Moving Can Be Murder

by Susan Santangelo

  I pressed “Send” and decided not to sit at the computer and wait for his response. After all, a watched computer never boils. Or maybe that was a pot.

  Anyway, there was always another box to unpack, and I still had to go over the notes I took at Sally’s Place and put them in some semblance of order for my story on domestic violence.

  Bing!

  I smiled. I knew my son would respond right away to his dear mother.

  Wait a minute. What was this? I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the same automatic ‘out-of-office’ response. The little twit. What was going on with him?

  I was determined to track my son down and get a real response out of him. Plus, I needed him to research Jack Cartwright. Hmm. I needed another plan.

  I’d heard Jenny say that it’s possible to write to someone via Facebook, and I knew Mike had a Facebook account. Of course, I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t have a clue about how all this social networking stuff worked, but I figured trying it was worth a shot.

  Twenty frustrating minutes later – I’d always heard setting up these accounts was easy but it sure was a big learning curve for me – I finally succeeded.

  Apparently the next step after setting up an account was to find friends. I didn’t want to find friends. I wanted to find my son.

  I typed in his name, and was rewarded with the prompt that not only could I request we be “friends,” but I could send him a message along with the “friend request.”

  Yippee. I’d track my son down yet.

  I composed a similar message to my previous one and sent it off. I hoped Mike was as addicted to Facebook as I’d heard other twenty-somethings were.

  Then I forced myself to log off and transpose my chicken-scratch notes from Sister Rose and Marcia Fischer onto the computer. Reading Marcia’s story again made me want to cry. I couldn’t believe what she had been through as a teenager. Talking to Sister Rose had opened my eyes to the magnitude of domestic violence, but Marcia put a real face onto it.

  Maybe my article would help save another young woman from going through what Marcia had. I made up my mind that I was going to finish the story and get it published, no matter what. Maybe My Beloved could help.

  I sighed. In what exact order was I proposing to save the world? Clear Mary Alice? Eradicate domestic violence in Fairport? Find a new place to live? Track down my wandering son?

  I saved the beginning of my article and logged onto the Internet again. Time to see if Mike had responded to my Facebook message. And, to my great relief, he had.

  Sort of.

  He’d confirmed me as a “friend.” That was good. And there was also a personal message.

  “Dear friends and family, especially my mother. I know you’re wondering what’s up with me. Sorry to say, I CAN’T TELL YOU. But I can tell you I am well – wonderful even. The best I’ve ever been. And I’ll be back in touch and explain everything soon. For the indefinite future, I must maintain ‘radio silence.’ Thanks for your understanding.”

  Understanding is not my strong suit.

  What the heck was Mike up to?

  I picked up the apartment phone to call Jim. I needed a man’s perspective on this. I heard beeping, indicating a call had come in when I was on Internet dinosaur dial-up. I heard Nancy’s voice, screeching in a tone that always meant trouble.

  “Carol, I don’t know where you are. But when you get my message, get over to your house right away. Jim is here ordering everyone around and driving the contractors crazy. You gotta get him out of here pronto, or there won’t be any show house.” Then she slammed the phone down.

  Good grief.

  I curbed the impulse to curse out loud. I don’t like to use bad language in front of Lucy and Ethel.

  Instead, I forced myself to take deep calming breaths. One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths. By the time I got up to ten, I had a plan. And, if I do say so myself, it was one of my best.

  This morning Jim had added something to my Honey-Don’t List – Thou shalt not interfere with the police investigation into Jack Cartwright’s death. Now it was my turn to add to his: Thou shalt not interfere in the design of the show house.

  I sat down at the kitchen table and wrote Jim’s new Honey-Don’t mantra on a sheet of paper again and again. Then I cut the paper into individual strips and stuffed them into the Honey-Don’t Jar, grabbed my car keys, and told the girls to be good.

  After all, turn-about was fair play, wasn’t it?

  Heh, heh heh.

