by Judith Ivie
“Didn’t like her, though,” Margo reminded me.
“That doesn’t mean I wished her dead. I wasn’t crazy about Prudy Crane or Alain Girouard either, but it wasn’t fun finding them dead, as I recall,” I moped, referring to two other investigations in our shared past. “I’m seriously beginning to wonder if I’m a jinx or have bad karma or something.”
Margo sank down beside me on the sofa and propped her chin on one fist. “Do you know, I’ve been havin’ the same idea, Sugar. It seems like ever since I met you at that revoltin’ law firm in Hartford, it’s just been one murder after another. There was the lawyer, and then Prudy. After that came the skeleton in the Henstock sisters’ basement and the executive’s brother who turned up dead at the Wadsworth Atheneum gala. Then there was the mysterious death at the retirement home. Let’s face it, hon, you’re just bad news waitin’ to happen. The only question is, who’s next?” She shrank away from me in mock horror and moved to the end of the sofa.
I regarded her sourly. “Very funny. You know perfectly well that every one of those unfortunate incidents had nothing whatsoever to do with me. It’s pure coincidence that I—make that we—got involved in the investigations at all. One of them wasn’t even a murder. If you and Strutter and I hadn’t become friends and then business partners, you wouldn’t even have known about those things.”
“You are who you know,” Margo agreed, grinning. “Just my bad luck, I guess.”
I grabbed a sofa pillow and thumped her over the head as she dissolved into giggles. The Persian cat huffed off, alarmed, and I fluffed the pillow carefully before returning it to its original position.
The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. The doorbell didn’t ring once, and Margo and I amused ourselves by playing double solitaire on the coffee table. At four o’clock, the designated ending time for the open house, the young owners of the house returned to find us packing up our briefcases and washing teacups.
“Anything?” the wife, a tense-looking redhead, asked without preamble. Margo shook her head but smiled to soften the report.
“I’m so sorry, Suzanne. It’s just that time of year. I’m afraid almost nothin’ happens in this business between Christmas and New Year’s.”
“Your house looks wonderful,” I hastened to add, “so warm and appealing.”
The young woman slumped into a kitchen chair, the picture of dejection. “Nobody even came, Dennis,” she told her husband as he came into the kitchen from garaging their car. He, too, showed his disappointment.
“We’ll give it another try next weekend. We may have to come down on the askin’ price a bit, but we’ve never had a listin’ that we didn’t sell eventually,” Margo reassured them.
“Eventually,” Dennis echoed dully, “and I’m going to find another job eventually, just not right now when I need it.” His wife covered his slack hands on the kitchen table with her own.
“Don’t worry, honey. I’ve still got my job, and you’ve got unemployment compensation. It’ll be tight for a while, but we can do it.”
His bark of laughter was humorless. “Guess we don’t have any choice. Man, I never thought I’d be that guy who let his wife support him.” He got to his feet abruptly and left the room. Suzanne sat looking after him, her concern evident. One hand strayed to cover her abdomen protectively. It was the universal gesture of expectant women everywhere.
Margo and I exchanged a look. “Have you told him yet?” she asked Suzanne quietly.
The redhead looked startled, then sorrowful. “Would you?”
We both nodded our understanding of her predicament. Timing was everything in these matters, and the timing for this announcement could not be worse. I couldn’t think of anything that Dennis would want to hear less right now. Still, it seemed a shame that Suzanne couldn’t celebrate such momentous news with her husband.
“Well, congratulations,” I said with as much warmth as I could muster, “even if mum’s the word for now.”
Margo winced at my unintentional pun and leaned over to give Suzanne a squeeze. “Your secret is safe with us, and we’re goin’ to do our damnedest to get this house sold for you two. It seems a shame, though. This is such a cute place for a young family.”
Sadness engulfed the pretty face. “It would have been,” she agreed.
After making arrangements for the following weekend, we let ourselves out through the front door and collected the open house sign from the yard.
“That really stinks,” I said, popping the red balloon more energetically than necessary.
