by Merry Jones
“Christ, Sam—yes, I’m sure. She just about fell on top of me.”
“But how can you be? That chick out there—she’s all messed up.”
“Sam. It’s her. Her face isn’t messed up. And I recognize her sweat suit—it’s University of Michigan. Her ponytail. Her eye shadow. How many women joggers were dressed like that this morning on this street? It’s her. I’m absolutely positive.”
Sam seemed unconvinced.
“She slammed into me, Sam. She grabbed on to me to steady herself. We both almost hit the ground. We were like holding on to each other, face-to-face, and—I don’t know. We had a moment.”
“You had a moment?” Sam blinked. “You? With a dame?”
Tony shrugged. “Not everything is about sex, Sam.”
What? Wait, what were they saying? Was Tony gay?
“Says you.”
“I’m telling you, we had a moment. A purely nonsexual one, a human-to-human moment. It was intense. Like her eyes bored a hole into my head.”
Sam paused, as if absorbing the information. “This is unbelievable. You’re telling us that this morning, that dead dame came on to you.”
“She didn’t come on to me—”
“But it’s the same broad. You’re positive?”
“How many times do I have to say so? Yes. I’m positive.”
“Son of a gun.” Sam shook his head, baffled. “The kid doesn’t even like women, but he goes out for the paper and some hot blonde jumps him.”
“She didn’t jump me. She collided with me.”
“Whatever. A few hours later, she ends up gutted like a deer. In the back of the place where you’re staying.”
Again, for a moment, the three of us sat silent. I wondered why Nick hadn’t mentioned that Tony was gay. Not that it mattered, but still. And I didn’t know what it meant that Tony had seen the victim before. In fact, I wasn’t sure it meant anything at all. But, clearly, the police had to be told. I stood to go get Nick and almost tripped over Oliver, who’d been watching us beside the wingback. Damn, I’d forgotten about Oliver—it had been hours. He must need to go out. But I couldn’t let him out back; it was a crime scene with a body on the ground. I’d have to take him out front. I knocked on the window, motioning Nick to come inside.
Oliver gave out an accusatory bark. Then, watching me, slowly and deliberately, he lifted a leg and piddled on my hardwood floor.
SEVEN
BY THREE O’CLOCK, THE fog had mostly burned off, and Sam and I waited at the corner for Molly’s school bus. Sam tried to divert my attention from the crime by talking about various time- share properties he was selling, pushing me to think about investing in the Bahamas or Playa del Something-or-other, just outside of Cancun. After all, with two kids, Nick and I would want a place for family vacations. I tuned Sam out, watching for the bus, wondering how I would explain to Molly why police cars were blocking the street, double-parked in front of our house where the bus normally dropped her off. At least there were no sirens or flashing lights.
Finally, the bus pulled up to the corner, and Molly burst out the door and bounced down the steps, yellow curls flying as she looked up the street. “Mom, what happened?”
Not “hello.” Not a kiss or hug. Molly greeted us with a wide, suspicious gaze and a direct question.
“How was your day, Molls?” I dodged. Actually, her question hadn’t entirely startled me. Molly had an unflinching way of confronting trouble. But so soon? Even before hello? My explanation wasn’t ready. I glanced at Sam, who glanced at me.
“Here’s my girl.” He reached for her, scooped her off the ground. “Give your uncle a hug.”
But Molly wouldn’t be distracted, even as she perched in Sam’s hefty arms. “Why are you guys here? You never wait for my bus.”
Ouch. She was right. I hadn’t greeted her bus in months, not since Luke was born. Did she feel neglected? Guilty, I fumbled for an answer. I never lied to Molly, but I hadn’t fully figured out what I was going to say. The day had passed in a blur, and suddenly it had been time for her bus to pull up. How could I explain the confusion going on inside her house? The place was still crawling with police and forensic people. The body had been removed, but blood stained the back deck and yellow tape surrounded the yard. Molly watched me, waiting. From Sam’s arms, her eyes were level with mine.
I took a breath, deciding to be blunt. “Well, actually—”
“It’s so warm out, we figured it was a good day for you to take me to the zoo.”
