The Second Silence (38 page)

Late Saturday afternoon, just back from her visit with Ev and Cathy Lundquist, Mary strolled into The Dog-eared Page to find her sister transformed once more from small-town shopkeeper into a shiny-eyed, pink-cheeked zealot. Trish broke away from a huddle of supporters to greet her.

‘Did you bring it?’ she asked eagerly. In place of her usual jumper Trish wore a cream-colored silk blouse and fitted blue skirt. Her hair was different, too, swept back over her ears with a pair of mother-of-pearl combs. The overall effect was becoming.

Mary held out a manila envelope containing the videotape she’d promised her sister, a yet-to-be-aired documentary about the effects of rampant development on local wildlife in a small North Carolina town. Through her connections at WNET she’d managed to snag a copy, for which Trish had arranged a special screening this evening at the Unitarian Church of the Divine Apostles. Its minister, according to Trish, was a fervent apostle as well … of tough conservation measures.

‘It wasn’t easy,’ Mary confided. ‘I practically had to get down on my hands and knees and beg. But the producer’s a friend who owes me, so she caved in pretty quick.’

‘Thanks. Now I owe
you.
Big time.’ Trish beamed up at her. ‘You’re coming tonight, aren’t you?’

‘After all the trouble I went to? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

What Mary didn’t tell her sister was that the fate of the orange-crowned warbler was the least of her concerns. Trish would only feel bad for pouring her heart into this cause as opposed to wringing her hands over Noelle. Not that Trish wasn’t concerned about her niece. It was just that this was how Trish coped. When faced with insurmountable odds, she headed for the nearest brick wall that
could
be scaled.

‘We rented extra chairs,’ Trish prattled on excitedly, ‘and Reverend Joe—oh, Mary, I can’t wait for you to meet him, he’s so
committed—
Joe arranged for the choir to sing afterward. Something, oh, I don’t know, really
stirring,
like Faure’s
Requiem.’

‘How about “This Land Is Our Land” instead? You wouldn’t want to seem elitist.’ Mary spoke from a publicist’s point of view, not meaning to sound critical, which was exactly the effect it had.

‘Oh. Well. Yes. I’m sure you’re right. I never thought of it that way.’ The light in her sister’s face abruptly dimmed, and a familiar look of hesitation crept in.

Mary, feeling a stab of regret, was quick to change the subject. ‘Do you need a ride, or is Gary picking you up?’

Again it was the wrong thing to have said. Trish smiled bravely. ‘He’s not sure he can make it, so I made other arrangements.’ Her sister began to fuss with a display of gardening books, her small, plump hands fluttering over the basket of artificial African violets beside it. ‘He’s been so busy lately, you know, with Little League and all.’ She pushed the basket closer to the center of the table. ‘There. What do you think?’

‘Lovely.’ Mary smiled. This was her sister in a nutshell:

She’d bend over backward to make the world beautiful while ignoring what was ugly or out of place in her own life.

She was turning to go when Trish dropped her voice to ask, ‘How’s Noelle holding up? I haven’t heard from her in days.’

‘Better,’ Mary told her. ‘It’s really amazing how she manages to keep it together. She’s a lot stronger than any of us gave her credit for. But I think the one who’s most amazed is Noelle herself.’

Privately she thought it had something to do with a certain Dr Reynolds. Her daughter had arrived home late last night looking flushed, with a new spring in her step, though she insisted that Hank and she were just friends.

‘Well, give her my love,’ Trish told her as Mary was heading for the door.

She’ll need more than that,
Mary thought as she strolled along the sidewalk. Though Noelle had become better at hiding it, each visit with Emma tore her apart as much as it bolstered her. Worse was the endless waiting with no guarantee of a positive outcome. Robert continued to drag his heels while they were no closer to digging up any new evidence against him than in the beginning.

The roses on Corinne’s grave, for instance. What did they mean? Noelle’s theory was that it was somehow linked to Corinne’s unborn child.

‘Gertrude’s not like you,’ she had said that day at the cemetery. ‘All she’s ever wanted out of life is to be a wife and mother.’ They’d been sitting on a stone bench overlooking flowerbeds long since withered to dust. Noelle hadn’t meant any insult, but Mary winced inwardly nonetheless. ‘She expected to have lots of grandchildren. You should see the album of photos devoted to Emma. It’s practically heavy enough to crack the glass on her coffee table. If she’d known Corinne was carrying Robert’s child

‘She’d have mourned it as if it had been her own?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Even after thirty years?’

