Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries) (18 page)

“How old are you, Mom?”

“Old enough,” said Nellie. “You hungry? I took all the leftover food.” Nellie opened her large purse to show Jane all the foil packets and plastic containers. “You know how much that chicken salad cost? Jeez, I serve that at the EZ Way and try to get those prices, people would string me up.”

“Where’s the folder that Detective Oh gave me?”

Nellie jerked her thumb to indicate the one seat that wasn’t folded down to accommodate the boxes they were taking back to Kankakee. Without undoing her seatbelt, Nellie squirmed and turned, grabbing the file and opened it up.

“What do you want to know?”

“Put it away, Mom. I just wanted to make sure I had it. Detective Oh got a little more information for me. Let’s talk more about a retirement plan for you.”

“I told you something wasn’t right with Lucky,” said Nellie, scanning the page.

“Something’s sure not right today. He sounded pretty anxious on the phone.”

“He’s a nut job, too,” said Nellie. “Sometimes I think we’re the only non-nut jobs left. Want a pickle?”

“Wasn’t that from Melinda’s sandwich?” asked Jane.

“She didn’t touch it. I watched,” said Nellie.

Nellie crunched the pickle while continuing to read the contents of the folder Oh had given Jane. He had told her that he had found more information, but he couldn’t verify all of its accuracy since some of the hospital and medical records were for Herman Mullet and some for Herman Muller.

“Someone either mixed up the name and Herman Mullet took advantage of the change or he himself adopted the alternative spelling,” said Oh.

“How were you able to get this information? This is from Canada,” said Jane. Oh had obviously gone beyond a Google search for these copies.

“Much of my father’s family emigrated to Canada and I have several cousins there, two of whom happened to be well placed to obtain this type of personal information,” said Oh. “As I said, though, some of this is a little confusing, although I’ve gone over it a few times and the ages work and the times of hospitalization.”

It was at that point that Beatrice had asked Jane about the brass horse head hook that Jane had wanted to remove from Nick’s old bedroom, asking if it were an authentic Arts-and-Crafts piece that had been in the house when they bought it. Jane told her that it was not, it was something they found at a flea market in South Dakota on vacation and Jane just wanted to give it to Nick as a souvenir of his old room.

It was only a half lie and Jane only felt half guilty about telling it. They had taken a vacation in South Dakota. Besides, she was leaving Beatrice the hand-forged fireplace damper handle that had taken Jane two years to find.

When Nellie and Jane arrived home in Kankakee, Don was sitting on the driveway in a folding lawn chair. He was staring down at his hands.

“What the hell’s wrong with him?” said Nellie, opening the car door before Jane had fully stopped the van.

Jane hurried out of the van herself, leaving the unloading of boxes for later.

When she got closer, she saw Don was staring not at his hands, but at his new cell phone. Nellie was trying to look tough and inscrutable, but she began her sideways laughing when Don looked up at her with a lost puppy face.

“How the hell did you do this?”
On R way home
read the small screen. “I’ve been trying to write you back for an hour,” said Don. “Every time I type in
Where
I hit the wrong letter and the word
were or here
or some other damn thing comes up on the screen and then I try to erase it and I lose the whole damn thing. Something’s wrong with this thing.”

“Mom’s got smaller fingers and a natural penchant for misspelling. It’s easier for her to figure out texting, Dad,” said Jane. She wasn’t happy to see him frustrated, but the distraction from all things Carl and the decision to close the tavern for the day was a blessing in disguise.

“Thought I was too dumb for one of these things, didn’t you? There’s a book with it, you know. And even though you and Jane don’t believe it, I can read,” said Nellie. “Want some chicken salad?”

Don got up, slipped the phone into his pocket and followed them both inside.

Jane washed her hands and face and decided to call Tim before rushing to Lucky’s side. She needed to know if he wanted her to drive the van over and it wouldn’t hurt to find out if Tim knew what had happened that had so unnerved Lucky since Miller, nee Mullet or Muller, had refused to give Jane any details over the phone.

