The Trouble with Murder

by Kathy Krevat

  “Summers?” she asked, and her eyes slid to me. She gave me the once-over. Normally, I’d just assume it was classic stage mom behavior, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with the publicity over Twila’s murder. I’d spent most of Wednesday ignoring texts and calls from anyone I knew in Sunnyside. My dad had done the same, even unplugging his home phone after the umpteenth person called to make sure he was okay under the guise of gossiping about the murder.

  I heard some murmuring behind me and looked over my shoulder. Two moms were staring straight at me.

  Luckily, Elliott seemed oblivious to the whispers.

  “We’re running ahead of schedule, and since all of you Hortons are here nice and early, we’ll send you in right away.” The registration volunteer pointed to two boys waiting by the door to one of the meeting rooms. “You should wait with the other two Hortons.” Both wore gray, and I immediately worried if Elliott should have worn elephant gray instead of his green button down shirt. Maybe dressing like the character you were trying out for worked on this director.

  Too late now. He hugged me and went over to introduce himself to the two boys. One of them said, “Cool hair, dude,” and they all began chattering away. I relaxed. In general, drama kids were incredibly friendly and accepting.

  I eyed the available folding chairs against the wall, and sat as far away from the other women as possible. Another wave of young actors came in, three of them dressed like the Cat in the Hat, and the stage moms directed their attention to them.

  A young man wearing a Sunnyside Youth Theater T-shirt came out from the meeting room. “Hortons? Time to make magic!” His enthusiasm was totally charming.

  “Hey, Larry?” the registration mom called out. “Can I talk to the director for a minute?”

  Larry raised his eyebrows, but made an elaborate bow and gestured for her to go in, and then turned to the waiting boys. “Horton One, Horton Two, and Horton Three. All accounted for. In you go.”

  Elliott turned to me and smiled. I gave him a thumbs-up and tried not to be nervous. He was very talented, but anything could happen during an audition. The registration mom came out, glanced at me, and hurried back to her post. What was that about?

  The sound of very faint singing came from the meeting room, and I wished I’d seated myself closer. Two other moms were leaning forward. Maybe we should all stick our ears to the door. With a drinking glass.

  After a few moments, the second boy sang and then the third. Then all three walked out, and I got to my feet.

  Elliott looked like he was about to cry.

  “It’s okay,” I said, and rushed him toward the front door.

  He shrugged off the hand I put on his shoulder. “It’s not okay,” he said.

  “Shh,” I said, trying to make it sound soothing rather than keeping the others from hearing him have a meltdown. “Let’s talk about it in the car.”

  He sat in the front seat and waited until I’d pulled onto Main Street to say, “I heard that mom talk to the director.”

  “The one who was handling registration?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice managing to sound nervous and resentful at the same time. “She told him that you were a suspect in a murder!”

  “What?” Anger curdled in my stomach.

  “And that maybe he should take that ‘under consideration.’” His voice rose at the end.

  It took me a minute to calm down enough to form a coherent thought. “What did he say?”

  “He thanked her and kinda pointed to the door.”

  “Good,” I said. “Maybe that was letting her know he wasn’t taking her BS.”

  “Or maybe he agreed with her!” Elliott said, his voice becoming a wail.

  “Elliott,” I said. “It’ll be okay. You had a one-third chance going in today, and you still have that.” No matter what that witch tried to do. “It must have been hard to sing after that.”

  “Nope.” He stuck his chin in the air. “I was great.”

  Pride flooded through me. “That’s my boy. You can’t let the morons get you down.”

  He looked out the window. “I don’t know. If I don’t get it, maybe it’s because of what she said.”

  I had no answer to that and stayed silent as I pulled the car onto the highway headed toward the farmers’ market. Elliott stared out the window, his shoulders slumped.

  It was time to clear my name, pretty darn quick.

  Chapter 5

  The Downtown Farmers’ Market was still bustling when Elliott and I arrived, and I slid into a parking spot of a departing customer. It was against the booth rental rules to park so close but maybe the manager wouldn’t notice. Elliott helped to unload my boxes and display items, his good humor restored by the welcoming hello and free chocolate muffin tossed to him from the Muffin Man.

  I quickly set up my backdrop, made sure my payment square was working on my phone, and stood in my lucky spot as Elliott brought a few more spare boxes of product from the car, storing them under the table.

  Gypsy Sue, of Gypsy Sue’s Love Potions & Oddities, walked across the aisle, ignoring a group of teen girls approaching her booth. “Where you been, girl?” she said. “The big bad manager was mighty pissed to have an empty booth.”

  I’d known Sue since before Elliott was born. She’d been a new volunteer in the teen mom program that had been my refuge when I’d left home. The program had given me my own apartment, a job, parenting training, and daycare. Sue had kept tabs on me over the years, and even convinced her apartment building management to hire me. She was one of my first customers, since her cat had digestive problems too. She’d talked me into selling my products at this farmers’ market, somehow getting me moved to the front of the waitlist.

