Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) (23 page)

“Fairly well, thank you,” she said. Barbara reminded herself that Emmie might never pour out her heart and guts the way she and most people in the program did. “Thank you so much for coming to the funeral. It was a lovely service, wasn’t it? Her graduate students insisted on doing everything. The flowers and music were lovely, weren’t they? Lucinda and I were not close, it’s just that after Guffy”—her voice cracked—“it was a bit overwhelming.” She smiled tremulously. “The children were adorable. At least Duncan and Lucille—it didn’t touch them very deeply, they’re too young, and Lucinda wasn’t good with children. They dressed up beautifully and were so good through the whole affair. Brandy wouldn’t come.” She sighed. “I so feel I’ve failed him.”

Barbara agreed but would certainly not say so. She gave Emmie’s shoulder a squeeze.

“Come on, I’ll walk you home.’

They set out, walking slowly, through the icy streets. It had thawed, rained, and then frozen again, and the sidewalk was treacherously slick. Barbara was more than ready for spring.

“Please come in for a cup of tea,” Emmie begged. “You mustn’t say no. I’d like you to meet my husband. If he’s working late in the office, we’ll stop in. It’s just downstairs from the apartment.”

Barbara caught herself about to blurt, “I know.” She reminded herself that Dr. Weill had never met her. She had left his waiting room before he saw her face to face. Marlene, who had seen her, would be long gone this evening. It might still be awkward meeting him. She rehearsed polite opening lines in her head as they walked.

The light in the first-floor window on the street leaked out around the edges of the blinds. This was supposed to be her first time in the doctor’s office. She stood back to let Emmie buzz and, when there was no answer, fish out a couple of keys.

“I know he’s there,” Emmie said over her shoulder, “or this second lock would be locked. He needs it open to buzz the patients in, and he locks it with his own key last thing before he comes upstairs.” She pushed the door open. “Sam? Are you there?”

Barbara need not have worried about what to say. Sam Weill lay in a heap on the waiting room floor. He was dead. The condition of the side of his head put that beyond debate.

Emmie went as pale as the body and started to shake.

Barbara felt nauseated and panicky. She found herself repeating the Serenity Prayer over and over in her head.

“We have to call 911,” she said.

“The phone is on his desk.”

Surprised to find herself both thinking and coping, Barbara said, “We’d better not. It’s a crime scene; there might be fingerprints.”

“Whatever you say,” Emmie said. Barbara doubted that she watched
CSI
or
Law & Order
. “Use the phone upstairs. Or wait! I have my cell phone in my bag. Oh! Brandy. He’s upstairs babysitting with the little ones. I don’t know if he should see—”

“You need someone to hang onto,” Barbara said with more confidence than she felt. “I’ll go up and send him down while you call 911.”

Brandy, told that his mother needed him, raced down the carpeted stairs. Emmie waited at the foot, her white face looking up. Feeling guilty but grateful not to have to break the news to the boy, Barbara followed more slowly. She could hear the murmur of their voices. When she reached the office, they were locked in each other’s arms. Brandy, with an unchildlike gravity, seemed to be doing the comforting. Parentified child, Barbara thought. If he had any childhood left, there it goes.

Between them, they persuaded Emmie to wait in the apartment. She wanted Barbara to leave, reluctant to inconvenience a friend who need not be involved.

“He’s my husband. I should stay with him myself,” she said in a faint voice.

It took both of them to get her up the stairs.

“Come on, Mother,” Brandy coaxed. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“I’d better go back down,” Barbara said. The unspoken words “and stay with the body” echoed between them.

“I’ll bring you a cup of tea,” Brandy offered.

He brought the tea downstairs in a thin porcelain cup, the pale brew slopping into the saucer. His hand shook as he handed it to her. He showed no other visible reaction to the sight of his father on the floor.

“Thanks, Brandy.” Barbara sipped gratefully, the hot liquid making a trickle of impact on the sliver of ice in her heart. “Is there something we could, um, put over him?”

“Oh, yes,” the boy said. “I’ll get a blanket.” He whirled and galloped up the stairs, moving, Barbara thought, more like a real boy this time. He brought a hand-embroidered throw, featherweight and exquisitely made. They spread it over the body. As they flapped it and let it float gently to rest, neither looking as Sam Weill became a series of lumps beneath the fabric, Brandy gave her an odd look or two. That prep school training keeps him very polite, Barbara thought. When he had first come down, Emmie had mentioned almost immediately that she’d come from a meeting. Brandy asked Barbara no awkward questions about how she knew his mother. Nor did he remark that they had met before.

