As I was heading to the bedroom to get ready, Willis, my husband, met me at the door, his index finger stiffly pointing to the ceiling. ‘Have you seen Ridley Hamilton’s front lawn?’ he asked me sternly.
‘No—’
‘You ask me, how can Ridley Hamilton’s front lawn be green in this, the worst drought in Texas history?’ he said, index finger still stiff and pointed.
‘I don’t think it’s the worst in his—’
‘I’ll tell you why!’ he said, his voice getting loud. Then there was silence. Finally he said, ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why?’
I sighed. ‘Why is Ridley Hamilton’s front lawn green in this, the worst drought in Texas history?’ I asked.
‘He cheats!’
‘Ah,’ I said, trying to move around him to the bedroom. Unfortunately, he followed me. I wondered if he was losing all the blood from his index finger that was still stiffly pointed ceiling-ward.
‘Don’t “ah” me, missy!’ he said.
‘Then don’t call me mis—’
‘Two hours a week!’ Willis almost shouted. ‘Two frigging hours a week is all we’re allowed to water both the front and the back lawn. I looked over his fence!’ Willis said, having moved straight into shouting mode. ‘The backyard’s green, too!’
‘Honey, I have to—’
‘I can barely keep the shrubs and the perennials alive! Forget about the annuals and the lawn! Have you seen our lawn?’
‘Of cour—’
‘Dead, E.J. It’s dead! And I follow mandatory restrictions! How can my lawn be dead if I’m following mandatory restrictions and Ridley Hamilton’s yard be lively and green if he’s following mandatory restrictions?’
‘Well—’
‘Because he’s not!’ Willis said, now thrusting his finger to the ceiling. Luckily the ceiling in our bedroom is vaulted; otherwise he might have poked a hole.
‘You know what?’ I said, taking him by the arms and turning him toward the door of the bedroom.
‘What?’ he said, moving but looking over his shoulder at me.
‘I think you should go next door and tell Luna about this,’ I declared. Luna is a homicide detective with the Codderville Police Department. We live in Black Cat Ridge, a wholly made town/subdivision developed in the mid-eighties, which is right across the Colorado River from the much older town of Codderville where my husband was raised. Although she lives here, Black Cat Ridge is not Luna’s jurisdiction, but it would get Willis out of the house so I could get ready.
‘You know, you’re right!’ he said. ‘Maybe she’ll let me borrow her gun!’ and he moved fast out of our bedroom. Seconds later I heard the front door slam.
I sighed and began to prepare myself for the upcoming ordeal. I’d recently bought a full-length mirror for the back of the closet door. It was a gift to myself for losing thirty-five pounds through the aptly-named ‘Weigh In’, my weight-loss group. I followed that with a trip to the hairdresser where my shoulder-length mass of red and gray curls was colored as close to the original red as possible, and all of it was cut into what they call a bob, which is shorter in the back then comes down longer over the ears. It’s usually done on straight hair and looks sleek and cool. As my hair is kinky-curly, it was a little different. I think it was the first do my hair ever liked, because I was looking Good, and that capital ‘G’ is on purpose! The first article of clothing I bought was a little black dress; unfortunately, it was for a memorial service, which I was getting ready for as I stared at my reflection.
I’m in my forties and looked better at that moment than I had since my late twenties. I may have had to energize my hair color, but my eyes were still a fairly brilliant green, if I do say so myself, and my smile was still just as straight as when the orthodontist sent me home for the last time. And my body, well, it was definitely in fighting condition, if you know what I mean. I thought I might attempt seducing my husband when I got home later. If the kids were out. If we weren’t too tired. If there wasn’t anything really good on TV.
The black dress was knee-length and with cap sleeves, as befit a Saturday in July in central Texas. A normal July, that is; this one, however, any clothing at all was too much. The memorial service was for a woman I barely knew. She’d been in my weight-loss group, but I’d rarely talked with her. My neighbour Trisha McClure, however, who lived across the street, knew the woman much better. They were in a MADD group (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) together and had bonded when picketing the capital in Austin over drunk-driving laws.
The deceased was Berta Harris, a thirty-something woman with dark brown hair, brown eyes and a body that was neither heavy nor light. If anything, I’d say she’d been maybe ten pounds over her ideal weight. We’d both been going to Weigh In for six months and I’d never seen her take off a pound. She’d lived somewhere in Black Cat Ridge and the memorial service was being held at the Episcopal Church of Black Cat Ridge. It was going to start in another twenty minutes. I ran into the bathroom and applied lipstick. Yes, I was going all out. I figured a lot of the Weigh In crowd were going to be there, and I was eager to show off my new figure.
