Death on a Platter (16 page)

“Josie,” he said. “I’ve had a heckuva day. I need to see you.”

“What happened, Ted? Did you have to put down a pet?” Ted knew this could be the kindest way to care for a suffering animal who could not recover, but it left him feeling low.

“Not today. I was wounded at work. I wrestled a kitten this afternoon. The furball nearly won.”

Josie giggled.

“You won’t think it’s funny when you see me,” he said. “I look like I was attacked by a barbed-wire fence. Can we go out to dinner tonight or do you have other plans?”

“I have other plans,” Josie said. “I’m seeing another man.”

There was a long pause. “So you don’t want to see me?”

She shouldn’t have teased Ted, not after he’d had a rough day. “He’s a dead man, Ted. I’m going to Clay Oreck’s visitation this evening. Maybe I can learn something that will help Tillie.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ted said.

“No, you turn too many heads,” Josie said. “I need to slip in, be invisible, listen, and leave.”

“You? Invisible?” Ted said. “You’re too beautiful. Anyone with a pulse will see you. How about after the visitation? A client brought me a gooey butter cake from Gooey Louie. Isn’t that on your TAG Tour list?”

“You have a terrific memory,” Josie said.

“I don’t forget gooey butter cake. My place or yours?”

Yours, Josie thought. I want to eat gooey butter cake naked in bed. I want to have mad, passionate sex. I want—

Amelia’s cat bumped Josie with his forehead and brought her back to responsible motherhood. “My place. We’ll invite Mom and Amelia. I’ll make the coffee and you bring the cake. Eight thirty work for you?”

Gooey butter cake with two chaperones, Josie thought. That should be safe. She checked her watch. She’d have to leave shortly for Amelia’s school, but she had time to Google those two charities. She tried Our Lady of the Sheets and got this message: “Are you sure you don’t mean Our Lady of the Streets?”

Josie thought the name was another joke until she saw the statues and paintings devoted to that aspect of the Virgin Mary.

She searched for Our Lady of the Sheets several different ways without success. She found no results for the Sisters of Divine Poverty. She couldn’t find either charity. Josie tore up the letters and buried them in her trash.

Maybe I should pray to Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, Josie thought. Or maybe Mom is being scammed.

Clay Oreck died young, at thirty-two. That guaranteed a big turnout at his wake. Clay was no child, but the death of one of their own was still a novelty for most people his age. His sensational exit meant his funeral would include curiosity seekers as well as close friends.

Josie felt lucky to find a parking spot in the acres of blacktop at the Dell-Merriam funeral home.

She watched the mourners enter in clots of three and four. She attached herself to a trio of women in dark pantsuits. They didn’t notice her as they gossiped about the victim. Josie assumed they were related. They had the same well-shaped noses and full lips, nut-brown hair, and tanned skin. They looked like stair steps. Josie nicknamed them the Step Sisters.

“I hear he was poisoned,” said the tallest sister, Step One, lowering her voice to a confidential whisper.

“I’m not surprised,” said Step Two.

“He had it coming,” said Step Three. “I’m surprised Henrietta put up with him as long as she did. Clay had a good job when they were first married, but his wandering eye got him in trouble. You know why Clay was fired from his last job, don’t you?”

“No,” Step One said.

“He had a fling with the boss’s wife. He caught them in the act.” Step Three was breathless with this information.

“How do you know?” asked Step Two. Josie caught a whiff of sibling rivalry.

“I heard it from Miriam, who heard it from Clay’s cousin Janis,” Step Three said. “Clay was supposed to be working on those roofs in that new subdivision out in St. Peter’s.”

“The one near I-70?” Step One asked.

“I can’t believe how much that area is growing,” Step Two said.

“Am I going to get a chance to tell my story before he’s buried?” Step Three said. The other two Step Sisters shut up.

“Clay had a thing for the builder’s wife. The builder was a tub of lard. She was a hot little thing, twenty years younger than her husband. She was supposed to be decorating the display house. The builder found the two of them going at it on the display house bed.”

“Do they use real mattresses on those beds?” Step Two asked.

Step Three blasted her with a glare. “If I can continue, the builder found them in the bedroom. Clay had dropped his nail gun and his pants on the marble threshold. The builder picked up the nail gun and nearly nailed Clay’s thingie to the bed.”

