Death Comes eCalling (4 page)

“Do you have kids, Tommy?”

“Got two teenage boys.”

“Don’t you worry that something you’re doing too much or too little of is going to warp them for life?”

“Can’t say as I ever worried about that.”

“Well, ask your wife. I’m sure she’ll know what I mean.”

He lowered his gaze. “Can’t. My wife died last year.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” How awful! She must have been only about my age. Her children were left without their mother. At least his sons were older than twelve. “Lemme take these for evidence.” He picked up my letter from Mrs. Kravett, too.

“Could I have… Please be sure to return the letter to me.”

He nodded, stood up, and slipped his cap back onto the groove in his hair. “Call the station next time another of these here threats arrive. Be sure ‘n’ ask for me.”

“Do you have any advice for ways I can
keep
from getting more of them?”

He shrugged and said, “You could turn off your computer. Course, I don’t suppose you’d get any emails that way.”

“Can you trace my computer email? See where these are coming from?”

He shook his head and chuckled. “On our budget? For two nasty messages? We’re not exactly talkin’ a matter of national security here. You s’pose they’re from your ex?”

“I don’t have an ex. My husband and I are still happily married. He just happens to be overseas.”

“Uh-huh.”

That “uh-huh” of his was as annoying as a hangnail.

“He’s in Manila on business. He…makes envelopes.”

“Uh-huh. Well. Great seeing you again, Moll. Let me know if I can be of any assistance again.”

Again. As if he’d actually done something. None the less, it was nice of Sergeant Newton to come all the way out to my home, and I thanked him sincerely as he left.

I fetched my children who, so far, were unaware of my current troubles, though that wouldn’t last. Five minutes at home proved sufficient time for them to get into a fight. I told them if they wanted to pick on someone to throw rocks at the rabbits in our gardens. That horrified them into temporary silence, and I set out to drown my sorrows in a sea of lime Jell-O.

Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You
can
go home again, provided you don’t
want
to. All of this trauma was giving me the same feeling of claustrophobia I’d lived with during my teen years.

The doorbell rang. It was Steve Wilkins, plus Lauren and Rachel. Steve was a large person. With his pale complexion and white-blond hair, he looked a bit like a polar bear. Though I’d liked him from the moment we’d met, he was stingy with his laughter and often wore a furrowed brow. At the moment, he looked frazzled. Lauren smiled at me as she stood beside him, but their body English hinted at some marital discord.

As soon as the children had run off to play, Steve said, “Lauren already filled me in about your unwanted correspondence. Do you have any idea what this could be about?”

I shook my head. “I hope it’s just some sort of joke someone from our class is pulling.”

“Lauren and I haven’t gotten any threats,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m also doing a consulting job for a company owned by the husbands of two of your classmates. They didn’t report anything of the sort. I’m going to go down and tinker with your software, if you don’t mind.”

“No, go ahead. Thanks.”

He was already down the stairs by the time I’d finished speaking. I glanced at Lauren, who was staring into space. We sat down. She declined my offer of iced tea or lime Jell-O. I asked, “Whose husbands are he referring to?”

“Stephanie’s and Denise’s.”

“Denise stopped by a while ago. Is she divorced?”

“No, but I’ve lost track of how many times she’s called to ask me if her husband’s having an affair. She thought since he and Steve were working together I’d know. As if Steve would tell me something like that, even if he was privy to it.”

Perhaps I’d just found a motive, albeit bizarre, for a classmate to send me hate mail.

There was a weighty pause. Lauren was chewing on her lower lip, a nervous habit whenever she was upset. She was probably just frustrated with the long hours Steve put into his work, but this wasn’t the time for me to inquire.

“Are you going to the PTA meeting tomorrow night?”

She smiled faintly. “No, I avoid those things like the plague. But I’ll watch the kids while you go. Be sure and say hi to Jack Vance for me.”

“I can’t get over the thought of Jack Vance as a principal. Bet that keeps attendance among mothers pretty high at meetings.”

“What do you—” Lauren stopped, then chuckled. “You haven’t seen him in a while. Well, I won’t spoil it for you.”

