Pink Balloons and Other Deadly Things (Mystery Series - Book One) (2 page)

I didn’t hear the siren until flashing lights appeared in my rearview mirror. Coasting to a stop, I waited for the unmarked brown car to swerve past. It didn't.

The gaunt craggy-featured man who unfolded himself from behind the wheel wasn't wearing a uniform, and briefly I toyed with the idea of flooring the accelerator in the hope he might be a carjacker instead of a cop. Except no self-respecting carjacker would risk his freedom for an eight-year-old Honda. I took a deep breath, rolled down my window, and raised my red-rimmed eyes to his cool slate ones.

He flashed a badge. “May I see your license and registration, please?”

I fumbled around in my purse for my wallet, reached into the glove compartment, handed him the documents.

“You live in the next town, Mrs. Burnham,” he said, his voice tight with disapproval. “You must know this is a school zone. You were doing forty-five in a twenty-five-mile zone.”

I muttered something about not realizing I was going so fast--I’d had a lot on my mind. And prayed, because I sure couldn't afford a speeding ticket, with its accompanying points and surcharges.

Goddess must’ve had a free minute, or maybe plainclothes cops don’t issue tickets, because he handed my papers back to me.

“Try not to let it affect your driving,” he said, and strolled back to his car.

Two minutes of diaphragmatic breathing, and my heart rate returned to normal. I was getting ready to start the engine when my cell rang. My blood pressure zoomed. I don’t give this number to anyone but my children and they have strict instructions not to call unless, at the very least, they're hooked up to an IV in a hospital ER.

“Hello?”

“Mom?”

“What happened? What’s the matter?”

“There’s a lady real upset, wants to know can you see her tomorrow.”

I turned up the air conditioning letting the cool air whip across my face. “Allie,” I scolded. “Couldn’t this have waited till I got home?”

“But--she says she’s having a crisis.”

The distress in my child’s voice brought me up short. “Sorry, honey, I’m a little uptight. I nearly got a ticket. Put me on hold and ask who it is.”

I’m a biofeedback clinician with a new, not-very-large private practice. Before my separation I worked for a pain clinic. Part of my job involved teaching people how to control their internal responses to pain and stress through relaxation training. It’s a kind of “heal thyself” alternative to the conventional medical approach. When Rich defected, everyone at the center was sympathetic, but it soon became apparent that a practitioner who’d temporarily lost the ability to practice what she preached was setting a lousy example. I quit before they fired me, went into therapy, got my head together, relatively speaking, and ultimately started my own practice.

My fingers drummed on the dashboard as I reviewed the possibilities. Who could be so upset as to need to see me on a weekend? Maybe Ruth-Ann had had another abreaction or Phyllis had worked herself up into a migraine again. It’s rare for me to get an emergency call though. Except for my ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) kids, the bulk of my practice consists of people with anxiety-related diseases, but I’m not an M.D. and most of my patients continue to see their own doctor or therapist.

Allie came back on the line. “It’s Vickie. She says her doctor’s away.”

Victoria Thorenson a relatively new patient, the one who had canceled today's session. Not yet twenty, with pixie good looks, Vickie should be on the threshold of a wonderful life, but she lives on an emotional trampoline, bouncing from one man to another. According to her psychiatrist, she has a history of involvements with unavailable men, setting herself up for failure. The affair with the latest had lasted for over a year but recently he broke it off. I had just switched her from breathing and relaxation exercises to guided visualizations, where she’s been picturing herself as successful and independent. Normally an easy visualizer, that one has been giving her trouble.

I sighed. “Tell her I’ll see her at noon.”

“‘Kay.”

“Maybe we'll send out for pizza tonight.”

“Fantabulous!”

It's not hard to make a twelve-year-old’s day.

I clicked off and sat there thinking about how my Sunday was getting shot to hell. Ruth-Ann, one of my overeaters, was coming for a session at eleven. She’s an Orthodox Jew, so I make an exception and see her on Sundays. And now I had Vickie at twelve, which meant I wouldn’t get home till nearly one-thirty. That left less than half a day with the kids.

I sat there letting the air-conditioning blow its stale breath in my face, love-hating Rich, wondering if he ever worried about the effect our impending divorce was having on Matt and Allie, if he ever had regrets. Did he remember how crazily we had once loved each other, or had his passion for Erica erased the memories from his mind like a deleted e-mail?

