The Fortieth Birthday Body

by Valerie Wolzien

  “She did?” Kathleen asked, beginning to understand the convoluted and destructive relationship that had been the Elliots’ marriage.

  “Of course. I could always go to the authorities and tell who killed those two little children, couldn’t I?”

  “But I understand you had moved from Hancock for the past three years,” Kathleen said.

  “Yes. Dawn’s life—her sex life—was making me crazy. I couldn’t stand it anymore. You know why she slept with all these men around here, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “She did it to get back at me for making her live here. She hated me,” Richard Elliot said. “She not only slept with half the men in this town, she talked about it, even bragged about it. ‘For thou thyself hast been a libertine, As sensual as the brutish sting itself; And all the embossed sores and headed evils That thou with licence of free foot has caught, Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world’ was how Shakespeare put it in As You Like It. That woman was out to get me!”

  And Kathleen wondered if it was her imagination that she saw tears in his eyes.

  VIII

  “And then he told me that he was going to Los Angeles—or ‘the coast’ as he, of course, called it. That he had to meet with some television network executives tomorrow morning and that he wouldn’t be around for Dawn’s memorial service tomorrow.”

  “And then you left?” Susan asked, pulling the phone cord up and around the towel rack on which it had become caught. She put down the six tubes of bright red lipstick (one color, six different names) that she had in one hand, and concentrated on Kathleen’s call.

  “Yes. I’m in that phone booth near the library. I’m on the way over to the Hallards’ house. Martha called late yesterday afternoon while I was putting dinner in the oven and asked me to do a consult on their home security system. Seems that last burglary scared them.”

  “Or maybe Dan is off to another convention and Marty is expecting a munificent gift of jewelry,” was Susan’s bitchy reply.

  “Maybe. Anyway, I didn’t want her to hear this, but I did want to let you know right away. Listen, I have to go. I’ll stop over as soon as I talk to Martha, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not. I’ll be looking forward to the company. Chad’s supposed to be napping and I’m keeping busy cleaning out drawers and cupboards. Right now I’m going through the medicine cabinets in the bathroom. You would not believe what’s here,” she said, removing a small tube of baby teething ointment from the rear of a top shelf over her sink and throwing it into the large brown paper bag she had brought upstairs for that purpose.

  “When you get done there, you can start on mine,” Kathleen said. “See you later.” And she hung up.

  Susan whisked the plastic tubes of lipstick off the counter and into the garbage and turned her attention to a half-empty packet of birth control pills. How long had it been since she used that particular form of birth control? she wondered. She shrugged, and it followed the rest of the mess into the bag.

  “Mom, when do you think I’ll be well enough to go for a ride in that Ferrari?”

  “Chad, you’re supposed to be resting, not thinking about cars,” Susan called back to him.

  “Mom, I always think about cars. What else is there to think about?”

  Oh, how about your father being arrested for murder? she thought. Damn, this was all getting to her. “Why don’t you read the Car and Driver magazines that Kathleen brought you?”

  “Will you read them to me?” came the plaintive cry from the adjoining room.

  Susan sighed. Well, why not? After all, he was sick and maybe he would learn something—certainly she would. She put the paper bag in a corner near the enameled pink wastebasket and went into her bedroom. Chad was sitting in the middle of the king-size bed she shared with her husband and, surrounding him, twisted in and around the cotton sheets and the down comforters, were a dozen or more magazines, their covers embellished with gleaming low-slung cars or imposing trucks on wheels so high that her son could have walked under them without brushing his feverish forehead on their chassis. “What do you want me to read?”

  “This … It’s about the 959.”

  “The wh …”

  “It’s the new Porsche, Mom. Don’t you know anything?”

  “Chad, I don’t expect to be spoken to that way, even if you are sick.” She put her hand out and caressed his hair as she spoke.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Here’s the article.”

  Susan looked down at the picture of a remarkable car and, resisting an urge to check just how many pages the article ran, began to read.

  FORTY PLUS SIX

  I

  “So Richard Elliot isn’t going to be at the memorial service. I truly don’t believe that man,” Jed said, tightening the knot of his rep silk tie around his neck.

  “But you’ll be home …” Susan began, digging through her sock drawer for stockings.

  “In plenty of time for the service. Do you want me to meet you here or at the church?” he interrupted, picking up a heavy Harris tweed jacket.

  Susan pulled a pair of periwinkle blue opaque panty hose from her drawer before answering. “Meet me there. I think I’ll ask Kathleen if I can go with her. There are some things I’d like to talk to her about.”

  “Jerry says that her business is picking up since the burglaries last week.”

  “Yes. Do you know, Martha Hallard called her in for a consult on their security system? She did it yesterday. She stopped over here afterward but we didn’t get much of a chance to talk. Chad was being something of a pest.”

  “Well, maybe now that he’s getting well you can get away some. He did seem better last night.”

  “I hope so. You know, Chrissy was pretty sick with chicken pox but I had never thought it was a serious disease until I was talking with the nurse at Chad’s school and she said one of the girls in his class had a mild case, then it got in her lungs and she got pneumonia and ended up in the hospital.”

