Mummers' Curse (24 page)

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I, but that’s what we’ve come to. It’s gotten so that people sue about anything. What’s going to happen to our schools if teachers are afraid to give honest grades?” He listened intently. “Don’t you want to take notes?” I asked. “And be sure and mention what’ll happen to university admissions if they can’t trust transcripts. Shouldn’t people think about that? What about teaching kids to accept responsibility for their acts?”

He took a deep breath and puffed out a smoky cloudlet. “I meant…I don’t get why you’re here.”

“Here?”

“Tough break, all that, but—shouldn’t you go to a courthouse, or a lawyer’s office? Why’d you come to the police station?”

“Never mind.” So much for taking my story nationwide, letting the case shrivel in the glare of publicity.

“Gotta give you credit, though,” he said. “That was clever, changing the subject that way. Also, I surmise, a little desperate. Too bad it didn’t work. Civil suits aren’t my thing, aren’t sexy.”

“I was being honest. That’s the story; the one about being sued.”

“Sure. And that explains why you seem to be in a lot of places with a homicide case. Homicide cases, that is.”

“What do you mean?”

“I keep hearing your name. Like you work with the teacher who’s maybe the key suspect, and you’re his alibi, and you had the gun, and now here you are again. You’re all over this. How come? You don’t seem the type.”

I didn’t even ask what that meant. Mackenzie had told me about Henneman, a stringer for a news service, a semi-annoying but persistent scout for crime stories he could sell. I didn’t like the idea of his noticing me. If this didn’t turn out to be a big news day, I might find my name mentioned in filler stories all over the U.S.

“Coincidence,” I said. “And…” Oh, why not? It was the only and easiest way I could think of to justify my inadvertent involvement and get me out from under his microscope. And it was more or less true. “See, I’m writing an article. Freelancing.” His eyes squinched with worry: was I scooping Jimmy Olsen on his big-break story?

“Not about these crimes,” I reassured him. “About the Mummers themselves. That teacher you mentioned works with me and is a Mummer in the same club as Jimmy Pat was. He—the teacher—helped me with my research. That’s how I became involved with that particular club, and that’s the only reason you may have seen my name. I’m interested in the Mummers as a cultural phenomenon.”

“The parade?”

“Sure, but more than that, too. How their whole year is organized around getting ready, how they raise funds for the outfits and make them, at least the fancies. Or how the String Bands hire choreographers and designers and pay to have their suits made. And, you know, the history and…”

He had that glazed look I knew so well from Mackenzie, but damned if I wasn’t going to make my point for once. “Do you realize we’re barely into January and they’re already revving up for next year’s parade?”

“You know, that’s interesting. That could be good.”

“Thanks.” I once again resolved to write the damned thing. It probably did have a market if it interested a man who wanted all his stories to be “sexy.”

“I mean, you go snooping around so you can write something, you call it research, and it works: you unearth dangerous information, and suddenly a guy’s dead, two guys are dead, and you’re smack in the middle of every—”

“Hey—that isn’t what I said. That isn’t what happened!”

“My editor would be interested in the article. Maybe it even has an important clue in it that you don’t realize!” He loosened his muffler and let it hang. He was warming to the idea, literally, getting fired up over his stupid misinterpretation. “Could you get me a copy, fast?”

“I never said—”

“Under your byline, of course. I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“All the same—”

“By, say, noon? I could get this in and—”

“I can’t.”

“You won’t let me see it?”

How had I gotten into this mess? And how had I failed to produce an article?

“Then would you give me the gist of it? You know, local color, an anecdote? I’ll credit you, of course.”

“Sorry.” I turned. I didn’t have time to explain the many things I was sorry about.

“Is it because you’re afraid?” he shouted. “You uncovered something that scares you? Is that why you’re here again, now that they found Ted Serfi?”

I waved him off and kept moving.

“The paper would pay. I wouldn’t steal your story!” I turned and saw him shake his head with disgust, then he wrapped his orange muffler up and around his head and over his chin for a cold-weather Arab effect.

Off my case. With any luck, he’d forget all about me.

*

I wasn’t able to forget him. The encounter bothered me all day. Having missed half the morning, I had less day in which to fester. It was long enough for serious botheration. Finally, even this workday ended.

