Afterward we followed a long train of mourners as they turned right out of the parking lot and strolled in silent groups up Church Street toward the Dunbars’, where the family, the bulletin had announced, would be receiving condolences.
At the Dunbar house rectangular tables covered with white damask tablecloths were placed on the front porch at either side of the door. On one sat a punch bowl surrounded by dozens of crystal cups, neatly stacked. On the other, someone had arranged glass tumblers and a selection of sodas in two-liter bottles around a huge bowl of ice. I was about to ask Connie how on earth the Dunbars had managed the time to put all this together when I noticed the familiar purple of a van from Washington, D.C.’s premier caterer in the driveway. I had amended my question to How can they afford …? when it was answered for me. The sister.
“Welcome.” Elizabeth Dunbar, prominent attorney, held out a well-manicured hand. “Thank you for coming. My parents appreciate it so.” Connie introduced me as her sister-in-law, and Liz favored me with half a smile, but her eyes were already looking ahead to the next guest.
I checked out the sodas and the punch (fruit base, no additives) and found myself hoping they’d have some adult beverages inside. In the living room I snagged a glass of white wine from the tray of a passing waiter and checked out the crowd over the rims of my Foster Grants. I didn’t see anybody I knew. Except for Connie, of course, who had wandered away and was busily chatting with Reverend Lattimore. I figured that somebody I’d recognize would walk through the front door eventually, so I leaned against the fireplace and watched it, sipping slowly on what turned out to be a crisp dry chablis.
Liz wasn’t at all as I expected. A handsome woman, she stood straight and solid as a pillar, a role model for the good-posture people. Her hair was neatly cut in a stylish wedge and of a color so seriously black that I thought it must be dyed. She wore a long-sleeved black dress that stopped at mid-calf, partially covering sturdy legs firmly planted in proper black Ferragamo shoes. Diamond studs glittered in her ears, and a matching necklace was fastened around her neck. I calculated a total of two carats, one at her neck and a half on each ear.
Liz shook hands. She smiled. I got the feeling she didn’t know many of the guests either.
Eventually I wandered into the dining room looking for Connie and got involved in a conversation with Mindy, a former cheerleader. Mindy breathlessly explained, emphasizing every third word, how privileged and lucky she had been when they invited her to try out for Katie’s vacant spot on the Wildcats’ cheerleading squad. Relentlessly cheerful in spite of the occasion, I expected her to pull out the pom-poms at any minute. As Mindy launched into a dissertation on the joys of the 1990 winning basketball season—clearly a defining moment in her life—it was with some relief that I spotted Angie and Ellie occupying chairs in the corner, small plates of food balanced on their chubby knees. I excused myself and joined them.
Angie showed me her plate. “Have a mushroom cap? I’m not very hungry.” She looked almost as tired as I felt.
Ordinarily I love mushroom caps, but today, in spite of the elaborate spread, nothing looked good. “Neither am I.”
“So, how long are you planning to stay in Pearson’s Corner?” Ellie asked.
“A week or two, I should think. While I’m looking for a new job, I’m helping Connie with her bookkeeping.”
“What kind of work do you do?” Angie wanted to know.
“My experience is as a librarian and legal records specialist, but at this point I’d probably take anything, short of flipping burgers at McDonald’s.”
“Flipping burgers isn’t so bad.” This must have reminded Angie of something because her eyes filled with tears. “Excuse me,” she said, handed her plate to her mother, and bolted through the crowd toward the powder room I had noticed earlier, built into a triangle under the stairs leading to the second floor.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Ellie. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
“Oh, it’s nothing you said, dear. She goes off like that at the drop of a hat. She’ll get over it. Excuse me for a moment while I find a place to put these plates down, will you?”
Ellie wound through the crowd grazing around the dining room table, a plate held high in each hand. She disappeared into the kitchen. Feeling abandoned for the second time, I decided to check out the food. I was picking halfheartedly at what was left of the fruit plate when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Well, hello!”
I must have jumped a mile. “Oh, hi, Hal.” I brushed droplets of wine from the front of my dress, thinking thank goodness I’d chosen the chablis. “You startled me!”
