I DREAMT A LOT that night. It was an anxiety-ridden dream. Andrea was slipping through the woods. I was trying to call her back, but I couldn’t make her hear me and watched in despair as she ran past old Mrs. Westerfield’s house and into the garage. I was trying to shout a warning, but then Rob Westerfield was there and waving me away.
I woke to the faint sound of my own voice trying to call for help. Dawn was just breaking, and I could see that it was going to be another of those gray, cloudy, cold days we get in early November.
Even as a child I found the first two weeks of November unsettling, but after the middle of the month, the festive feeling of Thanksgiving was in the air. But those first two weeks seemed long and dreary. Then, after Andrea died, they became forever linked with the memories of the last days we spent together. The anniversary of her death was only a few days away.
Those were the thoughts in my mind as I lay in bed, wishing for an hour or two more of sleep. The dream wasn’t hard to analyze. The imminent anniversary of Andrea’s death and the fact that I was acutely aware that Rob Westerfield would be enraged by the latest information on my Website were playing on my mind.
I knew that I needed to be very careful.
At seven o’clock I sent for room service; then I began to work on my book. At nine o’clock I showered, dressed, and phoned Mrs. Hilmer.
I was hoping against hope that her call had been to say she remembered why the name “Phil” was familiar to her. But even as I asked her that question, I realized it was terribly unlikely that she would come up with anything that could be connected to Rob Westerfield’s vicious boast.
“Ellie, that name is the only thing I’ve been able to think about,” she said, sighing. “I called you last night to tell you that I checked with my friend who’s in contact with Phil Oliver. I told you about him. Phil Oliver is the man who lost his lease and had a pretty ugly confrontation with Rob Westerfield’s father. My friend told me that he’s down in Florida, likes it well enough, but is still pretty bitter about the way he was treated. He reads your Website and loves it. He says if you want to start a Website to let the world know the kind of man Rob’s father is, too, he’ll be happy to talk to you.”
Interesting, I thought, but not helpful information right now.
“Ellie, the one thing I’m sure of is that whatever I heard or read about ‘Phil,’ it was only recently. And if this is any help, it made me sad.”
“Sad?”
“Ellie, I know I’m not making sense, but I’m working on it. I’ll get back to you the minute I piece it together.”
Mrs. Hilmer had been calling me on the phone at the inn. I didn’t want to explain that I was checking out, or go into detail about Pete and his apartment in New York. “You have my cell phone number, don’t you, Mrs. Hilmer?”
“Yes, you gave it to me.”
“I’m going to be in and out so much. Will you call me on that number if you come up with the connection?”
“Of course.”
* * *
MARCUS LONGO was the next one on my list to call. I thought he sounded subdued, and I was right.
“Ellie, what you put on the Website yesterday is inviting a massive lawsuit from both Westerfield and his lawyer, William Hamilton.”
“Good. Let them sue me. I can’t wait to depose them.”
“Ellie, being right isn’t always a provable or successful legal defense. The law can be very tricky. The drawing you claim is evidence of Rob Westerfield’s part in the attempted murder of his grandmother was provided by the brother of the man who shot her. And he admits that he was the driver of the getaway car. He’s hardly a stellar witness. How much did you pay him for that information?”
“One thousand dollars.”
“Do you know how that would look in court? If not, let me explain it to you. You put up a sign outside Sing Sing. You advertise on the Website. In so many words it says, ‘Anyone who knows of a crime Rob Westerfield may have committed can make a quick buck.’ This guy could be an out-and-out liar.”
“Do you think he is?”
“What I think doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, but it does, Marcus. Do you believe Rob Westerfield planned that crime?”
“Yes, I do, but then I always thought he planned it. That has nothing to do with the multimillion-dollar slander suit you may be facing.”
“Let them sue. I hope they do. I have a couple of thousand dollars in the bank and a car with sand in the gas tank that probably needs a new engine, and I may make some decent money on my book. They’re welcome to try to get it.”
“It’s your show, Ellie.”
“Two things, Marcus. I’m checking out of here today and going to stay at a friend’s apartment.”
“Not around here, I hope.”
“No, in Manhattan.”
“That is a great relief for me. Does your father know that?”
If not, I bet you’ll tell him, I thought. I wondered how many of my friends in Oldham were in contact with my father. “I’m not sure,” I said honestly. For all I knew, Pete may have called him last night the minute he left me.
I was going to ask Marcus if he had any success in following up on a homicide with someone named “Phil” as the victim, but he anticipated the question. “So far, zero, blank, nothing to tie Westerfield to another crime,” he said. “But I still have a lot of searching to do. We’re also following up on that name Rob liked to use in school.”
“Jim Wilding?”
“Yes.”
We agreed to stay in close touch.
* * *
I HADN’T SPOKEN to Mrs. Stroebel since Sunday afternoon. I called the hospital, hoping to hear that Paulie had been discharged, but he was still there.
Mrs. Stroebel was with him. “Ellie, he’s much better. I stop in around this time each day, then go to the store and come back around noon. Thank God for Greta. You met her the day Paulie was brought in here. She is so good. She is keeping everything going.”
“When will Paulie be able to go home?”
“I think tomorrow, but, Ellie, he wants to see you again. He is trying to remember something you said to him that he says was not correct. He wants to straighten it out, but he doesn’t know what it is. You understand—he’s had so much medication.”
My heart sank. Something I said? Dear God, was Paulie confused again, or was he going to retract anything he had told me? I was glad I had held off putting on the Website his story connecting Rob to the locket.
