Moving Can Be Murder (15 page)

“This is still our house,” said Jim. “We’re
not going anywhere. Any questions you ask Mary Alice you’ll do in
front of us.”

Whoa, Jim. Way to go. Although I feared that
his sudden burst of bravado wouldn’t sit too well with Paul. I
didn’t want to be hauled back to the police station again, even if
there was fresh latte being brewed just for us.

Jim was right, though. This still was our
house. So I switched into a familiar role – hostess.

“Why don’t we all sit down?” I suggested. I
looked around and realized that there wasn’t a single stick of
furniture left. The only thing I could come up with was the front
staircase. Well, it would have to do.

“Come on,” I patted the lowest step, “sit
beside me, Mary Alice.” And tell me what the heck you meant about
meeting me here last night. Are you trying to get into trouble with
the police, too?

I didn’t really say that, of course.

“I’ll stand,” said Paul. Of course, he would
stand. It was the only way he’d be taller than the rest of us. He
switched on the tape recorder again. “I’m continuing to record
this. Now, once again, give me your name and relationship to the
Andrews family.”

“I’m Mary Alice Costello, and I’ve been a
close friend of Carol’s and Jim’s for over thirty-five years. But I
don’t understand why you’re asking me these questions. Can someone
please tell me what’s going on?”

“All in good time,” said Paul. “Now, you say
you were here at the Andrews home last night? For what reason?”

“I came to meet Carol.” She looked at me,
questioning whether it was OK to go on. Since I had no clue what
she was going to say, I nodded my head.

“Carol and Jim sold their house, and the
closing is today. The idea of leaving the home where they had
raised their kids was especially hard for her. So we came up with
the idea of hiding something small in the house that would be
meaningful, so that a part of the Andrews family would always be
here.

“Don’t you remember, Carol? You saw this
suggestion on New England Dream House. It was about tips to conquer
seller’s remorse.”

Say what? This was news to me. Of course,
with all the stress of packing and moving, I could have
forgotten.

I started to ask her a question, but
Detective Paul stopped me.

“Don’t interrupt, Mrs. Andrews,” said
Paul.

He then began to barrage her with questions
himself, the little jerk.

“What time did you arrive? Did you see
anything out of the ordinary when you got here? What time did you
leave? Can you prove what time you left?”

To her credit, Mary Alice didn’t lose her
cool. I remember she told me once that, whenever someone gave her a
hard time, she pictured him in a hospital Johnny gown that was way
too small. I figured she was using that technique now. I pushed
that image out of my mind. It was too ugly a picture for me!

“I got here at ten-thirty, which is the time
Carol and I had agreed to meet,” Mary Alice said. “I waited for
half an hour, and she didn’t come. I figured she’d changed her
mind, so I went home. I didn’t try to call her, because I know
ten-thirty’s past her usual bedtime and I didn’t want to take a
chance on waking her up.”

She flashed me a quick smile, which I
returned.

“Did you go into the house?” Paul asked, not
giving Mary Alice a chance to catch her breath.

“Of course I didn’t,” she answered with
obvious impatience. “Why would I? How could I? It was all locked up
and nobody was around. I sat in my car and waited for Carol.”

At that point, a canine chorus from Lucy and
Ethel began from outside. I had completely forgotten about
them.

“Jim, would you…?”

The side door opened again and the dogs
raced into the house, followed by Nancy.

Bless their doggy hearts, they immediately
ran to Paul and gave him a thorough sniff. Friend or foe, they
wanted to know? And what’s he doing in our house?

They accomplished in a matter of seconds
what I’d been trying to do since I walked back into my house. Paul
immediately brushed away the dogs and turned off his tape
recorder.

“I’ll type up these statements and get them
to you to sign.”

He couldn’t get out of the house fast
enough.

Never trust a man who doesn’t like dogs.

There are two spots in Fairport, in addition
to The Paperback Café, that my group of friends patronize on a
regular basis: Crimpers, our local hair salon, and Maria’s
Trattoria, which specializes in the best Northern Italian food
around and is run by one of our kids’ former teachers, Maria
Lesco.

Deciding that the situation would look
brighter after we had a good meal – especially one that we didn’t
have to cook ourselves or clean up after -- Nancy, Mary Alice and I
were settled into a corner table at Maria’s. Jim had elected to
take the dogs back to our temporary digs. I think the idea of
having lunch with three women was too much for him to handle on top
of everything else that had happened. Not that I could blame
him.

“This is unbelievable,” Mary Alice said for
the umpteenth time. “If only I’d looked in the living room window.
It just never occurred to me.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” I
reassured her. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. It was just an
unfortunate accident.

“Besides, I have more things to feel guilty
about than you do. If I’d remembered I was supposed to meet you
last night, maybe we would have found Jack in time to save him. But
instead, I decided to go back to the house later for my own private
pity party, and look at the mess Jim and I are in now. And I didn’t
tell you that Sara Miller’s threatening to sue us for
negligence.”

I looked at Nancy, who had remained
unusually quiet so far. “Can the family really do that?”

“I have good news and bad news,” Nancy
replied, toying with her coffee spoon. “Which do you want to hear
first?”

I’m always one to take the bad news first.
That way, the good news sounds even better.

“Our attorney called the Cartwrights’
attorney this morning to get a preliminary read on the situation,”
Nancy said. “Poor guy. He hasn’t had much experience with a
situation like this.”

Nancy reached over and squeezed my hand.
“Not that I’m suggesting that you have, sweetie.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“Well, what’s going to happen about the
house sale?” asked Mary Alice.

