Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “That’s okay, Mrs. Andrews,” Mark replied, looking around the room. “Boy, being here again really brings back memories. Jenny and I sure spent a lot of time doing math at this table. Well, she was tutoring me, trying to knock some smarts into my thick skull.”

  I laughed. I suspected Mark knew I was nervous and was trying to put me at ease.

  Paul the policeman frowned and cleared his throat. “Can we get to the reason we’re here, please?” He flipped open his notebook. “Now, Mrs. Andrews, we’d like to ask you a few questions about your relationship with the deceased. How well did you know Davis Rhodes?”

  I leaned back in the kitchen chair and tried to appear pensive. I was stalling for time, because I wasn’t completely sure what Jim had told them last night. An image of Joe Friday in the old television show Dragnet flashed into my mind. “Just the facts, ma’am,” he would say in every episode.

  Above all else, I had to be sure that what I said didn’t implicate Jim, so I chose my words as carefully as possible.

  “It seems that everyone Jim and I know is talking about retirement these days,” I began. “It’s the favorite topic of conversation with all our friends. Jim and I have talked about it, too. We’ve discussed his taking early retirement from his job at Gibson Gillespie, while we’re both still relatively young and in good health, so we could do some of the things we’ve always wanted to do, like traveling to Europe, driving cross-country, things like that.”

  I looked at Mark across the table, and he nodded encouragingly me.

  “So one day,” I continued, “just for the heck of it, I went online and did a web search for retirement coaches. Davis Rhodes’s website was the most user-friendly, and he had an office in Westfield. Jim checked out the website, too, and he was as intrigued as I was. We decided to make an appointment with Dr. Rhodes for retirement counseling.”

  So far, I thought, everything I’ve said has been absolutely true. Even though I wasn’t exactly telling the whole truth. Paul Wheeler was writing down every word.

  “Then what happened?” Mark asked.

  “Jim and I went to see Dr. Rhodes for an initial consultation,” I said.

  “When exactly was that, Mrs. Andrews? Can you give me the date?” Paul Wheeler held his pen in mid-air, waiting for my response.

  “It was the fourth week of June. I’m sorry I can’t remember the exact date, but I know it was in the very late afternoon. I think we were Dr. Rhodes’s last appointment of the day, because when we got there, the place looked deserted. When we went inside, we met Sheila Carney, Dr. Rhodes’s assistant, and then we met Dr. Rhodes himself.”

  “What did you talk about?” Mark wanted to know. Really, I thought, these questions were getting a little ridiculous.

  “We talked about retirement possibilities, Mark,” I shot back. “That’s what we were there for, after all.” I tried not to appear defensive.

  “Did either you or Mr. Andrews see Dr. Rhodes again after that initial consultation?”

  Careful, Carol. This is where you could get Jim into trouble.

  “I didn’t see Dr. Rhodes again. But Jim had a few more follow-up appointments with him.”

  “How many?” asked Paul Wheeler.

  “I couldn’t say how many times Jim and Dr. Rhodes met. You’d have to ask Jim that. I only met the man at the initial consultation.”

  I paused, and Mark nodded again, so I continued. “You know, it was just bad luck that Jim had an appointment with him last night and was the person who found him dead. It could have happened to any of Rhodes’s clients.”

  Oops. I suddenly realized that if the police checked Rhodes’s client list for yesterday, Jim’s name wouldn’t be in it. But it was too late to backpeddle now.

  Paul Wheeler snapped his notebook shut. “We’re probably going to question your husband again about last night’s events,” he told me in a not-too-friendly tone. “Some of the information we’ve received from other sources has been contradictory. We may also want to question you again.”

  I was not going to let this little twerp get to me. I stood up and looked directly at Mark. “It was good to see you again. I’ll tell Jenny you were here. Anything Jim and I can do to help you in your investigation, we’ll be glad to do.”

  I gave him a little hug—probably not allowed, but what the heck—and opened the kitchen door to show them both out. “We’ll be in touch,” were Paul Wheeler’s last words.

