Dancing with Murder

  Death by Polka

  A Polka Town Novel

  By

  Samantha Shepherd

  Chapter 1

  My father had been in the ground only two hours, and people were already dancing.

  As I stood outside the door of the New Krakow Fire Department banquet hall, I could hear the polka music flowing from within. No music was better loved in this Western Pennsylvania town where Polish heritage came before all others.

  Not that I could claim to be one of the polka faithful. Not after fifteen years in Los Angeles.

  I certainly didn't look like a polka chick. Sizing up my reflection in the glass door, I straightened my simple knee-length black dress and adjusted the stylish coil of black hair wound on top of my head. If the coil came undone, my hair would fall below the small of my back...which is quite a ways, as I'm over six feet tall.

  Satisfied that I was halfway presentable, I reached for the door handle. When I pulled the door open, a wave of polka music washed over me, punctuated by whooping and yipping. As I stepped inside and took off my sunglasses, I could see the hall was packed from corner to corner. Everyone was dancing, singing, drinking, laughing, or some combination of all the above.

  The clothes were about the only giveaway that most everyone had been at my dad's funeral two hours before. Lots of folks were wearing black; some of the women still wore black hats and veils. But some of the dancers spinning around the middle of the hall had actually changed into full polka regalia since the funeral. I counted six middle-aged women in brightly colored skirts that lifted as they twirled across the concrete floor.

  I stood at the edge of the mayhem for a while, feeling lost. I knew this was exactly what Dad had wanted, what he'd asked for in his will. They didn't call him "Polish Lou" Kachowski, Prince of Pennsylvania Polka, for nothing.

  So why did the whole scene make me feel sick? Like it was disrespectful to be dancing instead of crying? Like none of those partiers deserved to be there?

  Or was it me who didn't deserve to be there?

  "Lottie?" The sound of a familiar male voice made me turn. I found myself staring at Stush Dudek, a gentle giant with a flyaway gray comb-over and the saddest brown eyes I've ever seen. "I'm so sorry about your father, hon."

  As family friends go, Stush was one of the oldest and best. Just his being there made me feel instantly better. "Me, too, Uncle Stush." That's what I called him, though we weren't related. "I still can't believe he's gone."

  Stush wagged his big head slowly. He always reminded me of a big Saint Bernard. "It's a terrible thing, Lottie. None of us can believe it."

  Suddenly, I felt tears burning my eyes, and I looked away. Focused on the polka band on the stage at the opposite end of the fire hall. It so happened an old boyfriend of mine was playing an accordion solo just then.

  His name was Eddie Kubiak, Jr. I hadn't seen him in at least fifteen years. Not since I'd moved to Los Angeles.

  He still looked about the same except for the fine-lined sideburns, mustache, and goatee tracing the narrow face below his spiky black crewcut. He still played a hell of a solo on the button box, too.

  "At least he went peacefully." Stush gave my shoulder a squeeze with his enormous hand. His dark brown eyes gazed intently into my own. "God bless ya, hon. You know you can lean on me, don't ya?"

  I nodded. "Yes, Uncle Stush."

  Just as he let go of my shoulder, the band finished its song. A deep, gravelly voice boomed over the P.A. system.

  It was a voice I remembered well. "Everyone! Everyone!" It belonged to the band's leader, Eddie Kubiak, Senior. He was Polish Lou's biggest rival...and Eddie Jr.'s dad, of course. "Time for a toast! Another toast in honor of the great Polish Lou!"

  All around the fire hall, red plastic cups and clear plastic shot glasses were raised overhead. Everyone in the band found a drink and raised it, too.

  "To a true friend of all New Krakow!" Eddie Sr. lifted a vodka bottle over his glittering red accordion. His pudgy face was almost as red underneath his slicked-back mane of silver hair. "To a true Polish falcon! A true angel of the polka way of life!"

  Everyone cheered and downed their drinks.

  Eddie Sr. took a long swig from the vodka bottle and shook it like a spear. "He will be missed! Bêdzie mo¿na omin¹æ!"

