by Susan Breen
“Not much of an adventure,” Maggie said. “More of a nightmare really.”
She sank down onto Winifred’s new couch. Unlike every other person at the Castle, Winifred had elected not to bring her furniture from home. Instead she’d gone to Bloomingdale’s and selected a jewel-blue couch and an antiqued, white bookshelf. She’d had Arthur spend the afternoon moving everything around to get it just right, which had not made the Castle happy because the administrators were of the view that Arthur was there to work for more than one person. But Winifred didn’t care and neither did Arthur. The whole thing was quite nice except Maggie felt the couch had been designed for someone about six inches taller than her. She felt like a child with her feet hanging in space.
“A nightmare,” Winifred crowed. “Nonsense. You’re a mystery writer. You should be eating up death for breakfast. I would think you’d be delighted to have someone die on your front lawn. If that’s not a cure for writer’s block, I don’t know what is.”
“I didn’t become a mystery writer because I wanted to see a murder,” she said, “but rather because I like to write stories.”
“I thought you became a writer because it gave you a respectable way to fantasize about men.”
Arthur had moved on to Winifred’s other arm, trying to press some feeling into her poor abused limbs. Maggie knew Winifred and her moods well enough to know she was looking for an argument; she’d been like that as a girl too. So excited by trouble that she couldn’t calm down. Maggie focused on the bookshelves, which Winifred had filled, three rows deep, with copies of Maggie’s books that she still handed out to doctors and nurses although Maggie hadn’t published anything in twenty years.
“Maggie’s detective was quite the dreamboat,” Winifred explained to Arthur.
At one point Maggie had told her to stop buying books because she didn’t want her to bankrupt herself, but Winifred didn’t care. She told Maggie she loved her books, they were the best books ever written; and she’d set them on her shelf, between War and Peace and Beloved.
“She’s ignoring me,” Winifred said.
“I’m not ignoring you,” Maggie said. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Inspector Claude Benet. He had big hands,” she said to Arthur. “He was the perfect man. He was like James Bond, but faithful. He was even good at house repairs. That man could change a bulb,” she said, cackling wildly. Arthur laughed along genially. Maggie hoped he didn’t go home and relate these stories to his family.
“He was handsome, spoke three languages and played the clarinet.”
“Flute,” Maggie said.
“Same thing.”
“Not really.”
“Oh yes, my dear. It’s all the same.”
Maggie wondered if it would be possible to have a conversation with Winifred that did not end in sexual innuendo. Arthur smiled at her. He was a kind young man who performed his job with grace. She knew he had a mother and grandmother and great-grandmother who lived with him. He talked about them fondly, didn’t complain, didn’t get mad. What was his outlet, Maggie wondered. What was the secret of his grace? Everyone has a secret.
“And he didn’t own a gun. He won all his cases through quick thinking.”
“And jujitsu,” Maggie said. “He was a black belt.”
“Not that it mattered. His suspects always confessed.”
Maggie was tempted to come to the defense of her dear Inspector Benet, but decided to say no more. One way or another Winifred would get in the last word, and she didn’t want this to get ugly. She was Maggie’s best friend, but that didn’t mean Maggie always liked her.
“Did you base him on someone you knew?” Arthur asked.
“I suppose I based him a little bit on my husband.”
Winifred howled. “The marvelous Stuart Dove.”
“My husband was some years older than me…” Maggie started to say.
More howling from Winifred. “Some years! Maggie’s own father used to call him Dad.”
Maggie resumed. “But when he was young, he was quite elegant. I didn’t know him then, of course, but I liked to imagine what he would have been like, and so part of Inspector Benet came out of that.”
She’d found her husband so mysterious. That was part of his charm for her. She didn’t know him fully and doubted she ever could. He was a Russian scholar and had spent years traveling around Russia, and so they were always having visitors. Curious people who showed up in the middle of the night and told stories and drank and ate and argued about religion and love. They were all so over-the-top, most of them Ph.D. students, some writers, and some who didn’t fit into any category. They all respected her husband and she loved being part of that world. She began studying Russian herself. Inspector Benet, of course, was fluent.
