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

by Nancy Tesler

  As a biofeedback clinician, mostly what I do is relax stressed-out people. Give me half an hour, let me hook you up to my computer, and I can demonstrate all the destructive things stress does to your body, then teach you how to keep it from killing you. Using another software program, I brain-wave-train Attention Deficit Disorder kids and addictive personalities like Ruth-Ann.

  I spent the rest of the session bringing her to a relaxed alpha state and filling her head with positive “self-talk”, stressing how proud she should be feeling at what she’d accomplished rather than the fact, vanity being a ‘no-no’, that she was undoubtedly going to be turning more than a few yarmulke-covered heads. Hannukah, I knew, would be the supreme test for her, so I threw in a little weight control stuff, comparing matzoh balls, (my grandmother should forgive me) to things shot out of a cannon, and potato ‘latkes’ to hockey pucks. My grand finale was a stern admonition. “You no longer allow anyone to influence your eating habits. You have learned to say no to “Eat, bubbela.”

  I’m terrific at mental tune-ups. Ruth-Ann left my office all smiles, her face lit up like one of those Christmas trees on the mall outside my building.

  I hadn’t scheduled anyone after Ruth-Ann because I was anxious to get home before Rich and his new girlfriend picked up the kids. He had insisted they be ready at six-thirty to make a nine-ten flight out of Newark. I’d determined to let them go without even one crack to my ex about his predilection for cradle-robbing. Progress indeed. My New Year’s resolutions were all about keeping my big mouth shut, the better to ward off the slings and arrows of outrageous ex-husbands.

  Married for eighteen years, Rich and I were living a fairy-tale existence in a beautiful home in Alpine, New Jersey. The fairy-tale ended abruptly when the prince ran off with the wicked witch. So when the witch was found floating face down in his (formerly our) swimming pool, I didn’t exactly don sackcloth and ashes. Nor did I rend my garments when girlfriend/witch number two was found floating in her bathtub in the same condition. The “death by water” thing did shake me up, but panic didn’t set in until fingers started pointing in my direction. Cop fingers. Fingers that had a detective by the name of Ted Brodsky attached to them.

  Obviously, Detective Sergeant Brodsky’s and my relationship didn’t get off to a galloping start, what with his pointing fingers and my resentment (make that hysteria), at his considering me the prime suspect. But chemistry and the fact that the killer was caught in record time, won out in the end. When you’ve been dumped and an attractive man comes on to you, every hormone in your body starts shrieking “Go for it!” And Ted’s a very attractive man. The monumental lust he inspires in me borders on the embarrassing. But for a variety of reasons, we’ve decided to cool it.

  It’s been eleven days and four hours since we came to that decision, so I was surprised that evening, when I pulled into the driveway of the small brick house in Norwood, New Jersey where my children and I now live, to see his shiny white Miata parked by the curb.

  When I opened the front door, he was sitting in our combination family room-kitchen talking to the kids, while alternately petting our monster dog, Horty, and Luciano, Alpha cat of our Siamese trio. Horty, who loves me more than anything in the world, barely managed a tail-wag in greeting.

  “Well, hi there,” I said, as I concentrated on pulling off my boots. “It must be Christmas. Santa’s brought us a hot new car.”

  “In your dreams,” he chuckled. “Just thought I’d drop by and wish the kids Bon Voyage.”

  “Oh. Nice.”

  Horty finally roused himself, meandered over to me and planted a slurpy kiss on my hand.

  Allie bounced to her feet. “Didja get my phone? You didn’t forget, did you?”

  “I promised, didn’t I?” I said, as I extracted the shiny red Sanyo from my briefcase and held it out.

  “Red! Awesome!” Squealing in delight she grabbed it from my hand, gave me a crushing hug and headed for her bedroom. “Thank you. Thank you. I love you. Gotta finish packing.”

  “Don’t forget about the radiation emissions. Keep it on speaker away from your ear when you call me,” I called after her and turned to my son. “Mattie, are you packed?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Won’t cut it. Go finish.”

  My ten-and-a-half-year-old, mature-beyond-his-years son looked at me, troubled. “You’re gonna be all alone on Christmas. One of us should stay home.”

  I felt a tug at the back of my eyes. Every so often one or the other of my children says something that really gets me.

  “We talked about that, sweetheart. How often do you and Allie get a chance to ski out west? I’ll be okay.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I wasn’t, but that was between me and my box of tissues. “I may decide to drive up to Worcester and see Grandpa and Gramma Eve.”

  “Maybe Ted’ll go with you,” he said, eyeing the man hopefully.

