Jim laughed. “I feel so reassured.”

  “I’ll come back later for the entertainment and do the same, so I need to have my dinner in some degree of peace and quiet. I . . . I hope you understand.”

  “I understand perfectly, Elizabeth.” He checked his watch. “It’s still early on the West Coast. Early enough to make some calls.” He swallowed the last of his drink and gave me a salute with the empty glass. “Thanks for this.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I watched him walk down the stairs. He nodded politely to people as they passed and stepped aside to let two elderly ladies by. I hoped he did understand. Jim was nice, and I liked him. But like was as far as it went. His invitation to dinner had been casual, seemingly offhanded, but I thought he meant more to it than the words implied, and so I declined. As I said, I never eat in the dining room—too many people want to stop by my table and complain—but I could have invited him to my house or Velvet’s room and ordered something for us.

  I don’t know why Jim Westenham inviting me to dinner put me in mind of Richard Kennelwood, but it did.

  I grinned to myself. Maybe I was becoming a Catskills girl already. Catskills people—Mountain Rats, they like to call themselves—are an insular bunch.

  A Catskills girl.

  A Mountain Rat.

  Gloria had told us Elias Theropodous had grown up in the Catskills. I’d forgotten that. We assumed he’d been killed because of something to do with his Hollywood world, but maybe that wasn’t it at all. Could it be possible a hometown secret had caught up with him all these years later?

  Chapter 14

  “She had me at egg cream,” Velvet said.

  “Same for me,” I said. “And a grilled cheese sandwich to go with it, please.”

  “Make that three egg creams,” Lucinda McGreevy told the waitress.

  It was ten o’clock in the morning on Wednesday. I’d left a stack of unanswered pink message slips on my desk, an accounts book that refused to balance, a pile of unopened envelopes, and come into town for a late breakfast. Knowing Velvet had a gap in today’s schedule between eight o’clock calisthenics for teenage girls on the dock and a round of the ever-popular Simon Says to lead at noon on the beach, I’d invited her to come with me.

  I’d said no more than “for an egg cream at the diner,” and she was sprinting in the direction of my car.

  The Red Spot Diner, located in the center of Summervale’s main street, is famous for its version of the frothy soda drink. “Best in the Catskills,” they claimed, and I agreed.

  “As seems to be becoming a habit,” Lucinda said once we’d placed our orders, “Haggerman’s is the talk of the town.”

  “Talk we don’t need,” I said. “I hate to say it, but that’s why we’re here.”

  “I figured as much,” Lucinda said. “That’s okay, Elizabeth. You’re busy. I’m busy. We’re all too busy in the summer to simply spend time being friends.”

  As if to prove her point, Lucinda’s mother walked past our booth and gave her daughter a disapproving glare.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I’m having a quick break before the next rush.” Lucinda smoothed her skirt. Her dark hair was tied back, and she wore the diner’s waitress uniform of a red dress under a white apron liberally sprinkled with giant red polka dots.

  “You can have a break,” Mrs. McGreevy said, her accent tinged with memories of the back alleys of Naples, where she’d spent her early childhood, “in October.”

  “If I live that long,” Lucinda said.

  I laughed, and Mrs. McGreevy turned her Italian-mother scowl on me. I ducked my head. We’d been seated directly beneath a slowly turning fan mounted on a high shelf, and the moving air felt delicious on my overheated neck and arms. The temperatures were supposed to be in the low nineties for the next couple of days, and the humidity would rise along with it.

  The waitress put three egg creams on the table and slid a plate of grilled cheese and french fries in front of me.

  I’d timed our visit carefully, hoping my friend could take a moment to catch her breath (and enjoy an egg cream) between the breakfast rush and the busy lunch hour.

  Lucinda’s family’s restaurant is the most popular casual place in Summervale. It’s centrally located, making it popular with townspeople on their lunch break as well as tourists and summer visitors looking for a quick, plain but delicious, reasonably priced meal.

