Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [65]
“Maybe I should start breakin’ into people’s houses,” Mother rants. “It’s the only way I’m going to get to spend any time with you.” And then she goes on a rip about how long it’s taking to get permission from the Pope so they can get married and how she can’t wait forever and how she wants Dave to buy her things. Not later. Now! These fights are like listening to the Moriaritys’ dog barking over and over. “When are you going to get me my own car?” Mother wants to drive downtown to the museum and buy her clothes at Chapman’s, not Gimbels. She wants to “Soak up some culture and look good doing it.” And especially she wants to get away from the neighborhood “riffraff.” Everybody is talking behind her back about how she’s living in sin. Even though she’ll tell you she couldn’t care less what people say about her, she does.
Dave is trying to calm her down in his always-cool Danish way. “I know I haven’t been around much lately, Lennie, but I think . . . that might change soon.”
She doesn’t tonight because we’re being secretive, but Troo usually laughs when she hears him call her that. Lennie was Mother’s nickname when they were the prom king and queen. (When Mother showed us the pictures of them on their matching thrones in the high school gym, Troo whispered to me, “Just like I thought. She’s always been a royal pain in the ass.”)
“We got a break in the case,” Dave tells Mother, but he doesn’t sound happy like the television detectives do when that happens to them and I wonder why.
Mother answers snippy, “Oh, really,” because even though this is great news, once she gets this worked up she can’t just shrug it off. Her mad clings to her worse than a slip when it comes outta our new dryer.
Their voices have gotten closer-sounding, so I know they moved over to the shiny new bench.
Dave says, “We found footprints under the bushes at the Holzhauers’ place and they don’t belong to either Bill or Heidi.”
“Can you . . . will you be able to tell who’s stealing . . . how does that work?” Mother doesn’t know anything about detecting. She doesn’t like to talk to Dave about his work the way I do and her favorite show on television isn’t 77 Sunset Strip the way it is ours. She likes This Is Your Life and just like Mrs. Fazio, Queen for a Day is also one of her favorites. “Can you tell who’s doing the burglaries by looking at the footprints?”
“No. Not until we catch a suspect to compare them to,” Dave answers.
“So what did you mean about getting a break in the case?” Mother asks.
“I meant that we’ve narrowed the suspect pool down. I think . . . we think . . . we’re pretty sure a kid is doing the burglaries.”
My throat goes skinny and Troo starts licking her lips.
Mother says, “A kid?” All the hope that she was feeling about getting to spend more time with Dave is replaced by a sore-loser laugh. “Who came up with that dumb idea? No, don’t tell me. It had to be that weasel Joe Riordan.”
She’s not thrilled that Detective Riordan has been romancing her best friend, Mrs. “Aunt Betty” Callahan. Detective Riordan has the reputation as a love-’em-and-leave-’em type. I would have to agree with Mother on this. I’d say I don’t like Detective Riordan about the same as I don’t like Father Mickey and it’s not just because he is such a Romeo. Detective Riordan splashes on too much of a cologne called English Leather and once when I caught him staring at Nell’s bosoms, his eyes looked like two sewer-hole covers and oh, I don’t know. Maybe Ethel is right. Maybe I do have a problem with men in uniforms. But if that was true, then I woulda immediately started liking Dave’s partner a lot more when he became a regular-clothes detective and I still think he stinks.
Mother asks, “What would a kid do with the paintings and silver and . . . that doesn’t make sense. Joe Riordan wants that sergeant’s job. He’s trying to make you look bad.” I notice that Mother doesn’t doubt for a second