Citizen Insane (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #2)

by Cantwell, Karen

  “Is anyone sitting here?” asked a female voice.

  I lifted my head to see Shashi Kapoor, the school crossing guard. Shashi was one of my favorite people at Tulip Tree. She could always be relied on for a truthful and un-edited account of happenings at the school—both in front of and behind the scenes. She had no kids of her own, but participated in school events with dedication and enthusiasm.

  “Hi, Shashi. Sit down. I’d love to have you as my neighbor tonight.”

  Beautifully adorned in a shimmery, banana yellow sari, Shashi’s bright white smile lit up the room and helped me to forget my worries.

  “How are things weeth you, Barbara?” She always said my full name and enunciated every syllable.

  “Fine, thanks.” I smiled.

  “You never come to these meetings.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Roz, she brings you because she needs . . .” she looked for the right word, “moral support, eh?”

  I wasn’t sure how much other people knew about the yearbook debacle, so I tried to play dumb. “No. Just thought it was time. Do my part and all of that.”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Barbara.” She smiled a wily smile. She leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I know all about thees yearbook problem. Thees meeting should be a wild one.” She smiled again and elbowed me. “There’s another problem there, eh?” She pointed at Michelle Alexander who sat across the table with her arms crossed and her mouth pinched tight. Granted, Michelle’s grim attitude wouldn’t win her Miss Congeniality, but I had no idea what Shashi was getting at. I gave her a questioning look.

  “Just watch. Any second now.”

  As if on cue, Bunny Bergen floated in. She smiled widely. “Hi, Barb! Shashi.” She was acting sane and happy, which was pretty bizarre considering the episode just hours earlier. When she saw Michelle though, her demeanor went from Jekyl to Hyde. The two women exchanged angry leers, and even though an empty chair stood next to Michelle, Bunny made a show of choosing another one farther away. She sat with exaggerated grace and shot an evil eye at Michelle.

  Taken completely by surprise, I whispered to Shashi. “I thought those two were BFFs.”

  “They were. Thees is a new development.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Shashi shrugged. “But I heard about Bunny’s leettle trip to your house today,” she said with a wink.

  “News travels fast, doesn’t it? She has more than a few screws loose if you ask me—I’d stay away from her if I was Michelle too.” I was still bothered by Waldo’s comment about Bunny being obsessed with Howard. I wanted to ask Shashi if she knew anything, but was too embarrassed.

  “Well, soon enough I’ll know what is wrong weeth these two. Like you say—news travels fast.”

  Two more women arrived and took seats at the far end of the table, then Roz called the meeting to order. Mind numbing conversation and the reading of the last minutes took more time than I liked. I fought off several yawns.

  Finally, Roz took a deep breath and I knew she had no choice but to bring up the dismal topic of the sabotaged yearbook. The color had drained from her face. She cleared her throat.

  The room went silent.

  She took a sip of water.

  Poor Roz, I thought. It was like a death walk to the gallows.

  With a jolting THWAP, the double doors of the library flew open and Peggy tumbled into the room, breaking the silence and the somber mood.

  “Wait!” she yelled. “Don’t blame Roz! There is an answer. I’ve fixed everything!”

  One of the women at the table asked the obvious question. “Fixed what? What needed fixing?”

  “The yearbook!” smiled Peggy, very pleased with herself. She stood next to Roz now at the front of the long table. “I was thinking about it all afternoon, and it kept nagging at me. Nag, nag, nag. Then the lights clicked on—Little Kevin McIntyre!”

  Roz frowned. “What?”

  “Little Kevin McIntyre. Actually, he’s not little anymore, he’s probably, oh, six feet three or four, but we call him Little Kevin because there’s a Big Kevin and we don’t like to get them confused. Not that we could really get them confused, because Big Kevin died last year—undiagnosed sinus infection. Ate up his brain. It was really awful and unexpected. His wife kept telling him to go to the doctor, but he—”

  Roz, sweating by now, jumped in. “Peggy! What does this have to do with the yearbook?”

