The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “There’s more to do.”

  “What more? Serena’s dead. She was at the heart of it. Don’t you understand that it’s over now?”

  “Yeah, right. Did you see a body?”

  “I saw the police pull her vehicle from the water. I saw the divers.”

  “Big deal. You know the Woodbridge Police. Do you think they couldn’t be fooled by a manipulator of Serena’s caliber?”

  Of course, I knew very well that the Woodbridge Police could be remarkably thickheaded. “Are you suggesting that Serena isn’t dead?”

  Jack’s head jerked. “Not dead? How?”

  Mona raised her voice. “I’m not suggesting anything. I am telling you that woman isn’t dead. She’s far too smart and sneaky to get killed that way.”

  I would have completely dismissed that as more Mona nuttiness, except for the fact that prior to this week, Mona had always been a decent citizen while Serena had been a devious and sadistic witch. But still, it was off the wall.

  I interjected, “What way was that, Mona?”

  “By having her vehicle run off the road and into the river. Didn’t you see the footage?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But what?”

  “How could she escape? The river is freezing. If she didn’t drown, she would have succumbed to hypothermia in minutes.”

  “I repeat: Did you see a body?”

  I said, “They haven’t found it yet. But the divers are searching.”

  “Plenty of current at that point of the Hudson. She’ll be counting on that.”

  “But why would Serena stage her death, if that’s what you are suggesting?”

  “So she’ll be free to go about her evil business. Why else? If she’s dead, no one will be watching her, will they?”

  “What evil business, Mona?”

  “To get rid of everyone who is still around and connected with her rampage back at St. Jude’s.”

  I was worried that my head would explode at this point. “I thought one of your alters was behind the rampage.”

  “So what? I still don’t trust Serena. Even if it was one of my alters, she’s still the one who got that whole alters business going. All that trauma messed up my head. She’ll want to finish me off now.”

  Mona needed a lot more help than I could give her. “Mona. Whether it was one of your alters or Serena, it’s over. They’re all dead.”

  “Haley isn’t. You’re not. I’m not. Kristee’s not. Think about it. Lots of scope left.”

  My heart was beating fast. This was crazy, but was it also true?

  “Here,” I said. “Explain your theory to Jack.”

  Mona was squawking that it wasn’t a theory when I handed over the phone. I sat there trying to analyze everything she’d said. Could Serena have staged her own death? I didn’t know and would have to talk to the cops to get details about the so-called accident. If it was true, would her death give Serena free reign to continue to wipe out people who had the potential to reveal the truth about her? Logically, yes, but there were big holes in the idea.

  I took the phone back from Jack. He had a totally stunned expression on his face. It was sort of cute in a defeated philosopher way.

  “Mona. If Serena appears to be dead, what difference will it make to her if people damage her reputation? She’s ‘dead.’”

  “So far. I haven’t got all the details worked out yet.”

  Conversations with Mona were challenging at the best of times, which this definitely wasn’t. I rubbed my temples. The dogs were back to snuggling with Jack. Jack continued to look puzzled, confused, and, yes, defeated.

  “So far? Oh. You think she’ll surface later?”

  “Sure she will. She could claim to have been kidnapped by me. Or perhaps she’ll be found wandering, suffering from amnesia, poor pretty thing. That will be because of something that I’ve done. You watch.”

  Was this any more bizarre than the things that actually had happened? One thing I knew, we couldn’t leave Mona on the loose.

  “You have to give yourself up, Mona. It can all get sorted out afterward. Call Pepper. Or let us meet you before—”

  “I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid,” she yelled before she hung up.

  Our game plan included “stay alive” ourselves. First I needed to check with a member of the police force to see if there was any way that Serena could have survived in that Hummer. On WINY we’d heard about witnesses who had seen her zoom by. Wouldn’t someone have seen a woman walking away from something like that? Of course, it had been in the night. Even so, I told myself that Serena had to be dead and Mona had to be paranoid and dangerous. That was the only thing that made sense. I had been deluding myself that I could help Mona.