  Meaning, it was gossip central. Lucinda, who’d grown up helping out in the diner, knew just about every one of the longtime residents and many of the newer ones, like me. We’d met over the winter and became instant friends. As she said, it’s hard to find time for socializing over a Catskills summer. Everyone has just a few short weeks to make most of what money they’ll need to get by the remainder of the year.

  I took that first marvelous sip of egg cream, feeling the sparkling soda water and thick chocolate syrup dancing on my tongue. Velvet, who’d said she didn’t want anything to eat, plucked a french fry off my plate.

  “People have been talking about Elias Theropodous’s death?” I asked Lucinda when I could speak again.

  “There’s been a lot of talk, yes. Word’s getting around that he died not long after eating at Haggerman’s, but I think you’re in the clear. It’s obvious no one else got sick at the same time. I heard something about some teenage girl being taken away in an ambulance, but the consensus seems to be that she got into her parents’ private liquor supply.”

  “Things happen at a busy hotel,” I said.

  “And in a busy diner,” Lucinda said. “Even before the man died, everyone in town was in a tizz about having the movie people here. Rebecca Marsden went shopping in the dress store, and there’s now a picture of her hanging in their window. Todd Thompson and a couple of guys dropped into Mike’s bar one night, and I don’t think the bar girls have washed their hands since. I’ve heard people who aren’t guests are being thrown out of Kennelwood for trying to find the actors’ rooms and that you’ve got a guard at the road turning away newspaper people.”

  “Have you heard anything from the police?” I squirted a mountain of ketchup onto my plate next to the fries.

  “Dave came in for breakfast this morning soon as we opened. He looked like he hadn’t slept. One of the patrol officers was with him, and they were talking, heads down, whispering. I might have overheard a word or two when I brought them their scrambled eggs and hash browns. And coffee, lots and lots of coffee. Seems Dave got a call from the mayor last night, suggesting it wouldn’t look good for the reputation of the town if anyone associated with the movie is found to have killed the man. It seems the mayor’s hoping we’ll get more movies being filmed here. His Honor sort of suggested it would be better if the killer was found to be an itinerant drifter.”

  “An itinerant drifter,” Velvet said around her straw, “who moved comfortably around a private dining room and the ballroom of one of Summervale’s finest hotels. The mayor hasn’t thought that through.”

  “He tends not to do that,” Lucinda said. “The movie shoot’s bringing money and publicity to town. That’s all he cares about.”

  “Martin McEnery isn’t trying to keep the murder under wraps or downplay it’s significance,” I said. “What’s the mayor’s relationship with the owners of the Gazette?”

  “Good to excellent. But the editor has a dilemma. They’re a respectable paper, and they can’t be seen playing favorites—or downplaying a murder—to make the town look good. That might be called covering up a crime.”

  I pondered that for a minute, while I ate my sandwich and finished the egg cream. “I specifically came in to ask you about something other than town gossip around the movie. Did you know Elias was originally from Summervale?”

  “Yeah, I did. Local boy makes good. You’d have to be a long-time resident to know about that though. I know because Mom told me about him the other day. He might have grown up in Summervale, but he left as soon as he finished school and never bothered to show his face here again. Not even to visit his family. On this trip, he’s made no attempt to visit people his family had known or who he’d been friends with when they were kids. I’m surprised you even know about it. Did he tell you?”

  “Someone told me he was from here. Maybe I’m wondering if the reasons for his death lie in his past.”

  Lucinda lifted her right arm. “Mom!”

  Mrs. McGreevy was taking advantage of the temporary lull in business to relax on the stool at the cash register and flip through Life magazine. She looked up when her daughter called.

  “Mom, can you come and sit with us for a minute?”

  The older woman climbed off her stool and crossed the red-checked floor. “I do not sit at a table in the middle of the day,” Mrs. McGreevy said. “Nor should you, Lucinda. What will people think? You don’t have lunch to prepare? You don’t have dishes to wash?”

