by Maggie Bruce
The yellow pages didn’t have a category called “Friends.”
If I had to leave my beating heart in someone else’s care for a while, I’d trust my friend Karen with it, no questions asked. I almost felt the same about Nora. I probably should have about the others, but I wasn’t quite there yet. I could sit here and wonder until I turned mauve, or—
A rush of energy and a desire to plunge ahead rose up so suddenly I didn’t have a chance to question it, or to quell it.
“Marjorie Mellon was murdered,” I said. “She was shot in the back of the head. Her body was found half a mile from my house. The rifle that fired the shot that killed her was stashed in my attic. Those are the facts.”
“Not all of them.” Susan had scribbled down everything I’d said, and now she looked up from her paper. “She made a public statement that she was in favor of the casino. And she called for other people who wanted it to join her in a consortium to find ways to support it.”
“So, who was against the casino? Most of us.” Nora avoided Susan’s gaze and took a sip of her wine. “And Connie Lovett.”
“And Seth Selinsky,” I said quietly. “And Trisha Stern. And at least a hundred others.”
“The real question,” said practical Nora, “is what do we do now? I mean, how can we get useful information?”
We exchanged shrugs and sheepish glances as we waited for a spark to ignite a bonfire of great ideas.
“In New York after September 11th, the slogan was ‘See something, say something.’ I always thought it was kind of lame,” I admitted, “but it makes sense in this situation. We keep our eyes and ears open, maybe ask a couple of discreet questions—discreetly—and then follow up if something strikes us as odd.”
“So,” Melissa said, “what’s odd?”
Odd, in Brooklyn, consisted of asking a total stranger to watch your bag while you went to the restroom. Here in Walden Corners, nobody would look twice if you left your car unlocked, but they’d roll their eyes if a neighbor suddenly decided to paint the gazebo purple. The discussion continued with example after example, each one stretching the envelope a little more, until Nora said, “Odd in this group is stopping the jokes and getting down to business. We’re trying to help Lili here. No more fun allowed.”
Everyone laughed, of course. I realized that the most likely outcome of all this activity was that we’d feel a little more like we were in control. As though we might contribute to discovering the truth, thereby saving me from wrongful prosecution, even if all we found was crumbs. Another corner of my mind was sure that with so many smart, resourceful friends working toward the same end, I’d be suspicion-free in short order.
“So, would you say that Nathaniel Bartle going to Poughkeepsie and coming back with a generator and two wooden crates is odd?” Susan shook her head. “He’s always been the totally PC do-the-right-thing activist, the last one I’d figure for a survivalist. Maybe he’s thinking that the casino is going to bring the cowboys into town, to fight off the very Indians . . . I mean, Native Americans, he’s trying to help.”
Nora nodded. “And what about Trisha Stern? I’ve seen her walking her land and hanging mirrors in trees and carrying bowls of burning stuff that make thick, black smoke. She’s had this glazed look in her eye ever since the meetings started. Maybe she’s getting in touch with a higher power, or maybe she’s gone off the deep end.”
“I’m sorry to say this, but wasn’t Seth pretty adamant that the casino would cost him business?” Elizabeth glanced at me and then looked away. “He’s been so distracted lately, he hardly even remembers to say hello if you bump into him. Melissa, you have any ideas?”
Melissa shuddered, as though she’d been awakened from a bad dream. “Sorry, I was just thinking about my Aunt Bernie. She loved puzzles—she was so sharp she would have made sense of all this. It’s not fair, it’s just not fair. We were so optimistic about the new treatment, we thought we had all the time in the world. Now I can’t stand that I put off stopping by at her house that last week.”
Connie and her doctor had been so sure she’d be feeling better by now. I could barely imagine how it must feel to watch someone you considered a second mother not respond to treatment. I reached out to close my hand over Melissa’s. “It sucks, you’re right. I’m so sorry.”
Melissa squeezed my hand and smiled. “Enough of that. Look, Lili was right. Maybe just being conscious of odd behavior is a good place to start. For now, I think, we’ll have to settle for being observers.”
