Motherhood Is Murder

by Carolyn Hart

  Edith Cummings, the research librarian, surged from behind the Information Desk. Ebony hair framed a sardonic face with dark—and at this moment, intensely curious—eyes. “Laurel, I’ve got the goods. Come on up to my office.” She led the way up the stairs to the second floor and a door midway down the hall, chattering all the while. “I didn’t have a chance to scope it out until this morning. Three meetings yesterday afternoon and the question of the hour is: shall the library provide an adults-only computer room? Of course you know why.” She unlocked the door, stood aside for Laurel to enter. “I swear, I’m all for freedom of speech—and sight—but do we need to make pornography available to old Mr. Gouge in the main reading room, right in front of God and all the little kids?” She strode to her desk, shuffled through a stack of papers. “Howsoever, the board can’t agree and there are impassioned calls and notes and e-mails and I think I may put in for my vacation time until they get it settled. But I don’t know that I have a year of leave stored up so I guess I’ll remain in the trenches with the bullets flying overhead.” She pulled out several printouts. Then she frowned. “Laurel, I know I am here but to serve and it’s poor form to ask patrons why they’ve requested information. But,” her tone was serious as she waggled the sheets, “here’s the scoop from the FBI National Stolen Art File and what in the hell are you up to?”

  Laurel edged her convertible deep beneath the dangling fronds of the weeping willows at the back of the Sea Side Inn parking lot. It would take a close inspection for anyone to spot the car, despite the glossy wax job on its bright yellow paint. She had no doubt that Max and Annie were racketing around the island in search of her. There were two messages on her cell phone. She’d not bothered to pick up the messages on her home phone. Dear Max. How lovely of him to be concerned. It was unlike him to be such a worrier. And Annie…such an impassioned appeal that Laurel get in touch as soon as possible. Dear child. As if Laurel were lost in a remote region, at the mercy of ravening wolves. Of course, she would call Annie and Max as soon as she’d finished this little project. She’d considered leaving her information on the Crime Stoppers hotline, but time was fleeting and if she were adroit, a direct approach might be all for the best. But perhaps it might be wise to arrange for back-up. That was SOP in sophisticated thrillers. Annie would approve.

  Laurel plucked her cell phone from her purse, punched in the number of the Broward’s Rock police. Billy’s wife Mavis worked in the office and Laurel recognized her voice.

  “Mavis, this is Laurel Roethke. Is Billy in?” Laurel glanced at the sheaf of printouts.

  In a moment, Billy’s wary voice edged over the line. “Mrs. Roethke?”

  “Billy.” Laurel was accustomed to instant meltdown when men heard their names spoken in her husky voice.

  The heavy silence on Billy’s end gave no intimation of meltdown.

  Laurel scarcely paused. There wasn’t time to be discouraged. “Billy,” and now she was brisk, “isn’t it true that the police often depend upon the receipt of information without knowledge of its provenance?”

  Now his silence was blank.

  “Tips. Confidential sources.” She cleared her throat. “In any event, as a private citizen who has happened upon information that might be useful in an investigation but who is unable to reveal how the information was obtained—”

  “Mrs. Roethke—” He was gruff.

  There was a pause. Laurel clearly heard the sound of a deep breath. She nodded approvingly. As she had always suggested to her husbands when an explosion was imminent, “Count to ten.” The advice was given in sequence, of course, as she was wed to each individually, but the advice was appropriate for all. Perhaps Mavis also utilized this ploy.

  Another deep breath. “What have you got?” The words came slowly, his effort at control evident.

  “Now I urge you not to be concerned about how I came to have this information.” It would be most unfortunate if Billy ramped about, convinced there was a leak from his office. “I hope you will agree that the source is irrelevant. What matters is—”

  “Mrs. Roethke. I’ve got work to do.” His voice was as hard as an oyster shell. “I’m ready to get an arrest warrant for Hu—for the chief suspect. I don’t have time to talk about police procedure. So—”

  Laurel’s hand tightened on the cell phone. She sensed the conversation might be abruptly terminated. “The matchbook,” she said crisply. “I know what the matchbook means. Each date and city corresponds to the theft of a valuable painting. I’ve got the FBI printouts right here. Don’t you see, Jay Hammond recognized a missing artwork and he must have tried blackmail.”

  “Matchbook?”