Barbara had no doubt that it was murder. She looked around for a weapon. One of a pair of marble bookends lay on the carpet near the door. It looked like the kind of reproduction sculpture Barbara had seen in museum gift shops. The Museum of Modern Art, she thought, Arp or Brancusi. Or maybe it was an original. If so, it was more expensive than many doctors would use to decorate a waiting room. But since the building housed his family, Dr. Weill must consider—have considered—the office part of his home. The bookend was too heavy for anybody’s pocket and too bulky for most purses. You could fit one in a backpack, but why would you? Someone had almost certainly found it at hand, given the doctor a lethal bash on the head with it, and dropped it where it lay. Yes, there was its mate, on a shelf opposite where the body lay. Luckily for all of them, she thought, it was the proverbial blunt instrument. The back of his head looked crushed, but nothing had oozed out.

The police, when they arrived, were more insistent than Brandy in their need to know where Barbara fit in. Barbara finally explained with some embarrassment to the most sympathetic looking woman cop that they knew each other from a twelve-step program.

“I walked her home purely by chance,” Barbara said, quaking inwardly and thinking that her free-floating guilt feelings had never been more inconvenient.

“Oh, yes, Officer,” Emmie said. “We’ve recently had another death in the family, and she’s been most kind.” Barbara noticed that she made it sound as if they were mere acquaintances. She was grateful, though her heart thumped with the stress that the sin of omission produced. The police officer had gone alert like a pointer at Emmie’s mention of another death. She lost interest in Barbara, who was allowed to go within an hour, after giving her name, address, and phone number, along with her description of how they had found the body.

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked Emmie. “I’ll be glad to if you need me.”

“No, no, Barbara, go. You’ve been wonderful already. I’ll call my sis—” She checked abruptly, obviously stricken as she remembered that Lucinda was dead. No doubt Frances would fly in from Ohio for the funeral, but she’d be no use tonight.

“It’s all right, Mother,” Brandy said. “I called Cousin Robert.”

“Oh, Brandy, you are so good!” Her face lit up. “Robert is my nephew. Oh! You met him.” Of course, Barbara thought, Frances’s son in AA. “He lives in Westchester, but I’m sure he’ll come. And his wife is lovely.”

“He said he and Cousin Martha would be here in forty minutes,” Brandy confirmed.

Cousin Martha, married to a recovering alcoholic, Barbara realized, might be a plus. Codependents made wonderful caregivers. She would probably get Emmie into bed with hot milk and a sleeping pill, stay over to keep her company, organize the funeral, and envelop Emmie in love. She looked a little better already.

“Are you
sure?
” She addressed the question to Brandy as well as to Emmie. “I feel guilty about leaving you.”

“Positive,” Brandy said.

Emmie nodded, then offered with a hesitant smile, “Better to feel guilty than resentful,” an Al-Anon saying she had learned from Barbara.

“We’ll make sure she’s taken care of,” the woman cop put in. Moving toward the door with Barbara, she added softly, “Let go and let God.” Barbara grinned with delight at this verbal twelve-step secret handshake. It seemed the police officer was in recovery too.

Jimmy and I both went to the funeral with Barbara. I tried to wriggle out of it.

“I don’t like funerals,” I whined.

“Nobody does, old son,” Jimmy said. “Barbara needs us.”

“I do,” she said without her usual breeziness. “I broke down when I got home last night.”

“She cried for about an hour,” said Jimmy proudly. Couples!

I tried another tack.

“What happened to not wanting Frances to see me? Besides, Chuckie, the nephew, will be there. I worked for him for two whole weeks. He’s going to wonder what the hell I’m doing there.”

“At this point, we’re both too involved to hide,” Barbara said. “Marlene, the secretary, will be there too. As far as she knows, I’m a disgruntled prospective patient who didn’t even stick around long enough to keep my appointment. She’ll wonder what the hell I’m doing there too.”

“But you won’t seem ubiquitous. And Marlene’s not part of the Kettleworth clan. What she thinks won’t matter.”

“Wiggle, wiggle, little worm,” Barbara said. “You’re not getting off the hook.”

“Glad you’re feeling better,” I said sourly.

