by Lois Winston
“Perhaps she had her own connections,” I said. “You told us she’d done drugs for years.” I turned to Ira. “How long has Pablo worked for you?”
Ira shrugged. “I have no idea. He worked for the pool service I contract with, but I don’t remember seeing him before this summer.”
“Which means he probably wasn’t her supplier,” I said. “Not if she’d been using drugs before and throughout her marriage to Ira.”
“Has the medical examiner released Cynthia’s body yet?” asked Mama, changing the subject slightly. “We’ll need to plan her funeral.”
“Last Wednesday,” said Ira. “I had her cremated the following day.”
“Then we’ll go with a memorial service,” said Mama, the Martha Stewart of funeral planning, thanks to her vast experience with spouses dying on her.
“We decided that under the circumstances a service would be inappropriate,” said Lawrence.
“When did you decide that?” asked Mama.
“Before you and I left for Paris.”
“What about Cynthia’s sister?” I asked. “Didn’t she want to pay her respects?”
“What sister?” asked Lawrence. “Cynthia was an only child.”
I suppose that explained why Cynthia’s sister was a no-show at Lawrence and Mama’s wedding. I’d assumed she’d stayed away from the nuptials in solidarity with Cynthia.
“Ira,” I said, “the day we met you told us Cynthia was out of town visiting her sister.”
“You must have misunderstood,” he mumbled into his plate.
“I don’t think so.” I turned to Mama. “You remember, don’t you, Mama?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, dear.”
Well, I did. I clearly remembered the conversation, plus the one a few days later when Ira said he had to leave to pick Cynthia up at the airport. Why had he lied? “So who was Cynthia visiting back then?” I asked.
Ira refused to make eye contact with me. “I may have said she’d gone to visit a sorority sister.”
He hadn’t. At the time I didn’t know Cynthia was Ira’s trophy wife and his kids’ stepmother. Had he mentioned a sorority sister, I would have thought it odd for a mother to choose visiting a friend over attending Parents’ Day at her children’s overnight camp. “Was she?”
He pulled at his tie and loosened his collar before mumbling, “Not exactly.”
I let the subject drop. Ira’s refusal to look at me, along with his fidgeting body language, suggested Cynthia had been off cavorting with her pool boy lover.
*
By the time everyone not living under the Casa Pollack roof had departed for their own homes, a heavy metal percussion band had taken up residence between my temples. I put away the leftover Chinese food, turned my back on the dirty dishes still piled on the dining room table, and headed for the boys’ bedroom.
“I need you guys to load the dishwasher for me.”
Nick glanced up from his chemistry book. “You look kind of green, Mom.”
“That’s why I need your help. I’ve got a date with two Motrin and a steamy bath.”
“How do we keep Uncle Ira and his kids from dropping in all the time?” asked Alex.
“Short of gagging your grandmother? I’m not sure.”
“Now that grandma’s married to Lawrence, we’re going to see a lot more of Ira and his kids, aren’t we?”
I sighed. “I’m afraid so.”
*
“How are the newlyweds?” asked Cloris the next morning at work. “Did the groom survive?”
Cloris McWerther is the food editor at American Woman, the magazine where I work as the crafts editor. Our cubicles are across the hall from each other. However, Cloris is much more than merely a coworker. She’s the Dr. Watson to my amateur Sherlocking, even saving my life once when another coworker tried to kill me.
She also keeps me from starving, given that I often don’t have time for breakfast in the morning and usually work through lunch. Unfortunately, the sustenance she provides is generally of the baked goods variety—disastrous to both my lack of willpower and my spreading hips. Today’s offering consisted of an assortment of liqueur-infused donuts supplied by a new bakery in Union Square. I immediately zeroed in on the chocolate-glazed Chambord confection. The combination of chocolate and raspberries will be my downfall. Spike the two with alcohol, and I’m doomed to suffer from Spreading Hip Syndrome for the rest of my life.
