Gourdfellas

by Maggie Bruce

  “Anyone else hear anything?” Elizabeth glanced at her watch, her eyes suddenly tired.

  “Listen, it’s late.” I was aware that everyone, especially Susan, had to be up early the next morning. “We can do this another time. You all have to get to work tomorrow, so maybe we should just—”

  “Keep going. We should keep going.” Nora pointed to the wall clock. “At least another twenty minutes. You know what they say about how important it is to collect information while it’s fresh? So let’s do that.”

  I grinned. “I thought you didn’t have time to watch television. Okay, so did you hear anything else, Susan?”

  Susan shook her head. “Nothing worth mentioning. Everyone seemed a little down, everyone still wants the casino to go through, nobody acted any more strange or upset than usual. What about you guys? You hear anything?”

  “Trisha Stern certainly had something to say to me as I was leaving.” Melissa poked at her slice of cake. “She went on and on about how Marjorie’s ideas threatened her comfort and her privacy, you know, with the casino right next door. She made it pretty clear that she’s been terribly upset. And that it’s gotten so bad that Jonathan’s thinking about applying for a job in some school district up in the Adirondacks.”

  “He can’t do that!” Susan’s dismay turned to anger. “He’s the best principal I’ve ever met, certainly the best one I ever worked for. If Trisha is so upset about the casino, she should talk him into selling the house and buying something else. Maybe a little farther out of town.”

  That wouldn’t be a true solution, at least not for the woman who had stood in my kitchen and rhapsodized over the wonders of living in her home, on that particular piece of land, surrounded by the those very trees and fields.

  “You know, our meeting was quiet, too,” Melissa said, “except that most people were pleased, happy that it looked like the casino would be defeated. There were lots of good ideas for things that might bring money into town. The only person who didn’t sound so optimistic was Connie. She looks so tired, so pale. I can’t help thinking she doesn’t want to spend whatever time she has left fighting against a casino.”

  We were all quiet. The Connie I knew would want this controversy to be resolved so that she could give her attention to other, happier things.

  “You’re right, Connie hasn’t been looking so good lately,” Nora said. “I wish I could help her, but right now I feel like we need to concentrate on things we can change. Okay, we went to a meeting. And there was all that high energy. All those proposals to bring new businesses into town. What do you think about Seth’s retirement-slash-arts center?”

  Melissa’s eyes narrowed and she smiled. “Maybe I could run a concession stand. Sell chocolate cupcakes and fancy madeleines and coffee drinks and Italian sodas. And maybe even get to hear some good concerts. Sounds like a decent idea to me.”

  It sounded like putting up with a lot of extra traffic in return for some potentially diverting theater to me, but saying so probably wouldn’t go over too well with my Walden Corners friends. “Well, it’s better than the casino, that’s for sure. Don’t you feel like we’re this big family trying to figure out how to live with insufficient resources to meet our needs? And it just keeps getting worse.”

  Susan poked at the crumbs on her plate. “If we were a big family, we’d probably be eating beans five nights a week and squabbling about whether we should switch to peanut butter. Listen, you guys haven’t said anything new about your meeting. Didn’t anyone hear anything that we should . . . I hate to use the word, but that we should investigate?”

  We looked at each other. The clock above the stove ticked loudly. Nobody said anything.

  “Joseph Trent made this weird remark. About Marjorie’s murder muddying the waters around the casino issue. And you know what? I think he’s right.” Melissa drummed her fingers on the table. “It puts all the discussions on a whole ’nother level. Emotionally, I mean. Everyone’s afraid and upset. So nobody is thinking clearly.”

  “Maybe that’s what the killer had in mind.” As soon as I said it, it sounded wrong to me. “Nah, way too complicated. Whoever killed Marjorie wanted her dead for personal reasons. Wanted to keep her from leading the charge to bring in the casino maybe. Or maybe it was something else. But it doesn’t seem likely that it was just to create a diversion.”

