Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

Don’t Tell Mom by Pam Barnesley

For the past few years Canadian Pam Barnsley has worked as a snowboard instructor in the resort of Whistler, British Columbia. She is the author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles and two scripts for the CBC television series The Beachcombers. In November of 2002 her first short story, “Next Time Will Be Different,” was published in EQMM’s Department of First Stories.

Her mom would kill her if she knew Eleanor had taken her good black dress without asking. Not that asking helped. The answer to everything was no.

Eleanor leaned closer towards the motel bathroom mirror and rubbed one cheekbone with Frosted Passion. The little sparkles really did enhance the undertones in her brown eyes — at least Eleanor was pretty sure they did, she just wasn’t sure what undertones were. She smoothed the cream blush on her other cheekbone and leaned back, turning her head critically, as far to each side as she could and still see her reflection. She puckered her lips — Rose Diamonds — and blew a sultry kiss at the mirror. Look out, Lenny.

Quickly Eleanor rolled her kilt and blouse together and stuffed them in her knapsack alongside her homework. Her mother’s black dress didn’t hang the same on Eleanor’s gangly frame, but at least it was black, and everyone knew black was so It.

“You don’t know as much as you think you do, missy,” her mom would say. Hah, Eleanor knew plenty. And she didn’t like being called missy.

Her mom was always treating her like a little kid, the same as a lot of uptight grownups did. Lenny didn’t. He treated Eleanor like an adult and shared his cigarettes with her.

She had met Lenny at the bus stop twenty-seven days ago. He was so cool. He was tall and slim, with a black leather jacket that was scuffed just the right amount. And the amazing thing was that he had been interested in Eleanor right off. They had so much in common and they talked for ages, or at least as long as Eleanor could risk hanging around. She didn’t like to admit to Lenny that she had to be home from school before her mom got off work. Twenty-seven days and now here they were, my God, at the Traveler’s Inn Motel.

“Don’t you go getting in over your head,” her mom would say. “If I find out you’ve been misbehaving...”

Well, her mom wouldn’t find out. She didn’t give Eleanor credit for the brains her daughter had, that was her mother’s problem.

Lenny was at the little kitchenette table when Eleanor came out of the bathroom. His head was bent over his diagrams and he was squinting, as if he needed glasses. Maybe he hid them, the way Eleanor hid her retainer when she didn’t want to be seen looking like some little dork.

The diagrams were the ones he had made of the jewelry store where Eleanor’s mom worked. Mrs. Korda was top salesperson at Zamphir’s Fine Jewelry.

Eleanor leaned her hip against the table the way she’d seen the sexy Italian detective do on the television show NYPD Blue. Her mom did not approve of television.

“Television rots the brain, Eleanor Louise. Pay attention to your books and you’ll go a lot further in this world.” Hah, look who was going further now. And Eleanor didn’t like being called Eleanor Louise. As a name, it sucked.

“So,” Eleanor said, and waited for Lenny to notice the new Eleanor in the black dress.

“Hmm,” Lenny said, but he didn’t even look up. He was still intent on his diagrams. The keys Eleanor had taken from her mother’s purse that morning were on the table, along with a pack of cigarettes, the half-full ashtray, Lenny’s two pairs of surgical gloves, and a little headlamp from the outdoors shop.

“Should I make a reservation for us?” Eleanor asked. She reached across Lenny and pulled a cigarette from the pack.

“What for?”

“The fancy restaurant. You know.” Eleanor lit the cigarette and narrowed her eyes as she inhaled. Both the criminals and the detectives did that on Homicide: Life on the Street when they smoked.

“Huh?” Lenny looked up now but he didn’t seem to notice the change in Eleanor. “What restaurant?”

“You said we’d celebrate. After... you know.”

“Oh, right. Sure. But not a restaurant, that’s too risky. I’ll bring some pizza on my way back. We’ll celebrate here.” In the harsh overhead light Eleanor noticed for the first time the angry red pimples in the faint stubble on Lenny’s chin.