Now that my eighteen-year-old son Graham was driving and my fifteen-year-old daughters would all be eligible to take driver’s ed this summer, my husband Willis and I decided, with some heavy pushing on my part, that it was time for me to get rid of the old minivan and buy me my own vehicle, one just meant for me. Willis had always had his own car, the one he took to work but was never used for family. My car, whatever it was at the time (station wagon, minivan, SUV) was always the family car. Instances of us going anywhere as a family had become fewer and farther between, and now, if we did venture out as a family, we usually took two cars where ever we went – Willis and me in one, Graham and the girls in another. So I was pushing for a two-seater. Willis had finally gotten his huge pickup truck with the oversized tires that took two steps for me to get into, so now it was time for my sports car – one of those cute Audis, or one of the new Z’s. I was punch drunk with excitement about it. Whatever it was would have a top that came off, I can guarantee you that.
But at this moment I was still driving a minivan, so I went into the garage, crawled in, and buzzed across the street to pick up Trisha. I’m five foot eleven inches. Trisha was one of those women who always made me feel like the fifty-foot woman. A petite five foot two, she couldn’t possibly weigh more than a hundred pounds, and her blonde hair was either natural or the best bleach job ever. She was also incredibly sweet. She had two little girls, ages five and three, who both looked just like her, and a husband as big as mine who doted on her. The McClures had moved in across the street about a year and a half ago. We were friendly but this would be the first time Trisha had been in my car. I threw out some of the trash. Trisha came out of her house to meet me, wearing a black suit that looked as good on her as my black dress looked on me. Well, almost as good.
She jumped in the minivan, pulling herself up the step with the help of the ‘sissy’ bar above the door. ‘God, can you believe this heat? I think it’s already reached a hundred!’ she said.
‘And it’s only eleven o’clock,’ I muttered, turning up the air conditioning as I pulled the car away from the curb. ‘How well did you know Berta?’ I asked, speaking of the woman whose memorial service we were about to attend.
‘Not really that well. Other than that rally in Austin last month, we didn’t talk that much. But Austin was a lot of fun. There’s nothing like a good protest to get the juices flowing. We all went back to the hotel and got drunk afterwards. And no,’ she said, shooting me a look, ‘no one was driving! We all stayed the night in the hotel!’
‘I can’t imagine Berta drunk,’ I said. ‘She was always so . . .’ I struggled for the right word, but Trisha beat me to it.
‘Depressed?’ she filled in.
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, let me tell you, she was a depressed drunk too. Three drinks in and she burst into tears.’ That’s when she sighed heavily. ‘We all have our own reasons for being members of MADD. I joined because my dad was a drunk and I was always terrified that he was going to kill himself or someone else. He never did it with a car, but he died of liver failure, so I guess he did kill himself.’
‘I’m sorry, Trisha,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘I don’t talk about it much, but it’s no big secret. It happened a long time ago and MADD is just the way I deal with it. My brother has his own way – he drinks.’
I patted her hand and she went on: ‘But that night when we got drunk, Berta told us about her little boy who was hit by a drunk driver. It happened ten or so years ago, but that’s something you never get over.’
I shuddered at the thought. ‘God, the poor woman. She was in the weight-loss group because her mother was obese and died from complications of diabetes,’ I said.
‘I didn’t know about that,’ Trisha said. ‘And now this.’
‘What happened anyway?’ I asked.
‘I don’t really know,’ she said as we pulled into the parking lot of the church. ‘She was in the hospital for something, and the woman who called me – someone from MADD – just said it was complications.’
‘Lot of that going around,’ I said, while trying to find a place to park. The church had kept almost all of the trees that had originally been in the space designated for a parking lot, and there were so many of them that actual parking spaces were at a premium. It was a very eco-friendly and pretty parking lot, what with all the cars having to find space on the street. I finally found a spot and we parked and headed into the church.
