The sight of those sandwiches slowed Michael’s step, and Mrs. Beeman encouraged him with a good pull. “Into the parlor, dear boy.”
Michael made himself look away from the sandwiches, forward again, through the doorway to the dining room. As he did he saw a puffy, cheerful face pull back from where it had peeked around the doorjamb, and he recognized it, and the soft curls of blue hair, as belonging to Mrs. Gersh. The clop of her shoes’ thick heels followed her out of the dining room and into the front parlor, and from that not-distant-enough space Michael heard discrete chatter rise. Odd chatter, he found himself thinking, the realization hitting him that it was a lot like the kind of whispering chit-chat he and his friends might make when talking about someone close by. The verbal equivalent of passing a note in class.
But these were old woman, he thought, the head old woman guiding him through her kitchen, toward her parlor. Toward the...
...giggling (?) old hens now.
Giggling?
Yes, it was, Michael decided. High, squeaky giggling, a few of the voices stringy, the laughs coming off them warbling like the spring cries of some crazed jay driven batty by the winter cold and so happy to see the sun that she was beside herself. Some of the old women actually sounded like that.
Michael and Mrs. Beeman neared the entrance to the dining room. Thoughts of cucumber sandwiches were suddenly gone from his mind.
Just out of the kitchen Michael looked tentatively right, past the sturdy old dining table, the wooden toes of its black claw feet curled inward like some hesitant predator, a wide glass bowl full of pale wax apples at its center. In the parlor beyond, squeezed tightly together on the two couches, resting in two of the three gracious chairs, with the extra bodies half sitting on the padded and doily-draped arms, the old women quieted and looked his way, smiling. Smiling at him. Smiling like he’d just raked all their driveways.
Mrs. Beeman kept one hand clamped softly to his taut upper arm, and now put the other behind his back and on his shoulder as she led him toward the one empty chair. It was turned to face the room, like a throne of royalty.
Mrs. Beeman stopped her young guest next to it and stood beaming with him, her hand gently pinching over his shoulder. “This, dear friends, is my Michael. Michael Prentiss.”
Michael glanced awkwardly at Mrs. Beeman as the rest of the old women sighed pleasantly and nodded more smiles at him. What the heck was going on? This wasn’t like the last time he’d been invited in. Then Mrs. Beeman had introduced him as the boy who cleaned her yard, gave him a sandwich and watched him eat it while the rest of her old friends went on with their card games.
But this time there were no cards, no card tables sprung in the parlor like landlocked lilly pads. No cucumber sandwich put before him. There was only them, and only him.
Mrs. Beeman guided him into the chair and the old women ogled him.
“Marjorie!” Mrs. Beeman said sharply, and Mrs. Levin jumped smartly up from her place on one the couch by the front window.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Levin said, almost bowing apologetically toward their guest as she hurried off to the kitchen.
Mrs. Resnick popped up too and moved a pre-opened TV tray from where it sat near the china hutch to right in front of Michael, adjusting it carefully. “Too close?”
Michael looked up at her, his expression dumb and submissive. He shook his head and Mrs. Resnick went back to her seat. Behind, he could hear the oven door creaking open and paper crinkling.
“He trampled my flowers,” someone said. Michael looked toward the voice. It was Mrs. Green, large and suddenly sullen in the chair that faced Michael directly. For a second he thought she was accusing him, but then she continued, “I told his father, but that man said I was a liar and called my impatiens weeds.”
Michael knew his dad was a tough guy, but he would never, ever call an old woman a liar.
“Weeds?” the old women chorused disgustedly, their heads shaking as ‘can you believe that?’ and ‘it doesn’t surprise me a bit’ looks volleyed among them.
“He broke a side window in my garage and tried to steal a gas can,” Mrs. Meyer told the group sourly.
“No,” Mrs. Shapiro said, shocked.
“Yes,” Mrs. Meyer affirmed. “I heard the glass break and yelled. He ran off before I could catch him.” Heads shook, but they all believed. “It cost me forty dollars to have Mr. Hartoonian fix that window.”
