"It's not in my hands. It's up to the Department of Youth Services. They call the shots."
"But you got some say." Bobby slipped off the dryer and stood warily, as if people were trying to corner him. "Can't you help me?"
"Well, I admit you're an asset to me. And there's still the matter of counseling." Mr. Grissom gave him a wink. "Maybe I can work something out, but in return I want a solemn promise from you. When you leave Sherwood for good, you don't go the way Dibble did."
"I'm my own man," Bobby said.
On Bobby's nineteenth birthday, Mr. Grissom said, "You got a visitor. It's your uncle."
"Do I have to see him?"
"I think you should. He's been good to you. He's been good to Sherwood."
When Bobby entered the visiting room he saw a partial stranger whose tentative smile evoked memories of a caged canary, of baby girls with two women to care for them, of sweets eaten on the sly. Ben Sawhill saw a boy's face and a man's physique outlined in a T-shirt and jeans.
"You look great, Bobby."
Bobby said, "Is that for me?"
His uncle handed over a small wrapped gift. "Happy birthday."
Bobby opened it. It was a gold Parker pen and pencil set, initialed. Bobby snapped the case shut without thanking him. Staring into his uncle's face, he said, "You look a lot older."
"I feel a lot older, Bobby. Shall we sit down?"
They sank into plastic-cushioned chairs. Bobby slouched, and Ben sat erect with stiff shoulders and a barely perceptible tremor in his jaw. His voice was heavy.
"I'd have come long before this, but you didn't want visitors."
"Why'd you come now?"
"It was time. Your Aunt Belle ... sends her love."
"She's never written. The twins did for a while, long time ago, but then they stopped. I didn't answer their letters. Now they don't answer mine."
Ben spoke quickly. "You have to understand. They have their own lives. They're busy with school, their friends. But I know they think of you."
"When they arrested me, why weren't you my lawyer?"
"I got you the best, Bobby, and he got you the absolute best deal. It could've been much worse, you know. Instead of going into a penitentiary, you'll be getting out soon. That's something to think about, isn't it?"
"I don't want to think about it," Bobby said.
Worry printed itself on Ben's face. He watched the pen-and-pencil case slip between Bobby's legs. "You should think about it. It won't be easy. A lot will be different, and you'll need to make adjustments."
Bobby looked at his watch, the Rolex, as if flaunting it. "Guys here," he said, "do what I say. They have to. I'm Mr. Grissom's eyes and ears."
Shifting his shoulders, Ben was aware of a weariness creeping through him. Nothing he could do about it. "I'd like you to consider college. I've looked into a couple of good ones. A friend of mine recommends the University of Michigan. Then there's McGill in Montreal. I have the literature. I'll mail it to you."
"I don't want it," Bobby said.
"You'll need to have a profession, Bobby. You'll need to earn a living."
"No I won't," Bobby said. "I'll have my father's money."
"How'd it go?" Mr. Grissom asked, rising from his desk.
"Not good," Ben Sawhill said. "He's got to have counseling. He should've had it years ago."
"He's already in it, Mr. Sawhill, but I don't know the value of it. He gives different answers to the same question. Most of the boys do that. They treat counseling as a contest, which is why I've never been big on it."
The tremor was back in Ben's jaw. "Something's got to be done. He scares me, and he'll scare me more when he gets out."
"You may be overreacting," Mr. Grissom said. "I think he has his emotions well under control. All the time he's been here he's never shown violent behavior. The closest he came was in the TV room, a minor incident, but it ended with him giving his antagonizer a cookie."
Ben was in no way reassured. Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he withdrew the pen case and placed it on Mr. Grissom's desk. "He forgot his present. Would you give it to him, please."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gloria Eisner stayed the winter in Key West and spent spring in New Jersey with her parents. Her father, a retired financial analyst, was battling a citizens' group that wanted to ban gasolineoperated lawn mowers in the town. Her mother was a pediatrician with an active practice in Manhattan. Her mother couldn't understand why she had sold her charming house in Connecticut.
