Pink Balloons and Other Deadly Things (Mystery Series - Book One)

by Nancy Tesler

  “It’s great seeing you too, Steve,” I gasped. He put me down and flustered, I fussed with my hair and patted it back into place.

  Steve isn't what you'd call handsome or sexy. When we were in school he’d had a crush on me but his mouth always reminded me of Bugs Bunny. I'd never felt inclined to kiss it. Still, he has a nice face—-one of those freckled little-boy cherubic visages that never seem to grow older. I could see where that would stand him in good stead in a courtroom. What jury would vote against Bugs Bunny?

  Arm around my shoulder, he led me into his office, as elegant as the reception area. He sat next to me on the soft green leather sofa instead of taking a seat behind his burled walnut desk.

  “How long has it been? Fifteen years? You’ve hardly changed.”

  I tried to smile. It was more like twenty years, and I felt as though I’d aged an additional ten in the past five days.

  “What’s the matter, Carrie?” he inquired with such concern on his round face, two big tears escaped and rolled down my cheeks.

  Damn, I thought digging in my pocket for a tissue. One word of kindness from any source, and I leak like a dripping faucet.

  Steve was a good listener. He didn’t interrupt as I recounted the extraordinary events of the past week. As I spoke, he made notes on a legal pad.

  “I read about the Vogel murder, but I didn’t connect the name Burnham with you.”

  “I wish I hadn’t connected the name Burnham with me.”

  He patted my hand sympathetically. “You’ve had a bad time, but it’s going to get better.”

  He was as nice as I’d remembered, and I found myself opening up. “The worst of it is, I loved Rich. I never saw it coming. Until that last year when he changed so dramatically, I really believed we had something special.”

  “His loss. You’re a special lady.”

  Now why couldn’t I have fallen for this guy when I had the chance?

  “Stop,” I murmured. “You’ll start me blubbering.”

  “I have a broad shoulder.”

  “What I need is your legal expertise.”

  He hesitated. “How are you left financially?”

  Uh-oh. My eyes wandered to the Lichtenstein hanging over his desk. “I’m managing. I used to work at a pain center, but a few months after Rich left I started my own practice. Rich hasn’t been bad about money. He’s agreed to pay a small alimony for several years until I can build my practice, and he’s responsible for child support till Matt and Allie are through college. It’s not like when we were married, of course, but--”

  “Come on,” Steve said, holding out his hand and rising. “Let’s have lunch, and work out a strategy.”

  “You’re going to represent me?” I could feel Atlas’ globe being lifted off my shoulders.

  He squeezed my hand. “Of course. We alums have to stick together. And stop worrying. From what you’ve told me you haven’t even been charged with anything.”

  Involuntarily, I glanced at his left hand, noted he wasn’t wearing a wedding band. I looked on his desk. There was a framed photograph of a pretty smiling woman and two little girls. So much for the fleeting thought.

  “Maybe we should discuss your fee first.”

  I knew this was sticky ground. He was a partner in a firm. Even if he wanted to give me a break, I wasn’t sure he had the authority to do it.

  “I get five hundred dollars an hour.”

  I blanched. He might as well have said a thousand. “I’m afraid I can’t...”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll work something out.”

  I flashed him a suspicious look but saw only friendly concern in his eyes.

  We lunched at Sushiden, a pricey Japanese restaurant on East Forty-ninth Street. The ambience, Steve’s warmth, the sake all combined to make me feel as though someone had slid little fur muffs over my frazzled nerve endings. We talked about normal things-—college, professors, classmates we remembered; we traded anecdotes about clients—-we’d both had our share of kooks over the years, and our children; we both had two.

  “I’ve always missed having a son,” Steve remarked as the waitress was bringing our green tea. “You're lucky you have one of each.”

  “You can’t make me feel sorry for you,” I said. “Everyone knows daughters dote on their daddies. You’ve got three beautiful women spoiling you rotten.”

