Scrapbook of Murder Page 9

  “But the police are already conducting an investigation.”

  “A PI will dig around in areas where the police might not.”

  “Wouldn’t their attorney have hired one?”

  “Maybe. But they might be concentrating their investigation in other areas, at least to start.”

  “Like what?”

  “The buyers’ finances, for one, but their motives might be personal rather than financial.”

  “You mean like they have a vendetta against Cloris and Gregg?”

  “Not necessarily. Cloris and Gregg may be victims caught up in a larger scheme. That’s why Patricia suggested hiring a PI to follow the couple and dig into their past.”

  “Hopefully the attorney has already thought of that, but I’ll mention it to Cloris.”

  The morning had drained me. I collapsed onto the sofa. That’s when I noticed the packed carry-on bag and camera cases sitting on the floor next to Zack’s desk. “Going somewhere?”

  He followed my gaze. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?”

  “How about if I just take the good news?”

  “Sorry. It’s a package deal.”

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them, we were in the middle of a different conversation. It didn’t work. I sighed. “Where are you off to this time?”

  “Back to Madagascar.”

  “More lemurs?”

  “Madagascar Pochards.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “They’re the rarest duck in the world and only found in Madagascar. They were thought to be extinct until about eleven years ago when twenty were found at Lake Mastsaborimena. Through breeding programs, the population is now close to a hundred.”

  “How do you fit in?”

  “The ducks are considered critically endangered. I’ve been hired to take photos for a book and companion calendar that will be sold to raise funds for the conservation program trying to save them from extinction.”

  “And you just found this out today?”

  “It’s been in the works for some time, but nothing was firmed up until this morning.”

  Prior to Zack’s last adventure in Madagascar, where he spent two-and-a-half weeks photographing lemurs in the jungle, my only knowledge of the island country had come from the various Dreamworks eponymous animated movies. A quick Google search had informed me of the island’s political instability and that travelers should exercise extreme caution.

  Zack always seemed to be jetting off at a moment’s notice to some area of the globe that scared the caca out of me. He never traveled to Iceland to shoot the Northern Lights or to Italy to document new findings unearthed at Pompeii. His assignments always took him to jungles and deserts rife with drug dealers or terrorists. The skeptic in me wondered if the ducks weren’t a cover for a more spy-like assignment from one of the alphabet agencies he swore up and down and seven ways to Sunday that he didn’t work for.

  Why couldn’t he open a photo studio in Westfield and spend his days taking portraits of cute babies? “How long will you be gone this time?”

  “Depends on how quickly I capture enough usable images.”

  Is the Madagascar Pochard a camera-shy duck? “Could you narrow it down a bit? A week? A month?”

  “Somewhere in-between.”

  “And the good news?”

  “I finished scanning and touching up the photos we chose for Lupe’s albums.” He walked over to his desk and retrieved a jump drive, which he handed to me. “All the images are grouped by year and labeled with names and locations I took from the inscriptions on the back of each photo. You can start assembling them whenever you have time.”

  I stared at the jump drive in my hand, then back up at Zack. A heartfelt thank you didn’t come remotely close to covering my gratitude. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

  Zack thought for a moment, then shrugged and said, “Maybe it’s the universe’s way of balancing the scales, given all the crap Karl dumped on you.”

  I doubted the universe worked on a quid pro quo basis, but Zack had shown up at the lowest point of my life. I don’t know if I would have survived this past year without him. “I love you.”

  “I know.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “First thing tomorrow morning.”

  I walked over to the door and flipped the lock. “Then I suppose we’d better make the most of today.”

  Zack grinned as he took me into his arms. “My thoughts exactly.”

  NINE

  I spent Saturday morning running all those errands single working moms tackle on weekends. Much of that time involved vying for parking spaces and standing in endless cashier lines. Retirees and stay-at-home moms have the luxury of shopping during the week when parking lots are half-empty and cashier lines are short. Not those of us in the workforce. We juggle a week’s worth of errands, along with shuttling kids back and forth to various school sports and other extracurricular activities, nonstop throughout our weekends.

  At least Alex now had a car, thanks to Ira, which freed up some of my time for yet more chores—specifically housework and laundry. I kept searching for that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, but I never even caught the briefest of flickers.

  Besides, Alex’s Jeep arrived with invisible strings, tying us to a quasi-relative who’d wormed his way into our lives. If Ira had never shown up on my doorstep last summer, Mama wouldn’t have met Lawrence, and we’d all be better off for that. Except Alex. Without Ira, he’d still be pedaling around on two wheels instead of driving on four.

  I was cooling my impatient Nikes at Shop-Rite, frowning at my cart full of quickly defrosting frozen food, when my cell phone rang. I fished the phone out of my purse and saw Lupe’s name filling the screen. “Hi, Lupe.”

  “I can’t find her yearbook,” she said in lieu of a greeting, her trembling voice tinged with a combination of depression and anxiety. “I’ve searched the house from top to bottom.”

  Nothing like being dropped into the middle of someone else’s thought process. “Whose yearbook?”

  “Mami’s!” Depression and anxiety segued to near hysteria. “I realized last night the yearbook would have a picture of the football team and list everyone’s names.”

