The House on Olive Street Read Free Page A

the answering machine, amazed that the police, who were supposedly looking for the time of death or signs of foul play, hadn’t yet listened to the messages.
    Hi Gabby. Don. Are we on for tomorrow night? Dinner? It’s your birthday so you pick the time and place. Call my girl at the office and give her the message. I’m thinking around seven…maybe Christopher’s? I’ll meet you. Oh, and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, do you think you could pick up my shirts on your way? And remember the briefcase you took to the shoe repair for me? Think that’ll be ready yet?
    He hadn’t gotten much better at letting her pick the time and place, Elly thought. You could hardly blame Don, she reminded herself, if Gabby allowed him to take advantage of her. Gabby would argue that she was most willing, under the circumstances. The circumstances being that Gabby shamelessly manipulated Don into taking care of any financial need she had. Gabby had told the group that she planned to hit Don up for a new transmission at her birthday dinner, and predicted that Don would say, “You can just take it to my guy.” Don had a girl for this, a guy for that, a lot of people to do things for him.
    One of the police detectives was suddenly beside Eleanor. She glanced at him.
    Well, I should have known you were out. Gabby’s mother. Why else would you forget to even call me onwhat you know is the most difficult day of the year for me? I would have expected more from you. Don’t call me now—it’s too late. I’m going to the club with Martin and pretend that nothing is wrong.
    This would be pitiful and heartrending if Ceola weren’t so comically self-absorbed. They laughed with Gabby out of respect. Ceola had lost her fourth husband, the one she claimed to have loved the most, the day before Gabby’s sixteenth birthday. So long ago. Likely, it was the same date on which Gabby had died. Ceola would typically wait until very late on the fifteenth of April for Gabby to call to console her on her annual day of grieving, something she was keeping secret from Martin, her seventh or eighth husband. Sometime in June, Ceola would remember that Gabby had had a birthday and send her a fifty-dollar check.
    Mom? Are you there? Sarah, tearful. Well, it’s probably better that you’re out—I was just going to dump on you anyway and I really shouldn’t the day before your birthday. You must be so sick of me! But, anyway, don’t call me back tonight—it’s already eleven and I’m going to try to get some sleep. Justin’s been out all night and I’m so mad I could kill him. But I won’t kill him until after I talk to you. Love you, Mom. Talk to you tomorrow.
    Sarah had dropped out of college and married a grease monkey when she was nineteen, the chief reason for her estrangement from her father. Justin and Sarah had had their first child, despite their financial woes, six months ago. To add misfortune to misery, the baby had Down’s syndrome. The marriage, Gabby had reported, became continually more strained.
    No more messages. The detective unplugged the machine and took it with him. A little late, in Elly’s opinion.
    “Do you know the people on that recording?” he asked Eleanor.
    “Her ex-husband, her mother and her daughter.”
    “Her ex-husband?”
    “Yes.”
    “He was taking her out to dinner for her birthday? And he wanted her to pick up his laundry?”
    “Gabby was a remarkable woman,” Eleanor said.
    “I’ll say,” the detective replied. “You have a key for this front door?”
    “That’s how I got in,” Eleanor said, weary of this man’s stupidity.
    “Okay, then let’s lock her up.”
    She peered at him over the top of her glasses. “And the dog?” she asked.
    “Oh yeah. Can you take the dog?”
    Elly shook her head and walked away from him, the power having returned to her step. The heels of her flat brown shoes hit the floor with their usual purposefulness. “Thank God she wasn’t murdered,” she muttered.