One Foot In The Gravy Read online

  There was a bit of a commotion in the hallway as Deputy Chief Whitman started pulling the guests, one at a time, into the great room. That was where the dinner table had been set up. I stood on my crushed toes so I could look over the crowd. I saw two officers seated at opposite ends of the table. They had digital recorders before them and would be starting to take statements. I lowered myself gingerly back onto my heels.

  “What a terrible thing,” Lolo said. Her expression was starting to crack. It looked like she might cry. I couldn’t blame her.

  “You’re going to get through this,” I assured her.

  “My husband died in this house too,” she said. “Not the same way, of course. He had an aneurysm.”

  “Lolo, why don’t you try to think about something else,” I suggested. Sometimes death wasn’t funny, even to mystery readers.

  “I’ll have to have the hole repaired.”

  “Don’t think about that,” I suggested. “Think about the Cozy Foxes, something you want to read. Tell me about a movie I should see. Anything you recommend?”

  “Become a recluse like my Uncle Jonah,” she said. “I believe it is a far easier way to live.”

  I was one of the last people asked to provide a statement.

  By the time it was my turn in the not-so-hot seat, the little big lug himself had moved over to Lolo’s neighborhood. He had pulled over his own ball and claw chair and there the two of them sat, cozily facing each other like a pair of centaur-lions. The expression on the Deputy Chief’s melon face was still flat and unfathomable, like a latke. Lolo had not given in to tears, but had rallied like the society trouper she is, presenting a formal, admirably dignified customer for Whitman.

  I was asked over by a beanpole in his late twenties, his voice lacking emotion or more than a hint of a local accent. Since moving here, I’d noticed a lot of the young didn’t sound like they were from the South; one of the few benefits of growing up watching unbroken hours of TV.

  He watched me come over, watched me sit down, then just watched me. It was a curious kind of by-the-book questioning. Since nearly everyone had been in plain sight of someone else, no one missing for more than a bathroom run—except for Lolo, when she briefly went upstairs to get her little dinner bell, which she kept to gently and occasionally summon her housekeeper to her mystery-reading second-floor library—there was not a lot to ask. I’d eavesdropped the last two interviewees, and the basic narrative was pretty much the same from person to person. We heard a crack, there was a boom, and Hoppy went smash.

  “Did you know the deceased?” asked the cop—Officer Clampett, whose parents, I hoped, had gotten some sleep before settling on a first name.

  I told him.

  “Did you have any exchanges with the deceased tonight?”

  I told him.

  “Did you hear anyone say anything disparaging about the deceased?”

  I told him no. Thom was still in the parlor. Enough people had gone home so that she could hear everything being said. And the narrowed eyes told me she was listening.

  “I heard nothing,” I replied.

  Officer Clampett looked at me in a way that suggested he was seeing me for the first time. It wasn’t lustful or anything; I get those glances now and then, I’m pleased to say, though unless I noticed the guy first, they’re probably not worth acknowledging. It was more like he was formulating his first fresh question.

  “Do you always work in your stocking feet?” he asked.

  “No,” I told him. I explained about the shoes. I had set them beside Lolo’s chair and pointed them out.

  “Were you barefoot when Mr. Hopewell approached you?”

  “I was not.” Though I was curious about where this was going.

  “Might he have been attracted to you, looking the way you did?” Officer Clampett inquired.

  “I’m sorry. ‘The way’?”

  “Well, those are stripper shoes.”

  I could feel Thom laughing at my back. I told Clampett that where I come from they are considered somewhat chic, and that, in any case, Hoppy seemed genuinely more interested in food, especially free food.

  “Why?” I asked suddenly. A kid like Clampett didn’t just come up with a question like that. “Did Hoppy have a reputation?”

  The officer seemed uncomfortable being on the receiving end, and didn’t answer. I was told I could go home but waited for Thom and Luke to finish so we could get our stuff from the kitchen.

  “Strip-puh shoes,” Thom said with a triumphant little dance.

  “I guess so,” I said. “If we finish up quick, I’ll do my pole dance on the lamppost.”

