Motherhood Is Murder

by Carolyn Hart

  Wendy had taken a seat in the front row and was waving her hand. “Yes, Wendy,” he said, stepping back as if to avoid being physically hit by my office mate’s query. Wendy could be counted on to pose the hard questions.

  “Jonas, who will monitor the Classroom-cams? And who will respond if something is amiss?” Her voice was neutral, but I could tell Wendy was amused by the proposal Jonas had outlined. I knew she was picturing RECC’s small cadre of under-trained, underpaid, unarmed, and privatized security guards going head to head with terrorists. The idea was absurd.

  “Our security personnel will receive special training in monitoring and response,” said Jonas, as if reciting a lesson. “Other questions?”

  “Yes.” Efraim Iqbal of the business department stood to speak. With curly black hair and flashing black eyes, Efraim was as confident as Jonas was tentative. His voice was deep like Sol’s and his slightly accented words were unhurried. “Are we going to revert to the anti-foreigner mentality that inspired the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II?” I was glad to hear Efraim raise that question. Now I wouldn’t have to.

  Without waiting to be recognized, Larry Loftus, a grizzled African-American Vietnam vet who taught courses in medical assisting, called out, “Get over it, Iqbal. That was then on the West Coast. This is now in north Jersey. Hello. Some of the terrorists who destroyed the Twin Towers were holed up just a few blocks from here. Talk about there-goes-the-neighborhood.” Larry’s remark evoked a titter.

  “Larry, you’re out of order,” said Wendy, not sounding amused. She and Larry had nearly come to blows on the graduation committee last year. She had not for given him for lobbying the votes to punctuate the solemn recessional with simulated firecrackers.

  “But Larry’s right, Wendy.” Regina Adobelarde didn’t raise her hand either. “Remember the sheik who orchestrated the truck bombing of the World Trade Center a few years ago? The one who ran a mosque practically around the corner?” asked the statuesque redhead who taught our wanabe pastry chefs how to make delicious confections.

  Jonas chose to ignore Regina’s unsanctioned outburst and instead recognized one of the hand raisers. “Yes, Harold.” Again Jonas stepped back. Harold Eggers was a new computer science prof who had already established a reputation for speaking at great length and with great passion about very little. I wondered if Wendy would be hurt if I left early. I was too miserable to listen to my colleagues grant plausibility to another half-baked plan by debating it. Besides, I still had a whole set of portfolios to go over, and the supply of M&Ms I carried in my purse was dwindling dangerously. I planned to make my getaway while Harold was talking.

  Wendy had returned to her seat up front, so I caught her eye and looked at the door just as Harold asked, “You want to know what our real security threat is?” He posed this question in a thundering voice that jolted several dozers. Without waiting for a reply, Harold continued, “Well, I’ll tell you. It’s loss of privacy.” Wendy raised one eyebrow and nodded once, gestures that I interpreted as permission to leave without incurring her permanent enmity. Glancing at the clock, I put my pad and pen into my backpack. “How much are we willing to pay for security?” Harold asked. I stood up. But Harold had a prediction to share. “Our classrooms will no longer be sacred spaces. Big Brother and God knows who else will be watching us,” he continued.

  I made my way down the aisle to the back of the room where I hoped to approach the door without coming between Jonas and the audience. “You’ll see. It won’t be just the security guards. Anybody who knows his way around Radio Shack can intercept the video image on those things and see what’s happening in our classrooms on an ordinary PC…” I caught the last words of Harold’s paranoid rant as I eased the door shut behind me without making a sound.

  The next day, hoping for a helpful response from an estrogen-addicted age mate, I checked my e-mail. Instead there was this dire warning from Rebecca.

  To: Bbarrett@circle.com

  From: Rbarrett@uwash.edu

  Re: Bag the patch

  Date: 05/17/02 10:12:16

  Mom,

  Have you seen the new reports on hormone replacement therapy? In case you didn’t, I’ve retrieved them from the paper’s online archives and attached them. Just download them. As a reward you’ll also get the latest photo of your grandchild reading the cool book you sent her. I think it may be time for you to bag the patch (along with that Indian skirt and those macramé earrings you keep wearing) and just sweat and get old. Seriously, go talk to Dr. Bodimeind again, please. Gotta run to work now. Miss you.

