He didn’t. He didn’t know much about stuttering at all, except that the person listening often suffered as much as the stutterer himself. Herself.
“It has to do with the coordination of the muscles for speech,” Anna went on. “That isn’t to say there aren’t emotions involved. Tension makes it worse. It distracts the person from concentrating on controlling it. But the root of the problem is physical.”
“Did Lily always have it?”
“Always. She was a late talker, didn’t say much until she was four or five, and she didn’t say much even then, most likely because it was hard for her. So they didn’t hear the problem at first, and then they thought it was something that would work itself out, but the more they made her talk, the worse it got. Your heart would break watching her, and when Maida snapped at her for doing it…” Anna took a sharp breath and sat back.
“She snapped?” John asked.
“Snapped, shook her finger, made apologies to everyone in sight.”
He cringed. “Why didn’t they get help?”
“Eventually they did.” Anna looked him in the eye. “Maida didn’t like that much, either.”
“Why not?”
“It confirmed the existence of a problem.”
“But if everyone already knew…”
“Therapy made it official. Therapy made it serious. Maida wanted the Blake blooms to be perfect, and suddenly one of them wasn’t, in a very public and obvious way. It’s no wonder she’s been so upset by this business in Boston. The very same Blake bloom is imperfect again in a very public and obvious way—not,” she added with an edge, “that I said any of this to that reporter.” She looked up and produced a grin when Charlie arrived with food.
Anna had a Cobb salad piled high with goodies and topped with generous dollops of blue cheese dressing. By comparison, John’s bacon cheeseburger and fries looked tame.
He offered her a fry, which she accepted with grace.
“What reporter?” he asked.
She finished the fry and fingered her napkin. “Sullivan. He’s been calling nearly every day since this broke.”
“Still calling?” John was mystified, and vaguely alarmed. Terry should have been off the story once the paper issued its apology to the Cardinal. If he was still calling, that meant he was after something.
“Still calling,” Anna confirmed. “He gets me going talking about every other little thing, like he finds me so fascinating that he just can’t help getting off the subject. He brings the talk around to the mill and suggests that there’s enough for three stories in it, but I know men like him. I’ve lived with a sweet-talker for too many years not to know insincerity when I hear it. He’s trying to get my guard down. He’s trying to get me to betray one of my own.” She waved her fork gently. “Tries to slip in little questions.”
“About Lily?”
“And Maida. He’s looking for worms under rocks, but, good Lord, there isn’t a one of us doesn’t have something in life he isn’t proud of, some little smudge.” She let the fork dangle, set her elbows on the table, and smiled. “What’s yours?”
John had lots of little smudges and more than a few big ones, but in that instant, when he pushed aside his concern about Terry, a long-forgotten one sprang to mind. “Calling my father a bastard. I was twelve. He had called me a girl, because my voice hadn’t changed. There isn’t much worse that a boy can be called when he’s twelve. So I called him a bastard. He went all quiet and hard and stalked out of the house. He didn’t come back for three days. What I didn’t know then was that, A, he was, in fact, a bastard, and, B, that my mother had used the word in an argument the day before.”
“Had you heard her?”
“No. It was pure coincidence, but bad timing.” He smiled back at Anna. “What’s your smudge?”
Her eyes twinkled. “I stitched the zippers in Phipps’s pants shut. Every last pair in his closet. It was quite a sight watching him struggle with one after the other.”
John didn’t have to ask why. “Who unstitched them?”
“Not me,” she said with pride. “I figured that if working with fabric was his stock in trade, he could just do it himself—which he did, with some contrition. Mind you”—she pointed at John’s heart with her fork—“if you tell anyone I told you that, I’ll put in a bad word with Armand, who will then cut your year-end bonus. Now, there’s a sweet-talker if ever there was one.”
“Armand?”
