Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 05 - Trouble on the Doorstep (8 page)

This boyfriend business is complicated.

THE HARVEST FOR
ALL food pantry had been exceptionally busy since Hurricane Sandy. Even if a home wasn’t damaged, lots of people lost all their food because the power was out for two days.

For once we didn’t have to scramble for goods.
The Red Cross and half a dozen grocery stores gave us so much food that we stored it in First Presbyterian’s huge community room and the hallway outside the room where we distribute food, which is attached to the church’s community room area.

The pantry is set up kind of like a dry cleaner’s shop, except instead of clothing hanging everywhere we have rows of shelves and some refrigerated cases.
You want to work with people you like because at some point in an afternoon you’re going to bump into each other’s backsides.

Usually our committee meetings are to figure out how to raise money, and since food had been pouring in for weeks we’d focused on passing out the stuff.
Now we had to get back to the business of raising money.

I glanced around the small conference room as our stalwarts gathered.
It was a really cold night for a Tuesday in early December, so I hadn’t been sure how many would come.

Dr. Welby (who abides no teasing about his name) looked tired.
He’s retired but he had volunteered with the public health office in Atlantic City for two weeks, mostly giving tetanus shots and helping people get their prescription drugs in order after they lost them in the storm. Not terribly taxing, perhaps, but more than he was used to. And he surely talked to a lot of frightened and frustrated people. That would take its toll.

Sylvia Parrett was sitting ramrod straight, but talking with more animation than usual to Monica and Aretha.
The door in the outer hall banged and I heard Scoobie and Lance Wilson in what sounded like a bit of an argument. That was unusual. Scoobie drafted himself onto the committee last year, and I’ve just invited Megan, my favorite volunteer, to join us. She was not talking to anyone, and I knew she would be more comfortable after Scoobie came in.

As everyone got seated I opened my folder.
I’d compiled a list of fundraising ideas that we’d discussed at other meetings, and I began to pass them to the others. “As long as I don’t have to sit above a carnival dunk tank again I’m pretty much open to anything,” I said.

“You might want to reserve your opinion,” Lance said, dryly.

Everyone looked at Scoobie, who grinned. “I thought we could get some of the kids from the teen group involved in a fundraiser, then maybe ease them into helping us stock shelves or something.”

“That could make some sense,” Monica said as she hugged her cardigan a little more tightly.

“What are you thinking about, Scoobie?” Aretha asked. She’s our only black committee member, Reverend Jamison having drafted her when she came to the church to get flyers to put in laundromats. She lectured him about why we should publicize the pantry in places where poor people go. He listens.

“We need something fun, that a lot of people can participate in, maybe with a food theme.”

Lance Wilson rolled his eyes.

“I take it you have something in mind,” I said to Scoobie.

“Did you ever wonder how really tiny people can eat so many hot dogs?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said.

“You mean one of those eating contests where people stuff food?” Sylvia looked scandalized.

“Pretty much,” Scoobie said.
I bet we could get companies to sponsor participants. You know, they pay $100 to enter someone, and they bring lots of people to watch, and they pay to watch…”

“Hmm.”
When Dr. Welby talks, everyone else stops. “Do you think a contest such as that sets the right tone?”

“Would that be a different tone than dunking people at the carnival, or staging fights with fake pirate swords?”
Scoobie asked with an expression of feigned innocence.

“It’s just that when we work with people who have so little food, it seems,” Lance searched for words, “extravagant.”

“Wasteful,” Sylvia said, her lips in a thin line.

“Do we cook the hotdogs?” Monica asked.

THE MEETING WENT downhill from there.
The only thing that kept us from something akin to fisticuffs was when Megan said her daughter Alicia and her best friend had the idea. We all like Alicia.

“I keep telling you,” I said to Scoobie, as I drove him back to his rooming house, “Ideas are great.
But why do you have to disrupt the meetings before I get to the stuff we absolutely have to discuss?” My hands were almost shaking on the steering wheel. I couldn’t remember ever being so mad at Scoobie.

“Because if I wait until you and Lance are through talking about something like whether to move the checking account to a credit union everyone will be asleep.”

“But they wouldn’t leave angry! These are volunteers. They don’t have to be there.”

Scoobie didn’t say anything for about ten seconds, which can seem like a long time.
“Maybe you don’t want me there,” he said, quietly.

