Saturday Night Cleaver (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #4)

by Cantwell, Karen

  Bottom line, Mama Marr wasn’t experiencing dementia, she just slips a lot and calls Howard by the name she gave him when he was born. I’m actually glad he changed his name, because I can’t really imagine being Barbara Donato, wife of Sammy Donato, Mafia Hunter. Somehow I’d feel destined for a reality show or at the very least, a gig on Jerry Springer.

  Howard handed me his cane and moved to his mother’s side without a hint of a limp. He kissed her on the forehead. “How are you feeling, Ma?”

  “Peaches, peaches!” she said, which, translated, meant “peachy”. “The doctor say I’m healthy as a horsey.” See what I mean about the healthy horse rumors? “Maybe you should just get on my back and ride me out of thees place!”

  Yikes, I didn’t like the image that remark evoked. A little too Oedipal.

  Howard was unfazed and fully focused on getting some answers. “I’m going to find your doctor. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  His dedication to his mother was heartening, but I couldn’t help but reminisce of the birth of our first child when a less attentive Howard spent two hours positioning the chair in the labor and delivery room so it would face the TV at just the right viewing angle. Fine, I’m probably exaggerating. It was probably more like forty-five minutes of chair positioning time. The next two hours were spent, with his back to me, cheering on the Redskins while I lay there, contracting painfully every six minutes and not dilating an iota. Where was his concern then, when I needed ice chips and foot rubs? But no, I’m not bitter.

  “Mama,” I asked during Howard’s exit, “what happened?”

  “Barbara! Thees is so funny! Your mama and me,” she pointed to my mother whose presence I purposely ignored, “were getting our pencils and pads of paper ready in the art classroom for the drawing of the figure.” She giggled so hard she had to stop talking. Once she regained her composure, she continued, but still very giggly. “Thees figure, is a man, and well, he dropped off his robe and right there this close to my face...” she placed nearly kissing index finger and thumb out for me to indicate the very minor distance, “...was his prącia!”

  “That’s his penis, dear,” my mother explained.

  I cringed and my body tightened, the whole boy-in-the-doctor’s-office trauma flashing before my eyes. I continued to ignore her.

  “You’re right, Mama,” I said soothingly, “that is a funny story, but what about your heart?”

  “Well, I had this pain, right here,” she indicated her chest, “shooting in me. You know, when I was looking at the prącia.”

  “The penis,” said my mother, the educator.

  The time for ignoring had ended. I spun around so fast that if my head hadn’t been attached it would have flown off and landed in China. “I know what a prącia is, Mom!” I yelled.

  “It’s true, Diane,” said Mama more seriously now. “She knows the prącia. She found one in the woods yesterday.”

  Thankfully for my mother’s safety, Howard returned with the cardiologist who explained that Mama Marr had not experienced a coronary episode, but a gastric one, most likely brought on by a combination of the beans and spicy chilies in her burrito bowl from Olé Olé, a popular Tex Mex restaurant on the outskirts of Rustic Woods.

  I was incredulous. “You ate Mexican food?”

  “Your mama said I should be more for the adventure and I agree. It was very good, this burrito bowl. So, what’s a little gas, no?”

  Content that his mother was, in fact, as healthy as a horse, Howard asked if she would excuse him, me, and my mom for a couple of minutes. We convened outside near the nurses desk. “Diane, can you take my mom back home and keep an eye on her for an hour or two? Barb and I have something we need to do.” I assumed he meant rummaging through Colt’s car, since that had been next on our agenda prior to the Mama Marr Tex Mex acid reflux fiasco.

  “Absolutely!” she gushed, as if she wasn’t at all responsible for the hospital visit to begin with. She patted his hand. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  I was beginning to wonder if that was true.

  Just then a nurse appeared out of nowhere. “Diane!” A warm, broad smile tore across the nurse’s face and she swooped in for a hug. “It’s so good to see you!”

  My mom hugged her back. “You too, Martha. I’ll be seeing you next Tuesday. Tell Wendy I said, ‘Hi.’”

  “Will do,” answered the nurse. She stood, looking expectantly for an introduction.

  My mother picked up the hint. “Martha, this is my daughter Barbara and her husband Howard. This is Martha, one of the nurses in the pediatric NICU.”

  The look on my face must have registered my misunderstanding of the word. “Neo-natal intensive care unit,” explained Martha the very nice nurse. “Your mother volunteers several times a week. She’s an angel. You’re so lucky to have her for a mother.”

  I wondered how much my mother paid her to say that. It spilled out too easily, like an amateur bit of dialogue in a movie on Lifetime.

  “What do you do in a pediatric intensive care?” I asked my mom, trying to bite back my skepticism that she did anything more than sort their mail.

  She brushed me off. “Nothing much.”

  “Nothing much?” scoffed Martha the overly enthusiastic nice nurse. “She spends hours with the babies who don’t have mommies to hold them.”

  I couldn’t believe there were that many babies who didn’t have mommies to hold them, but Martha corrected me. While there was the occasional baby who was born underweight or malnourished to mothers who did not want their children, there was also a growing number of babies born to mothers who were addicted to opiates. Their mothers had lost parental rights and the poor babies had to spend weeks in the NICU while being weaned off of the drugs.

