“What are we going to do about this?” he asked anxiously.
Susan stared at him a moment before answering. Not that she wasn’t happy to see he cared about Kelly, but it wasn’t like Jed to get so upset about neighborhood problems; usually he stayed just a bit removed from his hometown. Susan had come to think of it as the commuter’s dilemma—they lived in town and at the same time they were separated from it.
“I’ll give her a call tomorrow and we can talk. I don’t really know what else I can do,” she answered.
“Give her a call? What are you talking about? What if she marries him?” Jed asked.
“I don’t think Rebecca is going to let that happen,” Susan answered, looking around the room.
“Rebecca? What does Rebecca have to do with this?” Jed asked, waving to acknowledge the greeting of Derek Stevenson.
“Wait a minute. Who are we talking about?” Susan asked.
“My mother. Who else?”
“Your mother? What’s wrong with your mother?” Susan took a caviar-covered cracker from a proffered tray and popped it in her mouth.
“How can you ask? It’s that man she brought to the party with her—Dr. Bobby Barr. Oh, no! Here they come. Try to be nice to him,” Jed requested anxiously as they were approached by his mother, who was accompanied by a short, bald man around fifty-five years old.
Susan, with no intention of being anything but nice, smiled happily at the couple.
“Susan, I haven’t had a chance to tell you how much I love that dress. What a wonderful shade of green. And how slim you look in it,” Claire said.
“Thanks. I’m glad you like it. Kathleen picked it out for me.”
Everyone smiled at one another and there was one of those awkward silences.
“Isn’t the food lovely?” Susan said, hoping to attract the attention of one of the young men handing around the appetizers. She was especially interested in the small crab puffs and said so.
“You’re not eating that stuff, are you, my dear?” Dr. Barr seemed horrified. “Crabs are bottom eaters. Never, ever, consume bottom eaters! You might as well be eating raw sewage!”
Susan stared at the light crisp of pastry and crab in her hand and thought for a moment. How much did she owe a guest of her husband’s mother? But greed beat any good intentions she may have considered and she gobbled up the food. Then, hoping to atone for her sins, she chose a wine spritzer over more eggnog.
“I cannot let you do that,” insisted Dr. Barr, taking the goblet right out of her hand. “Sulfites, you know.”
“But I’m not allergic to sulfites,” Susan protested, watching him pour the wine on a defenseless poinsettia.
“How can something that so many people are allergic to be good for you? Think, my dear, think,” Dr. Barr said in an attempt to explain his actions.
“I think—” Jed began.
But Susan wasn’t going to let this go any further.
“I see the Stevensons over by the Christmas tree,” she said. “Let’s go see them, Jed. We have to talk to them about the New Year’s Day party at the club, remember?”
He didn’t, mainly because there wasn’t a New Year’s Day party at the Hancock Field Club, but he followed his wife toward the other couple. And, more importantly, away from his mother and the man she rather adolescently was calling her date.
“Did you hear about Kelly?” Elizabeth asked immediately. Susan wondered how many times this greeting had been exchanged during the evening so far.
“Yes. Have you talked to her today?” Susan asked immediately.
“My wife,” Derek explained to Jed, “is very, very worried about Kelly Knowlson. We all are, of course.”
“Kelly and Derek went to prep school together, you know,” Elizabeth elaborated. “We’re really dreadfully worried about her.”
Susan wondered if some archaic concept of “old school ties” was the only reason for Derek’s expressed concern.
“But have you talked to her today? Do you have any idea why she came over here with the salad?”
“I spoke with her this morning. She seemed fine. A little sad. Of course, that’s only natural. Some of her best friends are here tonight. In many ways this is the same party that she and Evan used to give every year. A half-dozen couples enjoying a very elegant evening. I think it’s fair to expect that she’d be sad about it.”
“But bringing food …” Susan tried to find the right words. “It’s a little odd, don’t you think?”
