Paper, Scissors, Death

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  I gave the sheets back to Ms. Smith. My face relayed my defeat. “Okay,” I managed. I sniffed hard to hold back tears.

  “Your mother’s finally being reasonable,” said Sheila to Anya. “Come along, darling.” When Anya refused to move, Sheila snapped, “Enough of this nonsense. Get in my car. We’re going home.”

  Anya’s posture stiffened. Her grandmother never used that tone of voice with her. My child’s face twisted into an angry mask. “It’s not my home. It’s your house. Not mine.”

  Sheila had gone too far.

  Anya stared at me. “Mom?” This time it was a plea.

  I had to be strong. “We’ll get this all straightened out. You’re just going to your gran’s. That’s all. It’s nothing new. Someone made a mistake. I’ll find out what’s happening and you’ll come home tomorrow.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.” My heart hurt. Tears threatened. I wanted to strike out. To wipe the smirk off Sheila’s face. Instead, I told myself to think of Anya. “Anya, honey, I don’t want you to be embarrassed in front of your friends,” and I cast a glance around us silently indicating the many students climbing into their parents’ cars. “I love you. For now it’s best you go.”

  Sheila seemed so pleased with herself. She gave my child a little push. “Get in my car, Anya, darling.”

  “Get your hands off of me,” Anya snapped. She hoisted her backpack over her shoulder. She gave her grandmother a look of pure hatred.

  Whatever Sheila had hoped to gain by this stunt, she’d lost more than she knew.

  My mother-in-law stepped back in shock. She turned to me as if asking for help.

  But I had none to give her.

  I clenched my teeth until they hurt and wanted to say, “This isn’t over, Sheila. I’ll never forgive you and neither will Anya.”

  But I remembered the last time I threatened someone.

  Roxanne’s gloating visage mocked me from a dark recess of my mind. I waited until Sheila’s car doors slammed. I waved goodbye to the Mercedes as though nothing had happened. A cold fury replaced my heartbreak. I asked Ms. Smith, “When is the assessment? Anya will want to know.”

  A sadness crept into Ms. Smith’s face as she studied me. “You can’t have any contact with your daughter. It’s all in the paperwork. Not until the hearing.”

  “When’s the hearing?”

  “Next Monday.” She handed me a thick envelope. “It’s all inside.”

  I could barely drive. I don’t know how I got home. I vaguely recall holding on to Gracie’s collar and letting her guide me through the back door. I collapsed sobbing, my head on a chair seat, my rear end on the linoleum floor. I cried and cried and cried.

  My phone rang. I pulled it from my back pocket. I was desperate to hear from my daughter and forgot for a moment that we weren’t allowed contact. “Hello?” I stuttered.

  “Kiki?”

  I sniveled into the phone. A wet, hiccupping sound, totally unintelligible.

  Mert said, “Kiki? You all right? What’s wrong?”

  I was incoherent. As much as I wanted to tell my best friend what happened, I couldn’t form sentences. I spit out, “Anya,” and “case worker” and “Sheila.” I started retching. All Mert heard was gagging noises. But that was enough.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Minutes later she barreled through the kitchen, almost tripping over Gracie as she hovered over me nervously, licking my face. I handed Mert the envelope and sank back down on the floor wailing. All the tears in the past six months flooded out of me at once. I couldn’t speak for sobbing.

  My face was wet, my throat hurt from keening noises, and I didn’t care. The depth of my sorrow pulled me so far from life, so far from the belief anything would ever be right again, that I wanted to give up. My arms ached for my child. A pressure on my chest forced me to breathe in short pants. Whatever pain Sheila had hoped to inflict, she’d succeeded.

  Mert walked me to the living room. After planting me on the sofa, she left with a “Be right back.” I fell over on my side, unable to muster the energy to sit upright. Gracie sat in front of me whining, wagging her tail in sympathy. She pawed at me, trying to comfort me—her big footpads rough and demanding.

  I didn’t respond.

  Mert brought a cold washcloth and a glass of ice water. “Drink it.”

  I did. She sat beside me, wiped my face and rocked me, while patting my back as though I were a baby.

