Hearse of a Different Color (Hitchcock Sewell Mysteries) (9 page)

After soaking up the blissful scene for a time, I pawed through my pocket and found the photograph that Vickie Waggoner had given me. Helen smiled up at me. What were the words that Vickie had used to describe her sister?
A scrapper.
I thought about my visit to Sinbad’s the night before. I tried to picture Helen still alive, working a shift at the lounge. I tried to picture her laughing with her customers. Or gently telling some drunken widget salesman to get his hammy paws off her. Or maybe not so gently, come to think of it. I knew I shouldn’t go romanticizing the dead. This happy snapshot notwithstanding, I gathered from Vickie’s portrait of her sister that Helen hadn’t at all suffered fools gladly. Was this partly why she was killed? Was it possible that Helen simply told the wrong person in the wrong way to stuff it? People kill for a lot less these days, it seems.

“Mr. Sewell? Is that you?”

I looked left and right. A person in a parka stood about ten feet away. I couldn’t be certain if this was who had called my name. The parka’s hood was up and completely obstructing whoever was in there. A voice—the same one—came from within the fur-lined periscope.

“It’s Mr. Sewell, isn’t it? Ann Kingman.” The hood came down. It was the wife of the doctor we had just buried a few days before. I got up off my rock and pulled off my glove to shake her hand. Her glove, actually.

“Well, you’re certainly the last person I would have expected to see here,” she said.

“Mrs. Kingman. Yes, fancy meeting you here.”

“Well I live here,” she said.

“Oh. I didn’t know.”

“So what brings you here?”

“I was just in the neighborhood. I remembered this little place from a couple of winters ago. It’s nice.”

“Yes it is.” She didn’t say it with much enthusiasm. She was wearing one of those wide thermal elastics around her head. The word “BRUNDAGE” was printed on it. It looked a little like a bandage.

“How are you managing? If I may ask.”

She looked out over the frozen ponds and took a moment. “I want to apologize for my behavior the other night. I was more upset than I was letting on.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“I’m afraid I treated you like the hired help. I’m not always so bitchy. Honestly.”

I started to point out to her that I
was
the hired help. I had a check made out to me for a nice tidy sum to prove it.

“Trust me, Mrs. Kingman, I’ve had some pretty loopy behavior go on at wakes and funerals. You were fine.”

She looked out again at the frozen ponds. “It’s funny. It’s not altogether registering that Richard is dead so much as that he is simply not there. Does that make any sense?”

“I understand that.”

“I mean, I’m very aware of his
not
being there. He’s not in the sunroom reading the paper. He’s not on the phone with the hospital. He’s not off in his workroom in the basement. But … my memory of him being in all those places is still fresh. It’s as if he’s
almost
there.”

She paused again and watched as the teenage couple put down their brooms and linked arms. A snowball zinged in an arc in front of us. “I’ll tell you what it’s like. Every time I walk into a room, it’s as if Richard has just stepped out of it. As if I’ve just missed him. It actually gets me very angry. But dead?” She made a face. “What’s that?”

Perhaps an undertaker is expected to have some sort of answer to that question. But I don’t have one. No matter, the doctor’s widow wasn’t really expecting one. This is the listening portion of my job.

“I do want to thank you again for all your help, Mr. Sewell. You and your aunt handled everything very smoothly.”

“I’m glad you were satisfied,” I said. “And it’s Hitch.”

“Well. Thank you. And it’s Ann.”

This time she took off
her
glove and we shook for a second time. The widow held my fingers a fraction longer than necessary. Her expression was frank and a little too scrutable for my liking.

“I guess I’m still in shock over the death of my husband. But I just don’t feel anything.”

“That can be a symptom of shock right there.”

“Perhaps.” She withdrew her hand and tucked it back into her glove. “Richard and I were very easy and familiar with each other. But I don’t really think we were very good friends anymore. A long time ago, maybe. But …” she trailed off and looked over at the elderly couple with the Thermos. When she looked back at me, her eyes had gone hard. She was about to say more, but just then a snowball ripped out of nowhere and grazed her just behind the ear.

“Sorry!”

