Steamed (18 page)

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Authors: Jessica Conant-Park,Susan Conant

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Mystery Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Boston (Mass.), #Cooks, #Women Graduate Students

BOOK: Steamed
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I left at two on Monday. On Tuesday I left at one, having written Naomi a note to say that on the previous day, I’d looked everywhere for her in front of the State House and that although I hadn’t found her, I’d still stood with other women chanting and holding a sign that read No More! I had, in fact, only passed through the crowd on my way to the T and, unable to determine exactly what the group was protesting, had chosen to participate in a protest of my own by objecting to being stuck in a dimly lit office on a sunny September day.
 
That afternoon I finally reached Adrianna on the phone. “You found a date at Eric’s funeral!” she screamed with delight. “That’s the Chloe I know and love!” After a short rendition of “Back in the Saddle,” she wanted every detail about Josh. “He sounds amazing. And a chef! Oh my God! I can’t believe we’re going to Magellan. This is going to be unbelievable!”
 
Now that’s a best friend. No irritating questions about guilt or innocence—she knew that the only concern here was what the hell I was going to wear.
 
“So,” I begged, “will you come over on Friday and help me get ready? And can I borrow something to wear? The nicest thing I have is the blue dress you made me, but it seems sort of disrespectful to wear it again since that’s what I had on when I, uh, went out with Eric.”
 
“I’ll be there at four, okay? Um, make it three o’clock. Miraculously, I’m off for the weekend after eleven, so I’ll come over early. Will you be done with classes by then?” she asked.
 
I said I would, and she promised to bring over an assortment of outfits for me to choose from. Owen would pick us up and drive us to Magellan so we could both drink. At the very least, I’d need some wine to calm my jitters.
 
Josh had left me a message on Monday to make sure we were still coming. So far, I’d replayed it about forty times, just loving the sound of his voice. When I told Adrianna about the message, she squealed, “Oh, I want to hear it!” I gave her my voice mail password and hung up. A minute later she called back. “He sounds totally dreamy. I can’t wait for Friday.”
 
“Tell me about it,” I agreed. We said good-bye, and I went back to reading the Social Work Code of Ethics for class on Wednesday. I had Group Therapy first and General Practice after that.
 
Group Therapy met at eight in the morning, which I thought totally went
against
the social work code of respecting all individuals (and allowing them to sleep late). But on Wednesday, I managed to show up on time and found an empty seat between two women, one about my age and one who was probably in her forties. I’d noticed that approximately half my classmates were middle-aged, and last week when we were all forced to introduce ourselves in each class, learned that a lot of people were making drastic midlife career changes by coming to social work school. The woman next to me was in another of my classes, and I remembered her telling my Research Methods class last week that she had left her job as a CPA and had a field placement at a homeless shelter.
 
Professor Buckley entered the room and instructed the class to move their chairs into a large circle, a ploy I hated, a transparent technique meant to encourage participation. So now I couldn’t hide in the back and watch the minutes tick by. Professor Buckley pulled his own chair into the circle and sat back. We all waited for him to start lecturing or leading or doing something. Anything. But he just sat there, expressionless, looking around at his students. We all looked around at each other, wondering if perhaps our professor was having some sort of amnesic episode. Uncle Alan was paying for
this
?
 
After another few minutes, the change-of-career student next to me spoke up. “Should we be doing something?” she asked expectantly.
 
“This is it,” our professor said. “We are doing it.”
 
Students looked at one another in confusion. Oh, shit. I wasn’t confused. On the contrary, I knew what was going on here. This was supposed to be some sort of self-analytic group where we all “processed” what was happening in the “here and now.” I’d read about this crap in college psych. We were in for a long two hours.
 
Students began trying to get the professor to elaborate, but his only responses were things like “This
is
the group,” and “There
is
no agenda,” statements that did little to appease his annoyed class. I decided that I could sit there and listen to the squabbling or I could do something to make time fly by faster.
 
“Okay, I know what this is,” I announced with unusual boldness. The class stopped talking and looked at me. “This is some sort of Gestalt therapy thing where we discuss what’s happening right now, the dynamics of the present, and lots of other abstract stuff. How we’re relating to each other, blah, blah, blah.” I was barraged with questions and could only reply that since this was a course on group therapy, we were apparently expected to partake in our own group therapy process right here. Groans and whispers followed. The professor smirked and nodded his head slightly.
 
“So what are we supposed to talk about?” demanded a man from the other side of the room.
 
I said, “Anything we want. I think that we determine how to use our two hours.”
 
We all sat there quietly, waiting for someone to come up with a topic.
 
“All right,” I started. “How about this,” and I launched into the story of Eric’s murder. I omitted the details of my kissing bonanza with Josh, and in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers, I changed everyone’s name to protect privacy, even though in reporting the murder, the media had used real names. In a flash of genius, I dubbed Eric “Mr. Dough.” Faced with this audience of students, all glued to my every word, I realized that I did need impartial advice. Maybe this group could help absolve Josh of any wrongdoing in Eric’s murder. After I finished, I sat back and waited.
 
“I heard about this on the news,” someone said. “And they still don’t know who did it, right?”
 
I nodded.
 
A tall brown-haired woman spoke next. “I’m Gretchen, and I’m a first-year student here.” Continuing slowly and emphatically, she said, “As a
social worker
, my first concern would be to address
your
feelings of loss and find out whether you’re having any symptoms of post-traumatic stress.” Although she seemed like a caricature of the touchyfeely social worker, her sincerity was apparent. She continued. “Death is hard on all of us.”
 
