Caught In The Act

I thought of the beautiful Airy Bennett. “Dweebs? Airy? Arnie?”

“Hard to believe, huh? I hung out with Airy because I felt sorry for her. And people were nice to Arnie because he’d tell you all the answers or write your paper for you or whatever—for a price. He loved that kind of stuff. But Airy wouldn’t even let you copy her homework. ‘It’s cheating, Jo.’” Jolene’s voice took on a hard edge. “She was the most self-righteous thing!”

I’d never let anyone copy my homework either, but I thought I wouldn’t tell Jolene that little piece of trivia.

In the sink I noticed two glasses with dark liquid dregs. I leaned over and sniffed. Iced tea. I looked for telltale lipstick on one of the glasses, hard to do since I couldn’t pick them up for fear of disturbing prints. If Jolene hadn’t been keeping Arnie company anymore, maybe someone else had.

I sighed. She, if there was a she, either wore that lipstick that never came off or she wore none. Or she’d wiped the glass clean of any evidence. Interesting thought, that.

I noticed a wastebasket tucked in the corner by a cabinet. I walked over and peered in. I saw crumpled paper towels with blue hearts and flowers on them, a clear plastic wrapper from some package, an empty half-gallon Tropicana orange-tangerine juice container and the box and plastic tray from a Lean Cuisine dinner, chicken marsala. No clues as far as I could see, but I took a picture anyway.

“If Arnie was such a brainiac dweeb,” I said as I took a picture of the bullet lodged in the cabinet directly behind where he must have been standing when he was shot, “how did you two ever get together?” I glanced again at the man lying on the floor. “And how did he get to be such a handsome guy?”

“After high school he went away to college,” Jolene said. “He’d earned all these scholarships and stuff. I didn’t see him for about almost four years. Then I went to a New Year’s Eve party, and there he was. I couldn’t believe it! He’d gotten so tall, and he’d started wearing contact lenses. And he pumped iron all the time. There’s all kinds of weight equipment in the room down the hall.”

She looked at me vaguely “He was gorgeous, wasn’t he? I fell for him big-time.”

“And he fell for you?” I prompted as I took a seat beside her. I pushed her purse, gloves and scarf away from the table’s edge.

“Remember, he’d gone with Airy for years. It took me a couple of months to convince him to drop her.”

I looked at Jolene. “Arnie had been going with Airy?”

“Since seventh grade.”

“And you cut her out?”

“Yeah.” Jolene unconsciously sat straighter. “It was easy.”

I nodded as the ladies’ room animosity suddenly made more sense.

“Would you say Airy was a late bloomer, too?” I asked.

“She’s still waiting to bloom,” Jolene said with more than a trace of the nastiness I’d seen earlier. I also recognized a case of wishful thinking. Airy had definitely blossomed.

The doorbell rang, causing us both to jump.

“I’ll get it.” I stuffed my camera in my purse and went to let the police in. I led the two uniforms to the kitchen where they took one look and phoned home. In a few more minutes, my friend Sergeant Poole of the Amhearst police arrived. A crime scene team from the state police followed quickly, as did the coroner. Even a fire truck showed up as part of the first-response team, even though I’d told the 911 operator we didn’t need AFD personnel.

In no time Jolene and I found ourselves back on the huge couch again, our scarves and gloves tumbled in the pile of coats on the floor in the hall.

“What will I do about the blood on my coat?” Jolene asked, staring across the room at the collection of garments, fixing on a problem that had comprehensible ramifications. The busyness of the men in the kitchen and their purpose bewildered and overwhelmed. “I love that coat. Arnie got it for me before our troubles.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I patted her hand. “I’ll take it to the cleaners for you when I take mine.”

She nodded and slumped back on the sofa. We sat silently in the brightly lit room and waited as we had been asked by Sergeant Poole.

Finally we were interviewed, though I didn’t have much to say. I sat stiffly in one of the cherry dining room chairs, hoping I didn’t appear guilty of anything because I wasn’t. I just get a guilty complex around extreme authority. It probably went back to the time when I was a little kid and lied to my mother about where I got the candy bar I’d stolen. As I sat straight and still, stoically waiting my grilling, I studied the porcelain in the china cabinet on the far wall. One shelf was Royal Doulton figurines, their colorful images a contrast to the shelf of sleek, sophisticated Lladro porcelains. The top shelf was full of collectors’ pieces of blue Wedgwood with rings of white flowers encircling them.