“Uh-oh. He’s not drop-dead handsome anymore?”

She gave me a sly grin. “He’s not exactly bad-looking. He’s just not the Vance. Too bad, too. He’s single again.”

Lauren hopped to her feet as Steve trudged up the stairs. “I’ve got a couple of possible IP addresses for the computers that might have been used to send the emails. Let me look into it, and I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

“Great. Thanks.”

He still hadn’t cracked a smile. Lauren and he seemed to be avoiding any eye contact. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that I used to get as a child whenever my parents argued.

“Listen, Molly,” Lauren said, “you’ve had a big shock. How about if we watch the kids for a couple of hours?”

“Thank you. That’s really nice. I’ll send them over after dinner.”

They left, and I set about fixing supper. Meal preparation was one advantage to having an absent husband. My culinary skills had diminished to nonexistent once my children’s vocabulary expanded to include the word
Yuck.
That had been my son’s first word. At least with Jim gone I didn’t have to witness his attempts to mask his disappointment over dinner.

We ate pork chops, macaroni and cheese, and lime Jell-O so I wasn’t depriving my children of their greens. As I ate, I sketched an idea for an employee-departure card: a cigarette-smoking black cat wearing a collar labeled Socks, his white paws banging away at a typewriter as he thinks, “I’m at
least
as talented as the former First Dog.” The caption read:
Best of Luck in Your Future Endeavors.

Nathan balked at the idea of going to Rachel’s house a second time in the same day, complaining the girls always played Barbie and he was sick of the role of Ken. Karen promised this time they’d play Mommy, Daddy, and Baby Trucks, and that won him over.

I wasted my hard-earned “unwind” time grocery shopping. While struggling to learn the layout of the unfamiliar store, I stumbled upon the greeting card section. Time to play the plagiarism game, a monthly exercise in self-torture to find out if I’d accidentally copied someone’s design and was about to be sued. My technique was to scan the cards while squinting, to check for any designs that looked like mine without actually reading any.

That accomplished, it occurred to me that inviting my old school chums for dinner was a good way to squish myself out of the Carlton grapevine and get a feel for who might be my one-way poisonous pen pal. I decided to stock up with manicotti ingredients for a dinner party.

During the short drive home, it hit me that school started in the morning. My youngest child would be going to kindergarten. Only yesterday he was a chubby, giggling baby. My eyes instantly misted, blurring my vision.

Something was wrong. I was sure I had turned onto Little John Lane. But that couldn’t be Lauren’s house.

I slowly realized my mind wasn’t accepting what I was seeing. In Lauren’s driveway were two police cars, lights flashing.

Chapter 4

Into Each Life…

The first person I saw as I burst into Lauren’s house was Carolee, our neighbor from across the street. “Everything’s fine,” she told me. “The burglar alarm went off. Someone tried to break in by prying open a window in back.”

I leaned against the wall momentarily, trying to force my breath and heart rate into some semblance of normal.

“Where are the children?”

“With Lauren in the basement. She took them down there to keep them away from all the excitement. Steve’s out back with the officers.”

I nodded, grateful that Lauren’s parenting instincts matched my own.

“Maybe you should sit down.” Carolee reached for my wrist, and I could tell by the way she was aiming her thumb she was hoping to check my pulse. Once a nurse, always a nurse.

I lifted my hands. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

Her blond hair was neatly curled and she wore her usual perfect makeup. Her new, white tennis shoes had green markings. She must have run across the lawn to get here. I heard a dull scrape as someone opened the sliding glass back door.

“…probably spotted the computers through my office window,” Steve was saying.

Steve and Tommy Newton rounded the corner, followed by two uniformed officers.

“We meet again,” Tommy said, grinning at me. “Can’t remember the last time I’ve taken two calls in the Sherwood Forest subdivision the same day. Must be havin’ you back in town, huh, Moll? Brought us some excitement.”

Carolee laughed as if Tommy’s greeting were witty. She seemed to be eyeing him with considerable interest. No accounting for taste. Tommy touched the brim of his hat and smiled at her, to acknowledge a mutual interest perhaps. Like me, Carolee was in her mid-thirties. She was very attractive from the waist up, but had the skinniest legs imaginable, now hidden in aqua-colored sweatpants.

