One Foot In The Gravy Read Online Free PDF Page B

instinctive, racial memory from a generation when tenement dwellers actually looked after each other.
     
     
    I hadn’t been in Tennessee very long, but my first impression driving through the neighborhood of Belle Meade was that it was “Old South.” Not just in look but in attitude. I don’t mean that in a bad way, all Confederate flags and political incorrectness, but as an example of a stately, genteel way of life. The main thoroughfare is fronted by majestic equine statues and lined with pillared mansions that have big lawns and great shade trees. The names on many of the properties haven’t changed since the 19th century, and Baker is one of them.
    I was surprised not to find police at the property. The long, curved driveway had only the Baker Bentley, the Camry of the housekeeper—parked discreetly in the back, near the kitchen entrance—and a van that said “Better Reconstruction.” The humor of the name, whether intentional or not, was priceless. I parked my Lexus so it was facing the street. I always liked to be prepared.
    Lizzie Renoir, the housekeeper, was a severe, bony woman in her sixties. I had learned from Thom that she had worked for the Bakers since she was a bony woman in her thirties. She had the previous night off so that no one would make tired jokes during the murder game about the butler having done it, even though she was a housekeeper. She certainly would have been my first choice, judging from her looks: mouth in a perpetual scowl, eyes suspicious, nostrils with chronic flare.
    “I think I left my wallet last night,” I told the dybbuk punim that greeted me. Lizzie swung aside like a second door. “Thanks,” I said graciously. Charm is a trait I acquired doing audits, to put people at ease. It does not come naturally to my family, who, after all, came from the Ukraine where they had no reason to trust or show gratitude to anyone. It’s also served me well at the deli, especially when Thom is in what she calls one of her “black-eye moods.” Meaning, like the omelet-tilter, you cross her and you’re apt to get a shiner.
    I went to the kitchen before Lizzie could arrive. I made my way around two workmen taking measurements in the hallway and “found” my wallet beside the oven.
    “I didn’t see zat zer before,” Lizzie said when she arrived, a French accent still clinging proudly to ze tongue.
    “It was under a dish towel,” I explained, patting one that was already hanging neatly on the oven door. “Is Lolo awake?”
    Lizzie nodded. “Zeze men, zey are not very quiet.” She indicated the workers with a cock of her skull-head. One of them was standing on a high ladder with a digital tape measure, the other was iPad-ing the information he called down.
    “May I see her?” I asked.
    “Go ahead,” Lizzie said.
    That surprised me. “You don’t need to ask?”
    “She already told me that whoever came could go to ze mystery library. You know ze madam. Zis brings ze attention and she likes to receive.”
    There was a certain dark charm to that, and I smiled and went to the stairs. As I passed the workmen I asked the one on the ladder, “Termites? Is that what did this?”
    “Not unless they had a power drill.”
    “Really?”
    “There are some thread marks and fresh shavings in the old beams,” he said. “Could be from some recent wiring, but I don’t see any cables. Maybe they were planning on doing something.”
    I looked at Lizzie. “The madam wanted HDMI cables in her bedroom for CSI in zee haute definition . Zey were putting zem in yesterday morning. Zey did not finish. Zey will be back.”
    “That would explain it,” the worker said.
    I figured the police were on top of that, but filed it away.
    I knew my way around from having checked the venue out two days before the party. Back through the hallway, past the parlor and great room, and up the grand staircase.
    Something occurred to me and I stopped, turning to Lizzie as she came back that way. I’d