“Listening to me now, you must think I’m an idiot. I know I think I’m an idiot. I should have seen what she was up to, but all I kept thinking about was that pile of bills, and the calls that were coming in from the hospital and the doctors and the collection agencies. I was holding out hope that, eventually, Marjorie would come clean and tell me what was up.”
“But let me guess, she never did, right?”
He didn’t confirm or deny, just went right on. “When I stopped at her house . . . well, I’d never done that before. I mean, I’d been there to pick her up for dinner or a concert of whatever, but I’d never just stopped in to socialize. I didn’t want to socialize with Marjorie! But what happened that afternoon, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. You see, I knew Marjorie’s nephew was getting married. She’d mentioned it more than a couple times, and I’d always just pretty much ignored her or changed the subject. I didn’t want to go to that wedding with her. I knew if I did, she’d parade me around in front of people and show me off and act like there was more to our relationship than there ever was. I know it might not sound like it, but I have my pride. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Then that day—the day before she died—I got a copy of the wedding invitation in the mail. The one for Marjorie’s nephew, Nick. It was from Marjorie, of course, and she’d written across it with red magic marker: It’s black tie, don’t forget to rent a tux.” Ray slammed his fist on the table.
“That’s when it hit me. She was treating me like a trained monkey, and I’d had enough of it. That’s why I went to see her that night, and I was so relieved to walk in and see you there, I can’t even tell you. The thought of being alone with Marjorie . . .” He shivered inside his purple shirt, and he didn’t meet my eyes. “When we excused ourselves and went into her den, that’s when I told her I wasn’t going to take it anymore, that she had to tell me right then and there what this moneymaking scheme was all about. That if she didn’t, she could find another patsy to put up with her nonsense.”
“And did she?”
“That’s the real kicker.” Ray scrubbed a finger behind his ear. “That’s when she told me it was all a mistake. She told me the whole thing fell through, that there was no surefire moneymaking plan because she’d done some digging and she found out it was all a scam. Can you believe it? Marjorie had the nerve to tell me she never should have mentioned the whole moneymaking scheme to me in the first place.”
I drummed my fingers on the table. “Which means you’d been pimping yourself out and you weren’t going to get anything for it.”
“That’s not exactly the way I’d put it,” he admitted, “but I guess it’s true. What a sucker I was! And I’ll tell you something else, Pepper, I’m not sure she was telling the God’s honest truth, not even then.”
My drumming stopped. “Because . . .”
“Because Marjorie had that invitation. Not the invitation to her nephew’s wedding, the framed one, the one for James A. Garfield’s inauguration. I’m sure she showed it to you. Marjorie never missed a trick. Everybody who walked in the door, they had to see all that presidential crap of hers. She told me about that inauguration invitation about a month ago, said she saw it in an on-line auction and that she wanted it bad, but there was no way she could afford it. But there it was, hanging on her living room wall, right?”
Right. I turned this thought over in my head. “So you think she really did have some magic way of suddenly making money?”
Ray started with the tap, tap, tap against the table again. “It’s the only thing that explains it,” he said. “I think she was holding out on me. And all that time . . .” Disgusted with himself, he shook his head. “The worst part of the whole thing is that I just started dating someone, a really nice woman, you know?”
I did, I just couldn’t get past the whole unnatural thing about old people dating.
Thank goodness, before I had a chance to consider it for long, Ray went right on. “A couple times, I’ve had to make excuses to this other woman about why I couldn’t see her. You know, because Marjorie had me going here or there with her. I was too embarrassed to just tell my new lady friend the truth. Now . . .” This time when he sighed, it was with relief. “Well, now at least I don’t ever have to lie to her again. So you see, kid . . .” Ray looked at his watch again, and this time when he slid out of the booth, I knew it was because he had to get back behind the grill. “That whole thing about me and Marjorie fighting, well, it was just me standing up for myself finally. It doesn’t have anything at all to do with her dying.”
“Of course not.” It was an incredibly corny comeback, but I didn’t have time to question him further, and besides, my head was suddenly spinning with possibilities. After I downed the rest of the fries, I headed to my car, thinking about everything he’d told me and wondering about that get-rich-quick scheme of Marjorie’s. Could the money have anything to do with her murder?
Or was there more to Ray than the sweet, old guy he pretended to be?
Like a man who was tired of being Marjorie’s love monkey and who’d had it up to his eyeballs? Sure he was angry at having her string him along. Angry enough to meet her at the memorial and give her the heave-ho off the balcony?
And then there was that new woman in Ray’s life who he’d mentioned. Could she have been jealous? Was it possible she didn’t want to share him with Marjorie?
Could there be enough passion in an old-people romance to account for murder?
8
My gut told me Ray didn’t kill Marjorie, but my gut had been wrong before. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the murderers without a scorecard.
Still, even though I was sure Ray was lying about something (and even though I couldn’t figure out what that something was), I just couldn’t imagine a nice old guy like him tossing Marjorie over that balcony. Believe me, I was in the right place to try to picture it. The following Monday, I was standing in the rotunda of the memorial doing my best to look like the expert-in-residence. The why is no mystery: without Marjorie there to be the Garfield know-it-all, Ella needed someone to handle the day-to-day duties over at the memorial. Naturally—at least to Ella’s way of thinking—she turned to me.
Back in the day, I wouldn’t have minded. At least not too much, anyway. But then, back in the day, James A. Garfield wasn’t exactly a tourist magnet. The memorial had a couple visitors now and then, but for the most part, the place was quiet and empty. Quiet and empty I could deal with. In fact, it would have suited me just fine. Then maybe I would have had a chance to sort through what I knew about my case. But it’s funny, isn’t it? And not in a ha-ha sort of way. Murder adds notoriety to a place, and the memorial was no exception. What with the publicity Marjorie’s murder had generated in the media—local, national, and sensational tabloid—it was no wonder that there was a line waiting to get inside the memorial even before I unlocked the door.
“So this is where it happened, right?” A woman twice my age and half my height had the nerve to step into my path. “Where was the body? Was she beaten and battered? Was there . . .” The woman shuddered. “Was there a lot of blood?”