Mummers' Curse Read online

  “My life,” she said. “My life is so…” She seemed to plummet into a private reverie. I thought of the dusty store, where the silence was more often broken by her father’s commands than by customers. I wondered if that’s what she was thinking about, too.

  “I used to watch him at night,” she said abruptly. “When the store was closed and my father was asleep.”

  “Watch your father?” What had that to do with anything?

  “Sometimes I’d follow him, just be there, just see him. Sometimes him and the guys, sometimes him and Dolores.”

  “Jimmy Pat, is that who we’re talking about?” I said it softly so as not to break her concentration.

  Her cheeks were flushed, although I couldn’t have said for sure which emotion produced the color. “I can’t explain why I did it, what I wanted, except it was something to do.”

  I waited, studying the mural on the far wall. It depicted a pretty Philadelphia with scenes of the Delaware and a bridge—the Walt Whitman or the Ben Franklin, I couldn’t tell—of the Schuylkill’s Boathouse Row, and none of murdered Mummers. The clock in the middle of the mural moved forward a notch.

  “I knew his routine,” Emily said. “He came here around this time Thursdays, so I did, too. He wasn’t hard to find, except when he went to the shore. The casinos. Then, I couldn’t follow. But when he stayed in town, he played cards, took her out, had a few with the boys or went to the club Tuesday nights. The truth is, he didn’t spend much time with Dolores. They were like old marrieds, if you get my meaning. Kind of dull.”

  It’s always ironic to hear marriage maligned by those desperately trying to become part of the institution. Everybody wants the happily-ever-after bit but nobody wants to be an old married. Me, too, even though I haven’t figured out how that could work.

  “Dull doesn’t matter, though, if you’re a Grassi,” Emily said. “She doesn’t have to be interesting.”

  I still had no idea why the Grassis were spoken of with reverence. I wondered if anybody out of the neighborhood was even aware of the family, but here their status was real, a given in the equations of life.

  “When he dumped Dolores and went with me, people said it was a shotgun wedding.” Her smile was authentically amused this time. “That was funnier than they knew. It was, but not because I was pregnant, which is what they meant.”

  She was still whispering, barely audible, talking to herself as much as to me.

  “They’ll see I’m not pregnant, right? Which is why I don’t want them to know the truth. I like being one up on Dolores Grassi for once. I’m not going to let her say he was afraid of me again. Her brothers—they act like they’re the only ones with pride. They came to me twice now, saying I shamed them and their sister. Well, how about me?”

  How about her, indeed. Her pathos was touching, but I held back. Emily said a lot, and I still wasn’t sure if all of it was true, or if any of it was the whole truth. It was possible she had tried to sell the Grassis her story, in fact blackmail them, in exchange for keeping their family honor spotless.

  “That night,” she said, “I had no idea. It was cold and there were flurries. Nobody was on the street. I saw Ted Serfi was with him and I thought maybe they were going to have dinner, but then, it was so fast, I didn’t think anything. Like that, they’re shouting about money. That was no surprise. There was nothing much else to get mad at Jimmy about, but a person could get plenty mad about the money he owed. Probably to Teddy because he had cash and he was a good kind of guy. We were up near Broad and Washington. I hid, because I was scared. Jimmy’s a good-time guy, a laugher. This angry Jimmy, he gave me the creeps. So I only heard the pop, a bad noise, and I thought ‘no, please no’ because it seemed impossible. And then another pop, and shouting and grunts and when I looked out, Teddy’s in the street, not moving, and snow’s falling for real, and Jimmy looks like he’s dead, too, only standing, staring at the factory. Then he drags and half carries Teddy across all the junk and through a broken window, and in he goes.”

  Did this make sense, that Jimmy Pat killed Ted Serfi? I tried to think of reasons Emily would have to fabricate a story, but gave up, and she continued with her tale.

  “I saw the gun, where he’d dropped it. It was already sprinkled with snow. Whatever blood there’d been was, too. Just the littlest pink marks there. I think maybe Teddy’s coat and scarf and all, I think they were soaking up all the blood at first and whatever came out, it dissolved in the new snow, you know? So, anyway, I took the gun.”

