We Wish You a Merry Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  “True. And, in case he dies, he’s insured for two million dollars, and Kelly is set up for the rest of her life.”

  “Wow. That’s social security. He must have wanted that divorce pretty badly. I had heard that the alimony payments were more than generous, and to be making large insurance payments on top of it all …”

  “I don’t know if it’s unusual these days or not. You said that Kelly and he did a lot of entertaining for his business. Maybe the court decided that he owed a lot of his financial success to her and that this was one way of paying her for that contribution.”

  “Do you have any idea what the police think of Kelly?” Jed asked.

  “Behind her back, they’re calling her a fruitcake,” Kathleen answered. “And I don’t think it’s a tribute to the season. I’m not sure I blame them. After listening to the story about finding him—and how happy she was to see him in his favorite chair …”

  “Oh, God. She might as well put on a sweatshirt with the words i’m guilty printed across the front of it,” Jed said, getting up and moving aside the curtains for a better look out the window.

  “I’m afraid so,” Kathleen agreed.

  “It’s a mistake to think that Kelly could harm Evan. She loved him too much,” Susan insisted.

  “You may be right, but the police don’t know her. And, when they find that body, they’re going to start looking for a murderer right away— What is that noise?” Kathleen interrupted herself.

  “Chad’s radio,” Jed answered, leaving the window. “I’ll go. Maybe you ladies can solve this crime between the two of you. You’ve done it before.”

  Susan watched him leave. “Do you think we can?” she asked Kathleen, not taking her eyes off the doorway her husband had gone through.

  “We don’t even seem able to find the body,” came the rueful reply.

  “I thought I’d seen it earlier this evening,” Susan said, and then explained what had happened with Thomas and Travis. “I felt pretty foolish when it turned out to be a punching bag.”

  “I suppose it could have looked like a body. I’d be embarrassed, too … But you did check inside the bag, didn’t you? You wouldn’t want a body hanging around your garage.”

  “Check inside?”

  “Inside the leather bag. You did look, didn’t you?” Kathleen insisted.

  “I … ?” Susan thought about the thing standing in the corner of her garage, now covered with a plaid wool blanket that she and Jed had picnicked on and snuggled under years ago when they were first dating. “It really did look like a body,” she repeated.

  SIXTEEN

  Susan and Jed were lying in bed, stealing some time together while the rest of the family slept.

  “… and you found out that it really is a punching bag,” Jed was whispering.

  “Of course. I don’t know how I could have thought it was something else—twice.”

  “Nothing wrong with checking. I’d hate to think we have a dead body leaning against the wall of the garage. It wouldn’t be very Christmassy.”

  “True.”

  “And think of what my mother would say about your housekeeping,” Jed kidded his wife.

  “Think of what Dr. Barr would say,” was Susan’s reply.

  “Oh, God!” Jed slipped further under the down comforter. “What are we going to do about that man?”

  Susan lifted up the thick covering so he could benefit from hearing every word she spoke. “We are going to do nothing about Dr. Barr. He is your mother’s friend. She’s an adult. She can choose her own friends.”

  Jed sat up quickly. “If he were just a friend I wouldn’t worry. But he’s running her life.”

  “Jed, don’t be silly. She’s happy. She looks good. Damn it, she’s thinner than I am.” Susan, out of bed by this time, tugged a bulky sweater over her head.

  “That just proves it,” her husband insisted. “She was always dieting when my father was alive and she never lost any weight.”

  Susan knew there was an answer to that, and that her husband wouldn’t want to hear it. “Whatever. But I don’t think she’ll appreciate interference in her life, Jed. Besides,” she continued before he could make his next point, “this is just a holiday romance. Dr. Barr will return to his work after Christmas, and your mother will go home. They’ll probably never see each other again.”

  Jed stood up. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, seeming to think it over. “It’s not as if they were next-door neighbors,” he concluded on his way to the bathroom.

  “Where is Dr. Barr’s home?” Susan called after him.

  “Somewhere around Boston, Mom said. But he runs his business from New York City, for some reason.”

  “So why is he spending Christmas in Hancock?” Susan persisted.

  “His family kicked him out because they were sick of him criticizing the way they were eating.”

  “What?”

  “Just joking.” Jed stuck his head out the door. Shaving cream covered his cheeks. “I’ve been wondering about that myself.”

  “Did you ask your mother?”

  “Yes. She said he had a business meeting here.”

  “Here or in the city?”

  “In the city, I guess. And that he had never seen New York City at Christmastime.”

  “Where has he been all his life? Boston isn’t that far.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” Jed agreed. “And he’s not staying in the city. He’s staying at the inn. You know, I think he’s really just in town to see my mother, and all this stuff about a business meeting is just an excuse.”

  “Maybe …”

  “And that’s why we have to put a stop to it,” Jed insisted, heading back to the bathroom.

  “And exactly how are you going to do that?” Susan muttered.

  He didn’t answer.

  Well, she just hoped he wasn’t going to make a fool of himself over this thing. She was going to leave well enough alone. Claire was being entertained and was happy. And Susan had to get going and make breakfast. She hurried downstairs.

