Murder on the Fly, page 31
part #2 of Riley the Exterminator Mystery Series
“What are you doing here now? It’s only half-five,” came my mother’s voice. “And wipe your feet.”
“Love ya’ too, mom,” I said, slipping off my shoes and making a mental note to buy socks without holes in the heels.
“Sorry dear,” she said, coming out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on an embroidered dish towel. “I just thought you might ring if you were planning to come early so Mrs. Nagy could drop Tommy back here before dinner.”
“And I thought I might help with the cooking,” I said, rolling up my sleeves.
“Oh, I have plenty of help,” she said. Nina emerged from the kitchen, wearing a gingham apron and looking very domestic. To think that just four days ago she was threatening to slit the throat of a terrorist. Nina gave me a quick peck on the cheek and my mother instructed me to put on Rossini’s The Barber of Seville—an Italian opera to continue our evening last weekend with Cav and Pag—and set the table, providing a stern reminder of which utensils went where.
The women returned to the kitchen and I was left wondering about this unexpectedly cozy scene. The sopping fog outside made for what the Irish called a soft day. The humidity mixed with the steam from the kitchen, filling the house with the vapors of roasting meat and root vegetables, along with baking bread and whiffs of bacon and cabbage.
~||~
Soon enough the house was also filled with people. Carol arrived and tried unsuccessfully to raise her arms high enough to give me a hug. She explained that after buying proper attire for Marty’s Gym, she spent the early afternoon being coached by, and heaving a medicine ball with, Hank Lewis. Hank was an aging has-been who once dominated the local fight scene and now undoubtedly enjoyed tossing a fifteen pound ball and telling fifteen minute boxing stories to the likes of Carol. Larry and Dennis showed up just as Tommy was getting dropped off, so there was an explosion of bodies and noise as the three of them wrestled in the entryway and my mother scolded her “boys” for roughhousing indoors.
The table was set with the Belleek china from the Old Country, polished silver-plate, and a hand-laced tablecloth that must’ve cost some poor soul her eyesight to make. No matter that the gang from Goat Hill Extermination was lacking sophistication, the monthly dinner was my mother’s way of letting them know how deeply she appreciated their hard, honest work for the family business which kept her and Tommy warm and fed. But it wasn’t just about the money. In fact, it wasn’t really about money at all. It was about taking care of one another.
Nina and Carol insisted my mother be seated while they brought out dish after dish. We began with celery root soup, festooned with crumbled bits of fried black pudding. Then came a roast leg of lamb, accompanied by a cottage pie topped with mashed potatoes broiled to a crisp brown. And next a heaping bowl of Colcannon, which always makes me wonder at how potatoes, back bacon, cabbage, butter and cream can be turned into something quite so delicious. Then cabbage fried in bacon drippings, topped with crunchy bacon, along with roasted Brussels sprouts with red onions and, obviously, bacon bits (there being no such thing as too much bacon in an Irish household). And, of course, crusty loaves of soda bread.
The whole time, Tommy was chattering away about how he’d hit a homerun with Father Griesmaier pitching and Karsa catching in some imaginative version of three-man baseball earlier in the week. “It was Father’s best stinker,” he declared.
“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing the Austrian priest was a pretty unfamiliar with baseball (Notre Dame football being his passion among American sports) but he probably didn’t tell Tommy he’d thrown him a “stinker.”
“Yes,” he insisted. “Father can throw a fastball, a curveball and a stinker.”
“Could it have been a ‘sinker’?” Larry asked with a wink.
“That’s it! He threw a sinker pitch,” Tommy declared, showing little of the frustration he usually expressed when unable to come up with the right word. Dennis reached over and tousled Tommy’s hair, telling him even the great Willie McCovey struggled to hit a good sinker.