“And poker players,” Nora said. “Who has the next highest card? Oops, looks like my jack of clubs is it.”
The others looked at her meaningfully. I nodded, ready for her to scoop up the cards on the table and start the deal.
“So I get to say this part. It’s not just the suspect thing, Lili. We’re all a little worried about you. You’re under a lot of stress right now, and it shows. We’re here to help however we can—run errands, come over and take care of house stuff. Even stay with your brother for a couple of hours to give you a break.”
Susan, her eyes twinkling, looked at Melissa and nodded. “From the look on your face, I’d say that you’ll be the first volunteer, right?”
“Okay, enough of that, you guys.” Melissa’s voice had dropped to a whisper as she pointed to the hall, in the direction in which Neil had disappeared. “Neil Marino is cute and charming and he’s eleven years younger than I am, so back off.”
She passed me the bowl of vegetables. “And, yes, I’d be happy to come over to let you run errands or whatever. But you have to do something, too. You have to promise to take us up on these offers. You’ve been looking so tired lately. I know I’m not a doctor, but maybe you should think about getting something that would help you sleep.”
I laughed. “Warm milk and a clear conscience. And valerian. Mr. Trent gave me some. It’s supposed to be Nature’s sleeping pill or something. I’ll be all right, once Michele Castro decides to leave me alone. Listen, I don’t know how else to say this, but thanks.”
“No thanks yet. We haven’t done anything. Good intentions won’t take the place of good ideas.” Elizabeth snatched a celery stalk from the vegetable tray and looked at it as though it had stepped out of a Martian spaceship. “Whatever happened to chips and dip? I think one way to find out who murdered Marjorie is for all of us to go to her funeral on Wednesday. And we need to get more active in the whole casino thing.”
“Well, of course. I was planning to go to the service anyway. And to all the casino meetings.” Nora’s face brightened. “But now we’ll have a focus. We’ll talk to people, get them to open up and maybe reveal something. There’s a meeting next week at the Lovetts’ barn. The posters have been plastered all over town. ‘If you want to keep our town small and friendly yada yada. . . .’ Some of us should go. Nobody would think twice about that.”
My heart thudded. The only one whose presence at that meeting would raise suspicion was Susan. Before I could figure out how to say anything, Susan laughed and then pointed her finger at each of us around the table.
“I’m the only one who can go to the other meeting,” she said, grinning. “You’ll have to trust me to be your eyes and ears and bring you back a full report. If any of the rest of you went to the Lovetts, nobody would say a word because you’ve already stood up and been counted. Against. All of you. What you might not know is that there’s talk of a supporters’ meeting at Nathaniel’s bowling alley. It’s closed on Tuesdays and that’s when it’s scheduled. You want me to go?”
Nora was the first to break the silence. “Of course. That’s perfect. It’ll be harder for you to cover a lot of ground because you’re only one person, but you’re right, Susan. You’re the only one who can go to Nathaniel’s.”
“I’ll take good notes. Everyone takes notes at these things, except mine will be a little different.” She slipped the cards back into the deck, shuffled, and then fanned the cards out in the middle of the table. “Okay, now this is for
real. High card deals.”
I placed my hand atop the cards and waited until everyone looked at me. I was the only one smiling. “Aha, see? You only like it when you know what the script is. You engineered this whole conversation. But you forgot that I don’t take orders very well. So before we play, I get to say something too.”
They all sat closer to the edge of their chairs. If I could have, I would have scooped them into a group hug, the way my friends used to in fifth grade in Brooklyn.
What, I wondered, was stopping me?
“Okay, everyone stand up,” I ordered. Nora, Susan, and Melissa pushed their chairs back and came to where I was standing in the middle of the room. My eyes met Elizabeth’s, and I saw a challenge that six months earlier might have ruined the moment for me. But I knew enough now to reach for her hand and tug her to her feet. I raised my arms to start the circle, and Susan grabbed me on one side and Nora on the other. Melissa and then Elizabeth joined the huddle.
