Ready, Scrap, Shoot (A Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery)

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  That’s the way it is with scrapbookers. Since most of us focus on our families, all our scrapping peeps learn a lot about each of us, our backgrounds, and our clans. Granted, sometimes I wish I knew a little less. There are days when I chaff under the burden hearing every detail about every cotton-picking grandbaby. But listening to Ruth’s joy reminded me that God willing, someday, I might be a grandmother, too. That was surely worth smiling about.

  “What brings you here, Kiki? An assignment?” Ruth asked.

  I explained about the albums for Edwina Fitzgerald’s family and CALA.

  “My goodness. You certainly don’t have much time, do you? How about if I help you pull the files that are pertinent?”

  Normally, the file room was off-limits. It was the repository for all of CALA’s history, complete with photos of students, records, and applications. I first gained access when I started working on the alumni newsletter. Having proved I could be trusted, the file room became a wonderful resource. Word of my albums slowly made its way through the CALA social set. Having me do an album for a family was quickly becoming a status symbol, much like having an expensive family portrait taken each year. Actually, CALA should not have given me such freedom. But as one mother said, “When you’re part of the CALA family, you are part of the family.” If the expensive tuition did nothing else, it guaranteed you a place at the table.

  Ruth led the way, pulling open drawers and searching for photos and articles that had previously appeared in the school newsletter.

  “You will probably want to supplement what you find here with photos from their family albums, if they have any.”

  I agreed. “I don’t know Deanna. Do you? I’m thinking that calling her right now will seem rude. I mean, everyone reacts differently to a loss.”

  “I served on several committees with her. She’s an involved parent. How about if I call her and smooth the way?”

  “I’d be grateful for that,” I said. “Tell me about Edwina Fitzgerald. That will help me determine the style of albums. If Edwina was a color, what color would she have been?”

  “Royal blue and gold. She adored CALA. She frequently wore the school colors.”

  Ruth took a quick glance around, walked to the door, and shut it, closing us in the small room. “Like a lot of our parents, Mrs. Fitzgerald was a Type A personality. We joke about how there are parents who only notice you when they need you or want something. Otherwise, they look right past you. Mrs. Fitzgerald was like that. She would call on a Saturday and demand that a piece of trash be removed from the edge of the grounds. She actually asked me to pick up her dry cleaning on several occasions.”

  “You have to be joking!”

  “No. She told me to have it ready for her because she was coming by the school for a meeting with Mr. McMahan. Mrs. Fitzgerald treated us like her personal staff.”

  “How about the rest of her family? Peter’s recovering from that shot in his leg, I guess. Did they also act so imperious?”

  “No. Poor Peter.”

  “Gee, ‘Poor Peter’ seems to be that guy’s nickname!”

  “It was.”

  Thirty-one

  Mrs. Glazer continued, “That young man had such talent as an artist. You’ve seen the mural that connects the second floor to the new gym? He did that in his sophomore year. But Mrs. Fitzgerald refused to let him major in art. He even dropped out of college and tried to put himself through school to get an art degree, but by then Deanna was pregnant. Eventually, he acceded to his mother’s demands.”

  “Which were?”

  “That he work for the family business.”

  “He must have done pretty well for himself. He was a vice president.”

  “As I understand it, Mrs. Fitzgerald kept a tight rein on Peter. He would propose a campaign, she would agree to it, and halfway through, she’d yank the schedule. Or make a change. Or cancel the programs.”

  I rocked back on my heels. I’d been digging in a bottom drawer. “Wow. That must have been …” I couldn’t think of the right word.

  “Unsettling? Demoralizing? Infantilizing? All of the above. I heard that Peter finally gave up. After twenty years of trying, he resigned himself to sitting in a big office, playing solitaire, and taking long lunches.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And drinking. I think he tried to drown his disappointment.”

  “Why didn’t he quit? Leave the job and get another?”

  “He couldn’t afford to. Without a degree or a track record, where could he go? No one would hire him at his level of income. No, he was stuck. A bird in a golden cage. He had nowhere to go but down, and it would be a drastic lifestyle change.”

