“Actually, I’m happy to have something to do,” she said. “I have a feeling I’m still in shock. Oh, I cried for a full hour after Ben called. But through some magical process, I slipped into automatic pilot while I was driving over here.” Smiling apologetically, she added, “Since then, I’ve been running on pure adrenaline, taking charge of everything from calling the funeral home to putting together this feast.”
She glanced around the kitchen. “It’s funny,” she said in a strained voice, “I keep expecting my little sister to walk in and say something like ‘April Fool’s!’ The problem is, it’s not April. And deep down, I know this is no joke.”
Choking on her words, she added, “I keep telling myself not to think too hard. That all I have to do is get through the next few days.”
I knew more than the next few days would be difficult. But I refrained from saying so.
“So you’ve already made the funeral arrangements?” I asked. “I’d like to come.”
“Thanks, but Ben and I decided that we’ll just have a small service that’s limited to members of the family,” Kimberly said. “We both felt it would be best to keep things as private as possible.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “I understand completely.”
“I’m so glad I have the next couple of months off,” she continued as she began unwrapping packets of cold cuts. “I was thinking of getting a summer job, but in the end I decided I’d just do some reading and maybe some traveling. I don’t know if Ben mentioned that I’m an English teacher.”
“No, he didn’t. High school?”
“That’s right. Seaville High School. The kids are tough at that age, but they’re my life. At least they have been since I got divorced. That was seven years ago. I’d been living upstate in the area where we grew up, but I moved down here after my marriage ended. I wanted to be near Erin. We’ve always been very close, ever since we were kids. I’ve always felt kind of protective toward her, too, since I’m four years older.
“Anyway,” Kimberly went on brightly, “didn’t Ben say you knew Erin from veterinary school? I’m sorry, but I’m not functioning at a very high level right now. Things people tell me just aren’t sticking.”
“That’s right,” I replied. “All three of us were in the same class. But we’ve pretty much lost touch since then. In fact, I had no idea she and Ben had settled on Long Island.”
“So you two weren’t close.”
“Not at all. Which was why I was so surprised when I heard from her this morning.”
The awkward silence that followed made me wonder for the first time if perhaps Kimberly, and not Ben, had some idea of what Erin’s mysterious phone call had been all about. But I didn’t know her well enough to probe. Especially since she was so clearly in a distressed state.
She broke the silence by asking, “Is your practice around here?”
“Actually, it’s all over Long Island,” I said. “I have a mobile services unit, a clinic-on-wheels. Even though I live in Joshua’s Hollow on the North Shore, I travel all over, making house calls.”
“No kidding. Do you have a card?”
“Sure. Do you have pets?”
“No. But, uh, I have a friend who might be interested.”
I reached into my purse and pulled out a business card.
“Jessica Popper,” Kimberly read aloud after she took it from me. “Is this your cell phone number?”
“Yes. That’s the best way to get in touch.”
“And when’s a good time to reach you?”
“Any time. Having my own business means being on call twenty-four/seven.”
“Thanks.” Kimberly’s eyes seemed to burn into mine as she stuck my card into the breast pocket of her shirt. “I’ll tell my friend to think about whether she wants to talk to you.”
Chapter 4
“We’re animals. We’re born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.”
—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
As I drove away from Ben and Erin’s house, I thought back to my days at vet school, struggling to reconstruct more of the past. But it wasn’t Erin I was trying to remember. It was Ben.
I knew that in murder investigations, the cops always began by taking a close look at the victim’s spouse.
I realized I didn’t really know Ben Chandler very well. I hadn’t back at school and I certainly didn’t now. But one thing I did know was that there were things about the way he’d reacted to Erin’s murder that sent up red flags.
He had seemed distraught, of course. Genuinely distraught. Then again, he wouldn’t have been the first killer to put on a convincing act. . . .
Killer. Simply putting that word in the same sentence as the name of someone I’d gone to school with made me shudder.
Still, I couldn’t ignore how animated he’d become when he’d talked about his recent success with his business venture. In fact, he almost seemed to have forgotten that only hours earlier, his wife had been murdered. He’d been too busy bragging about all the money he was making and the wonderful things he’d bought with it.
Then there was his claim that his relationship with Erin had been “perfect.”
Now, there’s a word few people can use sincerely when they’re talking about their relationship, I thought wryly.
Nick and me, for example. Here we were only weeks away from getting married. Yet I couldn’t deny that our relationship was—and always had been—far from perfect.
True, I was guilty of having some, shall we say, commitment issues that weren’t typical of most relationships. But that aside, the fact that we were both busy with our own careers caused all kinds of difficulties. Working long hours, usually under a great deal of stress, often made us tired, cranky, and hard to live with. That was bound to be a common syndrome with any couple in a similar situation.
Then there were the differences in our personalities. Again, I didn’t think we were that unusual in that we had slightly different approaches to life. I tend to be intense and at times overly emotional, while Nick generally adopts a more logical approach. So it’s only natural that we butt heads from time to time.
Not even close to perfect.