  He covered my hand with his. “Only two, I'm afraid. Lenore and I—-well, things aren’t the way they used to be.”

  The fur muffs started shredding around the edges. I focused on my sushi. “I really love this stuff. Haven’t had it in a while, though. My kids aren’t into raw--”

  “We've grown apart over the years. You know how it is.”

  Clang, clang went the warning bells, “No,” I said. “Tell me.”

  “It’s not Len. Believe me, I don’t have a bad word to say about her, but our lives have gone in different directions.”

  “In what way?”

  “I think she’s come to hate what I do. When I was representing Tony the Toad, there were nights I was literally afraid to go home.” He grinned that rabbit grin. “And it wasn’t the mob I was afraid of.”

  “I seem to remember in college and law school you were really gung ho about putting the mob behind bars. Whatever happened to all that idealism?”

  “I was a kid. I’ve changed. Shit happens, you know?”

  I certainly did. I knew all about shit. The hum of the other patrons receded as I flashed back to Rich's words to me that last night.

  “It’s not you," he’d mumbled miserably. "You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s me. Shit happens. People change.”

  I looked across the table at Steve. His soft brown eyes had gone beady, his Bugs Bunny teeth grown to monster proportions. “I liked that kid,” I said, reaching for my handbag.

  “I always had a thing for you too, Carrie.” His hand dropped to my thigh.

  I slapped it away as though it were a crawling bug. “You should think hard about what you're doing. Divorce is a nightmare.”

  He looked shocked. “Who said anything about divorce?”

  “Oh, I see. Fooling around’s okay, though.”

  “What’s the big deal? No one has to get hurt.”

  “Except your wife when she finds out. And your kids. And the really nice guy you used to be.” I got to my feet. “Thanks for lunch.”

  “Oh, lighten up, Car. You know as well as I do, a little hanky-panky holds more marriages together than you women want to admit.”

  Wrong buttons! I controlled an urge to pour the green tea down his pants. “You think getting some Mafia sleazebag off makes you hot stuff, don’t you?” I said. “The truth is, it really makes you no better than he is. You’re just cheating the system like you’ve cheated your wife and kids.” People were staring. My voice went up a decibel. “And if you’re going to cheat, at least have the guts to call it what it is. Hanky-panky is so high school.”

  I walked out of the restaurant.

  ONCE OUT OF THE CITY I opened the windows and let the fresh spring air clear my head. I was glad I’d spoken my piece. In retrospect I decided I’d deserved what I’d gotten for considering hiring a Mafia lawyer in the first place. Fortunately, I had Meg’s recommendations in reserve. I made a mental note to call her.

  The evening was going to be a busy one. I’d canceled my morning appointments, planning to start at four and work till eight or nine. Most of my patients had been cooperative about rescheduling. No one had brought up the murders. Maybe, like that slime-bucket Steve, they hadn’t made the connection. I’d arranged for the kids to have dinner at the Moscone’s, scheduled my overeaters from four to five-thirty, planned a half hour for dinner, had one patient coming at six and one at seven. No one at eight.

  Vickie came to mind. I’d forgotten to call her about scheduling another appointment. Maybe she could fill that eight o’clock slot. Cognizant of the no cell phone use while driving law, I pulled off the highway at seventy-second stree
t, miraculously found a spot to park, pulled over and dialed her number. She answered on the first ring.

  “Vickie? It's Carrie Carlin.”

  “Hi.”

  “I have an opening at eight tonight. Is that good for you?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know. I’m going for a job interview in the morning.”

  “No kidding. That’s terrific!” Vickie had never held a job for longer than two months. Her interpersonal relationship skills were weak, and she was unreliable, sometimes arriving at work late, at times not showing up at all. Brainwave training for attention deficit would help, but we weren’t there yet. We were still working on positive affirmations and visualizations. “What kind of a job is it?”

  “My boyfriend got me an interview at Bloomingdale’s.”

  “As a salesgirl?”

  “Demonstrating makeup.”

