A Skeleton in the Closet (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (7 page)

“Because miscarriages aren’t all that uncommon in the first trimester.
After that, the pregnancy is considered well established.”

“Well established? Sounds like a vegetable garden or a charitable foundation, not a bun in the oven.” She fussed briefly with an imaginary stray lock and dropped her compact back into her purse. “
Speakin
’ of well established, when is that man of yours
establishin
’ himself in your residence?
Over the weekend?”

“Monday.
It was the only day Armando could get a mover. I think twenty percent of the population chooses June to move. Don’t
worry,
I’ll be right here at MACK Realty. This whole moving-in thing is unnerving enough without my having to stand there and watch him invading my space.
After work will be soon enough for me to go and survey the wreckage.”
My stomach did its usual flip-flop at the thought. “I’m really nervous about this.”

She chuckled. “No
kiddin
’. I haven’t seen you this het up since … well, come to think of it, Sugar, since never. What is the worst that could happen? You turn a washer load of his
undies
pink when your red blouse gets in with them by accident? He leaves the cap off the toothpaste, and you come to blows? What?” She peered at me, obviously perplexed.

I stopped punching keys and returned her gaze. “It’s hard to understand, I know. Most women my age would be over the moon to have a wonderful man like Armando in their lives. He’s so thoughtful and intelligent and makes me laugh. He’s great company. And he doesn’t do any of those awful guy things like belching or adjusting himself in public. He’s a pack rat, but he’s absolutely fastidious about his personal grooming. My kids are fond of him. Jasmine and Simon adore him.”

“Not to mention he’s cute as the devil.” Margo had moved from examining her flawless hair to shaping her already perfect nails with an emery board. “Let’s not forget that.”

I smiled as I visualized Armando’s chiseled profile and coffee-with-cream skin from his toenails to the roots of his hair. “There is that. And he isn’t even addicted to televised sports, except for maybe World Cup soccer.” I sighed. “It’s really not about him. It’s about me. I’m the problem.”

Another chuckle.
“You can be a handful.”

I knew that my ex-husband, for one, would be only too happy to agree with Margo. He and I were still excellent friends, but after two children and twenty-two years together, we had had to abandon the idea of living together. Why? I struggled to find the right words.

“For one thing, I’m not what you’d call conventional. I don’t care about birthdays, and I don’t celebrate most holidays. I don’t go to church.”

“And how does Armando feel about those things?”

“He’s very sentimental. He always makes a big fuss over my birthday, and he loves Christmas. The church thing doesn’t bother him, though.”

“So let him make a fuss over you once in a while and sing a few Christmas carols. No big deal. What else?”

I searched my mind for other
weirdnesses
. “The thing is
,
I’m usually happier alone than I am being with someone else for long periods of time. I’m perfectly content in my own company. I’ve never been one of those women who can’t have a meal in a restaurant or go to a movie by themselves. I do those things all the time very happily. And I like silence. I look forward to coming home to a quiet, orderly house at night and finding things exactly as I left them that morning.”

I jumped to my feet and paced in front of the desk, on a roll now. “And I’m selfish, okay? I freely admit it. I want things the way I want them, and I don’t enjoy the prospect of making endless compromises to accommodate someone else’s preferences. If I want to play rock and roll and bop around my living room, then that’s what I do. And if I want to cook fish and cauliflower and eat onions and garlic and drink a little too much wine, well, that’s my business.” I flapped my hands in frustration. “It’s about my personal space. I don’t want to lose it. Can you understand this at all?”

Margo gazed at me thoughtfully. “Well, Sugar, remind me never to come to your house for dinner. But the only thing I can’t understand is how you managed to hold down
demandin
’ jobs and raise Emma and Joey to be two reasonably socialized adults,
considerin
’ your need for large doses of solitude. Did you always feel that way?”

I thought about it. “Yes. No. Well, not to the same extent, although I was always happy in my own company. As a kid, I lived mostly inside my head, but that changed when the hormones kicked in. I hated school, but I dated and went to dances and fell in love once a week just like most of the other girls. Hell, I was even a cheerleader briefly.”

“You were not!” Margo feigned horror, and I paused in my pacing to make a face at her.

“I was too, at least until I quarreled with my boyfriend, who was the captain of the soccer team. He scored a goal during the next game, and it was my turn to do an individual cheer for the scorer. I refused to do it because I was still mad at him, and they kicked me off the squad,” I reminisced. Margo threw her head back and howled with laughter.

“Drummed out of the cheerleading squad!
Oh, the shame of it.”

“And then there was school in Boston, and my first jobs. After that, getting married seemed like a good idea. Wayne and I got along so well, and then Joey and Emma came along, and the days were so full. I always had a full-time job, and there was the house to take care of. Wayne helped when he could, but his job took over his life. Let’s face it. I was too tired at the end of each day to think about whether I was happy, whatever that is.” I grinned at my friend to lighten my words.

She grinned back, relieved by my attempt at levity. “But then the kids grew up, and you did think about it.”

“Yes, I did, more and more as the years went by. When I realized that I no longer wanted to be married, I felt bad, because I knew that would hurt Wayne. So I stuck it out much longer than I probably should have, and when we finally made the break, it was terrible. Still, I knew it was the right thing to do. Wayne deserved to be happy, and so did I.” I ran down, remembering the pain of that long-ago time.

