Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder

by Camilla T. Crespi

  “You know he didn’t kill Valerie,” Janet said.

  “Of course not!” Beth and Lori said at the same time.

  “No way,” Margot added in her indolent way.

  How angry, how desperate was Seth, Lori wondered, trying to keep an encouraging smile on her face for Janet’s sake. We’re all capable of killing, isn’t that what Beth had said? Seth had seemed happy on the train the day after Valerie was killed. He’d mentioned Rob inheriting Valerie’s money. That would mean Rob could pay him back. How desperate had Rob been? How much in debt? Who else had he approached for the Waterside property deal? Why didn’t Valerie help him out?

  “What’s Valerie got to do with Seth?” Margot asked.

  “Detective Scardini thinks the killer might have mistaken her for Rob,” Lori offered as a diversionary tactic.

  “But Seth was meeting Rob,” Janet said. She wiped her face with her hands. “It’s not just his word. Rob confirmed that they were going to meet at a bar on Second Avenue.”

  Lori avoided Beth’s glance, knowing what she was thinking. What if Valerie had been killed so that Rob could inherit? What if that was the reason Seth didn’t show up for the meeting? He would have had to know that Valerie had changed her will. “Look, Janet,” Lori said. “The police have to ask all sorts of questions. How else are they going to piece things together? That doesn’t mean they think Seth killed Valerie.” They had to think Rob killed her. If he was in debt. Which he had to be. Why else wouldn’t he pay Seth back? And yet he had splurged on a new expensive car. Lori felt the air leave her lungs.

  “Those two detectives have been after me and after Rob,” Lori said. Janet was following her words with a string of nods. “Now they’re asking questions about Warren.”

  Margot’s eyes went wide. “Warren?”

  “They’re grasping at straws,” Lori said, sorry she had brought up his name.

  Margot gave an unconvincing laugh. “Warren will tie them up into knots. He’s very good at that.” She patted Janet on the arm. “You’ll both be okay, I’m sure of it.” Her voice turned soft, reassuring. “And you know that any time you need help, I’m here for you.” Help for Margot meant money. She had offered money to Janet countless times, but Janet had been too proud to accept.

  “Thanks, I know that.” Janet let out a big sigh. “Lori, Seth lied about being at Rob’s wedding. He lied about it to me, too. He didn’t want us to know anything was wrong.”

  “I understand,” Lori said. How sad for Seth. How awful for both of them if he had anything to do with Valerie’s death.

  “You guys are great.” Color came back to Janet’s cheeks.

  Relieved for her, the women turned their attention to their various breakfasts. Lori chewed her English muffin slowly to try to calm her heart. Janet ate with gusto. Margot played with her fork. Beth crunched into toast, swallowed, and asked, “What’s the stuff you have to tell us?”

  Lori gladly stopped eating. She had a story that would set Janet’s heart at ease, if not her own. “Ruth, Valerie’s office manager, remember her?”

  The women nodded.

  “She is Valerie’s cousin, and Mrs. Ashe thought she had been involved in some kind of scandal when she was younger, but she couldn’t remember what it was. Last night a friend came through with the story.”

  Beth and Janet gave Lori their full attention. Margot studied her nails, painted in the latest fashion color—Chanel black.

  “Okay, if I got it straight, this is how it goes. Ruth lost her father when she was eight. Her mother remarried quickly but died three years later in a car accident. After the mother’s death, the stepfather didn’t want to take care of Ruth—it seems they never got along—so the Fenwicks, Valerie’s parents, took her in.”

  “That was generous,” Beth said.

  “It was their duty,” Janet said.

  “Get to the point,” Margot said.

  Beth looked her squarely in the eye. “Stop being so hostile.”

  “I have to get a manicure and a pedicure.”

  Beth waved to the door.

  Margot tossed her hair back. “I’m just as curious as you are, except I’m in a hurry.”

  “Stop it, you two,” Janet said. “You’re friends.” She turned back to Lori. “Go on.”

