Over the weekend doctors sat down with Gwen and Detective Grant. They said Rollie was brain dead. Gwen agreed to take him off life support. An hour later Rollie Stumpf died. Dale got a copy of his suicide note. It said this:
My precious Gwen,
Please forgive me for ending things this way. But there is no reason for either of us to live with my guilt any longer. I killed David Delarosa and I killed Gordon. Make sure the police understand that.
Gwen, you gave me a better life than I deserved. I hope my gratitude always showed.
Love Rollie
Gwen knew Rollie killed David. She was right there. Naked as a jaybird. But did Gwen know Rollie killed Gordon? At least have a suspicion? “When they found Gordon’s body out there I didn’t dare think about it,” she said in her statement.
“But in your heart-of-hearts you knew it was a possibility?” detectives asked her.
“I didn’t even know he had a gun,” she said.
The minister was still speaking-saying the things ministers always say at funerals-when a soft, fuzzy voodee-voo-voo oozed into the chapel. It was like the cool, haunting hoot of a mourning dove. It rolled forward through the rows of empty chairs. It took everyone by the ears and turned their heads. It was Shaka Bop, filling the doorway, in his dashiki and porkpie hat, his big shoulders bent over his silver saxophone. His song was recognizable at first-“My Old Kentucky Home”-but as he played, the old song’s simple melody splintered in a thousand directions, in the crazy bebop way Rollie Stumpf always loved. It was so beat. And so beautiful.
Ike held the door for me. I carried the baked beans. There were only six cars in Gwen’s long, swooping driveway. If the funeral was any gauge, there wouldn’t be any more. We crossed the grand foyer to the living room, our heels banging on those horrible black and white chessboard tiles. Gwen was crumpled in a white wingback chair. She’d replaced the black wool suit she’d worn to the funeral with a summery silk pantsuit, the pink of raspberries not quite ripe. The handful of friends and family who’d bravely attended the funeral now sat motionless on a pair of opposing white sofas, like a collection of department store mannequins. Queen Strudelschmidt and Prince Elmo were asleep under the glass coffee table. Rollie’s urn rested on the mantel above a marble fireplace filled with glowing candles.
I held up the crock pot. “Who needs beans?”
Shaka Bop’s hands came together in a single, loud clap. “Oh, Dolly!” he said. “Could I ever dig a big bowl of those sweet morsels!”
Gwen padded toward me across the white carpet. She kissed my cheek. “Leave it to Maddy to think of everything,” she said.
Effie, Chick and Shaka started to applaud. The handful of others in the room applauded, too, without knowing why. Gwen led us to the dining room. The table and antique sideboards were covered with multi-tiered trays of sugared fruits, fancy finger sandwiches and desserts far too pretty too eat. Enough food for an army. An army of fair-weather friends that wasn’t coming. I found an empty corner on the table for my crock pot. Effie and Chick headed into the kitchen to find bowls and spoons. Shaka went to the wine cart and started popping corks.
We filled our bowls with the sticky brown beans. We filled our goblets with wine. We headed back to the living room, all that white carpet and upholstery be damned.
Given the two murders, and Rollie’s suicide, there were a lot of subjects to avoid. We settled on Jack Kerouac’s visit to the college. We laughed at how rumpled and fragrant he was after his long bus ride across the country. We laughed at how embarrassed we’d felt because of our better grooming. We laughed at what he must have thought of us, a gaggle of eager fools groveling at his scuffed shoes like he was Moses. We made Effie admit that she’d slept with him. We laughed at her detailed description of his clumsy lovemaking.