The zoo?
“The zoo?” Molly frowned, peering into Sam’s face, perplexed. “But it’s a school day.” To her, the idea of going to the zoo on a school day was clearly preposterous.
She turned to me. I closed my mouth, trying not to look surprised at Sam’s invitation.
“It was a school day,” Sam acknowledged. “But it’s Friday. No school tomorrow. And it’s not a normal Friday, either. First of all, it’s finally nice outside. And, second, your uncle’s visiting and needs a young lady to escort him around town.”
Molly looked from him to me, from me to him. My daughter was no fool, and she wanted to know what was up. I made myself smile. “Molls, it’s okay. You can go if you want.”
“Something happened, didn’t it? On our street.”
“Everybody’s okay, Molls. We’ll tell you all about it later.”
“What happened?” She wouldn’t be put off. “Where’s Luke?”
“Luke’s fine. He’s home with Nick.”
“And Uncle Tony?”
“Tony’s fine, too. We’re all okay, but—” Oh dear. How to say it? “But somebody got hurt. A woman—”
“The police are taking care of it,” Sam interrupted. “But while we’re standing here yakking, time’s wasting. What do you say, Molly? Let’s go. We’ve only got a couple hours till they close.”
“You mean you want to go right now? This minute?”
“Yes, ma’am. This very one.” Sam set her down and helped her remove the book bag from her shoulders.
“But, Mom, I have a project. It’s due on Monday.”
“No problem. You have all weekend. I’ll help you.”
“Mom?” Molly was still suspicious. “Luke’s really okay?”
“Yes. I told you. He’s with Nick and Tony.”
“Wait—Nick? Why’s Nick home so early? Because of the woman? So she’s dead? Why didn’t you tell me she was dead? Who was she?” Molly’s mind worked quickly, putting facts together. Too comfortable with murder, too familiar with Nick’s work.
“Molly.” I knelt to look her in the eye. “Nick came home early because Tony and Sam are visiting, not because of the woman.” I omitted the part about her being dead. It wasn’t a lie.
And, apparently, my answer satisfied Molly. “So it’s okay if I take Uncle Sam to the zoo?”
“It’s absolutely okay. Have fun.”
“And you’ll help me with my project?”
“I will.”
Nodding, she gave me a quick kiss and took Sam’s hand. “Do they have elephants at this zoo, Molly? Because I know lots of elephant jokes.”
“Elephant jokes?” Molly glanced at me. “What’s that?”
“Here’s one. What weighs five thousand pounds and wears slippers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Cinderelephant.” Sam laughed out loud, wheezing, winking at me as they started across the street. “Get it?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Molly was unimpressed, but I was certain she’d hear a hundred more before they got home, maybe even before they got to the zoo.
They walked off toward his Lexus, and I stood alone at the curb, holding a loaded book bag.
EIGHT
BY THE TIME I got to talk to Susan, it was almost ten. By then, everyone in Philadelphia had heard about the murder. It had been a feature on the six o’clock news. People had been calling ever since, but we hadn’t answered, letting the voice mails pile up. Molly, wearing a zoo T-shirt and hol
ding a new stuffed elephant, had finally gone to bed. I’d fed Luke, so he was set and happy for another four hours, and the brothers had stopped hovering over me long enough to eat. Dinner was pizza in the living room with a couple of cold six-packs. Grabbing a slice of mushroom, I’d retreated to the bedroom with a glass of seltzer and my cell phone.
Susan Cummings was my best friend. A prominent criminal defense attorney, she was also the very married mother of three girls, an incredible homemaker and cook, an avid volunteer for a dozen charitable organizations and president of the Home and School Association. For Susan, life was a matter of juggling projects. Her projects ranged from dieting to decorating, fund-raising to child rearing, attending Carmen to arguing in court. Susan attacked every project with passion—baking, shopping, defending clients, being married to Tim. But for all the commotion in her life, Susan was a constant friend; normally, she steadied me. Her home, her presence, even her voice grounded me. Whenever I faced trouble, I sought her out.
“Finally,” she scolded me. Her voice was angry and very un- grounding. “Why didn’t you answer my calls? I tried the house. I tried your cell. I was about to come over there and break the door down.”
