Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

I pulled the files on the dead women out of my bag and took them to the dining room table. Besides former addresses and work histories, the files also listed relatives. Bitsy Muddle was survived by a younger brother who was living in Ewing. I called his phone, and he picked up on the second ring.

“I’m helping the police investigate your sister’s death,” I told him. “I have just a quick question.”

“Sure, but I already told them all I knew.”

“She usually ran her errands on Saturdays. Did you ever drive her around?”

“No. We would meet at the diner for lunch sometimes, but I didn’t see a lot of her after she moved to that retirement place. She was always on the go. I figured she was being bused around by the retirement people.”

I thanked him for his help and called the retirement community office.

“Most of our residents are very independent,” the manager told me. “Some have cars, and others have friends and relatives who take them shopping. We have a wing for assisted living, but Miss Muddle wasn’t housed there. She was living in what is simply an apartment complex for senior citizens.”

“Would it be possible to speak to some of her neighbors?”

“Of course. We always try to cooperate with the police. Most of her neighbors have already been questioned. Some were questioned several times, so I can’t guarantee a happy interview.”

“Understood.”

I wasn’t in the mood to drive over to Golden Years Retirement Village and go door to door, grilling Bitsy’s neighbors. I’d wait to see what Ranger got for me, and I could talk to Rose Walchek’s relatives at the viewing.

Saturday was usually my designated clean-the-apartment day, so I squirted some toxic goop into the toilet and swished it around with the toilet brush. Then I took a bunch of toxic liquid-saturated wipes from the pop-up container and wiped down all the bathroom surfaces. I changed out the towels and made my bed with fresh linens. I ran over the kitchen and bathroom floors with the Swiffer contraption that uses the wet pads, and I considered the wall-to-wall carpet in the rest of the apartment. Usually I borrowed my mother’s vacuum cleaner, but I’d forgotten to stop on my way home. Probably now that I had a slow cooker and was going to be Susie Homemaker I should get my own vacuum cleaner.

I wrote “Buy vacuum cleaner” on the notepad in the kitchen. I made myself a peanut butter and olive sandwich for dinner and gave a small chunk to Rex. He scurried out of his soup can, stuffed the chunk of bread into his cheek pouch, blinked his eyes at me, and scurried back into his can. I took the eye blink as a thank-you. Hamsters have limited communication skills.

I changed into skinny black slacks and a silky white blouse for the viewing. I still had my hair pulled up into a ponytail, and I slashed on some extra mascara since it was an evening affair.

I arrived a little after seven, which was a big mistake for the viewing of a high-profile murder victim. The lot was filled, and parking on the street was nonexistent. There was a huge crush of people on the front porch, and the crush spilled over onto the steps. It had to be total insanity inside. I drove around the block and pulled into the driveway to the funeral home garages. Unless they had to pull a hearse out to make an emergency dead guy pickup, I figured I’d go unnoticed.

I sneaked through the back door, walked past the small hostess kitchen and the funeral director’s office, and came out into the packed lobby. The noise was a smidgeon below rock concert, the temperature had to be in the nineties, and the entire place smelled like carnations and deodorant failure.

I was standing by the table with the coffee and tea and cookies, and I had to somehow get to Rose. She was laid out in Slumber Room No. 1. This was the largest of the slumber rooms, the premier spot. It was reserved for murder victims and the grandmasters of various lodges and social clubs.

I pushed my way through the crowd to the room entrance and worked my way forward. Two men and a woman were standing at the head of the casket. Obviously relatives. They were my target. Grandma and Gordon had seats in the second row. I picked out Mama Giovichinni, my parents’ neighbor Mrs. Ciak, a few women from Bingo, and a bunch of other people from the Burg. The line of mourners inching up to the casket ran the length of the room and out the door. If I tried to cut the line I’d be attacked and ejected. My only hope was to wait until the viewing was ending and everyone stampeded out to the lobby to get last-minute cookies.

Grandma turned and saw me and waved.

“Over here,” she shouted. “We saved you a seat.”

The seat was between Grandma and Randy Berger. I hadn’t noticed it at first because Berger was occupying two seats. It wasn’t that he was excessively fat, it was more that he was just so big . I made a no thanks gesture, but Grandma was having none of it. Berger managed to pull most of himself off the seat and I squished myself into it.

“I was hoping you’d be here,” Berger said. “Have you thought about the job offer?”

“I’m sure it’s a great job,” I said, “but it’s not for me. And I like being a bond enforcement agent.”

“You could try butchering part-time.”

“No.”

“Okay, then how about dinner?”

“No.”

“I’d bring a nice pork tenderloin.”

“No.”

“I heard that,” Grandma said to me. “I bet it would be a pip of a pork tenderloin. Remember that boyfriend you had who could cook those pork chops? I never tasted a pork chop like that since.”

“He was a killer!”

“Yeah, but he sure could cook pork chops.”

“He probably brined them,” Berger said. “You’ve got to brine pork to get it tender. I always brine my pork.”

So now I had a dilemma. I wanted to run screaming out of the funeral home, but I needed to stay and talk to Rose’s relatives.

“I’m going back for cookies,” I said to Grandma and Randy.

“I’ll go with you,” Randy said.

“No! You have to stay here and save my seat.”

“She’s right,” Grandma said. “I’ll never be able to hold two seats in this location. These people get vicious when it comes to a good seat.”

I made my way out of the room and back to the lobby, talking to people as I worked my way through the crowd. I was looking for information on male friends, new friends, shopping friends. I was hanging out at the cookie table when I started a conversation with a woman who lived on Stanton Street and was Rose’s neighbor.

“Were you and Rose good friends?” I asked her.

“Truth is, I hardly knew her. I saw her all the time, because I lived right across the street, and my windows looked out at her house. We would say hello when we were both out, but other than that she kept to herself. She was quiet. She mostly went to the Senior Center. The little bus would come pick her up.”

“That bus just picks up and drops off at the Senior Center,” I said. “It must have been hard for Rose to go grocery shopping.”

“Her daughter used to take her shopping every Saturday, but then a couple weeks before she was murdered there was a different car. I imagine it was some other relative.”

“Was it an SUV?”

“No. It was a regular car. Gray. It looked like a man driving, so it might have been the son-in-law. I didn’t know him.”

“Are there any other neighbors here?”

The woman looked around. “I haven’t seen any. It’s hard to see anybody in this mob.”

At eight-thirty I started maneuvering myself back into the viewing room. The tide was already turning and people were beginning to move out. I joined the line filing past the deceased, managing to get up to the casket just as the lights dimmed. I murmured the standard polite condolences and told Rose’s family I was part of the team investigating the murders.