Class Reunions Are Murder

by Libby Klein

  “Courtney said you saw Barbie the day of the reunion.”

  “Mrs. Clark was a regular. Once a month she came in for a facial and body wrap.”

  “Were the two of you friends?”

  Charlemagne wrapped my face in a warm, rose-scented washcloth so only my mouth was exposed, and gave a hearty laugh. “Not for all the hoagies in South Jersey. That one was mean as a snake and a lousy tipper. Ten percent for having to wrap her naked cellulite in mud and Saran Wrap month after month. Huh.”

  She massaged a grapefruit-scented cream into my skin. I fought the urge to lick some of it off. I was starving without my morning fix.

  “Did she say anything during her last treatment about her plans for the reunion?”

  “I know she had something up her sleeve, because she booked an extra-long seaweed detox wrap. We also call that the ‘look great naked wrap,’ because it flushes about ten pounds of fat and water from the body for forty-eight hours.”

  File that bit of information away for another day. “Did she ever talk about any old boyfriends or new lovers?”

  Charlemagne had washed off the grapefruit cream and was gently massaging a gritty, vanilla-scented paste on my face. “No, but then she was married to a politician, so she had a lot of events where she had to make appearances. She never said anything directly about cheating on him, but when she talked about her husband there was always disappointment in her tone. I don’t think her marriage was a happy one.”

  “They looked like the perfect couple at the reunion. Like they were madly in love.”

  “People are rarely what they seem. Most of my clients are here because they want to hide something from the world. Cellulite, wrinkles, age spots, tiny veins busted by too much boozing. Not many people have the nerve to let it all hang out and let people see who they really are.”

  I thought that might be directed at me and my “before” picture out in the lobby. I wanted to protest, but I was distracted by the chocolate-scented masque she was applying. I was thinking about getting a spoon....

  “Did Barbie ever mention having any enemies? Maybe having a score to settle with someone?”

  “Not to me. Mrs. Clark was more concerned about her appearance than anything else. I just chalked it up to her being in the public eye what with her husband’s campaign for Senate starting. She was also very proud of her cheerleaders. She was working with them to compete at the National Championships in the spring.”

  Charlemagne ordered me to relax and, apparently, that meant be quiet. After a few more creams were applied and removed, she collected the hot rocks and used them to massage my shoulders and back, and I lost the ability to form sentences. By the time I was able to collect myself, she was applying the final layer of moisturizer and the appointment was over.

  I finished getting dressed and met her back in the quiet room. She handed me a list of items to buy to keep up the skin care regimen at home. Most of them could be found in the lobby conveniently placed by the cash register, but a few things had to be picked up at the beauty supply store.

  When the receptionist was ringing me up, I asked her how much a hair appointment, facial, and seaweed wrap each month would cost. Whew! Barbie was spending a fortune on spa treatments each month. I wondered how she was able to afford such luxury while her husband was spending huge amounts of money campaigning.

  I left with two bags full of lovely smelling beauty products. Shampoo, conditioner, mousse, gel, vitamin hair masque. Facial cleanser, exfoliant, toner, moisturizer, brightening mask, eye cream, day cream, night cream.

  “What happens if I get them mixed up?” I asked the receptionist. She said she wasn’t sure and I should call the emergency hotline number if it happened.

  I drove over to the strip mall in Rio Grande to the beauty supply superstore to pick up the rest of the items on Charlemagne’s list. Rows and rows of every froufrou beauty product advertised in glamour magazines. When teenage girls dream of heaven, they dream of this store.

  Things sure had changed since the last time I’d bought beauty gear. I didn’t know where to begin. Finally I chose a new ceramic hair dryer, a set of hot rollers, and some new ionized hair brushes. The makeup counter was leagues beyond Cover Girl and I picked out a brand called Smashbox. I bought primer, tinted BB cream, finishing powder, an eye shadow palette called “Rock Star,” mascara guaranteed to make me look like I was wearing false eyelashes, and a lip gloss that promised to give me lips like Angelina Jolie. Because surely that’s the feature on Angelina Jolie that men are drawn to.