  “I told you. Little Kevin McIntyre. Don’t you pay attention?”

  Roz’s jaw was locked and she spoke through gritted teeth. “WHO is Little Kevin McIntyre?”

  “My cousin’s—actually my cousin twice removed on my mother’s side—my cousin Aurora’s son. He got married just a couple of months ago and when I was at his wedding, I met his wife’s sister, Judy, but everyone just calls her Jude. She’s was really nice and she has three boys all the same age as mine. Our yearbook company is Time Remembered, right?”

  Roz nodded, her eyes bigger than two pasta bowls. “I thought so! Jude works for them. She’s an account executive.” Peggy handed her a piece of paper. “That’s her name and number at the office. Call her tomorrow and she’ll work with you to fix everything. She said you can still have your yearbooks delivered before the end of the school year, but you HAVE to call her tomorrow.”

  Roz kissed the piece of paper, jumped from her chair and hugged Peggy so hard they both nearly toppled onto the floor. She didn’t let go for almost a whole minute. Meanwhile, the other parents sat stupefied, unsure of what had just transpired before them.

  Michelle spoke up. “What just happened?” she asked.

  Roz released Peggy from her embrace. “Look at the time! Meeting adjourned. See you all next month, and thank you for coming!”

  The room cleared out slowly with people leaving in twos and threes whispering about the bizarre gathering. Eventually, Roz, Peggy and I found ourselves alone in the library.

  “See,” I said. “You didn’t need me here at all. You just needed Peggy, who, by the way seems to have missed her book club.”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “I was there.” She raised her Cappuccino Corner cup to prove she wasn’t lying. “But no one had read the book, so we set a new date and I scooted out to bring Roz the good news.” She was all smiles for about two seconds. Then her shoulders drooped and she turned to me with a sad face and I-hate-to-tell-you-this eyes.

  “What?” I asked.

  “My news for you isn’t so good.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “Howard was there.”

  “At your book club?” Howard was of Italian heritage, but he wasn’t much of a reader. I was very confused.

  “No. At Cappuccino Corner.” She paused. “With HER.”

  “The same woman we saw him with at Fiorenza’s?”

  Peggy nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  I grabbed the table for support. Pictures of Howard and the gorgeous blonde flashed through my jealous mind like a bad slide show—the two of them sipping coffee, snuggling close, staring dreamily into each other’s eyes with revolting smiles on their love-infected faces. My living nightmare was interrupted by a janitor with a vacuum cleaner and a huge set of keys who shooed us out of the library telling us he had to lock up the school.

  We walked to the front of the school, silent while my thoughts raced. He’d lied. He said he had to work late. He didn’t love me anymore. I remembered Frankie’s business card sitting on my counter at home and wondered how much money he would accept to knee-cap a traitorous spouse.

  The uncomfortable lull in conversation was broken when we opened the doors and stepped out onto the sidewalk. A large parking lot spanned the entire front of the school building. At the far end, Michelle Alexander and Bunny Bergen faced-off under a street light.

  “Who do you think you are?” Bunny screamed.

  It was harder to hear Michelle. She was probably trying to maintain some decorum. I’m pretty sure she said, “What’s your problem?” Even though it sounded
like “Where’s Cloris Leachman?”

  “Like you don’t know!”

  They were too far away to see facial expressions, but we could hear Bunny’s outrage just fine. Michelle was definitely on the defensive.

  Bunny shoved Michelle in the chest with her index finger. “Keep your big yap shut!”

  “First off,” retorted Michelle, louder now, “stop shoving me!”

  “It’s bad enough that other people talk about me behind my back, but you’re supposed to be my best friend. How would you like it if I went around telling people that you and Lance were in marriage counseling?”

  “You’re being paranoid, Bunny.”

  “Watch what you say, Miss Prissy Alexander. If I get word of you mouthing off about me again, I’ll kill you. I swear I will.” Bunny stalked off to her Jag. I don’t know if she saw us, but Michelle did for sure. She made a movement like she might walk our way, but then turned and got into her SUV. She drove away behind Bunny, whose wheels were squealing when she peeled out.

