“Well, Mr. Larson, I’ve placed it with the gallery. I can call the owner, if you like.”
“Sure. He has to get his commission, I guess.”
She left the room, and I looked at the photograph again. My Jennifer, before anything had hurt her.
“Your kids had a good childhood,” I said to Marilyn.
She smiled and squeezed my hand. I was glad Jeff had decided not to bring up his past trauma.
Mrs. Caron came back a minute later with a troubled expression. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Larson. Nicholas Dore tells me the painting is sold.”
I slumped in my chair. I had waited too long. “I should have bought it that day.”
Marilyn touched my arm. “I’m sorry, Harvey.”
I stood up. “Thank you, Mrs. Caron.” I walked for the door.
“Good-bye, Mr. Larson.”
“Captain Larson,” Marilyn said gently.
She followed me out of the house, and I opened the door of the SUV for her. She had the photograph in her hand. “She told me to give you this.”
*****
Eddie and I went for our training the next day. I was depressed. I told Eddie the whole story about the picture on the way to the Academy. He was sympathetic, but advised me to forget it.
“It’s one of those things. You just have to move on.”
“I loved that painting.”
“Maybe she’d do another one.”
I sighed.
The ballistics training was interesting. It combined my love of computers and guns with detective skills. I’d had minimal training on it ten years earlier, but the system had changed a lot since then.
Eddie did well, too, and we felt like we were learning something that would be useful. The system would match a spent bullet to the gun that had fired it, the way fingerprints were identified. The database of guns nationwide had grown huge, and the system was more useful every year. Already, several old murder cases in our area had been solved because of it.
Tony Winfield was one of the others taking the training, and he was having a ball.
“I’m so glad I took your computer training,” he told me at lunch. “Some people are really lost on this, but I haven’t had any problems as far as running the program.”
“Beats traffic detail, huh?” said Eddie.
Tony grinned. The uniformed officers avoided traffic duty whenever possible.
That evening, we handed out the T-shirts I’d gotten from Jeff and helped Leeanne feed her goats. Eddie had grown up in the city, and he seemed fascinated by the goats. And Leeanne. I was beginning to see why so many women loved him. He gave his full attention to whoever he was with. That evening, I’d have sworn Leeanne was his favorite woman in the world—but Saturday I’d have said the same thing about Rachel.
Leeanne was commuting to classes in the daytime, and she sat up with Eddie and Jennifer and me that night. Marilyn shooed Randy and Travis off to bed at nine-thirty, and she and George followed at ten. We all had to be up fairly early, except Jennifer, but I thought Eddie and Leeanne wanted some get-acquainted time. Eddie’s big brown eyes were saying something to me. I wasn’t positive, so finally I got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and he followed me.
“Is Leeanne coming back to Portland with you?” he asked.
“I think so. She’s trying to fix it so she can take Friday off from school.”
“Harv, I really like her. Do you think—is it okay if I—”
“If you what?”
“I want to ask her out. Or maybe I can just come visit her at your house.”
I took a deep drink of water, considering. I honestly didn’t think he realized the effect he had on young women.
“Whatever you want, Eddie. Just treat her…”
“How? How should I treat her?”
“Like something very precious. Like I treated Jennifer.”
He nodded, then squeezed my shoulder. He got the picture.
I took Jennifer up to her old room, where Abby slept now whenever she was home. We crawled under a quilt their great-grandmother had pieced. The moon shone in through the window, and it was very quiet, even quieter than Van Cleeve Lane. No traffic sounds, just an occasional creak of old timbers or a goat’s muted bleat. I heard Eddie climb the stairs soon after. Jennifer went to sleep with her head on my shoulder.
*****
“Harvey, isn’t your birthday coming right up?” Marilyn asked me at breakfast.
“Well, not for a while,” I said. It was November twelfth. Jennifer must have told her.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“Me? Nothing.”
“Oh, come on, you’re family. We always give the kids birthday presents.”
