Death Comes eCalling (3 page)

“Nathan and I are making a list of lost people. Then when we find them, we write where they were and cross their names off the list. Rachel lost her cat, Missy, yesterday and found her in Carolee’s tree.”

I peered at the sheet of paper on the clipboard. The first column read:
Who are you missing?
The second column read:
Did you find them?
Below the headings were:
Misy. Fond in tree. Daddy. In Filupeens.

Suddenly I had a painful lump in my throat. I missed my husband. I missed my friends in Colorado. Someone was emailing me hateful accusations. I’d lost a chance to see my former teacher and clear the air. Now she was dead.

Karen was watching me expectantly, her dark eyes focused right on mine. I forced a smile. “I lost my appetite recently.”

“That’s not a whole person.” Karen took a seat on the stone edging of the garden. “I know. You lost somebody named Mrs. Kravett.”

I sighed. I wished my children were even half as attentive when I spoke to them as they were to my private conversations. “That’s right. She was a teacher of mine.”

Nathan pointed at Karen. “Write down, ‘Mommy lost her teacher Mrs. Cavity.’”

Karen wrote, Mrs. Kravit. Then she said, “And she was found dead, right?”

“That’s right.” I didn’t want to discuss Mrs. Kravett or think about her death until I had a chance to be alone. “Maybe there are some cartoons on television.”

Karen wrote:
Fond ded
, then followed Nathan into the house.

The children told me they were too full for Jell-O. So much for that advertising slogan. The flowered centerpiece bobbed as I struggled to cram the bowl into my refrigerator, giving me an idea for a card. Work had long been my catharsis, something I was especially in need of now.

While my children watched a DVD of
Bugs Bunny
, I grabbed my sketch pad from under the couch and made a drawing of a plump woman working out at the gym. The woman was saying, “My aerobics instructor claims this exercise gives you ‘Buns of Steel.’ Personally. I’d settle for buns of day-old Jell-O.”

Afterward, I appraised my newest creation. It could get me sued by Kraft Foods, by the producer of the
Buns of Steel
workout tape, and NOW. Three special-interest groups possibly offended by one cartoon. A personal record. I went into my office, having decided to scan it into my computer now and consider its marketing potential later.

My business address had received another email from my personal address. I braced myself and opened it. The note read:

This is your last warning, Molly. It’s YOUR fault she’s dead! You’ll pay for it! LEAVE NOW OR YOU’RE GOING TO DROWN IN YOUR OWN BLOOD!

Chapter 3

As Talented as the Former First Dog

My computer beeped with yet another email. My hands were shaking as I clicked on it and read:

I’m afraid we still haven’t agreed whether we want you to set our Christmas letter to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” or “Away in a Manger.” Mr. Styler still wants “Wesley had gallbladder surgery” in the place of “Five golden rings,” but I think that’s overkill, don’t you? We’ll keep you posted!

Best,

Mrs. Wesley Styler of Manhattan

This being early September, they found the matter considerably more pressing than I did, though I agreed with Mrs. Wesley Styler of Manhattan about her husband’s gallbladder.

I calculated the time in Manila. It was a few minutes after 6:00 a.m. there. Jim was probably already en route to his office. I decided against calling. There was no point in worrying him when there was nothing he could do anyway. I looked again at the death threat. With two of these, I could no longer dismiss it as some random prank, and the second one identified me by name.

How could anyone possibly blame me for her death? Maybe because I didn’t look up Mrs. Kravett as soon as I arrived in town. No, that made no sense. But someone who knew about my poem and was overwrought with grief at her death might feel justified in venting at me.

Any relatives of hers shouldn’t have known I was back in town, let alone know my email address. That wasn’t true of former classmates. Stephanie Geist and Denise Meekers were still here. Plus Jack Vance, the class hunk, now school principal, of all things. Could one of them have sent the emails?

Jack had never noticed me in school. I doubted he cared one way or another about my return. Though Stephanie and I had never been friends, she had no reason to hate me, nor was I aware of her having bonded with Mrs. Kravett.