  I started to explain about Elliott’s audition but she interrupted me to yell to the girls, “Put it back, Blondie, or I’ll curse your boyfriend, Jasper.”

  The blond girl wearing a neon orange miniskirt gave a mini-scream, pulled a small vial of oil out of her pocket, and hastily put it back on the shelf.

  The other girls squealed an assortment of “How did she even see you?” “You’re dating Jasper? Since when?” and an even more indignant, “You’re dating MY Jasper?”

  The whole thing was spooky even to me. Sue had been looking straight at me the whole time. “Do you have eyes on the back of your head?” I asked. “Like Mary Tyler Moore on that Dick Van Dyke show?”

  “The one where Dick was dreaming about aliens?” she asked. “Love that show.” She looked after the girls who had moved on to the next booth, remarkably unashamed of their unsuccessful shoplifting but still exclaiming over the incident. “I just know too much about human behavior.”

  One girl lingered behind, intrigued by Sue.

  Sue took pity on her. “You got ten bucks, girl?” she called out. “I’ll give you a psychic reading.”

  “Oh man,” I said, looking around. The manager hated when Sue did that. Partly because he felt that it brought down the reputation of the market, but also because her accuracy freaked him out.

  The girl came back without any hesitation, pulling a wrinkled ten dollar bill out of her pocket. The other teens didn’t even notice her departure, and she didn’t seem sorry to leave them.

  Sue tucked the money into her own pocket and grabbed the girl’s hand. “Your name starts with a ‘P.’ What is it?”

  “Penny,” she said, looking surprised.

  “You’re gonna fail your geometry test unless you study,” Sue said.

  Penny gasped and then waited for more.

  “Ditch those girls,” Sue said. “Some real trouble is heading their way.”

  Poor Penny did not like that news. “Really?”

  “Don’t need to be a psychic to know that, girl,” Sue said, dropping her hand. “You know it in your heart.”

  T
he girl looked over her shoulder at her friends. “Yeah,” she said, disappointed.

  “You have another friend, really smart, who will be way better for you,” Sue said. “Sit with her at lunch and your life will change.”

  The girl blinked and nodded.

  “That’s all I got for you today,” Sue said. “Git going.”

  The girl pulled her backpack higher up on her shoulder and then left, the opposite direction of her friends.

  “How do you do that?” I asked, even though I knew she wouldn’t give me a real answer.

  “Gypsy magic,” she said. “Yo, Elliott!”

  Elliott dropped the last box and gave her a hug. Except for my dad and me, Sue was the most constant person in his life, kind of like a fairy godmother in our times of need. He walked her back to her booth, telling her about his audition, and then took off to visit his other friends at the market.

  A group of four women came up to my booth, chuckling over the coffee mugs with a cartoon of Trouble in a chef’s hat on them. They carried mats and had the relaxed expressions of a recently completed yoga class.

  One of them bought a ton of my Fish Romance food, fawning over the kissing cartoon fish on the label, while the other non-cat owners bought enough mugs that I could almost pay the market fee for that day.

  Sue waited for them to leave before calling across from her booth, “I see you got your own trouble brewing.”

  I jolted in surprise. “Now that’s just creepy.”

  She walked a few steps toward me and turned her phone around to show an article with a photo of the police at the activity center and the headline screaming, “Police Question Person of Interest in Local Murder.”

  * * * *

  I could tell that Elliott was still worrying about the nasty volunteer mom at the audition when we packed up and left the market. I debated telling him about the article and wimped out, saying, “Whatever happens or whatever anyone says, you know that I didn’t hurt Twila. We’ve been through some tough times and we always made it, right? This is just another tough time.”

  He straightened in his seat and nodded. “It’s just a summer camp,” he said. “It’ll be fun even if I’m in the ensemble.” He escaped to his room as soon as we got home.

  Trouble meowed but waited for me by the living room doorway, as if wanting me to come over. For a second, I worried that she’d brought me a present—the kind that only cats would think of. But she wasn’t standing over any dead rodents, so I picked her up as I walked by.

  My dad was asleep in his chair, the TV blaring a commercial for some drug in spite of its many and varied side effects. A half-eaten bowl of soup sat on the side table. His breathing seemed more labored.

  “Dad?” I asked.

  He jolted awake and stared at me for a moment.

  “You okay?”

  He cleared his throat and started coughing, automatically reaching for his glass of whiskey on the side table.

  “Maybe we should get you back to the doctor,” I said.

  He shook his head and croaked out, “I just need to rest.”

  I bit my lip, wondering how much to push it. He’d always been stubborn—not just about his health—and part of me thought he’d live forever. He was only sixty-two, but this pneumonia had taken a toll on him and he seemed ten years older. I wanted my healthy dad back. “I have time tomorrow if you want to get another x-ray,” I tried.

  He scowled. “Sometimes it just takes a while for the antibiotics to kick in.” He turned the TV volume up.

  Then I noticed the guitar leaning against the wall. He’d taken it out of the case. “Cool! Did you get a chance to play the guitar? How does she sound?”

  “Good,” he said, leaning back into the seat. “Just had to tune her up and she was fine.” He stretched out his hand. “Fingers don’t move as fast as they used to.”