  How many people were in the fire hall that afternoon? Three hundred? Five hundred? And every last one of them cheered as loud as they could. Cheered so loud it hurt my ears.

  I guess I should've grabbed a drink and joined the toast, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Because the whole party atmosphere left me cold.

  And maybe because I couldn't bear to admit my dad was really gone.

  Instead of throwing back a shot or a swallow of beer, I turned and headed for the door. I rushed outside into the late June heat, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  While behind me, the band started playing "The Beer Barrel Polka."

  *****

  Chapter 2

  The New Krakow Fire Department managed two buildings--the banquet hall out back and the fire house in front. I was so agitated when I got outside that I walked clear around both of them. Didn't stop till I got to the front of the garage, which was empty. The firemen had pulled out the gleaming red fire truck and two rescue vehicles and parked them along the driveway in honor of the late Polish Lou.

  I stopped around the corner of the garage and slumped against the brick wall there. Took some big deep breaths and tried to stop shaking. I needed to pull myself together, if that was even possible on a day like today.

  Unsnapping my black clutch purse, I rifled the contents, without thinking, for my cigarettes. It took a full minute to remember I didn't have any, because I'd quit. Not a puff for the past six weeks.

  Though if I'd known beforehand that my dad was going to die in his sleep two weeks in, I sure as hell would've picked another time to kick the habit.

  Suddenly, everything boiled up in me, and I'd just had enough. With an angry grunt, I chucked the purse through the air; it landed in the middle of a bunch of geraniums in a big cement planter along the driveway.

  But that was just the beginning. Throwing the purse seemed to bring everything to the surface.

  Overwhelmed with emotion, I plunged my face into my hands and started to cry. I'd been holding it back all day, and enough was enough.

  I'd been holding it back longer than that, actually. My life had been on the skids for quite a while. Los Angeles had not been kind.

  There was a reason my fiancé hadn't come with me for my dad's funeral. And another reason for my being in New Krakow, to boot. I hadn't come home just to say goodbye to Polish Lou. I had an ulterior motive.

  And I hated myself because of it. I was just as bad as all those people whooping it up in the banquet hall at Dad's expense.

  Maybe worse. At the moment, I couldn't think of too many people I liked less than myself.

  "Lottie?" And here came one of them. "Are you all right, sweetie?"

  I kept my face in my hands for an extra minute. As if she might go away if I waited long enough. Though I knew there was no chance of that.

  She was like a fly that keeps buzzing around you no matter how many times you swat it. The harder you tried to drive her away, the closer she stuck to you.

  Her friendly, mid-range voice was deceptive. It concealed the heart of a stalker, the mind of a lunatic. The polka monster from the black lagoon.

  My de facto stepmother.

  Otherwise known as Polish Peg. "Do you need me to get you something, sweetie? A cup of tea might help."

  Looking up from my tear-soaked hands, I saw the sun streaming through her frizzy, light-brown hair, almost an afro. Her bright green eyes were enormous behind
the powerful lenses of her glasses; I thought the red-with-white-polka-dots frames looked like something a clown might wear.

  "No thanks." I sniffed as I rubbed tears from my cheeks with my thumbs. I hated letting Peg see me this way...or any way, for that matter. Ever since she'd buzzed into the picture fifteen years ago, I'd made a point of keeping my distance.

  "I think you dropped this." Peg smiled as she held out my black clutch purse. "I found it in the planter over there."

  "Thanks." I managed the smallest smile as I took the purse from her grip. "I wondered where that got to."

  Peg looked at me hard from behind those magnifying glasses of hers. She started to say something, then looked away.

  I felt intensely uncomfortable, as I always did around Peg, though she'd never really done anything evil. Other than stealing my father away from my mother, that is.

  Something about her made me want to run. Maybe she was just too eager to please. Maybe it was her weirdness or her tacky polka style. Maybe something I couldn't put my finger on.

  But she made me want to run. Snapping open my clutch, I fished out the keys to my rent-a-car. "I'd better get going." I snapped the purse shut and moved to walk past her. "I'm exhausted."

