Bernadine Fagan - Nora Lassiter 01 - Murder by the Old Maine Stream (15 page)

Percy would be less suspicious when I bought a truck from him. I was almost sure of it. Almost. Worrying about my phone ringing was getting me no place. I decided since I could do nothing to change the situation, I wouldn’t waste my time thinking about it.

By late afternoon I had turned in the rented PT Cruiser, and was driving the neat silver Chevy S-10 pickup with only a few dings and dents. The purchase had sent my bank account into double digit country.

I needed a real job. Pronto.

I had a feeling of accomplishment as I tooled along in my very own truck. I felt Maine-ish, too. I tooted and waved as I passed another truck, just for the heck of it. I decided to name this truck. Let’s see. Chevy Charles? No. Chevy Bevy? Dumb. Chevy Charlene? That had a nice ring to it.

“I christen thee Chevy Charlene,” I declared loudly. To make it official, I banged on the dashboard. The glove compartment popped open and the door fell on the floor.

It was late afternoon, but I figured I had time to go to Aunt Ellie’s. See the house. Talk about Dad’s missing brother. Maybe there’d be some news about JT.

When I pulled up to the front door, I sat for a moment, my thoughts heavy with memory. The house had changed, had been bricked and sided, an extension added. It looked good. Not just good. Spectacular. Maybe they’d won the lottery and no one had mentioned it to me.

I got out and stood on the bottom step. The last time my feet rested here they were pointed in the other direction. I had been leaving Maine. I remembered thinking, with the optimism of childhood, that I’d be back soon. Good thing I didn’t know then that it would be twenty years before I returned.

The southwest sky, awash in shades of purple, pink and indigo, was dotted with those puffy backlit clouds edged in silver. Exquisite. I was a sky person. If I were a painter, most of my work would have sky. As an amateur photographer, I included it as often as I could. I picked up my camera and snapped a few pictures.

When I was a kid I used to stare at this same sky from my second-floor window. I looked up at my old room and saw white ruffled tie-backs and a shade pulled mid-way down. I wondered whose room it was now. And did she look out as I had? Strange, how this feeling of belonging and not belonging melded together.

I knocked.

* * *

Ellie answered the door. “Come in, come in, Nora.”

She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. Her eyes were red-rimmed. From crying or lack of sleep? Strain was evident. She wore a wrinkled blue warm-up suit and her makeup was spotty except for the blue eye shadow. Basically, she looked ten years older than she had Saturday night.

Standing in the foyer, we made small talk. I couldn’t help noticing how different this house was from the other houses I’d visited up here. So different from the way it was when I was a child. Not Maine-like at all. More like designer showcase.

Ellie said, “I’m sure you’d love to see the house. Come on. Take the ten-cent tour.”

I glanced around. If the outside looked spectacular, the inside dazzled by comparison. I considered myself a connoisseur of sorts when it came to designer clothes, but I also knew a thing or two about furnishings. Granted, not as much as about clothes, but still enough to recognize the hand of an interior designer when I saw it. Or was Aunt Ellie this good?

The living room’s antique sofa, upholstered in white leather, anchored the space set off by a red Persian carpet. Solid oak flooring had replaced my mother’s linoleum. Custom made cabinetry showcased what I thought might be a Dresden porcelain collection. I’d have to see it close up, of course, but my guess was Dresden. Expensive stuff.

Dragging my attention from the house, I said, “I wanted to see you, too. I’m so sorry about JT. I wish I could help.”

This was true. Even though Ellie hadn’t been that welcoming, I couldn’t abandon her. She was family.

“Have you heard from him?” I asked.

“No.” She hesitated and I thought it was anger I saw, not sadness behind the damp eyes. Then she said, “It’s no surprise. The man’s an ass.”

Suddenly, she took a deep breath, looked so intense that I reached for her hand.

“Aunt Ellie?”

She pulled back before I could touch her and said, “Nick informed me that JT’s a suspect. I guess you probably knew that.”

I expected her to cry, or at least get choked up. She didn’t. She told me about the patch the forensic team had found.

“That doesn’t prove a thing,” I said. “The patch was on his property and could have been lost there at any time.”

“Maybe. But it was brand new, not weathered. I remember when he brought it home. It was one of the new patches they had made up.”

Then it hit me like a punch to the midsection: she thought he was guilty. I wondered if any other family members felt the same. Great-grandma Evie’s words about my father flashed through my mind.

Maybe we should have come together more as a family and backed him.

Was family history repeating itself? Was anyone backing JT, or did the family think he was guilty, too?

“Has the family been around?” I asked.

“I sent everyone home. Different ones have been here off and on since I told them he was missing. They’re wonderful … keeping me company and all. I appreciated it, but I wanted to be alone for a few hours so I sent them home. Come suppertime, a few will be back, I suppose.”

“And now I come barging in on your private time. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I thought I could nap, but I can’t. Sit, please. I’ll make some tea. I need to be busy.”

“I don’t drink tea, but if you have coffee?”

“Done.” She opened the refrigerator and took out a bag a coffee beans with a Starbuck’s label. I actually got excited. I hadn’t had Starbuck’s in over a week. I mentioned it to her and we both smiled.

“That patch. It was my fault it came off at all. When he got the damn thing he asked me to sew it on, and I refused. I was too mad at him to do anything for him, so he sewed it himself. He did a lousy job.”

“Don’t you think it’s strange that JT wouldn’t have stopped and pulled it off the branch? He must have felt it tear. Why leave evidence like that?”

“I mentioned that to Nick, and he said when people panic they’re not as aware as they would normally be. But JT never panicked easily. Believe me. My husband may be ten kinds of a fool, a drinker, he may have been unfaithful …”  She paused. “But he’s not a panicky person.”