“Don’t know anything about Lucky, Jane … haven’t seen him all day. The writers were holed up somewhere and I heard that Lucky and Malcolm came in here around lunchtime but I didn’t really see them,” said Tim. “Wait. What? Oh, Maurice just said that Lucky was upset about the horseshoes in his office. Don’t know what that means, but apparently Lucky was screaming about his luck running out.” Tim paused before adding, “Sorry I couldn’t help at the house. Are you okay?”

“I’m great. I’m breathing new air.”

“Yeah, okay. Did you bring back a lot of your stuff?”

“Nope, hardly anything,” said Jane. “Do you need me to drive your van over?”

“Who is this and what have you done with Jane Wheel?” said Tim. “Nah, don’t need the van until tomorrow. In fact … what?” Jane could hear Tim talking to someone, laughing at something. “Apparently I have a date tonight,” he said. He sounded happy and a little bewildered.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Tim?” asked Jane. She realized her mother had gotten the name wrong earlier. Not Maureen. Maurice.

“Talking about me or you, kitten?” said Tim.

“Okay, I’ve got to find Lucky. Maybe I’ll see you over there and if not, have fun. Don’t rush into anything, Timmy, those Hollywood type heartbreakers can—”

“Gotta go, Janie. I’ve got a date to rush into something.”

Jane shook her head. Maybe Tim had the right idea. Maybe she should find that teamster, Sal, and rush into something herself. Jane walked into her old bedroom to change clothes before heading out to find Lucky, but when she remembered that her wardrobe wasn’t exactly unlimited, she decided her jeans and sweater were perfect. Maybe she’d snag a Lucky Productions windbreaker over at the studio.

Jane grabbed the folder with Oh’s information. If she couldn’t find Lucky right away, she could do a little homework. Don and Nellie were at the kitchen table and Rita was hovering, hoping for more of what Nellie had in the foil packet.

“This roast beef is pretty good. I didn’t even see it when that nutty woman put the food out. I wonder if she meant for us to have it for lunch?”

“Mom! Did you go into the refrigerator and just take everything she brought? That was probably tonight’s dinner for her family. They’re staying at some apartment hotel!”

“It was in your refrigerator. You own it until Monday, right?” said Nellie, feeding Rita another slice of rare roast beef, which Jane knew cost double digits a pound.

Jane looked at her dad for support but he was lost in the manual for his cell phone. Next to the phone on the table was a list of people and phone numbers. Jane picked it up and read over the names. “Friends of Carl?” asked Jane.

Don nodded. The memorial was set for next Friday. One week would give everyone time to plan. A few old friends of the EZ Way Inn had retired and moved out of town, but Don said almost everyone he called was planning on making the trip back to pay their respects. There wouldn’t be an official funeral, since Carl had left instructions that he wanted to be cremated.

“Me, too,” said Nellie. “I want to be cremated. Nobody gets to look at me when I can’t look back.” She bent down to pet Rita and whisper roast beef promises for later.

“Right,” said Don, not looking up from his instruction book, giving his usual response. “We’ll wait until after you’re gone, though, okay?”

Jane was halfway out the door when Don called to her.

“When you get a chance, honey, Salt and Pepper really want you to get into Carl’s apartment and take his stuff out or help decide what to do with it. Keys to the place are right there.”

One more part-time job. Jane picked up the plain silver key ring, admired the fact that it was sterling, and left it next to the flowerpot on the counter. One more part-time job.

Lucky wasn’t answering his cell phone. Tim had said he wasn’t at the studio, so Jane headed over to Mack’s Café. That seemed to be a favorite meeting spot for the writers. The sign in the window said
OPEN
, but only a few Lucky crew members sat in a back booth. Jane took a seat at the counter. The perky waitress wasn’t on duty, but Sam was behind the counter.

“Back for a burger?” asked Sam. Everything’s finally cleaned up in the kitchen.”

“One of those perfect milk shakes, please. Chocolate.”

Sam nodded and reached into the two-door stainless steel freezer with a large metal ice cream scoop. Jane recognized the piece of restaurant equipment. Don and Nellie used to have one in their back room, back in their busy days of serving lunch to the Roper Stove crowd. It held two giant five-gallon tubs of ice cream, one under each heavy lift-up door. Nellie offered a choice of vanilla and fudge ripple. When Jane was around eight, Nellie caught her kneeling on a chair she had pushed up against the freezer, tunneling out the fudge with a spoon, eating it directly from the container. Nellie had laughed and told her that Don didn’t need to know about it. When she was older, Jane remembered Don handing her a coffee mug and asking her to put a spoonful of vanilla into it. When she brought it back, he’d pour hot coffee over it and say, “Wonder what the poor people are drinking tonight?”

