Lilac Avenue (11 page)

When Scott mentioned Mamie’s connection to Knox Rodefeffer
, Sarah’s eyes lit up.

“Maybe you could get her post mortem moved up to a higher priority,” he said.

“Maybe,” she said. “I’ll stop by Mr. Rodefeffer’s house and speak to him before I leave town. Where are the feds camping out?”

Scott told her they were using a conference room at the city building.

Sarah gave permission for the EMTs to remove the body. Scott watched them carry the gurney down the steep steps, Mamie’s body covered by a sheet. He then went back in the house, turned off the lights, locked both doors, and met Sarah on the front stairs.

“Get the locks changed,” Sarah said. “I don’t want any greedy relatives ransacking the antiques while our backs are turned.”

“I’ll do the paperwork and get Judge Fineman to sign off on it,” Scott said. “Do you want the letter? It’s in the station safe.”

“Hold onto it,” Sarah said. “You interview the
Realtor and the waitress, and I’ll tackle Knox. If I think there’s actually a crime to investigate, I’ll see if I can’t get the postmortem expedited.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Why did you keep the letter all this time?”

“In case something like this happened,” Scott said.

Sarah nodded.

“I hear you and Maggie are finally tying the knot,” she said.

“Yep,” Scott said.

“I guess my invitation got lost in the mail,” she said.

“We haven’t set a date yet,” Scott said.

“I won’t hold my breath,” Sarah said.

If she meant until the invitation came or for there to be a wedding, Scott didn’t ask. He had his own concerns about that.

Chapter Four - Tuesday and Wednesday

After Sarah left, Scott called Delvecchio’s Hardware and asked Sonny Delvecchio to come up and change the locks on Mamie’s house. He assigned his deputy Skip to hang out with Sonny until it was done. Deputy Frank was assigned the task of going around town, interviewing everyone who had seen Mamie the day she died, trying to find out if she had said anything that would lead one to believe she didn’t feel well or was about to be murdered. His entire staff thus mobilized on behalf of Mamie, Scott went over to Trick Rodefeffer’s house to interview him.

Trick was so drunk he was barely conscious, so Scott was left to interview his long-suffering wife. Sandy always seemed nervous around Scott, and today was no exception. She kept tucking her hair behind her ears and moistening her lips.

“Do you have any reason to think someone would want to kill Mamie?” he asked.

“To relieve us all from the sheer aggravation of having to deal with her, do you mean?”

“Were you having problems with her?” he asked. “I mean, more than usual.”

“She’s broke,” Sandy said. “Trick was giving her money before I put a stop to it.”

“How did Mamie go broke?” Scott asked. “I thought there was a trust.”

“I don’t know,” Sandy said with a shrug. “She wants the boys to give her money, feels like she’s owed it, but she won’t let them take over her finances.”

Scott noted that Sandy still spoke as though Mamie were alive; possibly it just hadn’t sunk in yet that she was really gone. Mamie had such a strong personality that it was hard to believe it could be vanquished by any opposing power, even death.

“Didn’t she have an accountant or attorney?”

“She probably did before she had no money to pay them,” she said. “Knox would know.”

“Why was Trick over there today?”

“Oh, she probably wanted him to do some chore,” said Sandy. “Since she fired everybody, she keeps calling Trick. You know how soft-hearted he is. She knows better than to ask me.”

“I know this is a rude question
, but I have to ask it,” he said. “What kind of relationship does Trick have with Phyllis Davis?”

Sandy’s face turned red and her nostrils flared.

“If Phyllis Davis comes within five feet of my husband, I will personally wring her neck. And she knows it. Why do you ask?”

“We were all in school together, you know,” Scott said. “Phyllis has always been one for the boys.”

“I’ve heard,” Sandy said. “And my husband has always been one for the girls. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

“Have him call me when he sobers up,” Scott said.

“After I’m done with him you can have what’s left of him,” Sandy said.

Phyllis Davis was not at the Mountain Laurel Depot, having finished her early shift hours before. The manager confirmed that the busboy named Kevin had delivered Mamie’s lunch to her, and although he had complained about her meanness and the measly tip, he hadn’t mentioned that she was ill. Scott made a note to himself to have Skip or Frank follow up with the busboy, and headed toward Phyllis’s house.

