Lula and I said good-bye to Margaret McCurdle, and I drove us a half mile to Ann McCurdle’s house on Sycamore Street. Ann lived in a small ranch house in a neighborhood filled with small ranch houses. Her house was pale gray, with blue shutters and a blue door. Her yard was tidy, and it looked like someone had just mulched around her azalea bushes.
“This is fascinating to me,” Lula said, “because I’m a student of human nature. That’s why I was such a good ’ho. I took an interest in my clients. And now here I am seeing all these bigamist wives living in all these different kinds of houses. Don’t you think it’s fascinating?”
Actually, it wasn’t high on my list of things that fascinated me, but I thought it was nice that Lula was fascinated.
I rang Ann’s doorbell with Lula hovering behind me. I rang a second time and the door was answered by a wiry old lady with a paintbrush in her hand. She had gray hair the color and texture of steel wool, her bifocals were crooked on her face, and she was dressed in white orthopedic shoes and a shapeless cotton creation that was somewhere between a dress and a bathrobe.
“Mrs. McCurdle?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Me and everybody else.” She craned her neck to look past Lula. “This isn’t another one of them television interviews, is it? I’m painting my kitchen, and I don’t have my hair fixed.”
I introduced myself and gave her my card. “I’m looking for your husband,” I told her. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”
She pushed a clump of hair back from her face and left a smudge of lemon yellow paint. “I don’t know where he is, and if you find him, I want to know so I can hunt him down and wring his neck. He started painting my kitchen this stupid yellow color three weeks ago and never came back to finish.”
“It’s gonna be real cheery when you get done,” Lula said.
“Cheery, my behind,” Ann McCurdle said. “Every time I look at it, my blood pressure goes up. I’m popping pills like they’re M &M’s.”
“So I guess marrying a bigamist didn’t work out for you,” Lula said.
“It could have been worse. Just when I was getting sick of him, he’d go off on a two-week business trip. That’s the secret to keeping the magic in a marriage,” she said. “You don’t see too much of each other. Men are only interested in one thing anyway. S-E-X. And then after they get it, they go to sleep and snore.”
“I noticed that,” Lula said.
I thanked Ann McCurdle for her help, and Lula and I went back to the Jeep.
“Maybe bigamists aren’t as fascinating as I thought,” Lula said, cinching her seat belt. “According to the newspaper, none of these wives knew there were other wives. Now that I’m meeting them, I could see how that could happen.”
I motored out of the lot and turned onto Klockner Boulevard. “His first wife lives in the Burg. I thought we’d try her next, since it’s on our way back to the office.”
The Burg is an odd-shaped chunk of Trenton bordered by Hamilton Avenue, Liberty Street, Chambers Street, and Broad Street. I lived in the Burg for my entire childhood, and my parents still live there. Houses are small, yards are narrow, cars are large, windows are clean. This is a neighborhood of hard working second-generation Americans. Families are extended and proudly dysfunctional. Although dysfunction in Jersey might be hard to measure.
Tomasina McCurdle lived one block in from Hamilton in a single-family house with brown clapboard siding and brown trim.
“This house looks like a turd,” Lula said. “How could someone live in a all-brown house? You’d think you were going into a turd every day. It’s just my opinion, but I’d find that depressing. When you had company over, what would you tell them? The directions would be to turn off Hamilton and park in front of the house looks like a turd.”
I had to admit, it wasn’t the most attractive house I’d ever seen, but turd seemed harsh. Truth is, the bottom half of my parents’ house was brown, and okay, if I was being honest, it wasn’t such a great-looking house, either.
I knocked at the door and a sturdy woman answered. She was early seventies, short black hair shot with silver, wire-rimmed glasses, dressed in a green pants suit, large pearl earrings, lots of perfume.
“Tomasina McCurdle?” I asked.
“That’s me,” she said. “And I know who you are, too. You’re Edna’s granddaughter. The one who burned down the funeral home.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I told her. “People were shooting at me.”
“I suppose you’re looking for my foolish husband, the bigamist.”
“We sure are,” Lula said. “And if you don’t mind me asking, what was it like being married to a bigamist?”
“It was like being married to anyone else.”
“That’s disappointing,” Lula said.
Tomasina pressed her lips together. “Tell me about it. I was married to that idiot for fifty-one years, and ten years ago, he decided to just up and marry someone else. And then he goes and marries every floozy that comes along. What the heck was he thinking?”
“Do you know where I might find him?” I asked her.
“I imagine he’s with one of his home wreckers.”
“Other than homewreckers, is there any place else he might be staying? A relative’s house? A close friend?”
“I can’t see him with any relatives. His brother died last year. His parents are dead. Our son lives in Delaware, and he’d tell me if Dirk was with him. Ernie Wilkes is his best friend, but Ernie’s wife wouldn’t put up with having Dirk in the house.”
“You look all dressed up,” Lula said. “Are you going out someplace?”
“No. I just got home. I was at Karen Shishler’s afternoon viewing at Stiva’s.” Tomasina turned to me. “Your grandmother is there causing a scene because there’s a closed casket. The viewing was over, and she refused to leave until they opened the casket.”
“Thanks,” I said. “If you see Dirk, please call me.”
FOUR
THREE MINUTES LATER, we were in front of Stiva’s funeral home. It was on its third owner since Stiva, but it was still called Stiva’s.
“I guess you’re gonna go get your granny,” Lula said.
“Yeah. I’ll just check to see if she’s still here.”
“I’m gonna wait in the car if it’s okay with you,” Lula said. “Not that I’m afraid of dead people or anything, but it gives me the willies.”
Stiva’s is housed in a big white colonial on Hamilton. The front steps are covered in green outdoor carpet, and they lead to a wide front porch that spans the width of the house. I walked into the large lobby and heard Grandma arguing with the funeral director in slumber room number three.
“How do I know she’s in there if you won’t open the lid?” Grandma said.
“You have my word of honor,” he told her.
Mitchell Shepherd owns the funeral home. He bought it a year ago and probably regrets his decision. People in the Burg take their funeral homes seriously, and since the Burg lacks a movie theater or mall, the funeral home is most often the entertainment of choice. Shepherd is a mostly bald man in his fifties. He has a round face, round body, and his funereal uniform is navy suit, white shirt, navy striped tie.
“Just a peek,” Grandma said. “I won’t tell no one.”
“Can’t do it. The family wants the casket closed.”
Grandma Mazur came to live with my parents when Grandpa Mazur passed on to wherever it is that baconeating, whiskey-drinking, gravy-loving people pass on to. She’s five foot five on a good day, has tightly permed gray hair, a body that’s mostly slack skin on spindle bones, and an attitude only old ladies can pull off.
