The Haunting Ballad (12 page)

“Come on, Neil, you know how he can be,” Tim implored.

”Oh, I do. I vowed to myself that the next time the drink and the brawling claimed him, I was steering clear. So I did.” Neil now glanced uneasily at my partner and me, perhaps thinking that too much family business was being aired in front of strangers. “Well, what's done is done. Let's drag him on home.”

Tim gave Kimla a parting kiss. “See you tomorrow, then.”

He and Neil gathered up their brother, and the three Doonans headed down the street, disappearing into the Village night.

Mr. O'Nelligan turned to Kimla. “I must say, it seems odd that Patch was describing Lorraine Cobble with words like ‘extreme' and ‘melodramatic,' and then mere minutes later…”

“He acts the same way,” Kimla finished. “Or even worse. Yes, Patch can do that—flip from one side of the coin to the other as quick as anything. Of course, the alcohol helps.”

“Like Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde?” my partner suggested.

Kimla gave a thin smile. “Maybe just like Hyde and Hyde. Though one Hyde is kind of charming in his way, while the second one can turn all dreadful and nasty.”

“The other Doonans seem of a different ilk,” Mr. O'Nelligan noted.

“They are,” Kimla agreed. “Neil is pretty solid, though maybe a little persnickety. As for Timothy…” Here, she lowered her eyes in a way both bashful and contemplative. “He's just a good, gentle-hearted person.”

With that, she gave us a little nod and slipped back into the Mercutio.

“A sweet girl,” I said.

Mr. O'Nelligan turned to me. “Now, pray tell, where did you vanish to back then?”

“I was trying to catch up with Spires but couldn't find him.” That much, at least, was true. I wasn't prepared to offer up the fact that Audrey was with him.

My companion seemed to accept my explanation. “I wonder why he and his paramour made such a hasty exit.”

Jesus—his paramour. “No idea,” I lied. “Let's head home.”

“What of Manymile Simms? Mazzo mentioned him as someone we might converse with regarding Lorraine Cobble.”

“Maybe another time. I've had enough for one night.” That was for damned sure.

*   *   *

AS WE DROVE
out of the Village, Mr. O'Nelligan started in with his reflections on the investigation. “The late Miss Cobble seems to have left a trail of quarrels and bad feelings in her wake. Thus far we know of her confrontations with Byron Spires, Patch Doonan, and the singer known as Crimson.”

Oh, right … Crimson. Besides Mazzo, we hadn't remembered to ask anyone else at the Mercutio if they knew the story.

My friend continued. “Then there was her duplicity with Minnie Bornstein.”

“That one's ancient history,” I said distractedly, my mind barely on the case.

“True, it was more than fifteen years ago, but it does fit into a pattern that kept up until her death. The pattern of conflict and deceit.”

Deceit
. Lorraine Cobble wasn't the only practitioner of that particular vice who frequented the Café Mercutio. Audrey, the woman I was supposed to marry, seemed to have staked her own claim in that department. The raw memory of her expression when she saw me across the room now came rushing back.

Mr. O'Nelligan must have sensed something was wrong, and he asked, “Is anything troubling you, Lee?”

“Troubling me?” I was going to add something harsh and flippant but opted for a tidy denial. “No, I'm tired, that's all. If you don't mind, I'll just focus on the driving.”

Then I flicked on the car radio and zeroed in on the path of my headlights as they cut through the darkness. Every time an image of Audrey and Spires crept in on me, I clamped down on it and concentrated on the music being offered. No damned folksingers, just Frank Sinatra, Pat Boone, and Perry Como—guys with smooth voices, neat haircuts, and no claim on the woman I loved.

*   *   *

I DREAMT ABOUT
Audrey that night. Audrey and the Statue of Liberty. My fiancée and I were standing together high up on the crown, staring down into the harbor. There was a fierce storm raging, causing the waters to rise and fall as if we were on the open sea. Some of the waves rose so high that I was afraid we'd be washed over. If that wasn't bad enough, pterodactyls were flying overhead. A swarm of them. (Yes, dreams are like that.) It seemed a perilous situation to be in—angry waves below and flying dinosaurs above. In the midst of all this madness, Audrey turned to me and said something that she actually
had
once said—in real, waking life, I mean—when we'd been out strolling one evening.