Cloris receives a constant stream of edible swag from vendors hoping for editorial showcasing in our magazine. Me? My swag consists of calorie-free but definitely inedible felt squares, chenille stems, and pompoms. Life can be so unfair.
As I savored the donut, I caught Cloris up on the events of last evening. “I’m glad Mama has found someone who makes her happy; I just wish he didn’t come with so much dysfunctional family baggage. I have enough of that from Lucille.”
“If you’re referring to Ira and his family, you’d have them with or without Lawrence in the picture.”
Something else I can blame on my not-so-dearly-departed husband. Thanks to Karl, I’m not only stuck with his curmudgeonly mother and debt up the wazoo, I now have his needy half-brother and those bratty kids in my life. How lucky can one girl get? “At least they live nearly an hour away.”
“Did you ever stop to consider that Ira might not be who he appears?” asked Cloris.
“What do you mean?”
“Karl fooled everyone. Ira is Karl’s brother—”
“Half-brother.”
Cloris waved away the distinction. “Whatever. Maybe Karl and Ira share more than just looks. What if Ira’s insecurities and neediness are all a carefully crafted cover for a more sinister personality?”
The idea struck me as absurd. “You think Ira staged Cynthia’s murder to look like an accidental overdose? And then executed Pablo?”
Cloris shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Need I remind you that John List lived in your town? Who would ever have expected such a milquetoast of a man to murder his wife, mother, and two kids?”
“That happened nearly forty years ago.”
“So? Watch the news. Similar crimes happen every day all across America, and the perpetrators often look more like Clark Kent than Charles Manson.”
Once upon a time I would have accused Cloris of watching too many crime dramas on TV, but that was before my life spiraled into a crime drama. As much as I hated to admit it, she did have a point. After all, how much did I really know about Ira other than what he himself had told me? “I suppose anything is possible. Pablo may have been dumped in Camden, not killed there.”
“The medical examiner would be able to determine that.”
“I’m sure he has, but according to Ira, the police aren’t releasing any specific information. All we know is that Pablo was found in Camden.”
“All you know. Ira may know quite a bit more.”
Great. Now I had to worry whether or not I’d allowed a coldblooded killer into my home.
I licked Chambord-spiked raspberry jam from my fingers and reached for another donut, one labeled Peach Margarita. Maybe the sugar rush would switch out the visions of a possibly murderous stepbrother-in-law swimming around in my brain with images of rainbows and unicorns. A girl can hope, right? Otherwise I’d spend my day going crazy with conjecture and worry when I needed to concentrate on preparing for our upcoming editorial meeting.
The American Woman editors meet the last Monday of each month to present status reports on all the issues in various stages of production. In addition, we pick the theme for the issue next up in the queue. Even though part of the meeting involves brainstorming new ideas, I always like to prepare a few ahead of time. In the past, some of the chosen themes hadn’t easily lent themselves to craft projects, causing me considerable stress. I already have enough stress in my life.
According to the cupcake-themed calendar hanging above Cloris’s computer, I had less than a week to come up with an idea Naomi would love e
nough to choose. I wondered how she felt about rainbows and unicorns. “Have you given any thought to the next issue?” I asked.
“Not really. I can create a cake for whatever theme Naomi decides on.”
“You’re no help.”
“Talk to Jeanie.”
Jeanie Sims was our decorating editor. An earth mother who dressed in denim and Birkenstocks, she loved themes where she could incorporate recycling and upcycling. We worked well together.
“Talk to Jeanie about what?”
“Speak of the devil,” said Cloris as Jeanie joined us in Cloris’s cubicle and snagged a Limoncello donut.
“A theme for the next issue,” I said. “Any ideas?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. We haven’t featured an issue on babies in over a year. I’d love to create a shabby chic nursery from salvaged items.”
“What about lead paint?” asked Cloris.
“I’d stress first using a lead paint test kit on all the items.”
“Janice could write an article about the dangers of lead paint in older homes.” I said, referring to Janice Kerr, our health editor. “That would tie in nicely.”
