Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries Box Set by Nanci Rathbun (surface ebook reader TXT) 📗

The house across the street was the “after” image of the one I’d just visited—nicely sided and roofed, neat little front yard with flowers along the walkway, porch with table and wicker chairs, one occupied by an older lady rocking away as she sipped from a tall blue glass. That glass looked awfully good in the early evening heat. I walked over and stood at the bottom of the steps to the porch.

Before I could speak, she greeted me. “Nice night, init?” The South Side dialect was in full force.

“A little warm,” I responded.

“Only if you run around. You need to find a place and set.”

“You’re right.” I smiled as I looked her over. About seventy, wispy gray hair, no makeup, forty pounds overweight, wearing slippers and a clean snap-up-the-front print dress, what Terry would call a “housecoat.” I suspected that the lady sat here on her front porch in good weather, or in the bay window of her front room in bad weather, and watched her neighbors, day after day. An investigator’s dream, if she would talk.

“Ma’am, I’m trying to locate one of the young women who used to live in the house across the street.” I gestured at the rundown monstrosity. “The gentleman who lives there now couldn’t help me. I wonder if you can.”

“He ain’t no gentleman and I ain’t surprised he cou’nt help you. Don’t do nothin’ but go to work, come home, and drink. Recycle bin full of beer cans and bottles, every week. Not part of the neighborhood at all.” She shook her head at this lack of spirit and I echoed the gesture. “Come on up,” she invited. “Have a seat.”

Hallelujah! I thought, as I ascended the four broad wooden steps and sat in the unoccupied rocker.

“Care for an iced tea?”

“I would love one.”

She heaved herself up and flip-flopped into the house. In a moment, she was back, carrying the twin to her glass, filled to the brim with ice cubes and tea, and a lemon slice floating on the top. She set the glass on the table, along with a long-handled spoon and a small sugar dish, filled with little paper packets of sugar and sweetener. “I’m Mabel Lembke,” she introduced herself.

“Angelina Bonaparte.” I pondered giving her a business card, but decided to wait. I didn’t want to spook her. If she was the neighborhood tabby, as I suspected, she’d probably talk to me with no provocation.

“You can’t be lookin’ for Elisa. She got herself killed last week. So it must be Marsha you want, right?”

I noticed the phrasing. Elisa “got herself killed.” As if Elisa was responsible. “That’s right, I’m trying to find Marsha Cantwell. But it’s in regard to Elisa Morano, so if there’s anything you can tell me about Elisa…”

“Honey, I can tell you a lot about that one. She’d talk nice to your face, but behind your back it was another story. They lived there about a year, her and Marsha. Both students at that art school, MIAD. Don’ know what it stands for. Anyhow, I been here more than fifty years, since I married Mr. Lembke, so I know most everyone on the block. Them girls moved in about a year ago May. An’ I think to myself, uh-oh, party time. But they was quiet and gave us no trouble. Truth to tell, I think they was too ashamed of the place to bring people home.”

“Did they socialize much with the neighbors?”

“Nah, but they was friendly when you run into them on the street or at the store. An’ last winter, when I slipped on the ice and broke my wrist, Elisa called the ambulance and rode with me to St. Luke’s.” She laughed. “She called it St. Lucrative’s.”

“Your husband wasn’t home?”

“Joseph’s been gone these twelve years, now. An’ our kids don’ live by me, so it was a blessing Elisa was there. But, you know, after that, I started to get charges on my credit card that I didn’t make. An’ I always wondered if she memorized the number while she sat with me in the hospital intake. D’you think that’s possible, to memorize one of them long numbers?”

“I couldn’t, but I bet there are people who can.”

“That’s what I thought. O’ course, it coulda been somebody who worked there. I guess I’ll never know, for sure. But I watched her after that, an’ I din’t like what I saw.”

I cocked an eyebrow and waited.

“I mean,” Mabel continued, “she shoun’ta treated Marsha that way, talking about her behind her back, about how plain she was and how she’d never get a man. And then Marsha does herself up a little, ya know, new hairdo and some makeup and nice clothes, and this fella in their class shows a little interest.” She leaned over to me. “Then one night when Marsha’s outta town, visiting her family over the holidays, her boyfriend Al comes over. Stays all night. I’m out clearin’ the dusting of snow off the front walk next morning when he strolls outta the house, bold as you please, gets in his car and leaves. I’m leanin’ on my broom and watchin,’ and there’s Elisa, the kurwa—that’s Polish for whore, honey—grinnin’ in the doorway. So I waves to her, and she comes out and tells me this story about how the furnace went out and Ben the landlord wou’nt answer the phone, so she calls Al and he comes over to help and ends up sleepin’ on the couch ‘cause his car wou’nt start. Funny, I says, it started fine just now.”

“Did Marsha find out?”

“Yeah.” She sat back and took a sip from her glass. “Yeah. I tol’ her. In this day and age, you can’t be too careful. I tol’ her to go down to the clinic an’ get tested. Was I wrong?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Lembke. Who can say? How did she take it?”

“At first, she stuck up for Al and believed the story