‘She’s funny that way. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but there’s a real sentimental streak under all that ice. Every year on our anniversary Gertrude used to send us a flower arrangement that was an exact replica of my bridal bouquet.’

‘She must be very popular with her florist,’ Mary observed dryly.

‘Can’t you just see it? She’s ordering the bouquet for Buck’s grave and thinks, “While I’m at it, why not kill two birds with one stone?”’ Noelle conjectured.

‘It sounds more practical than sentimental,’ Mary said.

If Gertrude was still mourning the loss of her grandchild, she thought now, either something wasn’t quite nailed down in her rafters or there was more to it than met the eye.

That evening at seven-thirty sharp, Mary arrived at the Unitarian Church of the Divine Apostles to find its basement social hall jammed nearly to capacity. Reverend Joe Wilcox, a short thick-set man with curly graying hair and an infectious smile that revealed a gap between his front teeth, greeted her warmly at the door.

‘I’d have known you anywhere. You’re exactly as Trish described you,’ he said, clasping her hand in both of his, his gray eyes twinkling.

‘I take it that’s a compliment.’ Mary gave a self-effacing little laugh.

‘You really have no idea, do you?’ The reverend tilted his head to one side, regarding her intently. ‘To hear your sister tell it, the sun rises and sets by you.’

Mary grimaced. ‘I haven’t always walked the straight and narrow.’

‘Maybe that’s what she admires, that you took risks.’

She eyed him more closely. There was clearly more to Reverend Joe than his dog collar might imply. ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ she said, giving his hand a quick squeeze before moving off to find a seat.

Slipping into a chair in back, she looked around. Most of the faces were unfamiliar, but she recognized at least half a dozen, kids she’d gone to school with whose features seemed to peep mischievously from behind sagging jowls and chins, crow’s feet and wrinkles. Helen Haggerty, a former cheerleader and homecoming queen, now quite plump, spotted her and waved, but Helen’s smile didn’t quite reach her small, coldly curious eyes.

To the right of Mary sat Cara Townsend. When they both were sophomores at Lafayette, Cara had been her partner in biology. Now a henna-haired mother with bad teeth and a smoker’s cough, Cara nonetheless hadn’t lost her soft spot for animals. Remembering her partner’s squeamishness at dissecting a frog, Mary wasn’t surprised to hear her remark, ‘Susie, my fourteen-year-old, hasn’t slept a wink since reading those articles in the paper. The idea of all those innocent baby birds being slaughtered—’ Cara broke off to deliver a rattling cough into her handkerchief.

Betty Pinkerton, owner of the Sweet Stuff Bakery on Front Street, heaved her bulk into the empty chair next to Cara. A huge woman who claimed to be a walking advertisement for her wares, she exuded equal amounts of warmth and goodwill.

‘Why, if it isn’t Mary Quinn!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’d heard you were back in town. And Lord, just look at you: skinny as ever. I remember when you and your sister used to stop by the bakery on your way home from school, just beggin’ to be fattened up.’ Betty sat back to fan herself with one of the programs that had been handed out at the door, sprigs of curly white hair fluttering about her face.

Mary smiled at the memory. ‘I still remember your sugar cookies. You used to give us kids all the broken ones.’

‘Still do—when I can get away with it.’ Betty rolled her eyes. ‘Parents these days, you don’t want to know. Why, to hear them tell it, you’d think sugar was the Antichrist.’

Mary winked. ‘Next time I’m in the mood for sin, I’ll stop by.’

Betty’s hearty laugh caused her chins to quiver and sent ripples down her ample bosom. ‘Your daughter, now, she’s not above giving her little girl a cookie to nibble on now and then.’ She leaned over Cara to whisper, ‘Poor thing. I heard what happened. If there’s anything I can do, you be sure and let me know.’

Mary was unexpectedly moved. ‘Thanks, Betty, I will.’

At that moment the lights dimmed. On the projection screen TV in front, the credits were now rolling. A bird’s-eye view of a quaint rural town panned into view, and a man’s voice began to narrate in deep, fulsome tones, ‘Progress. Our pioneer forefathers measured it by their livelihoods and sometimes their lives. They cleared forests and pushed boundaries, not out of greed but out of the simple need to claim their stake in a strange and often hostile new land … .’

