Make, Take, Murder (6 page)

My mother-in-law Sheila sputtered
up at me. “I could have tripped!”

Crunch. Her boot heel came down on two of the lights.

“Drat. I just got those up and working.”

“So what? I need to talk to you.”

“Anya okay?”

Sheila snorted. “Of course my granddaughter is okay. If she wasn’t, I sure wouldn’t come running to you.”

Grrrr. That Sheila. What a pip. Count on her to brighten my day. And she wasn’t done yet. Not nearly. “Grab your coat and come with me.”

“I have a ton of work. There’s a crop tonight—”

“Whatever. I said I need to talk to you. You must not be listening carefully.” By golly, she actually stomped her foot.

I continued with my to-do list. “Food to prepare, and I haven’t eaten lunch.”

“I’ll buy lunch.”

That was a pretty good deal. The best I could possibly get. I told her I’d be right back and raced into the stockroom. “Bama, I’m off to buy food for the crop. You’ll need to wait on customers.” With that, I grabbed my jacket, an old navy-blue pea coat I found at Goodwill last week for five dollars. I wasn’t sure why they’d discounted it so heavily, but it fit, and so I snatched it up. Inside the neckline I tucked a scarf I had crocheted all by myself. Sort of. My friend Clancy was teaching me, and I was pretty awful. Instead of being shaped like a long, thin rectangle, my scarf was a wonky triangle. One end had fourteen stitches fewer than the other. But Clancy assured me that improvement was my only option. (She discounted that I should maybe quit and let sheep all over the world graze contentedly without fear.)

Still, I liked the spot of color that my new turquoise and blue scarf added. I needed all the extra insulation I could muster because it’s hard to heat a convertible, especially an old one like mine.

By contrast, you could fry eggs on the vents in Sheila’s Mercedes. Slipping into the passenger’s side, I flipped the heated seat switch and wiggled with anticipatory joy. Sheila slammed the car into reverse, then into drive, and capped that off by pulling out in front of a semi-tractor trailer. I saw the red Kenworth logo on the radiator grill as we squeaked by. “What the …?” I gulped. “Are you trying to kill both of us? Because if you are, my sister in Arizona will raise Anya. Believe me, that’s not what you want.”

Sheila stomped the brake at the next light. The motion rocked me violently back and forth.

“Sheila? Sheila? Are you all right? Do I need to drive?”

“All right? Do I look all right to you? Do I seem all right?” her voice ended on a screech.

“Um, not exactly.”

“Huh. Sometimes you are such a fool, Kiki Lowenstein.”

I blinked hard and thought about this. If Anya was okay, what could be bothering her? That’s all Sheila cared about. Anya and …

“Robbie? How’s Police Chief Holmes?” I squeaked out as she right turned in front of a line of oncoming cars. “He okay?”

Thump. Bump. Thump.
She ran over the curb in front of St. Louis Bread Co. (Everyone in town pronounces “Bread Co.” to rhyme with “bread dough.” Sort of cute, isn’t it?)

Her front bumper scraped a concrete parking block. She slammed the car into park and turned the key to off. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Instead, Sheila worked her jaw this way and that, her eyes staring off in the distance.

“Sheila? Is Robbie all right? I mean, he’s not … he’s okay, isn’t he?” The police chief suffered a heart attack several years ago. Since then, he’d had angioplasty, adhered to a better diet, and seemed the picture of health. There was one other explanation, one other reason Robbie Holmes might be unwell.

“He didn’t get shot or anything, did he?” I sputtered. Robbie did more desk work than street work, but even so, several years ago, a gunman opened fire at a city council meeting in Webster Groves, a St. Louis suburb. The violent deaths brought a new realization that elected officials and city workers were at risk in ways previously unimagined. Five people died at the scene, not including the shooter. Later, the mayor succumbed to complications from his injuries, bringing the total to six, again excluding the shooter. That was a day we all cried, a day none of us in the community would ever forget.

Surely if there’d been another tragedy we would have heard. Someone would have phoned the store. Bama would have caught it on the radio that Dodie left in the back office.

Then I remembered that Bama had purposefully turned off the radio after our visit with the detectives. “I’ve had enough bad news for one day,” she’d said and I concurred.

But this day had started out so horribly, of course it would continue downhill.

What if Robbie Holmes had been shot or even stabbed? Maybe a disgruntled citizen or a criminal seeking revenge made it past the metal detectors outside his office and …

“Sheila, tell me Robbie’s all right!” I grabbed her arm.

She jerked away from me. “Of course, he’s all right!”

I shivered in my seat. With the engine off, the car cooled quickly. “Then what on earth is bugging you?”

A tear spilled over her cheek.

“Whoa,” I whispered. That droplet slowly rolled down her face and kept me mesmerized. I was in shock. Sheila never cried. Well, sure, she did when George died. He was her son, after all. But other than that, she never showed signs of emotion. She brought on tears, boy, did she ever! But she herself never cried.

Sheila shook her head, flicked away the moisture with a gloved finger. With a shudder, her lips parted. I heard her exhale. Heard her sigh. I held my own breath. What could have possibly happened?

“That stupid fool asked me to marry him.”

