MOTHER

Approx. 2,679 words

A woman fears her mother has risen from the dead.

A Well Laid Plan

April 12, 4:15 p.m.

Turning his Mercedes onto Shadow Lane, Ron Pearson immediately saw the ambulance and two police cars in front of his home. The red and blue lights were flashing, but the sirens were quiet. He wondered what the cause could be. With the ambulance in the driveway and two police cars blocking the curb in front of his home, Ron parked across the street. Mrs. Cameron and her teenage son, Phil, were standing on the lawn observing the excitement. He shifted the transmission into park, killed the engine, and stepped onto the street.

“My son and I heard your wife scream and then everything was quiet, Mr. Pearson. I called the police and they called the ambulance. That was twenty minutes ago. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“No more than you, Adele. I’ve just pulled up,” as if the old busy body was too stupid to notice. Ron stepped across the street and onto the lawn where a patrol officer held up a hand to stop him. “Not just yet, sir,” the patrolman said. We’re investigating a possible crime scene here.”

“I live here,” Ron said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I’m just securing the area; you’ll have to ask my sergeant or one of the paramedics. You can go in, but try not to touch anything yet, unless you’re cleared.”

Ron crossed the well manicured lawn, the sweeping circular drive, and stepped onto the ornate porch. Two EMT’s were just exiting, thank goodness the gurney they pulled was empty. “I’m Ron Pearson,” he said. “What’s happened to my wife?”

“Nothing serious, Mr. Pearson. Just a mild case of shock. We’ve administered a tranquilizer and suggested she lie down for a bit. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to hospitalize her for the time being. You can go in, sir.”

Ron stepped aside until they cleared the entryway, and then strode into the foyer and through to the living room. Trish was sitting in her favorite Louis Quatorze chair, a lace handkerchief dabbing at her eyes, while two plain-clothes detectives questioned her and took notes. Seeing her husband she leaped to her feet.

“Ron! Mother was here, not thirty minutes ago! I saw her in the den! I screamed, and then I guess I fainted.”

Ron put his arms around her and tried to calm her. “You’ve been under a lot of stress, Trish. It’s only been a month since her funeral. You’ve been imagining things….”

“Did I imagine her fragrance, Ron? Her perfume? And she was wearing that Versace creation we had her… had her put away in.” Trish couldn’t bring herself to think of her mother lying in a cold box in the ground, even though she had attended the graveside service.

“I’ve never heard of a ghost wearing perfume, honey.”

“She’s not a ghost, Ron—she’s flesh and blood. She’s returned from the dead!”

“Trish, you have to face reality. We buried her at Oak Lawn. You attended the service. You know she’s…” he wanted to avoid shocking her more, “crossed over.”

“I know, I know, dear. But I also know she’s come back. I didn’t just imagine this. She was in the den!” She looked at her husband with pleading eyes, as though begging him to believe her.

One of the detectives spoke up. “Sergeant Gamboa, Mr. Pearson.” He stuck out his hand and Ron shook it briefly before he seated Trish in the Louis Quatorze again. “We’ve checked the windows in the den, in fact all the ground floor windows and doors. There’s no sign of a break in. No sign that anyone has been here at all.”

“Let me show you something in the den,” Ron said, leading the sergeant into the next room, out of earshot of his wife. “Look,” Ron told Detective Gamboa, “since my mother-in-law passed away, my wife has been depressed and now I’m afraid she’s being delusional about visits by her mother’s spirit. This is the sixth visitation she’s had. I’m sure she’ll get over it, but I’m going to insist she seek professional help to come to terms with her grief.”

“We didn’t want to say anything that might upset your wife, but we came to the same conclusion, Mr. Pearson. She merely experienced an anxiety attack due to over-imagination. There’s been no evidence of foul play here. We’ll just let the investigation drop after filing our report, if that’s agreeable to you.”

“Certainly, sergeant, I would like to keep this as quiet as possible. I’m sorry we have put you to so much trouble. I’ll get help for my wife as soon as possible.”

April 16, 7:29 p.m.

“My apologies for being late, Trish. Some unavoidable details at the last moment of the day. Couldn’t be helped.” Ron left his briefcase in the foyer then took his place at the dining room table and helped himself to two slices of Roast Baron of Beef Fionna presented to him. When the maid had withdrawn, he noticed his wife merely toying with her dinner yet helping herself to a another glass of Chablis.

