Джанет Иванович - Twisted Twenty-Six

“Take care,” Grandma said. “God bless.”

We watched Jeanine and Bernie leave, and Grandma shook her head.

“Poor Jeanine,” Grandma said. “It’s hard when you lose someone so sudden. Even at Jimmy’s age, no one expected him to go like that.”

I followed Grandma as she made her way around the cookie table, sampling the cookies and talking to the other women. The conversation ranged from comments on the deceased’s complexion, to Melanie Glick’s divorce, to the sudden disappearance of Bubbies pickles from Dittman’s Meat Market. No one mentioned the missing keys.

We left shortly before closing and were ambushed on our way out by Barbara Rosolli.

“Edna!” she said, rushing up to Grandma. “I almost missed you. I didn’t get to talk to you at Jimmy’s wake, and I wanted to share sympathies on our loss. Just tragic.”

“He was a good man,” Grandma said.

“He was a vicious, cheating bastard,” Barbara said, “but we loved him anyway, didn’t we?”

“God don’t like when you talk ill of the dead,” Grandma said.

Barbara made the sign of the cross. “God knows what I went through with that man. I’m sure God understands when I speak candidly.”

“You got something else you want to say?” Grandma asked.

“I didn’t get a chance to drop something off for the wake, so I brought a box of cookies for you,” Barbara said, handing Grandma a cookie tin decorated with a black bow. “Better late than never, right? I baked them myself.”

“That’s real nice of you,” Grandma said. “Thank you.”

“I need to be getting home now,” Barbara said. “We should get together sometime. Have a coffee or a drink.”

“Sure,” Grandma said. “That would be okay.”

Barbara walked away, and I looked at the cookie tin Grandma was holding.

“You aren’t going to eat those, are you?” I asked.

“Heck, no,” Grandma said. “I don’t even like holding the tin. I can feel the evil burning my fingertips.”

“Is she usually friendly like that to you?”

“I wouldn’t say we were ever friendly. She moved out of the Burg after the divorce, and I didn’t see much of her. Five years ago, she bought a house next to Jeanine on Chambers Street and she started going to bingo. All she could talk about was how Jimmy’s second wife took all his money and she didn’t get any of it even though she raised their daughter. I never sat by her, so I didn’t have much to do with her. Then all of a sudden when word got out that Jimmy had died and we were married she went nuts. Emma Gorse said Barbara was going around telling everyone that I killed Jimmy for his money. She said that she had proof it wasn’t a heart attack, and that three people at the casino saw him give me the keys. Can you imagine?”

I looked over Grandma’s shoulder and saw the Rosolli sisters coming our way. Rose was leading the pack, shoulders hunched, mouth set.

“You!” she said to Grandma. “You have a lot of nerve showing your face with all these decent people.”

“They aren’t all decent,” Grandma said.

“You should get out of this community. We don’t want your kind here.”

“I’m not so bad,” Grandma said. “I’m going to take some of your brother’s money and give it to the orphaned cats and dogs. I’m thinking there’ll be a lot left over after my trip to the Galapagos Islands.”

“I thought you were going to Antarctica,” I said to Grandma.

“I’m stopping at the Galapagos on the way home,” Grandma said.

“You should burn in hell,” Rose said. “And your hair is a disgrace. You look ridiculous.”

“I’m real sorry you feel that way,” Grandma said. “I was hoping we could be civil. I even brought these cookies for you.” Grandma handed Rose the tin with the black bow. “I baked them myself.”

“Oh,” Rose said, looking at the tin. “That was nice of you. Thank you.”

“It’s a pretty tin,” Tootie said.

“We still don’t like you,” Rose said.

“We gotta go now,” Grandma said. “You girls have a good night.”

Grandma and I hurried to the car and locked the doors.

“I’m a terrible person,” Grandma said. “She’s probably right about me burning in hell.”

“Those cookies could be perfectly okay. I’m sure Barbara wouldn’t give you poison cookies.”

“Would you have eaten them?” Grandma asked.

“No way.”

I drove Grandma home and waited until she was in the house and waved to me that all was good. Fifteen minutes later I cruised into my apartment building parking lot and spotted Morelli’s SUV. I parked next to it and went upstairs. Morelli was in the kitchen, watching Rex run on his wheel.

“Not watching television?” I asked.

“There’s nothing on. I got bored at home, so I thought I’d stop in and see if you wanted to have some wild sex. I was going to make a sandwich while I waited, but you have no food.”

“I have peanut butter and cereal. That covers every meal.”

“Did you ever hear of a vegetable?”

“Pickles. I have two different kinds. Bread and butter and dill.”

“I stand corrected.”

“I might have hot dogs in the freezer.”

Morelli opened the freezer, and his phone dinged with a text message. He checked the message and closed the freezer.

“I have to make a call,” he said. “And I’m going to pass on the hot dogs.”

He placed the call and rummaged through my junk drawer, coming up with a pen and a small sticky notepad. He took a bunch of notes from the person on the other line and hung up.

“That was Fitzgerald,” he said. “He got called out to a shooting, and he thought I’d want to take a look. It’s a couple blocks from here.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Julius Roman. Shot execution style in front of his house. Close range. Single bullet to the head. He was found slumped over the steering wheel of his car.”

My heart skipped a bunch of beats and I was breathless for a moment. “I just saw him. He was at the viewing.”

“Obviously he didn’t stay long. The ME hasn’t gotten there yet, so time of death hasn’t been determined, but it had to be around eight o’clock. Fitzgerald said a neighbor was out walking his dog and noticed Roman. I don’t have a time on that, but the first responders rolled in at eight-thirty. Fitzgerald just got there and realized it was one of the La-Z-Boys.”

“I feel sort of sick.”

“Yeah, you’re a little pale.” Morelli got a cold bottle of beer from the fridge and put it to the back of my neck. “Breathe.”

“This leaves Benny the Skootch, Charlie Shine, and Lou Salgusta,” I said. “I don’t like any of those men. I almost liked Julius Roman. He seemed more conservative than the rest. I thought he might be the voice of reason in the group. And he had an idea who hired Lucca to kidnap Grandma, but he wouldn’t give me a name. He said it was just a suspicion.”

Morelli stopped holding the beer against my neck. He cracked it open and handed it to me. “I have to go. I’ll call when I know more.”

I locked my door after him and chugged half the bottle.

“I hate this,” I said to Rex. “I’m always nauseous. I keep thinking about Lou Salgusta burning his initials into women. It’s so disgusting. And people getting killed over stupid keys. What the heck is that about?”

I drank the rest of the beer and ate some Froot Loops out of the box. I ran a hand through my hair and felt the extensions. I’d forgotten about them. I went into the bathroom and checked them out in the mirror. I flipped my head around to make them move. They were pretty. Something was right in the world. It was a small something, but it was something all the same.