“It surely does. In fact, I think it’s high time these young people got themselves a fairy godmother, don’t you?” Margo fluttered her arms and waved an imaginary wand.
I looked at her doubtfully. “Glinda the good witch, maybe. What are you up to?”
“Why, Sugar, whatever do you mean?” She winked broadly and headed for her car in the driveway. “See you in the mornin’.”
Four
By ten-thirty the next morning, I had stopped by the Brewster Police Department in response to a telephone summons and typed my statement, such that it was, on a computer in a monitored carrel, then met my daughter Emma near the marsh overpass on Old Main Street. We regularly poured out seeds and berries for the birds that wintered near the open water of the spring-fed marsh before speed-walking down Spring Street to the pond and doing the same with cracked corn for the water fowl. The air was crisp and clear, but snow was predicted before midnight. I carried a five-pound sack of corn under one arm, and Emma did the same. At twenty-eight years of age, she shared my concern for critters, both wild and tame, as did her slightly older brother Joey.
Emma was a real estate paralegal. She and her lawyer boss had their offices on the second floor of the Law Barn on Old Main Street in Wethersfield’s historic district, where Mack Realty occupied the lower level. In warmer weather Em and I did a brisk lap around the Broad Street Green for our morning exercise, but during the winter we changed our route to incorporate a couple of food drops for the birds and water fowl that didn’t fly south.
“How are Droopy and Fray?” she asked me now, referring to two geese I was keeping a special eye on. Droopy had broken a wing at some point, and it hung slackly at his side. Fray’s right wing was all but shredded, probably by some predator. Their injuries had healed, but neither of them could fly, so when the rest of the summer flock took off for warmer climes, the two had to make do with each other and the ever-present ducks for company.
“They seem okay so far,” I told Emma. “The ducks don’t seem to pick on them like the other geese do sometimes, and as long as the brook doesn’t freeze over, they should be able to find some food. This will help, though.” I hoisted my cracked corn.
We nipped down a short lane to the Spring Street Pond, now solidly frozen, and took the few extra steps across the road to where the brook still flowed freely into the marsh beyond. “Quack quack,” Emma called in her best mallard imitation, and what looked like mounds of feathers piled along the brook’s banks morphed sleepily into heads and necks and eyes and wings. Recognizing the providers of a decent meal, they gabbled among themselves for a few seconds before gliding toward us.
Quickly, we slit open our sacks with the box cutter I kept in my pocket for these occasions and poured two long rows of corn on the bank so the hungry fowl wouldn’t have to compete for the few bites each would get.
“Oh, yuck,” Emma said in disgust, pointing to a pile of Cheerios and crumbled crackers someone had dumped on the bank in a misguided attempt to provide food. “Why do people insist on making them sick with that stuff?”
“They don’t know any better, Em. Luckily, the ducks seem to have better sense, as long as they have healthier options available.” I peered into the marsh. “Do you see Droopy and Fray?”
“Not from here. Let’s go back toward Spring Street and see if we can spot them.” She headed back the way we had come. I put the plastic sack in my pocket for the recycling bin and foll
owed her, pulling on my gloves. We stood for a moment, wrapping our scarves more warmly around our ears and scanning the length of the brook as it meandered between tufts of marsh grasses.
“There!” I pointed excitedly to two goosey profiles at the edge of the brook about a hundred yards into the marsh.
“We can’t feed them unless they come to us, and I don’t get the feeling they’re going to do that,” Emma fretted.
“They’ll be all right, Dearie. Remember, they’re Canada geese. This is relatively mild weather for them, and as long as the water stays open, they can find food.”
“What if it freezes?”
“Then they have us.”
We stood quietly, watching the ducks feed and the geese enjoy the morning sun, before starting back to the car.
“What’s on for tonight? Big plans for New Year’s Eve?” I asked Emma.
“Mmmm, yeah, big doings. I’m driving up to Ware to spend the evening playing peek-a-boo with my niece,” she laughed. “Justine and Joey invited me to spend the night there. Wild enough for you?”