Even Betty and Winston, two moonstruck lovers with stars in their eyes, had had their ups and downs. And as far as I was concerned, those two were pretty much the poster children for living happily ever after.
I wished I had a better sense of who Ben was and what his relationship with Erin had really been like. I tried picturing him back when I knew him at Cornell. As I did, I realized that it was hard to think of Ben Chandler without imagining his best friend hovering nearby.
What was his name? I thought, frowning as I veered into the right lane so I could get onto the Long Island Expressway. John, Jake . . .
Jack! Jack Krieger! I would have snapped my fingers if I weren’t curving around an especially hazardous entrance ramp to the road commonly known as the Long Island Distressway.
The two of them had been inseparable, I now recalled. Jack and Ben became buddies early on in our first semester. Maybe even during orientation. They’d chosen each other as lab partners, studied together, and even opted to become roommates after the first couple of semesters.
But I frowned again as I plunged deeper into my hippocampus and dusted off another memory that had been stashed away for more than a decade. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant one either.
Toward the end of our fourth and final year, just before graduation, there had been a rift between them. Rumors had flown about the close friendship that had dissolved very suddenly. Theories ranged from Jack and Ben vying for the same job after graduation to a relationship with overtones of homosexuality going awry.
Maybe I didn’t get a chance to know Ben Chandler well, I thought, pressing down on the accelerator until my speed matched that of the crazed cars around me. But Jack Krieger did.
Which meant one thing was for sure. As soon as I got home, I’d be scr
olling through the alumni listings on the Cornell website for the second time that day.
My plans to track down Jack Krieger immediately went on hold when I opened the front door and found Sunny sitting on the couch with Cat in her lap and Tink at her side. I’d been so engrossed in Erin’s murder that I’d forgotten all about the fact that a few hours earlier I’d set Sunny up with her very first task in her new job as assistant to Jessica Popper, D.V.M.
“How did rescheduling my appointments go?” I asked. I crouched down to give my two dogs the attention and reassurance they so desperately craved after having been separated from me for the unconscionably long period of almost three hours.
“Fine,” she replied. “Great, in fact.”
Yet when I glanced up, I saw she was frowning.
“Actually,” she went on, biting her lower lip, “I ran out of things to keep me busy. It only took me about half an hour to reschedule all your appointments. They’re all in your BlackBerry. I also have them written out on a piece of paper.”
“Thank you.” I glanced at the handwritten schedule, surprised that she’d been even more thorough than I’d expected. “Great job, Sunny.”
“Thanks. But like I said, I got kind of bored after I was done. I hope you don’t mind, but I walked around the house and found some things to do.”
“Like what?” I asked nervously.
“I really hope you don’t think I’m intruding . . . but I started out by sorting through a pile of junk mail I found,” Sunny explained. “I separated the envelopes by category and put rubber bands around each group. See? They’re all laid out here on the coffee table. This pile is credit card offers, this one is coupons that are still good, this one is coupons that have expired, this one is solicitations for contributions . . . I even found a few bills in there. I put those in this pile. And here are all the catalogs. I stacked them together so you could leaf through them and decide which ones to keep.”
“Wow.” I didn’t try to hide how impressed I was. How grateful I was for all the time she’d saved me either.
“I also did a couple of things in the kitchen.” Anxiously she added, “I hope that’s okay.”
“What kinds of things?” It wasn’t that I was irritated. It was more like I was embarrassed. When it comes to maintaining order in the kitchen, I seem to be missing the Martha Stewart gene. Not the worst offense in the world, I realized, but that didn’t mean I wanted my lack of home economics skills exposed to someone I barely knew.
“I threw out some stuff that was in the back of the fridge,” she said, sounding almost apologetic. “Rotting fruit, some yogurt that expired a couple of months ago. . . . I organized your pots and pans too. I put all the baking pans together, under the sink, and I moved all the drinking glasses to one shelf. I also unpacked some nice new ones that were still in the box.”
“Ri-i-ight,” I said, sounding as awed as I felt. “Wedding presents.”
“There’s one more thing.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I alphabetized your spices.”
“Seriously?” I’d heard of such things, of course. I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that there were people in this world who were organized enough to keep their spices in alphabetical order. It just never occurred to me that I would ever have the time, energy, or focus required to become one of them.
I hadn’t realized I owned that many spices either.
“I also organized your closets,” Sunny went on. “Nothing fancy. I just grouped the different garments together. Short-sleeved shirts, then long-sleeved shirts, then pants, then skirts . . .” She bit her lip. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m afraid I get a little carried away sometimes. I like things to be in order.”
I do, too, I thought. I just never get around to putting them in order.
“Sunny, it all sounds fabulous,” I told her sincerely. “Thank you so much. And I promise that on most days, you’ll be coming with me in my van to help me with my work. That was our agreement after all.”
She shrugged. “I’m supposed to be your assistant, right? So I’m happy to assist you in whatever you need.”
