High Five

'Your granddaughter beat me up.'

'No kidding?' Grandma said. 'She did a pip of a job.'

My father was in front of the TV. He turned in his chair and looked at us. 'Oh, cripes, now what?' he said.

'This is Randy,' I told him.

'He's kinda short, isn't he?'

'He's not a boyfriend.'

My father went back to the television. 'Thank God for that.'

There were five places set at the table. 'Who's the fifth person?' I asked.

'Mabel,' my mother said. 'Your grandmother invited her.'

'I thought it would give us a chance to grill her. See if she's holding something out,' Grandma said.

'There will be no grilling,' my mother said to my grandmother. 'You invited Mabel over for dinner, and that's what we're going to have . . . a nice dinner.'

'Sure,' Grandma said, 'but it wouldn't hurt to ask her a few questions.'

A car door slammed at the front of the house and everyone migrated to the foyer.

'What's that car Mabel's driving?' Grandma asked. 'That's not the station wagon.'

'Mabel bought a new car,' I said. 'She thought the old one was too big.'

'Good for her,' my mother said. 'She should be able to make those decisions.'

'Yeah,' Grandma said. 'But she better hope Fred's dead.'

'Who's Mabel and Fred?' Briggs asked.

I gave him the condensed explanation.

'Cool,' Briggs said. 'I'm starting to like this family.'

'I brought a coffee cake,' Mabel said, handing a box to my mother, closing the door with her other hand. 'It's prune. I know Frank likes prune.' She craned her neck to the living room. 'Hello, Frank,' she called.

'Mabel,' my father said.

'Nice car,' Grandma said to Mabel. 'Aren't you afraid Fred'll come back and have a cow?'

'He shouldn't have left,' Mabel said. 'And anyway, how am I to know he'll come back? I got a new bedroom set, too. It's getting delivered tomorrow. New mattress and everything.'

'Maybe you were the one who bumped Fred off,' Grandma said. 'Maybe you did it for the money.'

My mother slammed a bowl of creamed peas down on the table. 'Mother!' she said.

'It was just a thought,' Grandma said to Mabel.

We all took our seats, and my mother set a highball down for Mabel and a beer for my father and brought a kid cushion for Briggs to sit on.

'My grandchildren use these,' she said.

Briggs looked over at me.

'My sister Valerie's kids,' I said.

'Hah,' he said. 'So you're a loser in the grandchildren race, too.'

'I have a hamster,' I told him.

My father forked some roast chicken onto his plate and reached for the mashed potatoes.

Mabel swilled down half her highball.

'What else you gonna buy?' Grandma asked her.

'I might go on a vacation,' Mabel said. 'I might go to Hawaii. Or I might go on a cruise. I always wanted to go on a cruise. Of course I wouldn't do that for a while. Unless Stephanie finds that man. Then that might speed things up.'

'What man?' Grandma wanted to know.

I told her about the woman at the Grand Union.

'Now we're getting somewhere,' Grandma said. 'This is more like it. All we have to do is find that man.' She turned to me. 'You have any suspects?'

'No.'

'Nobody at all?'

'I'll tell you who I suspect,' Mabel said. 'I suspect that garbage company. They didn't like Fred.'

Grandma waved a chicken leg at her. 'That's just what I said the other day. There's something funny going on with that garbage company. We're going to the viewing tonight to look into it.' She ate some chicken while she thought. 'You met the deceased when you went to the garbage office, didn't you?' she asked me. 'What did he look like? He look like the guy who took Fred for a ride?'