Susan glanced around the room. “I won’t be leaving this place before Friday night—unless it’s to do some last minute shopping and wrapping.”
“Jed’s busy, too?”
“He’s finishing up the Christmas cards and worrying about his mother. She’s out with Dr. Barr again. He picked her up at the concert.” Susan pressed the button that turned on the light in her oven and glanced inside before she looked up at Kathleen. “Jed’s daughter is out tonight, too, but it’s his mother that he’s worried about. I think he’s going crazy.”
“Can you believe that Dr. Barr’s a podiatrist?” Kathleen asked, momentarily distracted.
“No. Claire claims that he studied nutrition in Europe, and maybe he did—”
“But maybe he didn’t,” Kathleen finished for her. “Or maybe he didn’t study at an accredited university.”
“Or at any university at all. He might have spent a year or so developing a business with a quack dietician.”
“Did you ask any specific questions?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure Jed isn’t going to keep quiet much longer. He—”
The kitchen door opened, and both women turned around. Kathleen spoke first. “Mother! What are you going here?”
“I was upstairs in the bathr—”
“Didn’t you know Dolores was here? I thought you’d come to pick her up,” Susan said, looking from mother to daughter in amazement.
“Is that smoke?” Dolores asked, opening the oven door and looking inside.
Susan grabbed her pot holders and tried to salvage the mushroom turnovers before they turned from dark brown to black.
“I heard what you were saying about Bob,” Dolores commented, reaching out and taking the worst turnovers off the pan. She picked up a knife and scraped the darkest dough into the sink. “If we sprinkle these with some Parmesan cheese, it will add a nice glaze and cover up some of the burn,” she suggested.
Parmesan and mushrooms? Well, it was better than throwing them away and starting from scratch. Susan got the cheese from the refrigerator.
“What are you doing here?” Kathleen repeated, a little impatiently.
“Helping Susan. She’s been talking about how busy she is this week and I had some free time …”
“And she’s been wonderful. You never told me that your mother was a great cook,” Susan said enthusiastically.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“Well, you know you’ve never made any secret of your own lack of interest in things domestic, my dear,” Dolores answered, sprinkling cheese energetically. “Your friends don’t know how far this apple fell from the tree, that’s all.”
“My father was a policeman,” was Kathleen’s stubborn response.
“Well, yes. But most people expect a daughter to be like her mother, don’t you think?”
It was said sweetly, but you didn’t need to be Willard Scott to know a storm was approaching. Susan decided to try heading it off. “Maybe your mother can help us with your detecting as well as my cooking.”
“You have questions to ask me about Evan’s disappearance?” Dolores lost interest in the domestic side of life more quickly than Susan would have expected.
“We—”
“Kathleen’s father always talked over his cases with me.”
“Mother! I don’t remember that!” Kathleen’s tone was accusatory.
“You didn’t know everything about our relationship. Now what can I help you with?” The question was directed at Susan.
Susan thought quickly. Just what had she gotten herself into? “Well … Did Dr. Barr tell you that he’s a podiatrist? The night of the party, I mean.”
“We didn’t really have all that much time to talk—just a few minutes before you and Kelly came running into the room half dressed.”
“Now, Mother. The first rule of investigation is not to exaggerate. Father must have taught you something in all those years.”
“I spoke with Dr. Barr for only a few minutes and Kelly, at least, was dressed for bed and not for a party.”
“And did he tell you anything about his background?” Susan asked. “Anything at all?”
“He went to medical school in Philadelphia. He told me that.” Dolores looked at her daughter.
“The University of Pennsylvania?” Kathleen asked.
“There are many medical schools in Philadelphia. I wouldn’t like to exaggerate my knowledge. All I know is that he told me he had attended medical school in Philadelphia. He volunteered the information after I told him where I live. Is that accurate and clear?”
“Mother!”
“Isn’t it funny how mothers and daughters argue and act like they don’t get along? I’ve even seen books on the subject.” Susan had decided that the time had come to get straight to the point.
And it worked. Both women smiled, and Kathleen even went so far as to chuckle a little. “I guess we’re typical then.”
“Why don’t you two talk and I’ll wrap up the rest of these things,” Dolores offered. “I really am a better cook than a detective.”
“There isn’t that much to talk about. I came over here wanting Susan’s opinion on some things.”
“I’m getting tired of opinions. What we need are some facts.” Susan sighed and poured herself a cup of tea. “If there are any.”
“Well, I couldn’t prove it, but I think we can say that Rebecca knows Evan is dead.”
“What? She admitted it to you? That means she’s seen the body!”
“Not necessarily. And maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.”
Dolores smirked at the puff pastry but remained silent.
“But—” Kathleen raised her voice, after a quick glance at her mother “—but I just went to see her and she didn’t act the way I expected her to act.”
“You are going to explain?” Susan took a sip of her tea.
“If Jed was missing and you hired someone to find him, wouldn’t you ask that person if they had succeeded first thing every time you saw them?”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t waste any time talking about the weather,” Susan agreed. “When did you talk to Rebecca?”
