Moving Is Murder Read online

  “You don’t like her?” Abby’s bubbly personality blended with most people’s.

  “She’s all right,” Abby said.

  “Cass, from that gardening column in the newspaper, ‘Clippings with Cass'?”

  “Yes. And she writes articles for environmental Web sites and magazines. A few months ago she headed up a crusade to keep Wal-Mart from building a supercenter on Black Rock Hill. You know, the usual—local neighborhood versus big retailer. But she found some restriction and she was on that news show, 24/7, as the local environmental expert. I think it went to her head.” Abby waved her hand, shuffling the subject away. “Enough about that. How about going to the spouse coffee with me tomorrow night?”

  I felt Abby look at me out of the corner of her eye to gauge my reaction before she said, “I know you just got here, but please go with me tomorrow night.”

  “Abby.” My voice had a warning tone.

  “I know you don’t like the coffees, but I need you to go with me. The times I’ve gotten together with the spouses here it’s been strained, or, I don’t know, tense.”

  “Sounds normal.”

  Abby sighed as I maneuvered the stroller onto the bumpy walking path of the park down the block from our house. “I know you don’t want to go, but I really want to make a good impression. And I want to get involved, too,” she added, almost defiantly. “When I finally got to Hunter, they announced the base closing and the coffees just sort of fizzled out.”

  “Thank God,” I muttered.

  “You can sneer all you want. You’ve done it, but I want to give it a shot.”

  “Abby, they’re boring. No fun.” This was the most convincing argument I could think of to persuade Abby not to go. She always wanted to experience new things, but she wanted them to be fun and exciting. “It’s just the wives of the higher-ranking officers and enlisted trying to outdo each other.”

  “Well, I don’t care if it is boring. We’ll make it fun. I want to support Jeff and if it can help him, I’m doing it.”

  “Slow down,” I pleaded. She’d picked up the pace and we were nearly running around the rolling path that circled the playground and duck pond of Windemere Park. “Mitch says if his career depends on how many cookies I bake, then he doesn’t want an Air Force career.”

  “Jeff supports me in my teaching,” Abby countered. “He doesn’t say a word about the extra time I put in getting ready for school. And last year I bought so many school supplies I thought I should just stay in line at Wal-Mart, but he didn’t mind. I want to support him, too.”

  We left the park and crossed Birch Street to head back down Nineteenth Street. “How much is the Vernon Public School District going to ask of Jeff? Monthly meetings? Two dozen cookies?”

  I knew that set look on Abby’s face, so I gave up trying to argue with her and looked down the street to our new house. Even from this end of the block I could see it. Warm yellow light shone from every window. Why hadn’t Mitch closed the curtains in the growing dusk?

  I did a quick mental tour of the house, then groaned. “Look. The sellers took every curtain and we didn’t even notice during the walk-through before we signed the closing paperwork.” Yep, we were first-time home buyers, all right. No wonder our house glowed like a birthday cake for a retiree.

  “I guess we’ll have to do some shopping,” Abby said. I nodded, wondering if our budget could stretch to include curtains.

  As we paced along the twilight sounds were loud in the silence between us: the racket of the crickets, the swish of sprinklers, the yells of the kids on their bikes as they took one last ride down the sidewalk.

  A burgundy minivan backed out of the Vincents’ driveway. “That’s Cass,” Abby said. Cass slammed on the brakes to let a kid swoop across the street on his bike, then she zipped down the street toward us.

  Instead of making the slight adjustment to follow the gentle curve of the street, the van stayed on its current track with its nose pointed straight at us. “What’s she doing?” I quickened my steps and steered the stroller away from the street.

  “I don’t know—” The blare of the horn cut into Abby’s words. The stroller wheels caught on the uneven sidewalk and the handle slammed into my stomach. “The yard,” Abby said. We wrenched the stroller back, shoved it across a driveway. I stumbled. The cement bit into my knee.

  Abby steadied the stroller. “Are you all right?” The headlights closed on us.

  “Yeah—” We rushed into the grass.

