Needled to Death

by Annelise Ryan

  Greg offered to pick me up, but I insisted on driving so I’d have my own wheels, my own means of escape. He gave me an address, and I arrived, of course, several minutes early. I staked out the neighborhood, which was a nice one filled with single-family homes. I arrived at his door exactly on time, and it was answered by a woman in her fifties or sixties wearing an apron. I thought I had the wrong house, but when I mentioned Greg’s name she said, “You’re at the right place. Come on in.” My initial impression was that the woman was some sort of housekeeper and cook for Greg, and while I was mildly disappointed at the thought that Greg wouldn’t be the one cooking, I was fine with the idea. Unfortunately, the woman turned out to be Greg’s mother, and when she proceeded to tuck his napkin in around his shirt collar for him once he was seated at the table, I knew this would be our first and last date.

  The guy before that seemed personable enough. I met Jeff in line at a coffee shop I visited every morning on my way to work, and we struck up a conversation. Two weeks’ worth of morning encounters and he asked me out. We went to the movies twice and had dinner out several times, all of them enjoyable. Things were going along swimmingly, and I was prepared to take the next step when he invited me to his apartment after dinner on our fifth date. That’s when I discovered he was one box shy of being a hoarder. His apartment was the filthiest and most cluttered living space I’ve ever seen, and when I saw a cockroach skittle across the kitchen counter, I feigned an illness, called a cab, and left.

  The guy before that, Nick, was super nice. He was, and still is, a social worker like me, so we hit it off very well and became fast friends. Unfortunately, that’s all we ever became. We enjoy each other’s company and are able to converse easily, but there is no spark between us at all. He’s still a friend, and while I don’t see him much anymore since he lives in Milwaukee, we still chat via texts and emails on occasion, even sharing some of our dating horror stories.

  “What is your gut telling you?” Maggie asks me, interrupting my embarrassing trip down memory lane.

  “With regard to the dating thing, it’s a little on edge,” I admit. “And I suppose I should have found out more about Jonas before agreeing to have dinner with him. Like where the kid’s mother is. I don’t need another date like that guy Tom Henry, the one who kept talking to his dead wife all night long.”

  And one more reason not to like people who seem to have two first names instead of an obvious last name, I think.

  “But as far as the job thing goes, I feel good about it,” I go on. “I want to do it. In fact, I’m so hopped up about it that I’m starting to worry about how I’ll deal with it if I don’t get it.”

  “Would it help if I offered myself up as a reference?” Maggie says. I think I must be looking horrified at the suggestion, because she quickly clarifies. “As a colleague only, of course, not as your therapist. You and I have discussed cases together enough times that I feel comfortable recommending you.”

  “And given what you know about me as my therapist, you don’t have any reservations?”

  Maggie takes a few seconds to give the question serious consideration. “I do not,” she says with a smile. “In fact, I think your background gives you an edge.”

  “Thank you,” I say, feeling both excited and a little emotional. “I accept your offer.”

  “As for your recent pocketing of the food items, I’m not overly concerned,” she says. “I think the stress of all you have going on, both in your personal and your professional life, explains it. And to answer your earlier question, I think this stress, all of it, is good stress, at least for the moment. I do worry that you’ll spread yourself a little too thin trying to work two jobs, though. So my only caution with the professional stuff is to get plenty of rest and stay healthy. As for the personal stuff, more power to you, Hildy. Aside from the precautions I mentioned regarding the involvement of a child, I think you have enough sense to sort things out. And though I know you can hear your biological clock ticking, don’t rush into things. Enjoy this dating scenario for as long as you can.”

  Why not? I think. What could possibly go wrong?

  Chapter Thirty

  After leaving Maggie’s office I head home, checking my phone to make sure I haven’t missed a call from Bob. It saddens me that I likely won’t be able to go with him when he gets his warrant for the Sheffield place, but I’m excited enough about the potential job and my pending date with Jonas that it doesn’t get me down too much.