  Just then, Peg the Clown did the unexpected. She caught me by the shoulder as I tried to get past. "Hold on, Lottie."

  I couldn't believe it. Polish Peg never, ever touched me. "What?" I turned an ice cold glare on her, brimming with contempt.

  If it hurt her, she didn't show it. "Can't you stay a little, Lottie?"

  I hated having her hand on me, but I didn't pull away just yet. "It's been a tough day. I really need to get some rest."

  "Please come back to the party, sweetie." Peg tipped her head to one side. "For your dad, okay?"

  No fair playing the dad card, but I wasn't going to let her guilt me on this. "It won't make any difference to him whether I'm there or not."

  "Yes it will." Peg let go of my shoulder. "There's going to be an announcement."

  I frowned. "What kind of announcement?"

  "I don't even know," said Peg. "His attorney's going to present it. Lou left strict orders that all of us be in the room when he does. The whole family."

  Even after fifteen years, I couldn't bring myself to think of her as family. But I didn't say it. "Whatever it is, someone can tell me about it later." I shoved the purse under my arm and marched past her.

  At which point, she grabbed my elbow and held on tight. "I won't have it!"

  Spinning, I gaped at her. She'd surprised the hell out of me by raising her voice, which was something else she never did when it came to me. "You won't have what?"

  "Lou...your father asked you to do one thing for him." Peg's frizzy 'fro quivered as she let me have it. "I won't let you ruin it.

  "I think you can carve fifteen minutes out of your busy day to honor your father's last request. Don't you?"

  I stared at her, wanting so bad to get angry, needing to go off on her for once and for all. But I couldn't quite do it. Couldn't give her what she'd had coming for the last fifteen years.

  "Okay." That was all I could bring myself to say. "Fifteen minutes."

  "Thank you." Peg let go of my elbow and nodded. "On behalf of your father."

  "Let's just get this over with," I said, walking back toward the banquet hall, leaving The Clown buzzing in my wake.

  *****

  Chapter 3

  When I walked back through the door of the banquet hall, I was nearly run over by a pack of charging kids. Twelve of them, to be exact--my twelve little nieces and nephews, otherwise known as the Attention Deficit Disorder Dozen, the ADHD Dozen for short.

  That was what I called them, anyway. And believe me, the name fit like a glove. A glove that couldn't sit still for more than thirty seconds at a time.

  "Hey!" I grabbed the last one of the bunch by her upper arm and swung her around to face me. "Where's the fire, Milly?"

  Milly's bone china face was flushed from running. She panted, letting out puffs of breath that sent her jet black bangs fluttering. "They're gonna tell us any minute! The big surprise, Auntie Lottie!" Like the rest of the ADHD Dozen, she wasn't a day over eight. She was the oldest at seven and a half or three quarters, I couldn't remember which.

  I sighed and looked across the hall. The band had stopped playing, though Eddie Kubiak Sr. and Eddie Jr. still stood at opposite corners of the stage with accordions at the ready. Between them stood Basil Sloveski, my dad's attorney. Basil was a tan little guy in platform shoes and a sharp black suit with a gold pinstripe. His stiff pompadour was the subject of the worst ongoing dye job in history; his hair was so perfectly, light-suckingly black, it looked like he'd been dipped upside-down in a tub of tar.

  "What's it gonna be, Auntie Lottie?" Milly wriggled in my grasp, overcome with excitement. "What do you think?"

  There were lots of possibilities, but I didn't bother running through them. "I guess we'll find out soon, honey." With that, I let go of Milly's arm, and she shot away from me into the crowd like a bottle rocket in a black dress and stocking feet.

  Just then, I heard Polish Peg clear her throat behind me. "They're waiting for us, Lottie."

  For a moment, I'd forgotten she was back there. Turning, I slipped her a scowl. "Waiting for us to do what?"

  "Get up there." Peg stepped up beside me and pointed at the stage. "Lou wanted us both on stage when Basil makes his announcement."

  Already I didn't like where this was headed. "Us? On stage?"

