Caught Dead in Philadelphia (16 page)

Mackenzie took a break from conversation to savor his chocolate ice cream. “Raymond considers my chocolate obsession overcompensation for racial guilt,” he said when he had finished the scoop. “I wish somebody hadn't thought it was cute to put me with Raymond.”

“I
hate
to interrupt again, but I thought you might like this.” Beth carried a tray with frosty glasses, a pitcher of iced tea with mint leaves, and a tray of homemade cookies. She put it on the table between us and filled the two glasses. Then, beaming, she retreated once again while we both murmured thanks. I was beginning to feel like a Strasbourg goose.

“Where were we?” Mackenzie asked.

“With the perfect Mr. C,” I finally managed. “The one who followed his infant schedule from birth, crossed only at corners, and never cheated on an exam.”

“I'm still lookin' for some kind of motive, too. Maybe he knew about Eddie?”

“You didn't leave! Goody,” Karen said, having completed the shortest nap in recorded history. “I want to show you my playhouse, C.K.” She tugged at him, urging him to the back of the garden where Sam had lovingly constructed a sort of earthbound tree house for his daughter. I wasn't invited to join them.

“One second,” Mackenzie said. “Let me give your auntie something to read first.” He extracted a fat square of yellow papers from the patch pocket of his corduroy jacket. “Here's something, maybe,” he said in his decisive way. “Mrs. Nichols's contribution.”

“You were there, too?”

“I get around, kiddo. I was there three times this week. Found this the second time. Tuesday morning. But don't get riled. We weren't for sure on the same team then, remember?”

“Come on,” Karen said. I looked at the sheaf of thin second sheets, a carbon copy of a play called
Never Say Forever.

There was a scrawled note about the title. “Please reconsider,” it said. “Can't we at least try it
onstage
? This could help us both. Let me know soon.
Please?
” The last underlining was heavy enough to have ripped the tissue paper. I didn't need to look at the author's name typed below the title. I knew Gus's handwriting.

The stage directions didn't help. “Scene One: Interior of a run-down apartment. Stacks of old newspapers fill the corners. Opened cans, etc., stand on counter of Pullman kitchen.
Michael Fillmore
, age around forty, unshaven and homely, sits on unmade bed. He rises and crosses to small icebox, one arm hanging lifelessly and right leg dangling.”

I didn't read the dialogue. I flipped through the pages, seeing enough that way. A young girl entered, described as “beautiful, in an earthy, unclassical way, as a Gypsy might be. Her clothing is flashy, unconventional.”

Act One ended with them on the still-unmade bed.

“Well?” Mackenzie said when he had finally satisfied Karen and been released back to me.

“I felt like a voyeur. There are parts of a person that just aren't for public display.”

“He was hopin' to have the whole thing displayed.”

“Still, it's so sad.”

“Maybe it's more than sad.”

“I don't care. Even if it wasn't over for him emotionally. Even if—”

“That play could have turned his life around,” Mackenzie said. “He'd be acting again. Safely, in a tailor-made part nobody could deny him. He would have a produced play to his credit. His whole life could have changed, gone nearer to where he'd once aimed for.”

“Somebody else could have played the girl's part if Liza declined.”

“Sure, but Winston's obsessed with her. Did you read the ending?”

I shook my head.

“The guy gets himself together, doesn't need her anymore. That's the good news. The bad news is he only finds that out after she dies.”

“You're not saying—”

“Of course not.”

“That must be what he wanted to talk to Liza about,” I said. “Sunday night, then Monday morning.” Oh, God, had he called her from school about the script? And had he gone there to reason with her and heard, instead, damning, destructive things? It wasn't just his artistic ego on the line in this; it was his life.

“I wasn't going to show you the script,” Mackenzie said. “It is indeed private and painful, and it may be irrelevant. But I thought you'd be safer if you understood Gus a little better.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Let's take these plates in,” he said. I tagged along.

“You've got quite a daughter here,” he told Beth.

“You've got quite a way with children,” she answered. I knew that Beth hoped her daughter had driven Mackenzie to a feverish need for children of his own, children of the same basic gene pool as Karen. And I knew that Mackenzie knew that, and that made it bearable.

But I didn't listen to their mutual back patting. I thought about Gus, my good Gus who saw himself as a deformed, pathetic failure. Gus, still replaying his relationship and ending it, finally, unequivocally.

Beth busied herself at the sink, and Mackenzie took his attention off the gleaming kitchen counters. “One more thing,” he said to me, too softly to be overheard. “When Winston visited Liza's mother Tuesday night, he was nervous about this script. Told her that Liza had borrowed it and it was needed immediately. She was afraid to say that the police had it. He made her search through Liza's room.”