“I could create a menu for a baby shower,” said Cloris.
They both turned to me. One of my biggest challenges was coming up with projects that didn’t require multiple pages of patterns. Readers wanted full-size patterns; the bean counters hated full-size patterns. They didn’t like giving me any more editorial space than necessary because I didn’t pull in huge advertising dollars the way fashion and beauty did. According to the bean counters, a successful issue was one where the sales department sold so much advertising that I lost editorial pages.
“I haven’t featured a knitting or crochet project in quite some time,” I said. “I can design an infant layette.”
“Naomi will love it,” said Cloris.
“Tessa will hate it,” said Jeanie, referring to our prima donna fashion editor.
Cloris smirked. “All the more reason to do it. We’ll get Janice on board and go into next Monday’s meeting as a united front.”
*
After nearly an hour of battling rush hour traffic, I finally arrived home, relieved to find neither Ira’s van nor Lawrence’s car parked at the curb. After last night’s chaos, I looked forward to a relatively peaceful dinner—relatively being the operative word. After all, I never knew what to expect from my motherin-law.
However, as I turned to head into the house, an unexpected shaft of bright light caught my eye. Across the street, Betty Bentworth’s door stood half ajar, the glow from her foyer chandelier spilling out onto her front porch.
Betty—otherwise known as Batty Bentworth—spent her life seated in front of her living room window where she spied on her neighbors. She kept the Westfield police on speed dial, often calling multiple times a day to complain about anything and everything, once even demanding the arrest of her six-year-old next-door neighbor for vandalism. The child’s crime? She’d drawn a chalk hopscotch board on the sidewalk in front of Betty’s house.
Batty Bentworth was not someone who left her front door open—especially after dark.
Like everyone else in the neighborhood, I kept my distance from Mrs. Bentworth. You never knew what would set her off, and it was best not to get on her bad side. Not that she had a good side from what I knew of her.
Still, I couldn’t ignore that open door. Rather than head across the street, I decided to call her. Maybe she’d gone out earlier to retrieve her mail, and the door hadn’t latched completely when she returned. The stiff October breeze blowing down the street may have pushed the door open.
I whipped out my cell phone, scrolled to her number, and placed the call. The phone rang. And rang. And rang. After a dozen rings I hung up, sighed, and reluctantly crossed the street.
“Hello? Mrs. Bentworth?” I called through the open door. No answer. I shouted her name. “Mrs. Bentworth!” Only the sound of the six o’clock news blaring from her television greeted me.
I stepped inside and shouted above the Eyewitness News reporter. “Mrs. Bentworth! It’s Anastasia Pollack. Your front door is open.”
A sense of déjà vu washed over me. Less than two weeks earlier I’d discovered Rosalie Schneider, another elderly neighbor, unconscious at the bottom of her basement stairs. I took a few steps into the foyer and turned toward the dimly lit living room. Batty Bentworth sat on her sofa, a multi-colored crocheted granny square afghan draped across her lap, her gaze fixated on the news broadcasting from an old black and white console television set.
“Mrs. Bentworth, didn’t you hear me?”
When she didn’t respond, I stepped between her and the television. She continued to ignore me, but now I knew why. Batty Bentworth was dead—but not from natural causes.
THREE
Betty Bentworth had taken a bullet to her eye. A dark trickle of dried blood ran down her cheek and pooled on top of the arthritic right hand that rested in her lap. Her left hand still held the handle of a coffee cup, the cup’s contents now forming a circular stain on the sofa cushion. I’m no crime scene investigator, but even I could deduce from her calm pose that Betty never heard or saw the killer approach.
I glanced around the room. Although I’d never before entered Betty’s home, nothing appeared out of place. There was no evidence of ransacking or burglary. Ornate silver candlesticks graced the fireplace mantle. Her coffee table held a matching five-piece silver tea service. The silver seemed incongruous with the sparse, decades-old threadbare furniture of the room. Unless the killer came for something specific and knew exactly where to find it, this certainly didn’t have the markings of a burglary gone wrong. To my untrained eye and because I live in New Jersey, this looked like a hit to me.