  Love,

  Rebecca

  P.S. The spa gift certificate you and Sol and Grandma Sadie sent me for Mother’s Day is awesome. I’m getting a massage next week. Don’t worry, I’ll call Grandma tonight and thank her.

  One of the problems with having a daughter who is a future physical therapist is the fact that her well-intentioned rush to role reversal is often informed by data which makes her advice hard to ignore. While I was musing on my firstborn’s penchant for giving me free medical and fashion consults, I managed to save her e-mail and download the photo of Abbie J without reading the attached article ominously headlined “Estrogen: Love It and Leave It.” I would get back to it later, but just then I was running late for a late lunch.

  I’d finished my last portfolio and taught my final class of that day and so felt entitled to spend an hour over lunch with friends and colleagues Illuminada Guttierrez and Betty Ramsey. The three of us had bonded while tracking down the killer of the first woman president of RECC a few years ago, and now I needed to talk with them about Ria.

  I was thinking of the dead girl when I arrived at Villa Italia, an eatery that made up for its dim basement setting and mirrored mise-en-scène with tasty food, affordable prices, and proximity to RECC. The Villa, as we had dubbed the place, was one of our favorite retreats. My eyes began to refocus when I entered the dark, smoky bar from the street and descended the stairs leading to the restaurant door. Before I had completely adjusted to the diminished light, I walked in and began looking for Betty’s dreads and Illuminada’s black blunt cut. When I saw neither, I assumed I’d arrived first. Just then I heard Betty’s no-nonsense voice. “Bel, over here,” and sure enough, there sat my friend. But her signature dreads were gone.

  “An Afro, Betty?” I asked, incredulous at the disorienting transformation that had rendered her nearly unrecognizable at the same time that it evoked an entire bygone era. “Where’s your dashiki?” I quipped, sitting down and running my fingers through the soft black frizz now framing her wide mouth and bright eyes framed in their turn by faint lines at the corners. “When did you decide to do this?”

  “I just got tired of that whole Whoopi Goldberg look-alike thing,” Betty said. “You should have seen Woodman’s face when I walked in on Monday. I thought he was going to call security. It took me five minutes to convince him that I was me and not Angela Davis.” She chortled. As executive assistant to Ron Woodman, RECC’s president, Betty often regaled us with amusing anecdotes about bossing our boss, who was the proverbial putty in her capable and controlling hands.

  “Como mierde, chiquita!” I didn’t have to turn around to recognize Illuminada’s voice. As CEO of the private investigating firm she had started, Illuminada didn’t need to teach part-time in the criminal justice department at RECC. She did it as a way of giving something back to the system that had educated her. “Power to the people,” she said with a giggle and ran her hand through Betty’s hair, her gesture an echo of my own. We all smiled recalling the Sixties, when we were young and everything was still possible.

  Betty shook her head. “Everybody’s been doing that. I feel like a lap dog. Do they do that to you, Bel? You’ve got a Jewish Afro.” Betty’s question was a fair one, for I too had a halo of frizz, but unlike Betty’s, mine had been streaked with gray for several years.

  “Only Abbie J,” I said, grinning at the mention of my f
araway granddaughter. “She’s always playing with my hair.”

  “Well, even Woodman took a swipe at my new do,” said Betty, shaking her head again. “I forgave him though because he’s so upset.”

  “He’s not the only one,” I said, eager to talk about Ria. I inhaled deeply. “One of my best students, a really nice young woman, was strangled.”

  “Dios mio,” said Illuminada. “I’m sorry, Bel.” As a PI, Illuminada had plenty of experience with the nasty things that happen to people, but she had never become jaded.

  “I heard,” said Betty. “That’s what Woodman’s upset about. You know how he hates it whenever RECC makes the newspapers in connection with a crime. I didn’t realize she was your student though.” Betty paused to acknowledge the arrival of our waitress, who took our orders and left us with a basket of warm, crusty bread. As soon as she was out of earshot, Betty continued. “Gee, her poor folks must be suffering,” she said.

