An Uplifting Murder (8 page)

“Maybe Kelsey could walk a little, like your grandmother. She’s disabled, but looks superstrong. After Kelsey killed Frankie, she pushed her own wheelchair out of the stall, locked the door from the inside, and then crawled out. She was prepared to leave when we came in, so she pretended to be locked out of the stall and asked for help.” Alyce’s voice trailed off.

“What happened to Frankie’s red dress?” Josie asked.

“That sounds far-fetched, doesn’t it?” Alyce asked.

They were on Manchester Road in downtown Maplewood. Josie loved driving this section of her little city. Maplewood was an early suburb of St. Louis. It was like time travel into midcentury America. Most of the buildings were one- and two-story brick with big plate-glass windows. They passed fine restaurants, including Monarch and Acero, and inviting little shops such as Eddie’s Guitars, Cheryl’s Herbs, and Paramount Jewelers. Shops were rich with music, good smells, and sparkling gifts.

“I like your downtown,” Alyce said. “No boring mall stores. Each one is unique.”

“Now that Amelia is interested in cooking, she’s hanging around Penzeys Spices,” Josie said. “I guess I should be happy she’s snorting coriander.”

She turned off the main street into the side street. The car slid and Josie pumped the brakes.

“These big old houses belong on Christmas cards,” Alyce said. “Look at the porch on that one.”

“You should see it in the summer when it’s overflowing with white wicker and plants,” Josie said.

“Your home looks pretty,” Alyce said.

Fluffy white snow decorated the eaves of Josie’s two-family flat and trimmed the bare-branched trees. A light glowed in an upstairs window at 131 Phelan Street, warding off the gray winter day.

“I see a light on in Mom’s flat. I’m glad she’s inside. She shouldn’t be out in this snow. She could fall and break a hip. I wonder who she got to shovel our walk?”

They crunched up the salted walk. Her daughter’s cat, Harry, greeted Josie at the door. The big-eared tabby with the swirly dark stripes grumbled and mumbled as he rubbed against Josie’s boots.

“He’s marking me as his territory,” Josie explained.

“He’s so friendly,” Alyce said, hanging her coat by the door. “Like a puppy.”

“He’s especially friendly if his food bowl is empty,” Josie said. “Amelia fed him this morning. She can give him more food when she gets home. He’s not going to starve in the next hour.”

Soon they were settled in Josie’s warm kitchen with two cups of hot coffee and two plates of marble cake.

Alyce took a bite from an enormous wedge of cake. “Rich and moist,” she said.

“I think Amelia learned to cook in self-defense,” Josie said. “She spends a lot of time upstairs in her grandmother’s kitchen. She hangs out with good kids, too.”

“How’s she doing since her father’s death?” Alyce asked.

“Pretty good,” Josie said. “Considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Nate didn’t die, as you so nicely put it. He was murdered, and that made it worse for Amelia.”

Josie felt herself tear up and swallowed a forkful of cake. Alyce reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand.

“I keep asking myself how I could have been so stupid about Nate,” Josie said. “I was so in love, I never bothered to see the real Nate. I didn’t ask where his money came from. I was thrilled when I found out I was pregnant with Amelia. I was all set to tell him the news, so we could get married.”

“Except that never happened,” Alyce said. She sipped her coffee and listened to a story she already knew. Alyce was a good listener.

“No,” Josie said. “Nate was arrested for drug dealing when he went home to Canada. He went to prison and I became a single mom. I didn’t see him for nine years. I told Amelia that her father’s helicopter had been shot down in the war. I lied.”

“You lied for your mother’s sake,” Alyce said. “You had to. This is an old-fashioned neighborhood. The church ladies would have made your mother miserable when they found out you were never married.”

“Fat lot of good it did,” Josie said. “Nate showed up on our doorstep last year, alive, drunk, and looking for trouble. I was so afraid, Alyce. The whole time he was in St. Louis, I thought he would run off to Canada with Amelia. It’s a terrible thing to say, but I’m glad he’s dead.”

“At least you didn’t marry him,” Alyce said.

“Amelia never saw his bad side,” Josie said. “He was the ideal father the few times he was around her and I’m glad for her sake. When he was dying, Nate told Amelia that he loved her. She lost her father, but gained a wonderful Canadian grandfather. He helped Amelia through the dark time after Nate’s death.”

“Amelia is strong, like her mother,” Alyce said. “She seems her old self again.”

“She isn’t, not quite,” Josie said. “She’s more serious. But she’s made a good recovery. I knew Amelia was getting better when she wanted a cat. She fought for that animal. Amelia chose Harry because he looked like the cat Nate had when he was a boy.”

“And thanks to Harry the cat, you met your hunk of a vet,” Alyce said. “That man is a good match for you.”

“I hope so,” Josie said. “I’ve made some bad ones. But it’s too soon for matchmaking.”

The conversation died in awkward silence. Alyce took another bite of marble cake. “This almost makes up for the terrible morning with Frankie and the detectives. Your daughter is turning into a real cook.”

“She’s also turning into a real woman,” Josie said. “I’m going to take Amelia to Desiree Lingerie for her first bra.”

“Already?” Alyce asked. “She’s only ten.”

“And well developed,” Josie said.

“I hate that word,” Alyce said. “It makes women sound like photographs.”

“I’m glad my girl takes after her grandmother. Amelia won’t be flat-chested like I was at her age.”

