Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder (14 page)

Ellie kept talking. “Now I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. Right now I’m booking a trip to Australia and New Zealand with a stop in Hong Kong for a family of five that just might pay for a week’s worth of Jessica’s college tuition, but after that I’m done, and I’m thinking I’ve got those face creams I promised you, which I know you can use right now. So what are you doing for dinner?”

“I’m going out with Warren,” Lori said. She was getting good at lies.

“What use is a divorce lawyer in a murder case?”

“He’ll pick up the bill. Good night, Mom. Let me know if Jess calls again.”

Picking coffins. Lori shuddered. Ellie was quick to blame Rob, forgetting who had picked Papa’s coffin, a plain oak one with a blue velvet lining that cost too much. She’d insisted on going, wanting her mother to know how strong her daughter was, how she would take care of her now that Papa was gone. Lori was sure that Jessica too had offered to help Rob with that horrible task. A strong Jessica. Devoted. Ready to prove to her beloved Daddy he needed no other women. “Please call me,” she said out loud, unfolding Alec’s recipe.

Two kilos of big farinaceous potatoes cut in pieces, 400 grams of sifted flour. How many ounces in a kilo? In a gram? And the recipe said nothing about servings. Four people, six, eight? She’d bought two pounds of potatoes. She had lots of flour. Hell, she’d wing it.

Lori was up to her elbows in flour, kneading the mashed potatoes and flour together when a thought popped into her head. The killer had to know Valerie was going to drive the girls back that night. According to Jess it was a last-minute decision. Rob ate something that didn’t agree with him and had called Valerie to take over. Maybe Rob was right; someone wanted him dead.

Lori rolled the dough out into a long sausage shape. Could the killer have mistaken Valerie for Rob? Unlikely, but possible. If the killer was nervous and pulled the trigger the minute she got out of the car, not giving himself time to really see her.

The recipe called for a one-inch thickness, but Lori kept rolling, the dough sausage getting longer and as thin as a cigarette. Was Rob still in danger? Lori smashed the potato dough with the palms of her hands. God, Jessica was with him!

The doorbell rang. Now what? Lori lifted her hands, caked in flour. She heard the front door open. Ellie! No, she no longer had keys. Jess wouldn’t ring the doorbell. Who was it? Lori picked up the paring knife she had used to peel the potatoes and tiptoed to the kitchen door. She wasn’t panicking, she told herself, just being cautious.

A stooped Rob stood in the hallway, Jessica’s panda bear key chain dangling from his hand.

“Hi,” he said in a forlorn voice.

Lori slipped the knife into her pocket and leaned against the doorjamb. “Where’s Jess?”

“With Angie.”

“You should have brought her home.”

“Margot’s bringing her.” He shuffled his feet. He was wearing loafers without socks, chinos, a baggy sweatshirt even though it was eighty-nine degrees outside. He was always worried about catching a cold. She stared at her husband of sixteen years. To her surprise Rob’s presence inspired no feelings, either of pity or anger. There was no need for revenge. Rob hadn’t been in their house, her house, since the day he had packed and walked out. Now he looked odd, incongruous, like an old piece of furniture that didn’t fit in with the new decor.

“Jess was all over me,” Rob said. “I know she meant well, but I need some space right now.”

Lori nodded, walked back into the kitchen, assuming he would follow. She no longer had to fear wanting him back and the relief made her want to be kind. At the sink, she turned on the water faucets. “Have you had lunch?” She could whip up an omelet, slice some tomatoes.

“I can’t eat a thing.”

Wifely duties died hard. “I have an apple pie from Callie’s.”

Rob hesitated, then shook his head and sat at the kitchen table without being asked. Lori felt a twinge of annoyance, but rinsed it off along with layers of flour and mashed potatoes.

“Have some orange juice, at least.” She poured out a glass, then remembered that she’d bought the kind with pulp, which Rob disliked. She poured the orange juice back into the carton and gave him tomato juice.

He drank it in one gulp, his eyes fixed on the flowers. “Celebrating the event?”

Lori faced him with a level-headed gaze. “Don’t go there, Rob.”

“Aren’t you happy she’s dead? Don’t you want to gloat? I would.”

“I’m not you.”

“You’re better, I know.”

“Valerie’s death has made you humble.”

“I can’t begin to tell you how I feel.”

