Dial M for Meat Loaf (20 page)

36

Three cows in a row meant death. On the way back from town, Cora had seen them, black as southern Minnesota dirt, grim sentinels standing in a gray-brown field. She’d never been a superstitious woman, but it wasn’t smart to ignore a clear message from the great beyond. Maybe Kirby was trying to warn her away, or maybe her mother had sent the cows. Cora knew her sight wasn’t all that great, but she could swear she’d seen their hollow, penetrating eyes staring at her as she sailed past. And once they were behind her, she could feel their gaze burning a hole in the back of her head.
These were no ordinary cows.

But she was home now. Home and safe. Yesterday, a handyman had come out to repair the broken window. At the same time, he’d installed bars on all the basement and first-floor windows. Nobody was going to break into her house again, not if she had anything to say about it.

Cora had spent the better part of the afternoon at Lindstrom Travel, talking to that ninny Vern Lindstrom about Caribbean cruises. Even before the cow sighting, she knew it was time to make a graceful exit. Rose Hill could get along without her for a few weeks. Winthrop could stay with friends. She’d get someone to come in to water her plants. When she returned from her trip, she hoped everything would be back to normal. If she still didn’t feel safe, there was always that “Fun-in-the-Sun Jamaica Vacation” package Vern had shown her. Vern, with his usual pitiful lack of good taste, had kidded Cora that she was about to become a Caribbean Mama. Good thing for him he had the only travel agency in town, otherwise she would have taken her business elsewhere.

Dumping the cruise brochures on the kitchen table, Cora poured herself a glass of apple juice and carried it into the living room. Winthrop wasn’t asleep on the back of the couch as he usually was, so she called to him. “Here kitty kitty kitty. Winthrop, come here, sweetie. I’m home.” He was doggier than most cats, and almost always came when she called him. His other favorite place to relax was the bathtub.

Cora sipped the juice as she walked into the bathroom, but again, Winthrop was nowhere to be found. “Winthrop, honey, where are you? I need to kiss my boy.” He was getting to be such an old cat, he rarely went upstairs anymore. Maybe he’d been frightened by a noise outside. He was still recovering from the break-in the other night. Winthrop was a sensitive, shy, gentle cat, with the wide-eyed gaze of an insane prophet, but Cora loved him more than anything on earth.

She didn’t feel like playing hide and seek, since he could be anywhere, so she sauntered back to the kitchen and set her empty glass in the sink. When she turned around, she saw that a piece of paper had been taped to the back door. She hadn’t noticed it when she first came in because it was almost the same yellow as the paint. Now she pulled it free and gave it a look-see.

Cora gasped, feeling her heart stop.

Cora clutched her throat. Not Winthrop! Anything but him! He was her baby. She could feel herself begin to panic, thinking of her poor sweet kitty in the clutches of that horrible, horrible heathen.

“Snap out of it,” she ordered herself.

Winthrop was such an ordinary, unassuming little kitty. His conception of the world was the inside of her house. He was as cherished, as dear and familiar to her as the smell of her own skin. How could something so sweet and innocent be in such danger?

Cora’s fear turned instantly to fury. How dare the Washburns threaten her cat! They’d finally gone too far. This was all-out war. Cora wished she knew which one of them was harassing her. Like she told Angelo yesterday, it could be any of them. He seemed to think it had to be Plato or Milton, emissaries of the big bad kahuna, John Washburn himself. But Cora knew Bernice or Mary were equally capable of murder, and probably a lot more clever at it.

Picking up the phone in the kitchen, she took the card Angelo had given her and dialed his cell phone number. It rang three times before he answered.

“Falzone.”

“Angelo, it’s me. Cora Runbeck. I need to talk to you right away.”

“You do? Why?”

“Something’s happened.”

“What?”

“I can’t talk about it on the phone. We have to meet.”

“Do you want me to come to your house?”

