by Carolyn Hart
“I’m sorry. This was the only appointment I could get you. They’re just squeezing you into a cancellation,” I said, aware of how much the two women enjoyed accompanying one another on the rounds of doctors and dentists that filled more and more of their time lately.
“Don’t apologize. I’m so grateful they could take me at all and you could drive me, Sybil,” said Ma. My mother was the only one who called me by my given name, and a few years ago in a belated burst of maturity I had finally stopped correcting her. “That filling didn’t give me notice before it fell out. I’ll feel better getting it taken care of. Besides, I bet Sofia that even though my appointment is later than hers, I’ll be home sooner,” said Ma with a sly smile. While I marveled at how my mother could turn replacing a filling into an occasion for gambling, she continued. “Sometimes her doctor keeps her waiting for hours. Whichever one of us wins has to stake tomorrow’s bus ride,” she said, sounding cocky. At the prospect of a day in Atlantic City, her eyes had brightened, and she was grinning when I helped her into the car. Her good spirits were contagious, and I grinned too. A few years ago my mother had been a lonely and disabled widow who talked to the dead and plagued the living. Now she was a cheerful senior whose major vice, gambling, had enabled her to finance air travel in our family for years.
Ensconced in the waiting room, I ignored the magazines and concentrated instead on what I was convinced would be a successful second interview with the Eldridges. I called Betty at work and she picked up right away. “President Ron Woodman’s office, Elizabeth Ramsey speaking.”
“It’s Bel, Betty,” I said, speaking softly into the phone so as not to disturb those around me. “Did the Eldridges call?”
“Yes. They called last night. I told them that Marcia Mason had cared for my son, Randy, from birth through preschool and that I had tried to slit my wrists when she left,” said Betty, also speaking softly. “Ridgewood, New Jersey, is where I told her our family lived. Ooops, someone’s on the other line.” Betty rattled off a parting imperative. “Bel, think about coming over tonight. We can talk then. I’ll phone Illuminada later.” And then she disconnected us to respond to the other call.
Smiling to myself at my friend’s familiar facility for command, I dialed Illuminada on her cell phone. When she picked up, I said, “It’s Bel. About those references….”
“Not to worry, chiquita. They called last night and I really laid it on. I told them Marcia Mason took care of my twin girls, Charlotte and Amanda, from infancy through kindergarten,” said Illuminada, talking over traffic noises in the background. “I told her we live in Short Hills and Marcia lived in and the babies adored her. I explained how Marcia Mason saved my life and my marriage right after the twins came. I also mentioned good old Marcia’s maturity and experience. She’ll get the job, I’m sure. Gotta run. I’m overdue for a meeting with a new client. Ciao.”
I nodded with satisfaction at the thought of Betty and Illuminada singing the praises of the mythical Marcia Mason to Torrence and Davida Eldridge. By the time Ma emerged from the dentist’s office, I was pretty sure that Ms. Mason was top on the Eldridges’ list of prospective nannies. But before there could be Marcia Mason, there had to be closure for the semester. I still had to meet my last class, finish my conferences, get my grades in, and tie up a few other loose ends.
When I dropped Ma off, I saw her to the door but didn’t wait to see if she had won her bet with Sofia. I headed straight for my office at RECC, eager to get to work. In my mailbox among the memos, notices, late papers, and portfolios, was a yellow add–drop form. Clipped to it was a scrawled note from a student in my Intro to Lit class.
Please Professor Barrett, would you sign this drop slip? I’m taking a leave from college for now. Don’t worry. I’ll finish someday. Thank you for everything.
Your (ex) student, Aline Dedham.
If there was one thing I couldn’t bear it was for talented students to give up on college. And Aline was talented. She was a thoughtful reader and writer who was also something of a technical whiz. Eventually she planned to transfer to Rutgers. Besides, it was months too late to drop a course. The deadline had been well before midterms. Now the semester was over. What could she be thinking? Some sort of family or romantic problem must have temporarily muddled her mind. Giving up on education was not the answer. I’d already persuaded scores of potential college dropouts to stay in school. Very few of those who heard my rant on this subject were able to resist it, so I would have a word with Aline. I found her phone number in my file, punched in the numbers, and left a message. “This is Professor Bel Barrett calling Aline Dedham. Please stop by my office as soon as possible. I got your note and I want to talk to you.”
