“Quit groaning and open your eyes, Tessie!” my sister says. “Look . . . look . . . look . . . look at what I found!”
I’d really rather not, but when Birdie is on a wild streak, this normally mild-mannered kid can turn into a terrier dog digging for a bone. If I don’t play along, she’ll keep hounding me until I give in, so I have no choice but to peek from between my fingers at what she’s unearthed and boy, oh, boy. I’m so relieved that what she’s holding up with the tip of her pointer finger isn’t the tip of a corpse’s pointer finger that I’d shout Hallelujah! if I wasn’t feeling so sorry for her.
How awful it must be to be Robin Jean “Birdie” Finley. To feel sure you have the answer to a problem only to find that you can’t put two and two together time and time again. To get called Loonatic and Tweetle-Dumb and Birdbrain. To drift away to parts unknown. To have a memory that has more holes in it than the cemetery. To have your mother look at you most of the time like you’re a stone around her pretty neck. To believe you found a clue to a kidnapping murder when you’ve done nothing of the sort.
Q. What was all-loving, all-knowing, all-mighty God thinking when He gave my little sister the short end of the stick?
A. Reply hazy try again later.
“Nice try, honey,” I pat her back and tell her, “but from here on out, you better leave the real detective work to me.”
“What do you mean I should leave the real detective work to you?” she says. From running around in the Indian summer heat and all the chocolate kisses Birdie has stuffed in her mouth, she looks like a fugitive who just got done robbing Dalinsky’s Drugstore’s candy aisle. “You always tell me that we’re partners in crime.”
“We are partners in crime. It’s just that . . .”
Shoot.
Even during a wild streak, a time when my sister’s delicate feelings are not as breakable as they usually are, I still have to be careful to put her down gently.
“I wish what you found was a clue. I really do, but . . .” I point at the chain she found in the leaf pile that’s dangling from her finger. “This is just one of those St. Christopher medals visitors leave on the gravestones so their loved ones have a safe trip to the Great Beyond.” Birdie knows that. She just forgot, that’s all. “Please don’t feel bad. We can’t all be as excellent at detecting as I am. Many are called, but few are chosen.” I switch gears and bring up what I tried to tell her before she found this so-called clue, which is something she really is good at. “So like I said, how about we forget all about this stupid kidnapping and murdering business, go grab Charlie, get those chocolate-covered cherries, say hi to Daddy, and then the three of us can head up to the Milky Way. Yum-yum.”
I’m so sure my little chowhound cannot resist that offer that I don’t even wait for her answer. I start off toward the weeping willow tree, but before I can go two full steps, Birdie grabs on to my hair and yanks me to a stop.
“You’re wrong, Tessie. This medal isn’t the kind people leave on tombstones so their loved ones have a safe trip to the Great Beyond,” she announces to my back like she is the end-all and be-all on the subject of metal-medal identification.
“Yeah, it is!” I’m twisting like a fish on the end of a line, but she’s got her fingers hooked around my ponytail but good.
“No, it’s not!”
“Is, too!”
“Is not!”
“Let go of me, for crissakes!” I shout.
When she loosens her grip, I spin around and automatically go into the boxing stance my Golden Gloves champion father taught me to go into if anybody dares to put their hands on me—up on my toes, fists held high, and ready to throw the first punch. But just as I’m about to clean my little cuckoo’s clock, it hits me that no matter how mad I am at this kid who may have the footwork of Marciano and the strength of new world heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson, when it gets down to it, Birdie Finley is a featherweight and it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Daddy wouldn’t like that.
“Okay, fine.” I drop my hands back to my sides, rock back on my heels, and say exactly as 100% ticked off as I feel, “Why isn’t the medal you found in the leaf pile one of those have-a-safe-trip-to-the-Great-Beyond medals, Birdbrain?”
