Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa - Jersey Girl 01 - New Math Is Murder (11 page)

“Compulsive eating is not a good way to deal with stress,” she said.

“Neither is downing three margaritas in a span of twenty minutes.”

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Meredith said. “What happened in Rhodes’s office? I thought I heard you yelling.”

I sighed. “He’s changing my column to a general op-ed.”

“I’m sorry. I can give you enough work to keep you busy though,” she told me. “There’s a fundraiser for that kid who got hurt in the hit-and-run on Bay Boulevard last month—Jeffrey Fitzpatrick. It’s on Saturday. Are you free to cover it?”

“It’s not like my dance card’s full anymore,” I told her.

“The Grand Duchess Hotel over in Matawan has spa packages now. Can you interview the owner?”

I took my notebook out of my bag and wrote. “Is this one of those
Pamper Mom for Mother’s Day
things?”

“Your deadline comes after Mother’s Day. This story will be far more in depth, if you please. They’re advertisers. Work it from the health perspective. Massages, aromatherapy—great for beating stress.”

“Gotcha.” Advertisers always got long stories with loads of background stuff.

“Don’t let the loss of the column eat at you, Colleen,” Meredith told me. “Just think of it as a temporary setback.”

The way things were going, my whole life was turning into one big temporary setback.

* * *

Dejected, I left the office and started for home. With Ken Rhodes’s imposed restrictions, my assignments would revert to puff pieces. I had no husband and no decent income. My belligerent daughter was failing in school and seemed to hate me. My son was lost without his father, and the little time Neil managed to squeeze out to catch part of the kid’s baseball game at the field failed to brighten Bobby’s disposition. My mother, the only constant in my life, made my eye twitch.

I bypassed my turn and drove south on the highway. As always when I’m feeling down, I headed for the bay. Just the sight of the gentle waves lapping the shoreline usually cheered me up.

I parked the car in the municipal lot and took the splintered walkway to the beach. Distractions abounded at the water’s edge—the boats docked at the marina to the north, the faint glimpse of Staten Island in the distance, and the hideous, coppery horseshoe crabs that crawled across the sand on invisible legs. The beach was littered with interesting shells. I picked up a few and rubbed off the wet sand. The undersides of the shells looked like mother-of-pearl, yet they weren’t worth the effort of bending down to retrieve them.

I wondered how things could get so crazy in such a short time. I’d led such a normal life only a few short months ago, until suddenly everything had crashed and burned. Had someone put the evil eye on me—the old Italian
malocchio
my grandmother had warned me about when I was a kid? Was God punishing me for something I did—like being too content with my life or maybe too comfortable?

It didn’t matter why. I had to find a way to get back on track. Jason Whitley’s body had been the catalyst for much of the bad luck that had befallen me. I thought he might also be my ticket back to normalcy.

I plopped down on the cold sand and considered my options. Nothing in the world would change my life more dramatically than becoming the best reporter in the county. Yet at present, with Jason Whitley’s murder off-limits for me, my writing career was going nowhere fast.

I got up and walked two miles down the beach, kicking up sand and sulking. My flimsy jacket did nothing to keep me warm.

The kids were eating dinner at my mother’s house, and I knew she would make sure they finished their homework. My own mothering skills had suffered since Neil had walked out on me.

I paused at a construction site not far from Ken Rhodes’s condo tower on Bay Boulevard. Someone thought building a restaurant close to the beach would be a good idea. From the looks of the foundation, it would be a big one. Another thumbs-up for Tranquil Harbor’s zoning board. I wondered which of the illustrious board members would get a kickback for bending the various ordinances meant to preserve the waterfront. Single-family homeowners along Bay Boulevard would no longer have the spectacular view. The light that filled their windows at dawn would be blocked by yet another tacky eatery with a name like
Fish Out of Water
or something equally repugnant.

I continued to walk until the sky grew dark and cloudy, then I turned around to go home. With the exception of one other person off in the distance, I was completely alone on the beach and happy to keep it that way. I mentally ticked off the chores that awaited me later on my way back to the parking lot, and paid no attention to the gull that swooped directly above me. I did stop and take notice when something warm and wet splattered on my head. I reached up and scooped the white-green mess from my hair.

