by Denise Dietz
{ Cover photo of Beau the Cat by Laurie Smith }
An Almost Purr-fect Murder
A Short Mystery Story
by Denise Dietz
Dr. Tampoline’s face looked like a bloodhound’s, assuming the bloodho und wore bifocals. Solemn as a gravedigger, he studied the mess of medical records and x-rays spread across his desk. He appeared stoical but his hands betrayed him. His hands had the heebie-jeebies.
Mine did, too.
I watched my hands stop shaking as I remembered that I had already resigned myself to the bad news. Another kaleidoscopic headache was starting and I stared past Dr. Tampoline at the cut glass vase on his bookshelf. The pink rosebuds it held would bloat and bloom and die, but for now they looked like Munchkin parade bonnets. Speaking of Oz, where was the Good Witch when you really needed her? I wasn’t in Kansas anymore and the chance of a New York City tornado was zilch.
Especially two days before Christmas.
“Meredith, I’m so sorry,” Dr. Tampoline said, mulishly using the name my baby sister hadn’t been able to pronounce.
My birth certificate, a few stubborn high school teachers, some old theatre posters – and Dr. Tampoline – called me Meredith. To everyone else, I’m Merrie. Even at my wedding the minister said, “Merrie, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Unfortunately, I said yes.
I gave up on the roses and shifted my gaze to Doc’s bifocals. “I can always check the yellow pages for Wizards,” I said. “I’m fairly certain they inhabit the borough of Oz, just one Charon-piloted ferry ride from Brooklyn. Did you know that five rivers separate Brooklyn from Manhattan? The Acheron, the Cocytus, the Styx–”
“Meredith!”
“Sorry.” I tried again. “How long do I have?” I blinked back sudden tears and turned toward the window. A pigeon strutted across the outside ledge. It looked mean and hungry, an Alfred Hitchcock pigeon. I glared at the pigeon through my pounding headache. “No,” I said, making an about-face, stiffening my hand and raising it like a school crossing guard. “Don’t tell me.”
“Perhaps a second opinion,” Dr. Tampoline suggested. His hands had finally stilled.
I shook my head. One opinion was more than enough, thank you very much. My mother had died of the same disease and I knew I’d go certifiably insane if I heard a second M.D. parrot Dr. Tampoline’s words.
“You’ve been my doctor forever,” I told him. “When I was a kid I called you Dr. Trampoline.” My attempt at a grin failed. “What would I do with more opinions? Spread them out like Tarot cards?”
His face was full of guilt and misery, so I smiled brightly – and bravely, of course – and said, “Got a lollipop for a good girl, Doc?”
“I give out miniature toys nowadays, Meredith. There’s too much sugar in lollipops.” Reaching beneath the rosebuds, he retrieved a fishbowl from the bookshelf.
Blindly, I reached into the bowl and pulled out a tiny plastic rifle, and that’s when I had my first brilliant idea.
Dr. Tampoline looked as if he wanted to hug me. I didn’t want to be hugged by someone who was disinfected and deodorized, whose teeth were probably plaque-free. My body was flawed, at least on the inside, so I bolted. The Playmate-of-the-month receptionist wasn’t behind her cubicle. Maybe she’d gone down the hallway to have her silicon checked at the plastic surgeon’s office. Anxious to leave, I thought: She’ll bill me and Jim will pay, probably with glee.
It was noon-thirty. Outside, the sky spit cold rain. I felt like a middle-aged Goldilocks lost in a forest of skyscrapers. Fat, thin, tall, short and just-right shapes peopled the sidewalk like loose bits of colored glass viewed through a kaleidoscope.
Especially the Christmas decorations.
Red and green merged, so I focused on an anorexic Santa. Like Dr. Tampoline’s window-pigeon, he looked hungry. And mean.
I managed three blocks before stopping to read the sign above a door. DANTE’S INFERNO. Perfect.
Seated inside a dim cocktail lounge, I belied my earlier “lie down and die” mind-set. Instead, I shed salty tears into a salt-rimmed margarita. As I stirred the slushy drink with Doc’s plastic rifle, I pictured a small pearl-handled .22. The gun hibernated inside my bureau’s lingerie drawer. Purchased during a rash of rapes and robberies, my husband had taught me how to ready-aim-fire. Good old Jim. Tall, dark, handsome, suave, and considerate.