Of course, he might have simply wanted to keep it private. And of course, all his questions to me about what the police knew still could have been altruistic, concerned only about my welfare.

Beth turned off the water. “Do you think your husband would mind bein' disturbed?” Mackenzie asked her. “I have a question for him.”

Beth was ready to grant Mackenzie anything, certainly something as easy as Sam. She didn't seem to wonder why he wanted the audience, but I did. I was sure he wasn't asking Sam about contracts or for my hand.

But when he came out of Sam's study, he offered a smile and farewells instead of information. He didn't really kiss Beth's hand and ride off on a white charger, but you couldn't tell that from her expression.

“He's so attractive,” she murmured.

I nodded, but I wasn't thinking about Mackenzie; I was thinking about murder. Why does someone kill? Because he wants something, Sam had said. Power, money, love. But it all finally boils down to self-defense. A person takes another's life because his own seems in danger. So the trick is figuring out what is seen as vital, essential to sustain life.

My flash of insight was as long-lived and illuminating as a firefly's light. I still knew nothing.

I thought, instead, about the night ahead. Something was going to happen. Something big. My mood—a combination of fear, intense interest, and anxious excitement—felt familiar. My skin had felt this tight and tingly before; my mind had been dizzied by “what ifs.” Some other time, I had been unsteady on my feet, half running forward and half holding back. But since I'd never knowingly mingled with murderers before, what was this feeling and why was it so familiar?

And then I laughed out loud.

I'd felt this way most of my adolescence. The same eagerness and avoidance, prurient interest tinged with disbelief and fear, the same nervous, delighted speculation. I'd felt like this all that long waiting time between hearing the facts of life and getting a chance to try them out.

Fourteen

I arrived at the carnival ready to give my all. But if the anxious excitement had been familiar, so was the letdown I now felt. In the same ancient past, the first boy to whom I'd offered my young self had nearly died of fear. I tend to rush things, tend to be disappointed, and tend not to learn anything from the experience.

The carnival grounds were nearly deserted. There was nobody to give my all or my anything to.

Instead, I helped Beth unwrap and stack several boxcar loads of hot dog rolls. I opened industrial-size jars of mustard and relish and filled trays with potato chips and coleslaw.

“Now, run along, you three,” Beth insisted after a time, and heigh-ho, we finally went to the fair. Sam, Karen, and I milled around, checking the various offerings before the real crowds arrived.

I was impressed by the extravagance and size of what was, after all, a local fund-raiser. I had expected amateurish, homemade games, but this was a large, ambitious affair sprawling over several acres of a shopping center's street-side parking lot.

Which was not to say it was thrilling or even interesting for a long spell, as Sam and I tagged behind Karen and observed, or participated in, games with blow tubes and balloons, tiny fishing rods and goldfish, and a picture version of blackjack.

And then it became that time of evening when outlines grow fuzzy and I suspect I have contracted glaucoma. And suddenly, the lights went on.

“Ooooh, look!” Karen shouted as the scalloped umbrella of the merry-go-ground came alive with white sparklers and the Ferris wheel spun in multicolored glory.

The mechanisms, spokes, engines, and gears disappeared, and only the glitter remained. We were suddenly in another place altogether, at a carnival real and true where nothing ordinary could happen. Karen wasn't the only one to sense the magic. People began arriving and filling the walkways.

“The sky jumper, Daddy,” Karen said. “Can I go on it now, before everybody wants to?” We wandered over to a huge plastic bubble with a trampoline interior, and I held Karen's shoes as she bounced around inside of it. “Sam,” I said, now that we were alone, “what did Mackenzie want to talk about today? Can you tell me?”

Sam looked surprised, but mildly, as was his wont. “Old history,” he finally said. “Nothing particularly relevant, I should think. Something that happened in college, to be precise.”

“To you?”

He shook his head and seemed to feel that answered my question.

I prodded. “So the two of you reminisced about the good old days?”

“They weren't good at all just then,” Sam said. “The fellow in question hanged himself. In the upstairs bathroom of the fraternity house.” He shook his head. “Horrible time. A few days before graduation. His, of course. I was only a freshman, a pledge. I had thought of him as the ideal, something to aim for. He was about to begin a military career in the Air Force. Good record, good-looking, popular, and he hanged himself three days before graduation.”

“Why?”

“Nobody knew. They say he left a note for his folks.”

“I mean, why would Mackenzie ask you about a dead fraternity brother?”

“I'm sure he had his reasons.” Sam had an unbelievable lack of curiosity. “His questions were very specific.”

Karen bounced out of the sky jumper, and I handed her the red canvas shoes. “Specific how?” I asked Sam. “What were they?”

