Sean finished his cigarette, turned off the Taurus, and carefully pocketed the keys. Then he closed his eyes, took three deep breaths, slipped into a meditative state, and focused on the case at hand. Everyone in the force thought he was nuts doing this, but he’d found it to be extremely helpful.
He found it helped him hone in on the questions he needed to ask. Sometimes the small things, the easily overlooked things, were the things that pointed the way to a solution. He ran through Brandon calling up Bernie, and what they’d found in the alley behind RJ’s. He thought about Duncan’s arrest and Libby and Bernie meeting Connor, Liam, and Patrick at RJ’s. He thought about Bree and Duncan and about finding Liza. And then it occurred to him that there was a tiny piece of information from Brandon that he needed.
This particular fact was probably irrelevant, but if there was one thing Sean had learned from his years on the force, it was that it definitely paid to dot all your i’s and cross your t’s. He opened his eyes, took out his cell, and called Brandon. Brandon didn’t answer. As Sean looked down at his cell, he realized that it was about to die. He’d forgotten to charge the dratted thing again.
Oh well. Not exactly a catastrophe in the scheme of things, he thought as he slipped it back in his pocket. After all, he’d gotten along for how many years
without one? And as for his question, it could wait. He’d stit. Heop at RJ’s on the way back to Marvin’s and ask Brandon. Face to face was always better anyway.
And on that note Sean reached over to the passenger side, grabbed his cane, and opened the Taurus’s door. Then he swiveled around and, using the cane and the door frame for support, pulled himself up and out of the car. He stood on the curb for a moment and looked up.
It had stopped raining. He could see the sun, and the branches on the willow tree above him were beginning to fill with buds. Winter was over, spring was ahead. Life was good. On that note, he carefully closed the Taurus’s door, turned, walked up the path to the Dwyers’ house, and rang the bell. He stood there admiring the gleam of his cane’s silver handle while he waited for the door to open. A moment later it did.
“What a nice surprise,” the person answering the door said. “Come on inside.”
“Thanks,” Sean replied, even though the tinkle of warning bells was going off in his head. “I think I will.”
Chapter 31
It was a little after four o’clock in the afternoon and Marvin was officially in panic mode. It had been over an hour and a half since Libby’s dad was due back with Marvin’s father’s car and Mr. Simmons still hadn’t returned. Marvin had tried calling Mr. Simmons several times—every five minutes in fact—after the first hour had elapsed, but his calls had gone straight to voice mail.
Marvin told himself that that didn’t mean anything. Mr. Simmons had either shut off his phone or forgotten to charge it, both of which were common occurrences. He told himself that there was a perfectly good reason Mr. Simmons was late returning the Taurus. But it didn’t help. He got more and more nervous.
Half an hour after Mr. Simmons was supposed to be back, Marvin couldn’t stand the waiting and not knowing anymore, so he took the hearse and drove over to the cemetery. But Mr. Simmons wasn’t at his wife’s gravesite. Marvin got out and walked down the footpaths hoping to spot him, but he didn’t. He got back in the hearse and drove around some more. The only people that he saw were two grave diggers manning a backhoe. He stopped and asked them if they had seen a Taurus. Both of them shook their heads. They hadn’t.
The cemetery wasn’t huge but it was big enough, and Marvin started systematically driving up and down the roads, but the only things he saw were a couple of deer who were eating the lilies decorating a freshly dug grave. They didn’t even flinch when he drove by, just watched him with their large eyes.
Marvin’s stomach was doing flip-flops as he drove. He covered the cemetery again and then he went in and talked to the caretaker, who also hadn’t seen a Taurus or Sean, but promised he’d call Marvin the minute he did.
Having done everything he could think of there, Marvin got back in his car and started cruising around Longely. He drove down Ash and Bell and Oak and Main Street; he drove up Elsworth and Fern and Hemlock and Houston. He drove by RJ’s, cruised the mall parking lot, as well as the lots of the local supermarket and liquor store. He even checked out Bree Nottingham’s house in case Mr. Simmons was there talking to Mrs. Nottingham or Duncan about the case. No luck.
