Citizen Insane (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #2) (16 page)

“She sounds like she’s calm now. I’m so sorry.” I cleared my throat. “How is Lance taking all of this?”

Suddenly, Julia became very animated. “Oh! It’s just awful,” she said, her hands going into the air in a gesture of disbelief. “His wife is in the hospital fighting for her dear life and he can’t even be with her!”

“Why is that?”

“The police are holding him for questioning as a suspect, can you believe it?”

Two loud thumps turned Julia’s attention toward the hall. Worried that Bunny was bungling our mission, I scrambled to keep Julia talking. “Really?” I said. “That’s awful. Tell me more.”

“He has a lawyer, but there’s been no bail posted, and the police won’t discuss the matter with anyone in the family. Even the lawyer won’t tell us anything. Our father is at the police station right now trying to get some answers.” She was shaking her head and pursing her lips. “This whole thing is a nightmare like I’ve never seen.”

“Wow.” The comment was lame, I know. My conversation-machine was on the fritz.

Bunny returned and sat back down stiffly on the couch next to me. “I’m sorry,” she said to Julia. “I’m not feeling well. Could I have a glass of water?”

“Oh. Um, sure.” Julia didn’t seem keen on hostessing, but she stood, if somewhat grudgingly, and disappeared into the kitchen.

“There’s a kid in the bedroom,” Bunny whispered.

“MoMo—her son.”

“MoMo? What kind of name is that?”

That sure was the crackpot calling the kettle black. “Why were you making that awful noise?”

“I was trying to wake him up so he’d leave.”

If I were a hitting woman, I would have slapped her silly. “That’s a stupid idea. And it didn’t work. Although I’m sure you woke a few corpses.”

“I know. I’m not thinking clearly.”

“Why didn’t you just sneak in? Kids sleep through anything.”

“I tried that too.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Tried?”

“It’s not there.”

I heard glasses clinking in the kitchen and then water running from the faucet.

“What do we do?” Bunny asked.

“Abort, Abort.”

Bunny grabbed my arm. “But I need that bear.”

I heard Julia shut off the faucet and then her returning footsteps. “Oh! MoMo, you little devil!”

Julia appeared back in the living room with a glass of water in one hand and a toy in the other. “He found this in Michelle and Lance’s room and he insists on playing with it. I hope they don’t mind.” She set the stuffed animal on the coffee table in front of us and handed Bunny a glass.

It was the miracle of the wayward Winnie-the-Pooh Bear. Bless little MoMo and his grubby, spoiled rotten little hands.

If I were Catholic, I would have genuflected. Surely, somewhere, angels sang.

Bunny gulped some water then coughed a little. She couldn’t take her eyes off the bear.

Okay, the eagle had landed. Now we just had to figure out how to snatch the sucker and make a clean getaway. I stared at it for what seemed like an hour, but in a flash of brilliance, blurted out, “My Pooh Bear!”

Yes, I took a risk. The maneuver could have backfired. Julia could have grabbed it away shrieking, “Who do you think you are you stupid, idiot, lying bag of dingo barf? This was a gift from my brother to his beautiful wife in honor of his deep and committed love for her.”

Thankfully she didn’t say any of that. Instead, she blinked a few times in bewilderment and asked, “What?”

“Well, not my Pooh Bear, but my daughter’s. Amber. It’s hers.” I picked it up.

“But—”

“That’s right,” Bunny chimed in. “I remember you telling me that Amber left it here the other day.”

“Right. I did.”

“But I thought you and Michelle were only acquaintances,” Julia objected.

“We were—are. But . . . my daughter Amber and her daughter—”

“Son,” corrected Bunny.

“Son—Amber and her . . . youngest son . . .”

“Phillip,” offered Bunny.

“Right. Amber and Phillip. They’re like this.” I held up crossed fingers and shoved the Pooh Bear under my arm. “So glad I found this. Thank you. Amber has been so upset. I’ll take it to her right now.” I was already at the door with Bunny right behind me and poor Julia looking like a robot ready to blow because the situation did not compute. Bunny turned and handed the glass of water to her. “Thank you. I needed that.”

I pulled the door open. “Enjoy your visit.” Ugh. That was hardly appropriate. I was full of lame comments, but what could I say?
I hope your brother isn’t a killer and please don’t send the police after me for stealing his Pooh Bear
?

Back in the car, I told Bunny to hang onto the stash until we drove away from the house. We didn’t want anyone seeing what we were up to. Julia was still standing at the door, glass of water in hand, when I put my pedal to the metal. There were some tennis courts just around the corner with a tiny parking lot, so I pulled in there.

“Okay,” I said turning off the ignition, “let’s see the goods.” I felt so criminal as Bunny held up the soft, cuddly, and innocent plaything. Poor Winnie. Caught in the middle. Would he really reveal Michelle’s attempted assassin?

“‘In the Pooh Bear,’” Bunny said. “Those were Michelle’s words. This is the one that Lance gave to Michelle when they got married. I’m assuming she meant for me to look inside.”

“Do we have to tear it apart?” I didn’t want to ruin an item of sentimental value only to discover we were way off base.

Bunny flipped the animal around at different angles, running her finger through the fur. “Look!” She pointed to the seam along Pooh’s underside. It had clearly been ripped open and sewn shut again; the new stitching was loose and the thread was a different color. Bunny pulled at the threads but couldn’t get them loose. We needed something sharp. I always keep a pair of scissors in my glove compartment, but I wasn’t in my own van. I doubted that the grouchy rental delivery man had left a courtesy pair.

