by Julie Kramer
I wore a little black dress with pearls because that seemed safest in uncertain social situations. Madeline wore a little black dress with an emerald brooch.
Madeline had invited me to join her family at the Post table. I’d initially declined because I didn’t want to accept anything of value from them. That policy generally keeps things cleaner in reporter-source relationships. But she’d convinced me that my presence was an added bonus to the event. That guests enjoy mingling with news celebrities. And couldn’t I spare just one night out of my busy schedule in the name of charity?
So I reconsidered, but insisted on driving and paying for parking so as not to be a total mooch. Madeline agreeably left her cobalt-blue Mercedes parked outside my house and climbed into my middle-class Toyota Camry.
After the concert we walked next door to a ballroom and checked our coats. I regretted wearing my stiletto heels. While balance was my biggest obstacle, the evening would be even more challenging for Madeline and her mother on the face front. Nearly all the women in attendance wore little black dresses and nearly all the men wore black suits and ties.
The guest list represented a who’s who of St. Paul’s most influential and wealthy. Name tags were out of the question because it was such a swanky affair. Suddenly I suspected the real reason Madeline invited me.
“You need me to help you work the room,” I whispered, “and make sure you don’t confuse the mayor with the waiter?”
She had the grace to look embarrassed. “All right, Riley, it did occur to me you’d probably recognize many of the people here. So if you can just greet them or elicit an introduction, I can follow your lead.”
“You make me feel like a guide dog.”
She smiled, explaining that Roderick usually escorted their mother while she’d be left to fend as best she could because it looked odd for the three of them to cluster together too much.
As if on cue, I spotted her family on the other side of the room. We headed in their direction, mixing along the way with the chief of police, the CEO of a large insurance company, and the general manager of the Saint Paul Hotel.
Madeline made seamless small talk. But when the head of a nonprofit group, who we’d just conversed with minutes earlier, approached her again, she was clueless until I put him in context with a couple of precise remarks. Men looked at Madeline with interest; she looked at them like they were invisible. Unlike Mark, she couldn’t see any of them. Well, maybe she could see them, but she couldn’t tell them apart.
“Here’s Vivian and Roderick,” I said, as we closed in on her family. Roderick didn’t look as much like Malik tonight, but I’d never seen my cameraman don black tie and slick his hair back.
“Yes, I see Mother,” Madeline said.
“How?” I asked. “You told me you couldn’t even recognize your own mother on the street.”
“We wear our brooches at large events like this.” Madeline patted the jewelry pinned on her dress. I then realized Vivian wore an identical emerald brooch. My sister was born in May, and I recalled emerald as the birthstone for that month.
Vivian politely thanked me for attending the event and hoped I was enjoying myself. Then while mother and daughter chatted, Roderick and I stepped away for refreshments. He took a glass of champagne off a server’s tray; I took a chocolate-covered strawberry.
“Do you think it’s safe to leave them alone?” I asked.
“I have my eye on them.” He answered protectively, in a big brother/elder son sort of way.
“If they embarrass themselves too badly,” I said, “they can always pretend they’ve had too much to drink.”
He laughed, but then quickly lowered his voice and explained that Vivian was actually quite upset with Madeline for confiding the prosopagnosia business to me. “Just so you’re aware of that. If I were you, I wouldn’t bring it up.”
“Your mother did seem a bit cool tonight,” I said. “That explains it.”
“She has a very rigid philosophy about family and privacy.”
“I told Madeline that I’m willing to keep face blindness off the record unless it somehow becomes central to the investigation, which seems unlikely.”
“How goes your investigation?” he asked.
Roderick seemed more amused than interested. His tawny complexion and black tuxedo gave him a debonair look that I found sort of alluring. Like an exotic, young version of James Bond, though I doubted the Post son had done anything more adventurous in his life than move money electronically around the globe.
