Free The Last Annual Slugfest by Susan Dunlap

land,” Rosa said. It was like Rosa to think too well of anyone she knew to imagine them a murderer, even if that meant narrowing the alternatives to Chris. But in this case she was right: Leila was a friend of mine and I didn’t think she had killed her aunt—at least I didn’t want to think it. I said, “Tell me about Leila. What was she like growing up?”
    Rosa lifted her coffee cup to her mouth and sipped thoughtfully. “Leila was always different from the other girls. She dressed different. She seemed distant, controlled, like someone from the city. You know what I mean, Vejay,” Rosa said awkwardly.
    I smiled. “I lived in the city long enough to know. You mean Leila wasn’t as friendly, as open as kids here.”
    Rosa nodded, clearly relieved that I hadn’t discovered an unintended affront in her comment. “Leila’s mother, Margaret, was in a wheelchair. Her father died quite young, and in any case, he never lived here. He wasn’t Catholic. Edwina never could accept that, that her sister could have married outside the Church. I suspect that’s one reason why they didn’t live here when he was alive. But when he died, Margaret and Leila came back and moved in with Edwina. Leila must have been eight or nine then. Edwina kept close tabs on her. She insisted Leila go to every class or discussion or potluck dinner that they had at St. Agnes’s. I guess she was worried about Leila’s soul. But that was too much for a child. Even Father Calloway told Edwina that. And Edwina was so piqued at him that she went to Mass at St. Elizabeth’s in Guerneville for the next month.”
    “And after Leila turned eighteen,” Chris said, “she never set foot in St. Agnes’s again.”
    “Hardly surprising,” I said.
    “But you know, Vejay,” Rosa said, “I don’t think Leila ever really forgave Edwina, not so much for pushing the Church, but for how she thought of Leila’s father.”
    “Anti-Semitic?”
    Rosa took another sip of coffee. “I don’t think that’s exactly it,” she said slowly. “With Edwina, it probably wouldn’t have been much better if Raymond Katz had been a Baptist. You see, Edwina just felt that there were certain things the Henderson family should do. Marrying within the Church was one of them.”
    But clearly it would have made some difference, and to the daughter who missed him, that “some difference” would have been gigantic.
    “That wasn’t the only thing,” Chris said. “Edwina was always stalking down to the school. She cornered Mr. Granger, the band director, and didn’t let him go until he agreed that Leila could play the trombone. And she badgered Miss Hitchcock until Leila got a special place in swim class. I don’t even know if Leila wanted to do those things before Edwina got in gear, but she sure didn’t afterwards. The other kids were pissed about her getting special treatment, and they made jokes about Edwina. And Leila, well, she was just caught in the middle.”
    “She never really had friends then, did she, Chris?” Rosa said.
    “No. I did take her to a dance one summer—Mama sort of pushed me into it, but I didn’t mind. Or at least I didn’t till I got to Edwina’s house to pick her up. Edwina must have kept me in the living room for half an hour, pumping me. She just kept on and on, and there’s not much about our family that’s a secret. Leila was so embarrassed she didn’t do anything but apologize until the dance was half over.”
    “You know, Vejay,” Rosa said, “I’ll bet it’s things like that that made Leila turn to women. She kept to herself all the time. Her only real friend was Angelina, and she was her babysitter.”
    “But it wasn’t like Leila was strange or anything,” Chris said quickly. “It was more like she didn’t want to expose anyone else to Edwina.”
    I took a drink of my own coffee. We were all friends of Leila’s, all sympathetic to her adolescent sufferings, all trying to put the best face on our