How many years since I’d been ‘one of the kids’? I smiled at her. “T-shirts, I guess. Jennifer’s always stealing mine.”
Jennifer made a face at me, then told her mother, “He really does need a new Harvard shirt. I’m afraid I’ve about done in his old one.”
“She wears it all the time,” I agreed. I liked it when she wore it.
“Where do I get one?” Marilyn asked.
“I don’t know.” Jennifer turned to me. “Where did you get the old one?”
Jennifer didn’t usually ask idiot questions. “At the college bookstore.”
Leeanne grinned. “Where else?”
Marilyn brought a platter of pancakes to the table. “Oh, so I can’t just run down to Wal-Mart?”
Jennifer shrugged. “I’m sure they have a website.”
“They do,” I said. Everybody seemed to think this was an odd thing for me to know, but I was sure they’d all been to the University of Maine bookstore in Orono.
“I’ll get you one online, Mom,” Leeanne said.
Eddie and I left for training, and I had a better day. I had put the painting out of my mind and concentrated on bullets and gun barrels and images on the computer screen. Tony seemed to be dividing his attention between that and a female officer from Lewiston, but Eddie stayed on target.
We all received certificates for completion of the training at the end of the day. Eddie and I went back to the Wainthrops’ for supper, and Jennifer and the kids had things packed up. George and I made plans for hunting on November 13. Jeff would be off that weekend, and he would bring Beth up with him.
Travis and Randy were wound up, anxious for their stay-over visit with Jeff. Leeanne was going to drive her car down, so she could drive herself and the boys home Sunday afternoon. That seemed like a good plan to me. Somehow Eddie ended up driving her car, though, and Travis and Randy landed in the middle seat of the Explorer.
“I think I’d really like to go into law enforcement,” Randy said as I drove toward the interstate highway. We talked a lot on the way down about the training he’d need. I thought he would be really good at it and told him so. Travis was more athletic, and had coaching aspirations. He was a senior at Skowhegan Area High School and had applied to UMO for the next fall.
“Do they have a criminal justice program?” Randy asked.
“I think so. They’ve got just about everything,” Travis said. “Well, not medicine.”
“You could go someplace else.” Jennifer swiveled around to look at them. “Don’t you guys ever think about going away?”
“Maybe I could get into Harvard,” said Randy.
“Yeah, right,” said Travis.
I looked in the rearview mirror and caught Randy’s eye. “I’ll bet you could.”
He smiled. “It’s really expensive, isn’t it?”
“Very. But they have endowments.”
“What’s that?”
We kept talking about colleges for a while, then Travis asked about Jeff’s schedule.
“He’ll get home late tonight, and he has Friday and Saturday off,” Jennifer said. “You guys can spend both days with him, or come over to our house whenever you want.”
“Can we see the police station this time?” asked Randy.
I said, “Sure, and Jeff will probably take you to the fire station. What else do you want to do?”
“Play basketball,” said Travis.
“Jeff and Eddie can get up a game in the neighborhood anytime,” I said.
“Anytime?”
“Day or night. Maybe I’ll come over and join you. There’s always a bunch of Eddie’s cousins around, too.”
“Eddie’s cool,” said Travis.
Randy made a face. “Yeah, but he likes Leeanne.”
Abby ran out into the garage when we drove in at the house. “My siblings!” She hugged the two boys fiercely. “I’ll bet Mom and Dad don’t know what to do with themselves tonight.”
I said, “They’ll probably catch up on sleep.”
Chapter 17
We all sat up until eleven or so, then I took Eddie home and drove Travis and Randy to Jeff’s apartment. Jeff wasn’t back yet, but I still had a key, since it was my old place and Jeff had told me to hang on to one. We went in and pulled out the sofa bed. The boys arranged their sleeping bags and duffel bags, and I’d just told them to get ready for bed when Jeff came in. They started talking excitedly to him, telling him all sorts of things that had happened in Skowhegan lately. I could see they were going to be up for a while, so I said goodnight to Jeff. He gave me an amused wave, and I went home.
