Part 1 (1/2)
Murder 101.
Maggie Barbieri.
To Jim. You know why.
Acknowledgments.
There are many people who helped me as I wrote this book and they must be thanked: Trixie Beltrano, Sydney Blake, Carrie Brandon, Sheila Curran, Eileen D'Anna, Susan Fleischman, Annie and Michael Gelfand, Melissa Glickman, Kerry Goldberg, John and Marisa Gorman, Alice Kenny, Robin Lawrence, Kevin Mulligan, Dea Perez, Chantal Schwartz, and Kelly Thomann.
A special thanks to my dear friend and writing-group partner, Alison Hendrie, who has encouraged me during the writing process, and helped me discover new ways to say things.
Thank you to Deborah Schneider, my fantastic agent and friend. And much grat.i.tude must go to editor extraordinaire Kelley Ragland, who believed in the entertainment value of Alison Bergeron and her struggles enough to take a chance on a first-time author. Thank you for your invaluable advice on the book and for being my sounding board. Thank you, too, to Kelley's colleague, Ryan Quinn, who was a great help to me during this entire process.
Thank you to Dr. Anna Pavlick and Dr. Daniel Coit, two brilliant and caring individuals who are a blessing to the medical community and their patients. They allowed me to have hope when hope was in short supply. Thanks, too, to Kathy Madden and Norma Sparks, my guardian angels here on earth.
To my sisters, Tricia and Colleen, my brother, Jimmy, and my parents for not laughing at me when I said I had written a novel. And for laughing when they read it.
And to my wonderful husband, Jim, and the best children anyone could have, Dea and Patrick, for listening to my story ideas, for never seeming bored, and for managing to stay conscious as I dissected every plot point for them. I love you.
One.
”Your a.s.s looks great in that dress.”
Max is my best friend and that's her idea of a compliment. When she showed up at my office precisely at six, I was bent over the lowest drawer of my filing cabinet putting some exam booklets away. We air kissed because, as usual, she had three layers of Russian Red lipstick painted on, and I didn't have turpentine handy to remove her lip prints from my cheek. ”Are you wearing a girdle?” She threw her briefcase onto one of my guest chairs and draped herself across the other one, throwing one leg over the arm of the chair. Max was in a gorgeous black dress and black shoes with red soles. She noticed me looking at them. ”Christian Louboutin,” she said. As if I knew what that meant.
I stood up and slammed my file cabinet shut and turned to face her. I wasn't sure if I should be flattered or insulted. ”I'm not wearing a girdle.” I paused a moment, not capable of lying. ”Just control-top panty hose.” I sat down behind my desk to tidy up before we headed off to the annual fund-raiser kickoff for the college where I teach and from which Max and I graduated. There was also to be a ceremony honoring Max-a rich alumna and proud donor of a technology cla.s.sroom. Our school has an unwritten motto: ”Keep your alumnae close and your rich alumnae closer.”
I got a look at myself in the reflection of the windows next to my desk. I had worn my ”good” dress-a sleeveless black sheath on which I had spent too much money five years earlier and felt compelled to wear everywhere in order just to get my money's worth-it's like the fas.h.i.+on version of amortization. I also had on nice black pumps, but I still didn't look like Max. I looked pretty good, for me. She's pet.i.te with long legs and a great body that has never been introduced to a piece of exercise equipment. She is a faithful pract.i.tioner of yoga, but I'm not exactly sure she practices it for the health benefits. She talks an awful lot about her yogi Brandon.
Max handed me a lipstick. ”Just put a little bit on so you don't look quite so cadaverous.” I gave her a look. ”What?” she asked, indignant; comparing me to a cadaver, in her world, signaled concern. ”These cla.s.srooms are leeching the life out of you.”
She walked over to the tall windows at the end of my office. There is a small patch of gra.s.s behind the building, as well as a long flight of stairs that goes past the auditorium and into the building where I have my office and teach all of my cla.s.ses, one of the three cla.s.sroom buildings on campus. She perched on the bench that served as a covering for the radiator and crossed her legs. A group of students and a couple of professors, all male, were playing touch football on the little patch of gra.s.s behind the building.
”Is your week going any better?” she asked, referring to the fact that my car had been stolen and my divorce had become final all in the last five days. She tapped her foot to some unheard beat, admiring the bunch of twentysomethings and their bare chests.
”Who's the hunk in the striped shorts?” she said, leaning in close to the window before I could answer.
I followed her gaze. ”Frank Johnson, head of the Business Department,” I said, and sprayed on some perfume.
”Single?”
I looked at her. ”Gay.” I thought the vertically striped linen shorts and the Choose Life! tank top were a dead giveaway.