A group of boys off near the street were aiming at street signs and lampposts. They weren’t aiming at us. I brushed some of the snow from Mrs. Kingman’s hair.

“You okay?”

“Oh, I’ll live.”

The snowball seemed to have taken the spirit completely out of her. She gave me a disappointed look. “Well, it was nice to see you again, Mr. Sewell.”

“Hitch.”

“Fine.” She batted some stray strands of hair from her face. “I hope you enjoy our pleasant little neighborhood.” I could taste her bitterness in my mouth.

“I will. Thank you, Ann.”

She looked over at the skaters on the ice. A spidering of crow’s-feet were spread out in small fan-shapes from the corner of her eyes. She was slipping now, and I think she knew it. Not on the ice. In her life.

She sighed. “Richard loved the snow. He would have been out here skating with all of them. I would have been back at the house, putting together a warm lunch for everyone.” She looked up at me. “You wouldn’t care for a cup of coffee, would you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Ann. But thanks.”

She started to say something, then changed her mind. She turned and headed back to her house. Where someone was always leaving a room the moment before she stepped into it.

I
was starving.

When I got back to the neighborhood, I popped into Julia’s gallery to see if maybe she wanted to join me for lunch. Even if she wasn’t hungry she’d still be pretty to look at while I chowed down. Julia likes being looked at; she’d have no problem with that.

There were several people milling about the gallery. They seemed to be confused by what they were seeing. I asked Chinese Sue, who was perched on her stool behind the counter, if the genius was in. Sue was reading a book about hydrogen. She gave me her patented blank look and raised a single finger. Upstairs.

Julia was creating. As I reached the top of the spiral staircase I found myself looking at a perfectly chiseled fellow, perfectly naked, seated atop a sheet-covered box. Julia’s hammock had been moved aside; the chiseled fellow was directly beneath the skylight, ablaze in the heatless white light. Julia stood some twenty feet away, behind her easel. She was wearing her silk bathrobe. Her hair was wet and finger-combed back off her face. The nonservice end of her paintbrush was tapping against her perfect teeth as she considered the hunk of golden flesh sitting on the box across the room.

“Hitch!”

I stepped past the mute model and over to my sexy exy. Julia lowered the paintbrush and gave me a peck on the cheek.

I looked at the canvas. It was entirely blank except for one small flesh-colored swab smack-dab in the middle. I glanced over at the model. Yes, she’d captured his swab perfectly.

“What do you think?”

“Are you going to force me to say ‘minimalism’?”

Julia tapped the paintbrush against her teeth again. Her pupils were dilated. She looked as happy as a clam.

“I’m savoring,” she whispered.

“How long have you been working on this?”

“This?” She looked over at her golden hunk. “Or that?” I reached out and took a pinch of Julia’s wet hair between my fingers. Then a pinch of her robe.

“
That
I think I can figure out. Would you like me to come back later?”

“No. That’s okay. This
is
later. Besides, the whole point of savoring is not to rush.” She called over to her model. “Nils, sweetie. That’ll be all for today. Thank you so much. I’ll give you a call at the embassy when I need you again.”

I turned my back on the fellow as he stood up and started to get dressed.

“Embassy?”

“Danish. Down in D.C. Nils is some sort of liaison. God knows. I don’t understand politics. I met him at an affair there last month.”

“An affair?”

“Function.”

Nils was dressed. Julia introduced us. The Dane’s grip was rock-solid. He was probably all of twenty-two. A lock of golden hair fell perfectly just above his right eye.

“I’ll call the embassy,” Julia said again, forming her words largely. She turned to me. “He speaks about ten words of English. He just came over. He’s from Elsinor. That’s where Hamlet was from. He’s somebody or other’s son.”

I noted that we’re all somebody’s son. Nils stepped over to the brass pole that runs from Julia’s studio—which is also where she lives—down to the gallery. Julia’s place used to be a fire station. It burned down. She renovated. She kept the pole. If she could have, she’d have kept the firemen.

Nils took hold of the pole and said, “Hello,” and dropped out of sight. Julia turned briskly to me. All refreshed.

“Life is beautiful, isn’t it?”

We supped at the Cup. The Admiral’s Cup. It turned out Julia was ravenous.

