We Wish You a Merry Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  “Oh, no,” Kelly protested. “I know already that I’m going to hate it.”

  Susan didn’t know what else to say.

  “Those are poison, you know.”

  “What?” Susan looked around the room, wondering what Kelly could be talking about.

  “The berries on mistletoe. They’re very poisonous.”

  “I’ve read that,” Susan said. “But I don’t think anyone is going to reach up to the ceiling and take a nibble. Not unless I don’t get the rest of my cooking done. Maybe mistletoe doesn’t belong in the kitchen, though, come to think of it.” As she picked it up off the counter some of the waxy white berries fell from the bunch and rolled on to the floor.

  “I’ll get them,” Kelly offered. She slipped off her stool and knelt on the quarry tiles. “Some of them have gotten down in the mortar,” she murmured.

  Susan put the greenery into a large plastic bag. “Just throw those in the garbage compactor. I’m going to put this into the garage. It’s cooler out there, maybe it will stay fresher. It would be nice if there were some berries left on it for the party.” She hurried off, and returned to the room in time to pour the now-boiling water over the tea leaves.

  “You’d be surprised how many common Christmas decorations are poisonous,” Kelly was saying as Kathleen entered the room.

  “Chad opened the door for me,” she explained, pulling off her coat and sitting down at the kitchen table. “If that’s hot tea, I’d love a cup. My mother has been cooking huge meals and my stomach is in shock.”

  “I’ll pour,” Kelly offered. “You better get on with your cooking, Susan.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You must want to ask me questions about Evan,” Kelly stated calmly, pouring tea into a mug and passing it to Kathleen.

  Susan thought about Kelly’s tendency to come directly to the point. Did it show an admirable forthrightness or was it merely the result of a lack of imagination? It was something she hadn’t considered before.

  “You know things that no one else knows,” Kathleen answered, watching as Kelly slopped tea on the tablecloth.

  “That’s true.” Kelly answered slowly, reaching out for the sponge that Susan handed her.

  “We don’t mean to pry into your life,” Susan added. “You and I are the only ones who saw Evan in your living room. We’re the only ones who know he’s dead.”

  “Except for the person who killed him and the person who moved him,” Kelly said.

  “That’s a good point.” Kathleen sipped her tea. “I wonder if there were two people or one.”

  Susan thought about this for a moment. It might be the most interesting question asked thus far.

  “Would it upset you to tell us about the day of Evan’s murder?” Kathleen asked gently.

  “No. I can do that,” Kelly answered. “But Susan was with me and she saw what I saw.”

  “I’d rather hear the story from you,” Kathleen asked. “Why don’t you start with the salad?”

  “With making it?” Susan thought Kelly sounded oddly upset by the thought.

  “With when you decided to make it,” Kathleen persisted.

  Susan wondered if it was panic that flashed across Kelly’s face before she answered. But whatever it was, its effect appeared to be momentary.

  “I wanted to contribute something for the party.”

  “Was it just a spur of the moment thought, or had you been planning—”

  “It just came to me the morning of the party,” Kelly interrupted Kathleen to answer. “I wanted to do something for Evan—to make something for him, that is. I’m not explaining very well, am I?”

  “That’s okay. Just tell me how you thought of it.”

  “I don’t know,” Kelly answered. “I just thought of it.”

  “So you made the salad in the morning …” Kathleen prompted, thinking she had better get the story going.

  “No, I never leave a salad sitting around; it should be fresh. I washed all the ingredients in the morning and put them in the refrigerator to crisp. Then I put together the salad in the afternoon and put the salad dressing on it right before I left the house.” She stopped and seemed to be thinking hard.

  “I heard that it looked wonderful,” Susan said, hoping to jog her into continuing.

  “I make a nice salad.” Kelly accepted the compliment and it seemed to encourage her to continue. “I put it in the car and took it over to Evan’s other house about an hour before the party was supposed to start.”

  “Was that around seven o’clock?” Kathleen asked.

  “Around seven-thirty. In Hancock, when you invite people for eight, they really don’t start arriving until eight-thirty.”

  “And what happened when you got to the house?”

  “I rang the doorbell, and Rebecca answered. She was still wearing her robe and there were curlers in her hair. She—she seemed surprised to see me.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “I was very polite, just like I was supposed to be. I said Merry Christmas and that I had brought the salad as a contribution to her party.”

  “Was there a top on the bowl or could she see what was inside?” Kathleen asked.

  “It had cellophane covering the top. She could see what was inside by just looking down.” Kelly seemed to be remembering. “Anyway, Rebecca said something like ‘How could you do this to me?’ She didn’t even say hello or anything! She took the salad from me, and I was wondering if she was going to invite me in when she threw it at me—bowl and all. Luckily it was one of my collection of antique wooden salad bowls or it might have shattered and cut somebody. But it did leave a large bruise on my shin!”

  Susan thought that Kelly was still surprised by Rebecca’s action. “Did she say anything then?”

  “Yes. She said to get away from her house and leave her alone. I never expected her to greet me like that. Never.”

  “And then you … ?” Kathleen’s voice was gentle.