  “Elizabeth’s asking about Elias Theropodous.” Lucinda slid out of the booth and stood up. “You knew him, right? Sit down and tell us about it. Can you bring Mom a coffee and maybe a piece of pie,” she called to the waitress. “What would you like, Mom? Lemon meringue or blueberry?”

  “I have no time for pie,” the older woman said as she dropped onto the bench seat. “Blueberry. With ice cream.”

  Lucinda gave me a wink. “I’ll get the door if anyone comes in. You knew the Theropodous family, right, Mom?”

  “I haven’t thought of Elias in years,” Mrs. McGreevy said. “Until this movie silliness started. Elias was a good bit older than me, so I didn’t know him well, but he was in school with my brothers. My oldest brother, Carlo, was friends with him, as I remember.”

  The waitress put the pie on the table. It was a huge slice, oozing blue juice, the flaky pastry perfectly browned, accompanied by a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

  “Oh,” Velvet said.

  “Can I get you a piece?” the waitress asked.

  “After that egg cream?” Velvet pushed her empty glass across the table. “Why ever not?”

  Behind me, the bells over the door tinkled, and Lucinda slipped away.

  “Elias said something about him and Jerome Kennelwood knowing each other a long time ago,” I said. “That must be what he meant.”

  “Jerome. Like boy like man. He was never very nice.” Mrs. McGreevy lifted a fork laden with pie and ice cream to her mouth. “Elias left the Catskills as soon as he graduated high school. His parents and his brother stayed in Summervale, but he never came back.”

  “I was told he left when his parents died,” I said. “You mean that’s not true?”

  “No. No one wants it to be known he abandoned his family first chance he got. Over the years, there was talk of Elias, now and again, and people made a point of going to see his movies and being proud of a boy from Summervale doing so well. The pride soon turned to resentment. The Theropodous family were never well-off. Not dirt-poor, but no better than anyone else around these parts. The father worked at the hardware store, as I remember, and Elias’s mother cleaned at the hotels. We expected she’d be able to stop cleaning when her son became a big Hollywood director, but that never happened. They didn’t seem to have any more money than they ever had. They died, must be twenty or more years ago, before the war anyway, and talk began to die down. Things around here changed—the war came, and then new people moved to the Catskills. People forgot he was a local boy.”

  She chewed and shook her head. “He didn’t come to his mother’s funeral. I remember that. People said that wasn’t right, even though he sent the biggest bunch of flowers many of us had ever seen. Better he’d bought her a new pair of boots when she was alive, they said. Some of the people, my age, his age, remembered his name when we heard about him making his new movie here.” She shrugged and continued to eat. “But we no longer care about local boy doing good. He left and he didn’t give us another thought. Even Carlo never heard from Elias again.”

  Velvet’s pie arrived, and she happily dug in. My back was to the restaurant, and across from me Mrs. McGreevy’s eyes flicked around the room while she ate and talked. The chimes over the door rang again, and Lucinda’s soft voice welcomed the new customers. The early lunch crowd was beginning to arrive.

  “That’s all I can tell you, Elizabeth.” Mrs. McGreevy scraped her plate clean. “I have not seen Elias since I was young, and until this week I have not thought of him or his family for many long years.”

  “Thanks anyway,” I said. I was disappointed, but I’d known it would be a long shot. What sort of a secret would be so bad it would fester for forty years and end in murder?

  Mrs. McGreevy started to stand. “I don’t think even Nikos has had any contact with Elias, but you could ask him. They might have gotten together this week, for old time’s sake or to drink a toast to the memory of their parents.”

  “Nikos? Who’s Nikos?”

  “Elias’s brother. He works for you.”

  “He does?” I quickly ran down a mental list of my employees, those whose names I know anyway. Haggerman’s employs hundreds of people, and I don’t have much contact with most of them. I couldn’t think of anyone named Nikos. I threw a question to Velvet, and she shrugged in response.