  In that one word, Laurel heard puzzlement, irritation, aggravation, and a total lack of cognizance. Which meant her deduction—based upon Ginger and Jay’s quarrel last night on the porch at Raffles, the decor of the bar, the crumpled moving pad lying in the back of Hammond’s van yesterday morning, the results of Edith’s research—was confirmed beyond doubt. Only one person could have removed the matchbook, the first person to reach the van after the horn began to beep. And that person was…

  “Oh Billy, that proves he’s guilty. The murderer is—”

  A hand clapped harshly over her mouth. The phone was yanked away, the call ended, the case flung in a high arc into the Dumpster. She twisted to look into the cold, implacable gaze of Sean Ripley. Gentleman thief. She should have known his word could not be trusted when Annie said that he claimed ignorance of the daring two-story man. Raffles was indeed how Ripley saw himself. Laurel knew him for an impostor. A. J. Raffles, courageous, coolheaded, sporting, loyal. Sean Ripley, vainglorious, cocky, duplicitous, greedy—and dangerous.

  Max hunched over the wheel. “Damn tourists. Clog the roads. Why don’t they go to the beach? Why don’t they go home? Oh damn, I don’t know where to go anyway. She could be anywhere.”

  “We know she’s in her car.” Annie braced against the glove compartment as Max gunned around an SUV, then swerved back into his lane only to be stuck behind a silver Lexus that slowed at each intersection for the driver to peer uncertainly at the road signs.

  Annie leaned back in the seat, pressed her fingertips against her temples. “Okay, okay. Yesterday she hid her car by the Dumpster at the Sea Side Inn, but we couldn’t find her. Remember—” she glanced toward Max’s grim face “—I looked for her everywhere. I knew something was screwy even before they found Jay Hammond’s body next door. But Laurel was seen by a maid talking to the guy who was going to get murdered. Her car was hidden…” Annie abruptly pointed toward the north end of the island. “Max, let’s go there.”

  His head jerked toward her. “There. Where?”

  “The Sea Side Inn.” One body was found steps from where Laurel had parked. A second was found in the inn. That had to be the epicenter. And if it wasn’t…if there were no trace of Laurel…Annie felt a lurch deep within. Laurel, flaky, fey and indescribably dear, was she all right?

  As Laurel and Ripley walked toward the path, he pressed the gun barrel hard against her side. “I saw that cop leave your house. But you hadn’t told him about me, had you?”

  Laurel knew her interrupted conversation with Billy on the cell phone was all the answer her captor needed. It would do no good to claim that Billy knew all about him. “You saw Billy?” Laurel gave a quick sideways glance.

  Ripley glared at her with hot, angry eyes. “Yeah. I came to your house. The minute I read in the paper about a blonde in a peach outfit, I knew it was you. And I wondered if you saw me yesterday. At the inn. I was going to make sure you kept your mouth shut but when I came around to the back of your place, Ginger McIntosh was there. Then you came out with her but you got in your car before I could catch you.”

  “You followed me.” Her tone was musing. And she’d been on her way to Raffles to confront him when she’d decided to call Billy. If only she’d called Billy sooner…

  “Yeah.” Ripley’s answer was soft, satisfied, threatening. Laure
l remembered a safari to Africa and a sleek leopard, eyes glowing, muscles rippling, padding through tall grass toward an unsuspecting gazelle. She recalled most vividly the glowing eyes and the big cat’s excitement and eagerness. The man beside her exuded the same sense of danger and alertness.

  It was this edgy sense of danger—for others as well as for herself—that kept her silent as they passed a vacationing family, a dark-eyed toddler chirping a song and the slouching teenage brother demanding, “Mom, make him shut up!”

  Then they plunged into the darkness of the pines.

  The pressure of the gun eased. “Keep up the good work. No funny looks at anybody. No calls for help. You’d be dead before you finished a shout. So would anybody who saw us. We don’t have far to go.”

  Laurel nodded. She wondered just how short her path—and future—might be. It was most unlikely that anyone would take notice of her desperate effort to leave behind a hint of her fate.

  The Maserati squealed into the parking lot of the Sea Side Inn.

  Annie peered through the glass. “There it is.” She gave a glad shout.

  The Maserati jolted to a stop behind the willow tree.

  They slammed out of the car, pushed aside the dangling limbs of the willow, and stared at Laurel’s empty yellow convertible.