  “Hey, that’s great. You have such beautiful eyes. You'll be perfect. Good luck.”

  “Thanks. I am kind of nervous.”

  “Why don’t you try and make it tonight then? We'll go over interviewing strategies, do a success visualization.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. See you later.”

  “Yeah. Bye.”

  “Bye.” I hit End and flipped my phone closed. I felt better. I was making progress with Vickie. Even if the boyfriend had used his connections to get her the interview, this job, if she could get and keep it, would give her a degree of independence even from him. Maybe she’d move out of her parents’ home. It was therapeutic, getting my mind off my problems and concentrating on those of my patients.

  I picked up the phone again and dialed Meg's shop.

  Franny’s voice. Meg’s Place.”

  “Franny?”

  “How may I help you?”

  “It's Carrie. What’re you doing there today? Where's Meg?”

  “Oh, Carrie.” Her voice became hushed. “Meg had to leave.”

  “On a Thursday at lunch hour? Where’d she go?”

  “A couple of policemen came by. I don’t know what it was about, but they asked her to go to the Hackensack station with them. She called me to come right over.”

  A cold breeze that had nothing to do with the open windows swept through me.

  “When was this?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “What did the cops look like?”

  “One was tall and thin, kind of nice looking in an outdoorsy kind of way. Looked like he could use a good meal, though. Or a new suit. The other one was---”

  I hardly heard the rest and hung up as soon as I could. Damn Brodsky! Bad enough he’s constantly on my case, but when he starts harassing my friends, it’s time I let him know he’s way out of line.

  Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of the Bergen County prosecutor’s office.

  Alighting from my car, I was just in time to see Meg get into hers. I yelled at her to wait, but she seemed not to hear me and drove off. I stood there indecisively, not sure if I should stick with my original plan or follow her. I went with my first impulse. I could catch up with Meg later. I wanted to have it out with Brodsky while I still had the nerve.

  I marched into the building feeling belligerent as hell, ready to barrel past anyone who tried to stop me. But Brodsky’s name was an open sesame, and I was waved on without comment. Several detectives were sitting around the congested squad room, scribbling at their desks, talking on phones. I spotted Brodsky next to a water cooler, paper cup in hand. I was tempted to grab it and dump it over his head, but I held my temper and planted myself firmly between him and the cooler.

  “Detective.”

  He didn't seem surprised to see me. Very deliberately he finished drinking, then reached around me and tossed the cup into the wastebasket.

  “Something I can do for you, Ms. Carlin?”

  “You brought my friend, Meg Reilly, here for questioning.”

  “Yeah,” he said, unperturbed. “Right.”

  “You’ve got to stop this. It’s one thing, your badgering me incessantly with your questions. Like it or not, I’m involved in this mess. But it’s absolutely unconscionable of you to drag my friends into it.”

  “Maybe you should choose your friends more carefully.”

  “What?” I hadn't expected that.

  “Maybe,” he replied with exaggerated patience, “you should--”

  “I heard you. What is that supposed to mean?”

  He took my arm and led me into his small office.

  “Sit,” he said.

  “I’d rather stand.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever.”

  He sat, and I stood, feeling something of a fool, like the king in The King and I, who didn't allow anyone’s head to be higher than his.

  Brodsky drummed his fingers on the metal desk. “Your friend’s a real looker, isn't she.”

  I was so shocked, I sat down. What was this? It didn't jibe with my impression of him.

  “Tell me something I don't know,” I said stiffly.

  “Okay. Did you know she knew your husband?”

  “Well, of course she knows him. She’s been at the house when he comes to---”

  “I mean, before you and she met.”

  ...before you met, before you met ricocheted off the wall, took a few seconds to penetrate. My first instinct was to deny and defend.

  “For your information, Meg only moved here from the city after Rich and I were separated, so---”

  “She did some modeling for him several years back.”

  When I was ten years old, I was kicked by a horse. It felt exactly the same way. A minute went by before I dredged up enough breath to speak.