  There must have been at least one other spectator, because right after they left, the lights in a black sedan clicked on and it drove off as well.

  Roz, Peggy and I stood in stunned silence, not yet ready to make a comment on the events. Finally, I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask the obvious question.

  “Are all PTA meetings this titillating?”

  Chapter Five

  ODDLY, BUNNY AND MICHELLE’S FELINE fracas in the school parking lot had lifted my spirits. Maybe I was just reveling in the knowledge that someone might have bigger problems than me, who knows? Regardless, Bunny was losing control in a big way. She’d progressed from wacko quack to super psycho freak. Of course, I still wanted to know why the FBI had been called out to her house for a mere rabbit hit and run, but I’d needle Howard for that info soon enough. Right before I castrated him.

  After Roz dropped me off, I opened my front door, expecting to find things quiet with Amber in bed, Bethany reading in her room, and Callie watching TV or talking to friends on her computer.

  So much for expectations. Instead, I was greeted by an unusually warm, domestic scene. Comfortably cozy on the family room sofa, my mother sat, book in hand, flanked on one side by ten year old Bethany and on the other side by six year old Amber wearing a tiger’s tail and cat ears. Just two months earlier Amber had waved her fairy phase goodbye and sleuthed into her Josie and the Pussycats phase. I was going broke keeping her in DVD sets of the old cartoons, many of which she could now recite from memory.

  Callie was curled up in the overstuffed comfy chair, a red blanket hiding everything except her beautiful head. Norman Rockwell could not have painted a more perfect picture himself. I touched a hand to my heart.

  The girls, engrossed by the story being read to them, didn’t look up as I entered. Finally, I thought, after all of these years, there was hope for my mother. She could be like other grandmothers—warm, loving and maternal. I sat on the edge of Callie’s chair and took in the literary moment, wondering what lovely, pretty little fairy tale she had chosen.

  “’There isn't any night club in the world’,” she read in a calm yet dramatic voice, “’you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you're with some girl that really knocks you out.’”

  I jumped to my feet. “Mom!”

  She peered at me over her tortoise shell half eye glasses. “What dear?”

  “What are you reading to them?”

  Innocently, she turned the red paperback around so I could see the title. “Catcher in the Rye. It’s a great American novel. You really should expose these girls to better literature. All I could find were some miserable books about that little brat on the prairie. No imagination. This, you can sink your teeth into.”

  I grabbed the book from her hands. “This is not appropriate! What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that they needed exposure to art.”

  “Art? Catcher in The Rye? I’m barely comfortable with Callie hearing this stuff, but come on—Amber and Bethany?”

  “This ‘stuff’ as you so blithely dismiss it, is considered some of the most important writing of the twentieth century. I’m taking a college literature course—reconnecting with the classics. You know, I dated JD for a brief time.”

  Again, with a big fish tale.

  “You dated JD Salinger?” Suspicion was evident in my tone.

  “It was a long time ago,” she said, adding a nonchalant wave of her hand. “Before I met your father.”

  Everything my mother claimed to have done in her life, including an ambiguous stint on Broadway, auditioning for the role of Bond girl, and getting drunk with Ernest Hemingway, happened before she met my father. Since she would never confess to her real age, I figured she was either a very precocious teenager, or she met my father when she was sixty.

  “Mom, JD Salinger was a recluse.”

  “Only after we dated.”

  If her story was true, Salinger’s fear of people was finally explained.

  She exhausted me. The woman simply exhausted me. More than anything, I just wanted to crawl into bed and put the horrible day behind me. I looked at my watch.

  “Mom, it’s ten o’clock. Amber and Bethany should have been asleep over an hour ago.” I waved in the direction of the stairs. “Go girls. Get up there now.”

  “We want more! Please, Mom?”

  “You heard me—up there now.” Reluctantly and with the speed of two sloths, they did as I asked, Amber dragging her sad tiger tail behind her.