"Money, Mom, no other reason."
"Don't you miss it?"
"Desperately."
Her father, with whom she'd long been on the outs because of her broken marriages, surprised her with a substantial check for her birthday. Looking at the amount, she said, "You didn't have to do this, Dad."
"Then give it back," he said.
Her mother said, "Why don't you live here?"
"Because I'd get on your nerves."
Her mother nodded. "Yes, you would."
She returned to Bensington on a weekday in June. Trish Becker met her at the door and threw her arms around her. "I didn't think you were coming back at all."
"I'm a bad penny," she said, breaking free. Trish helped her in with her luggage and in the kitchen gripped her at arm's length.
"You cut your hair. You look gorgeous."
"You look pretty good yourself."
"I've gained weight."
"Doesn't show."
"Liar."
In the evening they sat out on the screened patio with a bottle of wine and a cut of cheese. A breeze swishing through birches had the pleasant sound of waves lapping the side of a ship. The cry of a woodland animal had the quality of a child's laugh.
"I have something going with Ben Sawhill," Trish said.
Slow to respond, Gloria said finally, "It's your life."
"You think I'm wrong."
"It won't last, and it won't end well."
"I know that. But as you say, it's my life." Trish sliced off a chip of cheese and placed it on a spicy cracker. "I haven't heard from the chief in a long while."
"I've kept in touch. I told him I was coming back. I just didn't say when."
"Are you going to take up where you left off?"
"It's not a priority."
Trish gave her a cautious look and spoke timidly. "Do you forgive me for not going to Stirling's funeral?"
"Nothing to forgive."
"You sound cool. Are we still buddies?"
"We'll always be buddies." Gloria drained her wineglass and lifted the bottle, an inexpensive Chardonnay, and poured more. "I love you, Trish, but in time I think I'd like to be on my own again. You know the feeling."
Trish refilled her wineglass, spilling a little. "No, I've never had it," she said.
"Help me, Chief," Floyd Wetherfield said. His year's suspension was nearly up, but the selectmen didn't want him back. Randolph Jackson said he should resign and make it easy on everybody. Standing before Chief Morgan's desk, he said, `They can't make me do it, can they?"
"I wouldn't take bets," Morgan said. "They think you're a cowboy."
"I've learned my lesson, tell 'em that," he said with a shudder.
Morgan felt sorry for him. He was an intense young guy, handsome except for a somewhat chewed complexion. A substantial head of hair covered his ears. Married, with a two-year-old child, he'd been working odd jobs, one of which was early-morning home delivery of the Boston Globe.
"What makes you think they'll listen to me?"
"You're the chief!"
'And they're the boss. Why don't you talk to them yourself?"
"I can talk to you," Floyd said. "I wouldn't know how with them."
After he left, Meg O'Brien looked in on Morgan and said, "Give him a break. We all make mistakes. You've made your share, God knows."
"Don't push," Morgan said.
"I don't, who will?" she said.
A little later Morgan drove t
o the country club and waited for Randolph Jackson to come off the green. Jackson's forebears had helped found the town. He had owned the woodland that was now the Heights, the sale of which had made him rich. He came off the green driving a caddy cart and climbed out of it pink-faced.
Morgan said, "Can we talk?"
"I bet I know what it's about."
Morgan followed him into the clubhouse, into the lounge, where they sat at the bar, near a dish of cashews. Jackson ate a fistful. The bartender brought him a bourbon-on-the-rocks. Morgan wanted nothing.
"He knows he did wrong. He says he's learned his lesson. I believe him."
"He's a loose cannon."
"He has a wife and baby. He gets back on the job, he won't jeopardize it."
"You think he's fit to carry a weapon? I don't. That's what it comes down to."
Changing his mind, Morgan ordered ginger ale. "He's working a bunch of jobs. Five in the morning he's delivering newspapers. He delivers yours."