  Before I left, I picked up one more item of indulgence. A bottle of Coach Poppy perfume. It already had my name on it. How could I refuse?

  A couple stores down, there was a plus-sized boutique so I made a stop and bought myself a few new outfits, some workout clothes, and a whole new wardrobe of what Aunt Ginny called “unmentionables.”

  I’d spent a fortune today. Georgina would need a double martini and a Valium when the bill came in. I had never spent this much of my allowance in one day before. It felt good to do something for myself for a change. I just hoped it wasn’t all in vain. If I was convicted, I couldn’t take any of it with me.

  Chapter 26

  I pulled up in front of Aunt Ginny’s to find a team of landscapers huddled around the birdbath while Aunt Ginny marched back and forth waving a broom in the air.

  “What’s going on?” I asked whoever would answer me first.

  One of the landscapers approached me with his ball cap in his hand. “Your grandmother is crazy, ma’am. The workers are afraid to get too close.”

  Aunt Ginny whacked the steps with the broom. “Scram, ya rodents!”

  “Aunt Ginny? What ah . . . what are you doing?”

  “There’s a wild pack of chipmunks living under the porch, and I know they’re the thieves responsible for gorging on my tulip bulbs.” She whacked the latticework running under the wraparound porch. “Get out, freeloaders!”

  I looked from Aunt Ginny to the landscaper who had approached me, and he circled his finger around his ear and mouthed, Loco.

  “Aunt Ginny, the workmen can’t get to the flowerbeds because they’re afraid you might hit them.”

  “I said I was sorry. How was I to know he was right next to me?”

  I looked back and saw a workman with a bag of frozen peas on his eye. He waved.

  Just then a chipmunk came tearing out from under the porch and galloped across the yard. Aunt Ginny tried to take off after it, but I put my arm around her just in time. “Whoa! Okay, why don’t we go inside and have some tea. I’ll show you the new clothes I just bought. How does that sound?”

  “What about the chipmunks?”

  I began to lead her up the steps. “Let’s get some peanuts and a feeder for the corner of the yard so they’ll leave the tulips alone.”

  “Or,” she countered, “let’s put the peanuts in Old Man Murillo’s yard. That way they’ll eat his begonias and leave my bulbs alone.”

  I nodded to the landscapers and they got back to work cleaning up the flowerbeds, while we entered the house. “That’s another good plan.”

  I settled Aunt Ginny, then went back out and relieved the car of my shopping haul, lugging the bags inside to the sunroom. Figaro jumped from bag to bag, checking for treats and inspecting each one for enemy intruders. Aunt Ginny nudged a bag with her foot and he shot out of it and tore up the stairs to safety.

  “Ha. Some guard cat you turned out to be,” she called after him.

  From upstairs, we heard the sound of Figaro flopping over onto his side.

  She turned to me and gave me an appraising once-over. “You done got your hair did. Looks good.”

  As I showed Aunt Ginny my new clothes, she nodded approval for each item. I went upstairs to put them away and changed into a black A-line skirt with a burgundy chiffon blouse and tall, black leather boots for the memorial. When I came back to the sunroom, I found her covered in green goo with cotton booties on her hands and feet.r />
  “This moisturizer burns. I’m not sure it’s working right.”

  I looked at the bottle. “That’s not moisturizer. It’s a purifying clay masque.”

  “Oh. How long do I leave it on?”

  “Till about five minutes ago.”

  “Okay.” She toddled to her bathroom to wash off the clay and I put away the beauty creams before she could do any more damage.

  The doorbell rang, so I grabbed my checkbook prepared to pay the landscapers—but it was Rosalind Carson, Everyone’s Favorite Social Worker and Darth Vader’s mentor.

  “Ms. Carson,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. “What can I do for you?”

  Behind me, Aunt Ginny hollered, “I want to try a different smelly cream on my face. Where’d you put them?”

  I sang out sweetly, “We have company, Aunt Ginny. The social worker”—by which I meant the Cold Clammy Hand of Death—“is here.”

