Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa - Jersey Girl 01 - New Math Is Murder

by Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa

  My mother arrived at the bottom of the fifth inning and climbed the bleachers, holding on to spectators’ heads so she wouldn’t lose her balance.

  “Why did you have to pick seats all the way up here?” she complained when she planted her rump on the small section of splintered wood next to me. “Was Mount Everest too far away to see the game properly?”

  “Bobby’s playing left field. I want to see him catch the ball.”

  My mother knew all about Bobby’s legendary fielding prowess. “Bobby couldn’t catch a cold. Poor baby! And how can you see anything at all in those bug-eye glasses?” She reached over and plucked the shades off my face before I could stop her.

  “Oh my God!”

  “It was an accident,” I said.

  “I didn’t think you did that on purpose.”

  “I hit my face on a cart at ShopRite last night.”

  “You always were a lousy shopper,” she reminded me.

  On the field, Dennis stepped into the batter’s box. The kid connected with the ball, but it went foul. The Dodgers’ lofty first baseman managed to catch it for the first out. The next batter, Jay Whitley, came to the plate. Bobby went into the on-deck circle.

  “I keep hoping someday, somehow, Bobby will get a hit. I get so nervous when he’s up at bat, I don’t want to watch—except someone has to. You can bet Neil won’t.”

  My mother pointed toward the parking lot. “You’ll want to hold that bet.”

  I followed her finger and groaned.

  Neil had combed his hair straight back to expose his high, smooth forehead. Dressed in cotton slacks and a checkered DKNY button-down shirt, he looked like a man of means trying to impersonate a blue-collar worker. The sensational Theda Oates held his hand—she, too, carefully dressed down in an outfit a little too perfect for a run-of-the-mill Little League game.

  “Kill me now!” I murmured.

  I looked behind me. It had to be at least fifteen feet to the ground. Still, I was willing to risk a broken leg, even a broken neck, by taking a header to avoid the lovebirds.

  My mother read my mind. “Don’t even think of leaving because of those two! They should run and hide, not you!”

  I had a caveman eyebrow and wild, primitive curls. I wore no mascara, no lipstick, no blush, and worst of all, no concealer. My overly-washed jeans, T-shirt, and Mets windbreaker made me look like the world’s oldest juvenile. I thought again about jumping and contemplated my impalement on the snow fence behind the bleachers.

  Neil waved to catch our attention. I nodded to acknowledge his presence, which he mistook as an invitation to join us. He grabbed Theda’s arm to help her climb up the bleachers.

  My mother jabbed me in the ribs. “Forget what I said. Let’s both jump.”

  Out on the field, Jay Whitley grounded out and Bobby stepped up to the plate. I said a quick prayer, shut my eyes, and held my breath. When I opened them, the entire Pirates’ bleacher section was going nuts, and Bobby stood on second base.

  Neil finally made it to the top row. “A stand-up double!” he said, like I wasn’t bright enough to figure it out for myself. “I must be good luck for the kid. Hey, what happened to your face?”

  I grabbed my mother’s arm and pulled her to her feet. “I must have plucked too hard when I tweezed my eyebrows,” I told him.

  We stepped down a row, then another.

  “Where are you going?” Neil asked.

  “I’m going to talk to Bobby’s coach. See you, Neil.”

  “He can’t talk to you during the game.”

  “It’s the top of the sixth, Einstein. The Pirates are on their last out,” I said.

  “So?”

  “If you showed up for a game or two this year, you would have remembered they only play six innings in Little League.”

  A few people in the upper rows chuckled. I turned away from Neil and guided my mother all the way down. Out on the field, little Martin Da Silva, Stanley’s son, struck out and the game ended. Bobby ran to the fence with a huge grin on his sweaty face.

  “Did ya see it? Did ya see my hit?”

  “You’re a regular David Wright,” I said.

  “It was only a double,” my son informed me.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. At least you got a hit. Your dad’s in the stands. He says he must have brought you good luck.”

  Bobby craned his neck to see. “Oh, yeah! Up at the top. I see him! Is that—Mom, is that lady with him?”

