by Justin Scott
“So where did you think Ron was?”
“I couldn’t find him in the house. I supposed he had gone running, and I knew that if he came back and saw your car he would come quietly. It’s a big house.”
“And that’s what you told the police?”
“Would you please go away now?”
“I’m sorry for what I did.”
“You’ve got to live with it,” she said. “I’ve got my own problems.”
“Would you answer one more question?”
“I’m going in.” She turned and headed up the steps.
“But they don’t believe you,” I called after her. She kept going. When she reached the door I ran up behind her. “Could your husband have killed Ron?”
“Jack was in Washington.”
“I know. But if he weren’t, could he?”
I thought she was going to tell me to hit the road again. Instead, she answered reflectively. “I asked myself that a thousand times, sitting in that cell.”
“And?”
“Could he pull the trigger? I don’t know.”
“Or have hired a killer to shoot Ron?”
“I don’t even know the answer to that. I ask these questions and I wonder how well do you know somebody if you can’t answer such a question.”
“How long were you married?”
She stood on the door sill, looking down on me, shaking her head. “Nine years. I still can’t answer the question.”
“Did your lawyers pose it to the cops?”
“They’re Jack’s lawyers too.”
“And Rose is his detective.”
“Jack told me he wants to work things out.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I am numb, Ben. I feel nothing.”
It struck me as a dangerous mood in her position. Before I could voice that caution, however, Rita mused, “The thing I can’t understand is, I always had a funny feeling that Jack…” She looked at me and said, “Why am I telling you this? Good night. Goodbye—Oh, and you can take your testimony and shove it.”
She plunged inside, slamming the door.
I walked down to my car and called her on the phone. On the fourth ring the machine picked up. I said, “It’s Ben Abbott.”
She broke in. “What?”
“What were you saying a minute ago? The thing you couldn’t understand? A funny feeling that Jack…something?”
“I was just thinking about how Ron and I met.”
“How’d you meet?”
I figured she’d hang up on me. Instead she groaned, aloud, then sighed. “Do you want some more tea?”
“Thanks.”
I walked back to the house.
“This has got to be the weirdest relationship,” she said. “Voyeur and object.”
“I’m not a voyeur. You are not an object. And this is not a relationship.”
I followed her into her beautiful kitchen. She looked around like a stranger. “Are you hungry, by any chance?” I asked.
“Suddenly. Maybe there’s some cheese.”
I opened the refrigerator. She gaped at the interior, bright with greens and meat packages. “What’s this?”
“Groceries. They sell them in the Grand Union. The receipt is on the counter.”
She picked it up and read the printout.
“What about the wine?”
“On me. How about a veal burger?”
***
I had noticed the day Ron was shot that someone—possibly her architect—had installed a splendid spice rack beside the refrigerator. I worked tarragon, anise, caraway, parsley, and a little salt, pepper, and garlic into the ground veal, formed patties, and let them sit while I washed the arugula, cross-cut the endive, and threw some garlic into a lean oil-and- vinegar mix.
“Exhaust fan?”
Rita turned it on. It had the fan outside the house, silent but powerful enough to vent a burning oil well. I had seen the switch myself, but I wanted her involved. I heated the smallest pan I could find—just big enough for the two thick patties—salted the bottom, and tossed them in.
“Don’t you want oil?” she asked.
“The salt keeps them from sticking.”
I seared both sides, turned the heat down, and let them cook a moment longer. Rita wanted to know how I had learned to cook. “Living alone, it was that or starve.”
I opened the wine and we sat on stools across the kitchen worktable and ate. “God, that’s good,” she said.
“Compared to the Plainfield County hoosegow?”
“Compared to anything. You just buy veal and do that?”
“Your spice rack gets the credit.”
“Thanks.”
“You can do something similar with the chicken breast I left you. Just lightly coat the pan with butter or oil first.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You never cook?”
“We have a cook in New York. I just haven’t decided if I want one living in the house up here. I was enjoying my privacy,” she added with a thin smile.
“Did you have one in Greenwich?”
“Oh yes. We did a lot of entertaining. With Stamford and New York so close, we did business in Greenwich.”
She finished her salad. I passed her the Grand Union French bread and refilled her wineglass. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
I was surprised. It wasn’t that she looked older. It was just the way she handled herself. “You were twenty when you married Jack?”
“Yes. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sorry. You were going to tell me how you met Ron.”
“Yes, I was. Wasn’t I? I was thinking about how Jack introduced us. Right after he made his deal to buy Ron’s factory, I gave a celebration dinner. Small dinner party, just us and the lawyers and one accountant from each side. Anyway, that afternoon, before the dinner, I was just finishing with the cook and housekeeper, and I was about to do the placecards. I always do them myself. As far as I’m concerned the food can suck, but if you put people in the right seat they’ll remember a good time.”
I suddenly felt sympathy for Jack Long. She might have married him at twenty, but she had grown up fast. She’d smooth his hard edges and make up for his busy-businessman bad manners and stroke the people he dealt with.