  “That’s not true.” But the worm of suspicion lying dormant in my gut reared its head.

  “Her picture was in that pile you found yesterday,” he said quietly. “That’s why I brought her in.”

  “Why are you telling me these lies?” I wanted to cry. But then I remembered Meg reaching for the pictures her face gone suddenly pale, and all I managed was a whispered, “I don’t believe you,” while I twisted the braided strap on my handbag into an irretrievable knot.

  He reached into a folder and pulled out a photograph. I could see where it had been taped together. He slid it across the desk to me.

  The face in the photo was Meg, Meg a few years younger, made up more glamorously than I’d ever seen her. I saw something in Brodsky's eyes then, like he cared that I had to see this, that he had to tell me these things, like you see in the eyes of a friend. But I know better than to believe what I see in someone’s eyes. Friends betray. I was becoming an expert on betrayal.

  “Carrie, she admitted it.”

  “What?” I whispered.

  “She used to be a professional photographer. Your husband saw some of her work and hired her for a shoot, then offered her a job modeling. Ms. Reilly had two photo sessions using various products,” he continued, his tone flat. “The picture here was for eye makeup. When she showed up for a body cream shoot, she discovered there was no photographer and your husband wanted her to model nude while he shot the pictures himself.”

  This was another of my nightmares.

  “None of Rich’s ads use nude models,” I protested nonsensically.

  “The photos were obviously not for public display.”

  That was pity in his voice. I didn't want his pity. I wanted him to be lying. They say troubles come in threes. So this had to be the end of it. After today nothing bad could happen to me. My children and I could live happily ever after.

  Brodsky had the sensitivity to keep his eyes averted. “For whatever it's worth, she says she turned the job down.”

  She says. “Why didn't Meg tell me she knew Rich?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Was—-did she ever see him again? I mean until she met me?”

  “She says she didn't.”

  It came back to me then, Meg's knowing what I’d said to Rich that night. How could
she have known that unless Rich had told her?

  “Do you know anything about her past, Carrie?”

  “Not...much.” I sounded funny, like I had a bad cold. “She never talks about herself. Only that she was married, and her husband died.”

  “Her husband isn’t dead. He’s in the federal pen in Danbury.”

  One lie after the other. Like Rich.

  “She goes...that must be where she goes every week when...she must go up to Connecticut to visit him.”

  “Sounds right.”

  “What’d he-—what’s he in for?”

  Brodsky made a big thing of straightening out the papers in the file and closing it.

  “Conspiracy to cover up a fraud. Your friend was an unindicted co-conspirator.”

  How do you get to be an unindicted co-conspirator? I thought. What is an unindicted co-conspirator anyway? If you’re a co-conspirator, why don’t they indict you?

  It was all too much for my overloaded brain. I went numb. I think there’s only so much shock the human mind can absorb at one time. After that there’s a protective mechanism that kicks in and you stop feeling. At least it seems to work that way with me. But I must have been shaking because Brodsky came around the desk and put his jacket over my shoulders. I’m not sure if it was the jacket or his hands on my shoulders, but after a minute sensation returned.

  I got unsteadily to my feet and handed the coat back to him. “I have to go. I have clients coming.”

  “I’ll have someone drive you.”

  “I have my car.” Politely, I held out my hand. “Well, good-bye, Detective. Thanks for the information.”

  “I'll walk you out.”

  He guided me out of his glass-enclosed office to the front door. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and managed to get down the steps without falling. He led me around to the passenger side.

  “Give me your keys.”

  “I can drive.”

  “You can’t walk. Give me your keys.”

  Robotlike, I handed them over. I was hardly aware of getting into the car or of him getting behind the wheel and starting the engine. But I was aware that he reached out and covered my hand with his.

  IT’S AN INTERESTING phenomenon that, when you have children, there’s some kind of inner strength that takes over and keeps you going. I had to earn a living. There was no way I was going to keep my practice if I kept canceling appointments.