turned her face to the side window. "Come to think of it, there
were a
lot
of
things he never told me about."

"You and me both." I ran a stoplight
without slowing down, drawing angry horn blasts from cars at the
intersection.

Peg shifted in her seat.
"But I was practically his
wife
. I
lived
with him for the past fifteen
years." She drew up one leg and wrapped her arms around her knee.
"We weren't supposed to have any
secrets
."

The tires squealed as we
hurtled around a corner. "Did he know about your relapse with Eddie
Sr. three weeks ago?"

Peg sighed. "No secrets
except
that
one."

I felt bad for bringing it up. "But
you still loved him, didn't you?"

"With all my heart." She
said it with conviction. "Eddie was just a blip on the
radar."

"Everybody has secrets." I swung the
car hard left as I plowed past a stop sign, barely missing another
driver who'd started to pull out. "If Dad didn't love you, do you
think he would've stayed with you for fifteen years?"

Peg let out half a laugh.
"That man never did anything he didn't want to, did he?"

"You don't see
me
crying because Dad
kept secrets, do you? Even though you and I are the ones left to
clean up after him?"

"You're right." She
sniffled. "I just miss him so much. It makes me feel terrible about
what happened with Eddie Sr."

"Table it, Peg." We barreled
past another stop sign. "Set your priorities. Right now, saving
Uncle Stush should be at the top of your list."

"I know, I know." Peg reached over and
gave my shoulder a squeeze. "Thanks, Lottie. You're a good
friend."

Was I? It didn't seem
possible.

But the more I thought about
it, the more I realized she wasn't wrong. If someone had told me a
week ago that this would happen, I would've laughed in her
face,
at least
.
But now...

Unbelievable. Peg was
right.

"You too," I said as I swung the car
around a tight turn. "You're a good friend, too."

Chapter 53

The parking lot in front of Stush's
Diner was nearly empty when we hurtled in and slid to a stop.
Stush's beat-up white delivery van was the only other vehicle in
sight, parked cockeyed across two spaces by the front
door.

The sign on the door read CLOSED. The
place was dead.

What about Uncle Stush?

"Why didn't he answer his phone?" I
switched off the engine and leaned forward, scanning the diner's
windows for signs of life. "He should've still been able to answer
even if the place was closed."

"Maybe he's just busy." Peg opened the
door on her side and got out. "I don't see Father Speedy's car
anywhere, so maybe we beat him here."

I got out, too, and grabbed her arm as
she headed for the front door. "I still think we should call the
cops."

"Speedy not being here gives
us even more reason
not
to." Peg bobbed her head toward me and raised her
eyebrows. "No danger, no worries, right?"

"I guess." I shrugged but didn't stop
frowning. "I hope you're right."

"Relax, Lot." Peg tried the door, but
it wouldn't open. She pressed the white button mounted at eye level
alongside it, and the doorbell rang. "We'll be fine."

It took two more rings for Uncle Stush
to show his St. Bernard face. Watching through the window, I saw
him emerge from the kitchen door behind the counter, squinting out
at us with his usual droopy-eyed expression.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Until that moment, it had been a toss-up as to how we'd find him,
dead or alive.

We stepped back as he
unlocked the door and pushed it open. "Sorry, ladies." He wagged
his head with tragic gloominess. "Not serving lunch. We're closed
for the day."

I gave him a puzzled look. "Why's
that, Uncle Stush?"

He blinked at each of us in
turn, then licked his lips. It looked to me like he had something
on his mind. "Getting ready for Polkapourri, of course."

Peg cocked her head. "You need to
close for that?"

"This time, I do." He nodded
slowly. "I'm donating all the pierogies and haluski for the
weekend."

Peg whistled. "That's a lot
of pierogies and haluski."

"Wow!" I couldn't help grinning. "How
generous of you, Uncle Stush!"

He still looked distracted.
"It's my pleasure, hon. Seems to me you can use all the help you
can get this year."

"That is so great." I kept smiling and
shook my head. "You're the best, you know that?"

