by BV Lawson
Lucy held Beth’s hand, blinking back tears. “We came as soon as we heard. Virginia and Reece are here.” She turned to her side, “And Scott Drayco.”
Beth cast grateful eyes on each one in turn, managing a slight tip of her head in Drayco’s direction. When she opened her mouth as if to speak, only a creaking sound emerged. It was strangely like a piano bench lid in need of lubrication. Lucy wordlessly handed her a nearby water glass with a straw, and the usually glib Reece stayed silent.
Virginia wheeled as close to the bed as she could and reached out to touch Beth on the arm in one bandage-free spot. “You’ve got to get well soon, Beth. We can race wheelchairs. You know I’d win hands down.” Lucy and Reece smiled, and Beth’s face grew brighter for a moment.
The nurse, sporting the name tag “Wanetta,” bustled in and shooed them toward the door. Beth weakly raised one hand and motioned toward Drayco as if wanting him to stay. “I’ll join you in a second,” he told Reece and bent over Beth as she struggled to form words.
After a few false starts, she managed a raspy whisper, “Tell Virginia I’m sorry. Look for it in the back, that’s where you’ll find it. Give it to her.”
Drayco knew he’d heard her correctly. But what did she mean by “it” or “the back?” He wanted to press her on it. But she laid her head on the pillow and closed her eyes, with labored breaths that rattled in her chest. The nurse had a look only those who deal with the dying on a daily basis have—a cross between abstract compassion and resigned realism.
Drayco reunited with the others in the hospital cafeteria, where they sat in silence over stale coffee, or in Virginia’s case, what looked like a Pepto-pink milkshake. Lucy took a few sips of coffee. She added four small creamer tubs, took a few more sips, and grimaced. “Poor Beth.” With a brief look at Drayco, she added, “Beth’s been a friend since before Virginia was born.”
Drayco said, “I understand she was your midwife.”
Lucy picked up a plastic spoon to stir her coffee. “There was just one obstetrician in Cape Unity, and he wasn’t taking on new patients. Certainly not ones without insurance. We fell into one of those financial holes—too poor for insurance but made too much for Medicare. Beth was my only option. I don’t remember much of the delivery, but Beth did a fine job.”
Reece added, “And she continues to, doesn’t she, Luce? Helping out, getting meds on the cheap. Deserves a Congressional Gold Medal.”
Drayco kept his voice light as he asked Lucy, “Did Beth have any family other than Arnold?”
“A brother-in-law.” Lucy gulped hard. “I can’t believe this is happening. And so closely after Arnold’s death.”
“Let’s hope Beth has a happier ending.” No sooner had he uttered the words than Nurse Wanetta approached them at the table. Drayco knew when he saw her, Beth was gone.
The nurse was blunt but soft-spoken. “Since she doesn’t have anyone else visiting, thought you might want to know Mrs. Sterling passed away a few moments ago. The doctors tried their best, but she had a lot of internal injuries. The shock to her system was too great. I know she was pleased you came. Must have made her last moments easier for her.”
The dam Lucy had erected to hold back tears gave way, and Reece put his arm around her shoulders. Drayco looked at Virginia. She looked back at him, with eyes like stained glass windows on a rainy day, their usual glints turned leaden. There was nothing he could do, no music he could play à la Orpheus with his lute to bring back the dead.
He reached out a tentative hand that Virginia grabbed and held so tightly, it made him wince. He didn’t mind, her fingers like tangible synapses, a connective bond between two virtual strangers as they sat in a silence punctuated by Lucy’s sobs.
The first tendrils of suspicion took root in his mind, the connectedness of the three incidents—Arnold Sterling’s murder, Virginia’s “accident,” and now Beth’s demise—coming together like the notes in a dissonant chord. But where did Marcus Laessig fit in?
Thursday 9 July
Feeling like an outsider, Drayco had let Reece escort Lucy and Virginia home. Reece stayed for several hours to make sure they were okay before going to his own place. When he called Drayco this morning, he said he hadn’t slept a wink. Not that Drayco slept much last night, either. If he could have played the Chickering without waking Maida, he would have opted for that. Instead, he spent the pre-dawn hours searching online for background on the Sterlings.
