Formula for Murder

by Diana Orgain

  I woke up when Jim climbed into bed.

  “Where’s Laurie?” I asked.

  “In her nest,” Jim answered.

  I rolled over and sat up to peek into the bassinet by my bedside. Since Laurie had been born I’d become accustomed to sleeping with my side table lamp on and now wondered how I’d ever slept in the dark.

  The light glowed on Laurie, casting a gentle shadow across one side of her face. “Is she okay?” I asked.

  “I think so, honey. I really do. She seems fine,” Jim said.

  “Any vomiting, listlessness, diarrhea, melancholy, rash—”

  “Noooo, honey,” Jim said, in his best calm-down-and-don’t-get-hysterical-on-me tone.

  I laid back and snuggled into his arms. “Okay.”

  After a moment, he said, “Well, she did spit up . . . but that’s normal, right?”

  I sat up again. “How do you know it was spit-up and not vomit?”

  Jim shrugged. “I don’t.”

  I peered over at Laurie in her bassinet. “Can she sleep in here with us?” I asked.

  Jim rose and crossed around our bed to the bassinet. He picked her up and then climbed back into bed. We nestled her between us.

  “I love my girls,” Jim said. “I’d do anything for you two.”

  “Yeah,” I snickered. “Even have a showdown with an unsuspecting Frenchman.”

  “I don’t think he’s as unsuspecting as he’d have you believe.”

  The night-light illuminated his face and I traced a finger across his lips. He kissed my finger.

  “Good night, honey. Get some rest. You went through a lot today.”

  “You, too.”

  Despite my best efforts for sleep, I woke every fifteen minutes and checked on Laurie. She slept great, only waking at midnight then at 3 A.M. for her normal feedings, which were actually so much more convenient with her lying right next to me.

  Why didn’t she sleep in our bed every night?

  Was she showing any signs of distress? I reviewed the list in my mind. Vomiting, well, we weren’t sure. I’d have to watch that. Listlessness?

  Wait.

  Listlessness? She had been sleeping an awful lot. Did that count?

  I lay awake next to her and watched her snooze, poking her softly every so often to make sure her reflexes were still intact.

  At 6 A.M. she woke up for another feeding. She had a wet diaper that had soaked through to our sheet. No wonder I didn’t make a regular practice of bringing her into our bed.

  I rose to change her diaper, my neck stiff and sore. Another reason she didn’t normally camp in our bed. I could barely move my neck from side to side.

  I scooped her up and took her to the nursery down the hall. I changed her soiled pink-striped pajamas to a clean white set with a bunny in a Santa suit on it. I tickled her.

  She seemed pleased to be in clean clothes and rewarded me with a toothless grin.

  After nursing her, I set her down on her play mat and proceeded to the kitchen to put on coffee. Jim materialized next to me as soon as the coffeemaker beeped to completion.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “With what?” I asked, surprised.

  “With you, honey, you’re moving funny.”

  “I am? Oh. My neck is stiff. I must have slept kiddiwampus with Laurie in our bed.”

  Jim squinted. “Are you sure you don’t have whiplash?”

  “Whiplash? No. I’m fine.”

  Actually, now that he mentioned it, more than my neck hurt. My mid and lower back, and even my hips were sore, too.

  I swallowed some Motrin with my morning coffee and tried to ignore the fact that if I had been injured in the accident then the chances were greater that Laurie had been injured, too.

  Shortly after 8 A.M. Mom called in a panic. Thankfully I was in the shower so Jim had to deal with her near hysterics. She was coming right over Jim informed me as I toweled off and stared into my closet.

  “Okay, good. She can obsess over Laurie with me,” I said.

  Jim snorted. “Laurie’s fine. You’re the one that needs to get looked at. Please make an appointment.”

  The doorbell sounded, interrupting our conversation. “That was fast,” I said.

  Jim left me to select some clothes and went to answer the door.

  Paula’s voice drifted down the hallway.