“Being busty is not a reason to rejoice,” Alyce said. “I was a C-cup at age twelve. The boys would stare at my chest, or yell ‘Great knockers!’ when I walked down the hall. I hated that line from
Young Frankenstein
. If any teachers were around, the boys would make a big show of pretending they were talking about the school doors.”

“Little pigs,” Josie said.

“I started walking with my shoulders hunched. I held my books against my chest to hide my breasts.”

“Boys couldn’t get by with that behavior now, could they?” Josie asked. Her encounter with Frankie had revived old, unpleasant memories. “I want to protect my daughter from snotty remarks by the kids at school.”

“Can any mother protect her child from that pain?” Alyce said. “We had to put up with mean girls—and mean boys.”

“No point giving the meanies extra ammunition,” Josie said. “I want Amelia fitted for a bra before kids start making ugly comments. She’ll get a real bra, not the ugly white training bra I had. My daughter will wear something pretty.”

“Victoria’s Secret has pretty bras,” Alyce said.

“Uh, not that pretty,” Josie said. Victoria’s Secret meant sexy to Josie. She wasn’t ready for a tween vamp. “Did you wear a training bra?”

“I went straight to the big leagues,” Alyce said. “I heard a lot of sniggery remarks about ‘over-the-shoulder boulder holders,’ ‘happy nipples,’ and ‘headlights.’ I spent my allowance on shields to stick in my bras and hide my nipples.”

“I found creative uses for Kleenex and gym socks,” Josie said. “Mom would catch me trying to leave the house wearing my overstuffed bra and make me take them out. You’d think she would have let me keep the homemade padding. I used to wrestle my high school dates who tried to unbutton my blouse and get my bra off. They called me a door hugger and a prude. They didn’t know I was terrified they’d find out I wasn’t as well built as I seemed.”

“Ah, the good old days,” Alyce said. “Those don’t seem like real problems now.”

“Nothing on a par with who killed Frankie, the former mean girl—and used a bra to bind her wrists,” Josie said. “That’s going to develop into a real problem.”

Chapter 8

The Barrington School for Boys and Girls looked quiet—and quietly moneyed. The snow-covered lawns were barely disturbed by footprints. The evergreens were tastefully flocked with snow. The solid redbrick buildings promised security.

The curved drive was free of ice and snow, protecting the offspring of the city’s premier movers and shakers—and litigators. Josie took her place in the pickup line. Her gray Honda was not anonymous in this crowd of BMWs, Escalades, and Lexuses. It stood out like a beggar at a society ball.

Josie opened her cell phone to call Dr. Ted Scottsmeyer at work. He answered. She could hear blood-freezing howls in the background.

“Torturing one of your patients?” Josie asked.

“Fred thinks so. Our new vet is giving the basset hound a manicure. Fred carries on like his nails are being pulled out with pliers.”

More howls.

“I’d like to crawl into the next cage and howl with him,” Josie said.

“Your day was that bad?” Ted asked.

Josie heard the warm concern in his voice. She wished he could hold her now. She would put her head on his muscular shoulder. Ted smelled like coffee and cinnamon with a faint tang of woodsmoke—at least when he wasn’t tending to his hairy patients.

“I mystery-shopped a lingerie store this morning,” Josie said. “A customer was killed after she left the shop. She was suffocated in a mall restroom.”

“Good Lord! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just shaken. I found the body.”

“Let me cook dinner for you and Amelia tonight,” Ted said. “You need comfort food.”

“I do. But I also need to have a mother-daughter talk with Amelia tonight. We’re still on for dinner at Failoni’s Friday night, aren’t we?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. We have reservations. Josie—” He was interrupted by louder howls and spirited curses.

“What’s wrong?” Josie asked.

“Fred escaped. He’s waddling down the hall now. I’d better catch him.”

The bell rang, but children did not explode out the school doors. Barrington students were handled like the heirs they would someday be. Each child’s recognized ride had to be in the school driveway before the principal called a name. Josie watched the impeccably dressed mothers waiting for their offspring. She didn’t care that she didn’t fit in with this crowd. She wanted to give her daughter the best education. Josie endured their sly snubs for Amelia’s sake.

Amelia’s intelligence, plus a small legacy from her aunt Tillie, earned the girl a scholarship to the city’s classiest private school. Amelia was part of the Barrington “diversity” program. Diversity meant Amelia lived in Maplewood, an old brick suburb on the edge of St. Louis. That made her “urban.” Many Barrington children had never been in the city except for chaperoned school-sponsored field trips. Many of their mothers bragged that they never set foot in St. Louis. There might as well be a brick wall around the city limits.

Josie was startled when Fiona Henderson-Dobbs tapped lightly on her car window. A suburban snow queen in her full-length white fur coat, Fiona didn’t give an ermine tail about animal cruelty. Her white-blond hair was pulled so tight into a chignon her eyes were slanted—unless Fiona had had an eye job.

She bared her teeth in a skeleton smile as Josie rolled down her window.

“Fiona,” the snow queen announced. “I met you at the school book fair. Do you know the name of a good exterminator?”

“No, I just buy a can of Raid,” Josie said. “It kills the occasional roach who wanders in.”

“I don’t think Raid would work on night squirrels.” Disdain dripped from Fiona’s lips.

“What are night squirrels?” Josie asked.