Don’t,
she wanted to say, but she had opted for kindness. “I am sorry she died.” She dried her hands and sat in the chair opposite him. She pushed the flowers aside to see him better. “Rob, you said someone tried to kill you.”

“No, no, I exaggerated.” He dismissed the idea with a shake of his hand. “I blew the whole Friday night thing out of proportion. I guess I was nervous. I’ve been stressed with too much work and then getting married again. Anyway, I was wrong. Nobody was trying to kill me. It was a crazy idea of mine. Believe me, no one wants to kill me.”

Was he telling the truth? Lori wasn’t sure. If he stuck his neck out with an opinion he usually held on to it, afraid to lose face. In a few days he’d gone from telling everyone who would listen that someone wanted to kill him to acting as if the idea was preposterous. “Valerie was the intended victim?”

“No!” Rob protested in a loud voice. “Who would want to kill her? It was a random thing. It could have been me, you, anybody.”

“What do you mean?”

“A carjacking. Robbery. Some drugged-out kid. Maybe even a sex maniac, although the police assured me she wasn’t molested. Who knows?”

“Scardini and Mitchell didn’t say a word about any of that.”

“Why would they tell you?” Rob ran his hands across his scalp. He looked desolate.

“Do you want a drink?”

He perked up. “What have you got?”

“White wine.”

“What happened to the twenty-year-old Napoleon cognac Warren gave us two years ago?”

“Part of your spoils.”

Regret made a rare appearance on his face. “Oh.” A moment of silence, then he gave Lori the conceding smile he might offer an opponent in court who had just scored a point with the judge. “Let’s have white wine, then.”

Lori went to the refrigerator and got out the last bottle of Falanghina Beth had brought over Monday afternoon.

“Why are you here?” she asked as she poured a full glass and offered it to him.

Rob took the glass. “I don’t know.” He took two long sips. “I’m feeling a little disoriented.”

Had he never said thank you before when she offered him something? Wouldn’t she have noticed? “I want Jess to go to Cape Cod with Angie and Warren,” she said.

Rob finished the glass. “She’s going. I have enough to handle without worrying about my daughter.”

“Good.”

“Good?” Rob’s expression was accusing.

“That she’s going away,” she explained. “Murder is not something she needs to deal with.”

Rob narrowed his eyes at her. “You didn’t kill Valerie, did you?”

Lori stayed calm. “No, I didn’t, Rob. What purpose would it have served?”

“Well, I mean, she stole me away. You might have thought with her gone—”

“I don’t love you anymore, Rob, so there was no reason to kill her.”

Disbelief flashed across Rob’s eyes, then was gone. With his conceding smile, he lifted an imaginary hat off his head. “Touché, my dear.”

Lori leaned toward him. “What happened Monday night? You got sick?”

Rob sat up, always happy to get back to the subject of himself. “My blood pressure must have taken a sudden drop. I felt dizzy and started sweating. I’d only had a beer because I had to drive the girls back. By morning I was fine, except Valerie hadn’t come home.” He ran his fingers through his hair again, a favored gesture to show off the thick, brown waves that were the envy of his balding friends.

Lori wondered why she’d never noticed these quirks before, or if she had, why they hadn’t bothered her.

“God, I can’t forgive myself,” Rob said, his voice torn with emotion. “Valerie would still be alive if I hadn’t asked her to drive the girls. How will I live with that?” He eyed the empty wine glass.

Lori patted his arm. She wasn’t going to refill it. He had to drive back to Manhattan. “The bottle’s empty,” she said gently.

He met her eyes. An old understanding passed between them:
You fool me, I’ll fool you.
“I didn’t want any more.”

“Who knew Valerie was driving Jess and Angie back?” Lori asked, moving on after that brief moment of connection.

“The girls. No one else that I know of.”

“You didn’t mention it to anyone, see anyone afterward?”

“I went straight home. Angie might have called Margot. I know she called while we were waiting for a table to say she was going to be late getting back, but that was before I got sick. Did Jess tell you?”

“No. She wouldn’t want me to know Valerie was driving her back.”

Narrowed eyes again. “So you didn’t know?”

“Rob, you were married to me for sixteen years. Do you really think I could kill someone?”

“I think we all can, given enough provocation. The police have you high on their suspect list.”

“They’re clutching at straws. They don’t suspect you? The husband is always on top of the list.”

