“Good remembering!” I pull her up to her feet and give her four pats on the back. “And right after our meeting, we need to . . . ummm.” That was a close call. I almost reminded her about #9 on the TO-DO list, the making-a-real-confession-to-Father-Ted one, and I don’t want her to go very hellfire on me again. “We need to get the latest gossip about Sister Margaret Mary’s disappearance offa Kitten. But . . .” I take her face into my hands. “Before either one of those things can happen, we got one more really important caper to pull off first, Bird.”
“What one more really important caper do we have to pull off first, Tessie?”
“We gotta climb back over the black fence.”
Having good timing has never been more important, so I almost cry with relief when she turns back to the magnificent gravestone, and says, “Roger that, Daddy. Tessie and me have to go now, but we’ll see you tomorrow, same time, same station.”
The chocolate-covered cherries and the chat Birdie had with our father must’ve been an even bigger shot in the arm than it usually is, because she’s doing a great job of imitating me—monkey see, monkey do—when we scurry away from our most favorite place in Holy Cross to weave through the tombstones toward our final destination—Charlie’s house.
We’ve done a great job so far, and we’ll be home free once we get past the grave of MRS. ELIZABETH HUGHES APRIL 16, 1923–JANUARY 31, 1957. She got murdered by Mother Nature. A giant icicle cracked free of Mrs. Hughes’s roof and dive-bombed her head when she was shoveling her front porch during the bad storm two winters ago.
Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute.
What are all these cars doing here?
Damnation!
Birdie’s bad memory must be rubbing off on me or something, because I forgot all about Mr. Peterman’s funeral again.
Because we can’t reach the cemetery fence until we get past the mourners that are gathered around the hole, I grab Birdie and pull her down behind Mrs. Hughes’s tombstone and tell her, “Stay put and keep your lips zipped. I gotta surveil.”
Just like I knew it’d be, the service that the old priest at St. Kate’s is presiding over today is already in full swing and very crowded, because so many of the fathers in the neighborhood are chocolate chip cookie makers at the Feelin’ Good factory that Mr. Peterman was the foreman of. The deceased to exist was also head usher at church, which is also a big muckety-muck deal. I bet more people showed up for Daddy’s pretend funeral, but there’s gotta be at least a couple hundred visitors bunched around the open grave like a big black bouquet. Of course, most of them are gals, because they don’t have jobs. Other than her friend Mrs. Jablonski, who had to start handing out shoes at Jerbak Beer and Bowl after her husband never came home from the Red Owl with a gallon of milk, Louise is one of the only mothers in the neighborhood that has to work for a living.
Birdie tugs on my T-shirt and says with a teasing smile, “Betcha a quarter that Father Joe croaks before he gets to the valley of the shadow of death,” because that’s what we always bet one another after we find out that he’s the one saying the funeral service when we’re sitting out on our back porch and watching the goings-on over here.
Boy, oh, boy, it really would be so helpful if Father Joe, who rumor has it said Mass on the Mayflower, got called back to his Maker in the next few minutes. Him keeling over into Mr. Peterman’s grave would create such a great distraction, the kind that Modern Detection mentions in one of the chapters. It says that gumshoes should come up with something big and flashy if they need to take people’s minds off them and put it on something else. Starting a fire, that’s a good distraction, which I’d have no trouble doing if I had a pack of Lonnigan’s matches on me, but they’re back home in my nighttime sleuthing shorts.
On the other hand . . . when Father Joe says Sunday morning Mass, it’s hard to hear his sermon over all the snoring, so maybe his mumbling long-windedness alone will be enough of the distraction Birdie and me need to get past the group of grievers, because everyone standing around the grave might fall asleep.
Once I do a little more surveilling and I’m sure of the safest route we need to take to the fence, I squat back down behind Mrs. Hughes’s tombstone and tell my accomplice, “Okay. First we’ll run and hide behind the hearse, then we’ll cross the road, and then we gotta haul heinie into the bushes and crawl toward Charlie’s backyard. Go low and slow, but not too slow, just . . . just go where I go, step where I step, and please, honey, whatever you do, don’t make a racket.”
