by Jenny Goebel
The order for Sam’s portrait sat on Mimi’s desk, as heavy and alarming to me as an eviction notice. Mimi was smiling benignly, sitting on one side of Sara, and Mrs. Evans had joined the condolence party, sitting on the other. The three women had their fingers intertwined like ropes. Some of the color from Sara’s red-rimmed eyes seemed to have found its way back to her cheeks. I was glad.
I pictured myself pushing in and then locking my fingers between Sara’s and Mimi’s. But if I tried, I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed into their circle, at least not at the moment. The contrast between the gentle softness Mimi’s face held for these women and the hardness it had shown upstairs in my bedroom just a few minutes prior said it all.
Feeling hopelessly left out, I scuttled past and quickly found things to busy myself with on the far side of the showroom. A short while later, Mrs. Evans walked up behind me and cupped my elbow in her hand. “Bernie?” she said.
I glanced behind her. I hadn’t noticed when Sara left. Mimi was out of sight, as well. Most likely she’d made off for the kitchen to ready the lunch trays.
“Yeah?” I said. “Are you headed up to see Mama?”
“In a bit … but I wanted to ask you something first.” Mrs. Evans’s eyes crinkled around the edges. She looked at me much more fondly than I deserved, and I wriggled in her grasp and away from her adoring gaze.
Mrs. Evans didn’t seem to notice my discomfort, or else she overlooked it. “Mr. Finley told me how kindly you treated him the other day. It takes a special heart to show that kind of compassion. Bernie, I … I was wondering if you’d like to join the outreach committee I’m putting together.”
“Me?” I nearly spat. Hadn’t she seen the way I’d ignored her outside Mr. Finley’s house? I wasn’t good with people, not like Mimi was. Even if she hadn’t figured that out already, the look on my face had to be making it clear — but if anything, Mrs. Evans’s smile only grew wider.
“Thank you,” I said, somewhat belatedly remembering some of the manners I was raised with. “But I don’t think I’m what you’re looking for.”
“Give it some thought, Bernie.” My answer didn’t faze her any more than my wriggling had. “Our first meeting is next Sunday after mass,” she continued. “We’ll gather outside the worship space, and then visit community members. People like Mr. Finley whose lives can be brightened by small acts of kindness.”
“Dad and Mimi need me around here to take care of things,” I retorted. It was the truth, and in my opinion, a pretty darn good excuse, as well.
“Mimi’s already given her blessing. She thinks some time away from here might be good for you, dear.”
So that’s what this was all about. It was just a ruse. Luckily I hadn’t fooled myself into believing that someone like Mrs. Evans could actually find me as kind and caring as she was making me out to be. The sting would’ve hurt a lot worse if I had.
No. After our conversation earlier, Mimi was worried about me. Not Mr. Stein. But yours truly. Thinking I was headed down a darkened path, what with my spying and asking about creepy signs, Mimi had sent Mrs. Evans to fluff me up and straighten me out like a wrinkled pillow case.
It was all I could do to remember this was Mimi’s doing, and to keep my tone pleasant as I answered, “Okay. I’ll think about it and let you know.”
“I know you’ll enjoy it, Bernie. If you give it a try.”
I started to speak, but Mrs. Evans stopped me. “Just stop by the office in a few days and let me know, all right?”
I nodded, mostly to get rid of her.
As soon as Mrs. Evans left, I stormed into the kitchen. Just as I’d suspected, Mimi was finishing up the lunch trays and I snatched Mr. Stein’s right out from under her. I fumed as I carried it to the carriage house door, knocked, and then, in spite of Mimi’s warning (or maybe in part because of it) slipped around the back side.
There was no real use peeking in the window, but that’s not why I was there. I’d been thinking about something while I was working on my chores, while Mimi and Mrs. Evans were consoling Sara … And, incredibly, that something was bugging me even more than Mimi’s meddling.
Sure enough, when I slipped open the corrugated, cardboard lid, the box of granite tiles was half empty. There’d been a box of twelve to start, and now there were only six tiles left. I counted one of the missing tiles for Mrs. Finley, one for Sam Fuller, and one to replace the tile of Isabella — if Mr. Stein had been telling the truth about making another one — that left three or four more missing tiles.
