Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder

by Camilla T. Crespi

  “Great,” Angie said, taking the bag.

  “Does Margot have anything in that truck-wide Sub-Zero of hers?” More than anything Lori wanted to reach her daughter, hold her tight, but she knew how important it was for Jessica not to break down, to come across as strong and in control. Once she came home, after a good cry, a heart-to-heart talk, Jessica might slowly go back to being a teenager, thinking of herself, her friends, about inconsequential details, such as what to pack for the trip to Cape Cod. At least, Lori hoped so.

  Angie held up her thumb. “Our fridge holds skim milk.” She moved on to the other fingers as she went down the list. “Orange juice, Mr. and Mrs. T. mix, caffeine-free Diet Coke, low-fat yogurt, celery, and a jar of caviar we’re not allowed to touch.” Angie wrinkled her nose. “As if. And a bottle of vodka in the freezer, also forbidden.”

  “How about coming home with me and I’ll make lunch?”

  “Can’t,” Angie said. “Mom’s getting her hair done and the carpet cleaner is supposed to come any minute.” She looked at Jessica, then at Lori, looking like she needed to assess what to do next. “We’ve got cans of tuna,” she said finally, “and I make a mean tuna salad, right, Jess?”

  Jessica nodded, the pool with its black and white checkered pattern like a giant unsolved crossword puzzle still holding her attention.

  “I should make the salad,” Lori said. “You girls are sunbathing.”

  “No.” Angie’s voice was firm, adult. “You stay here with Jess. I’ll be right back.” She sprinted across the black flagstone path toward the house before Lori could protest.

  “Yell if you need help,” Lori called out.

  “I think we even have some crackers,” Angie yelled back.

  Lori sat down on the white metal lounge chair Angie had vacated. “Daddy came to the house this morning,” she said. “He said you’ve been wonderful to him. You’ve helped him a lot. He’s very grateful.”

  Jessica’s lower lip trembled. “Then why is he sending me away?”

  “He’s not sending you away. He wants you to have a good time with Angie. And he also needs to be alone. It’s hard for him to grieve when he’s worried about you. Right now, he has too much to think about. He has to say goodbye to Valerie, he has to digest what happened. You can understand that.”

  Jessica nodded, her jaw tight to fight the tears now running down her cheeks.

  Lori leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her expression intense in her need to explain, to make things better. “Remember when Daddy left home, how you shut yourself up in your room for days on end? You didn’t even want to see Angie.”

  Jessica stood up and squeezed herself into Lori’s chair. Lori leaned back and let her daughter settle against her chest, as little Jessica had done whenever she’d felt overwhelmed. They both closed their eyes.

  “He needs looking after, Mom,” Jessica said.

  “Daddy has many friends.”

  “Not like us. We’re family.”

  Lori said nothing.

  “He feels guilty for getting sick and making her take us home,” Jessica said. “She didn’t want to. He argued with her.”

  “She was probably undressed, ready for bed.”

  “It must make him feel worse, though.”

  “Tell me what happened at Pastis.” Maybe it was too soon to ask for details. “If you want to, hon.”

  Jessica snuggled closer, the top of her head brushing Lori’s chin. “The food was great and we were having a really good time. Then Daddy’s cell went off.” Jessica stopped to watch a chipmunk scurry from one flowerbed to the next. Lori waited.

  “Whoever it was sounded pretty mad. I could hear him yell over all the voices and the music in the restaurant. I think it was a guy, but it could have been a woman, I guess. Someone with a real low voice. Daddy got up and went outside to talk, and when he came back he was different, you know?” Jessica jiggled a leg. The lounge chair trembled in rhythm. “Everything was annoying him. He complained to the waiter about the noise, about how long it took them to bring us dessert, about our water glasses not being filled fast enough. He embarrassed Angie.”

  Which meant Jess had been embarrassed, too, Lori thought as she slid her hand over Jessica’s knee to stop the jiggling.

  Jessica sat up with an accusatory look at Lori. “You haven’t said anything. Do you care at all what happened to Daddy?”

