Keeping the Peace (15 page)

Peter snorted. “Those people are just shut-ins from East Bumfuck.”

“Peter!” John barked.

“Sorry,” he answered somewhat sarcastically. “East Overshoe.”

Melanie ignored the whole thing, trying to draw everyone’s attention back to the problem at hand. “I think the point your father is trying to make,” she enunciated clearly. “The point he’s making is that there might be a clue or a real threat from a real killer on one of those pages. Perhaps you girls could scan the message boards. You seem to know how to navigate them.”

Mia stared at her, then she perked up. “Emmie and I can do that, Dad!”

“They can, Dad,” said Peter. “It’s all they do anyway.”

Melanie knew John had had about enough from his youngest. “Peter,” he said quietly, “are you going to help with this, or can you find something to do, like bring in wood, clean the barn, help your mother with the laundry? What’s the matter with you?”

“I want to go to the gym!” Peter whined. “Only, Mr. Music in there wrecked our car, so I’m stuck here.”

Melanie began to load the dishwasher. “Peter, you work out too much anyway. I don’t like it. You’ll damage your joints and stunt your growth or develop arthritis or something. Why don’t you and Michael go skiing?”

Michael said, “I gotta get back to school pretty soon.”

Mia had left the room during this testy discourse, but she returned now with her laptop and sat down next to her father. Emmie sat on his other side. Melanie watched as they leaned into him, as they had since they were small children. They were at such a precarious age, she thought. They still smelled like just-bathed babies to her, but she could feel another energy, too. It was the adult in them trying to get out and be noticed. One day, it would prevail. It goes so fast, she thought, caught in this little glimpse of the transition taking place before her eyes.

“So,” Mia said. “Look at this, Dad. Here’s one. This is a message board on the Celebrity Scope site. See?”

Melanie leaned over her husband’s shoulder, and they peered at the screen.

Mia went on explaining, “See these icons? You can pick. You can click on Television, Movies, Talk, or Music. So, say I just saw a Ragged Rainbow concert, and I want to learn the latest news—”

“Or lies,” injected Michael.

Mia gave him a withering glare but continued, “What I do is click on Music.” She clicked. “And then, in the Search bar, I type ‘Gabriel Strand.’” Mia typed the musician’s name. “There,” she said, triumphantly. “Then the whole message board pops up.”

Melanie leaned closer. It was a page of comments by different contributors with bizarre code names. There was L.A.girl90210…Lollypopkid…Phizzboy.

Mia went on, “See, there’s pages of comments. Sometimes, they kind of meld together into a sort of conversation. Sometimes, people just post opinions.”

“Are all these pages discussions about Strand?” asked John.

“Pretty much,” Emmie said.

“These are old,” said Mia. “I’ll go more current.” She clicked and typed and clicked again. “Okay, these are from, like, last summer. Ooh, here’s a good one. It says, ‘Finally hooked up with Gabe. He is divine. The rest of you people will be seeing pictures of us together soon.’”

“Who’s that from?”

“Hmm, let’s see. It’s from LydiaHisLove, and it’s dated June twenty-third. That’s just about when the tour began, I think, so there’s a lot on here around that time. Oh, look, then, Phizzboy writes, ‘Lydia, I don’t believe you. Stick to the truth. You went to a concert. Stop fantasizing.’ Then Lydia replies here, and says, ‘Jealousy never pays off. More details later. I’ll prove it.’ Then, oh, there’s tons more comments.”

John put his arm around his daughter. “Can you e-mail me that website? The link? I think I’m going to have Cully go over the entire site.”

“Are there more sites like that?” asked Melanie. She suddenly felt trapped in her printed newspaper. The world was whizzing by her on the Internet, faster than she could keep up.

“Oh, Dad, there’s tons.”

“Hey, Chief,” Emmie said brightly, “you don’t have to get Cully to do it. He’ll just get lost. We can do it. Me and Mia. We’ll check out his e-mail on the Ragged Rainbow website, too, if you can get us his password.”

Mia was furiously typing. “Here. Here’s the website for Ragged Rainbow. Let’s get into his e-mail.”

“Hey.” John put his big hand over his daughter’s. “You can’t do that. Isn’t that hacking?”

Emmie giggled. “You forgot who your dad is, Mia.”

Mia shrugged. “The password is Above the Clouds.”

“And how would you know that, Miss Hacker?” Emmie asked.

Mia commanded a superior attitude. “My password is Greensleeves. Above the Clouds is his sister’s horse’s name. It’s always the horse’s name—if there is a horse, that is. Always. Never fails.” She turned to John. “Shall I give it a try, Dad?”

“I don’t think you better.” He was cautionary. “I’ll ask for his password myself and tell him what we’re doing.”

“Then we can do the research for you, Chief?” Emmie said eagerly.

“Yes, you can get started as soon as possible with that other site.”

Michael jabbed his sister in the upper arm. “I’m going to read your e-mail.”

“You brat! You read my e-mail anyway. You’ve always known my password. Get out. Dad, make him leave me alone.”

Melanie broke into the conversation. “You girls go upstairs and get to work on that. Michael, find Peter and do the chores around here before you even think about leaving. You came home for your own convenience, but you get to leave at mine. The world does not revolve around Michael Giamo.” She turned to her husband. “Let’s go talk to Gabriel.”

Chapter Twelve

“T
ALK
T
O
M
E
A
BOUT
W
HAT
?”

The family, engrossed in the petty conversation of the last few minutes, had not seen Gabriel enter the room. Peter, Michael, Mia, and Emmie scattered to do their respective chores. They knew the point past which they dare not go.

