The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder Read online

  We were surrounded by oversize dogs, the trigger for much of the barking. I tried to minimize the impact of the two whopping golden retrievers, one lazy and serene, the other a bundle of bouncy energy; a Bernese mountain dog; a puffy Keeshond; a Saint Bernard; and a miscellaneous and adorable fuzzy creature of unfathomable breed. Tonight, a combination of whispering in their ears, treats, and one-on-one attention seemed to be working to keep Truffle and Sweet Marie in the game.

  “Third time’s a charm,” Jack said with his usual crooked grin.

  The evaluators touched each dog’s paws, checked out their nails, and lifted their velvety ears to peek inside. Grooming counts.

  Not a growl or a protest.

  “Good girl,” I whispered, as the evaluators checked Sweet Marie’s teeth. I knew Jack was murmuring the same combination of bribes and threats.

  Truffle was a bit more of a challenge than Sweet Marie, but Jack kept him under control. Dogs are putty in his hands. So far they’d done every command flawlessly, even the elusive “lie down.” I never thought I’d see that day. They’d survived the simulated hospital environment, complete with volunteers in whirling wheelchairs, thumping IV poles, and clomping crutches, to say nothing of the ones who wandered randomly, wailing like zombies. They did well with the fake swarming incidents. The evaluators had explained that these tests were to make sure that a dog didn’t flip out in a hospital corridor or dementia unit. I thought I detected a low growl from Truffle as sixteen hands reached out for him, but Jack coughed loudly just in time. Have I mentioned he’s the best?

  Nearly three hours after we began, we were fidgeting, awaiting the results. I was surprised to find my heart racing. We had to succeed. I wanted to be part of this program.

  I was holding my breath as the evaluator stepped toward me to say that Sweet Marie had passed. Truffle too. I exhaled. I shook the evaluator’s hand so hard that she gasped. Jack gave his evaluator a huge hug. She blushed. Women do when Jack pays attention to them, even though he seems unaware of it. I stood and got my picture taken with Truffle and then with Sweet Marie for our photo IDs.

  Truffle and Sweet Marie received attractive red scarves with the Woodbridge Therapy Dog emblem. They seemed proud of themselves and also far less surprised than I was. The diminutive red-haired coordinator, Candy Brinkerhoff, was all smiles too. I think she was as excited as we were. We’d been discussing where Truffle and Sweet Marie could do the most good. In some of the local schools, specially trained dogs were part of a program to help children become more confident and fluent readers. I didn’t have all the details, but I loved the idea of that. Of course, we would have to wait for our assignments.

  Candy said, “I already have a placement for you. They’ve been waiting since forever and they’re very excited.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Truffle and Sweet Marie can do a lot of good at the Alzheimer’s unit of Riverview Manor. It’s a nursing home downtown. Of course, you know that it’s one pooch at a time. Bella Constantine, the program director of the unit, can’t wait. She’d be thrilled if you could come by Monday morning at eleven thirty for a visit with either Truffle or Sweet Marie, and she asked me to confirm. I’ll be there too, making sure that everything goes well.”

  After so much time trying, we were off to a flying start. I felt a small swell of pride that we had actually achieved this goal.

  “We’ll be there.” I am pretty sure Sweet Marie wagged her tail.

  When we emerged from the evaluation area, Jack and I clutching the diplomas, we each let out a whoop and danced around the parking lot in the swirling snow. Truffle and Sweet Marie barked their pointed little heads off. Why the hell not? They’d been holding it in all night.

  Of course, the situation with Mona nagged at the back of my mind all evening. I was worried about her. She still didn’t answer her home phone when I called again from the parking lot. I wasn’t sure what the shifts were like at 911 or when she was on duty. Was she still there? Still freaking and taking that out on unsuspecting callers?

  I paced in the lightly falling snow by my Miata and told myself that Mona’s meltdown was a type of emergency. I decided to try again. This time I was prepared to use a fake name and disguise my voice. When I got up the nerve to dial 911 from my cell, Mona was still at work and she sounded more like her normal thick-skinned self. She wasn’t fooled.

