The Fortieth Birthday Body Read online

  “You mean Harvey Bower? Missy’s father? Do you know if his wife knows?”

  “No. But I don’t think that it has that much to do with Gloria. She and Harvey weren’t married at the time. Harvey was married to a woman named Samantha. But Samantha died years and years ago—of cancer—so that couldn’t have anything to do with Gloria and Harvey’s relationship.

  “I also think that Dawn slept with Guy Frye. They were interviewed by the police before we were and I saw them after their interviews and they were furious with each other. It could have been something else, of course, but …”

  “You’re right, it could have been something else,” Kathleen agreed, doubting it.

  “I have to get going. I’m going to be late to drive Cindy to her SAT review course. I’m glad I talked to you. I’m feeling much better.” She stood up and straightened out her short straight skirt. “Maybe just a little fatter, though.

  “Say, where’s Susan today? How’s she taking all this now that everything seems to be settling down?”

  “She’s on a class trip with the fifth grade to the New York Aquarium. She’s probably having too good a time to even think about the murder.”

  “I hope so,” Maureen agreed, placing money on the table for the tab and a minuscule tip. “What a lousy thing to have happen on your fortieth birthday. As if being old isn’t trouble enough!”

  V

  “Well, at least we’re coming back home with the same number we started with,” Connie Lambert sighed, wearily dropping down on the seat beside Susan. “My feet are killing me. And these shoes are two years old.”

  “I know what you mean. My whole body aches,” Susan said, wondering if coming home with the same number they began with was such a virtue. There was one obnoxious little boy that she would love to have accidentally dropped into the shark tank.

  “Now you know how it is to be a teacher,” Connie Lambert was saying.

  “Look at that Lamborghini Countach 5000! Twelve cylinders, 5.2 liter, fuel-injected engine. It can go 185 miles an hour!”

  Susan heard the enthusiastic voice of her own son.

  “He sure knows a lot about cars,” his teacher commented.

  “It would be nice if he spent as much time on schoolwork as he does with his foreign car magazines,” Susan replied.

  Connie Lambert smiled understandingly. “Well, at least he’s reading something. It would be a help if he could incorporate fractions into that bright head of his along with all that information on speed and engine size.”

  “I agree. I think, though, that the kids must have learned a lot on this trip. I did. I had no idea that starfish have five sex organs.”

  “Neither did I. And I’d love to know what Johnny Campanelli thought about it. He had all of the boys in stitches with the comment he made. Probably just as well that I was too far away to hear it.”

  Susan, who hadn’t been, agreed. “And the display is really much better than I remember it being. Of course, the last time I was there Chrissy was younger than Chad is now so it’s had a lot of time to improve.”

  There was a loud cry from somewhere in the bus and both women winced. “Don’t worry. Ellen’s back there. She’ll find out what’s going on and take care of it.

  “So what are the police saying about what happened last weekend at your house?” the teacher asked, not mentioning the nature of the event in case any children were listening.

  “Nothing to us. You know about the break-ins and burglaries that happened during the party?”

  “The article in The Hancock Press talked about them. Do they think that the two, or, I guess five, events were connected?” she asked, remembering that there had been four reported burglaries.

  “I think it’s still too early for them to be sure about that. At least that’s the impression I got,” Susan answered.

  Before she had a chance to elaborate, they were joined by Andrea, who had left her seat and staggered down the aisle. “I think I’m going to be sick, Mrs. Lambert.”

  VI

  Kathleen had asked Brigit Frye to meet her in the bar at the Hancock Inn at four; the impromptu meeting with Maureen had made her late. But Brigit Fry was even later. “Just some seltzer and a wedge of lime, Barnard,” Kathleen said to the bartender. “I’ll be sitting at the table near the window. Could you have someone bring my drink to me? Oh, and I’m meeting Mrs. Frye, if you see her come in …”

  “I’ll send her right over, Mrs. Gordon. Would you like something to eat with your drink?”

