Class Reunions Can Be Murder -- Every Wife Has A Story; A Carol and Jim Andrews Baby Boomer Mystery

by Susan Santangelo

  Rats.

  There’s a line in one of my all-time favorite movies, Casablanca, where bar owner Humphrey Bogart says about his lost love, Ingrid Bergman, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

  That pretty much sums up how I felt when I turned to face the shortest detective on the Fairport police force. My son-in-law’s odious partner, Paul Wheeler. Fortunately, before I could open my mouth, I saw the Mark’s welcome face, right behind Paul.

  Except that Mark didn’t look happy to see me. In fact, he looked downright angry.

  “Ok, Carol, what happened this time?” Mark asked. “Not another corpse to add to your body count, I hope.”

  I stiffened. Son-in-law or not, he had some nerve talking to me like that. Wait’ll the next time he needed some help from me.

  Nancy, bless her interfering heart, jumped right into the conversation.

  “Why, Mark, it’s not like we go looking for these things. Carol and I are here for our high school reunion. It’s tomorrow.”

  “Actually,” I said, taking the conversation back and locking eyes with my son-in-law, “the reunion is today. It must be after midnight by now.

  “Anyway, a few of us decided to stay overnight here, and when Nancy and I went into the room that had been assigned to us, we found a dead body in one of the beds. Which we did not put there. And immediately called the police. As any good citizen would do.”

  I heard a gasp from Claire, or maybe it was from Mary Alice. I still had my baby blues trained on Mark.

  Mark looked at his partner, who had kept uncharacteristically silent during this exchange. Then he sighed. “I was kidding, Carol. Not very professional of me. I’m sorry. But I didn’t imagine that you’d really…”

  He turned to Paul. “Let’s check it out.”

  “We locked the room, Mark,” I said, handing him the key. “Just to be on the safe side. I do know something about police procedure. More than I ever wanted to, in fact.”

  Mark nodded, and the two detectives disappeared into what was supposed to be the site of a fun sleepover party.

  The ping of the elevator announced the arrival of other members of the Fairport police force, including a police photographer. Not a group I was particularly keen to join, despite my reputation for being extraordinarily curious.

  Instead, I allowed Claire and Mary Alice to shepherd Nancy and me down the hall to their room. Wordlessly, they handed Nancy and me a small glass of now-warm white wine, and urged us to take a sip. Or two.

  “Now, tell. What happened?” Claire asked.

  The enormity of what Nancy and I had discovered suddenly hit me and I began to cry. Not hysterically, the way Nancy did a while ago in the hallway. Quietly. Because it was just so sad.

  One of our classmates, someone of our own age, had died tonight. Here, at our old high school. Ok, it wasn’t exactly our old high school anymore. But you know what I mean, right?

  And it could have happened to any one of us. The dying, I mean. A cardiac incident, perhaps. Or a massive stroke. At a certain age, doctors warn about the signs of one of these coming on.

  It could be someone on the committee, or a classmate who’d decided to arrive a day early at the reunion and stay overnight here. For old times’ sake.

  Maybe she was even at the welcome cocktail party at Maria’s Trattoria. Maybe I’d talked to her and we shared stories about spouses, children, even grandchildren. (Not that I have any of the latter, as far as I know.)

  It was just so tragic.

  At that moment, for the first time ever, I felt old. Scared. I realized that my life could end in an instant. Poof. All over. No more Carol Andrews.

  I never felt that vulnerable before. And mortal. (Not the sin kind, in case that reference confused you.)

  And worried. Because, well, what comes next?

  I gulped down the wine and held out my glass for more. “Just a little. Please. It may help me sleep. Assuming any of us get any sleep tonight.”

  “Not in that bed,” Nancy said. “No way. Even if they sterilize the sheets.”

  Of course, she was right. But, well, that was kind of harsh, even for Nancy. I did agree with her, though. No way was I sleeping in that room tonight.