“Anyway, Jack called from New York. He said Ron had just flown in from Hong Kong and was wiped, so he was sending him on ahead. Could I set up a guest room? A few minutes later the limo arrived. He’d fallen asleep in the car and he got out all woozy, looking about fourteen. I thought, Oh, God, gorgeous…You gotta know, Ben, I did not play around. Ever. But here’s this guy who really…Well, you know. Anyway, I knew trouble when I saw it. I sent him upstairs with the housekeeper. And an hour before the guests were to arrive, I told her to bring him some coffee. Ron came down all fresh and clean in a great-looking suit and we just sat and talked.”
“You were already dressed for dinner?” I asked.
“I dressed early. By the time Jack got home, Ron and I were friends. It was a great party. Everyone was pleased with the deal and all.” She fell silent.
“Then what happened?”
“Jack went to Washington. When he left, he invited Ron to stay at the house.”
“When was this?”
“Just last year.”
“You already had this place?”
“We were finishing it. We stayed in the Greenwich house until this was done.”
I nodded. Most of the people I sell houses to are pretty well fixed, but few can afford three places at once. In fact, I see quite a few sales fall through because the buyer can’t unload his own house in time for a closing.
“So Ron stayed in Greenwich,” Rita continued. “All very on the up and up. I took him to dinner at the club. And sailing with friends. Jack flew out to Hong Kong. Ron took polo lessons. Broke his hand. That seemed like a reas
on to stay longer. And one morning we ended up in bed.”
“Morning?”
“I brought him coffee.”
I looked away.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sounds like fun.”
“As you saw,” she answered with a bitter smile.
“I didn’t see anything. I just imagined.”
Rita reached for the wine bottle. I emptied it into our glasses. She sipped hers and said, “The thing is, looking back, I have the funniest feeling that Jack deliberately threw us together.”
“Deliberately?”
“He made it very easy. Looking back, it was almost like he wanted us to have an affair.”
“Were you getting along?”
“Oh, sure. We always got along. I mean, we didn’t fight. We didn’t love much either, but we didn’t fight. My mother remarked once that we had an old-fashioned 1950s corporate marriage. You know, hubby at the office, wifey holding down the social fort. It worked. For eight years, anyway.”
“Why would Jack throw you together?”
“I don’t know. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Maybe he’s having an affair?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe he is and wanted you out of the way. Figured to ease you into an affair with Ron and file for divorce. Possible?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You told me you weren’t sleeping together.”
“I looked for signs. I didn’t see him look suddenly younger or happier. You know what I’m saying?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Maybe I should hire a detective too.”
“But Jack’s standing by you. He told you he wants to work things out.”
“Maybe he felt he had to say that before they bailed me out. I mean, he’s a decent man. How could he tell me he was divorcing me when I was locked up in a cell?”
“You wouldn’t be the first prisoner to get a Dear Jane letter.”
“Maybe so. But when I got out today he still said he was on my side.”
“You said he went to New York to think. What’s he thinking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want?”
“I want Ron back alive.” She started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks for cooking dinner. I’m tired. I want to go to bed. Thanks for coming over.”
I said, “I will testify for you if you think it will help.”
“I don’t want to think about it now.”
“No rush. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“How?”
“Maybe they won’t indict.”
“Maybe raccoons will fly.”
I got up and headed for the door. “That’s okay. I’ll find my way.”
She tagged along and opened the front door, a massive iron-strapped affair with hobnails. I’d seen a similar one once guarding Edinburgh Castle.
“I’m sorry about telling you to shove your testimony.”
“I’m sorry I did what I did.”
“I was really upset. I know you wouldn’t have done it if you’d known me.”
I wished her good luck. I almost bent to kiss her cheek, but she suddenly looked frail and tired and I didn’t think it would help.
Chapter 13
Early next morning, Wednesday, I took the remote phone out to my cutting garden and moseyed barefoot on the cedar mulch. Sheltered north and west from early frosts by the stone foundation of an old outhouse, the garden was still producing mums, roses, snaps, some weary cosmos, and even a late surge of balloon flowers. Aunt Connie telephoned at seven to remind me of our lunch date with my mother.
“Shall I drive?” asked Connie.
“Oh, I’ll drive.”
As we fox-trotted through that ritual, I held the phone in the crook of my neck and deadheaded the mums, which had exploded while I’d been chasing Renny’s ghost.
“Well all right, if you prefer.…Would you like to drive my car?”
I told her that I’d be delighted, cautioning, “If you warm it first, Connie, please remember to open the stable doors.”
“I’ll remember. You told me that Sunday. I’m not an idiot, I’m just old. What are you bringing your mother?”
“White roses.” They were her favorite John F. Kennedy hybrid teas. I had asked when she moved to Frenchtown if she wouldn’t like to take her prized roses. “You can bring me flowers,” had answered wise mother she.
