The Pink Flamingo Murders (23 page)

I kicked off my heels, took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, and started digging. The ground around the marigolds came away easily. Three big scoops, and I was deep into a predug hole. Then my shovel hit something. A rock? No. It didn’t feel like a rock. It felt . . . padded somehow. I carefully removed a small scoop. Nothing there but dirt and a bit of green bottle glass. I tried a second scoop, even smaller. This time I didn’t take enough dirt to fill a coffee mug. Still nothing. On the third scoop, I saw something. It looked like a hunk of gray hair. I hunched down and carefully brushed more dirt away. I saw a mass of gray hair and rotting, mangled tissue. I screamed and screamed and screamed.

“You dug up a dead
cat?”
Marlene said the next morning at Uncle Bob’s.

I shook my head yes. I still had trouble talking about the whole ugly episode. The nightmare vision of gray hair and bloody flesh turned out to be a twelve-pound medium-hair gray tomcat. I took a huge gulp of coffee, but it didn’t wash away the memory. Marlene poured coffee for two people at the next table and then came back to mine to continue her questioning.

“So that weirdo Erwin was torturing animals and burying them in the backyard?” she said indignantly.

“No,” I said. My voice sounded like a croak from a tomb. “No, Erwin buried the animal as an act of kindness. The gray cat was a stray that the older people in the neighborhood fed. The cat didn’t belong to anyone, but he went from house to house bumming table scraps. Last week a couple of kids driving their mom’s red Miata took the corner too fast and nailed the cat. The old people couldn’t bear to throw the cat in the Dumpster, so Erwin said he’d bury it in the garden. Told them he’d put it by the marigolds so it would always have flowers on its grave.”

“Hoo-boy,” Marlene said. “So how much trouble are you in?”

“Lots,” I said. “The neighbors heard me screaming bloody murder when I saw the gray hair and blood.
They called the police, who came over and laughed their asses off. I might have gotten away with it, except Erwin pulled up then and went ballistic. He had me arrested for trespassing. They issued a summons right there and then released me,”

“You’re kidding,” Marlene said. She looked slightly dazed. She poured herself a cup of coffee and added about a quarter-cup of sugar. The spoon could stand upright in the cup.

“He tried to make it breaking and entering, but the garage door was open, and even he admitted nothing was missing inside. I used his shovel to dig up the cat, but I claimed the shovel was outside in the yard.”

“Thank god for small favors,” Marlene said. “He must have his mother stashed somewhere else.”

“New Jersey,” I said. “Mom is alive and well and living with her sister in Atlantic City. The police called and talked with her. She refused to come home. Said she was three-hundred-sixty dollars ahead playing bingo and the slot machines, and she was staying with her sister through July. Then she told the cops to remind Erwin to paste-wax the dining room table and keep the blinds closed in the morning so the sun wouldn’t fade the carpet.”

“The woman shows no mercy.” Marlene took another gulp of her coffee. I just stared at mine.

“Neither does her son,” I said. “Now he says he’s going to sue me for defamation of character. He says a teacher’s reputation is his only possession, and I’ve damaged his, and he’s calling Jasper Crullen.”

“The lawyer who advertises on TV?”

“Yeah, him. The one who says ‘Don’t be pushed around by the big guys. Let Jasper Crullen, the fighting lawyer, put them in their place.’ ”

“But you’re not a big guy,” Marlene said. “I mean, you’re a tall woman, but you don’t have any money.”

“But the
Gazette
does,” I said. “I said I was there
working on a story. If Erwin sues the newspaper, you can just bury me and my career. We’re both dead.”

“The newspaper must have insurance for lawsuits,” she said.

“It doesn’t make any difference. Charlie has been looking for ways to get me for years, and now I’ve handed him this opportunity. With Nails egging him on, he won’t stop. And even if he does, when that lawsuit is filed, I’ll be a laughingstock in journalism. I can see the headlines now: ‘Reporter Accused of (Cat) Grave Robbing.’ And the cat puns. Copy editors love cat puns. The stories will have headlines like: ‘Reporter Digs for Story; Finds Cat-tastrophe.’ Not to mention: ‘Teacher Sues
Gazette
Over Catty Remarks’ and ‘Grave Situation Causes Bad Felines.’ I’ll never live it down. I’ll be a bad joke.”