  Nora sighed. “We’ve been sitting here for over an hour and haven’t said a single helpful or interesting thing. Maybe we’re just being too passive about this. Maybe we need to go out there and actively talk to people. About how they felt about Marjorie. About where they were when she was killed.”

  “And you think you’ll get the truth?” Elizabeth’s tone was sharp, almost mocking. “You’ll get evasions and polite lies. That’s how people protect themselves around here. And you’ll also get a heap of ridicule for playing at being detectives. And then they’ll start calling the town Cabot Cove and we’ll all look like fools. I think we’ve gone about as far as we can with this. Gene Murphy and Michele Castro aren’t sitting on their behinds. They’re out asking the questions. It’s okay for them to do it. It’s not okay for us.”

  “We’re not just in it for the fun,” Susan snapped. “Lili’s a prime suspect.”

  I could have hugged her, but Elizabeth turned to me, a challenge in her eyes. “What about Seth? You find out about those donations?”

  Despite my annoyance, I forced a smile. “All I found out is that he thinks Gracious Living for Adults is a good investment. Sheesh, I can’t wait until I’m old enough to cut myself off completely from kids and new ideas and . . . I guess other folks can choose that if they want to, but the big old messy world is just exactly where I want to be. So, no, I didn’t find out any more about those checks tonight.”

  “I did,” Susan said softly.

  You could have dropped an elephant into the middle of the kitchen and nobody would have moved.

  She blushed from her freckled neck to the roots of her carrot hair. “I gave two hundred dollars to the same person Seth did.”

  Melissa paled and clenched the table, but Nora leaned forward and smiled, inviting Susan to continue.

  “Nathaniel is taking donations for a scholarship fund for the Phillips family. You know, Rod Phillips, that farm-hand who died last week? He’s got two kids in high school and of course he didn’t have life insurance or any other assets. They’ll get some kind of death benefit from Social Security, but not nearly enough to live on. They’ll get welfare and food stamps and a lifetime of struggling to find work that pays enough to let them live with dignity.” Susan’s eyes filled with tears. “I know those kids. Robbie and Rhonda. They come in wearing hand-me-downs, they’re tired all the time because they worked right alongside Rod in the barn before and after school. But they were still making A’s and B’s. His wife left him about two years ago. Just after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Can you imagine, walking out on a sick husband?”

  All the fun and even most of the urgency had gone out of our little spy game. We talked for a while about how unpredictable life was. If things really did happen in threes then Rod, Aunt Bernie, and Marjorie made up one very sad and unfortunate set.

  We each wrote out checks for the Phillips scholarship fund, gave them to Susan to deliver to Nathaniel, and then went our separate ways into the dark night. Alone. As we had come into the world, and as Rod, Bernice, and Marjorie went out.

  Chapter 13

  They looked cute, three strapping guys asleep with the television blaring. They hadn’t heard me drive up, nor had they heard my footsteps up the front stairs, through the door, into the living room. Scooter’s eyes moved under his closed lids, and I wondered what he was seeing in his dreams. His café au lait cheeks were kissed by a blush of color, hinting at some interesting possibilities. Scooter’s best friend and constant companion, Armel, curled into the armchair, looked like a fair, gangly angel who’d forgotten his wings and needed to have his blond hair trimmed. Neil groaned soft
ly, his hand moving across the growth of beard that almost looked good after nearly two weeks. His forehead wrinkled the way it did when he was in pain.

  The computer sat silently beckoning, inviting me to write another three pages on that health care booklet before I went to bed. After I got everyone safely tucked away, I thought. I’ll do it then.

  “Scooter,” I said softly, and Neil’s eyes flew open.

  “Movie must have been way too exciting for us,” he said, smiling and scratching at his beard. He uncapped the prescription bottle and shook out a large white pill, gulped it down with a slug of water. “I better go to bed before I get too wobbly. Your meeting go okay?”

  Before I could answer, Scooter stretched and sighed and his eyes fluttered open. “Wow, I fell asleep. Some help I am. Sorry, Neil.”

  Armel sat straight up and smiled beatifically. “I guess I missed the end of the movie,” he said softly.