  Aunt Ginny, not taking the hint, appeared behind me wearing a pink bathrobe and pink bunny slippers, and she had her hair pulled back in a pink terry cloth headband. She took one look at Ms. Carson, loudly muttered, “Bah!” and walked away.

  Ms. Carson shook her head and tsk-tsked. “Bathrobe in the middle of the day. Still confused about what time it is.” She took out a little notebook and started writing.

  I did not invite her in. “Did you need something?”

  She looked down the end of her nose at me. “I’m just here to tell you that Mrs. Frankowski’s hearing has been set for two weeks from today. I want to implore you, once again, to talk some sense into the dear woman. The transition to the Sunset Valley Assisted Living Facility will go much smoother if she goes . . . voluntarily.” She handed me a copy of the pronouncement.

  “Mrs. Frankowski has no intention of moving anywhere at this time. As you can see, repairs on the house are underway and the yard is looking beautiful.”

  She continued in a sugary tone, “I do hope I didn’t give you the impression that a little cosmetic clean-up was all that was needed to appease the state, Miss McAllister. Mrs. Frankowski needs supervision. And I’m afraid that due to the events of last week, you will no longer be considered a suitable guardian.” She gave me an insincere smile and wrote something in her notebook.

  Where is a flamethrower when I need it?

  Since I had a yard full of landscapers and a couple of nosy neighbors watching, I decided to take the high road and not drag Ms. Carson to the ground by the bun on her head.

  “Ms. Carson, I appreciate your visit, but we have everything under control on our end and we’ll be ready for the hearing when it arrives. Can I send you home with some flowers from the garden today? As a token of our appreciation for your looking out for Aunt Ginny?”

  Aunt Ginny snorted from the other room. “That’ll be the day. I hope she gets stung by a bee.”

  I shut the door a little more and gave Ms. Carson a weak smile. I picked up the pruning shears to cut her a bouquet of lavender and white spikes.

  Her eyes grew wide. “Surely you’re joking.” She dropped the sweetness act and scribbled another addition to her notebook. “That’s foxglove, and it’s poisonous. A confused old lady shouldn’t even have that in her yard.”

  She stormed down the sidewalk in a huff, slamming the gate behind her and calling back to me, “Get your act together, Miss McAllister, or you won’t even have visitation rights once your aunt is in the system. I’ll make sure of it!”

  Chapter 27

  I instructed the landscapers to please remove the foxglove and anything else that was potentially poisonous, and replace them with something less controversial. I reheated the vegetable soup I had made for dinner last night, and Aunt Ginny and I ate in the kitchen while we discussed Ms. Carson’s visit.

  “Why is she so hell-bent on putting me in a home? I’ve been doing just fine without supervision. Meh.”

  “I don’t know, but we have less than two weeks to remove any obstacles to getting a favorable ruling.”

  “Then you probably shouldn’t have offered her a poison bouquet.”

  “Yeah, well. Hindsight.”

  Figaro hovered and begged until I opened a can of minced fish guts, only to have him turn his nose up and refuse to eat them.

  After dinner I steeled myself for what lay ahead. I had to be out of my mind—but I also had to do this. Sawyer, Kim, and I had decided to go to the memorial incognito to limit our chances of being thrown out, so I put my hair up in a bun and put on the blond wig I’d bought from the party store, hoping it didn’t look too cheap and obvious. Then I donned the pair of white-rimmed sunglasses that Aunt Ginny was wearing the other day.

  “How do I look?” I asked Aunt Ginny.

  “Like Sophia Glickman.”

  “Is she a spy?”

  “No. She plays Texas Hold ’Em at the senior center on Tuesday nights.”

  I waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “Those were her glasses.”

  The glasses slid down my nose and I peered over the rims at Aunt Ginny, who looked very guilty.

  “I won them fair and square.”

  “Does Sophia Glickman know that?”

  “Don’t ever go all-in on a pair of fives at the flop.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That must be Kim. She’s driving me to the memorial, since my car has Virginia license plates.”

  Kim’s curly hair was tucked into a short black wig and she was wearing a simple black dress and black Mary Janes. It was the most boring outfit I had ever seen her in.