  Chapter 31

  Smile often. It confuses people.

  I didn’t panic when I rolled to a stop in front of our house and found no cars or workmen’s trucks there. Maybe they were all taking a late lunch, I told myself. Or having a design planning meeting at Superior Interiors.

  “Hello? Hello?,” I called, walking around the side of my house. “Anybody here?”

  Then I spied My Beloved sitting on the back porch steps. Alone. Looking like he’d lost his last friend. Or, possibly, mine.

  Put on a happy face, I told myself. He didn’t need to know that Nancy called me in a panic and ordered me to get him out of there.

  “Hi, honey,” I said, sitting down beside him and putting the Honey-Don’t Jar in plain sight. “Where is everybody? What are you doing outside all by yourself?”

  “That…that decorator person, Marcia what’s-her-name, had the nerve to tell me to leave my own house. She practically threw me out. All I was doing was making a few simple suggestions about the way they were doing the show house. It is our house, after all. I have a right to an opinion, especially since we want to put it back on the market once the show house is over. I couldn’t believe it.

  “And when I refused to leave, she had two of the workmen shove me out the kitchen door. And then she locked it. I tried to get back in, but my key wouldn’t work. She must have changed the lock. What a witch.”

  “Jim,” I said, “for heaven’s sake, calm down. And don’t talk about Marcia that way. You don’t know her at all. She’s just doing her job. And, we’ve been over this before. For the next few months, this isn’t our house. I repeat, this isn’t our house.”

  I shook the Honey-Don’t Jar in his face. “Remember how, this morning, you added something new to my Honey-Don’t list? Well, now it’s my turn. Pick one. Any one.”

  Jim reached in and pulled out a slip of paper. Read it carefully. Shook his head. Pulled out another one. Then another. Then another.

  “OK, Carol, I get it. You’re right. But I was just trying to be helpful. You see that, don’t you?’

  “If you want to be helpful, Jim, I have a few things that you can do for me. Like go over the domestic violence article I’ve been working on. I interviewed Sister Rose and a domestic violence survivor, and I’ve done a quick first draft from my notes, but I really need more help fleshing out the story and editing it. And then, I have to get it into print. I’ll even forfeit my computer time for the rest of the day if you’d take a look at it. You’ve had so much more experience with this than I have.”

  After a certain age, sex may not do the trick. But give a man a good meal, or an important (as in “Honey, you’re the only one who help me”) job to do, and he’ll be putty in your hands. All smart wives know that secret.

  Jim leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “I know what you’re doing, Carol,” he said. “You figure that if you divert me with your article, I’ll stay away from our house.”

  He waved the slips of paper in my face. “But don’t forget your part of the bargain. No interfering with the police.”

  “I already agreed to that, dear,” I said. And gave him a sweet smile.

  “I’m going back to the apartment to read your article,” Jim said.

  Before he left, turned and peered in our kitchen window. Then he fired his parting salvo.

  “You better be sure Marcia doesn’t paint the kitchen puke green.”

  Over all, I was pleased at how I’d handled that situat
ion. Of course, it was the most trivial of all the crises I was currently dealing with.

  Which brought me squarely back to Mary Alice and The Big Problem. Imitating My Beloved’s recent movements, I stood on tippy toes and peered in my kitchen window. Nope, there was no way Mary Alice could have seen Jack Cartwright lying on the floor from this vantage point. And I was sure she would come to my kitchen door. It was the way all of us, family and friends, came and went. The antique front door, which looked great from the street, was hard to open and a devil to close, so we never used it.

  I heard a chirping sound, and for a split second I looked up at the sky to see if a bird was flying overhead.

  But it wasn’t a bird, it was my cell phone, which I was actually able to locate in my purse before the caller clicked off or went into voice mail. (Some of you may not know what a feat finding my cell phone was for me. If you’re one of them, don’t worry. I’ll tell you another time.)