Eleanor was disappointed. She had practiced raising one finger to call the waiter, had practiced laughing at the wonderful conversation in the candlelight, practiced leaving the last bite of her cheesecake on the plate as if she ate it all the time.

“You’re sure this is the right code?” Lenny said.

“Of course. It’s Mr. Zamphir’s birth date.” Eleanor rolled her eyes. How stupid could Mr. Zamphir be? Everyone knew you shouldn’t use your birth date as a security code. Didn’t he watch TV? Even the old Fletcher biddy on Murder, She Wrote could crack a code by figuring out birth dates.

Eleanor sat down in the other chrome and vinyl chair, crossed her legs, and let the hem of her mother’s dress ride up. She picked up the keys to Zamphir’s and twirled them around her finger. She couldn’t smoke while she was doing this because it was too much like patting your head while you rubbed your tummy — you were bound to screw up. Today was only Saturday, and she would slip the keys back into her mother’s purse on Sunday. No one would ever know.

“Why do you need such a large duffel?” Eleanor asked.

Lenny looked at her and laughed. “I might want a big necklace,” he said. He reached across and took the cigarette from Eleanor’s hand. He tapped the long ash into the ashtray and set the cigarette in the corner of his mouth; he didn’t need his hands to smoke.

“But you said just a few things. One or two so no one would ever notice.”

“Well, now that I’ve gone to all this trouble...” Lenny folded the diagrams and stuffed them in his back pocket.

But the trouble had all been hers, not Lenny’s. “I’m the one risking getting caught by my mom,” Eleanor said.

“Listen, Eleanor Louise, I’ll be back in an hour and you can put the keys back in your mother’s purse. Okay?” Lenny shrugged into his leather jacket and shoved the surgical gloves and headlamp into a side pocket of the duffel.

Eleanor hated being called Eleanor Louise and Lenny knew it. “It’s not okay. If you take too much, they’ll notice. My mom might get suspicious.”

“Suspicious! You keep your little mouth shut or I’ll tell your goddamn mother exactly what you’ve been up to.” Lenny slung the duffel bag over his shoulder.

Eleanor sucked in such a big breath of air she thought she might pass out. “No! You can’t!”

But Lenny only snatched the keys off her finger and went out into the night.

It felt like hours. Eleanor tried not to bite her fingernails while she waited but it was too much to ask.

“Only babies chew their fingernails,” her mom would say. Fine for her, she didn’t have the stress of going to school and having a hot boyfriend. A boyfriend who threatened to tell her mother.

He couldn’t, he just couldn’t. Eleanor spat out the last hangnail and jumped up. In the tiny kitchenette she found plates, forks, and glasses. She set these on the table, along with a couple of folded paper towels to use as dinner napkins. She just hoped it would be Hawaiian or pepperoni, not something gross with artichokes or anchovies. She brought over the scarred wooden cutting board and the large chef’s knife and set these in the middle of the little table. There.

When Lenny knocked on the door Eleanor made herself walk slowly to it — no point in him thinking she was just sitting here waiting, holding her breath. Lenny pounded and she skipped the last step to open the door.

The first thing she noticed was the alcohol on his breath when he said, “Yeah, baby!” The second was the duffel; it looked full. He slung it inside where it landed on the cracked linoleum with a solid thwump.

“I’ll get the pizza,” he said, and turned back to the rental car, which was parked a few feet in front of their motel-room door. Eleanor held the door wide. She could hear the river a hundred yards behind the motel and the sound of a car fading down the highway. Lenny returned with the pizza and a bottle of whiskey and shut the door against the night.

“Yeah,” Lenny said again, and he sat at the table. His grin was so wide Eleanor could’ve fit a dinner plate between his crooked teeth. Lenny shoved the place setting roughly aside and replaced it with the duffel. “Yeah.”

When he opened the bag, Eleanor’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

The duffel was full of necklaces and rings and bracelets and watches and more. It sparkled and glittered and twinkled like a bag of birthday sparklers, as flashy as fireworks, as hot as hell. It was horrible.

It was Zamphir’s whole friggin’ stock.

“They’ll know the store’s been robbed,” Eleanor almost wailed.