Where had the money and the good taste for those things come from?

Sergeant Poole sat across the table from me.

“How can I help, William?”

“How did Mrs. Meister get the blood on her hands and her coat?” he asked.

“She knelt beside Arnie when she first found him. She tried to pick him up and hold him. She didn’t realize he was dead.”

“Um,” he said and waited. I waited, too, because I didn’t have anything else to say. He knew me well enough to realize that if I had been trying to protect Jolene or if I had anything further to say, I would have blurted it when he waited. That authority reaction thing again.

Finally he asked, “What do you know about the victim?”

“Very little. I never met him. In fact, I never even saw him before tonight.”

“Not a great way to make an acquaintance.” And he smiled sympathetically.

I smiled back and relaxed a bit.

“Why did you come here today?” he asked.

“Jolene—Mrs. Meister—was supposed to meet her husband here.”

“Meet him here? Doesn’t she live here?”

“No. They were divorcing, and she lives in her own condominium.”

His eyebrow rose. “Acrimonious divorce?”

“I don’t think so.” I knew exactly what he was looking for. The spouse is always the first suspect.

“Are you and Mrs. Meister good friends? Would she tell you if things were nasty between them?”

“Work friends, that’s all.”

He nodded. I could see my influence as a character witness shrinking faster than a blown-up balloon without a knot in the end.

“Why were they meeting?” he asked.

“I have no idea. She didn’t tell me. She just asked for a lift.”

“She doesn’t have a car?”

“Her father drove her in to work today.”

“She lives with her parents?”

I shook my head. “I told you. She owns a condo. Maybe she’d spent the night with them or something. Or maybe her father drove out to her place to get her and then drove her to work. Or maybe her car’s in the shop.”

“Was Mrs. Meister surprised when she found her husband?”

“Very,” I said, picturing her reaction. “I think she was devastated.” I paused, then asked a question I wanted answered. “How long do you think he’s been dead?”

He raised his eyebrows, then said politely, “I’m not giving half-baked opinions to the press, Merry. We’ll wait for the coroner’s report.”

“Don’t get so testy, William. This isn’t for publication,” I hastened to assure him. “This is for me. I want to know how close you think we came to walking in on a murderer. I mean, nothing appears to have been touched or stolen. Is that because we arrived and scared someone off? Is there a very mad person out there who might not like Jo and me anymore?”

He studied me for a minute. “Okay, off the record. I don’t think you scared anyone away. I think he’s been dead for maybe three hours.”

“Why do you think that?”

“You sure you want to know?”

I nodded, hoping I wouldn’t regret this.

“The white, waxy condition of his skin, the flatness of the eyes indicating loss of fluid and the lividity.”

I’d noticed the purple-blue on the back of his arms and on the underside of the exposed calf where the blood left in his body had gathered in response to the pull of gravity.

“And,” he finished, “rigor appears to have begun in the smaller muscles.”

“But he’s still warm to the touch.”

“The body cools slowly, a degree or two an hour.”

“Dust to dust doesn’t take long, does it?”

Sergeant Poole grunted noncommittally. “Where were you all afternoon, Merry?”

“Me?” I think my voice squeaked.

He nodded.

“At work. Lots of people saw me. Lots.” And a cannibalistic plant. “You don’t think I had anything to do with Arnie’s death, do you?”

William Poole smiled slightly. He had an interesting lopsided smile which sat pleasantly on his furrowed face. “Not really, but I have to ask. It’s what I get paid for. Now what about Mrs. Meister? Where was she all afternoon?”

“At work, too.”

“Do me a favor,” he asked congenially. “Write down the times you had any conversation or contact with Mrs. Meister during the afternoon. One of my men will stop by for the list tomorrow.”

“I’ll have it ready.” I’d be more than happy to provide Jolene’s alibi.

“Do you know you have blood on your hands, Merry?”

I looked at them and shivered. The blood was dried around my nails. “I got it when I pulled Jolene away from the body. I know I have some on my shoes and on my coat from when I knelt beside her. Even my knees.”

Shortly after that, I was dismissed. Both Jolene and I were in the living room waiting for permission to leave when an officer came to us.

“We’re going to remove the body now,” he said. “I wanted to warn you because I don’t know if you want to see him carried out in a body bag. I’d like to give you the opportunity to leave the room.”

I glanced at Jolene who looked horrified.