“Sorry.” He offered me his napkin, a small cloth square more suitable for a doll’s tea party than for a grown-up do.
“Thanks. No damage done.” I nibbled on a chunk of cheese and pineapple skewered together on a toothpick. “I suppose you know nearly everybody here.”
“Just about.” He pointed with a carrot stick to a bulky man in a dark polyester suit. “That’s the high school principal over there. Most of the rest are teachers and former students. You can probably figure out which is which.”
“Actually it’s one of the students I’m looking for. I’d thought I’d like to meet Katie’s old boyfriend.”
“I saw Chip earlier out back, talking to Mr. Dunbar.”
“Thanks, Hal. Catch you later.” I dropped my used toothpick into a silver bowl that I hoped had been put there for that purpose and headed toward the living room.
A familiar figure appeared in the dining room door, then made a beeline for the stuffed ham. Dr. Chase, whom I had first seen at the crime scene, acknowledged me as I passed with a slight nod and a quizzical expression that indicated that he was trying to remember where he knew me from.
I wandered in what I hoped was a nonchalant and casual way toward the back of the house, passing from the living room through a comfortable family room that had apparently been converted from a screened porch. It was decorated in Early American style. A six-lamp chandelier like a stagecoach wheel cast a bit of modest light over furniture which looked to have been bought in a matched set, circa 1975, from the Ethan Allen showroom. Framed certificates and diplomas covered the paneled walls. I studied them curiously. Liz’s high school diploma and her college degree from Brown hung on the wall over a table lamp, and occupying a place of honor in an elegant black frame was her Harvard Law School degree. Harvard! Even if Emily had wanted to, how could we afford to send her to Harvard Law or anyplace else if Paul lost his job? I crossed to the opposite wall, where framed and laminated magazine and newspaper articles followed the meteoric rise of Liz’s career.
I was finding Liz’s presence in this room overwhelming and beginning to wonder what role poor Katie had played in the family when I turned and saw it. On a polished table to the left of the door, someone had arranged dozens of photographs of Katie, lovingly displayed in a variety of frames, their corners draped with swatches of sheer black silk. There was Katie as an infant in a hospital nursery, squinting, one tiny fist jammed into her left cheek. Katie dressed for Halloween as Shirley Temple, an enormous pink ribbon fastened to a halo of golden curls, an oversize lollipop to her lips. Katie as a cheerleader, balancing in top position on the Wildcat pyramid, pom-poms aloft. Katie in a slim electric blue dress and Chip in a charcoal gray suit standing under an arch of haystalks and pumpkins, a picture that I figured must have been taken at the homecoming dance only hours before she disappeared.
I picked up an eight-by-ten of Katie at about four, her blue eyes at the same time both mischievous and direct as if challenging the camera, a ghost of a smile lighting her lips. An angel child. So like my Emily at that age.
Hal found me sitting on the sofa, the photograph pressed to my chest, tears pooling on my cheeks, where they were trapped against them by my sunglasses. “Hey. Hey.” He sat down and circled me with his arm. “I think I’m doomed to offer you napkins all day.”
I accepted the
napkin that dangled from his extended fingers, lifted my sunglasses, and dabbed at my eyes. I didn’t start out to tell him about Emily. I seldom mention that sad chapter in our lives to anyone.
“It’s just …” I turned the photograph in his direction. Sun glanced off the silver frame and flashed across the ceiling. “Katie looks—looked—so much like our daughter, Emily, at that age.” I started to cloud up again. “When I think about how many times we nearly lost her …”
Before I knew it, I was telling Hal about the miserable weeks we spent worrying while Emily hitchhiked around the country following Phish, sleeping with God knows who and ingesting God knows what substances. “And just when we’d given up hope of ever seeing her again, she breezed back home, acting as if nothing had happened!”
“I followed the Dead around California once, eating incredibly bad food and sleeping in cars.” He smiled as if recalling something amusing. “It really wasn’t as dangerous as most parents imagined. Pretty harmless, actually. Fifty years ago she’d have been running away to join the circus.”