  Great. Just great. At least he didn’t say, “Don’t leave town.”

  THIRTEEN

  Q: How many retirees does it take to change a light bulb?

  A: Only one, but it might take all day.

  I was in dire need of my friends that morning after the police left. And maybe a stiff drink too, but it was a little early for that. Time to return all their phone calls.

  I started by phoning Claire, because I also wanted Larry to know that the police had been here to ask me questions. She answered on the second ring. “I was sitting here waiting for you to call me back. How’re you doing? How’s Jim? Did he go to work today?”

  “I am literally shaking right now,” I said. “The police just left here.”

  “Oh, Carol! How awful.”

  “I guess it could have been worse. One of the policemen was Mark Anderson. Remember him? He went to school with our kids and now he’s on the Westfield police force.”

  “Just like his father,” Claire reminded me. “I think his dad is chief of detectives now. Unless he’s already retired. At least Mark was someone you felt comfortable with. But it still must have been awfully scary for you.”

  “Is Larry home?” I asked. “I need to talk to him. I don’t know if I handled their questions all right. I wasn’t sure if I should even have talked to them without Larry there, but I didn’t want to make it look like I had something to hide. Am I making any sense? If I’m saying stupid things, just tell me.”

  “You’re making perfect sense,” Claire responded. “But you just missed Larry. He’s gone to the gym to work out. I don’t think he’ll be home for at least two hours.”

  I started to cry. The stress was really starting to get to me.

  “Carol, please don’t cry,” Claire said. “It’s not going to do any good. You know that.”

  I continued to sob. I couldn’t seem to help myself.

  “I’ll tell you what.” Claire said. “How about if I call Nancy and Mary Alice and we all come over and bring you lunch? We can have a council of war about how to handle all this. I can get takeout from Maria’s Trattoria. And I’ll leave a note for Larry to call you as soon as he gets home. I’ll also leave a message on his cell phone. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

  I was pathetically grateful.”That would be wonderful. I can’t stop my imagination from working overtime, and the police visit really freaked me out.”

  “I’ll call Nancy and Mary Alice, and be over with lunch in less than an hour. Meantime, do something to take your mind off your worries. Clean out a closet or something.” Leave it to Claire to order me to do something to take my mind off my current troubles. She always was the bossy one in our crowd. But she always came through for me, no matter what.

  I pressed the “off” button on the portable phone. The cavalry was on its way, with food, yet. And Claire was absolutely right. I needed to do something mindless so I could put the brakes on my overactive imagination.

  Cleaning out a closet held no appeal whatsoever for me. In my opinion, doors were invented to throw stuff behind them and then close quickly before the stuff could fall out all over the floor. How many times had Jim opened the front hall coat closet to hang up a guest’s coat and had tennis racquets, hats, and other assorted junk come crashing down on his head?

  Thinking of my husband made me wonder what he was doing right now. Had he called Sheila Carney at the Re-tirement Survival Center? God, I hoped not. I wasn’t sure if I should let him know the police had been here this morning. I finally decided it was much better to wait and
tell him in person when he came home. There was nothing he could do about it, and the news would just upset him.

  I decided to kill a little time by organizing the drawers in my desk. The bottom two were so full that I had trouble opening and closing them. It wasn’t that long ago that I used my desk and computer every day, when I was doing freelance editing for local magazines. But I had to admit that I spent more time on the computer these days looking for websites on retirement planning than doing editing. I hadn’t received an assignment from my usual sources in over a month. Not that I’d solicited any, either. I needed to send out some emails soon reminding editors of my availability. But not today.

  I tugged on the bottom desk drawer, but it was really stuck. In my frustration, I pulled the damn thing so hard that it finally gave way and dropped on my foot. Ouch! That’s what I needed, some physical pain to go along with my emotional angst. When I decide to suffer, I really suffer.