Lenny sieved his hands through the jewels. “No kidding.”

“You said just a few. So they wouldn’t even notice. Or if they did, they’d just think it was a shoplifter. Now what?”

“Now what?” was another of her mom’s famous phrases, and it was usually hard to answer. Usually Eleanor just scowled if she dared; let her mother imagine all the answers Eleanor was keeping to herself.

Lenny was unfazed. “Now we celebrate.” Reluctantly he set the duffel down on the floor, close beside his feet. Taking the whiskey bottle, he filled the two drinking glasses Eleanor had set on the table. He picked up his, clinked it against Eleanor’s, and took a long swallow.

“Yeah,” he said again.

Eleanor didn’t touch hers. She hated the taste of whiskey and Lenny hadn’t even thought to buy mixer. She still stood beside the dinette; her bitten nails curling into her palms weren’t even long enough to hurt when she squeezed.

“Sit down. You’re acting like a kid.” Lenny flipped open the pizza box and pulled out the biggest piece. The strings of melted cheese stretched long, all the way to his plate, but he took a bite without seeming to notice.

Eleanor took the chef’s knife and cut through the strands. Then she cut cleanly through the rest of the pieces, grimacing at the chunks of greasy hamburger meat mixed with something that looked like olives. No doubt there were anchovies hidden in it, too.

“My mom—”

“Your mom’s not going to say a word.” Pizza sauce escaped from Lenny’s mouth and left a greasy orange stripe down to his chin. Eleanor held out a paper towel but he ignored it. “She’s in as much trouble as we are if she does.”

“What?”

“I’m looking forward to seeing your old lady’s face when I tell her. She won’t be so snotty with me then.” Lenny stuffed another corner of the pizza into his mouth and chewed.

“You can’t talk to her. You can’t.”

“Oh yes I can, and I will.”

Eleanor’s head was shaking back and forth like a metronome.

Lenny finished the whiskey and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You think she’s going to tell them her daughter stole the keys, and that she let you know the security code? No way. She’ll keep her mouth shut, don’t you worry, missy. Here, have a piece before it’s all gone.”

Being called missy was another thing Eleanor hated. Worse than anchovies. But she couldn’t deal with that right now. Right now she was totally freaked out. Lenny would tell her mom. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t, but he would. She couldn’t let him.

Eleanor was afraid the knife would glance off one of his ribs like in the horror show she saw last week where the psycho stabbed the prom queen in the back and she fell down dead, but it turned out the knife had only glanced off a rib. So she struck with all the force she had. And no hesitation marks, either; she knew about those from Law and Order.

Lenny barely made a noise. But honestly, what a mess.

“You’ve gone and done it now,” her mother would say.

Eleanor finally sat down. Her mother’s dress was wet with Lenny’s blood, the whiskey tasted like antiseptic when she drank it, and the last slice of pizza was stone cold. Lenny lay sprawled on the floor.

Think, think, think, you silly ditz.

But how could she get out of this mess now? Eleanor took another small sip and wrinkled up her nose. Having no mixer really sucked.

Lenny looked like some cop should come and draw a chalk outline around his body. Then the detectives would find the jewelry, the knife, and her fingerprints. Then her mom would find out. No!

If there was one thing her mother had taught Eleanor, it was how to clean.

She took one more sip and poured the rest of the whiskey down the toilet. Under the kitchenette sink she found a pair of rubber gloves and cleaning supplies. The pizza, cigarettes, and whiskey bottle went into the garbage bag she would take away with her.

Up to her elbows in hot sudsy water, Eleanor scrubbed the dishes and the chef’s knife. She was no fool. Anyone who’d seen half as many episodes of Cold Squad as Eleanor had knew you couldn’t get rid of all traces of blood from a weapon. She’d take that with her, too, and get rid of it somewhere else. Lenny had registered at the motel under a false name and paid cash. At least he knew how they could trace your whole life through credit-card receipts.

She was lucky she hadn’t shot Lenny. Apart from the noise, gunpowder residue would be detectable on her hands for at least another day.

“The harder you work, the luckier you get,” her mother would say, and that was as close to humorous as her mother ever got.