Denise, on the other hand, was certainly mourning Mrs. Kravett. Hopefully Denise had forgotten who tagged her Meeky Mouse. I had an excuse for that, though admittedly lame. My full maiden name is Molly Octavia Peterson, Molly being my mother’s choice and Octavia my mathematician father’s. Neither of them stopped to consider what it would do to a kid to have MOP monogrammed on her clothing. It introduces you to the name game early, and I always was the sort who figured the best defense was a good offense.

Now that my last name is Masters, I do my best to smile when someone learns my middle initial and points out that it spells MOM, as if I’d never realized that.

It occurred to me that I could check the handwriting on the letter to make sure Mrs. Kravett had really written it. I grabbed the letter and dashed upstairs to my daughter’s room, which used to be my room. On tiptoe, I rifled through stacks of memorabilia and mothballed blankets. This closet wasn’t as jam-packed as the one in my sister’s old room, which now housed all the unwanted presents my parents had received over the years. During Christmas gatherings, we’d watch Mother open gifts and joke about who made the closet this year. Aunt Louise has the record. Fourteen consecutive Christmas closets.

My dusty old yearbook was still on the shelf. I sat on the bed, the squeak of the box springs striking a familiar chord, and looked up Denise Meekers’s picture. Her inscription read: “To my dear friend Molly, I’ll never forget all the fun we’ve had. I know we’ll be friends for life. Love always, Denise.”

Again I felt a pang of guilt at my aloofness. The glossy paper still bore that lingering smell unique to photo albums. I glanced at the pictures with a sense of detachment I once wouldn’t have believed possible. With the exception of Stephanie Geist and Jack Vance, we were all somewhat less than gorgeous. At the time it felt as if I were the only truly ugly kid there.

Between back pages, I located the note I’d saved from Mrs. Kravett.

On that dreadful day, she’d stood in front of her English class and said, “I know who wrote that poem about me in the student newspaper. Though you chose to humiliate me in public. I will allow you to apologize to me in private. The poet can report to me after class. Otherwise, you risk receiving an F as a final grade.”

There had been no furtive eye contact between us, nor was any necessary. Even as I’d tried to kid myself that she didn’t
really
know it was my poem, I was well aware that my burning cheeks had betrayed me. I didn’t stay after class. I was too ashamed. I merely left a sheet of paper on her desk, with the words:
I’m sorry. Molly

Now I compared Mrs. Kravett’s letter with the handwriting below my apology to her. It was the same.

In English class the day after I’d anonymously left her the note, I’d found it inside my desk. Below my words she had written with a fountain pen, “Not good enough. If I ask more from you than I do from most of my students, it is because you have more to offer. You need to discover that about yourself someday.”

During class, I’d sat at my desk with tears streaming down my face. She called on me and asked me to interpret a passage from the book we were studying. I no longer remember which passage, which book, or my answer. But I do recall her response. “Good, Molly.” Then she called on another student, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. I also recall my final grade. A plus.

I replaced the note in my yearbook. In the master bedroom across the hall, I stashed the book in the nightstand and called the police. To my surprise, the sergeant said he’d come out and take a look at the messages.

Nathan had built a duck family with Legos and now lined them up, mid-waddle, across the family room. Karen was hypnotized by the TV. I stood in front of it and said, “I’m going next door to get something. I’ll be right back.”

“To Rachel’s house?” Karen asked. “Can I come?” Nathan objected to being “left all lonely,” so the three of us made the short but humid trek past the consumed garden and the lawn in need of another mow. If only rabbits would graze on grass. The Wilkinses’ property, in contrast, was meticulous. They used a lawn service. The same one I’d told my parents they wouldn’t need now that
I
was in their house.

No one answered the doorbell. My children looked at me as if this were my fault. When we were halfway home, Lauren’s car rounded the bend. We followed her into the garage. I felt self-conscious about intercepting her in her garage twice in the same day. As she got out of the car, I joked, “You’ve got to start shutting your garage faster. Otherwise, all sorts of neighborhood riff-raff might wander in.”

She laughed and lifted a grocery bag from its perch beside her daughter.

“Didn’t you just get back from the store?”