  “Go ahead. Git it all out. You poor thing. You’ve jest had a real hard time of it, ain’t you?”

  After a while, I started to wear down. My sobs faded to dry little blurps. I fell asleep on Mert’s shoulder, exhausted.

  I awakened to a knock at the door. Mert left me to answer it. Hushed voices jockeyed back and forth.

  The back side of a cool hand brushed my cheek. “Kiki? Can we talk?”

  It was Detweiler. He reached out and pulled me to him. He smelled of spice and cologne and man. Held in the cradle of his arms, I cried into his shirt. It was as if I’d always belonged there. The soft dub-dub of his heart was a familiar metronome.

  I didn’t even care how bad my appearance was. My eyes were swollen and red. My face was chapped with tears. I looked up at him. “She took-took-Anya!” I started sobbing all over again.

  He set me back on the sofa.

  Mert offered me a glass. “Here, kiddo. Take a snort.”

  I swallowed. The liquid scalded my throat.

  “Bourbon,” said Detweiler. “From a friend in the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms division.”

  “A snort’s always good for what ails you.” Mert pressed more on me. She was on one side and Detweiler was on the other, propping me up. “We gotta powwow and get us a plan, babycakes. No way are we letting that witch keep your kid.”

  Detweiler had an idea. “Let me take the tadpoles to Anya. I have to explain how to care for them. If she puts straight tap water into the jar, they’ll die.”

  Mert added, “I’d like to put straight tap water into Sheila’s jar. She keeps it up, and there’s gonna be one more murder for you to investigate.”

  “Your mother-in-law will have to let me in.” Detweiler’s plan was a good one. Anya would know he was my emissary. Talking to him would help her feel more hopeful about the situation. His presence might also remind Sheila that I wasn’t entirely without supporters.

  “I’ll call Bonnie and ask her for advice about Family Court,” Mert said. “Maybe she can come over to Time in a Bottle tomorrow. We should talk this through. You need a plan. Sheila just can’t up and steal your kid.”

  “Actually, Anya shouldn’t be staying with her grandmother for any extended length of time.” I told them about Sheila encouraging Anya not to eat. “Even Mrs. Kammer, the school nurse, was concerned about how Anya’s weight has dropped.”

  “No! You can’t say a word about that.” Mert’s face turned bleak. “Promise you won’t.”

  “Why not?” Detweiler asked. “If I were a judge or a caseworker and I heard a grandparent was keeping a skinny kid from eating, I’d have that kid out of the house in a hot New York second. Sounds like a great idea.”

  “No! You don’t understand.” Mert wrung her hands. Her eyes were wide with fear. “You don’t get how this works. If DSS hears Sheila’s unfit to care for Anya, they’ll put her in a foster home.”

  Detweiler scratched his head. “So?”

  “Please,” Mert’s voice cracked. “You cain’t understand. Listen …” And she swallowed hard, tried to talk, and couldn’t. Now it was Mert’s turn to cry, a big tear slipping down her cheek. “She could be … foster homes aren’t always safe … and please don’t.”

  I was stunned. I’d seen my friend in every sort of situation, and never had I seen her distraught. What secret in her past caused this violent reaction? I vowed that someday I’d find out. I passed Mert the rest of my bourbon. She tipped her head back and downed the liquid in one swallow.

  Detweiler�
�s eyes turned thoughtful. “Okay. Maybe it’s best Anya stay with Mrs. Lowenstein.”

  Mert shook herself. The bourbon must have helped. “Anya won’t starve to death in a week. I’ll take her pizza and that peanut butter fudge she likes.”

  My friend’s face was pale beneath her heavy makeup. One eye began to twitch. To see strong, tough Mert reduced to such misery convinced me. Much as I’d like to take my child from Sheila just to prove to the woman she wasn’t invincible, I had Anya’s welfare to consider.

  “All right.”

  Mert continued, “We need to get letters. People have to write on your behalf. I wish we knew what Sheila went and told DSS.”

  I turned to Detweiler. “How about I ride along while you drop off the tadpoles? I’ll stay in the car. From there, we can go to Roxanne’s, if you still want. I want to look at those scrapbooks. I’m tired of living like this. If solving Roxanne’s murder gets my life back to normal, I’m on it.”