“Honestly,” she said, “I need a lift. You didn’t see Sam with his head dented like a cheap car after a fender bender, or Emmie and that poor kid.”

“All right, all right, I’ll come,” I said. “Just stop. You’re breaking my heart.”

“I tell you what,” said Barbara with a gleam in her eye. “If we have to, we’ll explain I’m Emmie’s friend and you’re married to me and exclaim over what a small world it is.”

“Married?” Jimmy and I chorused.

“It’s easier to say than ‘significant other,’” she explained.

“Why not me?” Jimmy demanded.

“Lucinda’s funeral was so crowded that none of them knew you were with me, Jimmy. You can pretend you came alone and don’t even notice us.”

“Like Winnie the Pooh strolling along trying to look like a little black cloud and wondering if it will rain.”

“Exactly.” She beamed, ignoring his ironic tone. “It’s going to go just fine.”

When we reached the church, a classy High Episcopal one that Jimmy whispered hosted a lot of meetings, Emmie was surrounded. She was the chief mourner, so we had to pay our respects. Jimmy and I hung back looking solemn while Barbara gave her an air kiss, a hug, and a practiced but genuine “Sorry” or two. Emmie squeezed her hand and cast her a grateful look, her eyes brimming. Then, obeying Barbara’s imperious jerk of the head, we stepped up and shook her hand and mumbled something. Considering how Barbara probably shared in meetings, Emmie had to know exactly who we were, though maybe not which was which. Luckily, thinking about us was not her top priority right now. She murmured a civil “Thank you,” then turned courteously to the next well-wisher.

As we stood wondering what to do with ourselves, a young woman with hair, makeup, and clothing quite a few decibels louder than anybody else’s entered the room.

“Marlene?” I asked.

“Right on the first guess.”

She spotted Barbara almost at once and came right over. Barbara gave Jimmy a little nudge—he later called it a shove—to cut him loose. But I stayed right beside her. I was curious and surprisingly attracted. The wrapping might be gaudy, but she was a firm little package. In the 1920s, just barely long enough ago for Jimmy to consider history, they called it “It.” The word has gone out of fashion, but Marlene had it. Also, I felt sorry for her. She looked so outclassed. Barbara claimed I’d been the worst kind of handsome devil with women until the drinking got so bad I lost interest in anything else. I’m not proud of it. But since getting sober, I’d waited anxiously for the slightest stirring of attraction. I didn’t expect it to crop up at an Episcopalian funeral. But it was hard to ignore.

She was a trusting soul. She didn’t even ask what Barbara was doing there. She gave me a shy smile that sat oddly on her heavily made-up face when Barbara introduced me with a grudging, “This is Bruce. Marlene,” realizing I wouldn’t go away. I read her as a nice and pretty insecure kid peering through a brassy mask. Marlene launched into a running commentary on the eulogy, the flowers, her sympathy for the widow, and what was going to happen to her job. As she talked, she dabbed at her mascara with a wad of tissues. Considering how he had reamed her out, it was nice of her to grieve for her boss at all. Barbara listened with her counselor face on. It made me want to kick her. A few weeks sober, and I was turning into Sir Galahad. I didn’t understand myself.

When I entered the conversation, Marlene perked right up.

“I’ve been doing temp work lately,” I said. “All the agencies want to know if I have medical office experience. If you’ve done insurance billing, they’ll snap you up.”

“I sure have.” Her inch-long lashes fluttered. I guessed that they came off at night, along with her lipstick-red nails. But so what? “I’ve never done temp. Is it nice? Do you know how much they pay?”

I was glad Barbara hadn’t introduced me as her husband or even her boyfriend. She cast me a meaningful look. I read it as an instruction to chat Marlene up and find out if she knew anything that might be relevant. Barbara accused me later of ratcheting up the charm, as if I did it by turning a crank. I was just trying to be nice. And do what Barbara wanted.

“Would you like to go out for coffee? Maybe I can help you get hooked up.”

“I’d love to!”

Barbara looked disgusted. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t have it both ways. I had a sudden burning desire, as they say in meetings, for her to go away.

“Go find Jimmy,” I said. “Her boyfriend,” I explained to Marlene. “And let’s get out of here.”

*

We went back to my place. Maybe I did get carried away. The eyelashes weren’t supposed to come off, but things got so moist and steamy that they did. I was grateful everything on my side worked the way it was supposed to. I would put it on my gratitude list.