  “I borrowed it from my mother,” she responded to my stunned silence.

  “Aunt Ginny, I’ll be home in a couple of hours. Try to stay out of trouble,” I muttered as I walked out the door.

  My stomach was churning up nerves. I had to pull this off without being recognized. Amber had already threatened me to stay away from the investigation. If I was discovered, it could seriously jeopardize my case.

  This was going through my head as I caught sight of myself in the mirror by the front door. I wished I’d sprung for a wig that didn’t look like it had been through a zombie apocalypse.

  * * *

  Evoy’s Funeral Home was a two-story white Colonial with black shutters, located in the heart of North Cape May. It sat behind a large pond graced by a pair of swans. Several tastefully decorated rooms filled with Queen Anne sofas were separated by collapsible partitions. Today they were packed wall-to-wall, and all the partitions were open to accommodate the large crowd. Kim and I split up since we’d stand out less by ourselves than with each other.

  I grabbed a Kleenex as camouflage, pretending to dab my eyes as I began milling about the room. There was a huge portrait of Barbie on a golden tripod at the front. It was surrounded by sprays of pink roses and white lilies, and numerous baskets and wreaths of flowers were lined up around a podium. People were mingling, speaking in hushed tones.

  I searched for familiar faces. Coach Wilcott was sitting quietly in a wing chair in the room across the partition. He appeared to be alone. Kristen and Joel were seated together in the back. Connie and her two girls were there to pay respects to their cheerleading coach, just like we’d planned. She gave me a slight chin nod. Amber was nowhere to be seen.

  “He isn’t just not here. He’s disappeared entirely.” Paul Osborne, dressed in black slacks and a silver button-down was holding court with Tina Winiecki and Maria Ragusa over by a tray of chocolate chip cookies.

  “What do you mean he’s disappeared?” Tina pulled out a cell phone and was feverishly tapping out a message on the screen.

  “I mean, poof! Vanished! He’s wanted by the police for questioning and they can’t find him anywhere.”

  Who are they talking about? I looked around the room for Robert Clark and didn’t see him. Did he skip town before his wife’s memorial?

  “I know they have a brutal history, but I didn’t think he would be so cold as to miss her funeral.”
r />   Courtney Westbrae rushed up to the group, tapping on her cell phone. “Well, can you blame him? She humiliated him at the reunion.”

  Robert entered the room from a side vestibule followed by a young teenager. The girl stood uncomfortably at his side with one arm wrapped around her back holding her other arm.

  That must be Tiffany, poor thing. To lose a parent at such an important age is so painful. I would know. But if Robert is here, then who are the police looking for?

  Maria picked up a cookie and sniffed it. “He used to love her.”

  Paul took the cookie out of her hands and put it back on the tray. “That was before she stood him up at the altar. Twice!”

  Standing on the other side of Robert was the attentive Kelly. Dressed in a dark green pantsuit she held a clipboard and was wearing a wireless mic headset. Every so often she touched the earpiece and spoke into the microphone.

  Missy entered from the back of the room dressed head to toe in black, her eyes red from crying. She sat in the back.

  Kelly whispered something to Robert, and she and Tiffany took their seats in the front row.

  Robert took the podium first. “I want to thank you all for coming. It means a lot to Tiffany and myself that so many of Barbara’s friends and colleagues would continue to show us their support at this difficult time. I have no doubt that the parties responsible for my beloved wife’s brutal murder will come to justice. It’s one of the things that I promise I will fight for when I am elected to represent this great state of New Jersey in the office of the Senate. I am fully committed to a greater crackdown on violent criminals.”

  I felt as if every eye was going to turn and focus on me.

  “On the very day that my lovely wife was taken from us, she said to me, ‘Robert, running for office is going to be tough. No matter what happens, promise me that once you enter the race you will stay in the race, for my sake.’ Well, honey”—Robert came out from behind the podium and looked up to the ceiling—“I’m doing this one for you.” He blew a kiss to the ceiling and sat down next to Tiffany.