“How did your session go this morning,” he asked?

Trish drank deeply and refilled her glass. “Dr. Norman insists I am only imagining these things, Ron. She stops just short of saying I should be hospitalized, but I know she has very little faith in me. I don’t know why you keep pushing me to see her. Her brand of therapy is most depressing.

“The only good news I’ve had this week came from our attorney. Mr. Hastings estimates mother’s estate will be well over seventy million, and there will be very little going to taxes, thanks to the living trust he set up for her. So we’ll at least be able to afford those expensive visits to lady shrink you insist I keep seeing.”

“I only want you to get better, Trish, and Florence Norman has an excellent reputation, dear, regarding both her competence and her discretion. That’s why she is sought out by all the rich and famous in southern California.”

“But I don’t need therapy, Ron. You don’t think I’m crazy, still you won’t entirely believe me.”

“You’re not crazy, darling. You’ve just been under a great deal of stress. In your grief and loneliness, you’ve merely imagined the return of your mother. Perhaps we should seek help from a psychic? If you felt that your mother’s spirit was at peace, these visitations might disappear?”

“But what if the psychic told us mother is not at peace?” Trish asked. “What if she has returned because there is something troubling her? What if she’s trying to help me?”

“What could possibly be wrong, honey? And why does she only appear to you when you’re alone? Every time you claim to have seen her, Fionna has either had the day off or been out shopping. Your subconscious is merely conjuring up visitations by your mother to compensate you in your grief. Doctor Norman, I’m sure, will be able to help you to deal with the reality of the situation, dear. I wouldn’t want this to develop into a neurosis or something more serious.”

Trish favored him with one of her smiles of adoration. “I know I can always count on you to do what’s best for me, darling. You’ve always placed my interests above your business affairs, just as mother always looked out for me before we were married.”

“And I always will, my sweet. You are the centerpiece of my life, and your welfare and happiness are essential to me.”

May 12, 2:18 p.m.

“Mr. Pearson? Dr. Norman is on line four.”

Ron pressed the intercom button, “Thank you, Eileen. Hold all my calls for the time being, would you please?”

He put away the property acquisitions he had been working on for a major client wishing to build yet another shopping center in the Glendale area; a deal that would easily net him a million or more after taxes. Since his marriage to Trish, her mother’s social connections had greatly influenced his business successes. Why did the old battle-axe have to go and die, leaving him stuck with a spoiled and pampered brat more dependant than a pre-teen child?

“Good afternoon, Dr. Norman,” he said into the telephone.

“Aren’t we being a little formal, Ron? It always used to be Flo, or something sweeter at the appropriate moments.”

“I know, honey, but you never can be sure who’s listening to a conversation these days. Is anyone listening on your end?”

“Of course not, darling. Your wife left twenty minutes ago. I’m just organizing my notes for my secretary to type up. Trish has had two more visitations, as you call them. Her psychosis seems to be developing more rapidly than in the days immediately following the funeral. Her anxiety has intensified also; I’m beginning to fear for her safety.”

“Then you think we should take action to have her committed?”

“I’m sure the court will agree to a ninety-day period of observation on my recommendation, Ron. I’ve handled these things before. After that, we’ll have no trouble getting her commitment extended again and again, for as long as we feel it necessary. And of course, as her only living relative, you’ll be administrator of her business affairs, just like we planned.”

“Yes,” he smiled, “things couldn’t be working out better, sweetheart.”

“When will I get to see you, Ron? I really need you. It’s been so long….”

“Soon, Flo honey,” he said. “Very soon, but I don’t think we should be seen together until after the commitment is final, then how about a vacation to Tahiti? Would that suit you?”

“A honeymoon in Tahiti would suit me more, lover, but I realize the law will not permit you to divorce a mentally incompetent wife. I guess we’ll just have to soothe our disappointments with all those lovely millions.”

“We can buy a lot of soothing with seventy million dollars, darling. You’re sure a staff doctor at the sanitarium won’t reverse your diagnosis and release her in the near future?”

“Not the facility I’ve selected, darling. Dr. Krazny’s federal grant fell by the wayside in the budget cutting process this year. As a private clinic, he’ll welcome a generous donation from us now and then.”

“You think of everything,” Ron said. “That’s why I love you.”

May 12, 3:09 p.m.