I was wondering why the deck so often seemed stacked against bright young women as I logged on to check my e-mail.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Re: checking in
Date: 05/21/02 19:26:04
Yo Ma Bel,
No, Mom, I’m not sick, Aveda’s not sick, and we haven’t been in a car crash. I wish you wouldn’t totally lose it if a few weeks go by and I don’t e-mail or phone.
Anyway according to Sol, I should be worried about you, Mom, not the other way around. He says you’re sleuthing again. All I ever do is work, and make music, but you run around looking for trouble. When she’s not seeing patients, Aveda’s mom belongs to a book group and grows orchids. Why can’t you be happy doing stuff like that?
Everything’s slammin’ here. I got a sweet new job opening up summer cottages. I’m working for this awesome dude. We put up screens, turn on water and utilities, and rake and sweep so the places are all ready when their owners arrive. Aveda and I are still helping the widower empty his house and archive his collections on the weekends. And I jam in Portland or Camden whenever I can.
Give Grandma Sadie a hug for me. And Mom, be careful, please.
Love,
Mark
P.S. I’m sorry I blew off Mother’s Day again, but you know what I think of those Hallmark holidays.
Between Rebecca obsessing about my health and Mark stressing out about my safety, I sometimes felt as if I had two Jewish mothers, both on overdrive, instead of two twenty-something kids. At least the one Jewish mother I really did have had the sense to spend her time enjoying herself at the casinos in Atlantic City rather than worrying about me. Although Ma never said much about my crime-busting activities, she seemed to understand my need to use an ability that had not manifested itself until midlife. The fact that this was the ability to synthesize seemingly disparate bits of information to solve murders did not push Ma’s buttons. She was betting on me to stay in one piece. A burst of appreciation combined with a twinge of guilt for having rushed off so quickly prompted me to call her and pass on Mark’s hug.
“Thanks, Sybil. And don’t worry about that boy. One of these days, he’ll get a job that uses all that education you worked so hard to give him.” I had almost forgotten my mother’s uncanny ability to divine my unspoken thoughts. She knew that it took all my willpower to refrain from badgering Mark to get a Real Job. “And guess what?” Ma exclaimed. “I won the bet! Sofia just walked in the door. So maybe tomorrow will be a lucky day for me too! Maybe I’ll win big again.” No question about it, no matter what happened at the slots tomorrow, Ma was a winner.
My superego told me it was time to stop procrastinating and start reading the blue books stacked on my desk and spilling out of my backpack. Final grades were due in a few days, and although I didn’t give exams in all my courses, I did have several sets to plow through. Some of them would fill me with pride and pleasure in their authors’ progress while others would make me wonder what my classes and I had been doing all semester. There were usually more of the latter variety, so reading them meant confronting my inability to help many students as well as their inability to become measurably more literate in a few short months. By early afternoon I had finished one set.
&nb
sp; I grabbed a tuna sandwich at the RIP Diner, a nearby haunt of RECC students and faculty, and ate it in the office. I wished that Wendy would show up. It had been too long since we had lunched together in our cramped cubicle. Just as I was leaving to teach my final speech class of the semester, Wendy came in, her elfin features almost invisible behind her own stack of blue books and research papers. “Long time no see,” I said. “Will you be in tomorrow?” I didn’t stop for the answer since I had eyeballed the armload of work she was carrying. “Let’s have lunch in the office while we read exams.”
“Deal,” said Wendy, lowering her load to her desktop. “God knows we have enough to do.”
That evening, Illuminada and I sank into the comfy leather cushions of Betty’s sofa and kicked off our shoes while our hostess handed round the foil-wrapped Cuban sandwiches that Illuminada had picked up on her way from Union City. We knew better than to unwrap them before Betty got three cold Coronas out of the fridge and put them on the coffee table. “Food for the gods,” I said, taking a bite of roast pork, cheese, ham, pickle, and bread that had been forged into a state of molten succulence.
