The Happy Birthday Murder Read online

  PRAISE FOR LEE HARRIS AND HER CHRISTINE BENNETT MYSTERIES

  “An excellent series.”

  —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

  “A not-to-miss series.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “Harris’s holiday series…a strong example of the suburban cozy.”

  —Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

  “Extremely popular…Chris is a wonderful heroine.”

  —Romantic Times Magazine

  “Inventive plotting and sharp, telling characterization make the Lee Harris novels a pure pleasure to read.”

  —ROBERT BARNARD

  A Fawcett Book

  Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2002 by Lee Harris

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Fawcett and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  ISBN 9780449007020

  eBook ISBN 9781101968406

  v4.1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Lee Harris

  And, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but

  The truth in masquerade; and I defy

  Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put

  A fact without some leaven of a lie.

  —LORD BYRON

  Don Juan, Canto XI, Stanza 37 1823

  PROLOGUE

  Even when I was single and lived in this house alone, I felt secure in it. It’s one of the older houses on our street, a street that was partially built up in the Fifties and Sixties and then completed, by a different builder in a totally different style, ten to fifteen years later. The ground-floor exterior is brick, the upstairs wood, and the roof was replaced not long before I was released from my vows at St. Stephen’s and took up residence here. The house had been my aunt’s for as long as I can remember, and she took good care of it.

  When Jack, my policeman-turned-lawyer husband, joined me in the house after our marriage, he put his own skills to use making it even more secure. He updated the locks on the doors and windows, replaced a couple of windowpanes that had mysteriously cracked, and had a mason come over and look at the brickwork. I put my foot down on an alarm system, choosing to believe that I could trust my neighbors to spot unwanted strangers in the area, which isn’t hard to do when almost no one parks on the street and passersby tend to be children going to or coming from school or their parents.

  Once, a long time ago, Aunt Margaret did combat with a mouse in the kitchen. Aunt Margaret won and generations of mice have been frightened away since then, for which I am grateful. And the basement, where the furnace and hot water heater reside along with an awful lot of cartons with her accumulations, stored until I get around to cleaning them out, is dry and comparatively clean.

  So it was with more than a sense of surprise that I discovered, when I went down to that basement to bring up a bottle of tomato juice, that there was a puddle on the floor. More than that, there was a cool breeze coming from an open window.

  The basement is three-quarters underground. The windows, horizontal rectangles that open from the top, are generally kept closed unless we decide to air out the basement while we’re home. Having a husband who is a cop means that you never leave anything open when you go out. However trustful I may be, and I’m not that trustful, it’s too much for him. He is always on guard against an enemy that may be lurking nearby, perhaps in the vegetable garden.

  For the last several years our weather seems to have lurched from drought to flood and back again. In the spring we get drenched. In the summer we get roasted and the nearby reservoir cooks away to practically nothing, forcing us to be even more careful with our water use than usual. It seems terribly unfair that in the spring the reservoir overflows and in the fall we can’t water our lawns, but that’s the way it is and will be until someone in government does something productive to improve the situation. We may have to wait a good while for that to happen.

  On the day that I went downstairs for the bottle of juice, we were recovering from a torrential rain with winds that had knocked down big old trees and scattered debris every which way. Although I had a momentary scare that someone had actually gotten into the basement by opening the window, I realized pretty quickly that I had probably neglected to fasten the window tightly a week or so ago and the wind had blown it open, allowing the rain to come in. Accepting this explanation was certainly more satisfying than imagining that we suddenly had a problem of underground water rising through the concrete floor.

  But the result was the same: I had water in the basement and a few cartons, probably filled with papers, sitting in water. I dashed upstairs to get a mop and bucket and set to work making the floor puddle-free. The problem, of course, was what to do about the three cartons that had been sitting in water. They were almost impossible to lift, as the bottoms were soggy and tended to drop out, but I did manage to push them to a dry area where I hoped the contents would not mold. I knew I had a job ahead of me. I would now have to go through them, divide the contents into Save and Don’t Save, and put the stuff I was keeping into dry cartons.

  I didn’t look forward to it. Aunt Meg saved things that had meaning to her: theater programs, tickets torn in half, old wallets containing even older snapshots, address books from fifty years ago, receipts for objects purchased before I was born, and other such memorabilia that put me in a terrible quandary. What do I do with a photo of an unidentified person who was dear to my aunt but unknown to me?

  Anyway, the job had to be done and it had to be done by me. And I knew I ought to do it soon. There was a chance that the wet material at the bottom of the cartons would not just mold but smell, and I didn’t want to let that happen. I squeezed out the mop for the last time and thought about when I could come down here while Eddie, my almost-four-year-old, would not be around.

  And that was how I came across a murder.

  1

  Eddie loves nursery school. The first year he went, he attended on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This year he goes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. As it happens, this is very convenient for me, because I have made a great change in my life.

