Motherhood Is Murder mim-2

by Diana Orgain

  I folded a few sheets of tissue neatly and stuffed them into my bra. The result gave me square breasts.

  I pulled the tissues out and tried a single sheet on each side. The padding was not as noticeable. I prayed only one sheet would be enough.

  I returned to the waiting room and fiddled with the magazines. The glossy rags depicted yachting, golfing, and travel that I could only dream about. I wondered about Gary’s clientele. Were they all that high-end?

  I was totally out of my league. Each magazine I flipped through made me feel worse and worse, until I was a nervous wreck.

  What was I doing here?

  Women who had sat in this waiting room before me certainly didn’t have tissues stuffed in their bras. Or worse, girdles to hold in their postpartum bellies. And they definitely, definitely didn’t sit here in borrowed designer shoes with the accompanying handbag!

  In the midst of my insecurity, the receptionist returned and ushered me into Gary’s office.

  The office was enormous, with an astonishing view of the Bay Bridge. I felt as if I could lean out his window and touch traffic.

  Gary Barramendi stood when I entered and offered me a warm handshake.

  I was suddenly disarmed. He was young. Not what I had been expecting at all. He was very tall. Perhaps six-six. And extremely thin, bordering on gawky. He had dark bushy hair. His features appeared to be pushed together from all different angles and the left side of his face was almost completely different from the right side, yet everything was fused in the middle by his large nose.

  Despite his unconventional face and stature, his smile was warm and his handshake firm and friendly, putting me at ease instantly.

  “Hey. Gary Barramendi. Nice to meet you. I understand you know Bruce Chambers.”

  “Yes.” I shook his hand with my best businesslike handshake and said, “Kate Connolly, pleasure to meet you.”

  Gary motioned to the sofa that hugged the left wall of the office. “Have a seat.”

  I was starting to feel confident. Gary wasn’t a grizzly! This was going to be a good meeting.

  I was channeling my future self. Confident, smart, pro-active.

  I was feeling great!

  I placed my beautiful burgundy Ferragamo handbag on the couch and took a seat next to it. Suddenly a horrifying loud ripping sound reverberated around the room.

  I froze.

  The Velcro closing on my girdle had given way. The entire thing came undone under my shirt. The buttons on my silk blouse threatened to pop and the material between each button gapped hideously open.

  I moaned and swayed, feeling a bit faint.

  Please, please, earth, swallow me whole.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Two’s Better Than One?

  Gary cleared his throat. “Kate. There’s a restroom here to the right.” He motioned across the room.

  His voice sounded as though it was coming at me through a tunnel. I sat frozen, my mouth agape. I looked up at him with my mouth still open, feeling like a walleye fish.

  He smiled. “The restroom’s right there,” he repeated.

  “I just had a baby. I bought this stupid girdle thing online. I wanted to look professional . . .”

  “A baby? That’s so sweet. Got any pictures?”

  “Uh.”

  I didn’t have any pictures! Not one.

  What kind of mother was I?

  I’d left my baby to come on this wild-goose chase in an outfit that didn’t fit. Not only was I a bad mother, but an idiot, too!

  Suddenly, tears streamed down my face.

  Gary grabbed a box of tissues from his desk and sat next to me. “How old is your baby?”

  I swallowed hard and sort of gulped my tears, trying to bring myself back to the present. “Two months.”

  Gary nodded sympathetically and handed me the tissue box. “My sister just had a baby. Beautiful little girl. She’s four months. Me? I’m not married, so no kids yet. But man, they are something, huh?”

  I nodded, slightly dumbfounded at the kindness of this stranger.

  Gary stood and straightened his slacks. “Listen, I’m going to pull Bruce’s file. Take whatever time you need. Should I have Mandy make us some coffee?”

  I stood and straightened my slacks, too, as if on cue. Suddenly my head was clear. I was here for business and I needed to get on with it.

  “Yes. Coffee would be nice. I’ll just be a moment.”

  I headed to the restroom as Gary left the office.

  Once in the safety of the bathroom, I evaluated myself in the mirror. It was worse than I had imagined. The blouse that I had been so pleased with and felt so pretty in now looked like a sausage casing gone bad. It was stretched to the limit. I had raccoon eyes from my streaky mascara and my hair was totally flat.

  I unbuttoned my blouse and re-Velcroed the girdle. I then checked the tissue I had stuffed into my bra. It was soaked, but thankfully hadn’t leaked.

  I shoved clean dry tissue into my bra, then redid the buttons on the blouse. Miraculously, it looked fine again.

  I sat on the toilet and tested the Velcro. It held. I stood, then sat again and rocked back and forth. The Velcro slipped a bit. I jumped as though I’d just been bitten and redid the girdle a little looser. This time the blouse didn’t look as great as before, but the Velcro didn’t slip either. I decided that was the better option.

