by Lois Winston
“And what’s more,” I paused dramatically, “Jenny says that as of this afternoon, that diploma is no longer in Linda’s office, right, Jenny?” I looked at my daughter and she nodded her head again.
So far, Mark had said nothing. But at least he appeared to be listening.
“I decided that was a little fishy, so I asked our son, Mike…”
“Carol, did you get everyone we know involved in this?” Jim’s sarcasm usually stopped me cold, but not this time. I sent him The Look. Jim knew better than to try and interrupt. He contented himself with raising his eyes heavenward.
“I asked our son, Mike,” I repeated with great deliberation, “to do some Internet research on Linda Burns’s educational background. He’s found out there’s no record of anyone with that name graduating from Papermill University, in 1974 or any other year. She could have been a student there, but didn’t finish.” I paused. Time to offhandedly throw in the “maiden name” problem. I decided to stretch the truth, just a little. “Mike’s also checking out graduate records under Linda’s maiden name.” Well, he would, as soon as I gave it to him. “So far, he hasn’t come up with anything. But he’s going to keep on digging.”
“You’re being completely ridiculous. What are you talking about, checking under Linda’s maiden name?” Jim demanded.
“Hey, I’m trying to keep you out of jail. What do you mean, I’m being ridiculous?”
“Carol, your memory is going. Not that I blame you, with all this stress. You know as well as I do that Linda Burns never changed her last name when she married Bruce. His last name was Linden, but she didn’t like it. She convinced him to legally change his name to hers. When you found out about that a few years ago, you carried on about it for weeks.”
I stared at Jim like the idiot I was. He was absolutely right. And, praise the Lord, that meant that I was, too. I had a case against Linda after all.
Then Mark said, “Mrs. Andrews, with all due respect, who cares? What does this have to do with Davis Rhodes’s death?”
Jenny responded for me. “Mark, if Linda Burns had a phony diploma on her office wall, that amounts to faking her academic credentials. I heard the other day that Linda’s being named chairman of the college history department. That’s very prestigious. If the college administration suspected she’d faked her credentials, she not only wouldn’t get promoted, she’d lose her job, tenure or not.”
I jumped right in to reinforce Jenny. “For all we know, Rhodes did recognize her from his college days and was blackmailing her. Don’t you see, Linda couldn’t take the chance that Rhodes would publicly identify her as a fraud. Well,” I glared at Jim, who was shaking his head in disbelief, “it’s possible. She had to eliminate him. And I think she broke into the Re-tirement Survival Center last night and stole that college yearbook. Because her picture wasn’t in it as a member of that graduating class.”
“This is pretty lame, Mrs. Andrews. But just for the sake of continuing this fascinating discussion, how did she set up Mr. Andrews?” Mark asked.
I ignored Mark’s sarcasm. At least he was still listening.
“I finally figured out this morning that I’d lost my cell phone at Crimpers, the hair salon I go to,” I answered excitedly. “Deanna, my hair stylist, remembers that she asked Linda Burns to return the phone to me. Instead of doing that, Linda must have mailed it to the police anonymously to incriminate Jim with that voice mail message.” I looked triumphant at my brilliant reasoning.
“What about planting the Enalapril in your medicine cabinet?” Mark asked.
Jenny answered that one. “Linda gave me a ride home when I couldn’t get my car started the other day. When she dropped me off, she asked to use the bathroom to wash her hands. Mom and I both remember that she used the master bathroom. She must have planted the medicine bottle then. Maybe Linda even did something to my car so she’d have an excuse to take me home.”
I interrupted to add that Linda’s dog had been on Enalapril before it passed away three years ago. Fact Number Five. Or Six. I’d lost count by this time.
“Way to go, Mom,” said Jenny. “I was wondering how Linda could have gotten hold of the drug.”
“This is the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. Why would Linda want to incriminate me?” Jim demanded.
“I think you were just convenient, honey,” I answered. “She knew you were doing some work for Rhodes. So there was already a handy connection between you two that she could exploit to her advantage.”
“You’ve made some interesting points, Mrs. Andrews. But I’m still not convinced,” Mark said. “This information is all hypothetical and circumstantial. There’s no proof that Linda Burns and Davis Rhodes knew each other in college, or that they saw each other after he moved to the area and set up the Re-tirement Survival Center. Or that he recognized her. Or that she had the opportunity to plant the drug that killed him. I need a concrete reason to question her. You haven’t given me one.”
I slumped back in my chair. I’d given it my best shot. Sadly, it wasn’t enough.
“Oh, my God,” Jim said suddenly. “Maybe there’s no proof connecting Rhodes and Linda, but I referred Bruce Burns to Rhodes for counseling. And I know Bruce went, because I saw him coming out of the Center a few weeks ago.” Jim looked at me. “You remember, Carol, that he’s been out of work for the last six months.”
“What are you talking about?” I exclaimed. “Bruce takes the train into the city with you every morning.”
“I know I told you about Bruce’s situation months ago, and asked you to keep it to yourself,” Jim insisted firmly. “He’s still commuting into New York every day. But he’s not going to a job. He’s going to his outplacement agency.”