Heads shook some more. Michael looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.
Mrs. Beeman, leaning on the chair for support, bent close to him and said, “You did us a favor.”
“Excuse me?” Michael said.
“You did everyone a favor,” Mrs. Reisfeld said grandly, and they all agreed with nods that faded as their eyes and returning smiles focused on Michael.
The oven door creaked shut, and a cupboard door squealed open, then closed. Something glassy clinked and the paper crinkled again. The refrigerator opened and closed. Then footsteps approached from the kitchen.
“This is for you, Michael,” Mrs. Beeman told him, speaking like an appreciative grandmother. Mrs. Levin came around the chair and put a plate on the TV tray. She put a paper bag from McDonalds next to it, along with a vanilla shake, a fat red and white straw poking from its lid.
“Put it on the plate for him, Marjorie,” Mrs. Henkel said impatiently.
“Oh.” Mrs. Levin opened the bag and removed a large red container of French fries and a Quarter Pounder with cheese still in its wrapper. She spread the fries on one side of the plate and unwrapped the burger before placing it next to the fries. “There.”
Michael stared stupidly at the meal as Mrs. Levin put the empty fry container and the paper wrapper back in the bag and crumbled it all into a ball.
“Napkins, Marjorie,” Mrs. Reisfeld said.
“There were none in the bag,” Mrs. Levin said, then hurried back to the kitchen. The paper towel holder spun noisily a second later.
“Do you like cheese on your hamburger, Michael?” Mrs. Gersh asked.
Michael looked up. A pair of paper towels, folded like napkins, appeared on the tray and then Mrs. Levin took her seat again. “Yeah... I mean, yes ma’am. I like cheese on my burgers.”
“Good,” Mrs. Gersh said.
“I had a choice of vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry for the milkshake,” Mrs. Levin told him. It had been her job to get the boy’s lunch. “I chose vanilla. I hope you like vanilla.”
Michael, the oddity of the past few minutes swirling in his head like a neural twister, gave the familiar looking cup a glance and answered, “I like vanilla just fine.” He didn’t, much preferring chocolate, but...
He looked sharply up at Mrs. Beeman. “What... What is all this?”
She reassured him with a slow, knowing nod. “Don’t worry about spoiling your dinner. I called your mother earlier and said I’d have something for you to eat, being that I was going to have you working on a Friday. So go ahead, dear boy. Enjoy.”
“Go ahead,” Mrs. Buber urged him.
“Go ahead,” Mrs. Gersh nudged.
Michael stared at the food. It looked perfectly fine, but his stomach had contracted to a gurgling ball deep inside.
“Eat,” Mrs. Henkel said, her accent thick and warm. “Enjoy.”
“This is the least we could do,” Mrs. Resnick said.
“The very least,” Mrs. Shapiro concurred.
Mrs. Reisfeld leaned forward where she sat and said, “I, for one, am going to do like Helen here and take my car to this young man’s father’s garage for any work it needs.”
“He’s the best,” Mrs. Beeman announced to the group, adding with a raised finger, “And reasonable.”
Mrs. Buber looked to Mrs. Reisfeld and said, “Zelda, that’s the best idea you’ve had since I’ve known you. And I’ve known you too long.”
“Ohh,” Mrs. Reisfeld demurred gruffly, then laughed at her friend’s compliment.
“I’m going to do the same thi
ng,” Mrs. Henkel said. “I have two cars. When Marty passed my son put our old Caprice on blocks in the garage.” She nodded, satisfied with what she was thinking. “I’m going to give my Louis a call tomorrow and have him put that car back on the ground so I can drive it down for a tune up.”
Michael heard what they all were saying, about taking their cars to his dad’s shop, and what they’d said about the food, and how it was the least they could do. The least they could do for what? It was like they were thanking him for something. It was really weird. Too weird.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Mrs. Beeman asked him. The barest frown of concern was edging its way into her smile.