“A body bag,” she whispered. “Oh, no!”

I heard the wheels of the gurney roll across the parquet. I grabbed Jolene, turned her from the door, and held her as they wheeled Arnie from his brightly lit home for the final time. I felt my eyes fill with tears, and I didn’t even know the man. I couldn’t imagine how Jo felt. Her shoulders were shaking.

When she and I were finally given permission to leave, I glanced at my watch. It was 8:30. We’d been at the house for about three hours. I was already a half hour late for the photos of the AAC-FOP committee, and I had to take Jolene home yet. I shrugged. Hopefully the committee had lots of last-minute plans to make and would still be there by the time I managed to make it.

We drove back to Amhearst in silence. I kept thinking that one second you’re alive, and the next you can be dead. One minute your brain is zipping electrical impulses all over your body, the next it’s flat line. One minute your blood is racing through your veins, and the next it’s a pool all over the yellow tile floor.

A mystery, if ever there was one. What did you think about this phenomenon called death if you didn’t believe that absent from the body was present with the Lord?

We drove through downtown Amhearst, past the cluster of brightly decorated stores open until nine in a mostly vain attempt to attract the Christmas business back from the malls. Shortly we pulled up before half of a double on Houston Street in the older, less prosperous part of town.

The light by the front door showed a porch covered with bright green indoor/outdoor carpeting and lined with black wrought-iron railings. In spite of it being December, two white molded plastic chairs sat on either side of a small white plastic table in the center of the porch. On the table was an arrangement of plastic greens and an angel whose head turned from side to side. A wreath of plastic greens with a mashed plaid bow hung between the storm door and the inside door.

I couldn’t imagine anything more unlike the mansion we’d just left.

Jolene grabbed my arm. “Come in with me, Merry. I can’t face my parents alone. They loved Arnie. They really did.”

The last thing I wanted to do was help break the news of the tragedy, but I opened my car door and climbed out. We started up the steps as the door of the other half of the double opened. A man in a camel topcoat came rushing out only to stop short when he saw us.

“Jolene,” he said and sort of reached for her.

“Reilly.” Jolene nodded at the man but kept walking up the stairs, making it obvious that she wasn’t stopping for conversation.

Reilly watched her with a hungry expression, but when Jolene kept moving, he went down the steps to a car at the curb.

“Who’s he?” I asked as we reached the porch.

“Reilly Samson. He works with Arnie. His grandmother lives next door.”

“Her?” I indicated the gap between the curtains next door where an eye stared at us. I smiled and nodded. The curtain promptly fell back in place.

“Old Mrs. Samson, the world’s nosiest neighbor,” Jolene muttered. Her face twisted. “Wait until she hears about Arnie! She’ll probably celebrate.”

“What?” I was shocked.

“She hated him.”

“Why?”

“Who knows. She’s just a bitter old lady who hates everyone.”

“Even Reilly?”

“Sometimes I think so.”

“Even you?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“Especially me,” Jolene said.

“Really? Why?”

“Because I got rich.” With that, she opened the front door.

The house was a typical Amhearst double with two stories plus basement and attic. The rooms ran in a front-to-back pattern of living room, dining room, kitchen, and back porch on the first level with a large staircase in the front hall running to the second floor where a hall opened into three large bedrooms and a bath. The third-floor attic where the roof pulled the walls in would be a single huge room. A postage stamp of a backyard finished the property.

As soon as we came through the front door, an older man and woman rushed into the hall, swooping down on us and burying us in solicitude and questions about Jolene’s tardiness. I was surprised because I hadn’t realized that Jolene’s grandparents lived here, too.

“Come in, come in,” the man kept saying to me, beaming as he tried to take my coat. A slight Southern accent colored his voice. “I’m so glad Jolene brought a friend home with her!”

“Are you all right, Jolene Marie?” The woman scanned Jo’s face and hugged her shoulders. “You don’t look well, dear. Maybe we need to make it warmer for you? We can turn up the thermostat, can’t we, Alvin? Or maybe you just want to come into the kitchen. I saved your dinner. There’s plenty for your friend, too. Are you certain you’re all right?” And she pulled Jolene to her bosom again.

Jolene pulled away from the smothering arms and said, “Mom, that’s enough! Dad, make her stop.”

Mom? Dad? Not Grandmom and Grandpop?

“Easy, Eloise,” Jo’s dad said, patting the woman on the shoulder. “We need to meet Jolene’s friend.”

