Motherhood Is Murder

by Carolyn Hart

  “Not that I know of,” Judith said. “Does he usually? You ought to know—you’ve used him to do photo shoots for your graphic design work.”

  “I know, I know,” Renie answered impatiently. “That’s why I hired him. He started out as an army photographer, but he’s as good with people as he is with action shots. I don’t recognize this guy, though.”

  They moved on to Cathleen’s family, which included a white-haired Catholic priest. The first photo had been taken on Hillside Manor’s front porch. The second had been shot in the driveway alongside the house.

  “Tony’s new family looks respectable,” Renie noted. “Cathleen’s uncle, Father Jim, is concelebrating the nuptial Mass with Father Hoyle.”

  “That’s great,” Judith said. “The last time you talked about it, you weren’t sure.”

  “That’s because Father Jim is a missionary,” Renie explained. “He wasn’t sure he could get here from Botswana or Djibouti or wherever he’s stationed. I haven’t met him, but I’ve seen pictures.”

  Judith started to put the photos into a pile. “You can keep…” She stopped, staring at the driveway shot. “Hey—check out the upstairs window in Room Four.”

  Renie obeyed. There, between the lace curtains, was the face of the man in the garden photo. “Are you sure you don’t know who this guy is?” Renie asked with a frown.

  “Of course I’m sure,” Judith retorted. “I haven’t seen him anywhere except in these photos. You’re the one who should know who he is. He’s your guest.”

  After Judith left, Renie showed the Polaroids to Bill who had an excellent memory for faces.

  Taking off his glasses, Bill held the garden picture almost up to his nose. “I can hardly see the guy. I’m not even sure he has a face.”

  Renie handed him the photo that included the guest room window. “How about this one?”

  Bill peered some more, then shook his head. “No. I don’t recognize him at all.”

  Putting the Polaroids back into the envelope, Renie shrugged. The man must belong to one of the bridal parties. Judith simply hadn’t noticed him. It was, Renie thought, the least of her worries.

  Renie was wrong.

  Tom and Tony slept in. Renie could sleep through earthquakes and thunderstorms, but even the softest tread of her children’s arrival woke her up. The boys had gotten home shortly after two. Anne had arrived just before Renie headed for bed a few minutes after midnight.

  “Mom,” Anne said to her bleary-eyed mother, who had been forced to rise by nine o’clock, “you can’t wear that red Michael Kors to the dinner tonight.”

  “Huh?” Renie looked up from the toaster. “Why not? I bought it especially for the rehearsal dinner at the Cascadia Hotel.”

  “Odo’s mother is wearing red,” Anne replied, foraging in the cupboard for cereal.

  Renie glanced at the digital clock on the oven. It was going on ten, her usual time to become fully conscious. She forced herself to focus. “So what?”

  “So it would look weird if two of the mothers wore red,” Anne said in a reasonable tone. “Especially since it’s May. Why can’t you go pastel?”

  “Because I look like an embalmed corpse in pastel shades,” Renie retorted. “I have brown eyes, brown hair, olive skin. You know damned well I turn sickly in pastels.”

  Anne surveyed her mother’s petite figure. “A bright yellow might work.”

  Renie threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t have time to shop for a yellow outfit. Pop and I are due over at the B&B in an hour.”

  “Then wear something you’ve already got,” Anne said, dumping Cheerios into a bowl.

  “Hey,” Bill called from the dining room table. “Could I get a warm-up on this coffee? It’s cold.”

  “Sit on it,” Renie shot back.

  “Chartreuse,” Anne remarked, strolling around the kitchen with cereal bowl in hand. “You’re okay with chartreuse if it’s deep enough.”

  Bill was at the microwave oven by the back door, heating his coffee. “Your mother looks hideous in chartreuse. What’s wrong with blue?”

  “Mom looks gruesome in all blues except navy,” Anne countered. “I know blue’s your favorite color, Pop, but she turns yellow when she wears it. Navy might work, though,” she added thoughtfully.

  As the microwave ticked down, Bill eyed his wife. “Don’t wear that navy suit of yours with the ruffled collar. It’s too much. It makes you look like a fat midget.”

