Pickled (An Alex Harris Mystery) (6 page)

Astrid Kaufman continued talking, telling me about her German heritage. She seemed very proud of the fact she was able to open a deli and share all the recipes she grew up with as a child in Germany.

“I use dill and garlic,” she said, describing the pickles. “And I add onions, mustard seed and just enough dried hot pepper to give them a real bite. And I use good apple cider vinegar.”

I thought about that dried hot pepper and how horrific it had to be to have one of those burning pickles clogging your throat.

I thanked Mrs. Kaufman for her time, took my box of strudel, and left, thinking all the while about something she said. There were no sharp carving knives and at our table settings, just butter knives. Obviously the killer didn’t bring along a gun or anything else, so was this a spur of the moment thing on the part of the killer? And if so, what had set someone off to the point of murder?

My sister Samantha and I have a good thing going. We have our own business housed on the first floor of a quaint old house, and we have two great employees to round things out. Millie Chapman has been with us almost from the beginning and she runs the place with a precision that would make General Patton look like a slacker. And Marla Scottsman, our newest addition, is a part-timer who helps out with accounts and brings a sense of wisdom and logic to Samantha’s and my sometimes frantic personalities. Most people hate the thought of getting up and going to work, but I actually look forward to my day. I’m usually pretty busy, plus I get to spend time with nice people.

“Hey, where’ve you been?” my sister asked the minute I walked in the door. “We’ve been waiting to discuss last night’s season premiere.”

“Reinforcements,” I said. I held up the box of strudel, getting a big smile from Sam.

Once we all had our teas and plates of strudel, we settled in my office, which, for some reason, just always seemed to be the place we congregated.

I cradled my cup in my hands hoping the warmth would ease the pain in my fingers. “I miss Matthew,” I said, referring to the character of Matthew Crawley who was killed off on the season finale last year.

“Me, too.” Millie almost looked like she might burst into tears.

It was an understandable fact actors got bored with their parts and wanted to move on, but did they have any idea what it did to their adoring fans?

I reached for a piece of strudel and dropped it on my desk.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Sam asked. She didn’t miss much and I could see how she was looking at me. She had been watching me earlier as I massaged my wrist but right now wasn’t the time to explain I was having some problems.

“Just clumsy, plus it’s still hot from the microwave.” I gave her a smile but could tell she wasn’t buying any of it.

We talked for a bit longer, wondering if Lady Mary would ever be happy again and why Edith had so much trouble in the romance department, and then Millie left to get ready for an appointment. I was afraid my sister would start with the questions so I quickly changed the subject to the murder.

“The suspects are piling up with the widow right at the top of the list.”

“It’s always the spouse,” Sam said.

“Mrs. Bryson told me Humphrey planned to divorce her and he said he would rather kill her than give her a dime. I’m wondering if she got to him first.”

“Were they living in the same house?”

I nodded. “As far as I know they were.”

“Would you live in a house with someone who made those kinds of threats?” my sister asked.

I thought about this a bit. “Maybe that was just the way he talked. He was a bully and she knew it so she might not have taken his words seriously, but I think I need to pay the widow another visit.”

My sister went back to her office and I got some work done over the next couple of hours. About eleven-thirty I glanced at my watch and figured I didn’t have time to go to Pirates Cove to speak with the widow Bryson again before my doctor’s appointment, but I was feeling antsy and didn’t relish sitting around here for another hour.

Down the hall I could hear my sister talking on the phone and thought it a good time to make my get-away before she badgered me with more questions. I told Millie I would be back later in the afternoon and drove over to Meme’s neighborhood. I drove into the community from another street so as not to have to go by my grandmother’s house. I didn’t have time to stop right now and I wanted to see if I could catch Howard alone at his home, and then I remembered his foot-washing fetish. I parked the car and rummaged around in the trunk for a clean pair of socks. I had washed my gym clothes over the weekend and luckily remembered to put them back in my car.

Armed with clean socks, I walked up a neatly shoveled path to the front door and rang the bell.

