Monkey See, Monkey Die

by Cynthia Baxter

  “How about you, Jess?” Nick sat down next to me and took my hand. “How are you holding up?”

  I let out a deep sigh. “Most of the time, I’m still having trouble believing it could possibly be true,” I replied. “But during the moments when I do manage to comprehend the fact that it really happened, I just feel totally confused. And powerless. And angry and . . . and overwhelmed and horribly sad.”

  We sat in silence for a while, just holding hands.

  Nick finally broke the silence. “It’s kind of dark in here,” he said softly. “Mind if I turn on a light?”

  In response, I reached up and snapped on the pole lamp next to me. The glaring brightness helped bring me out of my stupor.

  “How about you?” I asked. “How was your day?”

  “It was fine. I’m starting to feel less like the new kid on the block and more like I really belong there.”

  “Your mother called earlier,” I told him. “She wanted my opinion on place cards. And ice sculpture.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “I hope she’s not driving you totally crazy.”

  Only partly crazy, I thought. All the other things going on in my life right now are doing the rest of the job. “She’s actually turning out to be a big help. Planning a wedding is a huge job.”

  At least if you expect it to be on par with Prince Charles and Lady Di’s, I thought. And look how well that marriage turned out.

  Nick leaned over and planted a kiss on my cheek.

  “What was that for?” I asked, surprised.

  “For being a good sport,” he replied. “Actually, you deserve a medal for putting up with my mother. I know she’s not the easiest person in the world. And that you two have had your differences in the past.”

  He was referring to his parents’ visit a few weeks earlier. Dorothy and Henry Burby had insisted on staying with us, which made our tiny cottage feel like the shoe that housed the Old Woman and all those children she didn’t know what to do with. And finding enough space to set down a coffee mug was the least of it.

  “Speaking of being a good sport,” I said, “Betty came by this morning to ask a favor.”

  “You know I’d do anything for her.”

  “She and Winston are finally going on their honeymoon. They’ve rented a villa in Tuscany. She wants us to house-sit while they’re away. She needs us to look after Frederick too.”

  Nick thought for a couple of seconds, then nodded. “I could get used to living in the lap of luxury.”

  I laughed. “I thought you’d feel that way. And while Betty and Winston are feeding each other grapes in Tuscany and you and I are pretending to be Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, Sunny wants to stay here in the cottage.”

  “Sunny’s your new assistant, right?”

  “That’s right. She can keep Prometheus company.” And probably sort our socks by color, length, and fiber content.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Nick replied with a little shrug.

  “Great. Then I’ll tell Betty and Sunny it’s—”

  “There’s one important thing I have to know before I say yes.”

  “Which is?”

  “Can we go joy-riding in Winston’s Rolls-Royce while they’re away?”

  Before I could come up with a snappy answer, my cell phone started to hum.

  “Excuse me, Michael Schumacher,” I said wryly, “but I’d better get this.”

  I figured the unfamiliar number on the caller ID screen belonged to a frantic pet owner, so I answered. “Hello, this is Jessica Popper.”

  “Jessie?”

  “Yes . . .” Even though I have scores of clients, I can usually attach a name and a face to a caller. Yet while this voice sounded vaguely familiar, I couldn’t place it.

  “This is Kimberly. Erin’s sister? We met this afternoon.”

  “Of course.” As if I could forget, I thought. “How are you, Kimberly?”

  “Holding up. Thanks for asking. But there’s a reason I called.” At the other end of the line, I heard her draw in a deep breath. “I was wondering if you and I could talk. The sooner, the better.”

  As I drove to my meeting with Kimberly early the next morning, I was enveloped by a strong sense of déjà vu.

  The second mysterious rendezvous in two days, I thought uneasily.

  True, this one was scheduled to take place at a much more reasonable time than the other one: eight o’clock in the morning, rather than six-thirty. And this time we’d agreed to talk at Starbucks, where the coffee was light years better than it was at the Spartan Diner.

  But there was one major thing both meetings had in common: an air of urgency.

  After parking my van, I headed inside and immediately spotted Kimberly sitting alone at a table for two. Even though three or four other tables were available, I noticed that she’d picked the one that was separated from all the others by a display of coffee beans and mugs.

  She was sipping from a paper cup big enough to hold popcorn. “Venti” it was called in Starbucks’ lingo, meaning the largest amount of coffee customers could ingest without placing their mouths at the end of the spigot. Her eyes were glazed, as if she was lost in thought.

  “Kimberly?” I said softly as I approached, not wanting to startle her.

  She jerked her head toward me. I wondered if her nervousness was due to ODing on caffeine or if something else was responsible. “Hi, Jessica. Thanks for coming.” Gesturing toward the Papa Bear–size cup in front of her, she said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I went ahead and got my coffee.”

  “No problem,” I assured her. “I’ll be back as soon as I get mine.”

  A few minutes later, I sat down opposite her with my own cup of liquid energy. “That’s a lot of coffee,” I commented, gesturing toward her cup. My twelve-ounce latte, a “tall,” was making me look like a real lightweight by Starbucks’ standards.

