I’d picked up a few brochures at the dealership, so while Aunt Ibby leafed through the colorful pages of pictures of the Corvette, I told her all about it. “I can hardly wait to take you for a ride, Aunt Ibby. You’re going to love it.”
“From the looks of these pictures, I think your Johnny would have loved it.”
“He would have,” I agreed. “He left me with a passion for fast cars, that’s for sure.”
“Your daddy would have loved it, too,” she said. “He had a Corvette, you know.”
“Daddy had one?” I was surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. It was bright yellow, just like his plane. A 1986 Stingray Corvette. You were probably too little to remember it.” She nodded. “How he loved that car. And you, in your little car seat, squealing with delight whenever he took you for a ride.”
“I like it that he had one. Maybe it’s a genetic thing.”
I told her about picking up the coat that wasn’t Bill’s, but there didn’t seem to be a gentle way to tell the truth about the green car—to let her know that it was she who was being followed. So I just blurted out the whole story. “It seems Mr. Pennington thinks he’s in love with you.” I described how Pete had chased the Ford and unmasked the bearded driver. “And when we saw him later at the tavern, he behaved as though nothing had happened.”
I watched her face. At first her eyes narrowed, and her mouth formed a straight line. She swallowed a couple of times, then lowered her head and began to chuckle softly. “He actually wore a fake beard and a wig?” She rocked back and forth and laughed out loud. “He was creeping around, watching to be sure I didn’t have any boyfriends lurking in the bushes? The damned old fool!”
Her hilarity was contagious, and I found myself giggling along with her at the silliness of the whole thing, my anxiety melting away. Between gasps of laughter, she said, “Maralee, I haven’t had a man behaving so foolishly over me since third grade, when Billy Stewart wrote, ‘I love Isobel’ in colored chalk all over the sidewalk in front of our house.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked. “Are you going to tell him I told you about it?”
She wiped her eyes. “I’m going to do just what he’s doing. I’m going to behave as though nothing has happened. And I’m going to that Woody Allen Film Festival with him.” Smiling, she shook her head. “The damned old fool.”
I told her then about Thom and how we’d seen him crying at the funeral and how he’d called Joe and said he couldn’t work, because he was sick. “But Mr. Pennington saw him near the train station, and he was carrying a suitcase,” I said. “Some of the others think he’s gone to New York.”
“What do you think?” she asked. “Would he do that without telling anyone?”
“It seems out of character to me,” I said. “Kelly says he’d never leave without telling her. She felt terrible about it. Says he’s her best friend.”
“Poor Kelly.”
“I know. Then Mr. Pennington quoted some line about best friends from Fried Green Tomatoes. Said you would have recognized it in a minute.”
“I found out what the secret to life is. Friends. Best friends,” she said. “Jessica Tandy.”
“You’re a wonder.”
“Yes, I am,” she said, smiling. “I suppose with all this going on, you’ll have some notes for your index cards.”
“I’ve already written a few,” I said, pulling the rubber-banded pile from my purse and showing her the half dozen cards I’d filled out. “I’ll do one more about Thom being missing. Can you think of anything else?”
“Not offhand,” she said. “I’ll go back to the library on Monday and dig around in the vertical files some more. It’s been fascinating to research so far.”
“It seems that Primrose has an interest in research, too,” I told her. “She’s helping a friend who’s working on a book about America’s most attractive presidents. She’s planning a trip to the JFK library, and she’s already done the FDR library in New York. She may ask you for some help with the project.”
“The Roosevelt library, hmm? He keeps turning up lately, doesn’t he? Tell her I’ll be glad to help.”
We climbed the stairs together, with O’Ryan scampering ahead. Just as we reached the top, Aunt Ibby snapped her fingers.
“Maralee, there was one thing I found in the vertical files that has me puzzled.”
“What’s that?”
“It was a birthday card sent to Tabitha, signed ‘Love, Ma.’”
“A card from her mother? What puzzled you about it?”
“It was one of those Disney cards, with a picture of the Little Mermaid on it.”