But why? Betty Bentworth was a royal pain in the patoutie to everyone on the block, not to mention the Westfield police, but no more so than my own motherin-law. What had the disagreeable octogenarian done to warrant a bullet to the head? Who could possibly hate her that much?
Since such close proximity to a murder victim sent shivers of dread up and down my spine, I rushed back outside before calling the police.
“911. State your emergency.”
“My neighbor’s been shot. She’s dead.” I gave my name and Betty’s address.
“Are you certain she’s dead, ma’am?”
“Positive.”
“Are you in any danger?”
“I don’t think so. It looks like she was killed several hours ago.”
“How do you know that, ma’am?”
“The blood on her face is dry.”
“I see. Are you still on the premises?”
“I’m standing on the sidewalk in front of her house.”
“Stay there. A squad car is on the way.”
Over the years Westfield, like many suburban towns, experienced the occasional homicide. However, with few exceptions, most recently being the murders that occurred a few months ago at the Westfield Assisted Living and Rehabilitation Center, the majority of these murders were crimes of passion committed by husbands or boyfriends. A gruesome murder occurring less than a week before Halloween belonged in a horror movie, not in Westfield, New Jersey.
I had no love for Halloween. Real life was scary enough. The makeshift sheet-ghosts tied to my neighbors’ tree limbs and whipping around in the wind added to my unease, as did the skeletons and gravestones dotting many of the front yards and the creepy-faced jack-o-lanterns shining from porches and windows. I knew it was all fake, but as I stood on the sidewalk, dried leaves swirling around my feet, I also knew a killer had been here recently. Images of Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger flashed before me.
Thankfully, less than two minutes after placing my call to 911, a Westfield squad car, lights flashing but sirens silent, pulled up to the curb. I shook off my Halloween phobia as officers Harley and Fogarty stepped from the vehicle. The two cops and I had come to know each other quite well over the last year, thanks to the upheaval
in my life. When they stepped from the squad car, their expressions telegraphed their lack of surprise at finding I was the neighbor who had called in the report.
Both officers towered over me, but that’s where their physical similarities ended. Fogarty sported a body-builder’s physique. Although currently hidden by a leather jacket, on previous occasions I’d seen his muscles strain the seams of his uniform. Harley’s body also strained his seams but more from pudginess than muscle.
“Someone shot Batty Bentworth?” asked Harley, the older of the two by about ten years.
I nodded.
“Mrs. Pollack, you really need to stop stumbling across dead bodies,” said Fogarty.
“I’d like nothing better. I never set out to become the Jessica Fletcher of Westfield.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” said Harley. “You’re racking up some decent crime-solving stats. We may have to deputize you.”
“No, thanks.”
Fogarty scoped out the front of Betty’s house. “So the old bat’s really dead?”
I nodded. “Bullet to her head.”
“Wait here while we check things out,” said Harley.
The two officers headed inside the house. A moment later an unmarked car and a Crime Scene Investigation van, both with flashing lights, pulled up behind the squad car.
While the officers from the van grabbed their gear and hurried down the walkway to Betty’s front door, a rotund man pried himself from behind the wheel of the unmarked car and stepped into the street. He took one look at me and said, “You again?”
“Nice to see you, too, Detective.”
Detective Samuel Spader—no joke—and I had met over the summer when my motherin-law was the prime suspect in the strangulation death of her roommate at the Westfield Assisted Living and Rehabilitation Center. Spader was not the first ironic name I’d come across in law enforcement. Over the past few months I’d interacted with Detectives Batswin and Robbins in Morris County and Detectives Phillips and Marlowe in Manhattan. I chalked up the coincidence of their names and chosen careers to the universe needing to provide me with an occasional laugh, given all the crap it had dumped on me recently.