“What did I do?” Michael inquired of her, then looked to the room of old women. Their gabbing about how much work their cars needed faded and they smiled appreciatively at their young guest. Their hero. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
Mrs. Green folded her thick hands over the loose bump of her middle. Her bright, cheery face tipped slightly to one side and she said, “You’ll tell your friends how much we appreciate them, too, won’t you?”
My friends? What do they have to do...
Broken window, Michael thought, and looked at Mrs. Meyer. His gaze shifted to big Mrs. Green. Flowers...
‘You did us a favor.’
‘You did everyone a favor.’
They were all grinning at him.
Oh my God.
“He was a rotten boy,” Mrs. Gersh said. “Not good like you.”
Mrs. Beeman patted him on the shoulder. “Not like my Michael.”
Oh my God.
“Our Michael,” Mrs. Shapiro corrected, and they all began to giggle again.
All except Michael.
* * *
A fire burned quiet behind glass in the Markworth living room, the night outside an early, wintery white. Willa Markworth poured Dooley tea and offered him a cookie.
“No, thank you,” Dooley said, passing on the golden morsel with chocolate chips jutting from the surface.
“You sure?” Tim Markworth checked. “My wife makes great cookies.”
“They look great,” Dooley agreed politely, patting his stomach.
“I’ll send some with you,” Willa Markworth said, and retreated to the kitchen.
Dooley took a tiny sip of tea and looked for a place to set it, but there was none. He put cup on saucer and balanced it on his lap like some etiquette maven at a garden social.
Tim Markworth put his on an antique side table next to his chair and smiled at the detective. “Do you like Bartlett?”
“It’s quiet,” Dooley said.
“That’s why we moved here.”
Dooley waited as Mrs. Markworth returned and sat on the arm of her husband’s chair. Her stomach bulged with the promise of new life.
“We wanted a good place for Elena to grow up,” Tim Markworth explained. “And a good place for her little sister.”
“Or brother,” Willa Markworth reminded her husband. She put one arm behind his neck and rested the other on her tummy.
“I’ve always wanted girls,” Tim Markworth happily told their visitor.
“Do you have children?” Willa Markworth asked Dooley.
“No, I don’t.”
“Tim wants a basketball team. An all girl team of his own.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” Dooley observed. He lifted his cup and sipped again. “Where did you move from?”
“Where did half of Washington state come from?” Tim Markworth joked rhetorically. “California refugees, that’s us.”
“Tim was a broker in San Francisco,” Willa Markworth explained proudly. “Now he has his own business here.”
“I manage money for people. Some as far away as Idaho.”
Dooley scanned the big room and the stairway leading to more of the house above. “You’ve done well for yourself.”
“Gotta have room for the team,” Tim Markworth replied wryly.
Dooley nodded, smiling. He took the saucer in hand and crossed his legs. “I appreciate you taking time from your Friday night to see me.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Tim Markworth assured him. “We support the police.”
“It’s terrible,” Willa Markworth commented, a sad sincerity taming her natural exuberance. “About the Edmond boy.”
“To be honest, you’re about the first people I’ve talked to who feel that way. Other than his family.”
Tim Markworth looked shocked. “He was just a child. That’s a tragedy. For his family, and for the children who found him.”
“We sent flowers,” Willa Markworth said.
“Seeing someone you know lying on the ground...dead.” Tim Markworth shook his head. “It affected Elena.”
“She missed an extra day of school,” Willa Markworth added.
“This hasn’t been easy for her,” Tim Markworth said, obvious meaning beyond his words.
Dooley nodded, understanding. “You’d rather I not talk to her.”
“She’s...under a doctor’s care,” Tim Markworth revealed. “With the move last school year, and this happening... She’s a sweet little girl.”
“We’d tell you if she’d told us anything of importance,” Willa Markworth assured Dooley.
“Yes,” Dooley said. “Sometimes, though, the right questions have to be asked to get to those things of importance.”
Tim Markworth nodded slowly, cautiously. “The right questions?”
