The Backhanded Blessing: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Thank you for your blessings. May the milk of human kindness never curdle.

“Neither an especially profound expression of gratitude, nor a particularly lavish gift,” Saanvi observed, turning the silver vessel in her fingers. “A puja kalash, but probably not a pricey one.”

“Looks like silver-plated stainless steel,“ Wei Zhao told Professor Deshpande. The University’s youngest tenured professor remained standing, her chairman presumed out of wholly unnecessary deference. “The engraving’s why I brought it to you.”

“I’m relieved,” Professor Deshpande said, swiveling toward her anxious protégé’. At least that was how the director of Asian Art Studies seemed to view her even after gallons of coffee, liters of merlot and chardonnay, and metric tons of pizza and pad thai with the tightly knit Arts Department faculty. “The note possesses a faintly ominous tone.”

“It should,” Wei said quietly. “Considering it belonged to a dead woman.”

Saanvi leaned forward slightly, then withdrew contritely. “Someone is haunting the estate sales again.”

“Ever since Will found that 1858 copy of Kirby and Spence’s Entomology at an auction in Colfax, he’s been dragging me to dead people’s houses every weekend.” 

“This woman. I assume she was of Indian descent?”

“Grace Schoen’s husband was a minister, did a lot of missionary work, and after she inherited from her dad or something, she traveled all over the place. Accumulated a ton of art, household items, furnishings from Asia, South America, Africa – mostly vintage, a few undervalued pieces I’m planning to add to the department collection. This one actually caught my eye because it was so recent and cheap. Look inside.”

Saanvi peered into the three-inch vessel, roughly the size and same basic function of a creamer pitcher at a retro IHOP. “Tarnished, corroded. You can see the metal where the silver’s been eaten away.”

“But the engraving is fresh, crisp, sharp edges.”

“And not a jeweler or professional engraver’s work, either,” Professor Deshpande murmured. She glanced up, quizzically. “Do we still have a Things Recollected at the Mall of the Dead?”

Four of five of the Beltway’s major mall anchors had heaved their last more than a decade before, leaving a Kohl’s that resembled a Turkish bazaar for Midwest moms, an Old Navy near the phantom Food Court, a Hallmark Store that continued to survive on the benevolence of the banal masses, the town’s holdout Gloria Jean’s Coffee, and a half-dozen adolescent piercing-and-bauble boutiques. And the Kiosk That Forgot to Die, where useless knick-knacks and Coolidge-era letter openers got engraved as an afterthought gift.

“Down from the old Spencer’s Gifts. That was my guess, too. The style and tooling matched the cheesy hope chest my aunt gave me before she gave up hope after I brought a bug doctor to New Year’s.”

“She shall rue the day,” Saanvi vowed. “Is the mall Cinnabon still functioning?”

**

“I’ve had like five customers over the four years I been working here,” “Cece” stated blankly. “All I know, they shut us down three years ago, or somebody just forgot we were still and some AI robot just keeps cranking out our checks. I think maybe three out of five of the customers I’ve had had gift cards, which, I mean, what a shitty gift, right?”

“I’ve seen worse,” Wei empathized, inspecting the aging array of jewelry boxes, holographic glass paperweights, aforementioned letter openers, and lockets that might have made Flava Flav hang his head out of more than mere cervical pressure.

“Sorry,” the clerk mumbled. “I mean, they couldn’t move us over by the Aunt Anne’s Pretzels or even the Sunglass Shack?” Which, incidentally, had commandeered Cinnabon’s space, to Professor Deshpande’s resigned chagrin. “There used to be a Cheryl’s Cookies right over there – it’s all that kept me sane for a while.”

Wei stepped off slightly at the implication, nibbling at a cinnamon pretzel knot. “This would have been somebody who bought their own thing to engrave.” She scrounged in her bag. “This, actually.”

Cece examined the kalash in the flickering overheads as Saanvi glanced off at the distant glow of the surviving Kohl’s. The saleswoman blew the dust from a magnifying lens, and scrutinized the message on its base. “This is creepy as fuck,” she murmured. “I’da remembered this shit. It’s got like a really stalker-y vibe, right? Like it isn’t bad enough down here. You know, every once in a while, I like see somebody or more like something in the old GameStop. Like the ghost of some geek got trapped when Corporate shut ‘em down.”