  I couldn’t tell from Thom’s expression whether that intrigued or shocked her.

  It seemed strange to not seem strange that we were working where a man had died a little more than an hour before. But then, it no longer looked like a crime scene. The coroner’s team had arrived early in the questioning. Save for the occasional burst of a camera flash, you wouldn’t have known they were there. At about the same time I sat down for my interview, they escorted Hoppy Hopewell out the side door, leaving behind the puddle of gravy with its dusty white coat and now-congealed heel-print.

  “That’s almost as disgustin’ as blood,” Thom remarked as we scanned the kitchen to see if we’d missed anything.

  “It doesn’t look like they show in the cartoons,” Luke said.

  I admitted to him I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “The hole,” Luke said, jerking a thumb toward the ceiling. “It’s not his outline. It’s just—a hole.”

  Thom snorted. “That’s exactly the man’s outline. Like I said before, he was an a-hole.”

  “Well, he got what he deserved,” Luke said. “A bonbon voyage.”

  I scowled and hushed them both. There were still cops in the house, downstairs, upstairs, and on the grounds.

  “That was a joke,” Luke protested.

  “I don’t think the police would see it that way,” I said. “Mr. Whitman will be under a lot of pressure to find a person of interest right-quick. We don’t want it to be you.”

  Luke made a motion of zipping his mouth as he grabbed his guitar from a corner and did a vintage Prince-move pirouette out the door.

  I decided not to brave the inconstant blue line to say good night to Lolo. She probably wouldn’t remember whether I did or didn’t. She still looked proper and all, only now it had the added appearance of being in a stupor. Which brings me back to what I said before about the rich getting better treatment. The Deputy Chief had poured her tea and sent Officer Clampett—whose name, as it turned out, unfortunately was Jed—to get her a shawl from the hall closet. Even if Lolo herself had beaten Hoppy to death with a hammer, in front of thirtysix witnesses, she still would have gotten the whiteglove treatment. In Nashville, while individual Bakers might turn out to be embarrassments, the Baker name was inviolable. Smearing that was like peeing on the holy red brick of Ryman Auditorium, the former house of worship that once housed the Grand Old Opry. It just wasn’t done.

  “There is one saving grace in all this,” Thom said as our little band of cater-waiter warriors clopped along the stone steps to the driveway.

  Luke and I both waited for the pearl to come, the observation that would chase away the gummy aftertaste of death, lying cartoons, and Jed Clampett.

  “Having leeches on the side of the van didn’t matter worth a damn,” she said.

  I smiled.

  For once, we all agreed.

  Chapter 3

  I slept pretty well for someone who had witnessed a man’s death and the grim launch of her own catering business. The alarm was set for seven, but I beat it by ten minutes thanks to the bright Nashville sunshine pushing through a crack in the drapes. I bopped the switch off, showered—still unused to the hard water here and the extra soap and shampoo it took to get clean—then hobbled into my work clothes and shoes. Now my feet weren’t just sore, they were swollen; I opted for loosely laced tennis
shoes instead of my regular black swivel shoes, since my toes really needed to breathe.

  While I waited for my mail-ordered-from-New-York coffee to brew—McNulty Chocolate Cherry, something I was not about to give up, especially for the mass-produced mud preferred by the deli crowd—I searched Hapford Hopewell Jr. on the Web. After getting the basics—His Entitledness graduated with a master’s in business from the University of Virginia, he was forty-eight years old, twice married, with no children—I went right to the images, since a picture is worth ten thousand columnist words. The deceased may have been cheap, but he liked the good life. Most of the photos showed the big happy Hoppy squiring this lady or that to this event or that, mostly paid for by someone else. The women tended to be older than he, probably because they had access to the kinds of parties he liked to attend. A few photos showed him welcoming Music Town celebrities to his shop. My first pass didn’t reveal anything except that, socially and professionally, he knew a lot of people. On paper, Thomasina still had the best reason for killing him.

  Assuming he was murdered, I told myself.

  And that was my second search: the morning online papers. I looked at what they had to say even before I checked to make sure they got my display ads right.

