Murder on Location by Howard Engel Page B

Lake Ontario.
    I parked my Olds next to my father’s rust-pocked Cadillac convertible in front of the condominium. I let myself in.
    â€œBenny, is that you? Is that you, Benny?”
    â€œThat’s right. You weren’t expecting Sam were you?”
    â€œYour brother’s too busy to get away during the week. You know that.” Sam is the chief of surgery at Toronto General, a top position, my mother never tires of reminding me, in a hospital that isn’t even a Jewish hospital. We all had to give Sam full marks. Ma was wearing a bright fuchsia gown or housecoat. She was quite blonde again. She presented her cheek and I grazed it with a kiss.
    â€œYou’ve been to get your hair done.”
    â€œYeah,” she said, rolling her eyes with pleasure, like she was a little girl accused of coming top of her class again. “You like it?”
    â€œVery nice. Very nice.”
    â€œIt was getting so I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror any more. I had to get it done to preserve my sanity. It gets me out of the house. Better I should go to the beauty parlour than to my doctor. That’s the only other reason for going out.”
    â€œWhat’s this about your doctor? I thought he was in the hospital.”
    â€œIt’s the locum-schlocum. He gave me a prescription.”
    â€œYou didn’t tell me you’ve been sick. Ma, what’s going on around here?”
    â€œDon’t ask.”
    â€œWho’s asking? I’ll be screaming in a minute. Give.”
    â€œI had a little infection and it’s clearing up. I shouldn’t even mention it.”
    â€œIf you’re keeping secrets from me …”
    â€œYour father’s downstairs.”
    â€œThat’s right, don’t listen.”
    â€œOpen the wine it should breathe before you go down.”
    â€œStop changing the subject.”
    â€œI’m just a juvenile delinquent, that’s what I am,” she said, batting her eyes like a fourteen-year-old. “Open the wine.” I opened a bottle of Macon and placed it on the dining-room table. It had been set for four.
    â€œWho’s coming for dinner?”
    â€œWhat?” She had her vague voice on, and was trying to lose herself cutting bread.
    â€œNever mind.” I went down the broadloom-covered steps to the television room. Pa was wearing his blue cardigan and watching the local news. I handed him the paper. He gave me a dirty look like I was personally responsible for all the bad tidings it contained. “Who’s coming to supper?” I asked. Pa grew pink at the corners of his cheeks.
    â€œAn idea of your mother’s,” he said with a shrug.
    â€œAn idea is coming to eat with us?”
    â€œIt’s Linda Levin. Wilfred Levin’s sister. You remember her. She’s back from New York. She’s divorced now, making a new start, has a nice settlement, and your mother thought, well …”
    â€œAnd she’s coming to supper. No sweat, Pa. I know Linda. We used to watch Rabbi Feingold kill chickens.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHe used to interrupt our Hebrew classes to do a job for a customer. You could hear the trussed-up chickens outside the door. He used to pretend he didn’t hear them, then he’d excuse himself for a few minutes. Linda and I followed him down the cellar steps to watch.”
    â€œWell, what do you want? We’re a small community. In New York a rabbi doesn’t kill chickens on the side.”
    â€œWho did Linda marry? He was a broker of some kind, wasn’t he?”
    â€œImport-export or export-import, something like that. She has a boy, Paul-David. He plays drums. That’s all I know about her. Ask her yourself when she gets here.” We both watched a uniformed attendant close the back doors of an ambulance, which then drove away from the camera. It’s for shots like that that I love the local news.
    â€œPa, do you know anyone in the