  She smiled. “Besides, I imagine that Peter and Deanna were trying to hang in there, as the kids say. Edwina had promised he’d become the CEO when she retired. Then he could work on his art all day long and have people run the company and report to him. It was a rotten career path, but he’d been traveling it so long that they really didn’t have any other options.”

  People without money envy people with money, but those without have nowhere to go but up. Those with money have nowhere to go but down. On the way up, people offer you a hand. On the way down, they offer you the boot. Minimum wage jobs are a dime a dozen, but only a tiny percentage make the big bucks. So if you lose that high-earning job, you can go a long time without any hope of replacement. If you don’t have savings, if you can’t or won’t downscale, you are sunk.

  I know all this because I went from a cushy life where I never had to worry about bills to pinching pennies so hard that Lincoln yells, “Run!” when he sees me coming. I’m not discounting the problems of the poor, but sad to say, I’ve seen the other side. We’d all like to believe that money solves problems. It does. It also creates them.

  Mrs. Glazer helped me fill a shallow box with photos and clippings. In return, I handed her a discount card. “You are saving me time and helping me make a good impression.”

  “I couldn’t take this,” she said.

  “Why not? It’s a gift from one friend to the other. We give them to our best customers. You certainly qualify for that.”

  She gave me a hug and fairly skipped away.

  I couldn’t wait to dig into that box. Working on the album would completely occupy my mind. Since the turnaround time was slim, I would need to tackle it right away and probably keep at it through the evening. The project would provide a perfect reason to ignore my mother and her harping.

  Just what the doctor ordered!

  Thirty-two

  Sheila swung by and picked up Mom and me after Anya’s school let out at two-thirty. While I didn’t relish including my mother in our fittings for wedding finery, I couldn’t see any other option. I didn’t think it fair to Dodie to leave Mom with my boss at the store.

  Anya squirmed in the back seat as I climbed in beside her, but my kid quickly made room for me. Mom took the front passenger seat and kept up a constant prattle, a full report of her day, including all the people who enjoyed making her acquaintance.

  “Kiki, most of them did not know I was a professional in the entertainment industry. I can’t imagine how you neglected to mention me.”

  Probably because I’d been searching for something nice to say and words failed me. Or possibly I said nothing because I didn’t want to break down and cry. Choose either option.

  Mom continued with, “I explained to the customers that I am the true expert in scrapbooking.”

  “Have you been published?” asked Anya.

  I clamped my mouth shut and stared out the windshield. Oh, my golly. My daughter was a quick study.

  “Of course not. You see, I was scrapbooking before it became trendy. Your mother is a Johnny-come-lately to the craft.”

  “Mom, what did you do today?” Anya reached over and squeezed my hand three times.

  “I—”

  “Piddling stuff. Time wasters. She stocked shelves. She cut out pieces for kits. Then she took a long break,” my mother sai
d, speaking on my behalf.

  “I—”

  “I can’t imagine what took her so long. She said she went to pick up photos. That surely couldn’t have taken more than fifteen minutes, but she was gone for an hour and a half. Honestly, I’m surprised she didn’t get fired,” said Mom, tut-tutting in disgust.

  “I—”

  “Fortunately I helped out. Dodie found me invaluable. I even waited on customers,” Mom smiled with pleasure.

  I’d heard about that “waiting on customers.” My mother misread a price tag and told a customer that an album was $5 when it was $50, but luckily for us, the woman loved our store, so she was content with a discount and an apology when Dodie rang up her purchase.

  “As a matter of fact, I worked so hard that I’m exhausted. Please drop me off at the house. I need to put my feet up.”

  “With pleasure,” said Sheila.

  She meant it.

  Thirty-three

  “You’ve gained weight.” Sheila shook her head in disgust. “I can see that zipper straining from here.”

  “I guess I have.”

  “No problem. We have plenty of room to let the side seams out,” said the alterations woman at Cassidy’s Bridal Boutique. With a quick slash of her razor, she afforded me breathing room.