It took Jane a while to realize that this was Don’s standing joke about just how rich he felt. Every Sunday when Nellie put the pot roast on the table and slammed down a pitcher of silky brown gravy that Don poured over his plate heaped with meat and potatoes and onions and carrots, he would tuck his napkin into his belt, and look at Jane and Michael and Nellie and muse, “Wonder what the poor people are eating tonight.”

Eventually, Jane and Michael learned to answer him with whatever they were having for dinner, whatever Don was about to tuck into, and he would nod approvingly, agreeing with them.

Jane knew, though, that even though Don and Nellie weren’t rich, Don had been a shrewd businessman and that he and Nellie had been tireless workers, remained tireless workers. They owned their own house, they’d always paid cash for a car. There had been no hesitation about paying college tuition for both of his children—as long as they went to school in state, of course. Don hadn’t even wanted to get a credit card until one of the Roper office workers whom he trusted persuaded him that he might be in a situation where he couldn’t use cash somewhere.

“What planet would that be on?” Don asked. “Planet Kankakee will always take cash.”

There had been a few medical scares and some tests and hospital stays. Everything had always turned out all right and Jane knew that Don and Nellie paid for health insurance over and above the Medicare they now qualified for. What else, though … what else had Nellie been talking about when she said they had to keep working? Had Don trusted their savings to a retirement fund that had tanked with so many others? Jane’s brother, Michael, was a lawyer in California and did well, but he had two young children. Jane was now divorced and hadn’t had what Don and Nellie would think of as a “real” job for several years. Her parents were thinking about their ages and long-term care and their children and their grandchildren, just like everyone else these days.

“Too much whipped cream?”

Jane hadn’t noticed the picture-perfect milk shake that had been placed in front of her.

“It’s fine. I just got really lost in your ice cream cooler.”

“Beauty isn’t it? When we came in to spruce up the place for this … what—reopening—so much of the equipment in here hadn’t been touched in decades. Then we cleaned it all up and sure enough, when we plugged stuff in? Everything started working again. Apparently Lucky was willing to replace a lot of this stuff to make the place authentic, but we hardly had to use any of our budget.”

“Is that how it worked? Lucky Productions came in with a check and asked you to make it like it was?” asked Jane, sucking hard on the straw, then giving up and going for the spoon.

“Pretty much. Everybody said Lucky Productions was cutting checks left and right. They told me I could make it like it was in my grandpa’s day. There were certain things I could change—like the curtains and the table arrangements and stuff. But there were some details that Lucky insisted on. He wanted the blackboard menu the same. They brought in a sketch to show me what the board had looked like, but no need. It was still here. And Lucky remembered the ice cream cooler, too. I thought it would take me months to find a vintage one still running, but it was right here, just needed a little cleaning and polishing.”

Jane nodded and opened the folder with Oh’s information. Mr. Mullet’s occupation was listed as salesman, although his line seemed to vary from month to month and town to town. Most often he was listed generically, his line not described, but in some of the places he lived, Jane noted he had sold pots and pans, brushes and cleaning supplies, and baby-bottle sterilizers. Every new town seemed to mean a new job, a new product line. Times were tough for Mr. Mullet. Just like now. Jane looked up from her reading to see Sam looking at her thoughtfully.
Probably hoping I’m a paying customer today,
thought Jane.

“Will you make money on all this?” Jane asked, gesturing around the café with all of its new/old improvements.

“Of course. This place has been sitting closed for decades. When my grandma died, we put it up for sale. It’s been over four years now. Most of the commercial property around here’s been just sitting on the market. Hell, your folks’ place has been on for five years. Although I hear that’s because your mom keeps raising the price,” Sam said with a laugh.

“No, that can’t be…” began Jane.

“Yup, raising it. I know people are supposed to lower the price, but not Nellie. Anyone talks about coming to look at the property and the price goes up.”