“More like food for the suicidal,” muttered Betty, who on rare occasion spoke for the food police. “But what a way to go,” she sighed as she moved in for another bite.
With a glance at her watch, Illuminada cut to the chase. “Bel, I have the police report on the Seth murder and some data on her alleged killer,” she said, nibbling daintily at her huge sandwich. While Betty and I approached our food with the finesse and delicacy of the starving primates we were, Illuminada brought mannerisms and manners to the table that would make even cannibalism appear genteel.
“So tell,” I said, talking around a mouthful of meat and cheese while fighting my familiar urge to be impatient with my friend’s impatience. I didn’t want to think about Ria’s unhappyend while we were still eating, but there was no delaying Illuminada.
With her free hand she extracted a folder from her briefcase, flipped it open, and scanned it. Then, her memory apparently refreshed, she handed the folder to me and began. “The autopsy report is not in yet, but here’s what they do know. According to Davida Guzman-Eldridge, the Nanny-cam stopped broadcasting images around four, and she rushed home from her Hoboken office to see what the problem was. She arrived a little after four. When she let herself in, the house was quiet, so she assumed Skylar was asleep and she went upstairs to take a look at her. When she walked into her room, she saw the nanny sprawled on the floor with a pink Silky around her neck. The baby was okay. Guzman-Eldridge picked up the baby and called to Ria. When she didn’t answer, the woman called the cops. They found no sign of a breakin, and the Nanny-cam screen was snowy. And that’s it.” Illuminada resumed nibbling her sandwich. Until I heard this, I’d managed not to dwell on Ria’s last moments, but now it was hard not to. My eyes filled.
“What the hell is a ‘Silky’?” asked Betty, “Some kind of yuppie lingerie?”
Betty’s query reminded me once again that as the only grandmother in the group, I was responsible for educating my friends on the latest excesses in babydom. “It’s a square of silk made specially for infants. Kind of an upscale security blanket. People give them as new baby gifts,” I explained.
“You are joking, girl!” Betty said. “Whatever happened to the ratty old scraps of worn out blanket that babies used to drag around? You know, like the one Linus had.”
“Abbie J has adopted a hand-me-down receiving blanket. She wasn’t interested in the Silky, so Rebecca made herself a purse out of it,” I said, smiling at the image of my granddaughter and her trusty tattered “blanky.” I crumpled my foil sandwich wrapper and took it into the kitchen to toss. When I returned, I settled myself on the sofa, saying, “So tell me, what about the alleged perp? The one the cops think killed Ria?”
Illuminada still had half a sandwich left, and she held it as she spoke. “He’s a twenty-four-year-old named Edmondo Maldonado, and he has a record. They call him ‘Condo Edmondo’ because he broke into four condos on that block and was arrested and convicted.” Illuminada paused for a sip of beer and a nibble of her sandwich. “He was sentenced to eighteen months on a burglary charge in 1999 and got his time reduced for good behavior. His MO was pretty straight forward. He usually wore some kind of uniform so he looked like a Fed-Ex driver, a meter reader, or a handyman. He’d watch condos to see when their occupants left for work and then look for an unlocked door or a basement window air conditioner.”
Betty and I both raised our eyebrows and knotted our brows at the mention of window air conditioners. We didn’t see how they would provide access to a burglar, but Illuminada was quick to explain. “He would take out the AC, set it in the pit, where it couldn’t be seen from the sidewalk, go in through the window, and leave by the front door. He took jewelry, cash, and an occasional laptop, nothing bigger. He usually had his girl double-parked in front with a cell phone to warn him if anybody entered the building.” Illuminada shook her head, presumably at the foolishness of any young woman wasting her time aiding and abetting the likes of Condo Edmondo. I resolved to have bars put on the window that framed a new AC unit in our basement.
“How did they apprehend him?” Betty asked, always pragmatic.