Like Trick, Phyllis had been drinking. Scott could smell the whiskey fumes and see the bloodshot eyes, but she still seemed to be mostly in command of her senses. She reluctantly let Scott in to her parents’ home, where he was repulsed by the smell of cigarette smoke and the inevitable nest of squalor in which Phyllis seemed to thrive. Down the hall he could see clothing and trash leaking out of every room. Her mother, he knew, had been an immaculate housekeeper; she would be appalled to see the state of her former home.

“I’ll put this out,” she said, as she stubbed out her lit cigarette. “I know what a delicate magnolia flower you are.”

Scott thanked her. She sat down at the kitchen dinette and he sat across from her.

The table was covered in crumbs and sticky rings from what were no doubt multiple highballs or the coffee meant to revive one from the consequences of their consumption. A dirty cereal bowl was serving as an ashtray, overflowing with ashes and butts.

Phyllis’s hair, black as hot tar, was styled in a big, tousled style popular with soap opera actresses Scott’s mother had watched on television in the previous century. Her eyes were ringed with heavy black makeup and the false eyelashes on her left eye were peeling up at the outside corner. The heavy makeup could not conceal the dark circles under her eyes or the smoker’s wrinkles that radiated out from her lips.

When she coughed
, it sounded like his mother’s cough just before she died of lung cancer. Although his mother’s lung cancer was the result of ovarian cancer that spread, every time he saw someone smoke he wanted to warn them that suffocating is a horrible way to die.

“Let’s get this over with,” Phyllis said. “What can I tell ya?”

“You took the trash bags with you when you left Mamie’s,” he said. “Why was that?”

“I didn’t take nothing,” Phyllis said, as she pointed a finger at Scott.

By habit she reached for her pack of cigarettes and lighter, her hands trembling. She had the cigarette in her mouth and the lighter lit before she remembered she had offered not to smoke. She snapped the Zippo shut, but she kept the cigarette in her hand and gestured with it as if it were lit.

“I was pickin’ up them dirty dishes and that’s all I was doing.”

“You just happened to meet Trick there.”

“He was there when I got there.”

“And if I check your phone records, I won’t see a call to or from him over the past few days.”

She started to reply. Her mouth was hanging open; her cigarette pointed at him to deny whatever he was accusing her of, when the gist of his statement made its way through the whiskey fog to her brain. She snapped her mouth shut.

“I ain’t gonna answer another question without a lawyer.”

“
All righty,” Scott said. “Let me know when you’ve hired one.”

“I ain’t got that kinda money,” Phyllis protested. “Don’t the state have to appoint me one?”

“I haven’t charged you with anything yet,” Scott said. “Do you want to be arrested?”

“Listen,” she said. “You know how it is, Scott. Me and Trick go way back, you know? And him being married to Sandy, I gotta be real careful.”

“Why were you meeting him at Mamie’s?”

She didn’t answer, so busy was she trying to decide what to answer.

“Are you and Trick having an affair?”

“Pfft,” said Phyllis. “I don’t know that I’d go that far. It’
s more like one of them friends-with-benefits situations. They say any port in a storm, you know, and let’s just say I always keep a dock reserved for Trick. Always have.”

“So why were you meeting him at Mamie’s?”

“I had a perfectly legal reason to be up there,” she said, continuing to evade his question. “I had to pick up them dishes for work. Trick just happened to be there. Any phone calls we mighta had lately were unrelated. You can’t listen to them phone calls without a warrant, right?”

“Why are you so worried, Phyllis?”

“Nah,” she said. “You’d have to tap my phone. It takes a court order to get one a them. I know that much.”

“So why did you take the trash with you?”

“You got some proof I did that?”

“Tell me why,” Scott said.

“I ain’t sayin’ I did,” Phyllis said. “It’s you gotta prove I did.”

“If you know something a
bout Mamie’s death,” Scott said, “it will be better for you to cooperate with me and save your own hide.”

“Nope,” Phyllis said, as sat back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her. “If you thought you could prove something
, youd’ve already arrested me. I don’t see no cuffs out. So I’m telling you I had nothing to do with it. That’s all I got to say.”

Scott studied her.

“Trick’s weak,” Scott said. “He’ll turn on you.”

