by Nancy Martin
Inadequately, I said, "I'm so sorry."
She shook her head. "Flan hates me and I hate him." She caught my hand in both of hers and squeezed me so hard I almost yelped. She said, "I wish I'd never married him in the first place."
I was hazy on Laura's circumstances, but I dimly remembered she had been at Penn while he was in college there. I had attended Barnard and come to Penn on occasional weekends to be with him. She'd been in the background somewhere—a Southern girl out of place in Philadelphia. Had she been the coxswain on his crew team, perhaps? I couldn't remember. For all I knew, she had set her cap for him while Flan and I dated.
I flushed, thinking how I'd ignored her back then. She's been a face in the crowd to me. I'd obviously made a much different impression on her.
Miserably, she said, "It's you he always wanted."
"Laura, I'm sure that's not true."
"He loves everything about you. The way you look, the way you talk. You're Old Philadelphia, and I'm not."
"That's not important."
She ignored me. "My family is a big deal, too, in Charleston. But here, I can't—I'm not important enough."
"Laura, that's silly."
"When your husband got killed, he couldn't stop talking about you. For ages, all he could blab about was how pretty you looked at the funeral. A tragic beauty; that's what he said. And how brave you were. How nice you were to everyone even while you were so sad. All those rich people making a fuss over you. You were like a heroine in a book or something. When I—well, Flan thinks I'm crazy."
"I'm sure he doesn't think that at all."
She became aware of her appearance and tugged her sleeve down over the bruise on her wrist. "I can't get through to him. I try so hard to make him happy, but he shuts me out. Even in bed, he won't touch me no matter what I do to encourage him."
Cautiously, I ventured, "Have you spoken with anyone? A therapist? A minister? I think you could use some professional help, Laura."
She heaved a gigantic sigh. "I'll be okay. Thanks, Nora." She tried to smile. "I'm sorry I exploded like I did. I know I can get pretty upset."
"Please leave the apologies to me."
She smiled at last. "You're really nice. I didn't expect that."
I cleared my throat. "Thank you."
She reached out and touched my hair. "Maybe we could be friends."
I could see she was lying. She didn't trust me in the slightest.
Chapter 4
"That's it?" Emma asked. "That's all she said after you made whoopee in the bathroom with her husband?"
"Weren't you listening?" I asked.
"I wonder how long she was obsessed with you." Libby nibbled on a slice of provolone. "I mean, was she studying you back in college?"
"I doubt it," I said. "Surely somebody would have mentioned it to me earlier if this had been going on very long."
"Is it flattering?" Libby asked.
"My God, no! It's very weird."
"Laura was jealous. But why you, of all people? You're broke, your husband was an addict, and you've got more baggage than American Airlines."
"Thanks, Lib," I said tartly.
"I remember her at Rory Pendergast's funeral," Emma said thoughtfully. "And she did watch you, Nora. Flan carried a torch for you once, so maybe she's still taking it seriously. She may have been planning her makeover then."
"Those Southern girls can get very peculiar once they're sexually awakened."
"Anyway," I said, heading off Libby's next conversational train wreck, "that's not the end of the story."
"What happened after that?" Emma asked. "Did the White House guy escort you off the property at gunpoint? Did Flan take you back to the loo and have his wicked way with you?"
"No," I said. "I left the party, and Reed brought me home. But when I got ready for bed, I discovered Laura had stolen Grandmama's sapphire right off my finger."
Both my sisters gaped at my naked hand.
"Grandmama's ring!" Libby cried.
"How did she manage that?" Emma demanded.
"I can't figure it out. She must have slipped it off when we were sitting on the bed."
"The little sneak!"
"The little dead sneak," Emma reminded us.
My sisters and I allowed an uneasy moment of silence to pass in memory of Laura Cooper.
Then Libby said, "So all those rumors about her were true. She really was a kleptomaniac."
"How will you get it back, Nora?"