Or were the tiles already engraved, dark and dangerous threats tucked inside the worktable drawer? But why? Why would Mr. Stein want to do this? I wondered if he’d truly loved Isabella as Mimi suggested. A great love lost could bring madness upon just about anybody, or so I’d heard.
If only Mimi had listened to me. Where would Mrs. Evans’s small acts of kindness and her own rank if she knew the people of Stratwood were gonna keep dropping like flies? The anger stirred again inside me. Was this what drove Mr. Stein to strike the stones with his sharpened chisel? Was it anger that drove him, or a deep, aching chill? Burning with annoyance myself, and yet cold with fear, I stood there shivering and quaking in the hot July sun. More deaths were on the horizon. I could feel it in my bones.
FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, THE SUN CONTINUED TO FIX ITS fiery eye on Stratwood. The roofs of cars sizzled in the heat and the pavement surrendered, going all soft and rubbery beneath the soles of my shoes. Everywhere I looked, foreheads were lined with beads of sweat, and shirts were pitted out and stained. Yet the sun couldn’t seem to find me. I lived in the shadows, in a cool, dark place the sun couldn’t break through.
I thought about trying to talk to Mimi again, but every time I came close to doing it, I’d think about the conversation she must’ve had with Mrs. Evans. One of those I-don’t-know-why-that-girl-can’t-keep-her-nose-out-of-trouble talks I so often inspired. And then I’d think about Mrs. Evans offering up a spot on her outreach committee as a wholesome activity, and I just couldn’t go through with it. At the slightest hint of darkness, I was pretty sure Mimi would start researching at what age I could enter a convent.
So instead, three times a day, I dropped off a full tray at the carriage house and picked up an empty one. And three times a day, standing with my ear pressed to Mr. Stein’s door, I listened to the sound of stone being chiseled and scraped, and fought the urge to confront him. It wasn’t a lack of wanting that stopped me; it was the not-knowing-how part. And doing nothing was worse than anything.
Dad was still visiting Mama, and I didn’t want to do anything to jinx that; but, nonetheless, her outbursts were getting louder and louder as the dreaded anniversary neared. Rather than being high-pitched and shrill (which might’ve been easier to endure), her cries were deep and low and seemed to come from some hollow place inside her. She hid her face each time I entered her room, and her body heaved with sobs beneath the sheets. I struggled to come up with something to say, anything to soothe her sadness. But just like Mr. Stein’s evildoings, Mama’s heartache seemed to stretch far beyond my reach.
Then one morning I passed Dad as I walked down the stairs. He rounded an eyebrow into a question mark, but kept walking. In the kitchen sat Michael looking even livelier than usual. Leave it to Dad to make a quick exit and let Mimi handle the mystery of the boy who’d become a regular at our breakfast table.
For her part, Mimi didn’t seem to see any mystery in it at all. She just seemed thrilled by Michael’s reappearances and was whistling “Amazing Grace” as she scrubbed dishes in the sink. With her back to me, and with Michael’s head buried in a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes, I was able to stare at him all I wanted. With his dark, flopping-down hair and a smear of chocolate to match on his chin, I was pleasantly reminded that there were still lighthearted and fun things in the world.
“Did you leave any for me?” I kidded as I slid into the seat beside him.
Michael shrugged his shoulders and a grin spread across
his face. “Nope. But you can have a bite of mine.” He cut a piece with his fork and shoved it at my mouth.
I ducked away from his hand and threw a napkin at him. “Just wipe the chocolate off your face, would ya?” I said.
Mimi stopped whistling and chuckled softly. Then she picked up a tray from the counter and said, “I’ll just take this out for you, Bernie.”
“Thanks, Mimi,” Michael and I said together. As soon as she’d left, Michael’s face twisted into a funny expression I couldn’t quite read. “There’s something I’ve got to show you. I left it at my house.”
Michael dropped an issue of the Silverton News on the desk in front of me. “You found her!” I said. I think if someone would’ve held a microphone up to my brain just then, they could’ve heard all the clunking and chattering going on inside as I scanned the article with Isabella’s photo next to it. “How’d you get this?” I asked.
