Birthday Party Murder

by Leslie Meier

  Some people have a lot of nerve, thought Lucy. The woman could at least have called to see if Matt’s early arrival would cause a problem. She studied the boy. Whatever was she going to do with him?

  “Did you notice the dog outside?” she finally asked. “Why don’t you play soccer with him for a little while? I’ll tell Sara you’re here.”

  “Okay. Where’s the ball?”

  “It’s out there somewhere,” said Lucy. “He’ll probably bring it to you.”

  As soon as Matt stepped out, Lucy headed upstairs, where she found Sara blow-drying her hair.

  “Matt Zumwalt’s here.”

  “What?” shrieked Sara. “Look at me! I’m a mess!”

  “You think you’re a mess, you should see the kitchen.”

  “This is no joke, Mom. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Pull yourself together as fast as you can and go entertain him. Listen to some CDs, watch TV, play a game or something. He’s outside with the dog now.”

  “You didn’t, Mom! That dog is so disgusting.”

  When Lucy returned to the kitchen, she peeked out the window and saw that Zoe had joined Matt and the dog. They seemed to be having a fine time together chasing the ball around.

  Lucy had just finished wiping the counters off when an enormous black SUV pulled into the driveway and disgorged a remarkably curvaceous girl. Lucy didn’t recognize her, so she guessed the girl must be Davia Didrickson. Flicking her long blond hair, Davia approached Matt Zumwalt. Minutes later, Zoe marched into the kitchen.

  “That Davia spoils everything,” she grumbled.

  “Davia’s here!” exclaimed Sara, rushing into the kitchen. She paused to pat her hair nervously. “How do I look?”

  “Great,” said Lucy, automatically.

  “Look at me, Mom,” demanded Sara.

  Lucy looked. Sara seemed taller and thinner, she realized. Her hair was clean and shiny, and the turquoise top she was wearing complemented her complexion.

  “You really do look great,” she said. “Take these balloons out and ask your friends to help blow them up.”

  “She stole your hair spray,” said Zoe. “And your lipstick, too.”

  Zoe was obviously jealous at the attention Sara was receiving. Lucy gave her youngest a consolatory hug. “What do you say we make a birthday banner for Sara on the computer?”

  “Okay.”

  Three hours later, the family room resembled the old town dump before it had been replaced with the neat, new transfer station. Every surface was littered with gift wrap, pizza boxes, soda bottles and paper plates. The air was heavy with a mixture of sugar, Italian spices and teen sweat. Bill popped a video in the machine, and Lucy gathered up as much of the mess as she could, then returned with a big bowl of popcorn and some fresh sodas.

  Exhausted, she joined Bill in the living room.

  “What’s going on in there?” he asked her.

  “Something with Bruce Willis, I think. You got the video.”

  “Not the video. The kids. What are they doing?”

  “Watching the video.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What else would they be doing?”

  Bill gave her a look.

  “Bill! They’re just kids.”

  “Kids mature younger these days,” he said, darkly. “You better go check on them.”

  “Me? Why not you?”

  “ ’Cause you can look more casual. Ask them if they want more soda or something.”

  “I just gave them fresh sodas.”

  “Maybe they’d like popcorn?”

  “I gave them a big bowl.”

  Bill was quiet. Lucy could practically hear the wheels turning.

  “I know,” he finally said. “Tell them you just want to check the tracking on the VCR. Say it slips.”

  Lucy groaned and got up. She pushed open the door to the family room. Eight pairs of eyes gleamed at her in the darkness. She flicked on the lights and peered at the VCR.

  “Just checking the tracking,” she said.

  “Mom!” protested Sara. “The tracking is fine.”

  “Good.” Lucy glanced around at the hostile faces. “I’ll make you some fresh popcorn,” she said, grabbing the bowl.

  When she returned with the popcorn, only six pairs of eyes gleamed at her in the darkness. When she set down the bowl, she noticed two pairs of legs extending behind the couch. Taking a closer look, she found Sean Penfield entwined with Davia Didrickson.

  “Break it up,” she said, prompting a chorus of giggles from the other kids.