When, like a good teacher, I went to the office to drop off my plan book and retrieve late-breaking news flashes from my principal, I was surprised to find pink telephone message slips along with the customary memo-pap that grew like fungus in our mailboxes. I have no office or access to any secretary except Helga, who by no stretch of the imagination could be called
mine
, and use of the school phone is frowned upon. This little pile of pink slips felt almost as good as a full answering machine at home.

I saved the best for last and flipped through the memo-pap first. “Ms. Pepper, I have been notified of pending litigation being brought by the Field family concerning your proposed final grade for Renata. I would like you to schedule a meeting with me to discuss this tomorrow morning, (Friday,) so that we can fairly and objectively decide on a prudent course of action.”

He spelled prudent e-x-p-e-d-i-e-n-t. Give the girl whatever she wanted, he’d say, although he’d pad that sentence in weasel words. I sighed and put the note in my briefcase.

I looked at my messages. If Helga were committed to clear speech and direct communication, she’d replace the
While You Were Out
with something closer to the truth like
While You Were Right Upstairs Whence I Could Have Summoned You Had I But Wanted To.

Helga’s meticulous script always looks written in a fit of controlled anger. “Please call Mr. Henneman at earliest convenience,” her raging handwriting said. Time, 12:17 p.m.

“Helga,” I said. “When a caller says ‘earliest convenience,’ do you think three hours should pass?”

“This was as early as it was convenient for me,” she said. “I spent my lunch hour here, you know. Taking your messages.”

A message from C.K. with no time on it said he wouldn’t be back till late.

“Urgent, urgent,” the third one said. “Emily wants to talk A.S.A.P. Closing store at five. Will be at Melrose Diner after. Can you meet her? Says you know who she is.” Her number was in the proper space, as was the time of the call, 2:05 p.m. I was sourly amused that Helga chose to include the “urgent, urgent” part.

“As you surely recall,” Helga said in her crisp, mean-spirited voice, “teachers are not encouraged to use this number for personal calls.”

“So a good thing it is that none of my callers are teachers.” I left to call Emily from the hall pay phone, out of earshot of the Office Witch. Of course I’d meet her. Not only might I get information, but given that Mackenzie was out eradicating evil, I could also get a decent dinner that way.

*

Emily sat at the end half-table, drinking coffee and reading yet another novel with a bare-chested, longhaired hunk in ripped clothing on the cover. It was not the same title as the other day because this fellow had black—I should probably say raven—hair (probably tresses) and the other day’s had honey blond.

When all this was cleared up, I’d give her a reading list. Particularly if she wanted to commingle with erudite Arthur King. Or maybe he’d provide it himself.

I slid onto the orange seat. “What’s up? I thought you didn’t want me to call anymore.”

“I thought so, too.” She put her book, open, facedown on the gray Formica table. The pink cleavage of the heroine and the ravenlocks’s tresses looked incongruous in this matter-of-fact wood-and-chrome diner. They had seemed more at home in the dusty store.

“But see,” she said, “I made myself a new problem, and I wondered if maybe there’s some way to help you take over the rest of the story.”

The rest of the story. Emily doled out slices of crime as if it were a pie. This to Arthur King, this to you, and I must have said I only wanted a taste.

“Free,” she said. “I’m not looking to sell the rest.”

“You mean who did it? That’s the only piece left.”

“I need sweetener.” She stood and went to the long back counter. Heads turned. She wore a black turtleneck that touched her chin and the base of her spiky hair and traveled down to her thighs, where it met patterned tights and laced-up boots. She could have modeled, if she could pull free of the store.

“Did Cam ask you out?” I said as she sat back down.

She shook her head, the spiky hair accenting the movement. “Not exactly. He was distracted, in a hurry. But he said he’d see me soon. Meantime, I’m tired of angry phone calls.”

“From him?”

She shook her head and waited as two men who’d been sitting across from us in the other half of the booth put a tip on the table and left.

“They say ‘let sleeping dogs lie,’ things like that, leave messages, and they’re angry about the cops knowing now.”

“Who’s angry? About the cops knowing what?” I’d missed a beat, maybe a whole line of melody.

