Addled

by JoeAnn Hart

  One of the officers went inside to talk to the cleaning crew, and the other one turned and nodded to Vita in recognition. It was Officer Dyer, the same one who’d come round for the stabbing incident. “You were here, Ms. Pasto, when the blast occurred?”

  “I was.” Vita smiled, playing with the neck of her sweatshirt. “I sometimes come early to take a walk, and I heard a loud blast just as the sun came up. It was probably nothing. A backfire or two from beyond the wall.”

  “Did it sound like a gun?” he asked

  “I’m not familiar with the sound.”

  “Okay then.” Officer Dyer’s eyebrow hairs bristled like antennae. “Maybe you could tell me why your clothes are soaked.”

  Vita looked down at herself, spattered with water. “Right after the shooting the sprinklers came on, and I had to walk back through the spray.”

  “Shooting?”

  “The backfire. The noise. What-ever it was.”

  Phoebe looked at Vita, wondering who or what she was protecting. If Vita really was on the course, then she would have known it was a shooting. Why didn’t she just say so and get this over with so Phoebe could have her gun and get the goose murderers busted? And what was Vita doing at the Club then anyway? Eric used to bring all sorts of shit home from the café where he’d worked, and he did it by going to work early and hiding stuff, coming back for it later. Maybe that’s what Vita was up to. Phoebe wouldn’t put anything past someone whose job it was to chop up pieces of animals and make people eat them.

  But this was no time to bring all that up, not if she wanted to protect her gun. The police should just go looking for clues and leave her alone. “It could have been either,” Phoebe mused as she scratched her exposed stomach. “A backfire from a pig car could sound like an army.” Officer Dyer looked up from his pad.

  “Horrid things, those SUVs,” said Gerard, hoping to get them all to agree that that’s what the sound was and leave him and his Club alone. He wished Phoebe would leave her stomach alone too. With great willpower, he forced his gaze from her abdomen to her hair, which was twisted into ropey things, but it had its own charm, as did the hoops that lined the crescent of her left ear. He especially liked her crisp little mouth, her upper lip a wedge of pink that moved quickly and mechanically when she talked.

  Phoebe regarded Gerard in return. He’d always reminded her of someone, but she could never put her finger on who. And what was up with this environmental awareness? He was so mulish last summer when she’d tried to make some changes around here, but maybe he was ready to listen to reason. She was thinking of how she might work on him, when her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of tires crunching into the turnaround. Ugh. Mr. Clendenning. Look at him, parking his Stinking Unforgivable Violator so Mr. Amory in his little sedan couldn’t even squeeze by.

  Gerard, on seeing Clendenning, didn’t feel quite so smug anymore. But it was still okay. It was probably just a backfire. A backfire and an impetuous, braless young woman.

  “It’s nothing,” he shouted, two octaves too high, to Clendenning, who sat in his car with the window rolled down, looking at the group with suspicion and at Gerard with offense. Even his Grand Cherokee seemed threatening, its vertical grille reflecting the red morning light like fangs. “Everyone was just leaving,” Gerard continued, exaggerating a calm he did not feel.

  No, they can’t leave, thought Phoebe. The police had to stay and figure it out on their own. She looked around, wondering what she could do to lead them to Mr. Bellows, when her eyes met Vita’s. Their exchange was dark and appraising.

  Clendenning, as segmented as a wooden snake, unfolded his body from the driver’s side, while Gerard opened the passenger door for his granddaughter. The girl, Leila, with her overshot lip and unblinking eyes, was clearly from the same Clendenning batter. She jumped down and landed purposely close to his feet, making him leap back. She made an elaborate show of adjusting her golf skirt while he chuckled at her little joke.

  Clendenning, like most of his peers, viewed the police as a service agency, and so only gave the officer a brisk nod before turning his attention to Phoebe. “Miss Lambert,” he said, putting a great deal of spin on the greeting.

  “Ms. Lambert,” she corrected him. “We were just talking about your car. You know, the way you SUV dudes are burning up the future of our doomed planet.”