  I give my résumé one last buff, adding Maggie as a reference, and print it out again so that I have it ready to go. I slip it into my briefcase and then get an idea. I get on my computer and do a little searching. It doesn’t take me long to find what I want, and after debating what I’m about to do for a few minutes, I decide to go bold or go home. I spend an hour crafting a short, concise, and hopefully intriguing cover letter, and then I email it with my résumé attached to Chief Hanson. I wonder if Bob will be upset with me for taking this step without telling him, but figure he’ll get over it.

  With that done, I leash Roscoe up and take him for a short walk. My muscles are still sore, but I’m pleased to note that the stiffness is less than it was. With each step I take, things get a little better, and by the time we return to the house, my muscles are feeling almost normal.

  Worried that things might stiffen up again if I don’t keep moving, I go off on a cleaning frenzy in the house, starting with the kitchen and bathrooms.

  P.J. comes by as I’m finishing up my dusting chores in the living room, but she doesn’t go for Roscoe right away. Instead, she plops down on the couch and watches me for a few minutes. I ignore her, letting her sit for a while, figuring she’ll talk when she’s ready, but my curiosity is apparently less patient than her reluctance to speak up.

  “What’s on your mind, P.J.?” I ask, giving the coffee table in front of her one last swipe.

  She is picking at a cuticle and looks up at me briefly with a fleeting smile before focusing on her finger again. “I was wondering how you can tell when a boy likes you,” she says. Her cheeks flush red with the words, and she continues to maintain a laser focus on her finger.

  “Well, it depends,” I say, settling into a chair off to one side of the couch. “The signs tend to change with age. When you get to be my age, the men generally just tell you they’re interested by asking you out on a date.”

  “What about boys my age?” she asks, still not looking at me.

  “Why do you ask? Is there a particular boy you’re curious about?”

  She looks away toward the kitchen. “Maybe. Sometimes he acts like he likes me, but sometimes he acts like he doesn’t.”

  “Boys that age are too young to really know what they want,” I say, and this earns me a pout. “They often don’t know how to handle what they’re attracted to. When they like a girl, they sometimes show it by teasing her, or picking on her, or even being mean to her, all bad behaviors that shouldn’t be tolerated. They don’t really know how to approach girls but they don’t want to be teased by their friends, so they may pretend not to like a specific girl when they actually like her more than the others.”

  P.J. considers this, shrugs, and then hops up from the couch, walks over to the coat tree, and grabs Roscoe’s leash. Seconds later, the two of them are gone.

  I spend half an hour trying to decide what to wear to dinner at Jonas’s. I finally settle on an old standby: black slacks with a straight-hemmed blouse I can wear untucked. The blouse has vertical stripes in blue, white and beige, which, according to the advice I’ve read in fashion and women’s magazines, will help to make me look taller. Jonas isn’t very tall himself, so in that regard I feel we share a kinship of sorts. Being short can be difficult for either sex, but I think men feel more self-conscious about it than we women do.

  P.J. returns and eyes my outfit but makes no comment on it. “How late will you be?” she asks.

  I shrug. “Not very, I wouldn’t think. It’s a school night for
Jonas’s daughter.”

  She considers this, looks like she’s about to ask a question, but then simply hangs up the leash and says, “Have fun. I’ll walk Roscoe again later.” With that, she’s gone.

  At three thirty I drive to the address Jonas gave me. I arrive fifteen minutes early and scope out the neighborhood. It’s a typical one for Sorenson, located in an older section of town and comprised of an eclectic mix of home styles. Jonas’s house is a standard Colonial saltbox, kind of square and plain on the outside. He has offset this ordinariness with a spectacular landscape in the front yard. There is a stone walkway leading to the front stoop, and several mulched flower beds filled with blooms in a multitude of colors line the front of the house and the walkway. Matching ornamental Japanese maple trees sit on either side of the front stoop, and the lawn is green, lush, and hasn’t a weed anywhere in sight. Clearly Jonas has a green thumb. Either that, or he hires someone to tend to his lawn. I’m curious to see what the backyard looks like.