  Only the truly young and innocent would call Theda Oates a lady. “Yes, honey. Miss Oates is with him. Why don’t you go say hello to your dad? I’ll wait down here.”

  “Want me to stand guard in case Neil says something stupid?” my mother offered.

  “You mean when,” I told her.

  I needed a distraction, something to take my mind off Neil and his princess.

  Bevin consoled Dennis at the concession stand. The remaining Pirates players passed through the gate with assistant coach Da Silva, sullen after their disappointing loss. Ron Haver and Eugene Steiner stayed behind to gather up the equipment.

  I strolled onto the field and went to the dugout, eager to engage the detective in idle conversation.

  “Your team deserted you again?” I asked.

  Haver eyed me curiously as he hoisted the heavy equipment bag over his shoulder. “What happened to your head?”

  “I had a run-in with a shopping cart last night.”

  “Looks like the cart won.”

  I glanced at Haver’s dirty Pirates shirt and clay-encrusted jeans. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

  Eugene Steiner, the team’s third coach, looked mortally wounded. “We came close!”

  I took the catcher’s equipment from the overgrown youngster. “Look at it this way—at least the team’s improving. Let me help Ron with the equipment.”

  Steiner smiled and shuffled off toward the gate.

  “You’re great for morale, Colleen,” Haver said.

  “At least it wasn’t a heartbreaker,” I told him.

  I glanced up to the top row of the bleachers as we walked to Haver’s car. Bobby sat beside Neil, his face aglow with pride. Theda sat next to them, her attention focused elsewhere.

  “Is that Neil’s partner?” Haver asked.

  “Fabulous, isn’t she?”

  “From a man’s point of view, she doesn’t exactly suck,” Haver told me.

  The remark annoyed me more than it should have.

  We crossed the lot, and Haver unlocked his station wagon. I threw the chest protector and catcher’s mask in the back. Kids in black-and-yellow uniforms walked by us, soda cans and mustard-slathered hot dogs in hand.

  “How’s the investigation going?” I asked.

  “I’d prefer another topic of conversation.”

  I leaned against the car. “Be a sport, Ron. You’re a family friend and apparently my sister’s latest love interest.”

  “I get the feeling you don’t think we’re compatible,” he said.

  “That depends on whether or not your nipples are pierced.”

  Ron Haver grinned broadly.

  “Did any new and different suspects with a grudge against the kind-hearted, dedicated algebra teacher pop up?” I asked.

  Haver found a comfortable spot to rest his backside. “Only you, Colleen.”

  Whoops! Someone up at the high school must have mentioned my little argument with Jason Whitley. I offered Ron Haver my most disarming smile. “Whitley and I did have a slight disagreement.”

  “So I heard. You do realize threatening a teacher with castration goes a little beyond a slight disagreement.”

  “Is that why the county car is parked on my block?” I asked. “You’re actually spying on me?”

  “Nobody’s spying on you, Colleen.”

  “Right. And who told you I threatened Jason Whitley?”

  “Kevin Sheffield,” Haver said.

  “Sheffield? That little worm! He wasn’t even there!”

&
nbsp; Ron Haver shook his head. “Well, a man is dead. Murdered. It doesn’t really matter how I know about it. You found Whitley’s body, and you threatened the guy only the week before.”

  “It was closer to two weeks, and I’ll bet my car I wasn’t the first parent to threaten Jason Whitley.”

  “Forget it. I’ve seen your car.”

  Ron Haver had touched on another sore subject. The Escort was close to terminal, and Neil, bless his cheating heart, still managed to drive a brand-new Lexus despite his constant pleas of abject poverty.

  “If Neil should happen to turn up dead and you see me cruising Bay Boulevard in a big, vulgar car, you have my permission to arrest me,” I told him.

  “Kate told me Nut Cracker Maynard is your lawyer. With her in your corner, you won’t have to kill Neil to drive something decent. The money will come through.”

  Across the parking lot, my mother was waving frantically.

  “I think I have to go, unless you want to pull me in for questioning.”