“Don’t do that,” I said.

“Do what?” he asked.

“You’re doing that passive-aggressive stuff they talk about in All-Anon.”
I had learned that some people are very indirect in making criticisms and suggestions, and I was kind of pleased with myself for remembering the term that describes that.

“Damn.
You actually listen in the meetings.”

“You have to or you don’t know when you’re supposed to talk,” I said.

“Jolie, you don’t
have
to…” he began.

“Don’t distract me.
I’m not kidding, Scoobie. Monica’s growing on me, and I don’t like working with Sylvia any more than you do. But she has every right to her opinions…”

“Her stuffed up, judgmental, board-up-her-butt opinions?
Those opinions?” he asked.

“Which differ from yours only because you think you’re funny when you bring up these wild ideas.”
I was sorry as soon as I said it. Scoobie doesn’t have a board up his butt.

Fifteen seconds is an even longer pause.

“Okay, I take your point, or some of it.” Scoobie’s voice was very even. “I’ll wait until it’s time for suggestions in the meetings. But I’m not saying I won’t have wild ideas. Besides,” his usual tone was coming back, “Mr. Markle already told me the grocery store can buy us hotdogs for fifty cents for an eight-pack if he tells his supplier it’s for charity.”

I had just pulled up in front of Scoobie’s rooming house, so I put my head on the cool steering wheel of my Toyota.
“What about the mustard?”

I WAS STILL half mad at Scoobie when I pulled into the B&B lot. There were two men sitting on the porch swing. I was in a brief panic, because I didn’t remember any guests for tonight and I wondered why Aunt Madge hadn’t mentioned that any guests were a gay couple. I briefly wondered if they would both fit in a double bed.

Then I realized it was George, with Bill Oliver.
I almost giggled, but of course they weren’t there because anything was funny. I got out of the car quickly.

Bill was halfway off the porch and he grabbed me for a hug.

“I’m so sorry, Bill.” I caught George’s eye as I looked across Bill’s shoulder. He gave me a kind of helpless shrug, sort of saying he didn’t know where else to bring Bill. That’s when I realized Bill was sobbing, deep gulping sobs.

“Come on Bill, we’re going inside.”
I more or less disengaged him and tossed George my keys. I linked my arm through Bill’s as we walked.

“I’m so sorry,” Bill was saying.

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Your brother just died.”
Why did you say that?

Bill kept crying and trying to stop at the same time.

By now George had figured out which key went to the front door and let us in.
“Thanks,” I said, giving him a quick smile.

We’d almost gotten to Aunt Madge’s living area when the beeps started.
“Oh, crud,” I said, and stopped patting Bill’s arm. I ran to the small table in the foyer and pulled open the drawer. I had changed the code, but they say not to make it a number anyone could figure out, so I picked numbers at random. And forgot them. No alarm code in the drawer.
Where did I put that paper?

“You don’t know the code?” George asked?
I could tell he was trying not to laugh.

“I changed it and put it somewhere secure.”
I ran around George and Bill into the kitchen.
Uh oh.

Beep, beep, beep.
The alarm had switched from a warning sound to a full-fledged intruder alert.

“Damn!”
I pulled open kitchen drawers and the phone rang. “Can you get it?” I asked George.

“Uh huh.”
He paused. “Yes, it’s Madge Richards’ house. Yes sir. Her niece, Jolie, is scrambling around looking for the alarm code.”

Bill had stopped crying and I saw his eyes scan the kitchen counters.

“Yes,” George was saying, “I know you called yesterday.

I was hot and red-faced. “I give up.” I sank into a chair by the kitchen table.

“I’ll ask her.”
George turned to me. “He said your aunt has a code word to let the security company know she’s all right.” He was grinning broadly.

I glared at him.

“Hey, it’s not my fault…”

“Mister Rogers, stop it!”
I had just noticed he was on his fourth lap around the loveseat. He hates shrill noises.

“Oh yes, it is very good she knew it.”
George was laughing so hard he leaned against the wall by the phone.

I stepped into Aunt Madge’s small pantry, which has the main floor circuit breaker box, and flipped off the circuit for the alarm.

“Knew what?” Bill asked.