  “Not if she keeps packing on the pounds,” said Sheila.

  “As I am wont to do,” I added.

  “For goodness sake, Kiki. Get a grip. I can’t have a bridesmaid looking like a beached whale.”

  “That wouldn’t be a problem if the dress wasn’t gray,” I said. “If it were a bright color, I would look like an overinflated balloon.”

  “Pewter. A classic shade.” Sheila sniffed. “Perhaps not the most flattering shade for you, but Betsy Ridour is my oldest friend, so naturally she’s my matron of honor.”

  The cobalt blue that Betsy was destined to wear would have looked stunning on me. But this was Sheila’s party, her big day, and I had decided when she asked me to be a part of the wedding that I would go along with whatever she wanted. More importantly, I would do it with a smile plastered on my face. If she wanted me to wear a corset, ruffles, and bows and tiptoe down the aisle like Cinderella going to the ball, that’s what I would do. I owed her this much. The fact that she had included me at all in the wedding party was an honor. It marked an important shift in our relationship, and I cherished the thought behind the gesture, even if it meant signing on for all sorts of stones cast in my general direction.

  “Isn’t the future Mrs. Holmes radiant?” The saleswoman posed a rhetorical question designed to tactfully shift attention from my weight gain to Sheila’s beautiful gown. The pale blue brought out the silver in her hair and the denim blue of her eyes.

  “Mrs. Holmes?” Anya scrunched her face. “Who is that?”

  “Me, of course. That will be my name after I marry Robbie,” said Sheila, turning slowly to admire herself in the three-way mirror.

  Anya lifted her arms so the alterations woman could adjust the fit around her bust. A couple of months ago, Sheila took Anya shopping for her first real bra. My baby was growing up. How often did we mothers say that? That was the way of life. We prayed our children along every step of their lives but watched the blessing of their growth with astonishment.

  “You’ll change your name? From Lowenstein? That means Mom and I will be the only Lowensteins. But what if Mom marries Detweiler? Then … then I’ll be all alone.” Her voice quivered as did her lower lip.

  “Marry Detweiler? I hope not.” Sheila snorted.

  “Honey, we don’t know what the future will bring.” I tried to comfort my daughter, but adorned as she was in straight pins, Anya rivaled a hedgehog. Finally, I simply patted her shoulder.

  “Yes, we do. Gran will marry Robbie. You will marry Detweiler. I will be the only Lowenstein in town, and everyone will have forgotten my real dad. No one will know who my parents are. I’ll be like those kids at school whose parents move on after a divorce. I’ll be all by myself. The only Lowenstein in the entire school. Maybe even in the whole town!” Bright crescents of silver tears rested on her lower lashes. She was one tick away from sobbing, and I knew it.

  “For pity’s sake.” Sheila closed her eyes in an attempt to block out the scene. “This is a happy moment, Anya. You are gaining a grandfather, a wonderful man who loves you.”

  Sheila was never curt with Anya, so the tone of her voice sent a chill through me. Anya stiffened under my hand. I feared my mother was rubbing off on all of us. We were treating each other with the sort of brusque disregard that was the hallmark of her life.

  “Robbie already has nine grandkids. Nine! I’m just the tenth little Indian,” said Anya, as the tears sprang from her eyes. “I’m nobody. I don’t have a dad! I’m the next best thing to an orphan!”

  Her class was reading Agatha Christie. While I wholeheartedly approved of the teacher’s choice of literature, I wondered if Anya realized she’d referenced one of the most classic murder mysteries of all time. Murder had been no stranger in our lives, what with George’s death and the aftermath.

  And now, my kid had seen fatal shots fired by a sniper. She’d witnessed the raw fear that moved a crowd to stampede. What she didn’t know—what she couldn’t know because I couldn’t tell her—was that her father’s killer had put a contract out on her mother.

  Suddenly, a sense of panic overwhelmed me. If I were to die, where would Anya go? Would she be accepted by Robbie? Would he and Sheila raise her as their own? I’d made plans for Sheila to be her guardian. But that was before Sheila became engaged to Robbie. I hadn’t thought to revisit my decision with them both.