I glanced over, making sure Madeline wasn’t close enough to hear us. I wanted her to enjoy a night out if she could. “I’m hoping the cops are making better progress than I am. Of course, they should be. They have access to the evidence. All I can do is ask questions.”
“What if you question the wrong people?”
“Believe me, if I knew who the right people were, I’d question them instead. Any ideas?”
“I’m afraid not. Now I think I better get back to my family.”
“They seem to be coping well,” I said.
Actually Madeline and Vivian were huddled together, admiring a painting of a generous local cigar-chomping benefactor. I’d hoped to chat Roderick up more and gain some additional insight to the Post family. But he was already heading in their direction.
“Yes, however as the man of the house, I’m responsible for escorting my mother.”
“I can tell she appreciates that.”
“I certainly don’t mind, and it’s what my father would have wanted.”
“How about your sister?” I wasn’t sure what I meant by that remark and I could tell he wasn’t sure, either.
“My sister prefers independence.”
I’d have liked to follow up about his father, but Roderick was already greeting Vivian and Madeline.
The Post matriarch gave me a warmer welcome than she had earlier, which made me wonder what she had discussed with Madeline in my absence.
We ate a splendid but uneventful dinner. The table seating was assigned, which eliminated much of the face stress for Madeline and her mother. A lovely toast to the Posts for all their good works capped off the evening. And Vivian, normally unemotional, seemed gratified by the gesture from her peers.
I’D JUST THROWN my jacket on the couch back home, narrowly missing my Gracie trophy, which stood tall and proud on an end table.
“Good night, Gracie,” I said, with affection.
I was beginning to feel a little like George Burns when I heard a noise on the porch and figured Madeline must have forgotten something. I opened the door, but instead of my slender dinner date, a heavy shadow lunged.
Chad Griswold shoved me back inside, shut the door behind him, and flashed his gap-toothed grin. It didn’t seem as endearing up close as it did onstage during open-mic night at the comedy club. “Well, Miss North Dakota, we meet again.”
His breath smelled of alcohol. He gave me another push and I fell backward over an ottoman, banging my head on the floor.
“Who’s funny now?” he said, bending over me. I tried kicking him, but he caught my foot. “Chad, this isn’t funny. Let go.” I thought it best to try talking him down by keeping things casual.
“I know it’s not funny. I’m the comedian, remember? I’m a pro at what’s funny.”
“Knock it off so we can talk.”
Instead he twisted my leg. “Ow!”
“That must not have been funny, either,” he said. “How about this?” And he threw his body against mine, knocking the wind out of me. “I don’t hear you laughing.”
But I could hear him laughing.
As for me, I could barely breathe, so laughter was out of the question. I struggled to escape his grasp, but he had me pinned against the floor and my dress was creeping up around my waist. I clawed at him, but my nails were useless as weapons. I keep them short and practical because I spend so much time at a keyboard. Now I wished I’d cultivated more of a femme fatale look.
&nb
sp; I tried spitting in his face, but lying flat on my back made it hard to work up enough saliva without choking. Suddenly Chad pulled me to my feet, seeming to settle down. Then he whacked me across the face. As I fell, I knew I was in serious trouble.
“Chad. Please.” I stumbled to find the right words to make him stop. My voice had a pleading quality that embarrassed me and my cheek stung.
“Remember the other night,” he said, “when you asked if I’d kill for a laugh? Maybe tonight we’ll find out.” He yanked my necklace off and pearls scattered everywhere. Then he slapped me again and my nose started bleeding.
“Laugh, bitch.” Chad laughed so hard, he bent over double.
I knew no one would hear me scream. And I knew he’d never let me reach a phone. But lacking a better plan, I tried both tactics simultaneously. Easily, he caught me by one arm and we crashed to the floor, slipping on loose pearls.
I scrambled up first and saw Gracie.
Her heft felt good in my hand. And the cracking noise when I swung her against Chad’s head pleased me.
Some blood, but no movement.