  “Ma? Ma?” Max’s shout rang hollow, muffled by the pines and live oaks and willows.

  Annie peered over the driver’s side. “The keys are here.” She hadn’t wanted her voice to sound like a dirge, but it drooped under the weight of the words. She was turning away when she saw the bright glitter of a silver matchbook on the floor of the car, near the brake pedal. Annie frowned. Laurel didn’t smoke. She never carried matches. Why would she?

  Annie opened the door, retrieved the matchbook, held it up. Raffles—No Place Like Home. “Max, look at this!”

  Somewhere nearby there was a faint but unmistakable trill, that irritating, not to be avoided, accompaniment of modern life. Deadened, scarcely audible, but persistent. The ringing continued.

  Max turned, stared at the Dumpster, broke into a short run. He clambered up the side, bent over the edge. With a yelp, he leaned far over, teetering on the edge, then jerked upright, one hand held high. “Ma’s phone. By God, it’s her phone.”

  The ringing began again.

  Max jumped to the ground, a banana peel sticking to one arm. He punched on the cell phone.

  “Mrs. Roethke…”

  Max shouted, “Billy, it’s me. We just found mother’s phone in the Dumpster here at the inn—and her car with the keys in it. We can’t find her.”

  “Oh, Christ.” And Billy talked. Fast.

  Laurel tried to concentrate upon the bright side. Sides. After all, she was still alive, though Sean Ripley’s sardonic “You’re my insurance policy. Right now”—had had a rather temporary sound to it. And the cord around her wrists and ankles, though tight, was not painful. And the gag had worked loose enough that she no longer feared she might strangle, though she still was unable to make noise sufficient to be heard outside the body of the van. But it took a definite effort of will to persuade herself that the heavy moving pad in which she was rolled tight as a sausage in a casing really wasn’t any hotter or more uncomfortable than a body wrap at that terribly expensive spa in Mexico. And of course she was uncomfortably wedged between the van wall and a stack of pad-wrapped rectangles which she deduced—wouldn’t Annie be proud?—were the stolen paintings. It could be worse. But as the van bumped along, she wondered if it soon wouldn’t be.

  The Maserati quivered at the street exit from the inn like a thoroughbred awaiting the bell, but Annie held tight to Max’s arm. “Hold up. We ought to wait for Billy—”

  “By God, there he goes.” Max gunned the motor.

  Annie’s head jerked toward Bay Street. “Who?”

  “That guy. Ripley.” The Maserati jolted into Bay Street, right behind the van. “I saw him. And we know Ma’s been here. Billy will look everywhere around the inn, but from what she told Billy, the murderer must be Ripley. He’s the one who found the body. Billy’s sure that’s who Ma was going to name, and then the phone went dead.”

  The van turned toward town, the Maserati in pursuit.

  “He’s heading for the ferry.” Max’s face was set and hard. “Okay, Annie, Ripley doesn’t know us. We’ve never spent any time at his place. Here’s what we’ll do…”

  During the late spring months, the ferry crossings increased, leaving on the hour, returning on the half hour. It was ten minutes before eleven and the cars were lining up. The van took its place in line.

  The Maserati nosed up behind the van, then Max pressed on the accelerator and the car rammed the van from the back, just hard enough to dent the back door.

  Max braked, stopped, flung open the door. He was out of the car, staring at the damage to the van.

  Annie slipped from the passenger seat, ran lightly to the trunk, lifted it, grabbed the tire tool. Holding it low so that it was hidden by the body of Maserati, she edged toward the van.

  Max stood near the driver’s door on the van, looking up. “Sorry about this. Took my eyes off the road. Guess we’d better call the police—” a rueful head shake “—looks like we’re fouling up the ferry line.”

  Ripley’s voice grated. “I’ve got an appointment in Savannah. If you’ll give me your card, I’ll be in touch.”

  Max frowned. “I doubt my insurance company would like that. It isn’t as though—”

  There was a sudden harsh clang against the far side of the van.

  Ripley’s head jerked around.

  Max stepped back. “You got somebody inside there? Lord, I hope no one’s hurt. Maybe we’d better see what’s what.”

  Ripley looked around. The van was trapped in the line. A half street away a siren shrilled. He clambered over the passenger seat, flung open the door. He was pulling a gun from his pocket when Annie whammed his arm with the tire tool. Max dove around the side of the van to pin him to the ground.

