Twillyweed (32 page)

I gaped at her. “Look, Paige, your brother Oliver isn't ready to start dating anyone. Didn't you ever listen to Doctor Joy on the radio? He needs a good year on his own before he can even think about—”

“That's easy for some stranger to say,” she interrupted, pooh-poohing this notion, “but loneliness is cruel. Don't you like him at all?”

“Of course I do,” I said.

Angry, she inspected her face in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes it's good to have someone near just to keep the hobgoblins away, even if it's the wrong person.”

She spoke as though she herself might be consoled this way. But I remembered the short-term satisfaction of Enoch in my bed. Then, because she seemed to be in the mood to call a spade a spade, I couldn't resist asking, “The story of the baby? That was Daniel's baby, right?”

“Oh, you know about that, do you? Well, it's all true.”

“But, I never found out what happened to the baby, who adop­ted it.”

She stubbed her cigarette out. “What do you mean? When Daniel's junkie wife overdosed, Mrs. Dellaverna found Teddy and kept him all night. And all the while everyone was out looking for him!”

“Teddy? You mean
he
was that baby with a junkie mother? You mean
Teddy
is Daniel's son?”

“He's my nephew. Well, you know he's my nephew, Claire.”

“But I thought that baby … Mrs. Dellaverna said—”

“Ha-ha. Mrs. Dellaverna. Let me just tell you where she fits in. That baby, our Teddy, wandered off when his mother shot herself up with so much heroin she died with the needle in her arm. Can you imagine? When Daniel came home, he found his wife dead and his baby son missing. That's right. And it was Lina Dellaverna who found Teddy wandering around the beach. The way she tells it, she was out hanging wash and just happened to spot him. She thought she'd put the baby to sleep and then she fell asleep. I don't think she meant to do anything really criminal—she certainly didn't know Janet was dead. She kept him in her cottage all night long and when she saw them searching in the morning, she came out to see what was going on. That's why no one talks to her.”

“My God. How horrible! Why would she do such a thing?”

“She said she wanted to keep him safe. The old witch.”

“But surely she knew you and Oliver would look after him.”

“We were just kids! No one would have given a baby to us. Anyway, Daniel was demented enough before this from an accident; he was slow, but then he really had a breakdown. He couldn't stop searching for the baby even after he was found. He went into a crazy downward spiral he never came out of.”

“Yes,” I murmured thoughtfully, “that was terrible what she did, to keep the baby's father from knowing he was alive.”

“So now you know why everyone dislikes her. And there are other reasons. She tried to kill Noola's cat, by the way. Just ask Teddy. He was there. He saw her. Look, Daniel might be off kilter but he would never purposely hurt someone. He's one of us.”

I leaned back in my seat. “Poor Daniel. Just how … uh … unstable is he? Does he have moments of clarity or is he always sort of
out
there?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes even I don't know. It's hard to determine where emotional disturbance leads off and physical brain damage begins. You know—scar tissue. Let's just put it this way: He's a dimwit. On the other hand, he can do things no one else can. Noola had him tinkering with watches before he was ten. He can still take them apart and put them back together flawlessly.”

“He told me something unnerving when we were on the beach. He said someone gave Noola
bad tea
,” I confided.

“That's ridiculous. He's just parroting something he heard.”

“And really, Paige, I'm just wondering if there could have been any truth to Mrs. Dellaverna trying to hurt a cat. I've seen her with my little kitten and I can't imagine—”

“Claire,” she said, giving me a crippling look, “you don't have to make it all right. You are the most naive person I've ever met!” She turned and looked me full in the face with this seething expression and for a moment I thought she knew everything I felt and was going to hit me. But she wasn't angry; she was upset. She went on, “Look, there's so much you don't know.”

“All right, so please tell me.”

“My family never received an insurance settlement when Daniel was hit by the
For Sail
. His skull was shattered. Well, Noola couldn't do enough for us, for his rehab—she paid for everything. And believe me, it went on for years! It was very different in those days. You didn't sue your friends. It just wasn't done. At least our sort wouldn't. And back then there was plenty of money.”