  “After about two years, when Ruth was thirteen, she was suddenly banished from the Fenwick home. No explanations given, but lots of rumors. She stole money, or jewelry. Or Valerie’s mother got rid of her because her husband was taking an unhealthy interest in her. Or she was caught having sex with the gardener and I don’t know what else. The stepfather was apparently so scandalized by what she had done, he wouldn’t take her back and Ruth ended up living with the Fenwicks’ housekeeper and her family.”

  “That’s it?” Margot asked.

  “That’s it for now. I’m having lunch with Ruth in the city. Maybe she’ll tell me more.”

  “Valerie never even mentioned her to me,” Margot said. “I remember the housekeeper. A Filipino. She gave the best massages.”

  “If Valerie had anything to do with getting rid of Ruth,” Janet had a wishful lilt to her voice, “that would give Ruth a very good motive for killing her.”

  Margot dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “I’ve got to go. We still owe from the last breakfast. I wouldn’t want sweet Callie to think we’re shortchanging her.” She kissed her palm and blew the kiss their way. “Bye, gals. Keep me posted on the latest.”

  “Thank you,” Janet said, blowing a kiss back. Margot walked out.

  “What got into her today?” Beth asked.

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned that the police were asking about Warren,” Lori said.

  Janet took money out of her handbag and started sliding across the booth. “What I don’t get is why she left him if she’s still in love with him.”

  “I don’t think she’s in love with him,” Beth chimed in. “She’s upset because she still thinks he’s hers, and she doesn’t want what’s hers to be tarnished.”

  Janet frowned.

  Beth raised her hands. “I know. She has a heart of gold, but sometimes she gets to me. I can’t help it.”

  Janet leaned over and kissed her. “You’re great. And I can’t thank you both enough for being such wonderful friends. I feel so much better. I can’t wait to go home and reassure Seth.” Janet scooted out of the booth, gave Lori her money, and left.

  Cy, the counterman, brought over the bill. Callie was the one who always brought the bill. She’s avoiding me, Lori thought. “Thanks.” She handed over everyone’s money. “We don’t need any change.”

  “You don’t think Seth could have?” Beth asked after Cy walked away.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Lori said, which was the God’s honest truth. “Maybe Ruth will clear up some things. If not about herself, about Valerie. You can’t work with a woman for years and not know her.”

  They both got up. “What time is your lunch?” Beth asked. “I have to show a painting in the city later this morning. If you want, I’ll give you a ride.”

  “Great. I’m meeting her at the Boathouse in Central Park at one o’clock.”

  “I’ll pick you up at eleven thirty.” Beth walked to the door, then looked back. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Lori shook her head. “I need to ask Callie something.”

  Beth smiled. “She’ll never give you that apple pie recipe.” She waved. “See you later.”

  “What did you mean by ‘be careful of friends’?” Lori cornered Callie with the question just as she was coming out of the bathroom at the far end of the coffee shop.

  Callie raised both thick black eyebrows. The women suspected she dyed them because the rest of her hair was gray. “I said that?”

  “Yes, advice from an old Greek woman. ‘Bearing gifts or no gifts, be careful of friends.’ That’s exactly what you said.”

  “I got no time now.” Callie squeezed her sizable girth between the wall and Lori and walked o
ver to the counter to wave a hand at Cy, who was now sizzling bacon and eggs on the grill. “Get this gal another toasted English, with butter this time and bacon well-done. She’s grumpy.”

  “I want an answer, not a sandwich,” Lori protested. “Come on, Callie. Please.”

  “A sandwich is what you get.” Callie swayed down the narrow aisle between counter and booth, nodding as her customers greeted her.

  Lori followed. “Please, Callie, just tell me. I haven’t been sleeping nights, wondering.”

  Callie stopped and turned. “You look like you’ve had the best night’s sleep since you got rid of that man, so don’t go making up stuff.”

  Lori felt herself blushing. Yes, she had slept wonderfully last night, dreaming. “I’m sorry. But how about telling me what you meant?”

  Callie didn’t move. After a few seconds she called out to Cy, “Take over for five,” and walked out to the street. Callie’s Place had a bench on each side of the door. Callie sat in one. Lori sat next to her.

