Murder at the Book Group (37 page)

Georgia cried and cried when I woke her at 3:30 a.m. I heard Gary in the background, so I didn't have to worry about her being alone. We agreed to talk later and I fell into an exhausted sleep.

The only call I returned later that day was Kat's. At her request, I detailed the events of the previous night. When I finished, Kat was speechless for a moment. “Too bad I wasn't there. They wouldn't have lived to tell it.” She choked back sobs. “Gotta go. Talk to you later.”

Over the course of the next few days Lucy and I, either singly or together, told and retold the all-over-the-place story of how Carlene's supposed suicide turned out to be murder. We started with her death and ended with the showdown with Helen and Art. We covered the man in the car; the love fugitive; Hal's rundown of the pool incident; conversations with Susie and Jeanette and the photos that Jeanette sent; my confrontation with the nude Linda—gales of laughter met that description—as well as the one with a clothed B.J.; the conversation with Sam; the dramatic visits from Annabel; finding that Helen and Evan had once been coworkers and then neighbors; how I wound up in Helen's bedroom, sneaking photos with my cell phone, finding the brass container, and that unforgettable experience of having a gun pointed at me. Art and Helen's confession, including the adoption bombshell. We tried for a chronological account, but found ourselves hard-pressed to keep on track. Something got left out with each telling.

Helen and Art fully confessed to their various crimes. According to Vince, they offered no resistance—in fact, their attitudes could only be described as fatalistic. My recording, which had lasted to the end, helped. As did the cyanide stash in Helen's lingerie drawer. I didn't think Art would fare well in prison, but I didn't dwell on his prospects. At their arraignment their combined charges included first-degree murder, aiding and abetting, assault, kidnapping, and forgery. The trial date was set for sometime in January.

Each person listened to our story with rapt attention, interrupting only with an occasional clarifying question and exclamations like “Amazing!” “Whew!” “Wow!” “You're kidding!”

When I went to the Richmond Women's Resource Center and saw Georgia she cried and hugged me many times. Little work got done that day.

Georgia, looking rueful, said, “Funny, after all that, it wasn't over a man. Well, it was, but not in the romantic sense.”

“Some women are just obsessed with their sons.” I considered my own mother's attachment to my brother, her only son. I thought of Rachel, my unmarried niece who had two sons. In Helen's day, Rachel would have waited out her confinement in a maternity home and been pressured to sign away her child. What most people didn't know was the lifelong suffering those young mothers endured. And in Helen's case, the suffering morphed into killing.

When I told Sarah she shook her head and said, “I can't believe Helen put the cyanide in Carlene's tea right there in the dining room . . . in front of our eyes. We really knew nothing about the woman. And Carlene—who knew she was such a wild one?” Sarah was as pleased as Kat and Lucy had been upon learning of Carlene's wild ways. Middle-aged women admiring their sexually adventurous contemporaries boded well for the future of my series.

“But I'm enraged at Helen for claiming that I'd supplied the éclairs meant to be your last food on earth.”

Sarah and Den were sitting in our living room, drinking coffee. In addition to admiring Lucy and me because we were women, Den now had a second reason—our recent adventures qualified us as
super
women. Sarah noted his appreciative looks, shot daggers at him, made hasty good-byes, and wheeled him off, reminding me of their previous visit that had prompted my suspecting her of killing Carlene. Why the woman just didn't leave her flirtatious husband at home was beyond me.

Annabel's italicized exclamations dripped with insincerity. “Hazel,
what
an experience! I'm
so
sorry you had to go
through
that.” From the way she pumped me for the details I suspected she was gathering material for her next best-seller.

She went on. “By the way, I saw Trudy Zimmerman the other day. The wedding didn't come off. No surprise there—the woman looks like she's
a hundred
. If anyone needs a good plastic surgeon, it's Trudy. Her face sags so much that one good hot flash could result in a meltdown not seen since the Wicked Witch of the West met her fate in the
Wizard of Oz
.”

Trudy had those pesky furrows that extended from the mouth to the chin, affectionately called marionette lines. Those of us afflicted with Howdy Doody syndrome didn't feel especially affectionate about it, but we smiled a lot to counter the effects of gravity. One of the great paradoxes of middle age was a woman who, while cranky as all get-out, maintained a huge smile. Rest assured, a bargain face-lift was the likely motivation.