“I can’t remember the last time I ate.” Julia was licking the ice of her margarita off the slender pink straw. She saw the expression on my face and stuck her tongue out at me. “Stop it.”

“Did I say anything?”

“Volumes.”

They don’t serve margaritas at the Admiral’s Cup. They do across the street, at the Admiral Fell Inn, which is a fancier place. It had taken Julia all of three seconds to convince the bartender there to give her a margarita to go. It was probably something in the way she promised to bring the empty glass back later (“… when you’re not so busy …”) that clinched it. I hope I’m not giving the wrong impression of my ex-wife. I don’t think I am.

Julia asked for two orders of fish and chips. I had a turkey club and a bottle of beer. The Admiral’s Cup is right on the water, a stone’s throw from the Screaming Oyster just up the pier. Great turkey clubs. Superb bottles of beer. Just a happy-making place all around.

“I don’t remember if I told you, but I liked your zoo paintings the other day. Very clever stuff.”

“Thank you, Hitch. I’ll probably have to go out there every now and then to make sure they’re rotating them. I actually did put thought into that, you know. It’s not just a gimmick. It’s supposed to correspond with the zoo as an active place where the animals mill around and blah, blah, blah.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course, I’d really rather just stay home and paint Danish weenies.”

“Yes, but you’ve got to pay the bills.”

“You’re so right. Speaking of which, how’re things in the death business, dear Mr. Ghoul? Any more luscious bodies piling up on your doorstep?”

I told her no, just the one.

“Are there any new clues about who might have killed your little waitress? Have the police got any suspects?”

I told her that I didn’t know. “I don’t think so though. I’d think Kruk would give me a call if he had it wrapped up.”

“Kruk. He’s the one with dead eyes?”

“You mean he doesn’t look you up and down like every other male on the planet.”

“That’s what I just said.”

I started to tell Julia about my visit to Sinbad’s Cave. But at the mention of Bonnie’s name, Julia rolled her eyes.

“I would ask what it is that you see in that girl—except I know.”

“Don’t be jealous. It causes frown lines.”

“Pooh. I’m going to be jealous of a weather girl? On top of which, Hitch, she’s a
terrible
weather girl. My God, Albatross could do a better job predicting the weather.”

“Alcatraz. And you know it’s Alcatraz.”

“I prefer Albatross, what can I say. You got that mournful sad-faced creature right after you and I divorced. A deep and painfully obvious psychological statement, if you ask me.”

“Which I didn’t.”

“Furthermore, you name your new postmarriage companion after a notorious prison. You tell me. I don’t think I’m too far off the mark.”

“Julia, I got him when I was out in San Francisco on a trip. You know this. I was taking a sightseeing tour of Alcatraz Island and for some reason this silly dog was
on
the island. He hopped onto the tour boat and bounded over and jumped up on me. He nearly knocked me over. It was love at first sight.”

“Whatever.”

“Julia, I found him
on
Alcatraz. I really didn’t dig too terribly deep into my psyche to come up with the name.”

She finished off her margarita. “Still.”

I love that.
Still
. Women can defoliate an entirely succinct explanation with just one word. I suppose men can too, but we don’t do it nearly as well. Julia was giggling behind her drink. She knows how “
still
” infuriates me.

“There’s that face.” She broke into laughter. “I love that face!”

“Try this one.” I contorted, but I pretty much shot a blank. She had me and she knew it. Julia batted her eyes at the waiter and got him to run across the street and fetch her another drink.

“You could charm the pants off a fish,” I observed.

“That’s a good thing?”

I dragged the giddy lady back to the subject.

“So look. I was telling you. This place where Helen Waggoner worked? It was practically dripping in semen.”

Julia pointed a French fry at me. “I
can
be disgusted. Just so you know.”

I gave her a quick description of Sinbad’s Cave. She got the picture.

“Primarily businessmen, right? They’re staying at some airport hotel? Half hour from the city? They’ve seen everything on HBO. They want to unwind. They check out the local lounge. Lo and behold … women! Hitch, it’s not exactly a new idea. Strangers have been copulating with strangers for centuries.”

“I’m aware of this.”

“So do you think it might have been some psycho traveling salesman who killed your waitress?”