  “Right now this is being classified as an unfortunate accident,” the Nashville National quoted Deputy Chief Whitman as saying. “The house is 150 years old, and we’ve got a structural engineer going over there this morning to check the floorboards.”

  “That’ll buy you a couple more hours to investigate,” I said.

  Whitman added that he was awaiting an autopsy report, and would have more to say later in the day. Obviously, if it turned out that Hoppy was dead before he hit the ground, that would change the “unfortunate accident” status. I hoped to God they didn’t find out he choked to death on one of our wieners. Grant Daniels would have access to that information. Maybe I’d call him later for a how-do-you-do-hot-stuff and oh-yeah-what-killed-Hoppy-Hopewell?

  I washed down my multivitamin with orange juice and poured a deep cup of coffee. I picked at an everything bagel as I leaned against the counter wondering if there were any way it could have been an accident, and if not, who had access to wherever Hoppy was when he fell. Now that I had the chance to think about it, I wondered what Hoppy was doing upstairs at all when the party, the kitchen, the coat room, the bathroom, and the guests were all downstairs. If he wasn’t exploring—and he didn’t seem the curious type—maybe he’d been there before? Or maybe someone he snuck off with had been there before?

  I heard my father’s voice in my head, not my own, asking, “Why are you wasting time with this when you have a business to run?”

  I wasn’t still wondering that when I drove to the deli. I knew the answer: because you’re basically, inherently, unrepentedly curious, like when a column of numbers doesn’t make sense or a line item entry doesn’t have a tag. That’s what made me such a top-notch forensic accountant, the fear of Madoff wannabes and old Bernie himself. My brain just acts up. I decided to not go right to work but to stop by and visit Lolo—or rather, the house—under the pretense of having forgotten something important there the night before. All I had with me was my purse, so it would have to be my wallet I forgot.

  I called Thom to let her know I’d be late. “Lawfy, how’s this any of your bus’ness?” the manager said.

  “It did more or less drop in my lap,” I said.

  “Girl, customer once tipped a corned beef omelet in mine. I cleaned it up and forgot about it.”

  “Wait—Luke told me about that. Didn’t you hit the guy?”

  “We’re talkin’ ’bout the omelet,” she said, “not cranky old Mr. Brown, who had it comin’ and never complained about nuthin’ again after that. This is a mess, but it ain’t your mess.”

  “And I’m not trying to clean it up,” I insisted. “But Lolo is a loyal regular. I want her to know she’s not alone.”

  Thom hung up with a “whatever” and said she had to get ready for the morning rush.

  I actually believed what I told her, a little. Mostly, though, this was the Nashville equivalent of being a New York neighbor. Whenever you heard the sounds of arguing or sex coming from another apartment, you listened discreetly outside the door. It was expected. It may actually be instinctive, racial memory from a generation when tenement dwellers actually looked after each other.

  I hadn’t been in Tennessee very long, but my first impression driving through the neighborhood of Belle Meade was that it was “Old South.” Not just in look but in attitude. I don’t mean that in a bad way, all Confederate flags and political incorrectness, but as an example of a stately, genteel way of life. The main thoroughfare is fronted by majestic equine statues and lined with pillared mansions that have big lawns and great shade trees. The names on many of the properties haven’t changed since the 19th century, and Baker is one of them.

  I was surprised not to find police at the property. The long, curved driveway had only the Baker Bentley, the Camry of the housekeeper—parked discreetly in the back, near the kitchen entrance—and a van that said “Better Reconstruction.” The humor of the name, whether intentional or not, was priceless. I parked my Lexus so it was facing the street. I always liked to be prepared.

  Lizzie Renoir, the housekeeper, was a severe, bony woman in her sixties. I had learned from Thom that she had worked for the Bakers since she was a bony woman in her thirties. She had the previous night off so that no one would make tired jokes during the murder game about the butler having done it, even though she was a housekeeper. She certainly would have been my first choice, judging from her looks: mouth in a perpetual scowl, eyes suspicious, nostrils with chronic flare.

