by Jean Flowers
* * *
The lobby had been empty when Ben and Natalie left the building for their dinner date, but quickly filled up with customers trying to meet the deadline for express delivery and special handling packages. I processed more than the usual number of international money orders, vacation holds, and bulk and business mail material. Plus, I had a shipment to Boston to prepare for myself, a box with one of my scales that needed maintenance. My short workday flew by.
The office was bird- and animal-free for the first time this week—I’d hoped for another visit from the baby llama named Llarry, but his owner, Vic, told me the little guy was under the weather. I wondered how one could tell when a llama was not feeling well.
To my disappointment, Fred, Quinn’s boss at the antiques shop, stopped in with a tub of mail. I remembered that Quinn was essentially on leave from his job, however, so this was to be expected. On the plus side, I had a visit from Gigi, our local florist, who often stopped by on a Friday with a mason jar of blooms. Today’s was bigger than usual, with white Asiatic lilies, carnations, and snapdragons.
“A customer called to cancel a wedding shower arrangement,” she said.
“Too bad. I guess?”
“I didn’t ask.” She shrugged. “You never know what can happen to engagements.”
I kept from her the fact I did know, only too well, what could happen with engagements.
Gigi continued, “But I’d already put this together and thought you might need a little something this weekend. I know Wendell Graham was a friend.”
I took them gratefully, moved by her thoughtfulness. I was a customer of hers in that I’d had flowers sent from her shop to friends in Boston, but I barely knew Gigi and was all the more thankful for the gesture. Sometimes it paid to be so easy to find.
The workday ended with a visit from Wanda, who appeared just in time to stand at attention as I lowered the flag. Her hometown elementary school training had served her well. Even before she spoke, I could tell by Wanda’s demeanor that she hadn’t fared much better than I had as far as interviewing the people on the Derek-to-Wendell e-mail list. Nippy as it was, it hadn’t started to rain yet and we decided to walk to Café Mahican.
Wanda got us started on the way. Like Natalie, she was well put-together and I felt more like her dowdy mother than her brother’s friend, barely ten years older.
“First, Barry the barber sort of captured me and talked about his new retirement routine, meeting some of his old customers for lunch, watching sports on TV at any time of day, not worrying about new environmental rules.” She stuffed her gloved hands in her pockets. “He went on about how more and more regulations about brushes and towels appeared every day, and the last inspector dinged him for tossing a used paper towel in an open container. Or a closed container. I forget which is forbidden. Who knew there were so many rules for cutting someone’s hair? Especially a guy’s.” She removed one hand from her pocket and used her index and middle finger to mimic cutting motions through the air in front of her. “Easy peasy,” she said.
“Did you have a chance to ask him if he knows Derek?”
“Oh, yeah, a couple of times. He said he used to cut Derek’s hair and his father’s, who’s also Derek, but now that the son was a big shot, Barry never saw him anymore. He figures Derek the son goes to some artsy—his word—salon in Albany.”
“It sounds as though he had no clue why he’d be on anyone’s list in an e-mail like the one you found.”
“That’s what I felt. I was kind of sorry to decline his invitation to have a beer with him, but I’d had enough.”
“You did well,” I said.
“I had some better luck with Margaret Phillips. She’s the reference librarian at the South Ashcot library.”
“Great,” I said, really cold now, and wishing we’d driven the few blocks.
“No, not great. Sorry, didn’t mean to get your hopes up. But at least I got a response from her. She was very defensive and said things like, ‘I’d never get involved with that man.’”
“Nothing about what she wouldn’t get involved in? Or why she called him ‘that man’?”
Wanda shook her head, and shivered at the same time, from the cold, I decided, and not from something Margaret had revealed.
“She wouldn’t even step away from the desk for a minute to talk to me. We had a few words between customers, but I don’t think we even made eye contact. So, I was a bust. Oh for two. What about you?”
As we entered the coffee shop and began removing layers of clothing, I told her about Tim Cousins’s visit, feeling almost guilty that he’d come to me, sparing me the burden of having to track him down, while Wanda had had to commute to her assigned suspects.
