The Autumn Dead

Chapter 25

The aerobics class was going on — women in expensive exercise suits doing boot-camp jumping jacks now-but the Honda was not in the parking lot to the left of the shopper.

The disco music was overpowering when I walked inside. I moved along the right-hand corridor, trying to keep my eyes from all the breasts and thighs and buttocks my gaze gravitated to so naturally. The women were as curious about me as I was about them. A few even smiled in my direction, not in the inviting way women do at private investigators in books, but just because this was a female domain and there was something vaguely naughty about my being there and that made them curious.

The west wall was all mirrors to make the place look bigger; the carpet was cheap indoor-outdoor stuff hopelessly worn; the stereo speakers could have sufficed at Yankee stadium. (At least the owners had great taste in music, the Crusaders working their asses off on a killer number called "Sometimes You Can Take It or Leave It," the pure unremitting jazz of it as exhilarating as any exercise you could do.) The place smelled of perfume and sweat. Lined up along the back were a rowing machine, a ballet bar, a stationary bicycle, and a Coke machine where, with two quarters, you could put back all the calories you'd worked off.

On the other side of a glass wall, a chunky woman with a bad red dye job and arms as thick as a fullback's sat working over books. Occasionally she poked a fat finger at a calculator so hard you wondered if she had something against it.

I knocked on the window. When she glanced up and saw me, she did not look happy.

I pantomimed Can I Come In, the music too loud for me to be heard otherwise.

She didn't pantomime. She just made a face.

I went over to the door and opened it up and went inside.

She said, "We don't get a lot of men here."

"So I see."

She picked up a package of Winston Lights, tamped one out, got it going, exhaled a long blue stream of smoke, and said, "So how can I help you?" She looked like Ethel Merman with a bad hangover. Her nametag said HI, I'M IRENE.

"There's a woman who works here."

The flesh around her eyes grew tight and her mouth got unpleasant again. "Yeah. So?"

"So she drives a black Honda motorcycle and so I'd like to know who she is."

"Why?"

"Is that really any of your business?"

"As a matter of fact, it is."

"Now why would that be?"

"Because she happens to be my best friend."

"I see."

"And I protect her."

"'From my few experiences with her, I'd say she doesn't need a hell of a lot of protection."

She had some more cigarette. "She's high-strung."

"At least."

She glared at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I think she's probably clinical."

She sighed. "She's had some problems, I'll admit. But now that her aunt's in the nursing home-" She allowed herself several cigarette hacks, then said, "Evelyn has spent some time in mental hospitals."

"I see."

"That doesn't mean she's crazy."

"No," I said and meant it. "No, it doesn't."

"Her aunt raised her; Evelyn's own mother died when she was six. And then there's what happened with Sonny. That's when all the trouble started. "

"What trouble?"

She jammed out one cigarette in a round red metal ashtray and promptly lit another. "You want a Coke?"

"Sure. I'll get it for us. You want regular or Diet?"

Given her weight problem, I figured she'd say Diet Coke.

For the first time she smiled. "You want to learn something today?"

"What?"

"There are reports that show that people who drink diet pop actually gain weight instead of lose it."

"So you want regular Coke."

"Right," she said, "regular."

So I went and got her a regular and me a Diet and could not help but look at least briefly at the wondrous backside of the little black woman conducting the class, and then I went back into the tiny office gray with smoke.

"So what's with her aunt?"

"Sonny dies," she said, slipping into present tense. "Her aunt doesn't believe anything the police say. She starts becoming obsessed."

"What did the police say?"

"Suicide."

"They said he jumped off Pierce Point?"

She looked surprised that I knew about Pierce Point.

"Right."

"Was there a note found?"

"Suicide note?" Irene said.

"Right."

"No.''

"Then why did the police assume it was suicide?"

She shrugged. "They said he was despondent."

"Did they say about what?"

"No. But they said they checked with his teachers and the teachers all said he was despondent. Even the aunt had to admit that. He was usually an A student. He went to summer school between his junior and senior year so he could graduate early. But then he screwed it up."

"Screwed up his grades?"

"Yeah. He got Ds. In summer school you have to get at least Cs."

"So how does Evelyn fit into all this?" Now I was talking in the present tense, too.

"Evelyn is five years younger, right, a very pretty but very high-strung kid. Always had problems. Manic depression, actually. Well, when Sonny buys it, the aunt puts everything on Evelyn. She expects Evelyn not only to share the grief but to spend the rest of her life with her, too. The aunt has money, right, so the aunt builds Evelyn her own wing on the house and Evelyn is expected to stay there the rest of her life, right, and to get caught up in all her obsessions-her hypochondria (this woman has sent a dozen doctors screaming into the sunset), her paranoia about her investments (I mean most of the stockbrokers in this town would rather have gasoline enemas than deal with her), and with proving that Sonny was actually pushed off Pierce Point by persons unknown. So Evelyn, being none too stable herself, does in fact get caught up in all this. Very caught up. And in the process becomes sort of a half-ass detective, really going into Sonny's life and particularly into Sonny's life the summer between his junior and senior year." She stopped.

"And?"

"And to be honest, I don't know so much about lately."

"Lately?"

"The past few weeks."

"You haven't seen her?"

"Oh, I see her. But she's in one of her-moods." Her voice was an odd mixture of anger and sorrow. I liked her. She was tough in the way good people are tough. "I mean, I don't think we've split up or anything. She just gets-"

"Kind of crazy."

"Yeah, I guess it wouldn't be unfair to put it that way. Kind of crazy."

I thought of how she'd said 'split up.' Obviously she wanted me to know they were lovers.

"I wonder if you'd give me her address."

"You gotta know I'm going to ask you why?"

"Because I may be able to help her."

"True blue?"

"True blue. I may have a lead of sorts on Sonny."

"Everything's in her aunt's name."

"Huh?"

"House, credit cards, even her Honda."

"I see."

"Just look up her aunt's name in the phone book and you'll have the address."

"Thanks."

"She was supposed to be here tonight but she didn't show up. Didn't phone or anything. That's why I had to pull Mimsy in."

Now I wanted to leave and she still wanted to talk.

She said, "I guess there's one thing I should tell you."

"What's that?"

"She can get kind of violent."

I thought of what she'd done to Donna and to Glendon Evans. Not to mention me. I said, "Yeah, I've heard rumors to that effect."

"But even if she did hurt you, she wouldn't mean to."

I smiled. "I'm sure that would make me feel a lot better."

She laughed and went into another cigarette hack and said, "She's great at apologies. I guess that's what I'm really trying to say. She does these terrible things-anybody else I would have left years ago-but she's got this fantastic way of apologizing. You ever know anybody like that?"

In fact, I had.

Her name had been Karen Lane.

I thanked Irene and left.