“No. It has to be someplace neutral—and quiet. How about the Coffee Klatch. You know where it is?”

“Sure, but—”

“Meet me there in half an hour. This is life or death, Angelo. Don’t fail me.”

Cora entered the coffee house wearing a pastel-blue sleeveless dress and her best straw hat. Before slipping on her white cotton gloves, she’d patted a drop of Evening in Paris behind each ear. The bottle was a relic of her youth. The clothes made her feel put-together. Spiffy. She could hardly do what needed to be done in a housedress.

Angelo was sitting at a table in the back, away from the windows. Cora thought it might be tempting fate to do this deal in full view of everyone in Rose Hill, but sometimes it was best to hide in plain sight. She nodded to him as she sat down.

“What’s up?” asked Angelo. A half-drunk cup of coffee rested in front of him. He looked sufficiently solid and menacing in his dark suit and tan silk shirt.

Cora placed her purse on the table and leaned forward. In a low voice, she said, “You don’t need an umbrella unless it’s raining.”

“Huh?”

“I need an umbrella, Angelo.”

He stared at her blankly.

“I want to hire you. What’s the cost?”

“For what?”

“I want to put out a contract on somebody’s life.”

“You’re kidding. Whose?”

“Whoever broke into my house the other night. I pay you, you find the slime and then rub him out.” Cora knew that if the person turned out to be Bernice, they’d have a problem, but she’d deal with it when the time came.

“You want me to make a hit?”

For a gangster, he was pretty slow on the uptake. “Yes. Now, I brought a hundred dollars with me in my purse. That’s just a down payment. I can get you more. What’s it cost? Five hundred? Six?”

“Wait just a minute,” said Angelo, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Are you nuts?”

“I see no reason to call me names. This is a business deal, plain and simple.”

“Look, lady, I don’t kill people for a living. I own laundromats.”

She smiled conspiratorially, then winked. “Right.” Opening the clasp on her purse, she removed the ransom note. “Read this.”

Angelo took it and scanned it quickly. “When did you get it?”

“Today. Just before I called you. I found it taped to my back door.”

He read it over again, shaking his head. “Where’s Melvin DuCharme’s cabin?”

“By the Cottonwood River, maybe forty miles away. There’s nothing around it but woods.”

“No other cabins?”

She shook her head.

He considered it a moment. “Did anyone follow you here?”

“Nobody. I’m positive. I went way out of my way, made all kinds of crazy turns, just to make sure.”

“Well, Cora, I’d say you’ve just been checkmated.”

“I realize that. That’s why I’m hiring you.”

He folded the paper and handed it back to her. “You know, babe, I’m gonna make you another offer you can’t refuse.”

She liked that. She smiled, looking expectant.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

37

Sophie sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, scratching off the names of nursing homes as she phoned each one to ask if Viola Newman was a resident. There was no other way to locate her except with a tedious phone search. She’d found a Web site earlier in the day that listed all the nursing home facilities in Minnesota. If she hadn’t found that site, she’d be knee-deep in alligators, as her father used to say. At least this way, she had up-to-date information. She’d been working at it since two. It was nearly four now and she still hadn’t located the woman. Sophie was beginning to think she was searching for a needle in a haystack, and that just about exhausted her store of folksy sayings for the rest of the millennium.

Picking up the phone again, she punched in the number for Meadow Woods Manor in Windborne, a small town about seventy miles southeast of Rose Hill. A woman answered.

“Meadow Woods. May I help you?”

“Yes, I hope so,” said Sophie. “I’m looking for a Viola Newman. Can you tell me if she’s a resident at your facility?”

“Just a minute, please.”

Sophie could hear a keyboard being tapped.

The woman came back on the line. “Yes, Ms. Newman is with us. She’s in a private room on the fifth floor. Room 509.”

Yes! mouthed Sophie, thrusting her fist into the air.

“Would you like to leave her a message? She doesn’t have a phone in her room.”

