Chapter Six

Claire

I made my way to the station house. Detective Harms, I was told by a female officer, was not in yet and would get in touch with me. She seemed disgruntled that I’d brought Jake in with me. I left the key with her and a detailed note. Disappointed—I never did get over my childhood love of station houses—Jake and I went home. I peeled off my damp clothes and put on a cozy nightgown, crawled into bed, and took a nap.

It was the phone that woke me. I was surprised when it was Paige. She sounded absolutely chipper. “Listen,” she said, “I spoke to my friend over at St. Francis and she said she could slip us in this morning.”

“Slip us in where?” I blinked.

“For your AIDS test, Claire.”

“Oh. Uh. Sure. But I’m waiting for the detective to call me back.”

“Why? You weren’t there when it happened.” She paused. “Were you?”

“Very funny. Hey! Jake! Get off me!”

There was loud silence at the other end of the receiver.

“Oh,” I explained hurriedly, “it’s my dog, Jake. He’s my dog.”

“You have a dog there?” she cried, and I realized the reason I was so worried she’d mistakenly think I had a man in my bed was because I wouldn’t want her telling Morgan. Which is sick. I am odious. I rubbed my eyes. “What time is the appointment?”

“In an hour and a half. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

“Paige, is Jenny Rose there with you? I’ve got to speak to her.”

“Look, my friend is doing us a favor fitting us in. You can talk to Jenny Rose any time, all right?” Without waiting for an answer she hung up.

I looked at the clock. I’d have just enough time to feed and walk Jake, take a shower, and have breakfast. I staggered from the bed and padded to the window. A flock of geese were crossing the blue sky, coming home for the summer. A definite good sign. Little sailboats skimmed the water. And there—I leaned out the window—was Daniel! I leaned so far out to wave to him that I tumbled out the window headfirst and into the garbage pail. My legs stuck up in the air and churned like an eggbeater. More embarrassed than injured, I thrust myself over, wiggled to my feet, and lifted the heavy rubber can off me and ran back in the house. I struggled into my mukluks, opened the door, the dog ran out, the kitten ran in, and I took off down the path in my baggy flannel nightgown. He was almost to the end of the strand and I was out of breath when I got to him but, huffing and puffing, I cried, “Hi!”

He turned and looked at me and I thought, How could I ever have been frightened of this pathetic little man? He was scrawny as Robinson Crusoe. His pale, diluted blue eyes lit up when he saw me and he gasped, “Did you see the geese?”

“Yes,” I said. “I saw them. Means good weather, right?”

He pushed his bottom lip up over his upper and stood there staring at me.

I said, “Daniel, I want to introduce myself. I’m Claire. I’m staying in Noola’s cottage.”

“Oh, she’s dead,” he said informatively. “She drank bad tea!”

“Er, yes,” I agreed. Bad tea? Is that what they’d told him? We looked together up at the cottage. I went on, politely and sincerely as I could, “I wanted to say—uh, I’m sorry I screamed last time I saw you. You see I imagined you were someone else and I was just shocked, I guess, to see—” But he wasn’t listening. He was, at the moment, petting my hair, which had come undone from its scrunchy back at the garbage pail. And then I remembered just what it was that had made me scream last time. It hadn’t simply been that he was the wrong sex. There was definitely something weird going on, some eager, demented cast in his expression that followed me inside and looked for something, something private. Delight suffused his toothless smile and I could feel a lump forming in my beating chest. Trying to be casual, I glanced peripherally to see if anyone else was on the beach. Nope. Just he and I.

“Paige’s coming to pick me up.” I shrugged nonchalantly. “I’d better get going.”

Daniel, however, didn’t intend to let go of my hair. He had my arm, too, holding me fast while he patted, tap tap tap, on my hair. I gave a little pull to see how that would go. No dice. He held me tight. He had an odd smell, too, like coriander or something. Part of me felt sorry for the pathetic little man he was, so obviously in need of human touch, but the other, more urgent feeling, now, was definitely distress.

“La la la,” I sang, making no sense, intending to convey Hey! This is all okay! I held his eyes and smilingly sang, “La la la, la la la la la. It might have been in County Down, or in New York, or gay Paree, or even London Town …”

He began to turn me, like in a dance or a children’s game, round and round we went—

“No more will I go all around the world, for I have found my world …” Me in my nightgown and he in his crazy world, stubbing and denting a circle of sand in the sun. “In yooooou.”

The ferry horn blew from Steamboat Landing and Daniel stood still like it was a signal, then went running off. Maybe, I thought, I’ll just move back to Queens.

Jenny Rose

Meanwhile, Jenny Rose was throwing back the curtains to let the sun stream in, “Come on, sport, get yourself dressed. No school today. We’re off to the boats.”

Wendell’s eyes flew open and he clattered from the bed, conscientiously smoothing his blanket across the top and tripping over himself getting dressed before she changed her mind.

He frowned. “We have to have cereal first.”

He’d forgotten. Jenny Rose said cheerily, “Nah. Know what we’ll do? We’ll buy ourselves a snack at the deli and take the wee sailboat over there. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

He was so excited he raced around with his shoelaces trailing, assembling his blue backpack with compass, ball cap, and whistle.

“What’s this?”

“I’m not allowed to go on a boat unless I bring this stuff.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s smart.” She wondered who’d thought of that, the mother?

Together they crept down the stairs and past the yellow tape that crisscrossed and held the basement door. He stopped in his tracks, startled, and looked back at Jenny Rose. There. He remembered now. Patsy Mooney was no more. Jenny Rose nudged him forward, grabbed two apples from a dish on the table, and put down a note for Paige. She chose two of the smaller fishing poles from the mudroom, and they scooted out the door before anyone could object. It was already warm and they removed their sweaters and tied them around their waists. Halfway to the dock, they crossed paths with Mrs. Dellaverna, arms laden with greens, on her busy way.

“Top of the day to you,” Jenny Rose greeted her pleasantly.

“Watch out!” Wendell shouted to Jenny Rose. “She’s got poison ivory!”

“It’s fresh dandelion!” Mrs. Dellaverna protested, lowering the bushel and letting him look. “Where are you two off to so early, eh?”

“We’re taking out the wee sailboat,” Wendell told her excitedly in Jenny Rose’s Irish way.

“Oh, yeah? Bring me back a nice fish. What do you say?”

“Okay!” Wendell’s eyes shone and he gave her a high five before they continued on.

“Don’t sail too close to that old factory; she’s condemned!” Mrs. Dellaverna hollered after them. “And there’s a riptide runs aside the gat. Don’t go out past Teddy’s boat. That’s a bad tide, now, okay?”

“We won’t, we won’t,” Jenny Rose assured her and they ambled on.

“We’ll never go by Teddy’s stupid boat,” Wendell agreed scornfully.

Hmm, Jenny Rose wondered, how come?

It took them quite a while to get the boat out past the fine sloops. There wasn’t a trace of wind and Jenny Rose had to row. When they were at last sitting pretty and their rods leaned easily against the rail, Jenny Rose ventured, “Do you not like Teddy, Wendell?”

Wendell didn’t answer.

Jenny Rose, trying not to act too interested, slathered the boy with Coppertone. She massaged and wobbled the white liquid up and down the frail little arms.

“That’s my very favorite smell,” Wendell confided.

“Mine, too! How about that? So … I wonder why Mrs. Dellaverna doesn’t like Teddy?”

“Because,” Wendell offered, “Teddy hurted Noola’s cat, Weedy.”

“Noola? Oh. The lady who passed away. Morgan’s mother, that would be?”

“Yes.”