  A grave-faced little girl in a white dimity dress—Freddie Whipple’s seven-year-old granddaughter, Amanda—gave a red rose to every woman entering the verandah on the second floor of the inn. The Mother’s Day brunch was in full swing. The high, sweet chatter of excited women was buoyed by the deeper rumbles of male companions. Children’s giggles made a sweet counterpart to boisterous adult laughter.

  At the Darling table, the women were lovely, the men somewhat bemused, the children tussling, teasing, and surreptitiously eating dessert first, the double chocolate mousse a decided favorite.

  At the head of the table, Laurel was spectacular in a jade green silk shantung sheath, her hair smooth and bright as gold, her blue eyes merry—and tender.

  “A toast to Mother!” Deirdre rose, held the champagne flute high. “Mother, it’s grand being here. And all of us love our presents.” She glanced toward her sister-in-law and grinned. “Annie brought them to our rooms here at the inn instead of mailing them. But most of all, we love you!”

  There was a cheer. “Speech, speech!”

  Laurel rose. For once, there were no words. She lifted her fingers to her lips, waved kisses to all of them, used a lace handkerchief to dab at suddenly moist eyes.

  Ed grabbed the videocam from the table. “Let’s get a good picture of all of us before we have dessert.” He bustled about, organizing the group shot, but lost control when Gail’s twin five-year-old sons were apprehended getting ready to slide down the banisters to the lobby.

  Laurel looked across the verandah, filled with table after table of family groups. Her gaze stopped at the table near the ice sculpture of a pelican. Oh, how wonderful. She murmured to Jen, “I’ll be right back. And I think Foster—” Jen’s seven-year-old “—is throwing strawberries at his cousin Diane.”

  Laurel hurried across the floor, leaving the hubbub behind. Max’s voice rose, “Now Jen, he’s got a good aim…”

  Laurel reached Ginger McIntosh’s table. Hugh Carlyle, a sm
ear of yam on his chin, pushed back his chair.

  Laurel shook her head, “Please, don’t get up. I just wanted to wish Ginger and Mimi a happy Mother’s Day—” she beamed at the curly haired little boy in the high chair “—and meet Teddy’s grandparents.”

  Ginger’s thin face flushed with happiness. “Oh Laurel, this is Mr. and Mrs. McIntosh and we are so glad they’re here.”

  Tall, lean, and grave, Mr. McIntosh’s severe face was transformed by a warm smile. Plump, white-haired Mrs. McIntosh, her blue eyes glowing, pointed at Teddy. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

  “Oh yes.” Laurel bent toward the high chair, brushed back a reddish curl. “Our dear children. What would we do without them?”

  As Laurel said good-bye and turned away, Mimi slipped from her chair and caught up with her friend. She gripped Laurel’s hand, whispered, “If it hadn’t been for you…”

  “Oh, my dear, I was glad to help.” So many memories of scrapes and difficulties and problems fluttered in her mind. “Mothers must do—” Laurel’s smile was dazzling “—what mothers must do.”

  The Proof Is in the Patch

  Jane Isenberg

  To: Menopausesupportgroup@powersurge.com

  From: Bbarrett@circle.com

  Re: Estrogen, poison or panacea?

  Date: 5/13/02 14:04:44

  Help!

  Ever since I began to measure my life in hot flashes, I’ve been plastering an estrogen patch on my fanny to “stay cool,” as my students would put it. Even though I’m at risk for breast cancer, my doctor said that because I’m also at risk for stroke and osteoporosis, I was a good candidate for hormone replacement therapy with careful monitoring. She assured me then that estrogen was the panacea for heart disease, Alzheimer’s, depression, urinary incontinence, and osteoporosis. So I put on the patch and stopped sweating through my classes and my clothes. I have annual mammograms and have practically probed holes in my boobs checking for lumps.

  But this morning I read an article in the newspaper saying that there’s no scientific evidence that estrogen really will protect me from strokes, dementia, diapers, or broken bones. In fact, it may even increase my risk of stroke—and, of course, breast cancer. But if I give up my patch, am I going to resume sweating, sprout facial hair, lose my libido, and pee every time I laugh, or, God forbid, sneeze? Do I have to part with my patch?