“Stuart Dove could not change a lightbulb.”
“He was a professor,” Maggie explained. “He was very charming, very cultured.”
“He was no James Bond.”
“I thought he was,” Maggie said, and she looked meaningfully at Winifred, who had once been a champion fencer, who had known back then when to parry and when to go in reverse. Though not now.
“Why, on their honeymoon—” Winifred started to say, but Maggie cut her off.
“That’s enough,” Maggie barked and finally Winifred snapped her jaw shut.
“I’m in trouble now,” she stage-whispered to Arthur.
“You’re too much,” he said, laughing. Maggie wondered what it would take to upset Arthur. Now, he’d be a good murderer, Maggie thought, involuntarily. Occupational hazard of being a mystery writer. Every time you meet someone, you wonder what would make them kill.
He began gathering up his towels, putting away his ointments, preparing for his next client.
“So long, pretty lady,” Arthur said.
“Bye, Arthur,” Winifred cawed. “Don’t be a stranger.”
She stared after him as he left. “I should have married a man like Arthur,” Winifred said. “Someone calm and good with his hands.”
“I thought Fred was like that.”
“Ah,” Winifred said. “He was boring.”
She gathered herself together then, and looked at Maggie. “So, how much trouble am I in?”
“Not so much,” Maggie said, because that was the thing about Winifred. Bad as she was, it was awfully hard to resist the spirit that flamed inside her. “Lucky for you, I’m trying to control my anger.”
“Saint Maggie.”
“I was over at Iphigenia’s, and I ran into Agnes Jorgenson.”
“Oh my God,” Winifred said. “The light that failed.”
Maggie laughed. “She’s just as wretched as ever. More so.”
“I don’t know why she moved back to town. Couldn’t she have stayed somewhere else and made everyone there miserable? Do you remember when she tried out for cheerleading? When she wanted to be on the team? No one wanted to catch her. Remember how she looked in the uniform?”
Maggie shook her head. She did remember quite clearly. It was almost as though Agnes had gone out of her way to look foolish. Short little skirt that did not flatter her hefty body, hair tied in pigtails, but instead of looking bouncy, it just sagged onto her shoulders. Plus she had no sense of timing at all. Even the gym teacher, sweet Mary Callahan, had to leave the room so as not to laugh.
“Anyway, Agnes implied that Peter had some reason for being angry at Bender. Do you know about that? I wouldn’t have thought their paths would cross.”
Winifred shook her head. She tried to cross her arms, but they were too heavy to move. Her right foot began to twitch. “I haven’t seen Peter in a week or so. He’s been busy with something. I thought he found a woman.”
Maggie looked at her friend’s twitching foot. Seemed wrong to use someone’s disability against them as a tell, but she had to know.
“Is it that bad?” she asked.
Winifred’s eyes glittered the way they always did when there was danger. She
loved trouble. Damned fool, Maggie thought. She put her hand on her friend’s, to try and stop the spasm.
“Winnie,” she said. “What has he done?”
Winifred’s entire body clenched in rebellion. She would not tell the secret, no matter what sort of torture she endured. Maggie wondered if she was the bravest person she knew or the most impossible. She wondered what on earth Peter could have done. She wanted to cry, to scream, and then suddenly Winifred cried out, “There he is!”
“Who?”
“That man I wanted you to meet. Remember?”
“No.”
She began calling to him, but her voice was dry and nothing came out. She gestured toward Maggie, suggesting that she go and waylay him, but Maggie wanted no part of it, and soon enough he was gone. She only had a general image of him, a blur of white hair, laughter.
“Frank Bowman,” Winifred rasped. “I want you to meet him.”
“Are you kidding me?” Maggie said. “Right now, at this moment, when I’ve had a dead man on my lawn and I’m preoccupied with Peter, that’s what you think I need?”
Winifred recovered her voice. “I’ll tell you what you need,” she said.