“Now, get closer. Closer.” I waited until our noses were practically touching. “Okay, now everyone repeat after me. One for all and all for—”
“Lili!” Nora shouted. “We shall prevail. Just think of us as your enforcers.”
“My Gourdfellas, only this time we’re on the right side of the law.”
I felt like a winner without ever seeing what cards I’d been dealt.
Chapter 9
Trisha Stern might have been the most cheerful person I’d ever met. Luckily, it was a bearable cheerfulness, because it seemed to come from a genuinely optimistic view of the world. With her short, wispy hair and blue eyes that crinkled when she smiled, she looked like an elf sent to lead my brother to a hidden treasure.
“You are so lucky it wasn’t your femur,” she said as she coaxed Neil to raise his leg a little higher. “Would have taken longer, might have been harder on the weight bearing. And you’re in such good shape, too. You just have to work a little harder for the next eight weeks, keep your upper body strength—no, don’t point your toes, flex—and get some cardio in, you’ll be okay.”
Sweating with the strain, Neil finally dropped his leg and swabbed his face with a towel. “Were you this hard on the girls?” he asked, grinning.
“Harder. And the New York Liberty complained less.” She handed him the water bottle. “All right, sixty seconds of rest. Then we’ll work those lats.”
In just a week, Neil had made remarkable progress. He was especially pleased that his right leg, which he insisted was a little skinnier than his left when he arrived, was already starting to regain its muscle. He started his upper body workout, lifting the hand weights he’d brought from home. Sweat popped out first on his face and then on his torso as he went through his reps. I waved as I headed for the gourd studio, relieved that Trisha had turned out to be more than competent. Forty minutes gave me just enough time to finish staining one of the pieces I wanted to show at the Welburn Gourd Festival in June.
Neil and I had settled into a pleasant routine, and life would have been good and comfortable except for the sword of suspicion hanging over my head. We ate breakfast and lunch whenever and wherever the spirit moved us, but dinner was served at seven o’clock at the table, television off. We’d fallen happily into the routine of our mother’s house. Its virtues, against which we complained when we were children, were apparent to us now.
I was so absorbed in applying the leather dye and watching it run and spread along the gourd surface that I was startled when the telephone rang. I reached for the receiver, nearly spilling a large container of Buckskin all over myself. My voice might have had the slightest edge to it when I said hello.
“Lili?” the familiar male voice asked.
“Tom. You weren’t exactly who I expected when I picked up the phone. Sorry if I sounded weird. I nearly turned myself brown when . . . never mind, you didn’t call to hear my problems. What can I do for you?”
After I’d left messages in Vermont and at his offices in New York City last winter when I was looking for information about money Nora’s husband had invested, Tom Ford had made it clear that he didn’t want me to call him. I’d been more than happy to honor his request. Now he was the one who had crossed that line. What could be important enough for him to violate his own ban and telephone?
“That proposed casino sounds like a little bit of hell about to be dropped into paradise,” he said. “Who can I contact about it?”
I refrained from asking him why anyone would care what he thought about the matter. He’d owned this cottage for five years, had never socialized with a single soul in the community, and then had moved three thousand miles away.
“I guess the mayor or the head of the town council. Mayor’s name is Fred Patronski, and Joseph Trent is the council leader. I’m sure if you write to them at the Walden Corners Administrative Center it will get to them.” If he thought I was going to spend time looking up the address when he could find it just as easily on the Internet, he was missing some marbles. In fact, he could have found Patronski’s and Trent’s names that way, too. And yet he’d phoned me.
“Right, sure, I should have thought of that. Everything all right at the house?”
The answer to that question depended entirely on the person doing the asking. “Fine,” I said. “I’m having some roofing work done, and I put in a garden. Everything’s fine.”
