“You missed a hell of a day, Cora.”
Parker Leedale stood at the dormer window of his second floor bedroom with its view of Cora Godwin’s house across Miner’s Lane.
“A hell of a day.”
The weather had been more like August than October for almost a week: brisk, brilliant mornings that drifted through warm and gentle afternoons into evenings illuminated by a full moon that rose after sunset, all of it generated by a high pressure system sitting over Nantucket that was showing no inclination to move.
The Cape was a celebration of colour as oak and maple leaves wafted down from trees through the calm air to speckle the grass with green and gold and crimson. On the day of Cora Godwin’s memorial service, the sky shone as clear and unblemished as the inside of a porcelain bowl.
Parker Leedale, third-generation lawyer of the Leedales of Compton—and the last, since he and his wife June had no children—had passed his forty-eighth birthday two weeks before Cora Godwin’s death. “Not celebrated,” he corrected Mike Gilroy, his friend from high school days. “Damn it, when you get past forty, forty-five, you don’t celebrate these things anymore. You pass the damn things.”
Gilroy laughed. “It’s just a number, Parker,” he teased.
“Yeah, but it’s my number and I don’t like it,” Parker Leedale responded.
Parker Leedale believed it was easy for Gilroy, almost a year younger than Parker Leedale, to laugh. To Leedale, growing older would be more acceptable if he were married to a woman like Bunny, Mike Gilroy’s second wife. Gilroy’s first wife had been a sad-eyed girl he met when she was working as a chambermaid in a Cape Cod guest house. They married in October, moved away to Hartford and raised two children, both girls, both narrow-faced, unhappy replicas of their mother. When the youngest girl finished high school they separated, and Mike left Hartford to return to Compton and open his own insurance office, funded by an inheritance. His daughters married boys who lived in distant states, young men with little promise who wore peaked caps over greasy hair that grew to their shoulders and drove tired pick-up trucks, and the daughters sent greeting cards to their father at Christmas and on his birthday.
Within a year of leaving his wife and a week before his forty-second birthday, Mike married twenty-seven-year-old Bunny Miller who vowed to fight age “every step of the way” and who shopped in Boston for expensive clothes that hugged her full figure.
Parker Leedale was fascinated by Bunny Gilroy from the first day he met her. He knew she used bleach on her blond shoulder-length hair and that she wore coloured contact lenses to deepen the blue of her eyes. It didn’t matter to Parker Leedale. He had never known, never expected to know, a woman more sensuous, more attractive than Bunny Gilroy, and on the rare occasions when he and his wife June made love, both withdrawing into their deep and private caves in search of fulfillment even as they became as physically close as any two humans can, Parker imagined the body beneath him was Bunny Gilroy’s and not June’s, not the same body he had made love to exclusively for twenty-five years.
Well. Almost exclusively . . .
“Are you ready yet?” June Leedale called up the stairwell from the living room.
“In a minute.” Parker Leedale turned from the window to choose a tie.
“Pardon?”
“In a minute!” he shouted angrily.
“Oh. Sorry. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head in exasperation and chose a maroon tie with a pattern of mallard ducks in flight. Cora had always liked ducks.
The Sagamore Bridge rises steeply from the Massachusetts mainland like a carnival ride, soaring over the canal that separates Cape Cod from the mainland. On summer weekends heavy traffic creeps across the bridge like an endless multi-wheeled insect, but during autumn midweek afternoons the flow is light and most of the vehicles are heavy trucks carrying foods and beverages and construction equipment.
An oversized dump truck was crowding McGuire’s bumper when his rented car stalled just below the crest of the Sagamore Bridge. One moment McGuire was tapping his finger on the steering wheel in rhythm with the music on the radio, and in the next instant the engine sputtered and died.
The disabled car quickly coasted to a stop on the incline and McGuire set the parking brake to prevent the vehicle from rolling backwards. A high-pitched squeal of worn brakes cut the air behind him, followed by a long blast on a horn and an even longer explosion of profanity.
“It stalled,” McGuire said when he climbed out of the car and walked back to the Mack truck.
“No shit.” The truck driver was a massive man with a bald head and untrimmed black beard. When he looked down to sneer at McGuire, he revealed an arrow tattooed on his scalp, pointing forward. He wore a tight black cotton top with the sleeves cut off, exposing several tattoos on his arms. One of the tattoos read: “Fuck ’em all and sleep till noon.”
The truck driver reached for his CB. “Yeah, this is Toby Ten,” he barked into the microphone. “Got a breakdown inbound on the Sagamore Bridge, inside lane. Better get a hook on it before somebody gives the sumbitch a nudge over the side.” He waited while a voice crackled through the CB speaker inside the truck’s cab. “Green Ford,” he said. “The hell, dipstick, how many dead Fords you expect to find on the goddamn bridge?” There was another crackle before the trucker said, “Just being a good citizen, pal, that’s all I’m doin’.”
