Lurleen called me at seven in the morning, and she didn’t sound like herself.
“Kids around?” she asked.
“They’re downstairs getting dressed for school,” I said.
“Good. They don’t need to hear this. Did Mason get called in this morning for a murder?”
“What are you talking about, Lurleen? Mason is right here beside me.”
“Put this on speaker phone unless the kids are likely to hear.”
I held the phone where Mason could hear it.
“There was a murder last night,” Lurleen said, “Nicole Ash was killed. They found her in bed, her own bed, strangled. I don’t know how Stephanie got so many details but she did. I just got off the phone with her. Danny followed up with some people he knew, and apparently Kevin Delaney is the lead detective on the case. Did you hear about it, Mason?”
“No, I’m on another case, and I haven’t been to the precinct yet.”
“How could that have happened?” I asked. “Nate and Crystal were supposed to stay with her last night.”
“Yes, they were,” Lurleen said. “According to Stephanie, Nicole and Nate had some big argument and she kicked him out of the house. Nate claimed he stayed outside, sometimes in his car, to make sure no one bothered her.”
“And Crystal?” I asked.
“The story from Crystal is that Nicole was drinking a lot and Crystal went out to get some food around midnight at Nicole’s request. She says she was gone half an hour and when she got home she found Nicole dead.”
“That sounds like a pretty flimsy alibi,” I said. “Why didn’t she have it delivered and why would she drive around Atlanta at midnight?”
“I’m with you, Ditie,” Lurleen said, “but that’s all I know. If I hear more, I’ll call you. Please do the same for me.”
“I will, Lurleen, if I can.” I saw the look Mason was giving me, and I suspected I wouldn’t be getting a lot of information from him.
We hung up, and Mason started talking before I could.
“This will be an ongoing investigation, and Kevin Delaney is a good detective. He won’t want me passing on information to you.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s just so horrible. Nicole was scared by something at the book club, and now we might never know what it was she saw. Then she winds up dead. Of course, the most obvious suspect is Ben Ash, based on her old bruises and the way he busted into the house. He grabbed her by the arm, and I’m sure he was the person abusing her in the past. What I can’t figure out is why Nate and Crystal left her alone even for a minute. And doesn’t it seem likely that what she saw might relate to her murder?”
“It’s not your case to solve, Ditie,” Mason said. “I’ll talk to Kevin and make sure he knows everything you’ve told me. It’s likely he’ll want to interview you and Lurleen along with everyone else at the book club.”
“I’ll let Lurleen know.”
Mason put his hands on my shoulders as if to be certain he had my attention. “Don’t get involved in this. I am now officially part of this family, and I don’t want to worry about you . . . or Lurleen.”
Then he hugged me in a long embrace.
We were interrupted by a call from downstairs.
“Mama, Uncle Mason, shall I fix breakfast?” It was Lucie.
“Uncle Mason?” I mouthed to Mason.
“She’s working on it,” Mason said. “You know Lucie—it takes her a while to settle on a new name.”
“That would be great, Luce,” I called back. “Keep it simple. Cereal and fruit will be fine. We’ll be down in a minute.”
I led the way. “Your turn to wake up Jason,” I told Mason. “He’s a grumpy boy in the morning, and my head is still swimming from the news.”
“On it,” Mason said.
I found Lucie in the kitchen with milk, granola and bananas placed in the center of the island—my always efficient Lucie. I wondered if that would change as she moved into her teenage years.
“Thanks, honey,” I said, giving her a kiss. “That’s an interesting outfit.”
“What, you don’t like it, Mama? I thought you would. Every bit of it came from the thrift shop up the road. Hannah is teaching me about thrifting. She says it’s the only way to shop and the only clothes to wear.”
“Thrifting?” I asked. I looked at Lucie. She had on a cropped T-shirt that said Atlanta Braves and a denim jean skirt. “I get it. Everything old and nothing new. What about if you get cold today?”
Lucie pulled a corduroy blazer out of her book bag. “I’m good.”
Hannah was Lucie’s best friend and a year older than she was. Apparently, now she was her fashion guru.
