Saturday dawned hazily, the air stagnant in the house by six A.M. Warren lay in bed for a long time. He wasn’t on duty, but he wanted to see what Old Home Day was like and get himself some pie, and he also wanted to use it as an opportunity to check up on his new neighbors and see if he could learn anything about whoever it might be who was plaguing the town.
The thermometer in the kitchen was already at 75 degrees by the time the coffee was ready. Warren drank it outside in his backyard, listening to the brook trickle slowly behind his house. A few birds trilled halfheartedly. Next door, the sounds of a radio and women talking filtered out. He watched Mrs. Bellows’s housekeeper going in and out the side door, taking boxes and baskets out to the Rambler.
He was on his way back inside with his empty cup when Mrs. Bellows herself came out, struggling a little with a large box filled with the flower arrangements he’d seen her creating last night.
“Good morning,” she called out cheerily. “I’m taking these down to the Ladies Aid tent on the green. Will you be coming to Old Home Day, Mr. Warren?”
He put his cup on the ground and went to help. “Here, let me get that for you.” The back of the car was filled with more arrangements in cardboard boxes and he fit the one he took from her in next to them. “I was thinking about it. What exactly happens at Old Home Day?”
She wiped her hands on the apron she wore over her yellow dress. “Well, there’s a parade at ten, and then music and lunch and a pie-eating contest and a pet show. The library has an open house and book sale and the churches are open for tours. The Ladies Aid Society puts on a raspberry social—that’s what these are for. I highly recommend that you save some room after lunch.”
“I’ll be sure to,” Warren said. “It seems like the perfect way to spend a summer day. Very quaint and, well, Vermontesque.” He smiled broadly at her.
Mrs. Bellows’s eyes flashed and then settled on him in a way that made him feel he’d disappointed her. “Do you know what the origin of Old Home Day is, Mr. Warren?” He shook his head and she said, sharply, “It was started around the turn of the century, to lure back the sons and daughters who had abandoned their hometowns for better soil, bigger places. Farms and lovely farmhouses lay empty and rotting because their former inhabitants had moved west or went to the cities for work. Towns and villages emptied out, leaving behind all the … social problems you might imagine, not enough people to form a thriving society, not enough workers to pay the taxes, not enough … well, not enough people, if you see.” He didn’t see, but she had worked herself up into a state of agitation so he nodded as though he did.
Alice Bellows took a deep breath and said, “So, yes, it has now become a happy occasion for people to return home to visit, but the landscape is still dotted with empty farmhouses and fallow land, and that is not quaint by any stretch of the imagination.” She smiled then, to show that she was just correcting the record and that there were no hard feelings, he thought, and she allowed, “It is a lovely way to spend a summer day, though.”
“I’ll definitely be there then,” he said, chastened. “And I’ll make sure to give the Ladies Aid my dessert business. Can I help you with any more of those?”
“No, thank you. Mildred has the last one and then we’ll be off.” She glanced toward the sky. “I might bring your umbrella, Mr. Warren. It looks like rain.”
The parade was late in starting, as parades involving children and animals and large, slow-moving vehicles often are, and by the time Warren heard the distant strains of a marching band, it was nearly ten thirty. The green was packed and he found himself pleased that, even though he had only been a Bethany resident for less than a week, he recognized more than a few of the spectators lining the road on either side of the green. There was the lawyer/fire chief, David Williamson, with a middle-aged woman who must be his wife, and an older couple who had to be his parents or in-laws. A young couple held hands next to them—a son or daughter and paramour, back for a visit, he supposed. Warren waved and resolved to speak to Williamson later. A bit farther down the line of spectators were the Falconers. Barbara and one of the young women who’d been at the tavern with her last night were holding small American flags and wearing sunglasses, their hair under blue bandanas, their legs bare under denim skirts.
Across the street, in front of Collers’ Store, the woman who he’d seen behind the counter at the store had come out to watch. As the parade approached, Warren saw Roy Longwell keeping the road clear across the way, looking hot and uncomfortable in his uniform.
Warren searched the crowds for Sylvie Weber and her children, but he didn’t see them anywhere. Of course they wouldn’t be here. It wouldn’t be appropriate, so soon after her husband’s death. It would be suspicious if she was here.
But Warren had the distinct feeling that Sylvie Weber didn’t care much about what was appropriate and what was not. Or rather … actually, he wasn’t sure exactly what he thought about her. She did not seem to hold conventional views and yet, perhaps she didn’t want to offer up her children for speculation or judgment. Warren knew something about judgment.
The marchers came into view. First was a marching band made up of musicians of many different ages. Warren smiled at a small girl twirling a baton and a teenage boy playing the trumpet. Then came some kids with dogs on leashes, a few with ponies or calves on leads. One of the ponies was decorated with a cacophony of floral garlands, so many it seemed to be bowing its head in protest. There were men with teams of oxen, walking slowly along the road. Each team deposited at least one pile of fresh manure on to the street and Warren wondered who would have to clean it up. Next were the floats, one for the library—a Little Red Riding Hood theme, complete with a little girl in a red dress and cloak and a boy in a wolf costume. There was a progression of floats that seemed to be for alumni of the high school. Warren recognized one of the men who’d been at the tavern with Barbara Falconer the night before on the Class of ’57 float.
