Murder at the Book Group

by Maggie King

  “I would imagine so—but don’t quote me. Between you and me Evan was the one in love with her. She could take him or leave him.” And she had opted for leaving. Janet’s assessment was consistent with Georgia’s.

  The three of us were among the few remaining from the earlier crowd. Vince waved and said he’d see us at the lunch. As we started walking toward the parking lot, Janet stopped. “Now, I’m wondering about something—something that struck me as being kind of funny when I heard about it.”

  “What’s that, Janet?”

  “Well, it’s this . . . I hadn’t seen much of Evan since he moved out. But last weekend he was over, doing yard work. He said Carlene was out of town for the weekend, at a spa with her friend. When I heard about the suicide, I thought it very odd that Carlene would go to a spa and then come home and commit suicide.” Janet looked from me to Lucy, and asked, “What do you think?”

  “We think it’s odd too,” I said. Lucy nodded in agreement.

  “Another thing that’s odd . . . Carlene told me she was going to Costa Rica with a friend. Frankly, it sounded like hell to me. Not Costa Rica, just travel. I hate to travel. Anywhere. I’m a widow, you know.” How would I know that? And how was it relevant? I guessed it was a speech affectation. Now Janet said with a nervous laugh, “But my point is, why plan a trip like that if you have suicide in mind?”

  Why indeed?

  Lucy asked, “When did Carlene get back from the spa?”

  “Sometime on Monday. Or maybe Sunday night.” That left Evan at the house, with Carlene away. Hmm. Lots of opportunity to plant cyanide. But wasn’t poison a woman’s crime? Sexist thought, but better than thoughts of Evan as wife killer. If he did it, it meant someone from the book group didn’t do Carlene in after all and we were off the hook. That was the positive view. But it also meant that I had a killer ex-husband and at one time came close, at least in my fantasies, to having a killer present husband. No, I didn’t like what I was thinking. Not at all.

  But like it or not, I was stuck with the thought.

  CHAPTER 13

  AT THE CLUBHOUSE LUCY and I surveyed the buffet table laden with deviled eggs, lunch meats, tomatoes, breads, salads, fruits, and that staple of southern buffets, ham biscuits. Stephie and Ted greeted us with hugs. Between them, they wore enough metal piercings to bring airport security to its knees for days. I hoped I’d never have to travel on the same flight with them.

  “It’s awesome that so many people came out for Aunt Carlene.” Tears smudged Stephie’s abundant eye makeup. Of course, that could have been the way she wore it anyway. “Do you know my uncle Kenny?”

  The tall man with the mega hair whom I’d noticed at the church planted a kiss on Stephie’s cheek. “Ken Berenger, Kat’s brother,” he said. He shook hands with Lucy and me in turn. He took a long pull from his beer bottle. “Try the ham biscuits,” he invited.

  “Yes,” Ted agreed. “They’re awesome.” Awesome was the word of the day. Lucy and I filled plates with a little of this, a little of that. Several bowls contained what I imagined were pasta salad, potato salad, and the like—the thick layers of mayonnaise made it hard to tell. We eschewed them along with the ham biscuits.

  As the room filled up, the low ceiling of the room trapped sound, creating an unbearable din. Shades of the seventies, I thought as I took in the shag carpeting, orange Formica counters, and harvest gold appliances in the kitchen. The furniture was upholstered in that plaid, nubby fabric that no cat in the world could resist scratching.

  I spotted Evan standing under another seventies icon, a faux-Tiffany swag lamp. Warren Oglesby, our long-ago best man and Evan’s port in the storm following his separation from Carlene, had his arm around Evan’s shoulder while another man of Evan’s age—and mine—stood with his hands in his pockets. I recognized him as Arnie Jeffers, an usher from our wedding.

  Evan and I embraced in a tentative manner, like we were breakable. I felt a twinge or two of guilt for even thinking he would kill his wife. But I had little time to indulge in guilt—or college war stories, for that matter—and so, after a few minutes I excused myself and carried on in my self-appointed investigator role. I came upon Vince and a sandy-haired man with raffish good looks who turned out to be Detective Mick Jairdullo, Kat’s inside information source. After making introductions, Vince again admired my ensemble but said I should have kept my hat on. I rejoined that the hat made eating difficult, if not impossible. Mick and I cast appreciative eyes on each other’s outfits. An elderly relative channeled an outdated expression to me: “He cuts a fine figure . . .” Which Mick did in an impeccably tailored and likely Italian black suit, shoes shined to within an inch of their lives.