The significance of what she was saying hit me. I was beginning to understand Morgan's inherited sense of contrition. This certainly explained it.

“Oliver was so young when that happened. So was I. We were just kids.” She switched the radio off and sighed. “It's just … difficult right now since Noola died and Annabel took off.” She held her neck. “Daniel was very close to both of them and seemed to be coming along. He's sort of lost, at the moment. And now with Patsy Mooney—” She turned to me. “Don't think for one moment that Daniel killed Patsy, all right? Don't even think it!”

“I didn't!” I lied. Actually, I'd hoped he had so it wouldn't have been anyone else. We rode in silence. So she, too, suspected someone other than the husband had killed Patsy Mooney. Why, I wondered, was that? Was she just protecting Daniel? So far that she'd let someone else go to jail for what he'd done? I wanted to keep her talking about him. I said, “Doesn't anyone take Daniel out for therapy? You know, like out to sail?”

She gave a scornful laugh. “Who would take him? Oliver? Oliver can't bear to be around him. Daniel's afraid of Morgan—and me. It's all I can do to put his house to a modicum of order! He never lets me take him to a barber. He leaves the tub filthy—”

I said, “I went to see Teddy, yesterday, and—”

“Why?” She shot me another murderous look. “Why are you so interested in— What business is it of yours if—”

“Well, for one thing”—antagonized, now, I finished for her—“my niece is living in a house where murder was committed, okay? For me, that's reason enough. I thought Teddy had no reason to be covering up for anyone and would give me some straight answers. As it happened, Glinty popped up. That's how I found out—”

“Ah! I suppose he told you all our gory financial details. I do everything I can to keep that little monster pacified and he turns around and sells us out at every turn.”

Silently, I agreed.

“And Teddy chimed in and backed him up, I suppose!” she continued. “After I did everything I could to make him self-sufficient, to put him on the right track, the little brat does nothing but blame me. Tell the truth. He does, doesn't he?”

“No,” I said, touched by her moment of vulnerability, “he didn't blame you at all.” I remembered Glinty's peevishness. “It's Glinty who lets loose on everyone, I'd say.”

“Yes, of course. Teddy never blames the men. It's always us women who get the brunt of it with Teddy.” She turned to me and now I saw the resemblance clearly, wondering how I'd ever missed it. Oliver, Paige, Daniel, and Teddy. They all had those dazzling light-blue eyes.

“I'll bet Teddy didn't mention how he grew up at Guardian Angel House,” she spat. “I'll bet he didn't tell you how they would punish him for wetting the bed and I'd have to go and get him, hide him in my closet so Oliver wouldn't drag him back there! And I was young myself!”

“Oh, that's horrible!” We lurched to a halt at a red light.

“Yes, it's horrible. His whole life was horrible. His
good
times were when he was allowed home for holidays to live with his half-wit father. My brother should have died back then when he was smashed in the head. He was meant to. We all would have been better off. Teddy would have gone into foster care and been better off. I know it sounds heathen but it's true!” Hot tears sprang from her eyes and she wiped them away with an angry back of the hand. Then she backed off. “I don't mean it! I don't really wish he'd died!”

“Of course not. It was just all inside and had to come out,” I soothed.

The light turned green. She put her foot down on the gas and took off at such an inappropriate speed that for a moment I wondered if she, too, was unhinged. I held my breath. We were coming into Roslyn now, passing the Americana Mall. Neither of us spoke until we got to St. Francis. I was glad to get out of that car. As we walked through the lobby and past the double doors, Paige calmed down. She knew just what to do, where to go. Her college friend, a woman who was a kind of thicker version of herself—the same single strand of pearls and chic, nubby jacket (I was in just such a go-to-get-a-job-jacket of my sister's)—met us at the elevator and walked us right through to the lab. I was put into a chair to fill out a lot of insurance forms and then a comforting, heavyset black lady in mahogany lipstick bumped in transporting a whole collection of blood in glass vials on a trolley. She sat down across from me and, rolling up my sleeve, clucked away my nervousness. It was over before I could break into a sweat. As we walked back to the parking lot, I got the feeling Paige was upset again. “What's up?” I asked her.

