The Mutual Admiration Society(48)

I tell Birdie, “I’m really sorry to have to break this bad news to you, honey.” I have to prepare her. She is going to take this very, very, very, very hard, but the sooner I get it out of the way the better. “But . . . well . . . it looks like Mister McGinty is guilty of kidnapping and murdering Sister Margaret Mary.”

Whatever Birdie is trying to tell me, she jammed her mouth so full of gooey chocolate I can’t understand a word of it. Could be that she didn’t understand what I said and wants me to repeat myself or maybe she did understand and she’s too frozen with shock and sadness to throw herself down on top of Daddy’s pretend grave and turn on her waterworks, which is what I thought she’d do considering how much she’s always liked Mr. McGinty as much as me, and as much as our dear daddy did.

Our mother enforcing her #1 Commandment—The Finley Sisters Shalt Not Visit the Cemetery—is nothing new. She’s always frowned upon Birdie and me wanting to head over here bright and early to watch Mr. McGinty dig fresh graves or mow the grass or plant trees and flowers, but “Good Time Eddie” Finley? He never gave his “babies” a hard time about spending time in Holy Cross. He would laugh and joke at the breakfast table, “Get off the girls’ backs, Lou-Lou. Jimmy’s brain might’ve gotten a little scrambled when he stepped on that land mine, but he’s still the good Scotch egg he’s always been. Ha . . . ha . . . ha.”

That wasn’t only a great Daddy joke, it was a true one. And even if it turns out that he is a kidnapping murderer, Mr. McGinty will always be a good egg in my book, and recently I have discovered that he’s not one of the stingy kind of Scots. Unlike most everybody else around here who can’t wait to brag about their charitable acts, our shy friend would never toot his own horn. That’s how come I only found out last week that he did what he did.

Birdie and me were hanging out with him, playing with Pyewacket and checkers and cards, the way we usually do, because his shack is our other home away from home, when he suddenly remembered that he’d forgotten to sharpen his TOOLS OF THE TRADE in his shed. Once he left, my sister did, too—she took one of her trips to parts unknown, because petting Pye always derails her brain—so I took the opportunity to go scrounging through his desk drawer. I was looking for an envelope so I could send off for this booklet in the back of the Superman comic book that’d teach me “How to Become a Ventriloquist”—Throw Your Voice! Fool teachers, friends and family—because that’d be such a handy talent to have in my line of work. That’s when I came across his checkbook in his desk drawer. Of course, I know that I shouldn’t have, but what choice did I have? It’s not my fault that it’s my second nature to snoop. I peeked at the part in the front where he writes down what he’s been spending his money on and boy, oh, boy! You’d never guess it by looking at him or the way he acts or the rusty Ford he drives, but Louise really missed out on a huge payday when she wouldn’t put Mr. McGinty on her plate. He could afford to take her to the Taj Mahal for supper!

FACT: Our friend has got $201,789.05 keeping itself warm in the vault at the First Wisconsin Bank.

PROOF: He wrote check #2315 to secretly pay Mr. Patrick Mullarkey & Sons, whose business it is to carve cemetery markers, to create the beautiful and very expensive one Birdie is currently loving on.

So right about now, our dearly departed father is probably not looking down from Heaven and giving his “babies” two thumbs up while we’re sitting on top of his pretend grave talking about how guilty Mr. McGinty is. No, I’m positive that Daddy wouldn’t want Birdie and me to continue solving the crimes that are going to make his old and good friend since they played on St. Kate’s basketball team together get sent to the Big House to die. The old and good friend who’s also our godfather who’s been treating Birdie and me like we’re his real daughters since Daddy’s been gone.

And just when I didn’t think my heart could feel any more ganged-up on, I notice that the flowers Birdie and me placed last week against this gorgeous tombstone that Mr. McGinty secretly gifted to us have seen better days. I need to add on a #10 on my TO-DO list: Stop at Bloomers for a pink rose bouquet. Daddy never said, but I think they must’ve been his favorites. They’re what he always brought Louise after they’d have a screaming match over his drinking—he was a bartender, for crissakes!—and his card playing—what’s wrong with having a hobby?—and also when our mother would get her Irish up over him spending too much time with Suzanne “That French Slut” LaPelt—she was his barmaid!

Any idiot knows that leaving kaput flowers on a grave is the same as rubbing a departed’s nose in the fact that they’re dead, but I have no clue when I’ll have the time to fetch fresh ones, so God forgive me, I reach over and grab a few of the fresh, fluffy white ones that are lying on top of the grave of Daddy’s next-door neighbor, who Mr. McGinty told us was a carpenter:



DENNIS MARK WILLIAMS

MARCH 2, 1898–APRIL 11, 1940

MAY HE SLEEP IN THE ARMS OF ANGELS



So I guess now, on top of my already long list of sins, I can go ahead and add grave robbing. Covering up evidence, too. Because when I placed the white flowers I stole from Mr. Williams on top of Daddy’s pretend grave, I spotted something buried deep in the grass next to one of the hawk feathers that Birdie finds and brings to him because she can’t leave them anymore in his pants pockets. It was an L&M butt. That’s the kind Louise Mary Fitzgerald Finley smokes, because those are her first two initials. Charlie, who keeps track of these sorts of things, told me that L&Ms are the most popular brand around here, but this coffin nail belongs to our mother. I recognize her Revlon red lip prints on the filter, I’ve seen them a million times. Louise misses Daddy, too? Enough to visit him? That’s just too hard to believe on a morning when everything has been just too hard to believe. And if she does stop by here, I’m sure it’s not to honor her wonderful husband or pay her respects. She probably just comes to tap one of her cigarettes over his pretend grave and say, “Ashes to ashes.”