Shop and Let Die (25 page)

I’d narrowed my focus down
to supermom, trying to forget the victims, not to mention the kids
of the victims. I had tried to help. It just hadn’t been
enough.

Most Saturdays are ripe
for a Supermom marathon — a tangle of sports events and/or family
outings. The fair had put a crimp in our usual schedule. I needed
to help Nancy Sakris supervise the Brownie troop cake decorating
extravaganza in the morning.

Then I needed to head to
the school to work the cake walk booth with Deb.

That meant Seth would take
Ryan to soccer practice and a double-header away game.

A long day, but
productive. The girls were working on a community service badge and
Nancy, my intrepid Brownie co-leader, had convinced Norma, one of
the Saints in the mother ecosphere, to let us work in her huge
farm-style kitchen.

Anna practically bounced
up the stairs to knock on Norma’s kitchen door. “I can’t wait to
earn another badge. I hope I make the prettiest cake at the cake
walk.”

“
I hope you do, too,
sweetie.” If things went well, the girls and their moms would show
up with cakes, get them decorated in an hour, and get them
delivered to the Cake Walk before the fair opened at 10 a.m. And
they’d earn a badge, too, thanks to Nancy’s wonderful organization
and planning skills. I’m technically her co-leader, but she does
all the leading, I just add an extra pair of hands, which is often
needed when you have sixteen second-graders to manage.

Norma’s house always
smells amazing. Besides being a PTA mom, she’s also a home
schooling mom. Elliot, besides being a genius, has Asperger’s
Syndrome and doesn’t do well with the chaotic and noisy school
environment. So she worked it out with the school that he’d go in
for two classes a day, and then come home and do the rest of his
curriculum with her.

I surveyed the bowls of
frosting and decorations all laid out, with dishcloths and wooden
spoons and spatulas. “You’ve got it all organized already, Norma.
Thank you. I wanted to help set up.”

Norma laughed and waved
her hands as if to indicate all her prep work was nothing. “No
need. Elliot and I took care of it after breakfast. I know there’s
not a lot of time before the fair opens. You have enough on your
plate today.”

I’m not sure how she does
it, but Norma always has a gentle smile on her face, and an
encouraging word for the rest of us frazzled moms. I know it isn’t
Prozac, unless it is some herbal natural form that I’ve never heard
of. Norma doesn’t do pharmaceuticals. She does meditation. And
yoga. And smile therapy.

Being around Norma is
almost as bad for me as being around Deirdre. They both make me
feel like I should change into a better Molly. Whatever that might
look like.

I confessed to her, on the
spur of the moment, “I’ve decided to get a real job.”

Norma laughed again, much
more deeply this time. She pointed to the kitchen, rapidly filling
with mothers and daughters, and cakes ready to be turned into works
of art. “Like this isn’t?”

I nodded. “It is. I just
want more. Seth’s feeling the pressure of being the primary
breadwinner. I want to take some of the pressure off of him. It
will make us both happier.”

“
Are you sure?” She didn’t
sound judgmental. Norma had a way of asking questions that would
sound harsh from someone else. From her, they sounded like she
really cared that I was sure, and if I was, she’d support me a
hundred percent.

“
I’m sure.” Maybe not a
hundred percent, but more than fifty.

“
Good. Happiness is just a
choice,” she said to me, as we watched the mother-daughter teams
out-decorating each other.

I’d let Anna do the
decorating mostly on her own. She’s creative, and I needed to
oversee the supply replenishment while Nancy handled checking off
the badge requirements for each girl. “I choose to be happy doing
what I’m doing.”

Nancy said, gently, “You
may want to try going a little easier on yourself.”

“
I should,” I agree,
though I can’t help but remember when the kids were tiny and I
thought I’d go out of my mind trapped in my house with two
demanding creatures who couldn’t even ask for what they wanted
without turning red and crying. I like being able to get out of the
house and shop. There was no reason why I couldn’t also like
getting out of the house and going to the office. “My only
hesitation is Ryan.”

Norma knew all about my
tribulations with Ryan. She said, without judgment, “If you took
Ryan out of school and delivered his curriculum to him, only had
him go to school for music and reading tutoring, I bet he’d be
reading at grade level in no time.”

This argument always got
me in the gut. “I’m not a reading teacher.”

She shook her head and
smiled. “No. You’re a mom. If you focus on one-on-one time with
him, that is like an entire school day in two hours.”

“
Really?”

“
Really. I do it every
day.”

I wished I could be like
her. But I knew better. I wasn’t Norma and Ryan wasn’t Elliot.
“Ryan wouldn’t like it. It would mark him as different.”

“
He is a conventional
little boy, isn’t he?” She sighed. “Well, you have to do what is
right for him. And you.”

“
Exactly.” And that meant
a real job. An office job. A respectable job I could talk about
with the influential people I invited to my house for parties. I
tried to imagine it, but my mind went to that terrifyingly empty
black hole space.

Fortunately, Deb came by,
showing off the cake she and Sarah had decorated with silver balls
and pink icing flowers, and rescued me. “Time to move out, Molly.
We’ve got to get the cake walk up and running.”

“
Yes ma’am,” I saluted. I
did take the time to hand Anna my phone and tell her to take a
picture of her cake, which was the best decorated cake there. And I
say that without an ounce of prejudice.

“
That one
deserves to be shot,” Deb said, pointing to a cake delivered at the
last minute by a mother of triplets.

“
I grant it a pardon.” I
found a place for it, behind some more attractive cakes. “At least
she tried. I don’t think I could have made a cake for the cake walk
if
I
had
triplets.”

“
True. Nancy Sackris is a
brilliant angel for organizing the troop to do cakes. We’ll have a
lot of good prizes this year.”