Eleanor scrubbed the table, and anywhere on the walls and cupboards and door she might have touched. She scrubbed the tired bathroom and polished it dry. She soaked the towels in the tub and then cleaned that too. The motel room hadn’t been this clean since before Eleanor was born.

But Lenny. He wasn’t big but he was a dead weight and it took a lot of effort just to get him over to the door. There were no other cars anywhere near this wing of the motel and everything outside was dark. Eleanor turned off the lights inside the room and opened the door cautiously.

She was ready to die herself by the time she dragged Lenny around the back. Heaving, she sat down in the scrub grass and rested her head on her arms. Why did the pig have to eat almost the whole pizza? Now he weighed a ton. The tears rolled down her cheeks. She was exhausted from all the cleaning and getting Lenny this far; she just couldn’t drag him any farther. She’d be caught. She might as well call her mother right now. Eleanor moaned. She couldn’t.

It took forever but she finally got Lenny across the field and down to the river. In the dark it oiled past Eleanor, black and dangerous. If this was The Sopranos, of course she’d have cement, but Lenny would just have to sink or swim on his own. Eleanor rolled him in.

She crept back to the room and there it was. The car!

Eleanor was so tired she could hardly think. That’s what always happened to detectives — they got so involved in a case they stayed up all night working it, having insomnia, ruining their personal lives. Eleanor knew just how they felt. But she had to do something with the car.

Eleanor imagined driving the car to her home and slipping it into the garage, she was that bone-tired. But the thought of her mother — “Eleanor Louise, this is totally unacceptable!” — stifled her giggles.

She would have to drive it somewhere and ditch it. Eleanor sighed and got the cleaning supplies back out.

“A woman’s work is never done,” she heard her mother say. Wasn’t that the truth.

Eleanor decided she would ditch the vehicle halfway home and walk from there. The car was a cheap rental that Lenny had somehow managed to get under false ID, and it could probably never be traced to him. That was harder than most people thought; Eleanor had learned this from Columbo.

Eleanor gathered the duffel, her knapsack, and the bag of garbage from the motel room. She wrapped the knife in a tea towel and shoved it in her knapsack to get rid of later. She rinsed out her mother’s good black dress, rolled it up in a towel, and put that in her knapsack as well. Standing in her crisp kilt and blouse again, Eleanor looked around the freshly cleaned motel room and thought the maid would thank her.

Satisfied that the car would yield nothing to the crime techs at the police impound lot, and still wearing the rubber dish gloves, Eleanor drove through the waning night to a quiet side street halfway to her home. She set the seat farther back and adjusted the mirrors for a taller person. Hah.

From the backseat she retrieved the garbage, duffel, and her knapsack.

Two blocks later she dropped the garbage bag and rubber gloves into a dumpster and cut through a road allowance back to the river. A dirt path ran along this side for miles and she could follow it all the way to her house. The sky was starting to lighten and the air was damp and cold near the water. She opened the duffel and looked inside. Even in the murky dawn the jewels glowed with an otherworldly radiance, and Eleanor recognized that this was the moment that separated the getaways from the convicts.

“Don’t go casting pearls before swine,” Eleanor heard her mother say as she threw the first handful of jewels across the deep river. They landed on the slick surface like a spatter of raindrops and were gone. The water ate the remaining gems and looked no less hungry for its million-dollar meal.

Just before her own house, Eleanor loaded the duffel with rocks and watched the river suck that into its murk as well. She could practically write the next script for Blue Murder.

She dunked her shoes in the river and wiped them as clean as she could in the flattened grass beside the path. She trod lightly across the grass, looking behind to see if she had left any footsteps. The sun was glaring across the field that stretched up to the back of her house now and Eleanor could see no tracks. Just to be safe, she stayed off the dirt path and kept to the scrub grass on the sides, right into her own yard and its cracked cement walkway.

