Motherhood is Murder(13)

I grabbed the cordless receiver and managed a breathless “Hello.”

“Kate. This is Margaret.”

She sounded as breathless as I did.

“Hi, Margaret. How are you?”

“I need to talk to you. I just spoke with Bruce, you know, Helene’s husband?”

“Sure,” I said, powering through another set of squats.

“He said the medical examiner hasn’t released the final report yet, because they won’t have the findings from toxicology for several weeks. But they asked him if Helene was a user.”

“Uh-huh.” I stopped doing the squats, finding it impossible to concentrate on three things at once.

“A user, Kate. A drug addict!”

“Yeah . . .”

“She wasn’t. She didn’t use drugs. And they sent her blood, or well, whatever they sent to toxicology. Wouldn’t that mean that she died from an overdose or something?”

“It’s hard to say. I don’t know the procedures at the ME’s office. Maybe they send everything to toxicology.”

“But they asked Bruce if she was a user.”

“Right.” I absently rubbed the top of Laurie’s head, which was peeking out of the baby carrier. “What else did they tell him? Did she have head trauma, broken bones?”

Margaret took a sharp intake of breath. “Oh. There’s Alan’s car.” She let the breath out in a rush. “Kate, I need to hire you. Can we meet?”

“Uh . . . sure. Where and when?”

“Tomorrow, ten A.M.?”

“Okay. There’s a cute café near my house—”

“Alan’s home. I gotta go.”

She hung up.

I put the phone down and resumed my squats. I hadn’t been able to give Margaret directions to the café. She’d rushed off the phone so fast. Strange.

But she wanted to hire me.

Jim entered the living room and observed me doing squats with Laurie in the carrier. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“What does it look like?”

“Looks like you’re going to hurt yourself.”

He was right. My lower back was feeling a little strained but pride makes you say funny things. “No, I’m not. I’m fine. Laurie’s light.”

He placed his hands on my arms to stop me, then leaned over Laurie and kissed me. He unstrapped the carrier and took Laurie into his arms. “Why didn’t you just give her to me?”

“You were working. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“No problem. You do your workout. I’m going to catch up on my sleep.”

“What?”

Jim headed down the hallway with Laurie. “I’m going to nap with her.”

Nap! At this time of day.

Wait a minute!I needed the nap. I was the one up at all hours of the night with her, but I felt wide awake now.

“Don’t you need to work?” I called after him.

“Yeah. But I’m out of ideas right now. I need to generate something. Better refuel. Ah! The beauty of working from home.” He disappeared from sight.

Suddenly I felt sad. A little lonely somehow.

I started on a set of lunges.

Funny how I craved alone time, and now that I had it, I felt lonely.

I gave up on the lunges and walked down the hallway to our bedroom. “Margaret called. She wants to hire me,” I said.

“Who?” Jim asked.

“Tutu,” I said.

Jim laughed. He had already climbed into bed and was cuddling Laurie, who was lying on top of him. “What does she want to hire you as?”

“What do you mean? As a PI.”

Jim snorted. “PI? You don’t have a license.”

“She doesn’t know that.”

“Did something or someone give her the idea you did?”

I hung my head. “Someone might have bragged the other night at dinner.”

Jim laughed. “Oh. Someone bragged, huh? Here.” He held Laurie up to me. “She needs a diaper change.”

“So go ahead and change her,” I said from my position in the doorway.

“I’m trying to nap.”

“I’m doing my workout!”

Jim frowned. “Yeah. I see that.”

Men.

Oh well, it would soon be time to nurse and I knew he couldn’t do that. May as well stay on duty. I crossed the room and plucked Laurie off his chest. She was like a little sow bug, all curled into him. Warm and cozy on the front and soaked in the back.

“Poor thing,” I said.

Jim nodded then turned over, trying to sleep.

I stayed at the foot of the bed. “Do you think if I take the case to Galigani, he’ll take it on?”

“What’s in it for you then?”

“Galigani can’t work the case. At least, I don’t think so. It’s too early after his open heart surgery. But I could use his license, right?”

“I guess that’s up to him. Call him.”

After changing Laurie’s diaper, I placed her in her crib and twisted the mobile for her. She gazed up at the dancing bears and tried to bat at them.

I did another set of lunges, rehearsing how to ask Galigani for the use of his license. Pain shot through my lower back.

Nice. Try to do too much and wind up getting nothing done.

Taking advantage of Laurie’s temporary calmness in the crib, I dialed Galigani. I was still unsure how to ask him, but figured something would occur to me when he picked up. He answered on the third ring.