“Things not going well?”
She told me about the wrong shade of blue on the Tuscan tiles she ordered for her guest bathroom. About the trouble she was having with her maid service. About her ongoing search for a pet therapist who understands the delicate temperament of dachshunds. “Then there’s that business with the police,” she said.
“About Gordon, you mean?”
“Yes-and that silly stuff about David Delarosa. They’ve talked to us three times in a week. Me once and Rollie twice.”
I commiserated. “They’ve talked to me about it, too.”
Her second sigh was better. “I don’t know what they think we can tell them. Rollie wasn’t even here that night.”
This was not the time for me to tell Gwen everything I knew about Rollie’s early return to Hannawa, or David’s letter to Gordon. This was the time for me to play dumb and listen closely. “That’s right,” I agreed. “He and Lawrence were in Columbus at the debate tournament.”
“And you and I were with Gordon and Chick at Jericho’s.” She hesitated. “That was the same night David and Sidney got into it over you, wasn’t it?”
I told her it was.
Now she confided in me. “You know how worried I’ve been, Maddy. That maybe Chick had something to do with Gordon’s death. Because of the way they fought at the Kerouac Thing.”
“We’ve all had that worry,” I said.
“But now that the police think there’s a link to David’s death, well, who knows, maybe it was Sidney after all.”
“What about Effie’s alibi for him?” I asked.
“Maybe Effie had no choice,” Gwen said.
Sunday, July 15
The concept of Sunday morning, unfortunately, means nothing to James. He whimpered me awake at seven, as he did every day, demanding that his breakfast be served immediately. I filled his bowl with nuggets and sprinkled the top with stinky liver treats so he’d eat it. Then it was my turn. I put a mug of water in the microwave for my tea. I poured a bowl of cereal. I retrieved my Sunday paper from the driveway while the pieces of petrified bananas and strawberries softened up in the skimmed milk.
We’d finally run Louise’s feature story. On Page One, too. There was a big photo of Mayor Flynn lounging in a big leather chair, surrounded by his collection of Democratic donkeys. Below the photo was this headline:
SOME DANDY DENS
Where City’s Movers And Shakers Get Away From It All
I read Louise’s predictable cutsie-wootsie lead -Even the Energizer Bunny has to recharge its batteries once in a while -and then turned to the jump page to see if they’d run a photo of Rollie Stumpf. Boy did they. It was a huge, three-column shot of him standing in front of his mantel full of trophies. He was flashing a forced jack-o-lantern smile. I could just see Gwen on the day of the shoot standing behind Weedy screeching, “Smile bigger, Rollie! Smile bigger!”
“I bet he’s not smiling this morning,” I whispered to myself.
I scanned the story for the part about Rollie’s den. He got several paragraphs, right after Worldstar Hydraulics CEO Vernon P. Welty. There was this self-effacing quote by Rollie:
“Sometimes I can’t believe it’s mine,” said Stumpf, the son of a steelworker who today runs one of Hannawa’s most prestigious insurance agencies. “It’s bigger than the entire house I grew up in.”
And this rather sad quote from Gwen, which I’m sure she spent a week of rehearsal getting just right:
“My husband is the busiest man in the world, so he doesn’t get to spend as much time in here as he’d like,” said Stumpf’s wife of 48 years, Gwendolyn Moffitt-Stumpf. “But I’ve made sure he absolutely loves the few precious moments he does get.”
After breakfast I took James for his walk. It was one of those July days you dream all winter about but hate when they finally arrive. It was only nine o’clock but the temperature was already pushing eighty. When we got back to my bungalow, James went straight to his rug for a nap. I took a shower and put on the worst tee shirt and jeans I could find.
I had big plans for this particular Sunday. My backyard is a disaster. It has been since Lawrence and I bought it over forty years ago. The lawn has more dandelions than grass blades and the flowerbeds are solid clay. For years I’ve been dreaming of turning it into one of those beautiful English gardens you drool over in the magazines. In my mind I can picture the cobblestone walkways and serpentine beds of perennials. I can picture a comfy teakwood bench beneath a vine-covered trellis. I see roses. I see zinnias, and marigolds, and bright yellow mums. I can hear my imaginary garden, too. A trickling fountain. Tinkling wind chimes. The buzzing wings of hummingbirds. I figured today was as good as any to start.
The first thing I did was get my kloppers from the garage and go to work on the dead limbs hanging from my pin oak. When that was finished, I scrubbed out the crud in my bird bath. When that was finished, I de-thistled my day lilies. When that was finished I made myself another mug of tea and curled up on my new glider. Gardening is always easier between your ears than on your hands and knees.
While I was busy deciding where my future herb garden should go, the phone rang. And rang and rang. “Damn it,” I growled at the unknown caller, “can’t you see I’m not here?”
The ringing continued. I gave in and trotted inside. It was Detective Grant.
“I figured I’d better tell you before you saw it on the news,” he began. “Rollie Stumpf overdosed on drugs this morning.”
“Good gravy! Is he dead?”
“Not yet.”
“Please don’t tell me it was intentional.”
“He left a note.”
“Good gravy! Where was he? And where was Gwen?”
“Gwen was in the kitchen. Rollie was in his den.”
“Good gravy! Don’t tell me that.”
Chapter 25
Wednesday, July 25
Ike was wearing a beautiful gray suit. I was wearing my navy blue funeral suit, the one I wished fit better. “You up for all this?” he asked as he helped me down my front steps.
“I’m okay,” I said. I had my arms around a crock pot full of baked beans.
Ike put the beans in his trunk. We headed for Greenlawn, the leafy, upscale suburb north of the city. The morning rush hour was long over. There was only a dribble of traffic on Cleveland Avenue now.
Why was Ike coming with me? In March, I’d asked Eric to go with me to Gordon’s funeral. And he was a pain in the ass the whole time. This time I wanted a little maturity at my side.
We pulled into the Umplebee amp; Meyer Funeral Home. It was, as you might expect, Hannawa’s most prestigious. Its white brick facade was trimmed with oodles of columns and fancy cornices. It looked like the bottom layer of a wedding cake.
Ike parked his modest Chevrolet next to a big boaty Lincoln. We headed for the entrance, elbow to elbow like an old married couple. A pasty man in a baggy black suit held the door for us, his right eye studying Ike’s brown skin, his left eye studying my white skin. We followed the organ music to the chapel. There had to be a hundred chairs set up and ninety of them had to be empty.
The minister was already leaning on the pulpit next to Rollie’s urn, ready to start as soon as somebody nudged the organist. Ike and I hurried to the front and sat behind Chick and Effie. Effie looked over her shoulder and smiled. Chick looked over his shoulder and frowned.
It was terrible seeing all those empty chairs. But I was hardly surprised. Rollie had committed suicide. He’d left a note taking responsibility for two murders-a note The Herald-Union saw fit to print on the front page. Still, how could you not feel bad for Gwen? She’d spent a lifetime befriending Hannawa’s rich and powerful. She’d worked at it with the tenacity of a stamp collector. And now the whole kit and caboodle had abandoned her. The only people brave enough to show up were a few relatives and a handful of old beatniks.