I forced back a laugh. Annabel's take on Trudy's aging face was funny, but unkind. I didn't want to encourage her. “She's not vain, not concerned with stuff like that.”

“I'll say.”

Then Annabel more or less ordered me to remove her from the book group e-mail list, saying she was no longer interested. As there were precious few left in the group, the matter was a moot point. But I shrugged and said, “No problem.”

“So, Hazel . . . I guess Helen was once your mother-in-law.”

“She was.”

“That means . . . it could have been . . .” Annabel trailed off.

I finished her sentence. “It could have been me with the cyanide cocktail.” I didn't like to entertain the possibilities, but they loomed large these days. And I'd thought Evan's adoptive mother had been a pill. At least she hadn't tried to poison me. Probably considered it, though. If I'd stayed married to Evan . . . then what?

Even Linda called, wanting the lowdown. “I deserve to know since you were so sure I killed Carlene.” I didn't know about the deserving part. True, I felt guilty about suspecting Linda—but still and all she was a would-be blackmailer. An obnoxious one to boot. But I told her anyway. Later I wondered how she got my number.

When Trudy called, she suggested meeting for lunch at Panera. We settled on the next day. “Trudy.” I smiled as I greeted her. “When did you get back?” I didn't want to let on that I knew about the nonmarriage.

“Last week. The marriage didn't happen.”

When I murmured, “I'm sorry,” she waved a hand in dismissal. “Jerk fell for someone else on the ship. A New Yorker.”

“Oh.” I struggled for the right words, but could only manage another, “I'm sorry.”

Trudy shrugged. “Don't be. I managed a nice tour on my own.” She tucked her hair behind her ears, revealing a large tattoo of a flower on her neck. I cringed—the neck was too vulnerable an area for such artwork.

I said, “I didn't know you had a tattoo. Is it new?”

“No, I've had it for years. My hair usually covers it.” Trudy's hair fell like drapes around her face. “The library director doesn't approve of tats.”

I remembered Georgia saying that Carlene had a toucan inked on her ankle. Maybe I'd follow suit—maybe being the operative word.

Over soup and salad I filled Trudy in on the details of Carlene's murder—an account I could by then recite in my sleep.

Once I wound down, Trudy shook her head. “Wow! You've just been through a bona fide murder mystery, beginning to end.” Then she asked, “But . . . wouldn't cyanide lose its potency after, what, sixty years?”

I shook my head. “Vince says that cyanide is very stable and can remain potent for years. Helen claimed she didn't know that, but I'm sure she did her research and knew exactly what she was doing.”

I drained my lemon water and asked, “Did I tell you about the book group?”

“Oh, I'm glad you mentioned that. I may be interested in coming back. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the group holds more appeal with my ex's lover out of the picture.”

I didn't even try to feign ignorance as to what she was talking about. “So you knew about Carlene's affair with him? After all, her name was different.”

“I did. Eileen told me. She's friends with Annabel.” Trudy explained that Eileen was one of her coworkers at the library.

When I told Trudy the group was down to me, Sarah, and maybe Lucy, and that at present we were skittish about murder mysteries, Trudy surprised me by suggesting a film group. I told her I liked the idea and asked her to organize it.

We fell to speculating about Annabel and her late and murdered husband. Still up in the air was the question of whether or not she had killed him and gotten away with it. Would Ronnie renew her efforts to implicate Annabel? Did her threat to expose Annabel via the alleged fingerprints have substance? Or did she only hope to profit financially by rattling Annabel? According to Vince, Ronnie would have to convince the Charlottesville police to reopen the cold case. Would the fingerprints even exist after all this time? Wouldn't someone have looked at the books in the past ten years and overlaid Annabel's prints? There had to be someone planning to murder someone who stood in her or his way. Or a mystery author doing research. Perhaps both—I wouldn't be surprised if Annabel channeled her craziness, and perhaps her guilt, through her books.

Trudy had nothing to contribute on Ronnie's role in the Annabel mystery. “I don't know what she's up to. And I don't want to know. I'm keeping my distance from her.” Of course, nothing was stopping me from visiting the odious Ronnie at UVA and making discreet inquiries. Nothing but my good sense, which I hoped would prevail.

