A Gala Event

by Sheila Connolly

  “If you say so,” Bree said. She stood up. “What’s happening with dinner?”

  Seth reemerged from the front of the house. “I just invited Art over, which didn’t make his wife too happy. We have food?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Meg said, and started digging through the refrigerator.

  13

  “Hi, Meg,” Art Preston said as he walked in the back door. “My wife says you owe her big-time, and she’s already thinking about what she wants from you. Hey, Seth.”

  Seth raised his hand in greeting, but Meg rushed to explain. “Hi, Art. I apologize, but all this has come up kind of quickly. I mean, two days ago I had no idea who Aaron Eastman was, and now he’s coming to dinner. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” Meg ended anxiously.

  “Hey, I’ve only seen the guy when he was semiconscious. He had ID on him, and once I figured out who he was, I checked for a record and found that he was a free man. Didn’t know about his Granford history—wow. And then Gail said she and the Historical Society didn’t want to press charges. I didn’t even get a chance to tell Eastman myself, because by the time I got back to the hospital yesterday he’d checked himself out. Since he has no insurance, the hospital didn’t fight too hard to keep him. And of course he didn’t leave any forwarding address. So he popped up here?”

  “Yes, late yesterday. He said he wanted to thank me for saving his life. Maybe that’s an exaggeration.”

  “Maybe not, Meg. If he’d spent another night in that barn, he might not have made it. The hospital had to pump some blood and fluids into him before they stitched him up. But at least they declared him more or less healthy. And then he walked out. Wonder how he found you?”

  “He must have asked somebody. I didn’t even live here when he did, and I don’t have the same name as the people who did. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t even know my name.”

  Seth handed Art a beer. “Just call her ‘Angel of Mercy,’” he said. “So he shows up on the doorstep, and what does she do but invite him in, feed him dinner, and let him bunk on the couch.”

  Meg was beginning to get angry. “Seth, what did you want me to do? He was just out of the hospital, and he had nowhere else to go!”

  Seth backed off quickly at her reaction. “I’m sorry. It was a decent thing to do.”

  “And I had you here to protect me, if he tried anything funny. Which I really don’t think he was in any shape to do.”

  Art regarded them both with amusement. “Can you two stop bickering long enough to tell me why I’m here?”

  “Since I seem to have assumed responsibility for the man, I’ll explain,” Meg said. “Aaron Eastman still doesn’t remember what happened the night of the fire that he’s supposed to have caused. But there’s one item that he does remember from before the fire that’s been bothering him for twenty-five years. He wants to find out if it meant anything, or if it’s just a loose end. He asked us to help. Now we’re asking you to see what files you have or can get, Art.”

  “Meg Corey, you are a piece of work. You’re asking me to look into a cold case that was prosecuted when I was about fifteen? And a guy was convicted and went to prison for?”

  “Exactly. Look, we’re not asking you to investigate, only to find out what records and documents are available and how to get them. The Granford police records, court records, a report on the fire, that kind of thing. Can you do that? Please?”

  “You aren’t going to tell me what he told you about?” Art finally said.

  “No, because it won’t even be in the records, and even he admits it may not be relevant. But Seth and I are coming at this with fresh eyes. The thing is, there might have been questions that weren’t asked, if you know what I mean.”

  Before Art could answer Meg, Seth said, “Art, how well did you know Chief Burchard?”

  “Eben? I’d known him maybe ten years before I took over his job. I worked with him, remember? I can’t say that we socialized—he was a lot older than me.”

  “What kind of a man was he?” Seth pressed.

  Art stared at him, and it wasn’t friendly. “What are you asking? Did someone pay him off? Was he asleep at the wheel? What?”