“Hurt her cat? Why would he do that?”

“He did.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”

“Yes.” He nodded his head. “Teddy tricked Weedy and put him in a box and he almost ran him over but he got away. Mama says you can’t catch a cat doesn’t want to be caught.” In his vehemence, Wendell jumped up and tipped over the bait box, sending the worms, avid for freedom, into escape. He tracked the worms down and plopped each one carefully into the box Jenny Rose held.

“Wendell, adults have to restrain cats to take them to the vet, say, for a shot. Or to the groomer. It doesn’t do them any harm.” She shivered as one worm jimmied up her hand. She lifted it into its doom box, cut it in half, and threaded the smaller half onto Wendell’s hook. She felt a sudden pity.

Wendell held his shiny knees. In a rush he revealed, “Mama promised we could go and find Weedy and then she never came back!” He looked around this way and that, his bad eye twisting furiously. “She never came back!”

“All right. That’s enough for now. I don’t want you to think about another thing. You just sing a little song so the fish will come. All right, lovey? What about that nice one I taught you?

Just then the fishing pole signaled a hit and Jenny Rose was glad for it, glad not to think anymore of a woman who’d come up with promises and then never kept them. She wiped the slime off her knife and rinsed it in the cold, clear water. But now there was something else nagging at her. For which was worse, a woman who would go off and leave this dear little boy, or one who’d never come back because she never could?

After a while, they both caught some fluke and Jenny Rose demonstrated to Wendell how to clean them, how to handle the knife carefully and wipe it and wash it when he was done. They weren’t far from shore and they both were tired now. They headed back to Twillyweed, up the sandy slope and at last onto the drive. There was the sound of somebody’s radio. A ball game going on. Mr. Piet and Teddy sat at the kitchen table, listening to the Yankees and playing rummy. They loved the Yankees in defiance of Oliver, who passionately revered the Boston Red Sox because his alma mater was Boston College. Mr. Piet was delighted with the cleaned fish and promised to make the fluke with rice, which Wendell loved more than anything, for supper.

“How’s that, Wendell?” Teddy ruffled the little boy’s hair. “I’ll pick up some ice cream if you like. What’s your favorite kind?”

Wendell made a face. “Don’t want ice cream,” he said and ran inside and up the stairs.

“Sorry,” Jenny Rose said. “He’s exhausted. It’s a lot for a little tyke. With Patsy and all.”

“No offense taken,” he said. “Kids are kids.”

Yes, she thought. She must be careful. She mustn’t judge him until she knew what the dickens Wendell was talking about. She took the stairs and found him down on the floor in his room, tooling a Hess truck across the rug. She struggled out of her sneakers and chucked them across the room. “Why ever were you so rude to Teddy?” she whispered, crouching down beside him. “Whatever you think he might have done, Wendell, he’s still an adult. You must be polite. You might have been mistaken, you know. Sometimes things look one way and they’re really another.” She plopped onto the bed.

He pushed out a stubborn lip. “Don’t like Teddy.”

“Why? Because of what happened with that cat? Wendell, I’m sure something like what you thought did happen. But sometimes children see things differently. It might not have happened exactly as you thought. I can’t imagine Teddy purposely hurting any animal. He might have meant to take it somewhere. He probably put it in a box to take it somewhere—to get it neutered, perhaps. I’m quite sure he wouldn’t try to kill it.”

Wendell looked out the window with a sullen face. She’d never let him explain. He closed his eyes and rocked himself back and forth.

Claire

Driving in the car next to Paige was surreal. Just the day before we’d been in her kitchen with a dead body down the stairs. And something else had changed. Knowing she wasn’t wealthy leveled the playing field somehow. I know that’s a terrible way to put it but it’s what I felt. She was still the cool blonde, but it brought her, bad as it sounds, closer to me. Like we were in this together. I got it, understood her motivation. Her quest for Morgan was not based on sacred love, but security. For herself and her brother. And, of course, Teddy. No wonder they wouldn’t help him with his tuition; they couldn’t. Now that we were on equal ground, we could be—if all went well—chums. No, that was crazy. I was, after all, after her boyfriend. Oops. There. I said it. No going back now. We stopped at the gas station, and I, with my guilty conscience, insisted on paying with my credit card. Unfortunately she let me. As we pulled out, I mentioned meeting Daniel on the beach. “I think I might have upset him the other day. I’m afraid I screamed when I saw him.”

“Well, he’s not your everyday North Shore citizen,” she said. “After all, he’s my brother and I love him but—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on. Daniel is your brother?”

“Don’t look so astonished. He’s the first child, Daniel. He … stopped growing at one point. I know he looks like a Willy Nelson reject. He’s not as old as he looks. It’s just some of his teeth had to be pulled. It’s because of”—she hesitated—“an accident years ago. He refuses to go back to have the work finished. It’s ridiculous. Annabel was taking him there for a while. … She was very good with him, I have to say. I can’t take him by myself. Oliver’s going to have to help me get him there but he’s always … busy.” She grimaced and let her shoulders slouch. “Busy as in gambling. Oh, I know I’m selling him out, destroying his anonymity, as they insist you dare not do, but it doesn’t matter at this point. It’s not as though he’s going to meetings anymore. And you’ll find out soon enough. You ought to know. You have a right to know if you’re going to date him.” She scratched the back of her neck and looked at me appraisingly. “Of course if you were going out with him, he might stop. He gave it up for Annabel, after all. He was really being good when they first got together.”

I gaped at her. “Look, Paige, your brother Oliver isn’t ready to start dating anyone. Didn’t you ever listen to Doctor Joy on the radio? He needs a good year on his own before he can even think about—”

“That’s easy for some stranger to say,” she interrupted, pooh-poohing this notion, “but loneliness is cruel. Don’t you like him at all?”

“Of course I do,” I said.

Angry, she inspected her face in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes it’s good to have someone near just to keep the hobgoblins away, even if it’s the wrong person.”

She spoke as though she herself might be consoled this way. But I remembered the short-term satisfaction of Enoch in my bed. Then, because she seemed to be in the mood to call a spade a spade, I couldn’t resist asking, “The story of the baby? That was Daniel’s baby, right?”

“Oh, you know about that, do you? Well, it’s all true.”

“But, I never found out what happened to the baby, who adop­ted it.”

She stubbed her cigarette out. “What do you mean? When Daniel’s junkie wife overdosed, Mrs. Dellaverna found Teddy and kept him all night. And all the while everyone was out looking for him!”

“Teddy? You mean he was that baby with a junkie mother? You mean Teddy is Daniel’s son?”

“He’s my nephew. Well, you know he’s my nephew, Claire.”

“But I thought that baby … Mrs. Dellaverna said—”

“Ha-ha. Mrs. Dellaverna. Let me just tell you where she fits in. That baby, our Teddy, wandered off when his mother shot herself up with so much heroin she died with the needle in her arm. Can you imagine? When Daniel came home, he found his wife dead and his baby son missing. That’s right. And it was Lina Dellaverna who found Teddy wandering around the beach. The way she tells it, she was out hanging wash and just happened to spot him. She thought she’d put the baby to sleep and then she fell asleep. I don’t think she meant to do anything really criminal—she certainly didn’t know Janet was dead. She kept him in her cottage all night long and when she saw them searching in the morning, she came out to see what was going on. That’s why no one talks to her.”

“My God. How horrible! Why would she do such a thing?”

“She said she wanted to keep him safe. The old witch.”

“But surely she knew you and Oliver would look after him.”