  Mary Alice put her arms around me and I started to cry in earnest. “You and Nancy can bunk in with us,” she said. “We’ll figure something out.”

  At that moment, just when I was starting to feel a little better, my son-in-law knocked, then appeared in the doorway.

  “I hate to ask you this,” Mark said, looking at Nancy and me. “But the corpse…” my face must have registered shock, because he hastened to rephrase his sentence, “the person in your room has no identification. I’m wondering if you both could come back and see if you can tell me who it is.”

  He looked at me apologetically. “I’m sorry to ask you this. I know it will be very upsetting, but before we leave with…her…it would be helpful if we knew who it was. And if there’s any next of kin that should be notified.”

  I stood up and grabbed Nancy’s hand. “Come on. We have to do this. And if we’re there together, we can hold each other up in case we start to faint.”

  Claire and Mary Alice started to follow, but Mark stopped them. “It’s best if you two remain here,” he said.

  Well, what could we do but follow him down the hallway to our room? We tried to be quiet, but unfortunately, the door to another room opened and Mary Catherine poked her head out.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded. “You woke us up.

  “And who are you?”

  I realized that, since Mark was in plainclothes, there was no way Mary Catherine could have identified him as a member of the Fairport police. And I didn’t want to alarm her. I looked at my son-in-law with a question in my eyes.

  “I didn’t realize there were other guests here tonight,” he said. “I’m Detective Mark Anderson of the Fairport police department. There’s been an accident, and we were called to investigate.”

  Mary Catherine looked shocked. As shocked as I was feeling.

  Mark gently turned her around and guided her back to her room. “I’ll send my partner, Detective Wheeler, to talk to you in a few minutes. In the meantime, please stay in your room.”

  I was sure that Mary Catherine was dying of curiosity (sorry about that), but obedient Catholic girl that she was, she did as she was told.

  I wondered where the other two Marys were. Maybe all three of them had decided to share a room and have their own pajama party. If they did, I hoped they had more fun than we did.

  The door to our room was slightly ajar, revealing the police photographer just finishing up his work. And there were two other police officers in the room as well.

  I took a deep breath and grabbed Nancy’s hand tighter. “Let’s get this over with.”

  We walked into the room and over to the bed. I leaned down and took a good look at the woman.

  Oh, rats. Even without my bifocals, I knew who she was.

  It was Meg.

  Chapter 26

  I’m right no matter how wrong I am. And don’t you forget it.

  “This gives new meaning to pulling an all-nighter,” I said, yawning for emphasis. “The last time I didn’t get any sleep was when I was studying for a history exam in college.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t on your honeymoon?” Nancy asked.

  “Very funny,” I shot back. “Anyway, I’m afraid to look at my face in the bathroom mirror. I know I look terrible. I bet I have bags under my eyes that are huge enough to pack for a week’s vacation in Europe.”

  “Well, you don’t look as bad as poor Meg,” Claire pointed out. Which was, of course, an excellent point.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to make it t
hrough today,” Mary Beth said. “I’m exhausted. Even though I did manage to get a few hours sleep before… Oh, God, I still can’t believe it. Poor Meg.”

  “I just can’t believe she’s dead,” Mary Catherine said. “I absolutely cannot believe it.”

  Our pitiful reunion committee sat, huddled under quilts, in Claire and Mary Alice’s room, trying to wake up and watching the sun rise over a distant Long Island Sound.

  “What are we going to do about our reunion?” Mary Ann asked our fearless leader. “Are we going ahead with it? And are we going to tell the rest of the class what happened to poor Meg?”

  “We don’t really know what happened to Meg,” Nancy pointed out. “I mean, Meg died. And Carol and I found her in our room. In one of our beds.” She shuddered at the memory. “But we don’t know how she died. Or why she was in our room.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Meg wasn’t on the guest list. We didn’t know she was coming to the reunion. That’s really odd. What was she doing here?”