“I couldn’t call you or anybody. The cops were here until just now.”
“Well?”
Well. What should I say?
“Zoe. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
“Of course you are. And the pope’s a Hindu.”
She was right. I wasn’t fine. I was numb, way too calm. Probably in some kind of shock. “I mean, under the circumstances. We’re fine under the circumstances.”
“Okay. So, spill.”
I spilled, recounting events as if telling her would somehow make them less unfathomable, as if words might diminish the grisliness of the woman’s death. They didn’t, but as I finished, I felt somehow validated by Susan’s reactions, her occasional “damn” or “no way.”
“So. Do they know anything yet? I mean do they have any leads? What does Nick say?”
I gave her the latest update. “They don’t know who she is, but they think the murder was about drugs.”
“Well, duh. That’s obvious.”
It was? “How is it obvious?”
“Get real, Zoe. Why else would they cut her open?”
“So, you knew about that?” I hadn’t. Until that day, I hadn’t any idea that people swallowed bags of drugs and transported them across borders in their stomachs, primarily to get the drugs past Customs.
“Of course I did. You mean you didn’t?” She paused, and I didn’t answer. “Of course you didn’t. You’re Zoe.”
“Don’t start.” Save me, she was going to start her “you live in a bubble” routine again, depicting me as a completely naive and idealistic airhead.
“But it’s true. Zoe, you live in a bubble, ignoring unpleasantness, shutting out whatever you don’t want to know. You simply refuse to accept the ugly parts of life.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true.”
I wanted to say, “It isn’t,” but she’d just say, “It is,” and we’d go back and forth, arguing like a couple of six-year-olds. Still, I’d seen my share of ugliness, and I was irritated at the way she repeatedly claimed to be worldlier, more knowledgeable than I. “So what are you saying, Susan? That people commonly jog around the neighborhood with bellies full of heroin?”
“Maybe not. Could be full of cocaine.”
I leaned back against my pillows. Damn. Was she right? Was it really common, mainstream knowledge that people swallowed bags of drugs to transport them inside their bellies? Couldn’t be.
“Susan, the only way you know this stuff is because you work with criminals. You defend drug dealers on a daily basis. The underbelly of society is your bread and butter, so your viewpoint is skewed. The average person has no idea—”
“The average person is a moron—forget about him. Tell me more about what Nick said.”
“He just said what I told you. That the cops think it was drugs. One theory is that one of the bags burst in her belly and killed her, so they had to cut out the other bags. Another is that maybe she was holding out on the dealers, making off with a bag or two. Whatever the reason, they think she got cut open to retrieve drugs she was carrying. But all they really know so far is that she was already dead when she was cut open.”
“Well, that’s a blessing.”
A blessing? “I guess.” I pictured the blood and body parts, couldn’t see their owner as blessed.
For a moment, Susan didn’t say anything. I stared at my pizza slice. The cheese had cooled and hardened; grease had congealed. The tomato sauce had darkened into clots. I picked a mushroom slice off the top, put it in on my tongue. Chewed.
“Okay. So that explains why they cut her open. But it doesn’t explain a more important question.”
I swallowed. What question?
“Why was she on your patio?”
Oh. Right. That question.
“I mean, out of all the gates in the alley, why would she pick yours?”
And that one, too.
Staring at my sorry pizza slice, I drifted, letting Susan go on as I considered possible answers, so that, when her voice stopped, I had no idea why.
“But please don’t pick the hazelnut. And God, not the Amaretto—nobody likes that. Go with chocolate mousse? Please?”
Oh, she was talking about the cake. How could she think about the cake now, when a woman was dead? But she went on.
“Anyhow, the jury should be in, the latest by Tuesday, so how about a girls’ day out? I can show you my dress—Zoe, I swear, I look twenty pounds lighter in it. If I don’t watch out, I might outshine the bride. But we’ll go out for lunch. A leisurely, expensive lunch. And then, we’ll have a massage and a pedicure. Yes, that’s what we need: a spa day. How’s Thursday?”