  Gerard braced himself, but Clendenning only nodded at her, then turned his eyes upon Gerard. His face was expressionless, but Gerard could read it well.

  “Everything’s fine,” Gerard chirped. “There was a sharp noise in the street, and I guess Ms. Lambert got jumpy and called the police. Everyone’s just getting ready to leave.”

  “And him?” Clendenning said, pointing his stately nose in the direction of the photographer, who was slumped against the hood of his car, disappointed in the morning’s catch. “Can’t the police arrest him for trespassing?”

  Then Clendenning turned on his heels, back to his car to get his clubs, letting Gerard do the dirty work of making his whim a reality. Before Gerard could say, “Yes, sir,” Scott arrived with a tray of coffee and pastry, which attracted not just the police officer but the photographer, and while they were all together, Gerard moved toward them with open arms, trying to shepherd them to their cars. There was a loud commotion of crows over by the lake, and everyone glanced up.

  Barry came out of the side door of the club-house. “Vita,” he called. “Your mom phoned. Wants you to call her.”

  Vita saw Scott smile as he passed the coffee tray around. Her mother’s calls had become a running joke. “Thank you, Barry,” she said, in that way that really means fuck you. “I’ll call her later.”

  He smiled and turned to go back inside, but then put his hands on his waist and whistled softly at the sight of all the crows in the sky. Forbes stood at attention by his khakied leg. Gerard mouthed, “Hide that bird,” and Barry tried to hustle Forbes along. It was at that moment Leila saw him and screamed out, “Forbes, my baby boy,” running up the steps and collecting the gosling in her arms. All the children at the Club knew him and had joined with Barry in an unspoken conspiracy to keep Forbes safe from the adults, who as a rule rarely saw what they weren’t supposed to see anyway. But Leila seemed to have no such code of honor and fondled the gosling with impunity, even though it might mean his removal from the Club.

  “Put that creature down, Leila,” said Clendenning. “Wilton, what is that animal doing here?”

  “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?” Gerard said, with a squeak.

  The other officer emerged from the club-house and told Dyer that the cleaning crew’s van had been sideswiped by a car leaving the Club when they were coming to work. He’d already called in the license number to the station.

  Gerard and Clendenning reluctantly joined the police to deliberate about this mystery car while Phoebe glowed with satisfaction, happy to have the killing unfold naturally in front of them all. A crow flew low over her head, carrying a tidbit in its beak. Then came another.

  “Barry, go down there.” Gerard turned to him, not needing the distraction of birds right then. “Take away what-ever it is they’re fighting over.”

  Vita was worried. Maybe the crows were having a go at the scraps she left for her flock, although it sounded like the cries were on the shore, not the island.

  The skiff! She put her hand to her mouth. Her goose! She’d seen crows eviscerate a roadkill rabbit in minutes. It was too late to make a run down there and save her hide by saving the goose, so she slipped away from the group and headed for her sanctuary, the kitchen.

  “One of those birds dropped something,” said Clendenning. “Barry, go clean that up.”

  Gerard felt this as a rebuke to his own authority. “Yes, Barry, take that with you when you go.”

  But when Barry bent to pick it up, he let out a whimper. In his hands was a piece of goose flesh, the black feathers wet with blood. Just then, another crow flew overhead, lugging a blood
y string of intestine behind him. But he’d been too greedy and had to let it go. A third crow dove for it but missed, so that the length of gut splatted on the hood of the gold Grand Cherokee.

  “Ewwww!” said Leila, screwing up her face. “Gross!”

  Forbes squeaked in her arms and raised his stubby wings to Barry, who hurried to protect his gosling from the ghoulish sight of feathered flesh falling from the sky. As the anxious bird was transferred from arm to arm, it pooped on Leila, and she released a wail that raised the white hairs on her grandfather’s neck.

  Phoebe walked over to the SUV and stared at the goose gut. “Poor dead thing,” she whispered. She would avenge its death, even if she could not testify on its behalf. She couldn’t wait to contact her ALF people and hatch a plan of action.

