Hit and Nun (11 page)

Tiffany pulled into the parking lot of a rather seedy-looking bar. The neon sign was blinking—the letter
a
missing from the word
bar
. Lucille knew this kind of place from the soaps—it was where businessmen met their mistresses—dark inside with patrons who had nothing else to do, hoisting their first whiskey as soon as the noon whistle blew.

“This here don’t look like Tiffany’s kind of place.” Lucille peered at the storefront, her eyebrows raised.

“All the more reason to suspect she’s meeting someone.” Flo pulled down her visor, flipped up the mirror and began patting her hair. “They don’t want to go someplace where they might see someone they know.”

“I don’t think you’re going to find Mr. Right in this here place,” Lucille said. “Besides, you’ve got Ritchie. You don’t need to go attracting no more men.”

Flo pulled out her lipstick and touched up her lips. “You know the saying, Lucille. Use it or lose it. I plan to keep it as long as I can.”

Lucille snorted and opened her door. She waited while Flo dug out her compact and powdered her nose. The wind had picked up and she shivered, pulling her leather jacket around her more closely.

Finally, Flo was ready. “Okay, let’s roll.”

They crunched across the gravel parking lot to the door of the bar. Lucille paused with her hand on the doorknob. “What if Tiffany sees us?”

Flo shrugged. “Act normal. Like we just happened to stop by for a drink.”

“At noon?” Lucille said. The whistle had blown a few minutes ago.

“She can’t do anything about it, can she? It’s a free country.”

“But I don’t want nothing to drink now. Even a highball doesn’t sound good.”

“You don’t have to order alcohol, Lucille. Get a diet cola for goodness sake.”

Did the cavemen drink cola? Somehow Lucille didn’t think so. She would just have to break her diet in the name of their investigation.

As Lucille had suspected, the inside of the bar was barely lit. She had to stand in the entrance for a couple of seconds to let her eyes adjust. Tiffany was sitting in a booth way in the back—the last one in the row. And she was with someone all right, but he had his back to the room.

Lucille poked Flo. “There’s Tiffany. But we can’t see who that is with her.”

“Let’s sit down.” Flo glanced toward the bar, where a guy in a rumpled business suit had swiveled around on his stool. “People are starting to look at us.”

They slid into a booth and watched as the bartender ambled over. He had a dirty apron tied around his waist, and there was a stain on the front of his T-shirt.

“Name your poison,” he said wearily, looking at Lucille.

“Diet cola.”

He looked momentarily startled but then shrugged and turned to Flo.

“A ginger ale.”

“You ladies don’t want nothing to drink?”

“Sure we do,” Lucille answered. “Like we just told you, a diet cola and a ginger ale.”

“In case you two ladies hadn’t noticed,” he said, putting an emphasis on the word
ladies,
“this is a bar. Most people order something with booze in it.”

Lucille could see Flo was getting annoyed. There was something about the way her eyes narrowed whenever someone pissed her off.

“We don’t want any booze,” Flo said, annunciating each word carefully. “We want a diet cola and a ginger ale.”

The bartender shrugged. “Please yourselves. I just hope you don’t expect no frilly coaster and a slice of lemon. This here ain’t that kind of place.”

“How are we going to find out who Tiffany is sitting with?” Lucille asked, turning around to look in their direction.

“They’re sitting right by the ladies’ room. One of us can go powder her nose, and on the way out we ought to be able to get a good look at whoever that is Tiffany is cozying up to.”

“You go,” Lucille said. “I don’t have my compact with me. I rushed out of the house without it.”

Flo sighed. “You don’t actually have to powder your nose, Lucille. No one is going to know. Just go into the ladies’ room, wait a couple of minutes and then come back out again. Wash your hands if it will make you feel any better.”

“Okay.”

Lucille got to her feet and headed toward the back of the bar. The guy sitting with Tiffany had dark hair, but that was all Lucille was going to see until she came out of the ladies’ room.