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” she explained. “I was hoping this would help me get through the day. Especially since it’s going to be another tough one.”

  I just nodded, then sipped some of the foamy milk that sat on top of my cup like a small cumulus cloud.

  “How about Ben?” I asked gently. “How is he doing?”

  I expected her to shake her head sympathetically and tell me that Erin’s poor, bereaved husband was managing just fine, considering the terrible thing that had happened and how deeply he was grieving. Instead, she let out a contemptuous snort.

  “Like I care,” she muttered.

  I did my best to keep my eyebrows from jumping above my hairline. “I take it you two don’t get along?”

  “Oh, we get along just fine,” she replied, her voice bitter. “At least on the surface. It’s just that I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to do with Erin’s murder.”

  It took me a few seconds to recover from the shock of what she’d just said. Not that I hadn’t had the exact same thought myself. It was just that I hadn’t expected Erin’s sister to openly voice the same opinion. Especially to me.

  Kimberly glanced around as if wanting to make sure no one was listening. I automatically did the same, noting that not only were we sitting far away from any caffeineophiles, the other early birds fueling up for the day were absorbed in either books, laptops, or their own conversations.

  “You know how Ben said things between him and Erin were perfect?” she said, her tone still harsh. “That was total bull.”

  Her choice of words surprised me. After all, this was a woman who taught high school.

  All the more reason to be in the habit of speaking directly, I decided. Especially since the state of Erin and Ben’s marriage was clearly something she felt strongly about.

  “Erin had been unhappy for months,” she went on. “Maybe even longer. But I found out just how bad things were between them a few weeks ago when they were over at my house for dinner. I walked into the kitchen, expecting to find her whipping cream for the peac
h pie she’d brought. Instead, I found her crying her eyes out.”

  She paused to sip her coffee. “I think I mentioned yesterday that I’ve always felt protective toward Erin. After all, she’s my kid sister—and my only sibling. So naturally I put my arms around her and begged her to tell me what was wrong. And what was wrong was Ben. She told me he’d changed. That starting this new business of his—all those pet stores—was ruining their marriage.”

  “It sounds as if he’s been working crazy hours,” I observed.

  “But that’s the thing. I don’t think it was his work schedule that was the problem. I mean, Erin worked hard too. She wasn’t home any more than he was.”

  “In that case, what was the problem?”

  “I’m not sure.” Kimberly let out a frustrated sigh. “I couldn’t get her to tell me much. All she would say was that they had some serious issues.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said sincerely. “But I have to ask you, Kimberly: Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because of our conversation yesterday,” she replied quietly. “Or, to be more accurate, the conversation you had with my sister yesterday morning.”

  She studied me for what seemed like a long time before adding, “Jessica, I believe that you’re someone I can trust. And that’s because Erin clearly trusted you. After all, you’re the person she called right before she was . . . right before. She obviously sensed that something bad was about to happen, and you were the one she was looking to for help.”

  Leaning forward, she added in an even softer voice, “Like you, I believe she was in some sort of trouble. Or that somehow she’d gotten in over her head.”

  “In what?” I asked without thinking.

  Kimberly’s eyes clouded. “I was hoping maybe you’d be able to figure it out.”

  I held out my hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Kimberly, I have no idea what was going on in Erin’s life. That’s what I was trying to explain at the house yesterday. I haven’t spoken to her in years. I didn’t even know she was living on Long Island or . . . or that she was working at the New York Zoo. There’s no way I’d able to figure out what’s been happening with her.”

  For a few seconds, Kimberly simply stared at me in silence. “There’s something I want to show you,” she finally said.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a Ziploc bag with a white square inside. I noticed that her hands trembled slightly as she handed it to me.

  I smoothed it out on the table, halfway between us. Inside the clear plastic bag was a small paper napkin, the kind that’s used at any social gathering that demands something better than the scratchy supermarket variety that’s sold in packages of two hundred. Sometime in the past, probably during the days of pillbox hats and white gloves, it had become known as a cocktail napkin.

  But instead of being covered with martini stains, this one had writing on it. With a blue ballpoint pen, someone had scribbled:

  100 Brown BB +

  NGIPPL IFAWCI

  A2RX

  The letters were nothing but jibberish to me. As for the hastily sketched drawing, it looked like a wobbly smiley face with an X drawn through it.

  “Where did this come from?” I asked, not even trying to hide my confusion.

  Kimberly took a deep breath. “A few weeks ago, Erin had to go to some fancy fund-raising dinner for the New York Zoo. She was complaining she didn’t have anything dressy enough to wear, so I offered to lend her a black velvet jacket with gold embroidery I’d just bought. I hadn’t even worn it yet. Erin and I have never been the same size, since I’m quite a bit taller and my shoulders are broader. But it was cut loose and I figured it would fit her just fine.

  “Anyway, she borrowed the jacket for the party and then returned it a few days later. When I went to put it back in the closet, I found this in the pocket.” She gestured toward the paper napkin. “I didn’t know if it was important, so I called Erin and said I’d found a napkin with some notes she’d made and asked her if she needed it back. Her reaction really surprised me. She said, ‘Oh, don’t worry. I remember exactly what I wrote.’ But she said it in a strange voice. Bitter, somehow. She didn’t sound at all like her usual self.”