  Once she had everyone rearranged, she left the room, followed by Sara.

  “Mom!” hissed Sara in the kitchen. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Well, your friends are embarrassing me and they ought to be embarrassing you, too.”

  “You are so uncool,” was Sara’s parting zinger.

  “I’m so uncool,” Lucy told Bill.

  “Hunh.” Bill was absorbed in his Renovator’s Digest.

  “I had to break up a couple who were making out behind the couch!”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I didn’t expect that. Next time you go in and break them up.”

  “No way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This wasn’t my idea, you know. I was never in favor of this shindig.” He got up and yawned. “Maybe this will teach you how to just say no.” He headed for the stairs. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

  Left alone in the living room, the horror of her situation dawned on Lucy. She had eight hormone-crazed adolescents on her hands. How on earth was she going to manage?

  Hearing a shriek of protest from the family room, she hurried to investigate. What were they up to now?

  In the family room, the kids had spread out sleeping bags on the floor and on the sectional couch. In the corner of the couch, Jennifer Walsh was sniffling.

  “What’s the matter?”

  The other kids were giggling, looking rather guilty.

  “Nothing,” said Jennifer, wiping her eyes and swallowing hard.

  Group pressure, surmised Lucy. It would be fruitless to try to get Jennifer to tell her what really happened. The only thing she could do, she realized with a sinking heart, was to stay in the family room with the kids.

  “Okay,” she announced, grabbing a pillow off the couch. “This is how it’s going to be. Boys on my right, girls on my left.”

  Predictably, her announcement was met with groans. She persevered, however, and soon had the boys on one side and the girls on the other. She stretched out in the middle. She hadn’t intended to sleep, but next thing she knew it was three in the morning, every bone in her body ached and she had to pee. But the kids were all sleeping soundly. She could go upstairs to her own bed.

  Morning found a groggy Lucy standing at the stove, cooking bacon and blueberry pancakes.

  “My mom never cooks breakfast,” confided Matt Zumwalt.

  “This is really yummy,” said Jennifer, coming back for seconds.

  “I guess I’ll have just one,” said Davia, yielding to temptation. “And bacon doesn’t have very many calories, does it?”

  “Hardly any,” Lucy told her. After all, Davia hardly had to worry about her figure.

  “When are these kids supposed to go home?” asked Bill, as the girls disappeared upstairs for showers and the boys went outside to kick the soccer ball around.

  “The invitations said ten o’clock,” said Lucy.

  “That was an hour ago.”

  “I know, and frankly, I don’t think the cavalry’s going to show up any time soon. Think about it. If you were their parents, and you’d got a rare morning to yourself, would you hurry over to pick them up?”

  “I’d like to think my nobler instincts would win out,” said Bill.

  “I’ll bet you nobody shows up before noon.”

  Bill considered this. “You know, I’m a little behind on the job. I think I’ll go over and bang
some nails.”

  Lucy’s jaw dropped. “On Sunday? You never work on Sundays.”

  “It’s a big job and I’ve got some contractors coming this week.”

  Lucy knew Bill was converting a huge old barn out by the town line into a summer home. It was a bigger project than he’d tackled in some time, but she didn’t believe he was really worried about being ready for some contractors. He just wanted to get away from the kids.

  “You’ll pay for this. I’ll make sure of it.”

  He looked at her, wide-eyed and innocent. “I’m only trying to be a good provider—”

  Bill was interrupted by a shriek from upstairs. He grabbed his jacket and ducked out the door.

  “Coward,” muttered Lucy.

  It was almost two o’clock when the last of the kids finally left and Lucy had some time to herself. She was tempted to settle down with the Sunday papers, but knew she couldn’t afford that luxury. Instead, she sat down at the computer with her notebooks and started writing up her interviews with Miss T so she could fax them to Sidra tomorrow.

  As her fingers flew over the keyboard, she wondered how the Norah! show would use the material. Would they show Miss T telling some of her stories? Maybe they would find old photographs? Or maybe, thought Lucy, chuckling to herself, they could use some old silent film footage. The incident with the motorcar scaring the horses, for example. Or a suitor, coming to call with flowers in hand, only to be sent firmly on his way by an angry father.