The women chatted about the meal preparation, marveling at how so much flavor could come with just salt, pepper and a pinch of thyme. My mother insisted it was all a matter of choosing the ingredients. She’d spent the morning arguing with the butcher over cuts of beef and lamb, then hand selecting every carrot, onion, potato, and cabbage for our dinner at “the people’s market” on Alemany, about a mile-and-a-half from Potrero Hill. Nina said she could taste the love in the food and Carol seconded that explanation of the flavors, while my mother smiled as the food disappeared from the serving dishes.
In the midst of no less than four conversations crisscrossing the oak table, Nina tapped on her water glass with the blade of a knife, bringing silence to the room. She looked over at my mother, who nodded ever so slightly. “I have something to say,” Nina began. Larry and Dennis gave me sideways glances and I shrugged. Tommy was excited, sensing something important was coming and Carol put her hand on top of his to keep him calm. He was thirty-six years old but terminally a kid.
“I’ll make this short,” Nina said, “recognizing that I’m a guest at your family meal. As you know, I’ve been spending some time at St. Teresa’s adult daycare while not working in my official job.”
“That’s where I go!” Tommy blurted, unable to contain himself. “Nina’s our favorite. And I knew her first and the others are jellied.” Nina cocked an eyebrow at him and he struggled for a long moment. “They’re jealous,” he declared and she smiled at him.
“After long hours of thought, I’ve decided to quit the Office of Inspector General. I won’t be returning to Washington.”
You could’ve knocked me over with a feather.
“I’ve spoken to the daycare director and they need a fulltime caregiver to replace a woman who’s pregnant,” Nina said.
“That’s Miss Marcia,” Tommy said. “She’s having a baby. I know all about babies and where they come from.”
Carol patted his hand to quiet him and save us from being regaled with Tommy’s account of reproduction, which he had shared with me a couple months ago. He couldn’t remember the names of all the parts, but he had the right idea about how they worked—and no reservations about sharing his newfound knowledge. Sex education turned out to be an important element of the daycare’s program. Just because he and other others were childlike mentally, they were physically adults.
“But you have such a great career,” said Carol. “You’ve earned so much respect and authority.”
Nina sighed. “Yes, but it’s come at such a price. I’ve had to fight and scratch for every promotion. The stress is wearing me down. And, well . . . ”
“You’re in love with Riley,” Dennis offered. There was nervous laughter all around.
“No, that’s not it,” she said. More laughter. “I didn’t say that right. Riley’s important. Very important. I’ve fallen for the big galoot. But it’s not just about him. It’s mostly about me.”
“As it should be,” Carol added.
“It’s about having proven I can succeed in a man’s world,” Nina said. “A world very different than that of my parents’ generation. For a long time, I thought I’d be happy if I showed them, if I became what people said I couldn’t become. But I was letting others tell me what to do by telling me what I couldn’t do, if that makes sense.”
“It does, dear,” my mother said, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin.
“I was in a title fight for who I was and I let my opponents dictate my strategy,” Nina said looking at me.
“No!” Larry said, “Please no boxing references or we’ll end up having to listen to another of Riley’s stories.” Lots of laughter, of course. Probably deserved.
“I want to be with people who aren’t trying to crawl over me. I’ve decided that it’s okay if a woman wants to care for others. For Tommy and Riley and everyone at this table. I’m not selling out. I’m being true to myself. I can nurture Tommy and Karsa and the others. I can care for Larry, and Dennis, and Carol.”
“And Riley?” Carol asked.
“I let others change who I was. I won’t do that to Riley. I can’t.” Nina looked at me and I hoped that she believed what she was saying. Take me or leave me, but I’ve worked too hard and seen too much for a woman—even Nina—to make me into anything I’m not. She gave a wistful smile, an expression somewhere between melancholy and yearning. “He’s a gentle, violent man who understands living—and killing. I doubt he’ll ever reveal enough for me to understand him, but he’s shown enough for me to love him.”
“I knew it,” whispered Dennis to Larry, loud enough to assure everyone heard and cutting through the drama which I couldn’t take much longer. “Po’ woman.”
“This means you’re staying, right?” asked Tommy. “You’re going to be at daycare forever?”