“Ariel. Cute.”
“Maralee, that movie came out in nineteen-eighty-nine. Tabitha died a few years after that. So how old would that make her mother?”
Was it possible that Tabitha’s mother had lived to be that old? If Tabitha was in her eighties when she received the birthday card, and her mother had married young, say, at sixteen or seventeen, it was surely a possibility. After all, Megan was over a hundred.
“I guess she could have been in her late nineties,” I said as we paused outside my bedroom door. “But where was she? Was there a postmark on the envelope?”
“No. I’m afraid some stamp collector had cut it out,” my aunt said. “They do that. Take the whole top of the envelope. No stamp. No postmark. No return address.”
“It all just gets more confusing, doesn’t it. Good-night, Aunt Ibby.”
O’Ryan ran ahead of me into the bedroom, staking out his spot at the foot of the bed. I turned on the TV—he seemed to enjoy it—then sat at my desk and spread out my growing collection of index cards in a random configuration.
I sat there staring at the cards, registering nothing at all. A delicate tap at my door roused me from the so far fruitless effort.
“Maralee? Are you still awake?”
“Sure. Not even undressed yet. Come on in.”
My aunt hadn’t changed into nightclothes, either. She waved a sheet of copier paper. “Look at this. I couldn’t wait to find out about Tabitha’s mother. I went online and looked her up. It was easy. I know exactly where she was when that card was sent.”
“You do? Where?”
“Greenlawn Cemetery. Been there since nineteen forty-seven.”
CHAPTER 23
I lay in my comfortable bed with a warm cat curled up on my feet, trying to make sense of that topsy-turvy day. Jumbled thoughts of a teary-eyed bartender, a joyous freeway ride, a folded brown jacket, an unmasked aunt stalker, maps of Salem, old and new, and a dead woman’s dead mother’s birthday greeting tumbled around in my brain like fractured images in a kaleidoscope.
Put first things first, I told my inner Nancy. What’s the most important thing?
Clearly, the answer was to find out what had happened to Thom.
Where has he gone? Why was he crying? Is he all right wherever he is ?
With a vow to start finding answers to those questions in the morning, I fell into an uneasy sleep.
I awoke the next day to the sound of robins squabbling as they stripped red berries from a winterberry bush below my window. A glance at the clock told me it was too early to call Thom’s mother, but not too early to call Primrose—the only other person in the class who’d talked about New York. If that was where Thom had gone, maybe she’d have some idea of where he might be.
It was a good guess. Primrose and Thom had had several conversations about the Big Apple, one quite recently.
“He asked me if I knew any agents,” she said. “I don’t, but I knew a couple of models who have agents, and I gave him their numbers. But hell, I thought he was just getting info for the future.”
“Do you have any idea where he might be staying? Does he know anybody there?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “God, Lee. That city’s no place for a beautiful boy like Thom to be wandering around by himself. Does he have any money?”
“I think he must. He seems to be saving all his pay from the tavern. I’m going to call Joe and see what he thinks,” I said. “I’m really worried about him.”
“Me too,” she said. “Let me know if you find out anything. I’ll see you tomorrow at school. Is Councilor Whatshisname still on?”
Councilor Whatshisname? Come on, Primrose!
“Councilor Wilson. Yes, as far as I know, he’ll be there at nine tomorrow.”
I said good-bye to Primrose and rang Joe Greene.
“Greene’s Tavern, where the elite meet. Joe Greene speakin’,” Joe said.
“It’s Lee Barrett, Joe,” I said. “I’m worried about Thom. Have you heard anything?”
“Not a word. Guess I’ll have to see about getting Duke to work Thom’s schedule. I mean, until he turns up.”
“Have you talked to Thom’s mother?” I asked.
“Sure. Freaked the poor lady out. She thought he’d come to work as usual and spent the night here. He does that sometimes.”
“She had no idea where he was?”
“Nope.”
“Do you think he had enough money to leave town, Joe?”