  “Maybe she changed her mind and wanted to surprise us,” Mary Beth suggested.

  “Well, she certainly did that,” Claire said. “Poor Meg.”

  “I think we should just keep this whole thing quiet and go on with the reunion,” Nancy said. “I hope that doesn’t sound too callous, but we really have no choice. There’s no way to contact everybody and tell them not to come.”

  I nodded my head in agreement.

  “But what if the police come back during the reunion to ask more questions?” Mary Beth asked. “How will we explain that?”

  “Random bed check?” Claire suggested.

  That did it. Either due to total lack of sleep or the need to diffuse our stress, we all started to howl. Giggle. Laugh our stupid heads off.

  Yes, it was in very bad taste. I hope you won’t tell anybody else about this.

  When we’d finally managed to get ourselves under control again, I said, “Ok, everybody, time to hit the showers. I’m sure that’ll make us more alert. And I bet the coffee is already on in the dining room. Let’s get cracking. We’ve got a reunion to run.”

  “Hang on a second,” Mary Ann said, motioning all of us to sit down again. “I know we’ve been saying ‘poor Meg,’ because she’s dead. But when she came back to Fairport a few months ago, she really was ‘poor Meg.’ At least, that’s what she told me. Did she tell any of you that she was broke?”

  Mary Catherine looked embarrassed. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you brought it up, Mary Ann, she hit me up for a loan when she came back to town. She said she’d be able to pay me back very soon. I didn’t give her money, but my husband and I let her stay with us for a few nights.”

  “I thought I was the only one Meg approached for money when she came back to town,” Mary Beth said. “I guess not.”

  “But what happened to her inheritance?” I asked. “I thought her parents left her well-fixed when they died. She used to brag about how wealthy they were, and the big mansion they lived in on Shore Road. Not that I ever got invited there, of course.”

  “That’s what Meg wanted everybody in our class to believe,” Mary Ann said. “But her mother worked as the housekeeper in that house on Shore Road, and her father took care of the grounds.”

  “We were sworn to secrecy,” Mary Beth said. “And because we all wore the same school uniforms, it was easy for her to pull that deception off.”

  “But the tuition,” Claire objected. “How did her parents afford it? Mount Saint Francis wasn’t cheap.”

  “Meg was on a scholarship,” Mary Catherine said. “She didn’t pay for a darn thing.”

  Chapter 27

  My husband gave me an ultimatum: It’s either him or the dog. Lord, I’m going to miss that man.

  “So, how was the reunion, Mom?” Jenny asked. “I bet you had a blast, judging from how tired you look. Were you up all night partying?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, taking a forkful of the delicious pot roast Jenny had prepared for our Sunday night supper and chewing it slowly, stalling for time.

  “This is so good. And I really appreciate your inviting us to dinner tonight. I didn’t get home until after four this afternoon. If I had to start cooking a meal then, we wouldn’t have eaten for hours. You know how your father hates to wait. For anything.”

  I stole a quick look at Jim to see if he’d respond and veer the conversation in another direction. But he didn’t rise to the bait. He was too busy eating.

  Jenny laughed. “The pot roast should be good, Mom. I used your recipe.” She gave her new husband a loving look across the dinner table. “Mark loves it, too.”

  “But not as much as I love you,” Mark responded. Then, he blushed. Just like he used to do when he was a kid.

  Fortunately, he’d left his detective persona at the Fairport Police Station.

  “I love how you’ve decorated the condo, Jenny,” I said, casting around for other topics of conversation than my reunion. “Is that lamp new?”

  “Mom,” Jenny said, “for Pete’s sake. You and I went shopping for that lamp together. You picked it out. I can tell that you’re stalling. Why don’t you want to tell us about the reunion? Did you find out some deep dark secrets about some of your classmates that you don’t want to share with us?”

  “I went to the reunion, too,” Jim said, taking a break from his pot roast feeding frenzy. Jenny raised her eyebrows. “I thought guys weren’t allowed,” she said.