The driver replaced his CB microphone and grinned at McGuire. “Smokey hates it when we get to be the good guys,” he said. The truck’s diesel engine roared and belched black smoke through its vertical exhaust pipe. “You wanta move your ass, buddy, so I can swing around you and get on with some business here?”
“How far you going?” McGuire asked.
“Eastham. Got a load of topsoil.”
“That’s past Compton, isn’t it?”
The trucker tilted his head. “Hell, yeah, but Compton’s still twenty miles outta my way.”
“What’ll you charge to drop me off at Compton?”
“Costs me two and a half bucks a mile to drive this dog.”
“That sounds like fifty bucks to me.”
“Well, ain’t that somethin’,” the trucker nodded. “That’s kinda what it sounded like to me too.”
“I’ll get my stuff,” McGuire said, and he trotted back to his car while the vehicles lining up behind the truck sounded their horns and the trucker leaned out the window and ran through a list of obscenities that lasted until McGuire returned to climb into the passenger seat with his luggage and a dozen red roses purchased that morning in Revere Beach.
“The hell, you lookin’ to get laid?” the trucker asked when he saw the roses.
Mike Gilroy’s gold Volvo station wagon pulled off Miner’s Lane into the driveway just as Parker Leedale came downstairs into the living room, fastening the buttons on his blue blazer. He watched the couple emerge from the car and approach the house along the flagstone walk.
Bunny Gilroy wore a gold cashmere sweater and brown skirt. A heavy gold necklace and matching gold earrings were her only jewelry. Her hair, the colour of pale lemons, shone in the sunlight as though lit from within.
Mike Gilroy, laughing at something Bunny said when she left the car, wore a pinstriped blue suit, windowpane check shirt and knit tie. From inside the house, Parker Leedale watched Mike reach for his wife’s hand and squeeze it.
Mike’s friends had been cool to Bunny when he first introduced her. She was far too young for him, they agreed. They had met in a Boylston Street bar in Boston, quiet little Mike just getting over a bad marriage made in haste, picking up a bleached blond floozy from some forgotten little town in Maine. This isn’t a woman you marry, they agreed among themselves. This is somebody you take away for a dirty weekend and forget about.
But Bunny surprised them all. Her glamour and youth seemed to change Mike from a withdrawn, almost morose manager of his insurance agency into a man who appeared to enjoy life more than he ever had with his first wife. Even the wives of Mike’s oldest friends, who in the beginning had frowned at Bunny’s excessive makeup, grew charmed by her naturalness, her little-girl appeal. Whatever it was that Bunny Gilroy brought to their marriage, it seemed to agree with Mike. He had been happier over these past five years than his lifelong friends could remember.
When Parker Leedale opened the front door, Bunny greeted him with a broad smile and when she hugged him he was aware of her breasts pressing against his chest. He shook hands with Mike, Little Mikey from their days in Compton Public School, as Bunny swept past him to hug June Leedale.
Comments were exchanged about the wonderful weather and the Gilroys offered words of admiration for the buffet table June Leedale had prepared for the post-funeral gathering. Finally June glanced at her watch and said, “We should be going or we’ll be late.” She turned off the lights in the kitchen and checked the lock on the back door. “Blake and Ellie said they would meet us there. Maybe they’ve seen him.”
“Seen who?” Mike Gilroy was standing near the front door, his hand on the small of his wife’s back.
Bunny noticed Parker Leedale looking at her and she smiled at him. A friend’s smile. Your friend’s wife’s smile. A sister’s smile. Not the smile that says, Take me home with you. Parker turned away. “Come on, for Christ’s sake, June,” he said with an angry edge that surprised the others. “Let’s get going.”
“Cora’s nephew.” June Leedale walked briskly from the kitchen to the front door, staring into her open purse. “We still haven’t had a reply.” She brushed past Parker as though he wasn’t there and smiled at Mike and Bunny near the front door. “Looks like it’s going to be a very small funeral.”
In the rear seat of the Volvo wagon, after Mike Gilroy had backed out onto Miner’s Lane and turned to follow the curve of the harbour down to Mill Pond Road and the church, Parker took his wife’s hand in his and squeezed it, staring straight ahead and saying nothing while Mike discussed in great detail the problems he was having repairing the roof on his tool shed.
June Leedale returned the squeeze but kept her head turned to the window, blinking fiercely, her other hand at her mouth.
Compton, Massachusetts, lies at the elbow of Cape Cod, midway between the frantic tourist activity of Hyannis near the mainland and the artistic community of Provincetown on the outer tip of the Cape. The town has always considered itself distinct from other Cape communities, an attitude perceived as snobbishness by its neighbours. There are no shops promoting bargain souvenir T-shirts from roadside signs, and no drive-in fast food franchises are permitted within the town limits. Any gay citizens of Compton are prudent enough to remain in their cedar-lined closets rather than flagrantly parade their alternate lifestyles in public, as they did in “P-Town.”