  Lori covered her chest with her hands, suddenly cold without Jessica. “Of course I do! I’m the one who asked, remember? I didn’t want to interrupt, that’s all.” She’d been afraid Jessica would stop talking or spin off into another direction. “Did Daddy tell you he wasn’t feeling well right after the phone call?”

  “No. Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes later.” Jessica wriggled herself down to the end of the lounge chair and crossed her legs. “After Angie and I finished our lemon tarts. They had all these great-sounding desserts—upside down apple cake and chocolate mousse and pistachio something and something else called panache and lots of other goodies, but Daddy—you know he has the biggest sweet tooth of all of us—only had coffee. I asked him what was wrong, and that’s when he told us he had a stomachache and he was going to ask Valerie to take us home. He went out on the street to call her. I could see him argue with her through the window. It really annoyed me. Now I feel bad about it.”

  “Maybe they were discussing something else. After all, you couldn’t hear him.”

  Jessica shook her head in her deliberate nothing-will-sway-me way. “She didn’t like me.”

  “I’m sure she did, sweetie. Maybe she was a little bit jealous of how much Daddy loves you.”

  Jessica smiled. “You should get a job in advertising, Mom. You’re getting to be a really good spin doctor.”

  “I am not! Where did you learn that expression?”

  “Mom! Hello?” Jessica waved a hand in front of her face. “I don’t live on the moon, you know.”

  “Sorry, I forgot. You’ve been gone so long. Will you come home after lunch? We can start going through your clothes to see if there’s anything you need to buy for Cape Cod.”

  Angie walked down the pathway with lunch.

  “There you go again.” Jessica got up to help Angie with the tray. “Bribing me with shopping.”

  Lori stood up, too. “Is it going to work?” She strolled over to the round white marble table near one corner of the pool, an area semicircled by tall white delphiniums, to help Angie.

  “You’re on, Mom. I need a new pair of jeans.”

  They quickly set the table with black plastic plates and glasses, white napkins, Coke cans. Angie placed the large platter of tuna fish and the bowl of rice crackers in the middle and sat down. The apple pie stayed on the tray. “Hysteric Glamour, that’s the best brand,” she said. “Mom has a pair. They’re cool and really expensive.”

  Jessica sat down next to her. “Knowing my mother, I’ll get Levi’s or Gap.”

  “Right you are, sweetie.” Lori mounded tuna fish on each plate and then sat down. After the first few bites, she complimented Angie on the tuna salad. It was good, but what made it special was Angie’s thoughtfulness. She had understood Lori’s need to be with Jessica alone for a few minutes.

  They ate silently after that, the need to satisfy hunger taking over. When Jessica put her fork down, her plate was clean. “You know what I’ve been wondering, Mom?”

  “What?” Lori asked, the fear she’d been carrying with her since Valerie’s death momentarily appeased by the food and the girls’ sweetness.

  “If Daddy’s stomach was hurting, why did he drink coffee? He always said caffeine was bad for stomachaches.” She cut a slice of pie and loaded it on a paper plate Angie had brought.

  “Maybe he thought the hot liquid would do him good.”

  Jessica swirled her fork between her fingers. “I’m not sure.” She raised her head to look at Angie.

  Angie took the prompt and a slice of pie. “What we’ve been thinking is that Mr. Staunton didn
’t really have a stomachache. It was just an excuse. We think the phone call was a diversion.”

  “What do you mean?” Lori suppressed a smile. Both of them had been avid Nancy Drew fans a few years ago.

  “Valerie’s killer, maybe that’s who called,” Jessica said, leaning forward on her elbows, her face flushed with excitement. “He or she—we couldn’t hear the voice—told Daddy he had to see him right away. Daddy made up the excuse he was sick so he could convince Valerie to drive us home. Daddy went to the appointment and no one showed because the killer was following Valerie so he could kill her once she dropped us off.”

  “Did your father tell you this?”

  “No,” Jessica said. “I didn’t think I should ask him. I mean, if it’s true, it would make him feel even worse.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you,” Lori said. A rush of love filled her heart for a moment as Jessica blushed at the compliment. Thoughtful and clever, both girls. They had overabundant imaginations, but what they proposed wasn’t that crazy a theory. But why didn’t the killer keep things simple and call Valerie directly, ask to see her? If not that night, another night? Was it because Valerie would refuse to meet with her killer? Was time a factor in the killing? And how could the killer be so sure Rob would meet him right away? If it was a he. If Valerie was the intended victim.