“Good morning, Alex. Can I help you with something? Where’s Meme? Is she okay?”

I touched Howard’s arm. “She’s fine. Everything’s fine. I just wanted to ask you a few more questions and I brought clean socks.” I held them up in front of him and gave him my best smile. I was wearing tights, for goodness sake, and I wasn’t about to take them off to wash my feet.

Howard’s lips tighten into a thin line. “I don’t do that anymore. I’m trying to be more accommodating and less obsessive.”

“Well, good for you, Howard. How about if I take my shoes off and leave them at the door and I’ll just put these on.”

Howard heaved a sigh of relief. My dirty feet would be encased in clean cotton and that seemed to appease the man.

“You like tea, correct? I’ll make you a cup of a nice chamomile tea.

Herbal teas weren’t my favorite. They all seemed to taste of grass with chunks of dirt tossed in, but what the heck. It was cold outside and something warm was in order.

Howard placed a tray with two china cups of tea on the coffee table a few minutes later and I took a seat opposite him.

“So, what did you want to speak with me about?”

“Humphrey Bryson. I sensed you had some unpleasant contact with him and you didn’t want to bring it up in front of the gang.”

Howard Wronkovich was in his early seventies and trust me when I say he didn’t look a day over fifty. And I’m talking about all of him. As I sat here thinking about Mr. June, I could feel a blush coming on and grabbed the cup of tea in an attempt to hide my embarrassment. For such a fussy and fastidious man he had no qualms about disrobing for the calendar and I felt certain he had a lot to do with the great success we were having with it.

“I’m not really sure I want to bring it up with you, either, Alex, but as everyone is trying to help I feel I should do my part. I hope there won’t be any need to spread it around. The truth is we just had words, that was all there was to it. No physical altercation, though I admit I wanted to throttle the man. How someone becomes such an oaf is beyond my comprehension.”

“So what exactly happened?” I asked. I took a sip of the tea and found it very good—no dirt or grassy taste.

“It’s no secret I lived with my parents my entire life. What no one knows is there was a woman I was very close to. The truth is we were engaged. We planned on marrying. We actually had a ceremony. I bought a new suit and there I stood at the altar in her church, surrounded by her family and my parents. Beautiful flowers had been brought in and the air was filled with the scent of lilies of the valley and lilacs.”

“It sounds lovely, Howard.”

“Yes, well, it was lovely. Everything was perfect except for one thing. There was no bride. She never showed up. Sent me a letter from Philadelphia where she had fled. It arrived two days after the unfinished ceremony. I can’t tell you how long I stood in front of all those people certain she would walk in at any moment.” Howard hung his head and closed his eyes. “It was a long time ago.”

“So what does this have to do with Humphrey Bryson?” I asked.

“He found out. I have no idea how or why. Why would he care? But the discovery of my shame brought him great enjoyment. He even went so far as to track the woman down. He told me she was very happy and has two lovely daughters. He went on to tell me that no woman would want to marry a mama’s boy. He called me some other hurtful names I won’t share with you, and that was that. No rhyme or reason for him to do such a thing. He did it simply for the sheer fun of it.”

“When was this?” I had a feeling Humphrey had seen the calendar and Howard’s star turn and was jealous.

“A couple months ago. I was at the gym working out. I had just come out of the shower room and there he was, sitting by the lockers regaling me with what a wonderful life Grace—that was her name—Grace was having and how if she had stuck with me she would have been miserable. It may seem odd to some that I chose to live with my parents, but they were hard-working, decent people. My father lost his arm in an accident while I was in college and my mother’s sight was never good and was growing worse. So, when I graduated I moved back in with them to help out.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said.

“They took such good care of me and gave me every opportunity they never had. What kind of a son—no, man—would I be if I didn’t help them out. I was happy to do it. And between my father and myself, we were able to keep the house and they had a good life in their later years. They would have lost everything if not for my help. I bought a house next door for Grace and me to live in after our wedding, but the burden of helping my parents was too much for her.”

“Then she wasn’t worthy of you, Howard.”

