I hugged her. “Go across the country to avoid being a grandmother? Maybe you could just change the locks—it’d be less drastic.”
“I guess it proves how upset I am, Victoria, talking like that—I’ve never wanted anyone to know how I felt about my sons’ children.” She paused a moment, then added awkwardly, “If you want to talk to Ron Kappelman about—about Nancy or anything, he’s in the living room.”
The doorbell rang. While she moved to answer it I crossed the little hall to the living room. I’d never seen Ron Kappelman, but I didn’t have any trouble recognizing him—he was the only man in the room. He was about my age, perhaps a bit older, stocky, with dark brown hair cut close to his head. He wore a gray tweed jacket, which was frayed at the lapels and cuffs, and corduroy pants. He was sitting by himself on a round Naugahyde hassock, flipping idly through the pages of an old National Geographic.
The four women in the room, the ones from church I’d assumed were Mrs. Cleghorn’s co-workers, were murmuring together in the other corner. They glanced over at me, saw they didn’t know me, and went back to their gentle buzzing.
I pulled up a straight-backed chair next to Kappelman. He glanced at me, made a bit of a face, then tossed the magazine back to the coffee table.
“I know,” I said sympathetically. “It’s a pain to talk to strangers at an affair like this. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think you could help me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I doubt it, but you can try me.”
“My name’s V. I. Warshawski. I’m an old friend of Nancy’s. We played basketball together a while back. A long while back.” I can’t get over how fast the years started zipping by after my thirtieth birthday. It just didn’t seem that long since Nancy and I had been in college.
“Sure. I know who you are. Nance talked about you a number of times—said you kept her from going mad when the two of you were in high school. I’m Ron Kappelman, but you seemed to know that when you came in.”
“Nancy tell you I’m a private investigator these days? Well, I hadn’t seen her for quite some time, but we got together for a basketball reunion a week or so ago.”
“Yeah, I know,” he cut in. “We went to a meeting together right after. She talked about it.”
A swarm of people buzzed into the room. Even though they were keeping their voices subdued, there wasn’t enough space to absorb the bodies or the sound. Someone standing over me lighted a cigarette and I felt hot ash land on the round neck of my bolero jacket.
“Could we go somewhere to talk?” I asked. “Nancy’s old bedroom or a bar or something? I’m trying to look into her death, but I can’t seem to get a thread to pull on. I was hoping you could tell me something.”
He shook his head. “Believe me, if I thought I had any hot dope, I’d’ve been to the cops like a rocket. But I’d be glad to get out of here.”
We pushed our way through the crowd, paying affectionate respects to Mrs. Cleghorn as we left. The warmth with which she spoke to Kappelman seemed to indicate that he and Nancy had remained on good terms. I wondered vaguely what had happened to McGonnigal, but he was a big cop, he could look after himself.
Outside, Kappelman said, “Why don’t you follow me down to my place in Pullman? There isn’t any coffee shop nearby that’s clean and quiet. As you surely know.”
I trailed his decrepit Rabbit down side streets to 113th and Langley. He stopped in front of one of the tidy brick row houses that line Pullman’s streets, houses with sheer fronts and stoops that make you think of pictures of Philadelphia when the Constitution was signed.
The neat, well-kept exterior didn’t really prepare me for the meticulous restoration inside. The walls were papered in bright Victorian floral designs, the paneling refinished to a glow of dark walnut, the furniture and rugs beautifully maintained period pieces set on well-finished hardwood floors.
“This is gorgeous,” I said, overwhelmed. “Did you fix it up yourself?”
He nodded. “Carpentry is kind of my hobby—makes a good switch from mucking about with the stunads I spend my days with. The furniture is all stuff I picked up at area flea markets.”
He led me into a little kitchen with Italian tile on the floor and countertops and gleaming copper-bottomed pots on the walls. I perched on a high stool at one side of a tiled island while he made coffee at the burners on the other.
“So who asked you to investigate Nancy’s death? Her mother? Not sure the cops will buck the politicos down here and see that justice runs its inexorable course?” He cocked an eye at me while deftly assembling an infusion pot.
“Nope. If you know Mrs. Cleghorn at all, you must realize her mind doesn’t run to vengeance.”