Murder Ink

by Betty Hechtman

  ‘What a great idea,’ I said, as the group began to jitterbug. From there they moved onto the twist, the mashed potato, the monkey, the swim and finally the stroll.

  ‘We keep switching things around. Next time they’ll be doing the Macarena and the hustle with some cha-cha-cha thrown in,’ Darcy said. She’d joined me on the bench, and I had fun talking to her while we watched the class. Unfortunately we got so involved in our conversation, Debbie had grabbed her bag and was on her way out the door before I could catch her. I’d talk to her next time for sure.

  Even though I’d only watched the class, I was glad when it was over, and I could head home. It had been a long day.

  My cell phone rang just as the train was pulling out of the dark of the covered Randolph Street Station into the cloudy late afternoon.

  ‘Did you talk to her? What did she say? How did she seem?’ Evan asked. He sounded like a machine gun, shooting out words, and I pictured him pacing again. He was probably running his hand through his hair at the same time. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘What happened? I know she said no, and you don’t want to tell me. It’s OK. I can take it. I’m ready.’

  I waited for him to take a breath before I tried to speak. He stopped at last. ‘First things first,’ I said. ‘She didn’t answer you because she didn’t see the note. It had fallen under the desk. But I made sure she got it this time.’

  ‘And?’ he said, sounding like he was holding his breath.

  ‘I know that you don’t want her to know that I’m the behind the scenes person, so I couldn’t be too obvious, but I tried to put in a good word for you. She seemed upbeat when she read the note. I think you’ll be hearing from her soon,’ I added. I heard him let his breath out.

  ‘Then she didn’t say no,’ he said in a cheery voice. ‘Thank you for going undercover like that. Otherwise she never would have seen the note and I would have assumed she didn’t care enough even to say that she didn’t want to go.’ The train pulled to a rough stop at Roosevelt Road and I lurched forward and then back against the seat with an oomph.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m on the train,’ I explained.

  ‘What should I do if I don’t hear from her by tomorrow?’ he asked sounding worried again.

  ‘I know this is a cliché but I’m going to use it anyway. Why don’t we cross that bridge when we come to it, or if we come to it,’ I added, thinking that somehow made it less a cliché. Evan seemed to care less about whether what I said was original or not, but he got the point and agreed.

  ‘I hope you can relax now,’ I said.

  ‘A little bit,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  It had started to rain again by the time I got off the train at 57th and I dug the umbrella out of my bag. The Bellingham was so classy the doorman had given me a bag to keep my wet umbrella in so that it didn’t drip over everything in my tote bag. Back on ground level, a group of U of C students jogged by me, seeming unconcerned about the weather. I considered stopping at the coffee shop on my corner for a bowl of soup. It was homemade and delicious, but I opted to go home instead. As I was going up the stairs, Sara’s door opened, and she stuck her head out. She had that bedraggled mom look – hair pulled into a scrunchie, T-shirt smeared with something that looked like chocolate and a pair of jeans that were clearly all about comfort.

  ‘I’m glad it’s you,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re up for some company. I need some girl talk time.’ She let out her breath. ‘I love Mikey to pieces, but I need some time to be me for a little while. I’m a mom, but I’m still a person.’

  ‘Sure, of course,’ I said quickly. She stuck her head back in and called to her husband that she was going to my place.

  ‘One good thing about him working crazy hours is that he’s sometimes home during the day when I really need to get away for a while.’ She started to follow me up the stairs, going on how happy she was that I’d finally gotten home. ‘I opened the door when I heard someone on the stairs hoping it was you, but it was just someone from the management office there to show the condo.’ She let out a sigh as we reached the landing. ‘And I want to meet that cat,’ she said when I opened my front door. We both looked down, expecting the black-and-white feline to be waiting by the door, but there was no greeting kitty.

  ‘I guess it’s only dogs that hang out at the door,’ she said, as we went inside.