And then, as always, the nagging voice that wouldn’t be stilled—-had I, in some way I hadn’t realized, been responsible? Maybe I should have studied the stock market, learned about mergers and acquisitions. Maybe I should’ve worn sexier underwear, watched porn flicks with him, had a breast augmentation. Maybe dinner every night with the children had been too much strain. Maybe I should have fed them early and served him gourmet dinners, followed by orgasms on and under the table.

A car screeched around the corner, bringing me back to reality. All I’d need to complete my day would be to have Rich see me loitering in the neighborhood as he drove home to his lady love.

I switched on the ignition. No response. I tried again. A feeble clunk, then nothing. With rising agitation and a sinking heart, it began to penetrate-—what I’d done. Run the air-conditioner without the motor on. All my murderous thoughts that day, and the only thing I’d managed to kill was my own DieHard battery!

The body shudders, starts to roll over, and...

I AWOKE FLAILING WILDY knocking Luciano and Placido into each other, resulting in a howling, spitting feline cacophony that would have left their namesakes hoarse for a month. My hands felt wet, and I pulled them out from beneath the comforter, half expecting to see blood. Damp with perspiration, they were still trembling but they were clean.

There was a tentative knock. “Mom?”

Reaching for my robe, I made an effort to sound normal. “Come on in, Matt.”

The ten-year-old male love of my life bounced into my room.

“You were makin’ funny noises. You sick?”

I held out my arms. “Bad dream. C’mere.”

He took a flying leap across the room and landed next to me. I wrapped my arms around him. Matt’s a cuddler. I’m enjoying it for as long as it lasts. I figure I’ve got two more years of hugs at most till the testosterone kicks in and Mom becomes passé.

“Allie says we can’t go on the picnic today.”

I’d forgotten all about the afternoon we'd planned at Sterling Forest. “Oh, puss, I’m sorry. I have to work.”

He pulled away. “It’s Sunday. You said you'd be finished by noon.”

I love my work, but for just a fleeting moment, I envied the fifties mom who could stay home with her kids.

“I can’t help it, Matt. The lady who called yesterday has an emergency.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

He had a point. Besides which, at this particular time in my life, I don’t think I’m the best person to work with Vickie. I have a problem relating to “other woman” types. Especially young ones.

“Could we go for a swim at home?” Embarrassed, he corrected himself. “I mean at Dad’s then? I know it’s not our weekend with him but it’s so hot.”

I waited for the pain in my gut to subside. Despite my months of therapy, the image of my children frolicking in our swimming pool with their father’s Playboy bunny was enough to incite me to acts of violence. When I could unclench my teeth, I waffled, “I don’t think the pool’s been cleaned and filled yet, sweetheart. It’s only May.”

He turned his back on me. “Aw, man, that sucks!”

I didn’t think this was the time for a lecture on the unpleasant connotation of certain words no matter how common the usage. “I don’t even have my car, honey. I had to take a cab home yesterday.”

The back remained unyielding.

“Maybe you and Allie could find a good movie on Netflix,” I ventured. “When I get home, we'll grill out. It’ll be kind of like a picnic.”

He was silent for a minute, then he turned back and snuggled up. “Okay.”

I sighed, relieved. He was all right. I lay there stroking his silky hair, allowing his presence to warm me while I listened to him prattle on about how his Little League coach thought he should try playing catcher, and I shouldn't worry because he would always be wearing a catcher's mask and knee guards and a guard for his other vulnerable parts.

I put the dream out of my mind.

LUGGING A SMALL fan, I took an un-air-conditioned bus to my office which is in Piermont, New York, just across the New Jersey border. Because of the Sunday bus schedule, what is normally only a fifteen-minute drive from my Norwood New Jersey home, took almost an hour. By the time I arrived at about ten-thirty I was already out of sorts from the heat and the inconvenience. It didn’t help my disposition when I had to spend the next twenty minutes on the phone trying to find a garage that would rescue my abandoned vehicle on a Sunday.