I kissed Gracie.
had wasn’t dead. Chad wasn’t actually named Chad, either.
“He tried to kill me.” One of the officers took my statement while the other handcuffed Chad, who was starting to wake up and become verbally abusive. They’d called an ambulance, but I’d decided my attacker needed it more than I did. And I didn’t feel like sharing a ride to the emergency room with him.
I explained Chad Griswold’s connection to Mark Lefevre, confident his violence against me made him a shoo-in for Mark’s murder. I felt sheepish about jumping all over Madeline as a suspect.
The officer wrote down everything I said while his partner patted Chad. No surprise he found no weapons, otherwise Chad would have shot instead of punched. The surprise came when he checked Chad’s wallet and found several pieces of photo ID—all under different names.
“So who are you, buddy?” the officer asked.
Chad didn’t answer. Perhaps he had a concussion or maybe he just wanted to talk to his lawyer first. Seems hiring a top criminal attorney might have been a prudent call for him after all.
By then the medics had arrived and loaded “Chad” inside the ambulance. I followed in a squad car because the cops wanted me checked out to have a medical record of my injuries. As I suspected, I was fine except for a bruised cheek and swollen lip. But my assailant suffered a minor skull fracture.
Atta girl, Gracie.
Chad was really Rodney Sherborn. A fugitive from Iowa wanted for robbery. He’d served time for assault several years earlier, as well as piled up an impressive string of arrests for drunk driving and disorderly conduct. He’d stolen the identity of a dead cousin in Canada for his stage name; that’s why Xiong couldn’t find any criminal record.
Attacking me wasn’t the brightest move on his part, since it got the cops all over him again. I don’t know what his endgame was for me. Maybe he figured no problem—I’d be in no shape to identify my assailant.
Noreen was in an exuberant mood the next morning, torn between keeping me off the air until I looked better or promoting my bruises.
“Benny Walsh called me,” Miles said. “His client offered to drop the slander suit if you drop the assault charges.”
“Did you tell him we’d see him in court?” I asked.
“That I did.”
“Legally, we should be in the clear now. Right?” Noreen asked.
“That would be my professional opinion,” Miles said. “I can’t imagine Benny would continue to take the slander case on a contingency after all this. And frankly I don’t think your attacker can afford him for representation on the criminal charges. So unless Benny wants to do it for the publicity, our boy’s looking at a public defender. And all he’ll want to focus on is the crime at hand, not some nebulous civil long shot.”
Apparently, after the funeral, Jason started feeling a little spooked by the whole murdered-Mark situation and did a little digging on his own. The reason Chad flipped out and came after me was because Jason Hill canned him after learning he wasn’t who he said he was.
Chad blamed me.
The entire Channel 3 newsroom eagerly waited for the cops to add homicide to his list of arrests so we could break the story that the murder of the missing groom had been solved. But that never happened. Under yet another name, Chad was in jail for DUI in Milwaukee, six hours away, the night Mark disappeared.
he license plate of the car Sigourney drove away from Mark’s funeral checked to a Sven and Inga Nelson in Fridley. Since I’d erased Chad from the suspect chart on my office wall, Sigourney looked better and better. The dirt where her old boyfriend had been buried was soft and boggy. Easy enough for a dog to unearth in minutes. Digging the grave wouldn’t have been difficult, not even for a woman.
An older man answered the Nelsons’ door, but when I asked for Sigourney, he said she wouldn’t be home from the hospital until tomorrow.
I had the feeling I might be talking to a new grandpa, but he seemed so Scandinavian stoic that I thought it best to play dumb because I wasn’t sure just how happy everybody was about the pregnancy.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Nelson. I must have got my days crossed. I thought she was coming home today.”
“No, she and the baby are still at Unity. My wife is leaving there just now.”
He was talking about Unity Hospital, a few miles away. “Shall I tell her you stopped by?” he asked.