  Ted smiled. “Better hurry, kiddo. You’ve only got fifteen minutes.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said when we were alone. “He’s a little confused about us.”

  “He’s not the only one.”

  I wasn’t going to touch that, not now anyway, so I made a big thing of greeting José and Placido who were having a wonderful time depositing Siamese cat fur all over my pant legs.

  Ted let me go through the routine, waited till I was ensconced on the couch with a cat on each leg and one in my lap, and Horty weighing down my feet; then he leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Mattie’s right. Animals or no animals, it sucks to be alone on Christmas.”

  “You have something else in mind?” I asked, concentrating on scratching behind Placido’s ears.

  “I’m hell-bent on seeing the tree in Rockefeller Center. Want to go with me?”

  “On Christmas day to Rockefeller Center?”

  “Yeah.”

  I looked out the window and noticed how crispy clear the night had become, how bright and sparkling the stars. “It’ll be a mob scene.”

  “Then maybe we’ll just make a fire in my apartment and watch it on TV.”

  Was that the cats purring or was it me?

  RICH PULLED UP promptly at six-thirty. Cheerfully, I told the kids to have a wonderful holiday and to be careful not to fall off the mountain, and blew them kisses until the car was out of sight.

  Ted was on the phone ordering Chinese food when I came back into the house. In light of our recent pact I was a little taken aback when, after dinner, while we were listening to some angelic boy sopranos singing about the little town of Bethlehem, he pulled me close and kissed me.

  “Very nice,” I said trying to ignore my elevating heart-rate. “But I’m not quite sure I know how we got here.”

  “It’s our first Christmas together,” he replied. “Peace on earth time. It struck me it’s stupid to be making war.”

  “We just made plans for tomorrow. We aren’t making war.”

  He grinned, nibbled my earlobe. “We aren’t making love either. Though I’m open to changing that.”

  The kids were gone, we had the house to ourselves, and the offer was infinitely more attractive than anything I’d had planned for the evening. But I have this lousy problem with foot-in-mouth disease. “I thought we were taking time off to re-assess.”

  “I’ve re-assessed.”

  I twisted around to look at him. “Oh?”

  “I came to the conclusion that if you’re lucky enough to find someone you care about in this crazy world, and that person feels the same about you, why screw it up analyzing it to death?”

  By now he was caressing my thigh and working upward. I had to concentrate on hanging on to my train of thought.

  “Because,” I said, “there are things we need to work out.

  He stopped doing all those nice things to my body. “I’m not Rich, Carrie, and if you’re going to let that rule your life...”

  “That’s not it,” I said defensively.

  “Fine
. Then let’s talk about what it is.”

  A sensitive subject that, knowing his history, I had never put into words. I fudged. “You know. We’re both coming off failed relationships. Our emotions can’t be trusted.”

  The scowl on his face told me I’d flunked the lie detector test.

  “Psycho-babble crap.”

  I started to protest but he held up his hand.

  “It’s about my being a cop.”

  I flushed, tried the “best defense” defense. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve never---”

  “I know you’ve never.” He got to his feet. “Carrie, sweetheart, I’m forty-four years old. I want a personal life. I’d like it to be with you, but I’m damned if I’m going to wait around for you to get your act together.” He reached for his jacket.

  Talk about not knowing how we’d gotten here. “God, I just asked for a little time. We’ve only known each other seven months. Why all of a sudden are you---”

  His voice was frost. “Because I haven’t got time to waste.”

  Hell, I’m forty. Father Time wasn’t exactly taking a nap for me either, but I had a problem. How could I tell him what I knew he’d heard once before--that I was scared to death that one day he’d walk out the door and never come home? How could I tell him I couldn’t face another loss?

  I couldn’t. You don’t tell a cop you’re afraid to commit because you’re terrified he’s going to get his brains splattered all over the street. Not an unreasonable fear considering that this cop had already been shot once that I knew of. So I walked over to where he stood by the door and executed a female brushing up against him kind of maneuver. “Come on. Peace on earth time. Why don’t we just pretend this conversation never happened and pick up with the ear thing.”

  He wasn’t buying. “What’s the point?”

  “The point is we made a deal. All I’m asking is that we don’t do anything precipitous.” I stood on tiptoe and nuzzled his neck.

  “God forbid we should do anything like that,” he muttered, but I could feel his body relent. “Why am I absolutely sure I’m being manipulated?”

  “I can’t imagine,” I whispered, manipulatively snaking my arms around his neck and kissing the corner of his mouth. “Would you consider you were being manipulated if I told you right now I’d much rather make love than war?”