“A yuppie in a condo on Twelfth and Hudson started off for work, but on the way to the PATH train she realized she’d forgotten her gym bag, so she went back and surprised him in her bedroom with a handful of her grandmother’s pearls. He beat it down the fire escape and reentered via an unlocked back window. Then he left by the front door while she was calling the cops.” Illuminada paused for another nibble. “But the getaway car was delayed by a mover’s barricade further down the block. So Edmondo jumped out and took off on foot down Hudson Street in broad daylight. The cops went after him.” Illuminada shrugged as if this tale of a thief thwarted was business as usual.
“The yuppie must have been able to ID him pretty easily, too,” said Betty.
Illuminada nodded. “Yes, she did. They put him away for a while, but as I said, he got out on good behavior. He was running around loose until they picked him up for this murder. They’re trying to make a case against him.”
“I don’t think Condo Edmondo killed my student,” I said. I interpreted Betty and Illuminada’s furrowed brows as invitations to expound. Fortifying myself with a swallow of beer, I began. “For starters, the Eldridges live in a one-family house, not a condo.” Now both Illuminada and Betty nodded. “Then, if he watched to see when occupants came and went before entering, he’d have realized that Ria was there and that Davida Eldridge was in the habit of popping back at odd times. So he probably wouldn’t have chosen to break into that building. Besides, people don’t usually keep their valuables in their baby’s room.” I was gratified when my friends greeted this series of pronouncements with more nods.
Encouraged, I continued. “He’s not violent. If he were, all he had to do when the yuppie surprised him with her jewelry was shoot her or stab her or just knock her out. But he didn’t. Instead he fled,” I said, as always relieved when somebody turned out not to be homicidal. “He put himself at risk of capture, but he didn’t hurt that woman. He didn’t even touch her. So I doubt he would have strangled Ria, even if he did break into the Eldridges’, which I’m sure he didn’t.”
“So why are the cops so keen on nailing him for this?” Betty asked.
“Chiquita, Condo Edmondo’s an easy collar,” said Illuminada. “He’s not exactly a choirboy. He’s broken into houses on that block, he’s out of jail, and now there’s been another breakin there and a killing.” She shrugged and inserted the last morsel of her sandwich into her mouth. “It’s a lot simpler to nail him for this one than to try to figure out who else might have done it.”
“Well, I’m going to spend time in that house and figure out who really killed Ria Seth,” I said.
“What makes you think the answer lies in the house? Maybe it was Ria’s fiancé or a relative,” said Illuminada.
“So many killings are really family affairs.”
“Actually that possibility crossed my mind, so I’m going to do a little research. Torrence Eldridge mentioned in passing that Ria had never met her fiancé. He’s from Delhi. But I plan to pay a condolence call on her parents and check them out,” I said, trying to decide if I wanted another beer or not.
“Want another beer?” asked Betty, reinforcing my occasional impression that, like Ma, she was able to read minds.
“No thanks,” I said, making the decision. “After all, I’ve got a big job interview tomorrow, and I’ve got to drive home and get my beauty sleep.”
“Bel, I don’t think Ria Seth’s parents are in the country,” said Betty. My face must have reflected my surprise, because Betty, who relished being first to know anything, sounded a bit smug when she continued to speak. I resisted a familiar impulse to thumb my nose at her. “President Woodman had planned to attend the funeral and send flowers, so I tried to contact someone at Ria’s home to find out about the arrangements. The relative who answered the phone told me that Ria’s parents and her sister as well as her aunt and two uncles have been in India for the last month arranging Ria’s wedding and taking care of other family business. They’re still there. After the autopsy, her body will be sent to India for cremation.”
“Imagine her parents having to shift gears from wedding preparations to funeral preparations. How awful,” I said, picturing Ria’s relatives gathered around a smoking pyre and then scattering her ashes over the Ganges. I was so caught up in empathy for the Seth family that for a moment I did not absorb the implications of Betty’s news. But then it hit me. If Ria’s relations had been in India for the weeks leading up to her murder and were still there, it was highly unlikely that they had had anything to do with her death. That made my job a lot easier. I stood and slipped my sandals back on, pleased that for once I was leaving before Illuminada.