Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder

by Kerryn Mayne

Genres: Suspense; International Crime & Mystery; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

In this powerful debut, an endearing but deeply introverted woman's carefully constructed routine starts to crumble when a letter from the parole board arrives in the mail, bringing the past she's long buried back to life.

Lenny Marks is never unprepared.

She spends her days teaching at the local elementary school and her nights watching reruns of Friends and playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Geller. She owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit, arranged by height. Her wardrobe is limited to four colors (previously counted as three, but the distinction between charcoal and grey was impossible to ignore).

And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother left her when she was still a child, and her stepfather went to prison. Until a letter from the parole board arrives in the mail--and when her desperate attempts to ignore it fail, Lenny starts to unravel.

Worse, she starts to remember...

Equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming, Kerryn Mayne’s stunning debut is an irresistible novel about truth, secrets, vengeance, and family lost and found, with a heroine who's simply unforgettable.

Release date: July 9, 2024

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 352

Sample

CHAPTER 1 Monday, May 16, 2022



Lenny Marks seldom found herself unprepared. Lessons for her grade five students were religiously compiled a fortnight in advance, her tax return would be ready to submit no later than the fifteenth of July every year and her home fire escape plan was reviewed and updated each summer. Lenny knew the location of both of Selby South Primary School’s defibrillators and exactly how to use them, she serviced her bicycle regularly to keep it in prime shape and carried a bottle opener on her set of keys despite never—as yet—needing it. She found tremendous peace in this level of organization, which was as close to happiness as Lenny Marks ever planned to be. Happiness, she knew, was unstable and quite unreliable. And Lenny was neither of those things. Instead she aimed for the contentment of a routine, which had served her quite well up to and into her thirty-seventh year.

And still, despite knowing exactly what her Monday morning should contain, Lenny now found herself under the unexpected and interrogating gaze of Mrs. Finlay, office administration. The clock had barely ticked over 8 A.M. and Lenny had only just turned her teapot the requisite three times—the way her grandmother had taught her, despite it apparently not making a jot of difference to the taste—when Mrs. Finlay bustled in to disturb the good order of things.

“So, is it a secret husband?” Mrs. Finlay asked, eyes alarmingly wide and voice predictably loud.

“Is what?” Lenny asked.

“Well, it’s addressed to Helena Winters. And I didn’t know who that was. A mistake, I thought, and was going to send it back return to sender. But Lora said, ‘That’s no mistake, that’s Lenny Marks.’”

Lenny read the front of the envelope: Helena Winters. A name from long ago and of a girl she thought she’d left well and truly behind.

She didn’t reply, which failed to slow Mrs. Finlay. Lenny cast her eyes around, hoping the other occupants of the staff room were not listening. It was fairly clear they were. Or at least Kirra Reid, grade four, was. Kirra dallied over the instant hot water tap a few moments too long. It was instant hot water after all, and there was no need to wait for it to boil; it wasn’t a lengthy task. Deidre Heffernan, grade two, on the other hand, was poring over the form guide—as per usual—and had not even registered there were other people in the same space as her.

“And I thought to myself, I never knew Lenny was married. How interesting. Isn’t it?”

“Isn’t what?”

“That you’ve been married.”

“I haven’t,” Lenny replied, lowering her voice. Lenny deplored other people knowing her business and felt anxiety growing at the thought of being the subject of office scuttlebutt.

“So why the different name then? I’ve racked my brain all weekend trying to figure it out.”

Lenny hesitated, hoping she had a quick-witted, reasonable answer that didn’t invite more questions. She didn’t and quick-wittedness had never been her thing. Perhaps she should’ve claimed a secret husband she didn’t have. Mrs. Finlay, not one to be deterred, changed tack.

“And it’s from the Parole Board, just when I thought I had you all figured out. I said to Lora, ‘She’s an enigma that one, isn’t she?’”

Lenny ran her fingers over the smoothness of the envelope. Adult Parole Board Victoria was emblazoned proudly in the top right corner, as if this was a regular and not at all concerning place from which to receive mail. It was clear, even to Lenny, who often found social nuances hard to decipher, what Mrs. Finlay was up to. She was meddling, hoping Lenny would spill all after a few pointed questions. But little did Mrs. Finlay know, Lenny had nothing to disclose. The letter was unexpected and she didn’t intend to indulge Mrs. Finlay’s nosiness with speculation about what it may contain. And she was absolutely not going to open it, not in front of Mrs. Finlay and possibly not at all. Lenny’s curiosity didn’t push her to explore the unknown; she was more than happy to retreat to what she knew and forget what she didn’t.

She was good at forgetting, most of the time. Thoughts of Fergus Sullivan, for example, were normally pushed to the furthest corners of her memory. Now his image was disturbingly front and center. It made no sense whatsoever. It had been over twenty years since she’d seen her stepfather and surely she would be the least likely person to need to know anything about him. But what else could possibly be in that envelope?