  “I was so upset. I wiped the salad off my boots as well as I could—most of it landed there—and then I walked back to my car, and got in, and started to drive. I’ve never done that before. But I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have to be at home, and I couldn’t stand the thought of just sitting around the house and waiting for the party to end, so I drove around.”

  “For how long?”

  “An hour or so, I guess.”

  “Kelly, was it an accident that your car slipped off the road?”

  “Of course. Kathleen, you thought I was trying to kill myself!”

  “We—” Susan began.

  “Everyone thinks that I was trying to kill myself,” Kelly continued, her voice rising. “How could my friends think such a thing?”

  “No one thinks it,” Susan lied. “Kathleen just has to check out all the possibilities. It’s her job.”

  Kelly appeared to accept the explanation and continued. “I really don’t know what time the accident happened. I looked at my watch as I turned on to Mill Road and it was eight-forty. There was a clock on the wall across from my bed in the emergency room and I noticed that it was almost ten o’clock when they called you, Susan. I suppose you and I got to my house around eleven?”

  “Probably.”

  “You didn’t do anything but drive around before your car slid off the road?” Kathleen persisted. “You didn’t stop anyplace or talk to anyone?”

  “No. I had filled the car with gas earlier in the day. I just drove around. It was interesting actually—looking at all the different Christmas decorations. And one of the radio stations was playing Christmas carols. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.”

  “You were under a lot of strain—what with Evan and Rebecca giving the party and all,” Susan suggested. She was confused by the tone of Kelly’s answers. There was something so matter-of-fact about her, almost like it didn’t matter.

  “Yes. I was very nervous.”

  “When you and Susan entered your house, you d
idn’t go into the living room right away, did you?” Kathleen asked.

  “No. We entered through the back door and went up to my bedroom using the stairs from the kitchen.”

  “They were pretty much a secret, weren’t they?”

  “The stairs? Well, most people didn’t know about them, but they weren’t exactly a secret,” Kelly said, and Susan again wondered about some sort of sexual ritual.

  “How long were you in the house before you went to the living room?”

  “About—”

  “I want Kelly to answer,” Kathleen said, stopping Susan.

  “Probably half an hour at the most,” Kelly guessed. She looked at Susan for confirmation of her answer, but Kathleen didn’t give anyone time to say anything.

  “And you didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary until you entered the living room?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “How long do you think it was between the time you left the house and when you returned?”

  “You mean when we went over to Evan’s other house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, awhile,” Kelly answered slowly. “Maybe half an hour or forty-five minutes.”

  “Did you go all the way around the block to get back to your house?”

  “Oh, no. I cut through the shed, of course.”

  “The twins weren’t there then?” Susan asked.

  “No, no one was there,” Kelly answered.

  “The twins?” Kathleen asked.

  “Yes, they were using the shed as a place to get away from adult supervision and do some drinking,” Susan explained, remembering that Kathleen didn’t know about it.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, when Rebecca and I—and the policeman, of course—cut through, they were sitting there drinking up a storm: eggnog, wine coolers, gin.”

  “That’s interesting,” Kathleen commented.

  “I thought it was nauseating myself,” Susan said.

  “Huh?”

  “The liquor,” Susan explained, wondering why Kathleen wasn’t paying attention.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Kathleen explained. “I’m just wondering why the twins weren’t there when I followed Kelly through the shed just a few minutes earlier.”

  “Maybe we ought to have a chat with Travis and Thomas,” Susan said quietly. “There are a lot of paths leading to them,” she added, thinking of what her daughter had told her earlier.

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Kathleen said. “We’ll just have to come back from the city a little early.”

  “The city?” Kelly asked.

  “Susan and I are taking her mother-in-law and my mother in to New York for the day,” Kathleen explained.

  “Evan and I used to visit the Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum each year.” Kelly began to tear up.

  “New York City,” Susan mused. She’d forgotten all about it.

  TWENTY-TWO

  New York City can be an enchanting place in December. The stores are beautiful, the streets are full of happy shoppers, the very air seems cleaner, purer. Unfortunately Claire and Dolores didn’t see it that way.

  “You mean we have to park all the way down here?”

  “It doesn’t look very safe.”

  “When Bob and I were here, we went to this nice garage—it was very clean and everything—and this very attractive young man took the car and parked it for us. Couldn’t we go there?”

  “We’re already in this garage, Claire,” Susan answered. “And this is a very safe area of the city. I come here all the time.”

  “Susan used to live in the city,” Kathleen started to explain to her mother.

  “In this tiny little apartment with only one window. And the stairs that they had to climb to get up there … it was horrible. Very strange cooking smells came from the other apartments,” Claire elaborated. “I can’t tell you how glad I was when they moved to Connecticut. So much healthier for the children. Dr. Barr agrees.”

  Susan ground her teeth. They had left Hancock late because neither mother could decide what to wear. There had been a broken-down truck in the middle of the already heavy holiday traffic. They had been very lucky to find a garage with space available this close to Rockefeller Center. And still complaints from the backseat. Ho. Ho. Ho.