“Is Ms. Newman . . . I mean, would she be able to talk to me if I came to visit? Do you know what I’m asking?”

The woman laughed at Sophie’s discomfort. “Honey, we’re all gonna hit eighty one day, if we live long enough. To answer your question, yes, Viola should be perfectly able to talk to you. She’s in our minimal care unit.”

“Do you have visiting hours at Meadow Woods?”

“We just ask that visitors leave before bedtime.”

“What time is that?”

“If you leave before nine, you’ll be okay.”

Sophie asked for directions. No sooner had she hung up than she got another call, this time on her cell phone. She reached into her purse and pulled it free. It couldn’t be Bram, unless he was taking a break from his show. Maybe it was Rudy, calling to tell her he was home early.

“This is Sophie.”

“Angelo Falzone.”

“Hey, hi! What’s up?”

“Something big. I think we’re about to catch ourselves a murderer, Sophie. You got a minute?”

“Absolutely.” She listened eagerly as he explained about Cora and the note she’d received a few hours ago. He went over the plan he’d formulated, how he intended to catch the bastard, whoever it turned out to be.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Sophie, “but you don’t strike me as the kind of guy who knows his way around the woods, especially at night.”

“If I can handle myself on the mean streets of New York, I can handle a few squirrels and jack rabbits.”

Sophie wasn’t so sure his equation worked. “Have you told Bernice?”

“I’m going to wait on that. I don’t want her to worry.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s best. I still think Milton’s behind everything. I’d even bet money.”

“You might lose your bet.”

Sophie was taken aback by his vehemence. “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“I went to visit John Washburn yesterday and guess what? He’s got the snake tattoo on his arm, too. They both have it. So, as far as I can see, all bets are off.”

Sophie’s surprise turned to frustration. For Bernice’s sake, she’d hoped Milton was the bigamist, not Bernice’s father. Now it was all up in the air again.

“Look, Sophie, the reason I called is, I was hoping you could drive down to Rose Hill tonight.”

“You want me to come to the cabin with you?”

“God, no. I’d never put you in that kind of danger. But I’m in a bind here. I’ve got no backup. I can’t tell Bernice what’s going down, and, well, to be honest, I think Cora Runbeck has a few screws loose. I need you in town tonight. But I don’t want you to go to the Washburns. There’s a hotel on the edge of town. It’s called the River Inn. I took the liberty of making you a reservation. Can you come? Please say yes.”

“What time do I need to be there?”

“Ten at the latest.” He spent a few minutes going over the particulars of his plan.

“I’ll be there,” said Sophie finally, glad to be part of the posse. She had to think fast. What would she tell Bram? He was playing racquetball tonight after work, part of his effort to get into shape. Then he planned to have dinner with a work buddy. She could tack a note onto the refrigerator and call him when she got to the River Inn. He’d be home by then. She knew he’d miss her, but she’d been spending so much time with Bernice lately, it wouldn’t come as a complete surprise. And if she left now, she might be able to see Viola Newman on the way.

“Make sure your cell phone is charged,” said Angelo. “And keep it with you at all times. With any luck, we’ll bag ourselves a bigamist tonight.”

38

It was nearing dusk by the time Sophie made it to Meadow Woods Manor in Windborne. She checked in at the main reception desk, then rode the elevator up to the fifth floor. Walking down the wide central hallway, her heels ticking on the tile floors, she glanced up at the room numbers. She found Viola sitting in front of a TV set watching
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
. The room was small and dimly lit but cozy, filled with furniture circa the 1940s. The hospital bed was the only object that suggested the space was anything other than a normal bedroom.

“Mrs. Newman?” said Sophie, knocking softly.

“Who’s there?” said Viola, squinting into the open doorway. She was a heavyset woman, wrapped in a multicolored shawl, her thin white hair pulled back into a bun. She pushed her glasses up on her nose, patted the back of her hair, then started to get up.