  ___

  “We had a chance to speak while her grandmother left the room to get a placemat for under the jar. Anya says Mrs. Lowenstein reported you for your visit to the county jail. If that’s the case, it should be easy enough to get your daughter back.” Detweiler reached over and took my hand. “Try not to worry too much. Family Court will get this cleared up.”

  The warmth of his flesh felt comforting. I wished I could share his optimism.

  “How did Anya look?”

  “She was pretty calm but she’d obviously been crying. You could tell she was mad as all-get-out at Mrs. Lowenstein. Your mother-in-law seemed shook up. Mrs. Lowenstein made a tactical error—and she knows it.”

  Detweiler’s phone rang. He spoke quickly, then snapped it shut. “Good news. As of five minutes ago, you have a solid alibi for the night Roxanne Baker died. The ranger station has you registering at eleven twenty-five and leaving the next morning. A convenience store worker noticed you driving away from the scrapbook store at quarter to eleven. Good thing that old Beemer is so recognizable. There’s no way you could have squeezed in a trip to the Chesterfield Mall.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. A big whoosh of air escaped my lips. “Thank goodness.”

  The evening had fallen and darkness enveloped us. As usual, St. Louis weather had swung from one end of the thermometer to the other in the snap of fingers. The temperature was cool enough to make me shiver. Detweiler let go of my hand and turned up the heat in the car.

  “Want me to stop and grab my jacket from the trunk?” His offer flooded me with emotion. Wouldn’t it be lovely to feel cherished? George had always been kind and thoughtful in a perfunctory way, but to feel you were the most important person in another person’s life, well, wouldn’t that be wonderful? I could only imagine. And I didn’t want to imagine. I didn’t want to put myself in a position where I could be hurt. Yes, Detweiler was nice to me and my child, but what did I know about the man? Nothing. And what had I to lose?

  Everything.

  I told myself it was one thing to accept his help and another to let down my guard.

  Neither of us talked on the way to Roxanne’s. I tried not to worry about my daughter, but I couldn’t help myself. Maybe this was Sheila’s misguided effort to replace George. Not that I cared.

  Right at the moment, I hated Sheila.

  Roxanne’s apartment was an expensive loft in downtown St. Louis. The parking attendant started to give Detweiler a hard time about not having a guest or resident sticker, but a flash of the badge and the man was nice as pie. The attendant buzzed a doorman and escorted us into a vestibule. A security camera with an unblinking lens like a fly’s eye recorded us. Detweiler flashed his badge again, and we moved through a set of doors like an air lock into a fancy foyer.

  The elaborate rigamarole started me thinking about the two times my—Mr. Wilson’s—little house had been violated. This is what money bought: security. I experienced a new surge of determination to get to the bottom of the buy-sell agreement with Bill Ballard. Sheila had used my brief visit to jail to her advantage. But if I’d had the kind of clout she did, I’d be working with a lawyer instead of talking to my former cleaning lady about how to get my kid back.

  A nattily uniformed concierge stepped from behind a desk to ask our business. Detweiler flashed his badge and explained we were heading to Roxanne Baker’s apartment. The dapper man shook his head, causing the gold braids on his shoulders to sway, and murmured, “A shame, such a shame.”

  Hardly, I thought. But I kept that to myself.

  The concierge made us sign in, escorted Detweiler and me to a bank of elevators, and pushed a floor button to send us on our way. Classical music accompanied us to the top of the building where doors opened quietly to a deeply carpeted hallway lit by elaborate Art Deco sconces. Obviously placed security cameras monitored every step of our journey.

  Stale air and old perfume made Roxanne’s apartment smell and feel stuffy. Detweiler rotated a glowing dial to bring up the lights, revealing that we were poised at the edge of a beautifully decorated sunken living room. He handed me a pair of latex gloves.

  “Merrilee told me Roxanne had money troubles, but this place must have cost a fortune. And these,” I walked over to examine the side tables carefully, “are either antiques or expensive reproductions.”

  I crossed the room to get a better look at a painting. “This isn’t a print. I can make out the brush strokes.” I knelt to examine the rug. “Our decorator showed us a carpet like this in a rug showroom. We’re talking serious money.”