  My vision turned to glaring white. I blinked in the black that descended, but I was aware of the solid mass of metal and glass as the van swept past us. I turned and my eyes adjusted. The van’s front wheel bounced onto the curb of the driveway we’d just ran across. It bumped along the sidewalk a few feet, then dropped back onto the street before barreling into the intersection next to the park. My shoulders tensed.

  Brakes screeched and a crunch of metal sounded as the front of a car grazed the back bumper of the van. The car stopped beside the park. Cass’s minivan jumped the curb and sped across Windemere Park, its tires kicking up little branches and pinecones. The van jolted along the walking path, headed up a slight rise near the playground, and took out a wide section of low bushes, which slowed it down. It rolled to a stop on the next rise of ground, then settled back into the little gully.

  My fingers trembled as I pushed back the stroller awning to check on Livvy. Her eyes were closed and she had her thumb tucked in her mouth. I guess she’d liked the bumpy dash across the neighborhood.

  The driver of the car beat us to the van. My knee stung with each step. A woman in a turquoise tank top and brightly flowered capri pants sat on the grass. She ignored the driver of the car, who muttered about reckless drivers and the crushed headlight of his Volvo.

  “Cass, are you all right? What happened?” Abby bent over her, touched her freckled shoulder.

  Cass’s voice trembled. “No brakes.”

  An Everything in Its Place Tip for an

  Organized Move

  Create and label an “Open First” box with:

  Sheets

  Pillows

  Towels

  Shower curtain

  Paper plates, cups, utensils

  Alarm clock

  Phone

  Answering machine

  Chapter

  Two

  A female officer with a thick twist of braid handed Cass a paper. “Looks like your brakes failed.”

  Cass snatched the form. “No kidding. The steering wasn’t working either. It was hard to turn.”

  “We’ll check with your repair shop tomorrow. Want it towed up to Bob’s?”

  “Might as well. He’s the closest.” Cass seemed recovered from her earlier shock. She moved toward Abby and me as the police called for a tow truck. Abby introduced me.

  Cass gripped my arm. “I am so sorry. I can’t believe it. No brakes! I don’t know what happened. Joe’s always so paranoid about taking the cars in for the whatever-thousand-mile checkup that I can’t imagine what happened. Please say you’ll forgive me for nearly running you down.”

  I blinked. “It’s okay.”

  Before I could say more Cass said, “Look at your knee. I saw you fall. That scared me so bad.”

  “You should have been on the other side of the steering wheel,” I said. “I’m fine. Just a scraped knee. It isn’t even bleeding.”

  Cass leaned down to peek under the stroller’s awning. “Who’s this?”

  “Olivia. We call her Livvy,” I said.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Cass said. “My Chloe looked just like her when she was a baby. Pale fuzz for hair and a cute little rosebud mouth.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “I have two. Chloe’s four and Julie is three.” She brushed a loose strand of honey brown hair away from her face. Her smile faded as she rubbed her lightly freckled arms. “They live with my ex-husband.”

  I took in her smooth face, slim body. She couldn’t have bee
n more than twenty-five years old. Pretty young to have two kids and be divorced and remarried. She spoke so quietly I had to strain to hear, “I made some mistakes. I miss my daughters so much.” Abruptly she came out of her reverie and focused her attention on me. “So did you get the Hansons’ house for less than they were asking?”

  I tried to think of a way to divert the nosy question, but she rolled on, “I heard they had to move. That they were really desperate.”

  “We got a good deal.” I hedged, glad for my stint in a PR office, which had taught me a few deflection techniques.

  “Two thousand less? Or maybe five?” So much for deflection.

  “So what time is the wives’ coffee?” Abby asked.

  “Spouse coffee,” Cass corrected. “It’s silly, but we have to be politically correct. Although I don’t think we have any male spouses in this squadron. It starts at seven-thirty tomorrow night. Everyone will be here because this will be the first meeting since we broke for the summer. The food’s going to be yummy. Diana’s bringing her raspberry torte.” Cass leaned toward me and said in an undertone, “It’ll be perfect, of course. Everything Diana does is perfect.” Then she switched back to her normal tone. “But the rest of us are bringing brownies and cookies.”

