by Sofie Ryan
“Peanut butter or brown sugar?”
“Brown sugar.”
“The good stuff,” Tabitha said. “Well, whatever it is you’re looking to find out you might as well come in for a cup. Lucky for you I just put the kettle on.” She looked pointedly at me.
I wondered if I was going to be sent to sit in the lobby. I wondered if I’d at least get a piece of fudge. The answer turned out to be no on both counts.
“Tabitha, this is Sarah Grayson,” Rose said.
“Hello, Mrs. Gray,” I said, hoping I’d addressed her properly.
She looked me over not even trying to hide her curiosity. “You’re Isabel’s granddaughter.”
I nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“How is your grandmother?”
“She’s well, thank you,” I said.
“She’s still married to that young piece of arm candy.”
John Scott was a young piece of arm candy? “Umm, yes, ma’am.”
“Well, good for her!” Tabitha said with a hoot of laughter. “Why get stuck with an old one when you can have a newer model with all the options.” I heard the whistle of a teakettle from inside the apartment. She turned and disappeared inside. “Come in, the both of you,” she called. “None of us are getting any younger.”
Tabitha Gray’s apartment was impeccably clean, filled with lots of light and lots of furniture. She led us through the living room into the small kitchen and gestured at the chrome table and chairs. “Have a seat.”
Rose pulled out a chair at one end of the table and I took a seat at the other, assuming—since there was a teacup in front of the center chair—that the third place was Tabitha’s.
While she busied herself with the teapot, I surreptitiously looked over the chrome dining room set. It was a 1950s vintage blue cracked-ice table with four chairs. The chrome shone, there were no marks or stains on the deep blue Formica top and no rips or cuts in the matching vinyl-covered chairs. I would have loved to have had the set in the store. I would have loved to have had it in my own kitchen.
Turns out I wasn’t quite as furtive as I thought. Tabitha set a cup on the table in front of Rose and one at my place. I got to my feet and brought over a small lacquered black tray that held a cream pitcher, sugar bowl and three spoons. Tabitha eyed me as she poured my tea. “You like my furniture.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, running my hand over the smooth Formica tabletop.
“Sears Roebuck catalog, nineteen fifty-three,” she said.
“You’ve taken beautiful care of it.”
“No point in having nice things if you don’t take care of them.” She took the teapot over to the stove and came back to the table.
Rose added milk and a little sugar to her tea. She took a sip and smiled with pleasure. “Tabitha, is that—”
“—the good stuff? Damn straight it is. Canadian Red Rose tea. Last month I brought fourteen boxes back across the lines.” She grinned like she’d perpetrated a great ruse.
Rose insisted that the Canadian version of Red Rose tea was better than what was sold in our stores. She’d been tickled when I’d inadvertently bought a casket filled with boxes of the Canadian product several weeks ago. I’d given it all to her because I was a coffee drinker. All tea tasted the same to me.
Tabitha took a sip from her own cup then turned to look at Rose. “You didn’t come down here with a box of fudge just for a cup of tea and the pleasure of my company. What are you looking to find out?”
“The new people on the second floor, Elliot Casey and his wife, Nora. What can you tell me about them?”
Tabitha gave a snort of laughter. “If you’re looking for information about them you wasted a trip and that fudge. They haven’t been here a month, and they pretty much keep to themselves.” She made a face as though she disapproved.
“What do you know about Nora Casey’s son?”
I tried my own tea. It was hot and strong and, as tea went, pretty good.
A sly smile spread across Tabitha’s face. “Christopher,” she said. “Not exactly work brittle.”
I’d heard that expression before. It was a way of saying that Christopher Healy was a bit lazy.
“What makes you say that?” Rose asked.
“Well this is all secondhand, you have to understand.”
Rose nodded.
“You remember Cora Haining?” Tabitha said.
“Corner apartment. Third floor.”
“Her oldest went to college with young Mr. Healy.” Tabitha gave a slight shrug as she took another drink of her tea. “He owns three restaurants now. Vegan. Cora’s daddy must be rolling in his grave.” She shot me a sideways glance. “He was a pig farmer.”
I nodded, which was all that seemed to be required.
“And Christopher Healy?” Rose prompted.
“The boy—well, I should say man because he wasn’t a child anymore—seemed to go from one all-consuming idea to the next. The latest thing was some kind of nature park out by Gibson’s Point. Cora was pretty certain that would have gone the same as him going to law school, getting his PhD in art history and running a coffee roaster. He didn’t have any stick-to-it-ness, it seemed.”
Rose’s gaze flicked across the table at me for a moment. “What did he do for a living?”
“There’s the rub,” Tabitha said. “His father died about two years ago and the young man inherited a good chunk of money, from what I was told. Takes away the incentive to get up in the morning and put in a day’s work if you ask me, although it didn’t seem to affect his sister in the same way.”
“Christopher Healy has a sister?” Rose said.
“Half sister. Chloe. From a brief relationship the father had before he married Nora. Nora was like a mother to that girl. But Christopher and his sister had some kind of falling-out. It seems Chloe wanted to use some of the money from the estate for a scholarship in her father’s name. Christopher wasn’t interested and Nora sided with him.” Tabitha shook her head in disapproval.