“That’s what you think.”

“You’re not smart enough to get away with it,” Scott said. “But you are smart enough to know that whichever one of you turns on the other, that person will have a better time of it in court.”

“Not another word,” Phyllis said. “We’re done here.”

“I saved your hide once,” Scott said. “You remember that?”

“You also hounded my son into an early grave,” she said. “You remember that?”

“Think about your position. Think about what the Rodefeffers are capable of,” Scott said. “You know where to find me.”

Outside, Scott checked her garbage cans, which were empty. He thought about the
huge dumpster at the Mountain Laurel Depot. That’s where she’d throw them. There would be no way of telling Mamie’s garbage from all the other garbage in there. He turned back to look at the house as he opened the squad car door. Phyllis was watching him through the front window, her lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth.

Scott was
finished with his paperwork in time to join his team for the pub quiz at the Thorn. He got as far as the front step, where he could hear Hannah shouting over the music, and then laughter. He stopped in his tracks. He had been fighting this headache since being in Mamie’s attic, and didn’t have the energy it would require to pretend to have a good time. So he turned away and headed home, which currently meant Maggie’s apartment over the bookstore.

He let himself into the stairwell up to Maggie’s apartment and met her brother Sean on the way down from his new apartment, across the hall from his sister.

“Hey,” Sean said. “I was just headed to the Thorn to sub for you.”

“Do you mind?” Scott said. “I’m not feeling up to it.”

“Not at all,” Sean said. “Everything okay?”

“Just a long day,” Scott said. “You know how it is.”

“Not anymore,” Sean said. “My seventy-two-hour work weeks are behind me.”

“Do you miss working at the bank and life in the big city?”

“I wouldn’t mind having more restaurant choices,” he said. “But I definitely don’t miss the endless meetings.”

“Are you making any progress up there?”

“It seems like the renovations are taking forever,” Sean said. “It’s like camping in a construction site.”

“Have you decided where to have your office?”

“I was going to have an office in Tony’s insurance agency,” Sean said. “But that fell through.”

“I’m sorry to hear about that,” Scott said. “I know you had hopes there.”

“He’s just not ready to take that step,” Sean said. “Not while his parents are alive, anyway.”

“That’s a shame,” Scott said. “Life’s too short.”

“I wish he realized that,” Sean said. “When’s the wedding?”

“I wish I knew,” Scott said.

“You want me to talk to her?”

“No,” Scott said. “I think the less said the better. If too many people bug her about it
, she’ll just dig in her heels.”

“You’re a brave man.”

“Or the biggest fool,” Scott said, but he was smiling when he said it.

He meant to wait up for Maggie, and had
every intention of just lying down on the couch to rest his eyes for a moment, time enough to let his headache medicine do its magic. He woke up to Maggie kissing his forehead. Duke, the giant tabby cat he and Maggie co-parented, was stretched out along Scott’s legs with his long, furry belly up in the air. The cat gave Maggie a dirty look.

“That cat’s getting fatter every day,” Maggie said.

“We both are,” Scott said. “It’s all the pizza we eat.”

Maggie sat down on the floor next to the couch.

“We lost,” she said.

“I guess that’s my fault,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” Maggie said. “I’ve been thinking about your punishment.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Maybe a little,” she said. “The hardest part will be removing that cat from your lap.”

“I’ll risk it,” he said.

Later on Scott raided the fridge while Maggie made tea.

“There’s a lemon, a bottle of ketchup, some moldy cheese, and something that may have once been a peach,” he said. “What can we make out of that?”

“A call for pizza delivery,” Maggie said.

“I need to cut back on the late night snacks,” Scott said. “I need to eat a vegetable.”

“Veggie pizza?” Maggie said.

“Would you care if I actually bought groceries for this fridge?”

“Would I care?” she asked. “I’d celebrate the occasion.”

“I’ll do that tomorrow.”

“This is your home, too, you know,” Maggie said. “Why would I mind if you buy groceries?”

“Is this going to be our home, then?” Scott said. “We’ve never really talked about where we’d live.”

“Duke and I like living here,” Maggie said. “I guess I assumed you did, too.”

Scott could sense from her tone that her defenses were going up. He sighed and hung his head.