“You never told me!” I retorted.
Jim sighed patiently. “I did tell you,” he repeated. “And you say I never hear what you say to me. You never listen to me either.”
“Okay, okay,” I admitted. “Maybe you did tell me and I forgot. This bickering isn’t getting us anywhere. Go on.”
“Bruce kept his job loss as quiet as possible,” Jim continued. “I’m sure he and Linda expected he’d land another job right away, so nobody would ever have to know he’d been out of work. I always thought Bruce was a pompous bore, but he certainly has my sympathy for what he’s been going through. I imagine their income has taken a pretty severe hit, with Bruce being unemployed for so long.”
I looked at Mark and continued my scenario. “I’ll bet Bruce saw the diploma from Papermill University on Rhodes’s office wall when he went to the Center for counseling. He recognized the connection with Linda and her phony diploma.”
“Bruce must have been pretty desperate by that time,” Jenny speculated. “He couldn’t afford to take the chance that Linda’s fake credentials would be discovered and she’d lose her job.”
“Bruce switched Rhodes’s blood pressure pills for the Enalapril, knowing that it would be fatal to Rhodes. And Linda’s been covering up for her husband’s crime by implicating Jim,” I finished triumphantly. It all fit, didn’t it?
“How would either of them know what drug to use to poison Rhodes?” Mark objected.
I smiled at him sweetly. “I haven’t the faintest idea, Mark. But I know you and the rest of the police will figure that part out. And until you do, arresting someone else would certainly be premature, wouldn’t it?”
I immediately switched from being Carol Andrews Super Sleuth into my Perfect Hostess role. “Now that we’ve figured all that out, anyone for ice cream bread?”
THIRTY
The guy who can’t figure out what to do with a Sunday afternoon is usually the same one who can’t wait to retire.
After laborious police work to confirm my wild theory, Linda and Bruce Burns were arrested and charged with the murder of Davis Rhodes. I heard an unconfirmed rumor that Linda was taken out of her classroom in handcuffs, and she was so angry she tried to bite one of the policemen.
Naturally, Mark wasn
’t able to tell us much about the hard evidence the police had accumulated against Linda and Bruce, despite all my pleading, but he did say that Rhodes had suffered all his life from very low blood pressure, a condition confirmed by both Grace and Sheila. The police theory is that Linda knew about this condition from their college days, when she and Rhodes dated briefly, and Bruce (with Linda egging him on) switched the pills Rhodes was on to treat his low blood pressure with Enalapril, which is prescribed to control high blood pressure. Then, they sat back and waited for Rhodes to have a heart attack.
One brilliant reporter got the idea of dubbing Linda and Bruce “Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth,” after the Shakespeare play. Get it? They’ll be standing trial in November.
My crack investigative team, of course, got absolutely no credit whatsoever for solving the case, which was just fine with me. The less that people in town knew about our contributions, the better.
Mary Alice’s retirement shower was a huge success, largely thanks to Maria Lesco, whose obvious flair for putting on private parties is certain to give her a whole new list of clients.
Mark and Jenny see each other regularly. They seem to be quite enamored of each other, and I am doing my best not to nurture (that is, interfere in) the budding romance.
Jenny never went back to California to pick up the rest of her things. As she pointed out to me, she was starting a whole new chapter in her life. Out with the old, in with the new.
Nancy is up to her ears in real estate transactions. If the housing bubble has burst, nobody’s told her.
Mary Alice is happily adjusting to her new life as a nursing instructor and private duty nurse. She has given the word “retirement” a whole new meaning.
Claire and Larry are thinking of becoming “snowbirds” and buying a condo in Florida. They’ve assured us they would only use the condo during the winter months, so they won’t be moving away for good. And, of course, they would be near Mike, so they could keep an eye on him for Jim and me. Not that I would ever admit that to Mike, of course.
Jim did decide to retire. He was offered an excellent package from Gibson Gillespie, and he took it. It’s funny, but when he told me his decision, I wasn’t as upset about it as I thought I’d be. After all, the man almost went to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Having him around on a regular basis is a blessing, compared to what could have happened.
But Jim wasn’t one to sit at home for very long. Just when I started to wave travel brochures in his face, he announced he’d taken a part-time job as a columnist on our local paper. He’s dubbed himself the paper’s “curmudgeon-in-residence.” He writes a weekly opinion piece, “State of the Town,” in which he gets to criticize and comment on anything and everything. It’s absolutely perfect for Jim since he thinks he’s an expert on everything, and it also gets him out of the house.
Life was good. Maybe, too good.
And then one morning, over a leisurely second cup of coffee, (which Jim had made), My Beloved said, “Carol, I think we should consider downsizing. Maybe selling this house and moving to one of those active adult communities. What do you think?”
I could think of a million comeback responses to that idea, all of them negative.
But that’s another story.
~*~
Ice Cream Bread Recipe
From Agnes Seiwell
Prep time: 5 minutes
Ingredients
1 pint (2 cups) ice cream, softened. Flavor: your choice.
