Mom Zone Mysteries 02 Staying Home Is a Killer (16 page)

“I don’t know. I can check. Or you could call Will.”

“I’ve tried! I’ve left him three messages and he hasn’t returned my calls. I wanted to use one for the exhibit brochure and I have to get it to the printer the day after tomorrow at the latest.”

“Hang on just a minute.”

I walked into the bedroom where Mitch was hunched over the computer. Multicolored shapes flew across the screen. “Is Will TDY?”

Distracted, Mitch paused. “Umm, he’s at Sutton.” A crescendo of music and an annoying buzzer drew Mitch back to the game.

I translated military jargon into civilian terms. “He’s in Kansas. I think, if I’ve got the right base. How about I run down to their house and see if I can find them? If I find them, do you want to come down and pick them up?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t. I can’t get away right now and I’m booked all day tomorrow with meetings about Frost Fest. I’ll run by after six. Oh, I can’t do that either because I’m teaching Penny’s art appreciation class.”

“If I find it, I can drop it off at the end of your class.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Even though it was another thing to do, I was almost glad that Will was gone. It would give me an excuse to go back to his house. I’d also get to talk to Hetty Sullivan about Penny again and I could try and catch Clarissa at the class.

The phone rang again and Mitch picked it up. After a pause, he said, “Okay. This is real world, not an exercise? Warm or cold weather gear? Come on, you have to have a clue.”

I sighed with a mix of exasperation and dread. I went back to our bedroom to drag Mitch’s suitcase out and check the news. He was on alert again.

We didn’t hear anything from the squadron all day Monday. I was beginning to think the squad had forgotten about Mitch. He shoveled the driveway and sidewalks, lined up Mabel’s husband to clear them if he was deployed, and then played with Livvy in between his absentminded wandering around the house. The situation, we jokingly called it house arrest, put an end to a Valentine’s dinner out. I canceled the sitter and Mitch grilled us steaks. We ate by candlelight, which Livvy found amazing, but we were all a little jittery and that was unusual for Mitch.

The phone rang at three-thirty in the morning. Mitch answered and I stumbled down the hall to close Livvy’s door, my stomach doing flip-flops. I hated this part of his job. The abrupt good-byes were awful, especially when I didn’t know when he’d be back.

He took a quick shower and I put two energy bars, a juice box, and a note in his flight bag. He came down the hall carrying his boots so he wouldn’t wake up Livvy. I shivered and turned up the heat while he sat at the table and laced the boots and tied them.

“Want anything to eat?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“Nope. I’ve got to go. I’ve got forty-five minutes to get there.”

“Did they say where you’re going?”

“No, again. Oh, my bag. He tiptoed down the hall and stealthily returned carrying his shaving bag. “A man’s gotta look good,” he joked.

I managed a small smile. His joking attitude was a defense against anxiety. I walked into his arms. After our good-byes, I watched him load his suitcase and his C bag into his car and back out of the driveway. I was ready to wave, but he didn’t look back. He was already focused on the mission. I let the curtain fall back into place and walked through the dark house, absently straightening a pillow on the couch and a dining room chair. I felt sad that he was gone, but it was tinged with a bit of excitement that he was—and to some extent we were—participating in something bigger than ourselves.

I couldn’t sleep, so at five-thirty I got up and switched on the television. A perky local anchor informed me, “Six crews from Greenly deployed to support Operation Shelter. They left early this morning for the Azores where the refuelers will create an air bridge for fighters and cargo jets tasked with stabilizing the situation in Osan, where militants threaten the U.S. embassy.”

I rolled my eyes and turned on the shower water. Mitch didn’t know where he was going, and even if he knew, he couldn’t tell me. But the PA office could release the info to the local news. Give me a break.

My boots squished on the slick tiles of the long hall. I switched the box with the remaining photographs for the art show from my left arm to my right and picked up my pace. I sailed past dark classroom doors, my gaze flicking over the numbers mounted on the lintels. Occasionally, large floor-to-ceiling windows broke the monotony of the doors. The dark squares of black reflected my image back at me in their blank panes of glass. There’s probably a nice view from those windows during the day, but at night the empty black voids unnerved me a bit. Finally, I heard a voice from the end of the hall, a scratchy, hoarse voice. I was almost there. I took a deep breath and slowed down, realizing that I’d been moving pretty fast down the hall and was out of breath.

