A Skeleton in the Closet (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (13 page)

We spent a pleasant few minutes poking among the flats of vegetable and floral seedlings at Comstock,
Ferre
& Company, then crossed the road and headed downhill to the Cove. Basking in the warmth of the sun that had finally decided to acknowledge that it was summer, it was difficult to accept that we had passed the longest day of the year and were already losing a minute or two of daylight each day.

“What’s with the stomach upsets? You seem to be having a lot of them lately. Are you feeling all right?
Everything okay with John and Charlie?”
I asked as we crossed the Cove’s sandy parking lot and paused at the water’s edge, causing my perceptive friend to cut her eyes sideways at me. My tone had been too casual, and she knew me too well. She
stooped
briefly to pick up a handful of pebbles and stood tossing them into the cove. A mirthless smile accentuated the turmoil in her eyes, which were the color of the Caribbean
sea
.

“You’re right, of course. I’m pregnant. Six weeks gone, as near as I can figure. I was crazy to think you and Margo wouldn’t pick up on it for a while yet.” Plunk, plunk went the pebbles. I struggled to find the right words to say.

“But that’s wonderful! Charlie must be so excited, and John … well, he must be over the moon. What did he say when you told him the news?” I decided not to ask why she had not wanted Margo and me, her partners and best friends in the world, to know yet.

The pebbles were gone, but
Strutter
continued to stare at the horizon. Then she made her decision and turned to face me. “I haven’t told John yet or Charlie, either. I don’t know if I’m going to.” She shrugged forlornly, and a tear straggled down her beautiful face.

“Don’t know if you’re going to …
here,
let’s sit down for a minute.” I shoved her gently in the direction of a convenient bench and fumbled in my pocket for a tissue. “Now what’s this all about? Spill it.”

Strutter
sat on the bench with uncharacteristic meekness and honked into the tissue. A quick glance around reassured me that we had the place practically to ourselves. The only other people in sight were a young couple walking their dog up toward the road. “I’m sure you’re right about Charlie. He’d be out of his mind happy at the thought of a little brother or even a little sister.” She paused. “It’s John I’m not so sure about.”

I ran a scenario through my head of her breaking the news to John Putnam and could imagine nothing but his handsome face wreathed in smiles. “But I know John was never married before, and he doesn’t have any children. So this is his big chance! Every man wants a namesake.”

“Maybe not.
John’s not a sweet young thing of thirty-seven like me, you know.” She smiled bleakly. “He’s fifty-one years old, Kate. In his mind, that’s
grampa
territory, not an age when anyone wants to be up all night with a screaming baby.”

I had to admit that I had never given the difference in age between
Strutter
and John a moment’s thought. They had fallen for each other like a ton of bricks, and the joy they radiated obliterated any reservations they might have about something as unlikely as more children. The sobering reality of a possibly fractious infant shed a somewhat different light on the matter. “But surely you discussed this …”

“…
before
we got married?”
Strutter
finished my question for me. “Actually, we didn’t. I know that seems odd, but, well, there was Charlie, and John was so taken by him, it seemed as if our little family was already in place. A son that age is just right for John, and Charlie followed him around like a puppy from the first time they met. John is the father he never had and always longed for. It was all perfect.”

I cleared my throat, uncertain of how to phrase my next question. “But
Strutter
, unless you went into this marriage intending to be celibate—and the way you and John can’t stand next to each other unless you’re holding hands, I know
that’s
not true—you had to acknowledge the possibility of conceiving a child. As you point out, you’re still in your prime, Girl. Weren’t you being … careful?”

Again, the sad smile.
“Sure, mostly.
But once in a while, we’d get careless, and as I have good reason to know, once is apparently all is takes. Charlie spent the night with a friend back in the early part of May, and we opened a bottle of good wine, and … well, here I am, knocked up like a teenager and just about as scared.”

Concerned, I could understand. Upset was even within my ken. But scared? I turned in my seat and took her hands in my own. Despite the heat of the afternoon, they were icy cold. “Now what on earth do you have to be frightened about?
Surely not John.”

She squeezed my hands reassuringly. “No, no. You know that man doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. John would be supportive, no matter what his feelings might be about this, which is why I haven’t told him yet. No, it’s not John I’m afraid of. It’s me.”

I squinted at her, struggling to understand. “You’re being just a tad oblique here. I’m afraid you’re going to have to spell it out for me.”

