Unleavened Dead, page 24
I debated whether to ask Janet whether she knew about Florence’s illness, but figured she would volunteer the information if she knew. She did, at least in part. “And then Florence started to feel tired and went to the doctor for a checkup. I’m not sure if she got the results, though. At least, she hadn’t told me.”
Audrey passed us then, heading toward the restroom. I wasn’t sure how much, if anything, of our conversation she overheard. She waved at us and continued on without stopping, so she hadn’t heard, didn’t care, or really had to go.
Janet leaned in closer and practically hissed into my ear. “I cannot, absolutely cannot believe the chutzpah and disrespect that girl is showing. She’s as bad now as when she was a teen. I even called her yesterday and told her exactly what I thought about her behavior. No funeral, no shiva, a cremation – that’s all bad enough. But being in a wedding party only a few days after her parents were killed is outlandish! It’s beyond, well, I’m speechless!”
Janet must be extremely upset to be speechless.
“How did Audrey react? Did you use the word ‘killed’ or ‘died’ when you spoke to her? Did she say anything?”
“I might have said ‘died,’ but I still think there’s something wrong with the deaths. I did tell Audrey that things didn’t add up and she should talk to the fire marshal, but she told me to mind my own business and hung up on me! On me, her mother’s best friend! She and her husband are a good match.”
“Why do you say that?”
“After Phil gave me your message and I told him what I knew, Phil remembered the incident, too, and tried to call Audrey to ask her to contact you, but her new husband was very abusive to him and slammed down the phone, so he never gave her the message.”
“Talking about me?” Audrey was standing next to us, and Janet’s voice had risen with her indignation.
“Yes, I am. You have no right to be here. Whatever problems you had with your parents when you were a teen, well, you’re not fifteen anymore. Grow up already. Learn some respect!”
“You mean, put on a show of grief when I don’t feel it? No, thank you. My parents had the corner on hypocrisy and lies. I could never come close to being as good as they were. Or maybe I should say ‘bad.’”
“That’s a terrible thing to say! Your parents were wonderful people, so kind and compassionate. When I was sick last year, your mother brought over already cooked food for us to put in the freezer and visited me every day when I was in rehab. No one else did. No offense, Rabbi, I know you visited when you could and you had other commitments, too.”
Okay, I was put in my place.
“Kind? Compassionate? That shows what good actors they were. They never showed me any kindness or compassion! Want to hear all the lies they told you? No? Well, too bad. I’m going to tell you anyway. Maybe then you’ll stop idealizing them.
“They told you they were from Connecticut, right? Well, we never lived there. We moved here right from the Bronx. And our name wasn’t Fisher. It was Fleischer. They changed it when we got here. Know why? My parents swore me to secrecy, said they were in the Witness Protection Program because my father had testified against the Bronx Mob. I doubt very much he ever met anyone from the Mob. I think he was embezzling from clients and was about to get caught.”
“Your father was very honest.” Janet was almost in tears, and I was getting worried she would work herself into another heart attack. “He did our taxes every year and wouldn’t let us get away with anything that had the slightest chance of being questioned.”
“He was probably afraid if you got audited, he would come to the attention of the IRS. Believe me, that’s the last thing he would have wanted. And you can believe me. I’m a lot more truthful than they ever were. Let me ask you: what did my mother say George and I do for livings?”
“She was very proud of you. She said you both worked at a community college.”
“Doing what?”
Janet hesitated. “She never really said, but gave the impression you taught English literature, and George was the comptroller.”
Audrey laughed. “Typical. I’m the secretary in the English department – I don’t even have the lofty title of administrative assistant – and George is the payroll clerk in the comptroller’s office. He processes the pay checks, basically just pushing the right buttons so the computer can spit them out.