The three Step Sisters shared a delicious shocked silence as Josie trailed them into the funeral home’s foyer. The Step Sisters bobbed through a sea of somber clothes while they deep-sixed the dead man’s reputation.

“You don’t think Henrietta killed him, do you?” Step One asked.

“Wouldn’t blame her if she did,” Step Three said. “
Sh!
There’s Father Murchison.”

“He looks like a giant water bird,” Step One said.

Step Two giggled.

“Show some respect,” Step Three said. “He’s here to lead the rosary. Heaven knows Clay needs all the prayers he can get.” She checked her watch. “It was supposed to start at seven and it’s seven ten now. These things never run on time.”

“Good evening, Father.” The three women bowed their heads in meek innocence. Josie thought Step One was right: the stilt-legged priest did look like a heron in a Roman collar. She left the trio and gently elbowed her way through the crowded entrance.

A small, solemn sign said Clay was in Parlor A. That was the largest room, nearly the size of a high school gymnasium. Parlor A reeked of hothouse flowers and dry-cleaned clothes. Almost every seat was taken. Clay’s receiving line snaked from the back of the room to his flower-covered bronze casket.

Josie spotted an empty chair in the second row near the casket. It was far enough away from Clay’s family that she could sit there and blend in with the other mourners. Josie slid between a big-bellied man in a dark gray suit and two well-powdered women in dark dresses. She’d just reached the coveted seat when there was a commotion near the casket.

A woman with dead-black hair was weeping and wringing her plump pink hands. “I can’t find my rosary,” she repeated for the third time.

“Use mine, Mother Oreck,” Henrietta said.

The distraught woman must be Clay’s mother, Olivia Oreck. Clay’s wife hovered around the poor woman as if she were afraid her mother-in-law would escape. Josie was startled by how much Henrietta looked like her mother-in-law. Both were big-busted, wide-hipped, and maternal. Both had the same dark hair curled behind their left ear. Both wore plain black pumps and black suits with pale gray blouses.

Clay’s mother had Henrietta’s same sharp temper. “I don’t want yours,” Olivia snapped. A few seconds later, she seemed to regret her flare-up. “I’m sorry, dear.” She patted Henrietta’s hand. “Of course I’ll use your rosary. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I only meant that lost rosary was special. It was a gift from Clay. He bought it for me when you went to Cancun, remember?”

“Of course I remember our honeymoon,” Henrietta said. She put her arm around her mother-in-law’s shoulders. “We’ve checked your purse, my purse, and both our cars. Before we left your home, we searched your dresser and chest of drawers. Maybe it will turn up later when we’re both not so upset.”

She pressed a worn black velvet bag as big as a business card into Olivia’s hand. “This rosary belonged to my grandmother. It’s made of crystal.” The two women had pretty hands with nails like tiny seashells.

“Thank you, dear. I promise not to lose it. It’s such a shame I can’t find Clay’s rosary. It had such beautiful brown beads.”

“They were just brown beans,” Henrietta said. “They weren’t precious stones.”

“Well, they were precious to me.”

“Of course they were,” Henrietta said.

Josie wondered if Clay’s mother carried on about that missing rosary as a way to mourn her lost son. The fruitless search had stopped the receiving line, which was now three-quarters of the way around the room. Older women were fanning themselves. Younger people looked pointedly at their watches.

“Oh, dear, I’ve been neglecting Clay’s friends,” Olivia said. Clay’s mother took the hand of a slim woman in a navy suit. “I know you’re sorry, Carol dear. It’s so sweet of you to come here when you have the children. Would you like to see him?” She took Carol’s arm. Together they made the solemn pilgrimage to the casket.

“What are you doing here?” Henrietta hissed at the next mourner. Her angry voice carried above the subdued crowd sounds.

“I—I wanted to pay my respects.” It was Lorena, neatly dressed in black.

“You got nerve coming here,” Henrietta said.

Tillie’s daughter backed away as if Henrietta might strike her.

Desmond Twinings stepped protectively in front of Lorena. His dark eyebrows looked like they might take wing.

“Easy now,” Desmond said. “She meant no harm.” Was the developer’s scout escorting Lorena or protecting his investment? He wore a conventional gray suit and dark tie, but his hands seemed to have disappeared. No, wait. He was wearing thin black gloves. On a warm September night. What was that all about?