Steve said, “It’s nothing, Molly. Some creep tried to break into my office. He ran before we got a look at him, but there are crowbar marks on the windowsill. I’m sure whoever it was just figured he could sneak in and out of my office window and not get caught. Probably assumed we didn’t have an alarm or wouldn’t have it activated when we were home.”

Steve’s suggestion made sense. His office was stocked with the latest in expensive equipment, including notebook computers that could be swiped swiftly. Yet my intuition wasn’t buying a word of it. Death threats followed by an attempted break-in at the house where my children were. What the hell was going on?

Steve wasn’t meeting my eyes. There was something he wasn’t telling.

My sleep was troubled, interrupted by nightmares and fears that every little noise might be a prowler. Even the serenade of crickets and katydids sounded ominous. Morning finally arrived. That meant the first day of school.

My daughter, Karen, had thus far been blessed with exceptional teachers and wonderful school experiences. Her luck was still holding, for she was in Rachel’s class, and Lauren had assured me their teacher was the best in the entire school. Karen insisted on taking the bus with Rachel. That allowed me to wallow fully in my apprehensions for Nathan.

He didn’t say a word during breakfast and barely touched his Rice Krispies. I suggested he wear his bright green baseball cap, which was his personal security blanket. Between that and his yellow T-shirt and purple pants, he was at least going to be easy to spot.

We drove to the school. Nathan’s silence was killing me. I spewed so many positive statements at him I sounded like a videoed aerobics instructor. We pulled into the lot and got out of the car. His warm little hand held tightly to mine as I led him across the kindergarten playground toward his classmates. They were lined up against the outside of the brick building behind their white-haired teacher.

The teacher greeted Nathan warmly and instructed him to take his place in line, and asked me to join the group of wan-faced mothers a short distance away. Then she started the line moving into the building. The sight of my little boy trying to be stoic, his protruding lower lip trembling as he followed his classmates, was gut-wrenching.

Just as he was about to enter the room, he turned and yelled, “I wanted to ride the bus, Mommy!” Then he disappeared inside.

A couple of mothers laughed.

“My son loves public transportation,” I said to no one in particular. I went home and tried to concentrate on the newspaper.

There was a lengthy obituary for Phoebe Steinway Kravett. She had no children and her husband had died five months ago. The only survivor listed was a sister in Seattle. The funeral was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

Now I was thoroughly depressed.

I decided to use my current emotional state to design a cheer-up card. My new design showed people at a bus stop staring at a woman in their midst being drenched by her own personal rain cloud. The caption was:
Into Each Life, a Little Torrential Rain Doth Pour.

Later, I joined the anxious mob of mothers outside the school, automatically standing in the same spot the teacher had assigned to us at the start of the day. Nathan was the tenth child out the door, his cap now in his hand. I knelt and he rushed into my arms crying, “Mommy.” He wrapped both arms and legs around me, and I reveled in the warmth and scent of his little body.

Unfortunately, he was closely followed by his teacher, who did not look happy. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you Nathan Masters’ mother?” Her voice was thin; worn out from years of making herself heard.

My first impulse was to point out that Nathan didn’t call me Mommy for nothing. But I smiled up at her and said, “Yes, I am.” As Nathan released me from my hug, I told him, “Sweetie, show me how well you can go down the slide while I speak with your teacher for a moment.”

Nathan peered suspiciously at both of us, handed me his cap, then slowly walked toward the slide.

“How did things go today?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t say a word, even to tell me his name. So I decided to let him choose the first animal during ‘Old MacDonald.’” She paused and grimaced.

“And did he say anything?” I waved at Nathan at the top of the slide.

“Oh, yes.” She sighed. “But instead of naming an animal, he said, ‘Poop.’ It totally disrupted the class. All the children started laughing.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said with feigned enthusiasm. “I was so worried. He can be so shy sometimes. What a fabulous job you must be doing to draw him out like that. Thank you so much.”