“Let's agree to be a hundred years old together.”

“Impossible,” I responded in the dream, as I had in reality. “I'm older than you. When you're one hundred, I'll be one hundred and three.”

“Then you'll just have to stop at one hundred, Lee, and wait for me to catch up.”

In real life, I'd then made some little joke and we'd squeezed closer together and kept strolling. In the dream, it went differently. When Audrey suggested I needed to let her catch up, I cursed, climbed up on the edge of Lady Liberty's crown, and threatened to jump. Staring down into the sea mist below, I saw a number of ghostly figures writhing and beckoning. I suddenly wasn't so sure that this was the best course of action. While I stood there teetering, one of the pterodactyls swooped over my head and dove down toward the ghostly beckoners. Only it wasn't a pterodactyl anymore—it was Lorraine Cobble. Then, above me, the remaining pterodactyls began to explode, accompanied by Audrey's high-pitched, wild laughter.

As I say, dreams are like that.

 

PART 2

Tangled Roots

Folly is an endless maze;

Tangled roots perplex her ways;

How many have fallen there!

They stumble all night over bones of the dead;

And feel—they know not what but care;

And wish to lead others, when they should be led.

—“The Voice of the Ancient Bard”       
Songs of Experience,
William Blake

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

Nearly every Saturday morning for the last five years, Audrey and I had gone to breakfast at the Bugle Boy Diner. Sometimes we would have been out together the night before; sometimes we might not have seen each other for several days. Either way, assuming we were both in town, it was our habit, our ritual, to break bread at our local diner.

I remember the first time. It was the same day that Audrey started working at the Thelmont Five-and-Dime. A couple named the Jeromes had opened that store nearly three decades before, and when Old Man Jerome died, his widow decided she needed help running the place. I wanted to get Audrey off to a good start, so I offered to meet her early and treat her to breakfast. We'd shared lunches and dinners before at the Bugle Boy, but that day was our first joint breakfast there. Midway through, we agreed that this was the meal that the Bugle Boy did best—that, in fact,
all
diners did best. In our months of steady dating, we'd begun to assemble a catalog of life's little truths, which, we realized, not everyone necessarily subscribed to.
We
did, though. That particular morning, over our pancakes, we'd ticked them off methodically to see how many we remembered.

“St. Bernards are one part dog and two parts tongue,” I began.

“Pistachio ice cream is a mistake.”

“President Eisenhower would be disturbing with hair.”

“Babies look like marshmallows.”

“Shovels should be shaped like spoons.”

“Fred Mertz is a lousy landlord.”

“Frankenstein is scarier than Dracula.”

“But the Creature from the Black Lagoon is ickier,” Audrey said emphatically.

We must have gone on with a dozen more truths before adding
Breakfast is the best meal in the world
.

“We should come here next Saturday,” Audrey insisted. “Then the one after that, and the one after that, and again after that.”

“That's a lot of Saturdays. How long should we keep coming?”

“Forever and a day, Lee. That's how long.”

So we had, almost every Saturday for five years.

But not today. The morning after our unexpected encounter at the Mercutio was a different brand of Saturday. The night before, while I'd been on duty, she'd been on the sly, in the company of another man. To my mind, that put our breakfast ritual in definite jeopardy. What would we chat about over our muffins? What new cute little truth would we find to add to marshmallow babies and icky fish-men? How about this one: You can't trust anyone—not even your own fiancée.

I'd been up for more than an hour when the phone rang. I considered letting it jangle itself into oblivion but eventually gave in and answered it. Audrey.

The tenseness in her voice was palpable. “We should meet this morning.”

“I'm in no mood for breakfast.”

“Not breakfast. We can just walk somewhere. We can talk.”

“Talk? Talk about what?”

“Lee…”

I thought about slamming the phone down. Came close. Instead, I went with the hackneyed “We've nothing to talk about.”