“You remember my cousin Giovanna from Silverton, right?” Michael said, flipping the newspaper back a few pages. “Well, there she is.”
Sure enough, the perky-looking cheerleader from the frame on his nightstand was pictured in a full-color, whirly pirouette of a pose on the front of the sports page.
“Her team took state and finished third at nationals. If you’d rather read about them, be my guest.”
I took the paper from him and folded it back to the story about the woman from my portrait. “No, thank you,” I said curtly. “But you still didn’t answer my question. This paper’s from June twenty-ninth, two weeks before Mr. Stein came a-strutting in my front door. What’ve you been doing, holding on to it this whole time? Why didn’t you tell me you had a Silverton newspaper?”
“I didn’t tell you because I haven’t been holding on to it. I called up Giovanna after we found Mr. Stein’s name in the Silverton yellow pages.”
“You told her!” I said. “You told me not to tell anyone, but then you went and blabbed it all to your cousin?” Of course he did, I thought angrily. Michael’s mouth would have to be taped shut for him to keep quiet. And it would take a great deal of duct tape considering how big his dang head was.
“I didn’t tell her nothing,” Michael grumbled. “Except how I thought she should send those newspapers she’s always bragging about. Told her I didn’t believe she’d ever been in a single one. Lucky for us the Silverton News has been running a column on Giovanna’s team, highlighting their trip to nationals. She sent all of them and I read through two months of newspapers to find this one.” Michael tapped his finger on the picture of Isabella.
“Oh.” I felt slightly ashamed for jumping to conclusions and decided to let Michael keep full movement of his mouth … for the time being, anyway. “Thanks. That was a good idea,” I said quietly. “Now shush, so I can read.”
Isabella Freemont, heir to the Freemont Foundation, was found dead this morning when firefighters responded to a three-alarm call at her residence. However, officials do not believe fire was the cause of death.
I felt the pulling-down weight of Isabella’s portrait in my backpack. (I carried her everywhere with me these days.) I knew she was dead, but somehow reading about it made it seem more real.
The county coroner found evidence Ms. Freemont suffered a heart attack preceding the flames that ripped through her home Wednesday. It is still under investigation as to whether or not the fire was deliberately set. Authorities speculate the fire may be related to a break-in reported by Ms. Freemont weeks prior. If you have any information regarding the fire or the burglary, please contact Rocco Romano of the Silverton PD.
Michael sat there, smiling proudly and waiting for my reaction.
“Okay,” I said at last. “Let me guess, Giovanna’s not the only relative the town of Silverton found newsworthy? Rocco Romano, he’s related to you, too, somehow?”
“Uh-huh. He’s my uncle.” Michael cocked his eyebrows at me.
I thought for a moment. My brain clunked and chattered some more. Isabella died of a heart attack, just like Mrs. Finley and Sam Fuller. All three of them seemed to have met an unfortunate, untimely death. But what of the fire, and the break-in, too? It wasn’t like this paper had cleared anything up. There was still a load of unanswered things about Isabella, so why was Michael acting so full of himself?
“You think he’ll help us,” I said.
Michael nodded, still grinning, and his eyebrows arched even higher — ridiculously high.
“Aren’t ongoing investigations closed to the public?” I asked. “Even if he is your uncle, he’s not gonna want us poking around in police business.”
“True, but the police can’t resist sharing their cases with fellow officers of the law, in this case a sister-in-law. Get it? She’s his sister-in-law and a sister … in … law.”
I groaned. Michael may have grown on me. Slightly. But his jokes had not. In fact, the dose I’d had that morning was just about enough already. “Your mom? No way. We’re not dragging her into this now.” I crossed my arms in front of me. “You said so yourself. She won’t believe it.”
“What won’t I believe?” Mrs. Romano popped into the doorway to Michael’s room. Her long brown hair was slicked back in a knot, looking like a cinnamon roll at the base of her neck. Her uniform was fitted and crisp, and a dark metal gun peeked out from the holster on her hip.
I swallowed a lump the size of a chestnut.
Michael quickly flipped the newspaper back to the sports section with Giovanna’s picture front and center. “Mom!” he said. “Hey, did you get off early?”