1-1/2 cups self-rising flour
Stir together ice cream and flour just enough so that flour is thoroughly moistened. Spoon batter into greased and floured 8” x 4” loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees 40-45 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center of bread comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.
This two-ingredient bread is great any time of day. It can be served as a dessert topped with some whipped cream and chocolate or other flavored sauce or toasted and used as a side dish to a meal.
Enjoy!
Carol and Jim’s adventures continue in Moving Can Be Murder, Susan Santangelo’s next Baby Boomer Mystery.
Moving Can Be Murder
A Baby Boomer Mystery, Book Two
ONE
My Beloved had finally worn me down. I’d agreed to sell our beautiful antique home in Fairport, Connecticut, and downsize to a nearby “active adult” community.
The moving truck had come today, and all of our cherished possessions had gone into storage. Our new home wouldn’t be ready to move into for two more months. I wanted to postpone the closing, but Jim, not wanting to lose the buyer—God forbid—opted to move us and our two English cocker spaniels, Lucy and Ethel, into a furnished one-bedroom apartment temporarily. It was quite a comedown—trading a five-bedroom home for a space smaller than our old master bedroom suite.
Within a month after his retirement, Jim had signed on as a columnist for our weekly newspaper, which kept him busy and out of my hair most of the time.
That is, he was out of my hair in a five-bedroom house. How that would translate to our temporary cramped digs remained to be seen.
I’d tried to put a brave face on when we walked out the kitchen door and locked it for the last time. But I felt like something I truly loved had died.
~*~
Want to know what happens next? Click here to buy Moving Can Be Murder.
About the Author
Susan Santangelo is the author of the humorous Baby Boomer mystery series, featuring a typical Boomer couple, Carol and Jim Andrews, as they navigate their way along life’s rocky path toward their twilight years.
Susan divides her time between Belleair Beach, FL and Cape Cod, MA. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers and the Cape Cod Writers Center. She also reviews mysteries for Suspense Magazine.
She shares her life with her husband, Joe, and two very spoiled English cocker spaniels, Boomer and Lilly.
Connect with Susan at the following sites:
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://babyboomermysteries.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susan.santangelo?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/grammasuze
Books by Susan Santangelo
Baby Boomer Mystery Series
Retirement Can Be Murder
Moving Can Be Murder
Marriage Can Be Murder
Class Reunions Can Be Murder
Funerals Can Be Murder
Second Honeymoons Can Be Murder
Dead Air
A Talk Radio Mystery, Book One
By Mary Kennedy
Dr. Maggie Walsh closes up her cushy Manhattan psychology practice and heads to sunny Florida to become a radio talk show host. Her show, On the Couch with Maggie Walsh, is a hit with her listeners, and she enjoys the quirky staff at WYME Radio. Her mother, the star-struck B-movie actress Lola Walsh, comes for a visit and decides to stay. Things are going smoothly until Maggie has a New Age guru as a guest on the show, and he ends up murdered. Worse, Maggie’s roommate Lark is the prime suspect. Will Maggie, with the help of hunky detective Rage Martino, manage to solve the crime and bring the real killer to justice?
ONE
I think it was the call from the Furrie that put me over the top.
I’d just started my afternoon show at WYME Radio when Vera Mae Atkins, my producer, scrawled the word FURVERT on a piece of paper and waved it at me from the production room.
Furvert?
Once she had my attention, she flashed me a pussycat smile. “You have a call from Seymour on line one, Dr. Maggie. He says he’s a furrie.” Then her lips gave a telltale quiver and I spotted the wicked gleam in her eye, a seismic shaking in her narrow shoulders. I expected her to break into the happy dance at any moment.
Enjoy! She mouthed the word through the large glass window that separates the production area from the cramped recording booth where I sit for three hours every weekday. She circled her index finger next
to her ear in a Looney-tunes gesture and tossed me a broad wink.
Okay, the truth finally hit me. I had a furvert on the line.
A furvert, in case you’re wondering, is a derogatory term–a mixture of the words furrie and pervert. What’s a furrie? (Sometimes called a plushie, by those in the know.) Here’s an idiot’s guide explanation. If you enjoy dressing up like a chipmunk and having sex with someone wearing a raccoon costume, you would call yourself a furrie. Or maybe you’re a snow leopard who likes to do the horizontal mambo with a giraffe. Or you could be a brown bear with a yen for a wildebeest–well, I’m sure you get the idea.
If that’s what floats your boat, then Vera Mae–and others–would call you a furvert.
Most days, my training as a clinical psychologist leads me to be less judgmental, more accepting of all alternate life styles, including furries and their bizarre couplings. At least that’s what a psychoanalytic approach would endorse; two consenting adults dressing up as an animals and having sex. No harm, no foul.
But here’s the thing (as Dr. Phil would say)–I just wasn’t in the mood to be PC today.
I bit back a sigh. As the host of On the Couch with Maggie Walsh, I’ve had my share of unhappy callers–bored housewives, bitter employees, frazzled parents, desperate singles, and out and out crazies. In my quiet moments, I compare myself to Dr. Phil, except as Vera Mae likes to say, “Dr. Phil without the money, fame or glory.”