Mary glanced at the empty chair to her left. She’d saved it for Charlie, who was running late. Now, cloaked in darkness, she smiled ruefully at the ease with which she’d begun thinking like an old married for whom the world came in twos. After this how would she be able to return to her life of single servings and single beds, tickets for one and seats at the end? It was different with Simon. Unconsciously he must have chosen him for the very reason she found him so frustrating: He was seldom around. When Simon was away, he left no hole in the tightly woven fabric of her life.

She turned her attention back to the film and soon found herself absorbed in its intimate portrayal of ordinary people in a small town very much like this one, grappling with the effects of industrial pollution. So absorbed that when a familiar voice, not Charlie’s, murmured ‘Excuse me, is this seat taken?’ she was startled into dropping her program.

Robert. She glanced up in alarm, but before she could open her mouth to answer, he was settling in beside her. In the dim light he regarded her pleasantly … the way a cat might regard a mouse it was getting ready to make a meal out of.

Mary felt a surge of adrenaline, like when her car skidded on slick pavement or she just missed getting run over by a taxi.

‘I’m sorry, this seat
is
saved,’ she informed him in an icy whisper.

Robert acted as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Mary, what a coincidence finding
you
here.’ His low voice was rich with sarcasm.

‘I said—’

Strong fingers closed about her wrist. ‘I heard you the first time.’ Robert’s tone, in contrast with his steely grip, was almost frighteningly affable. Just as it was beginning to hurt, he released his grip and sat back in his chair, a small smile of triumph on his lips. Out of the corner of his mouth, he murmured, ‘Have I missed much?’

Mary’s mind flew back to their junior year in high school, the night Robert had made a drunken pass at her at a party. When she slapped his hand away, he’d become incensed. ‘Everybody knows what a little whore you are,’ he’d hissed. ‘I’ve heard your boyfriend isn’t the only one slipping it to you.’ Then, with a grin like black ice on a deserted road late at night, he’d vanished into the crowd. She’d spotted him a few minutes later holding court with his jock friends, an arm draped about Corinne’s shoulders while she gazed up at him adoringly.

She’d never told Corinne.

‘You’ll love the ending,’ she whispered back. ‘The town wins a two-hundred-million-dollar class-action suit against the developer.’

She was gratified to see him stiffen ever so slightly. Yet Robert only chuckled softly, saying, ‘I always enjoy a good fight.’

Mary, though, had no stomach for it. Not here, where she couldn’t fight back. Abruptly she stood up and began making her way toward the door. She didn’t need this. Robert was just trying to unnerve her. It wasn’t enough that he’d threatened Charlie. Now it was
her
turn.

She pushed open the door and was climbing the steep flight of steps to the street when Robert’s oh-so-pleasant voice floated toward her. ‘I’m curious about something, Mary. Was it your idea to come back? Because knowing how my wife feels about you, I find it hard to believe
she’d
have asked.’

Mary swung around, her cheeks stinging as if slapped. ‘You
bastard,’
she hissed. ‘How dare you?’

Standing at the bottom of the steps, pooled in shadow, Robert might have been an actor in an old black-and-white movie, his handsome features thrown into stark relief by the glare of a streetlamp, his teeth bared in a mirthless grin. A veteran Hollywood reporter had once told Mary that the true definition of a star is someone who can walk into a crowded room and have people turn around simply because they
feel
his or her presence. The same could be said of evil, she thought. Evil in its purest form was the flip side of stardom, the dark side of the moon, the tunnel at the end of the light.

‘You’re a long way from New York City, Mary,’ he said softly, a slight tic causing his right eyelid to flutter. ‘You have no idea what you’re up against.’

Her heart was pounding. They were alone, and it suddenly occurred to her how easy it would be for him to slip up behind her as she was walking away, to seize her by the throat. She wanted to run but didn’t dare turn her back on him.

She forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘There’s something
I’m
curious about,’ she said. ‘Why would someone with nothing to worry about go to so much trouble to protect his reputation? Or is there more to it than that? Is it going to jail that you’re afraid of?’

He stared at her, his eyes flat and fixed as a cobra’s. ‘Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to stick your hand in where it doesn’t belong? You might get bit.’ His voice was deceptively gentle, that of a father chiding a mischievous child.