“A little.” Derek conceded.
“But Rebecca threw it at her,” Elizabeth responded. “That shows a certain lack of class, don’t you think?”
“We’re not here to criticize our hosts,” her husband reminded her.
“Of course not.” His wife fell into line at once. “But, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll sneak off and call Kelly. If anyone sees me, I can say that I’m calling home. That would be all right, wouldn’t it?”
“An excellent idea,” her husband agreed, taking her empty glass and setting it down on a nearby table.
“I heard an interesting story about the new V.P. of personnel at your company,” Jed commented to Derek.
Susan knew it was her cue to circulate; it was time to find her host. When she had arrived at Evan’s house, he had been busy explaining his new and very complicated stereo system to Jeffrey St. John. Maybe he was free now. After a quick search, she found him standing beside a hard-disk computer with Jeffrey still at his side. Evan had run his hands through his thinning hair too many times for neatness and was waving around his horn-rimmed glasses to make a point. Susan thought, not for the first time, that whatever he had that made women devote their lives to him, it had nothing to do with his looks. Although usually impeccably groomed, he was a grown-up nerd. He smiled at her appearance.
“Susan, help me escape from this man. Let’s talk about something other than machinery. Tell me, did you get out to Quogue last August? We wanted to see you, but we were so busy with my boring business colleagues the first two weeks and then, of course, there was that trip to the fjords in Finland. You must go there—you would love it; it reminded me terribly of New Zealand, only much more civilized. Some of the best food in the world; just your type of place.” Although shorter than Susan, Evan Knowlson put his arm around her shoulder while talking and led her toward a large couch covered with a Navaho wool rug.
“Doesn’t everything look wonderful?” he asked her as they sat down. “Didn’t Rebecca do a wonderful job?”
“Perfect,” Susan agreed, feeling slightly uncomfortable and wondering if it was the itchy wool poking through her light silk dress or the questioning.
“She planned everything perfectly,” Evan agreed. “And it was quite a job—we’ve only been back from Vermont for two weeks.”
“I hadn’t seen this place since the housewarming you gave last June. You’ve done a lot with it.” She looked around the large, sweeping combination living room and dining room.
“Everyone is surprised that it’s so different than the house Kelly and I built.”
“Yes, but how many people have the chance to do two different things so perfectly?” was Susan’s tactful answer. She had actually been thinking not about how different the houses were, but how similar. Both places were designed more for entertaining than family living.
“You’re a woman who’s grown over the years … You must understand that a person needs change,” Evan continued. “Kelly refused to change. Oh, I don’t blame her. She knew what her needs were and stayed with them. I accept that as real wisdom, but I need something different. All this,” he amplified, waving a well-manicured hand around the room, from the antique Indian saddle blankets hung over the two-story-high railing on the second floor to the heavy iron abstract sculpture displayed over the large, free-form stone fireplace. His eyes fell on a framed photograph of Rebecca’s two teenage sons, and he stopped speaking for a moment.
“That reminds me of something I wanted to ask you, Susan,
dear. I’ve been so busy at work that I haven’t had a chance to give you a call. But now Rebecca and I are taking a good long break. We’re actually closing the office until after the New Year. But I do have to think about some family things. I wonder if you could help me.” He sounded a little hesitant. “I’m looking for someone to write recommendations for the kids for jobs next summer—they’re hoping to wait on tables out in the Hamptons or something. And I wondered if you and Jed would help us out.”
Why not? “Sure. I don’t usually speak for Jed, but I can’t think of any reason he’d object. It would be nice if they could work out there. Then you all could spend the summer together on the Island.”
“Yes. Just like a normal family,” Evan agreed somewhat vaguely. “I mean, like a real father and mother, not like a stepfather,” he elaborated. “It’s not always easy being a stepfather.”
“I can imagine.”
“Sometimes I think I’m not a very good parent,” he continued, looking sadly at his guests.