  I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and rushed to the living room. My best friend, Paula, now eight months pregnant, was cradling Laurie above her massive belly. She studied Laurie’s face. “I got your message,” she said. “Pupils look fine. She looks alert and happy. Has she vomited?”

  “I don’t know. She spits up a lot. How can you tell?”

  Paula’s two-year-old son, Danny, clung to her leg and pulled on her maternity top. “It’s kinda hard. But you can usually tell by the volume. Is she keeping anything down?”

  “Yes. It must be just spit-up.” I knelt down and extended my arms. “Hi, Danny!”

  He rushed to me and wrapped his arms around my neck, sort of hanging from it. “Ouch! Oh, honey, wait.” I disentangled myself from him.

  Concern showed on Jim’s face.

  Paula looked at me, her brow creasing. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. No. I’m totally fine. He caught me off guard is all.”

  The doorbell sounded again.

  I moved toward it and pulled it open. Mom flung her arms around me and crushed me against her. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”

  I silently winced. My neck did hurt but no reason to cause a fuss.

  Mom released me and rushed to pluck Laurie out of Paula’s arms. “My love!” she said to Laurie, who cooed up at her. Then Mom instructed Paula “to have a seat before she went into labor.”

  “I wish standing caused labor,” Paula said.

  I rubbed my neck. Paula squinted at me. “I’m scared about brain damage,” I confessed to her.

  “Why are you scared?” She smiled. “You’ve lived your whole life with it.”

  I poked her arm. “Come on, idiot, not me.”

  Paula made a face. “Laurie? No way. She was in a fivepoint harness, right?”

  I nodded and chewed my lip. “But what if her little brain was scrambled?”

  Paula laughed. “She’s not an egg. Babies are very resilient. She’s fine. No brain damage. I promise.” Paula wrapped her fingers around my arm. “You’re the one whose gonna be hurting.”

  “I don’t care about me,” I said.

  Jim put a hand on my shoulder. “We do, though. Make an appointment.”

  Paula agreed, then sat on my couch and put her swollen feet on the coffee table. Danny tried to climb into the little room left on her lap.

  Jim plucked Danny off her. “Come with me, buddy. Let’s make you a chocolate milk shake.”

  “Oh! I’ll take one of those,” Paula called after Jim as they headed to the kitchen.

  Mom was doing an elaborate baby-calming dance for Laurie, who was giggling up at her. “Where’s your Christmas tree?” Mom asked.

  “At the Christmas tree lot,” I answered, taking a seat on the couch next to Paula.

  I put my head on Paula’s shoulder and whispered in a voice that threatened to crack, “I’m a terrible mother.”

  “I know, you don’t have your Christmas cards out yet,” Paula whispered back to me.

  We watched Mom making faces at Laurie.

  A tear slipped down my check without me even realizing it. It touched my lip and I tasted the salt. “If I was a good mom I would have never let myself get rear-ended with Laurie in the car.”

  After a little prodding from Paula, Jim decided to take Danny to the Christmas tree lot to pick out a Christmas tree for us. While they were gone Paula hacked into my computer and printed out labels for my Christmas cards. It took her about three minutes and saved me several hours of frustration.

  Mom helped out by executing a string of calls to my insurance company, trying to get through to a liv
e person. She finally gave up when the garage called to notify me that my Chevy had been deemed a total loss. The mechanic said I should be hearing from an adjuster shortly.

  Jim and Danny returned with the best Charlie Brown Christmas tree they could find. We spent the rest of the afternoon stringing popcorn, decorating the tree, and listening to Mom sing carols off-key.

  Several days passed and I still hadn’t heard from our insurance company. I’d made an appointment with our regular pediatrician, Dr. Clement, who concurred with the emergency room pediatrician and Paula. Laurie seemed completely unharmed by the incident. I, on the other hand, seemed to get progressively stiffer. Which Dr. Clement suggested was absolutely normal.

