Make, Take, Murder (12 page)

Anya chattered on about
the upcoming holiday sock hop at CALA, Charles and Anne Lindbergh Academy. “What I really want for my big gift is a pair of Uggs. All the girls have them. I could wear them to the party, and to school and when I go out.”

I nodded. Go out? I never let the kid out of my sight. Personally, I thought the Ugg boots a wizard combination of ugly-cute. On spindly teenage legs, I had to admit, they were darling. But they were also out of my price range. Hanukkah is eight days long. That means a week and a day of gift-giving. George adored shopping for us. Every evening we lit the candles on the menorah, sang the song about the dreidel, played the game, and ate brisket and latkes. I actually mastered the art of a mean latke. The secret is instant potato flakes. George said mine were even better than Sheila’s. (Um, Linnea’s, actually. Sheila doesn’t cook. She occupies the command post.)

After we celebrated, George would proudly hand both of us a package in a signature robin’s egg blue box. Every Hanukkah, he gave me a gift from Tiffany’s on the first day. On successive days, he alternated books (hard-cover bestsellers), Godiva chocolates, scarves (He loved shopping for scarves; ironic wasn’t it?), and finally, on the last day Anya and I would each receive a totally outrageous big gift.

I always bought George the same gift for Day Eight: nail clippers. This was a standing joke between us. He lost nail clippers like some people pop off buttons. So every year, I bought him a new pair, and he’d say, “Kiki, sweetie, you shouldn’t have.”

Ours was not an ideal marriage, but there are all sorts of love, and we certainly loved each other. He was my best friend. Sort of. I could depend on him. He knew he could depend on me.

That’s why I had been so willing to put myself in jeopardy and solve his murder.

But that didn’t matter now. I was officially out of the murder inquiry business. I shook my head and yanked myself back into the moment.

We pulled up into the darkened lot a few store fronts down from a big Dierbergs grocery store. There sat a tired white trailer, festooned with old fashioned large bulb Christmas lights. Under an awning, a wood-stoked fire blazed in an old oil barrel. A group of men wearing hunting jackets, thermal overalls, and those hats with ear flaps stood warming their hands over the fire. Their work gloves stayed tucked under their armpits until we approached closely.

“Hey ya, Mrs. Lowenstein! Miss Anya! How you’ve grown, young lady,” said Elmer Peters.

I gave Elmer a big hug. He was a fixture at this particular Lions Club temporary location. George, Anya, and I started buying our trees here when she was only a toddler. I stepped away from Elmer and watched my daughter give the big man a happy embrace. As time went by and George’s memory faded, I hoped that times like this would remind Anya of outings with her dad.

“What’ll it be this year? A Scotch pine? A Douglas fir? A Colorado blue spruce? Let me show you some beauties.”

I squirmed a bit. Live trees aren’t cheap. Elmer pulled on work gloves and dutifully walked us up and down the aisles. Rows of fresh cut trees rested against wooden A-frames. Anya was drawn, of course, to the biggest and most expensive trees. I had to remind her we were on a budget. My nose ran profusely as the night grew colder. Under the artificial lighting, the trees took on a magical quality, but with each trudge of my feet, a deeper sadness weighed on me. Why wasn’t I earning enough to satisfy my child’s needs? I knew that millions of parents the world over shared the sentiment.

Anya fixated on one particular tree, returning to it after exploring other options. I knew the money went to charity, but I still was having trouble justifying the expense. How could I let my daughter down? She didn’t ask much, but this was more than a stupid tree. It was a memory. It was our tradition. It was something her father would have done for her.

My vision clouded with tears that I managed to mop up before they spilled. While I held the tissue to my face, a voice boomed, “Elmer? Load that tree up for them. Add it to my bill.”

I turned to face a tall man in a black cashmere coat, his face framed by an expensive Burberry scarf. “Ross Gambrowski. You’re Kiki Lowenstein, right?” and he squeezed my hand in a painful grasp. “I hope you don’t mind. I followed you here.”

“Anya? How about you go with Elmer to make sure the tree’s tied down.” I had no intentions of letting a stranger pay for our purchase, but I didn’t want my daughter to overhear this conversation.

“What can I do for you?”

“Cindy was my whole world.”

I stared at his red-rimmed eyes. The man’s nose had been broken and never set properly, and he towered over me. His shoulders proclaimed him a linebacker, and I could easily imagine him with black greasepaint on his cheekbones. Even in the near dark, his skin glowed with a healthy tan. I seemed to recall Cindy talking about the tanning bed they had in their home.

“I don’t know what I can do.”

“You found her leg.”

“Are they sure? I mean, it could have been—”

“It was hers. I recognized a scar on the inside of her right ankle. She tripped a lot. For a woman so beautiful, Cindy could be very clumsy. She was always falling over her own feet.” He raised a beefy hand to his eyes to shield them. His lower lip trembled. “I told her not to go places without letting me know. I worried about her. Didn’t like her friends. They were undependable. But Cindy could be very willful. She didn’t always listen to me like she should. The minute I saw that leg, I knew it was hers.”

We stood in silence. He added, “I just have to trust God that she’s all right.”

“You don’t know where she went? Where did she say she was going?”