  “Good morning!” The voice greeted her as she entered her kitchen.

  “Claire!” Susan was startled. “I—I didn’t think you’d be up so early.”

  “I wouldn’t say that older people need less time in bed, Susan, but they certainly need less sleep.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” she offered, too surprised to remember that coffee was one of Dr. Barr’s favorite no-no’s.

  “Of course not. I made myself some nice herbal tea. Did you know that there was a phone call for you about fifteen minutes ago? You and Jed didn’t seem to hear the ring, so I picked it up.”

  Susan, remembering what she had been doing with this woman’s son fifteen minutes ago, turned away in case she was blushing. “Thanks. Who was it?”

  “She said her name is Elizabeth Stevenson. Isn’t that the woman I met the other night who kept using the word gracious and waving her hands around in a rather affected manner?”

  “Uh … yes. Did she say what she was calling about?” Susan picked up a large mug of strong black coffee and took a sip. It was bitter and burned her throat—wonderful.

  “Something about a murder, if you can believe that. Probably one of those murder parties that everyone is going to these days—although it doesn’t seem very Christmassy. We had a murder party on the boat that I took around the Mediterranean. It was fun. Dr. Barr guessed the murderer early, but he didn’t want to ruin everyone else’s fun, so he kept the solution to himself. He’s so thoughtful.”

  “Yes. He sounds like it,” Susan muttered, dialing the phone. “Hello? Elizabeth? I heard that you called. And it sounded—”

  “Hi, Mom. Hi, Grandma. What’s for breakfast?” Chad appeared in the doorway, followed by his sister.

  “They were only questioning her last night— What?” Susan removed boxes of cereal from the cupboard as she spoke. Her children took juice and milk from the refrigerator and filled the bowls she handed them
. With a quick check to see that her guest had everything she needed (in this case, very lumpy and strangely gray granola concocted from a recipe of Dr. Barr’s), she turned to look out the window and concentrate on the person whose call she had returned.

  “… naturally we thought this was all silly. I mean to suspect Kelly of kidnapping was one thing. You hear about people kidnapping children from their divorced husbands and wives all the time, but murder is something else. Derek thinks that the police will be calling it murder sometime soon, and we really can’t be involved in that, can we? I don’t know what Derek thinks we should do; we were too busy to talk much this morning. He has an absolutely huge deal that he absolutely has to complete before Christmas. By the way, did I tell you that he’s giving me a full-length sable cape? It’s supposed to be a surprise, but I found out about it a few weeks ago. I can’t wait until Christmas. And I know I’ll get a lot of use out of it. We have to go to so many formal functions these days … But I was talking about Kelly, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, don’t let me get distracted again, Susan. The reason I called before was to ask you what we should do if she is arrested for murder. She could be arrested, and tried, and convicted.”

  “Well, with a good lawyer …”

  “You haven’t told anyone that we helped find one, have you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Please don’t. If we had known how serious this all was, we wouldn’t have gotten involved.”

  Susan finished her coffee before answering. “But she needed a lawyer and—”

  “Susan, we didn’t expect a murder case.”

  “That just means that she needs a good lawyer more than ever.”

  “It won’t do us any good if anyone knows we’re involved in this. We have our standing in the community. And Derek’s business. He can’t have it known that he’s helping a murderer.”

  “No one knows that!” Susan protested.

  “Okay, a possible murderer, if you want to quibble. It’s the same thing as far as the business and our reputation in the community are concerned. Derek has lived here all his life, Susan. He’s been president of the club for two terms, he was a city councilman for five years. In fact, he’s the person who pushed so hard for the new Christmas decorations in the downtown area … they were even mentioned in the Times, you know. That’s important for a town like Hancock. It will bring people in to buy houses and raise real estate prices. We’ll all benefit.”

  “So what does that have to do with Kelly?” Susan asked, remembering that Elizabeth had said she didn’t want to change the subject.

  “We think she should be asked to resign from the club.”

  “What?”

  “It’s an official way of eliminating her from our social circle. Of course, I’ll remain her best friend in private. This is really just a business arrangement. I know it sounds cruel, but Derek says we have to protect ourselves and what we’ve worked for.”

  “I don’t understand what—” Susan began, and then she did. “Can I call you back in a while? I have to get the kids and Jed out of the house and—”

  “Of course, I’ll be home all morning. I have about a million things to do.”

  “Okay. I’ll call later.” Susan hung up, unable to deal with the problems of being the newly elected membership chairman at the club and feeding her family breakfast at the same time.

  “Who was that?” Jed asked, passing by with a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “Elizabeth Stevenson.” Susan glanced at her children as she spoke. “Do you have clean clothes for gym, Chad?”

  “Nah. why bother? Vacation starts in less than a week. Gotta go. Charlie’s mom is driving us to school.” Her male heir ran out of the room, smashing his backpack against the much-dented woodwork, and slamming the door behind him.

  “Chad!” His father protested ineffectively.

  “You were just like that at his age,” his mother said, beaming at him.

  “Now we know who to blame,” Susan muttered to herself, pouring out another cup of coffee and trying to remember if she had washed her son’s gym clothes since he’d taken them to school the first week of September.

