Chapter 14
Well, bombshell number whatever was not the biggest of them all, but it was sure the stiletto-in-the-heart knif-iest of them. What was worse was that Scott’s little confessional had given me a very, very bad thought—one I did not want to entertain but couldn’t get out of my head.
I rinsed my mug, put the beer bottle in the recycling bin, and closed the deli. My head felt like a balloon full of wet sand, something I’d once achieved on the Coney Island beach, thinking it would make a great flotation device. It might have, too, if I hadn’t accidentally put a piece of shell in there, which popped it when I went in the water. To this day, really, wet beach sand makes me sad.
I had turned off the dining room lights but had left the kitchen area lights on, as was customary—police bulletin, to help them watch for intruders. Then I put on my tan retro Members Only jacket and went out the front door. There were no gawkers, but I felt that I was another day older and deeper in dreck.
I began my block-and-a-half walk to the parking garage. I was soothed by the sound of my cowboy boots hitting the sidewalk. That was one experience I never would have had in New York, even if I’d worn cowboy boots then. The tall lip of the starchy boot hitting me mid-shin reminded me of the few youthful times I’d gone skiing in Connecticut. Ski boots weren’t the easiest way to travel unless they were tucked in skis. The serious heel-toe action and the very little ankle movement in the boots were awkward, but the extra effort was worth it. Worth it knowing no one else could fill these boots quite like me. There was a worthwhile metaphor in that. I was bearing up under a lot. Good for me. And I found myself walking with that same distinctiveness that cowboys were known for, almost like I was leading with my knees and kicking with my hips. If only Mother could’ve seen me. She’d have rolled her eyes.
I entered the garage and said good night to Randy. The pleasant clap-clap-clap of my boots was amplified in the concrete garage. I reached the second floor by the stairs and walked briskly to my car on the far end of the enclosure. I pressed the unlock button on my remote, and it was only then that I heard the clacking of heels from somewhere behind me. I slowed without turning to get a better grasp on the clearly approaching sound.
High heels. I’d heard them before. Walking into my deli. I stopped and turned around.
“Hello, Lydia.”
The taut face was tauter still, with anger.
“What did he say to you?” she demanded. She didn’t even ask how I knew it was her.
“About what?” I asked. “Your daughter or the fact that you lied to me?”
“Lied?”
“About not considering adoption, about your heart being, oh, so full of love.”
The woman stopped about a yard from me. She was neither repentant nor cowed. “Yes, I considered it. I wanted a good life for my baby, one I could not provide.”
“The thirty grand had nothing to do with it?”
“I didn’t take it, did I?”
“Why?” I asked. “Love?”
“Yes, love. Think whatever you want of me, but don’t ever doubt that I love my little girl!”
I believed her. It wasn’t just her passion—which she obviously had an abundance of when properly motivated by a man or child—but I reminded myself that when we spoke, she didn’t ask for anything for herself.
“Let’s table that for now,” I said. “I have a question for you.”
“You haven’t answered mine.”
“He told me about their engagement and their love for one another. Is that true?”
“Yes,” she barked.
“He told me he thinks she’s having an affair. Is that true?”
“We think she is, yes,” the woman said. She wasn’t quite so huffy about that. It obviously hurt.
“The guy you think she’s seeing is named Stephen Hatfield. Also true?”
She nodded.
“That’s pretty much all he told me, so here’s my question for you. Did you come to the deli to see me?”
“Of course—”
“I mean the first time,” I said.
“Why else?”
I moved a little closer. The fluorescent lights weren’t the brightest, and I wanted to see her eyes. “Is there any part of your brain that is the tiniest bit worried that her lover put her up to murdering Joe Silvio, wife of Brenda Silvio, née McCoy?”
Her knees swayed like she was doing the Charleston. I stepped forward and steadied her as a noodly arm went out to the side. She shut her eyes. With an arm around her waist, I opened the back door of my car and helped her sit. I stepped back, looking down at her.
“There’s a water in the well between the two front seats,” I said.
She leaned on the back of the driver’s seat to retrieve it. She popped the cap and took a long drink.
“Let me ask that question another way,” I said. “Do you have reason to believe that Stacie did do it?”
She shook her head, still drinking from the plastic bottle. I waited for her to finish.
“There is bad blood between these Hatfields and McCoys,” Lydia said. “It has nothing to do with the old disagreements.”
“I should hope not, after more than a century.”
Lydia looked surprised. “It’s been more than a century and a half since the start of the War Between the States. Folks down here are still sore about that.”