“I thought she was at the house. Or at Bible studies. I even got a text message from her. I figured she went to church services. That’s where she was supposed to be on Sunday. She knew better than to take off without telling me. I just got home late Friday night because of a business meeting. I figured she was in the other room. Sometimes she liked to take a sleeping pill and get a good night’s rest. I thought we’d just missed each other. Have you seen our house?”

I shook my head. I caught a whiff of his breath. Alcohol.

“I built that palace just for her. Over by the Ladue Country Club. Fifteen thousand square feet. More with the finished basement. No other builder in this town could top it. Heated floors. Indoor pool. Sauna. Jacuzzi tub. You name it. Even built a craft room for her so she wouldn’t have to run to those what-you-ma-call-its? Crops. I wanted Cindy home with me.” He grabbed my shoulders. “The cops think I did something to her. My Cindy. After all I’ve done to protect her, to keep her safe. You don’t know where she is, do you? Please?”

His grip tightened on my jacket and he squeezed enough for me to murmur, “Ouch.”

Then his nostrils flared
and he let me loose. “What’s that smell?”

Saved by the cat pee,
I thought as I took a step away. “Um, I don’t know Cindy well enough to help you.”

“But she told me all about that class she took at your store. I gave her permission to go. I saw her writing about all the happy parts of our life. How you encouraged her to get down her happy memories. She even showed me that contest entry.”

I nodded. We’d put one of her pages on display so our customers could vote on a favorite in the All about Me Contest. In fact, that reminded me I needed to clear space on our crop tables. Which meant, I’d have to clear the tables and reset them for the evening event. By myself. I sure hoped Bama would get on the stick and hire Laurel or Clancy to help.

But that sidecar quickly derailed. Ross Gambrowski grabbed my hand out of my pocket. One of my good gloves had gone missing, so all I was wearing was a thin pair of mittens. “Tell me where she is. I only want to help her. She can’t be dead. I’d know it. I’d feel it here,” and he tapped his heart. “We’re connected. Soul mates. Have been since the day we met. I told her we’d never be apart, and I meant it. I have to find her!”

I glanced away. Anya stood beside our car, blowing on her fingers.

“I’m sorry but I can’t get involved.”

“How can you say that? Don’t you see what it’s doing to me? How am I going to manage? Can’t you see how hard this is on me?”

I’d been in his situation. I knew exactly how hard it was. I gulped and tried to push my own sad memories out of my mind. I couldn’t afford to drag myself, my child, or my store into a potentially dangerous spot. Still, there was something I could do. Something small and safe. “I’ll ask the other scrapbookers if they’ve seen her.”

“Tell me you’ll look for her. That you’ll call me.” He pressed a business card into my fingers. “Anytime, day or night.”

I fished one of my cards from my pocket and handed it over.

“You lost your husband didn’t you?”

I nodded.

“George Lowenstein, right? We played golf together. So you get it. You know what I mean. I can’t live without her. At the holidays? What will I do?” He dragged the back of his hand over a set of fleshy lips. Ross Gambrowski would never be called a handsome man, but from him came a raw masculinity which I’ll admit was very attractive. He was a guy’s guy.

“How do you get by? How do you manage without the person you love? Tell me! Because I don’t think I can. But you’ve done it and raised a daughter. I can’t imagine what I’ll say to our Michelle. How I’ll tell her what happened to her mother. You have to help me. You know how this feels!”

I certainly did. On this night of nights more than ever. But not because of George’s death. All his ranting and raving brought back the night my sister Catherine disappeared. That was a time I worked hard to forget. I’d locked my memories away and promised myself I’d never revisit them. But Ross Gambrowski’s pleading caused a sick twisting in my stomach. I blinked hard to hold back my own tears.

“How can I raise my child without my wife?” asked Ross.

I nodded. I wondered the same thing almost every day since George died. Until his death, I never, ever spent the holidays alone. Now, what was I doing? Worrying about gifts? Scraping around for proper coats? Unable to buy my child what she needed? And who would buy gifts for me? This was all too much. I couldn’t stand here and think about it. I had to get away from this man, or I’d lose it.

“Mom?” Anya called out to me. “I’m going to get in the car and start it. I’m cold.”

My baby. My poor, poor baby. I cleared my throat and started to inch away from Ross. “Sorry, but I need to go.”

“But you’ll help me, won’t you?”

“Um, what do the police say?”

He roared like a lion. Ironic, really, considering where we were. “They’re trying to blame me. Me! The person who loved her most in the world. The guy who worshipped her. Those jerks. While Cindy’s out there, lost, needing me—or worse yet, hurt—they’re messing around, wasting time, asking me all sorts of stupid questions.”

I sighed. In the hours immediately following George’s death, suspicion briefly centered on me. Ross Gambrowski was right. The police would blame him. After all, he was the surviving spouse, and therefore, the logical suspect.

“It’s the not knowing that’s killing me,” Ross added. His voice dropped to a whisper. “What if she needs me?”

“Got to go,” I said. I couldn’t let him see how upset I was. I understood exactly what he meant. I wondered the same thing all the time. Not about Cindy Gambrowski, of course.

I wondered about my sister Catherine.