  From the time I left St. Stephen’s Convent, having been released from my vows, and came to live in the house I inherited from Aunt Meg in Oakwood, New York, I had taught a college course in poetry. Sometime last year I decided that both my students and I would benefit if I taught something new. The college was acquiescent and agreed to let me teach a course on American mysteries by female writers. It seemed an appropriate topic, as I have worked to solve several murders over the last few years.

  The best thing ab
out it was that I spent the summer reading the most wonderful books, telling myself it was work and not fun and never believing it for one second. By the end of August I had a syllabus ready, and I began teaching just after Labor Day. It’s a Wednesday morning class and Eddie is in nursery school that day, so the changes in both our schedules have meshed nicely.

  Nursery school has given Eddie friends who live farther than our neighbors. At the end of September he was invited to a birthday party for a boy who was turning four. We went to a toy store together, perhaps not the best idea I’ve ever had, and bought his friend something that I’m sure Eddie wanted for himself, so I made a note of it, as his birthday will be coming along later this fall.

  The party was on a Wednesday afternoon, which was no problem. My class ended before lunch and at four we drove over to Ryan Damon’s house, where Ryan’s mother was preparing a splendid barbecue that included mothers as well as children. The children donned party hats and blew noisemakers, making all of us over the age of four a little crazy, but they had a great time playing a bunch of games and then eating hot dogs and hamburgers and potato chips while we older folks were presented with steaks. I had a feeling as I was eating this wonderful fare that the present should have gone to Ryan’s mother.

  A large birthday cake, decorated with blue roses and green leaves and lots of butter cream, ended our feast. Every small face was sticky with white stuff and no one wanted to go home. There was something lovely about sitting outside on a lazy autumn evening, breathing in the good fresh air, and knowing it would all end soon, the pleasant weather, the light in the early evening, the leaves still on the trees. Finally, several of us got up and started clearing away the debris and then coaxed our rambunctious youngsters to go home.

  “I like Ryan,” Eddie said as I seat-belted him in the car.

  “He has a very nice mommy, too,” I said, appreciating all her hard work.

  “I like that cake.”

  “Well, you have a birthday coming up in a couple of months. We can try to get a cake like that for you.”

  “And hot dogs.”

  “But not outside, honey. It’ll be too cold by then. We’ll do something else. And we’ll be sure to invite Ryan.”

  “OK.”

  Jack was home by the time we got there. Jack is one husband it’s OK to leave without dinner already prepared, as he is the better cook. Eddie told him about every mouthful he had eaten and all the games the kids had played. When he was thoroughly worn out, he went upstairs for a much-needed bath and bed.

  Jack had the coffee going when I came downstairs, and we had just settled down to a quiet evening when there was a cry from upstairs. It was the beginning of the worst night of my life.

  I won’t go into details. Suffice it to say that Eddie was sick and the cause was most likely something he had eaten. Since he had never been this sick before, I was frightened. We decided rather quickly to get him to the emergency room, a first for me, and I hope there will never be a second time. We wrapped him up, grabbed a basin, and tore out of the house.

  As we entered the hospital, Jack carrying our very sick child, I heard the woman behind the admissions counter say, “Here comes another one.”

  Some very capable people immediately took Eddie, who was crying softly, probably because he had lost the energy to do it any louder, to a room where they laid him down and began to work on him. That did provoke some louder cries, but Jack and I had followed closely and we shushed him, holding his hand and talking to him quietly. That I was even able to sound calm and reassuring was something close to a miracle. All I could think of was E. coli and salmonella, two terms that struck absolute terror inside me.

  Jack started asking questions, as two of us could not stand near enough to comfort Eddie. Eddie was the third child to be brought in and they were anticipating more, considering the number of children at the party. No adults had been stricken, at least not so far.

  I tossed out that the mothers had eaten steak and the children had been given different fare.

  “Have a good time at the party, Eddie?” the doctor asked.

  Eddie stopped crying and blinked. He said a soft, “Yes,” and sniffled.

  “What did you eat?”

  “A hot dog.”

  “That’s all?”

  “A hamburger.” He screeched as a needle pricked him.

  “You’re doing fine,” the doctor said. “You’re a pretty brave kid, you know that?”

  Eddie nodded and I smiled.

  “So that was all you ate? A hot dog and a hamburger? I bet you had some ice cream and cake, too.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Anything else?”

  “ ’Tato salad and ’tato chips.”

  “Potato salad. Hey, that sounds good. Wish I’d been at that party.”

  Bet you don’t, I said to myself, all the while admiring his skill in moving fast and talking at the same time. “There was coleslaw on the table, too,” I said, trying to remember. “I’m very concerned about E. coli.”

  “We don’t think it’s E. coli,” the doctor said. “But whatever it was, it was something the kids ate and not the mothers, so it could be the franks or hamburgers.”