He drove by Mr. Simmons’s friend Inez’s house, even though he knew that Inez was in Brazil visiting a relative and hence would not be home. He even drove by A Little Taste of Heaven on the unlikely possibility that the Taurus was parked in front of the shop because Sean had decided to tell Bernie and Libby about what he was doing after all.
As Marvin drove around he imagined the worst. Mr. Simmons in a ditch somewhere. Mr. Simmons in the hospital with a massive brain injury. Mr. Simmons rear-ending someone in a parking lot or driving into someone’s house like that eighty-year-old guy had done on Seward Street last week. Or Mr. Simmons going into Manhattan for some reason that Marvin couldn’t begin to fathom and getting lost and ending up in a bad part of the Bronx. Or Mr. Simmons lying to Marvin and not really having a valid driver’s license after all.
This proved to be the worst thought of all. Or maybe it was the cumulative possibilities swarming around in Marvin’s head, but in any case that idea proved to be the coup de grâce, and Marvin had to pull over to the side of the road and take several deep breaths to calm himself down and prevent himself from hyperventilating.
Marvin told himself that Mr. Simmons would not do something like that to him. Ever. And that he had to stop his imagination from running wild. He told himself that there was a perfectly simple explanation for Mr. Simmons not showing up with the Taurus. But what was it? Marvin couldn’t imagine one. Or he could imagine one and all the images were bad. He took his cell out of his front pocket and called the ER. No Sean Simmons had been admitted in the last five hours. Marvin let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding as the person at the admitting desk suggested he call the police.
Marvin thought about doing that for a moment and then deep-sixed the idea. If he did that, there was a strong possibility that Sean’s friend Clyde would hear about the call—or even take the call himself—and then Clyde would ring up Libby and Bernie and ask them what the hell was going on before Marvin had a chance to tell them what had happened. And that would be bad. Of course, there was no good in this situation. There was only terrible and more terrible.
Marvin took another couple of breaths and started the car. As he drove toward A Little Taste of Heaven, he decided that this was going to be very, very bad. His hands were sweating and he was having trouble breathing. I mean, really, how do you tell someone that you’ve misplaced their father?
Libby was in the kitchen finishing up the risotto that went with the dinner she was catering tonight for the Baums and thinking about how the business really needed to buy another cooler as well as get the broken one fixed, when Marvin walked in.
Libby looked up from the Parmesan cheese she was grating, took in his expression, and said, “You look terrible. What’s wrong?”
Marvin stopped in front of her. He didn’t say anything.
“Seriously,” she said. “Are you sick?”
“No,” Marvin told her.
“Then what?” She put down the cheese grater. “Wait. I know. You’ve lost a body,” she joked.
“Worse than that,” Marvin answered. “Way worse.” He moistened his lips.
Libby laughed. “What could be worse than that?”
“I’ve lost your father,” Marvin replied.
Libby looked at him blankly. “Excuse me?” she said.
Marvin took a deep breath and let it out. And then he told her. “I lent your dad my dad’s car and he hasn’t come back and I can’t find him.”
“Say again?” Libby said.
Marvin>M repeated himself.
She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“What’s true?” Bernie asked as she walked into the kitchen. She’d been out front manning the cash register until Amber got back from her bathroom break.
“Evidently, Marvin’s lost Dad,” Libby told her.
“Right. And I’m the Queen of Sheba,” Bernie said.
“It’s true,” Marvin said.
Bernie studied his face for a moment. Then she said, “Bad joke.”
“It’s not a joke,” Marvin replied.
Bernie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t get it. What do you mean you lost Dad? What did you do? Misplace him at the mall? Lose him at the checkout line at the supermarket?”
“I wish,” Marvin said, looking everywhere but at Bernie.