“I can come over and see him,” I offered.
“Why don’t you come around one o’clock? I will be here then, and I think that makes him more comfortable.”
More comfortable, I thought, or do you mean you want to be sure he won’t say anything that will incriminate him? No, I didn’t believe that. “I’ll be there, Mrs. Stroebel,” I said. “If I arrive before you, I’ll wait for you to come before I visit Paulie.”
“Thank you, Ellie.”
She sounded so grateful that I was ashamed of myself for thinking she might be trying to prevent Paulie from being honest with me. She had been the one to call me, and her life was now split between keeping up the deli and visiting her ailing son. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. He does it best when he sends someone like Paulie a mother like Anja Stroebel.
* * *
I MANAGED TO GET two hours’ work in, then I checked Rob Westerfield’s Website. It still had the picture of me shackled to the bed, and more names had been added to the Committee for Justice for Rob Westerfield. But nothing had been added to refute my story of his involvement in the attempted murder of his grandmother.
I took that to be a sign of consternation in the ranks. They were still debating what to do about it.
At eleven o’clock the phone rang. It was Joan. “Want to have a quick lunch around one o’clock?” Joan asked. “I have some errands to do and just realized I’ll be passing your door.”
“I can’t. I promised to visit Paulie at the hospital at one o’clock,” I said, then hesitated. “But Joan—”
“What is it, Ellie? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Joan, you told me you have a copy of the obituary notice my father put in the paper for my mother.”
“Yes, I do. I offered to show it to you.”
“Can you put your hand on it easily?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Then if you’re passing the inn, would you mind dropping it off at the desk? I’d really like to see it.”
“Consider it done.”
* * *
WHEN I GOT TO THE HOSPITAL, there was a buzz of activity in the lobby. I saw a group of reporters and cameramen clustered together at the far end of the room, and I quickly turned my back to them.
The woman next to me on the line to get a visitor’s pass told me what had happened. Mrs. Dorothy West-erfield, Rob’s grandmother, had been rushed into the emergency room, suffering from a heart attack.
Her lawyer had issued a statement to the media that last evening, as a permanent memorial to her late husband, U.S. Senator Pearson Westerfield, Mrs. Westerfield had changed her will and would be leaving her estate to a charitable foundation that would be charged with dispersing all of it within ten years.
The statement said that the only exceptions were small bequests to her son, some friends, and longtime employees. Her grandson was left only one dollar.
“She was very smart, you know,” the woman confided to me, “I heard some reporters talking. Besides her lawyers, she had her pastor, a judge who is a friend, and a psychiatrist as witnesses that she was of sound mind and knew exactly what she was doing.”
I’m sure that my gossipy informant did not realize that my Website probably triggered both the will change and the heart attack. It was a hollow victory for me. I remembered that gracious, stately woman offering condolences for Andrea’s death the day of the funeral.
I was glad to escape into the elevator before a reporter recognized me and connected me with the breaking story.
* * *
MRS. STROEBEL was already in the corridor waiting for me. Together we went into Paulie’s room. His bandages were now much smaller. His eyes were clearer, and his smile was warm and sweet. “My friend, Ellie,” he said. “I can count on you.”
“You bet you can.”
“I want to go home. I’m tired of being here.”
“I want to get back to work. Were there many people in for lunch when you left, Mama?”
“Pretty good crowd,” she said soothingly, with a contented smile.
“You shouldn’t be here so much, Mama.”
“I won’t have to be, Paulie. You’ll be home soon.” She looked at me. “We have a little room off the kitchen at the store. Greta has put a couch and television in there. Paulie can be with us, do whatever he feels up to in the kitchen, and rest in between.”
“Sounds good to me,” I told them.
“Now, Paulie, explain what it is that worries you about the locket you found in Rob Westerfield’s car,” his mother encouraged.
I simply didn’t know what to expect.
“I found the locket and gave it to Rob,” Paulie said slowly. “I told you that, Ellie.”
“Yes, you did.”
“The chain was broken.”
“You told me that, too, Paulie.”
“Rob gave me a ten-dollar tip, and I put it with the money I’d saved for your fiftieth birthday present, Mama.”
“That’s right, Paulie. That was in May, six months before Andrea died.”
“Yes. And the locket was shaped like a heart, and it was gold and it had pretty blue stones in the center.”
“Yes,” I said, hoping to encourage him.
“I saw Andrea wearing it, and I followed her to the garage and saw Rob go in after her. Later I told her that her father would be angry, and then I asked her to go to the dance with me.”
“That’s exactly what you said earlier, Paulie. That’s the way it happened, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but something is wrong. You said something, Ellie, that was wrong.”
“Let me think.” I tried to reconstruct the conversation as best I could. “The only thing I remember that you didn’t just mention is that I said Rob didn’t even buy Andrea a new locket. He had the initials of their first names, Rob and Andrea, engraved on a locket some other girl had probably dropped in his car.”
Paulie smiled. “That’s it, Ellie. That’s what I needed to remember. Rob didn’t have the initials engraved on the locket. They were already there when I found the locket.”
“Paulie, that’s impossible. I know Andrea did not meet Rob Westerfield until October. You found the locket in May.”
His expression became stubborn. “Ellie, I remember. I am sure. I saw them. The initials were already on the locket. It wasn’t ‘R’ and ‘A.’ It was ‘A’ and ‘R.’ ‘A.R.,’ in very pretty writing.”