  Kathleen started to refuse until she remembered her guest. “Good idea. Anything that looks good to you.” She smiled warmly at the man and went over to her seat. This was one of the best things about living in Hancock: Although a suburb, it was still enough of a small town for everyone to know everyone else.

  Kathleen was the daughter of a cop, a city cop who had made his home in Philadelphia. Cops didn’t live in Germantown or on Rittenhouse Square; her father made just enough to keep his family in a falling down rented house too close to the slums in West Philly. But it was close enough to the University of Pennsylvania for her to see her way out of the lower middle class life she’d been born into. She’d always been good at school; an academic scholarship and four years commuting from her parents’ home had gotten her a degree in public relations and the chance at something different from her parents’ life.

  But her father’s untimely death just four days before he was to retire had forced her to look more closely at what she was working so hard to leave. He had died trying to save a four-year-old boy from a vicious attack by a street gang that had a grudge against his teenage cousin. Kathleen saw for the first time that her father had, in his own way, been trying to change what was wrong with the world. And that the attempt shouldn’t stop with his death. She’d signed up for the tests, passed them, and was in training to be a police officer in New York City before her friends or family could talk her out of it. And she’d never regretted it.

  Her first husband had been a cop who hadn’t been able to live with the agony of the job, dying drunk in an auto accident. But Kathleen had worked on, moving up in her department, and then moving across state lines to become one of the Connecticut State Police’s detectives. Until meeting Jerry, she had never thought of leaving the department. And she didn’t think that she regretted her decision once she had. But was she investigating Dawn Elliot’s death for any reason other than to protect her friends?

  “Are you okay, Kathleen?” The worried voice of Brigit Frye interrupted Kathleen’s reverie.

  “Just thinking over my life,” Kathleen answered honestly, smiling up at her guest.

  “That’s one way to spend a dreary March afternoon. How I hate this month! Every year I think spring comes in March and every year it comes in late April. You’d think I’d learn! So how are you?” Brigit Frye asked, sitting down and flinging her handwoven wool coat off her shoulders and onto the chair.

  Kathleen stopped a moment and considered Brigit Frye, a northern beauty. From her short pale, pale blond hair, blue eyes, and creamy skin to her almost aggressively bony frame, she was a woman most people would look at twice. And many men would follow up with a third glance. She was dressed today, as she usually was, with artistic flair, certainly more creatively than most women in Hancock. Kathleen appreciated that Brigit was the only woman she had talked to today who was wearing some outer covering other than fur, but she doubted if the coat now falling off the chair behind Brigit’s broad shoulders had cost less than some of its hairier cousins.

  “Why are you thinking over your life? Is something bothering you? Anything I can do?” Brigit leaned across the table, a concerned expression on her face.

  “I …”

  “Would madam like to order?” the waiter who had brought Kathleen’s club soda and food asked.

  “Yes, she would, Charles.” Brigit smiled up at him. “I’d like a Kir, light, and some of those things.” She waved at the platter of mixed appetizers. “Oh, and al
so a basket of breadsticks and cheese straws, please. And some smoked trout, if you have any.”

  The man hurried off to get her food and Brigit smiled at Kathleen. “Guy is staying in the city tonight. They’re involved in some serious last-minute negotiations and he won’t be home for days. This’ll probably be my dinner.”

  “This will sound stupid, but I don’t know what Guy does,” Kathleen said, picking up her seltzer and taking a sip.

  “You mean besides having affairs with women who are subsequently murdered?” Brigit asked, a smile, not entirely sarcastic, on her face.

  “I …”

  “He’s a lawyer who specializes in negotiating union contracts. He usually works on the union side,” she continued, ignoring her own previous statement.

  “So, if he’s staying in the city, this must be an important time in the negotiations?”

  “Not necessarily. Oh, he would say it is, but I’ve lived with it all so long that I don’t get very excited anymore. Every negotiation starts out with a very strange combination of threats and hope, slogs along for a few weeks, or months, or, in one memorable case, years, and then ends up at the last minute with a crisis. It’s all garbage to me. But Guy thrives on it. And that’s not what you want to talk about. Oh, thank you,” she added, as her drink and food arrived.