The pews were three-quarters full when we got there, and by the time the service started there was standing room only. I saw several people I knew, some sitting, some standing against the walls. The pastor did a bit of sermon and then the eulogies began. The first was a woman from my Weigh In group, whose tearful goodbye seemed to set a tone. After her was a man from ‘an anonymous group’ he said, leaving it at that, but his eulogy seemed to indicate that Berta had been a drinker at one point in her life. Next was a woman from Trisha’s MADD group, who tearfully told the story of Berta’s young son’s death and how they would be reunited at last. There was a speaker from a support group for those who had lost their spouses, one from a support group for abused women, one from a support group for family members of institutionalized patients, one from a victims’ rights organization, and another from a group of wives of prison inmates. There weren’t any family members or friends other than those from these groups. But by all accounts, and the eulogies, it appeared as if Berta Harris had outlived all her family and probably most of her friends.
Berta had been cremated so there was to be no graveside service; instead, we went directly to the rec room of the church where there was punch and cookies. I couldn’t help thinking about the services I’d gone to with my mother-in-law at her little Baptist Church in Codderville, where after the service there’d be refreshments – either at the deceased’s home or at the church, and everyone would bring their best dish. Fourteen different salads, five of them coleslaw, three green bean casseroles and four broccoli-rice casseroles, a ham, fried chicken, and occasionally a whole turkey. And, oh my God, the desserts . . . As a soon-to-be graduate of Weigh In, that was not something I should be contemplating. But punch and cookies? Come on, people. Is that anyway to send someone off to their maker?
Out of curiosity I made my way amongst the different groups represented and began to get a bio of Berta Harris. Her mother was an obese woman who died of complications of diabetes while addicted to meth; her father was an alcoholic who beat her mother and then shot and killed her when Berta was in her teens; her husband of fifteen years recently died in a car wreck, not unlike her ten-year-old son; her brother, a paranoid schizophrenic, had been hospitalized for several years; and she’d been married to a man who had held her at gunpoint for several hours one dark and stormy night – he was currently incarcerated.
There were so many holes in this bio it was beginning to resemble Swiss cheese. One thing no one knew was how Berta Harris died. Trisha had said she’d been told Berta had been hospitalized and died of ‘complications.’ Of what, she didn’t know. Why she was hospitalized she wasn’t told.
The anonymous guy, who was with a group of people swilling coffee like it was going out of style, and who all introduced themselves by first name only, said he’d heard she’d died of a heart attack while on the toilet, Elvis-style.
A woman from RIPS (Relatives of Institutionalized People’s Support group) had been told Berta died of anaphylactic shock from a bee sting while on a trip to Six Flags in Dallas.
A woman from WII (Wives of Imprisoned Inmates – not to be confused with the gaming system, or World War II for that matter) said she’d heard she’d died of a heart attack while on a conjugal visit with her husband.
So, that was two for heart attack, one anaphylactic shock, and one hospital complications. I asked my weight-loss sponsor what she thought, in hopes of a consensus of some sort.
‘Oh, it was awful!’ Consuelo Rivera said. ‘She got car-jacked! But her sleeve got caught in the door and she was dragged to death!’
No consensus.
‘Who told you this?’ I asked her.
Consuelo shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t remember her name. A woman called me at home, after eleven at night, woke me up! Then she tells me this, and I swear, I didn’t sleep another wink! And this happened right here in Black Cat Ridge! What is this world coming to, E.J.?’
I shook my head and patted her arm before I walked away, mumbling to myself. Something was up, and it wasn’t just my blood pressure.
‘Do you know where Berta lived?’ I asked Trisha as we left the church parking lot.
‘Yeah, I drove her home after the Austin trip. Um, over on Weed Willow, I think,’ she said.
‘Mind if we go by there?’ I asked, turning the opposite direction from where we both lived.
‘I guess not,’ Trisha said. ‘What’s up, E.J.?’
‘Were you paying attention to those eulogies?’ I asked her.
‘More or less,’ she said, looking away from me, which I thought might mean she’d been making a mental grocery list while people from the various self-help groups poured their collective hearts out.
I told her what I’d pieced together from the eulogies, and answers to questions.
Trisha shrugged. ‘So you think Berta just liked joining groups? Maybe she was lonely.’
That pissed me off. There was a very good chance Trisha was right. What other reasons would Berta have for joining twelve-step programs? And was she lying about her history to get in these groups? It just all seemed fishy to me.
‘How come all the inconsistencies with the cause of death?’ I asked Trisha.
‘Huh?’ was Trisha’s response, so I told her what I’d found out.