  “I remember you used to play ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ for me when I couldn’t sleep,” I said, a warm emotion tightening my throat. “I always sang that to Elliott when he had trouble sleeping.”

  He stared at me, surprised.

  Then I had an idea. “Maybe you could teach Elliott a little guitar.” My dad had tried to teach me when I was a kid, but I’d been hopeless.

  He nodded. “I could do that.”

  “Want me to ask him?”

  He paused, taking some kind of internal inventory. “How about tomorrow? I usually feel better earlier in the day.”

  “Makes sense.” I took Trouble upstairs and dropped her in Elliott’s room.

  He was stretched out on his bed, holding a book that had a bloody eyeball on the cover.

  “Thanks for your help at the market,” I said.

  He murmured, “No prob,” absorbed in his book.

  “Hey, you know how you always wanted to learn an instrument?” I asked him. “Maybe you should ask Grandpa to teach you how to play guitar. He’s really good.”

  That got his attention. “Really?” he asked. “Do you think he’d want to?”

  “I think he’d like it,” I said.

  “Now?”

  He looked so excited that I felt bad disappointing him. “Grandpa’s pretty tired. How about tomorrow?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  I dialed Lani and she answered on the first ring. “Did you figure out whodunit?” she asked, totally not kidding.

  “No.” I closed the door and plopped down on my bed. “But I’m going to.”

  She squealed, right in my ear. “What changed your mind?”

  I told her about the stage mom at the callbacks.

  She was suitably appalled. “That’s nasty. I bet her son was one of the other Hortons.”

  Whoa. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Then I told her about the article.

  “What?” She sounded horrified. “Hold on.”

  I heard her clicking away on her computer and closed my eyes to wait while she read it.

  “Okay,” she said. “This clinches it. You have to take control of the situation. You have the contacts. And you’ll feel better than waiting around for the police to figure out who killed your friend. Let’s make a list of possible suspects right now.”

  The bed began to feel far too comfy, as the stress of the long day caught up to me. I switched to speaker and put the phone on my stomach. “I don’t think I have actual suspects yet.”

  She ignored me and typed away on her computer. “Everyone in your crazy mom club had the means—your knife—and the opportunity. Let’s figure out who had a motive. What are all their names?”

  I sighed, knowing she’d bulldoze right over me.

  “Who’s the slutty one?” she asked.

  That woke me up. “What?”

  “That mom who runs those adult parties,” she said.

  “Mona,” I said, regretting everything I’d told Lani about the SPM members. “She’s not slutty just because she sells lingerie.”

  “And sex toys. But you’re right,” she said. “I shouldn’t judge. It’s one of my worst traits.” She typed. “Any motive?”

  I sat up, trying to gather my thoughts. “Not anything having to do with Twila. But I’ve heard rumors that Mona…”

  “Sleeps with married men,” Lani finished for me.

  “Do I tell you everything?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re BFFs.”

  “And you’re twelve years old,” I said.

  She ignored the pretend insult. “Maybe someone confused Twila for Mona.”

  I laughed. “They couldn’t look more different from each other. Twila is, was, cute with red curly hair. Mona is tall and sexy with dark hair to her waist.”

  “Tell me about the rest of them,” she said.

  I tried to dredge up the little I knew about each one. “Gina is the one who runs those Mommy and
Me classes. She’s certainly strong enough to…”

  “Knife someone through the chest?” Lani asked matter-of-factly. “Suspect Number One.”

  “I can’t imagine any motive she’d have,” I said.

  “That’s what you need to find out.” She went on. “Who are the others?”

  Trouble meowed at the door. I groaned as I got out of bed and opened the door for her. She came into the room and jumped on the bed, beating me back to my spot. I pushed her aside, and she settled for cuddling up beside me. “Sharon is the one who organizes closets,” I said. “The closets in her brochures are so neat, they’re like works of art.”

  “Anyone who is that organized has to have deep psychological issues,” Lani said, only partly joking. “She’s on the list.”

  I laughed. “Daria sells those BeesWax candles.”

  “Her prices are criminal,” she said. “You have to find out what else she could be up to.”

  “Lani,” I said, trying to calm her down.

  “What about the closet woman’s husband?” Lani said. “Didn’t you think he was there?”

  “I told the police that,” I said. “But my dad talked to him and he was with his partner that night.”

  “I’m adding him too,” she said. “Who else was at your little trade show?”

  “You know Fawn,” I said. “She was marketing her life coach business and raising money for her nonprofit.”

  “I can’t imagine Fawn murdering anyone,” she said. “But I know we have to keep her on the list.”

  “Bronx Innis,” I said. “She runs that mobile dog grooming business.”

  “The redneck?” Lani asked.

  “She’s not a redneck!” I said. “She just has a southern accent.”

  “A southerner named Bronx,” she said in a shake-your-head tone. “She’s probably the only one, ever.”

  “Well, she likes to tell people her mom got drunk one night while visiting New York, and the Bronx is where she was conceived.”