I did a quick calculation. “But you were an adult then, not a headstrong fifteen-year-old without the good sense God gave a goose.”
Hal gave my shoulders a squeeze, then draped his arm casually along the top of the sofa. There was something about the way he sat there, rock solid and steady, that made me want to confide in him. “We didn’t ask for much, Hal. Passing grades, calling home if she was going to be late.” I massaged my temple, where a dull throb signaled an oncoming headache. “Then she got mixed up with this boy who was into computer games and fantasy role playing, and suddenly her father and I had turned into ogres. How did she put it?” I mustered my best Valley Girl accent: “Like, you’re squashing my creativity, Mother. You’re interfering with my life concept just when my creative juices are at their most fertile!”
Hal threw back his head and roared with laughter. “I wish you could hear yourself!”
“I suppose it did have its funny moments, but I certainly didn’t think so at the time.” I set the photograph down on the coffee table, angling it so I could still see Katie’s face.
Hal leaned forward, took the photo in his work-worn hands, and studied it in silence. I expected the silence. What was there to say after all? The usual BS: “I know how you feel” or the ultimate in New Age sympathy-speak, “I feel your pain.”
Hal turned the frame facedown on the sofa cushion. “I imagine the grieving never stops. A parent never gets over the loss of a child.”
I stared at him while dabbing at my nose with his napkin, surprised by his sensitivity. “No, you never do. That’s why all this has hit me so hard. As if finding Katie’s body obligates me somehow to find out who killed her.”
“I suspect they’ll discover it was an accident.”
“I don’t think so, Hal. Lieutenant Rutherford told Connie that Katie had been shot with some sort of small-caliber pistol.”
Hal sat silently for a moment, then swiveled his body in my direction. “Sure you’re all right?”
I blew my nose and crumpled the napkin in my fist. I offered it to him on an open palm. “I don’t suppose you want this back?”
He chuckled, a rich, warm sound. “I don’t think so.” He stood and offered me his hand. I took it, surprised at the firmness of the grip and the roughness of the skin. He pulled me to my feet. “Better?”
I nodded and tucked the napkin into my sleeve. “Well, if I’m going to play at Jessica Fletcher, Ubiquitous Small-Town Snoop, I think I’d better start outside with the boyfriend.”
Hal pushed aside the sliding glass door to the patio, motioned me through ahead of him, then followed me out onto a low wooden deck with three steps leading down to the lawn and to a garden just beyond. Near a wall where espaliered spring roses climbed, heavy with white, honey-scented blossoms, the pallbearers clustered. They drank beer from tall glasses and looked as if they would be much more comfortable had someone given them permission to loosen their ties, unbutton their shirt collars, and drink straight out of the can.
“Hey, fellas!”
The pallbearers turned their heads in our direction. Chip and his friends wore a variety of hairstyles but were uniform in age, height, and present facial expression, which was something akin to annoyance at being interrupted.
“I’d like you to meet Hannah Ives. You might remember her husband, Paul. He grew up on the farm between the old Nichols and Baxter places.” Two of the former players rudely wandered away at this point, so I was introduced to someone named Spike, to Bill Taylor, whom I already knew from Ellie’s store, and to David Wilson, a handsome man in a Leif Ericson sort of way, sporting the most distracting pair of stark white eyebrows. Hal left to fetch me another glass of wine from a bartender at a table set out under a wistaria arbor while the Wildcats and I stood around, awkwardly staring at one another.
I was trying to think of a clever way to break the ice when Chip stepped forward. “I wanted to thank you. I understand you found Katie’s body.” Of all the things I’d imagined he’d say, I certainly hadn’t expected a thank-you. He set his beer glass, half full, on a small, round table that held a tray with six or seven empty ones. “You can’t imagine how relieved I was to know what happened to her after all these years of wondering.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, meeting his steady gaze.
“It was a long time ago,” he said. “I’m married now, with three kids.”
“I think I saw them today at St. Philip’s.”