She looked at me and her eyes got huge; ‘Oh, jeez, E.J., is this going to be one of your cases? Do you think Berta was murdered? Are we going to go to her house and see if the killer’s there rifling through her stuff? Looking for, what? Diamonds? Microfilm! You think Berta was a spy? Can we stop by my house real quick? Tom has a handgun—’
I patted Trisha’s knee. ‘Calm down,’ I said, not wanting to contemplate Trisha with a gun. ‘I’m not sure what I think at this point, just that something’s not right. I just want to go by her house and see what’s up.’
I found Weed Willow Lane and drove down it. Trisha pointed out Berta’s house. There was a For Sale sign in the front yard. Luckily the sign was for a real estate agency owned by a woman I’d known since my girls were in grammar school. We’d both been on different teacher’s committees over the years, and even into high school where Kerry was currently president of the PTA. She was a serious go-getter and it usually just made me tired to watch her, but I liked her all the same. Kerry Killian had her own agency in one of the two shopping centers in Black Cat Ridge. There was the white rock shopping center, and there was the faux redwood shopping center. Kerry was in the faux redwood center. Both centers had grocery store anchors, with smaller stores surrounding. Kerry was stuck between Bijoux’s Frozen Yogurt and Cat’s Eye Sports Equipment. Trisha and I dropped in and found Kerry on the phone talking to a client. This was the first time I’d been in Kerry’s office. There was an ornate French-looking desk in the center of the room, totally cleared except for a few tasteful nick-nacks. A computer was stationed behind her desk on a matching credenza. Four ornate chairs with damask-looking upholstery surrounded a golden metal and glass claw-foot table, and a settee with matching upholstery sat in front of her desk. Everything was in shades of gold and cream.
My girls were going into their junior year of high school, which meant I’d first met Kerry Killian, mother of twin boys in the same class as my girls, at least ten years ago. She looked exactly the same, down to the clothes. Medium height, dark brown hair in a ponytail with short bangs up front, Betty Page style, big blue eyes, and wearing a white tennis skirt showing off terrifically shaped and tanned legs, a white Polo shirt with a yellow sweater tied around her neck, and white tennis shoes with big yellow pom-poms hanging out the back from those little short socks.
‘Yes, I want to get them in this house, too, Astrid, but they’ve got to come up with a down— Oh, honey, listen, someone just came in. Let me run the numbers again and I’ll call you back, ’k? Great, bye.’
‘E.J.! Hi! It’s great to see you!’ She moved into my space and gave me a hug, which I’d known she would do. Kerry was a big hugger and, having read a book on the benefits of hugging, gave great bear hugs. At least, she always had until today. Today’s hug was actually painful.
The word ‘spunk’ has gone into disuse mainly due to Kerry Killian’s overuse of the symptom.
‘Hi, Kerry. This is my neighbor, Trisha McClure—’
She simultaneously grabbed Trisha’s hand to pump while saying, ‘Now Luna didn’t go and sell her house and not contact me, did she? I’ll spank her, I swear!’ she said and laughed heartily.
‘No, no. Trisha lives across the street,’ I said.
She eyed Trisha. ‘In the Stanleys’ house or the Masons’?’
‘The Masons’,’ Trisha said quietly.
‘Rita Mansaur, right? She was your agent!’ Kerry declared.
‘Well, yes, she was,’ Trisha admitted, seemingly a little frightened regarding the consequences of her admittance.
Kerry looked very serious for a moment. ‘She’s good,’ she finally said. ‘She’s doing mostly commercial now. This was, like, almost two years ago, right?’
‘Yes,’ Trisha said.
Kerry nodded and kept nodding. ‘She’s into commercial now. Not homes. You probably bought her last house.’ Kerry burst into laughter. ‘Isn’t that hysterical!’
I decided to jump in before things got even more bizarre. ‘Kerry, we’re here about Berta Harris’s house on Weed Willow. I saw your sign.’
‘Of course you did! How could you miss it? Yes, Berta decided to sell and move back to Jacksonville, Florida.’
‘Ah, when did she decide this?’ I asked, exchanging glances with Trisha.
‘A week ago,’ Kerry said.
I looked at Trisha. ‘What was the day she, you know . . .’
‘Tuesday,’ Trisha answered.
‘Of last week?’ I asked.
Trisha nodded.
‘What day last week did you sign her up?’ I asked Kerry.
She tilted her head like a curious bird and then smiled brightly. ‘I’ll have to check my calendar!’
I was getting a little worried about Kerry. She had always been perky, but this was more manic than perky.