  Renie put both elbows on the counter and held her head. “Good God. Is there anything I can wear that doesn’t turn me into a gargoyle? Why don’t I just go in this bathrobe?”

  “Because you’ve got tomato juice and egg yolk all over it,” Anne said. “And tomato is one shade of red you can’t wear.”

  The buzzer went off on the microwave. Bill removed his coffee mug, then gave a start. “Dammit, another deliveryman. When does it stop? And why is he at the back door?” With a vexed expression, Bill marched back into the dining room.

  Renie went around the attached kitchen island to the back door and looked through the window. “I don’t see anybody,” she declared, opening the door. “I don’t see any package. Are you sure it wasn’t the meter reader?”

  “In a sports coat and slacks?” Bill called from the dining room. “Since when did the city go formal? Are the garbage men wearing ascots and smoking jackets these days?”

  Puzzled, Renie hurried to the front door. No one was there, nor was there a strange vehicle parked outside.

  “That’s odd,” she remarked, coming back into the kitchen and pouring herself a mug of coffee.

  “Not really,” Anne said, dumping the cereal bowl and spoon into the sink. “You know how it is, Mom. Having a double lot means that people often come up through the back way by the garage. The guy was probably lost.” She left the kitchen and headed upstairs.

  Anne was right. In the thirty-plus years that the Joneses had lived in their Dutch colonial on the north side of Heraldsgate Hill, many a stranger had gone astray, including a few mail carriers and a couple of milkmen. Renie brought her coffee into the dining room and sat down to make a quick scan of the morning paper.

  The phone rang six times while Renie was getting ready to leave. All of the calls were for Tom, Anne, and Tony, but none of them picked up the receiver. Renie had to keep running up and down the stairs, waking the two boys and shouting at Anne, who was in the shower. Just before the Joneses were ready to head off to Hillside Manor to join the bridal party for brunch, Tom came downstairs. He looked rumpled and hadn’t shaved yet. Having inherited his mother’s morning disposition and his father’s erratic stomach, he growled something that might have been a surly greeting or a symptom of dyspepsia.

  “Hello. Good-bye,” Renie said and rushed out the front door ahead of Bill.

  Seven minutes later they were pulling up in front of Hillside Manor. The only parents that Renie and Bill had seen since the engagement dinner seven months earlier were Ron and Marilyn Twobucks, who lived not on the Bogawallish Reservation, but near the university where Ron taught American history. Renie and Bill had invited them for dinner during the Christmas holidays. The evening had gone well, and though Bill had never met Ron during his teaching career at the U, they had recognized each other from occasional campus sightings. Ron was a couple of years younger than Bill, and was looking forward to his retirement as much as Bill was already enjoying his.

  The two other families lived out of town. Odo’s parents, Bert and Velma Mann, resided in a small town on the other side of the state where they owned a root beer franchise.

  Cathleen Forte had been raised on a sheep farm in southern Oregon, close to the California border. The senior Fortes, Martin and Teresa, had recently retired to Yreka, for no explicable reason as they cheerfully admitted.

  At their initial meeting, the three sets of parents had seemed like a quiet lot. But Renie supposed that was only in comparison with the Jones brood, all of whom were rather boisterous.

&
nbsp; Judith had the situation well in hand, with a lavish buffet in the living room. The younger guests and their children had gone off to see the sights, leaving only the parents and Father Jim on hand. After greetings were exchanged, Renie found herself cornered by Velma Mann on one of Judith’s new matching navy sofas.

  “My son tells me you’re quite a root beer fan,” Velma said in an amiable voice. She was a small, chubby woman with cheeks the color of ripe cherries and a nose that matched. “Root beer. That’s the way to go. Too much of this bottled water and fancy sodas. You can’t make a mistake about root beer. It’s the goods.”

  Renie guessed that she’d been wrong about Velma being quiet. “I do enjoy root beer,” Renie replied, “especially a root beer float.”

  “Here’s the thing,” Velma said, tugging her short robin-print dress down over her dimpled knees, “folks our age remember what root beer tasted like when we were kids. They say it isn’t as good now as it was then. Well, in a way, they’re right. Back in—let me think—nineteen sixty-one or thereabouts, the FDA passed a law that took away one of root beer’s ingredients because the stuff was somehow related to cocaine.” Velma leaned forward and tapped Renie on the arm. “Can you beat that?”