At the intersection of Miner’s Lane and Mill Pond Road, Mike Gilroy veered west to follow Mill Pond Road’s winding route into town. Slowing at the entrance to the parking lot of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, he touched the horn button just as a heavy red-faced man stepped from a vintage Mercedes sedan and waved to them in an exaggerated gesture of welcome. Inside the car a middle-aged woman with short dark hair struggled with the door handle, her face screwed into an expression of anger and frustration. She spoke sharply to the man, who erased his smile and hurried around the front of the car to seize the outer door handle.
“Old Blake’s getting shit again,” Mike Gilroy laughed, cruising slowly past the Mercedes to park in the next marked space beyond it.
Parker Leedale grunted. “Why doesn’t he just get the door fixed?”
“I think he just likes to keep Ellie on edge,” Bunny Gilroy suggested. “Seems like those two people aren’t happy unless they’re snapping at each other.”
“They call it honesty.” Mike Gilroy switched off the Volvo’s engine and looked around him. “Can you believe it?” he asked, inspecting the parking lot. Only one other car was in sight, a gray Plymouth parked three spaces away. “Looks like we’re the only ones here. Except for Reverend Willoughby.”
“I still don’t know why Blake and Ellie were invited,” June Leedale said absently. “Cora never cared for either of them.”
Parker Leedale stepped from the car and stretched, raising his arms high above his head. The starched white collar chafed his neck and one of his executive-length dark socks had collapsed around his ankle. He rested his foot on the bumper of the Volvo and pulled his sock up over his calf. Cora would’ve been just as happy if we had arrived in jeans and sweatshirts, linked arm in arm and singing old Pete Seeger songs, he thought.
“Just get the damned thing fixed!” The woman’s voice was sharp and shrill, her command punctuated by the slamming of the Mercedes’s door. “God, you’d think I was asking for the moon.”
“Nice to see you in the mood for a funeral, Ellie,” Mike Gilroy called across the hood of the car.
“Well, Jesus, the thing’s been like that for months,” Ellie Stevenson replied in the same harsh voice. Her scowl faded, replaced by a smile that spread broadly beneath her pug nose and dark eyes, features that conflicted with the woman’s severe hair style. Her flowery print dress had puffed short sleeves and a wide flounce.
“Waiting for the part to arrive from Germany.” Her husband Blake stood behind her, his massive hands thrust in the pockets of a camel-hair sports jacket that barely contained his bulk. He scanned the near-empty parking lot. His only reaction to his wife’s verbal attack had been a tight-lipped smile and an expression that said, Aren’t I the silly one, forgetting to fix the door of the car? “Anybody hear from her nephew yet?” he asked.
“Not a word.” Parker Leedale stood next to his wife. “Guess he couldn’t make it. Or didn’t get the message.”
“Or didn’t give a shit,” Ellie Stevenson said, and grinned. With mischief? With satisfaction? Parker Leedale could never tell. “You sure Cora wanted us here?” Ellie asked June Leedale. “You think maybe wishy-washy Willoughby might have screwed things up? Hell, the old broad never invited us into her house all the time we’ve been married.”
“Reverend Willoughby said you were both on the list,” June Leedale replied. “He seemed pretty certain about it.”
Ellie glanced up at St. Luke’s steeple clock, its brass hands shining against the black matte face and Roman numerals. “Well, we might as well go in, get this over with. You guys got some food ready when we’re finished here?” she asked, looking back at June Leedale.
“I made a few things.”
The three couples began walking along the flagstone path to the church steps, the Stevensons in the lead, the Leedales behind them, the Gilroys taking up the rear, Bunny seizing her husband’s hand and squeezing it with affection.
“Good,” Ellie Stevenson said with a laugh. “Funerals always make me hungry. And now I won’t have to cook lunch for chubby cheeks here.” She nudged her husband, who turned his round face back to the others, raised his eyebrows high enough to crease his forehead and smiled in embarrassment.
Reaching the summit of the stairs, Parker Leedale paused at the open door to take a final look toward Main Street, staring past the Compton Town Lodge, the Lobster Trap restaurant, Maitland’s Toggery Shop, the Greenery Groceteria and other midtown Compton businesses, all the buildings faithful reflections of Cape Cod architecture and social values: elegant, restrained, subdued and conforming.
“He’s not coming,” June Leedale assured her husband, tugging gently at his sleeve as Mike and Bunny Gilroy slipped past to enter the darkened church. “Let’s go.”
Just as the Leedales stepped inside, a large blue sedan pulled into the parking lot. The driver switched off the engine and sat staring at the church distractedly, the gentle features of his face creased with concern.
Dr. Ivan Hayward made no effort to leave the car.
He was waiting for someone to arrive. Someone with whom he could share his suspicions about Cora Godwin’s death.