  “I’m not implying he took bribes—besides, the only people with the money in this story were the Eastmans, and they were dead, so who was going to bribe him? I guess I’m wondering more whether he took the easy way out sometimes. From all I’ve heard, the Eastman fire was pretty cut-and-dried: the fire started, three people died. We don’t have all the details, but the obvious assumption is that the fire caused the deaths. Aaron told us that his drug kit was found in the basement, near where the fire started. Again, the assumption would be that that was where and how the fire started, he panicked and got out fast while the others didn’t, and that’s why he was convicted. But isn’t it possible, just barely, that there was something else going on?”

  “To draw an obvious conclusion is not a sign of bad police work, Seth,” Art said stiffly. “Why should Chief Burchard have looked for complicated explanations when the simplest one fit just fine?”

  “Art, I’m not saying he was wrong. I just want to put Aaron Eastman’s mind to rest. We’re not asking you to involve yourself or any of the town resources, only to get us what documents you can. Any digging to be done, we’ll do it.”

  “And if you find something, it’ll end up in my lap,” Art grumbled.

  Seth grinned at him. “And if we don’t, ours is the only time we’ve wasted. Can you just check the police department’s files? Please?”

  “All right. If you’ll get me another beer and then feed me. At least I can tell my wife with a straight face that this was police business.”

  “Deal.”

  The back door opened, and Aaron Eastman walked in and stopped dead at the sight of Art. “Sorry—am I interrupting something? Wait, do I know you?” he asked Art.

  “I’m the one who hauled you off to the hospital on Friday night, after Meg here found you.” Art stuck out his hand. “Art Preston, Granford chief of police. And apparent sucker for a sob story.”

  After a momentary hesitation, Aaron shook Art’s hand. “You know who I am.”

  “I do.”

  “Did these guys explain why I’m still here?”

  “They tried. Maybe I should hear it from you?”

  “I’m not doing anything illegal, if you’re worried about that,” Aaron said defensively.

  “Nope, I’m just curious,” Art told him. “I count these two”—he nodded at Meg and Seth—“as friends, and you seem to have convinced them of something. So if they trust you, I guess I’ll have to. I’d like to hear your side of it. You stayin’ for dinner?”

  Aaron looked at Meg. “Am I welcome?”

  “Of course you are,” Meg said promptly. “Now all I have to do is figure out what we’re eating.”

  “I vote for pizza,” Seth said. “Saves time and effort.”

  “That okay?” Meg asked the group. She got nods all around. “Then pizza it is. What do you all want on yours?”

  They spent a couple of minutes working out toppings, and then Seth phoned in an order and agreed to pick it up. When he was finished, he gestured to the others to sit, and then he sat down as well. “Bree told us you were alpaca-wrangling today. How’d that go?”

  “Silly-looking animals,” Aaron said, “but they’re nice enough. The fencing over at the Gardners’ place is a joke, for anything bigger than a bunny rabbit. They asked if I’d be willing to repair the whole thing, and said they’d pay a fair rate. I had to tell them about my past, but they didn’t seem worried about it. And they’ve got a spare room out in their barn—I guess the place used to have a resident farmhand before they bought it. Add a space heater, and it’ll be fine. I hope you don’t think I’m not grateful to you, but I’m kind of looking forward to working outside for a while.
Anybody see any problems with that?”

  “I think it’s great, Aaron,” Meg said before anyone else could speak. “The alpacas are cute, but I’m getting a little tired of finding them in my backyard. How long do you think it will take?”

  “No idea. But they quoted me a flat rate for the job, plus the room, so it’s not like I’d be shafting them by stringing out my time.” He looked at the faces around the table. “If we solve anything here, or find out it’s a dead end, I’ll make sure the job is finished before I leave.”

  “Aaron, no one was thinking that you’d abuse their trust,” Meg said. “But it might be a good thing if you were sticking around for a couple of weeks. Look, we’ve just told Art here that you asked us to look into something that was bothering you from before the fire, but we didn’t give him the details. Are you willing to lay it out for him?”

  Aaron shrugged. “Why not? There’s nothing that can be used against me. Art, sorry if I don’t have a very high opinion of local cops, but nobody ever really asked me about my side of the story. I’m not saying it would have made any difference in the end, but it was my life that they were screwing with, and it would have been nice to be heard.”