I was glad enough not to have to worry about Emma driving home from Ware, Massachusetts, with the holiday drunks, but I recognized her brother’s ulterior motive.
“Why do I think Auntie Emma will be babysitting my two-year-old granddaughter while Joey and Justine sneak out for a couple of hours?”
“That’s okay with me. I don’t get to see Allie nearly enough, and I didn’t have any big plans this year.” She fell quiet, and I kept my mouth firmly shut. Emma was currently between relationships, but she seemed at peace with it. For more than a dozen years she had enjoyed the attentions of one hopeful swain after another, attracted by her good looks, warmth and humor, but only a couple of them had held her interest for more than a year. She had become adept at cutting them loose when she tired of them and managing to remain friends.
I formed a cautious question. “No love interest on the horizon at the moment?”
Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Oh, they’re always on the horizon, but I think I’ll keep them there for a while, take a break. Frankly, I’m enjoying the solitude.”
I reflected privately that despite her self-inflicted hiatus from dating, Emma was unlikely to experience much solitude. Between the demands of her job and her daily involvement in the lives of her many devoted friends, she would always have as much companionship as she chose to accept.
“How about you guys? Keeping Margo out of trouble with her hubby out of town?”
“You make me sound like her keeper,” I protested. “As a matter of fact, we’ll be doing some babysitting of our own at Strutter’s, in a manner of speaking, keeping Olivia company so Charlie can go to a big dance at the school.”
“Wow, that’s right. Charlie’s how old now?”
“Sixteen, and Olivia’s four. It’s hard to believe, but she’ll be in regular school next fall. It seems as if she was born about a week ago.”
“And now Miss Thing has us all wrapped around her adorable pinky finger,” Emma chuckled. “I’m sure it won’t take her long to whip her teachers and classmates into shape, too.”
I nodded, smiling. Olivia Putnam, born to her parents in middle age and the apple of their eyes, was the dimpled miniature of Strutter in all her Jamaican gorgeousness.
By the time we pulled into the Law Barn’s parking lot, it was a few minutes before eleven o’clock. Fortunately, being New Year’s Eve, the phones were slow to begin ringing. We unlocked the big front doors and hurried into our work clothes in the cloak room. Then Emma darted up the stairs to her quarters, and I skinned down a half-flight at the rear of the lobby to Mack Realty’s office just in time to pick up the first call of the day.
Charlie Putnam was probably the best-looking sixteen-year-old I’d ever laid eyes on, I thought yet again that evening. Think Malcolm-Jamal Warner in his teenage years on Cosby. Thanks to the stepped-up academic demands of his advanced placement schoolwork and his year-round involvement in team sports, Charlie hadn’t been around much during my recent visits with Strutter and her husband J.D. So when he appeared in his parents’ living room on his way out to the dance, pumped and spiffy and gleaming from recent ablutions, I couldn’t help staring, to Armando’s amusement. I know for a fact that Margo’s jaw dropped.
Four-year-old Olivia slid down from her father’s knee and threw herself at her brother. “Dance wif’ Livvy,” she demanded. Charlie obliged by scooping her up and twirling her around until she shrieked with glee.
“Not too late now,” J.D. admonished him in time-honored parental fashion. “It may be New Year’s Eve, but the dance is over at eleven. We expect you and your shiny new driver’s license back here by midnight.”
“Aww, Dad,” Charlie protested automatically, his heart not really in it.
Strutter jumped in to play her part. “Never mind ‘aww, Dad,’” she told him and brushed imaginary lint from the shoulder of his well-cut sport coat. “The streets will be crawling with liquored-up drivers tonight who are old enough to know better but don’t, so you be extra careful. It can’t take you and Duane more than an hour to wolf down a couple of burgers and get back home. Honestly, I believe this jacket is getting to be too short in the sleeves already,” she fretted as she gave him a final pat. “You look very nice, dear. Have fun now.”
“Wear a coat, it’s cold out there,” J.D. called after him as he headed for the door. Olivia ran after him as fast as her short legs would allow, but Armando intercepted her smoothly. Charlie escaped, coatless, into the night.
