Polkacide (9 page)

"Doubts?" It didn't seem possible.
"What kind of doubts?"

Peg chewed another piece of
tomato and swallowed. "I think there's more to this than meets the
eye." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "I think Lou was
murdered."

The world kept tilting. I
felt like I was getting seasick. "
Murdered
?"

"Keep your voice down!" Peg
looked around with sudden agitation. "What if someone in
here
did
it?"

I dropped my voice to a
whisper. "And what if you're just being
paranoid
?"

Peg shook her head.
"Something isn't right about all this, Lottie. I'm
telling
you." Just then,
an elderly couple hobbled by, and Peg paused to return their
hellos. When the couple was gone, she refocused on me. "I
can
feel
it. He
was
murdered.
And
whoever wrote
this
..." She pulled out the threatening letter and shook it.
"...is the one who
killed
him."

I was lost in thought for a
moment, my mind roaming among the possibilities. Now that she'd put
the idea in my head, I felt my obsession with it growing
exponentially. How long until it blocked out everything
else?

And yet, there wasn't a
scrap of truth to support it. "He died of a heart attack,
Peg."

"That doesn't mean he wasn't
murdered." Peg forked up some tuna salad, chewed and swallowed,
then washed it down with cold coffee. "There are drugs that mimic
the symptoms of a heart attack."

"Did anyone find them in
Dad's system?" I said.

"Nobody looked." Peg's
whisper dripped with contempt. "The coroner didn't file a
toxicology report. He said there was no need for one."

"So maybe there wasn't." I
shrugged. "Maybe it was just a heart attack after all."

"Not possible." Peg shook
her head. "Lou went to the cardiologist two weeks ago and got a
clean bill of health. Not the slightest sign of anything
wrong."

"Things can still happen to
healthy people." Even as I said it, I thought it sounded
lame.

"Not this time." Peg started
hacking off another hunk of tomato and tuna salad with a vengeance.
"I knew my Lou, and I'm telling you, somebody
killed
him." She speared the hunk of
food and lifted it from the plate to her mouth.

As for my
halupki
, it remained
untouched on the table. The talk of murder had chased away my
appetite. "But the only evidence you have is that one letter,
right? And Dad got dozens of them over the years without running up
against any kind of danger until now."

"The letter wasn't the only
thing," said Peg. "Lou was depressed for about the last month or
so. Something was bothering him in a big away, and he wouldn't talk
about it."

I pushed away my plate and folded my
arms on the table. "You don't have any idea what it might have
been?"

"He didn't talk much to me
over the last month." Peg put down her silverware and reached up to
adjust her polka dot glasses. "I, uh...I was starting to wonder."
She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a low whisper. "I was
wondering if he was getting ready to leave me."

"Really?" I couldn't believe
what I was hearing. I'd always imagined Dad and Peg were
inseparable. "Just because he didn't have much to say for a
while?"

"Not just that." Peg sighed
and looked out the window. "There were phone calls. He took them
out in the car with the windows up. I never knew what he was
talking about or to whom. I can't even find the cell phone he used
or the bills that would list the calls." She winced; for once, her
magnifying glasses made her eyes look twice as tragic instead of
twice as silly.

"Dad would never have left
you." I spoke with some authority, since I knew his ex-wife,
mother, and daughters (myself included) had tried often enough to
drive them apart. "He said you were his soul mate."

"He left your mom, didn't
he? If he did it once, he could do it again." Peg turned from the
window and met my gaze. "Either he was going to leave me, or
someone was threatening to kill him...or both."

I sighed. "You really
believe this, don't you?"

Peg shot an arm across the
table and gripped my wrist. "Will you help me prove it, Lottie? I
don't think I can do it alone."

Suddenly, Stush's voice
burst in as he appeared alongside the table. "What's
happening
here?" He
gestured at the plate of
halupki
I'd pushed to one side. "How
dare
you bite the hand that
feeds
you like this? You
haven't even
tasted
this food."

Peg let go of my wrist.
"It's my fault, Stush. I've been prepping her for the new
job."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Stush." I tried to
look apologetic. "We had so much to talk about, I lost track of
time."

Stush's sad brown eyes
looked moist. "I put my heart and soul into this food, in honor of
what you mean to me." He picked up the plate of
halupki
with both enormous hands.
"How could you turn your nose up at it?"

"No, no." I reached for the
plate. "It's not like that at all. You
know
I love your food."

Stush glared at me, then at
Peg, then rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "All right, you've
talked me into it. You can have one more chance. How about if I
just heat this food up a little first?"

I smiled up at him. "That'd be great."
I wasn't the slightest bit hungry, but I'd find a way to clean that
plate and avoid hurting his feelings.

"Fine." Stush bobbed his
head, and his flyaway gray comb-over fluttered. "I'll be back
lickety-split, ladies."

When he'd disappeared into
the kitchen again, Peg's hand flew right back over to grab my
wrist. "So what do you say, Lottie? Will you help me find the
killer?"

I still wasn't convinced
there
was
a
killer. Peg's clues didn't add up to much, really. For all I knew,
she was so worked up with grief, she'd dreamed up the whole thing
as a way of dealing with the loss of Lou.

But what if there
was
something to her
theory? And what if my help could make a difference in finding
justice for my father? How could I justify turning my back on
Peg...and Dad?