“Oh my God!” I yelled, though it shouldn’t have surprised me one bit. The whole world had done the very same thing to me. The only difference was the bird could physically achieve it.

My mother would say I should buy a lottery ticket right away, because Italians considered this a lucky sign. I looked around, self-conscious about being blessed by the bird’s good fortune. A man in a baseball cap carrying a bundle turned to look in my direction, then ran toward his car at the far end of the expansive lot.

When I reached the Escort, I dove into the car and dug in my purse for used tissues to wipe my fingers and blot my hair. Satisfied I had done my best to clean up, I rolled down the window and tossed out the tissues. I waited for a cop, possibly young Officer O’Reilly, to come by and issue me a summons for littering. No one came.

I buckled my seat belt and waited for another car to exit the lot before starting for home. There were no good shopping malls in the area, and traffic wasn’t a problem out on the highway. It was after nine o’clock, and there was only one other car on the road in front of me—the car that had just left the municipal lot. I thanked God for small favors.

Cold air hit my face. I left the window down to clear my head and switched on the radio, but found it had died. For the tenth time that day, I cursed Neil and his Lexus.

The car in front of me pulled over to the shoulder. I had the highway all to myself, or thought I did, until the driver came back on the road and flashed his headlights in my rearview mirror. I stuck my arm out the window and waved for the driver to pass me.

The driver, infatuated with my rear bumper, refused the invitation.

I looked in my side mirror to get a better look at the car—light colored, possibly a four door.

“Terrific,” I mumbled and stepped on the gas. My ailing Escort refused to cooperate. The only thing I could do was try to attract the attention of somebody who would hopefully call the police. I slammed my palm to blast the horn—which was as dead as the radio.

“I hate you, Neil!” I cried out.

Where were all the fine, upstanding citizens? The weather was good. It wasn’t that late. Why weren’t people driving on the road, on their way home from working late shifts or whatever else people with dependable cars did on spring weeknights in Tranquil Harbor?

I was afraid I’d end up in the morgue if I didn’t lose the car on my tail. I gave a brief thought to hunting through my purse for my cell phone, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road.

An exit came up fast on my right. I switched off my lights and took the turn without stepping on the brakes. It wasn’t one of my brighter ideas. The turnoff was dark in front of me and the maniac in the car behind me still clung to my bumper. I put the pedal to the metal and hoped for the best. The Escort maintained a steady forty miles per hour. Luckily, the car behind me began to slow.

I couldn’t let the opportunity slip by. I drove on, oblivious to where I was going. The headlights from the sedan became two small disks of light in my rearview mirror. I had no idea where I was, nor did I care, until I recognized the
ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk
sound my tires were making and switched on the headlights. I was riding on wood planks, and it was too late to stop.

The Escort sailed off the end of the pier and into Raritan Bay.

12

At first, I thought I’d be okay. The car seemed to float on the black water and drift away from the shore like a clunky metal raft. My headlights stayed on. There were gentle ripples on the bay, but the water was calm.

“You’re okay. You’re fine,” I told myself. My white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel said otherwise.

My seaworthy craft floated in suspended animation for a short time, until the trunk, heavy with the four bags of rock salt I had bought way back in January, began to take on water. The headlights no longer skimmed the bay’s surface. They began to tilt upward, like searchlights at a store opening. I panicked and tried the door. It wouldn’t budge.

“Calm down!” I ordered myself. “Think, Colleen!”

Nothing much came to me except that I had to get the door open and it wouldn’t give. The pressure of the water wouldn’t allow it. I reached through the open window and tugged at the outside handle. That didn’t work either.

Fishy-smelling water filled up the back seat. I struggled, unable to move an inch.

“Dear God, help me!” I screamed.

Then I realized there was no earthly reason to be trapped in the driver’s seat—except for the seat belt.

I pressed the button to release the belt as the water crept up to my thighs and back. The Escort began sinking fast. Upended, I caught a glimpse of the starless night sky and the cloud-covered moon.