“And guess what else they lied about? On Thursday, when I was going through their papers to find their wills and the deeds to the cemetery plots and their insurance policy and … it doesn’t matter, just all the official papers I would need … I discovered my birth certificate. The reissued one, with their names on it. Along with adoption papers. Somehow, they forgot to tell me I was adopted. Imagine being forty-two years old and finding out your parents weren’t. It explained a lot: the constant criticism from my mother, the lack of interest from my father. I wasn’t the perfect child they had ordered. I wasn’t pretty and petite and smart and polite and someone they could show off. Instead, I was an embarrassment and a big disappointment. So tell me, why should I show any respect for such liars? I’m better off without them.”
She turned and walked off without another word. Janet and I sat there stunned. Neither of us said another word either.
Chapter Forty-Six
“Did you believe her?”
Janet shook her head. “I can’t. She did not describe the people I knew. Her mother always said Audrey was a pathological liar. I thought she was exaggerating. It looks like she wasn’t.”
“Unless … Listen, I didn’t know the Fishers, or Fleischers, or whatever their name was, well; and I don’t know Audrey at all. But … well, I asked Trudy to do a computer search, and she could find no trace of them in Connecticut. In fact, she could find no trace of them at all before they moved to Walford. I have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, there’s a germ of truth in what Audrey said.” I held up my hand to stop Janet’s expected protestation. “I know it’s hard to think that your friends may not have been who you thought, but, please, just try to recall if there’s anything at all that could prove or disprove what Audrey told us.”
“Why did you want background information about the Fishers?” It was not the protest I expected. “Oh.” Janet covered her open mouth. “It’s because of Moorhouse, right? You wanted to find out if they could have been responsible for running him over! I know how you think, Rabbi (I certainly hope she didn’t.). You think they killed him and then went home and committed suicide!”
“Janet,” I tried to keep my voice level, “the Fishers died two nights before the accident. And I didn’t suspect suicide until Audrey mentioned it. I wanted more information about Audrey, but there were unlikely to be any records of her before she moved to Walford because of her age. When Trudy told me she couldn’t find any mention of the Fishers before thirty years ago, she suggested they were either in the Witness Protection Program or had stolen their identities to hide their real ones from the authorities. Audrey mentioned those same two possibilities. That’s why I want you to think back on your years of knowing them, especially when they were first here. Was there anything that didn’t seem right?” I decided I wasn’t above some flattery. “I mean, look at how good you were at noticing the inconsistencies in the evidence that the carbon monoxide leak was an accident. You just knew it wasn’t, even when everyone else said it was.”
Janet visibly preened. “Well, yes, it looks as though I was pretty astute there, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, you were. I’m not asking you to come up with anything here and now. When you get home, sit down with Phil and see if the two of you can come up with anything.”
She didn’t say no, which I took as an encouraging sign, so I continued, “I just had another idea. I know you want to do something to honor the Fishers’ memories, since Audrey’s not sitting shiva. Why don’t you get some friends together? Maybe their reminiscences will spark some memory in you.”
“I do want to do something, but I’m not sure when. What with the seders tomorrow and Tuesday nights, everyone will be busy, cooking or cleaning or traveling. We wouldn’t be able to do anything until at least Wednesday night.” She thought a moment. “Quite a few of us are here at the wedding. I’ll ask if any of them would like to come to our place tonight. The wedding should be done soon, or at least we can leave without being impolite. I didn’t plan to clean the house for Passover until tomorrow anyway, since we’ll be at our son’s for the first seder and at Mishkan Or for the second. We can stop at ShopRite or Trader Joe’s on the way home and pick up some cheese and crackers and fruit.” She laughed, “Not that any of us will be hungry, but we need to serve something!”
“That’s a great idea, Janet. Thank you. And, please, call me after they leave, no matter how late, and let me know if you learn anything that could help us figure out what’s going on.”