  I snuggled next to Jim on the couch and tried to put the accident out of my mind. The day had been busy. Besides the appointment I was doing background work for Galigani, which although a bit mindless was helping me learn the general ins and outs of the investigation business.

  Since giving birth to Laurie, I’d managed to be involved in several murder investigations and basically had decided to launch a private investigation business. But since I didn’t have a PI license, Albert Galigani, an ex-cop and now successful private investigator, had more or less agreed, depending on his mood, to mentor me. He’d given me what he called “homework” to improve my skills, but the homework felt more like “penance.” My eyes were tired from staring at the computer screen but every time I closed them I still saw typed text floating and scrolling.

  I must have dozed off because Jim shook me awake. “Look at this, Kate!”

  I pried an eye open and immediately looked for Laurie.

  Jim indicated the television. “It’s Nancy Pickett. She was found dead.”

  “What?” I sat to attention and stared at the TV.

  “We are saddened to report that our colleague, Nancy Pickett, was found dead yesterday afternoon. Nancy had been with our station five years, reporting the best stories in the Bay Area.” The anchor’s eyes filled with tears. “Again, Nancy Pickett, dead at the age of thirty-five.”

  • CHAPTER FOUR •

  “Wow!” I said to Jim. “What happened?”

  “They found her body in Golden Gate Park. They think she was a victim of a mugging on her morning run.”

  Golden Gate Park! We lived so close to the park and I’d never thought of it as crime-ridden. It had always been a source of pure enjoyment for me.

  I squinted at the enlarged photo of her on the television set.

  “Mugged on her morning run?”

  Jim nodded.

  Well, that’s a good reason to put off working out. Safety!

  “Why would someone get mugged on a run? Most people don’t go on a jog with tons of cash on them. Was she raped?”

  Jim shook his head. “I don’t know. They didn’t say.” He flipped through several local channels. All were reporting her death, either through the anchor or with a scrolling news feed at the bottom of the screen. No channel had any additional information.

  “I can’t believe we just saw her.”

  Jim rubbed my shoulder. “I know, it’s creepy, isn’t it?”

  I stood and made my way to the nursery, which also doubled as our office. “I’m going to look her up.”

  Jim followed me. “Look up the staff at the French consulate while you’re at it. That Jean-Luc Gruyère guy.”

  I laughed. “Gruyère is a cheese.”

  Jim dismissed my comment with a wave. “Gruyère, gouda, whatever.”

  “His name was Gaudet.”

  “He was cheesy all right,” Jim said, ignoring me, “with his shirt unbuttoned. Give me a break.”

  “Maybe you should wear your shirt like that,” I teased.

  Jim laughed. “Bet you’d love that.”

  I smiled. “Just because you didn’t care for the guy doesn’t mean he has anything to do with Nancy Pickett’s death.”

  “I’m not saying he killed her. I’m just sayin’ to look him up.”

  I wiggled the mouse to bring my computer to life. Laurie cried from the other room. Jim went to fetch her from the bassinet as I typed Nancy Pickett into the database Galigani had given me access to. I found her driver’s license number and noted the clean record. I jotted down her address. She lived in the Marina District. Why would a Marina resident go for a morning jog in Golden Gate Park? The two districts weren’t close. Surely she would jog at the Marina Green.

  I poked further into her record. There was a short bio for her that gelled with everything I already knew about her. She was divorced. Maybe she had friends that lived near Golden Gate Park and they all ran together. That would certainly explain a morning jog there. Except, then where were her friends when she was attacked?

  What if she’d been killed somewhere else and just dumped in the park?

  Jim returned to the nursery with Laurie in his arms. He proceeded to change her diaper. “Did you find anything?”

  “Not really. Not yet. She lived in the Marina on Chestnut Street.”

  “Hmmm. What’s she doing running in the park? Wouldn’t she run the Presidio?”

  “Or the Green.”

  “What did you find on Jean-Luc?”