  “Callie, you too. Shoo!” Callie performed the required teenage eye roll. She was a skilled eye-roller. Almost as good as her father.

  “Why me?” she wailed as the eyeballs spun. “I’m not a baby.”

  “I’m sure Grandma has somewhere important she has to be. Hang gliding lessons? Bungee jumping off Memorial Bridge? Climbing Mount Everest maybe?”

  A skilled master at initiating awkward moments, my mom stared me down without giving up an answer. Silent seconds ticked away. Sweat beaded on my forehead. Callie wiggled restlessly then snuck silently away. When the Grand Intimidator had achieved the desired effect, she spoke.

  “Actually,” she pulled the tortoise shell frames slowly from her face. “I will be going momentarily. I expect my ride any second now.”

  I wondered why she would need a ride until it hit me—her Mini Cooper wasn’t in the driveway when I got home.

  The doorbell rang.

  Intuition and experience told me she was up to something.

  Her eyes lit up like Roman candles on the Fourth of July. “There he is now!”

  He? Either she had a boyfriend or . . . before I could consider the alternative, she shot out of her chair and leapt to the door. She was amazingly agile for a woman with such large bone mass. Something akin to the progeny of a gazelle and a wooly mammoth.

  “Russ! Come in. I’ll get my things.” She was gushing.

  Poking my head around the corner, a vision of supreme studliness befell my weary eyes.

  She dragged me into the foyer. “Barbara, meet my friend, Russell Crow.”

  I laughed.

  Russell smiled.

  “I get that all the time,” he responded with a half-chuckle. “Spelled C-R-O-W though. No E on the end.” Russell smiled real nice.

  “Oh, who needs that E anyway?” I blabbered while soaking in his six-foot plus, plentifully abbed-frame, wavy blonde hair and deliciously rugged but blemish-free skin. He was a god. An Adonis. A godly Adonis had walked into my house in little old Rustic Woods,Virginia. My heart skipped about twenty beats.

  “Russell is a fire fighter at the station just down the road. I met him at my Citizen’s Fire Fighter Academy.”

  Of course, he was a fire fighter. They’re all hunks. It’s true—go to a station sometime and just try to find a fat and ugly fireman. They don’t exist. I couldn’t help from smiling.

  “He’s the single fella I mentioned earlier
,” my mother added.

  My smile fell, my heart stalled, and my face flushed frantic fuschia.

  While I quickly pondered very specific and merciless methods for murdering the woman who supposedly gave me life, Russell squelched the flames of my embarrassment by offering his hand for a shake, “You can call me Russ,” he said. “And don’t let your mother worry you. I’m not married, but I am seeing someone.”

  “Thank goodness, because I’m married! I mean, not that if you weren’t married . . . I mean . . . well if I weren’t married . . . do you have a gun? A cross-bow? Because if you did, I’d ask you to end my misery right now.”

  Russell Crow’s feathers didn’t ruffle even a wee bit. He continued smiling, unfazed by my incoherent dithering. “No worries. We have to get going.” He put his hand up for a farewell wave. “It was nice meeting you.”

  “You too,” I managed to squeak while shooting deadly daggers of doom toward my mother who scooted out the door.

  Before the door closed behind them, I heard Russel yell. “I’ve got it now!”

  The door opened and Russell’s dreamy head appeared.

  “You’ve got what now?” I asked.

  “Where I’ve seen you before.”

  “You’ve seen me before?”

  “Were you over on Green Ashe Place earlier today? Talking with an FBI agent?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought so. I never forget a face. Especially such a pretty one.”

  I gulped. “That agent was my husband, Howard.”

  “He’s a lucky man.” He pulled his head back out and closed my door.

  Holy cow. Talk about combustion. Fires were ignited in regions that hadn’t been ablaze for some time. A cold shower was in order. I was a married woman, after all.

  Upstairs, Amber laid in bed with covers up to her chin, cat ears still in place, and awaiting her goodnight kiss. We rubbed noses.