  I climb the three steps to the front door and ring the bell. Sofie answers a moment later.

  “Hi, Hildy,” she says with a big smile, holding the door. “Oops, is it okay if I call you Hildy? Dad said I had to ask you if it is okay.”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” I say. “Is it okay if I call you Sofie?”

  Her brow wrinkles with surprise and her smile goes quirky for a second. “Yes, it is,” she says with great solemnity, though she can’t keep the pleasure from her face.

  “Hildy, please come in.” Jonas has appeared behind his daughter, and he opens the door wide and waves an arm toward the inside.

  I enter an immaculate foyer with a wooden stairway to the left and a coat tree to the right. I’m not wearing a coat of any sort as the temperature today is hanging comfortably in the high sixties and low seventies. There is a small table along the wall beside the stairs, and at the far end of the hallway I can see part of a kitchen. To my right is a living room furnished with a matching sofa and chairs in a rich plum color. The walls are painted a pale yellow, and the throw pillows on the couch capture both the wall color and the plum.

  Everything is neat as a pin, and the wood floors look polished and shiny. So far, so good.

  “I’m in the middle of cooking,” Jonas says as he closes the front door. “Do you mind sitting in the kitchen for now?”

  “Not at all. Can I help?”

  “I don’t need it, but thanks.” He leads the way into the kitchen, which is small but well organized. There is a bistro-style table with two stools positioned in the middle of the room, and Jonas directs me to take one of the seats. I hang my purse on the back of the stool and settle in as Sofie climbs up onto the other one.

  “What would you like to drink?” Jonas asks me. “I have white wine, red wine, a few microbrew beers, generic cola and un-cola, and a big pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid.”

  Sofie is staring at me from across the table, her little face screwed up in what looks like a very serious assessment. I look at her, smile, and say, “Ooh, cherry Kool-Aid sounds wonderful.” Once again, her brow wrinkles in surprise, and her expression softens into a smile. “Will you drink some with me?” I ask her.

  She nods once and says, “Cherry Kool-Aid sounds wonderful.”

  Jonas shakes his head and smiles, and then takes down two glasses from a cupboard. He sets them on the table in front of us and then removes a plastic pitcher from the fridge. Once he has filled both glasses, he returns the pitcher to the fridge and removes a bottle of beer. “The chef is going to indulge a little,” he says.

  I eye a frying pan on the stove filled with some sort of ground meat. The scents of onion, garlic, and oregano fill the air. “What are you cooking?” I ask. “It smells delicious.”

  “It’s his cheater’s lasagna,” Sofie informs me. “It’s really good.”

  I arch a brow at Jonas, who shrugs and nods. “She’s right. That’s what it’s called, and it is really good.”

  “What part of it is cheating?” I ask, amused.

  “It’s made with layers of sausage, cheese ravioli, and spinach,” he says. “It comes out like lasagna, but it’s a lot easier to make.”

  Over the next ten minutes I watch as Jonas layers the bottom of a glass cake pan with thawed but uncooked ravioli, adds a layer of cooked ground sausage on top of it, pours some spaghetti sauce from a jar over the top, and then sprinkles it liberally with grated mozzarella. He then does a second layer, this time substituting a box of thawed frozen spinach for the sausage. He tops the whole thing off with a final layer of the ravioli, floods it with more spaghetti sauce, and adds more mozzarella. After topping the pan with some foil, he puts the whole thing into the oven.

  The entire time he is doing this, Sofie is regaling us with a tale about her day in school last week when the teacher had to make Joey Barber stand in the corner for ten minutes. “Miss Wigand calls it the think-about-it corner,” Sofie explains. “If we do something we aren’t s’posed to, we have to go stand there and think about it.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” I say, liking the teacher’s logic.

  “I think it’s stupid,” Sofie announces. “And Joey’s mother was really mad when she heard about it.”

  “Mad at who?” Jonas asks, beating me to the question by a nanosecond.

