Class Reunions Are Murder

by Libby Klein

  I ran out of the room leaving my books behind. Out in the hallway, so many people were pressing against me and I couldn’t get through the crowd. My heart was racing. I was going to be late, but late for what? Someone poked me on the butt. I turned around to see who it was but no one was there. The crowd of students started to fade. My senses were coming back to me. I was having a nightmare. Then it happened again. A double-pat on the butt.

  What in the world?

  I turned over and my eyes came open.

  Figaro was sitting on the bed next to me, with his orange eyes boring into mine. One gray paw aloft.

  “Really? Are you actually patting me on the butt to wake me up?”

  I was answered by an innocent blink, then his raised paw was returned to the bed.

  I fumbled around for the alarm clock that I’d neglected to set. Almost ten-thirty.

  My mind replayed the incidents from last night. I tried to change the channel, but the too-vivid memory wouldn’t let me. The last words Officer Amber snarled at me were “Don’t try to leave town.” Unbelievable.

  Go away for the weekend, they said. It will be good to get out of your rut, they said. Just two days, then I can fly back to my little nest in Waterford. It sounded like a good plan.

  Now I’m stuck in hell, facing a murder rap. I pulled the covers up to my chin. I’m never getting up. I’m staying here forever. Amber will have to take me to prison in this bed.

  So Amber is a cop now. Great. What is her deal with me anyway? She’s hated me for as long as I can remember but I have no idea why. Then I remembered Bebe and Tawnika, and the steel rod I’d found for my spine last night returned. No. No way I’m letting her pin this on me.

  I got out of bed and took a long look at myself in the mirror. “No more hiding. No more backing down. This time I choose to fight back. I can do this. Amber thinks she’s got me trapped. Well, Amber, I’m not scared of you. Come at me, bro!”

  Figaro must have assumed my little pep talk was for him because he jumped on the dresser and looked deep into my eyes to try his Cat Mesmer on me.

  “All right, fine. I’ll hurry.”

  Quickly I made my bed and showered. I applied some zit cream, put my hair in a ponytail, and dressed in something that was lying on the floor from yesterday. I made my way down to the kitchen and opened a can of some fancy gourmet fish heads. Fig dove in like someone had fired a starting pistol.

  “Well, there you are. It’s about time you got yourself out of bed. I thought you were going to sleep the day away.”

  Aunt Ginny had forgone the evening gown this morning and opted instead for a pair of navy woolen slacks and a buttercup yellow twinset with pearls.

  “Sorry. I had a rough night.”

  “So Sawyer’s been telling me.”

  “You’ve been talking to Sawyer?”

  “She came over early this morning. We decided not to wake you. That girl has just about worried herself to death.”

  I groaned at the thought of Sawyer being here all morning and me being up in bed. “Where is she now?”

  “I sent her back home to get some rest. We’re going to meet her for lunch after we see Frank.”

  “Frank, the lawyer Frank? That’s this morning?”

  “In about a half an hour, in fact. I didn’t waste any time in calling him, and he’s coming in special just to see us. Frank’s been this family’s attorney for years. And it’s a good thing, too. Because now we need a lawyer for both of us.”

  “All right, I’ll get my purse.” I reached for a blueberry muffin, then changed my mind and grabbed an apple instead.

  Aunt Ginny was wrapping a peach scarf around her red beehive hairdo. “And while we’re on the subject of legal matters, it’s all over the news about that girl getting whacked last night.”

  I froze with my apple mid-bite.

  “They aren’t naming names yet, just saying, ‘suspects were detained for questioning.’ I’m only telling you this so you can avoid the news today. I don’t want you to get a shock.”

  I nodded in acknowledgment. “Figaro, behave yourself while I’m gone.”

  Figaro looked up from his bowl of fish goo long enough to give me a don’t I always? look.

  * * *

  We met Sawyer just after two p.m. at Mia Famiglia, a new little Italian restaurant a few doors down from her bookstore. As soon as we walked in to the stuccoed terracotta foyer, Sawyer—now wearing a blue striped cardigan with suede elbow patches and skinny jeans—launched herself at me and enveloped me in a hug that could crush the air out of a grizzly bear.

