“Hah. I’m a mom, that’s all. Moms know crises.”
“That’s not true. Some moms freak out at the sight of blood.”
I shut one eye and scanned her from head to toe. “Are you bleeding somewhere that doesn’t show? Because if you are—”
“See? You’re doing it already. I’d worked myself into a panic attack, and now I’m almost laughing.”
Almost, but not quite. “I could tell the bloop joke.”
“No, no!” She put her index fingers into the shape of a cross and thrust them at me. “Not the bloop joke. Anything but that.” She giggled, and I knew her worst fear had faded.
“In the beginning,” I started, “Marina Annesley, now Marina Neff, was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Fast-forward forty-some years.” I rolled my index fingers, indicating time passing. “Your turn.”
“I’m the—” She spoke so quietly that I couldn’t hear.
“Sorry? The what?”
“The WisconSINista.”
I knew the term “barista,” though I’d never plucked up the courage to order a cup of coffee from one. Fancy coffee shops with mile-long menus written on chalk-boards intimidated me. But what was a Wisconsinista? A new name for Wisconsin natives? A University of Wisconsin football fan?
“The what?” I asked.
She pushed her thumbs up against each other hard enough to whiten the skin around her nails. “The Wiscon—”
“I heard you the first time. What’s a Wisconsinista?”
“Why did I know I’d have to explain this to you? I write that blog. You know, WisconSINs? The one everybody is talking about?” In spite of the angst hanging off her, she sounded proud of herself.
“Oh.” The anonymous blog my staff kept crowding around and reading. The one Gus mentioned. The one that was offering up Randy Jarvis as Agnes’s killer. The anonymous blog I’d thought Lois might be authoring. So. Not written by my staff, but written by my best friend. My mouth twisted a fraction.
“Yeah, yeah,” Marina said. “Nothing but a bunch of gossip, right? But it’s been fun. You wouldn’t believe some of the e-mail I’ve gotten. And who it’s been about.” She grinned. “Did you know—”
I held up my hand. “Please. Don’t know. Don’t want to know.”
“Spoilsport.”
“My kids tell me that on a daily basis.”
“No surprise there.” She rolled her eyes. “I started this blog in September, when Zach went back to school. Had to do something to keep from going wacko. Anyway, I got maybe thirty, forty hits a day until Agnes was murdered. Then ka-blooey!” She threw out her arms. “The day after? Thousands! And I’m still getting hundreds.”
“How nice for you,” I said. “But if it’s that much fun, why are you here?”
The glow on her face faded to a white that made her freckles stand out sharply. “Because tonight one of those e-mails was different. It came just after I posted about there having to be a connection between the school B and E and the murder. This e-mail was a threat.”
“Like a cease-and-desist threat?”
“No.” She covered her mouth with her fingers and spoke through them. “It was ‘Keep trying to find the guy who offed Agnes and you could be next.’”
“ ‘You could be . . .’ ” The sentence was impossible to finish.
Time at the kitchen table stopped. The refrigerator hummed, the wall clock ticked, and the washing machine sloshed. But Marina and I, despite being seated comfortably, hung in midair, our feet dangling and our toes frantically trying to touch the ground.
“That’s a death threat,” I whispered.
She nodded, and the ground fell farther away. Multiple emotions competed for the top slot. Fear, panic, and a deep and desperate love for this woman who had given me so much. Marina? Dead? Reality had changed in an instant and I didn’t care for it.
I took one of her hands and flinched at the chill in her skin. “Do you want me to call Gus for you?”
“No.”
“Right. It’s probably better if you call.” I gave her hand a pat. “I’ll get the phone and—”
“No!” She grabbed out and jerked me back down. “No police.”
This was starting to sound like a B movie. The kidnappers said no police, but one of the parents always ended up calling them. Something would go wrong and a rogue cop would save the kid, retrieve the money, and get a promotion. “What do you mean, no police?”
“Just what I said.” Color was coming back into her face. “No police.”
“Marina, you just had a death threat! We’re calling Gus right now.”
“Call the police and I swear I’ll deny everything.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Yes! I mean, no. If I go to the police, I’ll have to tell them I write WisconSINs! I’ll lose my anonymity, I’ll get more threats from people who didn’t like what I wrote about whoever, and I’ll have to shut down the blog. The whole town will hate me.”
“Gee,” I said dryly. “Shut down the blog or get killed. How on earth will you decide?”
“I’m not going to get killed.” She put up her chin. “It’s common knowledge that people who send anonymous threats never carry them out.”
“Is this the same common knowledge that says you can see the Great Wall of China from the moon? The same common knowledge that says chameleons change color to match their surroundings?”
“They don’t?”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t think this guy is dangerous.”
“So why are you sitting in my kitchen late on a Sunday night?”
“He just wanted to scare me, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” I put my elbow on the table and propped up my chin with my hand. “And you know this how, exactly?”
“If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead.” She ran an index finger across her throat and made a gurgling noise that sounded more like something you’d hear in a dentist’s office than in a dark alley. “He wants two things. That I stop trying to figure out who broke into the school, and that I stop trying to figure out who killed Agnes.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing?”
“Sure. Me and half the people in Rynwood.” She flipped her hair back over her shoulders. “I’m just the one with an audience.”
“And you like that.”
“Daahling. Everyone loves an audience.” The imaginary cigarette holder she suddenly held was two feet long, and the imaginary smoke ring she blew wafted up toward the ceiling. “I’m just honest enough to admit it.”
That comment wasn’t worth responding to. “So if you agree to stop trying to figure it out, he’ll stop threatening you.”
“So he says.”
“Then it’s easy,” I said. “Stop.”
“Why did I know you’d say that?”
“Gee, can’t imagine.” I drummed my fingers on my cheek. “Maybe because I’m right?”
“Daahling.” She tipped ashes off the ghostly cigarette and onto the linoleum.“You could be right of Rush and I’d still love you, but there is another alternative.” Her glance slewed sideways, and the Greta Garbo facade faded.
Ahh. “You have an ulterior motive, don’t you?”
Her mouth opened slightly. “Moi?” She laid her hands flat on her collarbone.
“Yes.” I folded my arms. “You’re about to ask me to do something I don’t want to do. Last time you did that, I ended up as the PTA’s secretary.”
“And you enjoy it.” Marina smirked. “Don’t give me that look. You’re having a good time. You and Erica are getting along like a house afire. Has she stopped by yet to give you landscaping advice?”
Erica had said she’d drop by next weekend, but I wasn’t going to tell Marina that. “Whatever you want, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, I don’t know how, and . . . and . . .”