My brain was about to shut down from sensory overload. Janet went back to corral her friends for the impromptu informal shiva and I was headed toward the bar before I remembered, first, I was driving and, second, I had to go to the police station. Either one of those was a great reason not to imbibe, but the two of them together made the reason unassailable. I settled for another Diet Coke. I put the glass down at my place at the empty table – Ben and Sandy engaged in doing the Electric Slide was a sight to behold! – and, ever mindful of the input-output equation, decided to pay a visit to the restroom before drinking any more.
I nodded absent-mindedly at the other wedding guests, exchanged a few pleasantries with members of Mishkan Or, tried to ignore the now feeling-no-pain Pink Ladies (minus Audrey) who were gesturing for me to join them, and noticed Audrey huddled in a corner with George, probably trying to keep him from thumping me. By the time I got to the restroom, the slight urge was becoming an uncomfortable urgency.
After answering my call of nature, I opened the cubicle door and almost closed it again when I saw Audrey at the sink. She was dabbing at her eyes, removing her remaining makeup in the process, and looked as though she had been crying. She looked up when she heard the door open and our eyes met in the mirror. I had to come out and talk to her.
“Are you okay, Audrey?”
“Yeah,” she lied. “Just got something in my eye. I’m not used to wearing makeup and rubbed my eye, and got mascara in it. I decided it was easier to just wash it all off.”
I let the lie pass. “I’m sorry about earlier. I had no idea what you are going through. I can’t imagine not learning you’re adopted until after your parents die. And they died so suddenly, too.”
She shrugged. “It was a shock – not their deaths – oh, don’t look so scandalized, Rabbi! They were dying anyway, Parkinson’s and cancer. They took the easy way out. I can’t say I blame them. But the adoption – I mean, how could they have kept something so … so … so … oh, what’s the word? Vital? Important? No, fundamental! So fundamental to my sense of self, to our sense of family! How could they have never told me?”
“Forty-plus years ago, people weren’t as open about adoption. There was something, I don’t know, furtive, secretive, almost disreputable about it. People didn’t want anyone to know they were infertile; women who put their babies up for adoption were told they were unfeeling and abandoned their children. It was a different mindset.” I thought about Trudy and Sherry, and how Josh knew his father was a gynecological turkey baster, how Simi, as soon she was old enough, would know she was adopted when her birth parents died and there were no other family members who could raise her.
“I know all that, but still. At the very least, they could have said something in their suicide note, instead of waiting for me to find the papers. And they must have wanted me to find them because they didn’t destroy them. In fact, they left them with all the other important documents where I couldn’t miss them.”
“So it was definitely suicide?” Audrey nodded. “Why didn’t you tell the investigators?”
“George thought it would be better – less paperwork, fewer police investigations, no questions from the insurance company. I just went along.” She looked around the empty restroom as though someone might be eavesdropping, and lowered her voice, “George even told me to destroy the suicide note, but I kept it. Don’t tell him.”
As if I would. I took a deep breath before my next question. “Audrey, I know you’ve been married only a short time, but are you afraid of George? I couldn’t help but notice that he seems, well, overly protective and a bit volatile.”
She laughed. “Oh, he’s fine. It’s all a macho act. He tries to compensate for looking like a scarecrow and having a dorky job by coming across all caveman-ish. He’s harmless.”
I changed the subject. “What are your plans now? Are you going to stay in Eugene or move back here?”
“Oh, go back to Oregon, definitely. We love it there, and, as lowly as our jobs may be, we’ve had them for a long time and don’t want to look for new ones or relocate. We’ve got a nice little house in a semi-rural area, not far from the city and the college, but close to woods and lakes.” She laughed again, “I just realized how similar it is to Walford! I can’t believe now that I was upset when we moved from New York. I could never go back to that kind of urban lifestyle again. As soon as I settle the estate and sell the house, I’ll be heading back. George may need to go back earlier, but I can get compassionate leave from work. And, let’s face it, the paychecks George prints out are more essential to the running of the college than photocopying test questions. I’m just worried the house might not sell, what with the traumatic deaths.”
“I might be interested in buying it.” (What?!)
Audrey looked skeptical.
