Lies That Bind (Maeve Conlon Novels Book 2)

by Maggie Barbieri

  “Mostly drug stuff,” he said. “But I’ll definitely be looking into fingers that end up in freezers,” he said, laughing. “We did have a bit of excitement last year when that Lorenzo guy took a dive off of the dam. Remember that?”

  Maeve kept the same expression on her face, wondering if he had detected the slight tic at the corner of her mouth; she couldn’t hear Lorenzo’s name without that happening. “I remember that. Suicide, right?”

  Chris nodded vigorously. “Oh, most definitely. No one just climbs up over the fence for a better look at the water. Unless they’re an idiot,” he said. “And by all accounts, the guy was a bit of a jerk but definitely not an idiot. You probably saw it in the blotter. A couple of domestic disturbances at their house.” He took a sip of his beer. “Wife would never press charges. I warned that guy a dozen times but he never seemed to get the hint.” He shook his head. “Domestic disturbances are the worst.”

  Maeve made some kind of sympathetic noise to indicate she understood. The Haggertys popped into her mind again.

  He continued. “I also do some outreach at the high school, a little drug prevention work, things like that.”

  “D.A.R.E.?” Maeve asked, thinking that the program was a waste of time and money, taught at the wrong time in kids’ development—fifth grade—and not supported with anything that helped dissuade certain kids, like Heather, from the “gateway” drugs. But she couldn’t really criticize. She hadn’t done such a great job herself.

  “Not really. We have a uniformed female on that. But since I do most of the drug busts in town and know who’s doing what with whom,” he said, smiling slightly, “I try to make myself a presence in the school. If the kids aren’t going to stay away from drugs for any other reason, I’d like them to know that I’m watching.”

  “Does it work?”

  He crossed his arms on the table and she took in his strong forearms, the dusting of light brown freckles on his skin. “Hard to tell. Some days, I feel like I’m playing Whack-a-Mole. Lots of pot around these parts, as you know, and now a little heroin creeping in.”

  “Heroin?” she said, her stomach feeling a little sick.

  “Yeah,” he said, sitting back as the waiter delivered their appetizer. “Horrible, right? We had an overdose four years ago. Don’t know if you remember. Carter Westman?”

  She did remember, but the girls were still young enough and still easily monitored so that the news of the overdose hadn’t stayed with her. Now, though, with Heather acting the way she was, in love with a kid who Maeve hated, she worried.

  He put his hand over hers, an intimate gesture that didn’t seem out of place. “Don’t worry. We’re on it.” He broke out in that broad smile again. “And don’t base our current lack of investigative ability when it comes to what happens at your store as an indication of how we operate. We’re much better than we appear and we’ll eventually figure it out.”

  While eating the appetizer, a cauliflower dish smothered in some kind of sauce Maeve was sure was an aphrodisiac, she wanted to change the subject. “Do you have any experience with missing persons?”

  He looked intrigued. “A little. Why do you ask?”

  “I have a sister. She’s missing.”

  “A sister?”

  “Yes,” she said, putting her fork down and scanning the dining room before looking at him again. “Someone from my past came to Dad’s funeral and said I have a sister. She may have been … she is developmentally challenged. I didn’t know about her.”

  “What are you doing to find her?” he asked.

  “My ex, Cal, is helping me search death certificates. Beyond that, I’m not really sure what to do.” She had never called Margie Haggerty. Dolores had been the one who had told Maeve, the one Maeve had gone to see. She didn’t think Margie had anything to offer but wondered if she had written her off too quickly.

  “Did you think about hiring a PI?” he said. “I could give you a name.”

  “Maybe,” she said, but with the house, the store, and Christmas approaching, funds for a private investigator were limited.

  “I’ll help you in any way I can,” he said.

  “You will?” she asked. “Why?” To her, it was a logical question.

  To him, the answer seemed obvious. “Because I like you.” He looked down at his plate of food. “I always have.”