Libby explained. “Evidently, he let him drive his car... .”
“My father’s Taurus,” Marvin interjected.
“And Dad hasn’t come back when he was supposed to,” finished Libby.
“Where did he go?” Bernie asked.
“To visit your mom at the cemetery.”
“And how late is he?” Bernie asked.
“Over an hour,” Marvin whispered.
“Why didn’t you call us immediately?” Bernie demanded.
Marvin looked even more chagrined than he had before, if that was possible. “I thought I could find him. I’ve looked everywhere,” Marvin said, wringing his hands.
“Exactly where ...” Bernie began, and then she stopped and grinned. “You guys are good. You really are. You almost got me.” She looked from Marvin to Libby and back again, and the grin faded. “This is a joke, right? Right?”
Marvin hung his head.
“Tell me this is a bad joke,” Bernie pleaded. “Please.”
“I wish I could,” Marvin mumbled, unable to look Bernie and Libby in the eye.
“What were you thinking lending Dad the car?” Libby asked Marvin.
“Obviously I wasn’t,” Marvin answered. “But he promised to bring it back and he sounded so convincing. If you had been there—”
“If I had been there this never would have happened because he never would have asked me,” Bernie answered.
Marvin didn’t argue the point. He couldn’t because he knew Bernie was right. “I should never have let it happen,” he said, apologizing again. “I just ...” He bit his lip. “Your dad wanted ... I just felt bad for him and I was in this weird position ... I don’t know.” Marvin’s voice trailed off. “There is no excuse for doing what I did,” he said in a voice so low Libby and Bernie had to strain to hear it. “None at all.”
He looked close to tears and Libby mastered her outrage enough to imagine how bad Marvin was feeling. She could also imagine how it had happened. Her father could be very persuasive when he wanted to be.
“He’s probably fine,” Bernie said, trying to stall off the panic rising in her chest by convincing herself that everything was okay. “He’s probably off on some weird errand or other.”
“But then where is he?” Marvin asked.
“Tell me where you went,” Bernie ordered for the seed for tcond time.
And Marvin did.
“Did you look in the park?” Libby asked when he was through.
Marvin shook his head.
“Maybe he’s there. He used to like to go there.”
“Or that old cigar store over in Castlebrook,” Bernie suggested.
“That closed about two months ago,” Libby said.
“Maybe Dad doesn’t know that.”
“True,” Libby said. “Or there are the greenhouses out on Route Eighty-two. That’s another possibility. Dad used to love to go out there.”
“I think they open in April,” Bernie said.
“It wouldn’t hurt to check,” Libby said.
“No. I guess it wouldn’t,” Bernie agreed. Then she turned to Marvin and asked him if he’d called the ER and the police.
“I called the ER,” Marvin told her. “They don’t have him.”
Libby called again, just to make sure. But the answer was the same. Then she called the police and got Lucy—just the person she didn’t want to speak to. She shook her head when she got off the phone. Her face was bright pink with anger.
“They don’t have him and they’re not going to look for him. Lucy said, and I quote, ‘Call me if he hasn’t shown up in a week or so.’”
“Where’s Clyde?” Bernie asked.
Libby answered. “He and Mrs. Clyde went to Sarasota to babysit for one of the grandbabies. They’ll be gone for another couple of days.”
“Great,” Bernie said as she pressed her cheeks together with the palms of her hands. “Just our luck.”
“I think I’m going to kill myself,” Marvin said.
“Stop whining,” Bernie told him. “We have enough to worry about. If you want to, you can kill yourself after we find my father. But not before.”
Marvin bit his lip. He looked perilously close to tears. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Do not say you are sorry again,” Bernie snapped at him, what little patience she had gone. “Otherwise I’m going to kill you myself.”
“Bernie,” Libby remonstrated.
Bernie held up her hand. “You’re right, Libby. I’m totally out of line.” She turned to Marvin. “Now it’s my turn to apologize. Sometimes I get a little carried away. You do know I didn’t mean the whole killing you thing, right?”