“We were just kids! No one would have given a baby to us. Anyway, Daniel was demented enough before this from an accident; he was slow, but then he really had a breakdown. He couldn’t stop searching for the baby even after he was found. He went into a crazy downward spiral he never came out of.”

“Yes,” I murmured thoughtfully, “that was terrible what she did, to keep the baby’s father from knowing he was alive.”

“So now you know why everyone dislikes her. And there are other reasons. She tried to kill Noola’s cat, by the way. Just ask Teddy. He was there. He saw her. Look, Daniel might be off kilter but he would never purposely hurt someone. He’s one of us.”

I leaned back in my seat. “Poor Daniel. Just how … uh … unstable is he? Does he have moments of clarity or is he always sort of out there?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes even I don’t know. It’s hard to determine where emotional disturbance leads off and physical brain damage begins. You know—scar tissue. Let’s just put it this way: He’s a dimwit. On the other hand, he can do things no one else can. Noola had him tinkering with watches before he was ten. He can still take them apart and put them back together flawlessly.”

“He told me something unnerving when we were on the beach. He said someone gave Noola bad tea,” I confided.

“That’s ridiculous. He’s just parroting something he heard.”

“And really, Paige, I’m just wondering if there could have been any truth to Mrs. Dellaverna trying to hurt a cat. I’ve seen her with my little kitten and I can’t imagine—”

“Claire,” she said, giving me a crippling look, “you don’t have to make it all right. You are the most naive person I’ve ever met!” She turned and looked me full in the face with this seething expression and for a moment I thought she knew everything I felt and was going to hit me. But she wasn’t angry; she was upset. She went on, “Look, there’s so much you don’t know.”

“All right, so please tell me.”

“My family never received an insurance settlement when Daniel was hit by the For Sail. His skull was shattered. Well, Noola couldn’t do enough for us, for his rehab—she paid for everything. And believe me, it went on for years! It was very different in those days. You didn’t sue your friends. It just wasn’t done. At least our sort wouldn’t. And back then there was plenty of money.”

The significance of what she was saying hit me. I was beginning to understand Morgan’s inherited sense of contrition. This certainly explained it.

“Oliver was so young when that happened. So was I. We were just kids.” She switched the radio off and sighed. “It’s just … difficult right now since Noola died and Annabel took off.” She held her neck. “Daniel was very close to both of them and seemed to be coming along. He’s sort of lost, at the moment. And now with Patsy Mooney—” She turned to me. “Don’t think for one moment that Daniel killed Patsy, all right? Don’t even think it!”

“I didn’t!” I lied. Actually, I’d hoped he had so it wouldn’t have been anyone else. We rode in silence. So she, too, suspected someone other than the husband had killed Patsy Mooney. Why, I wondered, was that? Was she just protecting Daniel? So far that she’d let someone else go to jail for what he’d done? I wanted to keep her talking about him. I said, “Doesn’t anyone take Daniel out for therapy? You know, like out to sail?”

She gave a scornful laugh. “Who would take him? Oliver? Oliver can’t bear to be around him. Daniel’s afraid of Morgan—and me. It’s all I can do to put his house to a modicum of order! He never lets me take him to a barber. He leaves the tub filthy—”

I said, “I went to see Teddy, yesterday, and—”

“Why?” She shot me another murderous look. “Why are you so interested in— What business is it of yours if—”

“Well, for one thing”—antagonized, now, I finished for her—“my niece is living in a house where murder was committed, okay? For me, that’s reason enough. I thought Teddy had no reason to be covering up for anyone and would give me some straight answers. As it happened, Glinty popped up. That’s how I found out—”

“Ah! I suppose he told you all our gory financial details. I do everything I can to keep that little monster pacified and he turns around and sells us out at every turn.”

Silently, I agreed.

“And Teddy chimed in and backed him up, I suppose!” she continued. “After I did everything I could to make him self-sufficient, to put him on the right track, the little brat does nothing but blame me. Tell the truth. He does, doesn’t he?”

“No,” I said, touched by her moment of vulnerability, “he didn’t blame you at all.” I remembered Glinty’s peevishness. “It’s Glinty who lets loose on everyone, I’d say.”

“Yes, of course. Teddy never blames the men. It’s always us women who get the brunt of it with Teddy.” She turned to me and now I saw the resemblance clearly, wondering how I’d ever missed it. Oliver, Paige, Daniel, and Teddy. They all had those dazzling light-blue eyes.

“I’ll bet Teddy didn’t mention how he grew up at Guardian Angel House,” she spat. “I’ll bet he didn’t tell you how they would punish him for wetting the bed and I’d have to go and get him, hide him in my closet so Oliver wouldn’t drag him back there! And I was young myself!”

“Oh, that’s horrible!” We lurched to a halt at a red light.

“Yes, it’s horrible. His whole life was horrible. His good times were when he was allowed home for holidays to live with his half-wit father. My brother should have died back then when he was smashed in the head. He was meant to. We all would have been better off. Teddy would have gone into foster care and been better off. I know it sounds heathen but it’s true!” Hot tears sprang from her eyes and she wiped them away with an angry back of the hand. Then she backed off. “I don’t mean it! I don’t really wish he’d died!”

“Of course not. It was just all inside and had to come out,” I soothed.

The light turned green. She put her foot down on the gas and took off at such an inappropriate speed that for a moment I wondered if she, too, was unhinged. I held my breath. We were coming into Roslyn now, passing the Americana Mall. Neither of us spoke until we got to St. Francis. I was glad to get out of that car. As we walked through the lobby and past the double doors, Paige calmed down. She knew just what to do, where to go. Her college friend, a woman who was a kind of thicker version of herself—the same single strand of pearls and chic, nubby jacket (I was in just such a go-to-get-a-job-jacket of my sister’s)—met us at the elevator and walked us right through to the lab. I was put into a chair to fill out a lot of insurance forms and then a comforting, heavyset black lady in mahogany lipstick bumped in transporting a whole collection of blood in glass vials on a trolley. She sat down across from me and, rolling up my sleeve, clucked away my nervousness. It was over before I could break into a sweat. As we walked back to the parking lot, I got the feeling Paige was upset again. “What’s up?” I asked her.

She got in the car and pulled her seat belt across. “I mentioned Doctor Varanasi to the tech while you were in the ladies’ room—the doctor Annabel ran away with?”

“Yeah?”

“She said he never even stayed down in Virginia. He didn’t like it. He came right back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh. He never gave up his job here.”

“Could it be that Annabel didn’t actually leave town with him? Could she have left with someone else?”

“Don’t be silly! Annabel wrote to Oliver and told him all about it.”

“Where were the letters from?”

Paige thought a moment. I could tell she was rattled. “First Jersey. No, first that hotel in the city. Then Toms River. Then Virginia. They were settling there. That’s what she wrote.”

“Wouldn’t you want to call him up and check this out with him?”

“Oh, sure. Let the whole world know she deserted Oliver!” She eased the car onto Port Washington Boulevard.

I said, “I’m beginning to think Annabel never left Sea Cliff at all. I think there might have been foul play.”

“What do you mean?” Her fingers trembled as she lit a cigarette.

“I have a strong hunch Annabel might be dead.”

“Stop it. You’re just paranoid because of Patsy. It’s possible they broke up and went their separate ways, but I doubt it. I read her letters, Claire. They’re in her handwriting. She’s very clearly alive. And”—Paige snorted—“having fun, in the biblical sense.”

I sensed that she was holding something back. “Someone could have forged those letters.”

She avoided my eyes. “You mean Glinty?”

That stopped me. I hadn’t been thinking of him at all.

Paige went on, “Why, because he knows how to forge? Oh, I saw how you noticed the paintings were copies. You were shrewd, not saying a word.”