She cracked open the door to the bathroom. It was dark. She felt around for the light switch and flipped it on. The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the bar was built back in the sixties. The floor was wet with bits of toilet paper stuck to it, and the water in the toilet bowl was rust-colored. The sink had only one tap—cold. Lucille quickly rinsed her hands, but she couldn’t exactly wash them on account of the soap dispenser was empty and hanging half off the wall. There was one of them cloth towel dispensers, where you pulled the towel and a new section appeared. Lucille gave it a tug, but the section that was dispensed was just as gray-looking as the previous one. She shook her hands a couple of times, and then ran them up and down her slacks.

Lucille opened the door and stepped out, her eyes on the booth where Tiffany was sitting. She paused for a moment and pretended to fiddle with the clasp of her handbag. It was Joey sitting opposite Tiffany, just as they had suspected. And they was looking pretty cozy, too. As Lucille passed them, she noticed Tiffany slide something across the table to Joey.

Lucille hurried back to where Flo was sitting. “We were right. It’s Joey.”

Flo had finished her ginger ale. “I wonder why they’re meeting here? Why didn’t Joey go to Tiffany’s house now that Sal is about to be six feet under?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re going to her place after.”

“We can drive by Tiffany’s house later and see if Joey’s car is there. Meanwhile, I’m starved. You want to get something to eat?”

“Sure.” Lucille had a yen for some pizza, but she couldn’t show her face in Rocky’s no more.

“You want to go back to the Old Glory?”

“Yeah.” It was Friday, and Lucille knew it was old-fashioned of her, but she still didn’t eat meat on Friday. The church said it was okay now, but she couldn’t let go of what she’d grown up with. The Old Glory did a nice tuna fish sandwich. Obviously the cavemen must have caught fish, so she could get right back on her diet.

• • •

Old Glory was a lot busier than it had been earlier that morning. Flo and Lucille got the last table—the one near the swinging door to the kitchen.

The waitress dropped a couple of menus on their table without even stopping. Lucille already knew what she wanted, but she waited while Flo scanned the menu. Flo closed it with a decisive snap.

“I’m getting the house salad with grilled chicken, how about you?”

“I’m having the tuna sandwich.”

Flo arched an eyebrow. “I thought you were on a diet, Lucille.”

“I am. It’s called the Paleo diet, and all I gotta do is stick to eating what the cavemen ate.”

“You mean like nuts and berries and grilled mastodon?”

“I don’t know about that . . . what did you call it? . . . mastodon, but I get to have meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, bread and stuff like that.”

“Let me know how it works.” Flo patted her stomach. “I wouldn’t mind dropping five pounds myself.”

The waitress brought their order and Lucille realized she was starving.

Flo picked at her salad, ferreting out the slices of red onion and pushing them aside.

Lucille pointed at Flo’s plate. “Don’t you like onions no more?”

“I love them, but I’m going out with Richie tonight and I don’t want any lingering smell.”

Lucille smiled to herself. She had a feeling that it wouldn’t be too long now before Flo became Mrs. Richie Sambucco. The thought gave her a bit of a pain just under her heart—Richie had been attracted to Lucille way back when they was in high school and then again when they met up years later after Richie joined the New Providence police force. It had been nice knowing that she still
had it
, as Flo put it. But she was happy with her Frankie and she was a grandmother now—she couldn’t go having feelings for other men. It wasn’t right. Still, it had been kind of nice.

They finished their lunch and Flo tossed her napkin on the table. “I’m ready to go, how about you?”

“Sure, sure.” Lucille picked up the crumbs on her plate with a wet fingertip.

Lucille’s car was still in the parking lot where she’d left it earlier that morning.

“Let’s take my car,” she said. “Yours is so conspicuous.”

“And yours isn’t?” Flo raised her eyebrows. “A decades-old white Oldsmobile that sounds like it’s dying every time you start it up.”

Lucille felt her shoulders get stiff. You didn’t go making fun of the Olds. You could make fun of Lucille as much as you wanted—she could take it. But not her baby.

Flo sighed. “You’re probably right. We’ll take your car. Besides, if Tiffany saw us outside her house earlier, it won’t look like we’ve come back and are stalking her.”

Lucille paused with her hand on the door handle of the Olds. “You know, if Tiffany did deposit a nice, fat insurance check when she went through the drive-through at Wells Fargo, then she probably has the deposit slip in her purse.”