“I don’t trust him one hundred percent,” I admitted. “But he intimated that something funny was, or is, going on with Derek.”
“The only person left is Gert,” Wanda said. “Shall we toss a coin for who gets to confront her?”
I scanned the seating arrangements in the room, most of them occupied with patrons, laptops, and piles of winter clothing. I spotted a few people I knew, then gasped in surprise at a couple in the back. I nudged Wanda and nodded my head toward a corner of the café, where Gert and Derek were engaged in animated conversation. “We may not have to toss that coin.”
Wanda followed my gaze. “Whoa. Problem solved.”
Or just beginning, I thought.
Café Mahican, with its high ceiling and large open architecture, was big enough to accommodate individuals or pairs of people who might come and go without seeing each other. Wanda and I seemed to be in sync with the idea of being one of those inconspicuous pairs. We took seats near the front of the café, as far as possible from Gert and Derek, realizing we’d opened ourselves to cold currents every time someone entered or left. We needed time to strategize.
“Now what?” she said, before I could ask her the same thing.
“I don’t know. I can’t decide whether I’m happy or unhappy that they’re right there.”
“Me either,” Wanda said.
“Some detectives, huh?” We gave each other silly grins, partners in crime, bonding. I looked toward the back of the room, where, in the short time that we’d been sitting at our table, digging our wallets out in preparation for ordering, Gert and Derek had spotted us and begun a show of smiling and waving us over.
“We need a plan for how to approach them,” said Wanda, who didn’t have the advantage of facing our targets.
“Maybe not,” I said.
Derek, with a long stride for a small man, was on top of us before Wanda could say “soy latte.” He went straight to her and offered his condolences.
“Your brother was one of a kind.” He tsk-tsked. “We all loved him,” he said, giving Wanda a hug. “I have business in Albany tomorrow, or you know I’d be the first one at his memorial service.”
Business on a Saturday? I supposed it took a lot of work to become rich and successful. Maybe the poor guy never got a day off. I wondered if Wanda, only nine or ten at the time, remembered how incompatible Wendell and Derek were in high school when Wendell was a sports figure, a star, and Derek was a runty nerd. As I’d always maintained, high school is a predictor of nothing.
Without asking permission, Derek gathered up our coats and scarves. “You don’t have your drinks yet,” he said. “Let’s get you settled over there with Gert, and I’ll take your orders.”
I felt my face flush. I wanted nothing more than to reject this enforced meeting with a pushy man, just on principle, but I thought of the telephone-line e-mail Wanda had found, and told myself that this might also be the best opportunity I’d have to clear up a few things, get some answers. If I dared ask the questions, that is.
* * *
Passersby might have thought we were the best of friends, perhaps members of the same bridge club, who met every Fr
iday. The four of us chatted, shared a plate of pastries that Derek had brought over with our drinks. I saw a few people I knew from their post office trips, and nodded to them while allegedly participating in the alleged conversation with alleged friends Derek and Gert.
“I don’t remember a colder November,” said one of us.
“Uh-uh, I don’t either,” said another.
“I’m looking forward to the holidays,” said the third.
“News says it’s going to stay cold another few days,” said the fourth.
“The fund-raising auction for the middle school starts next week,” said one.
“I hope they have those wonderful ornaments the children make,” said another.
“Wendell Graham left some strange e-mails behind,” I said. “One of them is from you, Derek. Something about telephone lines?”
Wanda stared at me. My comment had put an end to the smaller-than-small talk. I wasn’t sure where my courage came from. Or was it stupidity? It was definitely disobedience as far as my instructions from Sunni—my sort-of friend but very real chief of police.