“You wouldn’t know,” she said with the dash of her fork. “You’re not a woman.” She speared a piece of ham. “But you get my point on the other. We all have smudges. If we didn’t, the word ‘secret’ wouldn’t exist—not to mention the fact that even if you did tell someone, it wouldn’t be all that bad. We like each other. We respect each other. That reporter?” She put the ham into her mouth and waved the empty fork in mimic of a slow headshake.
The only thing John could figure was that Terry was trying to shore up the blame-Lily angle. But he was stepping on territory that John considered his own, particularly now that he and Richard Jacobi had a deal. He was in a fighting mood when he returned to the office after lunch, but before he could decide what to do with it, Armand called.
Excitement livened his raspy voice. “Lily Blake’s back in town. I think you ought to get yourself over there and do an exclusive.”
John thought quickly. “The paper’s just come out. There won’t be another for a week.”
“Yes, well, we put out a special supplement when this Republican town went Democratic in the last election. So we’ll do a special supplement now.”
“I don’t think this story is quite the same.”
“What’s that matter? I’m saying I’ll pay for it.”
“But I’m the one in charge of quality control,” John insisted. “What’s to put in a special supplement? Do you want me to do a rehash of what everyone else has been printing for the last week? What’s new in the story?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Armand bellowed. “She’s back. That’s news. Christ, John, this is basic journalism. People in town will want to know why, for how long, what she’s doing, where’s she staying.”
“Everyone in town will know most of that before the day is out,” John said quietly. “The only thing you’ll accomplish in a supplement is to score points with the mainstream press.”
“And what’s wrong with that? If you don’t interview her, someone else will. Come on, John,” he whined. “What’s your prob-lem? She’s our girl. This is our story.”
“Right. She’s our girl, and we protect our own. Our story should be that there is no story, because that’s where it stood when last I heard.”
John hung up the phone feeling duplicitous on two counts. The first involved Armand and what might indeed have made a good story for Lake News. The second involved Lily and had more to do with John’s future intentions than with anything immediate he might write. He liked Lily. The more he learned about her, the more he admired her. The more he admired her, the worse he felt about his book. Some would say he was exploiting her. He preferred to think he was simply studying her, but he found either case vaguely unsettling.
So he took the fighting mood that hadn’t quite disappeared and focused on Terry Sullivan. On one side of his computer he put the list of tips Jack Mabbet had given him. On the other side he put his growing file. Several clicks and half a dozen typed responses later, he was connected to a database that, using Terry’s current address, spewed up his Social Security number, his monthly rent, two bank account numbers, four credit card numbers, and ten other places of residence in a total of four states over a period of twenty-three years.
John studied the ten. The three most recent were in the Boston area, making it a total of four moves in the twelve years Terry had been with the paper. John didn’t know if he would want to haul his own stuff in and out of as many apartments, but four in twelve years didn’t raise any flags. Seven in the eleven previous years was a little stranger. He stud
ied them one at a time.
The first two were college apartments. John recognized the Pennsylvania address. That took care of two years, with nine to go.
The next two apartments were in Connecticut—one in Hartford, one in a nearby suburb. They covered the four years immediately following college, when Terry had freelanced for several of the local papers.
He moved to Rhode Island when he was offered his first staff position. During the five years he was there, he lived at three different addresses, each within commuting distance of Providence.
John swiveled his chair and looked out at the lake. He sat back, rubbed a thumb over his mouth, tried to think of all the reasons why a man would move so often. Knowing Terry, he hadn’t been able to get along with landlords, neighbors, roommates. The man could shift from charming to abrasive in no time flat.
Psychotic? Possibly. Schizophrenic? Possibly. It was also possible that he was mentally fit but simply driven by private demons.
John was wondering what those demons might be, and where eleven apartments in twenty-three years, plus hatred of the Cardinal, fit in, when the telephone rang. “Lake News. Kipling here.”
“Kip!” It was Poppy. “I wasn’t sure if you were back. Terry Sullivan’s calling for you. Do you want to take it?”
For a split second, John felt guilty—like a peeping Tom caught in the act, as if Terry knew exactly what he’d just been doing and thinking. Then he realized it couldn’t possibly be so, and that even if it was, Terry had been doing much the same where Lily was concerned.