  “Oh, that’s just because you want free muffins,” she said, what she had planned on being a joke causing his face to fall. She tried to recover but wasn’t sure she knew how. “I like you, too,” came out sounding insincere even though she did like him. She had just never noticed that she had before now. She didn’t allow herself to have those thoughts and she wasn’t sure why.

  Maeve was aware she had broken the mood so she went to her best offense—humor—to bring things back into balance. “So we’ve talked about your job. Is there anything you wanted to know about what goes on at The Comfort Zone? Any secrets I might have that you’re interested in?”

  “Yeah,” he said, softening a bit, willing to play. “The blueberries in the scones. Fresh or frozen?”

  “Fresh when I can get them. Frozen when I can’t,” she said. “That’s all you want to know?”

  “No,” he said, blushing like he had when he asked her out. “There’s a lot more I want to know but I don’t want to find everything out all at once.”

  Now it was her turn to blush.

  It was after dinner, in the parking lot, the river just a few feet away when he turned to her. “Would it be all right if I kissed you?” he asked. “I don’t really know how to do this so I figured I’d ask.”

  She looked up at him, the blueberry scone and coffee guy who had become a little something more, and savored the moment. She remembered every first kiss she had had but she never thought she would have the opportunity to have another one. That part of her life was over, or so she thought. “It would be just fine,” she said, forgetting, when he wrapped his arms around her, about everything that she had been thinking about just hours earlier, storing it all somewhere for later. Somewhere that wouldn’t ruin a mood that she had never anticipated.

  Chris was the antiCal, sure and confident in spite of his asking to give her a kiss. He was tall and fit—but with just enough heft—with that crooked nose, kind and gentle but with just the right amount of softness. He had been in her backyard all these years but she had never taken notice.

  But he had and that was all that mattered.

  He pulled away and pushed her hair away from her forehead. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”

  “You have?” she said. “Kiss me?” The kiss had taken her breath away and she had a hard time finding words.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Kiss you. I have.” He took her hand and they walked back to the car. “It’s okay if I’ve just been the blueberry muffin and coffee guy to you.”

  So he knew.

  “Maybe I can become more than that?” he asked, leaning her up against the car, pressing his body against her. He kissed her again.

  “Maybe,” she said, in between the breaths, the tongues, the murmurs.

  “Maybe.”

  CHAPTER 18

  She was in a good mood when she got to work in the morning and didn’t even get a knot in her stomach when Jo was thirty minutes late. Chris had dropped her off a little after ten the night before, early enough so that she wouldn’t feel like a zombie the next day. Although he was a gentleman and didn’t press it, she could tell he wanted to come in, but she held firm. First date. Late night. Early morning. A kid upstairs. All of the usual excuses. He had finally driven off, giving a little toot of his horn as he rounded the corner.

  For just a minute, she had forgotten about lumps on the head, severed fingers, and missing sisters.

  Jo—who after finding out that Maeve had been on a date with Larsson, pronounced Chris “yummy” and said that she herself had always had a bit of a crush on him—was dying for details but Maeve was deliberately sketch
y. “Have you been to the Indian place in Irvington?” Maeve asked.

  Jo shook her head. She was stacking cookies into the shelf by the front door.

  “It’s delicious.” Maeve slid a large chocolate cake into the case. “We had this wonderful appetizer with cauliflower. I don’t even really like cauliflower.” She walked around the front of the counter to look at the contents of the cake case. “And my entrée was amazing.”

  Jo turned. “Enough about the restaurant! I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about cauliflower. Or your entrée. Details! Did he kiss you? Did you sleep with him?”

  Maeve clutched her chest in mock indignation. “No, I did not sleep with him,” she said. “I am not sure I even know how to do that anymore.”

  “Promise me this,” Jo said. “If it gets close to that point, if you think you’re going to sleep with him, please, please, have a quick consult with me. You probably have tumbleweeds in your vagina or at least in that place in your brain where you think about sex. If you even do that anymore.”