What was I thinking? Was I finally fed up with being pushed around? Starting with Adam in Boston, continuing with Derek. I knew that guilt had been part of my makeup ever since I learned that Wendell had been murdered. I could have been nicer to him, reached out to him as soon as I came back. Maybe he would have confided in me about any difficulty he was having. Maybe I could have helped him. Maybe, maybe. Now it was too late. Whatever combination of confusion and anger and frustration in me had built up, it had burst out now and was staring everyone at the table in the face, and they were all staring at me.
Derek and Gert looked flustered, unbelieving. Wanda did, too, but she came to my aid.
“That’s right, Cassie,” Wanda said. She turned to Gert Corbin, who was trying to swallow her recent bite of Danish. “And I believe you were copied on it also, Ms. Corbin?”
Thanks, Wanda. Gert recovered quickly. I imagined people in the political limelight had a lot of practice at hardball questions. She dabbed at the corner of her mouth and rolled her eyes. “Really, if you had to remember every detail of every e-mail you received or sent . . .” she said in a too-loud voice. She put her hand to her forehead as if trying to stem the tide of an oncoming migraine at the very thought of all that remembering and all those pesky details.
I was aware that some of the conversations around us had come to a halt. I heard no more clanging silverware, shuffling feet, or lighthearted laughs. Even the background music seemed to have decreased in volume, making everything we said that much louder. I felt all eyes on our table and heard the unspoken questions. A lot of them were mine.
“Indeed,” Derek said. Not as impressive.
A cell phone rang, and people at two or three other tables near us checked their pockets and purses, seeming glad to get back to life as normal in Café Mahican. Lucky for him, it was Derek’s phone that rang. “I’d better take this,” he said. He gave us the look he might give if we were standing in his office and he was asking for privacy.
Gert made a move to leave, setting a good example, and Wanda and I followed suit and gathered our things.
“We’ll pick this up another time,” I said to Derek, nudging him slightly as I made my way past him. I wondered if I’d have been so brave if we hadn’t been surrounded by a roomful of patrons, many of whom were young, looking like they’d just come from the gym or a martial arts class.
Derek covered the mouthpiece on his phone and addressed me: “I thought we understood each other,” he said.
“Thanks for the drink,” I said.
* * *
Before I could get my bearings, Gert slipped out the back door. Wanda and I retreated to the restroom, where I noticed her hand was shaking as she tried to manage the water faucet. “I can’t believe you did that,” she said.
“I can’t either. Thanks for your support. I have no idea what I would have done if I’d been left hanging there.”
We took some deep breaths and even managed a sort of victory smile, or at least, a starting-gun smile.
“What do you think will happen now?” she asked.
“We wait,” I said, wondering what condition my car would be in tomorrow morning. Or if either of us would see tomorrow morning.
* * *
I hated the idea of being afraid around my own home. I’d felt perfectly safe in the heart of Boston, New England’s largest city, for almost twenty years, and now as I turned the key in my door in North Ashcot, about two hundred times smaller, chills ran through me. I expected—what? A bomb? An intruder lying in wait? A shotgun rigged to go off when I opened the door? Worse were fears that I had endangered Wanda. Or Ben. Or Quinn. I pushed those thoughts as far back in my mind as I could, and forced myself to walk through the door. The icemaker in my fridge chose that moment to kick on. I jumped, then chided myself for my childish behavior.
It didn’t help that the rain was now coming down in earnest, beating against my car in the driveway and my front windows. Not until I’d switched on all the lights and checked all the doors and windows was I able to let down my guard. I changed into sweats and looked through my CDs. My favorite country and western ballads wouldn’t do: too much sadness and loss, whether of partners, pickup trucks, or dogs. I wasn’t in the mood for classical music, either: not nearly distracting enough. I chose a CD with workout songs from the seventies and prepared my dinner to the sounds of Stevie Wonder, the Grateful Dead, and Creedence Clearwater.
I put together a potpie with leftover chicken and frozen veggies, wondering, of course, where last night’s chef was dining now.
When the phone rang, I jumped and nearly tipped over my coffee.
“Hey, Cassie.” Sunni’s voice. My stomach clutched.
