Twillyweed (28 page)

“I'll come with you.”

“No. You stay here with Wendell. Put the statue in my car, the door's open. I'll make up some excuse. Now what was his name, the priest? Oh, yes, I remember; it's Father Steger.”

I gave Jenny Rose the key to the cottage and told her to take the bike. Wendell would love to ride on the back and it would distract him.

She hesitated with the key in her open palm. “Patsy Mooney had a fancy little key on a chain around her neck. I think it's the key that winds the clock.”

“Why?”

“It was red.”

“Well, it won't do her any good where she is now.”

“No, but if it's gone—maybe someone killed her
for
it.

I slipped out into the yard and took out my cell phone, dialed 411, and got the number for the rectory at Margaret Mary. No secretary answered when I called there, it was such a tiny parish, but the answer machine tape that picked up was the German-accented voice of an old priest. He gave another number in case of emergency. I called it but it went right to voicemail. I took a chance and left one, saying I had information concerning a missing statue and then I left my number. I realized I'd forgotten to leave my name and started to call back and then I gave it up. I leaned wearily against the fieldstone fence. Enough already. We were in a real pickle here and I was going to have to swallow my pride and ask Johnny, my ex-husband, for help. I punched in his number. There was no answer and it rang right into the message box like when he's off gambling, so I tried the precinct. Johnny is retired, but you'll often as not find him skulking around in his old precinct. “Nah, I ain't seen Benedetto around,” I was told. But he hesitated before he said it—like he knew something I didn't, so I got worried.

I called my son, Anthony. He answered the phone with a preemptive, “Ma, I'm in lab.”

“I'm sorry, Anthony, I just want to know where Daddy is. I can't reach him and it's kind of important.”

There was a moment of silence. Then he said, “You mean you don't know?”

“Know what?”

“He took Portia away to get engaged.”

“What?”

“You really didn't know?”

I was speechless and sank down onto a large rock. There was this fieldstone wall covered with lapis blue flowers to the left of me. I couldn't think of the flower's name. Really blue, they were.

His voice softened. “They went to the Riviera Maya, Ma. I can't believe nobody told you.”

My mind whirled. Exactly who would it be left to tell me such a thing?

“Ma? You okay? You want me to come home?”

It was his concerned voice and the realization that he'd leave school to see to me that finally clicked me back into reality. Lobelia. That was the name of the blue flower. Indigo blue and now locked in my mind for always representing my ex-husband's new love. “I am … I'm fine. I just …” I pulled myself up. “… didn't know.”

After I assured Anthony I was all right—I wasn't, but what good would it do to upset him yet again about his father—I didn't know what to do. So I went back in and told Mr. Piet I
had
to talk to the detective in charge, but he was still interviewing Morgan. I tried to eavesdrop to find out how long it was going to take and overheard them dishing about someone's sailboat. From the tone of their voices they seemed unconcerned. I heard them laugh. God! I had to think. I lied and announced I had to go to Queens. Oliver wanted to come with me and for a moment I was tempted, imagining us together tooling top down in his theatrical red convertible—a girl is, after all, human—but I put him off. Instead I took my car and went back to the Great White.

When I got there, I peered through the screen. Jake was asleep and dreaming, running conscientiously after some bad dog, his front and rear rights digging at the air. The kitten was curled up asleep, right on top of him like a hat bobbing along on a bumpy train. I went for my key and realized I'd given it to Jenny Rose, then opened the door anyway because I hadn't locked it. I went in and my cell phone rang, waking them both. I walked back outside with Jake leaping beside me and answered the phone. It was Father Steger. I sat down on a milk crate beside the sundial.

“I just got your message,” he said excitedly in a thick accent. “I was blowing down the boiler.” His breathing was labored.

I said right away, “Yeah, look, Father, I found your statue.”

You could practically see him close his eyes in relief. “Thank God!”

“I got these two blue stones, too. I'm pretty sure they're the eyes.” I walked around the yard, savoring his delight. “I can't come today, but I'll drive over tomorrow, okay?” He didn't seem unnecessarily curious as to how I'd got them. I guess in his line of work you hear no end of stories.