  Peg pushed up her polka dot eyeglasses and nodded. "That's what the instructions called for. Your dad was very specific. He'd given this a lot of thought."

  "Seriously?" I shook my head. "Not gonna happen. I can hear perfectly fine from back here."

  "Lottie." Peg fixed me in her fly-eyed gaze. "Please just do this. For your father. Just get it over with."

  I was about to put my foot down for good when I heard my ex-boyfriend Eddie Jr.'s voice over the P.A. system. "There they are! In the back!"

  Next came Eddie Sr.'s gravelly bass voice. "Let's hear it for Polish Peg and Lottie, everyone!" He reeled off some notes on his accordion. "Get on up here, girls! We'll play your fanfare!"

  With that, both Eddies launched into a number, an accordion duet that sounded like a riff from "The Beer Barrel Polka." All eyes in the room turned on us, and the crowd exploded with applause.

  Peg gave me a look that said it all. And I knew she was right; I didn't have a choice anymore.

  Taking a deep breath, I gathered myself up and managed a weak smile. It would have to be enough, because I didn't feel like smiling even that much.

  I looked at Peg and waved for her to go first. She was the celebrity, after all; she'd been co-hosting a radio show with Lou for thirteen years now, co-managing his band, and co-organizing the annual Polkapourri festival. People were crazy about her in New Krakow...people who weren't in my family, that is. She was practically royalty.

  People beamed and applauded as they opened a path to the stage. Peg waved as she passed, walking with her peculiar bandy-legged, boyish swagger.

  I followed, wishing with all my heart that I was somewhere else. Wishing that this day, this month, this year had never happened. Things had been going so well for so long, and now here I was, back in the town I'd worked so hard to get away from, at my dead father's wake.

  And I had to go up on stage with Polish Peg for God knew what surprise, when all I wanted to do was find a dark motel room and a carton of cigarettes and cry like a baby for a week.

  When I caught sight of my mother near the stage, I knew she was on the same wavelength. My stomach ached just to see the look on her face; I wanted to put my arms around her at that instant and not let go.

  Though Lou had left her fifteen years ago for a younger woman, Mom was still deeply shaken by his death. She looked as shell-shocked as she'd been the day he'd walked away from her. She looked utterly and completely lost.

  I held her gaze for a
moment as I walked past. As crazy as she made me sometimes--especially tag-teaming with my grandmother, Baba Tereska--I still loved her with all my heart. I hated to see her upset like that.

  I hated my dad a little, too, for not thinking of her when he planned this polka party nonsense. For not thinking of any of us who just needed to grieve without being part of a spectacle. As usual, he hadn't been able to resist playing the showman.

  It was something he had in common with Eddie Kubiak, Sr. As Peg and I drew up to the edge of the stage, Eddie Sr. cranked out a blistering accordion riff, rocking back and forth with furious intensity. When he'd finished, he flung his arms in the air and shouted over the roaring crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen! Panie i panowie! Let's hear it for the one and only Polish Peg Bohachik and Lottie Kachowski!"

  Eddie Sr. took Peg's hand and pulled her up onto the stage. Eddie Jr. did the same for me, which was the first time we'd touched in twelve years. He let go and looked away as soon as both of my feet were on the stage.

  "And now the moment you've all been waiting for!" Eddie Sr. threw his arm around Peg's shoulders and pumped his fist in the air. "It's time to experience the last big secret surprise of the late, great Polish Lou!"

  *****

  Chapter 4

  As I looked out over the crowd in the banquet hall, the Furies glared back at me in disgust. There were three of them, all dressed in black, all with raven black hair, and they were my sisters.

  Bonnie, the oldest and tallest, stood in the middle. Her brown eyes framed a big, angular nose that gave her the look of a hawk. Her hair was long, draped over her shoulders, but not nearly as long as mine.

  Charlie stood at her side. She was shorter and rounder than any of us, with plump cheeks and dark blue eyes. Her hair was cut in a kind of dowdy helmet 'do that made her look older than she was, older than any of us.