“And you have been. Both of you,” Margo reminded me gently. She was right. After our divorce, it had taken Wayne only months to meet a terrific woman he would ultimately marry, and the two made a very successful match while I lived,
manless
, in blissful solitude.

“I didn’t even date for more than six years, Margo. Not so much as dinner with a man. I simply wasn’t interested.”

That got Margo’s full attention. “You didn’t go out on a date for six years? No handholding, no
kissin
,’ no …” She wiggled her eyebrows meaningfully.

“No nothing,” I said flatly, “and I was perfectly content. If Armando hadn’t come straight at me when we both worked at
TelCom
, I’m quite sure I would have been contentedly celibate to this day.”

Margo digested this information in incredulous silence. “Whew, that’s some dry spell, Sugar. Thank heaven for Latino cuties who won’t take no for an answer.”

 
“He didn’t exactly jump me in the office supplies closet. We just happened to hit it off,” I frowned and returned to the subject at hand. “The point is, we’ve been together ever since, and now we’re moving in together, and despite months of dithering, I’m still not sure it’s a good idea. It’s a really big step for me.”

“Oh, pooh.
It’s a really big step for him, too, and you don’t see Armando
sittin
’ around
wringin
’ his hands, do you? He’s been on his own for years and years too, don’t forget. But he’s made up his mind that you’re the one, and
vice versa
. So just take the plunge and see how it goes. Remember, the movers can get him out of there even quicker than they move him in,” she finished lightly. She slumped back on the sofa and resumed filing her nails.

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe I just can’t face the possibility of having to go through all of that awfulness a second time if this sharing a house thing doesn’t work out.” I cringed at the thought.
“Really.
I couldn’t.”

Margo looked up, understanding at last.
“
Ahhh
.
Now I get it.” She dropped her nail file back into her capacious purse and leaned forward to grab my hand. “Listen to me. You and Armando are two of the prickliest little devils I’ve ever met. Total
pisspots
, the two of you, but somehow you found each other. You know as well as I do, Sugar, that the only thing that matters in a relationship is that you can stand his quirks, and he can stand yours. You have both had years to decide that you can. I think it’s
goin
’ to be just fine.”

For Margo, that was quite a speech, and she didn’t give speeches very often. “You do?” I asked finally.

“I do,” she said firmly, “no pun intended. Now, what can we do to get the knot out of
Strutter’s
tail?”

 
 
 
 
 

Four

 

Twenty minutes later, we decided that since we were just assuming that
Strutter
was expecting, and it was possible that we were wrong, it was probably best to respect her obvious wish to keep her secret for the time being. We got on with the business of the day. Margo left to show a house, and I went to visit the
Henstock
ladies to see how they were bearing up under all the excitement.

As I waited once again on the sagging front porch of

185 Broad Street
for one of the sisters to answer my knock, I gazed around me and thought how truly splendid the French Second Empire-style house must have been in its heyday. Constructed in the late 1800s by
Henstock
ancestors, it had been home to Judge and Mrs.
Henstock
in the early years of their marriage, I knew. I did some hasty calculations and concluded that the sisters, now something over eighty years of age, would have been born in the 1920s. I smiled, imagining the two little girls playing among the now overgrown hedges and shrubbery. Perhaps they had tea parties for their dollies, much like those my Emma had hosted for her
Barbies
years ago.

A tapping on the front window interrupted my reverie.
Lavinia
and
Ada
Henstock
peered out at me from the front parlor window.
Ada
jabbed a finger to her right and mouthed words I couldn’t quite make out. Was someone else in the room with them? No,
Lavinia
wanted me to go somewhere.
But where?
Then I remembered the side entrance and nodded to show I understood. She smiled, and the sisters trotted out of sight to let me in.

Later, seated at the capacious kitchen table with another cup of excellent tea before me, I broached the subject of the remains retrieved that morning from the Spring Street Pond. “You’ve had quite a couple of days, haven’t you?”

Ada
rolled her eyes in agreement and sipped thirstily at her tea, but to my surprise,
Lavinia’s
eyes gleamed with excitement. “Oh, my, yes!
Such a lot of coming and going, what with the plumber and you and your partners, and then the police.
That nice Lieutenant came by again this morning to give us the news about finding the, um, body.” She
slid
her eyes sideways to
Ada
, but receiving no rebuke for her boldness, she continued. “I don’t suppose we’ve had this many people in the house since poor Papa’s funeral. My, wasn’t that a day, though.” Her face glowed at the memory.

Mention of the corpse hadn’t drawn a response from
Ada
, but mention of their father’s demise did. “For heaven’s sake,
Lavinia
, that was nearly forty years ago. We have certainly entertained guests since then. Why, don’t you remember that Christmas open house we had in celebration of the Bicentennial in ’96?” She was positively bristling at the implication that she and her sister were antisocial.

“I’m sure it was a lovely occasion,” I intervened hastily. “Tell me, have you had any further thoughts on the identity of the body? I’m sure the police have already questioned you about that, but I confess that I’m curious.”