  “Buddy, we all conked out,” Neil said with a grin. “Must have used it all up playing blackjack. You gonna be all right driving home?”

  I’d forgotten how much Scooter had grown until he pushed himself out of his chair and stood next to Armel, who was wrestling his way into a pale gray sweatshirt. They weren’t my children—I’d known them about a year, but even so I felt the tug of bittersweet and contradictory wishes, that they’d stay the cute, sweet boys who stumbled over their own feet and had clear moral centers, and that they’d hurry up and finish growing into adults so I could know how their stories turned out.

  Swigging the last of what appeared to be a warm Coke, Scooter picked up his backpack and stuck his hand into one of the side pockets, then rummaged in the main compartment. “Sure, I’m fine to drive home, not like some old person who has to go to sleep at ten o’clock. Hey, you see where I put my car keys?”

  “I thought they were in your pack,” Armel said, frowning.

  I glanced at the obvious places in the living room. “Put them in your jacket?”

  Scooter shook his head. “No jacket. I know I didn’t leave them in the car. Maybe they’re in the kitchen.”

  Neil smiled as Scooter bounded out of the room. “He’s right. Only us old folks could be tired so early. Or us old folks on medication, anyway. I’m gonna try to do without that little pink pill tomorrow night. I hate the idea of getting addicted to sleeping pills.”

  I didn’t say that maybe I’d try to do with a couple of the pills that Joseph Trent had given me. When I took one two nights earlier, I’d fallen asleep within fifteen minutes, but I still awoke with a million thoughts racing through my head four hours later. It was wearing me down, and nothing anyone else suggested seemed to do the trick.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Scooter’s voice, loud and clear all the way from the kitchen, sounded half amused and just a little frightened.

  Armel frowned and then bounded out of the room.

  I glanced at Neil, whose raised eyebrows told me that he was fixed on the frightened part, and followed Armel. A dime store address book lay on the center island, its cover worn and the pages crinkled, as though they had been left out in the rain.

  I’d never seen it before.

  Pressed against the counter, a puzzled expression scrunching up his face, Scooter eyed me warily. “It was under the stove,” he said in a small voice.

  Pale and wide-eyed, Armel hung back in the doorway as I reached for the book and then dropped it back on the butcher block as though it was on fire. Across the top of the cover, the name Marjorie Mellon was written in a cramped hand. When I started breathing again, my brain went into overdrive, scrambling around the questions of how that book had gotten into my kitchen and what I needed to do about it, now that Scooter’s, and more important, my fingerprints were all over the thing.

  “I don’t know how this got here, Scooter. I have to make some phone calls. You find your keys?”

  “They were in my pants pocket. I guess I didn’t feel them until I bent down to look on the floor and under stuff.” The wary look on his face softened to concern. “Whatever it is, I hope it’s not more bad news for you, Lili. You’re in trouble, right?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s just that I don’t understand what’s going on yet. It’s like people who say they’re lost. They just haven’t figured out how to get where they need to go. It may take a while for things to get straightened out. You go home, Scooter, Armel. And thanks for staying with Neil.”

  Awkwardly, Scooter reached over and gave me a one-armed hug, then both boys disappeared in the direction of the living room. I barely heard the low male voices as I stared at the book on the counter. Someone could have come in while Neil, Armel, and Scooter slept, or even during a night when I hadn’t paid attention to bedtime routines.

  So much for not locking doors in the country.

  After I heard the front door slam—Scooter and Armel were still teens after all, boys whose movements were as large as their hearts—I went back into the living room.

  “So what now?” Neil’s eyes were already a little droopy, and he blinked as he waited for my answer.

  “Now I call my lawyer. And then I do whatever he tells me. Which is, I’m sure, to call the cops and tell them the truth. You didn’t hear anything tonight, no cars, no doors creaking open, no footsteps?”

