A Shroud for Aquarius (9 page)

“Dope.”

“Yes, and where there’s dope, there’s fire.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

“I didn’t want to tell you, but somebody’s got to. That man you mentioned. That insurance agent.”

“Sturms.”

“Him. He’s the biggest coke dealer around.”

“Is your boss involved with him…?”

“In dope? I don’t know, and I don’t care. As far as I know, he’s just Dave’s insurance agent. But I’ve lived in this town since I was in high school, and Sturms is a fixture. And Ginnie was tight with him.”

“That’s what I understand. And that strikes me as strange—after all, he’s an ex-preppie and Ginnie was an ex-hippie. What do they have to be friends about? Sturms doesn’t hit me as Ginnie’s cup of tea at all—herbal or otherwise.”

“Must not have been friendship, then.”

“What else, then?”

“What’s left? Business.” She walked toward the ramp, then glanced back at me, green eyes flashing. “I’d like to hear from you, when you get this out of your system.”

“You will, Shirl.”

When I got this out of my system.

The funeral home was on West Third, in the first block beyond the business district in a stately, pillared old house typical of those on West Hill. West Hill was, after all, where the mansions and near-mansions of Port City’s first millionaires and near-millionaires had roosted, looking down on the Mississippi River (and the rest of Port City). More recent generations of the very wealthy had, for the most part, departed West Hill for condominiums and split-levels, usually out of state, and some of the grand gothic dwellings of their forefathers weren’t maintained like they should. The home I was parking in front of was an exception, a soft-focus oasis in the night, basking in pastel lighting, looking much better than most of its neighbors, looking just like it had twenty, fifty, a hundred years ago, perfectly preserved, a masterpiece of embalming.

The smell of flowers and a guy in a dark suit met me at the door. He was several years younger than I, but seemed infinitely wiser—his smile, which was barely there, was delivered with practiced compassion. I was no longer wearing the Bilko T-shirt and camouflage shorts (and shame on you for thinking I might be) but hadn’t quite seen my way to a suit, wearing a short-sleeve white shirt and gray slacks. The suit could wait for the graveside services tomorrow morning; I was just here for “family visitation.” The guy, a sort of maître d’ of death, led me
by the arm to the guest book, which was on a little table at the foot of stairs that rose to darkness. I wasn’t interested in what was upstairs at a funeral parlor. I was even less interested in what was in the cellar.

I signed the guest book—under a flowing signature that spelled out another name from the past: Jill Forest. I’d dated her a few times, years ago. I glanced up the page and got no other similar twinges from yesterday. I did see Brennan’s signature.

Visitation rooms, as they say in the trade, were to my right and left. The one at right wasn’t being used; the one at left was barely being used.

Ginnie’s mother, a sweet-faced, pudgy little woman, wore a black dress but no veil; she clutched a hanky and the strap of her purse in one hand and with the other held the hand of her son, Roger. Neither Ginnie’s mother nor her brother Roger looked anything like her. Mrs. Mullens had a round face, and so did Roger. Same delicate features. Both wore glasses, but Roger’s were thick and black-rimmed where his mother’s were delicate and wire. Mother and son weighed about the same and were of a similar height and, despite the twenty years between them, could have been older sister and younger brother but for her white hair and his black, sitting there like a plump pair of salt and pepper shakers.

“Mrs. Mullens,” I said, standing before her.

She stood and hugged me and looked up at me with a brave smile and red eyes; a whisper of liquor on her breath. “Mal. Oh, Mal, I’m so glad you’re here….”

The coffin was nearby; closed. Plenty of flowers, though there had been few visitors. A few relatives—uncles, aunts—were walking around looking at the cards on the flowers, seeing who’d sent what.

“You just missed Jill Forest,” she said, sitting down. “She was in you kids’ class, wasn’t she?”