  Two girls of around fourteen slid into the other side of our table. The convention seemed to be to pretend we were separated, not to acknowledge our table-sharers, but it was impossible not to be aware of them.

  I put my hand to my mouth and whispered. “You kept the gun?”

  Emily nodded.

  The girls exploded in laughter. “He ran away soooo fast!” one said, and the other put her head down on the table and pounded with her fist.

  “Hid it in the safe in back of the store,” Emily said low and quickly, under the cover of the girls’ hysteria. “I didn’t think the police would find any trail or tracks with the snow. Ted Serfi could have just left town. I called Jimmy that night. Now do you understand? What would people say if they knew what was really meant by a shotgun wedding?”

  “So then—so then,” the girl across from us said, “I ran after him!” They shrieked and doubled over once again.

  “You blackmailed him?” I whispered.

  Her eyes grew wide. “That’s for money. I made a trade. I give silence, he gets me out of that store, gives me a life. All it costs him is inconvenience, telling Dolores.”

  “You’d marry him even though you knew he murdered his friend?”

  “That wasn’t the real him.” She shook her head, to reinforce her words. “That wasn’t Jimmy Pat. That was just a man pushed too far, a man in a bad jam.”

  “And you’d marry him even though he was in love with somebody else?”

  Her eyes sparked with anger. Murder was a mistake, but what I’d suggested was an outrage. “He was engaged to Dolores, but he didn’t love her, he loved me. It was just that stupid breakup of ours, saving face. And I wasn’t as much of a bargain. Look at her family and look at mine, and that’s the truth. She could bail him out of his debts. Probably did. Certainly would. But as luck had it, I was given something to equal things out, because even Grassis can’t get you out of a murder rap.”

  I thought I had it so far. But…“Why did you put it in my pocketbook?”

  “My reputation,” she said. “I have to hold my head up in the neighborhood. I don’t care they find out who killed Teddy. I only care they don’t find out I witnessed it, what that meant. When Jimmy Pat died, what did I need with it? I wanted it out.”

  “Thanks a whole lot.”

  “I swore to Jimmy that I wouldn’t tell about it while there was breath in my body. That was our deal. But if you wanted to suggest that somebody should ask Mrs. Patricciano if there was a gun like that one around her house after the uncle died, I think the police could tie this all up.”

  Her features hardened. “So this is how it winds up,” she said. “I don’t have the gun or the man or the life or the future, so I’m sure as hell not going to lose my last bit of respect, too. It’s up to you. You’ve got the answers. All of them.”

  It wasn’t until we’d paid our bill and gone our separate ways that I realized she’d been wrong. I didn’t have all the answers by a long shot, because if Jimmy Pat killed Ted Serfi, but nobody knew that until last night, then the original question remained.

  Who killed Jimmy Pat? And why?

  Fifteen

  “GO THROUGH THAT ONE MORE TIME,” MACKENZIE SAID, his fork poised over a steaming plate of fettuccine tutto mare. “And a little more detail this time.”

  He had to say it loudly because the restaurant was participating in the great psycho-physics experiment of trying to ascertain how many sound waves can bounce off hard surfaces
before diners go crazy. The noise level gave the place atmosphere—the atmosphere of downtown Rome at rush hour.

  We were there because it was nearby and reputed to have excellent pasta. Also because Mackenzie turned out to be home and hungry after all. The phone message in my mailbox today had been called in last year, before winter break. Helga was setting new lows for when it was convenient for her to pass on a message.

  I had ordered a “garden fresh salad.” As opposed, I have to assume, to a salad made of rotting compost. Whence came the mushroom garnish, I was not sure. They chose not to put that on the menu. I twirled a garden-fresh green and speared a basement-grown fungus and spoke again. “I repeat: Ask the Patriccianos about the gun. The word is, it belonged to an uncle. Isn’t that enough?”

  He speared a shrimp, but gesticulated with the fork instead of putting it in his mouth. “Whose word?”

  “Pointing seafood at your date is a sign of bad breeding, and I already said I wasn’t telling. What does it matter, anyway?”