  Haver pushed himself away from the wagon. “I’m not planning to arrest you, Colleen. You’re free to come and go as you please—if you can get your car to move. Just let me know if you plan to leave town.”

  From the look on his face, I got the impression he wasn’t kidding.

  * * *

  Neil and Theda took Bobby to Chez McDonald’s with a promise to bring him home early. Sara was having dinner at a friend’s house, so I expected her home at least fifteen minutes after curfew. My mother and I walked up Poe Street in the dark. Cars crawled by us packed with kids on their way home from the field.

  “What were you and Ron Haver talking about?” my mother asked.

  “Jason Whitley.”

  My mother slowed down to catch her breath. “What did he say?”

  “Not much,” I lied.

  “You spent an awfully long time talking about nothing.”

  I tried to remember something I said to Haver that didn’t have to do with murder. “We were also talking about my car.”

  “He found out about the fight you had with Whitley at the parent-teacher conference, didn’t he?”

  My mother had been a housewife for her entire adult life. Though great at her vocation, she missed her true calling. She should have been a spy. “Is there anything at all you don’t know about?”

  “Not a thing. I even know you smoke at the back fence when your nerves get to you.”

  Darn it. “But you didn’t know about Neil,” I reminded her.

  “I had a pretty good idea. I told you not to marry him.”

  My mother not only enjoyed being right, she always cheerfully pointed out my mistakes over and over again.

  “What did Ron Haver say to you?” my mother persisted.

  “He told me not to leave town.”

  My mother eyes narrowed. “I see.”

  “Don’t say anything, Ma! I doubt Haver really thinks I killed Jason Whitley.”

  I slapped at an early-season mosquito, the New Jersey state bird, and nudged my mother closer to the curb as we walked. Another carload of kids passed by. Cheerful dad. Happy faces. Blue uniforms. Dodger kids.

  “Think the Pirates will ever win a game?” I asked my mother.

  “Anything’s possible.”

  I figured it might happen. Just not in my lifetime.

  A silver sedan came up beside us and we waited, anticipating another load of euphoric Dodger kids. Instead we saw a young boy in the back seat wearing the familiar yellow-and-black Pirates cap. A thin man with glasses sat behind the wheel, with a pretty, honey-blonde sitting close enough to him to give him a lap dance.

  “My God! Did you see who that was?” I asked my mother.

  “Wasn’t that Jennifer Whitley and her little boy?”

  “It sure was!”

  “Who’s driving?” my mother asked.

  I smiled. Haver’s suspicions could now be directed at someone else. “That’s the vice principal at the high school. Kevin Sheffield.”

  11

  Ken Rhodes’s office faced west, and the light from the setting sun streaming in through the blinds gave his shirt an enticing transparency. I realized he didn’t care for undershirts and noticed something that had failed to register on the night he greeted me shirtless at the door to his apartment.

  Ken Rhodes had no chest hair.

  I made a mental comparison. Neil had a scrawny chest and pitiful wisps of brown and gray hair that sprang from the space between his pectorals. It made me glad, in a way, he was presently stealing Theda’s covers and leaving my blankets alone.

  “Is the sun in your eyes?” Rhodes asked.

  “My eyes are just fine,” I told him.

  “And how is your head and hip?”

  “I’m healing.”

  “It doesn’t look as healed as it should be,” he observed, noticing the stubborn lump on my eyebrow that refused to go away.

  “It’s getting better,” I insisted.

  Rhodes let the injuries go. “So what’s your big revelation? What happened last night on your way home from the baseball game?”

  “I saw Jennifer Whitley and her son in a car with Kevin Sheffield. I guess she’s over her grieving period. She sat very close to Sheffield. They looked conjoined.”

  “It doesn’t automatically convict either of them.”

  “Oh, really?” I said.

  Rhodes sat down at his desk and folded his hands. “Really. Widows date all the time. Some people even have affairs while they’re still married. They don’t necessarily kill off their spouses in the process. There’s a lot to consider.”

  “Such as?”

  “How about motive? What would be gained by killing Jason Whitley? Sheffield is single, I presume?”

