Authors: Janice Weber
Emily made coffee, just like the old days. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Guy lately. Did he really have a girlfriend those
last few days? That’s what Lois tells me.”
“Sure he did. She called him here all the time. He would take off like a dog in heat.”
Ouch. “What do you mean, ’all the time’? Every day?”
“Well, no. Only about five or so times in all, I’d say. I usually picked up the phone. She was an incredibly irritating slut.”
“Did she call the day the truck drove through the window?”
Bert was silent a few moments. “I think so. She definitely called the night he was killed. I was left here holding the bag.
I’m sure Ross got the worst coffee of his life that day.”
“Ross was in?”
“Sure, he dropped by late in the afternoon. Good thing he did, too. I was bitching about how the woman sounded like you.”
“Planting ideas in his head?” Emily laughed feebly.
“He told me that was impossible since you were in California. We had a good chuckle over it.”
Sure. Ross never chuckled. “Did the lady go to Guy’s funeral?”
“I wouldn’t even know what she looked like. She never had the courtesy to introduce herself.”
The front door opened and Guy’s sister, Ursula, walked in. Obviously not a morning person, she somnambulated to the coffee
machine as Emily watched, speechless, from behind the counter: The resemblance between Ursula and her deceased brother, while
subtle, was enough to take her breath away.
As Ursula was taking her first sip of coffee, she noticed the extra body. “Emily,” she called in a gritty voice, “what brings
you here?”
“I just got back from California and thought I’d stop by. See how you were doing.”
“I’m sure Bert’s told you all the gory details. Have a moment to chat?”
Steeling herself, Emily followed Ursula into Guy’s office. She sat on the nubby chair where, in simpler days, she used to
spend hours talking to Guy about ovens and eggs. How many times had he shut the door and kissed her? Not enough. “Rough business,
eh?” she said.
“I’m too old for this.” Ursula whisked a strand of gray hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know what will happen after Bert leaves.
Maybe I’ll sell the place.” She swallowed another dose of coffee. “Guy told me why you left. I think I understand.”
What was Emily supposed to reply to that? He is
Great?
“Interested in coming back and salvaging it?” Ursula continued.
“It wouldn’t be the same without him.”
“No. But I’m sure he’d want you here.”
Emily sighed. “I couldn’t, Ursula. I’m pregnant.”
Ursula’s eyes gleamed, then clouded over as she realized that she could never ask and would probably never know whether her
brother had left a child behind. “That’s wonderful.”
They sat wordless as two crones. Finally Emily said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t make the funeral.”
“It’s all right. Plenty of other people did. People I hadn’t seen in years. Previous wives, all wrinkled up now. Your new
boss. That Ward woman.”
“Guy knew Ward?”
“Not really. He was close to her younger sister, an art student. It was before your time. A sad story. She jumped off a building.
Guy always blamed himself.”
“Why? Was he her boyfriend?”
“Heavens, no. He was married at the time. He was just her friend. But friends of suicides always feel as if they’ve dropped
the ball.” Ursula shrugged. “The big sister certainly looked as if she had recovered. I was quite touched that she came to
the funeral. It meant that she had finally forgiven him.”
“For what?”
“For being involved at all. People are like that.” Out in the kitchen, Bert began shouting at someone. “Lina’s here,” Ursula
said, getting up. “What a disaster she turned out to be.”
Emily cringed; all her fault, like so many other things. “Don’t throw in the towel just yet. I’ll think about coming back.”
“In your present condition?”
Emily smiled wanly; that could always change. She was about to ask if Guy had really found another woman when Ursula said,
“Thank you for making my brother’s life happier. He was mad about you, you know. He was even able to laugh about the night
the truck ran you both down. If that isn’t love, nothing is.”
Mistake here,
Emily thought as she exited to the sidewalk. The magnitude of it didn’t register until she sat at her gynecologist’s office
totaling all the weird phone calls, the photographs, the nightmares about trucks, dentists from hell ... her head began to
ache as thoughts tumbled toward a steep, black ravine. Surely she was wrong: Philippa could not have done this. Not wittingly.
Wit, Witten, witless: oh yes, she could. Guy was a man, after all.