The credit card I used to pay the bar tab prompted my second brilliant idea.
I hailed a cab and imagined breaking the news to Jim. My death – let’s call it a journey to the quintessential Oz – would avoid a messy divorce.
Lately Jim had been Gaslighting me, trying to drive me crazy, except I was no Ingrid Bergman and he was no Charles Boyer. With a complete lack of originality, he switched the pictures on our walls. My purse mysteriously transferred itself from one surface to another. Christmas carols wafted through our heating ducts. Bing sang about a white Christmas, Judy told me to have a “Merrie” little Christmas, Burl lamented over a Frosty meltdown, and Aretha thought a winter wonderland was pretty cool. Only two weeks ago, before the holidays had shifted into high gear, our ducts had crooned “The Merry Widow Waltz.”
Jim would be a merry widower, indeed.
I knew about his “YAW,” his Young Anonymous Woman. Jim didn’t think I’d notice the blonde hairs (lighter than mine) on his clothes, or the whispered consultations over the phone when Ms. YAW called. Should I answer the phone, she’d pretend to solicit for a carpet-cleaning service. She sounded breathless, naïve, as if she was channeling Marilyn Monroe.
Jim often left for “extended business trips.” He was such a cliché.
The cab deposited me at Tiffany’s. A glittering emerald tennis bracelet caught my avid gaze. Eight thousand dollars. I told the happy counter person I’d wear it home. Either way – if my scheme failed or if I suddenly keeled over – Jim would be stuck with the credit card bill.
Bloomingdale’s was my next stop. The pure white silk chemise with sequin overlay in an exquisite leaf and bead design cost a mere three hundred, plus sales tax. A perfume that smelled like sin cost $160 per ounce. I bought three ounces. A belted coat with roomy raglan sleeves – a steal at $899.50. Would a sneaker addict prefer high heels inside her casket? Sure, why not? The gold metallic leather pumps were on sale, 50% off, only ninety-five bucks. Jim liked leather.
I hit the bank, withdrew my savings, and left twenty-five dollars in our joint checking account, one dollar for each year of our marriage. Then, ignoring Grand Central Station, I waved a wad of twenties in a cab driver’s face while requesting that he drive me to Long Island. By the time I reached my Great Neck cul-de-sac, it had begun to snow.
My Yorkshire terrier, Elvis, greeted me with a rump-wag. I tossed my purchases on the king-size bed in the master bedroom. The Matisse reproduction above its headboard was now a Picasso print. When had Jim switched the pictures? Before he left for work, shortly after I’d left for Dr. Tampoline’s office?
Downstairs, a pitcher of spiked eggnog beckoned from my kitchen’s double-door, stainless-steel refrigerator. Three goblets later, I was feeling no pain. I remembered my mother’s last days. The pain would come.
Inside the family room, my shaky legs gave way as my denim-clad butt sought Jim’s leather armchair. The Christmas tree mocked me. Jim and I had always picked it out together, decorated it together. Then he would plug in the lights and we’d drink eggnog and make love on the floor, under the tree, inhaling the scent of fresh pine needles.
It was a tradition, for God’s sake. Or at least it was until this year, when Jim had been on one of his “extended business trips” and I had bought the tree all by myself, decorated it all b
y myself, while Kermit and Miss Piggy sang “the lovers, the dreamers and me, la, la, la, le, la, la, loo” as they cavorted across my big-screen TV.
I stood up, stumbled over to the tree, and fingered my favorite ornament, a miniature music box. Pressing a tiny button, I listened to an Alvin-Chipmunk-voice tell me I’d better not cry.
My doorbell rang. It didn’t exactly harmonize with Alvin, so I turned off the music box ornament and answered the door. A young man stood there, the top half of his skull buried beneath a blue New York Giants stocking cap, his throat strangled by a green New York Jets muffler, his feet sheathed by a pair of black galoshes. He wore one of those disgustingly cute seasonal sweatshirts — Santa, sleigh, reindeer, full moon — over a bulky sweater. A huge button leered FLORISTS DELIVER. He handed me a dozen red roses. I anchored them under my arm, reached for my purse, and tipped him with a ten.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, his face wreathed in a smile. “Merry Christmas.”
I hate being called ma’am.