But Maggie was up and out. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s it.”
Chapter 10
Imagine the idea of it! Maggie thought as she stepped into her car, a red Audi TT that hummed at her touch. The idea was almost amusing. The notion that the exact thing her life was missing right now was a spoiled man. Because if there was one thing Maggie knew it was that there was nothing more of a prince than a single man at a nursing home. Or an adult home, or whatever it was Winifred lived in. All the women would be fighting for a catch like that. She could see him: a neat dresser, self-satisfied, a connoisseur. She’d probably fall in love with him and then he’d dump her for a 91-year-old.
Dating at the age of 62.
What’s new, my darling?
I found a body last night and my feet are killing me.
The sun now shone so bright it didn’t seem possible it had been pouring only a few hours earlier. She passed three cars: two minivans and a Kia. The one great virtue of being 62 years old was that you could drive a bright red car and almost never be pulled over by the police. In an older person, speed is endearing or a sign of dementia. She’d bought the TT years ago when she’d been investigating cars for Inspector Benet. What sort of car would such a man drive, she’d asked herself, going from car dealership to dealership until she found the TT, thrilled at its sleek shape, so excited she’d bought one for herself. She still felt excited every time she got into it.
Could she come back in another life or as another person, she would race cars. Maggie’s one regret, beyond anything to do with her daughter, was that she hadn’t done anything adventurous. Hadn’t skied or gone on safaris. Had preferred to stay home and read a book, which she supposed was an adventure of a kind.
“Frank Bowman,” she muttered.
Imagine going on a date and having to make small talk, she thought, as she raced past Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. She didn’t drive that fast, but she drove fast enough. She wasn’t self-destructive, she just liked feeling the road beneath her. Loved the sound of the engine running. For some reason she’d always loved the smell of oil, maybe because her father had been so handy. He’d had a workroom and he loved to putter. He wasn’t a well-educated man, but he’d loved history and he’d loved Stuart Dove. “And he did not call him Dad,” she said.
Maggie didn’t want to be ridiculous. Bad enough she’d been pitied for so long. She’d been the person people always spoke to gently, asked how are you doing with the frightened hope on their faces that she would not collapse on their watch. That she would just reply, “Fine, thanks.” Which she always did. She’d not wanted to be a burden.
She’d struggled so hard to reach a point that people could talk to her without flinching. Grief was so isolating. People wanted to say the right thing, but they weren’t sure what it was. So better to say nothing at all. She wanted to comfort people, to tell them it was okay to say what they wanted. But she didn’t have the energy and found it hard to speak without crying. Then there were the callous ones who were afraid bad luck was contagious. And those who thought you should get over it. But over the years she’d managed to reclaim her person. She was no longer an object of pity, but friendship. She would not now switch into ridiculousness by dating one of Winifred’s suitors.
Anyway, if she wanted an attractive man to talk to she could talk to Inspector Benet. She’d given him silver hair and solemn brown eyes. She’d made him perfect. She’d found something appealing about a man with a thick head of hair. In the years since she’d stopped writing, the part she’d missed the most had been Benet—but then, she did still talk to him when she wanted. Occasionally he answered. Between the fictional characters and her lost loved ones, Maggie could spend a great deal of time talking to the air, and why not? Perhaps that was heaven, conversation with those you loved, real or not. Why would she want to disturb that?
Past the shops in Tarrytown, the Junior League thrift store, a church where she’d gone to a funeral, a synagogue, a park, another park, a place where a traitor had been shot during the Revolutionary War. Past Sunnyside where docents dressed in nineteenth-century clothes took you on tours of Washington Irving’s home. Farther south on Broadway, entering her village, passing by the church that she loved so well. Admiring the way the steeple reached to the sky. An old-fashioned building made of stone and marble, for an old-fashioned woman with an old-fashioned life.
