Murder Ink

by Betty Hechtman

  I suspected he based the man character on himself, or who he wished to be. And the women he had fantasies about. I rolled my eyes just thinking about them. He had gathered a group of famous women living and dead who were supposed to be vying for the man’s affection. They went from Jackie Kennedy to Lady Gaga with a lot of stops in between.

  He went right into the dining room and took a seat and then dropped his folder of sheets on the dark wood table. He’d brought along his usual commuter mug of something. He said it was tea, but I suspected it was something a little stronger.

  I buzzed Tizzy Baxter in and opened the door as she came up the stairs. She also worked for the university at an office job in the business school. She was married with grown kids. Tizzy lived down the street and I’d known her before she joined the group. ‘I’ve got some exciting stuff this week,’ she said coming in the door. Enthusiastic wasn’t a strong enough word to describe her. She was writing a time-travel romance, which took place in our neighborhood, but back when the 1893 World’s Fair took place. She was enthralled by the history of the neighborhood and was always talking about what used to be where, whether anybody wanted to know or not. Like how many times did she have to tell everyone that Amelia Earhart went to the local high school? Her dark brown hair was cut so it swung when she moved her head and she always wore layers of clothes that seemed to flutter when she walked.

  I heard her greet Ed as she went back to the dining room just as the bell rang again. I buzzed open the downstairs door for Daryl Sullivan and waited while she came up the stairs. She worked downtown managing a clothing store that catered to young women. Though she dressed in a more of a classic style, she knew all of the trends. Her head was bowed when she came in and she glanced up with a weak smile. Her eyes looked tense and her breath sounded shallow and nervous. It would only get worse when we got to her work in progress. She was writing a sweet romance but didn’t do well with any criticism.

  Ben Monroe arrived with a knock at the door. He muttered a greeting and handed me a dish of something covered in wax paper. ‘Sara sent this for you. She said all you have to do is heat it.’

  Sara Wright was my downstairs neighbor and his older sister. She was also the reason he was here. Ben was a cop in one of the suburbs and he’d taken the neutral expression called ‘cop face’ to extreme. Bottled up was an understatement about him. Sara had gifted him with three months of workshop sessions. She hadn’t said anything to me about it, but I was pretty sure she’d imagined he’d write something that expressed his inner feelings. Ha! He was writing about a hard-boiled detective and acted as if there was a penalty for using too many words. I’d call his style staccato. I kept trying to get him to explore the detective’s inner thoughts, but Ben said they didn’t matter to the plot.

  Sara was married with a two-year-old son and in a much different place in her life than I was, but we’d become friends anyway. She was also intent on fixing my life. She was concerned that I was a vegetarian and not getting proper protein, hence the dish of food. Not that I was complaining. She was a great cook and, as she figured, I hadn’t even thought about dinner yet.

  I led the way back to the dining room and Ben joined the others, while I checked what was under the wax paper. It was a personal-size casserole dish of rice, beans and veggies with a sprinkling of cheese.

  I suspected she was hoping that the weekly dinners and play time with his nephew before the workshops would also help loosen Ben up. I’d never seen him in action with Mikey and I wondered if the cute little boy was enough to coax a smile out of his uncle.

  I think that both Ben and I were looking forward to the end of his gifted sessions.

  When I joined the group at my dining room table, they were all thumbing through the pages they’d brought in. I knew they were all tense about going public with what they’d written and tried to loosen them all up with a little social time first.

  ‘Anyone have anything exciting to report?’ I asked, looking in Ben’s direction since he’d seemed the most likely to have been in the middle of something interesting. I watched his even features for some kind of reaction. I guess he’d be considered good-looking, but his looks didn’t do much for me. I’d rather have someone with a snaggletooth if it came with some personality.

  He just shrugged and nodded toward the others as if to give them the floor.

  They all looked back to me. They were awed that I was a professional writer and fascinated by what I did.

  ‘What do you have going this week?’ Ed asked. ‘Anyone hire you to write some steamy missives?’ He wiggled his eyebrows and I wasn’t sure if he was joking or serious. I never used names, so it seemed OK to talk about my work.

  ‘Actually, someone did, though I’d say more romantic than steamy,’ I said, before describing Evan.

  Ed shook his head. ‘I never had to do anything like that. Back in the day, the ladies were always running after me.’

  ‘Obviously this guy doesn’t have your abilities,’ Tizzy said, with a touch of sarcasm. ‘He sounds kind of sweet and old-fashioned, but I don’t know what you could say to get that woman to want to go out with him.’

  Daryl shrugged. ‘I’m glad it’s you that has to come up with something. I wouldn’t have a clue.’ There was a pause and Ed started gathering his pages, as if we were going to get started.

  ‘Wait,’ Tizzy said. ‘There’s something more, isn’t there?’ She was studying my face. ‘You look like I feel when there’s something I have to do, but don’t want to.’