  Pepper wasn’t going to cooperate, but I knew two who might. Make that three. I called Margaret and asked her to sound out her husband, Frank, on Serena’s tragic end. “Sure,” she said. “And I’ll even attempt to sound broken up about it. By the way, anything new on my ‘client’?”

  “I still don’t know where Mona is and if I find out, I’ll get you on the line right away. Thanks for digging around about the witnesses. Let me know. You’re a bud. I’ll call you later.”

  Next I contacted Dean Oliver at home. Before I could ask him anything, he said, “Listen, I can’t help you out with Mona anymore. I have explicit orders from Sergeant Monahan not to encourage you.”

  Take fifteen minutes a day to chip away at a large or overwhelming project that you’ve been neglecting. In a few weeks, you’ll be amazed at the results.

  17

  Jack insisted on following me to the scene of Serena’s so-called fatal accident. Neither one of us was staying on top of work this particular week. Jack slipped a winter jacket over his parrot-festooned shirt and I managed to bite back any comments about his baggy, all-season shorts. I was glad to have him with me. I didn’t want to find myself in the river like Serena. It hadn’t been long since someone had tried to kill me. I noticed the police seemed to have forgotten about that.

  The police were gone, although yellow police tape still fluttered in the wintry wind. The brush along the side of the river was seriously flattened out where Serena’s vehicle entered the water. Even if we hadn’t seen the distinctive clump of broken branches on the WINY broadcast, we would have known that this was the spot. She must have been struck, and spun partway around before she headed straight into the water at high speed.

  Jack and I stood there on the frigid snow-covered roadside, stamping our feet. The Hudson is deep and dangerous at this point. Puffs of our frozen breath decorated the air in front of us. I said, “How long do you think it took for her to land in the water?”

  “Seconds. Not enough time to get out if she was buckled in, but an eternity once she realized what was going to happen to her.”

  I shivered and not just because of the Siberian landscape that had taken over poor old Woodbridge.

  Jack said, “I guess I do feel sorry for her. That was an awful way to die. I think it would take minutes under water. It would seem like forever.”

  “What about Mona’s theory that she’s not dead?”

  Jack shook his adorably spiky head. Sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s a philosopher of sorts. “There would have been footprints or marks from the impact of her body if she’d flung herself out and let the Hummer go in without her.”

  I said, “If that happened right there in the middle of the road where the car headed straight into the water, any signs would have been quickly eliminated by cops and the elusive witnesses, even though there’s not much traffic around here. It’s so farfetched. How would she get away? It’s miles from anywhere. Can you imagine Serena Redding walking back to town? Oh wait, what if she had an accomplice?”

  Jack thought for a second. “To do what exactly? Oh, you mean pick her up once she got out of the car, and then ram the car into the river and make it seem as if someone had killed her?”

  “Exactly.”

 
“But what good will it do for her to appear to be dead?”

  “Mona believes that it’s intended to target her. She’s convinced that Serena will reappear miraculously and then claim that Mona tried to kill her.”

  “We both know that Mona’s behavior is bizarre.”

  “No arguments on that, Jack. But didn’t you tell me to open my mind for the truth?”

  “I did, but—”

  “Then let’s not close our minds before it’s too late.”

  “Fine. So to sum up what happened: Either Serena’s dead and her body has yet to surface, or she’s alive and hiding out for some purpose, which might be to incriminate Mona. Or she’s alive and hiding out because she’s afraid of whomever tried to kill her. Might be Mona; might be someone else.”

  I exhaled. “Way too many choices. And we still don’t know whether Serena had changed her ways.”

  Jack shivered in the wind. “That complicates it, but even so, I can’t think of any other alternatives. That’s a good thing, because it’s hard to know what to do with what we have.”