Jackson wrapped a freckled hand around his bourbon glass. His hair was sandy, a large bite gone from the crown. "You're blowing smoke up my ass. Feels good. Keep it up."
You fire him, he'll have Civil Service fighting YOU.
"No he won't. He hasn't been with us long enough." Jackson smiled slyly. "You thought I didn't do my homework."
Morgan rattled the ice in his ginger ale. "Everybody deserves a second chance."
"Second chances add up, like the ones we've given you."
"Good ginger ale," Morgan said to the bartender. "Did you make it yourself?" The bartender smiled. Morgan spoke low to Jackson. "I remember the time three sheets to the wind you smacked up your Mercedes. I drove you home, nothing ever said about it."
Jackson swallowed bourbon. "And I got the rest of my life for you to remind me."
He was watching television when the doorbell rang. He answered it in his stocking feet. A wrapped bottle hanging from one hand, Gloria Eisner stood on the step like a flower with nothing greater to do than look beautiful. "May I come in," she said, "or are you going to shut the door in my face?"
In the kitchen he hunted up a corkscrew and produced two wineglasses that didn't match. He rinsed them out before setting them on the table.
"You knew I was back," she said. "Why didn't you phone?"
"I figured it was your move."
They carried filled glasses into the living room. The television set usually in the kitchen was plugged in near the sofa, where he'd been lying. Sections of the Globe lay on the floor. He attempted to tidy up.
"Mind if I turn that thing off?" She killed a commercial touting hairspray. "If it wasn't for fantasy, men wouldn't fuck. They'd watch TV." She raised her glass. "Cheers."
"Cheers." He clinked her glass. They took substantial sips, then sat together on the sofa. "I saved your postcards," he said.
"I got a thrill licking the stamps. They honored Elvis Presley."
"It seems you've been gone ages. Tell me about it."
"About Key West? It turned into an escape from winter. Staying the spring at my parents' home was to remind me I don't belong there. I spent a weekend in Manhattan and bumped into a woman I hadn't seen in years. She said the last time she saw me was with my husband. I had to ask her which one."
Morgan gazed at her profile. "I missed you."
"I thought you might." She let her head sway his way. "I've been untouched for all these months, James. I thought you and I might kiss and hug."
"Here or upstairs?"
She put aside her glass and kicked off her pumps. "We could start off here and finish off up there."
She was up before he was. Opening the back door, she gazed out into the smoky brilliance of early morning. Here and there, during the night, gossamer threads had been woven into little shelters on the grass. In the refracting light they looked like lost doilies. When she heard a dog bark from the neighboring house, she closed the door.
Leggy and languid in his pajama top, she was pouring coffee when he came down. "No eggs in the fridge," she said, "so you'll have to settle for toast."
"I usually have breakfast at the Blue Bonnet. I was going to take you there, show you off."
"Sure you were," she said and reached high into a cupboard for small plates. She had a splendid behind and didn't mind displaying it.
"I've died and gone to heaven," he said, sipping his coffee at the table.
"And I'm an angel." She buttered toast for the two of them. "I've not mentioned it before but you're not circumcised. I mean, most men are. You don't have to be Jewish, though two of my husbands were." She added peanut butter to his toast, not to hers. "I'm not complaining. I think natural is nice."
"Should I comment on that?"
With a grin, she carried the toast to the table and joined him. "I have news you may or may not like. I've decided to stay in Bensington for a while but on my own and not in the Heights, too expensive. A broker has been showing me places. I have my eye on one the bank took over. I can get it for a bargain price. It's not too far from the green. On Grove Street."
He looked up from his coffee. "What number?"
"Sixty-two."
"You don't want it."
She dunked her toast. "Don't tell me what I don't want. I'll want it all the more."
"Do you know what happened there?"
"Trish told me what you think happened there. It has nothing to do with me."
Morgan stared intently. "We're about to have our first argument."
