Citizen Insane (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #2)
Read Citizen Insane (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #2) Online
Authors: Karen Cantwell
CITIZEN INSANE
A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery
by Karen Cantwell
Copyright © 2011 by Karen Fraunfelder Cantwell. All rights reserved.
Second Kindle Edition: July 2012
Cover Design: Katerina Vamvasaki
LICENSE NOTES
All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
DISCLAIMER
The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Table of Contents
I dedicate this novel to my wonderful children.
THERE WAS A TIME WHEN my life wasn’t that exciting. I’m a soccer mom living in the suburbs. The only thrills in my day should be the frantic road races between ballet lessons and the much-too-closely-scheduled orthodontist appointment on the other side of the universe. If you think a stunt driver knows how to maneuver a vehicle, wait until you see me behind the wheel careening through yellow lights with a hundred-dollar dental visit at stake.
So, when I ran a woman down with my mini-van in the middle of the night, only to find out that someone else had tried to kill her with a 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, I assumed things couldn’t get any more dramatic. I assumed wrong. Just twenty-four hours later I found myself in the stairwell of an abandoned building, with a gun in my hand and a female hostage telling me to “do what Keanu would do.” I’ve never met another mother with days like these.
My name is Barbara Marr and I find dead people.
Or, almost dead people.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The story really started with my need for a foot rub.
On a sunny and cool Monday morning I sipped on coffee while suffering a broken heart and a pair of achy arches. Don’t ask me why, but when I get upset, my feet start to hurt. When this happens, I generally turn to my husband Howard for a delicious foot rub. The sensation when he works his fingers around my toes, over the ball, and under my arch is nearly orgasmic. Howard was the reason for my despair, however, so instead, I scheduled a pedicure. Not just any pedicure—a Sweet Tangerine Spice Ultra-Ultimate Pedicure at La Voila Day Spa. It wouldn’t end with a passionate tumble between the sheets like Howard’s foot rubs did, but at least I’d get a good exfoliation.
The reason for my sorry state? Infidelity. I can’t cook, sew, knit, crochet or hook rugs and I hate scrapbooking, but I love my three beautiful girls more than anything in life, and do a darn good job on the mothering front, even if I order in our Thanksgiving meals pre-cooked. I have a movie review website called ChickAtTheFlix.com that gets a couple hits a day (okay, maybe a week). And I am married to a man who I once believed to be faithful. However, after spying him through the window at Fiorenza’s, sharing wine and fettucini with a well-endowed blond floozy, I was starting to have my doubts.
I suppose I brought it on myself. See, a few months ago, Howard revealed a twenty-five year long secret—he’d been raised Sammy Donato, the son of Mario Donato, who got whacked by one Tito Buttaro. And he wasn’t an engineer working for a local government contractor, he was an FBI agent bent on finding his father’s killer. Really. You can’t make this stuff up.
Anyway, after that little discovery, I still loved him, but did I really know him? So I kicked him out and told him to date me and win back my affections. “Let’s start over,” I said.
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Only, the dates were far and few between. His FBI job kept him too busy or out of town, often for weeks at a time. Some days I could barely remember what he looked like and would have to watch
Ocean’s Eleven
just to feel close to him. That’s because he bears a striking resemblance to George Clooney. I know—lucky me. Or not so lucky, evidently. Was it possible some other woman had snatched up my handsome husband while I was playing silly games? I wallowed in despair, wondering if I had lost him forever.
I was depressed and really needed that pedicure.
I looked at my watch and realized that spa time was right around the corner. My two cats, Indiana Jones and Mildred Pierce, were pacing and meowing, so I emptied a cup of food into each cat food bowl then slipped on my shoes. I was ready to step outside and check the weather when the phone rang. It was my neighbor, Roz Walker. I picked up the receiver.
“Hey,” I said. “You ready for the foot massage of your life?”
“I’m ready, but while it’s on my mind, do you have plans for tonight?” she asked.