She doesn’t seem to notice that I’ve lost my temper and called her that mean name, because if she had, she would’ve gotten that crushed look on her face and given in to me, not thrown back her shoulders and cleared her throat like she’s a contestant on her favorite quiz show who’s about to give the answer to the big prize package question of the day. Ha! The only game show this twerp could ever win is Queen for a Day. The audience would pin the applause meter after they heard her sob story. Hmmm. Maybe I should put on my TO-DO list: Write to master of ceremonies Mr. Jack Bailey and enter Birdie on his show. Daddy never got around to fixing ours, so we really could use a new washing machine, and I think the winner gets to keep the mink cape they wear at the end of the show and that would be a big help if our heat gets turned off, and Birdie could give the shiny crown to Louise as one of her special gifts and maybe that’d make our mother love her a lot more than she does.
“Well, Tessie,” my sister answers, so snooty, “this is a have-a-safe-trip-to-the-Great-Beyond medal, but not the kind grievers leave anymore on the gravestones of their loved ones.” She holds it up higher so I can take another gander at it. “I guess you musta forgot that they started leaving the cruddy dime store medals after kids started stealin’ the really nice ones on dares.” Birdie swings what she found into the palm of her hand and holds it about three inches away from my face with one of her irresistible smiles that the army could use to make enemies surrender, that’s how bad it can bring me to my knees. (No joke.) “I think this medal I found is made out of real gold, but, of course, far be it from me to second-guess an expert such as yourself.”
If it sounds like she knows what she’s talking about, it just so happens that this time she does. Times two.
#1: Kids were sneaking into Holy Cross and stealing the real gold medals in the middle of the night and they don’t do that anymore and I’ll never, ever forgive them.
After watching those thieves tippy-toeing out of the cemetery from our bedroom window, the Finley sisters would track them down and start charging them a pretty penny to keep our pie holes shut. Believe me, if there weren’t so many of them, and if some of them kids weren’t stealing the medals on dares they were forced into by my confidential informant, Kitten Jablonski, I’d put ’em all on my SHIT LIST.
#2: Birdie might know a lot about Atomic Fireballs to Wax Bottles and every candy in between, but I know what I’m talking about when it comes to jewelry.
I have spent many hours drooling over the diamonds and going rabid for the rubies at Howard’s Precious Gems and Jewelry store on North Ave. in case I have to heist it someday on our way out of town.
But even though my sister got lucky on those two facts, I’m still positive that she’s speeding the wrong way down a one-way street and I’d do just about anything to get her moving in the right direction, which is toward the weeping willow tree, where, hopefully, my darling Charlie is still waiting for us.
Unfortunately, I can’t put that A+ plan into action until I examine the St. Christopher medal that Birdie found or I’ll never hear the end of it, so I snatch the chain out of her hand to give it a quick look before we get under way.
“Is it real gold?” she asks me four times before I even have a chance to examine the medal, because she really stinks at waiting. During our peeping stakeouts, she always wants to catch someone in the act now . . . now . . . now . . . now! It’s gotten so bad that I have to keep a sock in our Radio Flyer wagon that I can stick in her mouth. “Is it a clue? Is it a clue? Is it a—?”
“Will you wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute!?”
When I study the medal closer, against all odds, I know right off that my sister just might be on to something. This St. Christopher does look like it’s made out of pure gold, but to be sure, I better
do what jewelry man Mr. Howard Howard makes young lovers do when they stop into his shop to buy their gold wedding bands. After he gives the young lovers a misty-eyed lecture about the sanctity of the holy sacrament of marriage and how their rings will always be a symbol of their everlasting and eternal love, because he misses his one and only wife so much he has to dab at his eyes with a hankie before he sets a cheap wedding band down on the counter, unlocks the big case, and removes one of the high-quality rings that are nestled in black velvet. He wants to teach the engaged kids the difference between cruddy imitations and the real deal, so he says to them, “The rings may look similar, but all that glitters is not gold. Hold the bands in your hands. Compare the heft.”
“Before I can tell you for sure if this is a clue or not,” I tell Birdie, “I need to check it against the medal I gave you. Turn around and lift your hair.”