  I washed my face and cleaned off the mascara, then teased my hair a bit for some volume. Overall, physically the effect was fine. Not fabulous, but passable.

  What about feeling like an idiot, though?

  Nothing I could do about that but suck it up.

  Stop pretending I was somebody I wasn’t. Thin, confident, experienced. And start telling the truth.

  When I emerged from the restroom, Gary was seated comfortably on the couch looking completely untraumatized. In fact, he looked so relaxed holding a cup of coffee in one hand and flipping through a file that rested on his lap with the other, that I wondered if I had imagined the entire incident.

  He looked up when I entered and smiled. “We won’t get the preliminary report the uniforms took on the evening of November fifth or any of the medical examiner’s findings from the toxicology screen unless they formally charge Bruce. The only thing in here are my notes from the police interview the other day.” He closed the file and rose, indicated a coffee tray on a side table. “Help yourself. I’m going to ask Mandy to photocopy this for you.”

  He left the room and I poured myself a cup of coffee. I sat on the couch and tested the girdle. Everything held. I tried not to focus on the girdle and sipped the coffee instead.

  Gary returned, smiling. “Here we go. This is the full transcription from the interview.”

  He handed me the file and I opened it.

  It looked like somebody had written the pages in German. I fought to keep my eyes from glazing over from the legalese.

  Might as well start with something I knew.

  I recounted for him my first meeting with Helene and Margaret and then began on the dinner cruise.

  “You were on the cruise?” Gary asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. It was my first night meeting most of the mommy group.”

  Gary looked confused.

  I waved away his concern. “Long story. Anyway, what I do know is that there were reports of Helene and Sara fighting just before Helene’s demise.”

  Gary didn’t try to hide his surprise. His eyebrows rose, although due to the asymmetry of his face, his right eyebrow shot up quite high while his left one moved only slightly. I had to smile in spite of myself.

  “Where did you get this information?” he asked.

  “Another former member of the Roo amp; You group. She was asked to leave the group because her kid bit a baby.”

  Gary rose, crossed to his desk, and picked up a legal pad. “Really? I used to be a biter.”

  I laughed. “Is that where you got your nickname?” Gary looked taken aback.

  Oops. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned that.

  “Yo
u know about my nickname?”

  I swallowed. Well, my foot was in it now. May as well proceed.

  “Sure. Gary the Grizzly.”

  He laughed and looked pleased with himself. “My reputation precedes me, huh?”

  I smiled.

  He scribbled something on the legal pad. “Okay, what else do you know?”

  I explained that, according to several sources, Dr. Alan Lipe was having an affair. That he and his wife, Margaret, had fought that evening and Margaret suspected he may have poisoned Helene by mistake.

  Gary took notes. When I finished, he looked up. “What else you got?”

  “What else do you got?” I countered.

  Gary smiled. “Ah. Tough cookie, huh? You want a little quid pro quo?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m giving you a copy of my client’s interrogation.”

  “He asked you to,” I answered.

  Gary chewed on the cap of his pen and squinted at me. “Are we on the same team here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Has Bruce hired you, or what?”

  I glanced around the room. “Not exactly.”

  “Who are you working for?” Gary asked.

  Time to come clean.

  “I was hired by Margaret Lipe.”

  Gary nodded. “You think Bruce is guilty.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I said. “It was just Bruce, Celia, and I at his place, and I know I didn’t poison Celia.”

  “What does Margaret Lipe think?” Gary asked.

  I hesitated. Frankly I didn’t know what Margaret thought about the attempt on Celia’s life, because she hadn’t called me back.

  How much should I disclose to Gary?

  Did I have any obligation of confidentiality to Margaret?

  “Well, Margaret suspected Alan, and I understand that for Helene’s murder—but what about Celia? If it was just the three of us at Bruce’s house, how can it be anyone other than Bruce?” I asked.

  “Maybe Celia was with the doctor right before she showed up at Bruce’s. Maybe she’s the other woman and the doc told her he was going to get rid of his wife and then botched it. But now Celia knows about the accident and he’s scared she’ll say something to the police, so he slips her something on her way to Bruce’s.”

  “If that’s the case, wouldn’t Celia tell the police that her lover killed Helene and then maybe tried to poison her?”

  Gary shrugged. “Maybe she hasn’t put it all together. Or maybe she’s protecting him. You’d be surprised about the things people don’t tell the police. Well, probably you wouldn’t, if you’ve been doing PI work long.”

  I tried to look as experienced as I could by composing my features into a serious reflective look and nodded.

  He must have bought into my acting because he said, “Let’s start there, with the midwife. She knows something. Stake her out, see where she goes. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” He chomped on the pen cap thoughtfully. “You think we can come to an arrangement?” he asked.