Sheriff Romano looked back and forth between Michael and me. “Nope. I’m still on duty. I picked up an extra shift tonight. But, with your father out of town, I thought I’d swing by to check on you. Now, what won’t I believe?” She rested her hands on her slender waist. I stared at the long fingertips on her right hand — the ones resting just above her firearm. I knew what Mimi would do with a gun if she found a boy in my bedroom.
“That I want to go visit Cousin Giovanna in Silverton,” Michael said.
“You’re right. I don’t. Giovanna loathes you.”
“Actually the word she used last Christmas, after I laughed at the photo she gave me of herself, was detest as in, ‘Michael Romano, I detest you.’ Then she said I was more repulsive than the slime between a toad’s toes. I tried to tell her that was impossible since toads don’t actually have toes, you know, because of the webbing and all, but —”
“Enough, Michael. Just get to the point already. What possible reason could you have for wanting to see her?” Sheriff Romano asked.
“I don’t want to see her. Bernie does.”
“What?!?” I shrieked. I’d been listening closely to see where Michael was heading with all this, but I wasn’t even half expecting he’d turn it back on me.
“It’s okay, Bernie,” Michael said, holding on to my angry stare with a teasing one. “She won’t tell anyone.” Michael turned back to his mother, “You see, Mom, Bernie really wants to try out for cheerleading when school starts up again, but she doesn’t want anyone to know.”
I shook my head and then stopped abruptly. Any denying I did at this point was only gonna make Michael’s stupid story seem all the more true.
“You know how girls are, Mom.” Michael rolled his eyes for effect. “Bernie’s scared she won’t make the team. So she’s embarrassed. But Giovanna is captain of Silverton High’s cheerleading squad, and they even went to nationals. Remember how she kept going on and on about it last time we visited, and I told her to keep on talking and maybe one day she’d say something interesting?”
Michael paused like he expected us to laugh. When we didn’t, he cleared his throat and went on. Michael was good at talking. “Anyway, Bernie was hoping I could introduce them so she could get some pointers to help her with tryouts. What do you think?”
Mrs. Romano narrowed her eyes. I was certain she could taste the thick lie that hung in the air. Isn’t that what police officers do? But then her face softe
ned and her lips curled up in a smile. “Well, I wouldn’t mind catching up with Rocco and Celeste. Maybe we can drive down on Sunday after mass.”
Michael grinned widely and held his hand up, palm out, in front of me.
I shrugged and slapped Michael’s outstretched hand. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed Mrs. Romano to think I was actually excited about going.
Michael’s mom let out a huge, long sigh and said, “Michael, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”
“That makes two of us,” I said.
After Mrs. Romano left the room (like Mimi, chuckling as she went), I turned to face Michael. “Cheerleading? C’mon, really, Michael? Cheerleading? I don’t know the first thing about cheerleading. How on earth am I going to pretend I have a clue when I meet your cousin?”
“Don’t worry, Bernie,” Michael said. “Just say the word cheer squad and Giovanna won’t shut up. You’ll be schooled on everything from basket tosses to car washes in no time.”
“Basket tosses?”
“Just trust me.”
“Right.” How was I supposed to trust someone who thought cheer squad was one word? Plus, I wasn’t convinced going to Silverton was such a great idea in the first place. If Michael’s family knew something sinister about Mr. Stein, wouldn’t there be an all-points bulletin out for his arrest? I was afraid, too, that if we went to Silverton, all we’d find would be more suffering. And I didn’t know why we should go looking for more when we already had plenty enough here to go around.
Michael picked up the phone to call his relatives and let them know we were coming. After a few rings, I heard him say, “Hello, Giovanna,” into the receiver. He said it the way you hear a TV superhero greet his nemesis. Or did I have that backward?
Just then, I remembered what else was going on after Sunday’s mass. “Oops. I gotta go,” I said. I glanced back at Michael as I left the room. He had this exaggerated grimace on his face that made me want to laugh. When his pained looked changed to one of confusion, I added, “I’ll explain later.” I wanted to get to Sacred Heart before Mrs. Evans took her lunch break. I still hadn’t given her my answer.