  Lucinda had noticed her mother getting ready to stand up, so she came back to join us and caught the tail end of the conversation. “Does this Nikos go by another name, Mom? Nick, maybe?”

  “So many young people want to have an American name these days,” Mrs. McGreevy said. “What’s wrong with the good family names? All my children have proper Italian names.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Lucinda with the proper Italian name. “I think I know who you’re talking about, Mom. Is it Nick Timmins? His name’s Nikos, but I don’t know if Timmins is his true family name.”

  “Nick Timmins?” I said. “My saladman?”

  “Yes, that’s him.” Mrs. McGreevy said. “Used to be Nikos Theropodous. Enough talking. Back to work, Lucinda.”

  “In a minute, Mom.”

  “My saladman is Elias Theropodous’s brother?” I said as Mrs. McGreevy returned to her post.

  “Sounds like it,” Lucinda said. “Nick was in here on Saturday for breakfast. He was with a man about the same age as him, who I didn’t know. What did this Elias guy look like?”

  I described the director as best I could, while Velvet ate pie and ice cream and nodded.

  “That sounds like him,” Lucinda said. “I remember it was Saturday morning because Mom was at the dentist. She broke a tooth the night before and had an emergency appointment, so she missed breakfast shift. It was Saturday and we were so rushed, and the new assistant line cook was off sick, so I was helping in the kitchen. I heard a lot of yelling and came out to see what was going on. Nick Timmins and this other guy were shouting at each other. Like they were really mad, Elizabeth. I was afraid they were about to come to blows, and the cook threw them into the street. They didn’t even finish their breakfast. The other guy stormed out. Nick threw some money on the table and then he left too. I didn’t hear what they were arguing about, and I didn’t see what happened after that. I forgot all about it until now, because I didn’t realize it might matter. The guy Nick was fighting with sure sounds like Elias Theropodous.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “Where to now?” Velvet asked when we were standing on the sidewalk outside the Red Spot Diner.

  “I need to talk to Nick Timmins. Interesting that he had a big fight with his long-estranged brother two days before the man died, don’t you think?”

  “You don’t know they were estranged, Elizabeth. Plenty of families don’t talk to one another much, if at all, but that doesn’t mean they actively disliked each other. Families, siblings in particular, drift apart. Not that you’d know, being an only child, you lucky thing.”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said. “As for what to do now . . . I wonder if Dave Dawson knows about this.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Velvet said.

  The diner’s conveniently located between the police station and the newspaper office. We walked the ten steps down the sidewalk. The heat was intense, the belt of my dress was too tight, and my girdle and stockings were attempting to cut off circulation. I surreptitiously adjusted the waistband of my girdle to get some air flowing.

  “I can see you’re wearing stockings under that dress, but please tell me you don’t have a girdle on,” Velvet said.

  “Guilty as charged.” I eyed her flowing trousers and loose comfortable blouse enviously.

  She chuckled. “Lucky me, who doesn’t have to sit in a stuffy office all summer long and look smart and professional.”

  I growled at her, but her eyes sparkled with laughter, and she continued chatting happily. “I, on the other hand, am required to look outdoorsy and sporty. I’m thinking shorts this afternoon and a light cotton top.”

  I marched ahead of her into the police station.

  An officer sat at the front desk, his chubby index fingers poking hesitantly at a typewriter. The office was small, dark, cramped, and far too hot. A small fan sat on a table in the corner, accomplishing nothing much at all. From the back, I could hear the sound of someone singing an Irish ballad, very poorly indeed.

  The cop looked up when we came in. “Mornin’. Help you, ladies?”

  “I’m Elizabeth Grady from Haggerman’s, and I was hoping to have a word with Deputy— I mean Chief Dawson. Is he in?”

  “Nope.” He dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped sweat off his forehead.