  And I needed to.

  This wasn’t the sort of life I’d envisioned when I brought a child into this world. Before I could stop myself, I started crying, too.

  Thirty-four

  “Thanks for the memories,” snarled Sheila as she dropped me off back at the store. “We’re off to have fun with your mother.”

  “Not my fault,” I muttered as I slammed the heavy door on the Mercedes extra hard. “I’ll get back to your house as soon as possible. I need to drop by the Fitzgeralds’ house.”

  I paused. “Look, Sheila, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Really, I apologize. I wanted this to be a happy event for you.”

  She sighed. “I know. Look, I shouldn’t have snapped at Anya.”

  We both glanced over at my daughter who was curled up in the back seat sound asleep. She’d cried buckets, dissolved into hiccups, dried her tears, eaten frozen custard from Ted Drewes, and conked out on us.

  “We’re all overtired and overwrought,” I said. “This sniper incident was bad enough, but my mother adds to the strain.”

  Sheila nodded. “Even though I don’t like the woman, she is your mother, and I respect that. I know Robbie wants you at my place. I think I can guess why.”

  I didn’t respond because I didn’t know how much he wanted her to know.

  “Please share my condolences with Peter and Deanna. Edwina was a hard woman, but she contributed a lot to the CALA community,” Sheila said. From her that was high praise. Sheila loved CALA. My name wasn’t on the donor’s list, but hers certainly was.

  “I’ll try to get back to your place as soon as possible,” I said.

  “And I’ll try not to wring your mother’s neck before you arrive. If you do walk in and catch me choking her, take your time dialing nine-one-one.”

  With that, Sheila roared off into the sunset.

  Thirty-five

  After repairing my makeup, I grabbed several sample albums, the envelope of photos, and drove over to Peter and Deanna Fitzgerald’s home. A long paved driveway, lined with impatiens in various colors, led me to a secluded portico and a honking big structure. I figured the house’s square footage at five thousand, but later learned it was actually ten thousand square feet if you counted the guest house and the full basement.

  A man opened the door. His weather-beaten skin showed t
he sort of leathery texture from years of being in the outdoors. His neatly ironed plaid shirt and faded jeans were tidy, but his scuffed work boots had seen better days.

  “Hi. I’m Kiki Lowenstein. I believe Mrs. Fitzgerald is expecting me.”

  “This is a bad time for visitors.” He blocked the doorway, his tired eyes measuring me and finding me no challenge.

  “Yes, and I’m sorry to disturb the household.” I didn’t yield an inch. “As I said, she’s expecting me.”

  “You can wait here,” he showed me into the foyer.

  Because of my former life and Sheila’s longstanding involvement in the arts community and charities, I’ve been a guest in a lot of houses in Ladue. But none of those places seemed as purposefully designed and decorated to intimidate as this one. The cavernous marble entryway magnified every sound. Over my head dangled an enormous gold and crystal chandelier. In the center of the space sat a round walnut table, buffed to a high polish to reflect a tall ceramic vase full of fragrant fresh freesia, star lilies, birds of paradise, and palms.

  “Deanna says come on back,” said my greeter. He led the way along a wide hallway with carpeting so thick and plush that I nearly toppled over as my shoes sank into it. Deanna was seated in the middle of a sitting room, staring into a formal fireplace where a crackling fire burned. She barely looked up when I came in.

  “Hello, Deanna,” I said and she nodded toward me. “Please accept my condolences. I am so sorry for your loss. My mother-in-law, Sheila, asked me to convey her sympathies as well.”

  She responded by turning away.

  “How’s Peter?” I asked.

  “He’s in pain,” she said without looking at me.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” I said to my minder. I stuck out my hand in a most aggressive manner before he could move away from me.

  As punishment, he gave my fingers the sort of squeeze designed to make me cry out. But I didn’t. “Derrick Roper. I’m Deanna’s brother.”