  “I’ll see. Nice to meet you. We’ve got a lot to do …” I turned toward our house.

  Cass changed gears and rolled on, “I write the ‘Squadron Spotlight’ column in the newsletter. It introduces the new spouses. I’ll spotlight you next month. So where were you stationed before you moved here?” Cass’s hazel eyes fastened on me with the intensity of an investigative reporter.

  “Hunter, in California.” She extracted my minibiography before we could escape. She didn’t write anything down, but I had a feeling Cass was filing away every word and wouldn’t forget a single detail.

  A tow truck rolled into view. “I’d better get back to unpacking,” I said and escaped before she could ask any more questions.

  “Good grief, she’s nosy. And all that breathless energy. It makes me tired,” I said.

  Abby’s forehead crinkled. “I didn’t know she had kids. I thought they were newlyweds.” Abby was a people person. Within a few minutes of conversation she knew most people’s life stories. I could tell she was wondering how she missed knowing about Cass’s kids.

  “I knew living in the same neighborhood with most of the squad wouldn’t be good.” I was half-joking, half-serious. “Look what happened on our first day. We almost get run down by a van.”

  Abby said, “Don’t be so dramatic. We’re fine. Livvy’s fine. It was an accident.”

  “FP Con: Bravo,” declared one sign at the main gate to Greenly AFB. Another sign announced, 100% id check. I shoved the diaper bag aside with one hand and pulled my billfold out of my purse. Some women have a weakness for shoes. I’ve got a passion for purses. I breathed a sigh of relief this morning when I found the box marked PURSES. I might look like a frazzled, sleep-deprived mom in my red T-shirt, jean shorts, and sandals, but my purse said I still had style. Today I had my patriotic purse, rectangular red and blue leather, with a short oval strap, an appropriate choice for a squadron barbeque.

  I extracted my pink photo ID and cranked down the window of the Jeep Cherokee. Everything on the Cherokee was manual—windows, seats, locks. I’d scraped together the money to buy it in college and I was quite fond of the Blue Beast, as Mitch called it. He preferred his sporty Nissan. He’d almost convinced me to sell the Cherokee, but when we got our northern-tier assignment there was no way I was parting with four-wheel drive.

  Livvy gurgled in her sleep as a blast of hot, dusty air tinged with gasoline fumes swept into the car. I came even with the young security policeman in fatigues toting an M-16 on a shoulder strap. He skimmed the card. “Thank you, ma’am.” He stepped back and I eased down the wide, flag-lined boulevard to Mitch’s squadron. I sent up a quick prayer of thanks that we were out of Lodging and into our house. The two weeks we’d spent in the small hotel room waiting for our household goods had seemed like two months.

  We were in our house, but so much for my intention to not get too deeply involved in the squadron. Abby had guilt-tripped me into going to the spouse coffee where I’d somehow volunteered to help with the garage sale fund-raiser. And here I was, two days later, going to the squadron barbeque. I had boxes to unpack, crumpled packing paper to flatten. I still needed to find the answering machine. I’d be polite for the shortest amount of socially acceptable time and then get home.

  I heard Cass as soon as I pushed open the heavy door to the squad. Frigid air hit my bare arms as I followed her excited voice down the stairs.

  “So, I was practically pressing the brake through the floorboard with trees whizzing past me. In the park!” Cass’s voice rose and her eyes widened as she mimed driving without brakes. She pulled the energy and attention of the room to her. “Can you believe it? I barely missed Abby and Ellie. And the baby! I was terrified when I saw that stroller and I couldn’t move the steering wheel. Anyway, I finally remembered to put it in neutral. Joe showed me how to do that last winter, if it was icy. I took out a whole row of azaleas.” A group of people holding paper plates piled with hamburgers and chips gathered around Cass.