“I forgot the milk. Rachel said I forgot a couple of boxes of double-chocolate chewy something-or-others as well.”

“Let me give you a hand.” I grabbed the bag from her and widened my eyes to signal that we needed to talk sans children. We made a quick kitchen-garage round trip that included my update and her returning the first email to me. She also graciously offered to keep Karen and Nathan at her house until the officer had gone.

As I returned home, the sergeant’s last name rang a bell. More like a gong, in this case.

At the first sound of a car pulling into the driveway, I raced to the front window in time to see the officer climb the front steps. He was indeed Tommy Newton, the runt of my graduating class. Didn’t anyone in this town ever
leave?
Was I the only one who got out?

I opened the door. He still had his thick red hair, which poked out from beneath the brim of his cap. In fact, he looked every inch the boy I went through my school years attempting to ignore. He was merely larger, like an image on a balloon inflated by another breath or two.

Back then, Tommy had a face that attracted dirt. All my recollections of him were with his having a runny nose, but his sinus condition had apparently cleared.

He nodded somberly at me. In fiat tones, he said, “Hello. I’m Sergeant Newton.” He pointed at my house number. “And this is twenty-twenty.”

“Very amusing, Tom.”

He whipped off his mirrored shades and grinned. “Hello, Molly. Long time. Heard ‘bout your husband. You want I should try ‘n’ track him down?”

What was it with this folksy John Wayne drawl? The man had never stepped a hundred yards outside of upstate New York. “No. I just thought I should report the threats I’m receiving in my business email address.”

“Uh-huh.”

We went inside and sat at the cherry-wood dining table. I resisted the impulse to offer him something to drink, because young Tommy had been such a klutz, and I was still paranoid about damaging Mom’s furniture. He pulled off his cap and dropped it onto his lap. His cap had left a comical band-shaped impression in his red hair. I handed him the printed threats.

“Should I show you my computer setup? I’ve got an office downstairs.”

“Just the fax, ma’am.”

I grimaced, and Tommy held up his hand, laughing.

“Been waiting for a straight-line like that for years.”

“Yes, well. You’re welcome.” But they're emails, not faxes.

As Tommy studied the two notes, I stared at him in disbelief. What if I needed help from the police to protect my family? He was a sergeant. That meant he had people under him.

Tommy dragged the back of his hand across his lips, then asked, “So you got both of these this afternoon?”

“The times I read them are close to times printed on them. It’s a screen shot.”

He said, “Uh-huh” and nodded. “So you got one at ten after four, and the other an hour later. Got any idea who sent ‘em?”

“No. But I got this letter from Mrs. Kravett in today’s mail.” I handed it to him, along with the envelope, and while he read it, I continued, “I’m worried that the references to ‘dear lady’ and ‘she’s dead’ mean Mrs. Kravett, and the sender thinks I’m responsible.”

He finished the letter, set it down, and reread the emails. “Why do you s’pose someone might think that?”

“Remember the nasty, anonymous poem about her that was published in the school newspaper? I wrote it.”

His face remained blank.

“A lot of people figured that out. Including Mrs.Kravett. But anyone who thinks
that
had anything to do with her death almost twenty years later would have to be crazy.”

Again he merely said, “Uh-huh” and nodded.

“There was all that furor when the poem first came out over whether or not she used corporal punishment. Surely that must have died down quickly, though, right?”

Tommy shrugged.

His lack of response was getting to me.
Did
he remember that blasted poem after all these years? Was his silence geared at tempting me to say more? He might be a good policeman after all. “Tom, I—”

“Call me Tommy.”

“Tommy, I’ll understand if you can’t answer this, but is there any chance Mrs. Kravett’s death wasn’t simply a heart attack?”

“What do you mean?”

“Could she have been murdered?”

“Nope. It was a heart attack, all right. Had a weak heart. Shoulda quit teaching long ago.” He stared at the first email as he spoke. “This line here says, ‘You think no one knows you’re guilty.’ You got anything to feel guilty about? ‘Sides the poem, I mean.”

“I’m a mother. I feel guilty by definition.”

“Pardon?” He studied my eyes.