Sam, who was now helping his daughter tie her laces, looked up at me and sighed. I could tell before he spoke that I had definitely exceeded his limits. Frankly, I was surprised he had told me anything. “You might want to ask your detective friend about it yourself,” Sam finally said before returning to his paternal duties.

I stood corrected. And then, speaking of the devil, or detective, I saw my defender shuffling toward us, his shoulders slumped. “Havin' fun?” he asked pleasantly when he reached us.

“Oh, a keen time. Frankly, marking vocabulary tests is more exciting than this detective business.”

Sam stood up, groaning like a geriatric case. “Hungry, you two? Karen needs sustenance.”

“We'll join you at the food booth in a few minutes,” Mackenzie said. It was the changing of the guard, and the Wymans walked off. “I brought you somethin',” he said. “Now that you're officially redeputized, you might want to feel more like a trained professional. We are expert in disguises, you know.” He pulled a tangled plastic mess from his jacket pocket. “Voilà,” he drawled, putting on heavy plastic eyeglasses supporting an enormous red nose and black mustache. “See? You'll wear this and be out of danger completely. People will rush to tell you secrets, never guessin' your true identity.” He transferred the glasses and mustache to my face.

“It's hard to breathe in there, ah know,” he said. “This is no line of work for snivelers.”

“We're going to wander around like this?” I asked, sounding a lot like a duck.

“Not ‘we.' You. Ah'm doin' a stint at the food booth. Impressin' your sister on company time.”

“Sorry,” I said, taking off the nose. “The mustache clashes with my hair. Before you split, could you tell me something? Why did you ask Sam about a fraternity brother of his?”

“Tell you what,” he said as we walked the fairgrounds, dodging happy carnival-goers. “Try to figure it out while I serve. If you can't, I'll explain it all later. Clue—I used information you yourself gave me.” We arrived at Beth's stand. He clicked his heels. “Mackenzie reporting, Ma'am. We also serve who only stand and serve.”

Beth glowed as she explained the intricacies of manning the various scoops.

“I think I've got it,” he said finally. “Why don't you take a break? You must be exhausted.”

Beth looked bemused and very young. “I'd love a chance to look around,” she said.

I knew what she planned to look at. My soul. Outside, in the shadow near the booth, she took my arm. “He is a perfectly wonderful man,” she said. “There aren't many like that. I do hope you're making the most of this opportunity.”

“I worship the ground he walks on. I think of him night and day. I've never met anyone like him before.” I knew I was setting myself up for further complications later, but my words made Beth so happy, it was worth it.

“Do not, however, plan the wedding yet,” I added.

“I can't imagine what you're talking about.”

“Do not push. Do not pass ‘go.' Do not oversell.”

“What on earth am I selling?”

“Coleslaw, because nothing else is on the market. Remember that.” I walked back and ordered the works from Mackenzie, and then, anchored by Sam at my side, a sagging paper plate in one hand and Karen holding the other, I sauntered off.

“I want to ride the Ferris wheel,” Karen said. “Come up with me, Aunt Mandy?”

“I can't just now,” I said, shoving the hot dog roll into my mouth. “I'm eating.”

Her father offered to be her copilot. I walked beside them to the waiting line. I didn't even like looking up and seeing those little seats dangling and lurching, stopping and starting.

“Aunt Mandy's afraid,” Karen said as we edged forward in line.

“I'm eating. I told you.” I broke a single potato chip into four sections, chewing each one slowly.

“Fortunes?” a voice sang out. “Let the Gypsy read your palm. Fifty cents. Only fifty cents for charity.”

She wore a black wig, heavy makeup, and a red satin gown recycled from a bordello. Without the beige hair and shotgun questions, Sissie Bellinger was hard to recognize.

“Fortune, Meester?” she asked Sam. “Geepsy weel read your palm.” She tossed her head and stomped like Carmen. I knew why she hadn't gone far in the theater.

Sam smiled and pulled out more of his declining capital. “Why not?” he said. “Fortunes all around. On me.”

The line moved up again. We'd be the next batch to fill up the Ferris wheel. I could either be honest and admit my fears—and have them try to help me conquer them, or I could keep on eating. I chewed a single cube of relish.

Sissie wasn't terrifically inventive. She oohed and aahed at Karen's little hand. “I see travel in the sky in your future. Excitement.”

“The Ferris wheel!” Karen said with delight. Then even she caught on. “You can see we're in line! No fair!”

“Geepsy knows fortune from lines on your hand, little one,” Sissie said. But she sighed and looked for something new. “Here, a strong lifeline, see? A long life. Adventures. Much love. But you have a strong will. You must listen to the wisdom of your parents. Always.”

Karen scowled. She looked as if she might report the palmist to the Better Business Bureau.

