“The inconsistency of my stubbornness?”
“That’s right,” he said, wagging his spoon at me. “We’re choking down this tasteless gruel because of your bad cholesterol-”
“The male species comes with good and bad cholesterol, too, you know.”
“-But you don’t care one iota how many times a night you stop breathing!”
“If I make you eggs will you shut up about my tonsils?”
“Good try.”
“I’m just trying to be consistent, Ike.”
“And I’m just trying to keep you from falling over dead.”
“Good! We’ve met each other half way. Now eat your gruel so I can read the paper.” I snapped the paper open and read the headline across the top of page one:
Stunned Police Say
Slain Woman Born A Man.
I’d already read the story twice that morning-once on the trunk of Ike’s car, where the paperboy had graciously thrown it, and once sitting on my front step-but how can you not read a story like that over and over?
By Dale Marabout
Hannawa-Union Staff Writer
HANNAWA-The autopsy of 72-year-old antique dealer Violeta Bell revealed that she had undergone a sex change operation earlier in life, Police Detective Scotty Grant said.
“We debated long and loud whether to release such a personal detail about the deceased,” Grant told a hastily called press conference yesterday. “But given that Miss Bell’s murderer is still at-large, we decided that public disclosure might facilitate our investigation.”
While Grant refused to discuss what he called the “more intimate details” of the coroner’s examination, he did say that the autopsy report “shows unequivocally that Bell had been born male.”
“Makes you wonder if the other Never Dullers knew,” I said.
Ike scraped the last lump of Cream of Wheat from his bowl. He spooned it into his mouth and pretended to enjoy it. “How could they not know? Every time I see a person of that variety I know it.”
“And how do you know that?”
He laughed at his foolishness. “I guess I wouldn’t, would I?”
“Still, you’ve got to wonder if the killer knew.”
“Yes-you do have to wonder that.”
The phone rang. It was Bob Averill. He was in a tizzy. “You’ve seen the paper, I assume?”
“That, I have, Bob.”
“Did you know?”
“I learned the same time Dale Marabout did. Give or take a couple of hours.”
He hesitated just long enough to take a drink of something with ice cubes in it. “Well, I just want you to understand that this doesn’t diminish my interest in the case.”
“Mine either, Bob.”
Ten seconds after I hung up, the phone rang again. This time it was Gloria McPhee. After inquiring about my well being, apologizing for bothering me so early, and then rattling my eardrum with one of the most agonizing sighs I’d ever heard, she got to the matter at hand. “Well, I guess you know what was in the paper this morning.”
“Quite a surprise. But I suppose you already knew.”
“Actually, I didn’t know,” she said. “The possibility never dawned on me. She was as much a woman as you or me. I’m absolutely flabbergasted.”
Her bewilderment sounded genuine. Which meant it was either real or beautifully played. “I imagine it came as a surprise to Kay and Ariel, too.”
“It was. Which reminds me why I called. How would you like to go garage-saling with us today?”
That, I wasn’t expecting. “Well-”
“I could have Eddie swing by and get you in a hour.”
“Eddie?”
“It’s no fun without Eddie.”
A day with those three could be very profitable. It could also be deadly. I twisted the receiver toward Ike, so Gloria could hear my every word: “Ike, dear? Do we have any plans for today?”
And so she could hear Ike’s very manly voice: “For crying out loud, Maddy! You know I’m working today!”
Having established that it would be a bad idea to drive me out to the middle of nowhere and knock me in the head, I accepted the invitation. Fifty-seven minutes later Eddie French pulled into my driveway. Ike had already left for the coffee shop but when I came out, I yelled, “See you later, honey!” anyway. Eddie invited me to sit up front with him but I sat in the back. Harder for him to strangle me while he drove.
I was acting like a paranoid fool. I knew it. Oh yes, garage-saling with Eddie and the surviving Queens of Never Dull was a dangerous thing for me to do. But not physically dangerous. The danger was that I’d be seduced out of my objectivity.
Eddie didn’t make a peep until we were on West Apple. Then he sang like a cage full of canaries. “I am truly remorseful for my attitude the other day,” he said, flicking his cigarette ashes out his open window. “But law enforcement matters always seem to aggravate my stressfulness.”
“No need to apologize.”
“Nevertheless I truly appreciate your graciousness in assisting my problematic cause.”
“I’m not being gracious,” I said. “I’m just trying to prove you didn’t murder Violeta Bell.”
“ Comprendo. ”
“You are still insisting that you’re innocent, aren’t you?”
He took a long draw on his cigarette. “That part of my story remains unflinchingly consistent.”
“But other parts don’t?”
“Let’s just say that you came very close to hitting the nail on the head the other day.”
“About you transporting stolen antiques for her?”
“Let’s just say we’re on the same page.”
It was a good time for me to unveil my suspicion. “Any chance that they weren’t stolen, Eddie? That they were fakes?”
He swung onto Hardihood Avenue, using nothing but the heel of his hand. “You do have a way of making the less-than-innocent squirm,” he said.
“It’s one of my specialties,” I said. “So, were they?”
“Given the precariousness of my position, I would prefer to use the word reproductions.”
“Okay, reproductions then.”
“ Merci beaucoup. ”
I could see the top of the Carmichael House in the distance. I had to hurry. “And were they reproductions?”
He ground his cigarette into the ashtray. He popped his glove compartment open. He pulled out a can of Glade and started spraying. A sickening vanilla smell filled the cab. “Ariel is a fierce foe of the tobacco industry,” he said.
I took my voice up a notch. “Eddie-were you transporting reproductions for Violeta Bell?”
He shook several Tic-Tacs into his mouth. “Neither the making nor selling of reproductions is illegal, Mrs. Sprowls. Nor is the transportating. ”
I could see where he was going with this. “As long as everybody knows they’re reproductions?”
“Bingo.”
“But given your record, it might be hard to convince the police that everyone knew?”
“The lady wins a toaster!”
We were one traffic light away from the Carmichael House. “Speaking of the lady-did you know Violeta had once been a man?”
Eddie went right through the red light. “ Mama mia! I simply could not believe what I was reading!”
I pressed him. “You’re a very street-smart man, Eddie. You had no clue at all?”
“May I expire on the spot, I hadn’t the foggiest.” He pulled into the Carmichael House. “I always took her as just another old bird whose time had come and gone-lookwise.”
Gloria McPhee, Kay Hausenfelter, and Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy were waiting on the walk outside the entrance. Gloria, trim as an asparagus spear, was fashionably dressed in a pink three-quarter-sleeve polo shirt and stone-washed capris. Ariel, more on the rutabaga side, was wearing baggy khakis and an oversized tee shirt sporting a cute but dire message about global warming: Penguins On Thin Ice. Kay was wearing red Bermuda shorts and a sleeveless pink western shirt with sparkly, ace-of-spades buttons.
Gloria and Kay squeezed into the back next to me. Ariel sat up front with Eddie. While we’d eyeballed each other at the funeral, we hadn’t formally met. We shook hands across the seat. “I just love penguins,” I said.