Marvin nodded but he didn’t look convinced. Libby went over and gave him a hug. “Everyone makes mistakes,” she told him.
“But not like this,” Marvin pointed out.
“What is it they say about no good deed going unpunished?” Libby said.
Marvin brightened slightly. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was just trying to be nice to your dad.”
“Yes, you were,” Libby reassured him.
Libby was about to say something else when Bernie clapped her hands. Libby and Marvin turned toward her. “People,” she said, “we can do this later. Right now let’s concentrate on the important thing. Let’s concentrate on finding Dad. He has to be somewhere, right?”
“Right,” Marvin said.
“He couldn’t have just disappeared. I’m going to call Brandon and get him to help us look. If we divide the t divide own up into four areas it shouldn’t take that long. Now let’s coordinate this and get going.”
An hour later they were all back at the Simmonses’ flat Seanless.
“There has to be something we’re overlooking,” Bernie said to Libby, Marvin, and Brandon as they all sat slumped on the sofa and armchairs.
She hadn’t offered anyone anything to eat or drink and no one had asked. Everyone was too upset. Which had to be a first.
“Like what?” Brandon asked despondently.
“I don’t know,” Bernie said. “Something.”
Brandon sighed and began to fiddle with the hem of his T-shirt. “We could go out and look again.”
“Yes, we should,” Bernie agreed.
Brandon’s foot began jiggling up and down. “At least we’ll be doing something, and doing something is a hell of a lot better than sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.”
“Agreed,” Libby said.
But she didn’t make a move to get up. Neither did anyone else.
“Does your dad ever keep notes?” Marvin asked.
“Unfortunately no,” Bernie answered. “He keeps it all up here.” And she pointed to her head. “You’re assuming,” she said to Marvin, “that his being missing has something to do with the investigation.”
“I guess I am,” Marvin allowed.
“But we don’t know that’s the case,” Bernie told him.
“We don’t know it’s not,” Marvin argued. “If we proceed along those lines at least it gives us a direction.” Not for nothing had he spent as much time with Mr. Simmons as he had.
“You’re right,” Libby said to Marvin.
> “Yeah,” Brandon said. “What would your dad be doing if the situation was reversed?”
Bernie brightened. “That’s easy. He would go over the information we have again. Every little detail.”
“Because it’s always the little things that point the way,” Bernie and Libby said together, paraphrasing their dad.
Brandon leaned forward, replanted his legs on the floor, clasped his hands together, and rested them on his knees. “Okay, Marvin,” he said. “Tell us everything you said and did from the time you picked up Sean.”
“But I’ve already done that,” Marvin wailed. “Multiple times.”
“Well, do it again,” Bernie instructed. “There has to be something we’re missing here.”
And there was, Libby thought. Something that had happened. Something that was potentially important. But she couldn’t remember what. It was floating in the forefront of her brain but she couldn’t verbalize it. It bothered her. It bothered her enough so that as Marvin talked, despite her best intentions, Libby found her attention drifting off as she tried to remember.
She studied the branch of the budding ginkgo tree bowing in the wind outside the living room window. She watched a car across the street back into a parking space. Her glance lit on the clock on the wall and the empty armchair her dad would have been sitting in if he’d been here and the neatly folded paper he’d gone through this morning and she felt inexpressibly sad.
Then her gaze drifted to the biography of Lincoln her dad had been reading, and that’s when she noticed the manila envelope on the coffee table, the envelope that Orion had givenion had her for her Dad. The one she’d chucked onto the table when Bernie had come running up to tell her about the cooler.
That was it! That was the thing she’d been trying to remember and it had been right in front of her all the time. What was it her dad always used to say about people not seeing what was actually there? There was probably nothing in it, but she wouldn’t know that until she looked inside, would she? Libby leaned over, picked up the envelope, unsealed it, and took the pages out.
A Catered St. Patrick's Day Page 25