A Novel Death (22 page)

"Mommy, Mommy!" Jane was tugging at my bare arm. "Caitlyn!"

"What?"

I looked around, seeing Caitlin nowhere, and then leaped up still holding Hannah, and ran to the shore. All I could see were reeds and cloudy water. The water didn't even ripple.

"Janie, did she fall in?" I scanned the grass around and behind us, trying to remember how I had dressed Hannah's twin that morning. But she was nowhere.

Jane began to cry.

"Watch Hannah!" I sat her down on the bank and waded in, then plunged abruptly deeper, thrashing my arms beneath the water and calling, calling. Other people came over right away and started searching too, and soon the police had sent divers in. But we never found her. The police suspected me briefly, I suppose, but enough people had seen us all in the park-"Such a darling tot!" one English woman told the papers-so no one thought I had done away with her somewhere else.

"So how come no one saw her fall in?" Colin agonized angrily. "How come none of these people noticed that?"

When the unthinkable happens, you still have other children to care for. Hannah didn't really know what had happened, but we couldn't get Jane, almost four, to settle down and go to sleep. I was trying to leave the girls' room when she screamed, "No! The lady will get me."

I stared at her. "What lady?"

"The lady who took Cate!" And she started to sob all over again.

We couldn't get any description of "the lady," though we tried. We called the police that same night; they posted her picture and reinterviewed everyone who had been in the park. No one had seen anything. A police psychologist speculated that Jane felt so guilty about letting her sister wander into the water that she had invented a "bad lady" to blame instead. My little girl's body was never found, and there were never any substantial leads to show she had been kidnapped.

Perhaps it was wrong to never talk about it again. But the alternative seemed to be getting mired in grief and recrimination forever and take the other three children there too.

Climbing into the van, I stuck the key in the ignition. But I did not go anywhere. Only four of us walked off the plane in New York that September and a month later Jason was born. Tragedy left us alone for a few years until my father died much too early, at 71, from a brain tumor. My mother was not part of the new longevity either. Even Raj, my gallant little cat, was getting on in years, his muzzle gone gray. How soon before I would be holding him on the vet's silver table, kissing him good-bye?

I crossed my arms over the steering wheel and wept. Life was a cheap trick, a fair promising penny candy to keep you from realizing what it actually was. I could not tell if my tears were for my lost little girl, my parents, for Raj, or for Amil who had died so young in a foreign country. Perhaps Margaret, whose life had been hijacked, was part of the mix. Maybe I wept too for my lost marriage, for the dreamy young mother who never thought anything so terrible could happen to her.

I took the blame for everything, letting my tears wash out every grubby corner. Finally, lifting my head, I wiped at my eyes and drove home. I wanted to call someone, but who? Not Colin, who I secretly believed had never gotten over blaming me. To my other children it was just a dream.

Only one other person had known Caitlyn.

There is a theory that if you're feeling bad anyway, you might as well get other unpleasant things out of the way. I decided it was time to talk to Patsy.

My niece, Annie Laurie, answered, and after asking, in a whisper, when I'd come out and take her to McDonald's, she put her mother on.

"Delhi?"

"Hey, Pat."

Then neither of us said anything for a moment.

"Oh, Del, I've been thinking about you all day."

"Don't make me start crying again."

"You never heard anything?"

"No:'

More silence. Finally she sighed. "Want to tell me what's going on with Colin?"

"Sure." I told her, expecting she would have a lot of advice, tips on how she handled her own successful marriage. But all she said when I finished was, "Well, men are just dessert"

Dessert? I had a sudden memory of Ben making a fuss over me at their party, knowing how it would irritate Patsy.

"A lot of empty calories," I agreed.

When we finished the conversation I held the receiver for a moment, stunned by how much better she had made me feel. Maybe if I didn't come out swinging ...

By the time I ate my turkey wrap and salad and walked out to the barn, my meltdown was fading into memory. The yard had caught pieces of sunlight, golden patches that lingered on the barn windows and the water. As I passed the pond I stopped and checked for fish, but they had retired under the blanket of bright green duckweed for the night. The evening held its breath, a Maxfield Parrish painting. I was alive inside it.

Then a blast announced the ferry's arrival, my neighbor's puppy yelped, and on the next block an ice cream truck tinkled "Turkey in the Straw."

But as soon as I went out to the barn and locked myself in, a sense of uneasiness came back.

The first thing I did was dial Jane's apartment. When her machine went on, I left another message. "Hi, it's Mom. Just wanted you to know everything's fine here. One of these days we'll catch up with each other. Love you!" After that I called Jason and was actually able to find him home. Colin was still disgusted with him for dropping out of Pratt, impatient with his struggle to find the meaning of his life. "He's not doing anything," Colin fumed. "He's not even painting ashtrays! Or bagging groceries. I'm giving him a year before I cut him off."

Where had I heard that before?

I worked until after ten, pricing art catalogs, and finalized my schedule for Saturday morning sales. I did not hear from oceans9 that night.

Saturday began like every other Saturday in recent memory, though the ending was far different.

I was up very early and off to several estate sales in Nassau County. I don't bother with "Moving Sales" or those where a group of neighbors band together to sell off their extra stuff. But rummage sales by large organizations can be worthwhile, and the good thing about library sales is that they only have books.

During the morning I ran into Marty rushing from one house to another, cell phone plastered to his ear. Roger, the Bookie, followed him, rose-tinted glasses glinting, but he stopped long enough to order, "Meet me in Starbucks in Malverne at twelve thirty." At a house in Great Neck I had a chance to wave at the Hoovers. But I didn't see Jack Hemingway disguised as Papa, and Howard Riggs was no doubt in Port Lewis dourly tending his shop.