“What can I do to reward you?” he asked, not too eagerly, afraid I was going to ask for money because that was one thing he didn't have. I knew the type. The soles of his shoes would be worn down to the leather and he wouldn't have had a haircut in a while. He'd be sprinkled with dandruff and dotted with canned soup stains. That's the thing. Just because of the bad apples you read so much about, everyone neglects the idea of fine priests. And yet on and on they go, don't they, never complaining, just visiting the sick and giving out Communion and Last Rites, despite the bad rap. You'd really think they'd let these poor fellows have wives.

“Nah, don't thank me,” I said, then changed the subject, “Say, Father, you didn't see the guy who hit you, did you?”

“No. He got me from behind. But I fell on his arm. I know that.”

“So what else did he take?”

“Some rosaries,” he began. I waited. “Several rosaries,” he went on. “You wouldn't believe what they charge now for the crystal ones. People are very touchy about their rosaries. I expected to see someone come back for that nice lavender one. From Fatima, I believe. Pity, that was.”

“Nothing else taken that day?”

“Nothing of value, no.”

Because he hesitated, I went on, “But was anything else missing?”

“Just this and that. It's the statue my parishioners want back.”

“What do you mean exactly, ‘this and that'?”

“Well. There was some cash. He took that. Forty-two dollars. And he took our old lost-and-found box full of stuff parishioners left. Old things.” He was rambling on, “Eyeglasses. Watches. Rosaries. Some jewelry … nothing expensive.”

My ears perked up. “Jewelry?”

“Well, mostly glasses—they all looked about the same. Magnifiers, mostly. There was a pair with red frames, I remember. You know. Cheaters. Those you find in the pharmacy. Prescriptions people would have come looking for. But I told all this already to the police.”

All these questions were making him suspicious. So I told him I'd be down tomorrow and I let him go. The dog jumped up to sniff the package that looked like it might be from the butcher. I put the statue down on the outside wooden table and unfolded the thing. I stood her up. I took the gems from the bag in my pocket and with calm fingers snapped them easily into place where they belonged. One fell right out so I went in and got the Krazy Glue from the fridge, came out, and fastened them both in good. They seemed to move like living eyes. Together, Jake and I beheld the statue. She was complete again, and none the worse for wear. She looked good there. Then out of the blue I started remembering things. Like Morgan collecting antique watches, and his wounded wrist the day Radiance had nearly drowned. I got out my phone and called Father Steger back, and when he answered, I shouted, “Hello, Father Steger, it's me again, Claire Breslinsky, I hope I'm not disturbing you.”

“Never mind.” He sighed, resigned.

“Father, in the box of stuff that went missing, could there have been a very valuable watch, in there?”

“Oh, I don't think so. My parishioners are not the fancy ones, you know.”

“I know, but sometimes antique watches look like gaudy, cheap things unless you're looking for them. Or even one of the plain ones that might seem just old …”

“No, I'm afraid not,” he said decisively.

“Hmm.” I sat there for a minute both relieved and disappointed and gazed unthinking into the blue water shimmering in the distance behind the statue.

He offered, “Mind you, I'll miss that box.”

I patted Jake absently.

“That was a lovely old box. Bronze, it was. Heavy.”

“How? Bronze?”

“Well, it just had a nice glow about it. The lid was a sort of dial. Ya, a moon dial, Father von Ritasdorf had told me it was. He was German, too, you know, from Schwenningen in the Black Forest. Had all sorts of gizmos in his room when he died. Ya, I'll miss that box.”

My ears began to ring. “A really good box?” I egged him on.

“Let me see, what did he call it? A lunar something …” Father muttered. “
Ach
, yes, a lunar volvelle it was, some gadget that is said to allow one to tell time by the moonlight. It sat on the top of the box like a decoration, if you can believe it, such a nice thing.”

Morgan's very words came back to me and my heart sank.
Moon dials
, he'd murmured,
I'm mad for them.

“Very old,” Father was saying. “Ah, well. We'll all be gone one day.”