Susan went on, her voice lilting and chirpy, as if she were having a normal conversation with a normal bride-to-be on a normal night. What was with her? How could she be so blasé about the murder? Were sliced bodies and drugs really not big deals anymore? Was the world just, ho-hum, another bloody mess in the backyard, let’s go get a facial? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t listen anymore.
Abruptly, I interrupted with a lie. “Susan—uh-oh, Luke’s crying. Got to go.” And I hung up suddenly, drained, not certain that I even said good-bye.
NINE
I LAY THERE FOR a few minutes, staring at nothing. I was irritated with Susan but knew it would pass. Susan was blunt, honest and painfully practical. She didn’t dwell on subtleties; she said what she thought and moved on. Sometimes, that was what I loved about her. At that moment, though, it wasn’t. I wanted to be comforted, or at least reassured. But Susan, for all her fine qualities, wasn’t in a comforting or reassuring mood. She was in the mood to think about chocolate mousse cake and matron-of-honor fashions. Since Nick was occupied, I was on my own, would have to comfort and reassure myself.
Maybe some television would help. I could watch a sitcom and vegetate, lull myself with canned laughter. I reached for the remote, but it wasn’t on the nightstand. I leaned on an elbow and looked across the comforter, to Nick’s nightstand. No remote. Where was it? Maybe on the floor or under the bed? Okay. If I wanted to watch television, I’d have to get up, either to search or to turn the thing on the old-fashioned way. No sitcom was worth that amount of effort. I lay there feeling lonely and neglected, fully aware that I could go downstairs and join the brothers, partake in some actual human companionship.
But I didn’t. If I went downstairs, I was sure that Sam and Tony would fuss over me and hover as they had all afternoon and into the evening.
“Zoe shouldn’t be alone,” Tony had told Nick earlier. He’d said it right in front of me as if I weren’t there. “She’s vulnerable. A woman with small children in a high-crime area. She should have somebody with her.”
Nick hadn’t argued. He’d pulled on his
beer and watched me.
“I’m fine on my own,” I began. “I’ve lived here for ten years, and I have a babysitter part-time. The neighborhood’s actually safer than it used to be.”
“But you’ve got kids now,” Tony persisted. “And somebody got murdered on your back porch. You need to be more—”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me or the kids.” I looked to Nick for support.
Nick returned my look but didn’t say a word, and I couldn’t read his expression.
“Seriously, Zoe,” Sam chimed in, selling real estate. “You guys should take the kids and move somewhere safer—I can get you guys a deal, believe me. What do you want? A condo? A nice house in the burbs?”
“This is our home. We like it here.” I made my voice flat, trying to sound final.
Sam scowled. “Look, I’ll gather up some information on properties. No pressure. When you’re ready, you and Nick can look it over—”
“But for now, you’ve got bodyguards,” Tony had volunteered. “As long as Sam and I are here, you don’t need to worry. You won’t be alone.”
And, for the rest of the day, while Nick worked with the detectives, his brothers had followed me, a tag team, wherever I’d gone. They’d taken turns. For a while, Sam had disappeared into my office to talk on his cell or work on his laptop, but Tony had stayed glued to me. If I turned around too fast, I bumped into him. Tony had stayed with me while I bathed Luke; he’d watched as I measured the kibble to feed Oliver. Then, when Sam had finally emerged from my office, they’d switched places. It was Tony’s turn to disappear and Sam’s to be my shadow. I’d had to insist that he wait downstairs when I went up to the bathroom. One or the other had been with me every second, watching but not necessarily helping as I cleaned up the kitchen, tossing out empty beer bottles and finally putting away the wilted lettuce and other groceries I’d bought that morning. Sam or Tony, together or apart, had shadowed me as I’d ordered pizza, as Molly and I had made salad, as I had emptied and refilled the dishwasher. They’d backed off a little when Nick came in, gathering around him to hear the latest from the police. Finally, when the pizza had arrived and they’d been distracted by food, I’d escaped, tucked Molly into bed and taken refuge in my bedroom, where I’d called Susan. I didn’t want to stay in my room all night, but if I went downstairs, I’d risk reactivating my security detail.