  “Well, I didn’t go to the actual reunion,” Jim said. “I walked through the welcome cocktail party at Maria’s Trattoria last night. But I didn’t stay too long. I ended up going to the movies with Larry McGee.”

  “He dropped me off at the restaurant,” I explained to Jenny and Mark. “And he had my permission to do a quick walk-through the party. Emphasis on the word ‘quick.’ He was looking for an old girlfriend.”

  Oops. Shouldn’t have said that.

  Jim waggled his eyebrows. “Not just my old girlfriend, Carol. She was pretty popular with a lot of the guys in high school. Meg Mahoney.” He sighed. “But she wasn’t there.” He turned to me. “Did she ever show up?”

  I looked at Mark for some guidance. And got a tiny head shake. Which I interpreted to mean, “We’re investigating. Say as little as possible.”

  So, ignoring my husband, something I’ve had years of practice doing, I said brightly, “The reunion lunch was huge success. But it was a good thing we had nametags. So many of the class had changed over the years. Not everyone ages in the same way. I guess it’s all in the genes.”

  Continuing to blather, I said, “The food was terrific. It was a buffet. The catering staff at the facility did an outstanding job. And we had the Seven Deadly Sins for dessert. Do you remember that? We had it on Nantucket at the Grey Gull Inn last year and we all loved it. It seemed to be an appropriate choice for a Catholic girls’ high school reunion. Everyone thought it was a riot that we got to choose which sins we wanted in our dessert. Even Sister Rose laughed.”

  This was good for me, concentrating on the many fun things about the reunion instead of the single horrific one. The more I talked, the more enthused I got.

  “Nancy’s idea of naming it our Ruby Reunion, rather than our fortieth, was a great idea. All the tablecloths were ruby red, with white napkins. The centerpieces were red and white roses. They were breathtaking. Sister Rose was very pleased. She even joked that we’d chosen roses in her honor.”

  I laughed.

  “We didn’t, of course. In fact, that thought never occurred to any of us.

  “And we played some funny games, too. One of them was called Name That Nun. It was a take-off on that old television show, Name That Tune. You may not remember it. In the reunion program, we had a list of all the nuns who’d taught at Mount Saint Francis while
we were there. And we also had a list of all the classes that were offered. The idea was to name which nun taught which class. And there was a prize for the person who got the most correct answers.”

  I smiled at the memory. “I have to admit that, even though I resisted being involved in the reunion at first, I did have a good time.”

  I took a sip of water, then continued with my mindless chatter. “Everyone seemed to enjoy the building tours, too. And we even played a game that Sister Rose claimed the nuns used to play in the convent, Sister Says. You know, like the children’s game, Simon Says. There was a bit of a mutiny among the class about that, but it didn’t last long. And we did laugh a lot.”

  “I’m glad you had fun, honey,” Jim said. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Did Meg ever show up?”

  I snuck a quick glance at my son-in-law, sitting directly across from me. He refused to make eye contact. The little stinker.

  “Well, I think it’s safe to say that she did show up, Jim,” I said.

  Jim beamed. “I knew she would, Carol. Meg always liked to have a good time. How does she look? Has she changed much?”

  Hmm. What an interesting question.

  “Well, you remember that Meg was briefly on the reunion planning committee, Jim,” I said. “So it’s not like I haven’t seen her recently.”

  “I know, Carol. You told me. But I noticed that any reunion meetings you hosted here were at times when you knew I wouldn’t be home. So I never got the chance to see Meg. And, to my credit, I never asked you about her. Until now.

  “So, how does she look? Has she changed much after all these years?”

  Help me, I telegraphed to Mark, who immediately jumped up and started clearing away the dirty dishes.

  I was on my own.

  “I think it’s safe to say that Meg didn’t look so good when I saw her at the reunion,” I said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mark?” I called to my son-in-law, who was headed toward the kitchen with some dishes.