She got in the car and pulled her seat belt across. “I mentioned Doctor Varanasi to the tech while you were in the ladies' room—the doctor Annabel ran away with?”

“Yeah?”

“She said he never even stayed down in Virginia. He didn't like it. He came right back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh. He never gave up his job here.”

“Could it be that Annabel didn't actually leave town with him? Could she have left with someone else?”

“Don't be silly! Annabel wrote to Oliver and told him all about it.”

“Where were the letters from?”

Paige thought a moment. I could tell she was rattled. “First Jersey. No, first that hotel in the city. Then Toms River. Then Virginia. They were settling there. That's what she wrote.”

“Wouldn't you want to call him up and check this out with him?”

“Oh, sure. Let the whole world know she deserted Oliver!” She eased the car onto Port Washington Boulevard.

I said, “I'm beginning to think Annabel never left Sea Cliff at all. I think there might have been foul play.”

“What do you mean?” Her fingers trembled as she lit a cigarette.

“I have a strong hunch Annabel might be dead.”

“Stop it. You're just paranoid because of Patsy. It's possible they broke up and went their separate ways, but I doubt it. I
read
her letters, Claire. They're in her handwriting. She's very clearly alive. And”—Paige snorted—“having fun, in the biblical sense.”

I sensed that she was holding something back. “Someone could have forged those letters.”

She avoided my eyes. “You mean Glinty?”

That stopped me. I hadn't been thinking of him at all.

Paige went on, “Why, because he knows how to forge? Oh, I saw how you noticed the paintings were copies. You were shrewd, not saying a word.”

Paintings? Forgeries? This was getting better and better.

“But no,” she persisted, “I know her handwriting. She has that affected tiny script with all the curlicues. A forger wouldn't have known to mimic them. I might not be good at relationships but I notice things. Small things. Like, she'd put a little sort of squiggle under combinations of vowels.
I
before
E
. Maybe she had trouble spelling and it was a sort of trick to remember. A forger wouldn't know about that.”

I wondered how she could be so certain? If someone can forge paintings, he can certainly forge letters. Can't he? Then a thought chilled me. Could
she
have had something to do with Annabel's disappearance? I said, “About the paintings …”

“All right, it's true. Oliver hired Glinty to make copies of them. Morgan knew he did it. He looked the other way because he didn't want Oliver to get in trouble with the insurance company.”

“Don't we turn here, Paige? Where are you going?”

“I'm sorry. I was distracted. I'll drive around and back. Oh, never mind, I'll just take Northern Boulevard. It's probably faster now anyway with the traffic.”

We drove along, both of us longingly eyeing Anthropologie, neither of us able to afford their peppery, stylish clothes.

“There's going to be a town yard sale this afternoon.” She looked at the time. “It's still early enough so we can have our pick of the stuff.”

“Do you think we should go after all that's happened?”

“Of course. It's for charity.”

“Everything's for charity in Sea Cliff,” I grumbled. Then I saw her face. “Oh, I'm just cranky because I haven't much money to spend.”

She gave me a piercing look. “This is not about you, Claire.”

“I'm sorry. You're right. And I am grateful to you for arranging my blood test.”

“Good. Let's just hope it works out all right. Come on, we'll go. It'll be good for us to be away from the house.” She relaxed, arranging her pearl strands in the mirror. “We wouldn't want people to think
we
felt guilty, after all. And it's a nice walk, the yard sale. Take our minds off … things. You'll enjoy it. And Morgan will be there. You like him, don't you?”

“Sure,” I answered, overbright. She knew I did. Why would she ask me that? Hadn't she warned me off him at the club? He was hers, after all. Was she trying to rub it in?

“He always comes,” she went on, suddenly in a good mood, “and he has a good eye, always finds something valuable for nothing. He has the knack. I could just kill him.”