Suddenly I was being stared at by two curious elderly gnomes, one with vague blue eyes, one with sharp brown ones.

“This is Merry Kramer, Merry as in Christmas. We work together.” Jo made it sound as if I were a fellow escapee from a chain gang.

“Merry.” Jolene’s mother smiled sweetly at me. “What a lovely name, especially this time of year. Were you born in December, dear? I just bet you were.”

“June,” I said.

“Oh.” She looked confused. “I thought Jolene Marie said Merry.”

I must have looked equally confused because Jolene’s father said, “The month of June, Eloise. Not the name.”

The woman smiled sweetly. “Oh, of course. Silly me.”

She looked older than my Grandmom Kramer by several years, though I knew she couldn’t be. Grandmom Kramer was seventy-nine, and there’s no way she could have a daughter as young as Jolene. Of course the appearance of age could have been caused by this woman’s determinedly gray hair and the too-tight permanent, the unbecoming glasses and the lined face.

As I smiled my sweetest at Jolene’s mother and father, I searched my mind for Jolene’s maiden name. Carlsbad. Mammoth. Jewel. It had something to do with caves or caverns. Ah! Luray!

“Mr. and Mrs. Luray, how nice to meet you.” I shook their hands prettily. My mother would have been proud.

“Right this way, girls,” Mrs. Luray said. “The food’s waiting.”

Mr. Luray was wrestling me for my coat while my stomach growled at the wondrous aromas that filled the air. No wonder Jolene came home for dinner every night. “I can’t stay.” AAC-FOP was waiting. “I’m sorry.”

“I wish you would.” Mr. Luray’s fingers wrapped around my coat collar as he tried to drag it off my shoulders. He was bald, homely, wore thick glasses and had muscles on muscles. It was obvious he and Arnie had bonded over weights. “Jolene doesn’t bring friends home much.”

“Dad,” Jolene said sharply. “Let Merry alone, for heaven’s sake!”

Mr. Luray nodded pleasantly. “Okay.” His hands fell from my collar.

Mrs. Luray peered first at Jolene, then at me. “You do look pale, Jolene Marie. You do. So do you, Merry, but then maybe you’re always pale. I wouldn’t know, would I?” She smiled vaguely at me, patting my hand.

I smiled vaguely back.

“But are you sure you girls are all right? Have you had a disagreement or something? I know that when I have a fight with Mrs. Samson, Dad can always tell because I look so pale.” She smiled at me again. “Not that we have that many fights, you know. But that’s how it shows when we do. Or maybe—” and her smile faltered as she turned to Jo “—maybe you had a fight with Arnie, dear? You didn’t have another fight with him, did you, Jolene Marie? I can’t stand it when you two fight.” She looked as if she might cry.

Jolene looked at me in helpless frustration.

“Now, Mother,” Mr. Luray said. “Don’t get yourself so worked up. Your heart will start fluttering.”

Oh, boy. A fluttering heart. Just what we needed with the news we were bearing.

“Do you take heart medicine, Mrs. Luray?” I asked.

“Aren’t you sweet to be concerned,” she said. “Yes. I keep it handy all the time in case I need it.”

“Where is it?”

“In the kitchen on the windowsill over the sink. And upstairs both in the bathroom and on my night table.”

“Mr. Luray,” I said, “I think it would be a good idea if you got your wife’s medicine.”

Mr. Luray looked at me with narrowed eyes, saw something in my face, and headed for the kitchen and the windowsill.

“Bring a big plastic bag back with you, Dad,” Jolene called. A muffled assent drifted to us.

“What?” Mrs. Luray seemed confused, which I now suspected was a normal situation. “What’s wrong? Jolene Marie, why do I need my medicine? Oh, I knew it! You and Arnie did fight! You didn’t hit him, did you, dear? Tell me you didn’t hit him! Or throw something at him. It’s so unladylike.”

“Mom!” Jolene shouted fiercely. “Can’t you ever shut up? I can’t stand you when you run on like that!”

Mrs. Luray and I both stared at Jolene. I, in startled disbelief at her tone of voice, her mother with accpetance.

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to upset you, but then I can see that you’re already upset, aren’t you? Why, dear? Tell Mommy. You’ll feel better if you tell me. Don’t worry. I can take it. Just tell me. You did fight with Arnie, didn’t you?”

Jolene put her hands to her face in aggravation.