  “Nothing. I’m still looking into Nancy.”

  Jim finished changing Laurie’s diaper and then handed her off to me. “I’ll get his card.”

  “How am I supposed . . .” I turned to watch Jim leave the room. “. . . to work with Laurie in my lap?”

  I typed with one hand and googled Nancy’s address, then mapped it. It was literally three blocks from the Marina Green.

  Jim returned and gave me Jean-Luc’s card.

  I typed his name into the database and drew a blank.

  “He’s a foreign diplomat. I don’t think he’s in the system.”

  Jim plucked Laurie out of my arms. She pedaled her feet as she dangled in front of him and let out a little giggle. “Yeah, ask Galigani. Something’s up with that guy.”

  Laurie and I had a fitful night. We woke several times to nurse and just stare at each other in general. She seemed fine, no symptoms from the car accident had manifested so we were both settling down into our normal, nervous routine instead of the paranoia-on-steroids one from the last few days.

  After rising and putting on a pot of coffee, I updated my to-do list:

  To Do:

  1. ✓

  2. Call insurance AGAIN—what’s the holdup?

  3. Reschedule holiday photos—get Laurie’s dress cleaned.

  4. ✓ , cards, shopping, . 2 out of 4 = 50% done. Progress!

  5. Find stupid kid that hit us so I can give him a piece of my mind!

  6. ✓

  7. Buy new car!

  I dialed Galigani. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Hey. I finished with the boring research you asked me to do.”

  “What do you mean boring? Research is the building blocks of all investigations, if you can’t do that, kid—”

  “Did you hear about the reporter from Channel Five?”

  Galigani hadn’t. I filled him in with as many details as I had.

  When I finished, he grunted. “So what are you saying? Investigating the murder of a reporter is more interesting than doing background for me?”

  “Slightly more interesting.”

  “Let me guess. You want me to poke around? Ask a few questions.”

  I laughed. “I would never suggest such a thing.”

  We hung up and I proceeded with my chores. I sorted the laundry and threw the whites in the machine. As I added bleach, the phone rang. I picked it up expecting Galigani—what could he have found out so soon?

  Paula’s voice filled the line. “Hey! You’ll never guess what I just got in the mail!”

  “A Christmas card?”

  “Oh! You are good! Yes. A Christmas card with an invite to a Christmas party, but you have to guess from whom.”

  “I give up.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  “I t
hink you’ve told me that before.”

  Paula snorted. “The French consulate.”

  “What? How did you get invited to that?”

  “I party in the right circles,” Paula said.

  I laughed. “Unless there’s something you haven’t been telling me—”

  “Nah. We went to the consulate before we left for Paris last year. In case I ended up giving birth I wanted to know what to expect. We must have ended up on their mailing list. Any news from your insurance?”

  “They’re AWOL, but I have another development for you.”

  “What’s that?” Paula asked.

  “Did I tell you that Jim and I saw Nancy Pickett leaving the consulate the day we were there?”

  Paula breathed in sharply. “Nancy Pickett? I saw on the news that she was found dead in Golden Gate Park.”

  “I know.”

  “Let’s go to the party,” Paula said, after a moment. “You can be my date.”

  “Jim will never go for it.”

  “Don’t tell him.”

  “No. I’ll tell him. Of course, I’m gonna tell him,” I said.

  “What am I going to wear? I don’t have any fancy maternity clothes.”

  “I don’t have any—”

  “Oh. Shut up. I have zero sympathy for anyone who is NOT eight months pregnant, looking for a party dress.”

  I laughed. “Let’s go shopping.”

  I folded laundry and stacked it on my bed while Laurie lay in the middle of it chewing on a board book.

  Jim came into the bedroom and studied me.

  “What?” I asked.

  He picked up a T-shirt and fussed with it.

  I could tell by the way he scrunched the shirt he wanted to tell me something. “What is it?”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  “Do you feel, you know, strong?”