“Well, he stopped by here yesterday morning and asked for his paycheck.” He paused. “Besides that, he’s been savin’ for a long time. If he cashed in everything, he’s got quite a lot.”
“Thanks, Joe. You’ll be sure to let me know if you hear anything, won’t you?”
“Sure thing.”
At least if Thom was in a strange place, he had enough money for a hotel room. That made me feel a little better. If we didn’t hear from Thom soon, I’d get those models’ numbers from Primrose and see if they’d heard from him.
Next puzzle piece. Who would sign a card “Ma” when the recipient’s real mother was dead? A mother-in-law? No. Oliver Wendell Trumbull’s mother would have been even older than Tabitha’s. The captain’s wife? Tabitha was in correspondence with her, at least to the extent of sending her money, most likely in the form of twenty-dollar gold pieces. They could very well have been on a greeting card–sending basis. Could the woman have been nicknamed “Ma”? Sometimes people with a lot of kids answer to the name, and we knew she had at least four. Worth checking.
What about that brown jacket? If it wasn’t Bill’s, whose was it? Somebody had dressed him in it, dragged him through the tunnel, and left him in the park. Maybe the police could find some evidence on the jacket, even though Mrs. Sullivan had laundered it so carefully.
At least I wouldn’t have to worry about the green car anymore. No doubt Mr. Pennington would be able to walk right up to our front door from now on.
O’Ryan and I went downstairs together. Still in pajamas, I picked up the Sunday Globe from the front steps and started the coffeemaker, hoping for a normal Sunday with aunt and cat—and without any more random puzzle pieces. I prepared O’Ryan’s breakfast, poured myself a cup of coffee, and opened the paper.
“You two are up early.” My aunt helped herself to a cup and joined me at the kitchen table. “Didn’t you sleep well?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just had a lot on my mind last night. Mostly I was worried about Thom.” I told her about my conversations with Joe Greene and Primrose.
“He’s a grown-up young man,” she said. “Undoubtedly, he’s just gone off to seek his fortune, as they used to say. He’ll get in touch with you soon, I’m sure. May I please have the crossword puzzle section?”
I searched through the paper and pulled out the Lifestyle section. As I handed it to her, a headline caught my eye. BOSTON COIN COLLECTORS’ CONVENTION DRAWS CROWDS. A black-and-white photo at the head of the column showed a group of people looking at a display of coins.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Do we have a magnifying glass?”
“Look in the junk drawer,” she said.
I looked among the safety pins, paper clips, bottle openers, pens, and pencils and found a big, long-handled one worthy of Sherlock Holmes. “Perfect,” I said and held it over the photo. “Yes. I’m pretty sure that’s him.”
“Who?” she asked, looking over my shoulder.
“I could be wrong,” I admitted, “but that looks a lot like Mr. Friedrich. The Treasury man we saw across from the funeral home. What do you suppose he’s doing there?”
“I suppose the Treasury Department has a particular interest in coins,” she said, perfectly logically. “Or maybe he’s just a collector. It’s a very popular hobby, you know.”
“Hmm. Maybe. But I’m going to fill out a card about it, anyway.”
“Good idea,” she said. “Will you get me a pen while you’ve got the junk drawer open?” Not too many people work the Globe crosswords in ink, but my aunt does. She looked up from the paper. “Funny how certain topics keep coming up in our conversations lately, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. Like coins.”
“And President Roosevelt,” she added.
“And the tunnels.”
O’Ryan pushed his empty bowl to one side with his nose, meowed something that sounded very much like “Ma,” and formed his long tail into a question mark.
“Right, O’Ryan,” my aunt said, not looking up from her paper and without a trace of surprise in her voice. “Ma too.”
“You sound as though you think he’s really speaking English,” I said, reluctant to admit that I had often thought the same thing.
“Of course he is,” she said. “What other language would he know?”
I shook my head. “Want to drive over to the Chevy dealership and see my new car after breakfast?” I asked. “I can’t pick it up until tomorrow, but I’d like to show it off.”