“No, you won’t,” she said firmly. But right on cue, Mayhew walked in and meowed when he saw me.

He sat down at my table and said, “I hear you don’t pussyfoot around when it comes to investigations.”

Marlene bopped him on the head with the teaspoon she used to stir her coffee and said, “This isn’t funny, Mayhew. She’s in big trouble over that stupid cat. That weirdo has been writing Francesca threatening letters for a month. I saw them, and they scared me. See what you can do to help her.”

Mayhew looked contrite. He really was a nice guy. “Sure. Do you have the letters?”

“They’re postcards,” I said. “They were so weird I kept them.” I pulled the postcards out of my briefcase.

Mayhew read them and shook his head. “This character is very careful how he phrases things. The letters can sound threatening if you read them one way, but if you read them another, they’re just warnings for your safety.”

“Terrific,” I said. “I’m going to sound like the nut.”

“I didn’t say that. But some of these paranoid types
are very smart. They know just how far they can go before they bring the law down on themselves. Erwin wrote some strange letters, but unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about that—and he probably knows that. I can do some checking and see if there have been other complaints about his letter writing.”

“He’s guilty of something,” Marlene said. “I just don’t know what it is.”

I was sick of talking about it, and I knew I’d have to talk about it a lot more at the
Gazette
, and no one there would want to help me. If I was going to get any breakfast down, I’d better change the subject. “Speaking of guilty,” I said to Mayhew, “do you still think Margie is a suspect in Caroline’s murder?”

“You know I can’t talk about an ongoing case,” he said, turning suddenly stuffy.

“So you do think she’s guilty.”

“I didn’t say that,” he said.

“Might as well, when you use that tone of voice.”

“That’s what I like about you, Francesca, your subtle technique. Why don’t you say what you want straight out?”

“Okay, I’ve talked with Margie and some other people on North Dakota Place and I don’t think Margie did it. I don’t think she’d be dumb enough to kill Caroline after having a loud public fight with her and then plant a pink flamingo in the body. It’s just too obvious.”

Mayhew’s eyes narrowed. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “A few days ago you wanted me to arrest Caroline for murdering three people because she had loud public fights with them. Now you want me to
not
arrest Margie because she had a loud public fight with Caroline. Why was Caroline guilty because she had the fights and Margie innocent?”

“It would be too obvious for Margie to kill Caroline,” I said. Even
he
should be able to see that.

“It’s almost always obvious,” Mayhew said. “When a wife dies, we look at the husband. When a husband dies, we look at the wife. When a pregnant nurse dies, we check out her married doctor boyfriend. You know what? Nine times out of ten, they did it.”

“This is the tenth time,” I said. “I’m convinced of it.”

“You were also convinced Erwin’s mother was buried in the garden,” he said. I winced. “I’m sorry, Francesca. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You’re one hell of a writer. But I don’t try to write your columns, and you shouldn’t try to do my job, either. You are not a homicide detective and I am not a newspaper columnist.”

I wasn’t going to be a newspaper columnist much longer, either. Not if Erwin sued. I gave up trying to eat anything and went to the
Gazette
to get my butt chewed out. I didn’t even make it to my desk before I got the summons. “Charlie’s looking for you,” said my editor, Wendy the Whiner. She was wearing a wrinkled white suit of some weird loose weave that looked like old place mats. Her no-color hair was frowsy and badly cut. Her thick white heels were scuffed. Wendy didn’t bother hiding her smirk. “He wants you in his office as soon as possible. He’s very upset with you.” She was almost vibrating with suppressed glee.

I walked across the newsroom in a thick and absolute silence. Reporters pretended to type, but they watched my slow progress through slitted eyes. Editors didn’t even pretend to be busy. They just stared at the condemned columnist. Nails was talking on the phone, but she put it down and watched me with a little smile. I waved at her. Georgia, my mentor, the one person I wanted and needed at the
Gazette
, was nowhere around.