“Just now. I drove the twins home. Rebecca was up writing Christmas cards.”
“And she didn’t ask about Evan?”
“Of course she did, but only after a bit of polite chitchat about Christmas. It didn’t feel right. She should have asked me immediately—that is, she should have if she were worried about him.”
“That’s what you call a fact?”
“Mother!” Kathleen ground her teeth. “What would you call it?”
“Well, I don’t know what I would call that. All I would call factual in your story is that Rebecca was sending out Christmas cards to her friends.”
“To business associates of her’s and Evan’s,” Kathleen corrected, thinking that she had scored a point.
“Well, if she knows that he’s dead, how come she’s continuing their business as if he’s alive?”
“She—” Kathleen stopped and looked from her mother to Susan.
“Because she needs the money that the business earns to live on,” Susan suggested. “And Evan is the founder and president—or whatever—of the business, and his clients might get very nervous if they knew he were missing, so it is in her interest if no one knows what’s going on.”
“You’re probably right,” Kathleen said, picking up her cup of lukewarm tea.
“On the other hand,” Susan continued, “doesn’t the business have some assets? If Evan were dead, wouldn’t there be something to sell or profit from in some way?”
“Am I interrupting a secret discussion about my Christmas present?” Jed appeared in the open kitchen doorway.
“There’s an ink smudge on your face,” Susan commented, ignoring his question.
“And I have writer’s cramp. Why don’t we have our cards printed like other people do?” Jed asked, sitting down in a chair next to his wife and peering over
her shoulder to look at his face reflected in the toaster oven. “I do seem a bit inky; I wonder if that pen was leaking.”
“Now I know what to get you for Christmas,” Susan said, getting up and pulling a paper towel from the rack near the sink. “Would you prefer Paper Mate or Bic?”
“Anything that doesn’t leak,” Jed answered, taking the towel from her and wetting it with his tongue.
“Jed, what do you know about Evan’s business?” Susan asked, looking into the teapot before pouring him another cup.
“Probably not much more than you do. He’s a venture cap—”
“But what is his business worth? Is there anything to sell if he’s dead?” Susan interrupted.
“I don’t know for sure, but I would think so. He invests money … and certainly he expects to be paid back with either interest or equity in the project. There would be a certain amount of capital value.”
“You mean, his investments in business could be bought or sold, just like stocks or bonds?”
“Sure, just like the bank could sell our mortgage; we’d still owe the money, and whoever held the mortgage would collect the interest. Why do you ask?”
“So, if he’s dead—or just missing, for that matter—his business is worth the same as if he were alive.”
“I didn’t say that,” Jed said, working hard on the smudges of ink as he talked. “I would imagine that his reputation has an intrinsic worth that it would be difficult to place an exact dollar value on, but which, if it were eliminated, could cause the company a substantial loss.”
Susan looked at the other two women. “We do hope you’re going to explain that.”
“Well, my guess is that no matter how desperately a company wants investment capital, where—or who—the money comes from is always a factor. After all, it’s better to get the money with as few strings attached as possible. An interfering investor wouldn’t be as popular as one with a hands-off attitude.” He looked around at three blank faces. “Think of it this way: You might need money to buy a house, but you wouldn’t want the bank that loaned it to you to tell you what color to paint that house.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “the situation with Evan might have been the exact opposite; he might have possessed business experience and acumen that helped the businesses he invested in, and people might have come to him for money, hoping that they could profit in other ways as well.” He glanced around to see how they were taking that. “Like if a bank not only gives you a loan, but also does an appraisal of the house and neighborhood to assure you that this particular property is a good investment. Am I making any sense?”
“Then Rebecca may have a good reason to want everyone in the company to think that things are normal—that Evan is still alive.”
“Certainly.” Jed smiled, thinking that he was at last being understood.
“So it might not be that she killed him, it might be that she’s just protecting her money.” Susan sighed. “So much for a clue.”
“A clue?” Jed repeated, finishing his cleaning process and putting the towel on the counter.
“We thought that Rebecca was hiding the fact that Evan was killed because she killed him, not that his business would be worth less without him,” Susan explained.
“Why not both reasons?” her husband asked sensibly. “Aren’t two motives better than one?”
“That’s a good point—” Susan began, stopping almost immediately as more people arrived in her kitchen. “Claire! Dr. Barr! I didn’t hear your car.”
“We left it down by the curb so we didn’t block anyone in,” Claire explained. “I invited Bobby in for a cup of herb tea, Susan. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. I’ll just boil some water.” Susan leapt into the role of hostess.
“You do have bottled water, don’t you?” Dr. Barr asked as he helped Claire remove her coat.
“Yes, yes. We do.” Susan removed the bottle from the refrigerator and noted, with relief, that it wasn’t carbonated. She poured it into the teapot, realizing as she did so that she should have poured out whatever water was left in it first. She looked around the room guiltily. As no one seemed to have noticed, she shrugged and put the pot on the burner. Claire was speaking.