  Gingerly rubbing my toes, I dumped the entire contents of the offending drawer on the office floor. But when I saw what had been making the drawer stick, I had to smile. It was a treasure trove of memorabilia from Mike and Jenny’s school days—old report cards, art projects, even a few hand-lettered Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards. Going through these family treasures was just the thing I needed to calm my nerves.

  There was also a shoe box filled with old photographs. I was sure Claire, Mary Alice and Nancy would get a kick out of seeing this stuff. There were probably pictures of their kids in the box,too.

  I laughed out loud when I found a photo of Jenny taken the day she had her braces put on, scowling at the camera with her mouth closed, refusing to smile. And there was a classic one of Mike and Jim taken at least twenty years ago during one of our vacations on Nantucket. In the photo, they’re proudly displaying a fish they caught, which looked like it weighed no more than a pound. But from the smiles on both their faces, you’d have thought they’d caught a whale.

  Oh, here was another picture of Jenny, all dressed up for her eighth grade prom. The braces were still on her teeth, but this time she was actually smiling at the camera. I squinted to identify her nervous looking escort, and realized it was Mark Anderson. Hmm. Interesting. I didn’t remember that he and Jenny had dated. Just that they were good friends who did homework together. I kept that one aside to show to Nancy. She’d probably remember every detail.

  I glanced at my watch and realized an hour had gone by since I started this project. The group would be here any minute. That’s why you never get anything accomplished, Carol. You’re too easily distracted.

  Still, finding that picture of Jenny and Mark had given me something else to think about. I wondered if he ever married. Mark and Jenny sure would make a good looking couple. I cheered myself up by imagining the cute grandchildren they could produce if they ever got together.

  Maybe Jenny would like to see Mark again. I could drop a few hints in that direction and see what happened. That wasn’t really interfering, was it?

  Of course it was.

  I sighed, told myself to mind my own business and went to answer the kitchen door.

  “I’d give you a hug except my hands are full,” said Claire, who was balancing several shopping bags with delicious aromas emanating from them, and a small cooler. “Can you take this shopping bag from me?” I was amazed that Claire had arrived so quickly. It showed me how seriously she was taking this situation. Frequently time-challenged, she’d even been half an hour late for her own wedding.

  I grabbed the largest bag, then peered around behind her. “Where are Nancy and Mary Alice? Aren’t they with you?”

  “I called Nancy on her cell, and she’s showing a house to a client. She said she’d be over in about an hour. Mary Alice has some sort of appointment she couldn’t break. She was very mysterious about it, too. Said to give you her love and that she’d try to make it over here sometime after lunch. And before you ask me,” Claire said, correctly anticipating my next question, “yes, I left a message for Larry both at home and on his cell about the police coming here to question you. I’m sure he’ll call you as soon as he can.” She put the rest of the shopping bags and the cooler on the granite countertop. As usual, she had brought enough to feed the entire neighborhood.

  “Now, come and give me a hug and tell me how you’re doing,” Claire said. She eyed me critically. “From the way you look, I’d say not so great.”

  My eyes brimmed over. God, was I always this emotional? I changed the subject before I started to bawl my eyes out. “Does any of this food have to be refrigerated?”

  Claire grabbed my arm and pushed me gently into a chair. “Forget the food. It’ll keep fine. When Nancy comes, we’ll eat it all and won’t save any for Mary Alice. Just to teach her she shouldn’t keep secrets from us.” She poured a glass of iced tea from a jug she had in the cooler and put it on the table in front of me. “Here. I brewed this for you at home, with extra lemon just the way you like it. Drink up.”

  I sipped obediently. Delicious.

  “That’s better. Now, don’t try and change the subject,” Claire said. “Have you heard from Jim today?”

  I told her the whole story, about Sheila Carney’s television interview, Jim’s phone call, and his ridiculous idea about contacting her to offer his condolences. And to tell her what a great job she’d done in the interview.

  Ha!

