Death Kit (18 page)

“You can stay if you keep your mouth shut,” said the woman. She smiles at Diddy. “Sit down.” She points, with a nicotine-stained forefinger, at the low table in front of Diddy. “Hey, how about some strawberry ice cream? I got some out in the icebox.” Diddy shook his head. “Sure? All right. Now what can I do for ya?”

The woman's amiability is unnerving Diddy. He wants to turn and run. But there are questions to be asked. And Diddy, cautious Diddy, must be tactful.

“Well,” he began. “As you know, we're completing our investigation. I'm afraid I have to ask you a few personal questions.” Pauses, glances at the boy. The gross light of understanding widens the woman's face.

“Tommy, go to bed.”

“Aw, Mom…”

“You heard me. Get.”

The boy slouches out of the room, scuffling his feet and punching one of the chairs he passes.

“That boy!” Mrs. Incardona sits down heavily. “He'll be the death of me yet.”

Diddy finding it hard to continue. Something in the woman's tone, voice, language is unpleasantly familiar. Could he have met her before?

“Mrs. Incardona, I know your husband had irregular hours and worked a good deal out of town. Did you see him often? I mean, when he wasn't working?” Why was Diddy asking this? To see if Incardona had really existed? A last absurd hope. Maybe this redhead only imagined she was married to a railroad worker named Incardona; in fact hadn't seen him in years.

“Well, Joe wasn't exactly what you'd call a homebody—”

Diddy interrupted, frantically. “Wait a minute! What did you call your husband?” Instant rebirth of hope. There's been a mistake. He's at the wrong house.

“What?”

“Your husband's name! You called him Joe. But I … our records have him listed as Angelo.”

A mistake. A mistake in Diddy's favor? No.

“Oh, he never used that Eyetalian name. Only his ma calls him that. He said the boys razzed him bad enough as it was, 'cause it was on his punch card and his paycheck. We never called him nothin' but Joe. Kinda short for Angelo, I guess.”

“I see,” said Diddy, leaning back again, exhausted by his instant round trip of hope. “Excuse me for interrupting you. You were saying something before.”

“What was I sayin', Mr. Dillon? I can't keep nothin' straight in my poor head these days.”

“Dalton,” said Diddy. “You were saying that your late husband wasn't, you said, much of a homebody.”

“Oh, yeah. That's sure the truth. I guess no railroad man is. Else they wouldn't be workin' for the railroad. Right? Mr. uh…”

“Dalton.” Diddy scowled. It was true. The woman was terribly muddled. Could one believe anything she said?

Mrs. Incardona was insisting. “Am I right? You tell me.”

“I understand what you're saying.” Diddy would not be bullied.

“You asked me if he come home always when he wasn't workin'. I guess you know he didn't. Sure, I knew what was goin' on. Used to raise hell about it, too. But what can you do? A man's not like a woman. Know what I mean? No two ways about that.”

Diddy sighed. Incardona was real, even under another name. “Thanks for being cooperative,” he said.

“Now, why shouldn't I be? Tell me that, Mr. Dillon. Where would it get me? Joe's gone, there's no helpin' that. Oh, I cried. Lemme tell you. You shouldda seen me at the funeral yesterday. But then I dried my eyes, and I said, Myra, you just pull yourself together. There's no bringin' Joe back, I says to myself. And that's all there is to it.”

Each time the woman said “Joe,” Diddy flinched. Knew well enough that many people use a name other than what's on their birth certificate. Could the switch in this case be just that innocent, trite? And what about the eerie familiarity of the woman's voice and mannerisms, scarcely less of a shock than learning a new first name for Incardona?

“I cried,” repeated the woman.

She was scrounging for a compliment. Weary Diddy would give it to her. “You have a great deal of courage,” he said.

“That's what Father McGuire said to me. He's down at Immaculate Heart. Myra, he said to me, Myra, you're a brave woman.”

“I'm glad,” murmured Diddy, lost in something like thought. There was some very large woman far away or way back like Myra Incardona. But (now) very small.