  Old Judge Tilley, thought Lucy, could have scared off the most ardent suitor. She paused, thinking. That was wrong. Old Judge Tilley, terrifying fellow that he was, hadn’t scared off Harriet’s boyfriend. He had persisted and, in the end, the judge had only succeeded in ripping his family apart.

  His daughters had indeed chosen two very different paths, thought Lucy. Miss T had stayed in New England, preserving the values her father held so dear. Harriet, on the other hand, had stepped boldly into the future alongside her cardcarrying Democrat of a husband. What would the old fellow have made of Shirley, wondered Lucy, and her Hell’s Angel? Not much at all, she suspected, resolving to keep an eye on that situation.

  She finished up her notes and started printing them out. Her printer was old and slow, so she looked out the window while she waited for it to finish spewing out pages, catching sight of Kudo. The dog was throwing up, having helped himself to the dirty paper plates in the trash.

  Zoe soon arrived with the official announcement.

  “Kudo’s sick,” she said. “And there are paper plates all over the yard.”

  “Well, pick ’em up,” snapped Lucy.

  It was an hour later when, by way of an apology, Lucy asked Zoe if she’d like to go with her to see the barn Bill was renovating. It was almost five, anyway, and Bill would be finishing up. To tell the truth, she was surprised he had worked this long.

  Zoe chattered away as they drove along, full of gossip about her older sister.

  “I saw Sean Penfield kissing Jennifer,” said Zoe. “And you know what? I think Sara likes Billy Hogan.”

  “I think he likes her back. He gave her a really nice present.”

  “Sara’s too fat to have a boyfriend.”

  “Zoe! Sara’s a very pretty girl. Lots of boys are going to like her, just like lots of boys are going to like you.”

  “Yuck! I’m not going to like them.”

  “We’ll see,” said Lucy, spotting the big red barn in the distance.

  It sat on a little rise, surrounded by acres of hay fields. It would make a great summer home, thought Lucy, especially since a creek ran through the property. A perfect spot for kids to hunt for frogs and crayfish and to cool off on a hot summer afternoon.

  She was bouncing down the drive that ran along the stone wall when she first sensed that something was wrong. The big window that took up the entire eastern wall wasn’t reflecting the light the way it should.

  It was broken, she realized, pulling up beside Bill’s red pickup truck and braking.

  It wasn’t until she’d gotten out of the car that she spotted Bill, lying on the ground outside the window, surrounded by bits of glittering glass.

  “Stay in the car!” She barked the order to Zoe.

  Then she ran to Bill, fumbling in her purse as she went, groping for her cell phone.

  It was in her hand and she was punching 911 as she knelt beside him.

  So much blood. He seemed to have cuts everywhere. The phone was pressed to her ear and she could hear it ringing. Why was his arm bent at that odd angle?

  “Rescue,” came the dispatcher’s voice.

  “My husband’s been hurt,” screamed Lucy, feeling for his pulse. She found it, but it didn’t seem very strong to her.

  “Your location, ma’am?”

  Where were they? Lucy babbled out the answer. “That old red barn on Slocum Road, out by the town line.”

  “Is your husband breathing?”

  “Yes, but he’s unconscious.” She knew she was yelling, but she couldn’t stop. “You’ve got to get somebody out here—he’s got cuts all over. He fell through a window. There’s a lot of blood.”

  “I’m sending an ambulance. They’re on their way. Don’t try to move him.”

  “Thank you,” sobbed Lucy. She clicked off the phone and set it on the ground. Then she slipped off her jacket and laid it across Bill’s shoulders, listening for the sirens that meant help was coming.

  Hours later, Lucy was sitting in the ER waiting room at Tinker’s Cove Cottage Hospital with Zoe sound asleep on the couch beside her. The waiting room was deserted. It was apparently a quiet night in Tinker’s Cove. So why, wondered Lucy, were they taking so long with Bill? Why wasn’t someone telling her what was going on?