  “So where should we go first?” Kathleen asked, and, to Susan, her voice seemed a little strained.

  “I thought we were going to see the Christmas tree at the skating rink,” Claire answered.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use a cup of coffee,” Dolores stated.

  “I’ll go along with that,” her daughter agreed.

  “Why don’t we go to one of those restaurants near the rink?” Claire suggested. “I can remember coming into the city and taking Jed there for hot chocolate when he was just a little boy—younger than Chad. They’re nice places; they probably have herb tea.”

  “Great idea. Just let me give the car keys to this man,” Susan said.

  “Does he really look trustworthy, dear?” Claire peered out the window at the uniformed garage attendant; above his grease-stained, gray coverall uniform his long hair was spiked in four different directions, and each point of the compass had its own assigned color.

  “I’m sure he is,” Kathleen assured her.

  “It’s only a Maserati,” Susan said casually. Her hand was shaking as she gave the young man her keys and took her receipt. “We’re only a few blocks from the tree,” she said. “Why don’t we walk?”

  “Of course,” Dolores agreed. “I can almost smell that coffee.”

  “I should have worn different shoes,” Claire said. “I didn’t think about walking.”

  Susan bit her lips and said nothing. Fortunately the streets were dry and the tree was so beautiful that everyone forgot everything else while contemplating it. Almost everything else.

  “Where did you say that restaurant is?” Dolores asked Claire, who was leaning against a railing and slipping her shoe off her heel.

  “Right down there. I don’t remember how to get there … Oh, look. They must have added an elevator …”

  Forty-five minutes later they were on their way up that elevator. “I think they added more than this elevator. I cannot believe that they have the nerve to charge two dollars for a cup of coffee.” Claire was echoing her previous statement.

  “And Danish pastry for three-fifty. Disgraceful. It wasn’t even homemade.”

  Susan and Kathleen, of one accord, moved a few steps back from the older women.

  “It’s going to be a long day,” Kathleen commented.

  “Very. I wonder if we could suggest that Claire stop in Saks or someplace and buy a pair of comfortable shoes. I don’t know how she thought we were going to get around the city without walking.”

  “Dr. Barr had a limo that took them from place to place and waited for them all day yesterday. She told us about it when you were in the ladies’ room,” Kathleen explained.

  “You and your mother are certainly being good sports listening to all this talk about Dr. Barr,” Susan said.

  “It’s better than listening to talk about how Jerry and I should start a family,” Kathleen said.

  “She really is pretty insistent about the subject,” Susan agreed.

  “She’s driving me crazy,” Kathleen admitted. “That, and the fact that I still haven’t thought of anything to give Jerry for Christmas.”

  “Well, here we are on Fifth Avenue. If we can’t find anything here, there’s something wrong with us.”

  “Trump Tower! I’ve always wanted to see it in person,” Dolores cried, looking down the street.

  “I’ve heard it’s very tacky. At least that’s what Bob said,” Claire Henshaw said disagreeably.

  “It’s definitely something that everyone should see once,” Susan assured Kathleen’s mother. “I think that should be our first stop. All right?”

  “I suppose so, if we can go to F.
A.O. Schwarz after that. I want to find a stuffed animal for the little girl who lives next door to me. Then maybe Tiffany’s. I wonder how it’s decorated for Christmas. And …”

  Susan and Kathleen resigned themselves to following along.

  Two hours later, they were still following; this time, however, Claire and Dolores were comparing the prices and selections of the various menus hung before restaurants along Fifty-fifth Street.

  “Do you think we can convince either of them that any restaurant with a table is fine?” Kathleen asked.

  “I doubt it. Do you think there are two more rigid women anywhere in the world?” was Susan’s answer. “Oh, look. I think they’ve made a decision.”

  Kathleen murmured something about “one a day” as they hurried out of the cold and into their choice.…

  “Bobby says Japanese food is very good for you,” Claire announced.

  “He should know,” Kathleen said. “He’s a nutritionist, isn’t he?”

  “Podiatrist. We’d like a table for four,” Claire said to the waiter.

  “Podiatrist? Isn’t that feet?” Susan asked.

  Kathleen was too busy wondering how they had gotten a table so quickly to worry about Dr. Barr’s medical background.

  “He studied nutrition in Europe before starting his business,” Claire explained, sitting down at the table placed near the restaurant’s one window. Evidently eating in a place with only one window bothered her less than her son and his family living in one. “He found being a podiatrist unfulfilling.”

  “I can see how that’s possible,” Kathleen said, accepting a seven-page menu from the waiter with a smile. The man didn’t smile back.

  “Too bad you didn’t find anything that you thought Jerry would like for Christmas,” her mother commiserated. “I thought that cashmere robe was lovely.”

  “So did I. I bought one almost like it for my husband the year Jeddy was born. It was a wonderful investment. In fact, it looked almost new when he died. He wore it in the hospital.”

  “I don’t think Jerry needs a bathrobe,” Kathleen said, turning and looking out the window at the mobs hurrying along the sidewalk. “Why look! There’s Rebecca!”