She leaned her face against the cool gla.s.s. ”So? Your week?”
”I'm divorced, without a car, and walking to and from the train station. And everywhere I turn, I see my ex-husband with his newly bald head, goatee, and BMW. That pretty much sums up my week.”
”Do you want me to have him killed?” she asked, losing interest in the pans.e.xual football game and giving me her full attention. Seeing Ray, my ex, in a coffin surrounded by flowers was a fantasy I'm sure she had enjoyed for many years.
”Who are we having killed?” a male voice asked from my doorway. I turned around and saw that the voice belonged to one of a duo of men-both large, wearing guns, and holding s.h.i.+ny gold badges.
At five-foot-ten, I'm not used to being one of the smallest people in the room; rather, I usually tower over the little nuns and not fully developed coeds I encounter every day. These two were well into the six-foot-three or -four range, and one of them looked like he hadn't had a good day in weeks. Or a decent night's sleep. The more pleasant-looking of the two was dressed in a brown tweed jacket, khaki pants, a white s.h.i.+rt, and a blue-and-gold-striped tie. He held out one hand to shake and the other to show a gold badge. Not sure what to do, I took both and was then in the uncomfortable position of holding both of his hands at the same time. I dropped the one that didn't hold the badge.
”Alison Bergeron?” he asked, and stepped into my office. Designed to hold me, my stuff, and maybe one other person, it was getting tight.
I clutched the badge, not looking at it. ”Yes.”
”Detective Crawford, NYPD. This is Detective Wyatt.” He held his hand out to retrieve his badge.
The cranky-looking one grunted some kind of greeting. He was wearing a blue suit, and, when he sat down, I could see that he had on a beautifully tailored s.h.i.+rt with French cuffs that had his initials embroidered on them. He had light brown skin and very short black hair. He looked to be in his early forties and seemed to be the senior of the two officers. He took eyegla.s.ses out of his pocket and put them on as he turned in his chair and perused the books on my bookshelf.
Max seemed to be in a trance so I introduced her. ”This is my friend, Maxine Rayfield. We're on our way to an alumnae dinner,” I babbled. ”Max is being honored by the school.”
”We won't take too much of your time. Can we sit down?” Crawford asked. He looked pointedly at Max and then back at me.
I motioned to the empty chair across from my desk, which fronted the bookcase that Detective Wyatt was examining. ”Oh, she can stay. Max, sit down.”
She continued to stare at Wyatt. He didn't seem to register that there was anyone else in the room. She turned and looked at me, and mouthed, ”Married?” But I ignored her.
After several moments of silence while he looked at the books, Wyatt asked, ”Joyce scholar?”
I was surprised. ”Yes.”
He shook his head. ”I never got him.”
”A lot of people say that. I did my dissertation on him.” I immediately regretted sounding like Patty McSmartypants, but it was out there and couldn't be taken back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Max shoot me a look.
He raised his eyebrows in what was an attempt at conveying respect or disgust at my arrogance, I couldn't tell which. I asked Detective Crawford if they had found my car.
”I actually have a couple of questions about that,” he said, pulling out a leather-covered notebook and a pen. He leaned forward in the chair. ”When was the car taken, as far as you can ascertain?”
”I already had this conversation with a couple of police officers from the Fiftieth Precinct,” I said, trying to remain polite. According to my watch, Max and I had approximately seven minutes before we had to be at the c.o.c.ktail reception before the dinner. The chair of my department, Sister Mary McLaughlin, was a stickler for punctuality, and I had lost some ground with her because of my divorce. I guess I now had ”loose woman” written all over me. Yes, it's the twenty-first century. Except when you work for a nun.
He smiled. ”I know. Detective Wyatt and I just pulled the case, and we thought we'd go over it again.”
Max came to life. ”Do they always send detectives to look for stolen cars?” With the flush in her cheeks extending all the way to her red-bottomed shoes, I wasn't sure she was going to make it through the evening. I was also quite sure that if they did send detectives wearing big guns and no wedding rings to look for stolen cars, her new Jaguar would be missing by morning.
He s.h.i.+fted slightly. ”Well, not usually.” He looked at Detective Wyatt, who took a British literature anthology off my shelf and began thumbing through it. ”So, when did you realize it was missing?”
”I left my office at five-thirty on Monday, and it was gone. I usually park it in the lot right at the top of those stairs,” I said, pointing out my window. A group of students ran down the stairs, stopping briefly to look at the touch football game in the yard. ”I came back to my office and called the campus police who, I guess, called the real police.”
Wyatt let out a laugh that sounded like a car backfiring. Crawford looked at him, and he recovered his stony composure, reading the table of contents of the anthology with an intensity it didn't deserve.