  I was surprised at how on the money she was. I mentally chided myself for the cliché. Simply put, I didn’t like them and avoided them whenever possible. I thought it was better to find a more original way of saying whatever. The writers’ group knew all about it. Mentally, I changed the thought to how accurate Tizzy was. It was easy to talk about Evan’s situation, but a whole other story talking about Rachel. ‘There is this other assignment.’ I left out the details that might have hinted who it was since Rachel’s family was so prominent, but I explained I’d been commissioned to write something to give out at a memorial service. ‘She was young and there’s some debate about how she died.’

  ‘What do you mean, “debate”?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Right now, it is being considered inconclusive, but it seems like some members of the family want it to be considered an accident and another seems to believe it might have been deliberate.’

  ‘You mean like suicide?’ Tizzy said. Hearing the word was jarring, but I nodded.

  ‘What else do you know about her?’ Daryl asked. She shuddered when I mentioned Rachel’s age, which was right around Daryl’s. Ed’s interest was piqued when I added she’d been married just over a year and that I’d helped write her wedding vows.

  ‘Sounds like her happily ever after might not have been,’ he said.

  ‘How exactly did she die?’ Tizzy asked. She realized her question sounded a little blunt and tried to soften it. ‘Sorry, I didn’t think. If you wrote her wedding vows, you must have gotten to know her pretty well.’

  I nodded. ‘For a short time, it was pretty intense. Wedding vows are about as personal as you can get. Though I didn’t really get to know her husband.’ I swallowed, once again transitioning in my mind from Rachel the bride-to-be to Rachel the dead. I explained the balcony without giving any more details. ‘The last time I saw her was at her wedding as she was leaving for her honeymoon. She appeared blissfully happy.’ I gestured to Ed to pass out the copies of his pages. ‘I suppose I’ll find out more about what led up to her death as I work on the piece.’

  ‘Who decides if it was an accident or a suicide?’ Daryl asked. She turned to Ben. ‘You must know about all that.’ Though he was in street clothes and never talked about it, they all knew he was a cop.

  ‘The coroner is the one who determines the cause of death,’ he answered in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘There is something besides inconclusive, accidental or suicide.’ He let it hang in the air a moment before he continu
ed. ‘There’s also homicide.’ It was the most he’d said during our social time and I looked at him with surprise.

  ‘Murder?’ I said. ‘I don’t think so.’ I shook my head vehemently, thinking again of the pretty bride.

  Ben’s expression stayed the same – both his tone and his eyes were flat as he continued. ‘I’m just saying that it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to cover up a murder by making it look like a suicide or an accident.’

  The other three were looking at me intently. ‘So, what are you going to do?’ Tizzy asked.

  ‘I’m not really sure. I do feel kind of guilty about not getting in touch with her after the wedding.’ I explained that generally that was the way clients wanted it. ‘I just assumed she was the same, but then her husband said she could have used a friend. And I did write a mystery, so I know a little about investigating.’ I hadn’t meant to say all of that. I’d never opened up as much to the group before and it was making me a little uncomfortable. I glanced around the table anxious to change the subject. ‘OK, who’s going to read Ed’s work?’

  The way we worked was that someone other than the writer read the work out loud and then everyone commented with me giving the final word. My opinion carried more weight since, as I mentioned, they thought I knew all the answers.

  Whoever read Ed’s work usually ended up blushing since it seemed like his characters were always in the Getting to Know You Suite and it was pretty graphic. There were always some chuckles too because all the who-did-what-to-who along with the euphemisms came across as funny when read out loud. When no one volunteered, I pointed to Ben. He was the only one who could read Ed’s work with a straight face. It always sounded like he was reading a police report, which distressed Ed because he insisted it took away from the drama.

  Everyone gave their comments at the end and then I added mine. I said what I always did – that he might want to consider concentrating more on the characters’ personalities and less on their body parts.

  Tizzy read Ben’s pages. He was compulsive about giving accurate details of what kind of gun and caliber of bullets the bad guy had used. But the characters had the personality of a paper doll. I did my best to nicely suggest that he add some details to the bad guy. ‘He must have some life besides robbing a bank. Maybe if you think what his favorite food is or what his fifth birthday was like, you can give him a little juice.’ Ben listened and then acknowledged he’d heard what I’d said, but he gave no indication if he planned to change anything.

  When Ed finished reading Daryl’s work, everyone sucked in their breath waiting for the onslaught. None of them offered a comment and it was all on me. Who could blame them? She never took even the mildest criticism well. Daryl had a particular problem in her writing. She wrote like she was writing some kind of manual and included every step along the way. Tonight, her pages were about a couple going to a party. The couple stopped for the traffic light and pushed the button to make it change. They watched the light across the street waiting for the walk sign to appear. When it did change, they crossed, holding hands. They stepped up on the curb on the other side of the street before beginning to walk down the block. You get the idea. I did my best explaining that it was too much information. She seemed OK for a moment, but then exploded.

  ‘You don’t understand. I was setting up the scene so the reader could have a mental picture with all the details.’ She went on for a few more minutes defending what she’d written, her eyes flashing with anger. Finally, she grabbed the papers back and shoved them in her folder. As always, she calmed down after that and smiled as she thanked me for the help.