Fergus Sullivan.

You did this.

When she did think of Fergus, which was as little as possible, her skin turned hot with the memory of the stifling garden shed, the last place she’d seen him. You did this. Three words, three syllables, a mere eighteen points on a Scrabble board. And yet infuriatingly unforgettable.

“I love true crime, you know, I listen to all the podcasts. When I’m out on my after-dinner walks, I pop the headphones on and off I go, thinking maybe I’ll solve this one.”

Mrs. Finlay was particularly hard to tune out; her voice had a pitch and rasp that made it impossible to ignore. Lenny was usually able to distance and calm herself by rearranging words, and yet Mrs. Finlay kept breaking through and interrupting her anagrams.

Mrs. Finlay: rainfly, family, flimsy, snarly, mails, fail, liar

The letters would move around in a manner that was as involuntary as sneezing. She’d done it ever since she could remember and it was the easiest way to calm her thoughts or shut them off.

“My Frank says to me, ‘Jeannie, you’ll end up on one of those podcasts the way you block your ears up like that. Anyone could sneak up behind you.’ And I just laugh, he’s such a fuddy-duddy, but wouldn’t that be ironic? Woman murdered listening to story about murder.”

Mrs. Finlay guffawed in the way of someone who had never had anything bad happen to them, and therefore thought horrific crimes were fascinating.

“Did you get my work order, Jeannie?” Kirra asked from across the table, cutting off Mrs. Finlay, whose open mouth indicated she was poised and ready to carry on her cross-examination.

Mrs. Finlay turned to Kirra, and Lenny remembered to breathe. She was thankful for the reprieve, although it was incredibly poor manners of Kirra to interrupt.

“What’s that, Mrs. Reid?”

“I put one in for the sink last week, the one in here’s not draining properly. And it’s still not. Hopefully the work order I put in hasn’t got lost? Like the last one?”

“Oh.” Mrs. Finlay hesitated. “Of course not. It’s just hard to get a plumber in. Tradesmen can be incredibly unreliable, you know.”

“Yes, they can. Unreliability is a particularly annoying trait,” Kirra said. Mrs. Finlay checked her watch and Kirra took the opportunity to shoot Lenny a wink. Lenny wasn’t sure what the wink implied, but she wasn’t a fan of them in general. They always seemed so unnatural and a little slimy.

“Anyway, ladies, I must go, I’ve got other mail to attend to.” Mrs. Finlay stood up and Lenny realized the downside of not ever disclosing her home address—even on official paperwork—was the opportunity it presented for exactly this sort of prying.

Lenny held the envelope, moving her thumb over the printed name in the clear window, just in case it wiped it away. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. Lenny pulled her satchel around from where it hung on the back of her chair and drove the letter deep inside. There was the unlikely, but faint, chance it might just disappear, Narnia-style, out the other side and no longer be her problem.

You did this.

* * *

By 8:15 the staff room was a hive of activity and the urge to leave was overwhelming. Lenny told herself that as soon as her tea was done, she could escape. She had the same internal negotiation most school mornings and was usually able to convince herself to stay put. At some point she assumed it would seem easier and perhaps she’d even initiate the conversations.

But this morning was different. Thoughts of Fergus were looming and hard to ignore, her shins felt sharp with anxiety and she couldn’t even distract herself with her anagrams.

Fergus Sullivan: frailness, slavering, gainless, argues, evil

“Lenny, are you with us this morning?” Yvonne Gillespie asked. Lenny hadn’t noticed her come in. Gregory Schwartz was in the staff room now too; his arrival time was always haphazard, a trait Lenny found disconcerting. He had a habit of slurping his morning cereal and Lenny preferred to be packed up and off to her classroom before he poured his cornflakes.

“Good morning, Yvonne,” Lenny said, hoping Yvonne wouldn’t regale her with one of her weekend monologues. It was always hard to slip out once she started. Not to mention, Yvonne’s stories were notoriously boring.

Yvonne was also Lenny’s number one suspect for tea theft. On more than one occasion, despite clearly Dymo-labeling her belongings so their ownership could never be mistaken, Lenny had found her tin of tea leaves a few scoops short. She hadn’t mentioned her suspicions, not wanting to appear confrontational.

Thankfully Yvonne didn’t start on a weekend story, giving Lenny the opportunity to depart. She tipped the remains of her tea into the sink, noticing it was indeed backed up, as Kirra had pointed out, and then put her things away in her drawer—which was also clearly labeled with her name. Perhaps Yvonne needed to get her glasses prescription checked. Or else she was really just a thief.