“Excuse the interruption,” said Sophie, stepping just inside the threshold. “We’ve never met before. My name’s Sophie Greenway. I live in St. Paul, and I drove down this evening to see you.”

“Me?” said Viola, looking baffled.

“May I come in?”

“Well, of course. Let me just turn this TV off.” She used her remote, then sat back down with a thump. “There’s nothing on television these days but junk.” She had a high, rather nasal voice. “I remember when TV used to be good. Did you ever watch
Sugarfoot
? Or
77
Sunset Strip
? Now those were good shows.”

Sophie didn’t remember either show.

“You say your name is Sophie?”

“That’s right.”

“Please, sit down. I don’t get many visitors.” She switched on the floor lamp next to her, revealing hands heavily gnarled by arthritis.

On the table by her bed, Sophie saw a Bible, the latest
Newsweek
, a book about Leonardo da Vinci, and two novels—
Julian,
by Gore Vidal, and
Animal Dreams
, by Barbara Kingsolver. The walls were covered with dog photographs—one specific breed, to be exact. “What kind are they?” asked Sophie, looking up at the largest picture.

“West Highland terriers,” said Viola. “I used to raise them. The one you’re looking at is Zazu. She was my sweetheart. My first dog. My dear husband bought her for me on my forty-fifth birthday. He was out of town a lot on business, so she kept me company.”

Sophie pulled a chair up close and sat down.

“Why did you come?” asked Viola, still looking at the picture of Zazu.

“Actually, you’ve already brought up the subject I’d like to talk to you about. Your husband.”

“Jim?” She searched Sophie’s face. “He’s all right, isn’t he? I haven’t seen or heard from him in almost a month. I was starting to get worried.”

“He visits you?”

“Every week. He only lives an hour away, in Rose Hill. Jim is thirteen years younger than me, but he’s getting up there in years. Thankfully, he still drives, still takes care of me.”

Sophie had expected anger, hatred, even rage. She could work with those emotions, use them to get the information she wanted, but she’d never anticipated this.

“Do you know him? Is he all right?”

“Yes, I . . . know him,” said Sophie, not sure how to handle this turn of events.

Viola studied her. With her small black eyes, she resembled a bird eyeing a worm. Whatever she was thinking, she was making Sophie uncomfortable. “You know about Jim, don’t you?” she said finally. “About us, his wives.”

Haltingly, Sophie replied, “Yes . . . I do.”

“Thought so.” She winked.

“But I don’t . . . know everything. That’s why I came. I was hoping you could fill in some details.”

“First, how do you know Jim?”

“I’m a friend of Bernice Washburn’s.”

“Oh, yes, Bernice.” She nodded knowingly. “Such a fine girl. I’ve never met her, but Jim’s told me so much about her over the years, shown me so many pictures, I feel like we’re related. In a way, if you count love as a connection, we are.” She smiled. “I can see I’ve surprised you.”

“And then some.”

“If you’re a friend of the family, then you’re not here to hurt Jim, or his loved ones. Go ahead and ask your questions. If I can answer them, I will. Actually, you’re not the first person to come to me wanting information. A woman named Katherine Lang visited me about five years ago. She was a niece of one of his other wives— Joan Marie Harrison of Storm Creek, Iowa.”

This wasn’t one of the wives on Sophie’s list, which meant there were more than she’d originally suspected. “How did she find out about you?”

“As I understand it, Jim must have left a letter lying around the house with my name and address on it. Somehow, she got hold of it and located me. I don’t recall all the details, but she must have gone to a lot of trouble.”

“What did she want?”

“The same as you. She discovered that Jim had a secret life—many secret lives, I should say.”

“Was she angry?”

“Yes. Especially when she arrived. But I think I helped her to understand a bit better. At least, she wasn’t breathing fire when she left. She thought Jim was dead. I let her go on believing that, just in case she wanted to make trouble for him.”

Sophie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You mean, you approve of what he did?”

