I thought I’d made it to safety until I found myself caught at the tail end of a body gridlock. The dinner guests had converged upon the one entrance to the screening room, and feet shuffled slowly as people trickled in. I felt a rush of exhilaration, however, when I realized the man to my right was none other than the director, Andy Baugh. He acknowledged me with a slight smile. I considered introducing myself, then felt hot breath on my neck. Kurt the Flirt was all over me.
I cringed and Andy grimaced. He slid me a look that said, Sorry about my foul brother. “Bro,” he said, “why don’t you hit the men’s room and throw some cold water on your face. I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
“Drink?” slurred Kurt. “You know I don’t drink.” He clutched his bulging stomach, stumbled and glommed onto my arm. “Anymore.” His face was right next to mine, so it wasn’t hard to see the drool dripping from the corner of his mouth. I tried to pull away, but we were packed tight with people trying to push their way into the screening room. Despite the fact that I didn’t actually know this man, his behavior was odd since I’d only seen him drinking water during dinner. I was inclined to believe his denial and wonder if he was sick rather than inebriated.
Andy removed his brother’s hand from my person. “Why don’t you come with me?” he said to Kurt. “You don’t look so good.”
“You know,” Kurt responded slowly, “I . . . don’t feel so . . .”
That’s when my bad dream turned into a nightmare.
Kurt Baugh fell on me. You would think this wouldn’t be an easy thing to do with us crammed so tightly. Well, here’s what I have learned: when a big man goes down in a crowd like a dead tree in a forest, people scatter. If only I’d been lucky enough to get out of the way too.
My legs couldn’t bear his weight, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor, stomach down, under the heavy body of a sleazy jerk. People were screaming and all I could see were shoes in my face. Kurt’s drool dripped down the side of my cheek and bile rose in my throat. Then, because my wonderful night hadn’t been defiled enough, the man vomited.
Several times.
This wasn’t how I’d expected my first review screening to be. Somehow, I’d pictured something a little . . . less messy.
The Golightly woman was on the microphone asking people to calm down and step back against the walls and the next thing I knew, two men—Andy Baugh and Frankie Romano—were pulling Kurt off of me. Andy rolled him on his back and slapped his face a couple of times. When blood bubbled out from Kurt’s mouth, Andy freaked and ripped Kurt’s white button-up shirt open to reveal his chest.
“Call 911,” he shouted.
Susan Golightly took off like a shot to follow that order and I struggled to fight off a vomit attack.
Two kind ladies helped me to the restroom while Andy tried to clear his brother’s airway.
It took twenty minutes for emergency responders to arrive, five minutes for them to attempt revival, and one second for them to pull a sheet over Hollywood director Kurt Baugh’s face and pronounce him dead on the scene.
For most people, this would be an unusual day. For me, not so much.
My name is Barbara Marr and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Chapter Two
I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING to the tantalizing aroma of coffee and the sexy sensation of someone nibbling on my neck. The previous evening had thrown me into a funk. I didn’t feel clean enough after one shower, concerned that my hair still reeked of bloody bile, so I had taken a second before climbing into bed. I smiled, thankful that my husband still found me kissable in the light of day. “Howard,” I moaned in a tired voice.
“I’m here,” Howard answered. “But that’s not me licking your neck.”
I bolted upright, startling Puddles the Poodle, who evidently considered my neck a salty delicacy. Puddles yelped and I shouted. “What’s that dog doing in my bed?”
Howard stood next to the bed, holding a cup of java and laughing. “It’s his house, too,” he said. He handed me the coffee and picked up the curly gray canine.
Puddles the Poodle was not welcome in my home. At least not by me. Howard had acquired him after his owner, a Mafia-connected neighbor, found herself spending the rest of her life in the Big House. Shortly thereafter Howard and I had separated, working out some marital issues. Howard acquired a condo across town and Puddles kept him company. When Howard moved back home, Puddles came along. I had not understood, while reconciling, that I was also committing to life with a yappy rat-dog.