“I saw Old Navy was looking for someone,” Wei offered, compassionately.

“When I get paid to do jack shit every day?” Cece frowned.

**

Fortunately, the Starbucks at the edge of the deserted Sears lot continued to thrive, as did the Starbucks across the Beltway and, presumably, the Barnes and Noble Starbucks behind it. Saanvi carved delicately at her cinnamon roll as Wei savored her last mall nugget under the admonitory eye of the managing barista, Googling with one hand.

“God, I think she was right,” the young professor finally breathed, looking up. “Things Recollected went totally online last fall. You think they honestly forgot her?”

“Locked eternally in a purgatory of sustainable apathy and orphaned tchotchkes,” Saanvi mused. “So, unless there are other surviving Things Recollecteds out there, Mrs. Rev. Schoen received her kalash at least 10 months ago. Did you check her obituary?”

Wei swirled her frothy pomegranate/dragonfruit elixir. “Basic death notice in the paper – they charge an obscene per-word rate for a full obit these days. But the funeral home has a memorial listing with comments from friends and family. She died Dec. 12 of pulmonary failure. Three surviving children, so my guess would be everything was in probate for months before the sale.”

“Were there any memorial requests? Lung disease, COPD, that sort of thing? Things that may suggest her death could have been anticipated – that it was indeed natural causes?”

“Nothing like that. But I can’t imagine who might have killed her, if that’s the case. To read the -- what would you call them, eulogies? – you’d think she was a saint.” 

“And beyond Sir Tom Hanks, do we actually know any?” Saanvi posed. “Let’s switch tracks for a moment. What is the primary function of the puja kalash?”

Wei straightened in her chair, as if for a doctoral dissertation. “Ceremonial. Chiefly, the Hindu Griha Pravesh Puja ritual performed before moving into a new home. I believe the kalash holds water or milk representing purity. The milk of—”

“Yes,” Professor Deshpande nodded. “The Griha Pravesh Puja marks the beginning of a new chapter in one’s life and seeks blessings for a harmonious and prosperous living environment. During the puja, various rituals are performed, including the Ganesh Puja, invoking Lord Ganesha for auspicious beginnings and removal of obstacles; the Navagraha Puja to appease the planets and ensure their positive influence; the Vastu Puja, seeking blessings from the deity of directions Vastu Purush for harmony; and the Havan, a sacred fire ritual to purify the house and its energies.”

“So somehow, this whole thing may be tied to a Hindu housewarming party? Mrs. Schoen did travel extensively – you think she took part in a Griha Pravesh Puja, maybe in India?”

“The inscription is one of direct gratitude, if with a sardonic note. I believe Mrs. Schoen herself may have hosted the housewarming ritual.”

“A minister’s wife?”

“A minister’s widow, perhaps jaded by Protestant ritual and opened to new cultures and ideas. Perhaps the recipient was Hindu or simply Indian or Indian-American. Might you bring up the Schoen obituary again? Do any West Asian names pop up among the memorial comments?”

Wei scanned the small print on her iPhone screen. “Not obviously… But wait. The survivors, as I said before, include three children. A Dennis Raymond Schoen, Millington; Emily Teresa Wainright, Sacramento, California; and a Charlotte Catherine Schoen, no address given. And there are four grandchildren: Kris, Marlys, Grant, and, hold on – Ajay. A-J-A-Y.”

“Hold on, indeed,” Saanvi smiled.

**

“Yeah, I thought it was kind of freaky – don’t get me wrong,” Dennis Schoen backpedaled, but Professor Deshpande waved it away. “But Mom thought it would be, you know, special. I was the first of the three to buy my own home, and she wanted to do it up big and, well, different. I’d been thinking maybe just a cookout, but she was taken with this Griha thing she’d seen in New Delhi. She got incense and this burning powder at that Indian market over on Lincoln – she already had the, you know, the gear?”