“Love to,” she said. “And you know what? I’d like to get a peek at Greene’s Tavern, too. A lot of the buildings in that part of town date back to the seventeen hundreds.”
“Looks pretty old to me,” I said. “And you can meet Joe Greene. Interesting guy. Used to be a coal miner, you know.”
“Really? From coal miner to tavern host. Quite a career switch.”
“The coal mining was starting to affect his lungs,” I told her. “He and Kelly both feel better here.”
“I imagine they would,” she said. “Good New England salt air can do wonders.”
“After we eat and get dressed,” I said, “we’ll go for a ride and breathe some of it.”
I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had the sports car I’d always wanted, a volunteer position doing something useful, a fine old home to live in, an aunt I adored, a handsome man in my life, and even a most remarkable cat. The weather felt almost springlike, the robins had started to arrive from the south, and—index cards be damned—my life in Salem at that moment was sweet.
Aunt Ibby finished the crossword to her satisfaction—which meant correctly, in ink. I’d dressed in jeans, a red sweater, and my NASCAR jacket, and within the hour we were in the Buick, on the way to visit the Corvette.
My salesman greeted us with a big smile, told Aunt Ibby about the great trade-in possibilities of her Buick, and escorted us to the detailing department, where my car was getting what amounted to an automotive spa treatment.
“Oh my, what a lovely color,” she said. “You always did look pretty in blue.”
“Anybody would look good in this car,” I said, stepping back to admire it again. “I’ll take you for a ride as soon as it’s officially mine.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” she said. “Shall we go to visit the Greenes now?”
With a promise to return on Monday to seal the deal, Aunt Ibby and I left the dealership and headed for Greene’s Tavern.
We arrived just before noon. There were only a few cars in the parking lot, so I was quite sure Joe Greene would have time to talk with us before he got too busy with customers.
“What a charming building,” Aunt Ibby said as we approached the door. “Mid-eighteen hundreds, I’d guess.”
Joe was alone behind the bar, polishing glasses. He looked up when we entered. “Goo
d morning, Ms. Barrett,” he said. “Surprised to see you here so early.”
“My aunt is interested in this handsome old building, Joe. Aunt Ibby, meet Joe Greene. Joe, this is my aunt, Isobel Russell.”
Joe wiped his hands on his apron and reached across the bar to shake hands. “Welcome to Greene’s Tavern, Miss Russell. Yep, me and Kelly, we really like the old place. I’ll have Kelly show you around if you like.”
“Thank you, Mr. Greene. How old is it? Do you know?” Aunt Ibby said.
“It says eighteen forty-something on the deed. Hey, Kelly!”
I hadn’t seen her at first, but Kelly’s head popped up from one of the booths. “What? Oh, hi, Ms. Barrett. Come back for your sunglasses?”
“Actually, I brought my aunt for a visit, but I’ll take them. Thanks. Come meet her. She’s interested in learning about your tavern.”
Introductions made, Kelly began what sounded very much like a prepared speech. “The house was built in eighteen forty-three,” she began. “It was the home of a Salem merchant and ship owner named Zephaniah Smith.” She gestured for us to follow her toward the fireplace.
“You sound as though you’ve done this before,” I said.
“Oh, sure. People ask about it all the time. I found an old script about the place all typed out when we first got here. I’ve read it so many times, I’ve got it memorized.”
“Remarkable,” Aunt Ibby said. “Was it always a tavern? I don’t remember seeing it before.”
“No. Just a house. This used to be the living room and the old kitchen.” Her gesture included the length of the room. “Pa took out some walls and built the bar and the booths, and he cleared a whole bunch of trees in the backyard for a parking lot. It was a lot of work, huh, Pa?”
“Lots of work is right, honey,” Joe said. “But the place had been pretty well maintained all those years. Taxes paid, lawn mowed, curtains in the windows.”
“How fortunate you were to find such a place for sale,” Aunt Ibby said.
Tails, You Lose (A Witch City Mystery Book 2) Page 19