  Gerard continued talking to the officers about what the cleaning crew may or may not have seen, making believe nothing was happening, but the police nodded at each other and headed down to the lake. Dozens of crows were clustered at the skiff, grabbing shreds of Bellows’s goose from one another in midair, making one another release pieces, swooping in greed and retaliation. The crows that had grabbed the most had the most to lose, dropping strips of goose along the fairway, almost hitting the officers.

  The Boston Globe photographer ran two steps behind them, as was his habit.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Pulling the Stroke

  ARIETTA WINGATE drew the ruby-colored drapes tightly across the diamond panes and blocked out the world. As she retreated to her chair by the sputtering hearth, she ran her fingers along the undisturbed leather-bound volumes that lent the library an intellectual calm. Bedlam might take the day outside, but here, all was order and civilization. She noticed a trace of dust on her puckered skin, like ash. She tched, then tched again. Taking a lace handkerchief from her sleeve, she wiped her hands clean. Gerard Wilton had certainly gone soft on standards this summer, what with geese falling dead left and right. On the other hand, the Club might fall apart altogether if old Humpy meant what he said and fired the man.

  “Such a lot of fuss,” she said to Madeline. “Police. Wildlife agencies. All for a silly goose. And those animal rights people dressed up as poultry. What a bunch of loonies.” Arietta looked up, forgetting to whom she was talking. “Oh. Sorry, Madeline.”

  Madeline feigned deep concentration in the open book on her lap, trying to block out the image of her daughter, Phoebe, wearing wings and a beak, locked in arms with the other vegetarians at the gates and singing endless rounds of “All We Are Asking Is Give Geese a Chance.” Safer to focus on Bonnie Weber and Duncan Crane, whose engagement had been announced over the weekend. Madeline ran her finger down the index for their mothers’ entries, then gingerly turned the pages back in time, careful not to let her eyes fall on other names. She hated being so cozy with the underbelly of the Club. She’d only agreed to the job years ago for Arietta, to whom she owed so much. When Madeline was a young bride, fresh from a turbulent childhood and with no guidance from her own mother, it was Arietta who had taken her by the hand and taught her the value of domestic ritual: how to pass a tray without servility, mix a dry martini, choose a lawn service, and bolster chicken salad with grapes. Arietta showed her that out of attention to detail came order.

  A police siren wailed in the distance. “Phoebe waved as I drove by,” said Arietta. “You must have a talk with her about support garments. Even in the shade of her wings I could see everything, if you understand my meaning.”

  “You’re a brave one to come through the main gates.” Madeline ignored the braless comment, since she’d ceded that battle long ago. “I walked. I’d rather get hit in the head with a golf ball than be yelled at by those kids. They make me feel so, I don’t know. Guilty, I guess.”

  “Nonsense. For what?” Arietta arranged herself closer to the small fire, as if it were the dead of winter and not a hot summer day.

  Madeline closed the book with care and waved her hand around at the richly paneled room. “For this. For belonging to a place that would produce a Ralph Bellows.”

  “Fowl Play at Club” the headline had read, the eviscerated goose splayed out in the photo like a poorly executed autopsy. Bellows, who believed in the law when there was no alternative, eventually owned up to the shooting itself but denied any knowledge of how the dead goose found its way under the skiff seat. He was, however, quite pleased to hear that he’d bagged it, since further investigation matched the number 6 shot found in the chest cavity to Bellows’s gun. “An unbelievable feat considering how schnonkered I was,” he’d told the police. And so now he was faced with a DUI along with all the other charges: leaving the scene of an accident, hunting out of season, and illegal discharge of a firearm. He told Arietta he’d hired Bruner & Bruner. It would take time and money, but Attorney Ellen Bruner, who seemed to be enjoying a robust first trimester, had assured Bellows that in the end it should just be a matter of a few fines, as most of the charges could not be made to stick, especially the more serious DUI. After all, the police had arrested Bellows at home, not at the scene of the crime; plus, the only witnesses to the car accident were immigrants. She hoped, for her purposes, illegal ones. Her assistant was following up on that. In the meantime she’d told Bellows to just shut up.