“First,” I argued, “I never agreed that he could live here, and second, even if he does, the bed is off-limits. Beds are for humans, floors are for dogs.”
“You let Indiana Jones and Mildred Pierce on the bed.”
“They’re cats and rules never apply to cats, you know that. They’re too cool for rules.”
As if on cue, our yellow tabby, Indiana Jones, leaped onto the comforter. “Meow.” His look-alike, Mildred Pierce kitty, followed. Together, they padded around until each found a comfy place to settle, then directed their unblinking feline stares toward Puddles. Nary a whisker twitched on their stone faces, but I knew my kitties—on the inside, they were laughing their hairy little butts off.
Howard rolled his milk-chocolate brown eyes and lowered Puddles to the floor. “Out Puddles,” he said, and pointed to the bedroom door. Puddles started yapping and dancing on his hind feet. Howard repeated the command. “Out!”
Either Puddles didn’t understand the command, or he didn’t care to obey, because he continued the yapping. I covered my ears. “How are those training classes going?”
“He’ll learn eventually.”
“Not so good?”
“We’re learning to . . . communicate.”
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘You can’t teach an irritating old dog new tricks’?”
Even Howard was getting annoyed with the dog’s high-pitched woof. He snatched up the furball and marched out of the room. I sipped on my coffee until he returned sans-pooch.
“Where did you put him?” I asked.
“Amber’s room. She likes to dress him in her doll clothes.”
I laughed. Puddles wasn’t my favorite animal, but I did feel a little sorry for him, suffering the humiliation of being forced into a lace dress and bloomers.
For a moment, I relished my luck at having such a handsome and sensitive husband. He looked like George Clooney, for crying out loud. Really, I’m not making it up—everyone says so. A little more gray, a little less chin, but definitely Clooney-esque. And for every part of gorgeous on the outside, he contained an equal part of beautiful on the inside.
“So,” I asked, “what time is it? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
He looked at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock, Sleeping Beauty. And I have the day off because I’m picking my mother up from the airport, remember?”
I would have slapped my forehead if both hands weren’t wrapped around my coffee mug. “Oh, schnitzel! It’s Monday. Having a man heave his intestinal enzymes all over me must have affected my short term memory.” I held up the mug. “I might need three or four more of these to get me going.”
A solemn look crossed his face at the mention of my adventurous evening. He sat on the edge of the bed. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?”
I threw back the covers, placed my coffee mug on the side table, and climbed out of bed intent on getting things done. I had to finish cleaning before Howard’s mother arrived with her white gloves. “I swear, Howard, it wasn’t my fault. And I didn’t go looking for trouble this time, either. I was an innocent bystander to a grisly death. It could happen to anyone. When does Mama Marr’s plane land?”
“One twenty. I wanted to talk to you about something, first.”
I was slipping into a pair of shorts when I decided I’d need another shower first. A clean house was important, but greeting Howard’s mother with smelly pits and scary hair would cancel out the attention I’d
put into ridding the house of dust bunnies and moldy window frames. “Talk about what? Can’t it wait? I have floors to vacuum and ovens to clean.”
“The oven can wait.”
I shook my head and slipped the shorts back off. “No. I forgot to clean the oven last time she visited. She spent the first two days scrubbing it herself, and the rest of her time complaining that the work had aggravated her arthritis. I live with enough guilt as a mother of three daughters. I don’t need to worry that I’m killing your mother, too.”
He grabbed my hands as I headed to the bathroom. “This won’t take long. Just give me a few minutes.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No. Not wrong. Just—”
Bethany called up from downstairs. “Daddy!” she shouted. “Your cell phone is ringing!”
Howard threw his hands in the air, frustrated.
I gave him a quick peck on the lips which turned into a lingering kiss. A vision of Mama Marr wrinkling her nose at my grimy kitchen made me pull away before the kiss turned into anything more. “Get your phone and I’ll get a shower.”