She’d only ever had one fight with her husband, and that had been over whether or not to have a child. Stuart thought he was too old. She’d pressed him. She wanted a child, hoped for a daughter. She knew he’d be a good father, and he was. In so many ways, more patient and loving than she was. How he’d loved walking with his beautiful little girl up and down the hills of their village, along the aqueduct that ran through it, and alongside the river, skimming rocks, fishing, sometimes swimming. He’d tried hard to split Juliet away from Peter. He’d never understood Peter’s virtues, only seen his faults. Thankfully, Stuart died a year before Juliet did. Maggie’s first thought, when the phone call came from Doc Steinberg about Juliet, was that she was glad he hadn’t lived to see it. Glad to think that Stuart was already in heaven, waiting to welcome his daughter.
She stopped writing about Inspector Benet after Juliet died. She tried to keep going, but every time she started a new book, she found herself killing him off. She couldn’t foresee an ending in which Benet lived. Every time he went out to solve a case, he got hit by a bus, or stabbed or, in its final iteration, hit by lightning. Her publisher suggested coming up with a different hero. Maybe she’d done all she could with Inspector Benet, but she didn’t want to leave him. She’d wanted him to die.
Her publisher suggested she was depressed and should get some help, but she didn’t want help. She wanted to mourn.
She turned down Main Street. The river shimmered in front of her like a dream. Every color was as carefully delineated as a needlepoint: here silver blue; there midnight blue; here sky blue. Everything so clear. She couldn’t get over the beauty of this river, its timelessness. It was impossible to own, to understand; it could only be appreciated. She thought of Peter. She would have to go talk to him. She prayed his conflict with Bender wasn’t too terrible. Suddenly she felt weak, dizzy, couldn’t go any farther. She wasn’t more than two blocks from home, but she worried she’d crash the car. She pulled in to the first spot, surprised to see a crowd in front of her, even more surprised when they all turned to look at her curiously. Then they began to do something very odd. They began to clap.
Chapter 11
Maggie assumed the crowd was applauding someone behind her, so she turned her head, expecting to see something remarkable. But all she saw was Sal Martini, slumped against a streetlamp, squinting up at the sun. She turned back to the crowd, wondering if she was hallucinating, but then the crowd parte
d and there was Hal Carter. He was having his annual furnace drive, she realized, and he was trying to dragoon her.
“It’s our local celebrity,” Hal cried out. “Come up here, Maggie Dove.”
Hal Carter used to be considered the most romantic man in town. Not that he looked the part. He was a plumber and looked like a plumber with his overalls, ruddy face and competent hands. For almost all his adult life he’d lived with his mother, and oh what a difficult woman she’d been. She used to slam the door on Girl Scouts just on principle. Didn’t approve of begging. She disapproved of any woman Hal ever went out with. Plus, her nose was always running. She liked to shove Kleenex up her nostrils so when you spoke to her it looked like she had tusks. But no matter how difficult the old lady was, Hal never complained. Ever.
People were always trying to set him up on a date because, except for the handicap of his mother, he was a good catch. But no. He didn’t have time. His mother needed him. Maggie herself had gone out with him on the one and only date she’d had after her husband died, but it had been like going out with her brother.
Then, one day, the old lady died. She passed away in her sleep and not one month later Hal began dating Gretchen Anderson, who was easily the loveliest young woman in town. She worked as a docent at the Sunnyside historical site and dressed up in nineteenth-century clothes. You’d see them strolling around town, him all red and voluble and her placid in her gown. They were so tender with each other. There was such pleasure in seeing someone get what he deserved. He’d suffered and suffered for years, and then, in reward, he won a beautiful prize.
The wedding was the biggest occasion there’d ever been in the village. Winifred cried through the whole thing. The bride wore a nineteenth-century wedding dress, all ivory and beads. There were even beads in her hair. The bride’s mother, who was also lovely, played the piano as Hal and Gretchen danced a minuet.
In the years since his wedding, Hal had become ambitious. People said it was because he wanted a family. It wasn’t cheap living in this village anymore, especially for a plumber, however good he might be, and there was a suggestion that Hal was not so good a plumber as his father had been. Maggie noticed that since he suffered less, people had become more critical.