C Corwin - The Unraveling of Violeta Bell

“From the doctor’s office.”

“Oh?”

“It’s for you, Maddy. Not me.”

“Oh?”

“I thought it might be helpful.”

I snatched the pamphlet from him and read the fat, black type on the cover: Is Sleep Apnea Dangerous? “For Pete’s sake, Ike!”

“They’ve got a sleep test you can take.”

I came to an instant boil. “I am not taking that test! Louise Lewendowski had one and said it was just awful. They glue wires all over your head. And everywhere else. They watch you all night like a laboratory rat.”

Ike dug his fingers into the tabletop. To prevent himself from strangling me presumably. “Wouldn’t it be worth it to see how serious a problem you might have?”

“I do not have a problem.”

“Now Maddy, that snoring means you’re not breathing right. And not breathing right could lead to a heart attack or something.”

“I don’t have a heart.”

“Yes, you do. And so do I.”

The sweet old bastard had me. I stuffed the pamphlet in my purse. “I’ll read the damn thing. But I’m committing to nothing, Ike. Nothing.”

He leaned over the table. Kissed me on the forehead. Right there in the front window. On Hannawa’s busiest street. He retreated to his little kitchen behind the counter. Started loading dirty cups and plates into the dishwasher. Started singing that Johnny Mathis song, Misty: “Look at me, I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree…”

I couldn’t put up with that. I gathered up my dirty dishes and joined him. “Sorry I popped my cork.”

He smiled at me in a way I sometimes wish he wouldn’t. “I just want you to be around for a while.”

We were getting precariously close to the L-word. I introduced a more manageable topic. “You see Dale Marabout’s story this morning?”

Ike started the dishwasher. The old contraption was noisier than the Space Shuttle taking off. “You know I don’t have time for the paper on weekdays,” he shouted over for the banging and clanging. “I’m a working man.”

I turned the dishwasher off. I wasn’t about to compete with a machine. “Eddie French was arraigned today.”

Ike turned it back on. “Finally have enough evidence, do they?”

“Not for the murder.” I followed him out to the counter. “For the antiques they found in his apartment. They’ve charged him with burglary, grand theft, and receiving stolen property.”

Ike took a Ghirardelli chocolate from the box by the cash register. He unwrapped it. Stuck it my mouth. “Aren’t those sort of the same thing?”

The chocolate was warm and gooey. “According to Dale’s story, the prosecutor’s office wanted to make sure the judge set the bail too high for Eddie to get out.”

Ike unwrapped a chocolate for himself. Led me back to my table. He let me have the chair that faced the fan on the cigarette machine. “I suppose the judge went along.”

I nodded. “The prosecutor not only brought up Eddie’s prior convictions, he also told the judge about Eddie’s repeated failure to show up in traffic court.”

Ike chuckled. “Has a few unpaid tickets, does he?”

“Dozens. The judge set his bail at $40,000.”

“Looks like your Mr. French will be sitting tight for a while.”

“Detective Grant must be convinced he’s guilty,” I said. “There’s blood evidence coming back from the lab any day now. If that blood belongs to Violeta Bell, I don’t think they’ll waste a minute charging Eddie with murder.”

I could see that Ike wasn’t any more interested in discussing Eddie French than I was. He was staring at the empty storefronts across the street. “There’s talk a Starbucks might be going in over there,” he said.

“Oh pooh. There’s always talk about this new business or that coming downtown.”

“I’ve seen people over there measuring,” he said. “Young, eager people with big dreams spilling out their ears.”

“Your eyes are that good, are they?”

“I can compete with empty stores,” he said. “But I can’t compete with Starbucks.”

“Of course you can,” I assured him. “You’ll just have to learn how to make cappuccino.”

“I don’t want to know how to make cappuccino.”

“You okay?” Gabriella asked me, as we sped around another stopped city bus.

“Just a little frazzled,” I said. “It was a crazy day.”

Actually I was a lot frazzled. In the first place, I don’t handle the heat very well. And we were crammed into that silly yellow and black Mini Cooper her parents bought for her as a graduation gift, weaving in and out of the rush hour traffic like a pollen-drunk bumblebee. And I was worried about Ike losing his coffee shop. I wanted our lives to stay right where they were. God only knows what kind of crazy ideas he might get if he suddenly had nothing to do but make me happy.

Gabriella zipped onto Hardihood Avenue just as the yellow light turned red. We were going to visit with another member of the Never Dulls that evening, Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy. But when Gabriella pushed the intercom button at the Carmichael House, we heard a younger woman’s voice. A cold, prickly voice. “Come up.”

“That was certainly short and sweet,” I muttered as the door clicked and we went inside.

“I think that was Ariel’s daughter,” Gabriella said. “I didn’t meet her when I did the story but her mother told me what a horse’s patoot she is.”

“She said that about her own daughter?”

“Six or seven times. Those exact words.”

We rode the elevator to the seventh floor. It was Ariel’s daughter. She introduced herself at the door as “Professor Barbara Wilburger.” She was fiftyish, middle-of-the-winter pale. Whatever color hair she was born with, it was very black now. She apologized for her mother’s absence. “She said she’d be back by now. But when mother’s at the foundation-well I’m afraid the real world has to wait.”

“Well, it was very gracious for your mother to invite us over,” I said. “It isn’t easy to talk about the murder of a close friend.”

She tried to smile. “We can wait for her in the living room.”

She led us down a hallway lined with Georgia O’Keeffe prints, into a room as big as my entire house. I absorbed as much of it as I could without appearing nosey. It was cluttered. A bit dusty. The furniture a bit old. Dozens of stained-glass hummingbirds were suction-cupped to the glass slider leading to the balcony.

Before inviting us to sit down, Barbara batted a trio of Persian cats off the sofa. “Sorry about the animals,” she said, raking fur off the cushions with her fingers. “Mother lets them rule the roost.”

Gabriella and I sat. Barbara didn’t. She positioned herself behind one of the matching wingback chairs, resting her forearms on the doily, rolling the cat fur into a ball.

“You live here with your mother?” I asked.

“No way in hell,” she said. Then she quacked a couple of “heh-heh-hehs” in an attempt to make a joke out of something that clearly wasn’t.

I tried to remember what I could about Gabriella’s story, grist for the uncomfortable small talk that was likely to last until her mother arrived. “I understand your mother has an autographed copy of Jane Goodall’s new book.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. She loves all those tree huggers.”

I tried another topic. “Gabriella’s story said you teach at the college.”

“Business ethics.”

“Oh my, that’s got to be interesting.”

“Not to my students,” she said. She launched into a sour rant about how dumb and lazy today’s kids are, all the time shaking that fur ball in her cupped hands like dice in a Monopoly game. “And they’re so damn gullible,” she screeched. “They accept anything as the truth except the truth.”