Melanie stood behind her husband, still seated at the table. As the musician walked through the door, their eyes met. She felt a slow heat rising in her cheeks. He was maddeningly attractive to her. It had been simmering under the surface, but she repressed it no longer. He stood in the morning light as it filtered in through the east-facing windows of the kitchen. Despite the stress of the last twenty-four hours, the energy and promise of youth and strength emanated from him. His thick hair dipped over his forehead, and his eyes, though serious, still had a spark that made her heart leap guiltily when he looked at her. And that was the crux of the matter. Her heart.

Melanie knew then that she was in some kind of situation, some kind of juxtaposition. It had crept up on her, like a cat on an unwary bird. She was acutely aware, also, that it was not one-sided. There was chemistry, or something, between them. She sensed Gabriel felt it, too. It was dangerous, and she was complicit.

She looked away, focusing her attention on John. His big face was phlegmatic as he said, “You didn’t tell me you took out a restraining order on a person who was bothering your family.”

“I didn’t think it was necessary. That was over a month ago. We haven’t been bothered since.”

Melanie glanced at John, but he betrayed no emotion as he said, “I have to question you. I think it’s time you got yourself a lawyer.”

Melanie stepped forward and took the young man’s hand in hers before she was quite aware of what she was doing. “Gabriel,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “we’re afraid for your wellbeing. Will you come into the parlor and just talk to John and me? He’ll have to tape it. Will you agree to that?”

There was a silence as they looked at each other. Finally, Gabriel said, “I don’t need a lawyer.”

Melanie smiled at him and led him into the back parlor, glancing over her shoulder at her husband.

“I’ll get the tape recorder,” John said glumly.

John went up to the bedroom and rummaged around in the drawer of his night table, where he kept a small tape recorder. He wished he could shake this awful, oppressive feeling he had about Gabriel and his wife. It must be that he was tired, he thought. After this present fiasco was over, he would take some time off. Put Becky and Steve Bruno in charge and spend some time with Melanie. He didn’t want his foolish insecurities to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. When he went into the front parlor, he found Strand and Melanie sitting close together on the couch. Melanie held both of Gabriel’s hands in hers. John said nothing as he sat down in the big wing chair across from them. Melanie let go of Gabriel’s hands and, straightening up, moved a little way away from him.

“We’ll forget about the fact that you didn’t tell me this early on,” John said. He snapped the “record” button on the tape recorder. “John Giamo recording testimony of Gabriel Strand. Melanie Giamo present.” Then he set the recorder on the edge of the piano. “Why don’t you just start at the beginning and tell me about the relationship you had with Richard Seeley?”

“He taught in the same school as my mother. She’s known him a long time, really.”

“How long?”

“Probably ten years, all told.”

“What precipitated you getting a restraining order? Was it stalking?”

“It was more of an annoyance, actually.”

“Tell me about it, please.”

John thought he could see some kind of change in the young man’s face. The heretofore forced nonchalance evaporated. Another emotion struggled to gain control even as it was repressed. Anger? Fear? Belligerence? John leaned back in the chair to watch as well as listen. “Go on,” he prodded.

Strand wiped his hand over his face and stared at the floor. “Richard Seeley knew my mother from working with her at the school where they taught. She met him way before my father died. Then my father died, and we got through that. Tough, but okay. Fine. And then, a few years later, Seeley’s wife died. Well, that was too bad. My mother really felt for him because she’d been through the same thing.”

“When did his wife die?”

Strand blew through his nose as he tried to think back. “I guess, well, we were putting Ragged Rainbow together. I’d just graduated from Berkeley. About five years ago, I guess. Yeah, that was it, because one of the first things he was around for was my sister’s tenth birthday. She’s fifteen now.”

“Go on.”

“After that, they started to hang out together.”

“You mean they dated?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you feel about that?”

“Look, I never liked the guy. He was always derisive about the band. He’d make fun of it, you know, even when we started to get gigs. I always laughed it off because of my mother, but she knew I didn’t think it was funny. I really tried, though, because I knew she was so lonely, and he seemed good to my sister. He never had any kids of his own. He helped her with her homework and stuff like that.”

“How long did Seeley and your mother date?”

“For about a year. Then Seeley quit his teaching job and became some sort of college placement counselor. He wanted to move in. Or actually, what he really wanted to do was to have her sell her house and then they would buy a house together. She didn’t want to do that. He badgered her about it until it gave me the creeps. Like he had some ulterior motive. She held out, though. She told me she liked him, but not that much. From then on, the relationship was on the rocks. It didn’t last much longer. My mother suggested they take a break from each other, and he agreed. I didn’t think much more about it. My mother was still teaching, but Seeley wasn’t around at all. I was busy with the band. We were starting to open for big acts—stuff like that. Finally, we hit it big with ‘Rusty Heart’ and—” Strand raised his hands and smiled “—here we are.”

“Hmm,” said John patiently. “When did Seeley show up on the scene again?”

“Actually, about a year ago. ‘Rusty Heart’ had just gone platinum. I can tell you exactly when it was. I was home on a short hiatus. My agent and the manager were planning the tour. This tour. Anyway, like I said, I was home, at my mom’s house, with her and my sister. We were just sitting around. My mother was making dinner, and my sister and I were hanging in the kitchen, talking.” Strand turned his dark eyes on Melanie. “That was when I promised her a horse. She’d wanted a horse for so long, and I finally had enough money. She knew just which horse she wanted, too. Above the Clouds.”