Deadly Interest (10 page)

Just as eager to change the subject, I said,
“Could we buy some?”

“
We’ll get two cans,” Mom
said.

Somehow that night, the perennial favorite
family dessert didn’t taste so great.

Now, in Lucy’s room, I sorted through her
clothes and pulled out her suitcase to start packing. For an
assisted living facility, this place was pretty nice. Each resident
was treated as an important member of the team, each person had a
job, and was responsible for his or her own living space. Lucy had
a roommate, a young girl about fourteen with a mild case of Down
Syndrome. Lauralee had gone home already, Lucy said. She’d left
over a week ago.

“
I’m really lonely here
now.”

She was standing behind me, trying futilely
to see over my shoulder when she said that. I turned and saw the
sadness in her pale blue eyes. “Well, no need to feel lonely any
more. You’re coming home with me and we’re going to have a great
time together.”

“
You won’t have to go to
work, right?”

I hedged, turning back into the closet and
pulling out a deep blue T-shirt dress. It still wasn’t warm enough
for the weather, but it had long sleeves. “How’s this?”

She grabbed it and made her way to the
bathroom in the corner to put it on as I dug out her winter coat.
She kept the door open, and peered around the opening. “You won’t
have to work, right?”

I hated the hopeful sound in her voice. From
the time I got out of high school, and went away to college, Lucy
constantly asked me when I’d be home again. Even if we didn’t do
anything together specifically, she always seemed happiest when the
whole family was in the house at the same time.

I thought about the new story Bass had
dropped into our laps. And that trip to San Francisco.

How the heck was I going to make it all
right?

“
Well, I was thinking
about that,” I said. “I do have a few projects I have to work on,
but Aunt Lena and Uncle Moose are going to want you to come visit
while you’re home, you know.”

She came out of the bathroom with a grimace.
“Yeah.”

“
Come on,” I said, hoping
to coax her into a good mood. “They haven’t seen you in such a long
time, they miss you.”

She nodded, unimpressed.

I turned on a classical music station on the
ride back, and watched Lucy’s mood improve with every mile we
traveled. By the time we were thirty miles out, she was fast
asleep.

I gently switched stations to classic rock
and let my mind wander. At the staff meeting yesterday, Bass had
dropped another bombshell. If I couldn’t make the trip to San
Francisco, he’d offer the opportunity to someone on the film crew.
He was certain one of them would take him up on the offer, and made
mention that one of the women there had expressed interest in
going.

I’d kept my voice neutral as I asked who it
was.

Bass shrugged, “What’s-her-name—the one who
used to be a smoke jumper—”

“
Caroline?” William
asked.

“
Yeah, that’s the one. She
says she’s ready to pack up and go as soon as I give her the
word.”

“
Great,” I said, trying to
sound enthusiastic. A beautiful girl, Caroline Bliss had a cheerful
disposition and an adventurous spirit. She also had a tendency to
hang around William and make small talk whenever we attended a
filming. Bugged me. Big time. The thought of William and Miss Bliss
jetting off for San Francisco together made me regret the timing of
Lucy’s visit, once again.

I tried to shake off those feelings as I
backed into the garage. We made good time, it wasn’t even three
o’clock yet. The car’s jerky back-up movement must have registered
with Lucy, because she woke, sitting up fast, wearing a blank-eyed,
“Where am I?” look. A half-second later, her face relaxed into a
smile of contentment when she realized we were home.

With a pang I remembered Evelyn Vicks. I’d
have to tell her about that. Sooner, rather than later.

I pressed the remote on my garage door
opener, and to my surprise, it responded on the first try. “There
is some bad news, Lucy,” I said, my words stopping her from opening
the passenger door.

Her eyes, light blue, with a lacy pattern of
white in the iris that made her gaze especially compelling, looked
at me with fearful awareness and trust. “Did something happen to
Mom and Dad?” she asked.

I shook my head.

The garage had dimmed, with the closing of
the big door, and the only light in the area was the single 100
watt bulb attached to the opener above us. I hesitated, then
switched on the car’s interior lights. Lucy shot me a quizzical
look.