While the Finley sisters are snaking from tree trunk to tree trunk before we make a run for the hearse, I’m not all that worried that someone at the funeral will hear Birdie if she does start singing or yelling out my name, because as usual, the neighborhood gals are making rackets of their own.
FACT: Most of them who are doing “Cry Me a River” scenes around Mr. Peterman’s grave aren’t really sad.
PROOF: Those gals have what are called “ulterior motives,” which is nothing more than having a sneaky secret reason for doing something other than the obvious reason for doing something.
You get a lot of credit around here if you genuflect deeper than everybody else, sing hymns louder than everybody else, and push out more kids than everybody else, so the only reason most of the gals showed up at Mr. Peterman’s funeral today is to grieve better than everybody else. Mrs. Ann Tracy is the parish’s overall “Best Mourner,” but Mrs. Sophia Maniaci is breathing down her neck because she’s Italian. (Besides being the best cooks, the wops are the loudest people in the neighborhood and they wave their hands around a lot when they talk, so it’s a very excellent show they put on.)
When Birdie and me reach the hearse that brought Mr. Peterman over from church, I stop us before we start running across the road toward the bushes so I can peek around the black fender to make sure one more time that nobody is staring daggers at us when . . . lo and behold, who should slip into the service but the biggest party pooper on the planet!
I’m somewhat surprised to see Louise, but not shocked. I’m used to her showing up whenever or wherever I least want her to. But why isn’t she up at the Clark station answering phones or taking money or pumping gas or whatever else a cashier is supposed to do? And who is that guy holding her hand? I don’t recognize him, so it’s got to be what’s-his-name. Well, if it is, the dollar signs in Louise’s eyes must be blinding her, because even from where I’m standing, I can see that he is shorter than Daddy by a lot and not even close to as good-looking. He’s got a weak chin and his ears stick out worse than mine. Did this numbskull leave his job at the American Motors factory assembly line and pick up our mother in his Chevy during his lunch hour so they could attend the funeral together because sometime this morning Louise realized that job or no job, she had to show up today so she didn’t look bad in front of the other Pagan Baby gals? Or . . . did she get fired already? Our cupboards are already 90% bare, and if they go to 100%, that’s not going to sit so well with you-know-who.
My sister with the Lassie hearing must’ve heard me gulp after I saw Louise, because she squeezes my hand and says, “You okay?”
I spin toward her and put my hands on her cheeks to lock her in place, and tell her, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine and dandy.” I cannot let Birdie look over her shoulder. If she does, she might shout out, I love you, Ida Lupino! because she would have no problem seeing Louise, who really stands out in the crowd in her fancy work clothes she left the house wearing, which is not going to go over so big. There’s rules you gotta follow around here and our mother is breaking a big one. She should not have showed up to the funeral looking like Rita Hayworth on May Day when the rest of them gals are looking like Bette Davis on Ash Wednesday. That’s a huge mistake on the part of a gal who wants to win votes in the Pagan Baby election.
Staring straight into the windows of my soul, Birdie asks, “If you’re so fine and dandy then how come you’re shiverin’?”
Of course, I can’t tell her that I’m shaking in my boots because I’m s
cared our mother is going to catch us in the act of breaking her #1 Commandment, so I tell her, “I . . . I just got the willies being this close to the hearse ’cause . . . ’cause it reminded me that Sister Margaret Mary’s rotting corpse might be lying somewhere around here, but I’m okay now, so . . .” I point in the direction I need her to go. “Run as fast as you can across the road and straight into the bushes over there.” I’m hoping that the both of us can get up enough speed that even if someone from the funeral looks our way, we’ll be an unrecognizable blur of arms and legs. “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and . . .” I knit my fingers through hers, but instead of go, Bird, going, where I want her to, she starts tugging against me and tries to veer in the opposite direction. “Whatta ya doin’?” I whisper to her. “This way, honey, we need to go this way.”
“No, we need to go this way, Tessie. Toward the hospital. You need a doctor, ASAP!”