  “Mad at Miss Wigand. She came to the room and talked to all of us about it, and then told Miss Wigand she thought the corner was almost as bad as coral punish.”

  Both Jonas and I give Sofie a quizzical look, and a few seconds later I suss out what I think Sofie heard. “You mean corporal punishment,” I say, and I see Jonas give me an approving nod.

  Sofie shrugs. “Whatever,” she says with great impatience and a roll of her eyes. It’s an amusing imitation of a clichéd valley girl, and I wonder what show or movie she stole it from.

  “Do you know what corporal punishment is?” I ask Sofie.

  Her brow furrows, and I can almost see the wheels turning inside that little head of hers. I can tell she doesn’t want to admit to not knowing but I sense she’s also curious.

  I save her from making a choice by offering up the definition. “Corporal punishment is physical punishment, like spanking.”

  Sofie makes a face of disbelief. “The corner is nothing like that,” she says.

  “Good thing,” I say. “Have you ever had to stand in the think-about-it corner?”

  Sofie looks surprised, then wary of this question. Jonas, who at this point is chopping up lettuce for a salad, pauses and turns to look at his daughter. Sofie, clearly on the spot, blushes and fidgets.

  I start to think it might not have been a good idea to ask her something this sensitive this early in our relationship, so I try to ease the tension. “I had to stand in a lot of corners. And in school, I got sent to the principal’s office quite often.”

  “Why?” Sofie asks, and her father asks the same thing by casting a questioning look my way.

  “Lots of reasons,” I say. “Sometimes it was because I talked too much or said stuff I shouldn’t. Sometimes it was because I hit someone.”

  “You hit people in school?” Sofie says, wide-eyed.

  “Only if they hit me first,” I explain.

  “You mean like cor-prill punishment?” Sofie says, pronouncing the word with great care.

  I smile at her. “Something like that. One time a boy who sat behind me was jabbing a pencil into my back. I kept whispering at him to stop, but he didn’t. So finally, I just turned around and smacked his hand, knocking the pencil out of it.”

  “Why was he doing that to you?” Sofie asks.

  “I think it was because he asked me if I would let him copy my answers on a test the day before by leaning to the side so he could see my paper. I told him no and then I kept my paper covered the whole time. I got an A and he got an F. It made him mad.”

  “Boys are stupid,” Sofie says.

  “Sometimes, yes,” I say with a smile and a glance toward Jonas.

  “D
inner in twenty,” he says, suddenly focusing on his task again. “Sofie, can you set the table while I get the salad ready?”

  There is a dining room off the kitchen to the left, a long narrow room that has a small wooden table with four chairs around it. I offer to help with the table setting, and soon Sofie has shown me where the dishes and silverware are kept. I take care of the place settings while Sofie retrieves paper napkins from a cupboard in the kitchen.

  “No, no, Sofie,” Jonas says from the sink when he sees the napkins. “We do the cloth napkins when we have company, remember?”

  Sofie shoots a glance at me to see if I’ve overheard. When she sees that I have, she looks wounded.

  “You know what?” I say. “If it’s okay with you, I prefer paper napkins. The cloth ones sometimes make me get a rash on my face, some sort of allergy I think.” This isn’t true, but the crushed look on Sofie’s face prompts me to tell the little white lie.

  She looks over at her father, awaiting his verdict.

  Jonas acquiesces with a smile. “Okay, that’s fine. Paper it is.”

  Sofie’s face beams and she proudly and carefully folds the napkins, placing each one beside the plates just so.

  I hear my phone ding with a text message notification while this is going on, and at one point when Jonas and Sofie are conferring about something in the dining room, I slide it out of my purse and sneak a peek. My first thought was that it might be P.J. texting me about Roscoe, but my heart skips a beat when I see the message is from Bob Richmond.

  “Meet me at the gym tomorrow morning at five?” it says.

  I roll my eyes and sigh. Did he forget about the date I arranged with Jonas or is he purposely messaging me at a time when he knows I’ll be in the middle of it? I text back a quick “Yes” and pocket the phone.