The rest of the class nodded in sanctimonious agreement, thus tempting me to rebel by arguing the opposite, namely, that death was easy on all of us if we were survivors who hadn’t known or cared about the deceased. Or had outright hated the deceased. Exactly how hard was death on the murderers who caused it? What if they weren’t remorseful at all, but were thrilled with the consequences of their deeds?
 
Gretchen went on. “And I think that one of the ways we cope is through denial. Denying the grief that we’re experiencing deep down. I wonder if maybe you’ve been so caught up in pleasing Mr. Dough’s parents and everyone else that you’ve failed to take the time to process how this experience has affected you?”
 
Oops. While I’d been summoning examples to counter the death-is-hard platitude, I’d become the group’s client. Abandoning my silent rebellion, determined not to flunk out of social work school, I fought platitudes with platitudes. “Actually,” I said, “I feel as though I have done a lot of introspective thinking about the impact that finding the body may have had on me. I’ve talked at length with family and friends, who’ve all been terrific. And I feel that I have tapped into the painful reality of man’s inhumanity to man.”
 
“Person’s inhumanity to person,” someone piped from across the room.
 
“Person’s inhumanity to person,” I corrected myself. “I have borne witness to one of the world’s atrocities, murder, and have come out stronger and more driven to understand human nature. And whoever committed this murder may not have had access to proper mental health counseling. There may have been some familial dysfunction that caused an intrapsychic break that led this person to kill another.”
 
Thankful that I’d done my psychopathology reading last weekend, I paused dramatically. “But you’re right. Discovering a murder victim was devastating. So I’m glad I have this forum in which to process my feelings.” I covered my mouth and faked a coughing fit. “And I think that part of my recovery process might be to figure out who the murderer is.”
 
Gretchen nodded. “It’s important that you have a support system in place to get you through this. So, have you had disturbed sleep, a change of appetite, any generalized anxiety?”
 
I shook my head. Gretchen looked disappointed at my failure to display symptoms of stress or depression.
 
“I think we should discuss Mr. Dough’s family,” came a voice from the circle. I looked to my right and was happy to see Doug, my bookstore savior. “Hello, everyone. I’m Doug. I’m a doctoral student, and I’m your TA for the class.” Rather sneaky of him to covertly embed himself in the group as though he were a first-year student. I liked him.
 
A girl named Julie joined in the discussion. She was a petite twenty-something dressed in all black with tiny black eyeglasses that kept sliding down her nose. “I think it’s clear that Chloe is in good shape emotionally and that her real concern here is who the murderer is. She seems to have the sense that this chef that we’re calling Chef Tell”—she rolled her eyes—“isn’t a likely suspect. She’s highly motivated to clear him of any suspicion since he appears to be a possible romantic interest?” She looked at me.
 
I nodded slightly.
 
She pushed her glasses back in place. “So, Chloe, what about Mr. Dough’s parents?”
 
“You think his parents killed him?” I asked.
 
“It’s worth exploring. I gather Mr. Dough was well off financially. Maybe they were hoping to get hold of his money.” Julie cocked her head to the side. “If you ask me, I think their behavior following their son’s death was erratic and odd.”
 
“They certainly were weird,” I admitted.
 
“And I think we should question their inability to grasp the true nature of your relationship with their son. Why were they so eager to believe that you and Dough were engaged? Why, on the day of the funeral, did they latch on to you so intently? I’m sure they must’ve had close family members who would’ve been more appropriate supports to them.”
 
“I don’t know why they wanted to believe Mr. Dough and I were a couple. But I didn’t feel like I could tell them the truth. And I don’t think they would’ve believed me even if I tried. They were both so upset that I just went along with it. I mean, what’s the harm?”
 
“I’m not sure,” said Julie. “Maybe none. If they thought you were engaged to their son, then maybe they needed to be close to the person they thought was closest to their murdered child. If one or both of them is guilty, though, maybe they clung to you to demonstrate their
supposed
grief. They couldn’t exactly show up at their son’s funeral jumping for joy.”
 
I saw Julie’s point. And liked it. Better Eric’s parents than my Josh. “So you think they were in his will?” I asked. “And they knew that and they killed him? But they seemed to have plenty of money of their own, so why would they need more?”
 
Julie had an answer. “It might not be about
needing
more money but about
wanting
more. For some people, there’s never enough money. And who knows what their relationship with their son was really like. It doesn’t sound like this set of parents was connected in any meaningful way to their only son. To them, his money may have represented a symbolic way to tie themselves to an emotionally unavailable and distant son. If they couldn’t have him in any appreciable sense, they may have taken what they could from him. His money.”
 
By now, the group members were on the edges of their seats. “Hm . . . that’s possible, I suppose,” I said. “And by grabbing onto me, they could at least pretend that they’d had enough of a relationship with their son that they could grieve with his fiancée? In other words, me. One united and loving family mourning a common loss. So they could be completely nuts, huh? Delusional enough to think that murdering him would bring them closer to him?” Scary thought. “Or they’re just peculiar people, of which there are many in this world, and they were overwhelmed by a real loss.”
 
Doug stepped in again. “And what about the owner? Mr. T?” (That’s what I’d called Timothy.) “Was his divorce friendly? It sounds like it, in fact, was. But what else?”
 
“What about this?” began a student who introduced herself as Barbara. “I used to work in marketing, and we all know the saying that bad press is better than no press. Mr. T could have murdered Mr. Dough to publicize his restaurant. Although it might seem like having a murder at your restaurant would be bad for business, the opposite may very well be true. Think about how much press coverage you get. The restaurant’s name is all over the news and the papers. And we all know what advertisers do. They bombard you with a product’s name until it’s so ingrained in your head that when you go shopping you’re more likely to buy their product. Same thing here. The more the public hears about the restaurant and the owner, the more likely people are to check it out. Out of curiosity if nothing else.”

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