"I can't exactly go to the poor woman's funeral asking for my jewelry. After all, the whole family either knew about her behavior and hushed it up, or they genuinely didn't realize what she was doing and would be—oh, dear, and there's Flan."
"Yeah." Emma looked at me speculatively. "There's Flan."
"What about Flan?" Libby asked. "You wondering if he's the one who bruised Laura's arm?"
"No, of course not," I said without much conviction. "She must have fallen or something."
"But you said the bruise looked like fingers," Emma said. "When you and Flan broke up, wasn't it over his temper?"
"He was a kid then. He never hit me."
"But he was rough."
"Yes," I admitted. "We split up for many reasons, though. Basically, he was immature."
"Some people never grow up."
Libby ate more cheese. "She must have been pretty distraught to kill herself."
"Did she look distraught?" Emma asked. "I mean, it sounded like she was angry, not despondent."
"She was very upset," I conceded after a moment.
Emma put her hand on my shoulder. "You gonna be okay?"
"Yes," I said.
"Her death isn't your responsibility, Nora."
"I know that."
"I can see the look in your eye," Emma said. "You're taking this to heart."
"Nora takes everything to heart."
"Laura obviously had some issues with me, and I was too arrogant to notice."
Emma snapped, "You are the least arrogant person I know. She was crazy, that's all, and she picked you to focus all her crazy energy on. Now she's dead, but it's not your fault."
"If you say so."
But I felt as though something was my fault. Laura had chosen me. Did that mean I had to choose her, too? What did I owe her now that she was dead?
I didn't want to dither about it with my sisters, though. Libby and Emma had stepped out of line when the guilt gene was distributed, and I must have been given their quotient. They weren't going to understand how I felt.
Emma noted the time and professed a need to get going but wanted some lunch first, Libby put her T-shirt back on after extracting our promise that we'd do her belly cast another time. My sisters pitched in and helped finish the sandwiches.
We carried the food outside along with a plastic bucket loaded with ice and bottled beer—to the barn where Michael and his associates were fixing the old farm tractor. We arrived just in time to see Rawlins with an ear-to-ear grin drive the smoking, thundering machine out of the barn and into the crisp sunlight, where it promptly gave a tremendous backfire and stopped running. The men cheered, the puppy barked, and everyone fell on the food like a starving army.
We pulled the old picnic table out from inside the barn, and the afternoon took on some of the elements of a summer picnic, except we were all dressed in layers and the breeze blew colorful leaves around our feet.
I saw Michael casually hand a beer to Rawlins, who nearly dropped the bottle in astonishment before following the example of the other menfolk and twisting off the cap. He took his first drink while his mother's back was turned, and I realized Michael had just made an adoring friend for life.
When the sandwiches were gone, Emma, Michael and Rawlins played basketball under the rusted hoop over the barn door while I found an old lawn chair for Libby and made pleasantries with the posse that tended to follow Michael wherever he went. That loyal crew of motley buccaneers drank beer and muttered among themselves in a language I
wasn't always sure was English, perhaps plotting a bank heist or debating world-peace initiatives, for all I could decipher. But they were exceedingly respectful to me.
I tried to be sociable, but my thoughts kept wandering back to Laura Cooper. Then Libby suggested charades, for crying out loud, whereupon everyone hastily departed. Rawlins took the puppy, thank heaven.
When everyone had gone, Michael helped me finish the cleanup and then lingered on the porch. "You going to tell me why there's a bucket of whipped cream in your kitchen sink?"
"It's plaster," I corrected, knowing full well he'd guessed what the glop was. "And it's one of Libby's artistic ventures, not a home-improvement project."
"Okay." He leaned one shoulder against a pillar and looked down at me with a lazy-lidded smile. "Since you probably won't let me smear you with something delicious, how about a ride on my bike? It feels like spring."
"Michael," I began, not trusting myself to be alone with him.
"Just a ride," he promised. "Although some women consider motorcycles a kind of foreplay."