“You did. They’ve gone on home to Baltimore with Sandra. I’ve been criticized for bringing them so young, but I don’t pay much attention to narrow-minded people like that. Funerals are a part of life, a celebration of having lived. I don’t believe we should shield our children from life, do you, Mrs. Ives?”
I didn’t know what to say to such an earnest declaration, so I changed the subject, picking my words carefully, particularly since the wine was beginning to make significant inroads caused by my sending it down into a stomach empty of all but a large Kalamata olive and a few pitiful bits of fruit and cheese. “I was talking to Angie at her mother’s the other day, and she told me that you and Katie used to date.”
“That’s true. We’d been going out since that summer. I used to stop by the Royal Farms, where she worked, for a cold Coke after practice. I’ll tell you the truth, I was sweet on Katie. She was a fun kid, but she was interested in a more serious relationship. I started dating Katie when David here broke up with her.” David, an inch or two taller than Chip, looked like an ex-marine with his hair worn in a short, closely cropped crew cut that a midshipman would have described as “high and tight.”
David shifted his weight from one foot to the other, fists firmly stuffed into the pockets of his trousers. “Katie dated most of us at one time or another, but the only one she was serious about was Chip.”
“Katie was an atheist,” Chip said, as if that explained everything. Seeing my look of confusion, he added, “I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior when I turned sixteen, Mrs. Ives. It never would have worked out with Katie and me.” He ran long, slim fingers through his hair.
“Chip didn’t have anything to do with her death. None of us did.” Up until then Bill had been so quiet that I had almost forgotten about him. His mouth opened to elaborate, or so I thought, but nothing came out. I noticed he was looking over my left shoulder, a curious expression on his face. I turned and attempted to follow his gaze but could see only Connie and Dennis and Hal’s broad back as he strode over to greet them, a wineglass in each hand. I wondered if it was the unexpected presence of a police officer that had made Bill clam up.
“No, I don’t suppose you did.” A door had slammed shut. I could see it in the rigid set of his jaw. I tried to come up with a graceful exit line. I glanced at my watch. “Well, I’d better go pay my respects to the Dunbars. Sorry to be meeting you all under such circumstances.” As I walked away, I kicked myself for such stunning originality.
“Mrs. Ives?”
I halted in mid-stride and turned to see Chip leaving his friends, hurrying to catch up with me. David Wilson stared after Chip, his face set in a scowl, his eyes almost supernaturally blue in contrast with his white eyebrows. He gave me the creeps. It was a relief when Chip’s handsome face blocked my view of David.
Chip hadn’t changed much since that homecoming picture was taken. His broad brow, prominent nose, and high cheekbones were a photographer’s dream, evidence of German blood somewhere in his family tree. I wanted to trust him but was wary. Emily’s boyfriends had never been particularly trustworthy, despite their well-brushed hair and clean-scrubbed faces.
I smiled. “Yes, Chip?”
“I really mean what I said back there. The thank-you, that is.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, although it seemed singularly inappropriate under the circumstances.
“I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression, is all. Katie and I were still going together the night she disappeared. But it was kind of an up-and-down thing with Katie and me. Three weeks before the dance she was barely speaking to me. When I called, Liz said she’d gone away for the weekend. To tell you the truth, I suspected she was seeing somebody else. A college guy, maybe.”
I couldn’t imagine any girl dumping a hunk like Chip. “So what happened to get you back together?”
“It’s a mystery to me. The week before the dance she was all lovey-dovey again.” He shrugged. “Women! Begging your pardon, ma’am, but today they’d probably chalk it all up to PMS.”
When I finally rejoined the group surrounding Connie, puzzling over Katie’s odd behavior in the months before her death, Hal handed me a fresh glass of wine.
Dennis raised his wineglass in my direction, as if offering a toast. “Hello, Hannah.” His smile was dazzling, like a light turned on in a dark room. “Even though it’s officially my day off, I’ve got to stick around here for an hour or two, check out the guests, but after that, Connie and Hal have cooked up a sail for us. Connie tells us you’ve had a rough week and could use a break.”
Sing It to Her Bones Page 8