  “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” she cried.

  “It’s okay, Sawyer. It’s not your fault.” I patted her on the back. “I can’t really breathe like this.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She let me go. “I’ve been so worried. I should have never made you come up here. And if I hadn’t insisted on walking out alone so no one could see me cry, you would never have . . .” She put a hand over her mouth and started crying again.

  “Relax,” I said, hearing the new confidence in my voice. “I’m not taking this sitting down. And by the way, you have a lot of nerve looking so cute in skinny jeans the day after we were interrogated for a murder.”

  Sawyer stepped back, eyes wide, and took me in. “Wow. Who are you?”

  I giggled at her look of shock.

  “Could we sit down and do this? I’m starving,” Aunt Ginny interrupted, barreling up to the hostess who seated us at a starched white linen–covered table, in a quiet corner in the back. The Chairman of the Board was belting out “The Way You Look Tonight” from a speaker hidden behind some hanging ivy.

  After we got Sawyer settled down and swapped seats twice because Aunt Ginny thought she felt a draft in the first two spots, we finally looked at the menus. I desperately wanted the Pasta Carbonara, but with new resolve, I managed to order a salad with grilled chicken. Sawyer ordered the same and Aunt Ginny tried to order a Sanka with her minestrone. We had to explain to the waiter exactly what Sanka was. Then we had to talk Aunt Ginny off the ledge because no one has Sanka anymore, and convinced her to try a French press. She, of course, resisted because she’d gotten along her whole life without it and had done just fine and didn’t want to change now. The waiter offered to let her try some for free and she finally agreed—with a wink to me and Sawyer. After her second cup she decided that it was “purty good after all, even if it was pretentious.”

  “So how did the meeting with the lawyer go?” Sawyer asked.

  The meeting with Frank had left me less than optimistic. He said the cops were anxious to put the case to rest and one in particular was gunning for me. Gee, I wondered which little blond cop that would be? Proving my innocence would be an uphill battle, but I had to do it both for my sake and for Aunt Ginny’s. I was fighting for two now. Fighting to keep myself out of prison, and fighting to keep Aunt Ginny from being forced out of her home.

  “Well, as far as Social Services versus Aunt Ginny, he said cases like this come up from time to time as people are dealing with senior citizens who don’t have family around to assist them. If the state feels the quality of life of the aged . . .”

  Aunt Ginny hurled a roll at my head. “Who you calling ‘aged’? You watch your tongue, missy!”

  I caught it and raised my other hand in surrender. “I’m not saying it. Frank said it. If they feel the feisty senior has lost their faculties, they will step in and require them to move into an assisted living facility for their own protection.”

  “Poppycock!” Aunt Ginny banged her fist on the table, making the silverware jump.

  “Aunt Ginny has clearly not lost her faculties,” Sawyer crooned.

  “I always did like this one,” Aunt Ginny crowed, jabbing a thumb in Sawyer’s direction.

  Sawyer grinned from ear to ear. “What about you being here though? You said Social Services steps in when there is no family around to assist.”

  “I live too far away. Th
e state will say that I’m not actively involved in Aunt Ginny’s life to properly assess her needs. But that’s minor compared to the problem of my viability.”

  “What’s that? What’s viability mean?” Sawyer asked, looking from Aunt Ginny to me.

  “Thanks to the events of last night and my arrest, the lawyer thinks the state will reject me as a proper guardian for Aunt Ginny.”

  “If I ever get my hands on that little Rosalind Carson I’ll turn her over my knee for this!” Aunt Ginny balled up her fist and shook it at a lady a couple of tables over.

  Startled, the lady turned to look, and appeared rather alarmed to see no one behind her.

  Sawyer and I exchanged amused expressions. “Okay, settle down, Sugar Ray. Let’s not make matters any worse. Frank said it’s vitally important that I get a good lawyer who can defend me if I have any hope of keeping Aunt Ginny in her home.”

  “Can’t Frank represent you?”

  “He’s not that kind of lawyer. I need a criminal lawyer; he does family law. And we’re running out of time. This Social Services agent is pushing hard to move proceedings along. We have a competency hearing in just a couple of weeks.”