  “You’re interested in Guy and Dawn, aren’t you?” Brigit picked up a piece of fish on her fork, dipped it in the cup of creamy sauce provided, and put it in her mouth. “I heard you were investigating the murder and I don’t mind talking about it. Guy and I have a very open relationship. We have for years. Although, with Dawn, he broke the rules.” She sipped her drink.

  “The rules?”

  “Yeah, it sounds strange, doesn’t it? You and Jerry haven’t been married long enough for you to understand probably, but …”

  “I was married before,” Kathleen interjected.

  “Really?” Brigit was obviously not terribly interested. “Then maybe you will understand.” She sounded doubtful. “Well, Guy and I haven’t had an easy marriage. Maybe we never should have gotten married in the first place, but by the time we discovered that we’d had two children and the third was on the way. Probably we would have had a hard time being married to anyone; both of us need more excitement than life in the suburbs, three kids, and a dog provide. Anyway, the time I’m talking about was years ago. We went to a marriage counselor and she suggested an open marriage: They were all the rage in 1974 and we figured, why not? And it worked. We both sleep with other people and we’re happier and our marriage is stronger.”

  “You mentioned rules? The one that Guy broke when he slept with Dawn?”

  Brigit was holding a cheese straw, concentrating on spreading it with butter without breaking it, and didn’t answer immediately. “When we agreed to the open marriage …” She paused to sip her wine. “We agreed that certain rules apply and one of those rules is that we don’t have affairs with people we both know. It makes things cleaner and neater.”

  Kathleen thought that was an interesting description, but didn’t question it. “So, since Dawn was a friend and neighbor …”

  “He should have stayed out of her bed, yes. Especially since it is much easier for him to find people than for me. After all, he works in the city and his job puts him in the middle of a new situation and new co-workers every few months. I have a harder time of it. I have to keep taking courses and going to meetings of the writers group I belong to in Hartford and hoping that I will run into someone interesting.”

  “I can see that it would be a problem, at least more of a problem for you than for Guy.”

  “Well, you meet more people negotiating contracts than free-lance writing, that’s for sure.”

  “Did the affair end when you saw the two of them together? At the inn that afternoon that you told me about two days ago?”

  “No. I was mad then, but involved with a wonderful professor at Yale who writes mysteries in his spare time, and I didn’t bother to make much fuss. Dawn broke the affair off fairly soon after that: She went back out West to do some work. I think maybe Guy thought that she would resume their relationship when she was back in town, but she picked up some other man the next year.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “No. I do know that she was involved with Dan Hallard and Jed Henshaw at different times.”

  Kathleen had been waiting all day to hear this and she didn’t know what to do now that she had. “Why those two men?” she asked, trying to make it sound like her other questions.

  “Well, Dan and Guy have talked about Dawn. I don’t know how the subject came up. Dan and she were together after she and Guy were together. I assume one of them mentioned it to the other casually, you know, locker room stuff. You know how men talk.”

  Kathleen, who had been involved in racquetball and aerobics classes for years, doubted that men could possibly talk more about their conquests than women did.

  “That’s really the reason that we agreed originally to the rule that neither of us would sleep with a neighbor or mutual friend: Our therapist pointed out that no one wants to hear his or her spouse talked about in that type of situation. Anyway, Guy talked with Dan and then he told me about it.”

  “And Jed?”

  “Guy told me about Jed, too, but he didn’t tell me how he knew. He also told me not to tell anyone that we knew.” Brigit casually finished off her trout and then her Kir. “Where is that waiter? I’d like another one of these.” She motioned to the drink.

  “I see him,” Kathleen exclaimed, waving at the man. “He’s coming over.”

  Brigit ordered a refill while Kathleen tried hard to wait patiently for an explanation. “I don’t understand,” she said, as soon as they were alone.