  I gazed out over the cold and deadly river. Was Serena down there? I leaned into Jack as we turned and trudged back to the SUV. I was glad of his friendly arm around me. That felt good. But it didn’t change the fact that we were just good friends. Or that I would soon be moving.

  “If Serena hadn’t changed her ways, and I don’t believe for one minute that she had, then considering that might help us figure out what is going on.”

  “Accept it, Charlotte.”

  “But how do we even know it was her driving? Maybe she wasn’t anywhere near that river. Maybe she had an accomplice. Maybe—”

  “Let it go.”

  Jack and I took some time to pick out a replacement cell phone for me after that. It had lots of nice features and a touch screen, plus I was able to keep my old number. It was an easy and pleasant task compared to everything we’d been grappling with that week. After that we headed for the Woodbridge Police Station and sat lurking in the Mini, waiting for Dean Oliver when he pulled into the police department parking lot to begin his shift. I used the time to enter all my contact numbers into the new phone. Jack spotted Dean arriving. “Here he is.”

  I hopped out and scampered across the lot.

  “So,” Dean said as I tapped on his window. “What is it now? I’m not supposed to talk to you. Remember?”

  “This is something completely different. Just a quick word about Serena Redding. I was wondering if there’s any way she could be alive.”

  “What?” That took him by surprise.

  “Seriously. Do they have a body?”

  He shook his head. “They don’t have to find your body to know that you’re dead if you shoot into the Hudson in winter conditions. Give me a break. There’s no way she survived.”

  “Makes sense.” I nodded. “I suppose that witnesses confirm that she went in?”

  He frowned. Didn’t care for the direction this chat was going in. “There were no witnesses to the accident, but she didn’t survive. Trust me.”

  “I saw the Hummer being pulled out. She wasn’t in it.”

  He shook his head sadly. “They think she was able to open the door and get out, but when you’re under water you can lose all sense of direction. It’s deep in that section of river and it would have been dark. Hypothermia would set in very fast, maybe a minute. No one saw her.”

  “How do you know it was Serena driving that vehicle? Maybe it was some unlucky joyrider who stole it and—”

  Dean stared at me like I’d sprouted horns or something. “She was seen. Okay? Enough of this.”

  “But you said there weren’t any witnesses.”

  “They came along minutes afterward. But they saw her before. There was a young couple whose GPS had misdirected them. The county changed the names of some back roads a bit back and the online maps haven’t caught up yet. They were parked about a mile away, trying to get back to VanKleek Road. They’d been all over the place, just missing it. So they were checking their print map and one of the locals stopped to give them directions. They all saw Serena drive by.”

  “How did they know it was Serena?”

  He sighed. Deeply. “They saw a woman of her description drive by, not going too fast.”

  “They described her to you?”

  “That’s right and they were able to identify her from the photograph that her husband provided.”

  “I don’t know if I would notice that much detail if a person in a monster car like that sailed by me. And it was late, wasn’t it?”

  Dean rubbed his upper lip. Finally, he said, “The two couples were out on the road talking and she practically ran them over. They had to jump out of the way.”

  Ha. That was the Serena I knew, not Mrs. Goody Two-Shoes. “That sounds like her.”

  “Whatever. All four of them saw this battered red compact car zoom down, right after the Hummer. It almost killed them.”

  I realized that I was being scattered with all this murder and mayhem. My normal routines were disrupted, my thinking was chaotic, and there was no way to simply relax and enjoy a Saturday afternoon. I said as much to Jack.

  “And other people are even worse off than I am. I have to keep that in mind.”

  He glanced at me warily.

  “So I think we should check on Haley again. She’s the one who is in danger.” I tried calling her using my new cell, but no one answered.

  “She’ll be at home, resting,” Jack said. “No one is likely to attack her there. The weapons of choice seems to be vehicles.”

  “True. But don’t forget Dr. Partridge.”

  Jack sighed. “Let me guess where we’re going. Although she probably needs to be left alone.”