  “I’m sure they are. Can you imagine losing a kid?” Of course, my question was purely rhetorical. Betty had endured too many terrible hours when she thought she’d lost Randy on 9/11. And Illuminada doted on her rebellious daughter just as I lived to hear from both my far-flung offspring. “She was supposed to get married, too,” I added, wondering if her intended had known Ria well enough to miss her…or kill her. “You know, the day before Ria was killed, she had called and asked to see me that same evening about a personal problem, but I put her off until the following night so I could have dinner with Sol…” I left my self-recrimination unspoken.

  But my friends knew me too well. “So, chiquita, you thought that if only you’d met with her sooner, she’d have told you the problem and you would have told her how to solve it and somehow saved her life,” said Illuminada, pacing her words in a sing-song pattern calculated to ridicule my guilt.

  “Anyway, what could you have done? The cops told Woodman the girl was the victim of a break-and-enter attempt that she interrupted. She had no way of knowing it was going to happen,” Betty said with the certainty that had earned her the nickname “Ramrod Ramsey.” “She probably wanted to see you about something that had nothing to do with her murder.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said, speaking tentatively, really thinking out loud. “According to the newspaper, she was strangled at the home of the family she nannied for. The mother found her. In her essays she indicated that she spent some time alone with the dad while the mom was still in the hospital. Ria helped him assemble the baby’s paraphernalia.” When Illuminada and Betty looked blank, I remembered that they had not yet experienced the joys of grandparenthood and so were not acquainted with the latest array of gadgets and devices requiring assembly. Simply put, they were Babies ’R’ Us virgins. “The car seat takes two people at least an hour to put together and install, the crib takes longer, and that little hanging seat babies bounce in is a big project, too. Ria worked…”

  The arrival of our eggplant rollatini, eggplant parmagian, and cavatelli with broccoli suspended conversation temporarily. As soon as our waitress left, we automatically redistributed the food so that each plate held a sample of each entrée. Only then did we begin to eat and resume talking. “Go on, Bel,” urged Illuminada, never patient with my drawn-out approach to a story.

  “Well, I was just wondering if maybe the mom got wind of the fact that while she was in the hospital, her husband was holed up in the nursery with this stunning young woman, and…” I paused.

  “Did they have a Nanny-cam?” asked Illuminada. I nodded. “Maybe mamacita saw them getting it on via the Nanny-cam from her hospital bed, and then…” Still mocking my suspicions, Illuminada put down her fork and brought her hands to her throat in an exaggerated choke hold.

  Ignoring her for the moment, I persisted, “There’s also the dad. Who’s to say he hadn’t fallen for her and been inflamed by her rejection or her impending marriage or both? It wouldn’t be the first time a married man hit on the baby-sitter,” I said, spearing a broccoli floret.

  “Was she really gorgeous?” asked Betty, her question indicating her willingness to entertain my hypothesis. As she spoke, she pushed a chunk of bread around herplate with her fork, swabbing up sauce.

  “Yes. But the best thing about Ria was her quirky sense of humor. She…”

  “Bel, spare us the eulogy. I have an appointment in half an hour,” said Illuminada, looking at her watch, a gesture I’d come to recognize as her way of dealing with the many pressures of her hectic life. “Did the family she worked for really have a Nanny-cam?” she asked, all the mockery now gone from her voice.

  “Yes. Ria mentioned it in one of her essays,” I said. “Why?”

  “Suppose one of the parents observed this Ria abusing the baby or neglecting her. What if, say, the mom saw something like that on the Nanny-cam and rushed home and strangled the girl in a fit of maternal rage or postpartum depression?” Illuminada’s proposal was unthinkable.

  “No way. Ria would never ever have abused that baby,” I said. “I’m absolutely sure of that.”

  “But do you know, chiquita, most of the firings that result from Nanny-cam use occur not because the parents have observed the nanny beating or shaking the child, but because they have seen the nanny neglecting the child? It’s not as dramatic and doesn’t make the papers, but neglect is more common than violent abuse,” said Illuminada.