She leaned on her desk, one calf raised with tennied toes pointed, like a girl in the movies getting her first screen kiss, and poised one finger against her check. Then she looked up and smiled. ‘Wednesday!’ she declared.
Trisha and I looked at each other again. Neat trick, I thought, for a woman to sell her house the day after she died. And why didn’t Kerry know Berta was dead? My hackles were on red alert. Something was more than fishy here.
‘Are you thinking of buying?’ Kerry asked, coming back around the desk. ‘Berta’s asking a song for the place, I swear to God! A song! You could buy it for the kids, E.J.! Just think, they’d be right down the street!’
I only contemplated the idea for a moment, then said, ‘No, neither of us is interested, Kerry. We’re just wondering about Berta.’
Kerry’s smile was so huge it hurt the muscles of my face just to look at it. ‘Berta’s just fine,’ she said.
‘Kerry,’ I said, laying a hand on her arm. ‘Berta’s memorial service was today. She’s been cremated.’
‘Oh,’ Kerry said, the painful smile not budging. ‘Well, that’s interesting.’
Trisha and I exchanged looks again, and I patted Kerry’s arm. ‘Thanks, Kerry,’ I said. ‘If you need to talk, about anything, just call.’
‘Okie dokie,’ Kerry said, following us to the door. As Trisha headed for my minivan, Kerry grabbed my arm. When I turned, her smile was gone. ‘Be careful, E.J. Stay out of it.’ Before I could even take in what she’d said she was back in her office, the door closed, and her back to me.
It’s not easy being Megan Pugh. First of all, from kindergarten on, you get ‘Pee-ewe Pugh’ as a nickname. And I was burdened with Graham – my older brother. He should be committed. Then, just when I think things might be going OK, my parents adopt Bess. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bess like a sister. Which is the problem. Who wants a sister? I have dreams of being an only child. I’d make a good one. I could totally handle a life that’s all about me. My parents and grandparents doting on me. It wouldn’t matter what grades I got, or if I stayed out too late, or if I ditched school. They’d just be damn happy to have me. Our precious child. No such luck.
So finally, ten years go by with a brother and a sister, and I’m beginning to adjust, when, whammo, I get another sister – Alicia. This one is just as needy as Bess, but newer. Well, I don’t mean she’s newer; well, she is newer, but I mean her neediness is fresher. She was a foster kid and had this mean foster mother who, like, made her take care of the little kids and she had only one outfit that she had to wear every day! I kid you not! And it was fun at first, buying her new clothes and fixing her hair and make-up and stuff, but you can only do that for so long, and besides, she’s like a size three and I’m like a nine so I can’t borrow anything, so what’s the point? Bess can wear a size one or a size three so they can trade off clothes, and I’m stuck with just my own wardrobe, which truly sucks because my mother buys my clothes. If she’d just give me her credit card and drop me off at the mall it wouldn’t be so bad, but she wants to make a girls day out of it, which means Bess and Alicia and me, with Mom leading the way. Gag me.
So I came up with a plan. With Mom and Mrs McClure across the street spending so much time together, I figured Mrs McClure would need, like, a part-time nanny. Who better than me? Not a living soul, that’s who! And with the money she gives me, I can buy my own clothes! Get Graham to drop me off at the mall, and then it’ll be a fait accompli, as they say in French class! Not a darn thing Mom can say about it. As long as I don’t get anything too cool, like body piercings or tattoos. Seriously, I’d love a tatt of a dolphin on my ankle, but Mom would totally see that. I’ll have to settle for my butt. She wouldn’t see that – she gave up bathing me like a year ago. Kidding!
So that’s what I do. I, like, walk across the street after Mom dropped Mrs McClure at home and then took off – gawd knows where – probably the grocery store, she goes there every day! I walk up to the door and hear all this yelling. I almost turn around, but it’s Mrs McClure yelling at the kids, and I think, cool! She really needs a part-time nanny! So I ring the bell and after way too long a wait, Mrs McClure opens it real fast and starts to say, ‘What?’ in a mean voice then sees who it is – namely me.
Mrs McClure then smiles. ‘Sorry, Megan, the girls are driving me crazy. What can I do for you, honey?’
I’m taller than she is so it’s kinda funny her having to look up while talking down to me, if you catch my drift. ‘Hi, Mrs McClure. I’m here about the girls. I know you and my mom are hanging out a lot, and I thought you could use a part-time nanny.’
She looked interested. ‘How much?’ she asked.