If she was right—and I had no reason to think she wasn’t—that inheritance explained where Healy had gotten the money to buy that piece of land out from under Joe Roswell. And to defend himself in the subsequent lawsuit. If she was also right about Healy’s lack of stick-to-it-ness, I wondered if the nature preserve would have ever become a reality.
We spent the next few minutes getting all the news from the building. I found myself amazed by how many things there were that could be cut out of or off of the human body.
I checked my watch and then caught Rose’s eye. “We have to get going, Tabitha,” she said. “Thank you for everything.”
I got to my feet and carried the cups over to the sink.
Tabitha walked us to the door.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Gray,” I said.
“I hear when people get too feeble or too dotty to stay in their own home you’ll come in and clear the place out,” she said.
I nodded. “We do.”
Tabitha looked around the living room. There was a vintage brass dolphin clock on a side table that I would have loved to get a better look at. “Do you get good money for everything?” she asked.
“As much as we can.”
“I might call you someday,” she said.
“We’d be happy to help.”
“That’s good to know. But don’t go holding your breath.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
Rose and I walked back to the elevator. “Well, that was interesting,” I said. “Do you think she was right about Christopher Healy?”
“Yes, dear, I do,” she said. “Tabitha Gray may be the biggest gossip in this place but her information is above reproach.” She reached over and pushed the up arrow. “I’m not sure I learned anything that suggests who poisoned that young man, though.”
I’d wondered earlier what this fishing expedition was for. Now I knew. I opened my mouth to say something and shut it again. Until she had unarguable proof to the contrary, Rose was going to believe that Christopher Healy had been poisoned.
The elevator arrived, we both got in and I pressed the button for the second floor.
“Go ahead,” Rose said.
“Go ahead where?” I said, turning my head to look at her. “The elevator just got started.”
She pursed her lips for a moment. “I mean, go ahead and say whatever it was that you wanted to say. I can take it.”
I sighed. “All I was going to say is that you don’t know that Christopher Healy was poisoned.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “But you don’t know that he wasn’t.”
It was impossible to win against Rose’s logic. It was a lesson I could never seem to learn.
“I will concede that,” I said. “Where do we go from here?”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened on the second floor of the building. “We go get Alfred,” Rose said.
“Hello again,” Elliot Casey said when he opened the apartment door. He looked at me, smiling just a little. “Sarah, I apologize. I didn’t recognize your name when Alfred introduced us. Please, could you come in for a minute? My wife, Nora, would like to meet you.”
I glanced at Rose who nodded encouragingly. “All right,” I said.
Nora Healy-Casey was sitting next to Mr. P. on the living room sofa. She stood up when Rose and I came into the room. She was tall and slender in black pants and an ice blue sweater. Her dark hair, streaked with silver, was pulled into a smooth French twist and she was pale but composed. She offered her hand to Rose.
“I’m very sorry about your son,” Rose said.
“Thank you,” Nora said. She turned to me. “Sarah, I wanted to thank you for trying to save Christopher.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears.
I had to swallow before I could speak. “It wasn’t just me. Nick . . . Nick Elliot . . . it was the two of us . . . he’s trained as a paramedic. I promise you he did everything he could. I’m sorry . . . we weren’t successful.”
She caught one of my hands in both of hers. They were very cold. “So am I, but at least I know someone tried to help him.”
Mr. P. had gotten to his feet. Elliot Casey smiled at his friend. “Alfred, I can’t tell you how good it’s been to see you.”
“For me as well,” Mr. P. said. He turned to Nora. “If there’s anything you need, please ask.”
“I will, Alfred,” she said. “Please, come back for another visit.”
“You have my promise on that,” he said.
We said our good-byes and headed for the elevator. Mr. P. was quiet, seemingly lost in thought. Rose looked worried, lines pulling at the corner of her eyes.
“Mr. P., do you mind me asking how long you and Elliot have been friends?” I said as we rode down to the lobby. I was genuinely curious and I hoped the question would help lighten the mood a little.
“Of course not, Sarah,” he said. “It’s longer than you’ve been alive. We actually met in Scouts.”
“You were a Boy Scout?”
“Alfred was an Eagle Scout,” Rose said with a note of pride in her voice.
“Elliot was as well,” Mr. P. added.
“I had no idea,” I said. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Mr. P. was very resourceful.
The elevator doors opened and he gestured that Rose and I should step out ahead of him. “It’s not really the kind of thing that comes up in day-to-day conversation,” he said.
“Neil Armstrong was an Eagle Scout,” I said. “It’s a big deal.”
Mr. P. smiled then. “I’m flattered that you’re impressed, my dear.”
“Did you and Elliot go to school together?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” he said as we started across the parking lot toward the car. “We were never in the same class. Elliot is actually a year and a half younger. But we did play football together. He was one of my wide receivers.”
“One of your wide receivers?” I stopped walking. “Mr. P., did you play quarterback?”
“I did,” he said. “We went ten and oh in my senior year.”