The hot, steamy shower was so heavenly that I delayed my chores longer than I probably should have. A night’s sleep had softened the horror of the previous evening, but a third shower was exactly what I needed to kick-start my morning. I thought about Andy Baugh and wondered how he was feeling. He’d looked so desolate the last time I saw him. That was when they wheeled Kurt’s body out of the banquet room on a gurney.
After the shower, I slipped into the shorts and a t-shirt and ran some mousse through my curly hair, noting that a few more gray strands had moved in. I’d throw on some makeup and get into a nicer set of clothes after cleaning. Grabbing the coffee mug, I threw back another swig as if it were a shot of tequila, then padded my way downstairs to round up the girls and begin Operation Dirt-be-gone.
When I hit the landing at the bottom of the stairs, the front door opened into me, causing my coffee to spill all over the foyer rug.
“Oh, Spam!” Yes, “Spam” is an interesting interjection, but necessary since the day my six-year-old Amber was heard telling a neighbor about “those damn squirrels” that steal our bird food. Nowadays I curb the cursing and find cleaner-but-similar words to replace the “dirtier” variety.
Back to the coffee spill—now I had a coffee stain to clean, as well. It was either that, or hide the rug. Burn it, maybe. Mama Marr would take one look at that thing, shake her head, and say: “Oy, Barb-ara. You don’t know how to take a stain out?” Then she’d tsk and mutter, “I don’t know what they teach these girls in school no more.”
I pulled the door fully open to see who had caused me this grief.
“Hey, there!” my friend, Colt said, as he stood all smiles on my front porch in his sporty shorts and Life is Good t-shirt. Colt Baron was one of those men who definitely aged with grace. When I met him in college he was a blond, trim, and muscular surfer boy. Today, he was still blond, trim and muscular, but he was all man. Little lines that grow around the eyes might make a woman look old, but on Colt they were like butter cream frosting—the proverbial icing on the cake. Whereas Howard had a significant amount of gray, Colt had just a touch that blended in nicely with his feathery blond wisps of hair.
And he looked way too chipper for my current mood.
I scowled. “You made me spill coffee and Mama Marr is coming! I don’t have time for a coffee stain.”
His smile fell. I immediately felt two feet high after noticing that he wasn’t alone. He had a friend with him. A pretty female friend. A pretty, female, brunette, way-younger-than-me friend. “I’m sorry,” I said. “My mother-in-law is coming this afternoon, my house is a wreck—by her standards at least—and last night a famous movie director threw up all over me and then croaked, so my stress meter is in the red-zone right now.” I cleared my throat. “You know how it is.”
The pretty thing hanging onto Colt’s arm tightened her grip as her eyes widened.
Colt’s smile returned. “Up to your old tricks, huh, Barb?”
Barb?
Did Colt just call me Barb? My something-is-wrong-here radar detected a disturbance in The Force.
He continued. “Barb, this is Meegan.”
I was still reeling from the fact that he was calling me Barb instead of Curly. The fun and fancy-free Colt Baron had called me “Curly” from the first day we met over twenty-five years ago. Etiquette told me to offer my hand to Meegan for a shake. The green-eyed monster told me I should slap her alabaster, taut, wrinkle-free face and ask her what she’d done with the Colt who still carried a torch for me and called me cute little pet names. “Um,” I stuttered. “Where are my manners? Come in.” I motioned them into the house. “Nice to meet you, Meg.”
Neither of them moved, but pretty-young-thing grimaced and shook her head. “Meegan,” she corrected me in a pretentiously timid tone.
“Oh, I’m sorry—Meghan.”
Her grimace deepened. “Mee,” she said, as if talking to a three year old. “Mee-gan.”
That slap was feeling pretty necessary, but I fought it off. “Meeeeee-gan,” I said with a hint of over-emphasis (okay, more than a hint). “Come on in.”
Colt cleared his throat. “We can’t come in,” he said. “We just stopped by to get my kayak out of your garage. We’re going to hit Aquia Creek today.”
Meegan giggled. She was just too darned adorable with her sweet, short hair and her ready-for-adventure ensemble. I wondered at her age. Her boobs were way too perky for her to be over thirty. Colt was forty-six. Who did he think he was? Hugh Hefner? “Okay,” I said. “Have . . . fun. I guess.”