I pulled in a breath.

“
Somebody . . .” I didn’t
quite know how to phrase it. Lucy was the most sensitive person I’d
ever met. How to tell her that a woman she’d known since birth had
been brutally murdered?

“
It’s really bad, isn’t
it?” she asked, her voice high and childlike.

“
Yeah.”

We were silent for a long moment and I heard
Lucy’s breathing. Shallow. She was nervous.

“
Mrs. Vicks,” I said,
finally.

“
What about
her?”

“
She’s . . .”

I hesitated again.

“
She died?” Lucy
asked.

“
Yeah.”

“
When?”

I told her that it had been just two days
ago, and that they hadn’t even had the wake yet. That was scheduled
for tomorrow night, with the funeral on Monday morning.

“
We’re going to go to
that, right?”

I leaned my head back. When had we not gone
to a wake or funeral of someone we knew? Our parents toted us along
from the time we were young, so the ceremony that accompanied death
became, for us, a part of life. So many of my friends avoided the
rituals, claiming that they hated wakes and funerals. Yeah, I
always wanted to say . . . like I like them? “Of course,” I said.
“But there’s a bit more.”

Lucy shook her head, in a “tell me”
motion.

“
Somebody came into her
house and… I’m sorry to tell you this, Lucy. Somebody killed
her.”

Lucy’s eyes went wide, shifting suddenly
around the desolate garage as though the person who murdered Evelyn
Vicks might be waiting in the corner ready to pounce on us.

“
It’s okay,” I said
quickly. I had no idea whether it was okay or not, but I knew I
needed to allay her fears. “The police are looking for him now. I
talked to them yesterday.” Switching gears, I said, “Guess what
Aunt Lena made us for dinner tonight?”

Lucy shook her head, shrugged, and said “I
don’t know,” all at once. Her eyes still held fear that hadn’t been
there before.

I pushed myself to smile, waited for her to
grin back. “Your favorite.”

She bounced in the car’s seat. “Mom’s
meatloaf?”

“
Yep.”

She lurched forward, and grabbed me into a
full-body hug. “Oh, Alex,” she said, “It’s so great to be
home.”

Sunday evening, we stood outside the funeral
home’s glass doors. Inside, past the vestibule and second set of
doors, I saw people walking by, all dressed in muted shades of
blue, black, and brown. I wished I were somewhere else.

Lucy tugged at my arm, eager to see the
neighbors, eager to talk to people she hadn’t seen in almost a
year. I held firm, wanting just a moment longer to quell the small
trembling I always fought right before walking in to a wake.

“
Hang on,” I
said.

Lucy looked at me and squinted. “You
okay?”

“
I’m fine.”

The tile floor inside lent a homey air to
the central lobby. A low fireplace to our right burned brightly,
and a group of people occupied the easy chairs surrounding it,
perhaps attracted by its cheeriness in these otherwise dismal
surroundings.

A black fuzzy sign, with white letters
pressed into its horizontal lines, directed us to the chapel at the
far right of the building. Lucy nearly skipped down the
hallway.

Just outside the chapel, Uncle Moose nodded
to us, murmuring to me that Aunt Lena was inside waiting, keeping
an eye on Diana. Mrs. Vicks’ roommate had refused to return to live
in the house, and with no family nearby, she’d begun taking turns
staying at each of the neighbors’ homes over the past several days.
She returned to Mrs. Vicks’ home only to pick up necessities, and
only when accompanied by someone else.

As soon as we cleared the double-door
entryway to the chapel, Lucy let out a tiny squeal of excitement.
She’d spied Mrs. McGillicuddy, another elderly neighbor who always
invited her over to help with chores and baking. Lucy adored
her.

I caught her as she was about to sprint,
reminding her that we needed to pay our respects first. I knelt at
the side of the casket and did that “pretend to pray” thing.

Lucy looked at Mrs. Vicks with
curiosity.

“
She doesn’t look like
anybody killed her.” Lucy’s stage whisper was loud enough for
everyone to hear. “She just looks like a regular dead
person.”