With that realization, his anger returned. “I’ll take it,” he told Poppy. Seconds later, more coolly, he said, “What’s up, Terry?”
“I hear she’s back.”
John chose his words with care. Figuring it would be transparent of him to ask who “she” was, he said, “I haven’t heard that. Who’s your source?”
“I have dozens of sources, little people here, little people there. Can you confirm it, yes or no?”
“I can’t confirm it,” John said, because it was the truth. He would be betraying Lily if he did. “Why are you asking? The story’s done. You’ve been proved wrong.”
“No. The paper caved in to pressure from the Church. I stand by my story.”
John was incredulous. “What’s to stand by? All you had was circumstantial evidence, and it was flimsy at best. Is there a reason for this? Do you have a grudge against Rossetti?”
“Don’t need it to smell something fishy. He’s a lady-killer. He and Lily Blake were too close for it to be innocent.”
“Have you suddenly found an eyewitness to say it wasn’t?”
“No, but I’m lookin’.”
“You’re pestering people like Anna Winslow, but she won’t tell you that Lily Blake was having an affair with Cardinal Rossetti.”
“Did you know she was married?”
“Of course. Her son is married to Lily’s sister.”
“Not Anna,” Terry said. “Lily was married.”
John hadn’t heard that. Neither had anyone else in town, including—he would put money on it—Lily’s family. Too many other secrets had already been printed. If Lily had been married, Poppy would have told him.
He was silent a second too long.
“You didn’t know,” Terry gloated. “There you are, right in her own hometown, and you didn’t know. It was a quickie, done the summer after her freshman year in college. The guy was a senior, they were both studying in Mexico. A month after they got back, she had it annulled. I have proof this time, John.”
“And what,” John asked in disgust, “are you going to do with it? Is the paper running it?”
“No—”
“Because the story’s done,” he cut in. “Because you embarrassed the paper once and they’re not letting you do it again. Because a quickie marriage years ago has absolutely no relevance to anything or anyone now!”
“That remains to be seen,” Terry said, and John felt a sudden sharp loathing.
“Don’t… even… try,” he warned, sitting forward in his chair. “You’ve done her harm enough. It was wrong the first time, arguably libel. Do it this time and I’ll go after you myself.”
“You?” Terry laughed. “That’s a good one. You don’t have the guts to go after me or anyone else. You’re jealous, is your problem. I’m a better writer than you’ll ever be. I dig and you sit. I find and you drool. I’m here and you’re there. Know something? I do believe that she could be right there in your own hometown, and you wouldn’t even know it! You had it once, John, but you’ve lost it. Lost it good.”
John waited. “Anything else?”
“Nah. That’s it.” Almost to himself, but with a hint of dismay and disgust, he muttered, “This is a waste of time. A waste of money.” He hung up.
John spent the night thinking about Lily. By dawn he felt a need to see her. Knowing how early she would be leaving if she was working with Maida again, he threw on the nearest clothes, grabbed a down vest, and started the Tahoe. Five minutes later he was turning down the road to Thissen Cove. He was relieved to see the tan wagon beside the cottage.
The sun hadn’t yet risen high enough to provide much warmth. Pulling on the vest, he crossed over the pine needles to the porch. He was up the steps in a single long stride and, seconds later, knocking. There was a movement at the side window, then the door opened.
For a minute, he couldn’t speak. Lily looked frightened and pale—and disheveled enough, sleepy enough to suggest that he had woken her up. She was in her nightgown and had a hand on her chest. Well, not exactly her chest. More like her throat. There was no room for a hand on her chest what with… what with… what with those breasts.
“Has something happened?” she asked in a frightened whisper.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, no. I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t seen the paper.” He swallowed. “Can I come in for a minute?”
She ducked out of sight and returned wrapped in a shawl. When he was inside, she closed the door and crossed to the kitchen counter. She put an old-fashioned coffee percolator under the faucet and filled it with water, put the basket inside, and began scooping coffee.