“What are you thinking, Lucille?” Flo said with a note of alarm in her voice.

“Nothing. I’m not thinking nothing. Just that I’d like to know if she really did cash in on Sal’s death. It would give her what the police call a motive.”

“I don’t see how we’ll ever find out.”

Lucille drew a circle on the pavement with her toe. She looked at Flo from under her lashes. “If we could get into the house . . .”

“No!” The word exploded out of Flo. “We are
not
breaking and entering, Lucille. I already told you that.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have to.”

Flo stared at Lucille with her head tilted. Lucille could tell she was interested even though she was acting all pissed off like.

“This is what we do. We go pay a call on Miss Tiffany. No breaking and entering necessary.”

“What?” Flo demanded. “Go ring her bell? Like we’re best friends or something.”

Lucille was already shaking her head. “We pay what they call a condolence visit.”

Flo was starting to look interested in spite of herself. “You think that would work?”

“Sure. Frankie and me have been going to Sal’s forever. It’s like they’re family. What could be more natural than paying a visit to express our sympathies?”

“But how is that going to help? You can hardly ask to take a look inside Tiffany’s purse.”

“I know that.” Lucille sniffed. Sometimes Flo could act so superior it set her teeth on edge. “But where does a woman usually leave her purse? In the kitchen, right? You come in through the garage, drop your purse on the counter or on one of the chairs around the table.”

“Yeah, so?
If
she invites us in, she’ll probably take us into the living room. What do we do then?”

“It’s like this, see. In most houses the powder room is off the kitchen somewhere, right?”

“I still don’t see . . .” Flo looked around. “People are starting to stare at us. We’d better get in the car.”

Lucille got behind the wheel and Flo slid into the passenger seat.

“Okay, so you were saying something about the powder room?”

“Yeah.” Lucille turned the key in the ignition and the Olds coughed, sputtered and finally caught. “I ask to go to the bathroom. Instead, I sneak real quiet like into the kitchen and take a peek into Tiffany’s purse.

Flo still looked doubtful, but Lucille could tell she was starting to warm to the idea.

“Come on, Flo. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. No harm done, right?”

“Well . . . okay.”

Flo turned toward Lucille, and Lucille could tell she was getting excited. “We ought to take a plant or some flowers or something. That’s what people do when they call on the bereaved.”

Lucille smacked the steering wheel. “Great idea. We can pop over to the A&P and pick up one of them bouquets for Tiffany.”

Lucille shot out of the parking lot and across the street to the grocery store. She and Flo picked out a nice bunch of multicolored carnations and headed toward Evergreen Avenue and Tiffany’s house.

They pulled up a dozen yards beyond Tiffany’s bi-level.

Lucille turned around to look out the back window. “Sheesh, my neck is stiff. I can’t hardly turn my head no more.”

“You should try yoga. It’s great for keeping you flexible.”

“You mean where they do all those weird poses? No, thanks.”

“You need to keep an open mind, Lucille.”

And you need to keep your mouth shut,
Lucille thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t need Flo to get all pissed off right now when she needed her for backup.

“I don’t see no other cars,” Lucille said. “At least not Joey’s car.”

“Maybe Tiffany didn’t come straight home. Maybe she went out to lunch.”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out. We’ve got to go ring her bell.”

Lucille took a deep breath, opened the car door and got out. They went up the walkway to Tiffany’s front door, rang the bell and waited.

“I guess she’s not home,” Flo said when there was no answer to their second ring.

“Maybe the bell is on the blink.” Lucille rapped hard against the door, but although they waited a couple of minutes, there was still no response.

“I’m going to take a peek in the garage window.”

Lucille stood on tiptoe and peered through the small window. Tiffany’s car was in the garage all right, but what Lucille saw made her go weak in the knees. “Flo, come here. Take a look and tell me what you think.”

Flo looked through the glass and gasped. “I think Tiffany is dead.”

Lucille dropped the bouquet of flowers and sank to the ground. “I’m not feeling so good.”

“Neither am I.” Flo joined her and they sagged against the garage door. “We’ve got to call the police.” Flo began digging through her purse. Finally she upended it and showered the contents onto the driveway. Her hands shook as she tapped out 911.