“Knowing about Serfi. Where he is, what happened to him.”

“But why would anybody be angry?”

“Maybe more scared than angry. Afraid I’ll say who killed him.”

“You know that? They know that?” I felt like a cold war spy. I had no idea about whom I was talking, who the ‘they’ were, but on we went.

“I think the callers are his friends,” she said, “and I think they suspect. I tell them I don’t know what they’re talking about, like I don’t know, either, but they don’t believe me. The truth is, I’d like to see it cleared up and over. Cam King is one good catch and he’d like it cleared up and over, too, and then, who knows, maybe then the two of us… But I swore I wouldn’t tell, and I’m not breaking an oath. So what do I do about that?”

“Let me get this straight. You know who killed Serfi but you promised his friends—”

“No, no. Jimmy Pat’s friends.”

I tried to make sense of that change, but couldn’t, so I plugged on. “Okay, fine, you promised Jimmy Pat’s friends you wouldn’t tell even though you want it known. That’s not a choice. If you know, tell the—”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so, and it wasn’t Jimmy Pat’s friends I promised.”

A waitress in a black uniform asked me what I wanted with such warmth and enthusiasm, I was sure she could grant any wish. I was tempted to ask her to explain what Emily was talking about, but instead, I ordered a hamburger and coffee.

“Is this some kind of test?” I asked Emily when the waitress was gone. “If so, I give up, I lose. You leave a message that I shouldn’t bother you any more. Then you call because you want to meet me here. Then—”

“Didn’t want my father to hear. He’d never let go of it if he did.”

“Okay, fine, but I’ve come for that talk, and what is it? That you know something you aren’t going to tell. Give me a break!”

“The police. That’s who I won’t tell.”

“Why wouldn’t you, unless you’re the killer?” Now there was an inspired remark. How was she supposed to respond? With a flood of tears and a confession? A maniacal attack on stupid me? Or a freeze-out? “And of course, you couldn’t be,” I quickly added, “or they—whoever they are—wouldn’t be asking you not to tell.”

“Like if I’d done it, I would really make sure the cops found the body,” she said.

“I wasn’t serious.” Well, perhaps I was, a bit. I was sure money had been exchanged for the telling, so I wasn’t positive as to purity of motives. “One more time. You didn’t do it, but you know who did, but you aren’t going to tell the police, but you want them to know. Do I have it now?”

She nodded rather sadly.

“May I ask why you won’t tell them? The real reason?”

“Because… I have my pride.”

That again. It was like a slippery possession easily misplaced. Pride was had, shame given, honor lost, face saved, reputation smeared, and always the wrong people concerned with it. Blood sausages and purloined compositions and broken engagements and now, Emily’s pride, for reasons of her own, was endangered.

“Pride’s a good thing,” I said. “But I don’t see why yours would be tainted by telling the police who committed a crime as long as you didn’t.”

She kept glancing at the empty other half of our table, as if, perhaps, invisible eavesdroppers lurked there, and when she spoke, it was in a whisper. “My engagement.” I could barely hear her, but I could see that her eyes were suddenly too glittery, filling with tears she blinked back. “They’d know.”

Who they? Know what?

“Jimmy Pat was my boyfriend first,” Emily said. “After we broke up…let’s be honest, after he dropped me…nothing, nobody…well, let’s say I kept carrying the torch. I knew what I was doing, but like they say, all’s fair in love and war, right?”

The waitress put my coffee and a thick platter in front of me. I busied myself with it, nodding now and then under the theory that if I let Emily talk, her loosely scattered thoughts would find each other like magnetic shavings and form a clearer picture.

“My life,” she said. “My life is so…” She seemed to plummet into a private reverie. I thought of the dusty store, where the silence was more often broken by her father’s commands than by customers. I wondered if that’s what she was thinking about, too.

“I used to watch him at night,” she said abruptly. “When the store was closed and my father was asleep.”

“Watch your father?” What had that to do with anything?

“Sometimes I’d follow him, just be there, just see him. Sometimes him and the guys, sometimes him and Dolores.”

“Jimmy Pat, is that who we’re talking about?” I said it softly so as not to break her concentration.