“As it happens,” she said, “my younger sister graduated from Penn State, but from your description of the boy, I doubt she knew him. She was an extremely serious student. Too serious. For a time my parents worried that she was putting too much pressure on herself, but it resolved itself. An adviser helped straighten out her priorities.
“In any event, I haven’t read the paper for days. Since I got here, it’s been all work. This is hardly a huge moneymaking proposition for me, but I certainly don’t want to lose any.”
“So, your sister is a former denizen of Happy Valley. Do you know of any other use of that expression other than its being a nickname for the Penn State campus?”
She thought about it. “Wasn’t that what they called the English expatriate community in Kenya in the twenties?”
That jogged my memory. I’d screened a documentary years back on the unsolved murder of a wealthy Englishman just outside Nairobi during that time period. The press may have even called it the Happy Valley Murder. And now there was another. Very different, of course, but long after the case was solved some well-read magazine journalist would eventually pick up the story and use the headline for Garland’s story as a private joke he was sure no one else would get.
“My ex-husband traveled to East Africa frequently for business.” She fingered a large chunk of tanzanite on her earlobe. “He bought me these. He was always bringing me something. Unfortunately, the last time it was a rather nasty infection. Just when you think you know someone.
“We moved past it,” she said. “I went back to my maiden name and picked up the hobby I’d given up when we married. It keeps me busy.”
Cindy Gustafson stowed my purchases in two sturdy black paper shopping bags, and I thanked her for her time even though she hadn’t shed any light on Garland Bleimeister. I was still ravenous but didn’t need the upper body workout of carrying six extra pounds while I searched for a place to eat, so I headed back to my booth to drop off the honey.
When I arrived, Rolanda Knox was waiting for me. I was not happy she’d blown me off and talked to the cops without me. I thought we were in this together, and I didn’t know if what she said dovetailed with my story. The look on my face revealed my irritation.
“Is that your suburban, white-bread version of the stink eye?” she said. “’Cause when I deliver the stink eye, I usually like to squint a little. Sometimes I adopt a quizzical look if I really want to scare the person.”
I placed the honey on the edge of the table where Primo’s smaller works were displayed. There was a note on it.
“Some guy dropped that off,” Nikki said quietly, not wanting to get between me and Rolanda.
“Guy or a guy?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Who’s Guy? Tall fellow, tan, outdoorsy. He didn’t say his name. Just asked if you were coming back.” No one could mistake Guy Anzalone for outdoorsy. Rolanda hovered as if waiting for something.
“And what’s the purpose of this visit? Tossing cells? A random strip search for badges?” I asked.
“Will you quit it? I came to talk to you about that thing. Those boys we know?”
“You’re being surprisingly discreet for someone who blabbed all about it this morning.”
“Is that why you look like you’re sniffing baby poop? They found me. The janitor, Anthony, called the police late last night as soon as the papers hit the street. The cops were waiting for us at the church before Otis’s service even started. His poor mother had to be sedated. Really ruined the moment, having the police at her son’s funeral. I left early and came straight here to see you. While I was waiting, Miss Nikki told me something you ought to hear.”
“Miss Nikki. I like that.”
“Spend a few hours in the old neighborhood and you fall back into the old ways. Tell Miss Paula what you told me.”
Forty-two
The last time most of us had seen Nikki had been early Friday evening, before the reception started. She’d been fretting about the stain on her dress and had left for the members’ lounge to make sure the flower pin I’d lent her covered it sufficiently and would not impede her ability to sell garden ephemera.
“As I was leaving,” she said, “I saw my husband, Russ, coming in at another gate. I knew he’d look after things if I took a little long, so I didn’t worry about hurrying back.” Maybe that was the reason she had obsessed about the stain—she wanted to look good for the husband she complained about but still wanted to seduce.
“Go on.”
“It took me a while to wade through the crowd waiting to come in. When I reached the members’ lounge, it was empty. You haven’t been in the lounge have you?”
She described one large room with upholstered chairs and small tables arranged in conversational groupings. At either end were the restrooms. There were no doors, just large alcoves with console tables and floral arrangements, leading inside to the sinks and stalls.
“It’s not as if you can see in.” Rolanda said, clarifying for me. “It’s almost like an old-fashioned movie theater.”
“But you can hear,” I said, prompting her.
Nikki nodded her head. “Yes, if the person speaks loudly enough.”
She heard a man and a woman. The woman’s voice stayed even, but the man’s grew louder and more agitated. At one point, the female voice developed an edge. She said everything was under control and the man was overreacting.
“Don’t give me that ‘you always’ crap and don’t tell me to relax. There’s a lot of money at stake here. My future.”
“I couldn’t hear how the woman answered,” Nikki said, “but the man sounded like he was losing it. They either got much louder or had moved closer to the entrance of the restroom, so I slipped into one of the stalls. The comments got nastier and I heard scuffling and the sound of someone being pushed. During our worst arguments, Russ would never have followed me into a public restroom to yell at me, much less push me.” What a turnaround; Nikki’s husband was starting to look better.
“The woman said, ‘You look good in a tux. They cover a multitude of sins. They can deflect attention from a weak chin, a few extra pounds, and the absence of … well, you know.’ That’s when I got nervous. I thought, what if he hits her?”
I don’t know what I would have done in that instance if I thought another woman was in trouble. I like to think I would have announced my presence by opening the door and acting as a peacemaker—maybe shame the feuding couple by being a witness before one of them landed the first punch.
That’s not what Nikki Bingham did. She balanced precariously on the edges of the toilet seat and braced herself in a half crouch against the walls of the stall praying she wouldn’t be seen or heard while the row outside escalated.
“The woman said their plan was working and the man should just shut up and execute it. Especially tonight. He’d been dumb enough to bring a kid into their arrangement—and that other poor bastard who worked here—and once again she’d had to clean up after him.”
“She called him a loser and he called her a bitch.”
“Must be love,” I said.
“I couldn’t see,” Nikki said, “but it sounded as if one of them pushed the other up against the wall or the edge of the sink. They both grunted, and instead of shouting they spit their words at each other. That was scarier. The woman said she’d gotten very good at manufacturing things and could manufacture an accident if he didn’t watch his step. She even laughed and said they’d attribute it to the Javits Curse.
“They struggled. Something fell and spilled onto the floor. I saw a lipstick rolling under the door into the stall where I was hiding. I was petrified they’d find me there. Then the lights went out.”