Ron was beginning to feel the elation of success as his months of planning were about to come to fruition. All the groveling he’d had to endure during his four years of marriage to Trish would soon end. Of course, Florence would have to be eliminated, but arrangements had been made, and all he needed to do was set the time and place when he no longer needed her professional capabilities. Florence was useful, up to a point, but his real desires were concentrated upon a certain exotic dancer, with long brunette tresses, who went by the name of Delilah. He decided to give her a call….

After four rings he was about to hang up when she answered the phone in short, ragged breaths. “It’s me, honey,” he said.

“Oh, Ron darling, I was in the shower. I have to be onstage at six and you know how long it takes to do my hair and makeup.”

“I know it’s always worth the wait, you scrumptious angel. I just got off the phone with Trish’s therapist. She’s getting ready to have my wife committed, and then it won’t be long until the two of us can be together.”

“Oh, darling, we’ve worked so hard, and it’s been just as hard on me trying to keep out of the spotlight until we can be together publicly. We don’t want anyone getting suspicious.”

“Your idea to use her mother’s perfume was right on, honey. Dr. Norman says a person’s sense of smell is the most powerful sense to foster recalling memories and emotion. The wig and Versace gown added to the illusion she was seeing her mother. After the commitment, Doctor Norman remains to be dealt with. Are you sure you have that covered?”

“Trust me, babe, it’ll be taken care of, and everyone will think it’s just an unfortunate hit and run traffic accident.”

“I can’t wait, honey….” He left the sentence hanging in the air.

“We’ve waited too long, sweetheart. We can wait a few more weeks or months. How long do you think it will be before we can be together?” Very carefully, Delilah made no mention of the millions of dollars that Ron would control once his wife was institutionalized. She knew she could easily separate him from many millions of those dollars.

“I’ve got to run, honey. I have three shows tonight, but I’ll be off by two. Will I see you?”

“Not tonight, my love, but soon. If the commitment hearing can’t be scheduled for next month, I’ll tell Trish I have an out of town business trip and we can spend a few days together. How does Cancun sound to you?”

“Mexico sounds deliciously warm and sunny and sexy, Ron, I can hardly wait.”

“I’ll give you a call.” He hung up.

Delilah looked at her lover. He was lying back on the sheets, where they had been making love, and smoking a cigarette. Jim Branson was a twenty-eight year old musician who hadn’t hit the big time yet, but he was immensely more talented in the sack than forty-eight year old Ron Pearson. Delilah looked at Ron as a necessary chore to acquire the money both she and Jim felt they deserved, but Jim was pure pleasure, nearly all night and nearly every night!

“You don’t have to worry about tonight, Jim. Ron won’t be coming over. He hasn’t made excuses for us to be together. Next week I’ll probably take off to Mexico for a few days with him. You sure you won’t mind?”

“Mind?” he said. “Hell yes, I’ll mind! But he’ll only be sleeping with my woman until we can bleed him of seventy million bucks. You are my woman, aren’t you Del?”

She placed the telephone in the cradle and approached him with all the sensuous stealth of a stalking jaguar. She pressed her naked body next to his and her tiny tongue darted between his lips while she took pleasure from the heat of his skin as she writhed against him.

“Do you have any doubt,” she purred?

“Well, since you put it that way, how could I? How much longer will it be?”

“Soon, baby, very soon. Now, let me get into the shower. I really do have to go onstage in just a few more hours.” She blew a kiss in his direction and padded barefoot in the direction of the shower while Jim admired her beauty.

Delilah was certainly one gorgeous piece of work, he had to admit. Too bad he would have to dump her. All he had to do was take out the lady doctor and make it look like a hit and run, while Delilah wheedled money out of the mark, and he would soon be on easy street. For a few hundred, Jim knew a boost-man who could provide him with a suitable car he could use to stage the phony hit-and-run which would permanently remove the lady doctor from the picture.

He could hardly wait to call Steffy and give her the good news but, prudently, he decided to wait until Delilah was out of the apartment.

How could she possibly think he would trust her after she fleeced the rich bastard? Even if she was going to share the money with him, if she could dump Ron Pearson, with all his millions, Delilah could just as easily dump him since he had no millions. Should he kill her, Jim wondered? She might be able to finger him for the murder of the psychiatrist. Perhaps he should kill her just to avoid any slipups, but not before getting the money. Jim Bronson might be ruthless, but he wasn’t stupid.