Lights were on both upstairs and down, and Eleanor wondered if there was any chance she could slip inside without her mother noticing. Her mother always got up early, even on her days off, and no doubt had been up for at least an hour by now. Eleanor slipped into the garage. She dried her shoes thoroughly and set them on the rubber mat. She wiped the knife again and hid it down deep in the middle of the garbage, careful not to touch it with her fingers.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. It was as spotless as always, and devoid of her mother. Eleanor heard water running upstairs and realized her mother was having her usual shower following her morning walk. Whew. Eleanor ran upstairs, past the bathroom, where she could hear the shower hissing and the water pipes groaning, and into her mother’s room. Quickly she took the good black dress from her knapsack, shook it out, and hung it back in the closet. It didn’t look good. Eleanor bit her lip and nearly whimpered. Nothing on television had provided her with the information necessary to deal with this. If only she’d watched Martha Stewart once in a while.

Back in her room Eleanor looked at her bed with longing. She was so tired she could die, but there was just no way her mother was going to let her sleep. “You are not going to waste your life lolling about in bed in the middle of the day. Up, missy. Now.” That was how her mother referred to eight o’clock in the friggin’ morning — the middle of the day. Eleanor sighed and took her schoolbooks out of the knapsack.

When she heard her mother leave the bathroom, Eleanor waited until her mother’s door clapped shut. She hurried into the bathroom and checked herself out in the mirror. Her shower back at the motel had removed any traces of blood — or worse, makeup. Her hair was back in its two stubby braids, the Peter Pan collar of her blouse was white, her dental retainer was in place, and she looked like the most absolute dweeb on the face of the earth. Eleanor scowled in disgust and cursed her mother, though it was only lip-synched at the mirror. Bitch.

“What are you doing in there?” Her mother’s voice pried through the door as she rattled the doorknob.

“Nothing.”

“Well then, come out and do something useful.”

Eleanor opened the door. Her mother peered at her suspiciously above the basket of dirty laundry she held. For two long seconds Eleanor wondered if there was something she had forgotten, something in her hair or on her face that undid all her careful efforts at concealment.

Her mother pushed the laundry basket into Eleanor’s arms. “Make sure the machine’s set on cold.”

Eleanor had just added the last of her own socks and underwear to the washer when her mother loomed up behind her again.

“I called Tiffany Waddingham’s last night, Eleanor. You didn’t tell me her parents were in Europe.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I called twice for you and Tiffany said you weren’t there.”

Eleanor felt like a rabbit staring up into the wolf eyes of her mother. She felt like the cop on the take in The Wire when his sergeant catches him hanging with the bad guys. She felt like bolting.

Eleanor’s mother narrowed her eyes even further. They were so far beyond narrow it was amazing she could even see Eleanor out of them. “Tiffany promised me you’d return my call when you came up from the pool. Why didn’t you? What was I supposed to think? Did Tiffany even give you the message?”

Eleanor would owe Tiffany forever, as many homework assignments as Tiffany wanted. “She probably wrote it down on the memo pad by the phone and then forgot to tell me.”

“Well, I can tell you, missy, you won’t be going back there for any sleepovers without my establishing that the Waddinghams will be there.” Eleanor’s mother reached out and pinched Eleanor’s chin, tilting her daughter’s head up towards the overhead fluorescent light. “And you look too tired, you probably stayed up half the night watching television.”

Eleanor was slogging through math homework at the kitchen table when the front doorbell rang. She heard her mother’s voice and a lower voice, a man’s. The Kordas rarely had visitors, and on a Sunday you wouldn’t expect salespeople. Mrs. Korda was not on good terms with any of the neighbors, so if it was one of them it would only be a complaint, though complaints usually ran the other direction. Eleanor heard the voices entering the living room. She tilted her chair back, peeked into the living room, and nearly fell over backwards. Two police officers stood on her mother’s Oriental carpet.

They had found Leonard Green’s body washed up on the riverbank a half-mile downstream from here and they had a search warrant. Lenny was such a jerk that even dead he was causing trouble.

“In his pocket we found diagrams to the jewelry store where you work, Mrs. Korda. Can you explain that?” the big cop with the face like the grumpy store detective at the mall asked.

“Of course not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So you don’t know anything about the robbery that happened at Zamphir’s last night?”