  Aside from commenting, verbally and nonverbally, on my attire, the two were in cop mode, their attention on the crowd and not on me. Perhaps Vince gave my reservations about Carlene taking her own life more credence than he let on and had everyone under scrutiny. And likely Kat had won Mick over to her side with her own doubts about suicide. Of course, their law enforcement careers had instilled observation habits. At any rate, I wasn’t about to get in their way and would seek more forthcoming conversation elsewhere.

  Before I did so, I scanned the room. “Linda and company don’t seem to be here.”

  Vince offered a simple no. Mick nodded, seemingly up to speed on the Linda aspect.

  That was that. Time to move on. I circulated around the room, asking people if they had noticed Linda and the sunglassed men. No one had. Not surprising, as the trio had arrived late, sat in the back of the church, and cut out early, escaping the attention of the present gathering. It occurred to me that the man in the car could be in the room, but Helen’s vague description of someone with longish dark hair applied to several men. Allowing for recent haircuts added to the difficulty in spotting the elusive figure.

  Kat and Janet were deep into what looked like a heartfelt and tearful discussion. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Kat. I felt bad interrupting them, but I made it short. When I told her about Linda being at the service and then slipping through my fingers, Kat exclaimed, “Dang! So close. We just have to find that woman.”

  Annabel looked less than happy to see me. No doubt she regretted being so indiscreet two evenings before. Unless her scowl was directed at the two middle-aged and hungry-looking women who stood nearby, chatting up her son. Annabel denied seeing Linda with more vehemence than necessary. I looked askance as she walked away.

  Kat grabbed her stepbrother by the hand and introduced him to Janet. Hal had a feral look, with his full dark beard and mustache and collar-length dark hair. Feral and gorgeous, an intoxicating combination. So what if he looked like a bum, I thought, taking in the jacket with the too-short sleeves, pants with the too-short legs and too-big waist, and scuffed loafers. I guessed that he’d put together an outfit preowned by a short, fat man during a thrift store run. He and Kat left Janet and weaved through the crowd toward the back of the room.

  I found Art balancing a plateful of ham biscuits and took the empty seat next to him on the sofa. I was hoping to eat the food I’d been toting about uneaten for the past fifteen minutes. Art added his “no” to the tally of those who’d seen Linda. I launched into my debunking-the-suicide routine. “Art, you know I found that note and all . . . but I still have trouble with this whole suicide thing. Especially the way she did it.” I added a shudder for effect. “Too creepy.”

  Art gave me a quizzical look. “People commit suicide all the time.”

  “No, Art, they don’t do it all the time. At least not in my world. And it definitely doesn’t seem like something Carlene would do.”

  Art bit into a ham biscuit. “I couldn’t say, Hazel, I barely knew her. I mean, we were acquainted for a while, but as to what made her tick, I haven’t a clue.”

  I finished my turkey sandwich and put my plate down on an end table. Art took a large bite of his biscuit and chewed thoroughly before asking, “So, if not suicide, then what . . .” He lowered his v
oice. “Murder?”

  Thank you, Art, I said silently as he provided the opening I needed to discuss murder as an option. “Well, yeah, but”—I cringed for show—“I was thinking more along the lines of an accident.”

  Art raised his eyebrows and regarded me with amusement. “Accident?”

  “Probably not an accident. I’m just considering the full range of possibilities.”

  “So, if we’re talking murder . . . who’s your candidate of choice?”

  I laughed. “Goodness, I couldn’t hazard a guess. I like to think we’re all fine people . . .” I trailed off when I saw Art staring at me with his dark, penetrating eyes. I felt spooked. Maybe these suicide vs. murder debates weren’t such a good idea. After all, one of us wasn’t so fine, and that one could be Art. But I couldn’t resist asking, “And yours?”

  Art guffawed and parroted my earlier remark disqualifying the book group members. “Like you, Hazel, I think we’re all fine people.”