“What about nail clippers?” asked Bunny.

“Those I have!” I dug through my purse until I felt the fingernail clipper on my key ring. A mother must always be prepared for nail emergencies.

I started clipping at the threads. “What kind of trouble were they having—Michele and Lance?”

“How do you know they were having problems?” Bunny asked as she held the bear.

“Your fight in the parking lot. We heard you say they were in marriage counseling.”

She got emotional again. “See? I said such awful things that I didn’t mean to. They’re in counseling, but it’s nothing horrible really. He loves her terribly, but she’s having . . .” she lowered her voice. “Sexual issues.”

“Oh,” I said, clipping the last of the threads free. Bunny pulled the broken seam open and stuck a couple of fingers in.

“You feel anything?” I asked.

“Yup . . . there’s a piece of paper here . . .” she was working her fingers around and sticking her tongue out as if it might help her get a grip on the paper she couldn’t see. My heart started to pump faster. We had just waltzed into a house, heisted a treasured gift, and were about to possibly find evidence inside to implicate a murderer. I was a little scared, but kind of excited too.

“Got it!” Bunny shouted.

I smiled and we high fived. I had to admit, I was really starting to like this woman. I felt pretty guilty for being so hard on her before.

The Cracker Jack prize was a folded piece of paper. Bunny opened it and discovered it was really two printouts that had been folded together. She pulled them apart and held the pages up so we could both see.

The first was a picture of Krystle Jennings. The second was an article from Wikipedia. Reading down, it talked about the “Dynasty Dames”—three girls from Wembsley Women’s College in Massachusetts who had robbed three banks in 1982. Dubbed “The Dynasty Dame Robbers” because the disguises they wore when pulling a job were character masks from the famous television series, Dynasty. They had shot and wounded a policeman during their third robbery and had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list ever since. The article gave the names of two, Anita Abernathy and Marilyn Schmutz, but also had a photo of the third, and person of highest interest because she was the cop shooter—KiKi Urbanowski.

“What do you think she’s saying—that Krystle Jennings is this KiKi person?” I asked.

“Well,” said Bunny, looking closely at the two pictures. “There’s a bit of a resemblance.”

“That would explain why Krystle disappeared so suddenly. Maybe Michelle found her out.”

“Maybe . . .”

“What are you thinking?”

“Or maybe they were partners.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Michelle went to Wembsley.”

Chapter Fifteen

THE BEAR SLIPPED TO THE floor. Bunny started wringing her hands and mumbling incoherently. I didn’t have much patience for her little nervous spells, as they often turned into big Freakoid from the planet Crackpot episodes, but I tried to muster some empathy. “Are you okay?” I rubbed her arm hoping to comfort her.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of pills. “I just need one of these.” She shook the bottle and her eyes nearly glazed over just looking at them. “Maybe I’ll take two. They calm my nerves.”

“What are they?”

“Anti-anxiety pills. Waldo gave them to me.”

“You mean you don’t have a prescription from your doctor?” I snatched the bottle from her hands and inspected further. No label. “Bunny, you have no idea what these are.”

“Waldo’s a psychotherapist. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. He said he gets them wholesale or something.”

Things were beginning to make sense. I had never been a huge Bunny Bergen fan, but she never seemed insane. Not until yesterday’s episode on my front lawn. “How long have you been taking these?”

“I don’t know exactly—a week, maybe. What’s today?”

“Tuesday.”

“He brought them over last Monday or Tuesday. He’s been so kind and helpful. Listening to me go on and on about my problems.”

“Have you had any other. . .” I was trying to put it nicely, “. . . bad experiences lately? You know, like yesterday at my house?”

Her eyes brightened. “Yes! I’ve been having blackouts. Not fainting, but where I don’t remember things for a few minutes sometimes. My boys told me the other day that I was walking around the house looking for our dog, Princess, but she died two years ago. I didn’t remember it at all.”

“You didn’t think that was strange?”

“I did. I asked Waldo and he said it was a symptom of my anxiety and I should just double the dose.”

“Dose? There’s no dosage written here.”

“He said take one pill four times a day, or if my anxiety got really bad, two pills each time.”

“Bunny, are you crazy?” I shouted. “You don’t even know what these are! They could be laced with LSD for all you know.”

Bunny’s face scrunched up like a dried pumpkin and she started to cry.

I felt like the scum of the earth. Counseling was obviously not my forte.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was mean and insensitive of me. I’m just worried for you. This is not the way to handle your problems. Who knows what these are? You’re probably making things worse by taking them.”

She was wiping tears and snot from her face, so I found a couple of mangled tissues in my purse and handed them to her.

“You’re right. But I don’t have the money right now. My divorce has wiped me out. I’ll probably have to sell the house. I can’t even afford a car. The Jaguar is my dad’s.”

“Which divorce? Your most recent?”

She cocked her head and gave me a what-are-you-talking-about kind of look.

“I mean, this isn’t your first, right?”

“Yes.”

“Oh . . .”

“Why?”

“I’d just heard . . . never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“I know,” she looked me straight in the eyes. “You heard I’ve been divorced twice.”

“Well, four times actually.”

“Four? Why do people say these mean things about me?”

I wanted to melt into the car seat. Surely I had participated in spreading these untruths.

“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”