"Thanks, hon. Sorry I can't
serve you lunch." His sad brown eyes narrowed. "That
is
why you're here, isn't
it?"

"Actually, Stush, we came to talk to
you about something." Peg gestured at the diner. "Can we come in
for a minute?"

He pressed his lips together
as he thought about it. I couldn't tell, from his expression, what
was going through his mind. "Okay, sure." He pushed the door wide
open and held it for us. "Come on in. But just for a minute, all
right?"

"Good enough." Peg led the way
inside.

The first thing I noticed when we
walked in was the complete absence of cooking smells. Usually, the
air was thick with the smell of frying butter and onions, sizzling
meat, and boiling soup.

But I didn't mention it.
Stush was probably just getting started on the pierogies and
haluski, chopping cabbage and rolling out dough for the shells and
dumplings.

"So what's going on?" Stush patted me
on the back on his way to the kitchen. "What do you want to talk
about?"

"We need to warn you about something,"
said Peg. "You might be in danger."

"What was that?" Stush was already in
the kitchen, on the other side of the swinging door. "I didn't hear
you."

Peg sighed and pushed
through the door, nodding for me to come with her. I smiled and
shook my head.

Just as I followed her into
the kitchen, the phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and
read the name of the caller on the screen.

Glynne Corcoran.

"Kolach?" Suddenly, Stush
shoved a plate of Polish pastries in my face. The dimples in the
middle of the little sweet rolls were filled with black poppyseed
mixture. "I just made them last night."

I loved kolaches but wasn't in the
mood for a snack. "No thanks, Uncle Stush."

He whisked the tray away and
offered it to Peg. "How about a sweet for a sweetie? They're so
perfect, I'd eat the whole plate if not for the
diabetes."

"Stush, listen." She took the tray
from him and put it down on the stainless steel counter behind her.
"We know about Father Speedy."

Stush's face crumpled in
slow motion, folding into a deep frown. "You do?"

Peg nodded. "We know he fell
off the wagon. We know you were helping Lou and Eddie Sr.
investigate him."

"Uh-huh." Stush rubbed his chin and
nodded. "Okay."

Peg touched his shoulder and
locked eyes with him. "Now Eddie's been murdered. And Lou...we
believe he was murdered, too."

Stush's brows lifted.
"Murdered? Lou?"

"The police are exhuming him as we
speak," said Peg. "They're going to test for poisoning."

Stush wagged his head
slowly. "I don't believe it." His droopy brown eyes had a strange
look in them. I guessed he'd done the mental math and figured out
what Peg was going to say next.

She cleared her throat. "We
don't think it's a coincidence that two of the three men who
investigated Father Speedy have been murdered. We
think..."

"I'm next. Oh my God." Stush
backed up against the counter, holding his head in his hands.
"Father Speedy's going to
kill
me."

As Peg tried to calm him
down, my phone vibrated. When I glanced at the screen, I saw Glynne
was calling again. I pushed my fingertip toward the onscreen button
to take the call...

But Peg interrupted. "Lottie? We
should take Stush somewhere safe, don't you think?"

I lowered the phone and
nodded. "Definitely."

"Wait, wait." Stush pulled
away from Peg and shuffled toward the walk-in freezer. "Can you
help me first? I have bags of frozen homemade pierogies we can use
at Polkapourri."

"Don't worry about that now," said
Peg.

"I promised I'd bring
pierogies. If I can't make fresh ones, at least I can bring
frozen." He grabbed the handle of the walk-in door and looked back
over his shoulder. "Are you going to help me?"

"Of course." Peg headed for the
freezer. "Come on, Lottie."

The phone vibrated again, and I
decided I'd better check it. "Just a sec, Peg."

This time, according to the
screen, I'd received a text message from Glynne.

Over at the walk-in freezer, Peg
rubbed her hands together. "Okay, Stush. Take me to your
pierogies."

"Thanks for helping." Stush
pulled the door open, letting frigid air rush into the kitchen.
"Together, we'll make short work of it."