  ‘He’s still getting used to being here,’ I said. ‘He only came out of hiding after I’d gone to bed and then took over one of my pillows.’

  ‘I’ll wait until he comes out on his own then. Now tell me what you’re working on. I need to hear about what adults are doing. Why is it that kids like to hear things over and over and over? I’ve read Louis the Caboose on the Loose so many times I started to dream about it.’

  I hung up my coat and took my tote bag into my office with Sara on my heels. I pulled out my notebook and laid it next to the computer. ‘There’s Evan and the illusive Sally,’ I began. ‘I’m not sure how that’s going to turn out, but they are both really nice people. I hope I manage to express Evan’s personality enough in the notes, so she sees past his plain exterior – you know, slicked-down hair and blah clothes.’

  I did a little twirl. ‘I’m doing work for a dance gym and it’s turning out to be great. It’s fun, the people are nice and I’m getting some much-needed exercise. To think that it all came about because I went there looking for a story for the celebration of life booklet I’m working on.’ I looked at Sara to see if she remembered.

  ‘Yes, for the woman who went off the balcony,’ Sara said. Her words reminded me of the DVD I’d left in my computer.

  ‘You have to see what somebody sent me. I guess they wanted me to use some of the photos in the book.’

  I turned on the computer and ran the DVD. Sara was standing next to me watching the screen as I waited for the first shot of Rachel to come up.

  ‘That can’t be,’ I said, leaning in close to the screen. The image was of a basket full of kittens. I fast forwarded it thinking it must be further up ahead. But there were only more cat pictures scrolling past to upbeat music. ‘That’s crazy,’ I said. ‘Last night there were just shots of Rachel.’ I showed Sara the envelope. ‘Your brother is the one who noticed it on the post downstairs.’

  ‘Maybe we should play it again. Could it be somewhere else on the DVD?’ Sara suggested. We played it three times and it was still only cats.

  ‘That wasn’t what I saw last night,’ I said, feeling uneasy. I looked around the desk to see if there was another disk.

  I finally shut off the DVD and showed her a screen with the photographs I’d scanned into the computer. She stared at the picture of Rachel in her wedding dress.

  ‘You said it was last night. Maybe you didn’t really watch it. You just unpacked the DVD and then dreamt that you watched it.’ She mentioned that she’d dreamt she was riding on Louis the Caboose more than once. ‘And maybe the place where you got the cat gave it to you, like a “welcome to being a feline friend” or something. You said you were carrying a lot of stuff. It could have fallen out of something and landed on the post,’ she offered.

  Everything she said made sense and could have happened, but I didn’t think so. There had to be a logical explanation.

  She was happy to drop the subject and as I expected went right to talking about meeting Ben and me at the coffee shop. ‘It looked like you two were hitting it off,’ she said.

  I choked back a laugh. ‘He helped me with the cat, and we grabbed dinner. In case you didn’t notice, you and Mikey did most the talking.’

  ‘I know my brother and I could tell by his face that he was having a good time.’

  ‘Then you must be a mind reader. He had the same lack of expression he always does.’

  ‘There’s something beneath that,’ she said. ‘He’s like that Evan you were talking about. His outside doesn’t really tell what his inside is.’

  ‘But Evan at least gives hints. Ben is like a statu
e. You should hear him read Ed’s ridiculous sex scenes. He doesn’t break his monotone once. It’s actually very funny and the rest of us, except for Ed of course, find it hard not to laugh. Does your brother even know how to laugh? Does he have any sense of humor?’ I asked with a smile.

  ‘Of course he does. Doesn’t everyone? I’ll give him some jokes to tell next time I see him.’

  I almost laughed out loud thinking of him repeating a joke in that matter-of-fact voice of his.

  Rocky finally made his appearance. He rubbed against my legs and then Sara’s before sitting down and looking at both of us.

  ‘Wow, he’s a big cat,’ she said. ‘But he has such soulful eyes.’ I looked at his yellowish eyes and had to admit she was right. ‘Look at his face. The black marking makes it look like he has a crooked moustache.’