  “That means to see if I’m crazy,” Aunt Ginny supplied. Sawyer put a hand to her chest. “Well, oh my goodness. How can they even question that?”

  “I’d like to know who determines their competency!” Aunt Ginny smacked the table and clipped the edge of her spoon, which went flying. It landed on the table behind us next to a toddler who promptly picked it up and used it as a catapult to launch peas at the passing waiter. “But that’s enough about my problems. I want to hear about last night. I got Sawyer’s side this morning while you were sleeping. Now I want to hear it from you.”

  With some detail, we filled Aunt Ginny in on the events of the reunion and the UFC championship brawl through the period of time leading up to my arrest. Officer Benson had released Sawyer from the History room across the hall after I was cuffed and led to the squad car. But she was still a person of interest since they hadn’t ruled her out as an accomplice yet.

  “What are we going to do?” Sawyer asked.

  “Well, I’ve made a decision,” I announced.

  They both looked at me expectantly.

  “I’ve lived my whole life ashamed. I’ve been pushed around by high school bullies, Georgina, even the number on the scale. I’ve let fear keep me from trying things because I was afraid of what people would think. While I’ve been sitting back numbing myself with food and television, dwelling on what could have been, half my life has passed me by. I don’t want my past mistakes to paralyze me from taking chances anymore.

  “Amber is determined to pin Barbie’s murder on me and someone may or may not be trying to frame me for it. This time I’m not going down without a fight. I need to find out who murdered Barbie and clear my name. It’s time I took charge and turned my life around.”

  Aunt Ginny nodded her head. “I couldn’t agree more. We can’t just sit back and let the cops handle it. We should conduct our own investigation like on NCIS. . . . And I’m glad to see you finally got yourself a pair.”

  I stared at her, shocked. “A pair of what?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “They said it on TV and I think it means chutzpah.”

  Sawyer giggled at Aunt Ginny and asked, “You mean we’re going to interview witnesses and dust for prints?”

  “Not exactly,” I began, “but . . .”

  “We need to find out what the DNA evidence points to,” Aunt Ginny said with authority. “See who saw what and what they know.”

  Oh, Lord. It was time to rein in Aunt Ginny before someone found her going around the neighborhood in a trench coat, wearing a spy recorder, trying to interview suspects. “Aunt Ginny, I don’t want to pull you into this. It’s my problem.”

  Sawyer scooted in closer. “We could do it. We know a lot of people in town and I’ve stayed friends with a few from school.”

  Aunt Ginny gave a whoop of excitement. “There you go! We can prove you’re innocent before that mean little cop has a chance to plant evidence or bully you on the stand.”

  “Exactly,” Sawyer agreed.

  I shot Sawyer a look. “Would you stop encouraging her?” I jerked my head toward Aunt Ginny. “We can’t afford any. More. Crazy. The county is watching you, just looking for a chance to put you away. Got it?”

  Aunt Ginny’s mouth went into a pout.

  “But that’s just it,” Sawyer pleaded. “So much is at stake for both you and Aunt Ginny. How can we afford not to?”

  Aunt Ginny put on her best lost puppy expression. “I could be put in a home if you’re convicted. You don’t want me in a home, do you?”

  I looked at Sawyer, who was nodding emphatically in agreement. Aunt Ginny wasn’t the only crazy one at the table.

  “All right, fine,” I agreed. “You can both help. But Aunt Ginny, you’re staying way in the background. No midnight sleuthing in back alleys or going through people’s trash.”

  Aunt Ginny clapped her hands and giggled, and Sawyer gave us both a big grin.

  “Why am I sure I’m going to regret this?”

  Chapter 14

  “So, who are our suspects? Who would have wanted Barbie dead?” I asked.

  We were back at Aunt Ginny’s place, seated in the sunroom again. Figaro had come to add his two cents, mrrrowwww-ing now and again as if in support.

  “Who wouldn’t want Barbie dead?” Sawyer responded, and rummaged around her hobo bag for a notebook and pen. “She was mean to everyone. You heard the awful things she said onstage. Billy looked furious when Barbie humiliated his fiancée. I think the only people she didn’t offend were Amber and Joanne.”