As I was mentally thanking whatever force it was that brought Sunny McGee into my life, she added, “Uh, Jessie? There’s something else I want to talk to you about. Ask you about, actually. An idea I had.”
“What is it?”
“It’s not really an idea. It’s more like a favor.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“Actually,” she said, grimacing, “it’s such a big favor that you’ll probably say no.”
“Sunny, why don’t you just go ahead and ask—”
“No, it’s too big a favor to ask. I should just forget all about it. Pretend I never even brought it up.”
“Sunny!” I shrieked. “Tell me!”
She took a deep breath. “I overheard your landlady asking you if you’d be willing to house-sit while she and her new husband go on their honeymoon.”
“That’s right.”
“Which means your cottage is going to be empty for the next week or so while you’re living in her house.”
“True.”
“So . . . I was wondering if maybe I could house-sit your cottage while you’re house-sitting Betty’s place.”
Before I had a chance to ask why she’d even be interested in such an arrangement, she went on, “See, right now I’m living with my parents. Don’t get me wrong—they’re great. It’s just that I’m twenty years old and I still haven’t had a chance to live on my own.
I mean, I’ve never actually had my own place. So I was thinking that since your cottage is going to be empty anyway . . . You hate the idea, right? You think it’s the dumbest thing you ever heard.”
“As a matter of fact,” I replied, “it’s not a bad idea at all.”
Sunny’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Sure. In fact, ever since I talked to Betty, I’ve been assuming I’d bring the dogs and cats with me to the Big House. But I’d much rather leave Prometheus and Leilani here. I figured I’d come by a couple of times a day to check on them and to keep Prometheus company. He’s really a people person. Uh, people bird. But if you’re here, I don’t have to worry about him getting lonely.”
“Wow! That would be so great!” Sunny cried. “I mean, I didn’t really think you’d . . . Wow. Thanks, Jessie!”
“I still have to check with Nick about this whole house-sitting arrangement,” I reminded her, “but I can’t imagine that he’d have any objections. I think it’s going to work out for all of us.”
In fact, I was already picturing Nick and me snuggling up in the king-size bed with the luxurious Italian sheets and fluffy down pillows—and lingering over leisurely breakfasts on the sunny patio and romantic candlelight dinners in the palatial dining room. Maybe we didn’t have the time or the money for a vacation in Italy, but playing house in Betty’s mansion sounded like the next best thing.
As soon as Sunny left, no doubt rushing to her parents’ house to start packing, I took a tour of my cottage, anxious to see what she’d accomplished.
She really did an impressive job, I marveled as I checked my bedroom closet, my baking pan collection, and my vast collection of spices that went all the way from allspice to turmeric.
I only wished every aspect of my life could be so orderly.
With that thought in mind, I headed for my laptop and for the second time that day clicked onto the Cornell website. A few more clicks and I located Jack Krieger’s current address and phone number.
He was living in a small town upstate. I wasn’t surprised, since I seemed to recall that he’d grown up on a farm. In fact, when he first came to Cornell, he’d intended to specialize in dairy animals.
I sank onto the couch and dialed his number on my cell phone. As I listened to it ring, I remembered that Jack had been the only student in our class who’d shown up the first day dressed in a pair of overalls. He’d quickly switched to jeans and eventually khakis, but that didn’t change his image as
a wholesome small town boy who planned to return to the quiet life he knew best. He never stopped seeming like someone who was capable of saying “Aw, shucks” at any moment.
I was disappointed when a machine picked up.
“Hi, Jack,” I said after dutifully waiting for the tone. “This is Jessica Popper. I don’t know if you remember me, but we went to vet school together. There’s, uh, something I need to talk to you about. It’s pretty important, so I hope you’ll call me back as soon as you get this message. I’ll leave both my home and cell numbers. . . .”
I didn’t mean to sound so mysterious. It was just that I didn’t know if he’d already heard about Erin—or if I’d be the one to break the terrible news.
After I’d hung up, I remained half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, so devoid of energy that I couldn’t move. Cat was curled up comfortably on my stomach, Tinkerbell was happily swatting at the fringe on the throw rug, Lou was dozing with his chin on my foot, and Max was chomping on a rawhide. Prometheus was making more noise than anybody, loudly crunching on seeds. It would have been a homey scene if it wasn’t for the fact that a heavy cloud hung over the room—at least, one that I was aware of.
I was still camped out on the couch when I heard Nick’s Maxima pull into the driveway. The dogs heard him, too, and within a fraction of a second they’d positioned themselves at the front door. Their toenails skittered across the wooden floor and their bodies slammed against each other as they vied for the best spot, both of them snorting and whimpering as they tried to plant their noses as close as possible to the slit between the door and the frame.
Nick walking in the door was a welcome sight.
“How did it go today?” he asked anxiously as he crouched down to allow the dogs to welcome him with their usual fanfare. “Did you get in touch with your friend’s husband?”
“Yes. I went over to the house.”
“How’s he holding up?”
“Pretty well, all things considered.” I decided not to mention my suspicions about why that might be.
Monkey See, Monkey Die Page 5