  She stroked Zoe’s soft hair and told herself Bill was a big, strong man. He would be fine. She refused to think about the possibility of spinal cord damage and paralysis; she would not even acknowledge the possibility that the fall had occurred because of a heart attack or stroke. Bill had always been healthy, he never took a day off from work and she didn’t doubt for a minute that he would walk out with nothing more than a Band-Aid on his forehead and a prescription for a muscle relaxant.

  But when the ER doctor appeared in the doorway dressed in those green hospital scrubs, it was all she could do to keep herself from leaping to her feet and knocking Zoe off the couch. He motioned for her to stay seated, however, and took the closest chair.

  “It looks like he’ll be fine,” he began, keeping his voice low. “Most of the cuts were superficial, though I’m a little concerned about one in his thigh. I had to remove a goodsized piece of glass. Luckily, it missed the artery.”

  The room began to suddenly darken, which Lucy found puzzling. Even more puzzling was the fact that she found herself with her head between her knees.

  “Have you eaten anything?” asked the doctor.

  “I had something from the machine,” said Lucy, realizing the soda and peanut butter crackers she’d bought were untouched on the table beside her.

  “Eat this,” he said, unwrapping the crackers and handing her one.

  “Well, as I said, the wound in his thigh will need watching and he has a broken leg, but it’s a nice, simple fracture. Nothing complicated there. He’ll have to stay off his feet for a couple of weeks. As for the contusion on his forehead, I’d really like to keep him overnight just to make sure there’s no concussion.”

  Lucy nodded, her mouth full of crackers that were as dry as dust.

  “You can see him if you like. He’s still in the ER while we get a room ready.”

  She gave Zoe a little shake and helped the sleepy little girl to her feet. Together they followed the doctor to Bill’s curtained bed.

  Bill was propped up on pillows with a bandage on his forehead and an enormous plaster cast that extended from midthigh to his ankle. An IV tube was attached to his left hand, and his left leg, the one with the cut, was elevated.

  “Oh, my God,” exclai
med Lucy.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Bill. “They say I’m going to be fine.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  Bill grimaced. “I was painting the casing around that window and reached a little too far. It was as simple as that. I lost my balance and fell right through the window.”

  “Ouch,” said Zoe.

  “You can say that again,” said Bill, grinning.

  Lucy suspected he was well medicated. “They want to keep you tonight,” she said, yawning.

  Bill nodded. “You go on home and get some sleep.”

  “You, too,” said Lucy, brushing her lips against his. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Lucy felt a little surge of energy as she left the hospital. Bill was going to be okay, and hopefully it wouldn’t be too long before he was back at work. They had some disability insurance and that would help. It didn’t look as if he’d require any complicated nursing, and she was sure Ted would let her rearrange her schedule so she could take care of him. All in all, he’d been pretty lucky considering what could have happened.

  She felt a sudden chill and shivered, hurrying across the parking lot to the car.

  Only Sara was home, but every light in the house on Red Top Hill Road was burning. The TV was blaring, as was the stereo, but Sara wasn’t listening to either of them because she was on the phone.

  Lucy sent Zoe up to take a bath and went around the house, turning things off. Then she stood in front of Sara, giving her the evil eye.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Sara, putting the receiver down. “How’s Dad?”

  “He’s going to be fine, but he’s got a broken leg. You’re going to have to pitch in for a while, help with dinner and that sort of thing.”

  “Sure, Mom.” Sara was halfway up the stairs.

  Lucy opened the refrigerator and took out the milk, pouring herself a glass. Then she cut herself a piece of leftover birthday cake and sat down at the table, wishing that Monday morning wasn’t looming like a black cloud on her horizon. How was she going to manage taking care of Bill and working and keeping track of the girls and making meals, not to mention her other commitments? She had an appointment with Bob to go through Sherman’s safe deposit box, Sue would no doubt be calling to find out if she’d sent the promised fax to Sidra, she had promised Ted she would have the feature story about the Battle of Portland reenactment for him, and she was willing to bet that Rachel would be calling with some new and horrifying development at Miss Tilley’s.