  My mind raced to catalog the people who were at the anti-casino meeting, and to remember what Susan had said about who’d been at the pro group. The swirl of names immediately got mixed up with the meeting two weeks earlier. I saw Jonathan Kirschbaum sitting in one of the back rows and yet I didn’t remember talking to him tonight. I couldn’t picture him in the barn, but given his wife’s strong feelings I couldn’t imagine that he’d miss a chance to oppose the casino. Nathaniel Bartle, Ira Jackson, Joseph Trent, Trisha Stern—was I remembering their names from this week or last?

  Besides, there was no way to know whether Marjorie’s address book had been put under my stove tonight. It might have been there for days.

  If Castro’s deputies had looked under the stove when they’d searched the house, then it would be obvious that someone had planted the book after they left. If they hadn’t and it had been there all along, would they admit to a less than thorough search?

  B. H. Hovanian answered his phone on the first ring. He listened as I told him what I’d found and how it had been discovered. “And yes I touched it, before I knew what it was. I’m not used to thinking like a criminal.”

  “Well, don’t touch it again. You call Castro and I’ll be right over.”

  He clicked off before I could say anything. Michele Castro, too, answered on the first ring, as though she’d been waiting for my call.

  “I found an address book that belongs to Marjorie Mellon. It was under my stove. Actually, Scooter Johnson found it,” I told her, sticking to Hovanian’s advice that the information I shared be all that was necessary to tell the truth without going beyond what was sufficient to make my point.

  “I’ll be right over,” she said, as though she’d been listening in on my call to my lawyer and was echoing his words.

  While I waited for them to arrive, I helped Neil, groggy and unsteady on his feet, into his bed, and then sat at the kitchen counter and stared at the book. Secrets lurked inside, even if I might not understand what they meant. My prints were already on a couple of pages. Would a forensics lab really check every single page? What was the difference between three sets of Lili Marino prints and five?

  I jammed my hands against my sides and marched myself into the living room, but the book’s siren call drew me back to the kitchen.

  Either Hovanian or Castro would arrive in the next five or six minutes, I judged when I looked at the clock. I reached for a dish towel, covered my hand and then flipped open the book and riffled through the pages. Names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses were neatly printed on the tiny pages. Bartle, Conklin, Evans, Paul, Selinsky, Trent—the names of people I knew jumped out at me, while the others blurred into a parade of syllables, busine
sses, relatives, maybe even lovers for all I knew.

  Many of the names were marked with an asterisk, and when I studied them I realized that they were probably clients. So many asterisks—maybe I should go into the cleaning business instead of scrambling for freelance writing jobs.

  The thought of someone taking advantage of Marjorie’s death that way gave me the shivers. Could she have been killed by a potential business rival?

  I was about to close the book when I noticed that the back inside cover was filled with doodles and scribbles. Marjorie wasn’t much of an artist, favoring crosshatched shading on irregular shaped boxes and six-petaled flowers that grew in nobody’s garden. Several letters and numbers were sprinkled among the squiggles.

  blue 85 Kyt

  Meaningless? Maybe. Or maybe one of those jottings was a key. Or not. I copied the letters and numbers onto the back of an envelope and stuck it in a drawer, under the flatware divider. When I looked at the page more closely, I realized that some of the doodles were attempts to cover up other words or numbers. I squinted, was about to get my magnifying glass from the gourd studio when a car pulled into the driveway. B.H. stepped into the moonlit night from a tan Honda with its fair share of dents and dings. He looked up at the stars, then headed for the back porch. I answered his knock and let him in.

  “That’s it?” he said, staring at the worn red book on the butcher block.

  So much for social graces. I nodded, folded my arms across my chest, waited for him to say or do something. He glanced around the kitchen and took the dish towel I’d just replaced on the ring, opened the book and flipped pages. Every few seconds he stopped and cocked his head and shut his eyes, as though he were listening for something and didn’t want his concentration to be affected by his other senses. When he closed the book, he hung the towel back on the hook.

  “So, she’s got a lot of clients, and knows a lot of other people. All I’m getting is that it was time for Marjorie Mellon to get a bigger address book.”