  Lupe had lost all sense of logic. I inched up as the first person in line pushed a cart laden with shopping bags toward the exit. The cashier began to ring up the next person in the queue. As sympathetically as I could, I said, “Your mother was a freshman; the boys were seniors. They wouldn’t be in her yearbook even if you found it.”

  “But she should have a yearbook for every year she attended high school, wouldn’t she? I did.”

  “I didn’t. Only for my senior year.” Yearbooks weren’t handed out gratis, at least not in public school. They cost a small fortune. Although anyone could purchase a yearbook, most students waited until their senior year. What was the point of shelling out big bucks for a book filled with upper classman?

  “Oh.” She sounded like someone had jabbed her with a pin and deflated the balloon keeping all her hopes alive. “I thought everyone did.”

  “I think it depends on the high school.” Both Carmen and Lupe had attended Catholic schools. Maybe their tuition covered an annual yearbook. Even so, Carmen had been shipped off to upstate New York to have her baby. She wasn’t attending school in New Jersey the spring of her freshman year. I refrained from mentioning this particular factoid to Lupe, though. It seemed too much like pouring salt into a festering emotional wound.

  “The high school!” The air suddenly rushed back into her internal balloon. “Of course! They’d have a copy. She attended Our Lady of Peace. I’ll run over during my lunch hour on Monday.” With that she hung up, and I inched forward another few millimeters.

  ~*~

  I didn’t hear from Lupe again until Monday afternoon. We had just finished up our monthly production meeting, and I was returning to
my cubicle when my cell phone rang. Once again, Lupe dispensed with any salutation, jumping right into her reason for calling. “I know who they are!” she said, her voice filled with the sort of excitement I’d expect from someone who had just won the lottery. “I have their names!”

  I could barely hear her. Blaring car horns vied with Lupe’s voice. “Whose names? Where are you?”

  She raised her voice slightly, but I still had difficulty making out her words. “Our Lady of Peace. The library has a collection of yearbooks dating back to the first graduating class in 1927.”

  “Why is it so noisy?” The Our Lady of Peace complex was situated halfway up the side of a mountain straddling the border separating Watchung and Plainfield. Lupe sounded like she’d hiked down the mountain and was standing in the middle of a mob of angry commuters, all leaning on their horns.

  “Sorry,” she shouted. “I had the car window down. Better?”

  “Somewhat.” The cacophony had quelled to a background rumble. “What’s going on?”

  “Some jerk in a panel van was in too much of a hurry. He nearly ran me off the road in his rush to beat the traffic light. Then he cut off a woman in a minivan. She slammed on her brakes, causing the driver behind her to rear-end her. Now we’re all stuck in traffic while the cops sort things out. And of course, the guy who set all of this in motion took off. I hope someone got his license plate number.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Not me. The woman in the minivan, and the guy who hit her are being tended to by paramedics, but they look more shaken up than seriously injured. I figured I’d call you while I’m sitting in this mess.”

  “You mentioned you had names?”

  “The football players who raped my mother. I know who they are.”

  “Players?” Plural? When had Lupe leaped to the conclusion that her mother was the victim of a gang rape? The thought had never occurred to me. Had all the boys at the party taken turns with a comatose Carmen and Elena? I stopped dead in my tracks, my knees growing weak from the sickening thought.

  “Anastasia?”

  From behind me an arm reached out and grabbed mine, steadying me. I turned sideways to find our editorial director Naomi Dreyfus, a look of concern on her face. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  I hoped so. Surely Lupe’s anger over what had happened to her mother years ago—and nothing more—had conjured up the heinous scenario she now suggested. She certainly wouldn’t have gained this knowledge from viewing a fifty-year-old high school yearbook. Jocks might like to brag about their conquests, but even the dumbest jock wouldn’t mention a gang rape as his most memorable school experience.

  “Yes, thank you,” I assured Naomi, still conscious of Lupe on the other end of the phone. “I just became queasy all of a sudden.” Definitely not a lie.

  “Anastasia?” asked Lupe. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I told her. “Hold on a minute.”

  “I hope it wasn’t something in the deli sandwiches,” said Naomi.

  Naomi always dipped into her petty cash account to provide us with a buffet spread for lunch during our monthly production meetings. Hopefully, the pencil pushers in the accounting department would never catch on. We have few enough job perks at the magazine. I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Whatever it was, it’s passed now.”

  “Good. You should sit down, though, just in case.” She led me into my cubicle and settled me into my chair. Then she dragged my wastebasket across the floor and positioned it at my feet. “Just in case you can’t make it to the restroom in time,” she said with a wink.

  I nodded my thanks. As soon as she was out of earshot, I returned to Lupe. “How do you know their names?”

  Lupe continued to shout into the phone. “I cross-referenced the names listed for the football team with the individual seniors’ photos. There were only five seniors on the team that year.”

  Elena had mentioned there were five boys at the party, all seniors and all on the football team. “What are you planning to do?”

  “I’m going to confront each one of them. Four of the five still live in the area.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I recognized their names. You will, too. If they don’t come clean, I’ll threaten to go to the press.”