“I like it,” I said. “You look cute and original.”
Mason and Jason came in as we sat down to breakfast. Jason was laughing at something Mason had said. Jason laughing at 7:45 in the morning—that was a first.
“How did you work your magic?” I whispered to Mason.
“It’s a guy thing,” Mason said. “I assumed that’s why you married me, so you’d have a man in the house.”
“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely!”
I gave Mason a big mushy kiss. I didn’t think it was mushy, but apparently Jason did.
“Ooh, yuck,” he said as he sat down at the table.
I looked at Mason. He smiled and winked at me. “We’ll get through this,” he said.
“Through what?” Lucie asked.
“Through the two of you having your own minds about things,” Mason said, “but don’t forget I’ve done this before with my two boys. There is nothing you can throw at me that I haven’t already seen.”
That made Lucie laugh, but Jason gave us both a look like maybe he’d test that out.
Thank goodness for Mason. I had some idea about how to raise a girl, after all I’d been one. But a boy? I felt a little clueless about that. I’d seen how my mother had handled my brother, and that was nothing I wanted to emulate.
We ate, and as soon as Mason finished, he stood and put his dishes in the sink. “Sorry, I can’t help clean up, early meeting at work. I’ll see you at six, I hope.”
“Do you have a big case, Daddy?” Jason asked. He had none of Lucie’s qualms about what to call us. I was Mommy or Mom and Mason became Daddy on the day he adopted the kids, which was a month ago. Like the ceremony in which I adopted them, the one with Mason went smoothly. Same judge. Same participants including Lurleen and Danny. Same celebration afterwards at Murphy’s, a favorite restaurant, which was within walking distance of our house.
Mason gave Jason and Lucie a hug. “They are all big cases to me.”
I walked him to the door.
“I know this will fall on deaf ears,” he said quietly, “but is there any chance you can keep Lurleen out of this one and let the police do their work?”
“There’s a chance,” I said, “but I wouldn’t count on it. Lurleen used to be occupied with her cooking school and the wedding, but our wedding is over and the cooking school is running smoothly with Anna Hayes at the helm. She’s a little bit at loose ends, and that’s never a good thing.”
“Couldn’t you give her a problem to solve,” Mason asked, “one that doesn’t include a murder investigation?”
“I’ll try, I really will. I know she was excited about the mystery book club, but I will bet that’s dead in the water. Sorry, bad reference. I’ll do my best.”
We kissed again, this time a longer kiss since we didn’t have an audience.
I found Lucie cleaning up the kitchen.
“Jason’s getting ready,” she said before I could ask. “What were you and Uncle Mason talking about—you were talking forever.”
“I’m amazed you didn’t have your notebook out taking notes. Have you moved out of that phase?”
Lucie gave me a look like I’d hurt her feelings.
“It wasn’t a phase,” she said pulling a small notebook out of her purse. “I was just giving you privacy, but I wondered what was going on after that early morning phone call from someone, and the way you looked at breakfast.”
“The way I looked at breakfast?”
“Super serious, maybe sad.”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m living with a private detective or perhaps a spy.”
Lucie smiled but she was not deterred. “So what happened, Mama?”
“I’ll tell you the little I know, Lucie, otherwise you’ll be hounding me with questions. You know the book club Lurleen and I went to last night?”
“The mystery book club. Was it fun? I read the book you all read, A Ghost Around Every Corner. Only there wasn’t really a ghost around any corner, just someone dressed to look like a ghost.”
“How did you know that’s what we read?” I asked.
“Lurleen gave me the book when she finished it. Mama, was it at the book club that something terrible happened?”
“Not exactly, although it did get off to a rough start. A person named Nicole thought she saw something outside the window, something that frightened her badly. We didn’t find anything in the back yard, so we thought it was some neighborhood kid playing a prank, kind of like the book with people pretending to be ghosts. Then Lurleen called me this morning to say Nicole had died.”
“Died? Was she murdered?” Lucie asked, her blue eyes opened as wide as they could go.
I nodded.
“How?”
“Lucie, I’m not sure you need to know that.”
“Lurleen will tell me if you don’t, Mama.”