“Other than rip Howard’s Mr. McNuggets from his cheating body and throw them to a pack of hungry wild boar? No.”
“Herd.”
“Heard what?”
“No. It’s a herd. A herd of wild boar.”
“You know how to take the fun out of everything don’t you?”
“Why don’t you leave Howard’s manliness intact, and come with me to the PTA meeting instead?”
I moaned loud enough for Bangladesh to hear. I hated PTA meetings. Not my gig. Roz was PTA president and my best friend and we’d stayed best friends because she had never asked me to attend.
“PLEASE!” she begged. “I promise, I’ll never ask again, but I really need you there tonight. I need a friendly face in the crowd.”
“Crowd? Isn’t it only like, six people?”
“Eight, sometimes nine.”
“Let’s talk about it at the spa.”
“No, I want to enjoy myself there and this just gets me too upset.”
“What’s the deal?”
“Yearbook scandal.”
I laughed. “Yearbook scandal? What does that mean?”
“You’re stalling. Will you please come?”
“Fine.” I sighed. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you! You’re wonderful. And trust me, you won’t be disappointed. More than tempers are going to fly at this meeting. Are you ready to leave? You’re driving, right?”
“Yup. I’m just going to step outside to see if I need a jacket.”
“I’ll be right over.”
I put the phone back into the cradle and opened the door that led to the breezeway connecting our house to the garage. My mother’s intuition, and the fact that I could hear someone moaning, told me there was a problem in my yard. I quickly circled toward the front of my house, afraid Roz had been hurt.
I rounded the corner. “Roz?” I yelled.
No Roz. Just a strange lady whimpering and walking in circles on my front lawn. The operative word here is “strange.” Unfortunately, this woman was not a stranger. I knew her—Bunny Bergen. She lived one street over and her kids went to the same school as mine. Towering close to six feet tall, she had a Cindy Crawford body and talked all breathy as if she were trying to be sexy, but really it just sounded like she was always on the verge of an asthma attack. Then there was the way she looked at me, unblinking and intense like a crocodile on crack. I had always considered Bunny Bergen an odd duck, and that was before I found her turning circles in front of my house like Mel Gibson after the bars closed.
Why? I thought. Why me? Didn’t I have enough problems?
I watched her for another minute, trying to decide what her deal was. Maybe Bunny had rabies. She wasn’t foaming at the mouth, but everything else sort of pointed to the possibility. I considered calling animal control. Maybe they’d shoot her with a tranquilizing dart and put us both out of her misery.
“Bunny?” I was careful to take slow steps. She was still circling neurotically and her mumblings became more audible as I approached.
“Poor Bunny, poor Bunny, poor Bunny,” she wheezed.
That’s when I spotted Roz in her signature floral print dress and tan loafers. She swatted at a gnat that buzzed her blonde, Dorothy Hamill bob then moved tentatively toward me. We exchanged silent what’s-her-problem shrugs. Meanwhile, the demented woman seemed completely unaware that we were there. She kept turning and muttering. “Poor Bunny, poor Bunny, poor Bunny.” Every second rotation or so she would stop, look up at the sky for a beat, then repeat the drill.
Roz and I traded helpless glances. What exactly was the protocol for dealing with crazy Bunnies? Call the police? St. Elizabeth’s? Dr. Phil?
“What should we do?” whispered Roz.
I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. We need to get going or we’ll miss our appointment.”
“We can’t leave her here like this!”
“Why not? She’ll find her way home. Eventually.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Barb . . .”
I looked at my watch. Ten after eleven. Our pedicure appointments were scheduled for noon. Damn! We weren’t rich, spoiled mothers who scheduled weekly manicures, pedicures, and chin-hair waxes. This was a special occasion, thanks to my three beautiful daughters who had each given me a gift certificate for Christmas. I had been saving them, and now—deep in the throes of marital misery—the time was right. No trippy twinkie was going to mess with my Sweet Tangerine Spice Ultra-Ultimate Pedicure at La Voila Day Spa. This Bunny was goin’ down.