Oh, jeez, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Which my counselor at school seems to think is a problem, but I believe in spontaneity. ‘I’m not sure. Whatever you think is fair.’
‘Fair would be having perfect children, but somehow that didn’t work out. Come in, come in. Let’s get a calculator and discuss it.’
‘Do Kerry and Ken have enough money for her to be hospitalized for exhaustion, or will it just be Prozac and Jack Daniels?’ my husband asked me as he stared at the interior of our refrigerator.
‘This isn’t a laughing matter,’ I told him. ‘Close the door.’
‘I’m hungry,’ he said, door still open.
‘You’ve seen what’s in there. Now close the door and make your decision.’
Willis closed the door and turned and looked at me. ‘I’m not Graham!’ he said.
I smiled. ‘Then don’t act like him.’
‘I want food,’ he said, reopening the refrigerator door.
‘As opposed to what?’ I asked. We’d had dinner less than an hour ago, so he couldn’t actually be hungry. My feeling was he was just bored. ‘Talk to me about this mess with Berta Harris instead of eating. You’re getting a gut.’
He shut the door and looked at his stomach. He pulled in his gut and said, ‘I am not.’ He walked stiffly to where I sat in the family room, his gut still being held in.
‘I don’t suppose you can talk and walk and hold your gut in all at the same time?’ I asked.
His tummy bulged out. ‘No,’ he said, flopping down on the couch next to me. ‘I want something sweet.’
‘Like what?’ I asked, checking the cable guide on the TV for anything interesting.
‘Lemon meringue pie,’ he said.
I refused to dignify that with a response.
‘Oh, so now you’re all down on anything good because you lost a couple of pounds—’ he started.
‘Thirty-five, thank you! And you don’t need pie.’
‘I do need pie,’ he whined.
‘How about sex instead?’ I offered.
‘We really don’t have any pie?’ he asked.
I hit him on the head with the remote control and he laughingly shoved me down on the couch. ‘You ever had sex with a hungry man?’ he whispered in my ear.
‘No, but I’ve had plenty of sex with an idiot,’ I said.
Much later I brought up the day’s festivities yet again. ‘So Berta belonged to all these twelve-step programs, and I think maybe she lied to at least some if not all of them about her reasons for being there, and somebody called all these programs and gave conflicting accounts of how she – Berta – died. And then Kerry – that was just bizarre.’
‘Kerry’s always been bizarre,’ Willis said, his head in my lap.
‘No, you just don’t like perky.’
His whole body shuddered. ‘There’s that,’ he said.
‘She knows something, Willis! I can feel it.’
My husband sat up and turned to face me. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Do not get mixed up in something. No dead bodies, E.J. I’m serious. Not one more!’
‘What? I’m supposed to ignore all this? Berta may have been murdered—’
‘I know Kerry’s a nutcase, and this Berta woman sounds like she was one too. Stay out of it.’
‘Is that an order?’ I asked, glaring at him.
He sighed and laid his head back in my lap. ‘No, of course not. I’m not allowed to give you orders. It’s a very heartfelt request.’
The doorbell rang. Willis pulled himself off me. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, dejected. I turned on a show I wanted to watch while he was gone.
Even over the noise of the TV I could hear voices at the front door. Willis and another man. I muted the TV and tuned in to their conversation.
‘—and I don’t know what to do with her,’ the one who wasn’t my husband said.
‘Come on in the living room and sit down, Ken,’ Willis said.
Ken, I thought. We knew two Kens, the barber who cut Willis’s hair every other Tuesday, and Kerry Killian’s husband Ken. Was it too much of a coincidence that Ken Killian would show up the same day I had an impromptu meeting with his wife?
‘Ah, where’s . . .’ Ken asked.
‘E.J.? In the family room. She can’t hear us in the living room,’ Willis said.
Like hell, I thought. All I had to do was go into the dining room and stand between the buffet and the corner cabinet and I could hear just fine. Now explaining what I was doing in that position might be a bit of a problem, but one I was willing to face at a later date. I jumped up and got in position.
‘I don’t know, Willis. She’s jumpy as a cat. She’s looking out the window constantly, and when I ask her what’s going on she just gives me this really phony smile and says, “Oh, nothing!” I figured with what you’ve had to put up with E.J. and all her dead bodies, you’d know what I should do.’
I almost humphed out loud, but decided to keep my opinions to myself – at least for the time being.