  “Why do I need to consult you?” Maeve asked. “Do people do it differently now? Have things changed that dramatically since my divorce? Please don’t tell me I have to learn anything new. I’m just too tired. And believe me, there are no tumbleweeds in there.”

  Jo walked over to the counter and laid herself on top of it, swanning dramatically, too exhausted from what Maeve didn’t know. “It’s the same. It’s you who’s changed.”

  “You mean ‘older,’ right?” Maeve asked, pinching the little roll that hung over the top of her jeans. “You mean because of my appropriately named ‘muffin top,’ correct? The one I got from making—and eating—too many muffins?”

  Jo rose. “Okay, treat it as a joke. It will be to your detriment.” She floated off, and went through the kitchen doors, muttering to herself as she did. “I’ll get you a vibrator. Practice with that…” she said as the door slammed behind her.

  Maeve reviewed the list of orders she had for the week, happy with the amount of money that they would bring in but a little nervous about how she would execute everything. She felt that way a lot, delighted with how the business had grown but wondering how she would do everything herself. She leaned against the counter and started thinking dollars and cents. With Jo leaving to have the baby, the time was coming to hire someone new, and the thought of going through that process made her head hurt just a little bit.

  She was deep in thought when the back door to the kitchen opened, no knock to indicate that someone had arrived. Margie Haggerty stood there, tentative, her hands clasped in front of her, the look on her face telling Maeve that she was nervous. Maybe a little afraid.

  Maeve was glad to see that look, the sight of her former neighbor’s tense expression making her feel that maybe, just this once, she had the upper hand. That she’d get the truth. And although she couldn’t say she was pleased that Margie had shown up at her place of business, the woman’s appearance had saved Maeve a step in this process, allowing her to cross one thing off of her mental to-do list. She had wanted to call Margie first but life had intervened, as it had a habit of doing.

  Maeve bypassed any pleasantries. “What are you doing here?”

  “I think we should talk.”

  “Did you know I had a sister?”

  “Have a sister. You have a sister,” Margie said. Maeve didn’t understand why the tense was important or why Margie sounded so sure. For all she knew, her sister was gone, but she hoped that wasn’t the case. “Yes. She was discussed in my house, your sister. My mother prayed for her. Every day.” She stared off at a spot somewhere over Maeve’s head. “We were sworn to secrecy. We weren’t supposed to tell.”

  Knowing that didn’t thaw the ice Maeve had in her heart toward the late Fidelma Haggerty.

  “She prayed for me, too,” Margie said, “but didn’t get what she hoped for.”

  Maeve looked confused.

  “A nun. Remember? She wanted me to be a nun.”

  “Right,” Maeve said. She looked up at the clock on the wall. She needed information, not a walk down the Haggerty memory lane, a jaunt filled with emotional broken glass and uneven pavement.

  Margie looked at her, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I should have said something sooner.”

  “This seems like just the kind of information Dolores would have loved to have given me when we were kids,” Maeve said. “She’s special like that. So, why didn’t she?”

  Margie stared off into the distance without saying a word, taking in the sights of the kitchen: the piping bags, the cookie sheets, the appliances that needed updating. She never answered.

  “And why didn’t Sean tell me?” Maeve asked, as if Margie would know why her abusive cousin would have kept something like that from her. It seemed like something that he would have loved to have held over Maeve, like he had held her mother’s death over her. She thought about it. “See what happens when you tell?” he would have said. “You get sent away. And then you die.” There’s no way he could have known and not told her; that kind of information was too good for him to hold in, to keep to himself.

  “Maybe he didn’t know.”

  “Then why did you know? How? Your family?” Maeve asked. The Haggertys were neighbors, acquaintances. Maeve wouldn’t go so far as to call them “friends” to either herself or Jack.