After her checkup, Emily walked to the North End, to the park high above the harbor, and stared at the ships. They seemed
motionless, aimless almost, until one closed the eyes for several minutes and looked again; then their slow paths and far-off
destinations became apparent. One needed only patience and perspective. Slowly, distantly, Emily began reconstructing Philippa’s
and Guy’s paths, following as if they were boats meandering toward foggy ports. Finally she stood up, shaken, needing Ross;
he would believe her.
Emily remembered that he had gone to Dagmar Pola’s for a meeting. She looked at her watch. If she walked fast, she could get
there before he left. It was a brilliant, blustery morning, conducive to speed. Emily concentrated on inhaling maximum oxygen,
thinking minimum thought. She was just about at Dagmar’s apartment when, across the street, she saw Ross lunge to the sidewalk.
Instead of turning left toward his office and her, he took a right toward Kenmore Square. Emily could see from his taut, fast
walk that something had upset him. She began to walk even faster, to catch up. Then she saw him hunch at a pay phone and speak
just a few words. To whom, Marjorie? Another woman? All of Emily’s blood-sucking demons returned. She followed her husband
along the windy boulevard, up to the Fenway. When he stopped, she hid behind a tree; even from this distance, she could feel
the sharp, black waves pulsating toward her.
Soon a stocky figure appeared:
Wardl
Ross said he had never met her in his life! When they disappeared into the reeds, Emily’s heart began pumping corrosive waste
into her bloodstream. Her brain burned, her baby wailed. She sank to the ground, into
the whirling leaves, gasping as a maelstrom sucked her into its gigantic funnel. It was too large, beyond her; yet without
comprehending the particulars, Emily comprehended the whole, in the way a drenched animal understands a flood. She was still
gasping when Ross emerged from the reeds and walked quickly away.
After a very long while, Ward shuffled out, took a look around, missed Emily completely, and headed in the direction of Diavolina.
Emily returned to Beacon Hill and, without entering the house, got into her car. Upstairs, Philippa was probably just opening
her eyes, wondering where her coffee and fan mail might be. Block that out: Emily drove north at great speed, as if Guy sat
in the front seat with her.
The trees were bare up in New Hampshire. Behind the cabin she saw nothing but naked, prickly hills. It was cold. Suddenly
losing her courage, Emily continued to the general store down the road. She needed a sandwich, hot tea, anything to keep the
body from consuming itself.
“Why hello, Emily,” the storekeeper said, peering at her. “You are Emily, aren’t you?”
“The other one was my sister.”
“She looked a little bashed up.”
“She got hit by a truck. Could you make me a ham sandwich and a cup of tea, Marty?”
“Coming right up.” He took the cold cuts from the case to the slicing machine. “Sister, eh? She’s a real whippersnapper, that
one. Came here one morning looking for champagne and oysters and something called shoot. Said she was expecting important
company. Walked out in a huff when I couldn’t accommodate her.”
“She’s not a country girl,” Emily said, taking the sandwich.
“That’s for darn sure.” Marty related the local news as his listener ate mechanically as a cow. When she had cleaned her plate,
he walked her to the car. “Will you be staying up a while?”
“No. I’m just changing the mousetraps.” Emily backed onto the road. She drove to her cabin and bounced into the drive
way, skidding to a halt on a bed of lichen. Somewhere over the last half mile, Guy had abandoned her: She was all alone now.
She walked to the porch, not sure of what she would find, what she should even be looking for. Outside the door, she paused,
sniffing the air, smelling smoke and dead leaves. A loon yodeled over the lake. Afraid to go inside, Emily stared at the doorknob,
wishing with all her might that it had a memory and a voice.
The wind blew, firs moved, shadows shifted: She saw a small dot in the door frame. Emily dropped to her knees and put her
face close to the little hole in the wood. When she saw dried blood and one slender splinter, she began to cry.
W
hile Ward was meeting Ross in the bulrushes, O’Keefe paid a visit to Diavolina. “Good morning. Is the boss in?” he asked Klepp,
who was tamping unidentifiable animal parts into the meat grinder.
“You mean Leo? Of course not.”
“I meant Ward.”
“She’s at the therapist,” Klepp replied. “How can I help you, sir?”
“I’m looking for a waitress named Lola.”
“She should be in any minute to pick up her paycheck. May I offer you something while you wait? Rib eye and swizzle fries?