We laughed and laughed that cheerless afternoon. And Gwen laughed right along with us. Good gravy, she needed to escape for a while, didn’t she? She’d just lost the man she’d lived with for fifty years. Thanks to the Herald-Union, everyone in Hannawa was buzzing about his confession to the murders of Gordon Sweet and David Delarosa. Oh, she needed an afternoon of laughter all right. And not just because of the grief and humiliation hammering away at her. Ever since Gwen’s statement was leaked to the media, there’d been speculation that she would be charged for her role in David Delarosa’s murder. She had, after all, hurried Rollie away from the murder scene. She’d made sure that his bloody clothes and the battered trophy wouldn’t be found. And even if the police didn’t file charges, she still faced some very hard time-alone in her own big house. The number of empty chairs at the funeral attested to that. The mounds of untouched food in her dining room attested to that.
The afternoon faded away. One by one people found a reason to leave. By six o’clock there was just Gwen, Chick, Ike and me. “I’m afraid we’d better get going, too,” I said. “But we can help you tidy up a bit before we go.”
Gwen was curled up in her chair like a child. Her arms around her ankles. Her chin on her knees. “Don’t be silly. My maid service is coming in the morning.”
“Don’t you be silly,” Ike said. He started gathering up empty bean bowls and wine glasses. Which agitated me to no end. My offer to help was not a sincere offer. I wanted to get out of that house as fast as I could. Before I said the things I came to say. But now didn’t want to say. I started gathering up bowls and glasses, too. Five minutes later Gwen, Chick and I were standing side by side at the huge double sink in her kitchen. Gwen was washing. I was rinsing. Chick was drying. Ike was standing behind us at the serving island, hovering over my crock pot with a silver serving spoon, eating the last few baked beans.
Gwen handed me a soapy bowl. “I’m glad you came today, Maddy. I know it had to be awkward for you.”
“I was afraid it would be awkward for you.”
Gwen smiled weakly. “You didn’t know where things would lead.”
I dunked the bowl in the rinse water. Handed it to Chick. I felt like someone who’d stupidly signed up for skydiving lessons, and was now crouched in the open door of an airplane, about to jump for the first time. “Gwen,” I said. “I don’t think Rollie shot Gordon.”
Gwen didn’t say anything. Chick did. “Maddy-this is hardly the time for your cockamamie theories.”
If ever a magic genie had given me a wish, I would have used it right then. I would have turned myself invisible and tiptoed the hell out of there. “You’re right, Chick. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Ike’s low, adamant voice shook the kitchen, like a commandment from God. “Say what’s on your mind, Maddy.”
I glared at him over my shoulder. He was licking his big spoon. And grinning. It was a reassuring grin that said, “Go ahead, Morgue Mama, you’ve got it right-and if things get too crazy, I’m here.”
So I proceeded, shaking like a baby bunny. “First of all,” I began, “I’m sure David’s death occurred exactly as you said in your statement, Gwen. Your account certainly fits everything I’ve learned. And I’m sure Rollie’s trophy ended up in the Wooster Pike dump. From what Gordon’s graduate assistant told me-confirmed I should say-all of the city’s garbage from the neighborhoods around the college was dumped out there in those years. From the end of World War II until the early seventies. That’s why Gordon was confident he’d find that cocoa can full of pine cones Jack Kerouac gave him.
“Anyway, Gwen, you told police that you threw the bag with Rollie’s bloody clothes and the trophy in the dumpster behind the old A amp;P on Tuckman. That’s just a block west of the campus. Back then we all knew the local garbage ended up at the Wooster Pike dump. Students went out there all the time. To drink beer and make out. Dig around for interesting things for their rooms.” I shook the rinse water off the bowl in my hand. Held it up to the light. Dug off a stubborn nip of dried bacon with my thumbnail. Handed the bowl to Chick. “Which makes you wonder why you threw the trophy in that dumpster, doesn’t it? But killers stupidly put bodies and guns and other evidence in the garbage all the time, don’t they? You see it all the time in the news. And you and Rollie were certainly in a panic that night. You drove around until dawn. Good gravy! What do you do with a bag of bloody evidence? Then you saw that big metal box behind the A amp;P. A mound of rotting fruit and vegetables would be