“Hey,” I croaked. Had she heard about the dramatic end to my coffee klatch with Wanda, Derek, and Gert? I managed a smile as I made up a new practice: the police arresting people by phone.
“Are you in the middle of dinner?” she asked. More fuel for my theory that Sunni’s five senses were supernormal.
“Yes, but nothing special.”
“Want some company?”
“Sure,” I said. “If you don’t mind leftovers.”
“I’ll bring dessert.”
“I’ll be waiting,” I said.
I hoped she’d also bring some news. Anything that would allow me to retire from investigating. And feel safe in my hometown and in my home.
* * *
I rushed around picking up the clutter in my living room. Scattered gloves and stickie notes here; magazines and folders there. I cleaned up in the kitchen, then changed from my scruffy sweats to clean jeans and a nonlogo sweatshirt. Not that I was concerned that Sunni would be judgmental about my housekeeping standards, but folding laundry, scrubbing a baking dish, and wiping down the counters had used up my nervous energy. If my North Ashcot life continued at this intensity and rate of stress, I’d have to invest in a treadmill.
Sunni took longer than I expected to get to my house. I guessed traffic could pile up around this time of day, and the heavy rain added to the mess. I heard Linda in Boston laughing, saying, “Yeah, probably three cars at the same intersection, right?” Though she didn’t know it, I laughed with her. My own private standup gig.
I’d added enough ingredients to stretch the chicken potpie to two servings and made quick biscuits to fill in the gaps. Nothing to do but wait, and no chance of being able to focus on reading. I sat in my glide rocker and pecked away at a crossword puzzle, trying to guess a five-letter word for the capital of an African country, and what the chief of police might have in mind this evening.
Would Sunni focus on our personal friendship? She might offer to introduce me at her next quilters’ meeting or suggest a drive to Springfield for a movie or to the outlets for shopping. Maybe I could offer to show her aro
und Boston on a day trip, for a show or exhibit. We could meet Linda, have girl-time.
Or would there be a heavier agenda? I’d welcome information about the Girl Scout who’d confessed to attacking my tires, for example. Sunni might have a pipeline to Quinn’s mother’s case in San Francisco. Or news in the Wendell Graham murder case right here in town. Wouldn’t that be a thrill?
By the time the doorbell rang (causing another jerky response) I’d imagined that Sunni had heard about and come to discuss my confrontation with Derek and Gert. I walked to the door, ready to offer my hands for cuffing.
The first good news was that Sunni was in civvies. I took her dripping yellow anorak from her and noted her outfit—turtleneck, black jeans, and a dark blue down vest. Not an official visit, then. I hadn’t had to change from my UMASS sweats.
My guest held out a pink box. “From the new line of tiny Bundt cakes the bakery started. I picked out four different flavors.” She pulled out small plastic containers, labeled Lemon, Red Velvet, Pecan Praline, and White Chocolate Raspberry. Something for everyone.
We were off to a good start.
* * *
Dinner talk was a cut above the forced chatter at Café Mahican this afternoon. I felt only slightly guilty not sharing the e-mail Wanda had found and telling her about the resulting outburst in the café. It was much easier to have Sunni relaxed and off the job. She loved the idea of a trip to Boston, and we made plans for a visit to the Gardner Museum in my old neighborhood, which she recalled visiting years ago.
“I hope they still have the Raphael room set up,” she said.
“We can check online.”
“Good idea.” Sunni filled her fork with raspberry cream and uttered a sound of approval. “Boston’s not that far away.”
I nodded. “Not even three hours.”
“I don’t know why I haven’t made the trip more often. I used to do it all the time. I guess it’s habit. You get into a rut and leaving your everyday comfort zone seems to take too much effort.”
“I get that,” I said, regret sneaking into my mood. “It’s the reason I didn’t make the same trip in this direction all these years. I wanted to visit my aunt especially, and it would have been nice to keep up with old friends”—the picture of Wendell and Wanda came to my mind unbidden—“but when it came to actually getting myself in gear and getting on the road, I could always find an excuse.”