“Plus he was in Las Vegas the week Agnes died, attending a regional business leaders’ conference.”
Marina’s face lit up. “So he could have sneaked out and flown here. Done the deed and zipped back to Vegas.”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “At the approximate time Agnes was killed, he was accepting an award for ‘most environmentally friendly office management.’ ”
“Well, shoot.” Marina stuck her lower lip out. “It would have been okay if he’d done it.”
“Sorry.”
She flicked at my notes. “Where’d you get this, anyway?”
“A few phone calls, a few Web site searches.” Actually, most of the information had come from Agnes’s sister, Gloria. I’d called, ostensibly to confirm that the photo album had arrived. With only a small push, she’d been more than pleased to dish up the dirty on her sister’s failed marriage. Turned out Mephisto had also been from Superior. “He was slime,” Gloria said. “He went after Agnes for one reason and one reason only.”
Marina leaned down and picked a fallen scrunchie off the floor. She set it on the table and spun it around her index finger. “So many people with alibis.” Twirl, twirl. “This never happened on Dragnet.” She held on to the table and tipped her chair back. If any of our children had done that, we’d have scolded, “Four on the floor.” But since it was just us, we didn’t have to be adults. “So now what? Do you want to split up the rest of the names, or are you still gung ho on doing this yourself?”
“Mom?” Zach ran into the room. “We get to watch another movie, right?”
The chair thudded down, and Marina spread her arms wide. “Come here, my son, and let me bestow upon you the kiss of motherhood.”
He wrinkled his nose and looked like a young male version of his mother. “Aw, quit. I’m too old for that.” Marina’s arms drooped and her lower lip trembled, but Zach only rolled his eyes. “Stop that, too,” he said. “Hey, can we have popcorn during the second movie?”
Marina heaved a loud sigh. “Despite the scorn heaped on my head, I will indeed labor and sweat to bring you corn that is popped.”
“None of that air crap.”
“Young princeling, your wish is my command.”
“Cool.” He ran off, then turned and trotted backward. “Thanks, Mom! You’re okay, even if you do talk funny sometimes.”
“He’s getting so big,” Marina said softly. “A few more years and he’ll be gone, too.”
I was quiet, remembering that sunny September day when I’d taken Oliver to his first-grade classroom. Preschool and kindergarten hadn’t seemed real, somehow, filled with naptime and tambourines and construction paper. First grade was the beginning of Oliver’s true education, and the real start of his growing away from me.
“Well.” Marina pushed herself to her feet. “That’s what motherhood is all about. Love ’em and leave ’em go. Want some popcorn?”
“Sure.” The reason I even owned a stove-top cooker was because I’d tasted Marina’s popcorn. That microwaved gunk hadn’t come into our house for years.
With metallic screeches, she slid aside the cast-iron pan that lived permanently on the range and took the popcorn cooker out of a cabinet. “I’ll make a second batch for us. Garlic, cheese, and just a touch of chili powder.” With her head in the refrigerator, she asked, “You’re not planning on kissing anyone later on tonight, are you?”
My thoughts immediately went to Evan, and my cheeks flamed. “No-o,” I stammered. Rats. There were one or two things I wanted to keep to myself, and Marina would be all over that stutter faster than a first-time mother on a dropped pacifier.
Wildly, I looked around for a subject changer. Marina’s laptop computer sat at the end of the counter, booted up and ready for service. I sidled toward it as Marina came out of the fridge, butter in hand and eyebrows raised. “Hey.” I angled the screen toward her. “You have mail.”
She squinted at the screen. “My reading glasses are AWOL. What’s the subject line say?”
“There are three of them.”
“Read on, my dear.” She sliced off a chunk of butter and put it in a glass measuring cup. “Now that you’re party to my bloggership, there is nothing about me you do not know.”
Without even meaning to, she was making me feel guilty. “Um, the first one is from Lands’ End. A shipment is on its way.”
“New jeans for Zach, winter coat for the DH.”
“Where is he, anyway?”
“The DH,” she said, “is at this moment traversing the state with three other like-minded men. Tomorrow’s plans include setting up a grill in a parking lot at eight in the morning, cooking, and eating vast amounts of fatty foods, then sitting on cold concrete for a minimum of three hours watching young men run, throw an inflated leather object, and collide against one another with sickening thuds.”
“Ah.” I looked back at the screen. “E-mail number two is an advertisement from the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau. How many years have you been trying to get your DH to take you there?”
She counted on her fingers, ran through all the digits, and started over on the right hand.“Too many. Something always seems to come up. New car, college tuition, new roof, college room and board, new carpet, college textbooks, new furnace, college fees, et cetera, et cetera.”
College. I hadn’t put a dime into the kids’ college funds since the divorce. One of these days I’d have to talk to Richard about it—after school let out for the summer, maybe.
“E-mail number three,” I said, “is from a gobbledygook e-mail address of letters and numbers. Why do people do that?”
“What’s the address?” Marina asked hoarsely.
“Are you getting a cold?” I put my finger on the screen—bad Beth!—to help me read along. “It’s 1t94z4a at rynwood dot com. Is that anyone you know? Marina?”
I turned around. Marina was standing statue still, staring out the window. But since it was dark outside, there wasn’t anything to see except her reflection. Her mouth opened, then closed without a sound coming out.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Read it,” she said dully. “Then delete it.”
“But—”
“Just do it!”
A loud pop echoed across the kitchen; we both jumped. There was another pop and another, and then a flurry of popcorn burst into full flower. Marina started cranking the wooden knob. “Are you going to read it or what?”
I read it, then desperately wished I hadn’t. Once, twice, three times, I tried to speak, but nothing came out. Repeating the words on that screen wasn’t possible. If I spoke them, they might come true.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Marina said. “It can’t be that bad.” With a heaping popcorn bowl in hand, she gave me a friendly hip check and pushed me aside. She leaned close to the screen, squinting, and started to read aloud, but fell silent. Her hands began to tremble.
I watched the tremors grow from a one on the Richter scale to a seven. The popcorn bowl plunged to the vinyl floor with a loud whack, and hot buttered popcorn went everywhere.
“He says—”
“Yes.” I put my hands on her shoulders.
“He says he’s going to—”
“Don’t,” I whispered, and put my arms around her waist. Whoever had sent that e-mail had a vivid and bloody imagination. “Just don’t.”
She gripped my hands hard enough to hurt. “Beth, what are we going to do?” Panic pushed her voice high. “What am I going to do?”
“Shhh.” I put my forehead against the back of her neck. Her whole body was shivering, but after reading the new threat, I didn’t blame her a bit. “Shhh,” I whispered. “It’ll be all right.”
“How can you say that?” The panic was rising, threatening to take her off in its dark, dirty claws. “How can you know?”