“What?!”

Uh-oh. Eleanor bent lower over her math text. How long would it take twelve fruit vendors to sell sixteen bushels of apples each if they sold one apple every five minutes?

“Where were you last night, Mrs. Korda?”

“I was here, at home.”

“Alone?” The big cop managed to pack a lot into that one word.

“Yes. My daughter was at a friend’s. At the Waddinghams’ summer place.”

Eleanor almost shook her head at her mother’s snooty tone. The cops wouldn’t like that. Most people didn’t.

“It must be difficult for you to keep up financially with the likes of the Waddinghams, hmm?” The skinny cop could out-snot Eleanor’s mother with both hands cuffed behind his back. His dark hair looked oily where it stuck out the back of his hat. Eleanor’s mother would not be impressed that he had left his hat on inside her house.

“You had financial worries, Mrs. Korda, since your husband left?”

“How dare you? It is none of your business—”

The door from the garage into the kitchen opened at this moment and another police officer entered. This one was a woman, with a ton of freckles, and she smiled at Eleanor as though to reassure her. The cop had a plastic bag with a pair of rubber boots in it which she carried through to the living room. Eleanor could see the woman was losing the fight with the donut devil; if she knew what those cop pants looked like from the back, she might consider another line of work.

“Are these your boots, Mrs. Korda?” The big grump had the bag now and he held it up.

“Yes.”

Eleanor was beginning to get a bad feeling. Worse than when her mother’s eyes got skinny, almost as bad as the time she ate a whole ice cream cake and then smoked three cigarettes in a row. The universe was not unfolding as it should.

“So you were out last night?”

“Well, I walked along the river.”

“Ahh, so you admit you were down by the river.”

“Of course I admit it, I walk there every day, rain or shine.”

The big cop looked as satisfied as a scratch-and-winner who’s just lined up three matching fruit. He handed the bag back to the female cop with a nod of his head. She seemed to know what this meant and headed back out to the garage.

“Mrs. Korda, how many people have keys to Zamphir’s Jewelry?”

Eleanor’s mother’s nose inched higher. “Just the two of us. Mr. Zamphir and I.”

“And you have those keys now?”

“Yes. Mr. Zamphir entrusts the opening and the closing of the store only to me.”

“Could you get them for us now?”

“Certainly.” Eleanor’s mother marched down the hallway and then stomped up the stairs. All right for her, but whenever Eleanor made that kind of noise her mother was quick to warn her, “Don’t you go giving me any of your attitude, young lady.” Now Mrs. Korda was giving the cops more attitude than a gang punk off The Shield.

Out of the corner of her eye Eleanor could see the two cops watching her now. She had moved on to the next math problem and she squinted with concentration. Her ankles were crossed demurely, her skirt halfway down her shins, her underwear clean, her braids as tight as her alibi.

The big cop leaned towards the skinny one and spoke in a low tone, but Eleanor could hear him anyway. “Poor kid,” he said, and they both shook their heads.

Eleanor’s mother was gone longer than she should have been. When she finally came back she had her purse with her.

“I’m sure I had them with me,” she said, pawing through her purse again. “I always do.”

“You didn’t loan them?”

“Of course not! What do you take me for? No one else ever has them except me. I have a position of some responsibility—”

“Can you describe them for us, please, Mrs. Korda.”

“They’re on a green leather fob, three keys.”

Peeking out from under her bangs, Eleanor caught the look that passed between the two cops and she knew they had found the keys. Lenny must have had them in his pocket. If he hadn’t already been dead, Eleanor would have been glad to murder him again right then.

“When was the last time you saw Leonard Green?”

“I already told you, I don’t know any Leonard Green. I’ve never met him.”

“Your coworkers say he has been in the jewelry store twice. He spoke to you.”

“Well, how am I supposed to remember every person who comes into the store?”

“Your neighbors also confirm you talked with a man fitting his description just last week.”

Eleanor ground her teeth. Lenny coming here and talking to her mother! What had that skinny jerk been up to?