  I studied his eyes. “What kind of an arrangement?”

  “I have a PI I use to look into things. Because you know my time . . .”

  “Right. Your time is pretty valuable.”

  Gary smiled.

  “Your reputation precedes you.” I laughed.

  “Now, see! Sweet-talk like that will get you everywhere. I mean nowhere,” he corrected, shaking a finger at me, but with his disarming grin lighting up his face. “What I’m thinking is I can hire a PI, but they’d have to run around and do the same work you just did. So, I’d be behind the curve—”

  “Isn’t what you’re proposing a conflict of interest?” I asked.

  “Whose interest?”

  “My client’s. Sort of breach of confidentiality.”

  Gary frowned. “You’re not bound to confidentiality. Unless, of course, you bound yourself in your own contract. Which I hope you didn’t. Because it wouldn’t stand up in a court of law and you’d just be misleading your client. You should let me review that for you. Anyway, as you know under the Business and Professions Code, Article 6, Disciplinary Proceedings, Sections 7561-7567, you are free to report illegal activity as you see fit or risk suspension of your license, fees, jail time, you name it—whatever the Review Board decides.”

  All right, so I didn’t have to worry about confidentiality, but how could I tell him I had no worries about a license suspension either?

  “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re proposing?” I asked.

  “Simple, you work for me. I’ll double your hourly rate. Or are you working on a project basis?”

  “Hourly.”

  “Great. Hourly. I’ll double your rate. You can continue to work independently, so keep your contract with Margaret, I don’t care about that. But let me know everything you find out. I mean everything. I’d like a daily report. Doable?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Unstable

  To Do:

  1. Stake out Celia.

  2. Build up milk supply.

  3. Buy Laurie swing contraption thing (like baby Amanda) for two-month milestone.

  4. Research safety re: computers in nursery.

  5. Look up Business and Professions Code, Article 6.

  “He wants you to work for him?” Paula asked.

  “I don’t know if I can do that, though, ethically, you know?” I was seated at her dining room table nursing Laurie.

  Paula had swaddled Laurie in a special swaddling blanket with Velcro closures on the sides and around her belly. When I complained and told her Laurie had outgrown the swaddle, she’d pooh-poohed me and told me that babies slept much better swaddled. I could hardly argue as apparently Laurie had been sacked out since I’d left.

  I rubbed Laurie’s cheek and secretly thought the swaddle looked like a straitjacket. “I’ll break you out of it as soon as we leave, Sugarplum,” I whispered in her ear. “I’m an expert in breaking out of Velcro.”

  Paula was working furiously on a scrapbook of Danny’s first year, and Danny was running back and forth between the dining room and his bedroom bringing us Lego pieces, one at a time.

  Each time Danny returned from his room, he’d hand me a piece saying, “ ’Go piece.”

  I’d say, “Yes! Lego piece,” then oohed and aahed as he attached the piece to the tower he was building.

  Paula gave me a dismissive wave. “Come on, Kate. You know I’m the last person you should be discussing ethics with. Take the money! Of course you should work for him.”

  “But that would be double billing or something like that.”

  Paula laughed. “Well, duh. That’s the beauty of it.”

  I sighed and helped Danny connect a piece to the tower. He yelped with happiness and then charged back to his room.

  Paula scrunched her face. “I promised myself I would finish this darn book before the baby came. I can’t have Danny’s first year looming over me when I have the other one’s first year to capture. But I swear I hate this scrapbooking.”

  “You do? But you’re so good at it.”

  “Why would you think I’m good at it? I never do it.”

  I looked around the table. She had neatly arranged the photos in one stack, stickers in another stack, and colored paper in a third stack. “Well, look at all the organization and care you’ve put into it.”

  “It’s all a façade,” Paula said.

  I laughed. Danny zoomed back into the room and handed me a Lego piece. “Danny’s good at building—why don’t you let him put it all together?”

  Paula sighed. “The end result would probably be the same.”

  At home, I fussed with dinner. On the drive from Paula’s I thought I’d had a wonderful time-saving idea. Crock pot cooking! Just throw all the ingredients into a pot and voilŕ—dinner!

  When I got home, I realized that would mean I actually had to have the ingredients on hand, not to mention the six-or seven-hour lead time for cooking.

  While inventorying the fridge, I grabbed a piece of cheese and popped it into my mouth. Then, I looked in the cupboard for some crackers.

  Hmmm, did we have a
ny wine?

  I found a bottle and opened it, pouring myself a glass.

  I had recently read an article online that allowed breastfeeding moms one to two glasses of alcohol a day. What a hoot! I thought I wasn’t supposed to have any alcohol. Well, everything in moderation. Certainly the occasional glass of wine wasn’t going to hurt Laurie. And definitely the last few days had been trying. I needed something to take the edge off.