“No, really, I would. I’m fifty-five, I’m tired of the steps in my townhouse and would love to move somewhere without stairs or neighborhood garage bands.” Mr. Sullivan, my eighty-year-old next-door neighbor, had suffered a stroke last winter and his daughter made him move in with her after he left rehab. The new owner was a single mother with a teenage son who thought he was the second coming of Ringo Starr. But at least he was willing to shovel out my driveway, a job I had relied on Mr. Sullivan to do. He demanded a much higher salary than the fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies Mr. Sullivan accepted as pay, though.
“If you’re serious”
“I am. Could I stop by and see the place, maybe tonight or tomorrow?”
“Um, sure. Either day. Just call first.” She searched her bag for a pen and scrap of paper, tearing it off an envelope, and scribbled down her cell phone number.
“Great. Thanks. Tell you what: let’s plan on seven tonight. I’ll call if I can’t make it.”
“Sure, that will be fine.”
“Okay, I’ll see you later, then.”
I bet Steve and Joe (and the FBI?) would love to hear what I planned, not that I had any particular plan in mind. Maybe I would neglect to tell them.
Chapter Forty-Seven
I got back to the table in time to get up and fill my plate with all kinds of beautiful looking small pastries. I added a few pieces of fruit for balance, and was able to resist the non-dairy fake ice cream. Brenda and Sandy were chatting together and laughing like old friends, as were Ron and Ben. I would have to make sure I got together with the Fishman-Finegold couple soon to compare notes. Not that I wanted to poison Brenda’s mind against Sandy (no, not me), and Ben was going to be a colleague, for better or worse, with Ron and me. But it might not be a bad idea for me to add a few of my own observations and experiences.
I took a few bites from each piece – as usual, I took more than I could eat – and wondered whether it was time for me to investigate medications for my lack of impulse control. Why had I ever decided to go to see the Fishers’ house? Yes, the steps were getting a bit much for my creaky knees, and the drum practice next door was destroying my few remaining auditory cells, but I couldn’t afford to move to Serenity Acres. When new, the houses cost almost double what I could get for my townhouse, and the resale price would be even higher. And did I really want to live across the street from Charlotte and Marty Silver? They were nice enough people, but Charlotte was Janet’s sister, assuring me a complete lack of privacy. Besides, there is no way I could pack up and move all my books from my home study. And my bedroom. And my living room.
It was now four o’clock. I had half an hour to get to the police department, then I needed to go to the fire department, to the Fishers’ former house, and, finally, home (if my overly protective ex-husband would let me) to check emails, answer emails, check phone messages, return phone messages, and wait for Janet to call back. Not necessarily in that order. At some point, sooner rather than later, I needed to get out of my long dress, heels, and pantyhose and into a pair of jeans or, even better, sweat pants. An already long day was about to become even longer. In fact, it was about to become a long night.
People were starting to leave, clutching their napkins wrapped around slices of wedding cake that would probably never be eaten. I went to the table where the new in-laws were holding court. “Rabbi, aren’t you going to stay until Amanda throws her bouquet?” Mrs. Caplan asked.
“After two failed marriages, I think I’ll give someone else a chance.” Not a particularly appropriate comment to make at a wedding. The Caplans and Pinskys laughed politely; little did they know I wasn’t kidding.
I said my goodbyes and made my way through the room waving and nodding to others. When I finally got to my car, I took off my shoes and reclined the seat back. Five minutes, that’s all I needed, just five minutes to rest my eyes before facing the Inquisition.
Fifteen minutes later, I awoke with a start, feeling even more tired than before. Now my eyes were gritty from the mascara that had started to flake off, my feet had swollen so much I had trouble stuffing them back into my shoes, and I was not going to get to the Walford police station by four thirty. I just hoped Steve didn’t decide to send his minions after me. Or worse, that the FBI didn’t put my picture on the walls of the post office. I always look terrible in pictures.