Paintings? Forgeries? This was getting better and better.

“But no,” she persisted, “I know her handwriting. She has that affected tiny script with all the curlicues. A forger wouldn’t have known to mimic them. I might not be good at relationships but I notice things. Small things. Like, she’d put a little sort of squiggle under combinations of vowels. I before E. Maybe she had trouble spelling and it was a sort of trick to remember. A forger wouldn’t know about that.”

I wondered how she could be so certain? If someone can forge paintings, he can certainly forge letters. Can’t he? Then a thought chilled me. Could she have had something to do with Annabel’s disappearance? I said, “About the paintings …”

“All right, it’s true. Oliver hired Glinty to make copies of them. Morgan knew he did it. He looked the other way because he didn’t want Oliver to get in trouble with the insurance company.”

“Don’t we turn here, Paige? Where are you going?”

“I’m sorry. I was distracted. I’ll drive around and back. Oh, never mind, I’ll just take Northern Boulevard. It’s probably faster now anyway with the traffic.”

We drove along, both of us longingly eyeing Anthropologie, neither of us able to afford their peppery, stylish clothes.

“There’s going to be a town yard sale this afternoon.” She looked at the time. “It’s still early enough so we can have our pick of the stuff.”

“Do you think we should go after all that’s happened?”

“Of course. It’s for charity.”

“Everything’s for charity in Sea Cliff,” I grumbled. Then I saw her face. “Oh, I’m just cranky because I haven’t much money to spend.”

She gave me a piercing look. “This is not about you, Claire.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. And I am grateful to you for arranging my blood test.”

“Good. Let’s just hope it works out all right. Come on, we’ll go. It’ll be good for us to be away from the house.” She relaxed, arranging her pearl strands in the mirror. “We wouldn’t want people to think we felt guilty, after all. And it’s a nice walk, the yard sale. Take our minds off … things. You’ll enjoy it. And Morgan will be there. You like him, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I answered, overbright. She knew I did. Why would she ask me that? Hadn’t she warned me off him at the club? He was hers, after all. Was she trying to rub it in?

“He always comes,” she went on, suddenly in a good mood, “and he has a good eye, always finds something valuable for nothing. He has the knack. I could just kill him.”

“Coals to Newcastle,” I said without thinking.

“Yes,” she agreed bitterly.

“Soon enough what’s his will be yours,” I reminded her unhappily.

She sighed heavily and said, “Nothing’s ever that easy, though, is it?”

“Why, what do you mean? Because Patsy’s dead?”

She reached across and grabbed my hand. “You will come, won’t you? You promise? Things are always smoother when you’re around. I don’t know why.”

“I said I would.” I released my hand and settled back into my seat, flattered and insulted in one gulp. I was glad to be going to see Morgan, but disappointed because his fiancée was adamant about having me there. If she wasn’t the least bit jealous of me—she who by her own admission was born jealous—where did that leave me?

Jenny Rose

Wendell was taking his time at the sink. She’d had him brush his teeth to distract him while she waited by the bed with a storybook, hoping she could get him to take a short nap before lunch. It was to be a full afternoon. He wouldn’t take off his cap. He was overwrought. It was no wonder. “Come on, Wendell, shake a leg.”

He pushed his shoes off and climbed onto the bed and looked out the window. He wouldn’t look at her.

“Well,” Jenny Rose said, annoyed now. “What is it?”

“You don’t believe me.”

She heaved a sigh. “All right, tell me.”

“I saw him. I saw Teddy. He put the cat in the box and he put a big stone on top. I was up there at Noola’s house. I was in the portyhole cabin, looking out the blue window. I wasn’t never supposed to go in unless I told Noola but I had to go for a little attention.” Beads of sweat came to his lip and, hot now, he swiped off his cap and threw it to the floor. “I thought Teddy was playing a game. And he … he got in his car and started to back up over the box. But Mrs. Dellaverna, she come running out waving a big towel and the hacker and chasing him with the hacker and she kicked the box open and the cat ran off. Weedy. That was Weedy.”

Jenny Rose kept her eyes steadily on his. It was the hacker that made it seem true. She’d seen that hacker when they went to the cottage. “He can’t have meant—”

Wendell shook his head vehemently yes. “Oh, yes, yes, he did too mean to do it. He put the box down right there in the driveway! But Weedy never come back. Never did. And now everybody’s mad at Mrs. Dellaverna.”

Jenny Rose stared at Wendell. “Are you sure, lad? Because—”

“I wouldn’t fib to you, Jenny Rose.” He crossed his heart sincerely and continued heatedly, right where he’d left off, the scenario still unwinding before him. “Mrs. Dellaverna and Teddy had a big fight. Right there in the road. And Teddy pretended like it wasn’t his fault; he said that Mrs. Dellaverna put the box on the road and she was crazy. But it wasn’t that way. And everybody came out and got yelling at Mrs. Dellaverna but I say it wasn’t her fault. And when Mama comes back she’ll say so, too.”

“Oh, Wendell!” She reached over and took him in her arms. There was no settling him. “Oh, dear one!” She hugged him tightly.

But he wasn’t finished. He kept on, nodding and blubbering, “I told Mama everything and she told me not to say another word. Because ‘We’re going to trap Teddy,’ Mama said, ‘Just like he trapped the poor cat. …’ But Mama put her finger here like this”—he pressed his pointer finger on his mouth—“and she said, ‘Don’t say another word, Wendell. Promise me now!’ and she went out and I never did, not until you came and me and you got to be friends.” He picked wretchedly at a scab on his leg.

“What do you mean? Is that why you never spoke? She told you that before she went away?”

One large tear fought its way down Wendell’s heated cheek. “Yes.”

Downstairs, the telephone rang. Mr. Piet was down in the cellar hunting for the rice bin.

Teddy picked up. “Twillyweed,” he said.

“It’s Glinty, here. May I speak to the fair Miss Jenny Rose Cashin?”

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said in his most limpid voice, “she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“To me?” Glinty, over the sound of the boats in the background, seemed puzzled.

“I guess not,” Teddy said. “Maybe because of something you said.”

“I said nary an off word.” Glinty searched his mind.

“Or something you promised? I’ll bet you must have,” Teddy suggested, sounding concerned. He took out a cigarette and lit it with his gold lighter, then slipped the glamorous Dunhill away in his pocket. “I’ll bet you used that sharp tongue of yours. So sharp you might just cut yourself. …”

“I wouldn’t bet too soon, if I were you, Teddy,” Glinty shot back, insulted. “What you gain on the horses you lose on the roundabouts.” He hung up the phone.

Claire

We pulled into a backup of traffic. There was a line of cars blocking Carpenter Avenue where the series of yard sales began. “Tourists! Already!” Paige fumed then suggested, “We might as well park and walk the rest of the way. Mr. Piet can come and get the car later.”

Before I could answer her, Jenny Rose must have spotted us, for she came rocketing over.

“They caught Donald Woods fishing off the pier on Island Park Bridge!” she gasped.

“That’s wonderful,” Paige exclaimed. “Where’s Wendell?”

“Guardian Angel’s got it all set up for the kids. Oliver’s taken him on the swings.” She lowered her voice. “He’s dead upset, you know.”

“Well, aren’t we all,” said Paige.

We got out of the car and walked across someone’s yard, trampling soft blue pansies and pink lady’s slipper. To get out of the way, we segued onto an open lane of card tables filled with beguiling sale items. A lamp made from limestone. Dominoes. Christmas cards from the 1950s. An antique comb and brush set inlaid with ivory. Jenny Rose and Paige hung together and convivially lit their cigarettes. That’s the thing about smokers, they get all chummy and you feel like you’re not in on something. “This Donald Woods must have protested violently,” Jenny Rose was saying. “He swore he had nothing at all to do with Patsy Mooney’s death. Made a big scene!”