“She will,” I said. “It looks as if she was strangled.”
“Do you think what she saw at the book club might be related to her death?” Lucie asked.
“I don’t know, but I wonder about that.”
“Mama, are you and Lurleen on the case?”
“No, we are not.” I said that with more conviction than I felt. It would be hard to separate Lurleen from a murder investigation.
“What is Lurleen thinking about the case, Mama? You know she’ll be full of ideas.”
“No consulting with Lurleen,” I said. “You are not on the case, and we are not on the case.”
“Okay, okay, Mama,” Lucie said, her eyes alight. “We are not on the case. Is Lurleen taking us to school today?”
“No, I am, but she’s picking you up.”
I shook my head. I didn’t bother to tell Lucie not to ask Lurleen a million questions. That would be like asking salmon to stop swimming upstream. Lurleen and Lucie were thick as thieves when it came to investigating a murder. My job was to keep them both safe.
“Maybe the two of you will find something more interesting to talk about than the death of Nicole Ash,” I said.
“Nicole Ash, thanks for the last name,” Lucie said, jotting it down in her small notebook.
I gave up and went to check on Jason. He was stuffing a sweatshirt in his backpack along with his soccer shoes. “Try outs are today for the school team,” he said before I could ask.
“You ready?”
“Sure.”
“Is Noah trying out?” Noah was Jason’s best friend and even at eight he was a standout soccer player.
“Yes, but he’s also going to try out for one of the travel teams.”
“Do you want to do that, Jason? We can manage it if you do.”
“I don’t think so, Mom. I have a lot of other things I like to do. There’s a chess team starting up at school, and I might want to do that.”
Jason continued to surprise me. He’d had difficulty reading, but once we figured out he had dyslexia, everything got so much better. He no longer thought he was stupid, and he could read now, more slowly than Lucie could, but still he could read. He was always good at math and solving problems, so I shouldn’t have been surprised about the chess interest.
“Mason loves a good game of chess, and so do I,” I said. “We’ll have to pull out the board.”
“Gosh, Mom, Daddy set up the chess set weeks ago in the family room. He plays with me once a week at least, and he’s showing me all the regular openings.”
I laughed. My kids were off and running, and I hardly knew what they were up to. “Great!” was all I said.
I got the kids to school a few minutes early and stopped to buy a paper on my way to work. There it was on the front page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “Woman murdered in her bed.”
Nicole lived in Morningside, not far from us, and Morningside was full of expensive houses. Money hadn’t saved Nicole, but did it have anything to do with her death? She’d said she was in the middle of a messy divorce. I wondered how messy.
I didn’t have time to think much about that once I entered the clinic. Every red chair in the waiting room was filled with children and families. Vic, the director of the clinic, greeted me.
“I’m glad you’re early; it’s going to be a busy day.”
“Good. Anything to worry about?”
“Not yet, but we’re seeing a lot more respiratory illnesses, so we might need to send some kids to the hospital. Eleanor is triaging patients. I’ll start with the sickest ones, and if I need your help I’ll let you know. You can start with the ones who have appointments. ”
We had a very busy morning. While the asylum seekers sent by southern governors were usually dropped off in northern states, some found their way to Atlanta. We had a global gathering in front of us from Venezuela to Ukraine to Afghanistan. These were troubled families fleeing from danger for a better life, a safer life. Our job was to make it a healthier one.
At lunchtime I called Lurleen. “It’s likely I’m going to be late this afternoon. Any chance Danny can fix the kids dinner?”
“Not a problem; Danny will enjoy that.”
Danny was the cook in Lurleen’s house. He was good enough to be an occasional guest chef at Lurleen’s cooking school, but he rarely had time for that.
“Thanks, Lurleen. Tell Danny I owe him.”
“Will do.”
Someone knocked on my door. “Just a sec,” I called out. “Sorry, Lurleen, I have to go. We’re swamped today, so I’ll catch up with you tonight. Any chance you could keep Lucie in the dark about what’s going on?”
“I seriously doubt it, Ditie. She’ll be after me until she knows everything I know, but I’ll try.”