“Y’all are having dinner?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah. Dinner is something I do almost every evening.”
He raised an eyebrow at me, then looked away.
“Sorry for my sarcasm.” I sighed and glanced into the back seat. Tommy had removed the papers from a khaki-colored folder. The tab was unreadable from my angle. Was my name now on a police file? Hoping the action appeared casual despite my trembling hands, I lifted the front of the folder and replaced the two papers, straining to read the scrawled tab. I couldn’t, and the next sheet in the folder was facedown.
“You could have called me or shown me these in private. You didn’t have to come get me out of the PTA meeting. What’s going on, Tommy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Whose reactions are you testing? Mine? A former classmate’s?”
He stretched and yawned, his face blank. “Got any ideas ‘bout who coulda sent these messages to Mrs. Kravett?”
I let out a sigh of frustration. “No, though I sure know I didn’t. Whoever sent them must be the same person sending me threats. Does Mrs. Kravett have a computer?”
He shook his head.
That wasn’t surprising. Mrs. Kravett had raved about classics and ranted that electricity was responsible for the downfall of our society.
“How did she get the messages?”
“Don’t know for sure. There was an empty, unmarked envelope on the desk. Someone coulda slipped it under her door.”
“Did you check the pieces of paper for fingerprints?”
He snapped his fingers and his eyes flew wide. “Shucky darn. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Despite my anxiety, his antics amused me sufficiently to smile. “No prints?”
“Nope.” He eyed me at length. “So. Got anything you want to tell me ‘bout Mrs. Kravett?”
“Yes. I want to tell you that I’m being set up. And I want you to find whoever is doing it. And I want that person arrested and kept way away from me and my family. And no computers allowed in their itty-bitty prison cell far, far away.”
“Uh-huh. You got nothin’ to tell me that might help me figure out who that person is?”
I combed my fingers through my hair. With luck, Tommy didn’t know me well enough to realize that gesture was a sure sign of my inner turmoil. There was no way I would mention my concerns about Denise, who’d merely made a couple of off-the-cuff remarks. Stephanie, as much as I disliked her, had given me no reason to suspect her.
I shook my head.
“Uh-huh.” He got out of the car, trotted to my door, and opened it with a flourish. He glanced around at the empty sidewalks with exaggerated care. By now, the other PTA members had left. “Coast is clear. I’ll escort you to your car.”
“Thank you.” His gentleness brightened my mood, and I could almost see why Carolee, as a single woman, might find him attractive.
We reached my car, one of the few remaining in the lot. “Somethin’ I want to ask you.” He paused. He was staring straight ahead, and despite the dim lighting of the darkening sky, his cheeks appeared to redden. His attitude made me edgy. He reminded me of an adolescent about to ask for a date.
“Go ahead.”
“Er, your neighbor lady last night.”
“Lauren?”
No, the blonde. What was her name?”
I smiled to myself, anticipating what was coming next; “Carolee Richards.”
“What’s her story?”
His wording momentarily distracted me. It had valentine possibilities: Our lives are unfinished novels, waiting to be read by the right person. “She’s a nurse at the hospital in Schenectady. She’s single. I don’t think she’s seeing anyone in particular.”
As I spoke, Tommy pushed a pebble in the parking lot with the toe of his black leather shoe. He nodded and still didn’t meet my eyes. “Sounds like you know her fairly well. Ever have her over for dinner, that kinda thing?” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels.
I decided to take his hint. It was agonizing to know that someone, perhaps an old friend, was making it look like I had a hand in Mrs. Kravett’s death. My mood would brighten considerably if I could do at least one good deed for auld lang syne.
“Would you like to come over for dinner Friday, Tommy? Jack, Lauren, and Denise are coming. Stephanie might, too. Around seven o’clock. I haven’t asked Carolee yet, but I will tonight.” Carolee, I thought, might feel a bit out of place with all those Carlton alumni, but the spouses would be in the same boat.
Now he met my eyes and smiled. “Thanks, Moll.” He waved as he took a couple of backward steps toward his car. “I’ll bring wine. Red okay?”