  “Aaron, I don’t know the history of the case,” Art told him. “You can tell me whatever you want; I’ll listen.”

  Aaron started in on his saga once again, after accepting a beer from Meg. Seth had heard it before, so he went off after about fifteen minutes to pick up the pizzas. Listening to the story, Meg didn’t hear any changes from the first version, but it was a pretty simple story, and Aaron had finished before Seth returned with dinner.

  Aaron’s tone remained flat throughout his narrative, almost as though he was describing someone else’s story. Of course, he’d no doubt gone over it hundreds of times in his head, so he would know it by heart. He ended without fanfare, and looked at Art, waiting for a reaction. Meg knew that Art was a fair man, so she was equally curious to see what he would say.

  Finally Art spoke. “Let me get this straight, Aaron. You don’t remember what happened, but you do admit the drug stuff was yours and you used in the basement, where the fire started. You don’t remember anything about earlier in the day, and you have a fuzzy memory of waking up outside on the lawn while the fire was at its peak. Have I got that right?”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Aaron began, but Art stopped him with a raised hand.

  “In the interest of fairness, I’ll admit that I’ve heard that a traumatic event can interfere with short-term memory, and add drugs to that and maybe I’ll buy your I don’t remember story. But it seems to me that your idea that there’s some secret hiding in these documents is pretty thin.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Aaron shot back. “But it’s the only thing out of the ordinary that I can remember from right before the fire. Look, I spent more time with Gramma than with anybody else in the family. She was acting odd about those boxes.”

  Art nodded noncommittally. “So you’re thinking that there was something fishy going on in the family, and that your grandmother knew something about it, and that these mystery boxes she told you to deliver might have some of the details? That’s kind of a big leap of logic, you know.”

  “That’s the only explanation I’ve come up with,” Aaron said. “Unless Gramma had gone senile all of a sudden, but I didn’t see anything like that. She wanted to be sure whatever was in those boxes was safe and out of the house.”

  Art was now in full cop mode, and Meg was glad to see that he was slipping from a guest role into that of an interrogator. “What would she have wanted to hide? Something valuable? Stolen? What did the boxes feel like?”

  “Sort of heavy, I guess. Like stacks of paper or books. Not like wrapped-up objects, unless they were made of metal, which would’ve made noise. We’d already cleared out her house, and my folks weren’t much into collecting things. If I had to bet, I’d say paper.”

  “And she never explained?”

  Aaron shook his head. “She didn’t. But then, she didn’t say, Don’t tell your parents about this. It was more the way she gave them to me. Anxious, I guess. Maybe somewhere she left a note explaining what was in them, but it would have been in the house, so it’s long gone.”

  “Did she have a lawyer? A will?” Art asked.

  “Toward the end she was pretty much stuck in the house; she didn’t drive anymore. She did have a will, but it was one of those real simple ones that said something like, I leave everything to my only daughter, and so on. I found a blank form at the library and copied it for her, but she didn’t ask for help filling it out. I can’t tell you if she added anything to that, but she would have had no reason to tell me anyway. Was it ever found?”

  Art shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably destroyed in the fire, unless she had a safe deposit box somewhere, or maybe a lawyer. Did she still get mail?”

  “Sure,” Aaron replied. “She wasn’t like a prisoner. It was her physical mobility that was a problem—she was past eighty—but her mind was okay. Look, Chief, the more I tell this story out loud, the sillier it sounds, even to me. I was stoned most of the time, so maybe I added something, or, more likely, forgot something. Or I was just paranoid, seeing things that weren’t there. Maybe those boxes really were nothing more important than her diaries. I’d just like to know.”

  Seth arrived with the pizzas. Meg doled out paper plates and more drinks, and called upstairs to Bree, who’d been in her room to avoid the whole discussion with Art, to alert her that food was on the table. Bree came down, grabbed a couple of slices, then retreated to her room again. Once everyone had food in front of them, Art cleared his throat, and the other three turned in unison to hear what he was going to say.