“Really, Lee?”

I suddenly felt stupid. Stupid and angry and broken. Of course there was something to talk about.
Miles
of things to talk about.

“Where are you, anyway?” I didn't try to keep the edge out of my voice. “Still in the Village?”

“No, I'm at my Aunt Beth's in Yonkers. Since last night.”

I'd forgotten she had a relative down there, probably only about a half hour's drive north of Greenwich Village.

“That's where you stayed the night?”

“Yes. I'll be back in Thelmont in an hour. Can we meet then?”

I grunted in the affirmative. We agreed to meet on the town green and take it from there. I rang off, showered, and shoved some burnt toast and undercooked eggs into my mouth. It definitely was no Bugle Boy breakfast.

*   *   *

I DROVE UP
Thelmont's classic small-town main drag, glancing around for Audrey's Buick without success. The five-and-dime and the Bugle Boy were among the couple dozen modestly thriving businesses that lined the street. I'd lived in this town since I was seventeen, and Main Street was like a blueprint of my youth. I'd gotten my first professional shave at Owen's Barber Shop; I'd drawn my first paycheck at Selgino's Stationery; Eden Florists was where I'd gone to pick up flowers for Mom's funeral; I'd first met Audrey at the soda fountain of Rowland's Drug Store; and Huntington's Crystal Shop was where I'd bought my first Christmas present for her—a tiny grinning cupid. Sappy, I know, but it was a new romance back then …

I parked Baby Blue and walked over to the green. Glancing at my wristwatch, I saw that I was a few minutes early—or a couple of years late, depending on how you looked at it. If I hadn't put off marrying Audrey for so long, maybe I wouldn't be standing here now, trying to digest my own cooking and dreading our pending conversation. I settled onto a park bench—but only for the five seconds it took me to remember that it was the same one Audrey and I had sat on the night of our first date. Jarred by the memory of those early kisses, I popped back to my feet and went to lean against the large lone oak situated in the center of the green. It felt somehow like a kindred spirit.

I didn't have to wait long before Audrey appeared, walking toward me as hesitantly as I'd want her to. Once she was abreast of me, I stepped away from the tree and gave her what I hoped was a curt, masculine nod that registered supreme disapproval. I had decided that she was going to be the one to speak first. I had my dignity.

She complied, obviously nervous. “The traffic was a little thick. Hope you weren't waiting long.”

I wasn't going to make this easy for her. Or me. I provided no information as to how long I'd waited.

In the face of my silence, she pressed on. “I need to explain why I ran out like that last night without even talking to you.”

“
That's
what you need to explain?” I had maintained as much of my strong, silent male persona as I could—about twenty seconds' worth. My anger now came gushing out shrilly. “How about the fact that you were there at all? Or that you were there with that punk Spires? Seems like there's a boatload of explanations you owe me.”

It took her a few moments to reply. “Yes, you're right. I need to tell you everything.”

Suddenly, the previously benign word “everything” had acquired a weight and a disturbing power that I didn't want to see unleashed. I wasn't certain at all that I wanted to know
everything.
A black wave of nausea rose from breadbasket to brains, and I felt more than a little dizzy. I managed to squeeze out one word: “How?”

My monosyllabic query seemed to throw Audrey. She narrowed her eyes and parted her lips in an unspoken question.

I realized I needed to expand on my sentence. “
How
could you do this to me?”

My words seemed to hit Audrey like a belly punch, and she actually drew her hands to her stomach. Her face reddened as tears rose in her eyes. “Lee.” She had become monosyllabic herself.

My thinking process had slowed to Neanderthal level. I didn't know whether to scream out in primitive torment or gather Audrey up in an embrace of comfort. I opted for simply standing there and waiting to see if she could summon more words.

She could, but not before gulping for air for several seconds. “Lee, I never ever meant to hurt you.”

“Never ever…” I repeated the phrase mechanically. It seemed to be something out of a fairy tale—an ugly, hapless one with a lousy ending:
And they never ever were happy again.