  “There aren’t enough nurses to go around sometimes to hold the babies as much as they need, so your mother and some other wonderful ladies,” she stopped herself for a second, “and gentlemen too” she added, “offer their time and love.”

  “You mean Crack babies?”

  Martha winced and shook her head. “Some people call them ‘Oxycontin babies’ but I don’t like the term. Here at Fairfax General, we call them ‘babies-in-need.’”

  I expected my mother to tell me that I should try volunteering sometime, as I could obviously use the exposure to human kindness. But she didn’t.

  During our brief talk with Martha, not less than four nurses, a doctor, and a janitor (who looked suspiciously like that guy on the TV show Scrubs) waved to my mother and shouted a friendly, “Hello, Diane!”

  On our drive from Fairfax back to Rustic Woods, I tried to focus on Colt’s mysterious disappearance, but my mind kept drifting to visions of Diane Pettingford—hard-line, no-nonsense mother—gently holding and cradling poor little drug-addicted babies. The two images just didn’t mesh.

  Maybe, I thought, it was time to get to know my own mother a little bit better.

  Then I thought, Barb, are you out of your freaking mind?

  Chapter Seven

  Colt’s old, worn key stuck in the GTO’s door lock. I feared for a minute while Howard jiggled it back and forth, that we would have to resort to the coat hanger method of breaking in. His persistence prevailed, however, and soon we were not-so-systematically digging through the belongings in Colt’s precious automobile. The papers on the passenger’s side floor amounted to nothing more than a three-month-old receipt for an oil change and tire rotation at Speedy Lube, two empty McDonald’s bags, a paper ripped from a steno pad with an address scribbled on it, and a faded flier advertising the Rustic Woods Summer Jamboree at Rustic Woods Town Center which had probably been placed on his windshield while parked in the Town Center lot months earlier.

  Howard used his cell phone to search the address on the steno paper and came up with the office of NOVA Urology, Drs. Robert Markl
eson, MD and Kyung Kong, MD, F.A.C.S.

  “Kyung Kong?” I asked with a half-chuckle. “Seriously?”

  “It’s what it says.”

  “Poor guy. I hope he uses a nickname like Joe or Willy or something.” I thought about that and realized that Willy Kong was probably no better. “What does F.A.C.S. stand for?”

  Howard googled the acronym zippy quick on his smart phone and had an answer before I could vocalize my next thought which was, Is Colt seeing a urologist?

  “Surgeon. Kong is a licensed surgeon.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Tell me about it,” Howard cringed.

  “Do you think Colt is seeing one of these guys as a patient?”

  “Either that, or working for him, or following him.” He pointed to my purse. “Get your phone out, we’ll eliminate or confirm the first possibility.”

  Whoa, my husband was so cool and in charge. I liked this. Much better than the depressed, mopey complainer of the last couple of months. He instructed me to dial the number of the medical practice and ask for insurance and billing. Privacy laws wouldn’t allow practitioners to disclose their patients’ names, so I was to be sneaky about how I asked for my information. Roger that. I had my instructions and proceeded with caution. The phone rang five times before someone picked up.

  “Nnmmm dmmnnsh mmmmmm nn mmmrnong, how may I direct your call?” mumbled the woman who answered. Wonderful, I thought, yet another bored receptionist incapable of coherency. As a mother who must routinely deal with doctor offices, you would think I’d get used to not understanding the people on the other end of the phone, but I don’t. It always annoys me greatly.

  Assuming I had successfully reached NOVA Urology, Drs. Markleson and Kong, I continued forth on my quest. “Insurance and billing, please,” I said ever so politely.

  An immediate CLICK was followed by music in my ears for five minutes, interrupted every so often with a gentle, courteous, and intelligible, “Thank you for calling NOVA Urology. We want you to know that we value your time. Please remain on the line, and someone will be with you shortly. Thank you for waiting.” Blah, blah, blah. After four minutes on hold, I severely doubted that anyone valued my time. The recording lady was pleasant though—they should have hired her to answer the phones.

  Finally, a woman who sounded suspiciously like the first receptionist came on the line. “Carla,” she announced sharply. “How may I assist you?” At least those were the words she uttered, but the tone implied: “You’re bothering me during my Facebook time, whatdaya want?”

  I pressed forward with the sweetness of sugar off the cane. “This is Mrs. Baron. My husband Colt Baron was in for an appointment and I have the insurance company on the phone right now looking at the claim.” Howard had guided me on exactly what to say, but I feel my interpretation and delivery were Oscar-worthy, thank you very much. “They say he was in on October sixteenth but I think that date is incorrect. Could you just check for me?”

  “Spell the last name.”

  “B-A-R-O-N. First name Coltrane.”

  I could hear the clicking of fingers on a keyboard. “That date is incorrect. He saw Dr. Markleson on November third and that claim hasn’t even been submitted by our office yet. Your insurance company must be looking at a claim from a different doctor. Is that all?”

  “That’s all. Thank you for your-”

  CLICK.