At the dot of eight-thirty, he made his first phone call of the day. Sheriff Sailor’s voice on the other end of the phone was subdued. “Seems like a clear case of drunk driving to me, Drayco. The ambulance crew said Beth Sterling’s clothes reeked of gin. The hospital lab took blood and hair samples. Her BAC was point two one.”
“I didn’t know she was a drinker. Where did they haul the car?”
“You thinking of taking a look-see? We’ve got photos, so I guess it won’t hurt. In the meantime, I’m still trying to contact Beth’s brother-in-law. Second time he’s had bad news lately.”
After getting the address of the lot where Beth’s car was towed, Drayco hung up with the sheriff and turned to Maida, busy making her usual impossible quantities of breakfast fare. She was an amazing cook. You couldn’t tell it by the way she moved around on autopilot with the precision of a machine. No recipes, no measuring, all business.
While drumming his fingers, he was surprised to find he was tapping out parts of Totentanz. “I promised Lucy and Virginia I’d drop by and tell them anything the sheriff found.”
Maida tilted the pan in her hand and flipped an omelet over with a flick of her wrist. “Worried you’ll be thrown out on your bum?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “After the way they reacted at the hospital, I wonder if it’s necessary they know the unlovely details of her accident.”
Maida plated the omelet and served it on the table, then plopped in a chair across from him. “You’d be surprised how tough they can be. You yourself know a thing or two about triumph over adversity. As my grandmother always said, cowards die daily, the brave once. One caveat—their house may look like it’s been through Dorothy’s tornado. You’ll see for yourself.”
###
“Tornado” might be too strong a word, but Lucy’s house wasn’t going to make the center spread in Better Homes and Garden. It was clean enough that Human Services wouldn’t label it child endangerment. But one tiny house, one overworked home-schooling single mother, and one child in a wheelchair added up to lots of clutter.
Every available surface was piled high with tissue paper, bags of all sizes, and baskets. No corner escaped a plastic bin or homemade bookshelf forged from cinder blocks and wooden slats. A small television with a rabbit-ear antenna, surrounded by smothering piles of cardboard boxes, blared out a morning talk show like a drowning creature crying out for help.
As Drayco once said to Maida, “There but for the grace of my maid go I.”
Lucy motioned him in with oven mitts on both hands, which would have been a dead giveaway even without a whiff of baking coming from the kitchen. Virginia wheeled in right away, textbook still on her lap.
“Is this a bad time?” Drayco asked.
“Is there ever a good time for things like this?” She picked up some newly filled boxes from the table and stacked them on the counter.
Virginia’s eyes still hadn’t regained their sparkle, but she managed a half-smile. “I can use the break. These English exercises are boring. Simple past, present perfect, who cares? And I’d rather be painting.”
“Ah, painting.” Drayco smiled at her. “My little sister had a talent for art.”
Virginia looked at him sideways. “You used the past tense. Is she not ... I mean, is she still ...”
“She died of leukemia when I was your age, long before you were born. Maybe you’ll get the chance to do what she never could.”
Virginia was quiet for a few moments. “If you give me a picture of her, I can paint her.”
Lucy viewed him with a slight softening of the lines around her eyes. She said, “Since you’re standing there idle, you might as well help me with the cookies.”
Drayco studied the spatula Lucy offered him as if it were an instrument of torture. “I have to warn you, there’s a reason I never worked in a restaurant. I burn water.”
Lucy showed him how to retrieve the cookies from the tray to the cooling racks. “It’s simple.” She watched him try a few. “They’re not priceless heirlooms. You don’t have to be that gentle.”
“Hmm.” He looked at his handiwork and back to the three other trays lined up looking at him expectantly—if only they knew better. “Looks like you’re opening your own bake shop.”
“A normal order for the Lost-In-Tea Party shop, my one steady client. I’ve finished the muffins.”