“Yes, Father.” I looked around worriedly. I'd been alone, but now I had the uneasy feeling I was being watched. It was a creepy feeling, and I took the statue and the dog and carried the phone into the house and locked the door. I said, “Say, Father? There's one thing you could do for me … would you bless the house?”

“Sorry?”

“I mean this house where I am.”

“Over the phone?”

“Well. It's just a little house.”

I was waiting for him to object, but then I realized the silence meant he was praying and so I was silent, too. I held the phone up and closed my eyes. When he was finished, he said so.

“Gee, thanks, Father. Maybe you'll come out here when you have some time,” I suggested. “Your old friend Father Schmidt lives out here at St. Greta's. You could see him, too.”

“Oh, Schmidty, yes,” he remembered dismissively. “Still got that floozy cooking for him?”

Could he possibly mean Mrs. Lassiter? “Er … I'm not sure.” I frowned. “And, Father, thanks.”

“Well, thank
you
,” he said. “May God be with you.”

But it wasn't only God who was with me because I really did hear a noise at the side of the house. And then I remembered Daniel. No doubt he'd seen me at his house. He knew it was me who'd taken his doll. A chill went up my spine. He wouldn't come looking for it, would he? I hid the statue in the button closet and went to the door. No one was there. “Want to go for a ride?” I asked Jake. He gangled to attention. He'd found his own spot here in Sea Cliff right away, Jake had, and he was very cozy, having made a cave for himself under Noola's old hassock with a view out the screen door so he could squeeze his eyes at squirrels. “Have a drink before we go,” I told him. And what do you know, he went and slopped up the rest of the water in his water dish. You can have your pedigree dogs. Mutts are the ticket.

I took Jake and we got in my car and drove east along the coast road where the traffic was sparse, and then after a while there was no traffic at all. My head spun. As much as my suspicions kept insisting Morgan must have something to do with it, I longed for this not to be so. And of course I had no inkling of proof. It was all just some dreaded hunch. Motive he would have had. But murder? The sun was high and I stayed in sight of water as long as I could, treating myself to the lush glimpses of prosperity the North Shore offered, turning off onto a charming lane where the sun broke through thick canopies of green. There's something mollifying about wealth: the rolling hills and white corrals like you'd see in Kentucky, private drives up to ghastly miniature French châteaus and Normandy Tudors. I found myself suddenly before a farm with a vineyard and pies for sale. No way I could pass this up. And there was no man in the car to stop me! I pulled over, let Jake run around awhile then went in. There were actual peaches like from childhood, small, fuzzy things hot from sunshine. They looked like they really would taste like fresh Georgia peaches. There were homegrown tomatoes, big and tiny ones all basketed together and—I was helpless now—hand-embroidered dishtowels. In all these things, I lost myself. I forgot about Daniel and Sea Cliff and Morgan and Jenny Rose and even Enoch. I was a young girl again, in a barn with tubs of fresh-cut unshucked corn and blackberry jams, in red-and-white-checkered, pinking-sheared hats.

After spending lots of money and leaving myself with little till the end of the week, I felt no guilt whatsoever. I rather relished my booty; for what is a woman's life without these precious fanciful necessities? I climbed back into my Cruiser with Jake, driving into the sudden, uneasy realization that it was far too early for peaches, tomatoes, or even corn and that everything I'd just fallen for had been carted off some bruising, farting Bronx Terminal market truck. As the road gleaned eastward, my mind—that evidently had kept on ticking while I had shopped, which is the marvel of shopping—had loosened and freed itself and told me to head for one more place. I'd seek out Teddy. I had to talk to someone who'd level with me. He worked at some restaurant with the same bug name as the town, didn't he? What was the name? I'd lost my way by now so I pulled into a garden center in Oyster Bay and it came to me of its own accord. Locust Valley. “How would I get to Locust Valley?” I asked the pleasant, sun-wrinkled woman who seemed about my own age.

“You can't get there from here,” she warned me. “You'll have to go back.”

“How far back?”

“All the way until you can't go any more.”