“No, I’ll swing by the hospital. I want to surprise her.” Boy, was she going to be surprised. “Has she picked out a name yet?”
For the first time, he beamed. “Ja, Sven.”
“Oh, congratulations, Grandpa.” I gave him a playful punch in the arm and said goodbye, reminding myself that Minnesota’s Scandinavian stereotype exists for a reason.
I swung by Target to pick up a baby gift to help smooth my way into Sigourney’s hospital room. I enjoy shopping for babies and knew better than to buy a newborn outfit that might already be too small. A maroon-and-gold University of Minnesota onesie beckoned from the racks of blue and pink. I selected a twelve-month size with a gift bag and some tissue paper. I inserted my Channel 3 business card in a “baby boy welcome” card as well as scribbling my congratulations for the arrival of little Sven into the world.
I’d put some heavy-coverage makeup on my face that morning, so my bruises just barely showed. Anyway, a hint of black-and-blue wasn’t unusual in a hospital corridor. The receptionist at the patient information desk gave me Sigourney’s room number and I headed up, carrying a pot of bluish tulips as well as the baby present, because bearers of flowers are generally welcome anywhere.
I counted three babies in the nursery window, all wrapped in pink, so I figured Sven was with his mother down the hall. From my perspective, Unity Hospital was the perfect place for us to talk about the murders of her former boyfriend and his mother. Holding a baby would make it more difficult for her to attack me. And if she succeeded, medical care was on-site.
Sigourney was nursing Sven and needed only seconds to recognize me as That TV Reporter. No face blindness for her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Just wanted to see the baby.” I set the gift bag on the bed next to her and the tulips on the nightstand. With his frizzy black hair, Sven looked like Mark’s baby picture. I thought it best not to mention the resemblance.
“Well, you’ve seen him,” she said. “You can go now.” She held Sven to her shoulder for a burp. He complied.
Both times I’d been with Sigourney were emotional events. Life and death. Birth and burial.
“Can I hold him?” I asked.
Please say yes, I thought to myself.
I really wanted to hold him. Not to use him as a human shield should his mother turn homicidal but because I like holding babies. I’d practiced on nieces and nephews, and on visiting infants in the newsroom. Recently I had to acknowledge that
I might never hold my own. That reality didn’t consume my waking thoughts, but it came up when friends became pregnant or babies stared at me from grocery-store carts.
Sigourney seemed to sense my sincerity, so she handed Sven over, opened his present, and politely remarked about the new outfit.
I snuggled him. He yawned, but didn’t cry. “See, he likes me.”
Please, Sigourney, I thought to myself, bring up Mark on your own. Don’t make me have to go there. But it was as if she had taken a vow of silence and awaited my next move.
“So how are the two of you doing?” I coochie-cooed Sven as he kicked one foot loose from his blanket. His toes were so tiny, his toe-nails barely visible. “Going home soon?”
“We’re fine. But you still haven’t explained why you crashed my hospital room uninvited.” She glanced at the red call button at her bedside, but didn’t reach for it.
“I just wanted to check on you, Sigourney. Make sure you were okay after the funeral. You seemed agitated that day and I was worried.”
“Well, nothing like motherhood to calm you down.” She reclaimed Sven from my arms.
“I was hoping to learn a little more about how your relationship with Mark ended,” I said.
“What’s to know? He dumped me for the rich bitch.”
“For a while, when I couldn’t find you or him, I thought maybe you’d run off together and that’s why he skipped out of the wedding.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
“Did he know you were pregnant?” Her answer would say something about the kind of man Mark was and might also give Sigourney a chance to vent.
“I found out a few weeks after we broke up. It wasn’t the kind of news I wanted to leave on an answering machine. I wanted to tell him in person, but he wouldn’t see me. Then he started screening my calls and wouldn’t even pick up.”
That’s when she decided to look for him after the rehearsal dinner. “And if his fiancée happened to overhear my news, fine.”
“She did see you kiss him.”