  “Just a quick visit to be sure. But first Kristee’s Kandees for something to take with us. I lost some excellent fudge when the Miata went over the escarpment.”

  Aside from being gleeful over Serena’s apparent death, Kristee had no news or information. I got out of the shop as fast as I could. Jack had stayed in the car.

  As we drove into Haley’s driveway, we saw Brie sitting alone on the front steps. She jumped to her feet and stomped up the stairs to the house. She turned to glower at us and headed into the house, slamming the door so hard that it rattled.

  “Haley won’t sleep through that,” I said.

  Haley was awake and her bruises were starting to bloom. She now had two black eyes from the impact of the crash.

  I didn’t waste time. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”

  “I’m not alone. Brie is with me.”

  “You both need protection.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. I’m going to put this house on the market and go stay with relatives as soon as I can. I have cousins in Pennsylvania.”

  From upstairs, Brie shouted, “Well, I’m not coming with you.” A door slammed again.

  A flash of pain crossed Haley’s battered face. “She’s so angry. I can’t say I blame her.”

  “Why don’t we find you both someplace to stay that’s not quite so isolated? Can you even get out of here in an emergency?”

  “I have an old beater that Randy kept for errands. It’s ancient, but it runs. And my cousin and her husband are on their way from Pennsylvania to help me. They’ll be here later tonight. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, but you still have to be careful. Promise me that you’ll call me if anything odd happens at all. No matter how small. And dial 911 too. You are the last one of your group alive, Haley.”

  She nodded and stared at me out of swollen eyes. “Believe me, I am aware of that. But I must have left my phone book in the van with . . . You know what? Maybe I don’t deserve to be alive.”

  Jack said, “Your daughter needs you, even if she doesn’t realize it just now. You have to stay safe for her. Take my number too.” He scrawled both numbers on a scrap of paper.

  As tears welled up in Haley’s eyes, she reached over and gave me a powerful hug. Jack
got one too.

  I felt depressed and hopeless as we drove off into the misty darkness. It wasn’t until we were halfway back to town that I remembered the black-and-white fudge. I was truly not myself lately.

  We picked up Chinese on the way, walked the dogs, and watched the news. WINY had nothing useful to offer. I don’t even remember what the food tasted like. Somewhere during the weather—light snow, big surprise—my restless nights caught up with me and I fell asleep on the sofa with the dogs. I dreamed of endless ringing. Finally I swam back to consciousness and sat up with a jerk. I was alone with the dogs. The home phone was ringing.

  “Jack?”

  Silence.

  I stumbled to the phone, but missed the call. The message light was flashing. I could hear my new cell phone ringing by now. I raced to my handbag, but missed that call too. On the handbag was a scrawled message from Jack.

  Had to check the shop. Attempted break-in. Back soon.

  That must have been him on the phone. I was so groggy I could hardly remember my name. I headed for the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face to wake myself up.

  I sat on the sofa again, scratched the dogs’ ears, and played my messages.

  Not Jack at all.

  First Ramona. “Sorry, Charlotte; with all the fuss over the burst water pipe, I forgot to tell you that I found a bit of info about your fourteen-year-old hit-and-run. The police wanted to talk to a blond woman who’d been seen in the neighborhood that night. My money says you can chalk another one up to Serena.”

  Serena was conveniently dead, of course, or at least missing. But would anyone have noticed mousy little Mona hanging around that wintry night so long ago?

  Speak of the devil. The next message was from Mona. Her voice was hoarse and rasping, showing the stress she was under. “Charlotte? It’s Mona Pringle. I can’t wait anymore. I think the police will be closing in. There’s no point in letting Haley be the only one who gets away with it. They’ll get me for the others, so why should she be the only one to live? Poor Randy wouldn’t have died if it wasn’t for her. I have a weapon. It will be easier to get it right with a gun than with a vehicle. Thank you for trying, but there’s no hope for me.”