Sheila was right. If
Robbie Holmes wanted to marry her, he was indeed a silver-plated, addle-pated fool. I mean, why? They practically lived together. His neat little bungalow on Pernod Street afforded him a place to escape when Sheila went on a tear. Her gorgeous mansion on Litzsinger gave them both a formal place for entertaining. Why ruin a perfectly good relationship by cohabiting? Heck, I found staying overnight at Sheila’s stressful. Sure, Linnea, her maid, must be a direct descendent of an angel handmaiden. True, the place on Litzsinger was spacious. You could go for days and not have to interact with anyone, thanks to the well-thought-out floor plan and generous square footage. Yes, the Litzsinger house was a graceful haven where Queen Sheila personally stood guard. The comfy beds were made with Frette sheets, cashmere blankets, and hand-quilted comforters. Each bathroom featured a heated towel rack loaded with lavender-scented fluffy towels. The huge Sub-Zero refrigerator burgeoned with yummy cheeses, cut veggies, chopped up fruit, and sliced meats.

My mother-in-law missed her calling. If she hadn’t signed up for the pain-in-the-butt master class, she could have been a very successful hotelier.

But why would Robbie Holmes feel the need to make a change? To combine their residences? To legalize their union?

As I pondered all this, Sheila rummaged in her Coach purse for a tissue. Pulling one from the nifty leather case designed to hold an entire pack of Kleenex, she sniffed gently and dabbed at her eyes.

“You are right. If he wants to marry you, Chief Holmes is nuts. You don’t suppose his mind is going, do you?”

She shot me a blistering look. “For goodness sake, Kiki. That’s the most ridiculous, malicious pap I’ve ever heard.”

I shivered. “Let’s discuss this inside. I want a sourdough bread bowl of their black bean soup.”

Once I sat down with the fragrant brown bowl in front of me, I tried another approach. “Did Robbie tell you why he wants to, um, tie the knot?”

“Because he loves me, of course. He’s absolutely besotted with me. Always has been.”

I tore off a piece of the bowl, savored the tang of the sourdough, and let the warm richness of the black bean soup languish on my tongue. “Always?” I sipped my green tea. Delightful and healthy, too. For dessert, I’d chosen a fresh fruit cup. I love Bread Co.

“He tried to date me in high school, but my father put his foot down.” A stain of crimson began at her neckline and slowly rose toward her face. “Although we did manage to see each other on occasion. School dances and so on. But never alone. For the most part.” She set down the sandwich she was nibbling. Her cheeks glowed a bright, very un-Sheila-like red.

“But you met Harry and fell in love.”

“I met Harry and recognized we would have a wonderful life together. That’s not exactly the same thing.” She frowned.

I admit; I was surprised by this revelation. George always portrayed his parents as the love match of the century. Unfortunately, Harry died shortly after his son and I married. But up until he drew his last gasp, I often observed my father-in-law staring at Sheila with eyes full of adoration. Now I was stunned by the realization that perhaps that worshipful affection hadn’t been returned in equal measure.

Sheila sighed. “I married Harry because we were a better fit.”

“But Robbie is a great guy! He’s thoughtful, kind, considerate, ambitious—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kiki. I know exactly what sort of man Robbie Holmes is. I also know what sort of young man he was. As the twig was bent, so grew the tree.”

“Then, what did Harry have that Robbie didn’t? Family money?”

She gave a tiny mew of exasperation, which along with a flick of her fingers, indicated I was the loose nut at the top of the old oak tree. “For pity’s sake, Kiki. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Robbie wasn’t a Jew.”

“Oh, yeah.” I suppose I can be forgiven for overlooking this teensy little detail since having a mixed marriage didn’t stop me—or her son, George—from plighting our troth. “He’s Roman Catholic, right?”

Sheila nodded. A tight, thin grimace pulled her face into an unhappy mask. “Exactly. My father called him a papist.”

Her casual use of the term surprised me. Her attitude rankled. Why’d she have to repeat what her dad said? The pejorative repulsed me. She knew better. I wiped my face with a brown paper napkin, but the anger didn’t go away. Instead, it surged within me. “Good news, Sheila. Your father’s dead. Your Jewish husband is dead. Your reproductive organs are Missing in Action. If Robbie Holmes is dumb enough to want to be with you 24/7, I say, ‘Have at, buddy.’ Good luck to the poor sap.”

“Trust you, Kiki, to make sport of a serious situation. Here I picked you up hoping to have a rational discussion, a deep theological conversation, and you …” she trailed off.

“I what? Threw a big, cold bucket of honesty into your face? Robbie’s a nice man, Sheila. Scratch that. He’s a wonderful man. A good, caring, decent fellow. You couldn’t find better if you ran a classified ad in the
Jewish News
. As for the difference in religions, what difference does it make? It can’t possibly matter now, can it?”

With that, she tossed her sandwich onto her plate. The top slice of bread bounced off and into the middle of the table. “How can you say that? Especially to me? You know how I feel about having a Jewish home.”

I leaned closer to her so the rest of the diners couldn’t hear me. “I say it because it’s true. You aren’t going to convert him, and he’s not going to convert you. How long do you figure you have, Sheila? Another fifteen healthy years? Twenty? That would make you, what? Seventy-seven? Nearly eighty years old? How do you want to spend those last years? Alone in that big honking house or in the arms of someone you love? I know what my choice would be.”

A vision of Detweiler’s face popped into my head. What would I give to spend my life with him? Here Sheila was, passing up a man who loved her. Kids weren’t part of the picture. No lack of respect was involved. Each attended services at the other’s house of worship. Both donated money to their chosen faiths. Both had raised children according to the dictates of their religion.

So now, in the twilight of their years, what kind of God would keep them apart? What sort of supreme being would rather these two people—a couple who were much better together than apart—live without love?

I rubbed my face with my hands. What was it about religion that brought out the worst in us? That caused us to turn away from love, friendship, and kindness in the name of narrow dogma? How could God want this for us? I couldn’t believe he did!

Sheila was so lucky. Her soul mate was asking for her hand in marriage.

Mine was already taken.