“That’s very kind of you to say. I never found anyone else and the truth is, I never looked again. My parents felt awful and blamed themselves, but Alex, I had a good life. I had friends, a good job and now I’m here with all these wonderful people. I just don’t understand someone like Humphrey Bryson and why they derive such pleasure by hurting others. It may be a terrible thing to say, but I’m not sorry the man is dead.”

“Howard, you’re in good company with that thought because so far everyone I’ve spoken to feels the exact same way.”

Of course, that was the trouble—everyone wanted the man dead. Maybe everyone ganged up on him in the women’s room and took turns pushing the pickle deeper down his throat, a fraction of an inch at a time.

As I drove to my doctor’s appointment, I thought about Howard’s story. It was heartbreaking the man had lost his one true love, but how much of a true love could she have been. To be fair to Grace, Howard’s devotion to his parents may not have been the only deciding factor. I mean, the man was a fussbudget, as Meme would say and certainly had his quirks, but then so did the rest of us. As sad as Howard’s story was, and as much as it proved once again what a miscreant Humphrey Bryson had been, would it have led to murder? Would any of the stories I had heard so far lead to murder? Jealousy is a powerful motive and so is the loss of one’s grand lifestyle. I really needed to talk with Sophie Bryson again and maybe Sid Dupre as well.

I parked my car and made my way into the building. John was already waiting for me in front of the suite my doctor used.

“You know, we’re going to find out what’s going on and deal with it.”

“Say it’s something else? What if it’s not what we think, then what?”

John took my hand. “Same thing. We’ll deal with it.”

Ten minutes later the nurse called my name and John and I walked into Doctor Piercy’s office. Thirty-five minutes after that, I walked out to my car feeling much lighter.

“Okay, so it’s not good but it’s not bad, either.” John smiled down at me. “Your mother’s been living with it most of her life, right? And with all the new treatment Doctor Piercy said we should be able to keep it in remission indefinitely.”

John was right. I had feared the worse—MS or lupus— but as it turned out I had RA, rheumatoid arthritis, same as my mom. A mild case, thank goodness, and Doctor Piercy told me that if it starts out mild, it usually stays mild and doesn’t progress into a severe case.

“I’m fine. I really am. There are worse things and the medical advances have been great, but if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go over and talk to my mom.” I kissed John and he watched me get in my car and drive off. Sometimes a girl just needed her mother.

*****

“Alex, what brings you here at this time of day?” my mother asked the minute I walked in their back door ten minutes later.

Meme, Francis, and Theresa were playing cards with my mom while Riley sat at her feet chewing on this big black piece of rubber toy my father had bought for him.

I pulled up a chair and sat between my mother and grandmother. “Oh, nothing. I was just at the doctor’s and—” I burst into tears.

“Alex, what on earth,” my mother wrapped her arms around me while I told her what the doctor said.

“It’s okay, kiddo,” Meme said, “your mom got hers when she was younger than you. It was a son of gun back then and she hurt all the time. Nothing we could do for her, but look at her now. They got all kinds of stuff to help. Mable, you hardly ever have any pain, do you?”

“That’s right. Tell me what the doctor said. Are they going to start you on infusion treatments?”

I wiped my eyes. “Yes, that’s what Doctor Piercy said. This week, as a matter of fact.”

“Over at the clinic? On Thursday? Alex, you’ll be with me.” My mother gave me a smile and then hugged me again. “It’s going to be okay, honey. No one likes to take all this medicine, but they can manage the pain and as they caught it quickly maybe you won’t have all the damage that I do.”

I looked at my mother’s gnarled fingers. They may not be straight but that never seemed to stop her from doing anything she wanted to do. My mother lived a full life, almost totally pain free and so would I. I was just feeling sorry for myself.

We heard the front door open and a minute later Henry and my sister came into the kitchen.

“I just had my checkup,” Henry announced. “The doctor told mom I’m going to be over sixty feet tall!”

“Six feet, Henry. What’s wrong?” Sam asked looking at me, full of panic. “Why are you crying, Alex?”