  Tizzy’s work was never a problem. She was almost at the end of a rewrite of her time-travel novel and it was just polishing now. There were just some grammar corrections and suggestions for a change of words. When we finished with her work, everyone began to pack up.

  ‘When are we going to have an extra session,’ Ed asked. Once a month or so we met at a public place and just like art students had sketch classes out in the world, they had a writing experience using what they heard or saw. The point was to write something short like a scene, a piece of flash fiction, or merely a description. We talked it over and decided on the following week. We’d go to a restaurant down the street.

  Ben seemed to be taking longer to gather up his pages and he was just coming down the hall when the others had already left.

  ‘I hope the comments were useful,’ I said. He responded with a half-nod.

  ‘I got the impression that you might be planning on doing your own investigating while you’re writing that thing – what did you call it?’

  ‘A celebration of life,’ I said.

  ‘Right, a celebration of life,’ he repeated. ‘Forget what I said about homicide. I’m sure it wasn’t. And it shouldn’t matter to you whether it was an accident or a suicide. The best thing you can do is to write your piece and leave it at that.’ He looked at me with almost an expression on his face that could best be described as stern. ‘Leave it to the professionals. Cops don’t like it when civilians muck around in their business.’

  I considered arguing with him, but decided it was pointless, so I nodded as though I agreed with him, though inside I was thinking no way was I dropping anything. The hunt for the truth was on.

  FIVE

  I think the group imagined that I just sat down at the computer and words started falling off my fingertips.

  I wish.

  In the morning, I took my coffee and the notes I’d written after meeting Evan and Sally. I planned to write something and email it to him. Then we’d discuss. But even after playing romantic piano music and lighting a rose-scented candle for inspiration, I was coming up empty. After an hour all I could manage was: Hey, Sally, how about we go somewhere together and by the way, I want to marry you.

  I stared at the words on the computer screen and began to feel panicky. The unfinished manuscript on the shelf was a constant reminder of what could happen. The screen went dark as the computer went into sleep mode. Sitting there wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

  I went into the living room and found the bag with my crochet work. I settled on the black leather couch and began to move my hook through the purple yarn.

  Crocheting reminded me of my mother and always helped me feel better. I mostly worked on squares using different yarns and different stitches. I had a cardboard template I used to make sure they were all the same size. When I had enough, I sewed them into blankets. I’d been doing it for as long as I could remember. I glanced up at the blanket on the back of the couch. It was the first one I’d made and was in shades of rust and orange with a black border. I’d given it to my father, and he’d kept it in his office at the university, telling anyone who would listen that I’d made it. He’d taught English Lit.

  Bringing me up on his own after my mother died hadn’t been easy. Well, I hadn’t made it easy. He’d done the best he could and I’d brattily complained that his French toast wasn’t like my mother’s. He had the audacity to make it so that blobs of scrambled eggs hung off the side of the finished piece. The irony was that recently I’d seen French toast served that way with a new fancy name at a new fancy restaurant.

  ‘I’m sorry for all the hassles, Dad,’ I whispered to the heavens, as I worked on the purple square. I let out my breath as my anxiety receded. The crocheting had calmed me, but I wasn’t any closer with what to put in the letter. The problem with writing was you couldn’t grit your teeth and just try harder. If anything, trying harder just made it worse. I needed to step back and forget about it for a while. I knew my best bet was to go for a walk. Besides, it was a good antidote for all the sitting I did.

  It was another sparkling October day. The sun was shining, and the sky was an electric blue. I left the shade of my tree-lined street and turned onto 57th. As usual, there was a fair amount of foot traffic. At this hour, it was mostly U of C students heading to the campus. I went the other way, going toward the lake.

&
nbsp; I followed the curving sidewalk along the strip of Jackson Park. The grass was still green, but the leaves were turning colors and the slight breeze was sending more of them floating to the ground. A lone kid was being pushed on a swing in the playground. I thought of Tizzy and her time-travel story as I looked across to the imposing Museum of Science and Industry. The domed building was actually a leftover from the 1893 World’s Fair. I loved the design, particularly the columns that were actually stern-looking women wrapped in what looked like concrete togas. It had been the Palace of Fine Art building and built sturdier than the other buildings in the fair, which is why it was still standing while the others were all gone. Of course, a lot of refurbishing had gone on as well. Instead of being filled with paintings and sculptures, the museum had all kinds of interesting interactive exhibits. Old planes hung from the ceiling and there was a replica of a coal mine so real that it seemed as if you really were underground instead of just in the basement of the building.

  Tizzy used a huge old steam engine on the main floor of the museum as the portal spot where her character moved back and forth through time. Thinking of Tizzy made me start thinking about writing again and much as I tried not to, I went right back to thinking about Evan and Sally.

  She was definitely out of his league, though there had been something in the way that she’d said he was sweet that made me believe there was some hope. But what could I say that would sound like Evan to convince her to go out with him, let alone anything more?

  I took the underpass under the traffic on Lake Shore Drive. As soon as I got to the other side, I joined the sprinkling of walkers and joggers on the path that paralleled the water.