Howard joined me at the door. He did that macho man-nod to Colt, and then smiled when he saw Meegan. I felt a strong urge to elbow him in the gut or possibly withhold sex for a week. This girl was making me feel very violent.
“Dude,” Colt said, acknowledging Howard’s nod. “We’re just getting my kayak out of your garage. We’ll be out of the way in a minute.”
“Sure,” Howard said. “You need help?”
Colt shook his head. “We’ve got it, thanks.” Colt stored his kayak, a tent, and a couple of other items in our garage and he knew the code to the opener, so he really had no need to let us know at all except good manners. Or maybe to show off his nauseatingly nubile companion. He winked at me and rubbed his hands together. “Don’t forget our date tomorrow night.”
Meegan frowned and Howard rolled his eyes. “How can I forget?” I said, smiling. “Are you picking me up?”
He looked awkwardly at Meegan then at me. “Probably best to just meet there. Meeg and I . . . have plans. During the day, I mean.” He squeezed his new girlfriend’s arm. “It’s not a real date—I’m just giving Barb some lessons in shooting a hand gun.”
Her eyes widened and she clapped her hands like my daughter, Amber, when I let her have Captain Crunch for breakfast. “Oh! That sounds fun and scary at the same time! Will you teach me, too?”
I could tell Howard was holding back a laugh. “Well, have fun kids,” he said to the duo. He took my arm. “Barb, I need to tell you something.”
“Later!” Colt waved and they were off to our garage.
Howard closed the door and I sensed he was about to tell me something very serious. I wondered if this was the “something” he wanted to talk about upstairs or about the phone call. Usually a call on his cell phone was a call to work, which meant I would have to pick up Mama Marr from the airport.
“You’re going in to the office, aren’t you?”
He shook his head. “It’s not that. But I have some bad news. That phone call was from a DC cop that I know. It’s about last night.”
I already knew that Kurt Baugh was dead. What could be worse? “I don’t know if I want to hear this.”
“It’s Frankie.”
The floor swam under my feet and I grabbed the wall for support. “Frankie’s dead too?”
He shook his head. “No. He’s been arrested
—for murder. Looks like he poisoned Kurt Baugh.”
Chapter Three
FRANKIE BEING ARRESTED FOR MURDER was even worse than Mama Marr performing a detailed latrine inspection or Colt accidentally-on-purpose forgetting my precious pet name. I was frantic. “Frankie didn’t kill anyone!”
Howard looked doubtful. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do. Even you know that Frankie was never a killer. You have to tell them they’re wrong!”
My day wasn’t going well and Howard knew it. He did his best to calm me down. Logically, I understood that Howard couldn’t sway the decision of the DC police to arrest or not arrest Frankie Romano for the murder of Kurt Baugh. It wasn’t his jurisdiction. At the very least I needed more information. Poison? What kind? How? Where? Howard shrugged at my questions. What good is having a husband in the FBI if he can’t give you the answers to why your friend is in jail?
I stewed over the problem and another cup of coffee while Howard disappeared to God-knows-where. Eventually, I decided to put the issue temporarily to rest. I needed to disinfect my house in the three hours I had left before the invasion of the seventy-nine year old Polish gendarme of guck and grime. I’d figure the Frankie thing out later. Right now I needed to round up the troops and devise a battle plan for cleanliness.
At eleven o’clock on a Monday morning in the lazy summer month of July, not one Marr daughter was downstairs even pretending to be awake or alert. I hollered up the stairs. “Girls! Downstairs now! We’ve got work to do!”
Once the words were out of my mouth, I cringed, knowing they would never elicit an immediate and active response. I listened. Crickets were likely to chirp before a girl would stir. But they couldn’t fool me. They were awake. What was needed here was some incentive. I thought a moment, then hollered up again, “We’ve got work to do eating these two dozen Danny’s Donuts before your father finds them!”
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