I reached out the window and tried the door handle again, without any luck. I nearly panicked, but my brain finally kicked in.

“The window!”

I pulled my legs up on the passenger seat and turned over to crawl. The water line now reached the steering wheel, but my own buoyancy kept me afloat. I pushed off the dashboard and scrambled out the open window.

Just before the entire car went under.

The Escort’s headlights flickered and died beneath me. Across the bay, the lights from Staten Island never looked so good. I kicked my legs and turned toward the New Jersey shoreline. Two police cars and an ambulance drove right up onto the beach. I spotted the beams of several high-powered flashlights on the pier where my Escort took flight. Some men jumped into a speedboat; the roar of an outboard motor carried out onto the bay. I treaded water until they reached me—not grown men at all but three teenage boys. I gave them fierce hugs when they finally managed to drag me aboard, and held on to one of the kids like I’d never let him go.

“You’re choking me, lady,” the boy complained. “You gotta let go or I’ll suffocate. You’re okay, trust me. You’re gonna live.”

I let go and sat down. The cold set into my bones and I began to shiver. One of the kids threw a dry, itchy blanket over my shoulders and we started in. The lights on the beach came closer and closer.

The boys docked the boat and helped me climb the weathered ladder onto the pier. A young man with an all-too-familiar face reached down and hoisted me up the rest of the way.

“Hi, Mrs. Caruso!”

“Officer O’Reilly!” I said, relieved.

“Are you hurt?”

“Just my pride. There was a car following me, and I tried to outrun it. He held back at the turnoff. No wonder. I didn’t even know I was on the pier until I took the plunge.”

“You must have really been flying. You landed on the other side of the sandbar.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re gonna mess up, you might as well do it right,” I told him.

“Did you get a good look at that other car?”

“Not really. I think I saw the driver at the beach—a guy, or maybe even a tall woman, in a baseball cap. The car left the lot first, so it was in front of me. After a minute it coasted onto the shoulder. When I passed, the car came back on the road and rode my bumper. I was too busy trying to outrun it to pay attention to details. It looked like a sedan. Light colored.”

“A lady going south saw you drive off the pier,” O’Reilly said. “She called 9–1–1 from her cell phone.”

Two EMTs came over with a stretcher. I assured them I was fine and thanked the boys who rescued me.

“You should let the EMTs check you out, Mrs. Caruso. You probably lost body heat. That water’s cold.”

“Two cups of coffee will fix me up just fine, Officer O’Reilly.”

“Is there someone I can call for you?” he asked.

I gave a brief thought to calling Ken Rhodes but dismissed the idea. I didn’t need to hear
I told you so
from him. I got enough of that from my mother.

“Actually, I’d rather nobody knows about this. Does the car stay in the bay, or is it brought to the surface or what? I’ve never done this before.”

“You could have fooled me. You did it like a pro,” the young officer told me.

I shrugged.

“I have to write up an accident report. We’ll have the car fished out in the morning, no pun intended. I’ll make sure you get your belongings back, for what they’re worth. The car’s a goner though. You know that, right?”

“The car was a goner before it sank,” I said.

“I’ll be glad to take you home. As far as nobody finding out about your twilight dip, you know the whole town’s gonna know all about it by morning anyway.”

“You can call my mother to warn her,” I told him. “Tell her we’re on our way.”

O’Reilly drove me home, and my mother and the kids were all over me two seconds after I stepped through the door. We had a group hug, a sort of Hallmark moment that was rare in our family. My mother’s comment broke the mood: “I swear, Colleen, you’re turning my hair white!”

The kids stepped back and took in the sight of me.

“Boy, you’re wet!” Bobby said. “You even left footprints on the carpet.”

“Yuck! You smell like fish, Mom, and your hair looks like a wet poodle,” Sara informed me.

My mother put her hand on my forehead. “You want to change out of those clothes before you catch a cold. Do you ever have a normal day anymore? Someday you’re going to come home dead.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, ignoring her logic.

“The phone’s been ringing off the hook for the past twenty minutes,” she told me. “Ron Haver called. I guess the police called him.”