“Well, what was I supposed to do, Mr. Dillon? I mean Dalton. Kill myself? Not me! I got a boy to raise … and, just between you and me and the lamppost, maybe it's a bit of a blessing, Joe's being taken from us like that. Though I hate to say it.” She leaned toward Diddy confidentially. Diddy took out a cigarette, stuck it between his lips, and lit a match; his hand shook. Hoped the woman had failed to detect any trembling of the flame as it approached his jaw. “You know what I'm tryin' to say? He wasn't much of a husband. May God strike me dead if I'm not tellin' the truth. Just didn't seem to care about his family. Used to wallop the boy somethin' awful with one of them wooden hangers. It just broke my heart. But I couldn't stop him. Even when I tried.”

Weary Diddy realized that he hadn't been listening to a word the woman uttered. His mind gone blank as a TV screen after the end of the broadcasting day: a flickering glassy gray-white wall, exuding a faint hum. He must force himself to replay the woman's last words inside his head, to use his mind, to make a connection. Think of what she's just said. Her admission that she'd disliked her husband. A motive perhaps; explaining why the workman had been cremated. Nobody hiding or concealing anything. A simple act of revenge. By the embittered wife. Just being dead isn't enough. To get rid of him really, once and for all. But Diddy, who indeed understands how she might have felt, doesn't know how to go about determining the truth of his newest supposition.

She'd been staring at him. It couldn't be at his clothes, could it? Why is Diddy finding it so hard (now) to talk?

“Sure you don't want some ice cream? It's awful good.” Is she trying to put him at his ease? Make him feel more at home?

“No thanks.” Diddy taking a deep drag on the cigarette. He'll fight this lethargy. “Mrs. Incardona”—Diddy has decided to move boldly—“I was wondering why your husband was cremated. That's a little unusual, isn't it?”

“Oh, Blessed Saint Peter and Paul!” The woman threw up her hands. “Mr. Dillon, don't remind me of that! Joe put it in his will, that's why. I didn't have nothin' to do with it. Can you see me gettin' mixed up with a fool stunt like that? No sir! And throwin' out good money for nothin'? I mean, where does all that fuss and fancy stuff get ya? Just showin' off, that's all. But when it's over you're still just as dead. Now I know when
I
go, I don't care what they do with me. Put me out on the street with the garbage, for all I care. Am I right?”

Is she telling the truth? Then what happens to Diddy's latest theory? “But your husband did have a preference,” he said, trying to steer Myra Incardona back to the main line of thought. “He wanted to be cremated.”

“Who knows what he wanted. You never could get a straight word out of Joe. Say one thing one minute, somethin' else the next. He'd do it just to get my goat. Then he'd laugh.”

Diddy exasperated. “But cremation
was
mentioned in his will?”

“Sure! And you know what I said? I says to myself, it's just like Joe, I says. The man always was a damn fool, him
and
his brother. Why, he could of been buried real cheap in the Arlington National Cemetery, with a flag on his coffin and all. Joe had that comin' to him, you know. Bein' as he was a veteran.”

What's this about a brother? Another railroad worker named Incardona? Dead or alive? But Diddy must resist getting sidetracked. If he's not careful, his mind will spill all over the place, like Myra Incardona's; seduced by every passing phrase and its associations. What was it she'd said (now)? Oh, yes. “Then why do you suppose your husband preferred to be cremated?” Diddy asked. “It seems odd.”

“Are you tellin' me? Odd ain't the word for it. Plain crazy I call it. Why, when I heard what was in Joe's will, I just hit the ceiling. I tried to get 'em to change it, but they wouldn't. Said I couldn't go against the will, like it was sacred or somethin'. I think he put that in just to upset me. Spite, that's all it was. He knew it'd upset me because crematin' is against the Church.” Looking at Diddy, as if she expected some answer (now). “But maybe you don't know about the faith. You ain't a Catholic, are ya, Mr. Dalton?”

“No,” said Diddy, “Protestant.”

“Well, that's all right,” the woman said. “There's good and bad in all races, and I don't hold with lotsa people I know who think Catholics are the only good people and everybody else is goin' straight to hell. I wancha to know that.”

“I'm glad,” said Diddy. Loosened his tie, unbuttoning his collar.

“Say, it is kinda hot in here,” said the woman. “How's about a drink? I sure could use one.”

“Please go ahead,” said Diddy. “But nothing for me.”