“What are you bringing?” I asked Connie.
“There’s a pie in the oven. My russets are almost ripe.”
I suppressed a groan. Her Roxbury Russet apple trees were enormous, and the thought of her on a ladder…“I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty.”
“Now listen to me,” she said. “I’m told your mother is very upset about Renny Chevalley. This latest…‘event’ will only make things worse.”
“What event?”
“You know very well what event.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“It’s all over town. You’ve been calling on the Long woman.”
The Fish Line was bottom-trolling. I said, “‘Calling on’ implies a connection that isn’t there, Aunt Connie.”
“People are talking.”
“People should mind their own business.”
“People should also obey the Ten Commandments, but they don’t, so we accommodate reality. The point I am making, Ben, is that you ought to try and put your mother’s mind at ease. She’s a worrier. Let her see you at the top of your form.”
I went back to my flowers.
“Morning, Ben.” Scooter MacKay’s big voice boomed across the fence.
I snipped three red American Promises and brought them over for Eleanor. Scooter was juggling a cup of coffee and his morning cigarette, which Eleanor does not allow him to smoke indoors. Come winter you’ll see him smoking in the snow. I laid the roses atop the hedge. Eleanor knew to cut them again when she put them in water. Scooter gave me a broad wink. “I hear your friend’s out on bail.”
“Are you publishing that?”
“That she’s your friend or that she’s out on bail?”
“Publish that she’s my friend and I’ll sue you.”
“Would you trammel a free press?”
“Cheerfully.”
Scooter indulged me with a laugh. The Clarion’s crime column inclined toward moving-violation stories, spiced with colorful quotes from Trooper Moody in the mode of “cited for failure to keep left.” This week I anticipated a page-two item headed “Deaths Fail to Mar Cookout Weekend.”
“Steve Greenan says she’s a knockout.”
“The doctor is right. She’s also in love with the guy she’s supposed to have shot.”
“Do you think she did him?”
“No way.”
“How come they arrested her?”
“She’s rich and beautiful.”
“I hear her fingerprints were on the gun.”
“Scooter, could you hit a buck at eighty yards with a slug?”
“Sure, if he walked into it.”
“It’s long range, isn’t it?”
In his youth, Scooter MacKay had been a legendary hunter. Even Chevalley boys would walk the woods with him. But like a lot of us brought up to hunt, he had lost the cold, blind eye. “Depends on the loads. And the gun, of course,” he said. “But it’s long.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Did you happen to notice the make of the gun?”
“Ithaca Deerslayer. Twelve-gauge.”
“That’s a fine shotgun,” Scooter mused. “First shotgun specifically designed for deer slugs.”
“But eighty yards is still long range.”
“When they test-fired the Ithaca at a hundred yards they got a seven-inch vertical spread. Six horizontal.”
“From a bench.”
/> “But your friend nailed him at eighty.”
“She’s not my ‘friend.’ And she didn’t ‘nail’ him at any yards.”
“That’s fine shooting. Wonder who taught her.”
I changed the subject.
“What’s the word on the new medical examiner? Do you think his autopsy will stand up?” Steve and the other doctors who part-timed as assistant medical examiners did the field work. The M.E. conducted postmortems at the Plainfield morgue.
“Name’s DeAngelo. He wrote the book. One of the top medical examiners in the country.”
“What the hell’s he doing in Plainfield?”
“He retired from Boston. His family had a summer place there.”
“So he’s pretty old. Maybe he’s losing it.”
Scooter smiled. “I met him at the animal shelter benefit up there. The man’s pushing fifty, at least. He might be as old as fifty-two.”
“Terrific.”
Scooter took a last drag on his cigarette and announced in a voice that carried to the flagpole, “Your lawn looks like hell.”
“I gave up the weed service.”
“Bad move.”
“I had second thoughts about putting all that poison in the ground.”
“Notice you’re spending less on ads too.”
“They were drawing zip.”
Scooter shrugged. He can afford to. He hires out the Clarion’s presses to print most of the other town weeklies in our section of the state. It’s as lucrative as printing money, and less trouble.
***
Connie had started the Lincoln, backed it out of her stable, and closed the doors herself. She was sitting in the passenger seat at eleven-thirty, wearing a cardigan sweater over a summery dress and a Lilly Daché hat she had purchased when invited to launch a World War II battleship. Her pie sat on the back floor, swathed in tinfoil. I laid my roses on the back seat, their stems bound in wet paper towels and Saran. As I climbed behind the wheel, I lifted her veil and kissed her astonishingly soft cheek. Her jaw was rigid.
“You hurt?” I asked.
“No.”
“Connie.”
“Drive.”
“Are you up to this?” She suffered from temporal arteritis, a relatively rare inflammation of an artery to the head, which created excruciating pain when it flared. There was an operation, but we’d been putting it off. Steve and the specialists down in New Haven were reluctant to put her through it. Only when the pain became unbearable would she take a pill, fearing addiction.