It was a hectic weekend, but lots of fun. When I got home from work Friday, Jeff and the boys were there, and Beth had come straight from school. Jennifer lined up the six Wainthrop siblings, and Beth and I took pictures. Eddie showed up while we were eating supper, and we played Risk, then went out for ice cream.
Saturday was a blur. We had a basketball tournament in the park near Eddie and Jeff’s, with half a dozen Thibodeau cousins and neighbor kids. The girls went shopping. Everybody converged on our house for lunch, then Jeff took Eddie, Randy, and Travis to the fire station. When they came back and everyone had eaten cookies, Eddie and I took Randy and Travis and Jeff to the police station, and at the last second, Leeanne came running out and hopped into the Explorer.
“Hey, it’s a little crowded,” Eddie said. “We can take my truck.” He and Leeanne jumped out and got in his pickup and followed me.
“Did I miss something?” Jeff asked, looking in the side view mirror at Eddie’s truck.
“Don’t blink,” I said.
Jeff looked sideways at me. “So, whatever happened to Sarah?”
“Who’s Sarah?” Randy asked.
“History,” I said. “Eddie hasn’t taken her out in months.”
Jeff scratched his head. “I thought for a while he liked Abby a little.”
“So did he.”
Jeff groaned. “I can’t keep up.”
“I know you don’t get to church every week because of work,” I told him, “but there’s been a succession of girls stalking Eddie there.”
“So, this thing with Leeanne is not serious?”
“Too soon to tell. Ask me again in a month, and I’ll update you.”
We got out at the police station, and Randy and Travis ran to Eddie’s truck. Jeff and I followed at a more leisurely pace, and Eddie took the boys and Leeanne into the foyer.
“How’s it going with you and Beth?” I asked Jeff as we ambled up the steps to the station.
“Really good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Jeff paused on the top step. “In fact, I think I’m almost ready to ask her to make it permanent.”
“No joke? That’s great. I mean, if you both know what you want...”
“I do, and I think Beth does, too. Just don’t tell my brothers yet or I won’t get any peace this weekend.”
We went inside, and Eddie was getting the sergeant on duty to show his guests the roll call room, the booking area, and the com room.
“Come on upstairs,” I said to Jeff. I punched the code on the keypad beside the stairway door.
“So this is where you and Eddie spend half your waking lives.”
“Well, a good part of it, anyway.” We climbed the stairs and entered the unit office.
“Let me guess…that’s your desk.” Jeff pointed to mine in the window corner, with pictures of Jennifer on every flat surface.
“That didn’t take ESP to figure out, did it?” I showed him Eddie’s desk, and the interview room. Everybody likes to see that, and the observation room beside it. “Ours isn’t as big or as intimidating as the interrogation room downstairs,” I told him.
We went down the hall to the break room, and I got two Pepsi’s out of the machine and we sat down.
“Beth’s going to teach the rest of the year,” Jeff said. “I’m hoping she’ll be willing to stop after that. But if she wants to keep teaching for a while, I guess that wouldn’t be so bad.” He shrugged.
“If she keeps working, you might not get much time together, with your schedule,” I said.
“Yeah, I hope she won’t want to work forever.” Jeff smiled. “First I have to get her to say yes.”
Something told me that wouldn’t be too hard. I rubbed the back of my head. “I’m not saying she shouldn’t work, but it’s really nice for your wife to be there when you walk in the door in the evening. Now, don’t tell Beth I said that. She’ll think I’m a chauvinist.”
He smiled. “Some women like to work. Beth likes teaching. And Jennifer’s still doing some computer work, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she’s putting out a new software program. An old coworker of hers is marketing it. And she might want to keep on with that sort of thing. I don’t mind. In fact, I think it helps her confidence. I just don’t want to see her working someplace else and dragging home exhausted every night.”
Eddie and Leeanne and the boys came into the break room.