The flowers were from Jim. He had begun sending me roses a couple of months ago, following one of his business trips. I thrust thorny stems into a vase, and read the card: “MERRIE Christmas. Love always, Jim.”
That was new. Love always? Had Dr. Tampoline told him about my prognosis?
Who would mourn my demise? A few friends. And my sister, Charlene. Ten years my junior, Charlene looks younger than thirty-five, as if the aging process had stopped dead, so to speak, at twenty-nine. Charlene collects an alimony check every month and lives alone. No kids. No pets.
I refilled my goblet and sat on the family room’s white-leather couch. I toasted the roses, then my wedding photo. Granted, twenty-five years of marriage had blunted the excitement, but didn’t compatibility count? Didn’t giving up a promising acting career count? I’d wined and dined Jim’s clients so often I was arguably a more knowledgeable stockbroker than he. On the other hand, his YAW offered youth and a size D cup. Did the Victoria’s Secret bra still lay hidden where I’d found it, buried inside Jim’s tux pocket?
A tear trickled as I glanced across the room into an octagonal mirror. Funny. My illness had produced an almost feverish glow. In fact, I looked healthier today than I had two months ago, or even two weeks ago, when Jim had insisted I visit Dr. Tampoline. “Let’s find out why you keep getting those damn headaches, Merrie,” Jim had said, his voice oozing sympathy, his gaze straying toward the Picasso that hung above our pretentious Cornshuck Seat.
Poor Dr. Tampoline. He was into announcements of good cheer, not pending doom. He’d rather hand out lollipops than sugar-free plastic toys.
My head pounded and my stomach felt like a roller coaster, but the eggnog had loosened me up, so I tapped out the number for Jim’s brokerage firm.
“He’s giving a personal presentation right now,” said Jennifer, the firm’s receptionist.
Yeah, right, I thought. Personally adjusting Ms. YAW’s size D portfolio.
The phone company’s rep was polite. And helpful. When I complained about the charges for several Great Neck to Manhattan calls, she gave me the name of Jim’s YAW. My Manhattan directory gave me her address.
“Cherry Ames” didn’t use initials.
Stupid YAW.
***
Stupid YAW, indeed! After knocking and waiting and knocking again, I discovered that Cherry’s door wasn’t locked. Tentatively, I entered.
A white Persian cat barely dented a tassel-cushioned couch. Underneath a red and green holiday ribbon, the cat’s green jeweled collar reminded me of my new tennis bracelet.
Cherry’s coffee table hinted that its owner possessed a multifaceted, or split, personality. Next to a Wall Street Journal lay a supermarket tabloid, a Harlequin paperback, a Soap Opera Digest, a vinyl purse, a leather wallet, and a super-sized Ronald McDonald paper cup. The cup held a bouquet of yellow roses whose color matched Ronald McD’s gay outfit. I couldn’t help noticing that the card, stuck in among the stems, read: “To C. Merry Christmas. Love always, Jim.”
On my left, next to a fairly large flat-screen TV, a small, fake Christmas tree looked as if it had been bought, already decorated, at a discount drug store. Someone had turned the TV to my sister Charlene’s favorite show, Sesame Street, and Oscar the Grouch sang “The Christmas Song,” also known as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.”
Against one living room wall, an étagère held a collection of miniature ballerinas. They seemed to twirl, galvanized by the green grouch. Closing my eyes, I felt another excruciating headache explode inside my head.
Damn! Not now!
To my right was the kitchen, clean as the proverbial whistle, except for a sack of groceries and one of those disgustingly cute Christmas pet stockings. I had bought one for Elvis, filled with dog goodies. Glancing toward the aloof, sedentary white Persian, I surmised that the stocking on the kitchen table was filled with cat goodies. In fact, I could have sworn I smelled a rubber rat.
I drew the gun from the depths of my purse and walked over to the bedroom door and inched it open. I listened for the squeak of bedsprings, but all I heard was Big Bird blaring “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
Cherry’s bedroom reeked of potpourri. A dozen fragrant sachets decorated her red, heart-shaped headboard. Jim decorated the bed. Not a creature was stirring, not even a louse.