When I unhook the St. Chris I had to steal from the five and dime from around her going-green neck because he’s the patron saint of travelers and she needed some divine intervention to keep her from falling off our bike every five minutes, my uncoordinated sister doesn’t give me any guff, which is usually the first sign that her wild streak might be petering out, thank God.
“Well?” Birdie asks as I hold the two medals in my hand, side by side.
“Mmm . . .”
’Cause the massive mausoleum is casting a shadow over us, I take a step away from the shade toward a patch of sunlight that’s skirting the edge of Phantom Woods so I can get the best look at them. Whoever is the owner of the medal Birdie found wore it a lot, because St. Chris looks pretty tired of holding up Jesus, who looks more like a hump on his back than a holy baby, but I can tell by how heavy it is and how shiny it is compared to my sister’s cruddy one that . . .
Oh, boy.
Birdie, up on her toes and the edge of her seat, comes so close to me that I can smell Louise’s Evening in Paris perfume wafting out from behind her ears and the chocolate on her breath when she insists, “Tell me!”
I really, really, really, really don’t want to.
I’m not proud of that, but her beating me out in anything other than card games and cat’s cradle doesn’t happen very often and it’s very discombobulating. It’s like a bear getting eaten by a chipmunk or . . . or a Model T winning against a Corvette Stingray in a drag race. That’s just not normal.
But I, the president of a detecting and blackmailing society, have sworn to do my best to solve any and all mysteries that come my way, even if they are against the laws of nature, so I got no choice but to tell #1 on my TO-DO list, “Bingo!”
“Bingo?!” she says, very put out. “This is no time to play games, Tessie!”
“For Pete’s sake, Bird. I don’t wanna play a game. Bingo! is a famous saying that means”—this is killing me, it really is—“that you’re a hundred percent right, okay? The medal you found is nicer than the usual cheap ones people hang off the gravestones. It’s real gold.”
“Geronimo!” she whoops. “Woo . . . woo . . . woo . . . woo . . .”
I knew she’d do that. She always goes loco like this after she beats me at something other than races. (I still haven’t added her repulsively-poor-winner problem to my list of BIRDIE’S NOT-SO-GOOD QUALITIES, but the second I get the chance, believe me, I’m going to write down: #47. She lords winning over me. #48. She couldn’t do a decent Apache impression if her scalp depended on it.)
Once Birdie gets the woo . . . woo . . . woo–ing out of her system, she points down to my hand and says, “Did you notice that the clasp is bent? I bet that’s why it fell offa the neck of the killer or the limp body he was carrying around last night.”
This is the very last straw.
“So what if the medal did fall offa one of their necks?” Who in the hell does she think she is, anyway? She finds one dumb clue and all of a sudden she’s Heap Big Chief Birdie and I’m General Custard? “How is knowing that gonna do us any good? Huh? Will it narrow our suspect list down?” I am going to give her both barrels. “For your information, that’s what clues are supposed to do. Point a detective toward an alleged perpetrator and finding this medal doesn’t do that. Everyone and their brother has one of these. Ya think you’re so smart, go ahead. Name one person in this neighborhood who doesn’t wear a Saint Christopher.”
“Mister Johnson wears a deer tooth,” Birdie says, very sure of herself. “And . . . and Mister Lebowitz!? He wears something called the Star of Dave at his deli store and . . . and Missus Pitts who owns the pet store, she’s a prostitute who doesn’t wear nothin’ at all!”
She’s right about Mr. Ernie Johnson. He’s something called a taxidermist and the only person on Keefe Ave. who doesn’t show up at St. Kate’s for Mass or every Saturday night to play bingo or for potluck suppers, either. I am very suspicious of him, because he’s always in his basement stuffing God only knows what, which is what I guess Lutherans do for a good time.
She’s also right about Mr. Lebowitz, who is a Jewish man who doesn’t eat fish sticks on Friday. For some unknown reason, he eats locks and beagles.
She’s only half-right about Mrs. Pitts.
