Morgue Mama (17 page)

When Aubrey finished writing her story, Tinker and Bob took her upstairs for another two hours of planning. It was eight o’clock before she came down, sticky with exhaustion. She apologized profusely for stranding me at the paper all day. We drove to Lipini’s for pizza and then at nine started for my house.

***

When I drive home at night I always take West Tuckman. It’s wide and well-lighted and the neighborhoods for the most part are safe. Aubrey that night took West Apple, which, although a much straighter shot across town, slices through some very iffy neighborhoods. It even intersects with infamous Morrow Street, where the hookers Aubrey wrote about do their business.

While her old Escort looked a lot worse than it drove, I was still nervous and checked the door locks I don’t know how many times. That got on Aubrey’s nerves. “Will you just relax?”

That’s about when the flashing blue lights appeared in the rear-view mirror and Aubrey hissed the f-word. She slowed down until the lights were right behind us, then pulled into an abandoned gas station. We were just two short, dark, rundown blocks from Morrow Street. “Be careful,” I said. “Two years ago some nut pretending to be a cop raped six women before he was caught.”

Aubrey adjusted her mirror and studied the car pulling in behind us. “Looks like the real deal,” she said.

“So did the rapist’s car,” I said.

“Will you just stop it, Maddy? I’ve been going through red lights since we left the paper.”

Aubrey was reacting calmly, though I did notice that she still had the car in gear, to speed off, I suppose, if it wasn’t a real police officer—not that a Ford Escort is actually capable of speeding off.

The officer was suddenly at Aubrey’s door, rapping on her window with his knuckles. She opened her window about three inches. The jibber-jabber of the police radio on his belt calmed me a little, but I still kept my hand on the door latch in case I had to go running into the night and hide in a dumpster or something. “Sorry to say you went through a couple of red lights, ma’am,” the officer said. He was young and chubby and friendly looking. “May I see your license and registration?”

Aubrey dug them out of her purse. The officer thanked her and took them back to his cruiser.

“I’ve been through this routine a billion times,” Aubrey said, finally turning off her engine. “He’ll come back in three minutes and say, ‘Ma’am, this isn’t the best of streets at night, and I know you were probably nervous. So I’m going to let it go. Take West Tuckman next time.’”

“Which you should have,” I said.

Fifteen minutes later we were still waiting and Aubrey was hissing the f-word again.

Another police car pulled in. Its lights were not blinking. The two officers conferred for a minute or two, then strolled side by side to Aubrey’s car. “Would you please step out, Miss McGinty?” the newly arrived officer said. “You too, ma’am.”

We got out. The friendly chubby officer gave Aubrey her license and registration and retreated to his car. We were alone with the new officer.

We recognized him immediately. It was 3rd District Commander Lionel Percy. He was not a tall man but he was muscular. He was wearing his hat but you could see around his temples that his head was shaved. His uniform was impeccable, as if he’d just taken it out of the dry-cleaning bag.

“How lucky can a man get,” he said, “the famous Aubrey McGinty running red lights in my district.”

“Let me guess,” Aubrey answered. “You’re going to put the fear of God in me.”

“It is good to fear God,” he said.

Aubrey smiled and tucked her fingers under her arms defiantly. “Especially when he’s in uniform?”

“Cute,” he said.

“And so are you,” she said, trumping him again.

I could see the frustration in Percy’s eyes. He’d undoubtedly been waiting for this chance to intimidate Aubrey for weeks. Her stories on the police reorganization plan, and then on his district’s prostitution problem, had caused him a lot of grief with the mayor and City Council. And now he had her trapped in an abandoned gas station, on a dark empty night, and lo-and-behold, she was giving back better than he was giving. He must have been going nuts inside.

Percy tried again. “You know Miss McGinty, I’ve been a police officer in this city longer than you’ve been alive—”

“Which ought to bring you pretty close to retirement age,” Aubrey said.

“—and I’ve suffered through my share of newspaper reporters. Squeaky clean white kids from the suburbs. For you, the inner city is just a place to play make-believe. Write about all the shitty things the degenerate city people do to each other. Prove your moral superiority. Make mama and daddy proud. Win a bunch of
journalism
awards you can roll up and diddle yourself with.”

“That’s pretty much why I do it,” Aubrey said.

