Amy Patricia Meade - Marjorie McClelland 02 - Ghost of a Chance (25 page)

“Who’s the man she’s with?”

“Detective Logan. She’s in jail for conspiring with her husband
to take Alfred Nussbaum for $5,000.”

“What?” She gestured toward the coffin. “But her husband-”

He patted her hand. “I’ll explain later.”

Josie, with Logan in tow, strutted up to the coffin. Much to Bernice’s chagrin, the woman in red planted a kiss on the dead man’s
cheek. “Excuse me,” Bernice pardoned herself from Vanessa and
Creighton’s company and marched over to confront the redheaded
woman.

“Why you shameless little hussy!” Bernice exclaimed. “You have
some nerve coming here, and dressed in red, no less!”

“Alfie liked me in red. And I have every right to be here,” the
younger woman maintained. “He was my husband, too.”

“Your marriage was never legal, and you know it!”

Josie thrust her nose in the air. “I know nothin’ of the sort. If
you ask me, I was more of a wife to him than you were.”

“How dare you! At least I married Alfred out of love; you only
saw him as a meal ticket. I bet you’re the one who killed him. Why
else would you have a cop handcuffed to you? Why’d you do it?
For the money?”

“You should talk! If anyone had a motive for killing Alfie, it was
you. You couldn’t stand the thought of the two of us together! You
couldn’t stand the thought of him being with a real woman.”

This remark was the last straw for Bernice. She let out a piercing
scream and lunged for Josie’s throat, sending the woman careening
onto Detective Logan, who, upon losing his balance, fell backward
onto the floral arrangements. Bernice dove on top of both Josie and
Logan and began to choke the younger woman amid a flurry of
gladiola and chrysanthemum petals.

“Get her, Mother!” Natalie cheered, while her brother shook
his head and adjusted his glasses.

“I never knew she had such pugilistic tendencies,” Herbert remarked.

Creighton leapt from his chair and, grabbing Bernice by the
shoulders, attempted to pull her off the younger, lighter woman. Logan, meanwhile, tried to restrain Josie by pinning her arms between
her back and his chest. After several minutes, they finally succeeded
in tearing the two apart.

The detective rose to his feet and thanked Creighton before yanking Josie off the ground. “Hey!” she shouted. “This is my best dress!”

Hearing the fracas, a short, middle-aged man wearing a blue yarmulke rushed into the room, shouting. “Mrs. Nussbaum! Mrs. Nussbaum!”

“Yes,” Josie and Bernice answered in unison.

“Mr. Gittleman was talking to me,” Bernice corrected.

“Mrs. Nussbaum, please!” Gittleman implored, on the brink of
tears. “This establishment was founded to serve as a haven for grieving families. A haven! What will happen to my business if people
find out that I have women wrestling on the floor?”

“If they’re anything like the joints I raid, the joint will be mobbed,”
Logan quipped and then patted Creighton on the back, causing the
Englishman to swallow his breath.

“No, sir, the joint will not be mobbed. My business will be ruined! Ruined!”

“We’re sorry, Mr. Gittleman,” Creighton rasped. He still clutched
Bernice Nussbaum’s arm. “We promise it won’t happen again.”

The funeral director threw his hands in the air. “He promises!
Promises! I’m warning you, if it does happen again, I’m throwing all of you out!” He pointed toward the door. “Out!” The angry man
stomped off through the archway into the anteroom.

“You heard him ladies,” Creighton announced. “Take your seats.
Fighting’s over for today.” He guided Bernice back to the seat she
had previously occupied, while Logan directed Josie to a place two
chairs away.

“This row is reserved for family members,” Bernice objected.

Josie spat back, “I am family.”

“Enough!” the Englishman bellowed before another dispute
erupted. “No one is asking you to be friends, but for today you can
at least agree to disagree. And, in case you can’t, you shall have to
be separated.” He nodded to Logan, who wedged himself into the
chair between the two women. “Still too close,” Creighton deemed.
Spotting the Nussbaum boy seated to Bernice’s left he instructed:
“Herbert, switch places with your mother”

They obediently changed positions, thus creating a two-person
buffer between the feuding Mrs. Nussbaums. Creighton surveyed
the motley lineup. “What a lovely group. When this is all over, we
really must get you all together for a family portrait.”