Although we'd been apart for many weeks, I appreciated him for this—grabbing me by the scruff of my neck when I wandered too close to the dark side. He forced me into the moment, demanded my full participation. Made me laugh.
I tried to rise to the occasion. "Since when do you need help with foreplay?"
"Never. But don't worry. I've sworn to use my powers only for good."
"I'm impressed by your self-control."
Softer, he said, "I stayed away all summer like you asked. Which took more self-control than I thought I had, by the way. Did you miss me?"
I raised one eyebrow. "The Marquis de Sod?"
He threw back his head and laughed, rocking on his heels. "Pretty good name, huh? I thought of it myself. I've got six orders for next spring already. Seriously, I really appreciate you letting me use Blackbird Farm. I can't fill the orders without you."
His eyes were such a vivid Irish blue that he was called "The Mick" by his underworld acquaintances, and he sometimes used that blasted gaze of his to beguile the less discerning. I recognized his technique, and I wanted to ask him if he truly had more orders than he could fill or if he was just using one of his business ventures as an excuse to come hang around the farm on an occasional autumn afternoon. Or worse yet, was he committed to finding more embarrassing ways for me to get out of debt?
But I chickened out.
He must have seen my hesitation because he put out his hand and touched my face. His grin evaporated. "Come on," he said, in a tone that told me I definitely hadn't kept any secrets from him. "My new bike can cure whatever ails you."
"Nothing is ailing me."
But I took his hand anyway, and we walked across the lawn together. He gave me a helmet and helped me fasten it under my chin. He'd left his leather jacket hanging on the handlebars, and he put it on me. The motorcycle was a lot bigger than those things looked in traffic, and I climbed on clumsily. Then I discovered myself sliding forward until my thighs were locked around his. He revved up the earsplitting engine, and there wasn't anything I could do but grab on to him tight. When we hit the main road and accelerated on the smooth, dry pavement, I didn't let go.
We roared northward with the wind whipping the engine noise into our wake. Autumn leaves scattered behind us. The river ran in a silver wash to our right, and the sunlight dashed between the tree limbs overhead. I felt the powerful quiver of the machine beneath us, and my heartbeat sped up to match the rhythm of the engine. The tail of Michael's flannel shirt flapped in the wind beside me.
I don't know how many miles we traveled or how long it took. I felt as if we were flying, breathing sharp October air and letting the real world slip away behind us.
It was the kind of glorious day that brought everyone outside for one last grab at summer. We passed several vehicles that were parked alongside the road. When I looked up, I could see weekenders climbing the cliffs above us. Farther up the road, I glimpsed a hot-air balloon in the sky. A gaggle of small children chased it across a field. I felt as if I could be in that balloon—going fast and leaving my troubles behind.
At last Michael pulled off the highway into a sandy spot and guided the motorcycle down into a roadside turnaround near a railroad bed. Below us, a cluster of old men played bocce on the smoothly raked gravel between the set of tracks. Beyond them, the Delaware's white water eddied around large, flat rocks.
Michael stopped the bike and killed the engine. We took off our helmets, and I shook out my hair. I could hear the men talking below us and smelled their cigarette smoke. One of them looked up and raised his hand at Michael.
He waved back. "Feel better?" he asked over his shoulder.
"I was fine to begin with."
"Good," he said, hooking his helmet strap over the handlebars. "But Emma said something about a friend of yours dying."
Blast Emma.
I sat back on the seat. "She wasn't a friend, just someone I knew. The wife of a friend, I guess you could say."
"Old boyfriend."
"Yes."
He climbed off the motorcycle and helped me stand. "How did she die?"
"She supposedly drowned herself in the family swimming pool."
Michael was a practicing Catholic who had firm opinions about the church's rules. We had sparred a few times about issues we disagreed on. I braced myself for a discussion of the church's stand on suicide.
Instead he said, "Supposedly."
I led the way down to the river's edge. "She was found drowned in a swimming pool with a garden statue tied to her ankles."