There were fire trucks—Terry Spaulding’s son and son-in-law Gordo waved from the windows of two of the trucks, the kids with them throwing candy to the spectators—and decorated cars and then at the end of the parade, the veterans: twenty or so men, dressed in uniforms and walking slowly and deliberately along the street of their hometown, a drummer behind them, beating a mournful rhythm. Warren recognized Jorah Hatchett, wearing a navy uniform and marching precisely in step with the other men. The crowd got very silent and many of the people watching put their hands on their hearts or saluted the men. But from somewhere in the crowd, Warren heard a shouted “No more war!” and then an echoing “US out of Vietnam!”
He turned to find the source of the statements but the speaker was somewhere in the crowd. Behind him were the Falconers; Barbara Falconer was pressing her right hand to her heart, and her father, his own hand at his side, watched but did not react. About one hundred yards behind the veterans, a lone man marched. He was tall, gray-bearded, powerfully built, and dressed in ragged fatigues, the loden jacket tattered and frayed. And he was holding an American flag upside down, brandishing it in front of him, an expression of defiance on his face.
A hum of disapproval in the crowd started quietly and then built as he passed. Someone yelled out, “No war!” and then someone else yelled, “Disgraceful!” The man kept walking and the hum stayed just a hum and then he was past them and after a few minutes the parade was over and the crowd filtered back to the green, where a band had started playing in the gazebo. Warren found Pinky helping to direct traffic and said, “Who was that?” knowing what the answer was before Pinky glanced away and said, “That’s Jeffrey Sawyer, the one I was telling you about.”
“He ever done that before?”
“I don’t think so,” Pinky said. “But he might have written a letter to the editor, about Vietnam, you know.”
Warren nodded. That was interesting. If Hugh Weber had been of a mind with this Jeffrey fellow, and had expressed some passion around US involvement in Southeast Asia, then that ripple of anger he’d sensed in the crowd might have given someone a motive to hurt him. What if some rabidly patriotic townsperson had gone up there to talk to him and there’d been a fight? The assailant, whoever they were, might have set the fire to cover up his crime.
“Thanks, Pinky. I’m off to sample the food.”
“Enjoy,” Pinky said. “Hey, if you’re over that way, would you mind poking your head into the tavern at the inn? They’re open all day and sometimes you get some of the guys overdoing it, happy to be home with their friends, you know?”
Warren gave him a wink. “You got it.”
Things seemed quiet at the tavern so he decided to have his lunch at a tent sponsored by the high school’s student government association. A plate of baked beans, ham, coleslaw, and sweet pickles almost filled him up, but as he passed the Ladies Aid Society’s raspberry social booth, he found he had just enough room for a bowl of cake with raspberries and sauce and whipped cream. Alice Bellows was behind the table and he gave her a dollar bill and told her to keep the change. “I trust you’ll put it to good use,” he said, with a smile.
“Oh, yes. We provide scholarships to our Bethany High School graduates and have a fund to help out families going through difficult times. Thank you, Mr. Warren. Did you enjoy the parade?”
“I did, thank you.” Something in her expression made him say, “It was a good introduction to some of the different … elements in Bethany.”
She took two quarters from the next person in line and handed over a bowl, then turned back to him. “Yes, Mr. Warren. I believe it must have given you a good picture of things.”
“Do you know Jeffrey Sawyer well?” he asked. “I understand he’s the reason that Hugh Weber came to Bethany in the first place.”
Alice Bellows smiled at someone over his shoulder and then frowned as she thought about how to answer. “Not well. He keeps to himself. But I’ve had a few interesting discussions with him over the years.” She saw where he was going, though, and said, “He and Hugh Weber had a falling-out of some kind and, as far as I know, had not been in touch in many years. But you might want to look into the source of the disagreement.”
“Right. Thank you, Mrs. Bellows. I’m going to go and eat my raspberry cake. It looks delicious. And the flowers will make the experience all the more pleasurable.” It was delicious, the cake light and airy and the raspberries and vivid sauce both tart and sweet, evoking a memory Warren couldn’t quite access. What had Sylvie Weber said, about the jam? When you eat it, you’ll be going back in time to today.
He had it then. The memory. Maria had brought home a box of raspberries from the restaurant one night. He searched for the word and found it in the taste memory. Lamponi. They had eaten them all in one sitting, greedily grabbing for them out of the flimsy box, the juice squishing out between their fingers as they laughed and playfully fought over the last handful.
Grief swept over him and he had to bow his head for a moment to get control of himself.
He blinked and found himself again in the tent, surrounded by Alice Bellows’s flowers. When he thanked her and placed his totally empty bowl on the table, he thought she had read his mind; the look she gave him was both pitying and sympathetic.
Strains of music—“My Old Kentucky Home,” he thought, somewhat bemusedly—came through from outside and he went back out into the humid, close day to see what was happening.