  “It’s almost like he’s deluded himself into thinking that, now that Rhodes is dead and Sheila is apparently taking over the Center, everything will be terrific,” I said morosely. “He can take her on as a client and make her a huge media star. Forget the fact that Rhodes’s death is suspicious, Jim found the body, and if the police find out why he went to see Rhodes yesterday afternoon, it’s sure to make Jim look guilty of something. Then, as if things aren’t bad enough already, the police showed up here to ask me some questions.”

  I slammed my hand down on the kitchen table in frustration. “And you know what the worst part of this whole mess is, Claire? I don’t know exactly what Jim did or didn’t say to the police last night, except that he was purposely vague about his relationship with Rhodes. So all the while the police were questioning me, I didn’t know if my answers were helping him or hurting him.”

  Claire nodded her head. “I know what you mean. It seems like men don’t share a lot of important things with their wives, doesn’t it? Larry can be the same way. Sometimes I think women share too much, and men don’t share at all.”

  I gave Claire the details of my own police interview. “I think I handled myself all right this time, but if they come back to ask more specific questions, I don’t know what I’ll say. It really helped that Mark Anderson was one of the policeman. He did his best to make me feel at ease. But his partner, Paul Wheeler, is pretty overbearing. I got the feeling he was trying to trip me up with his questions.” I shook my head to clear it a little. “I hope I don’t have to deal with him ever again.”

  “It’s going to come out that Rhodes died of natural causes,” Claire assured me. “Larry was pretty confident about that when he came home last night. He dismissed the fact that Jim was angry at Rhodes for the Wake Up New England interview. And he advised Jim to answer the police questions exactly as they were asked, and not to volunteer any extra information. If Larry thought Jim had something to worry about, he’d have told him, believe me. My husband may be an easy-going guy, but he’s a very sharp lawyer.

  “Now, tell me about Mark. Didn’t he have a crush on Jenny back when they were in school?”

  “You have a pretty good memory,” I answered. “Look what I found in my desk drawer.” I pulled out the prom picture of Jenny and Mark from my sweatpants pocket. “They were a cute couple back then, weren’t they?”

  “They sure were,” agreed Claire. “But don’t you remember the reason Jenny went to that dance with Mark? Her date with the class heartthrob, Peter Goulet, fall through at the last minute. How come I know this and you’ve forgotten?”

/>   “The reason you remember and I don’t, my friend, is probably be- cause you didn’t go through all the mini-romances, crushes, and other assorted crises with Jenny on a daily basis the way I did,” I said. “Some weeks there were so many that it was impossible to keep up. There should be a special place in heaven for women who have raised daughters. God, the drama.”

  Claire laughed. “Raising a son was no bargain either. I don’t think I got a solid night’s sleep after Kevin got his driver’s license. I remember pacing the floor in the family room waiting for him to come home. Praying that he’d come home in one piece. I suppose I was overprotective because he was our only one, but it never seemed to bother Larry. I guess he was in charge of the lawyering and I was in charge of the worrying.

  “And speaking of sons,” Claire asked, “how’s Mike doing down in sunny Florida? Does he know what’s going on at home?”

  “I haven’t said anything to him, and I doubt that Jim has,” I answered slowly. “What good would it do to worry him when he’s so far away and there’s nothing he can do to help? I did get an email from him yesterday, though. He’s come up with a new drink recipe for the bar called the Cosmo Girl’s Cosmopolitan. It sounded pretty good. Maybe we should all have one for lunch.”

  “I don’t know about drinking this early in the day,” said Claire, who always takes things so literally. “But I do know what you mean about protecting your kids from the bad stuff, even when they’re adults. I do the same thing. Do you think maybe a part of us still wants to preserve the illusion our kids had when they were little that we were perfect and could accomplish anything?”

  I laughed. The idea that anyone in my family thought I was perfect, even for only a millisecond, cheered me up a little. Although it probably wasn’t true.

  I gave Claire’s hand a squeeze. “I feel better already, just having you here to talk to. What do people do who don’t have friends like you?”