Kat called on Monday evening. “I don't know how I can ever thank you for all you've done . . . but I'll try.” Kat's appreciation took the form of an annual gym membership for me, Lucy, and Vince. “Starting with your renewal date.” We talked for a while and she said she was doing okay. She was through with Mick. “I can't deal with all that BS. He isn't worth it.”

Not five minutes later, Georgia was on the phone, offering me the tickets for the Costa Rica trip, saying she didn't have the heart to go through with it and besides, I'd certainly earned a nice trip. I accepted without hesitation. She said that Evan had the tickets and I could pick them up from him. “Just give him a call and arrange a time.”

Needless to say, I picked Vince, my proverbial knight in shining armor, for my traveling companion.

THE NEXT MORNING VINCE
and I again found ourselves on Evan's doorstep, this time expected, so we didn't need to break down the door. And this time Evan answered dressed in the business casual attire he wore for his class: slacks, button-down shirt, polished loafers. No disreputable robe. He shook hands with Vince, but he and I only managed uncertain smiles, making no move to hug. It was as if a force field surrounded our bodies and prevented contact. This strain had its beginnings at Target . . . No, it went further back—to his marriage to Carlene. His wife's death at the hands of his biological mother had accelerated the process. Our relationship was beyond repair. I felt a mixture of regret and relief, mostly the latter.

I wasted no time. “The tickets?”

“Oh, right.” Evan started up the stairs. He stopped and asked, “Do you want to take a look at Carlene's clothes, see if there's anything you want? Oh, wait, Kat and Georgia came over the other night and packed up everything and took them someplace, don't remember where. But there's still jewelry—and a lot of books.”

I was about to say another time, but then I thought how I'd love more than anything never to see Evan again. I considered Carlene's jewelry, my mind lighting on those pesky silver bangle bracelets. Even her less annoying jewelry was silver. Being a gold person I passed on the jewelry. “I'd love to look at the books.”

“Great.” Evan came back down the steps and pointed toward the family room. “There are tons of books down there and in Carlene's den upstairs.”

I asked, “When do you need to leave for your class?”

“Not till noon.” That gave us two hours. Not that I wanted to take that long—the house stunk of stale cigarettes, so the sooner we got out the better.

“Speaking of books, what's going to happen with the one that's with Carlene's agent?”

“Don't know. That woman came to the memorial service—Dodie, Dorie, something like that—but I haven't been able to deal with all that stuff.”

“Understandable,” I said, allowing myself a modicum of compassion. “And what about the one she, meaning Carlene, was working on? The third book.” I'd decided not to complete that one. I wanted to write about live bodies, having sex. And I did
not
feel inclined to deal with Evan over the inevitable legal issues involved in finishing his wife's book. Still, I asked.

“She really hadn't done anything with it; it was just an outline. Anyway,” Evan rushed on, clearly wanting to leave the subject, “just help yourselves to the books. I'll grab some boxes. Coffee?”

“Oh. Not for me. Vince?” He shook his head.

While Vince made for the sofa and picked up a coffee table book, I stood in front of the oh-so-familiar bookcase in the family room. The gallery of photographs was gone, including the ones of Evan that had found a second home in Helen's bedroom. Maybe Kat or Georgia took them. I stacked a selection of glossy-paged Italian cookbooks and coffee table art volumes in one of the boxes that Evan left by the steps. When I ran up to Carlene's den with two more boxes, Vince remained in the family room, engrossed in a study of Picasso's blue period.

Upstairs, I heard Evan tapping computer keys in a nearby room that I guessed was his den. I shook off an uneasy feeling that came over me when I flashed to the last time I'd been in Carlene's den, being interviewed by Detective Garcia, and focused my attention on the bookcase. While the family room was devoted to reference material and oversized art books, Carlene had allocated her own den to mysteries, contemporary fiction, classics, and writing manuals, alphabetizing by author. I picked up a Marcia Muller book,
The Broken Promise Land
. The author had signed the hardback novel in 1996 at Book'em Mysteries in South Pasadena. Small world—I had been at the same signing. The year 1996—it must have been shortly before Carlene fled California. It gave me a funny feeling to have been in the same space with her, especially during a time of such upheaval for her. I took the book along with a collection of Agatha Christies, Dorothy L. Sayers, and new-to-me authors.