He returned to his seat under the blistering gazes of the bereaved family. “Bravo,” Vanessa welcomed him back.

Creighton shook his head and whispered, in an impersonation
of Mr. Gittleman, “These people are crazy! Crazy!”

“You handled them quite well.”

“Thanks, if my financial situation takes a turn for the worse, it’s
comforting to know I can find work in a sanatorium.”

As he sat down, he spied, in the doorway, the two goons from
The Rusty Anchor flanking a heavyset man with dark hair and a
day’s worth of stubble. Murphy, he thought to himself.

The entourage removed their hats and approached the casket.
With bowed heads, they paid their respects to the late Alfred Nussbaum, reciting what appeared to be small prayers and invoking the
sign of the cross. When they had finished, they donned their hats,
and upon a nod from Murphy, the two goons pounded the corpse
in the chest with their fists.

The women in the room gasped. Murphy apologized politely.
“Sorry, ladies, but in my business you gotta make sure.”

The men tipped their hats in unison and exited via the aisle
nearest Creighton.

Spotting the Englishman on the way out, one of the men smiled.
“Hey, it’s that copper from The Rusty Anchor. Whatcha doing here,
Copper? I thought I told you to go back home to New Orleans.”

“You did,” Creighton agreed, and then pointed toward the back
of his mouth. “But I had a piece of possum stuck between my teeth
and my dentist lives here, in Boston.”

Murphy gave Creighton an appraising glance. “You’re one of
the flatfoots who stopped by the bar. Do me a favor, will ya? If you
see that Marjorie dame again give her a message. Tell her Murph
liked the fake phone number gag.”

“Fake phone number gag?”

“Yeah. She’ll know what I mean. She’s sharp, that one. Doesn’t
miss a thing and recognizes a good-lookin’ guy when she sees one.
Cute, curvy, and a `connisewer’ Just the way I like ‘em.” He and his
goons chuckled lecherously and made their way out of the room.

No sooner had they left, than a pair of drab-looking men dressed
in identical dark charcoal-gray suits arrived. If it weren’t for the fact
that one wore spectacles and appeared slightly older than the other,
they might have passed for twins.

“That’s Charles and Kenneth Cullen,” Vanessa informed her
escort.

“As in Cullen Chemicals?” he asked, remembering his conversation with Marjorie.

“One and the same.”

“Ah, the competition.”

“Barely;” Vanessa scoffed. “They were never quite in the same
league as Alchemy. Though, Lord knows, they did just about everything they could to compete.”

“Some people just don’t have a head for business,” he remarked.

They watched as the men bowed before the casket then turned
around to pay their respects to the family. The Cullens glanced at
the two women in confusion before splitting up, the man with the
glasses extending his hand to Bernice, while his brother offered his
condolences to Josie, who discreetly concealed the handcuffs that
bound her to Detective Logan.

Creighton strained to eavesdrop, but the softness of their voices,
combined with the difficulty of listening to two conversations at
once, made it impossible for him to pick out more than a couple
words at a time. However, even without the benefit of hearing, it
was apparent that the Cullen brothers were doing most of the talking, their busy mouths pausing just long enough for their perplexed
listeners to shake or nod their heads in response. With little imagination, one could easily envision the siblings as detectives performing an interrogation rather than businessmen paying a sympathy
call.

Creighton’s brow furrowed. Were the Cullen brothers asking
Nussbaum’s widows the same questions they had asked of Marjorie and Jameson? If so, what were they looking for?

From her place in the first row, Natalie abruptly stood up and,
in an obvious state of agitation, hurried down the aisle and toward
the door. As she passed Vanessa and Creighton, she shot them an
icy glance.

The Englishman rose from his seat. “I think I’ll see what that’s
about.”

“Let me go,” Vanessa suggested. “You’re already on Herbert and
Bernice’s list of least favorite people. And you just don’t know girls
that age. If they don’t want to tell you something, they won’t. They
can be very stubborn and difficult.”

“So can I. And I’m quite well-acquainted with stubborn and difficult women. Keep an eye on things for me, will you?” He stepped
around the wheelchair and headed down the aisle, following Natalie through the reception area and outdoors, where she pulled a
cigarette from her purse and tried, with trembling fingers, to strike
a match.