I nodded, took the chair on the other side of her; Roger looked over at me blankly, like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Roger was two years older than Ginnie, and had always been something of a brain. As smart as Ginnie was, her brother was said to be smarter. Twenty years later, and he hadn’t set the world on fire, yet. Last time I talked to him, perhaps ten years ago, he’d been a computer programmer at Maxwell Consultants, an engineering firm.

“Hello, Roger.”

“Hello.”

“I’m sorry about your loss.”

Roger shrugged. “I’m not worried.”

“Pardon?”

“I didn’t need that job anyway. I was too good for them.”

“What are you talking about, Roger?”

Mrs. Mullens, gravely, said, “Maxwell’s laid Roger off last month.”

Roger said, “What did you think I was talking about?”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Mrs. Mullens smiled like a fairy godmother and patted Roger’s arm. “Roger will find something soon, I’m sure.”

Something like a smile curled in his pudgy face. “I may go into business for myself. I can write programs with the best of them.”

“I’m, uh, sure you can, Roger.”

Silence.

Roger stood. “I’m going to catch a smoke, Mom. Be right back.”

“That’s fine, Roger.”

She watched him go, with rheumy eyes. “I wish he wouldn’t smoke.”

“Is Roger still living at home?”

She smiled just a little, sighed pleasantly. “Yes, and he’s a godsend.”

“Helps you around the house, you mean.”

“Well—he doesn’t really have
time
for that. He has to work with his computer. But having his company—just to have him there at mealtime—it means so much. And now with Ginnie gone… I… I treasure his company even more.” She turned a very serious gaze on me; her eyes were Ginnie’s—nothing else about her was Ginnie, just her eyes. “You know, it occurred to me this morning… thinking about losing Ginnie… I just take that boy for granted sometimes. I just don’t appreciate him like I should.”

I tried to think of something polite to say about the fat little bastard and instead said, “I saw Ginnie at the class reunion last month.”

“Was that the last time you saw her, Mal?”

“Yes.”

No. Last night I’d seen her put into the back of an ambulance. Under a sheet.

“Mal, how were her spirits?”

“Good. I’d say, good. She said she was happy.”

“How could she have…” She let out a confused sigh.

“I don’t know. Ginnie didn’t seem the sort of person who would take her life.”

She looked off somewhere, nowhere, nodding to no one. “Sometimes we don’t know people as well as we think we do. As close as Ginnie and I were, I… I would never have guessed this of her.”

I took her hand and squeezed it a little; we smiled tightly at each other. Blinked our individual tears away.

But Mrs. Mullens was lying. Not to me.

Herself.

She and Ginnie had been anything but close. Ginnie had always treated her mom rather callously when we were kids in junior high and high school. Back then I’d found it amusing, being a teenager myself and getting a kick out of seeing anybody get away with talking to a parent like that. Anything to kick authority in the pants.

Now, looking back, I could see Ginnie had treated her mom pretty shabbily.

“We had a special relationship, Ginnie and I,” she said. “We didn’t see each other often, but when we did it… it was
quality
time.”

“When did you see her last, Mrs. Mullens?”

She thought about it. “Christmas. No. Not this Christmas, the Christmas before that.”

Ginnie lived twenty-some miles from her mother and they hadn’t seen each other in over a year.

“She was down for the reunion,” I said. “Didn’t she stop by…?”

“That was a busy day for her.”

I swallowed. “Yeah, that was kind of a frantic weekend.”

She dabbed at her eyes with the hanky, glanced toward the coffin, tentatively. “Oh, she and I, we didn’t see each other so much, but we talked on the phone, all the time.”

“Really.”

“Sure. Sometimes she’d call at night and we’d have mother-and-daughter talks into the wee hours.”

I hoped that was true.

What she said next I
knew
was true. She squeezed my hand hard and looked at me harder and said, “A mother and daughter can drift apart, but that doesn’t make her any less a daughter… any less your baby. Does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

And I held her and she cried into my white shirt. I patted her back and said, “There, there.” As she drew away I again smelled the alcohol on her breath. An old problem of hers.