  “No,” Renie replied.

  “Granted, it made a difference,” Velma allowed. “But root beer makers aren’t stupid. They figured out a way to use an ingredient that tasted almost exactly the same as the…”

  Renie drifted. Judith was chatting with Teresa Forte and Marilyn Twobucks. Bill appeared to be comfortably ensconced with Ron Twobucks and Father Jim while Joe was pointing out the various buffet dishes to Bert Mann and Martin Forte. Meanwhile, Judith’s troublesome orange and white cat, Sweetums, prowled the area, perhaps hoping that one of the robins would fly off of Velma Mann’s dress.

  Except for a piece of toast, Renie hadn’t yet eaten. She wasn’t used to rising much before ten, and going virtually unfed for over two hours was making her anxious. Or ornery, as Judith would have called it. Renie’s eyes were fixed on the buffet.

  “…Whether you put the ice cream or the root beer in first,” Velma was droning on. “Now, there’s some that say you should do the root beer first, because then, when you add…”

  “Owwr!” Renie doubled over and grabbed her knee. She rocked back and forth, groaning softly. Everyone stared except Bill. “Sorry,” she finally said, straightening up and wearing a semi-sheepish look on her face. “I had a fall yesterday. I must have wrenched my knee. I’d better get up and walk around for a bit.”

  Renie staggered toward the food. Martin Forte, who had nearly a dozen little pig sausages on his plate, commiserated with her.

  “I’ve had a bum knee ever since World War Two,” he declared, adding a great deal of salt to Joe’s special scrambled eggs. “I got shot down in ’forty-four.”

  Renie tried not to gape at Martin, who looked to be her own age, if not younger, and hardly old enough to be a member of WWII’s “greatest generation.” “Uh…you were shot down over…where?”

  “Over Uncle Hi’s barn in Lemmon, South Dakota,” Martin answered, then burst into laughter. “I was five at the time and wasn’t supposed to climb up on the roof. My big brother, Frankie, shot me with his BB gun.” Martin slapped his ample backside. “That’s where I got my wound. BB’s still there. Want to see my scar?”

  “Not just now,” Renie said hastily, piling ham, sausage, French toast wedges, and eggs onto her plate. “Excuse me, I think there’s someone at the door.”

  It wasn’t a lie. Somehow, over Martin’s hilarity, Renie had heard the doorbell ring. Judith was headed that way, but Renie was closer.

  “I’ll get it!” she called to her cousin.

  Wheezy Paxson stood on the porch, with a bag of photography equipment slung over his shoulder. “Hi, there, Serena,” he said, panting slightly. Wheezy, whose real name was Rupert, had an asthmatic condition that wasn’t improved by his two hundred and fifty pounds on a five-foot six-inch frame.

  “Hi,” Renie said, taking time to swallow a mouthful of French toast. “Are you doing a shoot here today before you do the rehearsal event tonight?”

  With a heavy step, Wheezy followed Renie into the dining room. “I thought I’d finish off a roll now,” he replied, awkwardly settling himself into one of the old oak chairs from Grandma and Grandpa Grover’s set. “I can make up contact sheets for you folks to look at during dinner tonight. That way, we wouldn’t be sending a whole big batch to the out-of-towners. Sometimes people get overwhelmed when they have too many shots to choose from.”

  “I know,” Renie said, recalling a few CEOs she’d worked with who were overwhelmed by any number larger than two. “I assume you’ll still take Polaroids for your set-up shots.”

  “Oh, sure.” Wheezy adjusted one of his black suspenders. “You know me—I always work that way to see if the poses are right before I take the real photos.”

  “Say,” Renie said, “you aren’t using an assistant for this, are you?”

  Wheezy shot Renie a curious glance. “You know I never use an assistant for location shoots.”

  “Of course,” Renie agreed. “It’s just that none of us could identify a guy who showed up in a couple of the Polaroids.”

  Wheezy shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I just photograph the people your cousin tells me to do here. It may be some weird sort of reflection. That happens sometimes.” He paused, staring covetously at Renie’s plate. “I think I’ll grab some chow. That food looks pretty tasty.”