  His eyes rolled ceilingward, seeking divine assistance, but the Lord was dining where it was soundproofed and She could hear Herself think. “You know for a fact, and I should take it on faith, that Jimmy Pat killed Serfi?” he finally asked.

  “Not for a fact. But I know he had a major gambling habit, is said to have run up debts he couldn’t repay to his friends, of which Ted Serfi was one, and that might be a family gun. Put it together and it spells…”

  “But you won’t say how you know this or why you’re sayin’ that, am I right?”

  “Reliable sources. Can’t betray my journalistic confidences.” The way I figured, if the police traced the gun to Jimmy Pat’s house, they’d glom on to the obvious, and Emily could keep whatever dignity her community would allow. That seemed worth a serious attempt to keep my mouth shut.

  Mackenzie leaned across the table. I caught a whiff of his aftershave and I wished we were having a different sort of conversation. I became almost nostalgic for the days when he was injured and disabled. “Do you also know who killed Jimmy Pat, then?” he asked. “An’ why?”

  “If I did, I’d tell you.”

  “The way you just told me that? Can you at least say whether the second murder was revenge for his killin’ Serfi? An’ who did it?”

  “I don’t know. But since nobody even knew Ted Serfi was dead until last night, I don’t see how it can be revenge. If somebody had known, wouldn’t they have said so, called the cops or the papers long ago?”

  “Maybe not until they got theirs on Patricciano,” he said.

  I thought about slick Arthur King and considered his maneuvers in this new, Machiavellian way. Were they to distort, hide, turn attention away?

  “Maybe I’m lucky you don’ know more.” Mackenzie put down his fork, sighed, and drank wine. “Because when you do know somethin’, so does the whole world. What a day.”

  “Do you assume you are making sense?”

  “Of course. You, on the other hand, are not the easiest human being on earth to comprehend.”

  The chemistry of attraction has a precarious balance of elements. I wondered which aspect of Mackenzie would dissipate first—the captivating part or the insufferable part? How soon might I look across a table and find no trace of sexy, cute, lovable, or smart and instead simply see a professional bully and interrogator?

  “Do you believe people who love one another have to trust one another?” he asked.

  “Of course. Why?”

  “Because you’re acting like Mata Hari.”

  “Gertrude Zelle.”

  “Who?”

  “Her real name. Takes the mystique away, don’t you think? Anyway, there’s no correlation. Gertrude took secrets. I’m offering you non-secrets.”

  “Offerin’ ’em with one hand held behind your back. Not trustin’ me enough to be open with it. All of it.”

  “I can’t explain. It’s nothing criminal and nothing about you. Or us. It’s…a girl thing.” I surprised myself with the sisterhood-is-all loyalty I felt for Emily, but there it was, and I wasn’t going to tell her secret unless I had no other option. She had so little else going for her, it seemed the least I could do.

  “Is everything all right with madame’s meal?” the unctuous waiter asked. His name, he had told us earlier, was Angelo. We had not told him our names. I squelched a keen urge to inform him that everything except the general noise level to which his interruption added was quite fine.

  Of course, that wouldn’t be true. Things were not fine and not according to Hoyle. Mackenzie and I were sparring, and Angelo had a right to be concerned.

  “Fine, fine. Her food’s delicious,” Mackenzie said, as if he could know that. As if we had once discussed the food. As if I were mute, or non-English speaking. “Hold on there,” I protested, but he interrupted me, thereby compounding his intrusions on my autonomy and rights.

  “—and to further complicate everything,” he said, “I cannot understand why you—”

  “And your meal, sir? Is everything all right with it?” No wonder Angelo still hovered nervously. Mackenzie no longer even bothered to lift his fork. At least I was prodding my greens. “If there’s any problem whatsoever, the chef and I will be delighted to—”

  Once again, Mackenzie exhaled excessively. “It’s fine, okay? Absolutely. You did your job excellently!” he said loudly enough to be heard over the din of the room. But he did lift a few strands of fettuccine. The waiter beamed at both of us and backed off, all but touching his forelock during his retreat.