She did. I knew from neighborhood
scuttlebutt that she’d been stabbed. The rumor mill, however, came
up short on accuracy. Diana had sworn she’d seen a slice in Mrs.
Vick’s neck, but according to our local police-contact, Russ
Bednarski, who said he heard it on the QT, she’d been run through
the heart, multiple times. I had to put my money on old Russ, since
there was no indication of mortician work done around her throat
area.

As it was, she seemed, as most dead people
do, to be a heavily made up sleeping person whose cheeks have gone
slack at the sides. She had that pinkish tone to her skin, both
from the caked on makeup and the spotlights directed from above the
casket. Her hands were folded, looking puffed, like two blown-up
latex gloves, one atop the other. A wine-colored rosary,
strategically placed to look natural, reflected the light in tiny
glitters.

I patted Lucy’s hand, and stood, “Mrs.
Vicks’ son, Bart, is here. We have to say hello.”

She sidled close. “Do I know him?”

I whispered, “Yeah, we met him at Mr. Vicks’
funeral. He came in for that.” Lucy shook her head, clearly unsure.
I continued. “I think he moved away when we were kids. He probably
won’t remember us.” I made our way toward a large middle-aged blond
man in a black suit standing two floral arrangements away from the
head of the casket. He stared at a far wall, swaying. All I knew
about him nowadays was that he lived up north in a small Wisconsin
town, but beyond that, Mrs. Vicks hadn’t often spoken of him. He
finished talking with other neighbors and turned to us, the next
participants in the receiving line of grief.

I held out my hand, “Accept my sympathies,”
I began.

He took my hand, but I got the impression my
words hadn’t registered. He stared at me for a couple of beats
without saying anything and I wondered if the odor emanating from
him was bad cologne, or if he’d been hitting the bottle. His small
eyes shifted back and forth between Lucy and me, as if deciding
something.

I put him in his early fifties. His head was
shaped like a wide cylinder, his flat crew-cut hair exacerbating
the image. He would have benefited from a chiseled jawline, but his
second and third chins sagged and covered most of the collar of his
gray shirt.

“
You’re Alex.” His eyes
took me in, head-to-toe. “Grew up some, huh?”

I tugged my hand back, with some resistance,
and once free, used it to propel Lucy forward. “And this is my
sister Lucy. We’re very sorry about your mother,” I began
again.

“
Yeah.” He lifted his chin
and stepped forward in an almost confrontational move. “I heard you
were there right before it happened.”

Bart’s small eyes squinted at me, the deep
folds of wrinkles in the extra fat of his face making them look
piggy-ish. I couldn’t make out their color. Light blue. More gray,
maybe. Very pale. I decided he was a mouth-breather, since it
remained open, his lower lip hanging sausage-like and wet as he
waited for my reply.

“
I was there—”

“
Yeah, and you work for
the newspaper, right?”

“
No—”

“
Diana, there, told me you
did.” His eyes flicked over to the sofa where Mrs. Vicks’ roommate
and my Aunt Lena huddled. “Hey,” he said, louder, lifting his chin
Diana’s direction now. “She don’t work for the newspaper. What are
you trying to pull?”

In a reflexive gesture, to correct things
before they got out of hand, which they looked about to do, I
placed my hand on his arm. Mistake.

He jumped at my touch.

“
I work for television,” I
said, pulling my hand away.

His expression shifted. “You do?” A quick
look at Diana, possibly meant as apology, and then he was back to
me. “Good. Then maybe you can pull some strings.”

I felt my own mouth go slack. I shut it
immediately.

He attempted a smile. “What I mean is, we’re
old friends, right?” As he said that, his glance raked over me
again. “And I’m thinking that if you have some ‘in’ with big-wigs
downtown, maybe you can help me out how I can get everything
settled here.”

Lucy whispered that she was going to talk to
Mrs. McGillicuddy and scampered off, leaving me alone with Big
Bart.

“
It’s not like I have an
‘in’ with investigations—” I began again.

“
I’m not talking about the
cops,” he said chopping the word short in a laugh. “Like they’re
really going to try to find out who did this. I know better. I know
these big city types. Just another one for the books.”