When Mitch had to go on trips I tried to keep our routine as normal as possible. So I’d dropped Livvy off at her play date with Irene’s kids. Actually, Irene had held Livvy while I pried Livvy’s fingers off my arm and shoulder. I’d gone out to the Cherokee and waited. No need to get too far before Irene called me to come back and get Livvy. Sure enough my phone rang. “What are you doing sitting in my driveway?” Irene asked.

“Waiting for you to call me to come get Livvy.” I strained to hear her cries in the background, but I didn’t hear anything.

“She’s fine. She’s playing with Megan. They’re cooking in her play kitchen.”

“Oh. Okay. See you in what? An hour?”

“How about two?”

So I picked up the photographs from Penny’s house, then hurried up to Vernon Community College to drop them off with Hetty.

I paused outside the door. “So what do you notice? What’s different?” asked Hetty as she stood beside a large screen on the stage of the darkened theater. A photograph of a Madonna and child glowed on the screen.

A student near the door said, “It looks a little more realistic. Not so flat.”

“Right. For the first time we see figures that have depth. See the curves of the faces in Giotto’s
Madonna in Glory
? And notice the posture, the position, of the child? More natural than the mosaics.”

Scattered students filled the front third of the theater. Hetty clicked the remote and the slide carousel whirred and snapped to a blank screen. No PowerPoint presentations at the community college. I wondered if it was lack of funding or a resistance to technology. “That’s it for this week,” Hetty said as she switched on the overhead lights, which moved the light in the theater up from “dark” to “dim.” Over the rustling of paper as students closed notebooks and grabbed purses and backpacks, Hetty yelled, “Perspective next week. Read the section on Masaccio and look at
The Holy Trinity
. See you then.”

I set the box down and waited as the students filed out in clumps, a few planning to get a latte at the coffee shop across the street. I scanned the faces, but didn’t see Clarissa Bedford.

Toting an oversized leather purse, the slide projector, and three books, Hetty arrived in the hall and spotted me. “You found them! Thanks so much for bringing them over.”

“No problem. I found them in Penny’s car. She hadn’t unloaded it yet.” I set the box down and pulled out the framed photos cushioned in bubble wrap. “Are these what you’re looking for?” I folded the cushiony plastic back and showed her the black-and-white photo of a crew posed in front of a sign that read
GREENLY AFB
.

“Yes. You’re wonderful.”

“No problem. I found this, too.” I held out a color snap of a cocky airman leaning on the wing of a plane. I flipped it over to show her the faded handwriting on the back.
Jack Bedford
.

“Oh, that’s priceless. He’ll kill me, but I have to use it.”

I replaced the framed photos in the box and set the snapshot on top. “I’ll carry this for you. You look like you’ve got your hands full.”

“Thanks. Let’s take it to my car. My office is on the other side of the building and it’s packed to the gills right now anyway.”

“Okay.” I followed her down the hall and out a door that opened onto a side parking lot for faculty. “I didn’t see Clarissa Bedford tonight. Is she still in the class?” I really needed to talk to her since she was the only person who was actually seen at Penny’s house. Ballard seemed a little kooky, but harmless. Victor and Mr. Baseball Cap needed Penny alive to help them, and the crew was only hiding their own stupidity. Clarissa admitted being at the scene of the crime and she had a motive, jealousy.

Hetty thought for a moment. “She wasn’t here tonight, but she was here last week. I remember her arguing with a man in the hallway before class.”

“Was it General Bedford?”

“Good heavens, no. This man was wearing a flight suit. But he was short with blond hair. And young.”

Definitely not Bedford, then, since he was bald with just a fringe of hair. And he’d be more likely to wear blues, the uniform with a light blue shirt and dark blue pants.