“… just driving around looking at Christmas decorations. Downtown is just beautiful at night with all the tiny white lights outlining each building and all the trees. Hancock has done a remarkable job.”
“Then we toured through the residential sections of town; there are some extraordinary decorations—so unusual,” Dr. Barr added.
“Did you see the cutouts of Evan and Rebecca in front of their home?” Susan asked.
“Heavens, yes. What did you think of them?” Kathleen asked.
“They reminded me of those pictures of Nixon and Bush that you can have your picture taken with,” Claire said. “Do you think that’s where they got the idea?” she asked her son.
“How would I know?” came the huffy reply.
Susan was getting disgusted. He was her own husband; when was he going to grow up? The water was boiling. “Maybe they were going to use them in that way,” she suggested. “Maybe we were all going to get to have our pictures taken with those cutouts the night of the party and then be given the photo to take home.”
“Now that sounds like Evan,” Jed agreed. “He used to like to give unusual favors at his parties. Remember the small baskets filled with freesia and splits of champagne that everyone who attended his wedding to Rebecca was given at the door?”
“But that isn’t the same thing as having your picture taken with a cutout. Why have a cutout prepared?” Dolores asked. “It’s not as though they knew Evan was going to disappear, right?”
Susan opened her mouth and nothing came out. Just how much of a coincidence was having the cutouts made right before Evan’s death? Was someone planning some sort of strange setup? Was the cutout a stand-in for a dead man?
TWENTY-SIX
Susan could see them all laid out under a large balsam standing in the living room bay window; there were dozens of presents, each one happily chosen during the leisurely summer months, each one artfully wrapped while nibbling leftover turkey the first week of December. On the coffee table between the couch and the fireplace stood a magnificent Dickensian plum pudding, a piece of holly sprouting from its shiny crown. It had been aging in brandy since Halloween. On the couch were pillows on which she had embroidered gold angels during cool autumn evenings in Maine, when the stars shimmered in the sky and waves splashed against boulders on the shore.…
The grinding wrench of metal hitting metal jarred Susan from her daydreams. In her rearview mirror, she watched a woman in a red Volvo back away from the light pole that had just impaled her car. The accident reminded her that reality was very different. Some of her presents weren’t even bought, to say nothing of wrapped, and she could look around the mall parking lot and see that she wasn’t alone. A couple of dozen cars sat nearby, their occupants busily checking lists, reading newspapers, or absently drumming polished fingernails on expensive dashboards and leather-covered steering wheels. These were the early birds, the women who were out to start their shopping the very moment the stores opened.
Or finish their shopping, Susan corrected herself. This one last gift and she would be done until next Christmas. Except that next year was going to be different; next year would match the vision she had just had. But didn’t she plan something like this every year? And here she was again, hitting the stores three days before Christmas. A uniformed security guard, busy releasing the lock on the front door of Saks Fifth Avenue, interrupted her reverie and her resolutions. She dropped the newspaper on the floor of the car and got out.
Christmas carols, playing in the same order as on the day after Thanksgiving, greeted her entrance to the store. She headed for the lingerie department. Fifteen minutes, she would give herself just fifteen minutes to pick out a warm robe for Claire and then she would be done.
Twe
nty minutes later, a dark green cashmere robe folded into a bright red box at the bottom of the large shopping bag she carried, she was ready to leave the store. And she would have made it, if she hadn’t remembered Dolores. Kathleen and Jerry were bringing her along to the Henshaws’ house for Christmas dinner. Certainly she needed a gift to open while Kathleen and Jerry were opening theirs. Susan looked around at the displays of gifts, some already wrapped, presumably to make them easier to give. What about gloves? she wondered, walking over to an unoccupied counter. She picked up a pair of pale, creamy suede-lined with some sort of fur. Were gloves too unoriginal? She turned over the tags idly in her hands. What was printed on the other side made her decision for her. Two hundred dollars a pair? A hundred dollars apiece? She backed away, smiling tentatively at the salesperson who was heading in her direction.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Susan turned to apologize to the person whose foot she had stepped on. “Kathleen! Are you hurt?”
Kathleen looked down at her foot. “Everything in its place, nothing to worry about.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m glad to see you, though. I need your help.”
“What do you need?”
“A suggestion. I want to get Dolores a small gift, but I can’t think of anything.”
“I can. She’s been admiring those large silk bows on barrettes, and one would look nice in her hair,” Kathleen suggested. “I was thinking about picking up one myself.”
“Don’t. I’ll get it,” Susan said. “It’s the last thing I have to buy.”
“I still haven’t found anything for Jerry,” Kathleen said. “I was having an impossible time before he gave me the Jaguar, now it’s worse.”
“Worse?”
“You know. Now I want to get him something just as special, just as clever; something he’s wanted just as much. Except that I don’t know what he wants, and whenever I ask, he says that he has everything he wants. You know, I was wondering if he ever wanted to fly. I’ve been thinking about giving him an ultralight or maybe—”
“I thought Jerry got nervous on those little island hoppers you two took around Barbados last spring,” Susan reminded her.
We Wish You a Merry Murder Page 19