I'd let him down so many
times before. Even this time, after his death, I'd come home not
just to mourn for him, but because I needed his money. Maybe it
wouldn't kill me to do this one selfless thing in his
name.

"I'll do what I can." I laid
my free hand atop Peg's when I said it.

Peg beamed from behind her
freaky glasses. She nodded in a herky-jerky way and let her head
fall sideways to her left shoulder. "Your father would be so
proud
right now." Her
voice sounded choked up with strong emotion. "I love you for doing
this, hon."

I was surprised to hear her
say it. I knew I should say it right back...but I wasn't quite
there yet. For now, it would have to be enough that I was feeling
halfway sympathetic toward her. That in itself was a major
accomplishment in my book.

"Okay." I let go of her hand, and she
let go of mine. "So what do we do first?"

"Eat your
przekąska
before it gets
cold a
second
time, ungrateful
dziewczyna
!" Stush banged the plate
of
halupki
down in
front of me, spattering tomato sauce on the table.

Without another word, I dug
in. I hadn't had
halupki
in years.

And this batch was perfect.
Not that I could savor it the way I would've liked. The thought
that Dad could have been murdered dominated my attention. It still
seemed totally unreal...yet potentially more important than
anything. If it was true, everything else would fade into the
background.

And Dad would take center
stage in my life in a way he hadn't done in many years before his
death.

Chapter 14

After lunch, Peg and I went
back to Polka Central and spent the rest of the afternoon working
on the new computer and printer. Eddie and Glynne had configured
most of the system before leaving to run errands...but the settings
weren't necessarily the way Peg wanted them.

By the time five o'clock
rolled around, we had the laptop running like a charm. I'd even
started a rudimentary filing system on the hard drive and whipped
together a spreadsheet template so we could start entering budget
data from the zillion paper receipts and statements stuffed in
folders and shoeboxes around the office space.

All in all, not a bad day's
work...and all without a single mention of murder. It was like the
conversation Peg and I had at lunch had never happened. Which,
frankly, was okay with me. I was still on information overload,
fighting to process what she'd told me; taking my mind off the
subject with a few hours of unrelated menial labor was just what I
needed to let everything settle in.

Around five, Peg told me to
shut down the laptop and asked if I had plans for the evening. I
told her I did, which was true; my sister Bonnie was having a thing
at her house, and I was invited.

Peg looked disappointed, and
I actually considered canceling on Bonnie...but not for long.
Better not to overdo it, I thought. Let's quit while we're
ahead.

So when Eddie showed up a
few minutes later, I asked him to drive me back to the DeeLite
Efficiency Motel instead. There'd be time enough to investigate my
father's supposed murder tomorrow.

"What's with the Polish Peg
love fest all of a sudden?" Eddie glanced over at me while driving
and laughed. "Next thing you know, you two will be
moving in
together."

I decided to hold back on mentioning
the murder theory, at least for now. "Maybe she just figures she's
stuck with me, so why not make the best of it?"

"Peg plus Lottie, sittin' in
a tree, kay-eye-ess-ess-eye-en-gee!" Eddie said it in the sing-song
playground cadence we remembered from childhood teasing. "First
comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes Lottie with a
baby carriage
!"

I smirked and shook my head. "You're
just jealous the boss likes me better."

Eddie's big dark sunglasses
hid his eyes as he looked my way. "Just don't turn
against
me, Lot!
Remember, you said you'd be my
ally
."

"I said I'd take the
job
. I
never
said you'd get
a
free ride.
" On
impulse, I jabbed his bicep with my fist, just hard enough to make
it sting. "Consider yourself on
probation
, Eddie. You'd better stay
on my
good side
if
you know what's
good
for you."

Eddie let out a long, heavy
sigh and bumped his forehead on the steering wheel. "Kill me now,
Lord. I've created a
monster
."

"Hey!" I gave his bicep
another punch. "No
whining
on company
time.
"

*****

After Eddie dropped me off
at the DeeLite Motel, I washed up and changed clothes. No need for
makeup at Bonnie's; tonight's gathering was meant to be strictly
family, a quiet dinner together in honor of Polish Lou to wrap up
the weekend.

Only one thing was certain:
with the Furies, the Mama/Grandma Tag Team, and the ADHD Dozen
there, this get-together would be the furthest thing from quiet. It
was also the last thing I wanted to do with my evening. I knew I'd
be dying for a smoke before the hoedown was over.

Spending the evening with
Polish Peg was starting to look good by comparison.

As I straightened my yellow
top and white Capri pants in front of the mirror, I thought about
how strange it was not to be filled with disgust at the thought of
Peg. I was actually looking forward to seeing her the next day, if
only to get started with investigating Dad's death.

Had she always been decent,
but I'd never noticed? Or had Dad's death changed her? Either way,
Dad had gotten his wish; we were working together without killing
each other, though the focus of our teamwork was something he might
not have imagined: finding his murderer.

I never would've expected
it, either. Just as I hadn't expected my dream project in L.A. to
go almost belly up.

Speaking of L.A., the cell
phone rang just as I was slinging my butterscotch leather purse
over my shoulder. When I checked the screen, I saw it was Luke
calling from Los Angeles.