Trish Becker stepped off the curb at Winter and Washington, slipped into Ben Sawhill's comfortable car, shoved her newly acquired briefcase in back, and strapped herself in. Ben twisted the car back into traffic. "Good day?" he asked.
"Sort of." She loosened the skirt of her suit, which had been pinching, the zipper at fault. "I met Lula Simmons."
"Who's Lula Simmons?"
"She wrote those two books: Speaking Fatly when she was in her twenties and Speaking Thinly after she had trimmed herself with diet and exercise. I'm proofing her third, Speaking Honestly, about her struggle as a woman."
"Sounds interesting," Ben said unconvincingly.
Trish lowered her window as they inched toward Government Center. The traffic took on an odd beat, like an orchestra tuning up. Pigeons swirled up from the mall like packages coming apart.
"Neither of her marriages were successful," Trish said. "Bummers, both. She said she never made love with either husband. She merely copulated with them and produced two sets of children, the second set less ungrateful than the first."
"Maybe she never met the right man," Ben said.
.The right man never met her. She says he probably resides in Finland or Tibet, which makes a meeting unlikely."
Bus fumes made her raise the window. Ben angled toward the artery, and they got on it sooner than they'd thought, though Trish was in no hurry.
"She's seeing a younger man, but she says only raw nerves, hers, and sexual energy, his, keeps the affair going. It's all in the book."
"Are you asking me to read it?"
"No. You wouldn't like it." She lowered the window again.
"What's the use of air-conditioning if you keep doing that?"
"None at all. Lula says her second husband was an industrial polluter, which made him a human turd."
"Enough, Trish."
Traffic rolled free off the artery onto the interstate. The sky opened up, revealing a large cloud shaped like the torso of a woman. It made her look twice.
"Any chance of seeing you later?"
"None," he said. "Belle and I are going out."
Trish dropped her head back. They were in a middle lane. Cars whizzed by on each side. "Have you noticed, Ben, we always screw in silence. We never say a word."
Ben kept his eyes on the road. "Is that a time for conversation?"
"Are you silent with Belle?"
"Drop it," he said in a deathly quiet voice.
Neither spoke during the rest of the drive. On Ruskin Road, which
led to the Heights, they interrupted crows scrapping over carrion. When he pulled the car up near her front door, she unharnessed herself and patted his thigh.
"It's all right, Ben. I still love you."
The twins were watching television, eating popcorn, drinking Coca-Cola. Each was sitting on the floor against propped cushions, each wearing cutoff jerseys and shorts, their midriffs exposed. At fourteen, nearly fifteen, their bodies were accumulated treasures, the value obvious when they were in the company of boys. Jennifer was shy and aloof. Sammantha had two youths calling her, Mark English, who was overly handsome and saw Hollywood in his future, and Russ Lapierre, who was not handsome at all but had a way about him.
"I don't understand what you see in either of them," Jennifer said.
"It's not like I'm serious about either of 'em," Sammantha said and gave her sister a shrewd look. "They're like the rest. You know."
"No, tell me."
"They all want you to touch it. If you don't, they call you a goody-goody."
Jennifer took a quick swig of Coke. "Have you ever touched it?"
"Once," Sammantha said. "No big deal."
Jennifer grimaced. "I'd never do that."
"It doesn't bite." Sammantha had the remote and changed the channel.
"I was watching that!"
"It was boring."
"Sam, what does it do?"
"Spurts."
"Gripes!"
Sammantha changed the channel again, the sound increasing because of a commercial. Dog food was the product.
"Sam, what if ...
"It has to be in you." She switched back to the channel they were originally watching, the laugh track in full force. "I was just thinking, Bobby will be getting out soon. He won't recognize us, I bet."
"I don't know if I want to see him," Jennifer said. "I heard it was really two women he killed."
"That's just a rumor."
"What if it isn't?"
"Then it's true, nothing we can do about it."
Jennifer ran her fingers into the bowl of popcorn but didn't pick up any. "What will you say when you see him?"
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