“Elena would tell us—”
“Wait, Willa,” Tim Markworth said sharply, cutting his wife off. “What right questions?”
Dooley paused, acclimating himself to the sudden change in atmosphere. “Like did she ever have any trouble with Guy Edmond?”
“Trouble?” Tim Markworth parroted, his clean, youthful face compressing into a mask of angry furrows.
“Trouble,” Dooley repeated.
“I thought you were brought in to find who really killed that boy,” Tim Markworth said. He breathed out harshly. “Not to rehash the garbage our own police were pushing.”
“Your daughter was there.”
Tim Markworth pointed up the stairs that curved to a landing above. “Elena is the sweetest, kindest creature on this earth. She has never had trouble with any of her friends.”
“What about someone who wasn’t her friend?”
“Are you...” Tim Markworth’s face swung slowly from side to side. “She could not do what was done to that boy.”
“No...” Willa Markworth concurred.
“I’m not saying she did it,” Dooley said.
“Then what are you saying?” Tim Markworth demanded. “What?”
Dooley looked away, wondering if there was anyone in this town who saw the world as it was, and not as some fairy tale in which their children existed as benevolent gnomes. “Her fingerprints were on that bat, Mr. Markworth.”
Tim Markworth pushed himself up from his seat and walked over to Dooley. He put a hand out toward his visitor. “I’ll take your cup. Thank you for enlightening us.”
Dooley handed the cup and saucer over and waited for his host to step out of the way. Tim Markworth did not for a long moment. When he did, Dooley stood and walked past him, letting himself out of the big, pretty house on Cooper Way, in the town that everyone seemed to think was as simple as Mayberry, every child as perfect as Opie.
In his car he pulled the small envelope from his pocket and read the note it contained once again, touching it to his lower lip, thinking. There had to be a way through, past, or around the lies and denial. A way.
And someone to show the way.
Dooley slipped the note into its envelope and tucked that into a pocket as he drove away, visualizing the route, the turns he’d made only once.
On the second floor of the big pretty house on Cooper Way, in the far right window, the curtains parted slightly and Elena Markworth watched the man who wanted her to tell drive off into the cold, gauzy night.
* * *
“I’m stopping by,” Dooley said, holding the envelope up.
“Thank you,” Mary said. Snow dusted his shoulders, and in the diffused glow of the streetlamp she could see it falling hard, a steady ivory torrent. “Come in.”
Dooley stomped his feet and shed his coat, handing them to Mary as he entered. He detected spice in the air and the crackle of something cooking. Hot oil popped with a flourish and Mary rushed from the coat closet to the kitchen.
“Have a seat,” she urged, darting by. “I’ve just got to turn the stove down.”
He brushed some residual snow from the back of his head and strolled across the living room, to a space just beyond where he imagined most people would have placed a table and four or six chairs. Here, though, a grand piano dominated the area. He reached down and pecked out a few notes.
Mary stepped from the kitchen and watched him from the living room. “Do you play?”
Dooley turned toward her. “I probably could manage Mary Had A Little Lamb. This...” He gestured at the space.
“I love the piano,” Mary said, approaching. “I never have anyone over to eat, so the dining room became a room for this.” She put a hand on the glossy black top of the instrument. “It seemed logical to me.”
Dooley walked back into the living room and stood before a smattering of pictures arranged on a wall. Mary followed him.
“This is your family?”
She nodded, folding her arms. “My mom and dad. Grandma and grandpa. Aunts, uncles, and so on. That’s my little sister Julie before her prom.”
Dooley fixed on one picture, of a little girl standing next to an older man, maybe seven or eight, her brown hair pulled tight in a pony tail. A smile strained on her face. “Is this you?”
“With my grandpa.”
“You don’t look happy.”
“Eight was a rough age,” Mary said. “My father died that year.”
“Mine was six,” Dooley told her in sympathy. “I guess it was the transition from the sandbox or something.”
Mary smiled at him, then looked quickly away.
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