The woman got up from the chair, and left the room. Returning in a minute with two cans of Rheingold, two glasses with naked mermaids on them, and an opener. Setting them down on the low, lacquered table. Diddy the Gentleman took over; opened one can. “What I was sayin' before,” the woman spoke slowly, watching him pour half the can into a glass, “about un-Catholics goin' to hell. Seems kinda mean to say that, don't it? But I guess I do believe in it. I can't help it. That's the teaching of the Church. I learned it in school from the sisters and I never forgot it.” Taking a large gulp of beer. “You know, I never forgot nothin' they taught me. They were strict, all right! But whatever they learned you, you learned good. And if you were a smart aleck and didn't do your lessons right or got caught passin' notes in class, then you really learned somethin'. Somethin' you never forgot. Why, I used to come home from school with my rear end red as fire!” She laughed. “Excuse me for talkin' this way, Mr. Dillon—” For a moment, chuckling too hard to go on. “Yeah, they could of used me for a bed warmer, that's how red and hot my little fanny was.” More laughing. Then a sullen look. “But, you know, it ain't like that any more. Kids have it easy nowadays. Right? My Tommy goes to a school run by the sisters, but they never hit him and they don't give him half the homework they gave me. Last week he—”

“Mrs. Incardona, you were telling me about your husband's will and the cremation.”

“Oh, sure, I'm getting' to it.” Pouring the rest of the can into her glass. “Well, when they found Joe they took him to a place down near the train depot, but they told me I hadda make some other arrangement Monday morning. I went down there, but they wouldn't lemme see the body and I didn't wanna, see?” She paused. Diddy nodded. “It's my nerves, see. My nerves ain't so good sometimes.”

Diddy waiting for her to go on. Is that the end of the story?

“Sure you don't wanna beer?”

Diddy shook his head.

“Well, I guess I can't let it go to waste.” She grinned.

Diddy opened the other can, poured it. “What happened after they wouldn't let you see the body?”

“Well then I came back home and by this time, it was late Sunday night, there was a lotta people here, relatives of Joe and me and friends, drinkin' and cryin', mostly drinkin', and we opened the will. The minute I read it I knew damn well somethin' was wrong, so right away I hightailed it to the phone upstairs and called Father McGuire. That's what I did, even though it was past midnight and I had a bit of a load on myself, ya know, from cryin' and feelin' so bad. Anyway, when I told Father McGuire about it he said I oughtta ignore the will and just get Joe to a proper Catholic funeral home like Donoghue's across from the church and he'd take care of the rest. But then Joe's brother Charlie, he's got one of those Eyetalian names but we call him Charlie, come bustin' in here about three in the morning. They just got a new Pontiac. And he drove all the way from Waltham Massachusetts which is where he lives. I'd called him around nine to tell him about Joe's accident, I mean I had to do that, but he never told me he was gonna come right away. But he has this big new car, see? Anyhow he came and he read the will and he has a real big thing against the Church, how the sisters hit him with a ruler all the time when he was a kid in school because he was a lefty and how the priests was always after him and upsettin' him and givin' him nightmares and what a lousy childhood he and Joe had.”

The woman leaned back. Drinking up the beer; some of it dribbles down one corner of her mouth. Is this the end of the story? It's getting harder for Diddy to tell.

“Cigarette?” he said, extending the pack across the table.

“Thanks. Don't mind if I do.” She leaned way across the table to get a light from Diddy; who'd also taken out a cigarette for himself. A good thing he hadn't drunk the beer, feeling as tired as he does. “Where was I?”

So there is more. “About the awful childhood your husband and his brother had.”

“Aw, listen, I don't believe half a what Charlie says. He's just a big talker. Got a chip on his shoulder. Now take Joe, for instance. Joe was different. He didn't hold a grudge like that about the Church and he didn't go mopin' about what a miserable kid he was, and I bet he got hit just as much as Charlie. But Joe liked to always look on the bright side of things.” She smiled broadly at Diddy; briefly, she looked graceful and almost generous. Twirling the long string of purple beads she wore over the yellow blouse, her eyes periodically resting on his.

Diddy felt the room getting smaller and smaller, and Myra Incardona commensurately larger. Despite a separation between them of some four feet, staked out by the low, oval table between the pair of identical high-backed easy chairs, he's as aware of her flesh as if she'd been sitting in his lap. Loose, thick, pungent flesh. For at least several minutes (now), parts of her body had acquired an almost hypnotic allure for him: her breasts, her pudgy hands, the gold fillings that showed every time she laughed, the dark brown roots of her copper hair.