Despite Lucy’s comment, she packed the baked goods with wax paper and tissue into the boxes with surgical precision. How much would one dropped cookie affect her bottom line? “Do you get sick of these, Virginia?”
She wheeled up to the table and grabbed a cookie. “Are you kidding?” Munching away with an expression of bliss as only a twelve-year-old eating a cookie can manage, she added, “Did you ask the sheriff about Beth?”
He had to hand it to the kid—she never pulled punches. How do you segue from cookies to death with a child? Deciding his cooking talents were best suited to holding the box while Lucy continued the packing, he decided to tell them the truth. “I checked with Sheriff Sailor before I came over. Evidence indicates Beth had been drinking when she hit that tree.”
Lucy almost dropped the tray of cookies in her hand. She slid the cookies into the box, then walked to the oven door she’d opened and slammed it with a bang. “That’s impossible. Beth never drank.”
“The ambulance and medical staff got a strong smell of gin on her clothing. The test results confirmed high blood alcohol. Are you certain she wasn’t a closet drinker?”
“Virginia and I popped over there unexpectedly all the time. Her father was a Baptist minister. She was a teetotaler from day one.”
“Depression, then? Her husband’s death must have been a blow.”
Lucy leaned against the counter. “She’d been a little blue, I guess. Once said how nice it would be if her troubles could vanish.” Lucy put her hands, still in mitts, on her hips. “They’re thinking suicide, aren’t they?”
“Possibly.”
Virginia spoke up. “Beth didn’t want to end her life. We were going to Rehoboth Beach next month, the first time for both of us. She was looking forward to it.”
Virginia paused, and her voice rose a few notes up the scale as she said in a plaintive tone, “And she wouldn’t do this to me. Not Beth.”
Lucy placed one of her mitt-covered hands on her daughter’s shoulder. “Of course she wouldn’t, dear.”
Drayco briefly hated Saint Beth for the pain she’d brought Virginia. “Tell you what. The sheriff said Beth’s car was taken to Haffey's Auto Body Shop. I’ll have a look at it.”
Virginia stared at the hated English book, then switched her glare to Drayco. He saw the wheels turning in her brain, mulling over his bad news, wondering how much she could trust the messenger. Finally, she said, “My friend Barry works at Haffey’s. Tell him I said to keep an eye on you and to make sure you do a good job.”
Lucy added, “He’s another person who’s been kind to Virginia.” She wagged her finger at her daughter. Apparently, it was okay for Lucy to be rude to Drayco, but not her daughter.
Chastened, the girl maneuvered to a stack of books and pulled out a small hand-sized volume that she clutched for a moment, then handed to Drayco as if to make amends. “Beth gave this to me when I was born. It’s my favorite book of poetry. I want Mom to read from it at the funeral.”
He scanned it before handing it back. Burns, Frost, Dickinson, Keats, all classics. He said, “Speaking of gifts. Before she died, Beth told me she had something to give Virginia and it could be found ‘in the back.’ Do you know what she meant?”
Mother and daughter shook their heads in unison. Lucy said, “Maybe she kept it in the back of her house. But she never mentioned it.”
Perhaps Beth’s mind was so clouded with painkillers, her words to Drayco were a hallucination. His instincts told him otherwise.
As he thought of Beth and those troubles she hoped would vanish, it occurred to him he’d never heard Lucy or Virginia mention Arnold Sterling. So he asked, “Was Beth’s husband as helpful to you as she was?”
Lucy took her time taping boxes shut. “Virginia, dear, I left my favorite recipe book in the den. The one with the blueberry stains on the cover. Would you get it for me?”
She waited until her daughter was out of earshot. “Arnold could be charming. I’m sure that’s why Beth married him because it’s the only side she saw. At first. He was a weak man and couldn’t stay away from gambling. Never mean to us, more aloof. Until recently.”
“What changed?”
“He got chummy all of a sudden. He’d put his arm around me, tease Virginia about being rich someday—because of her art, he said. He was a different person.”
“Did Beth mention this?”