The sight of bare feet beneath the long nightgown made her look all the more fragile.
Feeling oddly inept, John stood with his hands on the back of one of the ladder-back chairs at the kitchen table. Each of the four chairs was painted a different color. His was dark green. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I figured you might be going to the cider house again. I wanted to catch you before you left.”
She kept on scooping. “Oralee has to go to the dentist, so we’re not starting till nine.”
“How late did you go yesterday?”
“Four.” She capped the coffee can.
“You must have been tired.”
“Yes, but in a good way.” She put the percolator on the stove and lit a flame underneath. Hugging the shawl, she finally turned. “It kept my mind busy.” Her eyes held his. “What’s happened?”
“Terry Sullivan called me yesterday. He said you were married once.”
She didn’t blink. The only visible reaction was a subtle tightening of the hands cinching in the shawl.
“It’s really none of my business—” he began, but she cut in.
“Is he printing it?”
“I doubt it. I don’t think the paper wants more, after what happened to the big story. I thought about calling his editor, but if I went to the effort of saying it wasn’t true, I might have only made him curious.”
“It’s true,” she said. Still holding his gaze, she slipped into the nearest chair—a pale purple one. He saw her inhale, then tip up her chin a fraction. “I was studying art in Mexico the summer after my freshman year. Brad was a senior. I thought I was in love. I’d been so lonely that first year at college that it seemed the perfect thing. We had fun those six weeks. Getting married was part of it. The fun ended the day we got back. He woke up and said he couldn’t be marr
ied to me because he loved someone else.”
John saw hurt, along with a more general embarrassment. Needing to move on, he said, “So you had it annulled.”
“I paid a lawyer to do that, but there was no need. The ceremony wasn’t legal. Brad knew it all along. I felt like a fool.”
“Does anyone here know?”
She shook her head. When a wisp of hair stayed at her mouth, she moved it away. “We did it two days before the summer semester ended. He said we should keep it a secret for a while. That was fine with me. I was afraid of what my parents would say about the rush. Then it didn’t matter.”
She stopped, seeming to hold her breath, waiting. It didn’t take a genius to hear the question she wasn’t asking.
“I won’t tell,” he vowed, but she didn’t look assured. So, without pride, he said, “Donny wasn’t the only Kipling who stole a car—but he was the only one who did it more than once, and the only one who got caught. When I was fourteen, I wanted wheels. My dad wouldn’t even let me drive his truck with him in the cab. So I stole one right from the center of town.”
Lily looked cautiously curious. “Whose?”
“Willie Jake’s.” When her eyes went wide, he laughed. It was part pleasure, part relief. She looked adorable. “Yup. His pride and joy was a sporty little Mustang. He used to leave it parked in front of the office while he did his rounds in the cruiser.”
“In front? How did you steal it with no one seeing?”
“Remember the fire up at the academy? No, you were probably too young, but there was a big fire in one of the dorms—someone smoking and stashing the cig out of sight when the dorm mother came sniffing. The cigarette wasn’t out, the dorm was an old wood house, everyone who might have smelled smoke was either on a lower floor or playing afternoon sports. The place caught like tinder. The town center cleared out—everyone up there making sure every last boy was accounted for. So there was the Mustang with the keys right in the ignition. I drove it all the way around the lake, then up to the mill.”
“Didn’t people there see?”
“I waited around the corner from the office until no one was around the other cars. Then I drove in the parking lot, locked the thing up, and walked off.” She looked like she thought he was crazy. “Well, where would the challenge have been if I’d left it at the end of the lake? A shrink would say that I wanted to get caught, and he’d probably be right, but I wasn’t caught. Willie Jake was furious. He interviewed dozens of us, but he never did find out who drove that car. I snuck in one night and buried the keys in the old stone wall back of his house. To my knowledge he’s never found them. A hundred years from now, a scavenger looking for relics will spot that rock slightly out of place and put a metal detector to it.”
Lake News Page 23