“Write what you want, Miss McGinty. The mayor’s going to howl and the council’s going to squeal, and the chief’s going to salute and click his heels. But nothing’s going to happen. Lionel Percy is, and will remain, commander of the 3rd District. And you’ll be left dangling out there all alone, lots and lots of people mad at you.”

Aubrey slowly opened her car door and leaned on it. Even leaning she was taller than Lionel Percy. “And you won’t come riding to my rescue? How disappointing.”

I hurried around to my side of the car. Our doors slammed at the same time. Aubrey put the key in the ignition and closed her eyes. “Please start,” she said.

The Escort did start and we chugged away. “Now wasn’t that something,” Aubrey said coolly. Her long legs were shaking.

Chapter 18

Monday, July 3

Aubrey started calling Marysville at a quarter to eight Monday morning. She was hoping that some efficient soul in the warden’s office would pick up the phone before starting time. She did not want Tish Kiddle talking to Sissy before she did.

At three that afternoon she was still trying to get past the voice mail. At five she finally spoke to a real live person and made her request for a visitation.

TV 21 did a follow-up story on its six o’clock, news. Tish had nothing new, just old footage of Buddy Wing staggering backward into the fake palms. “What are the police saying?” anchorman Bill Callucci asked Tish as she stood in the empty parking lot at the Heaven Bound Cathedral. “Well Bill, in an exclusive interview with TV 21, Hannawa Police Chief Donald Polceznec told us exclusively that his department has no plans to reopen their investigation—at this time.”

“So they might reopen it in the future?” asked anchorwoman Jamie Stokes.

“That’s clearly a possibility,” Tish answered.

“And you’ll keep us posted?” Bill Callucci asked.

“Will do,” answered Tish.

Tish’s lazy reporting delighted Aubrey. Tinker, too.

Aubrey’s story for Tuesday reported that while police stated publicly they had no immediate plans for reopening the case, the
Herald-Union
had learned that Chief Polceznec had asked the department’s top homicide detective Scotty Grant to review Tim Bandicoot’s statements to see if a further investigation was warranted.

***

Tuesday, July 4

Having to wait out the holiday drove Aubrey crazy. But actually it was something of a blessing. It gave her a long, uninterrupted day to start writing her series. I spent the day at home, weeding and napping, and after the sun went down, listening to the dogs in the neighborhood bark every time some damn kid lit a cherry bomb.

***

Wednesday, July 5

After a long day of furious writing and frustrating phone calls, Aubrey finally heard from the prison. “Sorry,” the woman in the warden’s office said. “Sissy James does not wish to see you at this time.”

Aubrey went immediately to Tinker, who immediately took her upstairs to see Bob Averill. An enormous decision had to be made. Should the paper go ahead with a full-blown series as planned? Without Sissy’s admission that she didn’t kill Buddy Wing? Or would it be wise to scale things down? Run a story here and there? Over the months pile fact upon fact like a many layered Dobosh torte, until the police were forced to reopen the case?

During their meeting, Bob excused himself on the pretense of having to use the restroom and called me in the morgue. “This is very important, Maddy. When you went with Aubrey to Mingo Junction—you personally heard Sissy’s cousin say that she was there all weekend?”

“I was standing right next to Aubrey,” I said.

“You’re absolutely sure? We could look awfully foolish if our journalistic ducks—”

“They’re in a row, Bob.”

“So, you’re sure?”

“Good gravy, Bob.”

So the decision was made. We’d still go with the full-blown series, starting on the following Wednesday. That would give Aubrey one week. If she got through to Sissy James, good. If she couldn’t, then we’d go with what we had.

***

Thursday, July 6

I put in an extra hour at my desk doing nothing then drove home. I covered a frozen chicken patty with bottled spaghetti sauce and Parmesan cheese and baked it in the oven for fifteen minutes. I poured a warm can of Squirt over a tumbler of ice cubes. I had my dinner on the back porch, watching what I hoped were rain clouds rolling in from the west. My lawn and flower beds desperately needed a soaking.

I felt so alone sitting there. And angry at myself because I did.

I’d lived by myself since 1963, when Lawrence and I divorced. The first few years were terrible but I got so used to being alone that little by little I convinced myself I liked it that way. Now Aubrey McGinty had sucked me into her life. She’d filled my evenings and my weekends. She’d filled my head, and I suppose even my heart, with a sense of adventure, a feeling of family.