“If she noticed the changes, she didn’t say a word.”
“Since we’re being honest here, how did you really feel toward him, Lucy?”
She turned her back to him, rearranging boxes on the counter she’d already stacked once. When she replied, it was a whisper. “I hated that man. He was a scoundrel through and through. It was bad enough he abused Beth. But I had my suspicions he was starting to take an unhealthy interest in Virginia. And I swore if I found out he touched her inappropriately ...” She stood still, but her back heaved, her breathing shallow.
When she turned back around, her expression was hard. “I’m not sorry I said that. God help me, I was glad the day Arnold Sterling died. And good riddance.”
Drayco sympathized with this tough-as-a-she-bear mother standing before him. And yet, as he stared at the oven mitts on her hands, he had to admit they’d make handy shields against piano wire as you wound it tightly around someone’s neck.
11
Barry Farland was sweating buckets. No, more like barrels. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve, then bent over, nose to carburetor inside the heart of an old Chevy Caprice. It was a hot day, even being just shy of noon, and the raised hood blocked the breeze. But he didn’t mind. Working on cars for him was like a Zen master meditating on a lotus blossom, and he loved the way it blocked out other realities around him.
He couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t around cars or working on them, too small to see over the bumper. His father would lift him up onto the frame of the engine where he would perch and stare at the cables, pistons, and valves. He knew what a spark plug was before he knew how to find his state on a map.
What he didn’t like was having to work early today—he thought he’d worked that schedule stuff out with the boss. They really needed to hire an additional mechanic. At least he didn’t have to work with the customers much, which was fine with him, because he’d much rather be under someone’s car than under their thumb.
He heard a voice calling his name and looked up to see a tall, slender man in a blue-violet shirt and khakis walking in his direction. He was annoyed he had to stop working. But this might be an important customer, so he kept his mouth shut.
The man stopped in front of the car and asked, “Barry Farland?”
Barry squinted at him. “That’s me.” The man had eyes the color of his shirt, eyes like they could bore a hole straight through you.
“I’m Scott Drayco. Virginia Harston said I should look you up.”
Barry looked around. “Shit. No Towels. I’d s
hake your hand, but ...” He held out his left hand for Drayco to see. “They don’t call us grease monkeys for nothing.”
“Looks like you’ve got your hands full of car parts. Kind of hot to be working outside, isn’t it?”
Barry put his wrench aside. “I guess.”
“You look like a natural. Been working with cars long?”
Barry squinted into the sun. “Long enough.” He paused, waiting for this stranger to take over the conversation. Why the hell was he here, anyway?
# # #
Drayco smiled at the boy, noting Barry’s suspicious glances in his direction. Barry wasn’t much older than twenty, and his clothing reflected that. Barry was a fan of the Goth movement. Spiked black hair, skull earring, black T-shirt with H.P. Lovecraft emblazoned across the front, and a leather wristband dotted with black and silver pyramids.
Time to put him at ease. Drayco looked around the facility. “Everyone else on break?”
“We lost our other mechanic six weeks ago. Moved to Florida to work on all those trams at Universal making twice as much as he did here. It’s me and Mr. Haffey right now. You looking for a job?”
“Looking for information. Lucy and Virginia Harston sent me your way. They both think highly of you. Coming from them that’s a true compliment.”
Barry ran his hand across his nose, leaving a black smudge, and shifted his feet. “They’re nice people. We got a lot in common.”
Drayco tried not to look surprised. Conservative Lucy and punk Barry didn’t seem like they’d cross one another’s paths, let alone have much in common.
Barry continued, with a note of pride in his voice, “Virginia and I are both painters. We met through Beth Sterling, who took care of me for a while.”
“It’s Beth’s car I hoped to see. Sheriff Sailor said it was towed here after the accident.”
Barry gestured with his head at a lump of red metal twisted into a nightmarish sculpture located at the back of the enclosure. They walked to it, the entire passenger side collapsed inward where it hit the tree. If it were the driver’s side instead, Beth would have been killed instantly.