Score one for the lady in black. “So what is this bad blood about?”
“There have been articles in the newspaper about Hatfield trying to buy the lot that McCoy’s Bakery is on. It’s the only spot on that street he doesn’t own.”
“And Brenda didn’t want to sell.”
“Worse than that,” she said. “I was doing a little online research. There is a Web site, Justia, that lets you look up legal documents. McCoy’s had just filed a lawsuit accusing him of trying to monopolize the bread business. Seems there are two other bakeries among his holdings, one in Brentwood and another in Mt. Juliet.”
That would be Sam’s and Alexander’s Ragtime Bread. “So we’ve got what? Antitrust and unfair business practices?”
“Were you an attorney up north?”
That made me mad. I was already studying accounting when my dad died. He obviously hadn’t felt that was worth mentioning to his hump puppet. Or maybe he himself forgot. All of those possibilities stank.
“No, an accountant,” I said as calmly as I could. “Working on Wall Street, those are just terms you get familiar with.” I ticked through the beat points of this thing. “So you wanted money to get Stacie out of town in case she’s involved somehow.”
“Yes. Oh God, she’s been a sad girl but never a violent one. I don’t think she’s a killer, Gwen.”
I still hated hearing my name come from her mouth.
“But you’re afraid someone around Hatfield is a bad guy and she may get dragged in or endangered in some way.”
“Yes.”
“Dumb question, Lydia. Why haven’t you had this talk with Stacie?”
The woman looked down at her feet. “She found out about the adoption.”
“How?”
“There was a letter,” she said. “It was stuck in a family Bible, of all things. I left it there, I suppose, when I was praying for guidance about the baby. Stacie took it from the top shelf after Scott proposed. She was thinking that it would be fun to have the preacher use a family heirloom.”
“Do you think seeing Hatfield came as a result of that?”
“I wondered about that,” she said. “I cannot dismiss it. She was hurt and upset and wanted to lash out. I think she felt like she was worthless.”
“Not quite worthless,” I pointed out. “Someone was willing to pay thirty grand.”
“Except that they didn’t,” Lydia said. “That was a letter from the agency, saying the couple had changed their mind. When they did, I did, too. When she read the letter, Stacie was hysterical. It was bad enough to learn about it that way, but she kept screamin’, ‘I’m not worth anything. They didn’t even want me!’ I tried to tell her that Scott wanted her, but she kept cryin’ and sayin’ things about him bein’ poor and that maybe they’d have to give away their baby if they ever had one. I tell you, she wasn’t thinkin’ clear.”
“I don’t blame her!”
“No,” Lydia agreed. “That’s partly what I’ve been tryin’ to explain. My girl ain’t thinkin’ clear. Scott may think you can talk to her, get her away from Hatfield. Maybe so. That would be wonderful. But I’m not so sure, and my concern is for her safety.”
“Quick question,” I said. “Does Hatfield own dogs?”
She had recovered sufficiently to scowl at me. “What is your fascination with dogs?”
I told her about the canine traces in the truck. Grant hadn’t said it was confidential, and this might help move the investigation forward.
“Oh,” Lydia said. It was a tiny, awful little sound.
“What?”
“I saw, in the Justia listing, that his holdings also include the Whippy Whippet Dog Obedience Schools.”
I had seen their ads on late-night TV. They had one of the worst slogans I’d ever heard, uttered by a badly animated computer-generated dog: “If you can’t beat it, whippet!” The ads mostly featured hunters and outdoorsmen who looked like they’d beat their dogs.
“That’s great,” I said.
“Really?”
“No,” I said. “I thought maybe I could actually rule him out.”
“Are you trying to find the killer on your own?” Lydia asked.
Lydia turned away, reached into her bag, and fished around. She emerged with a tissue. She dabbed her dry eyes—this lady was strange—then rose unsteadily, and I offered her my hand. My newly manicured nails made her hardened fingertips seem even sadder.
“Not as such,” I said. “I’m sort of friends with the head investigator. Just lifting up rocks, seeing what’s under there that might help.”
“Part of me believes he is quite capable of murder, that he is a monster.”
“Which part of you believes that?” I asked.
“The overly protective mother, I suppose.” She pursed her lips. “Please think about what I asked before. She responds to money. That might be the hook we need to get her out of this.”
She didn’t say it, but my astute, paranoid ears could’ve sworn they heard, “Like all you people” at the end of “She responds to money.” I hoped to high holy heaven I was wrong.