He strolled behind me. "What do you think?"
I realized I was absentmindedly frowning. "I just— well, I had spoken to Laura just hours before she supposedly killed herself."
"There's that word again. Supposedly." He crouched on the riverbank at my feet and picked up a couple of small stones. "You aren't saying she died by something other than her own hand, are you?"
"Of course not."
He stood up, hefting a stone in his palm. "Nobody in the Social Register would end up swimming with the fishes? On my side of the tracks, however—"
"Now, don't start that business again. We may be from different worlds, but I never said anything disparaging about your side of the tracks—which is your turn of phrase, not mine."
"Okay." With an easy motion, he skimmed the stone out across the surface of the water. "Forget I mentioned it. What about your old boyfriend?"
"What about him?"
Michael turned to me. "Emma suggested he used to manhandle you."
"He never hurt me," I said calmly. "He didn't know his own strength."
"And now?"
"He's a physical person, but not abusive. He's big."
"So am I. That doesn't mean I go around hurting people."
"Neither does he. Actually, he's very sensitive and—"
"Okay, okay. Forgive me for not wanting to hear the details. So maybe your boyfriend didn't kill his wife."
"Who said anything about Flan killing anyone?"
Michael laughed. "His name is Flan? Like the dessert?"
"His name is Flanders," I snapped, "and he didn't kill his wife."
"You sure about that?"
"Of course I am. It's Laura who was strange last night."
"Strange how?"
"She—well, it's too embarrassing, really."
Michael waited.
"I hardly knew Laura," I said at last. "But . . . she had a thing about me."
"About you? What kind of thing?"
I avoided his inquiring gaze by looking out at the river again. "Laura had changed her appearance lately. She cut and dyed her hair. She wore different clothes. She wanted to look like—well, like me."
His interest sharpened. "Spooky."
"And there's this other element." I don't know why I felt I could tell Michael, after keeping this information from Jack Priestly. But I said, "For years, people have whispered that Laura
Cooper stole things. Jewelry."
"You mean from stores? Shoplifting?"
"No, from her friends. A kind of high-society jewel thief."
"Wait a minute. You mean, like Cary Grant in that Hitchcock movie?"
"In a way, yes. Among other things, I think she stole my grandmother's ring last night."
He immediately took my hand and held it up to see. "You're kidding. How'd she get it off your finger?"
"I don't know. I was sitting on the bed and talking with her when she grabbed my hand. She had a strong grip. That's when I noticed how badly bruised she was, too, so I was doubly distracted. When I got home, I realized my ring was gone."
"Have you told the police yet?"
"Of course not. I don't want to embarrass anyone."
"Your ring is missing," Michael said, "and you're worried about embarrassing people?"
I pulled away from him. "It's hard to understand, I know, but the Cooper family is special to me. I've known them since I was a child. And Oliver Cooper is on the brink of a national political appointment. I can't go running to the police with wild ideas— especially if the ring turns up in Reed's car later."
"Do you think it's in the car?"
"Well, no."
"Then you've got to tell someone."
"I'm not going to the police, Michael."
"Don't worry," he said. "They'll come to you."
We were quiet for a time, looking at the river and sharing the same thought.
Finally, I said it aloud. "I don't want to go through this again."
"I know," he said.
"First Todd, and then Rory. And now this."
He was quiet, and the river slipped past us. When I'd first met Michael, he had already perfected an expect-the-worst-of-life sense of humor that was engaging but also kept people at bay. But I'd seen past that to the wary light at the back of his eyes. I'd been drawn by an emotional vulnerability, maybe, and he'd seen the same in me. I'd let him take care of me when Rory died. But I'd gotten too close for comfort, too entangled with this man who was very different from anyone else I knew. He kept a roll of bills in his pocket instead of carrying credit cards, and he slipped off late at night to meet men with nicknames like Mad Dog. He ran businesses he wouldn't talk about and he had appetites for food and wine that made me think his other hungers must be just as daunting.