“God, no!” Rob stood up. “I’d better go. I’ve got an appointment with my accountant.”

Lori walked him to the front door. “You were so sure someone was trying to kill you when you picked me up at the airport Sunday. You even accused me. What made you change your mind?”

“I guess I sobered up to real danger with Valerie’s death.”

“If you’re in any danger, you’d tell me? We have to think about Jessica. If someone wants to hurt you, they might hurt her.”

“No one is going to reach Jess in Cape Cod.”

“Then there is something!”

“No! There’s nothing. Stop worrying.” Rob opened the front door to hot, humid air. In the hemlock at the end of the pathway, a mockingbird was trilling a stolen song. “Listen, the police don’t know when they’re going to release Valerie’s body, and I’m going to wait until Jess gets back in two weeks to hold the memorial service. I was wondering if you could—” Rob looked up as the bird stopped singing and flew to the Fishers’ weathervane. “I was wondering if you could help?” He turned back to face Lori, looking for a moment like a lost four-year-old. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

Lori took her eyes off Rob to glance at the blue Toyota in her driveway. “The police still have your car?” The murderer had stuffed Valerie in the trunk.

“I’m selling the BMW the minute they give it back,” Rob said. “This is a rental.”

Lori let her mind wander to the expensive car he’d bought only months after their divorce, from there to Rob’s new three-bedroom apartment on Park Avenue, to his monthly child support payments, to the mortgage he was still paying on this house. A lot of money was involved. Valerie, afraid men wanted to marry her only for her money, wouldn’t have helped pick up the tab. She turned to Rob. “I hear you made out well on a real estate deal.”

Rob looked irritated. “What are you talking about?”

“Some land in the Bronx that a European developer bought for a lot of money. Margot said you were involved.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

If he was telling the truth, where had all his money come from? “You don’t owe any money, do you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” His face was flushed with anger, which made her suspicious. She still hadn’t received her child support check for last month. Up to now, Rob had always been prompt. “If you were in some kind of trouble, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? For Jessica’s sake?”

“Thank you for your concern, but the only trouble I’m in now is trying to come to grips with Valerie’s death and planning a memorial service.” Rob dropped Jessica’s panda bear key chain in Lori’s hands.

She pictured loan sharks coming after him, ready to beat him to a pulp, even kill him as a lesson to others. “Please tell me the truth, Rob.”

“May I remind you that you have never been very good at spotting the difference between my lies and my telling the truth.”

Lori could have burst into tears at that cruel reminder. Instead she said, “Ask Valerie’s office manager. I’m sure Ruth will help you with the memorial service. Goodbye, Rob.” He nodded and walked away.

Lori went back to her kitchen and threw the potato dough into the garbage pail. Making gnocchi was for another day, a day when she would get it right.

Lori opened the gate to Margot’s garden and took off her sandals. Walking barefoot across the vast velvety lawn always made her feel graceful and somehow special. On each side of the garden, thick white bands of oak-leaf hydrangeas, Asiatic lilies, and roses slid down to the end. Beyond it, Long Island Sound glistened in the sun like a gray-blue swath of rippling silk. Jessica and Angie were sitting by the pool at one end, sharing the earbuds to an iPod, heads bobbing in rhythm. “Hi, girls,” Lori called out with a big wave. Jessica gave a reluctant baby wave back.

As Lori got near enough to catch her daughter’s scowl, she slowed her stride. Angie removed her earbud and stood up as Lori approached. She was a short girl with her father’s broad face and stocky body, and Margot’s confidence and beautiful hazel eyes. The girls were both wearing shorts. Angie had on a halter top with a wide band of chubby midriff showing a gold navel ring. Jessica, to Lori’s great relief, had so far only insisted on getting her ears pierced.

“Hi, Jess.” Lori leaned over Jessica’s chair and felt her stiffen. She turned to Angie and gave her the hug her daughter didn’t want. “What are you two up to? Have you had lunch yet?”

“All Mom can think about is food,” Jessica said, staying put in her chair, her expression changing from shattered to sullen. She was wearing a too large T-shirt that Angie must have lent her. It made her look frail.

“All I can think about is food and you.” Lori laughed. She didn’t know how else to handle Jessica’s hostility. “Food helps smooth out the wrinkles of the soul, and you make me happy.”