Creighton gently plucked the matchbox from her hand, and with
one deft motion, ignited one of the matchsticks. Cupping one hand
over the flame, he leaned forward and brought it to the end of the
young woman’s cigarette.

She took a good long drag, then exhaled a stream of smoke.
“Thanks”

Creighton extinguished the matchstick and let it fall to the
ground. “You’re welcome.” He handed back the matchbox. “Are you
all right?”

She took the matchbox and dropped it into her purse. “Fine.
Why?”

“You seemed a bit rattled in there”

Natalie leaned her back against the brick wall of the funeral
home and took another puff on the cigarette. “So?” she breathed.
“Are you going to arrest me for suspicious behavior?”

Creighton smiled and folded his arms across his chest. “No, I’m
not a policeman.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Then what were you doing at my house
the other day? And what were you doing interrogating my mother
and brother?”

“Helping Detective Jameson. He’s a friend of mine.”

“Yeah? Are you gonna have your friend arrest me?”

“No. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Haven’t I?” she challenged. “I guess they can’t arrest people for
what’s in their hearts, can they?”

Creighton shook his head. “If they could, we’d all be in jail.”

“I guess so.” The girl gave a flicker of a smile, and then stared at
him appraisingly. “You married?”

“No.”

“Planning on it?”

His thoughts slipped, for a moment, to Marjorie. “No”

“You’re very smart then.”

“Not inordinately.”

“Yes you are,” Natalie contradicted. “Marriage brings nothing but
pain and unhappiness. And men are nothing but liars and cheats.”

Creighton propped his shoulder against the wall beside her. “Do
you think I’m a liar and a cheat?” he asked in earnest.

The young woman gazed into his blue eyes and immediately
started to blush. “No,” she replied, swiftly looking away, “but, then
again, you can’t tell by looking.”

“No, I suppose you can’t.”

There was a long pause before the girl spoke again.

“Do you think there’s a hell?” she asked.

The Englishman shrugged. “I don’t know. I was taught, as a boy,
that there is, but whether I believe it or not, I can’t say.”

“But you do believe that people are punished for their sins?”
she prodded.

“Yes, I’d like to think that, in the end, the good are rewarded
and the bad are punished.”

“But sometimes the bad aren’t really bad. Sometimes they’re
good people who have done something stupid.”

Her comment was a thinly veiled confession. “If the person
is truly good,” he hypothesized, “then they should admit to their
wrongdoing and ask for forgiveness.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “What if the person’s scared of what
might happen to them?”

He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Then they should confide in
someone they trust. Someone who can protect them.” He flashed a
kind smile. “Someone who isn’t a liar and a cheat”

“Oh, Mr. Ashcroft,” she cried. “I’ve done something terrible.
I-I-” A small spherical object flew past Creighton’s face and hit
Natalie square in the forehead.

They whirled around to see Herbert, standing near the door, a
peashooter in his hand. “Natalie’s in lo-ove,” he sang.

The girl threw her cigarette to the ground and crushed it with
the heel of her shoe. “I am not!” she screamed.

“You are too,” he insisted. “You’re using that man to replace
father. It’s quite natural, really. Look at Mata Hari and Rudolph
MacLeod.”

Natalie shrieked and hit her brother in the head with her purse.
“I hate you, Herbert! I hate you!” she declared before storming back
into the funeral home. The boy flashed a self-satisfied grin, tucked
the peashooter into his pocket, and then ran off in pursuit of his
sister.

Creighton stayed behind in bewildered silence. Natalie’s nearconfession had surprised him, but the sight of Herbert clutching
the peashooter had left him shaken beyond words. How long had
Herbert been standing there? How much of their conversation had
he overheard? Had he orchestrated the attack with the peashooter
to prevent Natalie from confessing what she knew?

Breathing deeply, he ran a hand through his hair and tried to
think. Like flashes of lightning, images appeared before his eyesimages of the peashooter and Natalie’s cigarette. Suddenly a strange
idea occurred to him. Was it possible?

He looked down at the ground where Natalie’s cigarette lay
broken. When I get home, Creighton resolved, I shall have to call
Jameson.