“It looks like the sale is off,” Nancy said.
“At least, that’s what the Cartwrights’ attorney implied. He didn’t
say anything about a lawsuit, though.”

“Small comfort,” I said. “Is that supposed
to make me feel better?”

“I think Sara’s threat about a lawsuit was
just grief talking,” said Mary Alice. “She’s very upset, and took
it out on you.”

“Mary Alice is right,” said Nancy. “Remember
that your house passed inspection with no trouble at all. If there
had been any potential hazards there, the inspector would have
found them. And you and Jim would have fixed them.”

Jim! The man who’s made penny-pinching his
life’s work.

“Jim’s going to freak when he finds out the
sale is definitely off, and we are now the proud owners of not one,
but two houses. I don’t know how we’re going to afford this. How
soon can the house go back on the market? Can it happen today?”

Nancy paused and took a deep breath. “Here’s
the other piece of the bad news. Your house is now what we call in
the real estate business ‘psychologically impacted.’ That means
something dire has happened in it – in this case, the potential
buyer has died on the premises under somewhat suspicious
circumstances – and that has to be disclosed to potential buyers.
It often makes a property difficult, if not impossible to
sell.”

I gaped at Nancy. “Are you telling me that
we can’t sell our house? Ever? I thought what I went through last
night was bad. But this…this is even worse. What are we going to
do?”

At that moment, the cell phone in my purse
began to play my favorite Four Seasons’ song, “Big Girls Don’t
Cry,” which had taken on a whole new meaning in the last 24
hours.

“Carol honey, it’s Claire. I’ll bet you and
Nancy and Mary Alice are at Maria’s celebrating the house sale.
God, I wish I was there. I miss all of you.”

I started to cry. Again. And handed my phone
over to Mary Alice. “It’s Claire. Can you talk to her and tell her
what’s happened? I just can’t deal with it.”

“Let me handle it,” said Nancy, snatching
the phone away from Mary Alice. “You’ll take too long to get to the
point. I’ll go outside to talk to her. You deal with Carol. Try to
calm her down, if you can.”

Mary Alice glared at Nancy’s retreating
back. “Well!” she huffed. “It’s a good thing we’re friends or I’d
follow her outside and give her a smack upside the head.

“Here, Carol,” she said, handing me a fresh
tissue. “Wipe your eyes. And look on the bright side.”

“The bright side,” I said, my response
muffled by the tissue. “And what would that be?”

“Why, you were smart enough to wear
waterproof eye makeup this morning, of course,” said Mary Alice.
“You always plan ahead.”

“It’s comforting to know that I don’t have
raccoon eyes,” I said, massaging my right temple. “I have a
splitting headache. Do you have any drugs with you?”

Mary Alice looked at me like I was
crazy.

“Not hard drugs, Mary Alice. I didn’t mean
it that way. I just need some aspirin. You usually have something
in your purse.”

“What you need is some food,” Mary Alice
said. “When you get something in your stomach besides coffee,
you’re bound to feel better.

“Nancy’s coming back. Don’t worry. I’m not
really going to smack her.”

“Well, that’s all taken care of,” Nancy
said, sliding into her chair and handing me back my phone.
“Claire’s very worried about you and Jim, sweetie. God, she asks a
lot of questions! Probably because she’s married to an
attorney.

“She did have a suggestion, which I hope
will be all right with you, Carol, because I told her to go ahead.”
She paused and took a sip of her now cold coffee.

“Ugh,” she said, signaling the waitress for
a fresh cup. “Did you two order already?” Mary Alice was looking
daggers at her, but Nancy, as usual, was oblivious.

“We’ll all have the risotto with a house
salad,” Nancy said to our server, who scurried away to place the
order. “I hope that’s OK with everyone?”

“Would it matter if it wasn’t?” asked Mary
Alice. “You really are something.”

“This is a very stressful day for all of
us,” Nancy said, and squeezed Mary Alice’s hand.

This was probably as close to an apology
that Mary Alice was going to get under the circumstances, so she
gave Nancy a tight smile.

“What was Claire’s suggestion?” I asked,
anxious to diffuse the tension between two of my closest friends.
“Was it about selling the house?”

“No, not exactly,” replied Nancy. “She was
wondering about Mike. She was worried that he’d be upset if he saw
anything about Jack Cartwright’s death on one of those trash T.V.
shows. She offered to go to Cosmo’s today and tell him what
happened in person. I told her to go ahead. I hope that was
OK.”

“Of course that’s OK,” I said. “Thank God
for friends like Claire. And you. I don’t know what I’d do without
you. Both of you.” I squeezed their hands for emphasis.
Equally.

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” said Nancy.
“Now, do you want to hear the good news?”

“I’ll bet the good news is that you’re
putting this lunch on your expense account,” said Mary Alice, not
missing another chance to get a little dig in at Nancy’s
expense.

“No, smarty pants,” Nancy shot back. “It’s a
great idea about how to make Carol and Jim’s house saleable again.
If this works, and there’s no reason why it won’t, we’ll have
buyers in a bidding war within the next two months.”

I brightened. A bidding war? Jim would love
that.

“OK, I’ll bite. What’s this miracle idea of
yours?”

“It’s not my idea. It’s Marcia Fischer’s.
The home stager from Superior Interiors. You remember her, Carol.
She did such a terrific job with the house.”

I remembered that Marcia was a royal pain in
the patootie, but I wasn’t going to say that.

“Marcia wants to make your house into a show
house to benefit a local charity. Isn’t that a terrific idea?”