  Lori leaned back in her chair and felt her stomach hollow out, her skin turn clammy. How was this horrible story going to end for Jess? For herself?

  “Mom? Are you okay?”

  Lori opened her eyes to smile at Jessica. “Just a little headache.” She sat up and started putting the empty plates on the tray. “Good job.” The pie was half gone. “The next time I see Detective Mitchell I will tell him your theory. And now let’s clean up and go shopping.” She picked up the tray and started to walk toward the house.

  Jessica jumped up from her chair. “I want to tell him. No, I’ll tell Detective Scardini. He looks like he’s straight out of The Sopranos.”

  Lori turned sharply. “You watched The Sopranos?”

  “No!” both girls said in unison. Which meant they had, or still did, in reruns. As Lori was sure they avidly followed the raunchy reruns of Sex and the City. And now they were enmeshed in a real murder. Whatever had happened to clean, innocent adolescence?

  Warren called in the late afternoon just as Jessica was throwing her new purchases and all her old summer clothes on Lori’s big bed in order to decide what to take to Cape Cod. Lori took the phone call downstairs, out of earshot.

  “Are the police still harassing you?” Warren had a soft rumbling voice that Lori had found comforting during the months leading to the divorce. It still had the power to calm her.

  “Well, they asked a lot of questions, and today they took my car. I guess they were just doing their job.”

  “They had a warrant for the car?” He sounded surprised. A warrant meant there was probable cause, which would have been bad news. She’d learned that much from Law and Order.

  “No, they didn’t. I know I should have insisted on one, but—”

  “I know, you wanted to show them you’re innocent, just like you wanted to show Rob your independence by not asking for alimony.” Warren let out a loud breath; he was probably smoking a cigar. “What am I going to do with you, Lori? Why don’t you learn from your friend Margot? She can get blood from a diamond. Come over for a drink, and we’ll strategize in case the problem escalates.”

  “The problem is not going to escalate, and I need to stay home with Jessica.”

  “I hear you don’t have an alibi.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Margot.”

  “I was right here, in bed. I must have unplugged my phone somehow. For a divorced couple you two communicate a lot. That’s nice.” Maybe with time she and Rob—

  “We even bed each other off and on.”

  “I don’t need to know that.”

  “You’re right,” Warren said. “Sorry. Look, I’ve got a great criminal lawyer lined up just in case, so you can sleep tight and I would love to check on how you’re doing in person. How about lunch tomorrow? That way you can also fill me in on how Jessica’s doing with all this. I want to make sure she has a good time with us in Cape Cod.”

  “Mom!” Jessica yelled from upstairs. “Grammy just drove up. Cook something quick.”

  Great, Lori thought. Just when she was looking forward to an evening alone with Jess. “Lunch tomorrow would be great, Warren.” But then maybe Ellie came bearing news from her policeman friend. “Where and when?”

  “My golf club.” The doorbell rang once. “The Maples. You know where it is.” The bell rang again. “One o’clock all right with you?”

  “Mooom!” came from upstairs. “Grammy’s at the door!”

  Why Jessica couldn’t run down the stairs on her young, agile legs and get the door herself was something Lori would never understand or change. “One o’clock is perfect, Warren. You’re sweet to worry about me. Thanks.” Now the doorbell ring was one persistent wail. “See you tomorrow.”

  Lori hung up and hurried across the front hall. She jerked open the door. “What’s wrong, Mom? Arthritis got your finger?” Here she was sounding like Ellie again. Hostile. It had taken Lori many years to understand that her mother’s sharp remarks were her oddball way to show affection, and Lori, to defend herself, had learned to give as good as she got, both in sharpness and affection.

  “I thought you guys had gone deaf,” Ellie answered.

  “We have now. I was on the phone and Jess was in the bathroom.” One day soon she had to stop making excuses for her daughter. “Come on in, Mom.”