Paige shook her match out. “Well, of course he would, wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah. He swore he hadn’t seen Patsy in more than three years and has a new girlfriend now, who owns a gourmet truck down in Long Beach and they’re planning to get married. But Oliver found out at the police station that Donald was definitely seen in Sea Cliff the day before Patsy Mooney was murdered. He was seen in the deli. They have surveillance video of him. Positively identified.”

“That about clinches it.” Paige smacked a pile of Life magazines.

“Pretty stupid, to let himself be seen like that,” Jenny Rose said, offering me a Tootsie Roll.

“Yeah,” I agreed, taking it, unwrapping it, and greeting that particular sugary bliss of gummy resistance. “I wonder what he said his reason for being there was.”

“Of course he said he had no idea Patsy Mooney even lived in Sea Cliff! Said he was here to meet someone who wanted to sell him a motorcycle cheap. Of course there was no one. And who cares, right?” Jenny Rose gleamed. “Fuckin’ murderer!”

I wondered why he’d come in the light of day? Unless he hadn’t meant to kill her but had been carried away by anger. And if that was the case, why hadn’t he hightailed off Long Island instead of waiting around in full view for the cops? Unless he thought it made him look less guilty. It just didn’t feel right. My ex-husband always told me, It’s not like they say in the movies, you know, how the perps raise a big stink declaring their innocence. Once you catch ’em, mostly they do as they’re told nice and easy, walk right into their cell and go to sleep. And there was something else about this case that kept nibbling at my craw, like a word on the tip of my tongue I couldn’t quite catch.

Jenny Rose whispered, “Auntie Claire, we have to talk. It’s about Wendell. He—”

But just at that moment Glinty stepped between us, startling me once again with the suddenness of his appearance so that I dropped my envelope of hospital papers. The two of them scurried off. Annoyed, because we did need to talk, I knelt down in the grass to pick them up—and I saw across the yard a pair of boating shoes I knew and liked under an antique school desk. I raised my eyes to his. Both of us held on too long then looked, baffled, apart. The last time I’d admired those worn-out moss green boating shoes they’d belonged to a handsome boat mechanic. Now they belonged to a wealthy North Shore heir. Out of my league. But he strolled toward me. “Say!” he said, sucking in his breath. “Look at this. A copper-lined humidor. Handmade, it looks like!” The canopy of young leaves above us shimmered in a sunlit wind.

Together we bent down, the sun warm on our backs, and peered into the little oven of copper. He was so close I could smell him. Salt. Soap. And the metallic shirk of the box’s lining. I turned slightly and he was watching me, his eyes moving down my throat, close enough to kiss. Evidently he’d forgiven me for incriminating him by taking the key to the police. A response to his nearness pulsed inside me and I bumped my forehead on the ceiling and wrenched myself out. Paige had walked off trustingly. It made me feel like a thief. She was standing in the next yard haggling over a sentimental picture when it was the frame she really wanted. She wobbled back over the grass in her heels toward us, all aglow. “Ten dollars!” she sang, disengaging the picture from the frame and tossing the print aside. “It’s got to be worth fifty!”

“At least that!” Morgan agreed, admiring the carved, pickled wood, holding it up. They strolled together toward the 99-cent table. He waited tenderly while she scoured each item. “Look, Claire”—she held up a yellowed card of vintage buttons—“something for you!” She chuckled. “Oh, my God. Remember that first night when you came to dinner at Twillyweed? We laughed so hard. Didn’t we, Morgan? A lady from Queens with buttons on her ears and a tablecloth for a coat! It was too much. Lord, we were rolling, weren’t we, Morgan?” Her eyes twinkled with spite.

Embarrassed, now, Morgan caught my expression and looked away, “Well, we were drunk.”

“Ah!” I smiled and smacked my head, pretending I’d just remembered something. “Gotta run home and let the dog out. Paige, thanks so much for taking me, okay? See you later!”

“Hey!” Morgan called after me good-naturedly. “Who said you could have a dog anyway?”

“I’m the mistress of my universe,” I shot back over my shoulder, “and no man will wither yon me livestock!” Don’t ask me where that came from. It was having all these Scottish men around. When I got far enough away from them, I slowed down, Paige’s words ringing in my ears. I made my way unhappily back to the cottage. And Jenny Rose might have mentioned to me she was having it off with that … that … scallywag! My car was in the drive. I removed Carmela’s jacket and folded it carefully. I was getting a little fed up with taking care of other people’s things. Suddenly I got so mad, I flung the jacket down on the ground and kicked it. Feeling better, I threw it in the trunk. And then it came to me, what it was I’d been trying to remember. The men from Twillyweed had sailed to Virginia for that chandelier. All four of them. Any one of them could have posted a letter supposedly from Annabel.

In the cottage, Jake greeted me with so much enthusiasm I felt my blood pressure lower. Settling in, we sat together and looked out the window. We admired the fair-weather clouds, and the fleet of slim white sailboats zinging by, all the trappings of privilege. I jumped at the phone ringing in my pocket. “Hello?”

“Surprise!”

My heart sank. It was Carmela, my sister.

“I’m in Lugano,” she trilled. “It’s gorgeous! Can you hear me, really? I wasn’t sure. The mountains are so disruptive!”

“Clear as a bell!”

“So I called Mommy to find out the name of that village Daddy’s grandmother comes from, Mairengo? And I went there. Population five hundred and sixty two! Boring as hell. Luckily, I’m not alone. Trurio, my handsome guide … well”—she lowered her voice suggestively—“of course, he’s young but his father is connected, he works for the government in Milan; you’ll meet him because we’re very close and I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

She prattled on. I could see it all. The patent-leather Italian skulking in the background, a ne’er-do-well son of a sanitation engineer, thinking here was his ticket to America. New York, no less! Little did he know our New York was an old house in a once reputable area where temples and mosques now crackled the neighborhood awake over loudspeakers churning out morning prayers, where pigeons reigned and cop cars lurked while high school kids slunk to the park in little herds of cannabis fumes, tossing crack vials like crumbs here and there to help find their ways out.

“Mommy told me all about your saga of woe,” Carmela chattered on. “That’s what happens when you jump from one relationship to the next without waiting to get to know each other. Surprises. Nasty surprises. That’s exactly what happens.”

She was right. Then I realized she was talking about Enoch. I was supposed to be upset about Enoch, not someone else’s fiancé! And what was this saga of woe? No wonder she couldn’t get her stuff published. “You’re right,” I said.

“I am?” She sounded surprised. “Well, now that you realize that, I hope next time you’ll look before you leap.”

“All right, all right. I get the message.” I hung up, relieved that she wasn’t in town. Relieved I wouldn’t have to deal with her at all … and then I remembered Jenny Rose. Why on earth had Carmela called me instead of her? I picked up the phone and hit the green button twice, reconnecting the call.

“Call Jenny Rose,” I said.

“What?” I could hear her shifting her phone, see the twinkling lights around the lake.

I started to say something reprimanding and then, thinking better, I said, “Carmela. She’s wonderful. She has hazel eyes just like Daddy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” I could hear her mind ruminating, telling herself all the reasons a knockout like herself should not, definitely not, have a grown daughter around. I could see her as a girl, proud, jealous—as we both were of each other. I knew her so well. I prayed fervently she’d move on to a higher, better level. I waited.