  “Is this a crime in progress, Charlotte?”

  I guess she recognized the phone number of my cell phone, a sign that I’d called once too often. “No, I just wanted—”

  “Hold,” she said. “I’m dealing with something here. Prowler.”

  I gave her time to deal with the prowler.

  “Are you okay now?” I asked when she came back on the line.

  “Sorry; I kind of lost it earlier, Charlotte,” she said.

  “Did the heart attack guy make it?” I had to know.

  “There was no heart attack. False alarm. Kid dialed the number for a joke. Happens all the time.”

  “A joke?”

  “Sure, we get hundreds of false alarms, mistakes, and stupid questions every single day. I hope you don’t think this is an easy job.”

  “Never crossed my mind, Mona.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you feeling better about—?”

  “The bitch brigade? No. I hated them. But she can still get to me. She had the nerve to call me and say she wanted to get together, reconnect. She claimed she really wanted to make amends. As if she could ever make amends for everything she did. To hell with that! I told her that I didn’t need to reconnect with her, that I wasn’t alone and friendless now, that I had you in my corner. I don’t know where that came from, but we do talk a lot. Don’t we? Even if it is for emergencies.”

  “That’s fine, Mona. I am your friend.”

  “You know what? I was driving to work this morning and I spotted Serena Redding crossing the street to get into her giant yellow Hummer, big phony smile plastered all over her face. I wanted to drive right over her. I wanted to see that face splattered against my windshield and her—”

  “Mona! Don’t say that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? Be serious. Murder? That’s not something you should talk about, especially in your line of work. Even if you are joking.”

  “Who’s joking? I mean it. That fiend caused so much damage to people who couldn’t even fight back. Maybe she even got you.”

  “She didn’t. Or at least, I don’t remember being bothered too much.”

  “You’d remember if she had. You saw the kind of things she did to other people. I thought you would understand.”

  “I know it was horrible. But, Mona, things turned out well for you. You have a good job and a good life.” I hesitated. I didn’t actually know if Mona had a good life, or even if she liked her job, as our interactions were confined to me calling for police, fire, or ambulance on a far too regular basis. “You wouldn’t want to jeopardize all that because of some miserable—”

  “Bitches. Just say it, Charlotte. And I don’t mind jeopardizing anything if I have a chance to get back at them. Oh dammit, what now? Cat up a tree? Kid locked in the bathroom? Mother-in-law coming for a visit? Grow up, people. Get a life and save one too. Leave 911 for stuff that matters. For Pete’s sake. Hold, Charlotte.”

  I thought hard. I’d been somewhat of a misfit in high school; small, flat-chested, and unfashionably studious. But I’d been lucky enough to team up with four other misfits—my friends Sally, Margaret, Pepper, and, of course, Jack. We’d stood together. We’d been united against cold shoulders, wedgies, and sneers. Except for minor losses, we’d been strong enough to keep ourselves safe from Serena and her pretty little coven. We’re all still friends, although it’s on and off with Pepper.

  Obviously, others hadn’t been so lucky. Especially Mona. But could Serena’s power possibly extend from our distant teenage past, to mess up Mona’s life and career? I’d let her down in high school. T
he least I could do was offer support now that Serena was back.

  As soon as Mona picked up again, I said, “I’ve always felt bad that I didn’t do much to help you deal with those—”

  “Bitches,” Mona said helpfully.

  “I was part of the misfits—”

  “Everyone knew that. You had each other for comfort and protection. Nice for the five of you.”

  I couldn’t fail to hear the anger in Mona’s voice. “True, and we all had problems fitting in for one reason or another. We kept each other safe and sane. Maybe if we’d thought about it more we could have extended our reach.”