  “Have you taken Chad to the pediatrician?”

  “No, I just talked to him on the phone. He told me what to look for, though. It’s just that Chad’s older now and I’m not used to his being sick, I guess. And all this with Dawn, of course …”

  Her husband looked across the room at her and Susan froze, one leg in her stockings and one out. Was he going to say something about Dawn? Was he going to tell her about the affair? But he just smiled and the moment vanished; whatever had been about to happen stored, for the present, in the past. “I think I hear Chad now. I’d better hurry and get dressed.”

  “I’ll check on him and make some coffee before I leave,” Jed offered. “Oh and, honey …” he paused. “I wonder if you would mind picking up the Mercedes this morning? They called the office yesterday afternoon and said it was finished.”

  “Sure,” she answered, as her husband left the room. Then she picked up her shoe and threw it at the wall. “Damn all cars!” she exclaimed.

  II

  “I still don’t understand why we’re going to a memorial service for a woman we’ve never even met. The only time we even saw her she was laid out on the slab at the police morgue in Hartford, damn it,” Mitchell was saying as angrily as he dared to his boss.

  Sardini looked up from the bacon and scrambled eggs that he was eating at the local diner. The eggs weren’t properly mixed and bits of white floated throughout the yellow. The bacon had been fried last week and reheated in the microwave an hour ago. All this and Mitchell, too. He ignored him and continued eating. His partner for fifteen years had retired last month; this pairing with Mitchell was just a tryout and, as far as he was concerned, it was going to end with this case. If the case ever ended. Sardini dutifully ate what was on his plate and considered what it would be like to have a partner like Kathleen Gordon: beautiful, bright, and, from all reports, a creative problem solver. He shook his head. Why think about it? It would only make Mitchell more unbearable.

  “We’r
e going because everyone involved in this case will probably be there. And, even if some don’t appear, that may be significant. We’re going to see if we can recognize the murderer in a room full—or in this case a church full—of suspects.”

  III

  “I do not understand why we have to go to her memorial service!” was the echo in the Small house across town as Maureen poured coffee into a mug for her husband.

  “Because it wouldn’t look right for us to not be there. Everyone will be there, damn it. We have to act like everyone else,” her husband replied angrily, pushing bread into the toaster oven and slamming the door. “Now look, we have to do everything that everyone else is doing. It’s important that we don’t single ourselves out in any way.”

  “But you told me last night that we didn’t have to worry anymore,” Maureen protested.

  “I told you that Guy told the police about Jed and Dawn’s affair …”

  “So he’s the logical suspect! If we don’t have to worry anymore, why do we have to go to this funeral?”

  “I keep telling you: We have to do what everyone else does. We can’t draw attention to ourselves. Now do you understand?” Colin reached for the butter and dropped it on the floor. “Shit! Now look what you made me do!”

  “I didn’t make you do anything. I don’t think you can blame the girls and me this time,” his wife replied, her voice raising angrily.

  “What other solution was there? Tell me that! You …”

  “What a pleasant way to begin the day.” Unlike her parents’ voices, the girl that stood in the doorway sounded calm and in control: her hair rigorously styled to appear casual; her sweater hand-spun and hand-knit; her high boots under the short skirt made from soft Italian leather. She was a model of what most exclusive stores said a teenager was supposed to look like.

  “Jenny!” Her mother’s face dissolved into a bright smile. “I didn’t know you were downstairs already. Your father and I were just having a disagreement about … uh,” she paused. “About the car …”

  “Don’t tell me that one of them is broken again. I thought that the reason we leased cars instead of buying them was so that someone else had to worry about maintenance. I promised Jeremy he could drive the Jaguar when he takes me to the movies tomorrow night.” The girl walked over to the counter and took the toast that her father had waiting for him and popped a piece of it, still unbuttered, in her mouth.

  “I don’t see why your dates have to drive our—” her father began, his voice still angry.

  “Colin. I promised Jenny that she could have the car Friday night,” Maureen said quickly, with an anxious glance at her daughter. “Now what time do we have to be at the church for the funeral?”

  “Noon. I’ll leave work early and come home and pick you up. That is, if there’s a car available for me to drive into the city and back,” he added, subdued but still angry.

  “Of course,” his daughter answered quietly. “Trevor Anderson is picking us all up and taking us to school. He just got a BMW for his seventeenth birthday.” She started out the door. “Some parents’ don’t make their children borrow cars. They buy them for them.” And she speeded up her pace a little as though she thought she might have gone just a little too far.

  “Shit!” her father roared and slammed out the back door.

  Maureen just shrugged and bent over to pick up the spilled butter.

  IV

  “Not that I really feel like getting into black for the woman who had an affair with my husband, but Harvey says we have to be there and he’s right. Besides, he wasn’t married to me when he slept with Dawn.”

  There was a smugness in her voice that could be heard over the phone and Brigit felt the need to explain that her position wasn’t that of the injured wife either. “Well, you know that Guy and I have an open marriage so I don’t worry about such things. Besides I have this wonderful new steel-gray Donna Karan wrap dress that will be perfect for the occasion. I was calling because I wondered if you wanted to drive over together. Guy’s afraid that he’ll be late so he’s going to come by himself.”