I went back into the kitchen and stared at both of them.
Then I got it. “Her code word is Mister Rogers?”

George wiped his eyes.
“It’s Madge’s kitchen. Make some tea or something.”

I looked at Bill.
“I’m really sorry about all this.”

He gave me a weak smile.
“I guess it helped me stop crying.”

I gave him another hug and gestured to the loveseat and chairs as I walked over to turn on the kettle.
“Anything stronger?” I asked over my shoulder.

“No.
Maybe,” he said.

There was half a case of C
hampagne in the basement, left over from the wedding. I figured I’d offer that or some of the Amaretto. I reached into the pantry and pulled out the Amaretto bottle. “Damn it!”

George and Bill stopped their conversation.
“What?” George asked.

“Pooki drank the rest of the Amaretto.
She must have come downstairs that night, when I was sleeping.” I’d have to get more before Aunt Madge and Harry got back. It’s the only thing Aunt Madge drinks.

“Sounds like Pooki,” Bill said.
“She never misses a drink if she can help it.”

“You mean you gave her booze?” George asked.

“She asked for it and I put some in her tea,” I said. “Would you get a bottle of Champagne from the cellar?”

George went downstairs and I poured three mugs of tea.
Bill hadn’t actually said he wanted any, but I think hot tea cuts down the snot content after a good cry. I set the three mugs on the butcher block cutting board and carried them into the sitting area and put them on the coffee table that sits between the loveseat and the chairs opposite it. On the coffee table was the piece of paper with the alarm code. I barely stopped myself from swearing—a lot.

Bill looked up from petting Miss Piggy.
Mister Rogers was supervising by resting his snout on Bill’s other elbow. “Thanks. I’m glad George thought it was okay to come over.”

“I wish it could be different for you, Bill.”

“Me, too. And for my parents. They alternate between being catatonic and having these long crying jags.” He looked around the room and I figured he was thinking about where Eric had been found. The cleaning guy had done such a great job you couldn’t tell.

“It was in here,” I said, gently.
“Do you want to know more than that?”

He shook his head and I heard George coming back up the stairs.
“Are you staying here until Steve’s funeral?” I asked.

“I’ll be back and forth.
The kids need me. You wouldn’t believe how many rotten teeth kids have in Newark, and there’re only two of us in the practice.”

At the tenth high school reunion Bill sat with Ramona and me part of the time.
He talked a lot about his pediatric dental practice while his ex-wife shot dirty looks at us from across the room. “You can stay here if you need to,” I said.

“Thanks.
That means a lot.” He took a glass of champagne, which George had put in an orange juice glass. After a sip he looked at both of us. “Listen, I wondered if, well, I wanted your help with something.”

“Sure,” George and I said together.
George sat next to me on the loveseat and gave my hand a squeeze before he picked up his tea from the coffee table and added champagne to it.

Bill leaned back and shut his eyes for a moment.
His close-cropped brown hair was cut shorter than usual, and at almost six feet tall he looked very out of place on Aunt Madge’s peach-colored upholstered chair. I glanced at his hands and wondered how hands that big could work on little kids’ mouths.

He opened his eyes and sat forward again.
“I went by the police station again today. They’ve been nicer than all get out, but they either can’t or won’t tell me a lot. I halfway think Morehouse is willing to consider this is more than a hit and run, but my sense is that no one is going to look too hard at any other options. Their focus is on Eric now, and I get that. They just don’t seem confident about finding the car that hit Steve.”

“Any reason why they should know where to look?” George asked, pulling his thin reporter’s notebook out of his breast pocket.
Bill glanced at it. “It’s a habit,” George said. “I won’t repeat what you say.”

Bill nodded, and I figured if George wanted to use what Bill said later he’d figure out a way to do it.
Friendship only goes so far in his world.

“The thing is, it rained later, but when Steve was hit, the pavement wasn’t wet and it wasn’t dark.
He was next to his car, but the car wasn’t hit.”

“I noticed that,” George said.
“Like they were…”

“Aiming?” I asked, remembering that Eric had the same thought.

Bill shrugged. “It seems that if they were that far out of their lane they would have hit Steve’s car. Seems like it would be almost harder to miss the car and just hit him.” His voice was getting choked again and he took a tissue from the box on the coffee table and blew his nose.

