The Nanny Murders (Zoe Hayes Mysteries) - Softcover

MERRY JONES is the author of eight books, including the humorous bestseller I Love Him, But... and the nonfiction Birthmothers: Women Who Have Relinquished Babies for Adoption Tell Their Stories. She lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband and two daughters. This is her first novel.

Chapter One 
Small footprints led down the steps to the sidewalk where Molly played in the snow.
 
I sat on the front porch, absorbing a stray beam of late afternoon sun while my almost six-year-old daughter delighted in two inches of what would soon become puddles of sodden gray slush. I was tired from a daylong monthly staff meeting and craved some peace. A few houses down, a workman started up his chain saw.
 
Our neighborhood, Queen Village, was caught in an endless process of renovation and gentrification. We were sandwiched between South Philadelphia with its traditional ethnic households and Society Hill with its fancy colonial landmarks. Dowdy old row houses sagged beside gleaming restorations. The neighborhood was home to both rich and poor, the upwardly mobile and the newly disenfranchised. The area was struggling for respectability, but despite the disruption of continuous construction, it was unclear whether it would get there.
 
Watching Molly play beside parked cars and grimy gutters, I imagined living in some shiny suburb on the Main Line--Gladwyne, maybe, or Rosemont or Bryn Mawr. Someplace where trees, not trash, lined the streets; where kids played on grass, not asphalt.
 
I often thought of moving. But I still hadn't left. Despite my complaints, I thrived on the city's energy, its sounds and faces, its moving parts. I wasn't sure how long I'd hold out, but I'd worked hard to make us a home here, and so far I'd refused to give it up.
 
"Mom," Molly called, "what if my tooth comes out and falls in the snow?"
 
"It's not ready to come out yet."
 
"Are you sure?"
 
"Positive."
 
"Because we'd never find it. Everything's white."
 
"It won't come out today."
 
She was quiet again, working the snow.
 
"Mom," she called moments later, "it's not enough. I need more."
 
She knelt near the curb, gathering handfuls of snow in her mittens, packing them into a lump.
 
I came down the steps and stooped beside her. "What's the problem?"
 
"I need more snow." She stared hopelessly at the tiny mound.
 
I reached into my pockets and found an old phone bill. "Try this." I scraped snow with the envelope, making it a paper snowplow.
 
"Okay." She grabbed the envelope and plowed away. I wandered back up to the wrought-iron chair on the porch, leaned my head back against the wall, and closed my eyes.
 
"Mom, guess what I'm making?"
 
"What?"
 
"Guess."
 
She wasn't going to let me rest. "A snowman?"
 
"Nope."
 
"I give up."
 
"No, guess again."
 
She won't always be five years old, I told myself. You can rest when she's in college. "Hmm. A sneaker."
 
"Uh-uh."
 
"The letter Q?"
 
"No."
 
"W?"
 
"Nope. Don't be silly. It's not any letter."
 
"Then it must be a washing machine."
 
"Stop being silly, Mom."
 
I opened my eyes. Dozing wasn't going to happen. Molly kept plowing, patting, building. "Well?"
 
"Give me time. I'm thinking." I stretched the pause, savoring it. Across the street, the blinds went up in Victor's second-floor window. I watched, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Victor was phobic. To my knowledge, he hadn't left his house in years. I didn't know why, although local lore was rife with explanations. One rumor held that Victor's mother had died in the house and he hadn't left since; another that a fortune-teller had warned him he'd meet a violent end next time he stepped onto the street. Despite the stories, I suspected that Victor's real problems were locked inside the house with him, in his own head. Apparently, he had money to live on; groceries, laundry, pizza, and parcels arrived at his door regularly. Once in a while, Molly and I left him baskets of muffins or cookies; the food disappeared, but we rarely saw Victor. Now, pale hands taped a cardboard snowman to the glass. The blinds went down again. Hands, but no face. This wouldn't count, then, as an actual Victor sighting.
 
Even unseen, Victor was one of the only neighbors I knew. Victor and old Charlie, Victor's next-door neighbor. Charlie was the handyman for the remodeled townhouses across the street. Somebody new had moved into the house on the other side of Charlie. I hadn't met him yet, but I'd become well acquainted with the huge electric Santa and reindeer that flashed on and off, day and night, from his first-floor window like the sign at an all-night diner. Every blink announced that Christmas was coming and that I wasn't ready, hadn't gotten organized, didn't even have our tree. Or presents or baking ingredients or decorations.
 
"Mom?"
 
Oh. Molly was still waiting for my guess. "Okay--I bet I have it. It's a song."
 
"A song?" She turned to look at me. "You're teasing. You can't make a song out of snow."
 
"You mean it's not a song? Then I give up."
 
"Okay. I'll tell you. She's a snowbaby. A little iddy biddy one." She busied herself gathering and shaping snow, narrating her process. "And her name's going to be Kelly. No. Emma . . ." She jabbered on, accompanied by the chain saw. I let my head rest against the bricks, my eyelids float down, my mind drift.
 
"Eww. Yuck."
 
Eww, yuck? I didn't want to get up again. I didn't even want to open my eyes. The sun felt so gentle and soothing. A warm caress. "Molly. Remember, don't touch stuff you find in the street. Leave it alone. Okay?"
 
Silence. Damn. What relic of city life had she found now? I always worried about debris she might encounter on the sidewalk. Broken Budweiser bottles, used needles. Discarded underwear. Used condoms. "Molly? What are you doing?"
 
She was fixated on it, whatever it was; her monologue had stopped. I opened an eye and watched her dig, retrieving something from the snow.
 
"Molly, don't pick up stuff from the street." How many times a day did I have to repeat that? Ignoring me, she closed her hand around it and lifted the thing.
 
"You're not listening to me. Okay. Time to go in."
 
She didn't move. She held on to whatever it was and stared.
 
The gravel eyes of a snowbaby followed me as I came down the front steps.
 
"Molly. Drop it."
 
Silently, she let it go, and it landed on the snowy sidewalk with a tiny frozen thud. I looked down. At first, I thought it was a stick. Then I saw the red part. Damn. What had she picked up? A hunk of rotting meat? A half-eaten hot dog?
 
"Molly. Answer me. Are you allowed to touch stuff from the street?"
 
She looked up with wide, baffled eyes. "No."
 
Taking her by the wrist, I glanced once more at the thing on the ground. It lay at our feet, filthy, bright red at one end, its form gradually taking definition. I blinked at it a few times. Then, holding on to Molly, I fled with knees of jelly, in slow motion, up the steps.
 
Under the grime, there was no mistaking what it was, even though the nail was broken and the crimson polish chipped.
 
Copyright © 2005 by Merry Jones. All rights reserved.