  “Carol, for God’s sake, pick up this phone,” said Mary Alice. “If I have to leave you a message too, I swear I’ll really lose it.”

  “I’m here!” I screamed back, parking myself on the back porch steps. “Don’t hang up!”

  “Thank God I got you,” Mary Alice said. “I’ve been calling all over. Where’s Claire? Where’s Nancy? I need all of you. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life as I was last night at your house.”

  She started to cry. “And I’m so scared. The police think I’ve been hiding the fact that I knew Jack Cartwright.”

  She stopped talking for a minute and I distinctly heard her inhale something.

  “Mary Alice, are you smoking again?” I yelled. “For heaven’s sake, it took you years to quit. Please don’t start that filthy habit again.”

  She coughed into the phone. “I just had one. And it tastes terrible. I found an old pack of cigarettes in my dresser.”

  She coughed again. “Larry said last night that any evidence against me is circumstantial. That’s why the police questioned me and then let me come home. But I feel like a criminal. The way I was escorted out of your house in front of all those people.

  “Oh God, I’m so scared. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared before. You’ve got to help me. I didn’t do anything to hurt Jack. Really, I didn’t. You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Well, of course I believe you, sweetie,” I said. “As a matter of fact, Nancy and Claire and Deanna and Maria and I all had a meeting this morning at the Trattoria. We have a brilliant plan that’s sure to get you out of this mess.” OK, I know that was stretching the truth, but I was trying to cheer Mary Alice up, so I can be excused for that white lie, right?

  “Everyone has a job to do, and we’ll keep at it until the real perp is caught.”

  Mary Alice laughed. “I can’t believe you used the word ‘perp’, Carol. You’ve been reading too many mysteries again.

  “I should have known I could count on all of you to come through for me. What can I do?”

  “Keep your chin up and think positive thoughts,” I said. “I’ll be back in touch with you soon with news. We’ll get through this together.”

  And you might start a novena or two, just to be on the safe side.

  I didn’t really say that. Of course.

  As surprising as this may sound, for the next few days My Beloved was more helpful to me than my personal posse of girlfriends. He did a good edit of my article – very thoughtful, helpful, and non-critical. He did have some changes to suggest. But he presented his suggestions as just that – suggestions.

  “This is a strong article, Carol,” Jim said as he went over it still again. “It really opened my eyes to the domestic violence issue. Say,” he said, flipping his glasses up to ride on his receding hairline, “do you think that Jenny was in an abusive relationship in California? I know Jeff was a control freak, but it never occurred to me that it could be abuse.”

  “I thought of the same thing,” I said. “No matter what happened out there, let’s just be grateful that she’s back in Fairport and seems to be involved with a terrific guy. I guess parents never know, unless the child chooses to share it. And even then, I know we’re not getting the whole story.

  “Speaking of which,” I said, “you may be interested to know that our son is maintaining radio silence for the next few weeks. I even tried to reach him using Facebook and got a cryptic e-mail back which said he’d be in touch when he was ready to be and meanwhile don’t worry. Hah! As if a son can tell his mother not to worry.”

  “Since when did you join Facebook?” My Beloved asked. Trust him to zero in on the least important piece of my conversation.

  “I’m trying to live in the twenty-first century,” I replied. “And what do you think about Mike?”

  “You’ve always worried too much about him,” Jim said. “Especially since he moved to Miami. You know the old saying, ‘Boys will be boys’.”

  Isn’t it fascinating how a father’s take on a son is so different than the one he has on a daughter?

  “You need to leave him alone and let him live his life. What were you bugging him about, anyway?”

  “I was not bugging him, dear,” I said. “I wanted his help doing some Internet sleuthing about Jack Cartwright. You remember how helpful Mike was finding out information about your retirement coach last year. If it wasn’t for him, you might be making license plates in the local lock-up for the indefinite future.”

  Jim looked me squarely in my baby blues. “I thought we agreed that you were not going to interfere with the police investigation. You promised me.”