‘I’m not sure they’re the same thing,’ Willis, my hero, said. ‘With E.J. it’s just willfulness. Doing whatever she wants to do despite the family’s needs.’
OK, nookie on the couch was definitely a thing of the past.
‘But when she gets in that state, when she’s tearing around trying to find out what’s going on, what can you do to stop her?’ he asked.
‘It’s like disciplining a child,’ my soon-to-be former husband said. ‘One time one thing might work, the next time you have to try something else. But the main thing is, try to keep communications open. Try getting her into a dialog and see if you can find out what’s going on—’
OK, Dr Phil. Show’s over. I left my hidy-hole and headed to our bedroom, where the door would be locked to intruders.
‘Why’s Dad on the couch?’ a voice said, waking me up from a wonderful dream in which George Clooney was nibbling on my neck.
‘Huh?’ I opened one eye to see my son standing there with a screwdriver in his hand – the kid knows no boundaries.
‘You overslept. I need breakfast. The girls are in the bathroom fighting over crap and I’m hungry.’
I closed my eye. ‘Then fix yourself something. And something for the girls, too, ’k?’
‘Calendar says you’ve got that thing at the school for teacher appreciation today at nine,’ Graham said. ‘And since you have to get up anyway, why don’t you make French toast?’
Although it was July, Graham was still in school. Summer school. He and three of his best friends were caught doing something stupid at the school two days before graduation and none of them were allowed to graduate. Now all four were in summer school taking a course called ‘Establishing Boundaries for a Worry-Free Environment.’ In other words, throw cherry bombs in the girls’ toilets again and you still won’t graduate. Today was a thank-you ceremony for the teacher who gave up her summer to babysit. Thursday night was a small graduation ceremony for the four boys – paid for by – you guessed it – the parents.
I opened both my eyes and looked at the clock. Twenty to eight. The class started at 8:05 a.m. I threw my legs off the bed and let that motion lead me to an upright position. From there I wandered into the kitchen. I pulled out three boxes of cereal, both the whole and one percent milks, the pitcher of O.J. and one of grape juice, a container of already cleaned and cut strawberries, and a banana, and threw them all on the counter just as the girls came downstairs.
‘Dry cereal again?’ Megan whined.
I was tempted to pour the milk (either whole or one percent, I had no preference) straight into the boxes of cereal, but knew that would mean me going to the store to replace them.
‘Either eat dry cereal or learn to cook,’ I said and wandered back into the bedroom. Willis was already in the suite, in the bathroom, door open, doing his morning toilet.
‘You shouldn’t have locked the bedroom door,’ he said through a mouthful of toothpaste.
‘You shouldn’t have said those things about me to Ken!’ I said, looking in the dresser for clean underwear.
‘They’re true,’ he said nonchalantly, then spat.
‘They are not!’ I protested. ‘And if you think you can manipulate me like you told Ken, you are terribly mistaken!’ I yelled. I’d been up half the night crying over the betrayal.
He rinsed his mouth and turned to me, his chest hairs all sexy-looking. ‘I don’t think I can manipulate you, but I think Ken can manipulate Kerry in her present condition. I was just giving him advice.’
‘Oh,’ I said and smiled at him. Then I frowned. ‘You jerk! You’re trying to manipulate me right now!’
‘Ah, honey,’ he said, coming close and cupping the back of my neck with his big sexy hand.
I jerked back. ‘You’re doing it again! Get away from me!’
‘Now, baby doll—’ he said and laughed.
I ran into the closet and closed the door until I heard his truck leave.
I decided this was yet another opportunity to dress up in my new skinny clothes. I was going to take every opportunity to show off my new body before it returned to the body from hell. I wore a red-print dress, the hem of which came to the middle of my knees, and whose square-cut bodice showed just a mere hint of cleavage.
There were five women in the teachers’ lounge, two members of the three-member committee for teacher presents, the same committee that ruled during the school year, and the mothers of the other miscreants. I sat with the other mothers.
The one woman conspicuously absent from the committee was Kerry Killian.
‘Where’s Kerry?’ I asked of the room in general, before I even noticed the swollen eyes and the Kleenex in the hands of the committee members.
‘You haven’t heard, E.J.?’ asked Arlene Clutcher, the woman who always knew everything before anyone else. There was speculation she was sleeping with the chief of the small Black Cat Ridge police department.
‘Kerry was killed last night,’ Arlene said, and had the grace to look upset. ‘She was murdered.’