  “I’ll be home late tonight,” Jed announced, kissing his wife good-bye. “The department Christmas party is after work. ’Bye, Mom.”

  “You don’t mind him going to office parties without you?”

  Susan ground her teeth for the first time that day. “Of course not,” she lied.

  “My parents have a very sane marriage,” Chrissy surprised her by announcing. “They don’t have to sit in each other’s pockets to be happy. They are independent human beings, with separate lives and separate needs. We learned all about it in family life class this year. ’Bye. I’ll be late, too.”

  “Aren’t you intending to find out where she is going to be after school?”

  “Chrissy knows where she can go and where she can’t go,” Susan answered. “And she’ll call if anything comes up.” Another phone call got her off the hot seat. Actually she would’ve liked knowing where Chrissy was intending to be, but hadn’t had time to ask.

  “Hello? Oh, Barbara. Good to hear from you. I was planning to call later today. Do you know anything about Kelly?”

  “That’s just what I was calling you about. We must be simpatico,” trilled the voice at the other end of the line.

  “Then you know something.”

  “Just that Derek Stevenson found her a high-powered criminal lawyer—and you know what that means.”

  “No. What?”

  “Well, she wouldn’t need one unless she was guilty, would she? Anyway, Rebecca is really worried. That’s why I called you.”

  “I don’t understand,” Susan said, thinking that Elizabeth wasn’t going to be terribly happy to hear that her part in getting legal protection for Kelly was being exaggerated.

  “Rebecca and I are thinking about psychiatric help.”

  “Well, I have bad days, too, but getting involved in therapy …”

  “For Kelly. We’ve been wondering about having her committed.”

  “What?”

  “Susan, surely you don’t think she’s been behaving normally since Evan left her?”

  “Well …”

  “And Rebecca is scared. Kelly is telling all sorts of horrible stories—and someone might believe them, no matter how fantastic they are. We think that having Kelly put away is the only good idea here. It’s for her own good, you know.”

  “I don’t know what to think, Barb. But I don’t know why you’ve come to me. Surely, even if something like that is called for …”

  “Because you’re friends with Kelly. Maybe you can talk her into seeing someone. I just talked to Elizabeth; she says that Kelly and she are no longer friends and that she doesn’t want to be a part of this, but we thought that you …”

  Susan had had enough. “Barb, you’re being ridiculous. If Kelly needs therapy, she can find her own therapist. Besides that, only a family member could have her committed to an institution. This is none of our business.” Susan paused for a moment. “I have to go. My mother-in-law—”

  “Oh, I forgot you had company. You’re probably having to fix pancakes for her breakfast and things like that. I’ll call back in a while. Okay?”

  “Fine,” Susan agreed, putting off the problem until she had time to think about it. She hung up and turned to explain to Jed’s mother why she had used her as an excuse. To her surprise, she found that she was alone in the kitchen.

  “People certainly do disappear these days,” she muttered to herself, and turned back to the phone. She took a deep breath, made her decision, and dialed Kathleen.

  When her friend answered, she asked the question without any preliminaries. “How would you like to investigate a murder with me again?”

  SEVENTEEN

  “You really love Christmas Carols, don’t you?” Kathleen asked, raising her voice to be heard over the small CD player impregnating the
room with imitations of Olde English cheer.

  “Turn it down if you want,” Susan said, rolling out cream cheese pastry and cutting small circles to fill with ham and mustard before baking. “I was just trying to keep the spirit of the season—which isn’t all that easy with a murderer loose.”

  “And you are convinced that it isn’t Kelly?”

  “Definitely.”

  “And that, once the police find the body, they will assume it is Kelly and won’t look any further,” Kathleen continued, picking up a small piece of dough and popping it into her mouth on her way back from the radio. “I think you underestimate your police department.”

  “I can’t sit around and do nothing when she’s in trouble. And she’s making it worse for herself all the time.”

  “I can’t argue about that. But I don’t necessarily think that—if Evan is dead—Kelly isn’t the one that killed him.”

  Susan paused, looking up from her work. “Kathleen, I saw Evan, and he was shot through the head. I know Kelly, and she could not have killed that man. She loved him obsessively. Maybe her feelings weren’t rational, but she didn’t kill him. Now are you going to help me find out who did?”

  Kathleen looked around Susan’s kitchen where they were discussing this problem while Susan cooked. A huge round of Stilton sat on the counter surrounded by bags and bags of dark green spinach. Artichokes marinated in a gigantic ceramic bowl. Hundreds of tiny cream puffs had just been taken from the oven and were cooling on racks balanced on every available space. A light dusting of flour, evidence of an improperly sealed container, covered everything including Susan’s hair. Kathleen considered her life, and that she was bored running a security company in the suburbs, and that her mother was going to drive her crazy, and that it was only a few days until Christmas and she hadn’t decided what to buy the most wonderful husband in the world. Sure, why not investigate a murder where no one could even find the body?

  “I think we should start by talking with Rebecca.”

  Susan grinned. “Just let me finish these. I can make them all up and put them in the refrigerator downstairs and bake them tonight. I don’t know how I’m going to get finished before Friday.”