The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder (5 page)

I wanted to reach out and give her a comforting hug, but, of course, there was no way I could do that. Pity is not something that most of us seek. As it turned out, that wasn’t what she was looking for at all.

“Hello,” I said. “I hope the course so far is—”

This time she stared straight into my eyes. “Oh, Charlotte,” she said in a high-pitched girlish voice. “Can you ever forgive us?”

I shook my head. “Forgive you?”

“Yes.” She stared at the floor and I swear tears formed in her eyes.

“Forgive you for what?”

“We were so cruel. Heartless. And you were just a little thing.” She giggled softly. “Of course, you’re not very big now.”

I said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

“I’m Haley? Haley Brennan? I was Haley McKee? I used to be friends with Serena Redding?”

I blinked. The flawless ivory skin, the bouncy ponytail, the contagious grin were gone, and the sexy curves, if they remained, were buried under a loose sweatshirt that said OFFICE CLEANING SPECIALISTS. At least she’d taken off the man’s jacket and was carrying it.

She said, “And Jasmin Lorenz and Tiffanee Dupont were my friends too, of course, to a certain extent, but mostly Serena.”

When someone begs your forgiveness and you have no recollection of the incident they want to be forgiven for, that won’t bring them any relief. One glance at Haley’s pale face and anguished expression and I understood she was desperate to be forgiven. I could forgive her for whatever it was. What the hell. It wasn’t going to cost anything, was it?

I said, “It was a long time ago.”

“But you must have felt so humiliated.”

I resisted the urge to shrug. I’d never felt humiliated by Haley, or Tiffanee or Jasmin or Serena, for that matter. Annoyed and occasionally cautious when they were in the vicinity, but that was it. I’d had a challenge with Helen “Hellfire” Henley, the teacher who terrified us all, but a few mean girls? I couldn’t remember anything they’d done that was anywhere near humiliating. Mona Pringle’s image flickered in my mind. Now she should be the one being asked for forgiveness.

“I’m over it,” I said with a smile. “My life has turned out fine. I love my job, I have great friends, and I enjoy myself. Also, I’ve learned to not hold a grudge. It’s a huge waste of time and energy.”

She stared at me. “You don’t hate us?”

“Why would I? We’re all adults now. We move on.”

Of course, looking at Haley I realized that her life hadn’t turned out great. She seemed to be at the point of collapse. Could it be guilt? Misplaced if so, as she’d never succeeded in doing me any damage. Of course, she may not have caused
me
grief, but she’d sure brought plenty to other people.

She was weeping softly now. I glanced around. I preferred that the rest of the group not think I reduced one of their number to tears.

I patted her arm, doing my best to appear forgiving. “All in the past. The present’s what counts.”

“The present’s not so great for me, as you can probably tell at a glance. And now Serena’s back.”

“I’d heard that.” Damn. I hadn’t meant to blurt that out.

“Who told you?”

“I don’t even remember,” I said, not wishing to bring Mona Pringle into this. For one thing, Haley might need to ask for her forgiveness and I doubted that Mona was in that zone. I tried not to imagine Haley’s sad face splattered against the windshield of Mona’s car.

Haley stared at me, her large blue eyes magnified by the red eyelids. A few random tears straggled down her cheeks. “How could you forget something like that?”

Because Serena was so unimportant in my life that I had to be reminded who she was? I chose not to say that. “I may have even just overheard it when I was shopping at Hannaford’s. But I never had much connection with Serena. I’m neutral on whether she comes back or not. I wouldn’t even expect to run into her. What brings her back to Woodbridge? She’s been gone since graduation, hasn’t she? Are you looking forward to reconnecting with her?”

Oh boy. Wrong question. Haley was horrified and possibly even terrified by the idea of her friend coming back. I could see why. Life had not been kind to Haley, and Serena would be even less so when she got a peek at her. What was the purpose of life’s losers except to amuse the strong and beautiful? The blue eyes filled with tears again. I reached over. This time I squeezed her hand.

“Why don’t we get out of here and go to Ciao! Ciao! for coffee?” I said, adding quickly as her pallid face fell, “My treat.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“I think the library staff has to get the room ready for the children’s activities this afternoon. Don’t feel any pressure, Haley. We don’t have to go for coffee if you don’t have the time. We can talk on our way to the parking lot.”

She shivered in the hot room. “Coffee sounds good.”

Twenty minutes later we were each wedged into one of the tiny painted chairs at Ciao! Ciao!, facing each other over a fancifully painted table; bright blue and decorated with what seemed like garden gnomes in the middle of a wild polka. I was drinking a latte and Haley was going for just plain coffee. We each had chocolate biscotti to crunch or dunk.

“You know what? I always thought they were just a waste of money, but that does look delicious,” she said as she eyed my latte.

“No one can beat them here.”

She glanced around. “This place is so nice. I’ve never been here. I thought only snobs came here. Not that you’re a—”

“Mostly students and professors, artists and some techy types and entrepreneurs who work out of home and like to mingle. I like it too.”

With her oversize jacket that also said OFFICE CLEANING SPECIALISTS on the pocket, and her washed-out hair, Haley in fact didn’t match the young and hip crowd in Ciao! Ciao! I kept resisting the urge to offer her a makeover. Everything is not about appearances. Haley certainly had changed since St. Jude’s; there was no question about that. I put it down to guilt. Perhaps the way she’d treated people like Mona had come back to haunt her. Kicked in the keister by Karma.

She said, “You can’t judge people by their looks. That’s one thing I should have learned over the years.”