“I did miss her tonight. I didn’t realize how much she contributed to the class.” Hetty continued, “She’s fairly quiet, but when she does speak up her comments are well thought out. Asks good questions, too. But as far as I know she’s still enrolled.” Hetty unlocked a red Volvo station wagon, placed her load in the back, and then took the box from me. “Well, thanks for your help. I really appreciate it. Here.” She dug in her pocket. “I want you and your husband to have these. They’re for the preview party the day before the show opens. It will be quite a gala, for Vernon. We’ll even have a foreign trade delegation there. Not to mention the governor.”

I took the tickets. “Thanks so much,” I said. Maybe Mitch would be back and could go with me, if I could convince him. He’d jump at tickets to a basketball game, but I knew he’d frown when I told him about the preview show and then say, “And what am I going to have to wear to this thing? Are you sure we have to go?”

Hetty opened her car door and slid behind the wheel. “I’ll see you there. This is definitely my last Frost Fest.” She waved and shut her door.

I retraced my steps to the building and walked around the path to the parking lot for students and visitors. I bet next year Hetty would be in the thick of things when the planning committee met for Frost Fest. She had too much energy to sit back and enjoy the thing without working on it.

If I hadn’t been concentrating on the ground, stepping carefully through the puddles left after snowplows scooped up the snow and deposited it in minimountains around the light poles, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the shoe lying sideways on a dirty patch of melting snow.

Chapter Sixteen

A
bright red stiletto heel protruded into the light. The long, dark form attached to the shoe halted me. I could see a pale leg extending up from the shoe, a coat, and a thick mass of hair in the weak light.

I glanced around the deserted parking lot, then slowly approached the shape between the cars, remembering news reports about criminals who pretended to be hurt to entice victims near enough to mug them. Part of my mind noticed that when I stepped into a puddle and splashed water on the leg, there was no reaction, no movement. I focused on the upper part of the body, searching in the dim light for a face, but I could only see the person’s back.

“Hey, are you okay?” I realized I’d whispered. No response. I wanted to back away and find my cell phone, distance myself from this scene, but I forced myself to slide carefully between the cars and squat down. I searched for an arm, a wrist to touch for a pulse, but both arms were tucked underneath the body. I gently pushed on the shoulder, but the body didn’t roll over. I didn’t push again because the solid coldness from the shoulder seeped against my hand. There was no way that person could be alive. I jerked up and splashed over to the light where I’d parked the Cherokee. I leaned against it and concentrated on getting my breathing under control as I dialed my cell phone. I paused before I hit
SEND
. I could drive away. Just back up and leave. But I couldn’t do it.

Clarissa Bedford deserved more than that.

By the time police lights flooded the parking lot, I’d almost convinced myself that maybe it wasn’t Clarissa. During the wait for the police, the EMTs, the forensic technicians, the medical examiner, and the countless other people that descended on the parking lot and set up shop, I’d decided the shoe and the long hair could be coincidences. Perhaps it was a tragic death unrelated to the turmoil surrounding Penny, Georgia, and the base. I could give my statement and go home. But when the harsh lights revealed soft hair that waved out, beautiful and glossy even in death, I knew it was Clarissa.

I’d retreated to the Cherokee, where I had the heater blasting, but I still couldn’t stop shivering as I watched the official personnel swarm and swirl around the body. From this distance, they looked like an amoeba with rippling borders as people came and went. But always there was a dark knot, a nucleus at the center. A police detective segued away from the throng around the body and crossed the parking lot to tap on my window. Detective Wright had spoken with me earlier.

He asked through my open window, “Mrs. Avery, you think you know the victim?”

“I might,” I hedged, still hoping that it wouldn’t be Clarissa. “I think it might be Clarissa Bedford. She had an art appreciation class tonight, but she wasn’t there.”

“You’re in the class?” he asked.

“No, I met the professor briefly after the class to drop some things off with her. I knew Clarissa was in the class and asked if she was there and the teacher said no.”

“So you know Clarissa Bedford. How?”

“I’ve done some work for her. I’m a professional organizer. And she’s the wing commander’s wife. My husband’s stationed out at Greenly.”

“Okay. There’s no identification—no purse or wallet—on the body. We need you to take a look at the body.” His statement didn’t give me much choice, and even though I knew I could probably protest and not look, I wanted to see if it was her. Then I wouldn’t have to wonder all night if I was right. I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep anyway, but at least one question would be answered this way.