“Big deal!” I tell my getting-entirely-too-big-for-her-britches sister. “That’s only three people outta . . . outta hundreds in the neighborhood! Those are chump odds! And . . . and you’re not even totally right about Missus Pitts. She doesn’t wear a Saint Chris medal because she’s a prostitute, she doesn’t wear one because she’s a Protestant!” I know the difference between the two, thanks to Father Ted and Kitten Jablonski, but obviously, Birdie doesn’t. “So what do ya suggest we do to find Catholic suspects? How about we stare at everyone’s open shirt and blouse collars when they’re standing in the Communion line this Sunday to see if anyone is missing theirs?” I can just picture the two of us hanging over the edge of a pew during Mass. “We go eyeballin’ people’s necks like that and mark my words, Bird, somebody’s gonna start the rumor that the Finley sisters aren’t only ghouls, but . . . but vampires!” Every Sunday those hypocrites got no problem kneeling down at St. Kate’s Communion railing to drink the blood of Christ, but they’re always more than happy to throw the first stone. “And the second Mass is over, they’ll mob around Father Ted and beg him to command Louise to ship us outta the parish to homes or . . . or . . . maybe they’ll get so worked up that they’ll take matters into their own hands!” This is probably going a little too far, but I’d say and do anything at this point. “You’ve seen what ticked-off villagers do to vampires in the movies after they hunt them down.” I place the whittling stick I picked up over my heart and pretend to pound it in with my fist. “And if they don’t kill us by driving stakes through us, you’re gonna wish they did. Every single one of them will be gossiping about us and that’s gonna screw up Louise’s chances to win that stupid election, which will make her so furious that the next time you wrap your lips around a Three Musketeers bar will be in Heaven!”
That last crack was a very low blow, but I’m so desperate that I don’t care, and weirdly, it doesn’t seem to faze my candy-worshipping sister, either.
“Maybe you should flip the medal over and see if there’s any writing on the back, the way there is on the heart necklace that Daddy gave Louise for her birthday,” she says with a lot of zing. “A name would be a great clue that could narrow our suspect list down.”
She’s making me want to pull every hair out of my head, or hers, but all of a sudden, I find myself feeling a little less thirsty for a strawberry Mercury malt and a lot more interested again in solving THE CASE OF THE MISSING NUN WHO MIGHT BE KIDNAPPED AND MURDERED, because Birdie is almost right again. Finding a name on the back of the medal wouldn’t be a great clue. That would be an excellent clue that really could narrow our list down:
QUESTION OR SURVEIL
Mr. McGinty.
Kitten Jablonski.
Butch Seeback.
Mr. Johnson.
Suzie LaPelt.
But when I flip the medal over,
I don’t see nothin’, so paying a visit to the Milky Way sounds like a much better idea again.
“That’s the way the cookie crumbles. Better luck next time, kiddo,” I tell her, but honestly? I’m not sorry at all. Her coming up with another clue in our case of the missing nun is starting to turn into a really bad habit. (No joke.)
But halfway to handing the medal back to her that I was going to let her keep as a shiny prize that she would probably gift to Louise tomorrow the way she gifted the pink, heart-shaped fake ruby ring this morning, the sun hits it in a way that . . . I still don’t see a name on the back of it, but there are some squiggles way down on the very bottom. I hold the medal up close to my eyes, move it back a bit and then forward again, tilt it. If only I had my magnifying glass on me, but it’s in our Radio Flyer wagon with our hobo disguises and all the rest of our spying TOOLS OF THE TRADE, hidden under some boxes in the garage so Louise won’t find them.
“I’m not sure,” I say, “but I think there might be some letters down on the bottom.”
Birdie sticks out her grubby hand and says, “Gimme.”
I don’t usually trust her to handle evidence of any kind, but she can see so much better than me that I’m going to make an exception to that rule, even though I’m not so sure how much help she’ll be. She recognizes small words like so, the, and be, and also mom and her name and mine and Charlie’s and Daddy’s, but her bad reading is one of the reasons she keeps getting held back to the third grade.