Ruth-Ann was late, so after I slipped her disk into the computer and pulled up her protocol, I took the opportunity to open the mail I’d ignored yesterday, hoping for some checks. I switched on the radio letting the music wash over me as I flipped through the pile of advertisements. Some corner of my mind noted when the news came on but nothing registered until I heard the words, “...affluent community of Alpine.”

“...early this morning,” the announcer was saying. “The seminude body was discovered by her fiancé. The victim has been identified as twenty-eight-year-old Erica Vogel of...”

My pencil and two nails broke simultaneously.

“...employed by Mr. Burnham for the past three years. The police are not commenting, but it is believed foul play has not been ruled...”

I didn’t hear a word after “foul play.” If I hadn’t been dripping already, I’d have broken out in a cold sweat. The pencil dropped from my hand. I began hyperventilating, like the time I took a soccer ball in the gut playing goalie to Matt’s Pele.

I dashed into the bathroom and splashed water on my face and arms. It must have been ninety-five degrees in there but I was shaking as though I’d been shut up in a butcher’s meat locker. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. Erica was dead! Maybe murdered! God knows I'd wished her dead, fantasized about it, even plotted it, as I’m sure, has every other betrayed woman from Medea to Sandra Bullock. But you can’t wish someone dead and make it happen. Wishes aren't lethal. How many times have I assuaged some tormented soul’s guilt with that little homily.

Okay, so I had some dreams about a dead body. I’ve had lots of crazy dreams since Rich left. I’m a visual person. I’m instinctive. I’ve never claimed to be prescient.

When the doorbell rang, my hands were still ice cold but I was breathing normally. I pressed the buzzer underneath my desk, expecting to see Ruth-Ann’s moon face peer around the door.

It wasn’t Ruth-Ann.

It was a uniformed cop and the plainclothes detective who had let me off the hook yesterday. I wondered later why it registered that his clothes hung loosely on him as though his appearance were the last thing on his mind.

He looked down at me, flashed his badge. “Detective Sergeant Brodsky, Bergen County prosecutor’s office, Mrs. Burnham.” His eyes wandered to the diplomas and certificates on my wall. “Or is it Dr. Carlin?”

“Ms. Carlin,” I stammered. “I’m not a doctor. Carlin’s my maiden name. I use it professionally.” Flustered, I babbled on. “You can’t be here about—-about your stopping me yesterday. I mean, you said—-did you say you’re from the prosecutor’s office?”

“Crime scene unit. I'm not here about your speeding specifically.” He glanced curiously at my double computer setup, with the large TV screen in front of the recliner. Deliberately I looked at my watch. “I have a patient. She's already late...”

“This shouldn’t take long.”

The uniform took up a position by the door. Brodsky lowered himself into the chair opposite me. Even sitting, his height intimidated me. “What were you doing in Alpine yesterday afternoon?”

“I live in New Jersey.”

“You live in Norwood. I stopped you in Alpine.”

I was about to lie and say I was visiting an old friend, but just in time, I remembered Sue Tomkins.

“I—-I was-—I had stopped by—-where I used to live.”

“You went to your old house?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

Because it's home. Because another woman is...was living my life.

“Why'd you go there?”

I had a flash of brilliance. “My son wanted to use the pool. I wanted to see if my...if his father had filled it yet.”

“I see.” He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and made a note. “Had he?”

“No.”

“Couldn't you have telephoned?”

“He was out of town and I don’t...communicate with his...girlfriend.”

Why was he asking me these questions? He couldn’t possibly believe I’d had anything to do with what had happened to Erica. But he’d said he wasn’t here about my speeding. Could that mean...? Maybe I should I tell him I knew about her death. Murders are rare in towns like Alpine. He must be aware it was all over the news. I became conscious of the music still playing in the background and decided I’d better come clean. “I...heard about—-about the accident just now on the news.”

He gave no indication that he’d heard me. “How long have you and your husband been separated?”

“Seventeen months.”

Almost to the day. Rich left on Christmas Eve.

“Isn’t it usual for the wife to get the house when there are children?”

Damned right.

“Our house is very large, on two acres—-expensive to maintain. I couldn’t possibly...I bought a place in Norwood. It’s big enough for the children and me, and close enough to Alpine for them to stay in close touch with their father. Only problem is they had to switch schools so they don’t get to see their friends as much as...” I stopped aware my nervousness was causing me to ramble on.