“Stop praying.” She laughed. “I can feel you.”

“What? I wasn’t.”

“Tch! You’re just like Mommy.”

“Okay, I was, but for the right reason.”

“We’re just coming to the border. I’ll call you back.”

“No! Call Jenny Rose!” But she’d gone.

I stood there for a moment, close to her regardless how far. And then I realized something; someone could have lured Patsy’s ex-husband to town … but who? I poured the morning’s coffee into a cup with milk and ice and Jake and I went out.

Mrs. Dellaverna was standing in her yard. I walked over. “Hi,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m tricking the roses.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah. You chop off the heads after they bloom and it tricks them into blooming twice.”

“Ah. I’ll remember that.”

“What’s the matter? You look depressed. Because Patsy died?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. I can’t seem to figure things out.”

“Come in my house.”

“Just for a sec,” I said, following her in. To my surprise, there sat Mr. Piet with his shoes off, his legs crossed and the Times folded open in front of his face. “Mr. Piet! How nice.”

“Mademoiselle Breslinsky.” He bowed his head.

We commiserated about Patsy Mooney. Then I said, “I never thanked you for my headlight.”

“So many things have happened.” He smiled sadly and his eyes crinkled up.

Mrs. Dellaverna pulled me into her sunporch. Down the sides of an aluminum trellis, hanging almost to the ground, were several incredibly long, skinny green squash.

“It’s a cucuzza,” she confided with intimacy.

“Isn’t it too early for squash?”

“Yes, yes.” She nodded rapidly. “I plant them early, in March already, here in the house. Look how big! Look how bellissima!”

I frowned suspiciously. “You’re going to enter them in the contest?”

“No, no, not these. They’ll be too many seeds in these by then. They’ll be too old and tough. No. Outside I started the others. But I’ll make a nice soup. And a little red pepper to make the zest; you have to have the zest!” She motioned me back into the kitchen. There on the countertop was a Tupperware container filled with squash soup and an aluminum foil envelope of red pepper. She nudged them both toward me. “For you.” Then she frowned and lowered her voice, “Death … it’s a part of life, but I don’t like this murder. Maybe you need a protection against a malocchio.”

“Evil eye? Very funny.”

“I’m not joking.” She yanked my shirt down over my shoulder. “Hold still!” she barked, giving a quick glance toward Mr. Piet—who was pretending to be absorbed in the financial page—and proceeded to fumble with my bra strap, pinning a tiny red ribbon to it. “So nobody gives you the horns!”

“Okay. Okay.” I went home and sank into bed, protected now by the Wicked Witch of the Zest. I slept. Then, with something like zeal that I can only imagine came delivered by osmosis from Mrs. Dellaverna, I went to work. I opened the button safe and sat down at the window and polished every little one of the buttons with a spray bottle of hot water and a little vinegar. The summer solstice was drawing near and it took a long time for dark to fall. I welcomed it, the sound of the birds settling in, the boats whistling and groaning into port, and the dark, safe feeling of a cozy dwelling. I lit a candle and some incense and was standing at the stove stirring boiling water into red Jell-O—my mother’s daughter that I am—when someone tap, tap, tapped on the screen.

“Hullo, hullo, anybody home?”

Jake let out a bellow and trotted over. My hand went to my hair as I went to the door. It was Morgan. But I’d known it was him, hoped it was him from the moment I’d heard his knock.

“Brought you a weather stick,” he said, holding it up in its plastic wrapping. “I got it at the yard sale after you left.”

I laughed happily. “I’ve wanted one since you told me about it!”

“I know. And I’ve brought you an instruction book on sailing.” He ducked through the doorway and handed me a soft cover book called Basic Keelboat. I flipped through the pages, filled with diagrams of heavings to and soundings in fathoms. “Thanks,” I said, putting it neatly on the end table with other good intentions.

He had an arm up and held the back of his neck, turning this way and that. “I can’t believe how much you’ve accomplished!” He tousled politely and energetically with Jake over the dog’s dirty pink Spalding.

Trying not to look smug, I asked, “Time for a cup of tea?”

We stood there for another moment, poised and unsure. I was so happy he was there I didn’t know what to do first. But he remained and I realized he was gaping at my feet. I was wearing Noola’s mukluks. I could have sunk through the floor. “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I fell in love with them and couldn’t resist—”

“Don’t apologize.” He bent down again and gave Jake a good stroke. “She’d have liked that someone else shared her taste. She walked around like an American Indian half the time, with buckskin skirts and shawls made out of hemp! You mentioned there might be tea?”

“Well, decaf, if you don’t mind, at this hour. Yes. Please. Sit. Jake, go sit down. C’mon. Here. Here’s a biscuit. Give it to him, will you, Morgan? He won’t settle until he’s got something to treasure. Make him sit first.”

With Jake contented at Morgan’s feet—he couldn’t get closer if he was wrapped around him—I took out my secret stash of blackberry tea and the prettiest teapot, black-tea brown with yellow daffodils painted on it, and fussed about him as though he were the man of the house come home from a long day’s journey. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to. The pot in one hand with a dishtowel over my hand, I lowered myself across from him. For a moment there was silence. It would be the first time he’d sat here since Noola died.

“Claire … What you’ve done with this place! I don’t know what lucky star I walked beneath when you stomped onto me sloop …” Then he said, shaking his head, “I love it so much that you’ve taken it to your heart. That you seem to respect my mother’s memory. Christ, I get so tired of everyone tiptoeing around me so I won’t remember my mother’s dead. But you see, I’m living her death. I’m in a place of grief. There’s no one I’d rather talk about or think about. She’s all around me anyway.” His voice broke. “I’ll not be over it for quite some time—nor do I want to be.”

“Well, you’re entitled to your grief. Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, as though he’d just remembered food. He touched the teapot and eased his handsome finger gently down the belly of it. “This is the pot she liked the best.” A thrill went up me. He said, “Sitting here at this window with you …” He shook his head. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

Our eyes met. There it was. That intoxicating fizz of significance. But because it was so new, I was unsure what he meant and feared almost physically to make a mistake and chase him off with my eagerness. I took a sip of tea to avoid saying anything. It was so hot I saw oblivion and had a bad moment taking it down, feeling the wall of pain between my lungs as it scorched my insides. But I’d promised him food. I busied myself, hauling from the refrigerator everything I had worth giving. I had a cheese that was as close to heaven as food can be. Carefully, I peeled away the cellophane and lowered it reverently onto a board, placing beside it a curved silver fish knife. Normally I’ll cut it in half and stash the better part for myself when I was alone. Not this night. It merited the center of the table and there I placed it.

“Uh-oh,” he lamented appreciatively, taking in the exquisite, firm, grayish crust and just-before-loose insides, “what is it?”

“Brillat-Savarin, it’s called. It’s named for a famous chef.” I sliced some vine tomatoes, sprinkled them with sea salt and black pepper and poured balsamic from Modena and Sicilian extravirgin all over them, eying Jake fiercely as I did. Jake is mad for cheese and he’s liable to whine until he gets some.

“I am starving,” Morgan realized, resting his long fingers over his knees and taking it all in appreciatively. “I love food, really.”

“Me too,” I said, laying out his mother’s creamy napkins and two pretty etched glasses. I’d bought a nice 2010 Côtes du Rhône for a special occasion and hauled it out now. “Water or wine?” I held up the bottles.

“Both,” we said together and laughed.

“What’s your very favorite food?” I risked, hoping he wouldn’t find the question childish.