  I sighed. “It’s all just speculation anyway. And, like I said before, there was that note. So, like it or not, we may have to accept the fact of suicide.” I did my best to sound airy and nonchalant. I shot a look at Art to gauge my success. He gave me that same unnerving look as before. What was up with that look?

  He asked, “Was the note handwritten?”

  “It was.”

  “Maybe the killer composed it.”

  “Assuming there was a killer.” I felt like we were going around in circles.

  “No one really knew Carlene, so how can we know if she committed suicide or not? God knows Mom tried to get to know her, but couldn’t get anywhere. They fought a lot.”

  “Fought? About what?”

  “The website.” With a lofty tone he added, “Artistic differences.”

  “Artistic differences?”

  “Mom wanted to be more creative. I mean, she is an artist.” I recalled Helen’s vivid paintings covering the walls of her apartment. “But Carlene wanted a simple design. Of course, Carlene won, but they had a lot of set-tos about it. Mom grumbled that Carlene just didn’t want to spend the money on a knockout design.”

  Would Helen murder a client over artistic differences? How would she get her hands on cyanide? Was she so hell-bent on producing a stellar site that having to settle for a ho-hum one sent her over the edge? Speaking of going over the edge, was I? The thought of Helen killing was preposterous. She was so pro-life—it just didn’t compute. But what did I know about Helen beyond her stand on social issues? What did I know about Art?

  Seeing that lack of knowledge as an opportunity to steer the conversation away from murder, I asked Art about his background. He described an array of jobs that ran the gamut from convenience store clerk to telemarketer. After a bout of unemployment, he got his current job selling electronics at Walmart.

  “Have you always lived in Richmond?”

  “No, in Rochester.”

  “Rochester, New York?”

  When Art nodded, I said, “I wonder why I didn’t know that. Because Evan and I went to school there and lived there when we were married.”

  Art shrugged. “I guess by the time Mom and I met you we’d been here for a while. Rochester wasn’t uppermost in our minds.”

  “What did your mom do in Rochester?”

  “She was a stay-at-home mom until I went to school. Then she had lots of jobs: art teacher, rug sales, insurance sales, magician’s assistant, secretary, clown, you name it.”

  I almost laughed out loud. I had only been listening to Art with half my attention, distracted by a man with a shock of white hair talking to Helen and Annabel. I didn’t think he’d been at the church but I had seen him before, maybe at the signing. But I did catch the clown bit and tried, and failed, to conjure up an image of refined Helen as clown. Going for a change of subject, I asked Art, “How did you come to be here in Virginia?”

  “Mom was a fan of Jerry Falwell.”

  I imagined that Helen would be drawn to the controversial religious conservative. Jerry Falwell had built a virtual empire, including a mega church, university, and political organization, in Lynchburg, Virginia. Puzzled, I asked, “Then why Richmond? Falwell’s in Lynchburg, over a hundred miles away.”

  Art shrugged his bony shoulders. “It’s closer than Rochester.”

  “Yes, well . . .” I didn’t pursue that illogical logic. “Do you share your mother’s religious convictions?”

  “Hell, no.” So Art wasn’t a true mama’s boy, at least not in all areas. I caught another one of those disconcerting looks. But now I thought I knew what it meant. He wanted me to say something, ask something, do something. Since I hadn’t a clue as to what the something could be, I turned the conversation to romance, or the possibility of romance. “Is your mother seeing anyone?”

  Art’s “Oh crap, it’s the complaining dominatrix” followed by “Hi, guys” put that conversational gambit on hold. The “guys” were Phyllis Ross and Janice Singleton from the fiction group. Phyllis was wearing a flowing black dress that appeared to be scarves connected together—whether knotted, pinned, or stitched, I couldn’t tell. I remembered her as the group’s chief complainer and the reason that Lucy and I had developed “scheduling conflicts” as our excuse for leaving the group. It was easy to peg Phyllis the “complaining dominatrix.” Janice favored close-cropped hair and earrings long enough to give her a good smack if she turned her head too quickly.