“Approve?” She thought about that. “No. But I understood.”

“But Bliss Taylor was murdered! Some people think Laura Walters was, too.”

Viola seemed horrified. “Yes, Bliss died violently, horribly, and Laura committed suicide. Jim may have blamed himself for both deaths, but he wasn’t responsible. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Sophie wondered if the woman had ever seen the movie
Psycho
. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know him. I know his heart. Oh, he could be wayward and willful at times, but he’s a kind man.”

“Were you aware that he and another man had robbed a bank when they were young? A guard was killed.”

She nodded, and kept on nodding. “Yes, I know all about that. Jim had nothing to do with the guard’s death. And frankly, Sophie, you hit right at the core of the matter. That incident is what started Jim on the road he eventually chose to travel. Ever since that time, he’s been trying to change his life for the good, to make amends.”

Sophie had the urge to fire questions at her, but she had the sense that Viola wouldn’t respond well to pressure. If Sophie didn’t pass the patience test, her motives would look suspect. She knew her reasons for the visit couldn’t stand close scrutiny. Viola appeared to be a kindly, slightly sentimental old woman who liked to see the good in people. That penchant had led her to draw the wrong conclusion about Sophie. Sophie might be a friend of the family, but she wasn’t here to find proof of Jim Newman’s goodness. She wanted the dirt. Or more accurately, she wanted the truth, without the patina of sympathy and compassion Viola attached to the story. But Sophie could read between the lines. From the look on the old woman’s face, she could see that Viola was eager to tell her tale. The best thing Sophie could do now was offer a willing ear.

In her slow, deliberate way, Viola continued. “Jim should never have gotten mixed up with that Gilbert Struthers. He was a bad man. If Gilbert hadn’t been caught and sent to prison, there’s no telling what mischief he would have cooked up. I’m not saying Jim was weak-minded. He was just young. And he came from a family where there was very little love. Gilbert was his best friend. Jim’s always been loyal to a fault, and it was no different with Gilbert.”

“How many wives did Jim have?”

“I knew of six, including me. There may have been more. Jim didn’t tell me everything, I suppose, although, of all his wives, he said I was his best friend. I was the only one who knew about the others. He confessed everything to me before we got married. It just slipped out one evening while we were sitting on the piano bench. I think he was feeling guilty. He was starving for someone to confide in. And also, he wanted to give me a chance to back out.”

“But he was a bigamist, Viola. That’s against the law. Didn’t that bother you?”

Viola gave a grudging nod. “But with each marriage, he not only loved the woman, but he tried to help her answer the hard questions in her life. His motives were pure. His weak spot was that he’d get caught up in other people’s problems and see himself as the solution. With me, I suppose he felt a kind of pity. I was considered an old maid when Jim came along. I was the town librarian, a confirmed old biddy in most people’s eyes. Jim and I met because he loved to read. When he was in town, he’d always stop by the library. Eventually, we struck up a friendship. He was on the road and lonely, and he recognized that same loneliness in me. We were friends for many years before he asked me to marry him. I didn’t find out until much later what prompted the proposal. You see, it seems that one night he was in a local tavern and he heard a couple of guys laughing about me. They must have made some pretty nasty comments because Jim threw a punch at one of them and knocked him out. I imagine it was the usual. Viola May Little was the town old maid. She was either frigid or a lesbian. Look at the way she dressed. What she needed was to smoke a little weed, take an acid trip, loosen up. It was the sixties, man. Nobody was wearing sensible shoes and Peter Pan collars in the sixties.”

Sophie found herself laughing along with Viola.

“Jim hated ignorant attitudes like that. His solution was to pop the question. At first, I turned him down. I was so much older, it didn’t make sense to me. I thought he should be with someone younger. I couldn’t believe some woman hadn’t already snapped him up. But I was greedy and I loved him, God forgive me, so a week later I said yes. Jim had left town by then, but he came back right away and gave me a ring. That was the night we sat on the piano bench and talked late into the evening. He told me everything.”