He thought a moment. “The core of the Boston lettuce, when you just cut it open. I love that,” he said while I found an opener in the drawer and joined him. I was waiting for him to ask me what mine was but his head drooped down and he held his hands behind his hips. “I’m going to tell you something. Something I’ve never told a living soul.”

His words frightened me and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what was to come.

He began, “I don’t know how much you know about my past …”

“A little. I know a little because Teddy mentioned—”

“Years ago,” he interrupted, “at just this time of year, almost to the day it was, right before the race—”

“I know what you’re going to say,” I stopped him, hoping to spare him. “Your mother ran over Daniel in the water. Mrs. Dellaverna told me. And that’s why he’s … that way.”

He looked at me wearily then down at Jake, tickling behind his ear. “Yes, but you see, it wasn’t my mother drove over that lad, Daniel, that beautiful young lad.” Looking back up, he held my eyes. “’Twas me.”

The way he said it. With such sadness in that picturesque way. It broke my heart. “Oh,” was all I could say. Then, “I’m so sorry.”

He sucked a deep breath in and kept looking at me. I’ll never forget that look. He was waiting for me to judge him.

“You were just a boy yourself …”

“Ah, but you see, I knew better.”

“… And your mother took the blame. I would have done the same for my son.”

“Would you? Do you really think you would have spared him by doing it?”

I didn’t know how to answer. He was right. Because it was clear he’d been spared nothing.

“While she was alive, I could never tell anyone. It would have cost her, see?”

“Yes. Is that why Daniel is afraid of you?”

He flinched. The fact of it wounded him; I could see that.

We must have sat there for more than two hours. He talked—oh, he could talk, recounting tales of his youth, stories of Daniel and himself growing up on the North Shore when Daniel was still normal—how grand it had been, fishing and sailing back in those days without the McMansions and the country clubs, Oliver and Paige trailing behind as youngsters, too young to join in their hot competitions. I watched and listened with growing affection. His short hair had lengthened since the first time I’d seen him and now looped around his ears and down his sun-darkened neck and I knew I was sunk. But he must have mentioned five times how good Paige had been to his mother. “All the long while I was overseas, and when I was away at school, it was Paige who looked after her. It can’t have been easy for Mother, without me. But she always wrote and told me she was well looked after, then later Annabel came over with Wendell, or Radiance and Paige had stopped by that day or the day before … bringing her a package of Lorna Doones or a pint of cream, things she held dear.” He squinted, as though he were seeing the past.

I sat there with a smile plastered to my face. It was already perfectly clear to me that he felt duty bound toward Paige and I wished he’d drop it.

“She was so good to my mother, you see. Tended to her all the time.” He eyed me steadily. He cleared his throat. “And then there’s Radiance. She’s very young, of course. One must take care. But we’re all very close. Very close.”

I understood. He was telling me that while he and I liked each other, he had obligations, commitments. Or was he making a move on me and laying out the rules? Suddenly I was confused. Did he intend to marry Paige and have a little on the side? Is that what this was about? And what did he mean about Radiance? Was he having it off with her, too? Or was that in the plan? I had no doubt he thought he could handle us all. Even if I might not mind being his little bit on the side, I’d be damned if I’d be a little bit on the side of a little bit on the side! I stood ungraciously, went to the sink, and washed and rewashed a couple of dishes, signaling it was time for him to go.

He stood awkwardly, upsetting his chair. “Have I said something wrong?”

“God, look at the time!”

“Oh. Sorry. I was carried away. Will you forgive me? I didn’t mean to overstep me bounds. It’s just … it’s so pleasant here.” Our eyes were drawn out the window. The sky hung so close and black and thick with stars. “Ti a braw bricht t’nicht,” he murmured, then looked up and laughed. “It almost feels like if you leaned out you could grab one of the stars.” Then, when I didn’t reply, he said, “Ah, well.”

“Well,” I echoed, “thank you so much for the weather stick. It looks like Pinocchio’s nose.”

“I’ll stop by sometime when I have my tools and put it up for you.”

“Right. Thank you.” I bobbed an awkward curtsy.

He knocked the chair over again. Suddenly I remembered that crack Paige had made about me and the buttons in my ears. “Oh,” I said, “wait just a minute. I have to show you what I’ve done to your mother’s button collection!” I started toward the button safe, but he held me back.

“Please don’t,” he murmured. “I don’t want to see them. You can have them.”

“Oh, God. I didn’t mean that!” The kitten was at the door, scratching, indicating her needs.

“No, really.” He turned his back. “Take them. Take them all. It’s not that big a deal.” He took his plate and moved tiredly over to the sink and then stood there just holding it, a man with a plate. “Don’t you get it? They pain me to look at, each one a hurtful memory, see?”

I gave a sly look into the button chamber. If I emptied it out, I could hook up the sink and turn it into a darkroom. I said, “Look, you might find one day you won’t feel the same …”

Again he held my eyes. “I’m afraid I’ll always feel the same.”

I took the dishtowel from him and wiped the few plates and put them up on the shelves.

“She used to sit there fingering them at night,” he remembered, “in that chair, when she was thinking of him. What she would wear if he came back. Like other people would watch television.” He shook his head ruefully. “I used to hate it. I knew who she was thinking of. Always waiting for him. A man who wouldn’t think enough of her to come to her funeral.” He spat the words then wiped his mouth. “And there was I, the never enough.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t so.”

“That’s what it felt like to me. I was the one who’d ruined her life, if you want to know the truth. Stole her blamelessness. That was something very important to her, a religious woman. Before my sin, she was uncorrupted by guilt.”

“Morgan, it was an accident, not a sin! You can’t think that way.”

“But I do. And it’s all in the perception, isn’t it? I loved both my parents, but they loved me too much, wanted me to see their way. I was the rope they pulled in either direction.”

“Morgan. Why are you telling me this? Why don’t you tell—”

“Who? Paige? You think she cares about my mother’s thoughts? She just wants her wealth. She doesn’t understand that my mother’s wealth was in wanting good for others. Do you see? She can’t understand past the material, Paige. At least that’s how it is between her and me. How would you like it if the person you were bound to couldn’t bear the touch of you? Didn’t want to be too friendly when you were alone because he thought it would lead to what he couldn’t bear! How would you like that?”

Oh no. I shrank into myself. This was the worst thing he could tell me. It hurt me so much to think he desired her with all his heart and she didn’t want him at all. This crushed my secret hopes; it meant there was no room for me. “Then why—” I almost said why do you love her? But I couldn’t. The unfinished words hung in the air. If he told me she was his moon and stars, if he said it, we wouldn’t be able to be friends. I couldn’t bear it. And I suppose I’d rather remain just friends with him if only to be around him. That realization shut me up. I gathered my wits and crossed the room and put the kitten out. When I came back, he was sitting in Noola’s old chair, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. I poured myself another glass of wine, emptying the bottle, and drank it down. Without warning Jake sprang half up on top of the table and swiped what was left of the cheese. “Get away from that table, you rat!” I cried, chasing him. I was furious, but Morgan laughed so hard and so long that I refrained from smacking Jake with the paper. “Just don’t do it again!” I shouted.

“He was waiting for his chance the whole time!” Morgan roared with laughter.

Jake eyed us both from under the hassock. He looked so pleased.

“Morgan.” I turned and said, “Do you know who killed Patsy Mooney?”

He wiped his eyes. “It wasn’t me.”

“Good.”

He looked up at me, realizing the seriousness of my intent. “No, I’m saying it really wasn’t me.”

My head wagged. “Double good. I’ll eliminate you, then, from my list.” It was something in my pronunciation of that tricky eliminate that alerted him.

The corner of his mouth turned up. “Are you drunk?”