“For a while,” Nina said. “Maybe for a long time.”
I felt panicky hearing those words. I enjoyed being with family and friends around the table, but I liked spending hours alone. Not lonely, but surely not domesticated. Nina had said she’d take me as-is, like making a deal for a high-mileage used car that no mechanic would try to overhaul. My anxiety faded and then disappeared with Tommy’s exuberance.
“Maybe forever!” shouted Tommy, lifting his arms as if he’d just hit another homerun. But what he hit was his milk glass and a candlestick. The liquid went one way and the flame another. Despite Carol’s sudden move to extinguish the candle, there was a scorched spot on the tablecloth.
“Oh, no,” said Tommy, “I’m bad.”
“No,” Nina said. “You’re excited. And?”
“And, I’m sorry, mom,” he said.
“It’s alright dear. That spot will remind us of this dinner for years to come,” she said.
“Maybe forever,” Tommy said.
While the women cleared the table, the guys set about sopping up the spilled milk. So by the time for afters, as my mother called dessert, everything was back in order. My mother had made Goody, explaining this simple bread pudding was traditionally served on June twenty-third—the eve of the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist. I’m pretty sure the Church had a feast assigned to every date on the calendar, which seemed to be one of the few upsides of Catholicism.
“Mother,” I said between bites, “might I gather that Nina’s announcement wasn’t entirely news to you?”
“Oh, Riley, you still have so much to learn,” she said with a smile. “For example, you probably don’t know where Nina will be living.”
“Do tell,” I said.
“I’m going to make about a third of what the government was paying me,” Nina said. “So it’ll be awhile until I can find an affordable apartment.”
“And?” I said.
“And my parents live in a cramped apartment.”
“So…?”
“So Riley, Nina will be staying here in your old room until she finds a suitable place,” said my mother.
“I see you ladies have been busy planning while I’ve been busy wondering,” I said.
“It’s not quite like that. Really, I wasn’t sure what I was doing until I talked to my mother at lunch and then came over this afternoon to help Marie in the kitchen and get her advice.”
“And suppose I don’t approve of this grand plan?” I asked, trying to assert a kind of masculine authority that didn’t exist. I was feeling a little trapped, but some traps are warmer and softer than others.
“Oh, stop acting the maggot,” my mother replied. Larry and Dennis looked to me for a translation.
“Stop being a fool,” I said.
“A perfect description of an exterminator who thinks he controls anything other than pests,” Carol said, starting to clear the dessert plates. And that was the end of my manly rebellion.
~||~
While the women washed dishes and chatted in the kitchen, the men stretched out in the living room on floral upholstered chairs and a velveteen couch. The contrast never failed to amuse me. The guys took turns playing checkers with Tommy, who was enjoying the attention along with his weekend treat—a bottle of Coke. After a couple glasses of Jameson’s finest that I kept locked away in a mirrored cabinet, it wasn’t clear whether Larry and Dennis were letting the kid win.
By nine o’clock, Tommy was dozing with his head on Nina’s lap, Carol was half-asleep on Larry’s shoulder, Dennis was fading fast, and my mom was knackered after a day of planning dinner and my life. I wasn’t sure I had any objections to either, but knew it was time to call it a night. We gathered up shoes and coats, and headed out.
On the way back to my house, Nina explained that in Chowok families, people never interrupt one another during conversation. “Tonight there were so many conversations happening at once with everyone jumping from one to another. I don’t know how you Irish keep track of what anyone’s saying.”
“It is chaotic,” I said. “Sorry if you felt out of place.”
“Not at all, Riley. There was so much love and laughter, that by the time Tommy spilled his milk, I knew I was with my people.”
I parked and turned the wheels into the curb. Then we went inside and crawled under the blankets. We fell asleep without making love. It was a great night.
CHAPTER 43
There’s nothing like a church pew to ruin a perfectly good Sunday morning. The discomfort was not only physical. I didn’t belong in the pews of St. Teresa’s and neither did Nina, but there we were—along with my mother, who was glowing. I couldn’t get past how Nina’s mother had been taken from her family and baptized at a Catholic boarding school. But somehow, Nina was able to attend Mass and work for the adult daycare center at the church.