  “It’s all right, Charlotte. You acknowledged my existence. You were always decent to me. And you and Sally helped me out the day they left me naked in the locker room. Margaret let me copy her lab report when Tiffanee ripped mine up and flushed it down the toilet. Jack got my locker door open and helped me out that time Haley squeezed me into it after classes on that awful Friday afternoon. Without him, I would have spent the weekend there. Can you imagine what state my locker would have been in after that? And me too. I couldn’t even stand up.”

  How could I have forgotten?

  “And Pepper walked me home one day when they were waiting by the alley with those smirks on their faces. I never found out what they had in mind that time, but Pepper talked about her father being a cop as we walked by them. Loud enough for them to hear. She said he couldn’t stand snotty teenagers.” Mona snorted. “She kept talking about how much he hated bullies. And how he enjoyed making sure they experienced the juvenile system. How he’d like to embarrass their parents with some names in the paper and he thought an overnighter in solitary was good medicine. I was glad when she joined the police force later. She’s a terrific cop. We see each other here in the hallways quite a lot.”

  I kept my mouth shut. Pepper’s dad had been a bully himself and a parent who’d deserved to be embarrassed, although it never happened. There was no way he would have said anything like that. At the time, Pepper must have been channeling her own future police-officer self.

  “I’m glad Pepper was there for you.”

  She said, “You all were at one time or another. They still got to me. It all made a difference. If it wasn’t for you guys, I would have been abandoned by the world. And I would never have wanted to help people myself. I wouldn’t be a 911 operator today. Gotta go. There’s the line again. What now? Some idiot speeding in the snow skidded off the road?”

  I sat staring at the phone. Perhaps if my friends and I had been kinder, more inclusive, Mona might have ended up being a tad more sympathetic to her frantic callers. Never mind; I had to admit she was efficient and that mattered too. Now I had a more worrisome thought. The image of Serena’s dead face splattered against Mona’s windshield while Mona laughed haunted me. But Mona was only fantasizing. Surely she wouldn’t actually harm Serena. I climbed into the car with Jack and the dogs and worried all the way home.

  Jack and I celebrated the dogs’ success and our own part in that achievement by ordering in pizza. I had picked up gourmet dog biscuits for the pooches earlier in the day. Who says life in Woodbridge lacks the glam factor?

  It was Jack’s turn to call in the order. “Remember anchovies on my side,” I said. “And don’t make that face.”

  We’d been working so hard that anything recreational had taken a backseat to training for weeks. It felt so good to chill out a bit. It was a busy weekend for me. I’d worked hard on my five time-management sessions. I was ready with my talks, handouts, checklists, worksheets, audiovisual enhancements, blog sites, Facebook group, and reading recommendations for The Busy Person’s Guide to Managing Time and Life.

  I wanted to be nicely rested up so my energy would be high enough to keep everyone interested. That’s not easy on a snowy Saturday in the library auditorium.

  I turned on the television to catch up on the weather while waiting for the pizza. Woodbridge had been suffering under a ton of late-season snow, including some serious snowfall the last week of March. On April 1, people started asking themselves if this was a joke.

  “Ack. Who switched the channel to WINY?” I said.

  “Not me, for sure,” Jack mouthed.

  “Where’s the remote? I’ll be blinded by Todd Tyrell’s teeth. You know I hate his program. Let’s watch—”

  “I didn’t switch it. The dogs must have,” Jack said, rejoining me. I guess he thought I’d fall for that.

  “Did you forget the anchovies?”

  Jack plunked his lanky body on the sofa and made a face. “The pizza has been ordered according to your specifications.”

  I should have bitten my tongue. Jack is just short of a finished thesis for his PhD in philosophy. If he could get his head around those dusty nineteenth-century eggheads, surely he could order a pizza. Even one with anchovies. I’m told I can be just the tiniest bit bossy. I’m trying to fight that. Sometimes, I lose.

  Meanwhile, on WINY Todd Tyrell was a vision of barely suppressed excitement.