  Art laughed at their response. “Hey, guys, I’m not about to make some big pronouncement here. This is all new to me, remember? But I’ll tell you what I’ve got so far. The most important thing is to find those boxes, and you’ve already got Gail working on that. She’s probably the only person who has a hope of tracking them down. Okay.” Art held up one hand and started ticking off points on his fingers. “So either she can’t find them, and the story’s over.” One finger. “Or she can find them, and there’s nothing important in them.” A second finger. “Or she finds them and we get a real surprise and this whole thing blows wide open.” And he opened his hand wide as if mimicking an explosion. “If that happens, we can all reconsider. Tomorrow I’ll track down our in-house files on the fire—you’re lucky there, Aaron, because when we moved into the new building a year or more ago, we did go through the files and sort them, and since we had room, at least for now, we kept them within the department. So it won’t take me long to find what you need. Then we wait on Gail. Now can we eat?”

  “Thank you, Art. I appreciate it,” Aaron said quietly.

  Art waved a slice of pizza toward Meg and Seth. “Thank these two.”

  Aaron smiled at them and went back to eating.

  14

  Not long after Art had left, Meg was startled to see Lydia’s face at the back door. When Meg let her in, Lydia said cheerfully, “I thought I’d bring you that recipe you asked for earlier.”

  Meg stifled a laugh. “Yes, Lydia, you may come in and meet Aaron.”

  “Am I that bad a liar?” Lydia walked into the kitchen. “Hello, Aaron, I’m Lydia Chapin, Seth’s mother. I just didn’t want you to feel like some zoo specimen that everyone had to inspect. But Meg’s told me about what’s going on with you, and I’d like to help. I knew your parents slightly, but we weren’t exactly friends.”

  Aaron had stood up when Lydia entered—those good manners again—and he extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Chapin. I don’t mind; I guess I’m pretty much a curiosity around here.”

  “Lydia, please. Well, it’s rude, but I thought I should at least see you face-to-face, if I’m digging into the details of your personal life.” />
  “Have you eaten, Mom?” Seth asked. “I’m sorry we ate all the pizza.”

  “Yes, I waited until I thought you’d be done. And I’ll be on my way—it’s getting late. But I’m glad to have finally met you, Aaron.”

  “Thank you for your help, Lydia. I appreciate it.”

  “Will you be staying around long?”

  Aaron looked at Meg and Seth before replying. “I . . . don’t know. A couple of weeks, anyway.”

  “Then I’ll probably be seeing you again. Night, all.” With that Lydia breezed out the way she had come in.

  “Sorry,” Seth said. “I was going to call her, but we got busy. I hope you don’t mind, Aaron. We weren’t planning to drag all of Granford into this.”

  “I know. No problem,” Aaron said, and lapsed into silence.

  The rest of the evening passed cordially, and Meg was pleased. Aaron left first, pleading a need for sleep; Seth told him he’d try to find him some additional clothes, and offered to direct him to local supply stores so he could get the materials he would need for the fence repair project.

  “You have a way to get around?” Seth asked.

  “Yeah, the Gardners have an old pickup they said I could use to haul supplies. I didn’t drive over tonight because I like walking back and forth to this place—clears my head.”

  Art had left, but he had agreed to help, within limits, and Meg couldn’t ask for more. Now the next step rested on Gail’s shoulders. No, that was a confused metaphor, Meg realized; she must be more tired than she thought. So, she would call Gail in the morning, after she’d sent her kids off to school. And she’d keep her fingers crossed that the boxes would turn up somewhere. And maybe she’d bake something and take it over to the Gardners, to thank them for offering Aaron work, and to welcome them to the neighborhood—and to check out the alpaca herd. She was having trouble imagining a whole bunch of the silly fuzzy creatures together.