  We retreated to the kitchen and I gave him some cat food, before making some tea for us. It was the brightest room in the apartment. The windows looked down on our building’s small yard and beyond to the large yards of the houses on the block behind us. The shortcoming was that it was most exposed to the sun and the wind, making it hot in the summer and cold in the winter. In October though, it was just fine.

  She was on her second cup when her phone pinged with a message. ‘I know,’ she predicted, before she’d even looked. ‘Something happened downstairs and I have to go.’ She read the text. ‘I was right.’ She sounded triumphant and weary at the same time. ‘Why doesn’t anyone tell you how exhausting a toddler can be?’

  When she’d left, I put the dishes in the sink and went back to my office. I pushed play again on the DVD, somehow expecting it to be different, but it was just the cat pictures again.

  I was sure of what I’d seen the night before, wasn’t I? But Sara’s explanation made sense. Could I have dreamt it? What was going on?

  EIGHTEEN

  I kept thinking about the DVD and the more I did the more confused I felt. I went over the whole chain of events again and again. It became like a word you looked at too long and it ceased to make sense. I felt confused and uneasy. The only thing to do was to put the DVD back in its case and forget about it.

  I tried to get my thoughts off of it by doing some work. I began with the dance gym. I read through my notes and came up with descriptions for all the classes I’d taken so far, using quotes from Talmadge and Kelly.

  Part of me didn’t want to deal with anything about Rachel after the whole DVD thing, but I couldn’t put it off. What I’d shown Camille had a lot of placeholders and I started filling them in. When I got to the spot I’d marked story from Mrs Parker, I stopped. She was probably serious when she told me to make something up. I felt uneasy about doing it, concerned that she wouldn’t be pleased. But I also had no choice.

  I took the few facts that I knew about Camille arranging a wedding shower and created a warm moment between them I knew never would have happened in a million years. She’d mentioned her daughters had been part of it, so I made something up about them too. Though I had to refer to them as sister 1 and sister 2 since I didn’t know their names.

  When I sat back and read it over, I worried how she would react to it. Had I made it too sweet and emotional?

  Next, I wrote up Luke’s story about meeting Rachel because of a pink squirrel. I kept the part about the drink being a link to time with her mother light. I reread the story about the wedding shower. I decided to show it to Luke before I gave it to Mrs Parker. And he’d know the names of the sisters.

  I thought briefly about Mr Parker. It seemed incomplete not to have something from him. But Camille Parker had said an emphatic no.

  There was nothing left to do for Evan but keep my fingers crossed that Sally said yes. Satisfied that it was all good for the moment, I left the computer.

  With everything going on, I had forgotten about eating. All I’d had all day was the glass of orange juice. My stomach rumbled to remind me it was dinner time. Some people who lived alone survived on frozen entrees and peanut butter sandwiches. I admit I occasionally went that way, but most of the time I made a meal for myself and sat down at the table.

  I went into the kitchen to see what I could create. I found some pasta which I cooked in the microwave and then mixed it with garlic oil, cheese and some leftover mixed vegetables. I made a quick salad out of some baby lettuces, cucumbers, tomatoes and green onions. The dressing was always the same. I added some olive oil and seasoning before tossing it. I poured on some balsamic vinegar and tossed it again.

  I brought my plate into the dining room. Most of the other residents had turned the room into a den, but I’d kept it set up for its original purpose. It was a large room completely separated from the butler’s pantry and kitchen with a swinging door. I wasn’t sure why the short hallway with cabinets and some counter space was called the butler’s pantry since I doubted that anyone actually had butlers, but I liked the name. As I sat in there, I imagined someone sitting at the head of the table stepping on the button in the wood floor that summoned the maid. The button was still there, but whatever it connected to was long gone.