“The kalash, the thalis, the katoris?”

“You say so,” the fortysomething executive grinned crookedly at Wei. He’d directed most of his words to Saanvi and his Midwest charm to Wei, who now studied the Beltway 12 floors below, now filling with escapees from the lower 11 floors. Schoen turned awkwardly back to her mentor. “The cups and dishes and stuff? Yeah, it was a thing.” He grew suddenly silent, and looked at the framed photos on his desk.

“Mr. Schoen?” Saanvi prompted. “Are you all right?”

The grin returned. “Yeah, just thinking. After all that, the place burned down. I mean, in January. My sister got married there, Marlys has grown up there. Nessa – my wife – she’d just finished a new kitchen. We’re looking at the contractor, in fact – there’ve been reports of some shoddy electrical work, and we may sue his ass. Maybe recoup the cost of the new house.”

Wei looked to Saanvi, now contemplative. “I’m so sorry. No one was hurt, I presume? Good. Might I ask, around the time of this tragedy, did you receive any unusual…gifts?”

“I get a lot of gifts – my administrative assistant and sometimes Security goes through them. I mean, I’m the senior VP here – if things go an insurer’s way, they may want to express their gratitude. When it doesn’t, well, I don’t want to tell you what kind of, well, personal expressions come in the mail.”

“This would have been a plate or a small cup or bowl, probably silver, with a message or perhaps an inscription.”

Something lit behind Schoen’s expensive frames, and he jerked his head toward the hallway beyond. Wei followed Saanvi down a paneled corridor to a brushed nickel reception station. Schoen’s AA looked up expectantly from her terminal, but he instead plucked a round tray of Skittles from the counter and emptied its technicolor contents onto the granite. He extended the silver plate to Saanvi, who then passed the thali upside-down to her young colleague.

“‘Thank you for your generosity,’” Wei read. “’Home is where the heart is.’”

“Do you have a second child?” Saanvi inquired. “Ajay?”

“Hah?” Dennis turned. “No. Poor kid.”

**

It was a rental house – one floor, two bedrooms, a square concrete block where a porch had been deemed superfluous. There were a lot of them within a spit of the campus, most requiring annual rehab. This one was a block off the beaten, however, and the door that opened before the academics showed no sign of forced or intoxicated entry.

The boy blinked up, brown eyes shining, expression curious but unafraid. Saanvi smiled down.

“Ajay! How many times have I told you? Do not open the door when I’m in the kitchen.” A pretty young woman with matching espresso eyes and an expectant frown ignored Wei. “Yes?”

“Aditi Schoen?” Professor Deshpande inquired.

“Bwawarshi,” the mother amended frostily. “I’m in the middle of dinner…”

“And I regret the intrusion. Would your wife be home?”

“Never. And it’s not her day. Are you family? What’s she done now--?”

Aditi Bwawarshi stumbled back as Wei pulled the tarnished vessel from her purse.

“What has she done?” she demanded, clutching her son. 

**

“Charlotte?”

She looked up and laid her Stephen King text-down on the glass. Wei winced at the abuse of a good book, but pasted on a wary smile.

“Cece, please. I hate that name, always have,” the killer stated.

“Which one? Charlotte, Catherine, or Schoen?”

Cece paused, and her lips formed a tight arc. “All three, you gotta know. What?”

“When did you realize what your mom did?”

The idle engraver slumped onto her stool and stared off at the deceased carousel midpoint between the GameStop and Kohl’s. “I knew what she did two years ago. I didn’t understand it until last fall. I picked up Ajay for trick-or-treating, and Aditi and I got into it again, like we have since the separation six months ago. I guess I got pretty vicious, and Addy went in for the kill.

“Mom always acted so supportive of Addy and me, though I could see it was kinda tough for her. When she suggested we have a formal wedding instead of just the civil thing, I was surprised but hoped it meant she’d come to terms with us.”

Wei stepped to the counter and planted an elbow between a gaudy silver photo frame and a lasered Jesus suspended in an acrylic cube. “But she hadn’t.”