  Margie didn’t answer that question. “Listen,” Margie said, tapping her finger on the bar, seeming to be mounting a defense of her defenseless sister, “my sister…”

  “I know,” Maeve said, holding up a hand to stop her, her other hand holding on to the counter for support, “she’s been through a lot. Spare me.” She started toward Margie, making the woman back up toward the door, looking for escape. “Tell me. Is she dead? Evelyn?”

  Margie shrugged. “That, I don’t know. But I can help you maybe.”

  Maeve didn’t respond, couldn’t bring herself to ask for the help from Margie. Stubbornness, pride really, wasn’t Maeve’s most attractive character trait but the one that helped keep her going, helped her achieve what she had. She wondered if she should relent in this case. She made one last attempt for any information, trying to keep the ball in her court. “Any idea where she went?”

  Margie’s answer surprised Maeve and broke her heart just a little bit. “Mansfield,” she said.

  Maeve wished she had said anything but that. After that, she would have preferred hearing that her sister had died.

  CHAPTER 19

  Maeve had few memories of growing up that weren’t related to Sean Donovan or one of the Haggerty girls exacting their brand of justice on an innocent kid with no mother. One other memory was the day her mother left for the store, never to return, and another was the day she saw her father cry the first time.

  She had just made her first multilayered cake from scratch; she was eleven. As she put the last bit of icing on the top, careful to make the edges neat and tidy, she heard her father, in the living room, let out a gasp and then a sob. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he was watching, why he was crying, but she peeked around the corner anyway. He was standing in front of the large Zenith console, his beloved “color TV,” his arms crossed tightly across his chest. He swayed a bit, the color draining from his face.

  “Those poor souls,” was all he said. “God help them.”

  On the television was a story about the Mansfield Institution, a place that, judging from the news story, was as close to hell on earth as a place could get. Maeve had a few memories of the moving images from the story: bars on the windows of brick buildings, a few haunted souls walking the grounds, overgrown shrubs and weeds growing in front of the main structure. Back then, she knew, people with a variety of issues were sent to places like Mansfield, those with mental illnesses and those who were developmentally challenged. Things that were now understood, treated and addressed in a particular way with medication or therapy, were less understood then. She shuddered at the thought of her sister, her flesh and blood,
in a place like Mansfield.

  After Margie left the store, Maeve stayed in the kitchen, focusing her attention on piping cannoli cream into the shells that she had left cooling on a rack, while Jo worked in the front of the store. Behind her, the door to the back parking lot opened and Chris Larsson came in, his smile doing nothing to alleviate the physical pain that had settled around her heart. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and she leaned into his chest, willing herself not to let all of the sordid details come spilling out. He was a much more welcome guest than Margie Haggerty, a man who hadn’t kept the truth from her, someone who seemed to be as open and transparent as any one person could be. She wasn’t sure how she knew that about him, but she felt it.

  He turned her around and looked down at her, their height differential not preventing him from giving her a long kiss. The door to the kitchen swung open—its squeaky hinges alerting Maeve to Jo’s presence—but just as quickly, it slammed shut and Jo returned to the front of the store. Chris smoothed the hair that had come loose from her ponytail off her forehead. “You look upset,” he said. “Is it kissing at work or something else?”

  She hadn’t told Jo a lot about her talk with Margie because she couldn’t go down the emotional road that Jo would take her on. Chris was used to hearing unsavory things and not reacting; it was part of his job. She thought about it for a few seconds and told him the rest of the story. He listened intently, and just as she had hoped and had wanted, didn’t react with anything other than concern.

  “Mansfield?” he said. “The place upstate, right?”

  Maeve nodded. “I remember the news stories,” she said, picking up her piping bag and worrying the top, twisting it until the filling oozed from the tip. “I remember some senator talking about the people there. That there were hundreds too many for the space. That the conditions were deplorable.” Her hands started to shake so she put the piping bag down and wiped her fingers on her apron.