  I cleared everything off the table when the writing group met, but the rest of the time it served as a place for me to eat with a place mat, a tray with condiments with a decorative bowl as a centerpiece. The sideboard was filled with stuff I didn’t use, like tablecloths and candles. A tall bookcase on the opposite wall had shelves of books mixed with decorative glassware and pretty things that I’d collected. The furnishings were finished off with a couch and a TV set.

  The windows were covered with half curtains to block out the view of the next building. The apartments were laid out in a similar arrangement to mine which meant that my dining room looked into theirs. The tops of the windows were uncovered and there was enough exposure to the sky that it was bright during the morning and early afternoon, but then the light faded. Right now, all I could see was a strip of the night sky.

  The cooking smells had awakened my hunger and I dove into the plate of food. I even had seconds on the pasta.

  Since there wasn’t anyone to have after-dinner conversation with, I cleared the table as soon as I was done.

  I brewed myself some coffee and took it down the long hallway into the living room. The feeling of this room was totally different than the dining room. The bay windows looked out over the street and to the buildings on the other side. They were all brick and the same height as my building and probably close to as old. They all had balconies similar to mine and the same types of decorative features that nobody bothered with anymore.

  I put down the coffee and turned on the TV. I was a little surprised when Rocky came in from wherever he’d been hiding and jumped up on the couch beside me. I was still getting used to the idea that I had a feline housemate. It had to be an adjustment for him, too. But it was certainly better than being in a cage at the pet shop. I didn’t want to think about what his future would have been if he hadn’t found a home.

  Melissa had told me that he’d been an indoor cat. I was a little conflicted about that. It seemed unfair to cut him off from the outside, but the thought of him wandering on the street worried me, particularly since there were so many ambulances rushing by on 57th Street on the way to the university hospital complex. The balcony didn’t seem an option. What if he saw a bird in the tree out front and tried to leap onto the branches? I thought that once he was acclimated, I would try walking him on a leash.

  I needed a dose of laughter and turned the channel to a half hour comedy. I’d already seen the episode about several generations of a family living together, but it didn’t matter. If anything it was funnier because I was laughing in anticipation of what was coming next. I usually drank my coffee black but sometimes at night I liked it with some cream. I went back to the kitchen to get a small pitcher of it.

  I came back to the living room and poured it into the cup until the coffee was the right shade of beige. Some shouting came from the TV and when I looked up at the screen, I was surprised
to see a night shot of cops surrounding a house. Before it could really register, they’d started shooting with loud bangs. I grabbed the remote control and hit the guide. It showed the TV was set to a totally different channel than I’d been watching. Thinking I must have somehow pushed it when I got up, I changed it back to the comedy show. I drank some of my coffee and picked up the bag with one of my crochet projects. I was working on a square with a heart motif in the middle. The outer area was purple and the heart, of course, was red. It involved carrying over the colors when I changed from purple to red and back to purple, so I had to pay attention. It was only when the purple ball fell off the couch and rolled across the floor that I thought about Rocky. Didn’t cats love to play with yarn? I looked at him, expecting him to pounce on the rolling ball.

  Instead, he lifted his head momentarily, checked it out, but then put his head back down and closed his eyes. ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ I said, retrieving the ball and reaching in the bag for the ball of red yarn. Once I’d settled in, I glanced up at the TV and was surprised to see two cars racing on a highway. What? I reached for the remote control. The guide showed the TV tuned to another channel again.

  Instinctively I looked around to see if there was someone else in the room. The only faces were from the paintings on the wall. I shot the cat a look. ‘Did you do this?’ He didn’t stir, but that had to be it. I once again tuned it to my comedy show and this time, I put the remote control on the coffee table where there was no chance the cat could touch it, or I could lean on it.

  I stared at the TV not taking my eyes away from it and it seemed OK. Just as I was about to relax and go back to my crocheting, out of nowhere the image changed to a basketball game. I looked at the remote control still on the table. Nothing had touched it. ‘OK, this is getting creepy,’ I said. I picked up the remote and turned the TV off.