  Kimberly paused for a moment, as if she was trying to regain control. “Something about the way she responded prompted me to stick it in a drawer instead of throwing it away. Then I pretty much forgot all about it. At least, until yesterday.

  “As you can see,” she pointed out as I studied it, “the handwriting’s a little sloppy, and there’s a tear over here. Writing on a paper napkin with a ballpoint isn’t exactly the best way to take notes. In fact, I’m not even sure I can read the letters correctly.”

  I scrutinized the writing more carefully. She was right; it was hard to be one hundred percent certain what some of the letters were.

  “This is Erin’s handwriting?” I asked.

  “I think so,” Kimberly replied. “In fact, I’m nearly positive. Besides, when I described it to her over the phone, she didn’t correct me when I said it had some notes on it that she’d written.”

  “Do these notes mean anything at all to you?” I asked. “Did she ever mention someone or something named Brown or . . . or anything else that could possibly resemble any of these strange words she wrote?”

  “Not to me.”

  “What about while she was speaking to somebody else?” I persisted. “Did you ever hear her say something that sounded like ‘naggipple’ to Ben? Or maybe while she was talking to somebody else on the phone?”

  Kimberly shook her head.

  “What about the police? Did you show this to them?”

  Smiling coldly, she said, “There’s kind of a story there. Yesterday, right after you left, the county’s chief of homicide came by.”

  “You must mean Lieutenant Anthony Falcone.”

  Kimberly’s surprise registered on her face. “You know him?”

  Dryly, I replied, “We’ve met.”

  “He asked me a bunch of questions, and then at the end asked if there was anything else I wanted to tell him. I mentioned a few things, but . . .” She frowned. “I don’t know how well you know this guy, but he has, shall we say, a bit of an attitude.”

  Oh, yeah, I thought. “I’d say that’s a pretty accurate statement.”

  “I started to tell him about the jacket and what I found in the pocket,” she continued, “but I’d barely begun before he got really impatient. He made a nasty comment about how he was only interested in relevant information, not fashion advice. So I never did tell him about this.”

  That’s my boy, I thought.

  “So what do you think?” Kimberly asked hopefully. “Does what Erin wrote mean anything at all to you?”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it doesn’t,” I replied with a helpless shrug.

  I started to hand the napkin back to her. But she held up both hands. “No, I want you to keep it.”

  “What for?” I asked, surprised.

  “I have this crazy idea that somehow these scribbles might have something to do with the reason Erin was murdered. I know it’s a long shot, but I’m willing to try anything that might help us find out what happened.” She paused. “Since you were somebody she trusted—and you’re a veterinarian, like Erin was—I thought you might be able to help me figure it out. I mean, you did have a common bond. And you’ve traveled in the same circles as Erin.”

  Her eyes moistening, she added, “You also care about animals as much as she did.”

  A hundred different reasons to refuse to get involved in Erin’s murder raced through my head. I had a wedding to plan. I had a career to run. On top of that, I had my own grief to deal with.

  I also had a boyfriend—no, make that a fiancé—who had never exactly been crazy about my penchant for investigating murder.

  “Kimberly,” I said gently, “I appreciate the fact that you trust me. And I understand completely that you want everything possible to be done to find out who ki
lled your sister. But I don’t think I—”

  “Will you at least think about it?” she interrupted. She pulled a pen and a scrap of paper out of her purse. “Look, I’ll give you my phone number. And I really hope to hear from you soon.”

  As she handed me her number, she fixed her eyes on mine and said, “Jessie, you may have been the last person who talked to my sister before she was killed. She called you explicitly to ask for your help.”

  Her eyes were pleading as she added, “If she wanted you to help her while she was still alive, don’t you feel you owe it to her to help her now that she’s been murdered?”

  Chapter 5

  “Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.”

  —Malcolm de Chazal

  Kimberly’s words reverberated inside my head as I pulled out of Starbucks’ parking lot—so loudly, in fact, my temples throbbed. She was right. Like it or not, I was involved in Erin’s murder. In her final moments, when she had known something bad was happening, I was the one she’d reached out to.

  And I hadn’t been able to help her when she needed me most. Which meant I did owe her. Big-time.

  When I stopped at a red light, I glanced over at the paper napkin lying on the seat beside me, still safely sealed up inside the Ziploc bag. Kimberly believed that deciphering the words or initials or whatever it was Erin had scrawled could provide a link to her killer. Yet the strange scribbling was as puzzling to me as Egyptian hieroglyphics.

  Is it code? I wondered. Or some kind of shorthand?

  Whatever it was, it could turn out to be an important piece of evidence. I made a note to make a few Xerox copies the first chance I got, then store the original safely away in the same place I kept all my valuables: the top drawer of my dresser.

  But as the light turned green and I stepped on the gas, another question gnawed at me, one that was much more fundamental. Was it even possible that Erin’s jottings had something to do with her murder, or was Kimberly’s fixation nothing more than a grieving sister’s desperate attempt to make sense of a horrible tragedy?