Tansi whispered, “Yes, you two go there, and you find bodies.”
I smiled. “Only one, Tansi.”
“One is too many.”
Mercy looked at Tansi, who looked exhausted. “Granted,” Mercy said. “But it wasn’t the neighborhood that killed her.”
“Edna, my mother would kill me if you got hurt during my watch.”
I stood. “I’m a big girl, Tansi. Have been for many decades, with no complaints. World wars, two of them, haven’t done me in. I doubt this will. I don’t need attending.”
“I didn’t mean…”
I softened. “I know what you mean, and, all right, I understand. And thank you, dear. But a woman who can’t take care of herself, at any age, is a fool. Trouble for a woman should be, well, temporary.”
Mercy was smiling, but Tansi looked offended. Mercy stood. “All our nerves are frayed. Tonight, eight o’clock, my apartment, no refusals from either of you. Wine and a tuna casserole and a loaf of homemade bread. And peach cobbler, from scratch. No refusals. The three of us, relaxing.”
Tansi started to beg off, so I asked her, “Can you give me a lift, Tansi? I don’t want to ask for the studio car. I’d find Jake in the back seat dictating a memo to me about my errant behavior last night.”
Tansi smiled. “Of course.”
Mercy’s efficiency scarcely held room for the three of us, much less the bowls of food she spread out. We all ate too much, and I announced that I never ate tuna casserole because it reminded me of church potluck dinners back in Appleton, Wisconsin, but this-this was manna from the gods. “It’s because I include almond slivers,” Mercy said, “and bits of water chestnut I buy in Chinatown. But I really think it’s the wine talking.” And the peach cobbler: robust, oversized chunks of deep velvet fruit, banked under waves of thick heavy cream, slathered over a brown-tinged crust of brilliant pastry. “This isn’t cobbler,” I announced. “It’s sin.”
On the hi-fi, Mercy played the same record over and over: Frank Sinatra. Music for Young Lovers. “Jimmy gave it to me. He loves it.”
I noted the look on Tansi’s face: surprise, and a little hurt. Tansi was getting tipsy, and at one point asked, “Haven’t we heard this song before?” Mercy and I laughed hysterically. We’d heard it a half dozen times.
“More wine, Tansi?” Mercy asked.
A knock on the door. We all jumped, with me spilling wine on my sleeve. Red wine, no less. So much for this new blouse, overpriced at Saks to begin with. Mercy switched off the hi-fi.
When she opened the door, a sheepish Jimmy Dean stood there, head cocked to his chest. “I heard the laughter.”
“Jimmy, where have you been?” Mercy said. “Everyone’s been looking for you.”
“I know, I know. This Cotton guy questioned me at my apartment a few hours ago. Practically called me a murderer to my face. Quoted the letters Carisa wrote and wagged his finger at me.” He strode into the room, dropped himself into a chair. “I thought you’d be alone, Madama.”
“I’m allowed to have guests.”
Jimmy looked at me. “At least they’re friendly faces.”
I spoke up. “Don’t count on it. Jimmy, tell me, what do you know about this?”
He’d been drinking; not much, perhaps, but enough to make his eyes glassy. “Nothing. I rushed over to see her right after I left the stupid cocktail party. Okay, I admit that. Just drove there. But she wouldn’t let me in, I swear. We argued. I shouldn’t have gone there. But after that new letter…She said she’d see me burn in hell. Slammed the door. So I left.”
“How long were you there?” I asked.
“Minutes.”
“You tell this to Cotton?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“He just looked at me like I was a murderer.”
“What time were you there?”
“I dunno. Just after six or so. Later. Cotton asked me that.”
“And you left-when?”
“I dunno. I’d say minutes later.”
“You see anyone?”
“No.”
I looked at Mercy. “We were there around eight-thirty. And Carisa was dead.”
“I didn’t do it.”
Tansi, comforting him, “You’re not a murderer, Jimmy.”
Jimmy seemed just to notice her. “I just assume everyone knows that.”
“Well, where were you today?” Mercy asked.
“I had to get away.”
“You always have to get away,” I said. He looked at me.
“Well, I rode my bike into the hills. I couldn’t stand to be around people.”
“How did you hear about Carisa?” I asked.
“Lydia called me.”
“When?”
“This morning. Early. From the studio, I guess. She was hysterical. Cotton told me she blabbed about Max Kohl. I don’t know what that’s about.”
“Who is this Kohl?” I asked.
“A biker guy. We rode together. He stayed with Carisa. Fooled with her. Then he went after Lydia. Not a nice guy.”
“And you are?” I asked.
He grinned. “Not all the time.” A pause. “I didn’t do it, Miss Edna. Do you believe me?”
“I’d like to.”
Jimmy turned to Mercy. “Madama, you believe me, no?”
Mercy nodded, kindly.
“Tansi?”
“I believe you.” She emphatically nodded her head.
“Miss Edna?”
“Prove to me that you’re innocent.”
He laughed. “Somehow I knew you’d say that. So how do I do that?”
“By telling the truth, every bit of it.”
“I’ve told you…” He hesitated. “I didn’t want Carisa to die. She was making my life hell, but I didn’t want her to die.”
“So who do you think did it?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “That neighborhood? A robber, maybe. I don’t know. She hung out with some bad types lately. Folks on drugs.” Another pause. “Help me, then, Miss Edna. You and Madama and Tansi. Help me.”
“Jimmy, I don’t think the police want our help.”
“The police want to railroad me. I could see it in that Cotton’s eyes.”
We talked more, in circles, the hour getting late, and there seemed nothing left to say. But he lingered, stretched out on the floor, eyes half closed. Then, looking like he was ready to leave, he stood, walked around the room, inches from each of us, almost slow motion. He poured himself a glass of wine and quietly slipped back onto the floor, at the edge of the love seat where Tansi and I sat. He sat there, Buddha-like, swaying back and forth.
“I’ve never been good solving problems, you know.” He half smiled. “Just creating them. Obviously. You know, I can’t get away from my mother,” he began. I looked at Mercy, who was shaking her head. “When I was nine,” Jimmy continued, “she died out here in California. She was my only friend, really, not my father, never my father, and she wanted me to dance, to sing, to talk out loud to people. To be something. She told me I was special-one of a kind. Imagine a mother saying that to a little boy. Not famous or good or rich. But special. I felt a glow all over me, like my mother had blessed me. Like I was touched on the head by a hand made of gold. And then she died on me, just left me like that. That cancer eating her away until I had nothing left to hold onto, without a road map. What did she expect, me to do it all by myself? And my father, numbed into silence, sent me back on that long train ride to Fairmount, alone on the Silver Challenger Express, just me. Alone. An orphan now. Me and my mother’s coffin. At each station I jumped off and ran up the platform to see that the coffin was still there-to make sure she was safe. I had to protect her, get her home. Me in my little wrinkled suit, running up and down the platform, out of breath, and then back to my seat. Over and over, till I got home. And then I sat there at the depot, me and the coffin, waiting. I was nine years old. Nine. With a cardboard suitcase and a dead mother.”
“Jimmy,” Mercy whispered.
I sucked in my breath. Was this performance? Or was this real, this bittersweet, sentimental monologue? Rehearsed, said so often, the mother story, Mercy had told me about. Real or not, this moment stopped me, brought me to tears. Either way, I was captivated.