I took my tray into the kitchen and checked the cupboard to see how many tea bags I had left. I had enough for six months. I drove to Ike’s for more.

“Morgue Mama,” he sang out.

“One for here, Ike, and a couple boxes for the road.”

I was still there at nine when the rain hit. When Aubrey’s little white Escort pulled to the curb.

Aubrey bought a bottle of cranberry juice and a bag of barbecue potato chips. She joined me at my table by the window, pushing aside my boxes of tea bags. “Anything fit to print today?” I asked.

“That’s why I stopped when I saw your car. You’ll never guess whose windows were smashed out.”

“Oh my—not again.”

“Not mine—Tish Kiddle’s.” She dug a printout of her story from her purse. She kept up a running commentary while I read. “Can you believe she drives a Lexus? You see where she lives? Saffron Hills? Do you know how pricey those condos are? Good God, how much money does that fluff-cake make?”

Tish Kiddle’s paycheck did not interest me. Her smashed car windows did. “You think this means she’s onto something?”

Aubrey slid down in her chair and glumly folded her arms. “At the very least somebody’s afraid she is.” She flipped back her hair and stared me. “You think I’m pretty enough for TV news?”

I’d come to Ike’s to talk to Ike. To relax in his slow, easy voice. Now Aubrey was buzzing all over me, like a bee at a picnic. I was simply not in the mood for her ego, or her jealousy, or her youth. When Aubrey headed for the restroom, I headed for my car.

It was still raining—not as hard as before but enough to keep my windshield wipers clacking. The lights along the downtown’s empty streets were dim, mutated blurs. I turned onto West Tuckman. It wasn’t that late but the rain had chased everybody home to the suburbs.

Just west of the monstrous old YMCA building, a pair of headlights filled my rear-view mirror, bright, then dim, then bright again. I pushed on the gas pedal. I made sure my doors were locked. The headlights got closer. Flashed again. I sped up more.

I scolded myself for panicking. I lifted my chin and squinted at the mirror. To see what kind of car it was. To see what kind of danger I was in. But it was too dark, and it was raining too hard, and the headlights were too close and too bright.

I was driving through the 3rd District now, Lionel Percy’s domain. But if that was a police car following me, wouldn’t its blue roof lights be blasting? Wouldn’t its siren be squealing? I decided not necessarily. I reached Potter’s Hill, where the city’s old ceramic industry once flourished. Now it was a lifeless strip of used car lots and empty storefronts with tattered For Sale or Lease signs in the windows.

I ran the red light at Halprin Street. So did the car behind me.

You can imagine what was going on inside my head. Car windows being smashed. Men jumping out from bushes slapping and scratching. Lionel Percy popping up like a jack-in-the-box clown. Preachers tumbling backward into pots of fake palms. The street was slick with standing water. I drove faster anyway. In a few minutes I would be in Meri. There would be people there, brighter street lights and glowing neon.

I started chastising myself, in that special shrill whisper we save for our own ears: “It’s your own damn fault. You didn’t have to get involved with that crazy girl. You could have stayed right in your safe little Morgue Mama world making people miserable. But you had to tag along like the sidekick on some old Saturday morning western. And now here you are about to be beaten, killed or worse. You old fool. You’re as full of yourself as she is.”

I also started thinking about ways to defend myself—kicking, biting, screaming, calmly talking myself out of trouble, running like a rabbit—but I quickly realized that my age was my only defense. “Who would hurt a sixty-seven-year-old woman?” I whispered. “Then again, who would murder a seventy-five-year-old preacher?”

The traffic light at Teeple was yellow when I slipped under it. It was a dark neighborhood crowded with tall frame houses, drooping trees and uneven slate sidewalks. There were a few more cars on the street. Unfortunately not enough to stop the demon behind me from riding my bumper.

Two blocks from Meri the car behind me started beeping. It was a weak, oinking beep, no more threatening than the timer on my microwave. “Good gravy,” I growled. I pulled over and watched Aubrey trot toward me through the rain. I rolled down my window and claimed my two boxes of Darjeeling tea.

***

Friday, July 7

On Friday I went into work at seven. In case I was needed. In case something surprising happened I didn’t want to miss. Aubrey was already at her desk, a Walkman snapped over her ears filling her ears with God knows what kind of noise while she typed like a maniac.