  “You mean the parent looks at the screen and sees the baby crying in the crib and the nanny watching TV?” asked Betty.

  “Or she’s on the phone or entertaining a boyfriend or doing her nails or whatever.” Illuminada had managed to finish her cavatelli and her rollatini and was systematically polishing off her share of eggplant parmagian as she spoke.

  Recalling how quickly Ria had terminated our phone conversation when Skylar had begun to cry, I shook my head. “No way. I’m telling you, Ria did not neglect or hurt that baby.” I extracted a calcium capsule from the pewter pillbox Rebecca had given me for Mother’s Day and snapped the lid shut as if that tiny click could somehow lend credence to my words.

  “I’d like to look into how Ria died. I sure wasn’t much use to her while she was a live. It’s the least I can do. Will you help?” I asked. This was another rhetorical question. Illuminada and Betty had been my willing partners in crime solving on more than one occasion. Without even waiting for their nods, I continued. “I have an idea.” I directed my next words to Illuminada. “Would you get a copy of the police report including the autopsy and a copy of the record on that burglar they think is responsible?” It sometimes seemed as if Illuminada had a grateful client working in the office of every police station in the county. This made it very easy for her to get copies of most police documents. She nodded and poked something into her Palm Pilot, a device that seemed far superior to the Post-It notes I used to supplement my own midlife memory. Every time I saw hers or Betty’s, I fantasized about getting one.

  “You go, girl, if it’ll make you feel better. Whatever works,” Betty said, like the pragmatist she was. “Let me know when there’s something I can do,” she added, fishing in her wallet for her share of the tab. “I have to get back. Woodman kind of lost it when he heard the Faculty Senate might protest the installation of Classroom-cams. The board says he has to have a security system in place by fall and that’s the only one the doofus committee came up with. He’s meeting with Wendy this afternoon, and I have to walk him through the issues and make sure he takes his meds first.” She rolled her eyes and blew air kisses on her way to the door. “Be careful, Bel,” she called over her shoulder.

  Later that day, I began to implement my plan. It was elegant, simple, and practically foolproof. I intended to gain access to the Eldridges by posing as a nanny. Regardless of how they felt about poor Ria’s death, they would have to replace her very soon. In previous efforts to get “face time” with suspects or witnesses, I’d passed myself off with considerable success as a cleaning woman, a realtor, a RECC recruiter, a Jehovah’s Witness, and a
journalist. Assuming the guise of a nanny would be easy. First I wrote an ad.

  Mature, experienced nanny seeks employment caring for infant or young child. Provides nurturing and stimulating age-appropriate indoor and outdoor activities in addition to basic child care. Available 5 days/wk for 50 hr/wk. Can stay late when necessary. Grad. English Nanny & Gov. Acad. Excellent references. Salary negotiable. Call 201-555-4416.

  The phone numbers of the “excellent references” were Illuminada’s and Betty’s. I called them and left messages alerting them to the possibility of a reference check for a mythical Ms. Marcia Mason. “Just tell the Eldridges that Marcia Mason is Mary Poppins meets Mother Teresa,” were my exact words. Next I posted the ad on several online recruitment sites and faxed it to the New York Times, the Star Ledger, and the Jersey City Herald.

  Then I began crafting a résumé. Because I’ve been helping students with their résumés for decades and because I wasn’t constrained by strict adherence to the truth, this task was easy. Once I had fabricated Marcia Mason’s vita, I waited.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Davida Guzman-Eldridge called the next day asking for Marcia’s résumé. I faxed it to her. She suggested I come over Monday evening to meet with her and her husband, and I agreed. So far, so good.

  Sol had responded enthusiastically to a call from his daughter in upstate New York asking him to do some emergency baby-sitting for his toddler granddaughter, something he enjoyed and did often. That meant that there was no one to watch me picking through and trying on what Rebecca disparagingly referred to as my “oldies outfits” to assemble something that a well-dressed nanny might wear to a job interview.