Sissie polished her act for the grown-up clientele. “The line of the heart is not so long as the line of the head,” she said to Sam. “You're a thinker. A deep man. And I see a good marriage here with much affection and kindness from this long heart line.” She ran her fingers lightly over his palm. “But not altogether the thinker,” she said with a low chuckle. She prodded the fleshy area near his thumb and suddenly remembered her accent. “Thees ees the mound of Venus. For love.” She chuckled again. “Yours ees very well developed.”

And I would have sworn he'd gotten that puffiness from holding a pen tightly, but what did I know? It was an intriguing new aspect of Sam. He pursed his mouth in an attempt not to smile.

“Next,” the guardian of the Ferris wheel said. “Fill 'em up, folks. Come right along.”

“You coming, Aunt Mandy?”

“I'm eating.” I stepped away from the line as the others entered the boxy, teetering seats.

“I'll do yours now,” Sissie announced.

“It's all right. I'll take a rain check. My palms are greasy anyway.”

But Sissie grabbed my free hand, laughing and tossing her acrylic tresses. “Your brother-in-law, he paid for eet,” she said. I still clutched the plastic fork.

She shook her head slowly, making her gold-hoop earrings sway. “Umm.” She turned my palm up with a surprisingly strong grip. The fork hurt my fingers.

“The head here is not so well developed as the heart.” She looked up at me from under her false lashes. “You are the type to leap before looking? To become involved in things before you understand them, then?”

“Perhaps,” I said lightly. No flattering sexual surprises in my palm, I guessed. Sissie kept her pale brown eyes on mine and her fingernail dug into my underdeveloped head line, if that was what that wrinkle was.

“Yes,” she said, looking back at my palm. “Yes, you do. You interfere. You don't think. It is a dangerous trait, one to be avoided.”

“In general, Sissie? Or in some specific instance you'd like to mention?”

“In every instance,” she said slowly. “Look.” The smell of camphor floated off her black wig. “The lifeline.” She ran her fingernail down the curvy line near my thumb. “It breaks. Poof! Soon, perhaps.”

I looked. She was right about the break, although no specific termination date was imprinted. “Wow,” I said. “You must have majored in palmistry at Bryn Mawr. But what does it mean?”

“What do you think it means? Stay out of things that don't concern you. Don't make things worse than they are. Save your life.” My hand twitched, or flinched, trying to break her grip. “Good,” she said, “you are finally nervous. Perhaps your head is beginning to work as it should.”

“The fork is beginning to work its way through my skin, Sissie. Let go. It's your hand that's twitching. Or showing.”

She stared at me, still clenching my hand. Her nail and the fork tines dug into my flesh. Maybe she was trying to elongate my lifeline as an act of charity.

“Sissie,” I said softly, “what is it that you want?”

“Only what I deserve,” she snapped. “Nothing more.” She threw my hand away like a crumpled napkin and swished off, threadbare red satin and thick black hair merging into the crowd.

I looked down. My abbreviated lifeline smarted from her claws. It ended with the half-moon imprint of a nail. “This is where you get off,” it seemed to say.

I wasn't supposed to be playing sleuth, only gathering information, but I knew that my encounter with Sissie would sound like much less than it had been, so I began my own deductions, despite Mackenzie's warnings.

The Ferris wheel crowd returned to earth. “Forty minutes, folks, before the auction” sounded over the loudspeaker. “All booths and amusements will close in forty minutes. There's still plenty of popcorn and fun, so step right up.”

It was a siren call to Karen, who obviously had been given an unlimited pocketbook. “I want to go to the Magic Maze of Mystery,” she said. “Before it closes.”

“I don't think you'll like it,” I protested. The kid slept with a Sunny Bug night-light and the hall door wide open. She didn't seem the type for even fake, hokey scares.

“Nicholas Nelson went through. He said it was okay. He said there's a gorilla in there who's really his father.”

“Sam, do you think she should—” But Sam looked oddly distracted. “I'll, ah, meet you there, or at its exit,” he said. “I have to—excuse me, please. Here.” He handed over the little cardboard tickets he'd bought and walked toward a Porta-John at the edge of the parking lot. He'd been a brave man to add the Ferris wheel to the food concession's offerings.

“Please, Aunt Mandy? It won't scare you.”

“I'm not worried about me.” We walked over to the sidewalk and the shops. Next to a place called Denim Heaven, a vacant store had been boarded and blackened. Above the dark window an old sign still read “Fresh Fish.”

“They've done an incredible job,” the volunteer said while ripping up our little tickets of admission. “The family who runs the theatrical supply house downtown took the whole thing on themselves. Not your run-of-the-mill fun house. You'll love it.”