  Ellie stepped inside and lifted both her arms. Her satchel hung limp from the crook of her elbow. “You can stop worrying. The only food I’ve got on me is mints. I’m counting on being able to eat your stuff. If not, I’ll starve.” Ellie offered one cheek, then the other, the Italian way she insisted on.

  Lori kissed her and smelled Chanel No. 5. Her mother’s only perfume ever since Marilyn Monroe told a radio interviewer that was all she wore to bed. “Do you have news from Joey Pellegrino?”

  Ellie slipped off her shoes, short-heeled navy pumps. “Is Jess coming down?” She was whispering.

  “Of course she is. She wants to say hello to you.” Lori found herself whispering, too. “Did Pellegrino call?”

  Instead of answering, Ellie headed for the kitchen in her bare feet, the pumps abandoned on the front hall floor. Lori followed, noticing the blue cotton suit her mother was wearing, the stockings on her legs. Perfume she only wore on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day. “You look good, Mom. What’s the occasion?” She was even wearing makeup. Only her hair retained its helter-skelter look.

  Ellie lowered herself into her usual ladder-backed chair by the kitchen table. “I had meetings.” She fingered one of Jonathan’s roses. “Did you put in a drop of bleach? That’ll keep them for days. Kills the bacteria.”

  “I thought the trick was half an aspirin.”

  “Flowers don’t get headaches. Use bleach.”

  Lori walked over to a kitchen cabinet and took down a box of De Cecco spaghetti. “Was one of your meetings with Pellegrino?”

  “Holy sky, Loretta! The murder can wait. Now I want to be with my family, all that’s left of it, have some supper, and”—she swung her satchel onto the table, where it landed with a thud— “fix up your face.” Ellie rummaged inside, took out five jars of cream. “This is top of the line, costs a fortune, but it’s worth it for my baby.”

  Lori smiled. She hadn’t been Ellie’s baby in years. Her mother must have good news. Of what kind, Lori couldn’t guess.

  Ellie held up one jar. “Morning regime. You exfoliate with this”—she held up another cream—“then you smear on this antioxidant cream.” The last two she pointed at. “Next, moisturizer, eye-lifting cream, then sunblock. At night you skip the exfoliant and the sunblock. In a month you’ll be as good as new. Keep them in the
fridge.”

  “I didn’t think I looked that bad, but thanks. I’ll give it a try.” Lori gathered up the jars, still in their cellophane wrappers, and released them into the refrigerator’s vegetable bin. She was never going to put all that stuff on her face, she told herself as she took out a pint of tomatoes and some basil and walked back to the counter. “Now for supper, I’m making Jess’s favorite summer pasta. Spaghetti with a sauce of fresh cherry tomatoes, basil, ricotta, and olive oil.” She’d made the ricotta this morning after throwing out the gnocchi dough. A welcome-back-home present for Jessica. “I’ll leave out the ricotta for you, okay?”

  “Yes, but remember your father’s lessons. The spaghetti has to be al dente and put in enough salt in the water, after it boils, so it tastes like the Mediterranean.”

  “Hi, Grammy.” Jessica walked in. She was wearing her new Gap jeans and a striped blue and white shirt she had snitched from her father. Lori thought she looked lovely and brave. “Why can’t you put in the salt before?”

  “The water takes longer to boil. Hi, gorgeous. Come and kiss your Grammy.” Jessica kissed Ellie on both cheeks. “So. Sit down next to me and tell me all about yourself.”

  Jessica talked about her upcoming trip with Angie, about the shopping she and Lori had done that afternoon. Lori prepared dinner. Jessica helped set the table. They ate. Ellie approved of the food with a nod of her head and a second helping. They talked about the latest fun movies, about the boredom of the summer reruns on TV, about Ellie’s passion for Sudoku. Valerie’s murder was carefully avoided. After a dessert of vanilla sorbet and warm berry sauce, Jessica loaded the dishwasher and excused herself. “I’ve got stuff to do.”

  “Sure, hon. Thanks for the help.”

  “I’m working Saturday,” Ellie said. “You come visit. And when you get back from Cape Cod I’m going to put you to work. It’s time you learned how to earn some money.”

  “I’ll come with Angie.” Jessica kissed her grandmother and loped away to the inner sanctum of her room upstairs.