Diane Davidson - Chopping Spree

“OK, first of all,” I said, shaking the typescript, “forget our local rag. People leak stuff to it all the time, their own version of how they want something to read. The staff never checks a single fact, because they don’t have time once they round up their material. How come nobody calls them ‘alleged reporters’?” I was hoping Ellie would laugh, but she didn’t. I tossed the packet into the backseat and turned off the light. We were now chugging past the Bank of Aspen Meadow, where the thermometer read two below zero.

Hunched over the steering wheel, Ellie shook her head grimly. “Not to be materialistic,” she went on woefully, “but the gold cuff links I bought for Barry are in police custody, and I don’t have that engagement ring Barry promised me—”

“So you were engaged?”

She squirmed. “Well, not really. We’d been talking about it. He told me he had a big surprise for me, and he eventually said it was ‘the ring I’d been hoping for.’”

“How long ago was this?”

She shrugged. “About a month? He gave me a riddle I couldn’t understand, though. He promised to help me with it. I ordered him a pair of cuff links, and paid almost three thousand dollars for them. But then I saw him with Pam, in the mall, having lunch. He’d told me he had a meeting with the Pennybaker people, and there they were, acting like lovebirds. That’s when I hired Rufus.”

“Did you push Barry into a ditch?”

“No.”

“Do you know why he had headaches?”

She sighed. “I only knew that he did have headaches. He told me he’d been fighting with someone who worked in the mall. I thought, a fight, like, argument. I didn’t think he meant a real physical fight.”

“You never picked up the cuff links?”

“My purse was stolen! My car was stolen, then wrecked! I had no ID, no credit cards, no driver’s license! Remembering the cuff links was way, way down on my list.” She sighed, but it came out like a sob. “Now the cuff links are being held by the cops as evidence in a murder. It’s like I tried to do something nice for a man I believed really cared about me, and the whole thing backfired. Backfired beyond belief.”

I murmured, “Yeah, it sure did.”

“Dammit, Goldy!” Ellie’s voice turned strident. “Say something that’s going to make me feel better! Why do you think I came over? I thought Barry Dean loved me! And now my life has gone to hell!”

“Well…,” I ventured. “I don’t know if this will make you feel better, but in the You’re-Not-Alone Department, I was married to a man who, even though he was a well-paid doctor, gave me only two hundred dollars, in cash, to spend on Christmas. Because I wanted him to care about me—even though I knew on some deep level that he didn’t—I spent a hundred and fifty dollars of that tiny hoard on a Seiko watch. I’d even felt lucky to find it on sale! But the Seiko wasn’t a Rolex, and the day after Christmas, I found the watch in the trash.”

Ellie managed a wry smile. Then the smile turned bitter. “What am I going to do? How can I keep little Cameron from being humiliated by all this?”

“Your daughter will be OK,” I assured her. “She knows you’re a good mom.” I remembered Arch’s brusque declaration: I don’t need a babysitter. “Anyway, Ellie… Cameron’s in tenth grade now. Maybe she’s not so little anymore.”

“And here I was thinking what a loving stepfather Barry would make.” She sighed. “I’m just worried the other kids will read this trashy Journal article and make fun of Cameron. I hate to think of those Elk Park Prep bitches hurting her feelings.”

We whizzed by the lake. Wind-blown pebbles of snow pelted the ice. Under the bright night lights, a few brave skaters were taking advantage of the late burst of freezing weather. Just the thought of skating made me shiver.

“Ellie, where are we going?”

“Well, if you don’t mind, we’re going to Elk Park Prep. I… I forgot something.”

I knew she was lying. “The school will be locked up, Ellie.”

She waved one hand. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll explain when we get there.”

“Speaking of Elk Park Prep, can you… explain to me why you were arguing with Shane there tonight?”

She exhaled and slowed around a curve. “Board business is supposed to be confidential.”

“Ellie, I promise, I’m not going to get on the phone and call people about board business.”

“Shane… is having financial problems.”

“I know about the eviction from Westside.” I gnawed the inside of my cheek. I know he was holding back on his rent. I know his wife has a bad spending problem. And worst of all: I know I haven’t received final payment for this lunch I’m doing for him tomorrow.

Ellie squinted into the darkness. “Shane’s blaming his problems on Barry. I don’t believe this story about Barry demanding a kickback for ignoring the rent issue, by the way. In any event, Shane’s broke. And in debt. So… he and Page are pulling their girls from Elk Park Prep. They’re demanding their two-thousand-dollar deposit for next year back. I tried to explain that we simply can’t do that. The deposits are nonrefundable. But you saw how Shane was tonight; he wouldn’t listen. If you heard about the car accident, you probably know how Page intercepted his loan money.”

“I do.”

“I can’t bend school rules for him. I can’t help him at the bank, either. But he just refused to believe that I can’t.”

We pulled through the school’s massive stone gates. Elegant street lamps lit the drive like luminarias. The BMW rolled smoothly over the snow-rutted road.

“What’s bothering you most, then?” I probed gently.

She exhaled again before replying. “Bothering me most? You mean apart from the fact that a man I loved and was hoping to marry might have been betraying me, but we’ll never know because now he’s dead?”

“Ellie—”

“Let’s see. The cops aren’t making my life easier. I’ve told them over and over, I hired Rufus because I thought Barry was cheating on me. Whether he was having a bona fide affair with Pam or was just infatuated, having a mental fling, Rufus never did find out. That’s what’s so funny! But those detectives are obsessed. I told them I was having a massage when somebody tried to drive over Barry. They don’t listen. I swore Marla, Page, and I left Prince and Grogan just before nine, but they won’t let go of it. I got a ride home with Elizabeth Harrington. So what? The cops just keep insisting and poking into my life. OK, here we are.”

We drove into the parking lot we’d just left a few hours earlier. Lights rimmed the asphalt and lit the sidewalk angling steeply up to the lacrosse fields. The place looked desolate and forlorn. Ellie reached for the door handle, then hesitated.

“Ellie, where are we going? The headmaster will be fast asleep.”

She gnawed her bottom lip and hesitated. “Apparently, there’s some evidence that will clear me. Somebody called, said they’d leave it for me at the lacrosse field. And I don’t know who it was, so don’t ask.”

“Said they’d leave evidence at the lacrosse field?” Was this like Barry leaving me his puppy? “Who left evidence at the lacrosse field?”

“I don’t know.”

My eyes followed the shadowy sidewalk up to the dark, bleak playing field. Under dimmed lights, the empty bleachers looked like the skeleton of some prehistoric beast. The portable toilet looked like a gloomy, abandoned outpost.

I asked, “Why not leave this evidence at some warm, populated place like the library, for crying out loud? Why not give it directly to the police?”