I wondered what those years had done to Haley. Nothing too good was my guess, but I didn’t want to ask too much. I did notice the rings on her finger. “I see you’re married.”

She shrugged and glanced away. “Yeah, right out of high school. One of those unplanned things, you know. We have a fourteen-year-old daughter, Brie. Can you believe that?”

“Wow.”

“She’s a great kid. She’s very smart. She loves poetry and reading.”

“That must keep you busy, keeping up with her activities.”

Haley gave me a strange glance. “Sure. That and the job. When she was younger, I was able to stay home with her. But now Randy—that’s my husband; you may remember Randy from the football team at St. Jude’s—”

I made a noncommittal head movement, the type that can be a yes or a no, depending on interpretation. I’d never spent any time thinking about the football team. Except for one guy who’d asked me out and then changed his mind for unexplained reasons, my interests had always been in geekier, smart boys. But as Haley had married one of the players, I chose not to mention that.

“He was a hero,” she said, a faraway look in her redrimmed eyes. “A big man around town. So handsome and nice too. Popular. I was lucky to snag him. Everyone was so jealous.”

I nodded. I wasn’t interested in pursuing the jealousy angle. Best to avoid that conversational trap.

She continued, “Anyway, Randy had a job in sales. He was dynamite. Things were great. We had a beautiful home, cars, and people to clean
my
house. Randy could sell anything, but the company went out of business and sales jobs in this area dried up in the bad economy.”

“Sorry to hear about that.”

“It’s just the beginning. He has . . .”

I waited until she regained her composure. Whatever he had, it wasn’t good.

She pulled herself together. “He has a chronic kidney condition. He’s been pretty sick. Medical care and drugs have been killing us. It’s been very hard on him. He doesn’t have the stamina he used to have. I don’t even know how long . . .”

“I’m so sorry.”

She nodded. “He doesn’t deserve it. He’s always been wonderful to everyone. Not like me. But, anyway, we have to keep going. He took over an office cleaning business and I work with him. We have enough customers to keep us afloat. A lot of people know Randy and like him. We even do some weekend maintenance work at St. Jude’s. How’s that for a comedown for me?” Her lower lip quivered. I glanced away until she managed to pull herself together. “I shouldn’t complain. We’re lucky. We had a cabin outside of town near the ski hills. We moved there when we lost the house. I mean, we could be living in our car. Also, it’s mostly nights so it gives us some freedom. If he isn’t well, I can fill in and Brie helps out. I hate that she has to, but we need to survive.”

My bet was that Haley worked darn hard too and worried while she did. Working nights couldn’t be easy, especially with a sick husband.

I said soothingly, “Mmm. At any rate, I don’t want you to worry any more about anything you may have done to me when we were kids. It’s all water under the bridge. I’m glad to have reconnected with you.”

“I’m surprised.”

“At what?”

“That you can. It’s just that they were so awful. The things we said, I mean. It takes a big person to forgive that, Charlotte.”

Of course, I am a small person. Four feet eleven, to be precise. And I’d been prepared to forgive, although I wondered exactly what they might have said that might have been so awful that Haley couldn’t believe I’d forgive her. I resolved not to find out. I was better off not knowing. And it wasn’t as though I was going to spend any time with the former mean girls.

“I got a terrible shock when she died,” Haley said.

“What? Who died?”

“That girl, the woman who was killed by the hit-and-run driver last night.”

I dipped my chocolate biscotti into the latte. “For sure. Sad story, that.”

“Did you know she was the spitting image of Serena? I saw her in the photo they showed on the news.”

“She was? I saw the news last night, but they hadn’t released any information about her.”

“WINY had her photo on this morning. They showed members of her family too. That’s awful, isn’t it? Her sisters couldn’t stop crying. It doesn’t seem right to me to go up to a person whose sister has just died and ask them how they are feeling.”

Just like that toad Todd Tyrell, stalking some grieving family member with his microphone stuck out in the hopes of a sound bite. I said, “I can’t believe the media sometimes.”

“But, of course, it wasn’t Serena. Just some nice woman going home after being out hunting for her cat. That’s what they said.”

“Did they give her name?”

Haley shook her head. “I missed her name. I just saw the photo and the sisters crying. She was about the same age we are and she resembled Serena. I knew she couldn’t have been Serena because Serena was an only child. And I heard she’d moved into a huge mansion out of town on the river.”

She shrugged and glanced at her watch. “Oh sorry, Charlotte. I have to get a move on. I need to get the truck back to pick up my husband. We just have the one vehicle and I don’t like to keep Randy waiting.”

As we parted company and as I hadn’t seen her in fourteen years, I figured I wouldn’t see her again, except possibly at next week’s session. I congratulated myself that I hadn’t fallen into the trap of asking what they’d said about me.

“Thanks for spending time with me, Charlotte. And for forgiving me. You have no idea how much it means. I have a lot of regrets. Maybe I’ll have them all my life.”

I felt the need to cheer her up.

“I guess you can be thankful that it wasn’t Serena who was killed,” I said. “At least your friend is still alive.”

Surprise washed over Haley’s pasty face. “She’s not my friend anymore. I don’t know how I could have been her friend back then. I was under her spell. She was so . . . wicked. I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had killed her.” She put her hand to her mouth. “That’s awful, isn’t it?”

Somewhat belatedly, I clued in that Haley would have been far more thankful if the victim had been Serena. At the minimum, Haley McKee Brennan would have been very, very relieved.