Mr. Luray appeared, a pill bottle clutched in his right hand and the plastic bag in his left. Jolene took the bag and handed it to me. As I held the bag open, she stuffed her coat in. “My scarf and gloves are still in the car.”

I nodded, pulling the ties to shut the bag. “I’ll get them.”

“What’s she doing with your coat, Jolene Marie?” Mrs. Luray asked. “It’s a special coat because Arnie gave it to you. What’s she going to do with it?”

“It’s dirty, Mom,” Jolene said through gritted teeth. “She’s taking it to the dry cleaners for me.”

Mrs. Luray’s face lit with joy. “Why, how sweet, June,” she said to me.

I opened my mouth to say “Merry,” but refrained. She wasn’t listening to me anyway.

“Daddy,” Mrs. Luray said, her high voice tinged with sorrow. “Jolene Marie and Arnie had a fight. She’s just going to tell us about it. Isn’t it too sad?”

“What’s wrong, Jo?” Mr. Luray said. His manner was stark and aware.

“Yes, dear.” Mrs. Luray’s hands fluttered with a life of their own, pale butterflies with age spots marking the wings. “Tell us.”

Jolene took a deep breath, then looked steely eyed at her parents. “Arnie’s dead,” she said baldly. “He was shot.”

Mrs. Luray gasped once, twice, three times, clutched her chest, and sank to the floor.

FOUR

I stared at the frail woman lying on the floor. “Should we do CPR? Call 911? Stick that medicine under her tongue or something?”

Jolene and her father looked at each other, then shook their heads in unison.

“Don’t worry,” Jolene said wearily. “She’ll be okay.”

“Jolene!” I fell to my knees beside the unconscious woman. “What if she dies right here on the floor?”

Jo and her father continued to ignore Mrs. Luray in favor of a conversation about Arnie.

“Is he really dead?” Mr. Luray asked.

Jolene nodded.

“Shot?”

She nodded again.

He hugged himself, and a tear slid down his wrinkled cheek. “Oh, Jolene! Why? Who?”

“I have no idea, Daddy.” Jolene went to her father. She held him and rocked him like a mother might comfort a hurting child. His shoulders shook and his breath came raggedly. The man was heartbroken.

I was moved by his grief, but I kept looking at Mrs. Luray, lying there on the floor. I pulled a fuchsia and kelly green afghan off the back of the red sofa, and tucked it around the woman. I searched for her pulse, expecting to find a thready, thin, and erratic rhythm. I blinked. Her pulse was so strong you’d have thought a tympanist was in there whopping out the “wonderful, counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” section of last week’s performance of The Messiah at the Community Center.

“She’s fine,” I blurted.

Jolene released her father, and they both looked down at me.

“Always,” Mr. Luray said. He sniffed and swallowed. “Come on, Jo. We’d better get her on the sofa. She’ll be upset if she finds herself on the floor.”

Jolene nodded. She and her father bent in unison and lifted Mrs. Luray, afghan and all, and laid her gently on the sofa. Jolene stuck a fluffy kelly green pillow under her mother’s head. They’d obviously done this many times before.

“I’m sorry if you were scared.” Mr. Luray held out a hand and helped me to my feet. “It’s just Eloise’s way of dealing with things she doesn’t want to think about.” He looked at her affectionately. “She’s very delicate, very sensitive, you know.”

I looked at Mrs. Luray. I wasn’t certain delicate and sensitive were the words I’d have used.

She began to stir. “What happened? Where am I? Alvin?”

Mr. Luray sat on the edge of the sofa and opened the pill bottle. He slid a flat, white disk into his hand. “Shh, Eloise. I’m right here. Put this pill under your tongue, and you’ll be fine in no time.”

Jolene leaned toward me. “It’s a Tums,” she whispered.

I stared at Mrs. Luray. “Does this happen often?”

She shrugged. “Depends on how you define often. She was passing out several times a day when Arnie and I first separated. Now she can talk about it without any trouble. You saw that.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Luray said suddenly and in great distress.

I spun around, expecting her to black out again as she recalled the terrible news about Arnie.

“Smell that!” she said. “Jolene, your dinner’s burning!” She struggled to her feet and moved quickly to the kitchen. “I’ll save it!”

Jolene watched her mother leave the room, then went to her father. “Are you all right, Dad?”

“Not really.” He put his arm around her waist and they leaned into each other, sorrow etched on both faces.