  I was in no rush to know the end of a sentence that began with “And to further complicate everything, I cannot understand why you…” making me sound like a chronic delinquent or mental case. What had happened between us in my absence?

  “—would expose yourself that way,” Mackenzie said.

  Images of flashing some innocent passerby flickered experimentally behind my eyes. Could I have done that and forgotten? Was he telling me I had the beginning of dementia? Or was On the Air right and I had multiple personalities? “When? Where? To whom? What are you talking about?”

  “Bad enough to have a shrink make you a radio case study but this…” He shook his head in hopeless grief.

  I had no appetite now, couldn’t bear to see the ruffly, jolly garden-fresh lettuce leaves, the cellar-fresh mushroom bits lounging on them. I pushed my plate away. The indignation diet. Anticipatory indigestion. This did not bode well for anything except my waistline.

  “You didn’t see it?”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t read it?”

  “You’re making me so—”

  “Nobody mentioned it?”

  I stood up, fully intending to leave. “I can’t stand teasing. Isn’t it obvious I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  He pulled a newspaper out of a soft leather pouch that he had taken to carrying. I didn’t like the idea that he had exhibits backing up whatever was making him so angry.

  I sat down again and pulled a minuscule piece off the crusty bread to keep busy. But my mouth was too dry to chew, my throat unable to swallow. I switched to wine, instead.

  “Couldn’t help but have my eye caught by a feature article, signed by one Marv Henneman. The headline reads schoolmarm sleuth monitors murders. Marv has a fondness for alliteration.”

  I hoped I was having a bad dream, but Mackenzie read on and I had a deep suspicion this was for real.

  Imagine, if you will, a situation that sounds like the “high concept” idea for a film, or at least for a knockoff of a TV drama about a writer who becomes an unlikely and accidental sleuth.

  “Dear God.” A crusty crumb stuck in my throat. I coughed. Angelo rushed to my side, arms outstretched, ready to perform CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, or if all that failed, suicide. I shook my head and downed still more wine while Mackenzie looked at me thoughtfully.

  “He’s twisting everything around,” I said when I could speak. “Made it, made me, sound frivolous, pho
ny. A laughingstock.”

  Mackenzie sorrowfully shook his head and continued:

  Amanda Pepper, a thirtyish English teacher at Philly Prep, claims she only wanted to experiment with a second career, that of journalist. For her first topic, she chose the city’s venerable Mummers, an eccentric group with a long and interesting history.

  She threw herself into her research, interviewing people, visiting clubs as they prepared, gathering personal and group histories. But instead of finding herself in print, Ms. Pepper found herself in hot water. In fact, involved in a murder—or maybe two—and several go-rounds with and questionings by the police.

  And what of the story her journalistic sleuthing turned up? What does it say? What does she know? That remains to be seen. At this time, it is still not sold and its contents are known only to its author.

  “Talk about purple prose, hack writing! Making things up!”

  “Worry less about style and more about content,” Mackenzie said.

  “Puffery and lies. Anybody can see that! I didn’t say I’d uncovered secrets. I said I didn’t want to give him the article, and look what he made of that.”

  “The article,” Mackenzie muttered, followed by another of his overly expressive sighs. “Ah, yes. Well, he didn’t print our address, guess that’s somethin’ to be grateful for.” Mackenzie’s pronunciation was disintegrating again. I seemed to have that effect on him often.

  Having said and read his piece, he finally noticed his dinner and with great deliberation, ate the shrimp on his fork. Once it was chewed, he spoke again. “The omission, however, is probably ’cause he didn’t know it, How’d it slip by when you told him everythin’ else in your life?”

  That emerged as Thomshin whirrs prahly causee dinknowt. Howdislipbah… And so forth. I spoke fluent Mackenziese. If the South ever gets a seat at the U.N., forget journalism. I’ll have an exciting career as a simultaneous translator of the crisp-syllable-challenged.

  I pleaded my case. “I barely said a word. He bumped into me when I was leaving the police station—which your stupid regulations made me go to again today. He recognized me, realized who I was, knew—unlike the police, obviously—that I should have been teaching at that hour, and made the connection. And then he started in. He made up the girl-sleuth business. All I said was—”