I was curious if Roger actually had something to tell me or if this was his idea of a date. But I waited in an overstuffed chair and, just before twelve thirty, he came in. He went to the counter for cappuccinos, then sat on the sofa on my right. "Have a good morning?"

I shrugged. "Okay. I found this copy of The Great Gatsby inscribed `Dear Ernie, Stick this in your boxing glove, Scott.' But they wanted ten dollars, so I didn't get it."

He reared back in shock, and then saw that I was teasing him. "Yeah, shouldn't waste your money. But speaking of-it looks like Margaret's find has disappeared with her." He watched me intently.

"Don't ask me."

"No?"

"You said you thought it was black interest. But why do people want things that are caricature?"

He pounced. "Who said it was caricature?"

"A lot of those things are. And the things from well-meaning people might be even harder to take than those that were meant to be cruel."

He shrugged. "I'll take them all the way to the bank. C'mon, Delhi, I've seen it all. From Aunt Jemima, to stuff that would uncurl your hair. But it's all history now."

"Are most of your collectors black or white?"

"Depends. Why?"

"Just curious." But I suddenly felt as if I had Little Black Sambo tattooed across my forehead. Time for another subject. And then my cell phone rang. I fished around for it in my woven bag. "Hello?"

"Frank Marselli. I need to talk to you"

"Okay.,,

"Where are you?"

"In Nassau. I can be home in an hour"

"See you then."

What had happened? I took one more sip of coffee. "I have to go. That was the police about Margaret."

Frustration warred with curiosity in his face. "What's going on?"

"He didn't say."

"No, I mean-"

But I was already standing. And then I was gone.

I had hoped for time to change out of my sweaty shorts and T-shirt. But Marselli was already on my porch. Instead of his tan suit, he was wearing a white dress shirt and gray chinos.

"Hi!" I said, jumpy as a teenager meeting a blind date. "Do you want to sit out here? Or in back? We could always go inside."

He looked at me. "Here's fine. I won't keep you long."

We sat down in white wicker chairs on the front porch, a small table between us.

"How long have you known Ms. Weller?"

I thought. "I was living here when she opened the bookstore about eight years ago. Actually, it was already a bookshop, but a dive. She really fixed it up. But we didn't get to be friends until I started selling books."

"Did she ever talk about her marriage?"

"Just that it was a long time ago. She said she took back her own name."

He pursed his dark lips thoughtfully. "You knew Lily Carlyle?"

"Not well. But ... yes."

"What kind of a relationship did she and Ms. Weller have?" The wicker creaked as he pressed back, as if he was imagining himself in a rocking chair.

"They were very close, for sisters. They did everything together. Margaret was devastated when she died."

"Sisters. They ever fight?"

"I guess."

"Ms. Weller ever tell you Lily was moving to Atlanta?"

"No!" And then I thought of the closet that had been swept bare, the glass cases with half their treasures missing.

"Ms. Weller's house was ransacked. Twice," he said, with a hard look at me.

"I didn't-" The porch, which had been in shade all day, felt chilly. I cupped my hands over my upper arms.

"Any idea what they were looking for?"

I reminded myself that I was being questioned by the police. Rubbing my hands up and down my arms to warm them, I murmured, "I think it was a book."

"What book?"

I'm sorry, Margaret. "It's The Story of Little Black Sambo."

"What? You mean the tigers?" He sent his hand in a circular motion. I saw that he wore a college ring with a many-faceted red stone and wondered where he had gone to school.

"The tigers," I agreed. "Margaret had a copy, a first edition. A hundred years old."

"Yeah? It's that old?"

I hesitated. "Published in 1899 and signed by the author."

"I guess she owns a lot of books."

"Sure. She has her pick of whatever comes into the shop. And books are good investments."

"Yeah?" He straightened in his chair, "But that's not what most thieves are looking for. When people find out someone's in the hospital and the house is empty, they take it as an invitation."

"Did they take a lot of things?"

"Some stuff."

"Maybe Lily sent some of it to Atlanta"

"Maybe. We'll check."

He stood up to leave.

"But when can I see Margaret?"

"Tomorrow morning. I'll call you."

"Will I need to make sure I'm not being followed?"

"No. Just go the way you usually would."

"But couldn't somebody-" Ah. If anyone followed me, the police would be there waiting. I thought of something else. "Whatever happened about the Stony Brook professor Amil had a run-in with? Ruth something?"

He shifted his eyes towards the yard as though he were going to give me his standard line about not giving out information, and then said, "She's in Dublin this summer taking a language course. People have seen her there every day."

"But you let Russell Patterson go."

He moved to the steps. "I'll call you tomorrow," he said and was gone.

I had finally done the right thing, telling him about Little Black Sambo. And it hadn't mattered. It probably had nothing to do with Amil anyway, and that was what Frank Marselli cared about. I suddenly remembered the threatening e-mail messages from oceans9 that I hadn't told him about. Still, they seemed to have stopped. It was almost as if the writer knew that Sambo had taken his green umbrella and left the premises.

By that evening I had carried all my Saturday purchases out to the book barn. Feeling energized-an infusion of promising books will do that to you-I settled down to work. After double-locking the door, I switched on the computer to find out if any of the books I had bought were more valuable than I thought.

I was congratulating myself for picking up an illustrated guide to mechanical banks, put out by a specialty publisher and a rarity, when I heard a noise in the yard. I stopped typing and sat very still. The noise came again. It was a different sound from the scurrying of mice and chipmunks. This sound had a human rhythm. It seemed to come from the far window, as if someone had crept into the shrubbery to watch me. Keeping my hand on the computer mouse, I strained to hear the next sound. It came as a soft rustling.