I nodded, glancing at the
line that was already forming, even though it was not quite ten.
“Even Bianca won’t be able to complain.”

Deb laughed. “Please. Of
course she will.”

The fair day was sunny and
warm, which meant we had a crowd of happy-to-be-out-and-about
families. Most of our cakes had been delivered on time, thanks to
Nancy’s suggestion that we have the troop do it.

Deb had refused my
suggestion that she go round up the stragglers while in uniform.
“You snooze, you lose,” she said. “Anyone who delivers a cake late
can just carry it around with them, or put it back in their
car.”

Anna and Sarah were
volunteering at the Balloon Toss booth, so we knew they wouldn’t
have much time to spend more than their allotted $5 on games and
treats.

I’d tucked four dollar
bills into my jeans, as just-in-case money. In case they ran out of
money early and got bored enough to abandon the balloons and help
us on the cake walk.

Running the Cake Walk was
anything but a cake walk. Even with Deb wearing her stern cop face,
we had to eject three people for switching squares after the music
had stopped. Three parents, not three children.

The cakes ranged from sad
to store-bought to good enough for a bakery window display, but
none of them seemed worth cheating for. Of course, I was still
trying to follow a low-carb plan, so what did I know?

I was having fun,
relaxing, trying to forget that I’d maybe let a serial killer get
away to kill again, when I thought I saw Hammond. I moved over to
get a better look.

Deb saw me and said, “Are
you okay?’

I’d always worried I’d be
caught secret shopping, but my nightmares were nothing to the
reality. “I thought I saw Hammond.”

“
Hammond?”

I tried to keep the panic
out of my voice. “One of the guys from last night.” I didn’t want
to say too much more, with all the people around.

She alerted, like a
terrier, her detective instincts roused. “Here? He didn’t have
kids, did he?”

“
No.” The music stopped,
and the winner of the next cake shouted in triumph. I led her to
the cakes, to make her choice, trying not to worry that I was about
to be outed by the nice man I’d—or Serena’d —had to dump rather
brutally after my big Serial Killer Suspect date night.

Deb started the music
again, her gaze scanning the area on high alert. She said tightly,
when I had returned to her side. “No one comes here on a beautiful
spring day if they don’t have kids or grandkids.”

“
Maybe he’s an
uncle.”

“
Uncle Creepy, you mean?”
Deb’s eyes were sweeping the knots of families, looking for the
loner, the stand out. “What was he wearing?”

I closed my eyes, and
pictured him, just as if I were about to write a shopper report.
“Jeans, a tan jacket. A white baseball cap with a Bruins logo, I
think. But I didn’t see his face. It may not be him.”

She looked at me,
impressed.

I felt simultaneously
insulted and proud. “Hey, I do this for work, you know.” Or, at
least, I had done it for work. I shook away the sadness.

She smiled. “Simmer down.
I’m not dissing you. I’m just glad to have something to go on.” She
looked at our line of eager cake walkers. “Can you handle this on
your own? I’m going to call Connery.”

“
That seems extreme.” I
really didn’t think Hammond was an Uncle Creepy, never mind a
serial killer.

She shrugged. “If he has a
reason to be here, fine. If not, I’d like to make sure Connery’s
people have eyes on him. Okay?”

“
Sure. Just don’t be too
long.”

She hadn’t been gone ten
minutes when I let in a new group of cake walkers — one of which
was Hammond.

I didn’t say anything when
I took his ticket, keeping my eyes down, hoping he wouldn’t notice
me. I started the music and everyone moved from one square to the
next, eyes on the cakes they hoped to win.

Hammond glanced at me
incuriously, then again. He’d noticed me. Not good. I wasn’t
dressed like Serena, of course, so maybe he’d noticed for some
other reason. I hoped so, anyway.

When the music stopped,
and the winner stood deciding on the cake she’d take home, he
stepped toward me, smiling. “Helping out your niece and
nephews?”

I shrugged. “It’s a good
cause. Why are you here?” Deb had wanted to know, after all. If I
didn’t ask, she’d be upset.

It was his turn to shrug.
“I was just looking for a little fun on such a nice
day.”

“
Fun?” I couldn’t keep the
skeptical look from my expression. No one came here without kids,
Deb was right.

He laughed. “Sure. I feel
about ten again — the best time of my life.”

I could relate. “Oh, you
mean when cotton candy seemed like the best food group
ever?”

“
Exactly.” His expression
shifted. “When do you get off duty?”

Uncomfortably, I reminded
him, “Like I told you in my email, I’m just not ready for a
relationship right now.”

“
Of course. I understand.
I only meant to be friendly, not to push. There was a book I wanted
to show you at the mall. You hurried off so quickly, I didn’t get
the chance.”

I pretended to be
disappointed. “Sorry, I’m babysitting my niece after the fair.” The
lie popped out easily. Anything to steer him away from
me.

“
Another time, then. I’ll
call you.” His gaze lingered just a little longer than I’d have
expected.

“
Definitely.” I nodded as
if I meant it, handed the winner the cake she’d finally chosen, and
got ready to start the next round of music. Call me. It was then I
realized I’d given him the number of a pizza place.

He turned and walked away
and I started to breathe a sigh of relief. The kids pushed past
him, running toward me with their ill-gotten loot. “Mom,” Anna
called, “Look! I got a goldfish.”

Hammond didn’t turn
around. I hoped he hadn’t heard. It bothered me a little that he’d
recognized me so easily without the wig and makeup. And
toilet-roll-stuffed bra.

He hadn’t said anything. I
could have imagined that his look had lingered on my face when he
mentioned calling me.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

The Spyder and the Fly

Deb came back just in time to hear all about
Anna’s new goldfish. “I couldn’t find him,” she whispered to me
when the girls weren’t listening.