“I am in need of a partner. Will you dance with me, Miss Putnam?” Armando coaxed the little girl, who was beginning to pout. He held out his arms to her, and dimples replaced her frown as she placed her bare feet carefully atop his shiny loafers. No doubt about it, my husband had a way with ladies of all ages. Humming a nonsense tune, Armando slid his feet in a jaunty foxtrot and soon had Olivia giggling again to her parents’ relief.
“We never know how bad it’s going to be. She’s gotten very clingy lately when Charlie leaves the house,” Strutter whispered to me.
I smiled reassuringly. “It’s because he’s so much older than she is, her handsome brother-hero.” I thought back for a minute. “I think there was a time years ago when Emma adored her older brother very briefly, but she and Joey were so close in age, it didn’t last long. After that it was sibling rivalry all the way, so count your blessings.”
“I do that every day,” she assured me, her eyes warm on her rumpled teddy bear of a husband.
“Me, too, Sugar.” Margo’s eyes were missing John.
“When does your man get sprung from this crazy training school anyway? I never heard of one held over the New Year’s holiday,” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Can’t be helped, I guess. It seems there’s a training facility crunch what with all the government cutbacks, so the municipalities that rent the FBI’s space pretty much have to fit in where they can.” She smiled gamely. “Don’t you fret. John and I will be doin’ some fine celebratin’ when he gets home on Saturday no matter what the date says on the calendar.” She winked bawdily. “In the meantime, where is that Jamaican jerked chicken y’all promised me for dinner? I had to skip lunch today, and I’m about ready to faint.”
I groaned. “Unfortunately, I didn’t skip lunch, so I’ll have to have tiny portions, but boy, am I ready, too.” I sniffed appreciatively at the heavenly aromas emanating from the kitchen. This losing weight business was turning out to be a lot tougher than I remembered.
“Coming right up, and there are coconut gizzadas for dessert.” Strutter jumped to her feet and disappeared into the kitchen while J.D. refilled our wine glasses.
Dinner was divine, living up to its olfactory preview, and we lingered at the table while we waited for coffee to brew. In honor of the holiday, even though she’d had her dinner earlier with Charlie, Olivia was allowed to join us at the dining room table for a few bites. She soon tired of the adult chitchat and sli
d off her booster seat to check out the Disney Channel in the den.
“Say what you like about using television as a babysitter, sometimes it comes in darned handy,” J.D. observed as he helped Strutter clear the table.
“Oh, please, don’t apologize to me. If it hadn’t been for Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers when my kids were growing up, I’d probably still be institutionalized. Chicken pox, colds, all those school holidays …”
“Snow days.” Strutter rolled her eyes. “Fifteen minutes of trying to make a snowman, and then what? A dryer full of wet wool and, ‘I’m bored, Mom, there’s nothing to do.’”
“The worst,” I agreed.
“Fortunately, that was not something with which our parents had to deal in Colombia,” Armando smirked as Margo carried a tray of coffee things into the living room. We trailed after her.
“Well, I never had to deal with any of that either, bein’ sensible enough to know I’d make an absolutely hopeless parent, but at the moment it doesn’t look all that tough to me.” She nodded to the open door of the den, where Olivia snoozed soundly on the rug in front of the television, thumb in mouth.
Strutter and J.D. gazed at the little girl fondly. “I’ll go,” he volunteered and went to carry her upstairs to bed while Strutter poured out the coffee.
As we were settling around the card table about an hour later for some serious gin rummy, we were startled to hear Charlie banging through the door between the garage and the kitchen. Strutter checked her watch and frowned at J.D. “It’s not even ten o’clock.” She raised her voice as we heard Charlie tromp down the hall to the stairs. “Is everything okay, Charlie?”
His footsteps didn’t even slow. “The dance was stupid, so we didn’t feel like hanging around. No biggie,” he threw over his shoulder as he practically ran up the stairs.
J.D.’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed back his chair. “Now you know there has to be more to the story than that. He’s been looking forward to this dance for weeks.”