“I miss the place.” I’d never heard him sound wistful before, but the note of longing in his voice was clear. “It’s beautiful here and they have great coffee and it’s a terrific spot to feel the spirit of Manifest Destiny and all that. But it doesn’t have the settled, lush feel of Columbia County. Listen, I read about Marjorie Mellon and the rifle.”
Was he about to solve at least part of the mystery? I held my breath and waited for him to go on.
“I had an idea about how it got there,” he said. “You know that louvered window? The one at the east end of the attic where the fan is? Someone can climb up the maple tree and just push on the fan and drop the rifle in. Pull the fan back into place and that’s that.”
And maybe leave behind fingerprints or clothing fibers. Before I could say more, Tom cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m sure things will work out for you. But this casino idea—it would be criminal to destroy that part of the Hudson Valley with a casino. Jobs, taxes, reparations—nothing is worth the price of ruining the peace and beauty of the area.”
I sighed. Understanding what it was like to have to scramble for a job was not Tom Ford’s greatest asset. What did he, the manager of a failed mutual fund who had then picked himself up and rebuilt the business so that he could pay off the investors he’d burned, know about real struggle? I doubted whether he’d ever had dinner with someone who had to decide whether to buy groceries or pay for health insurance. His dinner companions were more likely to fret about whether to go to Valencia or Cozumel for a winter break.
When it came right down to it, the real question was whether he’d ever had dinner with someone.
“The people who support the casino think Walden Corners needs to expand its tax base and its employment opportunities,” I explained.
“They’re right. But there are other ways. They don’t have to support a blight. Well, thanks for the information, Lili.”
“Wait!” Before he hung up, I wanted to tap the well of ideas that was his brain. “How else? What would be a good alternative to the casino?”
“I’d need to think about that more before I say. But I’m sure there’s something. Look, I have to go. I’m late for a meeting. I am glad that things are working out for you at the cottage.”
Except for the little matter of Marjorie’s murder.
Without waiting for a good-bye from me he hung up, ensuring that my frustration would remain at a simmer for the rest of the hour. I pictured him, dark hair slicked back and tinted glasses shielding his feral green eyes from the sun glare bouncing off Puget Sound. Tom the Arrogant, who took what he needed and then moved on, was terribly efficie
nt at getting a reaction from me. I should have known, should have been prepared. Should have told him to take his request and—
No need to allow those buttons to be pushed, I reminded myself. That gives him the power, and that’s not right. I closed my eyes, let out a whoosh of air, and then started to work on my gourd again. I glanced at the clock. Only five minutes left of Trisha’s session with my brother, and I really wanted to catch her before she left so I could tell her how much I appreciated what she was doing for Neil.
Besides, I liked her. I wiped my hands on my work jeans and got to the living room just in time to see her pack up her equipment. The sound of running water in the bathroom meant that Neil was washing up after his workout.
“I’m so glad you’re helping my brother. When he was trying to figure out what to do for rehab, he perked right up when I told him about you. You’re just the right combination of tough and tender to make him work his hardest. I’m really grateful.”
She bent to secure the buckles on her bag and then stood, face flushed and eyes twinkling. “He’s got the grit. That’ll serve him well.”
I couldn’t read whether she meant serve him well in recovering and playing the second half of the season or serve him well in building a new life without baseball.
“How do you like the change from the big city?” she asked.
Glad for the opening, I said, “Made it through four seasons, and I still love it here. How about you? You seem so at home. You don’t miss New York?”
Her smile made her look even younger, and the twinkle in her eye brightened. “Sometimes I think I married Jonathan just to be able to live in that great house. I love the stillness of winter and the way everything wakes up in the spring. I love the abundance of summer—did you ever can thirty-six quarts of tomatoes? Amazing! Fall—wow, I never seem to get my eyes open wide enough to take in all that spectacular beauty. You’ll have to come for lunch when Neil’s a little more mobile. Our own stream. A meadow surrounded by trees. The crocuses are almost gone, but we’ve got a fantastic tulip bed that should be at its peak next week. And you can’t even hear the traffic from Route 9G or Walden Road.”