  The two women complimented me on my outfit and, remembering Lucy and me from before our defection, suggested that we return to the group. I offered a vague “maybe we will,” but they had moved on to discussing the group’s next book with Art. In no time, Phyllis was grumbling about having to read A Farewell to Arms. “Never could stomach Hemingway.” I remembered Helen telling me that Art had picked that book. Taking this as my cue to leave, I smiled at the three of them and got up from the sofa.

  After disposing of my plate and utensils, I scanned the room, looking for more prospects for my Linda search. But Kat, with Lucy in tow, put the hunt on hold when she rushed up and said, “Lots to tell. Let’s go to the garden,” and hustled me out a back door.

  The garden was a weed-choked affair surrounding a nonfunctioning fountain and boasting one weather-beaten bench. In deference to my screaming feet I perched on the edge of the bench, taking care to avoid the bird droppings. Kat and Lucy opted to stand.

  Kat’s reddened and smudged eyes revealed recent tears. The day being warm, she removed her shawl and draped it over the fountain. A belt covered in fake leopard circled the waist of her black sheath dress. “I was just out here with Hal. We had a good cry.”

  Kat stopped and took a deep breath. “Well, like I told one of you, can’t remember who, Georgia said that Hal and Carlene lived together for a while in L.A. I never knew that. So I asked him if he remembered any names of her friends from out there. After all, they probably don’t know what happened and I offered to get in touch with them. But he said he never met any friends.”

  Catching a breath, Kat went on. “He said it was difficult living with her and that now he wishes he’d been more patient. He didn’t care for her lifestyle. He started getting cold feet about saying negative stuff, but I could tell he needed to unload, so I just waited.”

  I felt the warmth of the day seeping through my black ensemble. But the only clothing I wore under my jacket was a bra. Granted, it was a knockout bra and I’d feel no embarrassment if I had an accident that landed me in the hospital. But present circumstances and propriety dictated that I sweat it out.

  “He said Carlene was engaged to one guy and seeing another one, that one married. And suddenly the engagement was off and she wouldn’t talk about it. Or anything else for that matter. But after an incident with the married guy’s wife, Carlene ended that sordid affair.

  Lucy asked, “What was the incident with the married guy’s wife?”

  “She came by one night looking for her husband, demanding to see Carlene. To protect Carlene, Ha
l said she didn’t live there, but the woman said then why was her name on the mailbox? He finally convinced her that no one except for him was in the apartment. So she sat by the pool and smoked. After a couple of hours, he heard commotion and screaming. Lots of cursing, ‘stay away from my husband,’ stuff like that. Hal went outside, but not soon enough. Carlene wound up in the pool.”

  Lucy and I looked alarmed at this revelation, no doubt both of us thinking of the death-by-drowning comment Lelia Taylor had overheard someone fitting Linda’s description make at the Creatures ’n Crooks signing. Did the comment relate to this long-ago pool incident? It would be too coincidental if it didn’t. “Did the woman throw her in the pool?”

  Kat said, “I asked that very question. He said he wasn’t sure that she threw her. It could have been an accident. It all happened so fast.”

  At least Carlene’s reticence didn’t run in her family. I asked, “What did this woman look like?”

  “Skinny with dark hair.” Kat heaved a sigh. “You know men with their descriptions. And it was a long time ago.”

  Skinny with dark hair—not a current description of Linda. But take away the highlights and a few pounds and Linda could well be a skinny, dark-haired woman.

  Lucy, apparently deciding that her own feet needed a rest, carefully lowered herself to the other end of the bench. “It sure ties in with the drowning remark Lelia Taylor overheard at the Creatures ’n Crooks signing, wouldn’t you say?”

  Glumly, we nodded. Kat said, “When Hal wondered why I had so many questions and what any of this long-ago stuff had to do with what’s going on now, I gave him a rundown on Linda, including the death-by-drowning comment.

  “Apparently Carlene was pretty shaken by the whole pool thing. Scared. And a few days later she got something in the mail that upset her.”

  Lucy asked, “What was it?”

  “He didn’t know. She wouldn’t say.” After a pause, Kat continued, “He said she was planning on moving to Wyoming with him, then decided she’d just move to another part of L.A. where this guy and his deranged wife couldn’t find her. Hal felt skeptical about that, and didn’t like the idea of leaving her there, but she was adamant and he was losing patience with her. So he helped her move and then left for Wyoming.”