She heard Greg splashing milk into his bowl, and Trudi Kerr, music and arts, walked in with her normal Monday chirpiness. Lenny was at her limit for polite interactions and pleasantries and knew it was time to go. No point pushing herself; she had made significant progress in the past few weeks and was quite complimentary in her self-evaluations.

Lenny hadn’t found it easy to make friends, but Fay, her foster mum, had been insistent that she try.

After Fay had caught her in a rare emotional outburst over Easter, Lenny had been cornered into one of those revealing conversations that she prided herself on avoiding. She was never quite right in the school holidays. Even fifteen years into teaching, she still couldn’t get used to the times when she didn’t have the bell to structure her day. She would always ensure there were a couple of house projects on the go, but even then she could never shake the feeling of being lost during the term breaks.

So she told Fay she was lonely. She meant it at the time, although it felt clunky and unnatural to say, even to her foster mum whom she was almost always honest with. It had never occurred to her before that particular moment that she was lonely. Although she knew the only text messages she got were scams or appointment reminders, and even they were few and far between of late. Lenny didn’t have friends, she had acquaintances. Like the man who delivered her chicken pad thai each Saturday night, or Ned at the grocery store. She saw her colleagues daily, but didn’t know a thing about them outside the school perimeter and was likely to avoid them if she saw them on the other side of the fence.

Of course she regretted her outburst as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Fay, true to form, insisted she take action, even delivering an ultimatum: make some friends (it’s time to get a life, Lenny-girl) or go and speak to a psychologist (it’s time to get some help). It really just made her shins ache.

It was not the first time this had come up with Fay. There had been cause to discuss this very topic at various life intervals: high school, university, then over the years while teaching. And Lenny had, in fact, had friends along the way—of sorts. Like Caroline Gordon, who taught at Selby South for eight of the years Lenny had. Together they shared quiet lunchtimes and polite, impersonal conversations, never asking each other “what are you up to tonight?” (because it was never much). Occasionally they’d meet up at the library for a game of Scrabble. It was a pleasant companionship she found with Caroline, who was in her fifties when Lenny met her. But two years ago, Caroline had moved back to New South Wales to support her elderly mother. They promised they’d keep in touch although it was never the sort of friendship that would survive outside of a shared workplace. They hadn’t found cause to visit one another when they lived three suburbs apart, so it was extremely unlikely they would with a state border in between.

Caroline’s departure was the start of a staff turnover at Selby South. Two teachers retired, another moved and one went to a private college closer to Melbourne—the thought of the bustling traffic and towering buildings made Lenny shudder. This heralded the arrival of a new band of colleagues at the start of the school year, including Kirra and the prep teachers.

Once she’d wiped her tears and digested her outburst, Lenny realized perhaps she really was lonely. And saying it out loud, intentionally or not, meant that now Fay would push her. The challenge was set and Lenny was an outwardly reluctant, inwardly hopeful participant in Fay’s plan. Perhaps she could, once and for all, get a life.

Choosing two of the new teachers, Amy Cleary and Ashleigh Burton, as her friendship targets had been a matter of simple deduction. She removed the too-old: Trudi Kerr and Deidre Heffernan; and the intolerable: Gregory Schwartz. She didn’t consider Yvonne Gillespie for obvious reasons (her thievery) and Lora Pham, as principal, was too intimidating. There was Kirra Reid, but she wasn’t quite sure what to make of her—a not unusual problem for Lenny Marks. And besides, it was hard not to covet friendship with the young, effortlessly personable prep leaders, Amy and Ashleigh. They wore bright colors and sparkly earrings and oozed confidence.

She gauged her progress with Amy and Ashleigh as significant, having been asked to cover their yard duty on no less than three occasions. She felt an out-of-school-hours invite was imminent; perhaps they’d even exchange phone numbers.

This was equal parts thrilling and terrifying. It was one thing to have someone’s phone number, but what on earth would she do with it? Amy and Ashleigh were as tight-knit as Monica and Rachel, and Lenny hoped to soon be their Phoebe.

“How was your weekend, Lenny?” Trudi Kerr asked as Lenny swung her satchel over her shoulder. It somehow felt weightier now it held the letter, which she knew was ridiculous.

“Fine. It was fine,” Lenny said briskly as she turned to leave. She didn’t believe in redundant goodbyes, she would see these people at different points during the day and there was no obvious need for her to say hello and goodbye on each of those occasions.

She was disappointed not to have seen either Ashleigh or Amy as yet, although this was not entirely unexpected. They both had a tendency to arrive so close to the morning bell they’d have to dash from their respective cars to their classrooms. That sort of on-edge existence was something Lenny would never be comfortable with, but they managed to make it look spontaneous in a good way. She would have to catch up with them at first recess.

Lenny hurried out of the staff room and toward her classroom, looking forward to the morning bell, twenty-three sets of grade five eyes and the comfort of her preplanned morning maths lesson. ...