Tips for Living(83)

“What happened?”

“I got disconnected.”

The front door flew open and the boys tumbled in, bringing a blast of frigid air.

“Mom! Aunt Nora!” Leon shouted. “I made a snow devil! He has horns!”

“Fantastic,” I said, trying to rally for the boys.

“Brownies!” Otis screamed.

“No brownies until those wet boots come off and you both get into dry clothes,” Grace said.

She helped the boys with their coats and boots and then went off with them to the bedroom. I was about to try the call again when my phone buzzed. I picked up.

“Gubbins here. Bad news, I’m afraid.”

A shudder went through me. I sat up straight, steeling myself. “Go ahead.”

“Thomas O’Donnell called me as a courtesy. The DA’s office is preparing the arrest warrant. They’ll take it over to the judge’s house in a few hours. You can expect an arrest before sundown and a bail hearing in the morning.”

“Oh no. Oh God. No.”

“We’ll sort this out, Nora. We’ll get you out on bail as soon as possible,” he assured me. “I think it’s better if they pick you up at my office. It will lower the temperature. And I’m sorry to keep pressing, but bring along that check, please, if you would.”

I hung up in despair. I knew this was coming. I knew it. And still I wasn’t prepared. How could a person prepare for this? What was I going to do? Practical issues first: I had to get money to pay Gubbins, the court, Lada’s clinic bill and her Cedars rent, not to mention my own due next week. But I couldn’t negotiate with the auction houses about Hugh’s sketches from jail. Could I ask Grace and Mac for a loan? They lived on such a tight budget. I knew they would try to raise what they could, but they’d probably have to take out a second mortgage. That would require time I didn’t have, and besides, I couldn’t bear for them to do it. What about Ben? Should I ask him? Just the thought made me want to shrivel up and disappear.

I was dazed, staring at the plate of brownies with absolutely no appetite as Otis came running back into the living room in his underwear. He was waving a notebook.

“Aunt Nora! Look at the picture I made yesterday. It’s a monkey wishing on a rainbow,” he said as he grabbed a brownie and plopped the open book in my lap.

I gazed down at the crayon drawing: a hairy brown circle with a smiley face and stick legs standing next to a large, multicolored arc.

“Beautiful, Oatsie,” I murmured, ruffling his soft brown curls, realizing I might never see him again.

He smiled, his teeth full of crumbs. What would he think of me if I were convicted of murder? I’d become a scary story in his show-and-tell. “The Point Killer Was My Godmother.” No. This was nothing to joke about. He’d be traumatized. His ability to trust might be impaired. That would be an awful legacy to leave him and his brother while I wasted away in a prison cell.

Otis grabbed the last two brownies, holding one in each of his pudgy little hands as Grace walked back in.

“Bunny! Don’t eat too many of those.”

I closed Otis’s book and noticed the image on the cover. A picture of Sesame Street’s Big Bird. I gawked at it. My pinball brain began pinging again. What time was it? I checked my phone. 2:16. I had to move quickly. But how could I leave here without Crawley following? I glanced over at Grace. She was cleaning the chocolate off Otis’s fingers with a napkin. Think, Nora. Think. What would Nathan Glasser do?

“Grace?”

“Hmm?”

“I need a big favor.”

She looked up. “Anything.”

“I need to borrow you for a few hours. For your own good, don’t ask questions.”



I walked out right under Crawley’s nose, nodding and waving. He rolled down his window and shouted, “Thanks for the brownie!”

He watched Grace clear the snow from her Prius in the same outfit she wore at the chapel. Only Grace was me. I was wearing her coat with the collar turned up. Her long black wool scarf covered the lower half of my face, and my hair was tucked under her black hat with the white silk rose. The wide brim hid the rest of my face in shadow. We’d traded purses, too, after switching out the contents. Grace’s large, rectangular, black leather bag hung from my shoulder.

Crawley had already seen Mac leave. The idea was for him to assume Nora Glasser was staying behind to babysit her friends’ kids. He didn’t suspect anything as I dusted myself off, climbed in the car and threw the snow brush in the back seat. Step one had worked. I hoped Mac wouldn’t get too angry with Grace for aiding and abetting.

The car’s clock read 2:33 p.m. Somewhere above the blizzard of snow, the sun was still high. It wouldn’t set for another two hours. That gave me just enough time to enact my plan. The scarf felt hot and scratchy on my mouth as I backed out of the drive, but I was careful to keep it on until I’d traveled safely out of Crawley’s view. The world was in disguise, too. Snow had transformed bushes into pillows and lawns into feather beds. Flakes seemed to drift down in slow motion along the muted back streets as I drove toward the town’s center.

Pequod Avenue had a completely different, almost frenzied energy as people converged on the shops to buy storm supplies. Only the Laundromat had closed early. Crossing the bridge, the Prius began to glide on the icy, elevated roadway. The beauty of the blizzard disguised its danger. A hunk of snow flew off the hood and smashed on the windshield, blocking out the road until Grace’s wipers swatted it down. I held tight to the steering wheel for the rest of the drive. Despite the weather, I made it home fairly quickly, parked and trekked through virgin snow into the Coop. I marched straight to my bedroom, unconcerned about the trail of white clumps on the rugs and floors.