  “The way he dresses, he looks like he still lives with his mother,” I said.

  Rhodes smiled. “That may be, but as vice principal, I’ll bet his salary is higher than that of a teacher. His finances would be in pretty good shape for a single man, especially one who saves money by living with his mother.”

  I shrugged. “I suppose so.”

  “It would have been smarter for Jennifer Whitley to divorce her husband,” he continued. “She’d be able to collect child support, alimony, and she’d have great health insurance for her son.”

  “Jennifer and Kevin Sheffield still had a motive, even if it doesn’t make good financial sense,” I said. “And the car they were in was a silver sedan—light, metallic silver. It could be the car that tried to run me down.”

  “My last car was a silver sedan,” Rhodes said. “Half the cars in the country are light colored. It proves nothing. It doesn’t matter right now who did or didn’t have a motive. Your shopping cart fiasco makes me think you should drop the whole thing. Ron Haver thinks so, too.”

  Recalling my last conversation with Haver made my blood pressure spike. “Ron Haver thinks I had a pretty good motive for killing Jason Whitley.”

  “He wasn’t serious.”

  “He sure sounded serious to me.”

  Rhodes leaned forward. I had a bad feeling about what was coming next.

  “It’s over, Colleen. I’m cancelling your column.”

  “What? I’ve already talked to Betty Vernon and Jennifer Whitley! I have a stake in this now, in case you forgot,” I reasoned. “I found the body and I’m the one who almost got smushed in a parking lot!”

  His voice softened but the words still packed a hefty wallop. “A general op-ed column would be a better option for you right now.”

  “But you said readers love first-hand accounts. This is a country of reality TV. I’m building a following, remember? It’s not fair!”

  “Who told you life was fair? I want you far away from the whole Whitley situation,” he said firmly. “And I don’t want an argument.”

  I stood to leave. “Whatever.”

  “Whatever?”

  “If that’s what you want, then fine,” I told him. “I’ll get some assignments from Meredi
th and write about lame council meetings or something. Why should I care about Jason Whitley anyway? I have my own problems.”

  I hurried to Meredith’s cubicle and grabbed a Twinkie from the box she kept near her monitor. It only took two bites to polish it off.

  “Compulsive eating is not a good way to deal with stress,” she said.

  “Neither is downing three margaritas in a span of twenty minutes.”

  “I’ve learned my lesson,” Meredith said. “What happened in Rhodes’s office? I thought I heard you yelling.”

  I sighed. “He’s changing my column to a general op-ed.”

  “I’m sorry. I can give you enough work to keep you busy though,” she told me. “There’s a fundraiser for that kid who got hurt in the hit-and-run on Bay Boulevard last month—Jeffrey Fitzpatrick. It’s on Saturday. Are you free to cover it?”

  “It’s not like my dance card’s full anymore,” I told her.

  “The Grand Duchess Hotel over in Matawan has spa packages now. Can you interview the owner?”

  I took my notebook out of my bag and wrote. “Is this one of those Pamper Mom for Mother’s Day things?”

  “Your deadline comes after Mother’s Day. This story will be far more in depth, if you please. They’re advertisers. Work it from the health perspective. Massages, aromatherapy—great for beating stress.”

  “Gotcha.” Advertisers always got long stories with loads of background stuff.

  “Don’t let the loss of the column eat at you, Colleen,” Meredith told me. “Just think of it as a temporary setback.”

  The way things were going, my whole life was turning into one big temporary setback.

  * * *

  Dejected, I left the office and started for home. With Ken Rhodes’s imposed restrictions, my assignments would revert to puff pieces. I had no husband and no decent income. My belligerent daughter was failing in school and seemed to hate me. My son was lost without his father, and the little time Neil managed to squeeze out to catch part of the kid’s baseball game at the field failed to brighten Bobby’s disposition. My mother, the only constant in my life, made my eye twitch.

  I bypassed my turn and drove south on the highway. As always when I’m feeling down, I headed for the bay. Just the sight of the gentle waves lapping the shoreline usually cheered me up.