  Woodbridge Police are seeking a hit-and-run driver after an unidentified woman was struck and killed near the corner of Long March Road and Amsterdam Avenue this evening. There were no witnesses to the crime, in which the pedestrian was tossed in the air by the speeding vehicle and left to die on the deserted street. Police are suggesting slippery road conditions may have been a factor. The victim’s name has not been released, as police have yet to contact the next of kin.

  “That’s horrible,” Jack said. “Long March Road and Amsterdam Avenue? That’s just around the corner from my shop. People drive way too fast for this snow.”

  “How do they know she was tossed in the air if there were no witnesses?” I grumbled. “I never believe a word that jackass says. How many times has he insinuated that I was implicated in a crime when I was absolutely innocent? That’s why I hate this show. Did I say hate? I also meant loathe and detest. Where’s the remote? I want to turn it off.”

  Of course, the remote was nowhere.

  Perhaps the dogs had hidden it. I used the prehistoric method of touching the off button with my index finger. But our good mood had been punctured by the thought of a woman who’d gone out for a walk on an ordinary Friday night and ended up dying alone in the snow. Had she just achieved something she’d been striving for? Was she planning on celebrating, hurrying through the blowing snow to get home? To a husband? Children? People who loved her and didn’t know she was lying cold and wet on a dark, quiet street?

  I shivered.

  Jack leaped up to answer the door as the pizza arrived, and the perfume of tomatoes, cheese and, yes, anchovies filled the room.

  I dashed into the kitchen and opened a bottle of our favorite cheap merlot to go with the pizza. I filled two glasses and left Jack to put the pizza on plates. He prefers to eat it straight out of the box, but we’re working at being grown up. We alternate: box one time and plates another. Grown-ups compromise. Truffle and Sweet Marie got the first bites. A well-deserved reward, with dog biscuits for dessert. Luckily, there wasn’t a vet or a nutritionist within spitting distance.

  I was just about to bite into my pizza when the phone rang.

  Jack said, “Let it go to message.”

  I would have loved to let it go to message, but it was from Mona.

  She said, “Oh my God!”

  “Mona?”

  “I didn’t hit that woman.”

  “Hit that—”

  “It wasn’t me. And stop repeating what I say.”

  “Of course it wasn’t you, Mona. It never crossed my mind that you had—”

  “It’s just that I told you I had that fantasy that I wanted to hit her with my car and see her face splatter all over my windshield and you might have thought I acted on it. Since that seems to be what happened.”

  “But I didn’t think that.”

  “Well, you know how you’re always getting mixed up in murder. I thought you might figure this was just one more to stick your nose in.�
�

  “Nope. Not sticking my nose in.”

  “Are you still dating that detective? What’s his name? Oh, right, Tierney?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “I am not. Not at all.”

  “Are you still in touch with him?”

  “In no way.” I hoped that Jack was not paying attention. For some reason, everything about Connor Tierney seemed to set him off.

  “Are you sure? He’s still with the Woodbridge Police, isn’t he? I haven’t seen him for a while, but I hadn’t heard that he’d left.”

  This was tricky. Connor Tierney was dealing with a difficult family situation but that was no one’s business. “Out of town, I believe, for a few months. I don’t have details, but you could try reaching him yourself, Mona.”

  “Are you out of your mind? Do you think I’m going to call a detective and tell him I was thinking about killing someone who then turns up dead? I suppose he wouldn’t find that suspicious.”

  “He probably would, but we don’t know who it is yet. There’s no reason to believe it’s Serena, no matter how much you might have liked that outcome.”

  “Maybe you’re right. But I’m not going to talk to him anyway. But you could stay on top of the situation.”

  “Actually, I couldn’t. We’re not on the best of terms right now.” And probably never would be. I’d let Tierney know that I wasn’t interested in pursuing a relationship with him once I woke up to the fact that Jack was the man for me. Just because Jack was unaware of this didn’t mean I was going out with other people.

  “Someone needs to.”

  “It won’t be me. And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe you would murder anyone, Mona.”