  That answered that question. Colt had seen a urologist. A urologist with some very curt employees, by the way. Now I was really worried, and not about the rude employees. My only experience with urologists was when my favorite Uncle Mort had prostate cancer. He complained quite loudly and far too descriptively about the examinations that led to the diagnosis. I loved the man, but I knew way more about his doctor’s visits than I wanted to.

  “Does a man see a urologist for routine well-checks?” I asked, exposing my motherliness. Only a mother and her pediatrician talk about “well-checks.”

  “No,” said Howard, his face somber. He picked up the digital camera with the long lens and started skimming through the most recent photos taken.

  Beginning at 10:17 the morning before, a series of pictures were shot of an Asian man dressed in a gray suit.

  I ventured a speculation. “Kyung Kong?”

  Howard kept scrolling. “It’s a guess. Certainly we seem to be getting warmer. At the very least, I’m guessing this man has something to do with the woman we saw at the condo.”

  Three of the first pictures showed the man sitting on a bench alone. In the fourth picture, he was looking at his watch. I knew instantly where those photos had been taken; the statue behind the man was a dead giveaway. He was sitting on one of the many benches that circled the edge of Lake Muir on the North side of Rustic Woods. The statue had been built to honor naturalist John Muir. By my estimate of the angle the photo was taken from, Colt had probably been parked on West Shore Drive, a decent distance away. He had a good telephoto lens for sure.

  The next picture was taken at 10:22 and a woman had entered the frame. She was blond and dressed in black sweat pants and a t-shirt, which was odd considering how chilly it would have been at 10:22 that morning. From the picture, her age was hard to pinpoint, although I was guessing over thirty. The hair color appeared to be concocted from a bottle. A large, flowery tote-bag was slung over her left shoulder. In the next picture they were both standing and in the next, both sitting. The woman hugged herself, probably to keep warm. There were three more pictures of them sitting, then one of her reaching into her bag, and another of her handing him a large manila envelope.

  Five pictures, all taken at 10:25, were of the woman rising then leaving. In one of them she had turned back around and pointed to the Asian man as if she was scolding him. Another picture showed her climbing into a red sports sedan. The license plate wasn’t visible from the angle of the photograph.

  After that, Colt had apparently begun following the woman because the next picture, shot at 10:35, showed her walking into a Sunny Way grocery store. Another picture at three minutes after eleven showed her coming out of a Quickie Mart carrying a heavily loaded plastic grocery bag. The last picture, taken at eleven fifty-nine in the morning, showed the woman coming out of yet another grocery mart with a similar bag. And that ended our photo journal of Colt’s whereabouts on Friday. What happened to him after 11:59?

  “What kind of car do you think that is?” I asked Howard.

  “Mercedes E-Class. E550. Two thousand eleven.”

  I looked at him, completely taken by surprise, but understanding that there was a reason he knew this fact.

  “I’ll never know why it is that you knew that off the top of your head, will I?”

  “Nope.”

  Those were the only pictures taken with Colt’s camera the day before, so our last photo-record of his whereabouts ended at 11:59 on Friday, November 5th.

  This entire time, we’d been standing outside of Colt’s car which was parked on Sassafras Lane in front of the Fetty’s house. I felt a little self-conscious, but no one in the few cars that drove by really seemed to give us a second glance. We considered having Howard drive the car back to our house, but changed our minds. Instead, Howard left a note, wedged into the steering wheel instructing Colt to call us ASAP if he returned.

  We locked up the GTO and were ready to leave in my van when the door to the Fetty’s house opened and Christina ran out with a smile on her face, waving to us. “Barb! Howard!” She was panting by the time she reached us at the sidewalk. “You missed him, some hooligan-looking man checking out your friend’s car very suspiciously.” She lowered her voice to a near whisper when she said “suspiciously” and bobbed her head three times.

  “How long ago?” asked Howard.

  “Hour ago, maybe? Uh huh, uh huh. Yup. Hour ago.”

  “
What did he look like? Height? Weight? Skin color? Anything you can tell me.”

  She scrunched up her face and looked very uncomfortable as if he were asking her to recite a monologue from Macbeth or King Lear. Then all sorts of strange sounds came out of her mouth. “Er, eh, yeuuh, er...gee, yeah, ieeee...” Her face contorted this way and that in what I assumed was her way of summoning a decent description. I thought she might just give up the ghost and say, “Hell if I know!” when she caught sight of something far down the sidewalk. “Him!” she pointed. “That’s him down there, uh huh, uh huh.”

  Howard and I both turned our heads in the direction she indicated. A young man—or perhaps even a teenager—took off running at the far end of the sidewalk.

  Howard had been managing just fine without his cane ever since the hospital, but I couldn’t picture him sprinting fast enough to bring this fugitive down. I dashed like I’d never dashed before, and all I can say is, it was a good thing I’d been walking more those last few days, because my legs weren’t generally used to such spontaneous workouts. Even so, he was still faster than me, so I had to rely on my wits and my lungs.

  My wits, because I suddenly realized that I recognized this kid. My lungs because, well…

  “Hey! Wait! Stop!” I bellowed. “Please! I think you know my daughter, Callie Marr! I just want to ask you...(I was panting heavily now)...a quick...question!”