  That sickening feeling returned to my stomach. “Lupe, you can’t resort to blackmail.”

  “It’s the only way I’ll get any answers. Trust me, these guys won’t want even a whiff of scandal surrounding them, no matter how long ago it happened.”

  “Lupe, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “You’re wrong, Anastasia. It’s an excellent idea. I need to know the truth, and this is the perfect way to get it.” She hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Can I convince you to come with me?”

  Absolutely not! As guilty as I felt over Carmen’s death, I wasn’t about to assuage that guilt by confronting a rapist. I had to stop her. “I understand you need to know what happened, Lupe, but this isn’t the way. Zack and I were talking, and he suggested you hire a private detective if you want to pursue this further. Let a professional investigate these men for you.”

  “Why?”

  Lupe was so laser focused on finding her mother’s rapist, she didn’t realize she might be putting her own life in danger. “It’s much safer that way. Please. Think of your family—your husband, your kids. What if one of these guys panics and harms you?”

  She didn’t speak for a moment, then finally said, “I hadn’t thought about that. Do you really think someone would hurt me?”

  “I have no idea, but it’s certainly a possibility. For all we know, the guy is a serial rapist and has continued assaulting women—or worse—for decades. Who knows what someone like that would do if threatened with exposure?”

  Men pushed to their limits often commit acts of desperation. I didn’t have to look any further than my own mother’s latest husband for confirmation of that. His desperate act had resulted in Carmen paying the ultimate price.

  Lupe sighed. “You’re right. I suppose I shouldn’t rush into a confrontation with anyone just yet.”

  “Or ever.”

  “Anyway, I need to do some more research first.”

  “Internet research?”

  “That and going to the library. Elena said she called the police. I want to check the police blotter report in the archives of the local newspaper. I’m hoping they’re on microfiche.”

  “I don’t see how that’s going to help you. You already know their names. Besides, the newspaper would have protected the boys’ identities, especially since Elena claimed charges were never filed against them.”

  “True, but a report would mention the street where the party was held.”

  “And then what?”

  “That would help me figure out who hosted the party.”

  “Not necessarily. What if several of the boys lived on the same street? Besides, knowing the host doesn’t give you proof of which boy or boys assaulted your mother and Elena.”

  I heard her mutter something under her breath. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  She hadn’t thought of a lot of things. I feared Lupe would do something rash. “I don’t see what you’d gain by spending hours going through a year of newspaper files.”

  “I can narrow down the timeframe. The rape took place during the school year. I don’t suppose you remember Elena mentioning the month, do you?”

  I thought about the conversation in the coffee shop. “No, I don’t believe she did.”

  “I’m thinking it must have occurred sometime in the early fall.”

  “Why?”

  “Elena said the family was told Mami won a scholarship to a boarding school for a semester. She probably began showing sometime around Christmas and was whisked off to the nuns for the spring semester.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.” Then I added, “I know I can’t stop you, Lupe. Look up the police blotter if you must.
Just promise me you’ll hire a private investigator instead of contacting these men on your own.”

  I waited for her response. When she hadn’t answered after several seconds, I prodded her. “Lupe?”

  She sighed heavily. “All right, I promise.”

  We said our good-byes, and I disconnected the call. For several minutes I stared at the blinking cursor on my computer screen as I tried to put all thoughts of a five-decades-old rape behind me—not forever but at least for the remainder of the day. Otherwise I’d spend the afternoon consumed with worry for Lupe. I didn’t necessarily believe she wouldn’t approach those former football players on her own, despite my warnings and her promise.

  I shook the stupor from my brain and told myself to get to work. Now that Naomi had signed off on the scrapbooking theme for the next issue of the magazine, I needed to finish Lupe’s scrapbook. Because of the condition of the original photos, I needed to factor in the time it would take to publish the albums once I designed the pages and uploaded everything to the online photo service. After the albums were printed and mailed to me, they then had to be photographed for the magazine spread. I also had to write editorial copy for the issue.

  In addition, Naomi saw this project as a way to bring aboard a new advertiser. That meant I also had to meet with our sales department to provide them with the information they’d need before they set up a meeting with the online photo service I planned to use.

  Designing the pages didn’t require much in the way of brainpower, though. The work was intuitive, relying on my innate sense of design. As I worked sizing and arranging the photos on each page in chronological order and by theme, my mind wandered back to the mystery behind Carmen’s unfortunate pregnancy.

  Ever since Karl’s untimely death, I’ve become obsessed with the butterfly effect. Not how a butterfly flapping its wings in Canada might change weather patterns in Mexico, but how a single act, no matter how small or insignificant, can affect the course of our lives at some point in the future.

  I’ll never know when Karl began gambling. He kept his addiction well hidden from me. But at some point, either before we met or afterwards, Karl placed his first bet. In doing so, he embarked down an irrevocable path. Was it something as innocent as a frat house poker game? An office Super Bowl pool? A day at the racetrack? Sticking a nickel in the slot of an Atlantic City one-armed bandit? No matter the catalyst, that initial foray into gambling years later changed his life, my life, our kids’ lives, and his mother’s life forever.