Shadow Notes by Laurel Peterson (cool books to read txt) 📗

the same space she’d vacated and popped open the BMW’s locks. “Now, git.” She twizzled her perfectly manicured nails in my direction.

On the way home, a slightly sickened feeling settled in my stomach. I knew I had done something unforgiveable in approaching Mary Ellen. Mother spoke of her rarely and always with contempt. What had I gotten for my troubles? If I believed Mary Ellen, I had confirmation of Mother’s affair and a motive for her to commit murder—nothing I really wanted.

Chapter 5

Friday’s Women’s League meeting about the Christmas Bazaar consisted of women in plaid headbands, sitting in an eight-thousand-square-foot over-decorated mansion, talking about how they could save the low-income locals by selling expensive jewelry and crafts to each other. Maybe I was missing the big picture, but it seemed more self-serving than serving. But then I was hardly an innocent, having learned with the best of them how to polish off a bottle of wine, get rid of a husband, avoid my issues, and check out which of my neighbors might be useful to me. Anyway, Mother had pleaded not guilty at her hearing, and I was a little distracted.

Saturday night was the political fundraiser for Mary Ellen’s brother, Andrew, where I hoped not only to lock up a job in his campaign, but also to talk to some of Mother’s friends, cry a little on their shoulders, and see what kind of information I could elicit. The Winters hosted the event at their mansion. It started at seven p.m., so the attendees could get home in time to sleep off their excesses before the limo picked them up for church the following morning. The mansion itself was a huge error on the part of the Winters, a purchase, it was rumored, meant to give the family historic credibility. Apparently, their first choice had been a home in which President George Washington had slept, but they’d settled for one where John Adams had stopped on his way to the First Continental Congress in 1774. Since then, the walls had been sheet-rocked, floors evened out, and an industrial-quality kitchen, a second story, and “architecturally-appropriate” additions had been fitted on. The result was a cross between the bridge of the Enterprise and a badger sett. Apparently, Architectural Digest didn’t agree with me, as they’d done three spreads on the house so far.

Andrew Winters was running for a U.S. Senate seat against Sherilyn Ambroise, an African-American Democrat. He looked like a sure win, given all the money behind him: Mary Ellen’s contacts from her volunteer work and their husbands, and his friends from Yale Law and Harvard Business. His corporate law clients, General Electric, Pitney Bowes and World Wrestling Entertainment, would contribute. Andrew played the humble card, emphasizing that he’d started his career as a public servant on the school board, before an appointment to city council. He volunteered on nonprofit boards and was seen at the right political fundraisers. He might have run for governor if this seat hadn’t opened up.

What was apparent about five seconds into meeting him was that he craved power and attention, but the evening was so populated with power-hungry, attention-seeking guys I almost forgot there were other kinds of men. At least half of them, the married half it seemed, came on to me. Some forgot they’d already come on to me and tried again after they’d had their third or fourth martini. This got in the way of my making friends with their wives.

At some point, it occurred to me to wonder how I had grown up among these people but not become one of them. Well, a little. Definitely in my closet. I loved Chanel and Calvin Klein and Roberto Cavalli shoes with the best of them.

Maybe what kept me separate were all the secrets I had to keep, like maybe my mother had an affair with her therapist; or that only fifteen years in age separated us; or that sometimes from her room, I heard strange noises, like someone keening. “It was nothing,” she would say if I mentioned them. “Really, Clara. You must stop making things up.”

Sometimes I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a home where I didn’t feel split in half.

And now, what was I getting myself into by volunteering for the most high-profile activity in town—one that would certainly get me scrutinized like no other? Was it a short-cut to the information I needed…or a path back to crazy?

A drunk, fat guy wobbled in my direction. I turned away fast and collided with someone tall and substantial in a lovely charcoal wool suit. I wanted to rest my cheek against that comforting fabric, but managed to drag myself off. I looked up into topaz eyes.

“If it isn’t Miz Montague,” the voice attached to the eyes said.

“I’m so sorry.” I felt myself blush. “It appears I’m incapable of being graceful and conscious around you.”

He laughed. A nice laugh, like melted chocolate. “I’m Kyle DuPont.”

I shook his hand. It was warm, like the laugh, and it sucked me in, even though he was police, and they were not on my side at the moment.

“It’s Clara, please.”

Before I could get any further, Mary Ellen had her claw around my upper arm. “C’mon,” she said. “Time for your interview.”

I shrugged at Officer DuPont as she dragged me through the crowd, whispering under her breath about how tragic it was that my mother was in jail, especially with that new African-American cop. You just never knew with those people…

I yanked my arm away and thought if I could find Hugh’s murderer, I’d pay him to do one extra job before they locked him up.

Andrew stood in front of a large stone fireplace in a bouquet of matching honey-wheat-blonde women. Not hard to do, mind you, in my town. The hairdresser I’d seen before Mother’s party was already after me to add a little color to my hair, and I didn’t even have any gray yet.

They all wore