  “I don’t either. Guy told me that Jed Henshaw had an affair with Dawn Elliot and he told me not to tell anyone and to be sure not to let Jed know that we knew. But he didn’t tell me how he knew.”

  Two questions occurred to Kathleen; she asked the more innocuous one first. “Why does he think an affair took place?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me, but there’s no mistake. I asked him if he was sure. You know, Jed and Susan seem so together and I really was surprised—as much as anything surprises me these days.”

  “Did you tell the police?” Kathleen asked, hoping for the right answer.

  “Well, Guy insisted that it would be a foolish thing to do, that if we told on someone else the police would just suspect us more, but I think he’s wrong. So,” she paused to shrug, “I told them. Guy doesn’t know.

  “Now look, I know what you’re thinking. I like Susan and Jed as much as anyone, but I’m not going to have Guy and myself suspects in a murder case and then hold back information that might clear us. You know the murder took place in the Henshaws’ garage. If the police are looking into relationships with Dawn then they might as well start there first, especially if Jed was involved with her, too.”

  It was a nasty thought, but Kathleen found it hopeful: Maybe Brigit had good reason to deflect possible guilt away from herself and her husband. And at least now she knew that Detective Sardini knew about Jed and Dawn. She also knew that there were going to be questions about just why Jed had hidden that knowledge from the police. Sardini probably wouldn’t care that Jed had been trying to protect his wife and his marriage—a murder investigation didn’t leave much room for sentiment. But Brigit was waiting for a response.

  “Do you think that Jed and Dan were the only two other men in Hancock who had affairs with Dawn?” Kathleen asked, finishing her seltzer and thinking about a real drink.

  “Probably not. Dawn was always hinting about the men who liked her. There probably were others.”

  “I just met Richard Elliot a few days ago,” Kathleen began. “Do you think that he and his wife had an open marriage like yours?”

  “Well, certainly not like ours. At least they weren’t following the same rules; it looks like they didn’t care about g
etting involved with friends. And, for that matter, although we all heard rumors about Dawn, either Richard wasn’t as sexually active or else he was more discreet; no one ever heard anything about him. I don’t think he ever made a pass at anyone I knew. At least I never heard anything about it. Maybe he’s …”

  “Isn’t that just like you, Brigit Frye, sitting around gossiping. And to think that I’ve considered you one of my closest friends. I cannot believe what you’ve done. And I’m certainly not going to forgive you, I can tell you that!” Gloria Bower’s angry voice broke into the discreet murmur that had made up the noise in the bar until her arrival. The patrons, clustered around small tables like Kathleen and Brigit, were too well behaved to look around at the disturbance.

  “Gloria, what are you talking about?” Kathleen stood up and grabbed her by the arm. “Sit down and relax, there must be some misunderstanding here. If we all talk about …”

  “There’s no misunderstanding here. We’ve been friends for years, but if you think I’m going to ignore the fact that my friends are sitting around and talking about me, you’re crazy. This is the wrong time in my life for people to be spreading rumors about me and I’ll get you for it, Brigit Frye! I’ll get you for it!” Gloria spun around and stalked out of the room, oblivious to the tinkle of glass as her mink swept over a small serving table.

  “I cannot imagine what she’s so upset about. Having a small baby around and not sleeping through the night must be getting to her,” Brigit suggested, watching a bevy of waiters scurrying around to pick up shards of glass from the shiny waxed floor.

  “Maybe,” Kathleen said. Her voice was noncommittal.

  VII

  “You remind me of Santa Claus,” Susan commented, looking at her passenger as she drove the car through the rush hour traffic.

  “Santa Claus?” Kathleen asked, thinking of her full stomach.

  “You know. Making a list and checking it twice.”

  “Cute. Richard Elliot quotes Shakespeare and you quote Christmas carols,” came the sarcastic reply.

  “Or maybe he was really quoting Marlowe?” Susan continued her teasing.