Unfaithful? This was the first I’d heard about him being with another woman. “Are you sure he’s been unfaithful?” I blurted, my tact having been left at the door.

Holding the refrigerator open, Ellie stared at me as if I had just dropped in from Mars. “Yes,” she said cooly.

“It’s none of my business. Forget I asked.”

My thoughts jumped to faithless Percy and I wondered if the same woman could be involved. How much bed-hopping took place in Silver Stream anyway? Or were most men bed-hoppers? Like Whatshisname.

She put the milk in a delicate china pitcher and set it on the table. “Would you like to see the rest of the house while the coffee’s brewing?”

“Sure.” Anything. Get me outta here.

The house was elegant, a show place. In the den I noticed the gun cabinet. Empty.

You ass. Better watch your step. I have a key to that rifle cabinet.

I wondered what had happened to those guns. With JT missing and Collins murdered, Ellie’s angry threat to JT on Saturday night seemed ominous. Ellie could have murdered JT. Or Collins. The thought was barely formed when I sacked it. No. Not possible. She was my aunt, a Lassiter by marriage. We Lassiters didn’t murder people. We were the good guys. JT was a good guy.

“Isn’t that a gun cabinet?”

“Yes.”

“No guns in the house?”

“I removed them. For safe keeping.”

I followed her upstairs, wondering where she had stashed the ordnance.

She was talking to me. I hadn’t processed a word she’d said. Something about her daughter.

“What?” I asked as I stepped into my old room.

“My daughter’s an art teacher. She did that horse painting when she was twelve. Talented, isn’t she?”

“Very.”

I barely glanced at the painting, a white stallion poised on a ridge overlooking a lake. Woods all around. I had come home again. I went to the window, leaned my hands on the sill and gazed at the driveway, at the trees rising up on either side. I knew this sight. How many times had I closed my eyes and been right here? I opened the window and leaned as far as the screen would allow, and looked down at the front porch. I could see the steps and the last few feet of porch, could make out the edges of the green Adirondack chairs.

The sun tipped the treetops, casting a reddish-orange glow over everything. I felt my breath catch. The years fell away. I was a child again. I was safe. I was in my own room.

My eyes suddenly filled with tears. That mushy side that I usually manage to keep hidden leaked out. Aunt Ellie left me alone. Whether she’d noticed or not, I wasn’t sure.

I snatched one of my cousin’s tissues, dabbed my eyes and blew my nose. Then I took a good look around. My cousin had a flare for decorating. Lots of beige and white and muted shades of blue, a dresser full of pictures in assorted frames, mosaic-tiled tables, an old fashioned secretary with horse statues in ceramic and brass and copper. The room looked better than when I lived here. For just the briefest moment I wished I were a child again and life were simpler.

Back downstairs, composed, I had a cup of coffee and some lemon cake with Ellie.

“I’d like to talk to you about my mother. You were both around the same age, both friends. Can you tell me more about what happened back when they left? Any specifics?”

“I can tell you it shouldn’t have happened,” she said immediately. I had the feeling she was happy to talk about someone else’s troubles, so I pressed on.

“What did the sexual harassment involve?”

“I don’t know why your mother didn’t tell you. What’s the big deal with the way the world is going these days?”

She folded her arms and leaned forward. “Some of it was my fault. We were young. Free-spirited. Your Mom was having problems with your father.”

Free-spirited? My mother? We were talking about the same woman?

“She told me your father didn’t find her attractive any more. They hadn’t had sex in months. It was my idea for her to make him jealous.”

The impulse to cover my ears was strong. I didn’t want to hear about my parents’ sex life. At all.

“We went shopping. I helped her pick out a few outfits, all sexy things your father would disapprove of, but maybe be turned on by. The black leather pants and the really short skirt were the best.”

“I can’t picture my mother in black leather. No way.”

“She looked spectacular. She had a great figure, like you. The kind guys love.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She wore the slacks to work one day. Just once. After that, there were remarks on a regular basis, more than remarks. The boss grabbed her several times. I guess he considered her fair game. Said she was advertising it.”

“So why didn’t she just tell this jerk off? Or claim sexual harassment and sue? Or leave? What was the big deal?”

“Back then, that would have been unusual, especially around here. For one thing, she wanted to keep her job, and opposing the boss was not the way to do that. The term political correctness hadn’t been coined yet. Things are different today. Back then a man could get away with a lot more.”

“My dad didn’t do anything?”

“Oh, he did. He beat him up.”

Omigod.

“Who was the man? I recall Mom working part-time at the library for a while. What man worked there? I don’t remember any.”

“I don’t remember any man working there either. But what does it matter? The harassment business happened at Kendall’s Auto Mart. Your mother had just gotten the job. The S-O-B involved was old man Kendall.”

“Percy’s father?” I asked on a wisp of breath.

“The one and only.”

FIFTEEN

I needed to get back to New York City soon. I’d been without gainful employment for a month now, the last week of which had been spent dawdling around my old hometown, checking out a Dumpster, hiding under a bed, finding a dead body, buying a truck, and such. Not my bailiwick. Not the kind of activity I expected when I drove up here, that’s for sure.

Of course, none of this compared to finding out that Mom had suffered sexual harassment at the hands of Percy’s father, and then the guy had been murdered. No wonder the aunts didn’t want to talk about it.

I had thought about it for a good part of the night. It had kept me awake. I wanted to call Mom and talk about it. Tell her she was not to blame, if that’s what she thought. Tell her I understood why we had moved. But Mom was a hard person, at least when it came to me. She never let up on me, I guess because she thought I never measured up to her high standards. When Whatshisname moved in with me, she outright refused to talk to me. Howie could handle this better.