I wasn’t surprised it was still with her, really; she’d had it ever since I was a kid, her drinking problem. When Ginnie’s father was on the road, she would sometimes come over to our house and stay with us, bringing Ginnie along, to try to stay on the wagon with my mother’s moral support. But sooner or later, Mrs. Mullens would hit the sauce again, and I knew that was the major reason why Ginnie thought so little of her mom.

Once, in our high school days, I told Ginnie her pot-smoking was no different than her mother’s drinking and she just laughed and said I was such a square.

“I thought more of her friends would drop by,” Mrs. Mullens said, disappointed with the turnout.

“There aren’t too many of her old high school classmates still in town. Some of her Iowa City friends will be at the service tomorrow morning, I’m sure.”

“That would be nice. J.T. and Malinda will be here tomorrow. You know J.T., don’t you? Ginnie’s husband?”

“Yes. And Malinda is Ginnie’s daughter.”

“That’s right. J.T.’s a nice man. He’s a poet, you know. I wish things could have worked out for Ginnie and J.T.”

“I look forward to meeting Ginnie’s daughter.”

“Sweet little girl. She’s four. Sweet child.” She wiped her eyes with the handkerchief again, and clutched her purse and
rose, saying, “If you’ll excuse me for a moment. I need to take some medicine.”

She went off to the restroom. Ninety-proof medicine, no doubt. Whatever got her through this was fine with me.

I went looking for Roger. He was standing out in front, smoking a recently lit cigarette, the pastel floodlights of the funeral home giving him a little color.

“That your second cigarette, Roger?”

“If it is, what concern of yours is it?”

“Your mother could use a little support.”

He looked at me with smug distaste. “Who are you to talk? When was the last time you even
saw
my mother? I spend every
day
with her.”

“It’s cheaper than rent.”

“Go to hell.”

“You didn’t even like your sister much, did you, Roger?”

A convertible rumbled by, a couple of boys in Skol caps, their radio blasting some heavy-metal “song.”

“That’s my business,” Roger said, watching them.

“When did you see her last?”

“Last night,” he said, casually.

“Last
night
?”

“That’s right.”

“How long before she was killed?”

His head swiveled to look at me; eyes like black buttons. “Who says she was killed? The sheriff says it’s suicide.”

“Nothing’s official yet, Roger. When did you see her?”

“Go to hell.”

I walked over to him and smiled and put an arm around his shoulder; he looked at me suspiciously.

“Let’s be friends, Roger.”

“I never liked you and you never liked me, Mallory. Let’s leave it that way.”

“Fine. But we can at least be polite, can’t we?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, answer my question, or maybe I’ll roll you down West Third like a barrel.”

He pushed me away. “Leave me alone! I’ll—”

“Tell your mother?”

He sucked on the cigarette, nervously. “Why don’t you leave? You’re not family.”

“Tell me about the last time you saw your sister.”

“It was after supper. Maybe seven. I was gone by eight. We talked, that’s all.”

“What about?”

He shrugged. “I told you before I was out of work. I went to Ginnie for some help.” Snort. “For all the good it did me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got brains!” he said, poking a thumb at his chest, hard, like that was where he kept them. “She had money. I offered her a business proposition, and she was too stupid to take me up on it.”

“What sort of business proposition?”

“Why should I tell you this?”

“Would you rather tell it to Sheriff Brennan?”

His dough boy face went slack with concern. Self-concern. “Do you think she was… murdered or something?”

“Or something,” I said. “Tell me about the business proposition.”

His shoulders sagged. “I’ve been developing my own computer programs.”

“Such as?”

“You wouldn’t understand, you dumb ass. Suffice to say I was seeking backing, to package and sell my wares.”

“Suffice to say. Why go to Ginnie?”

“She had money! She just sold that shop, didn’t she? She had money.”