Mrs. Korda’s eyes did the narrow thing. “Those Pinkleys are the worst busybodies. They should take more care of their yapping dog instead of spying on their neighbors.”

“But you were talking to Leonard Green?”

“I didn’t know that was his name. I had seen him at the store, and then he just appeared on my sidewalk and said it was a coincidence. He is an overly familiar young man and I sent him on his way as soon as I could.”

“What did he want?”

Eleanor’s mother hesitated, and Eleanor turned to sneak a look at her. Was that a blush?

“I’d rather not say. He was a most presumptuous young man.”

“He made advances to you?”

“Exactly.”

“And you turned him down?”

“Of course!”

“You’re sure? You didn’t flirt with him just a little?”

“I most certainly did not.” Eleanor saw her mother was sitting with her ankles crossed and her hands folded as if the queen could arrive for a spot check at any moment.

“The other salesclerks at Zamphir’s indicate you talked to Leonard Green on two separate occasions, and that you flirted with him.”

“How dare they! Those little tarts, they’re just jealous of my position at Zamphir’s. Oh yes, they’d like to see me gone. Spreading lies...”

“Did Leonard Green ask you for the keys to Zamphir’s?”

“No.”

“Yet his body was found with your keys in his pocket. How do you explain that?”

“I don’t. The whole thing is preposterous.”

Eleanor knew her mother shouldn’t be talking to these cops without a lawyer. It was too bad her mother hadn’t watched more television, because that was one of the first things you learned. Get lawyered up quick.

Eleanor pushed her chair back from the kitchen table and went into the living room.

“Mom?”

“Not now, Eleanor Louise.”

“But Mom, what’s happening isn’t—”

“Never you mind. You have your math to finish, now get to it.”

Eleanor hesitated. The two cops’ faces were full of pity for her. Eleanor looked at her mother again and saw the fierceness of those thin lips, the searing eyes, and that gross hairdo — it was so bad it was almost retro. That was another thing her mother said, You can’t save a duck that wants to drown. Unfortunately there was some truth in that.

The female cop came down from upstairs as Eleanor was heading back to her homework. In one hand she held the little black light for illuminating blood that Eleanor recognized from CSI. In the other she had the good black dress in a plastic bag but Eleanor knew it wouldn’t be going to the dry cleaner’s as it should.

Eleanor couldn’t hear what she said to the big cop, but she could guess. Eleanor was pretty good at guessing. Eleanor shifted her eyes away from the problem of how many ten-inch-wide boards it would take to side a 5,000-square-foot house. The Kordas’ house was stucco and it wasn’t even a quarter that size. The female cop went back out into the garage.

“This is your dress, Mrs. Korda?”

“Well, it’s not the neighbor’s.”

Eleanor almost clucked. There was that attitude again.

“It appears to have blood on it. Did you accidentally spill any blood on it recently?”

“This is ridiculous. There is no way my dress could have that young man’s blood on it.”

“You’re suggesting someone else planted this evidence?”

Eleanor nearly bit through the tip of her tongue, which was sticking out the way she liked to do to help her figure out math problems.

“Those jealous clerks at Zamphir’s. They’d do anything to get rid of me. They’re trying to set me up—”

“You expect us to believe this is a conspiracy?”

“You’re making a mistake, young man!”

Eleanor couldn’t stand it any longer. She slid back into the living room and took a deep breath.

“Mom—”

“Not now!” Eleanor’s mother almost roared.

Eleanor’s eyes filled with tears. The cops looked embarrassed, and the big one scowled even harder at Mrs. Korda.

“But Mom, I have to tell you something.”

“Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret, missy.”

Eleanor hesitated.

“I’m warning you,” her mother said. Eleanor had always found that when her mother warned her, it was best to pay attention. She sighed and hung her head.

The big cop’s scowl was replaced by a satisfied grin when the female cop came in from the garage with the knife.

Eleanor felt sad as she thought of her mother in jail. Tears filmed her eyes so she couldn’t read the next math problem.

“Now, young lady, quit feeling sorry for yourself,” her mother would say. “Look on the bright side.” And for once it was true. At least her mother would never find out Eleanor had misbehaved.