Father Griesmaier was sermonizing about a biblical passage in which Jesus advised a wannabe follower that while foxes have dens and birds have nests the prospect wouldn’t have anywhere to call home. The portly priest was telling his parishioners this meant something about having to give up earthly desires to follow God. Given that I hadn’t a clue where God was going, my mind wandered to a less spiritual take on the Gospel. Seemed to me we all want to find a place to call home and Jesus was envious. The creatures knew where they belonged and the Messiah was feeling sorry for himself. But this is probably why it’s better to have a priest standing in the pulpit and an exterminator crawling under sinks.
At the end of the stand-sit-kneel workout, Father Griesmaier blessed everyone, and the congregants streamed out the back of the sanctuary. The jovial priest was clearly in his element, greeting old folks, admiring new dresses, and kissing proffered babies. He was nearly as thrilled as my mother at having Nina and me among his morning flock.
“My dear Nina,” he exclaimed, taking her hand with genuine warmth, “it’s so good to have you in our daycare, and we’re doubly blessed to see you in the congregation.” The rotund priest genuinely cared about people. And when I saw him with Tommy or one of the old ladies, I wondered whether the religious gibberish simply allowed him a path to real meaning for him—being valuable to others. Probably not. But I suspected something of that sort was behind Nina’s decision.
“That was a wonderful homily, Father,” my mother gushed.
“I see you’ve managed to bring this wayward lamb into the fold,” he said nodding to me, and then added, “at least for today. I’m sure he’s likely to wander off again.”
“He’s a good son,” my mother said, taking my arm. “He works hard to provide for his brother and me.”
“Indeed,” the priest nodded, “what we believe is important to God, but what we do is critical to humanity. We are saved by our faith and judged by our works.”
I wasn’t sure how to take this, but it sounded like an off-handed endorsement of my soul so I just smiled.
“And now he’s found a girl who can keep him on the straight and narrow,” my mother said, giving Nina a hug.
“I’ll try,” Nina said, “but sometimes the Lord challenges us with monumental tasks.”
“Ah, my dear, He never gives us a greater burden than we can carry,” said the priest, looking my way with a sense of sympathy and humor.
Everyone seemed delighted to talk about me like I wasn’t there, so I thought it advisable to not be there. I excused myself saying that I’d fetch Tommy from Sunday school and meet the women at the corner.
My mother had put together a picnic from last night’s leftovers, and her house was on the way to Knudsen Bloom Park. I’d have to lug a wicker hamper stuffed with food for a mile, but the thought of a lunch on a sunny day with Nina and my family was enough to make it worth the trek. Of course, Tommy would bring along his insect collecting gear.
~||~
When we got to the park, Tommy headed down the gravel walkway and across the lawn, straight to the pond. He had his eye on the dragonflies zipping around the edge of the water. We’d seen a couple of cardinal meadowhawks along the bank a few weeks ago, but he’d not been able to nab one of these spectacularly red insects. While Tommy stalked his quarry, we laid out the picnic quilt and the food. Lamb sandwiches on soda bread slathered with butter were the main course, accompanied by the requisite bag of potato chips and sausage rolls (for which my mother profusely apologized, their having been store-bought).
“What a lovely picnic,” Nina said, smoothing the quilt and arranging a plate for Tommy, who had been skunked in his collecting efforts but had lost none of his enthusiasm, explaining how close he’d come to netting one of the dragonflies.
“You’re such a dear to put up with my Irish cooking,” my mother said. “Your last name, Cabrera, now isn’t that Spanish?” I winced, expecting the Northern-Southern European tension to emerge without even thinking how my mother would respond to Nina’s Indian ancestry.
“It sure is, Marie,” Nina said. “My father is Spanish.” There was a moment while she crunched on a few chips and then decided to take the leap. “And my mother is Chowok.”