“I’m sure you’re—”
“Well, look who’s here. Your husband and my wife.” Evan changed his tone as he interrupted her. “And who is this lovely lady they have with them?”
The two men exchanged Christmas greetings before Jed introduced his mother. Susan wondered vaguely where Dr. Barr had vanished to. Well, since he wasn’t around, she’d get another glass of wine—or two. She smiled and hurried over to the bar set up near the two-story balsam that filled the end of the room opposite the fireplace.
The bartender took her order, pouring white wine from a bottle with the label of an expensive French vintner. This was something else that hadn’t changed: Only the best was ever served to guests at Evan’s house, no matter who its mistress might be.
“Susan, I’ve been looking for you.” It was Kathleen, and standing beside her was a very attractive woman in her early fifties who could only be her mother. “Susan, I want you to meet—”
“Your mother,” Susan finished for her and took the woman’s hand. “I’m very, very pleased to meet you. I’ve been looking forward to your visit. How was the trip up from Philadelphia?”
“Not bad. I had been worried about snow on the roads, but they were clear. The only problem was that horrible bit of the Jersey Turnpike around New York City. I’m always afraid I’ll make the wrong turn and end up on the George Washington Bridge.” She took Susan’s hand and squeezed it warmly. “Call me Dolores; everyone does. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you and your children. You have two of them, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Susan was surprised by this transition. “Chrissy is fifteen now and Chad is twelve.”
“Most people who choose to live in the suburbs have children, don’t they?” Kathleen’s mother continued.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Susan agreed, wondering what she was getting into.
“I’ve always thought Kathleen would be a wonderful mother. Don’t you think so?”
Susan took her time sipping her wine. But she could sit down and finish the entire bottle and she wouldn’t think of an answer to that question—not one that would satisfy everyone. “She’s very good with children.”
“Well, then …” Kathleen’s mother appeared to find that a sterling endorsement. “And I’m sure Jerry—”
“Mother, not now. We’ll talk later. But not now,” Kathleen hissed.
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you can’t even imagine how a mother feels. How much she wants to be a grandmother.”
“Exactly. You’re exactly right, ma’am.”
Susan and Kathleen twirled around. It was the bartender, the man who wouldn’t wash off the front steps, speaking.
“My son and his wife have been married for six years and still no children.” He put his head closer to Kathleen’s mother and handed her a glass of red wine. “They say they’re too busy. Do you believe that? Too busy. Where would he be if his mother and I had been too busy?” He turned his attention to Kathleen. “And what would you like?”
“Double Scotch. No ice.”
NINE
Happily, Susan was almost immediately provided with an excuse to leave this particular discussion behind.
“Susan, there’s a telephone call for you. It sounded like your daughter. There was some loud music playing in the background and I couldn’t hear very well,” Rebecca said, joining the group near the bar.
“Thanks. It’s probably Chad. He seems incapable of turning down his music unless someone orders him to do so.” Susan hurried off to the wall phone in the kitchen, thinking of accidents, dismemberment, fires … She picked up the receiver.
“What? I can’t hear what you’re saying. What’s wrong?” Susan heard herself start to scream. One of the caterers gave a started glance in her direction, and she lowered her voice. “Chad, turn down that music right now!”
“You don’t have to yell, Mom. I can hear you.” But he turned down the volume, and Susan felt her grip on the phone relax.
“Why are you calling, Chad?”
“The hospital called.”
“What?”
“It’s okay. They said not to worry, that everything was okay.”
“Who’s okay? Where’s Chrissy?” Susan asked, confusion replacing panic.
“Right here. I was trying to tell you. The hospital called and said there had been an accident.”
“Chad! Who was hurt?”
“Mrs. Knowlson.”
“Rebecca? That’s not possible, I just saw her …” The explanation occurred to her as Chad spoke.
“Kelly Knowlson. She was in an automobile accident. The man on the phone called it minor. She’s in the emergency room at the hospital and they want you to come, pick her up, and take her home.”