  “Everyone sitting at the table next to us was pretty disgusted with her. Especially Kristen. At least, I think she was. It was hard to understand what she was saying half the time.”

  Sawyer started scribbling a list. “The gist was that Barbie sleeps around. Maybe a jealous wife killed her.”

  “Or her husband,” Aunt Ginny said. She’d dragged out glasses and a pitcher of sweet tea, and a plate of millionaire bars she’d whipped up the night before that I was feverishly trying to ignore. “I remember this one time I thought my fifth husband, Danny, was catting around. I wouldn’t stand for that. Nuh-uh. I’d definitely write that down.”

  Sawyer wrote down “catting around” and underlined it. “Plus, her husband is running for office,” Sawyer added, biting the cap of her pen while she was thinking. “He may have wanted to get rid of her before a scandal breaks out about her infidelity.”

  “A murdered wife is a pretty big scandal,” I said.

  “It could get him a lot of voter sympathy,” Aunt Ginny said. “As long as he could make it look like he was a poor widower, only carrying on because it’s what his dear late wife would have wanted.” She put the back of her hand to her forehead and feigned distress.

  “Okay,” Sawyer went on, “we know that Amber, Kristen, and Barbie went to the nurse’s office with Joanne.”

  “Right.”

  “And we know that thirty minutes later Barbie was dead.”

  “Right.”

  “Did you see or hear anyone in the nurse’s office when you walked by?” Sawyer asked me.

  “No, but the lights were on.”

  “That doesn’t mean anyone was in there,” Aunt Ginny said.

  “True,” Sawyer and I agreed.

  “Did you see or hear anyone in the halls?” Sawyer asked.

  “I heard Missy onstage, giving out an appreciation award. Other than that there was no one in the hall. But I did notice that it was windy in the foyer and one of the doors was open.”

  “So someone must have just gone in or out,” Aunt Ginny said.

  “Right. And I didn’t see anyone else until I saw Barbie’s body in front of my old locker with a pompom shoved in her mouth.”

  “Do you think that’s what killed her?” Sawyer asked. “D
id she choke on the pompom?”

  “Well, she had a puncture wound in her neck, so I think that probably had something to do with it. I heard Amber discussing toxins with the paramedics, but I don’t think they know exactly what did her in.”

  “The police would have to order a toxicology report to determine the cause of death,” Aunt Ginny dispensed more of her NCIS knowledge. “They’ll test blood and tissue samples and do a full autopsy to discover if a toxin was used on the vic.”

  Turning to me, she winked. “That means victim.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Sawyer gave a low whistle. “How long does that take?” “It can take weeks,” Aunt Ginny said, “but on TV someone usually orders it to be expedited so they can wrap up the show in an hour. For all the cops know, the perp shanked the vic and shoved the pompom in her mouth afterward to throw them off the scent.” Aunt Ginny sat back with a self-satisfied expression and tapped Sawyer’s notebook with her fork. “Write that down.”

  I stared at Aunt Ginny for a beat. “Do I need to put a parental lock on the True Crime Network? Yer killin’ me.”

  Aunt Ginny answered by sticking her tongue out at me. Sawyer tapped her chin with the pen. “Do you know why they took you in for questioning and not me or someone else?”

  “They found an old syringe in my purse.”

  “What in the world did you have that for?” Aunt Ginny asked.

  “Nothing anymore. It was a Demerol shot for John’s pain management, from when we went to the Bar Association gala a couple months before he died. I’ve only been out of the house dressed up once since then and that was for the funeral. I didn’t even know it was in there.”

  “That should help us though, shouldn’t it?” Sawyer directed the question to Aunt Ginny, who gave a confident nod. “I mean they will test it and see that it isn’t what killed Barbie.”

  “As long as it doesn’t have her DNA on it,” Aunt Ginny said, then looked me square in the eye. “It won’t, will it?”

  “No. Why would you think that?”

  “It doesn’t hurt to ask,” she shrugged, acting offended that I’d take offense.

  “Let’s keep going,” Sawyer intervened. “You were the first one to find Barbie’s body?”