“And you still married him.”

“Yes. I’ve never regretted my decision. I believe I helped anchor him when Bliss died. It almost killed him, you know. He’d married her because he saw how talented she was, but also how scattered and undisciplined. Without nurturing and direction, he felt she’d never have a chance at her dream. He worked so hard to help her realize it. Her parents wanted her to become a nurse. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. But they offered to put her through school on the condition that she stop wasting her time on art. I guess they didn’t feel that painting would get her anywhere in life. By the time she was in her early thirties, she’d finally hit her stride. She was beginning to produce a genuinely impressive body of work. And then she was killed. It was a traumatic time for Jim. He was very much in love with her. Not only that, but the police were hounding him. They thought he was responsible. He’d called me the night Bliss died. He was in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I had the phone records to prove it, but he refused to bring me into it. He was terrified the police would find out about his other wives, about his real identity, that he’d go to prison.”

“What was his real name?” asked Sophie.

“Why, I thought you knew. John Washburn. But he’ll always be my Jim.”

Sophie shivered at the revelation. “Who was his first wife? His legal wife?”

“Why, Mary Washburn, of course. But she wasn’t his first love. He’d fallen for a girl up north the year before. Laura was her first name. I don’t recall the last. But she was a real beauty, dark hair, dark eyes. Jim could see right away that she had a problem with alcohol and depression. He tried to spend as much time with her as he could. His eyes just glowed when he talked about her.”

“Then why did he propose to Mary first?”

“Because she was pregnant and desperate. Plato isn’t John’s child. The biological father took off right after he found out Mary was in the family way, as we used to say. Jim cared about Mary a lot. He knew how scared she was. So he married her. And he loved her, but not the way he loved Laura. Laura committed suicide several years before I met Jim, but she was still very much on his mind. She was his true
grande passion
.” She gave it the French pronunciation.

“But Bernice—”

“Yes, Bernice is Jim’s child. His only child. He adores her, and she him. Plato was more of a problem. It isn’t that Jim doesn’t love him, but they’re so very different. Plato is a passive man. He allows life to happen to him, doesn’t try to change what doesn’t work. Bernice is more like Jim. If she sees a problem, she wants to fix it. But then, you’re her friend. You must know all about her.”

Sophie wasn’t sure what she knew anymore. “Yes, she’s a fine woman. What about Jim’s brother?”

“Milton? I met him once. He didn’t know I was married to Jim. He thought I was just a friend. I liked him. He and Jim were very funny together. And Milton was a real success story, thanks to his brother.”

“What did Jim have to do with it?”

Viola shrugged out of her shawl. “Would you open the window? It’s getting a bit stuffy in here.”

Sophie stood and rolled the casement window away from the screen, allowing the cool breeze inside.

“That’s better,” said Viola, folding the shawl into a neat rectangle as Sophie sat back down. “About Milton. After Jim and Gilbert Struthers robbed that bank back in the mid-fifties, Jim ended up with the money. Two hundred thousand dollars. He carried it around in a big suitcase for a few months, but he couldn’t bring himself to spend any of it. It felt like blood money to him. His brother, Milton, was kicking around St. Louis at the time. He was working as a salesman for Lee Broom and Mop, and so he traveled a lot, too, but he and a pal of his had this bee in their bonnet to develop a new kind of trailer home. Jim decided to give Milton the money. He refused to tell Milton where he got it, and Milton didn’t care. He wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was just the break he and his pal had been waiting for. They patented their design, then started constructing the homes. By the mid-sixties, they’d built up a nice little business. And by the mid-seventies, they’d gone national and made their first million. Milton sent his brother money every month, as a way of paying him back. That’s how Jim could afford the extra mouths to feed. And when the company went public in the early eighties, Milton made Jim a major stockholder. Milton’s company made them both rich.”