“Of course,” Susan relaxed. “When did you get the call?”
“Just a few minutes ago. The man said that you didn’t have to rush. I think I got the whole message, Mom.”
“I’m sure you did, honey. Thanks a lot. Now go to bed soon, okay?”
“Sure. Does this mean you and Daddy are going to be home later?”
“Don’t plan on it, Chad,” she answered. “Thanks for calling. ’Bye, honey.”
Susan hung up as her husband entered the room. “Oh, Jed. There’s been an auto accident and Kelly Knowlson is in the emergency room. They called and asked if I could give her a ride home.”
“The hospital called here?”
“No, Chad got the call at home and relayed the message. I wonder what Chrissy is doing?”
“Probably too involved in a TV movie to pay attention. Don’t worry about her. What about Kelly?”
“I guess I’d better go to the hospital and pick her up.”
“Do you want me to come along?” he offered.
“No, and I don’t think we should say anything about this. There’s too much talk about Kelly at this party already. I’ll just tell Rebecca that there’s a small problem at home and that I have to leave for a while. I should make it back here in less than an hour.”
“Unless Kelly needs you to be with her,” Jed suggested.
“True.” She hesitated.
“If there’s a problem and you’re needed there, I can get a ride home with Jerry. You’d better run. No one likes to spend extra time in a hospital.”
“You’re right. Oh, Jed …” She stopped on her way to the door. “What about your mother?”
“I think Mother is just fine. Dr. Barr has detached himself from her side and she’s chatting with Elizabeth Stevenson.”
“I’ll get my coat,” Susan said, not wanting to get into a family discussion now.
“No, I’ll get it. You go explain to Rebecca and I’ll meet you at the front door. It’s lucky we were a little late, otherwise the car might be parked in.”
They had been late and, for once, it hadn’t been her fault, Susan remembered. Jed’s mother had changed her outfit half a dozen times before their departure, modeling all the beautiful silks and leathers that she had picked up in
her travels. Susan couldn’t help thinking of all the shopping the woman had done and how she had ended up with a vegetable juicer. On the other hand, there was something satisfying about seeing Jed irritated at his mother instead of his wife.
She was thinking about it during the short drive to the emergency room. And thinking, too, of Kelly having an accident during her ex-husband’s party. If it really had been an accident. But there was no reason to anticipate more trouble than she had right now, she lectured herself, turning off the road and into the emergency room parking area. She was as familiar with the area as any mother whose son had played on Little League, on soccer teams, and on the swimming and diving team at the club would be.
But Chad wasn’t involved in winter sports, and she was surprised to discover the reception area decorated for the holidays. A large gold paper banner on the far wall ordered everyone in the room to have a happy holiday. Cards were taped to a string draped around two computer terminals and up over a tall file cabinet. A tabletop Christmas tree with multicolored blinking lights obscured the view of the nurse at the desk.
“I’m here to see Kelly Knowlson,” Susan told the woman, who was looking at her somewhat suspiciously.
“Are you a patient?” the woman replied.
“No. I got— That is, my son got a call that Mrs. Knowlson was here and needed a ride home,” Susan explained inadequately.
“Mrs. Knowlson works here?”
“No, she was in an accident.”
“Oh, she’s a patient here.” The nurse seemed pleased at her discovery.
“Yes. Don’t you have a record of her admittance?” Susan asked, wondering if she had gotten the information wrong.
“Are you a relative?”
“No, but …” The entrance of a large, burly man wearing a pea green surgeon’s gown solved the problem.
“Susan, what are you doing here? Is someone hurt?”
“Dan, I’m fine, but I’m so glad to see you!” Susan accepted his hug and returned the kiss of her next-door neighbor. “What are you doing here?”
He chuckled. “This is a hospital. I’m a gynecologist. I belong here, remember?”
We Wish You a Merry Murder Page 6