  “I’m not interfering,” I said in my defense. “But Mary Alice, who is one of my oldest and dearest friends, called and begged me for help. So I just decided to do a little investigating on my own. How could I refuse her? In fact, since she was a bridesmaid in our wedding, maybe you should pitch in and help her, too, instead of criticizing me for doing it.”

  “Knowing you, you’ve already involved Nancy and Claire,” Jim said.

  “I didn’t involve them. They want to help Mary Alice. And so do Deanna and Jenny and Maria Lesco.”

  Jim took a full minute to process this information, then said, “All right, Carol. How about if I take on the job you wanted Mike to handle? I’ll do some Internet searches on Jack and see what I can come up with.

  “But you have to promise me that anything we find out goes right to the police. Whether it’s helpful to Mary Alice or not.”

  “Of course, Jim,” I said. Over my – excuse the phrase – dead body.

  Chapter 32

  Dear God: My prayer this year is for a thin body

  and a fat bank balance. Please don’t mix these up

  like you did last year. Amen.

  No matter how many tragedies life throws at you, the mundane domestic chores still have to be handled. The next morning, when I reached into my large black suitcase to see what clean clothes I had left, I realized I was down to my very last pair of undies.

  Yikes! Crisis! I couldn’t ignore this. The laundry had to be done.

  I had a brief flashback to my house, with my matching washer and dryer tucked side by side in the basement like best buddies. And Jim marching down the basement stairs, laundry basket held high, ready to throw in a load. Or two. My hero.

  When Jim initially took over the laundry chores, I resented it. I felt like he was encroaching on my female territory. Nobody did the laundry better than I did. But once he got the hang of separating colors – huge learning curve there – and started hanging up clothes right from the dryer to avoid needless ironing, I encouraged him in his new-found hobby. Took it for granted, even.

  But today, according to the note he’d left propped up by the computer, he was off to the newspaper and wasn’t sure when he’d be back. I wondered if he’d taken my article with him. Well, I’d find out about that later.

  Meanwhile, I had to load up the car with dirty clothes, towels, sheets (might as well strip the bed while I was at it), detergent, fa
bric softener, bleach, spray spot remover, dryer sheets – good grief. And then find a convenient Laundromat. What a way to spend the day.

  I fed and walked Lucy and Ethel, and told them not to expect me back before dark. I handed them the remote control for the television (only kidding) and was on my way.

  Jeez. What a hot place. I’m talking temperature here, so don’t get the wrong idea. I couldn’t believe how many people were at Sissy’s Suds in the middle of the morning. I had to fight to commandeer the three washers I needed for all my stuff, and even then, I was packing the machines so tightly that I prayed they didn’t overflow.

  Then I found an empty chair next to an overflowing ashtray

  (probably why the chair was empty) and settled myself in to read the year-old magazines scattered around the sticky table. And this was a place where I was supposed to get my clothes clean?

  I was zeroing in on an article about the Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt/Jennifer Anniston “love triangle” – “Brad and Jen Caught in Secret Tryst; Angie Livid!” – when I heard a familiar voice on the other side of the high bank of dryers.

  It was my neighbor, Liz.

  “Alyssa’s handling the whole situation so bravely,” she said. “But I think part of her is relieved she won’t have to put up with Jack any more. From what I’ve heard, he wasn’t the easiest person in the world to live with.”

  Huh? Now this was very interesting. In fact, it was the first time I’d ever heard anyone say anything negative about Jack. Let’s hear it for public Laundromats.

  I strained to hear more, but didn’t want to give my presence away.

  “Have you seen her?” asked the other person, whose voice I didn’t recognize.

  “Not since the memorial service,” Liz admitted. “But we’ve talked on the phone a few times. I wanted her to know that she can count on me to be there for her, if she needs to cry, or talk, or just plain vent. It’s so hard for her to keep up a positive front. She doesn’t want anyone to know how awful her life with Jack really was.