Motherhood is Murder(60)

Joan: It was in the papers. So tragic. A bay dinner cruise.

Mom: Oh dear!

Joan: He hasn’t been the same since.

Mom stopped the tape and thumped me on the back. “What do you think about your ol’ mom now?” She laughed and whooped. “You don’t mind the gossip so much when it yields you a juicy bit, do you?”

I held my head, feeling like if I didn’t, my brain would explode and then there would be one more thing to clean up around here.

The phone rang.

“Want me to get that?” Mom asked. “You look a little pale.”

It was Helene? Alan had been sleeping with Helene?

No wonder. Margaret said he’d been getting home on time after the night on the boat. Of course, because his mistress was dead.

My answering machine kicked on. Galigani’s voice filled the air.

“Kid! I got something for you. The doc was sleeping with the vic. Call me.”

Mom grabbed the phone before Galigani could hang up. “Hello, Albert. Just one second, Kate’s right here . . . Oh tonight? . . . Sure, I’d love to have dinner with you.”

My chest felt tight and my head throbbed. Lives were going on all around, Mom had a date, Celia had her business, Paula would have her baby soon, but Helene was dead and gone.

Why? Why would Alan have killed his mistress? Had she threatened to tell Margaret? Could he have done it? Maybe he’d killed her by accident as Margaret had feared.

Mom passed me the phone. I semigrunted.

Galigani laughed. “What’s the matter, kid? We’re making progress.”

“How did you find out it was Helene?” I asked.

“This is confidential. Okay? You cannot disclose to Barramendi, understand?”

There was a lump forming in my throat the size of a walnut.

I was so in over my head.

I swallowed past the lump. “Yeah,” my voice cracked.

“I’m holding the police report from the night on the cruise. Officer Lee questioned you. Do you remember?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Well, there were a few officers there and Officer Rebecca Burke took a statement from one witness who’d overheard a discussion between Helene and Alan.”

I recalled the woman officer on board. I had seen her talking to a silver-haired woman who had been gesticulating madly.

“According to the statement,” Galigani said, “the witness overheard a discussion between the deceased and Alan. He was planning to leave his wife. There was some talk of moving to North Carolina together. Then they were interrupted by another woman. The doc left the scene and the two women had an argument. The deceased was canceling a home extension or construction project. The other woman got very agitated. That’s when our witness decided to clear out of there and in the process ended up spilling her drink on the woman.”

Sara.

So if Alan and Helene were planning on running away together, it made sense that Helene would cancel the home remodeling plans. And it would also make sense that Bruce didn’t know she’d done it. But what about the adoption? Hadn’t Helene wanted kids? Had she really been planning to leave Bruce and stop the adoption proceedings?

Maybe she only seemed to be agreeing with Alan about moving to North Carolina. Maybe she was scared of him.

“What do you think?” I asked Galigani. “You think the doc did it?”

“It’s not the doc.”

“Why do you say that?”

“There is another very important thing in the prelim report,” Galigani said.

I rubbed my temples. “What’s that?”

“The doc’s the one who pushed the ME to run a tox screen. There’s no way he’d do that if he killed her. I told you McNearny knew something we didn’t.”

“How did you get him to share this report with you?”

“I didn’t. Mac doesn’t share. He’s by the book and he’s tough.”

“Who then? Did you woo the lady officer?”

Mom, who was hovering near me rocking Laurie back and forth, scowled at the mention of another lady and I had to laugh at her double standard.

“Jones,” Galigani said. “He was taking a couple days off, spending a little time with his kid. I dropped in on him and we had a couple beers. Don’t mention any of this to anybody or we’ll have no one left to play in the sand-box with. Capisce?”

“I capisce all right,” I said.

Did Bruce know about the affair?

That would fit. He’d found out about the affair and killed Helene, then he must have feared Celia knew something and took a whack at her.

“So you think Bruce did it?” I asked Galigani.

“No. Killing the wife maybe, but the midwife at his place makes no sense. I think it might have been Margaret.”

“Margaret?” I asked.

Mom nodded her agreement.

Margaret? If she was guilty, then I was a ruse designed to throw suspicion off her. Why else would someone guilty hire a PI?

Had I been used as a pawn?

No! Couldn’t be.

“As far as I know, Margaret wasn’t with Celia that day of the poisoning. Only Bruce, Evelyn, and I saw her that day. And why would Margaret poison Celia anyway? She had been her midwife.”