“Yes. A little. Hic.”

He stepped carefully over the carpet, “So, while you’re nice and supple, you won’t mind me asking you a few personal questions?”

I swung an expansive arm. “Go right ahead.”

“Good. Because, I’m confused. Are you still in love with your fiancé?”

I scowled. “No. It’s like he never was. Like he was a respite from real life.”

“And what about the ex-husband? Are you still in love with him?”

I didn’t answer as quickly. I decided to be honest. “I’ll always love him, somehow.” I shrugged. “The kids’ father. That’s important.”

“And I suppose he’s handsome?”

“He’s the handsomest man I ever saw.”

“I see. I guess that leaves me out,” he teased, but there was disappointment in his eyes.

I was both taken aback and touched by his vulnerability. “What! You, so beautiful! You shouldn’t care about handsome. Just look at your wrists.” I leaned over and took hold of one of them, feeling powerful beside his doubts. “Such magnificent wrists.” I held one up and wished my lips pressed to it. But I wouldn’t do that. Not after what he’d said about the one he loved. I felt his pulse beat against my finger and our eyes met. He pulled back in alarm.

“Oh, listen to me! Never mind,” I said. We stepped apart and I heard myself say in exasperation. “See, I think of myself as this slender young romantic figure, and I’m not anymore!” It surprised me that I was crying but I’d started now and couldn’t quit. “I’m a big hefty woman who stomps into rooms with a big foolish smile and—”

“Stop!” he demanded angrily. He took hold of my face. With his thumbs he wiped away the wet streams. He leaned and kissed me tenderly on the side of my neck. I don’t know about you, but for me the side of the neck is key. That feather at the core of me began its seductive niggle and I felt its resonance to my toes. But then I sensed, rather than saw, the light next door in Mrs. Dellaverna’s window go out and the room changed somehow. She could see in. I lifted my head and then like a reply in a song, took a deep breath and, like an idiot, said, “Don’t do this.”

And of course he listened! He raised his head and tipped it, romantically, watching me. He looked so good, so rugged and everything a man should be. But that knowledge of being observed brought me back to myself. And even swept away by passion and wine, I had to ask. I had to know. I said, “Remember you told me about moon dials?”

His breath was coming faster. “Yeah?”

And then I said, “If I told you about one, would you be interested?”

“A moon volvelle?” His eyes, blurred with passion, became alert. “A real one?”

“Very real. Very old.”

“I’d be the one who’d be interested, yeah. An ancient lunar volvelle might be worth a great fortune. Have you seen one?”

“No,” I admitted, turning away. “No, I just— I haven’t.”

“But you’ve heard about one? A stolen one?”

I didn’t answer.

“Because there are unscrupulous collectors who’ve been known to cover their tracks, who’d be delighted to take a piece like that off your hands, you know.”

“But then a collector would have to stay underground. Never be able to give claim to owning it outright.”

“Oh, aye,” his said, green eyes glimmering, “but many a real collector wouldn’t care.” Suddenly and in one quick movement he stood and turned away. “Ach. I’d best be getting on.” He sort of limped to the door and I realized with a thrill that he’d become erect. “I’ll thank you for your hospitality.” He gave me a wry smile. I moved toward him, meaning to shake his hand and feel again his almost predatory maleness. But he backed away as though he couldn’t bear to touch me and at once he was gone. In that moment of ravaging nearness there’d been a palpable heat between us. I hadn’t imagined that. His broad shoulders and ropey arms. I’d felt them almost as though they’d encompassed me. You could tell he might have a punishing temper. Hadn’t he admitted as much? But was it enough to murder someone? And this time he’d held his impulses in check. Was I to be flattered? I was. I stood there at the door watching the spot he’d left, sobered at once by his leaving. Oh! Why did I feel so attracted to this engaged, possibly dangerous man?

Halfway down the path he stood still and turned slowly back toward the house.

Oh, my God, I realized with horror and delight, he’s coming back!

He pressed his nose against the screen. “You’ll not believe it. I forgot the reason I’ve come!”

I cracked the door a hopeful inch.

His hands were on his hips. “I’ve got your dole.”

“Huh?”

“Your wages.”

I stared at him dumbly. I’d forgotten I was due any. The both of us laughed and I opened the door all the way. He walked to the table and counted out my pay in cash. Very carefully he laid out each bill and gave a precise, out-loud account. “Now you count it again,” he instructed earnestly. This I did, feeling strange. But I’d earned it, I reminded myself, seeing the bad state of my nails as I did. There’s nothing like money to cheer you up. I folded the bills into a cracked but still pretty sugar bowl above the stove and walked him to the door.

He hesitated at the screen, then, coming close, pressed his salty sea lips against mine in an ardent kiss. Rapture closed the deal. He stepped back and raked his hair with his hand and, after we gave each other one last look, he went away.

I walked around the room colliding into things. Jake watched me for a bit and then, losing patience, decided it was time for his constitutional. I let him out and stood in front of the mirror brushing my hair. Lost in thought, it was only after the fact that I perceived his frantic barks. I dropped the brush and, unthinking, flew out the door. Jake was in a corner of the yard, hunched and barking. He wasn’t cowering, he stood his ground, but he was freaked out. My eyes scanned the darkness and suddenly I saw it, its eyes, glittering. A badger! It was poised and still, watching. I’d never seen anything like it. It was big as a dog, beige, almost blond, with long fur like a collie. I went rigid.

It was deciding whether or not to spring. I spoke in as calm and seamless a voice as I could, “All right, come on, Jake, we’ll go into the house now,” and I went toward Jake in a straight line, moving as smoothly as I could, talking continually to the badger without looking at him, “We’re not going to hurt you now, we’re just going to get out of your way, all right?” and as I spoke I got between the thing and Jake and shepherded Jake to the door and into the house. “Whew!” I leaned against the inside of the house and, sinking to the ground, put my arms around Jake and held him. Trembling, I reached for the phone and put in a call to Twillyweed. It was Oliver who picked up. “Oliver! It’s Claire. The most frightening thing just happened. There was a badger out my door. He was huge. Right outside my door! I was terrified it would attack Jake.”

“Couldn’t have been a badger, Claire,” he said, laughing. “We don’t have any badgers on the North Shore. It was a possum.”

“No, Oliver, it was huge! Big as a dog.”

“Possum can be big. Or raccoon.”

No, I protested silently, it was a badger. It had that foxy face, a predator’s stance. “And it had long blond hair,” I added, “It was … well, beautiful.”

“Yes, it’s rare to see one, but possum are around. They live in the sewers and in the woods on the golf course. Just shine a light out there, he’ll disappear.”

“That’s it, I guess. The porch light’s out again. And I just put a new one in!”

“Shall I come up?” he offered.

“No!” Afraid I’d sounded too hasty, I added, “Thank God you picked up the phone. I was so frightened. I’m fine, now, thanks to you.”

“Well. All right. If you’re sure.”

“Oh, I am.”

“Call back any time of night if you’re frightened again.”

There was an awkward silence as we both remembered last time we’d spoken. “I will. Thanks again,” I hung up, relieved, but puzzled. I took a new bulb from the kitchen drawer and went to the back and looked out. Of course it had vanished by now, as frightened by me as I him. I let Jake out again to finish his business and I climbed up on the porch railing and reached under the lamp cover. The old bulb hung limply on its thread. I screwed it back in and light flooded the yard. It was crazy. I was absolutely positive I’d screwed it in snugly just a few days ago. I gave it an extra turn, making sure it was tight, and we went back in the house. “Jake?”

He raised his head and tilted it.

“I am so glad you’re here.”