“Meant no harm?” Henrietta asked, her voice rising to a screech. “Meant no harm?” Her voice went up another octave.

Clay’s mother had been kneeling at the casket with Carol. She looked up. All conversation died.

Henrietta’s matronly body waded through the pool of silence. She moved closer to Lorena and said, “My husband is lying there dead.” She pointed at the carnation-covered casket. “Your mother put him in that coffin. She wanted him that way.”

“No!” Lorena said. “Mom didn’t have anything to do with Clay’s death.”

“He was murdered,” Henrietta screamed. “Your mother left me a widow and you’ve come here to gloat. I want you out of here! Out! Now, before I have you thrown out.”

An anxious undertaker materialized alongside the casket, but his shooing services weren’t required. The thin old priest stood next to Henrietta and Clay’s mother, fluttering and gulping like a giant wading bird.

“Shall we begin the rosary?” he asked.

Mrs. Oreck managed a nod.

Desmond guided Lorena toward the door. The crowd parted for them, backing away from the couple as if Lorena’s touch was poison.

Ted showed up on Josie’s doorstep at eight thirty that night with a flat yellow box and a face full of scratches.

“Ouch,” Josie said. “You look like you wrestled a thorn-bush.”

“Aw, shucks, ma’am, it’s just a scratch.” Ted gave her a cowboy grin.

Josie kissed him carefully on his right cheek, avoiding the long scarlet seam. He had a zigzag slash down his neck, tiny stab marks on his forehead, and deep gashes on his right hand.

Ted got a careful hug and a smile from Jane. Amelia shook his hand gravely and said, “Hi, Ted. It’s Mel.”

She is still going by Mel, Josie thought.

Ted said, “Good to see you again, Mel,” as if people changed their names every day.

“You survived death by a thousand cuts,” Josie said. “I see seven slashes and I’m still counting. Let me take the Gooey Louie cake box.” She inhaled the buttered sugar scent.

“Who cut you?” Amelia asked.

“Kinsey,” Ted said.

Jane looked mildly shocked. “Like the report?”

What report? Josie wondered. Then she remembered three sophomore girls sniggering in her high school bathroom over a dog-eared paperback about a sex survey.

“I don’t think the cat was named for the Kinsey Institute for sex research,” Ted said. “Probably the detective Kinsey Millhone.”

“Oh, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey.” Jane looked relieved. She didn’t like any mention of sex in front of her granddaughter.

“That’s my guess,” Ted said. “Every time Dina Willner brings in one of her cats, I see her reading a different mystery. Dina just adopted this stray kitten. Kinsey is only eight weeks old, a furball with a long tail. I tried to examine the cute little kitty and she exploded into razor-sharp teeth and claws.”

“What did this feisty cat look like?” Amelia asked.

“Like your Harry with long hair.”

“Harry would never act like that,” Amelia said. “He didn’t attack you when you took care of him.”

“He wasn’t feeling well enough to attack,” Ted said.

He saw Amelia’s frown and said, “And I’m sure he’s naturally calmer than Kinsey.”

Jane was indignant. “I blame that Dina woman. She couldn’t control her cat,” she said. “She let that creature claw your face. She should have stopped it.”

“Dina was laughing too hard to help,” Ted said. “Kinsey ran right up my face. You can see her path. I had to pry her off my scalp.”

“You shouldn’t be treating that wild animal,” Jane said. “You could be scarred for life.”

“It’s my fault,” Ted said. “This was Kinsey’s first visit and she was a stray. I should have known she’d be scared. Dina felt so bad she brought me this gooey butter cake from Gooey Louie.”

“Sweet,” Amelia said.

“Almost worth getting attacked by a ferocious kitten,” Ted said.

“Let’s quit discussing the cake and eat it,” Josie said. “I have coffee in the kitchen.”

She opened the box on the kitchen counter. All four admired the golden square coffee cake covered with drifts of powdered sugar.
“Mm,”
they hummed, united by their love of the St. Louis specialty.

“Your table looks nice,” Ted said.

Josie flushed at his praise. She’d put yellow plates on a cornflower blue tablecloth and filled a vase with branches of gold and scarlet leaves.