“That’d be great.” I watched him do a skip-hop pivot as he headed to his car. His excitement was so cute, for lack of a better word. Watching him brought back memories of my feelings when Jim and I first started dating: unbridled joy, as if he had suddenly switched on the sunlight, and the world was so much brighter and lovelier than ever before.
Still, Tommy’s happiness was for a semi-blind semi-date. And I hadn’t even asked Carolee. Her work hours at the hospital were irregular. She might not be free.
On the drive home, I was relieved to see no police cars in neighbors’ driveways. I went to Carolee’s. She swung open her door so quickly when I rang, she must have been standing by it. She wore her same aqua sweat suit as last night, yet was once again sweatless.
“Molly! Hello.” Her voice sounded unnaturally high.
“Is everything okay?”
“Relatively speaking, yes. Why?”
“No reason. Just a little jumpy, I guess. I watched you drive in and noticed your kids weren’t with you.”
“They’re at Lauren’s.”
Carolee nodded, still maintaining her post mid-doorway. My children had taken to Carolee almost immediately, which was unusual, and Lauren considered her one of her best friends. I trusted their opinions. Yet all our conversations at Carolee’s home took place on her doorstep. It made me feel like a Jehovah’s Witness. She’d been in my house several times in the past three weeks.
“Before I forget,” Carolee began, “Lauren said you were both going to Mrs. Kravett’s funeral tomorrow afternoon and asked if I could watch the kids since that’s my day off. I’d be happy to, so pass that on to Lauren. I had told her I’d think about it, since I needed to decide if I wanted to go to the funeral myself.”
“You knew Mrs. Kravett?”
She nodded. “I work in the oncology outpatient unit. I get to know the families of my patients pretty well. Her husband had lung cancer. He survived for four years after the initial diagnosis.”
“Why don’t you come with us to the funeral? We’ll get someone else to babysit.”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen more than my share of death. Besides, funerals are for the sake of the living. Relatives and friends. I didn’t know any of Mrs. Kravett’s people, except Lauren.” She paused. “And now you.”
The way she studied my eyes as she spoke the last phrase bothered me. Maybe it was just the wording. Strange to be termed one of my old teacher’s “people.”
Carolee continued, “Why don’t you bring your children over around four?”
“Okay. Thanks. Also, are you free for dinner at my house Friday? Lauren and Steve will be there, plus a few former classmates.”
“Your former classmates?” She winced slightly. “Gee. I don’t know.”
“Sergeant Newton is coming, and I’m quite sure he’s hoping you’ll be there.”
She smiled broadly. “Oh. Well. In that case, what time?”
The second day of school was wonderfully uneventful. Both children took the bus there and back without a hitch, except for one frightening moment when the kindergarten bus arrived at the stop and Nathan didn’t emerge. I promptly charged onto the bus. He was playing hide-and-seek with me under his seat. I pretended to be amused, then carefully explained that Mommy didn’t like to be scared and warned him I’d get angry if he ever di
d that again.
Later that afternoon, Carolee met Lauren and me at the door and said a brusque goodbye to us as the children obeyed her instructions to go downstairs to the rec room.
En route to the funeral in the BMW that Steve normally drove, I mentioned how awkward it felt that Carolee never invited me inside her house.
Lauren shrugged. “I’ve known her since she bought that house six or seven years ago. For the first few months, she never asked me in either. She just isn’t much of a housecleaner. It takes her a long time to feel comfortable enough with adults to let them see her house in its natural state.”
“We’re not talking toxic-waste sites or anything, are we? I mean, you trust having Rachel there, right?”
Lauren chuckled. “Absolutely. I’ve been in her house many times. Believe me, there are no health hazards.”
“What about childproofing? She doesn’t have children herself, and she’s a nurse. Are there unlocked cabinets filled with drugs?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. The kid will have to climb over the open tar pit and the high-voltage wires to get at them.”
I laughed.
Lauren asked, “Have you gotten any more threats or bizarre emails?”