  “Go ahead,” Renie said. “I’m staying here to eat in peace for a few minutes.”

  “I’ll take my plate out on the front porch,” Wheezy said, laboriously getting up from the chair. “It’s another nice day.”

  So far, Renie thought, devouring her servings. But the weather forecast called for a high of eighty-four degrees. That was a bit too warm for early May, and almost too warm for any time of the year, as far as Renie was concerned.

  “So here you are!” exclaimed Teresa Mann in a little-girl voice. “We haven’t had a chance to visit. Are you all right?”

  “Huh?” Renie had just risen from the table to seek some refills. “Yes,” she added hastily, “I’m fine. I had to confer with the photographer.”

  Teresa stationed herself between the table and the breakfront, blocking Renie’s passage. Tony’s future motherin-law was rail thin, but almost six feet tall. She loomed over Renie. “We must talk,” Teresa said, her voice so low that it was almost inaudible. “I have concerns.”

  “Such as?”

  “Tony,” Teresa replied, her narrow face very serious. “He appears put off by Cathy’s next assignment.”

  “What next assignment?” Renie inquired. Cathleen Forte had served with Catholic charities in foreign countries, but for the past two years, she’d worked at the local chancery office. The couple had already rented an apartment near the cathedral.

  Teresa cleared her throat and glanced all around her, as if the Pope might be listening in. “Guam.”

  “Guam?” Renie’s voice was shrill. “As in…way out there?” She waved a hand in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean.

  Teresa nodded solemnly. “Cathy has been asked to work in an eye clinic there. She’s a trained optician, you know.”

  “I…did…know…that,” Renie responded, leaning against the big oak table. “But I didn’t know about Guam.” And I don’t want to know about it now. “When did this happen?”

  “The request for Cathy’s services came through Wednesday,” Teresa replied calmly. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to serve the Church. I’m certain that Cathy has been moved by the Holy Spirit to accept this task.”

  Renie was still trying to collect her wits. “Back up, Teresa. Are you saying that Tony had no idea…”

  Teresa held up a slim hand and smiled. “Please. Call me Tess. I’ve never felt worthy of being named for St. Teresa of Avila or St. Thèrésa of Lisieux.”

  “Oh.” Renie nodded once. “Fin
e. I take it Tony isn’t happy about going to Guam?”

  “That’s how it appears,” Tess replied, looking sad. “I don’t understand it. There’s a university on Guam. I’m sure he could find a job there teaching Greek and Roman history.”

  “Tony’s doctoral thesis was on Braccio da Montone, one of the most famous of the fifteenth-century Italian condottieri,” Renie responded. “You must know he has a position lined up with one of the local community colleges teaching European history.”

  Tess looked as if she pitied Renie. “But that’s not the same as serving Our Lord, is it, Renée?”

  Renie spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s Renie, as in Meanie. And no, it’s not the same, but it’s a real job. Frankly, I don’t blame my son for not wanting to change plans and suddenly take off for Guam. No wonder he hasn’t told me yet. He knows I’d have a stroke.”

  Tess’s gray eyes grew wide. “Surely you’re joking?”

  “No.” Renie vehemently shook her head. “It’s one thing to have all our children get married at once and leave the nest, but it’s something else to have them leave the area. Frankly, I don’t think this is fair to Tony. He’s worked hard to get his degree.” And long, Renie thought to herself.

  Tess gave Renie a chilly stare. “Well. It’s obvious that you don’t love the Lord,” she declared, and wheeled around toward the living room.

  Renie let out a hissing sound, then said a mental prayer for the Lord to give her strength—and patience. She didn’t understand Teresa Mann’s attitude. There were plenty of city people who could use Cathy’s help. Charity began at home, especially close to the Jones’s home.

  Obviously, she and Bill would have to sit down and talk to both Tony and Cathy. Moving back to the living room, Renie realized she didn’t want seconds. She’d lost her ravenous appetite. Pausing before she took her plate into the kitchen, she surveyed the gathering. None of the men even remotely resembled the figure in the two Polaroid pictures. Martin Forte was too heavy. Bert Mann was almost bald. Ron Twobucks was dark, but short and stocky. In any event, all three appeared older than the mystery man in the photos.