  “Him?” Arietta adjusted her ivory skirt around her calves. “Every institution has its share of idiots. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Listen to me. What you need is a vacation, a few weeks in Bar Harbor. I’ll give Reggie Witherspoon a call, see if he’s using the cottage this year. You’ll come back with a whole new outlook.” After a moment’s pause, Arietta leaned closer to Madeline. “Tell me. How’s Charles doing with all this?”

  Madeline continued to gaze intently at the book in her lap, unable to focus. Charles had almost joined Phoebe that morning, even going so far as canceling a bond presentation.

  “What do you mean, you’re going to the gates?” Madeline had asked.

  “Bellows was wrong to shoot the goose,” Charles had said. “We have to show the world that the rest of us don’t believe in taking matters into our own hands. Yes, the geese need to be controlled, but we must arrive at a consensus, and not become vigilantes.”

  “You forget,” said Madeline, moving closer. “You, of all people, can’t throw stones.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Charles, rubbing SPF-15 on his face. “Phoebe promised me, none of that. A little red paint, maybe, but that’s all. How do you think I strap these on?” He held up a four-foot-long pair of cardboard wings.

  Madeline grabbed him by his arm and made him look at her. She leaned in so close she could feel the heat from his body on her cheek, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ve killed a goose, Charles. Even though it was an accident, if they find out they’ll turn on you too. That’s how crowds are.”

  Charles played with one of the wide elastics meant to hold the stiff oval wings to his wrists, and snapped it. “I thought I could atone for that by doing this,” he said. He pulled away from Madeline, and her hand dropped to her side. “Is there no hope?” he said to no one, gently laying the wings on the pickled-pine kitchen table. An ironstone pitcher of purple dahlias and pink Sweet Williams sat nearby. Madeline had arranged them days before, and they filled the room with a sour smell.

  Then Charles left for the garage, slamming the screen door behind him. The sound of wood and wire had more passion in it than he’d expressed all year. She knew she should follow, but deep down, she didn’t really want to find out what was eating at him, because it might very well be her.

  “Charles is fine,” Madeline said to Arietta, closing the book. “Everything is fine with Bonnie and Duncan too, as you suspected.”

  Arietta looked at her significantly. “Yes, but it’s a good thing he was attracted to Bonnie and not her cousin Courtney.”

  Madeline ignored her. She didn’t want to know why not Courtney.

  Arietta went on. “Linzee told me she saw Charles walking into the Goodwill downt
own this week. She looked through the window and there he was, rummaging around in a box. Trust her not to miss any awkward situation. She asked if you were under economic strain and I laughed it off, but it made me think. Far be it from me to intrude, but some professional advice might be in order for Charles. At the very least, he needs a trip to the barber.”

  Madeline stared at the closed curtains. He needed a great deal more than that. When she’d organized the dry cleaning that week, she found an entire set of Club cutlery in his jacket pocket. What was he amassing an arsenal against?

  “I’m sure she was mistaken,” she said. “Charles wouldn’t know what a Goodwill store was. But you and I have got to talk about the engagement that wasn’t so fine.” She stood up to put the book away. “I’m worried. If Roger’s angry enough to attack Willard, he could be angry enough to do anything.”

  Arietta adjusted the tortoiseshell band on her head and sighed. “What was Gwen thinking, telling Roger the truth? She’s put the book at risk.”

  “I’m not worried about the book.” As Madeline walked over to the cabinet, her Bermuda shorts dryly chafed her thighs. “I’m worried about feelings. What must Roger be going through, finding out his dead wife had been unfaithful?”

  “Karen was always a bit of a strumpet,” mused Arietta. “You know, she wasn’t from around here. New York State, as I recall. Near Albany.”

  Madeline knelt on the bare wood and wrestled the book back into its hiding place. “It doesn’t matter where she came from, Arietta, she’s dead now.”

  Arietta brushed a silver hair from her face. “Yes. A striking urn. Limoges. She bought it herself after her diagnosis, and it still has pride of place on the Rundlett mantel. She was a brave woman, in her own way. Looked at the facts head-on.”