“All that travel, appreciation for other cultures, even other religions, and this is where she drew the line. With her own daughter.”

“You say you knew what she did two years ago. Was that when you and your partner got married? How soon was that after your mom helped christen your brother’s new house?”

“Like a week later. I think she came up with that whole ritual blessing thing thinking it would please Aditi and me. When, really, the whole extravaganza just drove home how Dennis’d always tried to upstage me and how Mom subconsciously enabled it.

“The Hindu temple wasn’t quite cool with us, and our pastor practically peed himself trying to find a nice way to tell us no on about five different counts. So when Dennis offered his place, we didn’t have much choice. In reality, everything was going great until Addy went to get a Pepsi and came back in a shitty mood. Like mega-upset. She wouldn’t tell me what was up, but Dennis said Mom had had an accident in the kitchen and Aditi freaked. I check things out, and told Addy not to cry — or bitch — over spilled milk on our wedding day. Pardon the Alanis Morissette.

“Addy never quite got back into her groove. I pushed her to adopt Ajay — guess I thought it might fix things — but she got more and more distant, except when we got into it over shit or Mom came over.”

“Where’d you get the kalash?”

“The night Addy unloaded on me — with Ajay standing right there — she got it out of a kitchen drawer and threw it at my head. She’d kept the fucking thing — didn’t even clean it! Had it in a sandwich bag, like it was evidence.”

Wei sighed. “Your ex may have kept it in the hope someday she could explain why your marriage went sour. She probably didn’t even clean it -- the lactic acid from the milk your mother ‘accidentally’ spilled before your wedding corroded the silver plating. Your mom couldn’t very well try to wrestle it from Adita in front of your brother. The puja kalash told your bride-to-be it was an intentional act. Spilling milk during a housewarming supposedly brings good luck or happiness to the homeowner. But Professor Deshpande tells me that in Hindu traditions, spilled milk on a wedding day can be seen as a harbinger of bad luck. A blessing that becomes a curse. Did you actually believe your mother had cursed your marriage?” 

“Addy did.” Charlotte’s voice echoed down the empty corridor. “Or at least she knew Mom had tried. What do they call it? A self-fulfilling prophecy? I still don’t know if it was because of the gay thing or the religious thing. Or if it was a last-minute decision, and if maybe she meant to get ‘caught’ and just wanted to plant the seed in Addy’s head. And that poisoned everything for us.”

“So you poisoned her in return?” Wei began. “Then you began to blame your brother for planting the idea in your Mom’s head, and burned his house down? Jesus. I guess you know the police can probably track the engraving on the kalash and the thali to your equipment—“

The blade materialized in a flash, ripping into the flesh between Wei’s right thumb and forefinger as the force shattered the counter and sent holographic Jesus spinning across the travertine floor. The professor slipped as she evaded the next swipe, and crunched bloodily to the stone as Charlotte cleared the counter, ripping her own calf as she charged. Wei called out as she scooted back on her ass, palm sliding on a puddle of her accumulated AB-negative. “Cece” closed the distance before her left pump collided with self-same blood and the floor knocked the wind from her.

The shock was short-lived, and as Wei scrambled to a knee, an adrenalized Charlotte bore down with a flash of silver. Then Wei Zhao’s attacker froze as a blazing light erupted to their right. A hulking figure burst through the glass doors of the former GameStop.

“THE FUCK’S GOING ON HERE?” the man with the Mikita saw in his gloved hand bellowed. Charlotte snapped out of her fugue, and calculated her odds of reaching the professor before the workman reached the remains of Things Recollected.

And Wei’s arm whipped around, spraying blood, as she gave Charlotte what Will later was to describe as “the avenging love of Jesus.” Wei dropped the paperweight, cracking a tile, as Charlotte went down for the count, and the letter opener skittered to rest under the toe of the workman’s boot.

“So, who’s going in there?” Wei asked hazily as she collapsed back onto the speckled floor.

**

“Perhaps the next time you feel like a trip to the mall,” Saanvi suggested as she handed the University’s youngest tenured professor off to her concerned entomologist, “you might consider texting me.”