“I need a . . . WHAT?” Of course, I have no idea why she would get this dopey idea into her head. “I don’t need to see a doctor and we are not going to the hospital. Now, c’mon.” She doesn’t budge. “Did you forget the plan already?”
“No, I did not forget the plan already, Tessie, but you’re not fine and dandy.” If I don’t keep my grip on her, this stubborn, wiry kid who is working herself into a tizzy could drag me down the cemetery road toward St. Joe’s Hospital in front of our mother and half of the parish. “I think you’re comin’ down with the delirious flu again that made you talk so crazy last winter. Do you have a fever?”
When she raises her chocolate-covered hand and tries to press it against my forehead, I bat it away, because enough is enough already. “Why would ya think something dumb like, I mean—” At least she didn’t go old-timey and tell me she thinks I got typhoid. “Why would ya think I’m sick?”
“’Cause when I asked you if you were okay a little while ago you said you were, but you made a big gulp like your throat was sore. And then you shivered really bad when you told me that the hearse was reminding you of Sister Margaret Mary’s rotting dead body and that is such a delirious thing to say ’cause . . . ’cause”—her slightly bulging eyes are really bulging now, almost out of her head—“you know that we don’t have the most important something we need to prove that she’s been murdered!”
Now, if I didn’t feel so petrified that we’re about to get caught by Louise or another parishioner who’s gotten bored out of their gourd listening to Father Joe’s valley of death talk, I’d shout out, Hot damn, Birdie! and make a very big deal out of the fact that she just remembered, all by herself, that we don’t have the motive for Mr. McGinty murdering our principal.
“Sister-promise, honey,” I whisper to her, “I don’t have the delirious flu or . . . or nothin’ else delirious and . . . and . . .” I pull out Daddy’s watch. It’s 12:26 p.m. “We’re runnin’ out of time, so let’s go.”
Of course, because I gave her the promise of all promises, she had to believe me, even though she does not look at all convinced that I am the picture of health when we do the fifty-yard dash across the road. And by the time St. Kate’s bells start nagging all the bad kids in the neighborhood that they better drop whatever mischief they got themselves into because they only have a half hour before Father Ted hangs out a NOT IN SERVICE sign outside his confessional, even though I’ve somehow corralled Birdie into the bushes that run along the cemetery fence, she keeps stopping to ask me every few seconds, “You still fine and dandy, Tessie?” and if I don’t immediately say, “Yes, Birdie. I’m still fine and dandy,” she tries to take my temperature again.
When we’ve made slow but steady progress and we’re almost to the place where we’ll monkey up the black iron fence and jump down into Charlie’s backyard, I’m feeling happy but not thrilled beyond belief, because now we got a new problem. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know this plan I came up with is not foolproof, and, as usual, it boils down to nothing more than bad timing.
There’s gonna be about ten seconds or so that my sister and me will be on top of the fence, and even a guy holding onto the leash of a seeing-eye dog wouldn’t miss us up there, for cripessakes. So could our mother and most of the parish gals, which includes the black evil lump that I spotted in the #2 position graveside, next to the widow Peterman. The veil on her black pillbox hat was thoughtfully hiding her ugly puss, but I’m sure it was Gert Klement. I know she would’ve much rather stayed back at her house, watching and waiting to swoop down on the Finley sisters, but she had to show up today. It wouldn’t look too good if the president of the most powerful club at St. Kate’s missed the funeral of the head of the ushers unless she had a very great excuse, like she was on her deathbed or something, which is too much to ask for.
So it looks like what I’m up against now is one of those six-of-one, half-a-dozen-of-another, flip-a-coin situations. Heads, Birdie and me stay hunkered down in these bushes until the service is over and it’s too late for me to go to confession, which means that Jenny Radtke will tattle and we’ll have to take our medicine when Louise gets home tonight smelling like red sauce and garlic after her date with what’s-his-name. Tails, the Finley sisters risk climbing to the top of the fence where we could so easily be seen before we drop into the yard of my darling future husband, who I’m wanting to see so much that my heart feels swollen and ready to burst out of my chest.
Q. Is the famous saying “Love conquers all” really true?
A. You may rely on it.
Well, then. Tails it is.