“Hey, soda!” Randy went right to the vending machine like a magnet was pulling him. I stood up and pulled a handful of change out of my pocket.
“You’re spoiling them,” Jeff said. “They’ll go home and run Mom and Dad ragged.”
“No, they know this weekend is a treat, right fellas?” I looked pointedly at Randy, the younger boy.
“Sure, Harvey,” he said.
I kept them in the break room with the soda, giving Eddie a couple of minutes to show Leeanne his desk. She’d been to the police station once before, but things were different now.
Five minutes was about as long as I could keep the lid on, and we walked back through the office, collecting Eddie and Leeanne. Travis wanted to test my statement that the stairs were faster than the elevator, so Randy and Eddie and Leeanne got in the elevator. Jeff and I took the stairs, with Travis running down them ahead of us. Travis did the two flights in about ten seconds flat, but even Jeff and I were waiting with him outside the elevator when it opened.
We drove back to the house. Beth had arrived with a fruit salad, and she, Abby, and Jennifer were getting supper ready. After we ate, the evening degenerated into a cutthroat game of Trivial Pursuit.
At nine o’clock, Jeff stretched his long arms. “I guess I’d better get these hooligans home and into bed.” Randy and Travis protested.
“Why don’t you take Beth to her car first?” I asked. “I’ll hog tie them here for a few minutes.” It was the least I could do for Beth, who had paved the way to romance for me many times, back when she was Jennifer’s roommate. She said goodnight and went out through the kitchen with Jeff. I kept the boys occupied with putting away the game and straightening up the living room. Eddie and Leeanne sat talking on the couch.
The lights from Beth’s car swept the walls, and Jeff came back in for Travis and Randy.
“I go in to the station early, so you’ll pick these guys up for Sunday School, right?” he asked me.
“Sure thing.” I looked at the boys. “You guys have your luggage ready in the morning.”
Jennifer and I walked out to the breezeway and watched them pile into Jeff’s pickup. We waved, then went back inside. Abby was on the phone in the kitchen.
“Where are you?
” she was asking. “Really? Pittsburgh? Is it a nice airport?”
“Greg,” Jennifer and I said at the same time.
I put my arm around her, and we walked through the sunroom. I stopped to check the patio door and pull the drapes. Jennifer started into the living room, then turned back with alarm on her face.
“What?” I asked.
“Hand holding. Leeanne and Eddie.” She pointed over her shoulder toward the living room.
“Here we go again,” I said. “Maybe we should open a matchmaking service.”
“What is it about this house?” she asked. “We don’t do anything. They just come here, and it happens.”
I kissed her. “Love must be in the air.”
“I was fretting over Jeff and Beth, but now I’ve got Abby juggling two men, and Leeanne holding hands with Eddie.”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “Eddie’s been confused, but he’s also been thinking. You saw him hang back on commitment with Sarah, and he sorted out his feelings for Abby. He won’t do anything until he’s sure it’s right this time.”
“So, that means he’s sure it’s right to hold hands with my baby sister?”
“I guess so. And she’s growing up fast. She’s almost twenty-one. Did Leeanne take French in high school?”
“I think so.”
“That should be interesting.”
Jennifer looked up at me. “Jeff told me some good news tonight.”
I smiled. “Yeah, he told me. Beth seems happy. They both do.”
“She’s got no reason to hold him off now.” Jennifer looked up at me with glittery eyes. “It’s really serious with them.”
“Yeah. We’ll get more good news soon, I guess. No regrets?”
“None here,” she said.
Leeanne and Eddie came out into the sunroom, and Eddie said, “Getting late. Guess I’d better go. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
“Sure, Ed,” I said.
He started walking toward the kitchen, and Leeanne stood there. Jennifer made little hand motions, telling her to go with him. Leeanne looked at us, embarrassed, then tagged after Eddie.
“What have I done?” Jennifer threw herself at me.
I laughed. “Don’t worry.”
Found Art (Maine Justice Book 3) Page 19