  “I think I left my wallet last night,” I told the dybbuk punim that greeted me. Lizzie swung aside like a second door. “Thanks,” I said graciously. Charm is a trait I acquired doing audits, to put people at ease. It does not come naturally to my family, who, after all, came from the Ukraine where they had no reason to trust or show gratitude to anyone. It’s also served me well at the deli, especially when Thom is in what she calls one of her “black-eye moods.” Meaning, like the omelet-tilter, you cross her and you’re apt to get a shiner.

  I went to the kitchen before Lizzie could arrive. I made my way around two workmen taking measurements in the hallway and “found” my wallet beside the oven.

  “I didn’t see zat zer before,” Lizzie said when she arrived, a French accent still clinging proudly to ze tongue.

  “It was under a dish towel,” I explained, patting one that was already hanging neatly on the oven door. “Is Lolo awake?”

  Lizzie nodded. “Zeze men, zey are not very quiet.” She indicated the workers with a cock of her skull-head. One of them was standing on a high ladder with a digital tape measure, the other was iPad-ing the information he called down.

  “May I see her?” I asked.

  “Go ahead,” Lizzie said.

  That surprised me. “You don’t need to ask?”

  “She already told me that whoever came could go to ze mystery library. You know ze madam. Zis brings ze attention and she likes to receive.”

  There was a certain dark charm to that, and I smiled and went to the stairs. As I passed the workmen I asked the one on the ladder, “Termites? Is that what did this?”

  “Not unless they had a power drill.”

  “Really?”

  “There are some thread marks and fresh shavings in the old beams,” he said. “Could be from some recent wiring, but I don’t see any cables. Maybe they were planning on doing something.”

  I looked at Lizzie. “The madam wanted HDMI cables in her bedroom for CSI in zee haute definition . Zey were putting zem in yesterday morning. Zey did not finish. Zey will be back.”

  “That would explain it,” the worker said.

  I figured the police were on top of that, but filed it away.

  I knew my way around from having checked the venue out two days before the p
arty. Back through the hallway, past the parlor and great room, and up the grand staircase.

  Something occurred to me and I stopped, turning to Lizzie as she came back that way. I’d halfexpected she would; she had smelled strongly of fabric softener and the laundry room was in the servants’ wing on the other side of the staircase.

  “Lizzie, is there another way upstairs?” I asked.

  She looked at me with a hint of puzzlement. “Why? You are already halfway up.”

  “Not for me, I mean . . . I’m just curious.”

  “Only on ze outside,” she said. “Stairs to the terrace outside ze madam’s bedroom.”

  “Ah. Very Shakespearean,” I offered.

  Lizzie clearly didn’t care what it was and continued on her way. I walked back down a few steps. The corridor beside the staircase ended in a pair of ornate wooden patio doors that opened onto the pool area. The passageway was dark, with just a single light in the center. Someone could have slipped away from the party without making an ostentatious exit. That might have been how Hoppy went upstairs.

  I continued on my way. This was all terra incognita now. Before I went to the library, which was to the right, I went to my left. To the area above the workmen. The section of collapsed flooring was in a cozy media room with a large HD TV, audio equipment, and a satellite console. A toolbox sat discreetly in the corner. The cable upgrade made sense. The big hole in the center of the floor still did not. If beams were weak anywhere, it would be under the enormous cabinet that held all the equipment.

  “Lizzie, is that you?”

  I dashed back into the hallway to the steps, and headed to the library. “No, Lolo. It’s me, Gwen Katz.”

  “Oh. I thought I heard someone coming up the stairs.”

  The steps were marble and pretty quiet. She must have heard the voices.

  I entered the library, which, like the media room, was what you’d expect from a second-floor room: small and comfortable. There were two windows on the longer far wall, both of them shuttered. This was the room where she kept all her mystery novels, of which there had to be about four thousand. She was sitting in a love seat, wearing her robe, slippers, and a pallor. Her entire appearance suggested someone who had the flu but refused to let it beat her. There was a standing lamp by her head, throwing a cone of white light that was a few watts shy of the third degree.