Frozen mocha deluxe bombe?”
“Just coffee.” It was impossible to see Klepp as anything other than a convicted criminal in chef’s clothing. O’Keefe went
to the empty dining room. That weirdo with the orange face was restocking the bar. What had he done? Beheaded his wife with
pruning shears? “Good morning.” O’Keefe smiled, taking a seat.
“You catered Dagmar Pola’s party a few nights ago. Who referred her to you?”
“Her own good taste, I would say.”
“Ah, you know her, then. Did she eat here the night Dana Forbes dropped dead?”
“I did not see her. But it was very busy and I was tending bar.”
A young, delicious woman walked into the dining room. She was dressed as simply as a shepherdess, as if she knew that men
would never pay attention to her raiment. “I’m Lola,” she said, putting a mug of coffee in front of him.
O’Keefe’s tongue was not obeying signals from the fore half of his brain. Finally, after scalding it with coffee, he got it
under control. “Pink pepper,” he said. “You covered Philippa Banks’s steak with it that eventful night.”
Lola tossed her hair. “Was it pink? I don’t remember.”
“Try to remember here rather than at the police station,” O’Keefe said. “I really don’t have much time.”
Lola flushed. “A lady asked me to get her pepper mill autographed. She gave me five hundred bucks.” The money had not gone
into the waitrons ’pool.
“Describe her.”
“She wore glasses. She was alone. Sat there.” Lola pointed to a nearby table.
“What color was her hair?”
“I don’t remember. She was wearing a tight scarf. Like a turban.”
“How old was she?”
“Sixty.”
Eh? After all that plastic surgery, Ardith had looked a specious thirty-five. “Are you sure?”
“I can tell by the hands. Hers had age spots. My sister’s a manicurist so I know all about these things.”
Damn! O’Keefe began stabbing in the dark. “Did she wear a lot of jewelry? Pearls?”
“Nope. Just gold hoop earrings.”
That sounded like Ardith again. “What did she tell you to do?”
“Give the lady a load of pepper and get her autograph.”
“Did you notice anything about the pepper?”
“Are you kidding? Pepper’s pepper. I didn’t hang around counting the little specks.”
O’Keefe realized that, once again, he was treading water a thousand miles from shore. Iproniazid had unmistakably killed Dana;
that insidious woman in a turban had sent Lola over to smother Philippa’s steak with it; O’Keefe had found the turban and
glasses at Ardith’s house; she had the motive for murdering not only Philippa, but Dana, and she had impeccable reasons for
killing herself; now Lola claimed the woman was old as the hills. Who the hell could that be? Dagmar? She and Ardith had talked.
But why should a dowager want to kill a B-movie star? It seemed, on the surface, nonsensical; then again, irrationality was
the key to getting away with murder. This was almost as frustrating as the case of Guy Witten, which had no witnesses, no
motive, no weapon, and a slew of perfect alibis. O’Keefe would have given up long ago if he hadn’t known, in his gut, that
these two cases were somehow twins, offspring of the same diabolical parents. He’d just have to keep sniffing and hope that
someone misstepped before his hope withered like a plucked rose. “Thanks for your help,” he said to Lola and Zoltan. “Give
my regards to Ward.”
He drove to Beacon Hill and found Philippa alone, breakfasting with her fan mail. She didn’t look pleased to see him, but
that could have been due to a dearth of makeup. “Is Emily at home?” he asked.
“No, she’s at the doctor’s.” Philippa took off her glasses and tried to lead the detective into the den. En route, she realized
that this was the second day in a row he had seen her in the same white peignoir. “So! What brings you here?” she asked in
clipped tones.
“I thought you’d like to know that I’ve talked to Agatha Street, the waitress who served you at the party in New York. A woman
in a black turban indeed switched drinks with you there.”
“Why, that’s wonderful. That little twit has a remarkable memory.”
“Indeed. Miss Street also remembered that she had already spoken to you about this at length while your manager was in the
hospital.”
Philippa laughed lightly. “I think you’re right. I had forgotten. At the time I was so distraught over his illness.”
“I also spoke to the waiter Franco,” O’Keefe continued. “He said you had been asking him questions about a woman in a turban
shortly after your manager took ill.”