Teddy bears had spilled from the bed to the carpet. Their glassy eyes stared up at the ceiling, the sachet packets, and my dead-to-the-world husband, who slept sideways, in a fetal position, his back toward me. I curled my finger around the gun’s trigger. My head pounded and my hand shook and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill, even if Jim was the worst sleaze alive.
Alive! Holy shit!
Jim was a sound sleeper, so Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird wouldn’t have disturbed him. But why didn’t he snore? Jim always snored. His snoring drove me crazy.
I turned him over, onto his back, and discovered that he slept with his eyes open.
Next to the bed was Jim’s leather briefcase, full to bursting, but I’d seen enough cop shows to know I shouldn’t touch it.
***
Inside the police precinct, the heat had been turned up – way up – to compensate for the winter wonderland outside. Plastic-coated Comets, Blitzens and Rudolphs vied for dominance amidst the plethora of Christmas cards, strung across every ceiling baseboard.
Sergeant Marcus Leonard was skeptically sympathetic. Leaning forward in his chair, he allowed an icy breeze from the open window to caress his thinning hair and the white shirt that stuck to his back and underarms in wet, aromatic patches.
The sergeant’s cluttered desk boasted one dead rose, its stem rising from a Diet Pepsi can. Noting my gaze, his face turned ruddy. “Birthday last week,” he said. “Don’t you hate it when that happens?”
“Excuse me?”
“When your birthday falls so close to Christmas,” he said, glaring at me as if it was my fault.
Since my mother had been smart enough to squeeze me out on Labor Day, I merely nodded, generating yet another headache. Then, after repeating my story twice, I said, “The cops checked my gun. It wasn’t fired.”
“Your husband was stabbed to death.”
Obviously a crime of passion, I thought dispassionately.
“The cops searched me,” I said. “They didn’t find a knife.”
“You could’ve hidden it before we arrived.”
“Where? Inside a potpourri sachet? By the way, what happened to the cat? I do hope someone took care of it.”
“What cat?”
“A white Persian. It wore a green-jeweled collar under a green and red Christmas ribbon. The cat was on the couch when I got there, gone when I left. I suppose it could have hidden behind the couch, or under the couch, but the pet stocking was gone, too.” My rapidly developing migraine blotted out cats, tasseled couch cushions, and all other visions that danced in my head. “Please, Sergeant, either arrest me or let me go home. I don’t feel very well.�
�
“If you’re planning to be sick,” he said, “there’s a bathroom across the hall. Your taxes paid for my new carpeting.”
I swallowed convulsively and began my third recitation. By the time my attorney arrived, I had used the bathroom across the hall twice and ruined Sergeant Leonard’s new carpet once. Despite the snow that now crusted the streets, my attorney drove me home. “They can’t pin this on you, Merrie,” she said. “If intent to kill without following through was a crime, they’d have to arrest every wife and mistress in the Big Apple.”
Mistress! Could Cherry Ames be Jim’s murderer? Was he planning to trade her in for an even younger model, one who collected Barbie dolls, rather than ballerinas? Had the D-cup belonged to another YAW?
Who else would have a motive? Three days ago I’d heard Jim arguing over the phone with Howard, his brokerage firm partner. I had picked up the extension, but since Howard didn’t possess a Marilyn voice box, I hadn’t listened in on the conversation.
My attorney, who looks like Ally McBeal on steroids, pulled into my driveway and cell-phoned my sister, who said she’d come right over. I waved goodbye to Ally, unlocked the front door, smelled roses, and headed for the stairs.
Entering my bedroom, I glanced above the headboard. The Picasso print was now a Matisse. Who had switched them back? Not Jim. He had been bivouacked inside his teddy-bear-infested love nest, getting himself killed.
***
My sister Charlene had carried Jim’s red roses upstairs and put them on top of the bureau, in front of a beveled wall mirror. The blooms looked pretty and smelled like two dozen roses.
“Smells like 24 roses in here,” I said, dropping a soggy tissue onto my bedspread.
“Reflections have no smell,” my practical sister replied.
At the thought, I burst into fresh tears.
“What a beautiful tennis bracelet,” my sister said, her gaze drawn to the tiny emeralds that glittered in the lamplight. “I love green stones.”
“I’ll leave it to you in my will, Charlene.” Damn, I’d have to write a will soon. Would my sister take Elvis? No way. She hated being chained to another living soul, which had probably led to her divorce.