  “I certainly would. You only want me for my body.”

  I pulled him down on the couch. “I cannot tell a lie. I’m crazy for your body.”

  “You’re all talk.”

  I ran my tongue over his lips, my hands down his chest, over his rock-hard gut.

  He didn’t move. “Not bad, but you can do better.”

  A few minutes later, our clothes were scattered on the floor and I was doing a lot better when the phone rang. “Damn,” I said.

  “Let it ring,” he said.

  The answering machine picked up. “This is Carrie Carlin,” the machine said. “I’m not available to take your call right now. Please leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you.” Beep.

  Meg’s voice, hoarse, cracking. “Carrie, there’s been... a terrible accident.” A long pause, then in a whisper, “Pete’s dead, and Kev’s...they can’t find Kev. Call me.”

  I was on my feet dashing for the phone leaving my frustrated lover in a state of suspended animation.

  Megan Reilly and I are connected by a bond much stronger than blood. Maybe once or twice in your life if you’re lucky, you meet someone who actually defines the word “friend”. I met Meg shortly after Rich left, at a time in my life when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse. Then they got really rough. Meg took me and my troubles on when most people, except for the press, were avoiding me as though I were a leper with poison ivy.

  Two weeks earlier she’d flown to Key West to be with her husband, Kevin, and his brother, Pete, who were there for the World Cup, the international offshore championship powerboat race. The boat had been designed by Kev and built at their new facility. A win at the World Cup would have put their fledgling company, Stargazer, on the powerboat map.

  Meg’s words resounded in my head like an echo in a canyon. When I got through to her, she spoke haltingly almost as though she were translating in her head from another language. “Kev was...he and Pete were off Fury Dock testing it before the race. They had new engines--very powerful--supercharged. Something happened...”

  I pushed the word out fast before the lump I felt forming closed my throat. “How---”

  A whisper. “Pete lost control. They're saying it was a heart attack. They recovered his body, but not Kev’s...” Her voice broke. “Not Kev’s.” She took a breath that was more a sob, tried to steady her voice. “I’d gone along to shoot some photos, but I didn't stay. I went back to the hotel. I didn't stay! If I had, maybe...”

  Thoughtlessly, cruelly, I bombarded her with futile questions. “Could Kev have been thrown clear? Didn't they always wear life jackets? Pete was only thirty-three. How could he have had a heart attack? Was the Coast Guard still searching or were they assuming Kevin had...” I couldn't finish the thought, much less give it credibility by uttering the words. My knees gave way. “I'm coming,” I said, and let the phone fall to the floor beside me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nancy started as an actor, took a hiatus to raise three children during which time she began writing for the stage and TV. Suddenly single again, she moved on to teaching biofeedback techniques to sufferers of pain and stress, ultimately reducing her own stress by creating the “Other Deadly Things” mystery series where she could knock off bad guys in the fictional murderously wacky world of the newly divorced.

  Nancy is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime. Although her books are set in the Garden State, she now happily resides in the Golden State.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks and gratitude to my 2012 talented cover artist, Karen Adler, who has created my web page and all the eye-catching and imaginative “Other Deadly Things” eBook covers; and who patiently helps me navigate the unfamiliar waters of this strange and mysterious ePub world. Thanks also to authors John Lescroart and Elle Lothlorion for inspiring me to go this route.

  My appreciation and thanks to my agent Grace Morgan, and to the entire team at Dell, especially my estimable editor Jackie Farber, and her indefatigable assistant Lisa Lustgarten, all of whom made my first publishing experience such a positive one.

  To my friend and fellow author, David Beckman, my thanks for the use of his beautiful poem “Over,” and thanks also to the friends and professional colleagues whose input and comments were invaluable in the writing of this book: biofeedback therapist Patricia Spiech R.N., Dr. Mary Jo Sabo, Leah Gabriel, Amy Miale, Dr. Gail Haft, and all the “knights and ladies of the pen” of Ann Loring’s exceptional Friday evening “round” table.

  My gratitude always to Michael Friedman for having been there for me through hell and high water.

  And to my wonderful sons, Ken, Bob, and Doug, and to my very special friend, Jerry Adler, my love and thanks for help and advice in their particular areas of expertise, and for loving and supporting me in all of my endeavors.

  Last but definitely not least I want to thank my readers whose comments I welcome by email at nancytesler@aol.com or on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/NancyTeslerAuthor. Please visit me on my website at www.NancyTesler.com.