  “Great. I was going to be going alone. Harvey really can’t get away from the office in the middle of the day. He’s been taking so much time off from work because of all the legal work involved in adopting Missy that he says he’s almost a month behind. And I’d like the company. Why don’t I pick you up? I’ll have to get the car out to pick up the sitter for Missy. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to find a sitter last night.”

  “I remember those days,” Brigit answered. “What time should I expect you? I think the service starts at noon.”

  They continued to plan their transportation and their wardrobes. Guy Frye walked through the kitchen where his wife was sitting at her built-in desk and looked at her with a question mark in his eyes. She responded by putting her hand over the mouthpiece and whispering, “It’s all set. I’m going with her,” in a voice that Gloria couldn’t hear.

  “See you later then,” and, without a kiss or a caress, he left his home.

  V

  “I didn’t know she was coming,” Kathleen was saying to Susan, who was sitting beside her in her idling car in the Henshaw driveway. “She called just as I was leaving the house and asked for a ride. I didn’t see how I could say no, since she might see that I was stopping over here to pick you up. We’ll have to wait a bit to talk privately, though.”

  “Well, I’m just glad we’re together. I hate funerals—memorial services—whatever.”

  “Really?” Kathleen commented, watching out the windows of the car.

  “Yes. More all the time, in fact.”

  “Because we’re getting older and more aware of our own mortality?” Kathleen suggested.

  “I don’t think so. Although I suppose that’s true. But, you know, every funeral I go to reminds me of the ones I’ve already been to. It’s almost like I start to miss everyone I know who’s died all over again with each new death.” She paused. “I remember the first person I knew who was my age and died. It was Samantha Bower. I’ll never forget it. Of course, she had cancer and we had been expecting it, but that didn’t make it any easier. She died on a Saturday night and I remember going to the grocery store on Monday morning and in all the aisles there were groups of women talking about her. It sounds stupid, but I can still see Martha Hallard standing in front of the dairy case, her grocery cart overflowing, and she was sobbing loudly.” She checked in her purse to see if she had a handkerchief along. “So where’s Martha? Are we going over to her house?”

  “No, she said she’d keep a watch out the window and come over here when I arrived. She’s so organized that she should be … Oh, there she is now,” Kathleen answered, considering the image Susan had just presented as a very unemotional, very put-together Martha Hallard cut across the snowy lawn to them.

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t find the scarf I always wear with this coat,” she said, opening the car door and revealing a dark, shimmering mink that hung open at the neck to reveal a large silk rectangle woven in muted tones of brown and emerald. “I thought I had lost it and was looking everywhere and all the time it was stuffed on the floor of my closet. I guess the dog must have pulled it off the hanger. But I can’t imagine why Toto would do something like that. And, you know,” she added, “it smells a little. I hope Toto didn’t have an accident on it. But, anyway, we won’t be late. It’s only a few minutes to the Episcopal church.”

  “That scarf’s gorgeous. I noticed it the night of Susan’s party,” Kathleen said, putting the car into reverse and guiding it out of the driveway.

  “Dan brought it to me from India one fall and then bought this coat to match the following Christmas,” Martha said, pulling the fur from beneath her where it had folded itself. “It’s my favorite.”

  Your favorite bribe or your favorite present or merely your favorite present from your husband, Kathleen thought, wondering if all three were identical. There was silence as they drove down the r
oad.

  “It might be easier to park in the back lot. Then we don’t have to worry about skidding across that slippery spot out front,” Susan said as they turned the corner behind the dark brown shingled church with glossy red-painted doors and trim. She took a few deep breaths as Kathleen followed her suggestion and parked the car; her companions were composing themselves too.

  “I’m not looking forward to this,” Martha commented quietly, as the three of them got out of the car and started toward the building.

  “The service is going to be in the smaller chapel,” Susan commented. “Jesse didn’t think that there would be many people here and he thought an empty church would be depressing.”

  “How do you … ?” Kathleen began.

  “Ladies … Good to see you on this sad occasion.” Dr. Doubleday Sterling stood in front of them.

  Martha Hallard, noticing the handful of dropping daffodils he held, started to smile rather superiorly. Susan, noticing the same flowers at the same minute, felt she was going to cry at his gesture. She reached out and kissed his cheek.

  “Thank you, my dear. It’s good to see a familiar face,” Day said, brushing a tear away from his eye.

  Kathleen introduced him to Martha and the four of them stood together a little awkwardly, no one knowing exactly what to say. Then Martha absented herself with a garbled mumble about the ladies’ room and, in her absence, the threesome relaxed a little.

  “I wish that more of Dawn’s colleagues were present. I understand that there’s a group coming from NYU but I don’t see any of them,” Day said, looking around.

  “That would be nice. You know, Dawn didn’t spend much time in Hancock; not many people knew her here,” Susan said, trying to apologize for the sparseness of the crowd in the lobby of the church.

  “Maybe we should go inside,” Kathleen suggested. “Maybe there are more people there.”

  “I think I see some people I know,” Day answered, looking out the still-open door into the lot. “If you will excuse me … ?”