Just after eleven, I heard her howl. She danced toward me like a flamenco dancer, chopping her feet and clicking her fingers. She leaned across my desk until our noses were almost touching. “Guess who just called me? Tim Bandicoot. Tomorrow morning he’s going to Marysville, and you and I are going along.”

***

Saturday, July 8

At two in the morning my phone rang. It was Aubrey and she was worried—about her own behavior.

“You’ve got to promise me I won’t screw this up,” she said.

I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, hoping what she’d just said would make more sense if I was sitting up. “You want
me
to promise that
you
won’t screw up?”

“You know I will, Maddy. All those hours in the car with that idiot. I’m bound to say something that sets him off.”

I knew what she was talking about now. In just a few hours we would be driving to Marysville with Tim Bandicoot, to get Sissy James to admit her innocence. I slid to the floor and shuffled toward the wicker chair by the window. Sometimes I curl up there when it’s too hot to sleep, but mostly I use it as a staging area for my laundry. That night it was piled with bathroom towels that still needed folding. I pushed them onto the floor and sat. “You’ll just have to concentrate,” I said. I could hear the soft clink of computer keys. “Are you still at work?”

She yawned. “Where else would I be?”

I was going to say something motherly about the need for a good night’s rest. But then I remembered the all-nighters Dale Marabout used to pull when he was a young police reporter. Sometimes the stories demand it. “There’s some gum in my desk if you need it,” I said.

“That’s what I’ll do tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll cram my mouth full of gum so I can’t talk. When Timmy boy says something tempting I’ll just, ‘Yom-yom-yom-yom-yom.’”

“Good plan,” I said. “Can I go back to bed now?”

There were a few seconds of very serious silence. “What do you make of all this?” she asked. “Tim Bandicoot inviting us along, I mean.”

“Maybe it’s Sissy’s idea.”

“Not in a trillion years. I don’t think it’s Tim’s idea either. He’s got to hate my guts.”

“His wife’s idea then?”

“Has to be.”

“For good or ill, you think?”

“I’d say for ill.”

“Really?”

“Annie Bandicoot’s motives might be pure as snow—loving supportive wife just trying to make nice—but I think we’re talking Bride of Machiavelli here.”

I’d tried to fight it but I was wide awake now. I got on my knees and started folding towels. “You think we’re walking into some kind of a trap? You thought that about the church thing on Sunday.”

“Maddy, you’re not following the bouncing ball. Not us walking into a trap. Annie Bandicoot trying to avoid one.”

“Get the gum, Aubrey. You’re getting punchy.”

“Think about it. Sweet little Annie gloms onto Tim Bandicoot when she’s still in Sunday school. He’s handsome and ambitious and heir to the throne. She marries him when she’s only nineteen. For a while the future looks peachy. But then Tim starts questioning Buddy’s ways—all that speaking in tongues business. Buddy starts having second thoughts. He brings in Guthrie Gates and starts grooming him as his heir. Then Buddy suddenly gives Tim the boot. Tim tries to build a new church. But after six years he’s still preaching to that scraggly rabble on Lutheran Hill. Worst of all, he’s schtoomping some loser bimbo. This isn’t
Stand By Your Man
. This is
Save Your Man’s Sorry Ass
. So Annie puts on a wig and some funny glasses or something and waltzes into the cathedral and poisons the man who did her man wrong. And she frames the bimbo. Maybe Tim’s new church will take off now. Maybe Tim will behave himself now.”

I was down to the wash cloths. “You’re saying he knows his wife killed Buddy?”

“Maybe he knows. Maybe he suspects. Maybe he’s too afraid to find out.”

“And then you come along and start digging into the murder?”

“That’s right—and then I come along. Tim handles it pretty well at first. He really doesn’t know anything for sure—so he doesn’t have to lie. But the nosy bitch reporter keeps prying. Proves Sissy couldn’t have done it. Things start to unravel. Tim and Guthrie try to bury the hatchet. They come to the paper hand in hand. They end up shoving each other like a couple of feuding five-year-olds. Annie has to take the bull by the horns now. She tells her man, ‘You’re ruining everything we’ve worked all these years for. Sunday morning you’re going to come clean and confess your sins to the world. And then you’re going to Marysville and rescue Sissy, and you’re taking the nosy bitch reporter with you.’”