Last night, I’d filled Lauren and her husband in on my encounter with Tommy Newton. “No, though I’ll certainly be watching to see which of our former classmates attend Mrs. Kravett’s funeral. Somehow I hope to spot some face at the funeral that’ll let me make sense out of all of this. Maybe someone wearing a button that reads: Have Email. Will Send Death Threats.”
We turned at a busy intersection, and it occurred to me how unfamiliar I was with this town. Most of my world had consisted of the ten-or-so-mile bus route I’d ridden so many times, so many years ago. The scenery was lovely: lush hillsides, enormous oaks and maples. Alongside the main roads were stately, century-old homes meticulously maintained. In Boulder, those would’ve long since been turned into bed-and-breakfasts. Loyal as I am to Colorado, the color spectrum of autumn leaves in the nearby New York Adirondacks is breathtaking, whereas the Rocky Mountains’ aspens turn yellow. Not unlike comparing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to “Chop Sticks.”
Yet even as a child, my life here felt like one big what’s-wrong-with-this-picture game. I was the object that didn’t belong. I was never sure why that was so.
We parked and got out of the car. We took a couple of steps toward the church. Lauren paused and said; “Hang on. I need to set the car alarm.” She pressed a button on her keychain, then shook her head and added, “Men and their toys.”
“Really. You know the invention for a car I’d like to see? A child-sized chute that goes from the house straight to the back seat. Kids would have a blast going down it. We wouldn’t have to spend twenty minutes telling ’em to get in the car every time we have some five-minute errand to run.”
“That’d be wonderful. But it’s the men who design these things, so it’ll never happen.”
“True. They give us such so-called time-savers as self-cleaning ovens. Who cares? Where’s my self-cleaning bathtub?”
Lauren laughed. It was a marvel how our childhood friendship had defied distance and time.
We sobered the instant we got in line to enter the church. As we slowly moved forward, a sense of revulsion mingled with macabre curiosity; our line led to a room that held a coffin, then into the main room for the service. My mother having had an aversion to taking children to funerals, I had never seen a dead body before. Curiosity won out, and I kept my place in line.
I peered into the coffin. It struck me as almost obscene to gaze down at my once feisty teacher this way, lifeless and waxen. She should open her eyes and say, “Stop daydreaming, Molly, and get to work!”
We walked slowly toward the main room. Lauren whispered, “It seems strange to see her without a piece of chalk in her hand.”
“Really. She’s barely changed in seventeen years. Except for now being dead, that is.”
Lauren elbowed me, and we both fought off a fit of nervous giggles. The pews were crowded, and it soon became obvious that Mrs. Kravett had touched many lives. Denise and her cone-headed husband were there, as was Jack Vance. In his tweed jacket he looked professorial. As opposed to principalial, I suppose. Tommy, in uniform, was seated in the back, and feigned indifference as we entered.
Stephanie, dressed in black but wearing model-like makeup, was seated in the second row. She spotted us as we took our seats near Tommy, smiled, and mouthed a big “Hi,” accompanied by a happy wiggly-finger wave that seemed more than a tad inappropriate, given the setting.
Jack Vance gave a touching eulogy. At least I assumed it was touching, because frankly, I was trying so hard not to make any noise while crying, I barely listened. My regrets and guilt about Mrs. Kravett had hit me full force.
Just after graduation, my parents purchased their condo in Florida. It had been more fun to visit them there than in New York. I’d been so cavalier about the passing of time. As an indirect result, Mrs. Kravett died not only before I could apologize for my poem, but thinking I was a homicidal maniac out to avenge her strict teaching methods. Someone, probably sitting in that same church, had set me up. No one, aside from Lauren knew me well enough to realize how bad I’d felt about that poem.
At one point mid proceedings, Lauren reached over, squeezed my hand, and whispered, “She was a teacher. She understood teenagers. She forgave you. Let it go.”
That made me cry all the harder. Lauren could well be right about Mrs. Kravett’s forgiveness. Yet a hateful threat that may as well have had my name on it was likely the last thing she ever read.