  “Have you talked to the woman who prepared the party?” Jack asked.

  “Mrs. Damon. Yes. We have someone going over the details with her right now and we’re bringing in the Department of Health. We’ll get to the bottom of this, but it may not happen tonight.” He raised his head and looked at me. “Maybe you’d like to sit down, Mrs. Brooks. You’re looking a little worse than your son right now, and I don’t want another patient on my hands.”

  I tried for a smile, but he was right. My fear had gotten the better of me, wearing me out. When Jack shoved a chair under my bottom, I sat down gratefully.

  —

  Three more children were brought in in the next hour, one of them Ryan, the birthday boy. Pat Damon was beside herself. The hamburger meat had been freshly bought that day, also the hot dogs. The birthday cake came from everybody’s favorite bakery. The ice cream went from the store freezer to her freezer at home. The salads were from an upscale delicatessen. This could not have happened. She was so apologetic, I finally told her to stop. It wasn’t her fault and I felt sure that between the hospital and the Department of Health, the source would be determined.

  The doctor decided to keep all six children overnight, and I spent the night sitting in Eddie’s room, listening to him breathe, watching his face, touching his skin, and trying not to cry. Jack stayed with me most of that time, but during the night he went to the rooms of the other little children and talked to their anxious parents. The consensus was that it had to be the chopped meat or the franks, as those were the two foods none of the mothers tasted.

  But not all the sick children had eaten the same things. One child had eaten half a hot dog and no hamburger and one had eaten only a hamburger and no hot dog. Every child had had at least some cake, but I had had cake, too, and I was feeling fine, or at least my digestive system was. And not all the children at the party had been afflicted.

  About two in the morning Jack suggested I lie down on the cot that was there for that purpose, but I refused. I was so filled with terror, so shaken at the fragility of my child and all the others, I could not leave his bedside. At some point I did doze off in the chair, and I was glad, when I awoke, that I had gotten some sleep, as I would be taking Eddie home in the morning and I didn’t want to pass out or something stupid like that when I was alone with him.

  Jack offered to stay home, but I felt he should go to work as usual. The only one of the three of us who got a good night’s sleep, as it turned out, was Eddie. I kissed Jack and held him rather dramatically, then let him go. At the hospital, they checked Eddie out, fed him soft food, kept him for a while after that, and then let me take him home. Several other mothers were doing the same, and we exchanged greetings and gossip. No one in the hospital admitted to knowing what had caused the poisoning.

>   —

  I talked to several of the mothers during the day, including Pat Damon, who could not stop apologizing. She had been interviewed by the Department of Health in the morning and she had turned over the receipts for the food she had bought, most of which were still in the bottom of the bags she had taken it home in, ready to be reused or recycled. She had also handed over samples of all the food that was left. Not one mother had gotten sick, and three children, who were also being interviewed, had also not gotten sick. It was quite a mystery.

  After lunch, I took a greatly needed nap while Eddie did the same. I awoke feeling much more human and was gratified to see that Eddie’s color was returning to his cheeks. I decided to keep him home from nursery school the next day so he could continue to recover until Monday, when I hoped he would be well enough to go back. Considering the horror of the previous night, that Thursday was quite calm and restored my confidence. Jack called several times, and when he came home he was carrying a toy for Eddie. I think that did more to make us all feel better than anything else.

  Eddie improved steadily over the next several days and by Monday morning was anxious to go to nursery school. I knew from the grapevine that the other afflicted children were also going back, and by that time I think we were all confident that whatever had caused the affliction, it was out of everyone’s system for good.

  With Eddie out of the house for a few hours, I decided the time had come to go down to the basement and get to work on the cartons that had been soaked a week earlier.

  2

  I carried a flattened carton down the basement stairs with me, knowing that however hard I tried to dispose of the contents of the three wet boxes, I would not succeed. Sometimes there are advantages to being a realist.

  I took the nearest carton, sat on an old folding chair, and bent over to untie the cord that bound it. The top of the carton was bone-dry, as were the contents on top, probably, I thought, going right down to the near-bottom. I think my aunt lived in a perpetual state of fear that some agency of the government would come to her for documents from her past, even those that had long ago expired. In a medium-sized brown envelope were insurance papers on the life of my Uncle Will, who died several years before Aunt Meg. I put those in a supermarket bag I had brought down for things I would dispose of. There were also bankbooks from the 1970s and earlier in Margaret’s name and Will’s. Believe it or not, there were sales receipts for clothing Aunt Meg had bought at local stores and department stores, all of which had been paid for at least seven years ago, according to the dates, and perhaps longer. I am sure that the purchases had long since found their way to the Salvation Army or some other worthy charity. There were moments when I chided my aunt out loud, other moments when I just laughed.