I stared at him. Just when I thought I knew the man, I discovered I didn’t. “How can I not know this?” I exclaimed.
Rose studied me over the top of her glasses. “Perhaps you need to start paying a little more attention,” she said with just a touch of reproach in her voice.
I nodded slowly. “Perhaps I do,” I said.
Mr. P. told me more about his high school football career as we drove home.
“Did you play in college?” I asked.
“No,” he said from the backseat. “I could see the writing on the wall. I wasn’t big enough to succeed at that level.”
“I don’t know about that.” I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “I have a feeling you could succeed at pretty much anything you set your mind to.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he said. “What I’d like to succeed at right now is to find a way to help Elliot and Nora. I feel helpless.”
“Losing a child is about the worst thing that can happen to you,” Rose said in a quiet voice. We exchanged a look.
I knew she was thinking about Gram. I’d sometimes wondered how my grandmother had managed to get up in the morning after my dad died. He had been her only child. I was just five years old when it happened and it had been devastating for me. Finally, a couple of years ago, I’d asked her how she’d done it.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she’d said. “I felt like I was drowning. But I wouldn’t have been honoring your father’s life if I’d given up. And then, of course, there was you. If I needed a reason to go on with my life, all I needed to do was look at you.” She’d folded me into a hug.
I felt a pang of sadness for Nora Casey.
Silence settled in the car and I glanced at Mr. P. in the rearview mirror again. “I think you are helping,” I said. “It was pretty obvious that seeing you again today meant a lot to Elliot.”
“I hope so,” Mr. P. said. “It meant a lot to me.”
I waited for Rose to agree with me but she didn’t say anything and when I looked over at her I could see that she was lost in thought, staring out the windshield seemingly at nothing. I knew exactly what that look meant.
Chapter 6
When we got to the house Mr. P. thanked me once again for driving. “Anytime,” I said. “I mean it.”
I’d left Elvis in the apartment when I’d come to pick up Rose and Alfred. When I unlocked the front door I found him sitting on one of the stools at the counter. He looked over at his empty food dish and then looked pointedly at me with a loud meow thrown in for good measure in case I didn’t get his point.
“Yes, I know you’re hungry,” I said, stopping to scratch the top of his head. “Just let me wash my hands and I’ll get your supper.”
“Mrrr,” he said and it sounded like a question to me.
“Everything went fine,” I said. “Although I did learn way more about warts and cysts and carbuncles and where on the human body they turn up than I ever wanted to know.”
The cat made a face.
“That’s exactly how I felt,” I said.
I washed my hands, fed Elvis and went to have a shower while he ate. When I got back to the bedroom he was sitting on the chair by the bedroom window washing his face. “Does this mean we’ve given up the pretense that’s my chair and not yours?” I asked.
He lifted his head for a moment, stared unblinkingly at me and then went back to cleaning behind his left ear.
I pulled on my favorite Aerosmith T-shirt and wiggled into my black skinny jeans. Elvis watched me hop around the room with what seemed to be a glint of amusement in his green
eyes as I pulled them up.
“They shrank in the dryer,” I said, wondering why I felt I had to justify myself to a cat.
I brushed my hair and left it down, fished my red Converse out of the closet and set the timer on the TV so Elvis could get his Jeopardy! fix. I sat on the footstool to put on my shoes and reached over to stroke his soft black fur. He nuzzled my hand and I thought for probably the one-millionth time how lucky I was that Sam had conned me into taking the battle-scarred cat.
Sam Newman owned The Black Bear pub. He had also been my father’s closest friend and he’d made a point of staying in my life after my dad died. Elvis—named for his apparent love of the King of Rock and Roll’s music—had just appeared one day around the harbor front, depending, as it were, on the kindness of strangers, Sam, of course, being the kindest. The next thing I knew, I had a Jeopardy-loving, backseat driving roommate with an uncanny ability to tell when people were lying.
I kissed the top of Elvis’s head and stood up. “No wild parties,” I said. “I won’t be late.”
He murped a good-bye and focused his attention on the TV.
* * *
* * *
Jess and Liam already had a table when I got to The Black Bear. The place was always packed for Thursday-night jam. The jam as everyone called it, had started off as just something to do in the off-season once most of the tourists were gone, but it had proved so popular Sam had caved to the pressure and kept the gathering going year-round. It was always Sam and his band, but anyone with a guitar or a bass who wanted to sit in for a song and a set was welcome. Nick had played with them more than once. He always downplayed his skills, but he’d been playing guitar since he was a teenager and he was good.
I slid onto the chair Jess had saved for me. The two of us had been friends since she answered the ad for a college roommate that I’d stuck on a bulletin board. She’d actually taken down the ad so no one else would answer it before she could. In our last year of university we’d lived in a tiny one-room cabin and were still friends at the end of the year. I’d always taken that as a sign that we’d be friends forever.
“Hi,” she said with a smile. She was wearing jeans, chunky-heeled brown boots and a caramel-colored cowl-neck sweater. Her long dark hair was pulled into a braid over one shoulder. She leaned behind me, scanned the room and caught the eye of a waiter who started for us. “I’m guessing you haven’t eaten,” she said.