"Harriet's car's on the fritz."
"Effie Reeder?"
"Effie died."
"Oh! I didn't know that."
"Almost everybody I know has died," Grandma said. "Bunch of wimps."
"Okay, I'll take you."
"Good. And your mother says you should come for dinner."
* * * * *
I BUZZED THROUGH the living room, but before I could get to the door Briggs was on his feet.
"Hey, where are you going?" he asked.
"Out."
"Out where?"
"My parents' house."
"I bet you're going there for dinner. Man, that's the pits. You're gonna leave me here with nothing to eat, and you're going to your parents' house for dinner."
"There's some cold lamb in the refrigerator."
"I ate that for lunch. Hold on, I'll go with you."
"No! You will not go with me."
"What, are you ashamed of me?"
"Yes!"
* * * * *
"WELL, WHO'S THIS little guy?" Grandma asked when I walked in with Briggs.
"This is my . . . friend, Randy."
"Aren't you something," Grandma said. "I never saw a midget up close."
"Little person," Briggs said. "And I never saw anyone as old as you up close, either."
I gave him a smack on the top of his head. "Behave yourself," I said.
"What happened to your face?" Grandma wanted to know.
"Your granddaughter beat me up."
"No kidding?" Grandma said. "She did a pip of a job."
My father was in front of the TV. He turned in his chair and looked at us. "Oh, cripes, now what?" he said.
"This is Randy," I told him.
"He's kinda short, isn't he?"
"He's not a boyfriend."
My father went back to the television. "Thank God for that."
There were five places set at the table. "Who's the fifth person?" I asked.
"Mabel," my mother said. "Your grandmother invited her."
"I thought it would give us a chance to grill her. See if she's holding something out," Grandma said.
"There will be no grilling," my mother said to my grandmother. "You invited Mabel over for dinner, and that's what we're going to have . . . a nice dinner."
"Sure," Grandma said, "but it wouldn't hurt to ask her a few questions."
A car door slammed at the front of the house and everyone migrated to the foyer.
"What's that car Mabel's driving?" Grandma asked. "That's not the station wagon."
"Mabel bought a new car," I said. "She thought the old one was too big."
"Good for her," my mother said. "She should be able to make those decisions."
"Yeah," Grandma said. "But she better hope Fred's dead."
"Who's Mabel and Fred?" Briggs asked.
I gave him the condensed explanation.
"Cool," Briggs said. "I'm starting to like this family."
"I brought a coffee cake," Mabel said, handing a box to my mother, closing the door with her other hand. "It's prune. I know Frank likes prune." She craned her neck to the living room. "Hello, Frank," she called.
"Mabel," my father said.
"Nice car," Grandma said to Mabel. "Aren't you afraid Fred'll come back and have a cow?"
"He shouldn't have left," Mabel said. "And anyway, how am I to know he'll come back? I got a new bedroom set, too. It's getting delivered tomorrow. New mattress and everything."
"Maybe you were the one who bumped Fred off," Grandma said. "Maybe you did it for the money."
My mother slammed a bowl of creamed peas down on the table. "Mother!" she said.
"It was just a thought," Grandma said to Mabel.
We all took our seats, and my mother set a highball down for Mabel and a beer for my father and brought a kid cushion for Briggs to sit on.
"My grandchildren use these," she said.
Briggs looked over at me.
"My sister Valerie's kids," I said.
"Hah," he said. "So you're a loser in the grandchildren race, too."
"I have a hamster," I told him.
My father forked some roast chicken onto his plate and reached for the mashed potatoes.
Mabel swilled down half her highball.
"What else you gonna buy?" Grandma asked her.
"I might go on a vacation," Mabel said. "I might go to Hawaii. Or I might go on a cruise. I always wanted to go on a cruise. Of course I wouldn't do that for a while. Unless Stephanie finds that man. Then that might speed things up."
"What man?" Grandma wanted to know.
I told her about the woman at the Grand Union.
"Now we're getting somewhere," Grandma said. "This is more like it. All we have to do is find that man." She turned to me. "You have any suspects?"
"No."
"Nobody at all?"
"I'll tell you who I suspect," Mabel said. "I suspect that garbage company. They didn't like Fred."
Grandma waved a chicken leg at her. "That's just what I said the other day. There's something funny going on with that garbage company. We're going to the viewing tonight to look into it." She ate some chicken while she thought. "You met the deceased when you went to the garbage office, didn't you?" she asked me. "What did he look like? He look like the guy who took Fred for a ride?"
"I guess he could fit the description."
"Too bad it's gonna be a closed casket. If it was open we could take the Grand Union woman with us and see if she recognizes Lipinski."
"Hell," my father said, "why don't you just haul Lipinski out and put him in a lineup?"
Grandma looked at my father. "You think we could do that? I imagine he'd be stiff enough."
My mother sucked in some air.
"I don't know if you stay stiff," Mabel said. "I think you might loosen up again."
"How about passing the gravy," my father said. "Could I get some gravy down here?"
Grandma's face lit with inspiration. "There'll be lots of Lipinski's relatives there tonight. Maybe one of them will give us a picture! Then we can show the picture to the Grand Union lady."
I thought this was all a little grim, considering Mabel was at the table, but Mabel seemed unfazed.
"What do you think, Stephanie?" she asked. "Do you think I should go to Hawaii? Or do you think I should take a cruise?"
"Jesus," Briggs said to me, "you turned out pretty good considering your gene pool."
9
"WOW, LOOK AT this," Grandma said, peering out at the parking lot. "This place is packed tonight. That's on account of Stiva has a full house. He's got somebody in every room. I was talking to Jean Moon, and she said her cousin Dorothy died yesterday morning, and they couldn't get her into Stiva's. Had to take her to Mosel."
"What's wrong with Mosel?" Briggs asked.
"He don't know nothing about makeup," Grandma said. "Uses too much rouge. I like when the deceased looks nice and natural."
"Yeah, I like that, too," Briggs said. "Nothing worse than an unnatural corpse."
The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but it still wasn't a glorious night to be out, so I dropped Grandma and Briggs off at the door and went in search of a parking place on the street. I found one a block away, and by the time I reached Stiva's front porch my hair was more frizz than curl and my cotton knit sweater had grown two inches.
Larry Lipinski was in room number one, as was befitting a suicidal killer. Family and friends were clustered in a knot around the casket. The rest of the room was filled with the same crowd I'd seen at the Deeter viewing. There were the professional mourners like Grandma Mazur and Sue Ann Schmatz. And there were the garbage people.
Grandma Mazur marched over to me with Briggs running after her. "I already gave my condolences," she said. "And I want to tell you they're a real standoffish group. It's a shame when people like that get to take rooms away from people like Dorothy Moon."
"I guess that means they wouldn't give you a picture."
"Zip," Grandma said. "They gave me zip."
"They gave it to her in a big way, too," Briggs said, smiling. "You should have been there."