Though I stared through my blurred vision at each former classmate, I still had no clue. My emotional state made me all the more determined to eventually confront whoever had done this to me.
After the service, Stephanie, her handsome husband in tow, sashayed in our general direction. She was probably going to use the opportunity to RSVP about my dinner party. Overcome by anger and remorse, I blurted out, “Why did you do it, Stephanie? Why did you publish my poem in the school paper without my permission?”
Her jaw dropped. Before she could collect herself and respond, Lauren grabbed my arm. “Molly,” Lauren said sternly, “this isn’t the time or the place. Let’s go.”
She was right. I allowed her to lead me away. In the parking lot, I glanced back. Stephanie had attracted quite a crowd, several of them nodding as they listened to her. She gestured at me as she spoke, no doubt identifying me as the villain in her damsel-in-distress routine.
“Are you all right?” Lauren asked, once we’d reached the privacy of her car.
I nodded, but felt unable to master the lump in my throat. “I know I’m just looking for a scapegoat. But I’m still angry at Stephanie for printing that poem in the paper. She’d asked me if she could publish it, and I told her no. Remember?”
Lauren looked at me sympathetically, but said nothing as we pulled out of the lot.
I glanced at Lauren in profile. She was chewing on her lip. The last time she was doing that, there was palpable friction between her and her husband. At length, I asked, “Is everything okay between you and Steve?”
“Um, sure. Sort of. Actually, let’s talk about that some other time, okay?”
Uh-oh. We drove home in silence, reclaimed our children, and went inside our respective houses. Though I could relate to Carolee’s cleaning inadequacies, I set about taking my frustrations out by scrubbing. The odor from the bathroom almost brought tears to my eyes. Nathan had been doing his hula-dance-while-peeing routine.
I used an ammonia-based cleaner to combat the problem, which struck me as redundant. Good thing I write greeting cards and not advertising copy. I doubt that “Smells Slightly Better than Urine” would be a popular advertising slogan for a household cleaning product.
Later, I began to fret as I concocted some sort of dinnerish thing for myself and the kids. Someone who hated me enough to send me death threats might act on
those threats. Here I was, possibly inviting him or her to my house for dinner. Talk about a social engagement with a hidden agenda. “Raise your hand if you’d like to kill the hostess.”
As I envisioned the potential fiasco, I sketched a cartoon. People sitting at a table are staring in dismay at the bedraggled woman who’d emerged from the kitchen. Her clothing is splattered and torn, flames are coming from the doorway, and she’s carrying a charred and smoking platter. She says, “You were expecting maybe Betty Crocker?” Though there was little sendability potential, I might be able to freelance it as an apron design to a company that sold self-expression products.
I returned to my cooking. All the while a feeling of doom threatened to engulf me. Karen came into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of milk. I said, “Why do I feel like I’m about to make the biggest mistake of my life?”
“I dunno, Mom.” She smiled up at me. As if guessing the answer to a riddle, she said, “Because you are?”
Chapter 6
Stop Playing with Your Food!
Stephanie never called to say how many of herselves and kin were coming to dinner. After our little scene at the funeral, I couldn’t really blame her. By 6:50 on Friday evening, I had dinner in the oven and was busily cleaning the kitchen counters and floor. I measure ingredients by default: whatever makes its way into the pot I cook and whatever spills I sweep up later. It works well in terms of flavor, but I have a heck of a time whenever someone requests one of my recipes.
Lauren, Steve, and Rachel arrived first. Though Rachel had a hand of each parent, they acted like stone bookends. Within moments, Rachel dashed off with Karen and Nathan, and Steve immediately took a seat on the couch. That had been my father’s favorite position. It must have masculine cushion dents, for Jim was always drawn to that spot as well. Both my father and my husband are thin. Steve’s polar-bear body sank deeper into it.
I complimented Lauren on her emerald-colored dress. She brushed aside my remarks and offered to help me in the kitchen. This was, of course, one of the social graces we women all learn. But let’s face it. If you’re having a formal dinner party and you truly need help in the kitchen from your guests, dinner is in jeopardy.
Death Comes eCalling Page 5