  Detweiler spoke softly. “Do you think Mr. Lowenstein paid for all this? Her bank account shows regular income from a corporation. We’re trying to track it down.”

  “George might have. I’ve heard he took care of her.” I paused to survey the room. “But Merrilee Witherow said she and other friends loaned Roxanne money. Maybe she didn’t pay them back. That could be a motive for killing her. Frustration.”

  Detweiler said, “This place is paid up through next month. Since your husband’s been dead for more than six months, Ms. Baker must have had another source of income. We’ve been working on what that might have been. None of the answers are very … pretty.”

  “Merrilee Witherow told me Roxanne’d taken up with another married man. But she didn’t have a name. Roxanne kept his identity a secret.”

  We followed a wide hallway into a spare bedroom. A walnut sleigh bed against one wall doubled as a seating area, making the room perfect for company, but leaving enough space for a wide armoire nestled between two large built-in shelf units. When opened, the armoire revealed a scrapbooker’s dream workspace.

  “Wow,” I said. “I’ve seen these in magazines, but never in real life. This is one fancy piece of furniture.” I flipped through paper supplies in horizontal shelves. “All of this is new. Purchased this season.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Manufacturers bring out new designs on a regular basis. I recognize these patterns and colors. None of this is more than six months old.”

  The bookshelves were extra-deep. “This was custom built. Twelve-by-twelve albums require more space than regular bookcases. Notice how these fit perfectly? She must have ninety albums here. This must have cost a fortune.”

  I pulled an album from the top shelf. The legend on the spine dated twenty years ago. Sure enough, Roxanne and a pimply faced George mugged for an unseen camera person. I flipped through the pages quickly. A dull ache began in my throat. Whatever else I might think about these two, it was patently clear they’d loved each other for years before I stumbled onto the scene. Roxanne’s journaling was skimpy, as is often the case, but her words testified to how important George was to her.

  I almost felt sorry for Roxanne. Almost.

  Detweiler sat next to me on the edge of the sleigh bed. To the sound of a clock ticking in the next room, we went through every album page by page. I didn’t expect them to tell me anything new. I simply wanted a feel for the woman and her
life. Her friends had been right; she’d been addicted to scrapbooking.

  Near the bottom of the shelves, I found an album labeled “All About Me.”

  “This should answer a lot of questions,” I said. “When scrapbooking started, we focused on our families. Recently we’ve realized we need to tell our own stories. This will be an illustrated autobiography.”

  I flipped to the title page. Roxanne had capitalized each first letter of her full name: O-pal R-oxanne B-aker.

  “Well, that’s one question answered. My husband supported her. He’s been writing checks to ‘orb’ every month for years.” I pointed to each letter of her name in turn: O-R-B.

  Detweiler nodded. “I’ll check out her bank statements, but I think you’re right. Sorry.”

  “Here I worried he was being blackmailed. After that stunt with borrowing money from Dimont, I didn’t know what to think. But this … this is pretty clear.”

  I pulled the most recent album from the bottom shelf.

  “Here we go.” I pointed to the photos of the tropical scene. “We loaded this onto Snapfish the day of the bridal shower. That means she printed out copies but left the images on her camera.”

  “That supports your theory she wanted to show the photos to someone at the shower. Unfortunately these still don’t tell us much,” said Detweiler.

  “Or do they?” I wondered. Okay, kiddo, I told myself. You know this. You’re good at this. Concentrate.

  Over the years, Roxanne’s scrapbooking style had changed. Like most of us, she started with cute layouts and quickly moved to more sophisticated pages. But I noticed another difference. Most of the layouts kept to the style she’d shown throughout her scrapbooking career: solid backgrounds with small patterned paper add-ons, sticker letter titles, pre-made embellishments, and journaling below her photos.

  And yet … there was a different feel to her recent layouts. I tried to analyze what had changed. There was a subtle shift in mood. There were no playful photos of friends, no exuberant comments rife with hyperbole. These pages weren’t about her fun-loving life. Or her wild weekends with friends. No, she hadn’t even focused on her romance with George on these final layouts.