  “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth,” Callie said, folding her arms over her aproned belly. “Words can put a snake in your heart. It was a bad day.” A pigeon waddled over to Callie and looked at her expectantly.

  “Why was it bad?”

  Callie reached into her pocket and scattered crumbs at her feet, then threw more crumbs in a widening arc to include the sparrows. “It’s the day Nick died, twenty-two years ago.” An aneurism had killed her husband in his sleep when he was only thirty-seven. Eugenia had been three at the time. Callie’s two boys, eleven and nine. “That’s the day I go to the cemetery and it breaks my heart in two because I see him, you know, like he’d be now. A little fat, a little bald, still with the moustache but now it’s gray like he’s been eating too many powdered sugar doughnuts. He never could get enough. I see him and I miss him so much it’s like a wall has dropped on my chest and I can’t breathe.” Callie squinted at Lori. She was facing the sun. “My kids think I’m nuts.”

  Lori put her hand over Callie’s. “I think you’re still in love.”

  Callie nodded. “Like the day he walked into my parents’ home to fix the piano.” She lifted her gaze to the blue dome of the sky. The wisps of clouds had disappeared. “I visit Nick every Sunday, but he only shows himself on the day he died, like he’s trying to tell me something about it. What do you think he’s trying to tell me?”

  Lori didn’t know, but she felt a mixture of admiration and envy for Callie’s strength of feeling. “Maybe Nick is showing you that he didn’t die that day,” Lori said. “He’s still with you.”

  Callie reached over and opened the coffee shop door. “Hey, Cy, did you have to go kill the pig?” she called out. “Lori’s hungry.” She let the door go. “Enough about my bad day. And don’t go telling anyone I’m seeing my husband’s ghost or there’ll be a run on the shop, if that Starbucks across the street doesn’t do me in first.”

  “Never,” Lori said, but she wasn’t so sure. Downtown Hawthorne Park had once been a vibrant mixture of the quaint, the dilapidated, and the fashionable. The thrift shop sat next to the designer boutique, which shared a building with the bookstore. The exquisite little antique shop faced the pawnshop across the street, and the pharmacy with oak wainscoting, a beamed ceiling, and old apothecary jars in the window was next door to the hardware, which had been owned by the same family for over seventy-five years and looked like it hadn’t been dusted in over a hundred. Then the overflow of the wealthy from Greenwich had bought up homes in Hawthorne Park only to tear them down and build McMansions. The McStores—Starbucks, The Gap, Barnes and Noble, and CVS—followed.

  “If you shut down, I’ll move,” Lori said, this time with conviction.

  Callie grunted. “To where?”

  “The Australian Outback. Now about your warning?”

  Callie rubbed her eyes, scrunched up her face. “There’s nothing worse than a ratter, but sometimes you just have to, you know. So here goes.” Callie took a deep breath, then plunged. “When you asked your friends, sitting in my coffee shop, about the night that woman was killed, your friend Margot didn’t tell you everything.”

  Lori leaned forward. “Go on.”

  “Five minutes after that woman drove—”

  “Her name was Valerie.”

  Callie squared her shoulders. “Five minutes after that woman drove your kid and Margot’s kid home, Margot drove off and left those kids alone in that huge house.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know from my sixteen-year-old granddaughter Vicki, who babysits the Carltons’ ratty little dogs next door to Margot’s place. They got four dogs that yap their heads off if Vicki isn’t there to keep them company. And they growl whenever a car goes by or when Margot’s garage door opens or closes. So Vicki heard that woman drive up to Margot’s roundabout, and she saw Margot drive off five minutes later. Make of that what you will, and I’m sorry if this upsets you.”

  “I’m surprised, that’s all.” Surprised and confused. Why didn’t Margot tell me? Lori asked herself. Was she worried I’d be upset she’d left the girls alone? Did she see something she didn’t want to share? Where was she going? And what will happen to our friendship if I confront her? “Thanks, Callie,” Lori said. “You’re not a ratter. Ratters are self-serving. You mean well.”

  “Okay, since I’m so good, I’ll add some advice. Lose that real estate guy you’ve set your eyes on.”

  Lori’s cheeks burned. “Who?”