“I thought about that,” George said.
“There weren’t any skid marks.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“How come you didn’t put that in the article?”

“I said there was no indication that anyone had tried to stop,” he said.

Bill nodded. “I saw that.”

“They probably didn’t want to hit the car because it would leave marks on theirs,” I said.

“Give it a rest, Jolie,” George said, in a kind of curt tone.

Bill looked at us, and when he seemed to guess that I was trying to keep from saying something bitchy to George he continued.
“The thing is, that note Steve got. It seems pretty clear now that it wasn’t a prank. Someone didn’t want Steve and Eric to bid, and then when they knew Steve and Eric were coming, the bid submission meeting was canceled. Well, they said delayed. Steve called me, really frustrated. They said they weren’t going to even let him and Eric leave their bid package. I guess they were going to go in anyway.”

“Wouldn’t Silver Times have to issue some formal meeting cancellation or something?” I asked.

“Nope,” George said.
“It wasn’t a public project. They could do anything they wanted, assuming their board approved it.”

“So, you talked to Steve after he found out it was canceled?” I asked.

“Yes, and part of me wishes he hadn’t called. It made the police think everything was perfectly normal. I can’t see how it can be a coincidence that he died when he was outside that place, but they think if he had time for ‘a chat,’ that’s what Lt. Tortino called it, there was nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Other than that somebody ran him down,” George said, eyes on his notebook.

Could you be a bit more thoughtless?
George appeared to remain clueless.

Bill shut his eyes for a second and then opened them.
“Yeah. I guess Tortino meant nothing about Steve’s day seemed to link his death to what was going on in his life.”

“Maybe, but then there was Eric,” I said.
I could feel George tense a bit. He probably wanted Bill to keep talking.

“And of course no one thinks
that
was an accident,” Bill said. His tone was bitter. He took a big gulp of his champagne.

“You don’t think Eric’s death will make them look harder at Steve’s?” George asked.

“Sure, but they didn’t have any solid evidence that Steve was murdered before, and poor Eric’s death isn’t going to manufacture any.” Bill paused for a moment. “Not in terms of the hit-and-run itself, anyway. Morehouse seemed to imply it might be a drunk driver. He said they were checking a lot of body shops in the county and nearby towns.”

I had wondered about whether the car that hit Steve would have a lot of damage.
He was likely wearing a heavy coat. Given the amount of traffic in eastern New Jersey, almost every car has a couple of dents. I wasn’t too hopeful about the police finding a car that might have damage that was obviously from a hit and run.

“But it sure reinforces some motive, whether it was something about the bid or not.”
I said.

Bill nodded.
“I saw Scoobie down at Java Jolt. He said you’d been out there, and that Elmira…”

“Did you go back out there?” George asked, turning a bit so he could look at me.

Bill stiffened.

“He’s not mad,” I said to Bill.
“The detective he hires to keep track of me must have taken a potty break.” I looked at George. “And I did not go back.”

“Very funny,” George said.

Bill gave an actual smile. “I thought it was really funny when Ramona said that you two were dating. I heard you threw his phone in the dunk tank at the carnival.”

“Not just the phone, which she still owes me for, by the way,” George said.

“I do not!”

“So what about Scoobie?” George asked.

Neutral topic. I’ve got George figured out more than he thinks I do
.

“Scoobie said Elmira thinks she got too high a preliminary repair estimate for her place.
Does that mean something?” Bill asked.

“I was going to see if I could find out if anyone else…” I began.

“You need to leave this to me,” George said, curtly.

There were about three seconds of silence, and Bill looked at each of us.

“Contrary to some opinions,” I said, in a light tone, “I still make my own decisions.”

“Sorry,” George said, gruffly.
“I just get tired of you getting into trouble.”

I knew this dating business would have some complications.
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, this time trouble landed directly on the doorstep.” I said.

“But you let it in,” George said.
He was writing in his notebook and didn’t look at me.

Bill’s expression looked even more pained.

“You know Pooki, right?” I asked.

Bill nodded.
“Sure, not well. She’s an acquired taste, kind of depends on her mood. But she and Eric were crazy about each other. She’s really hurting right now.”

I could relate to the acquired taste part, but didn’t say so.
“Does Steve leave a grieving girlfriend?” I had not seen a mention of a wife in any news account.