Charlie put on a good-old-boy front, but I thought his office revealed his true personality. It was black and cold and empty. Space was a luxury at the
Gazette
,
and he flaunted it. Miniblinds hid the unimpressive view of the
Gazette
parking lot. The desk was slippery, shiny black, and could have seated twelve. Rumor said his black leather chair was specially built to make him look taller. When I walked in the room, Charlie did not greet me. I retaliated by not sitting down. He hated that I towered over him. The only thing on his desk, except for a telephone, was one sheet of white paper. “This is a letter from Jasper Crullen, delivered by courier this morning, informing me of his plans to sue the
Gazette
for your actions at the home of his client yesterday,” he said in a cold, angry voice.

“Why doesn’t he sue me instead of the paper?” I said, even though I already knew the answer.

“Because you told the police you were on assignment, although your editor had no idea what you were working on when I questioned her. But Crullen claims you were acting as an agent for the
Gazette
and therefore we are responsible for your actions.”

“Has he filed suit yet?”

“He’s giving us a chance to settle first. I’ve talked to our attorneys. They want to research the situation, but they have advised me that they will probably recommend that we accept his offer.”

“Those cowards!” I said. I couldn’t help it. The words just escaped. The
Gazette
lawyers always recommended settling. They were terrified of a jury trial, because the jury would be made up of people who had been sneered at and hung up on by
Gazette
editors and had their names misspelled by
Gazette
reporters.

“Do you know who Jasper Crullen is?” Charlie asked, and I caught the hysteria in his voice.

“Sure,” I said. “He’s the sleaze with the TV ads.”

“He’s the attorney who won the half-million-dollar judgment in the Ladue Card Shark Lawsuit.”

Oh. I forgot that. For a while, that story was all over the media. You couldn’t turn on the radio or TV without
hearing about it. The jokes from the morning show jocks were endless. The situation was irresistible. A card-playing grande dame in the wealthy suburb of Ladue was forced out of her regular Wednesday bridge game by gossip from another dowager. The woman claimed the grande dame cheated at cards and, even worse, played for money—because she needed it. Stuck at home watching the soaps on her regular bridge afternoon, she saw Jasper Crullen in his TV ad, promising to fight for her for no money down. She made the call. Jasper got her half a million bucks and an apology.

“But the gossip was true,” I said. “She
was
a card cheat, and her creditors were swarming around her. The only check that didn’t bounce was the one she wrote to the country club. She won because the defendant was such a snob. The jury punished the gossiper for looking down her nose at them.”

And how would a city jury react to the
Gazette
lawyers, those sleek, well-fed, and extremely condescending suburbanites who held their noses every time they were forced to step into the city? I knew that answer.

“Juries are idiots,” Charlie said. “You can’t predict what those ignorant slobs will do. If we settle now, it will be two hundred fifty thousand. If we go to court, Crullen will ask for five hundred thousand dollars.”

“Half a million dollars for digging up a dead cat? What for?” I said. I had trouble taking this all in.

“He says you slandered his client and falsely accused him of murdering his mother. Who, unfortunately for us, is still alive.”

Probably unfortunately for Erwin, too, but I didn’t say that.

“In addition to the defamation, you trespassed on his property and caused Erwin extreme emotional distress and mental suffering upon seeing his beloved pet exhumed.”

“His pet?” I shrieked. “That cat was a stray. All the older people in the neighborhood fed it.”

“Then keep your mouth shut before every old geezer on the block files for emotional distress,” Charlie said, his voice rising and his face turning red. Even his bald spot was red. “We have one week before this lawsuit is filed. You may continue your regular duties for now. If we are forced to settle for a substantial sum, or if the suit goes to court and we lose, you will be reassigned to city desk, where you can be retrained in the principles of serious reporting.” Charlie could not keep the satisfaction out of his voice. It oozed out like liquid from a rotten fruit.