Lydia sniffled back hidden tears, then turned and made her lengthy exit back down the parking lot stairs. I just stood there watching her descend. She never looked back.
I got in the car and drove down the ramp, trying not to look at her as I passed. Maybe I should’ve offered her a lift, but I didn’t want to. I was already more involved with her than I had expected, desired, or wanted to think about. The whole thing stank. My father’s mistress, whom I met because someone was killed by my loading area. What good karma was hidden anywhere in that log-line? On top of which, I had a deli to run and a staff in whose lives I was involved and men who had relationship mishugas that didn’t seem to match my own meshuga needs. Why did I need to take on three more nutcases?
Because, like all the mountains in your life, they’re there.
More than that, though, I had a feeling—I don’t know why—that somewhere through this was the exit sign to the whole matter of Mr. Silvio and his ripped-up throat.
With rush hour long over, the ride home was even quicker than usual. Only as I got out of the car and the light came on did I see that there was a brown paper bag poking from the well with the water bottle.
I picked it up. It wasn’t very heavy. I realized that Lydia must have placed it there when she went into her purse and came out with a tissue. I thought that had taken a little longer than it should have.
I felt fairly comfortable ruling out an explosive device. I unrolled the top of the bag and spilled the contents onto the seat. Out spilled a small stack of photographs and scraps of paper. I wish I could say I had a sentimental “Oh God” moment, but I didn’t. I think I was probably protecting myself. I put my knees against the seat and fingered through the messy pile.
They were old images. There was a photo of young Lydia outside with baby Stacie, presumably. My father was sitting on a lawn chair in the background. The next photo was taken earlier, when Lydia was pregnant with Stacie, again presumably. One hand was on her belly, and the other was being used to shield her eyes from the flash. There was a school photograph of Stacie wearing a black blouse and black barrettes in her hair, and she was smiling. She looked to be around seven years old and was seemingly content with her young life.
After that the photos predated my half sister. They were black-and-white images of strangers, who, I could only assume, were my distant half relatives. The pictures showed the usual stuff, mustached men standing in yards in front of houses, bored and tolerant women humoring the photographer, and children thrilled by the modern advancements of film technology, their clothes nothing more than shapeless fabric with buttons.
I flipped over several of the photos, hoping they would offer up some clues as to who these people were and why Lydia wanted me to see them. Only one had writing on the back, an antique picture of a tall young man with a big cowboy hat and one of those stubby neckties that were popular in the late 1800s, his giant hands hanging at his sides, his rugged suit almost resembling Herman Munster’s. The man stared deeply into the heart of the camera, the mighty sun casting deep shadows on his face from the brow down to his cheeks. In pencil, on the back, was written “Devil Anse.”
Oh. Maybe the pictures weren’t for me.
Well, I’m not sure how I feel about being a messenger. I didn’t know if I wanted the responsibility for any of this.
Now that I thought about it, consciousness itself was no longer a responsibility I wished to bear.
I fed the cats their usual fare and looked in my fridge for mine. It was practically empty, save for half a garlic clove and some leftover Chinese food from a few nights before Joe Silvio died. I closed the fridge door and leaned both my hands and stiff arms on the kitchen counter, clicking the tip of my tongue off the inside of my bottom lip.
I’d heard about this new pizza place in Five Points and decided one more junky meal would do me good. Gathering up my second wind, I put my jacket back on and got back in the car. Ten minutes later I was sitting in front of two slices of New York–style, gooey-cheesed, grease-dripping, easily folded pizza. I didn’t even do the usual napkin blot to soak up the extra grease. I sat in the booth as I blissfully chewed my giant bites. I stared out the window and gazed at nothing in particular in the foreground. Then my focus shifted to the background, where I noticed an American flag fluttering on a pole. I followed the pole down to a large brick building with a mural painted on the side depicting President Andrew Jackson with a strong-looking woman, who I was fairly certain had to be his wife, Rachel. I remembered from another Charlton Heston movie that she never lived to see him become president.
“Everything okay, miss?”
I looked up. You could tell the parlor was new, since the employees still had that ready-to-please attitude.
“Yes, thank you,” I told him. “Things are much better now.”
He gave me a funny look as he walked away. I realized then that he had meant the pizza, not with my life.
As I told my staff, you never know what’s on customers’ minds when they’re sitting alone at a table, and that the rule of thumb was to approach them as gingerly as a cop coming up to a car on a routine speeding stop. It just never occurred to me that I would be one of those whack jobs on the other end of a server’s greeting.