15
PROVE IT
Of course, I’m not worried about anybody at Mr. Peterman’s funeral catching sight of coordinated me on top of the fence before I drop quickly into Charlie’s yard. But when spazzy Birdie is out in the open for those ten seconds, that’s gonna take a real leap of faith. (No joke.)
I sweep her shaggy bangs out of her eyes and say, “You’ve done a pretty good job doing what I told you to and I need ya to keep up the good work. I’m gonna boost you up now.” She can make it over without help from me, the way she did this morning, but it just about gives me a nervous breakdown when she does. “Remember to be really careful around the pointy spears, and . . . and please don’t yell out Charlie’s name four times the way you always do. They might hear you at the funeral.”
Dear patron saint of pots and pans, just this once, could you help her keep a lid on it?
“Okay, Tessie. I’ll be really careful around the pointy spears and I won’t yell Charlie’s name out four times the way I always do, Roger that,” Birdie says. “But before I don’t do those things, I gotta ask you an important question, then hope to die, I’ll do whatever you tell me to.” She makes a big X over her heart and then she points to the top of her shorts, which is where she stuck the Stover box when she needed her hands free to crawl. “Did you hear what I yelled when I was runnin’ down the top of the cemetery hill toward Mr. Lindley’s grave to get these chocolate-covered cherries?”
This is an example of the famous saying about water being under the bridge, because who cares what the hell she loonatic-yelled now? She made the right turn. “Just because I forged a card that says I am, and just because I pay deaf Jeffy Lanfre a quarter to teach me to read lips, that doesn’t mean that I’m really deaf,” I remind her. “So yeah, of course, I heard what ya yelled when you were runnin’ down the hill. Now would you please put your foot in my hands and—”
“Prove it.”
“Prove what?”
“Tell me what ya heard me yell when I was runnin’ down the hill.”
Damnation!
Because she was moving so fast, I didn’t catch all of it, so I’m just going to tell her what I did catch and hope that’s good enough. “At first I thought you mighta yelled sister and run and tree, but now I’m pretty sure you yelled mister and fun and free.”
“Aha!” Birdie says, like she’s Sherlock Holmes who just solved the mystery of the turn of the century. “Just as I suspected!”
“Okay, good, that’s a load off.” I bend my knees with a grunt and get ready to give her an alley-oop. “Remember, you hoped to die if I answered your question, so unless you wanna croak in the next few minutes, ya better put your foot back in my hands so I can boost you over this fence!”
But again, instead of doing what I need her to do, the kid goes toe-to-toe with me and says, “For your information, I did yell sister and run and tree and something else that is really, really, really—”
“That’s great, even more terrific than Tom. Now—” I’m feeling so fed up that I might throw myself on the fence spears and commit Harry Cary the way the Japs do in the movies with Audie Murphy when the war isn’t going their way. “Goddamnit all, Bird!”
She looks down her too-upturned nose at me like I’m the Finley sister who was born with a defective brain, then says with a sigh, “I’m so disappointed in you, Tessie. Knowing everything I yelled when I ran down the hill is so important to our investigation. A real detective would want to know that information so bad that they’d beat the truth out of me if they had to.”
Don’t tempt me, sister.
Q. Does Zorro have to deal with this kind of orneriness from his sidekick, Bernardo? Does Groucho have to take this kind of guff offa George Fenneman? How about Edward G. Robinson? Does he have to put up with back talk from Dirty Rat?
A. My sources say no.
All I want to do is get over this fence safely and see my Charlie and have our meeting and get up to church before confession ends and spend the rest of the day proving that Mr. McGinty is innocent of a kidnapping murder after we grill the other people on the QUESTION OR SURVEIL list, and all my sister is doing, as usual, is gumming up my well-thought-out plans!
I lose my temper and tell stubborn Birdie in a very snotty voice, “Go right ahead. Tell me everything you yelled when you were runnin’ down the hill. Every teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy word because we have all day to sit here and have a coffee clutch.” I puff out my cheeks like Dinah at the diner. “How do ya take your joe, kid? One cream, twenty sugars?”