  The squad was built into a man-made hill. The steep sides at the front dropped away in the back so the basement had doors that opened outside to picnic tables with a view of the flight line. Usually we’d be outside at the picnic tables, but today everyone was inside the squadron, which had air-conditioning, something I realized I had taken for granted all my life. Now I was thoroughly appreciative and wouldn’t dream of eating outside in the 100-degree weather.

  A few bursts of color, the spouses, broke up the monotony of the green flight suits that dominated “The Hole,” the name of the basement break room. In every job I’ve ever had the break room is a little plain space no bigger than a cube with a few sticky tables, painfully uncomfortable chairs, a vending machine, and an ancient microwave that makes you wonder if you should wear protective gear when you hit the “on” button. Unlike the civilian workforce, the military takes rest and relaxation seriously. The Hole took up the entire basement of the squad. It had a bar at one end, scratched tables and worn chairs spaced throughout, and a ratty earth-toned couch in front of a large TV.

  The bar was stocked and in full swing. I’d been surprised at the first barbeque I’d attended. What employer hands out beer in the middle of the day? To people flying multimillion-dollar aircraft, no less? Of course, if you were flying you weren’t supposed to be drinking. The whole atmosphere was part of that tradition of being a flyer—virility and masculinity personified. The mystique of doing a dangerous job and then partying hard, reinforced in movies like Top Gun.

  Despite the increasing presence of females, the military is still a rather masculine profession, at least in the flying squadrons. The Hole was a case in point. The walls were covered with beer posters featuring bulging breasts and long legs. I wondered how much longer they would be able to get away with it before someone made them take the pictures down. Not much longer, I hoped.

  Various trophies covered the walls, ranging from the more normal baseball type to the rather risky “souvenirs” people brought home, such as beer mugs from bars, signs, and even rugs. This practice, also known in more crass terms as “stealing,” was now officially frowned on, but I thought new souvenirs probably showed up regularly.

  Cass’s voice broke into my thoughts. In her hot pink T-shirt and shorts she was a flash of color amid a crowd of olive drab. “It’s just a good thing I had to go to the store and I wasn’t going down Rim Rock Road like I usually do. I don’t know what I would have done.” I shivered when I pictured the steep curving road that hugged the escarpment of Black Rock Hill. Without brakes Cass would have been in serious trouble.

  I waved to Mitch across the room. He motioned that he would get our burgers, so I set the diaper bag and my purse in the pile of purses and backpacks by the door.<
br />
  “Vandalism.” Cass’s voice carried across the room as she replied to a question about what happened to her van. “The police say they’ve had some ‘incidents’ in our neighborhood.”

  I took a seat off to one side of the group surrounding Cass with another wife that I had seen at the spouse coffee, but hadn’t talked to, Friona Herrerras. I thought she might be lonely. She had dark chocolate hair smoothed back into a French twist, olive skin, and gorgeous dark eyes with thin arched brows. She was from New York and had moved to Vernon after her wedding to Senior Airman Herrerras. I introduced myself and asked, “So how do you like Vernon?”

  For an answer, she raised her shoulders in a languid shrug and took a drink of her Diet Sprite. She wasn’t eating. Her sleek, sleeveless blue-green dress accented her thin figure and contrasted sharply with the dented folding chairs, frayed carpet, and crinkled beer posters. She looked like an exotic sea creature grounded on a beach. I could see her mentally counting the months until they were transferred. I recognized that look; I’d had it myself right after the first 5.0 earthquake rocked our California apartment. One good thing about the military: if you don’t like your assignment, you know you’ll move soon.

  She scratched a few red welts on her forearm. Her lips twisted in distaste as she explained. “Poison ivy. God, people out here are crazy. Everyone has to be outside. Hiking, yard work, rollerblading. It’s like they’re in love with the trees or something. What I wouldn’t give for a skyscraper.

  “A couple from the squad said, ‘Let’s get together.’ I’m thinking, like—you know—dinner, right? Wrong. We went on a hike.” From her tone, I could tell she thought hiking was as crazy as walking on hot coals. She set the Sprite can on her arm, covering the spots.