  “Jonathan something. Six-footer, handsome enough to curl your toes. That’s who.”

  “What makes you think I’ve set my eyes on Jonathan Ashe?”

  “Because Ellie came in here on Tuesday and told me he brought you flowers. Because last night I was sitting right here with Vicki and the two of you drove by, and you looked as pretty as a Georgia peach. Because today you look like you’ve swallowed that peach and liked it.”

  Lori couldn’t believe her mother. Correction: she could believe, she just didn’t want to. “How do you know he’s in real estate?”

  “Your mother Googled him.”

  Ellie! What next? “Thanks for the advice, but I haven’t set my eyes on him.”

  “Good. The right guy will come along. I feel it here.” Callie pointed to her heart.

  “What do you have against Jonathan?”

  “The fact that his looks curl my toes. You can take it for a Greek superstition, or Callie going crazy, but trust me on this. Curling my toes is not good.”

  Cy’s hand reached out the door, holding a paper plate on which sat a toasted English muffin bacon sandwich.

  Callie took it from him and handed it to Lori. “It’s on the house for all those nights you didn’t sleep, wondering. Now off with you.” Callie heaved herself up from the bench. “I’ve got to go make a living.”

  Lori bit into the sandwich. It was delicious, but it didn’t stop her from doubting whether Callie had told her the whole truth. She loved Callie, wanted to accept her every word, but a man’s looks curling her toes?

  CHAPTER 25

  * * *

  In front of the neo-Victorian brick building that housed the Boathouse Restaurant, Ruth greeted Lori like a long-lost friend—kisses on both cheeks and a lung-scrunching hug. Ruth was a big woman with a smooth round face and the rosy cheeks of a kid, although she had to be at least forty according to Mrs. Ashe. She was wearing a beige short-sleeved pantsuit that matched the color of her short hair. An expensive-looking tiny red leather handbag dangled from one hand. On her feet, brand new white Nikes. She clutched Lori’s shoulders. “You must be feeling great!”

  Lori extracted herself and asked, “Why?”

  Ruth was already walking ahead of her through the gate to the terrace where she gave the hostess Lori’s name. The hostess, a pretty young blonde with a sexy swing to her walk, accompanied them to a front row table facing the lake and handed them two menus. A gondola that had once escorted the rowboats bobbed gently in front of them. In the di
stance the tall buildings of Central Park West rose above the canopy of trees.

  Ruth looked at the water and shook her head. “Why can’t we sit there?” she asked, pointing to a table in front of the restaurant’s glass windows. The hostess bowed her head and walked them there. A couple at the next table were talking loudly into their cell phones.

  “I bet they’re yelling at each other.” Ruth gave them an angry look and strode to the other side of the terrace. The hostess and Lori scrambled after her. “You’re it,” Ruth said to a table near the entrance, dropped her handbag on an empty chair, and sat with her back to the lake. So much for picking an atmospheric restaurant, Lori thought, as she gave the hostess an apologetic smile.

  “Water gives me the creeps,” Ruth announced.

  “You should have told me. I would have made a reservation elsewhere.”

  “I’m good here. Isn’t it obvious why you should be feeling great? Valerie Fenwick, DDS, is dead. You know, when you slapped her, I had to pretend I was mad. I didn’t want to lose my job, but I could have hugged you.”

  “You didn’t like Valerie?”

  “Now I didn’t say that. She was my cousin, you know. Next thing you’ll think I killed her.” She stopped talking to squint at the menu, then started fanning herself with it. “Aren’t you hot? It’s hot. I’m too young to be flashing.”

  The temperature was in the low eighties but Lori had to admit it was muggy.

  “You’re flashing already, right?” Ruth asked.

  “Wrong.” Lori was beginning to worry about this lunch.

  Ruth ignored her answer. “All I’m saying is Valerie needed to be taken down a peg or two and you did it. No one ever had the guts. You have no idea what a spoiled brat she was. I lived with the Fenwicks for a few years when I was a kid, you know.”

  “I had no idea you were cousins,” Lori said. Embarrassing Ruth by revealing that she knew about her falling out with Valerie’s parents would not get her the information she wanted.