Her eyes met mine fully for the first time. “I’m afraid that my carelessness about birth control is about to ruin the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m afraid of what this news will do to John’s and my marriage and his beautiful relationship with my son. And maybe most of all, in order to prevent all of that happening
,
I’m afraid I’m going to have to have an abortion and carry the awful guilt of it to my grave.” And at last, the long-repressed tears burst free in great, shaking sobs as I held her and patted her gently on the back.

As I waited for the storm to pass, I considered what she had confided to me. I could understand the cause of her distress. Whatever one’s personal views happened to be about a woman’s right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, I knew that abortion remained a very personal issue. I also knew that for all of her loving tolerance of other people’s choices, abortion had to be a last-ditch option for my Baptist-reared friend. Her back would really have to be against the wall for her even to consider it.

For all of her Jamaican gorgeousness,
Strutter
was not a tidy weeper. After five minutes of full-out blubbering, her sobs subsided, and she raised a reddened, blotchy face. My one tissue had long since passed the point of no return, so she had no choice but to wipe her streaming eyes and nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me do this. Oh, god. Now I have a headache.” She finished mopping her face and rolled up her sleeves to conceal the evidence of her inelegance.

“
Mmmm
.
A good cry can be very therapeutic, but the headache is the price.
A little better now?”

“I guess so.” Briefly, she put her head down between her knees.
“Increases the blood flow.
Good for a headache,” she explained in a muffled voice. After a minute she rolled back to an upright position. “Let’s start back, okay?”

I nodded, and we got to our feet, heading slowly back through the parking lot to the street above. The air was noticeably cooler in the early evening, and it seemed as if all of Wethersfield had retreated to their homes and local restaurants for an early dinner.

“What should I do, Kate? I know it’s not fair of me to ask you, but I need your advice. What would you do in my place?”

For a moment, I actually tried to put myself in
Strutter’s
shoes. What would I do if I were faced with her dilemma? Then I realized the impossibility of trying to answer such a question, even hypothetically, and abandoned the effort. “I couldn’t possibly know that unless it happened to me, and with the hot flashes I’m having, that’s extremely unlikely. This sort of situation has way too many variables for me even to hazard a guess. There are the ages of the two people, how they feel about each other, where they are in their lives when it happens, who else is involved. But most importantly, I’m not you, and you’re not me. There is no one, right answer, Sweetie. I will be thrilled if you and John decide to have this baby, and you all live happily ever after, but only you can decide if that’s right for you and yours.”

We trudged on in silence,
Strutter
massaging the back of her neck with one hand. “I know, I know. I just don’t know how to do that.”

 
“Maybe you’re not giving John enough credit here,” I pointed out cautiously. “After all, he’s not some seventeen-year-old kid. He’s a mature man, and maturity could work to your advantage here. He fathered that baby you’re carrying. Don’t you think he deserves some say in how this all turns out? You’re in this together, and I think you’re making a mistake by keeping it from him.” Nervously, I darted a glance at
Strutter
to see how she received this pronouncement, but she was too weary and headachy to take umbrage.

“I guess you could be right,” she replied with uncharacteristic acquiescence. “Maybe I should tell him, I don’t know. It’s just that once I do, I can’t take it back. It will be out there, shadowing everything else in our lives.” She sighed heavily as we reached our cars. “I promise to give it some more thought tonight. By the way, what does Margo have to say about this? Oh, come on,” she protested when I didn’t answer right away. “I’m quite sure that Margo is well aware of my condition. She notices everything.”

I admitted that Margo and I had both at least suspected that she was with child. “She was as tickled as I was initially. We just couldn’t understand why you were keeping such wonderful news all to yourself, but we knew it was your decision to make.” I stopped uncomfortably.

“Well, at least I’ve made that decision. Let’s see how I do with the next one.”

Seven

Margo had predicted accurately that I wouldn’t get much sleep, but it wasn’t caffeine or even
agita
about Armando moving in that kept me tossing and turning. I had pretty much made my peace with that for the moment. It would be what it would be, and I would deal with it as it happened. No, it was
Strutter
and her dilemma that was on my mind, followed closely by the man in the black van, and after that by the
Henstock
sisters’ difficult situation.

Lavinia
and
Ada
and
Strutter
and John all
pinwheeled
through my overactive brain until dawn, when, bleary eyed,
I
untangled myself from the sheets and plodded into the kitchen for some coffee. Jasmine appeared to beg for some tuna fish, and I was glad to be able to solve her problem, since I had no idea what to do about anyone else’s.

Shortly before eight o’clock, I shut both cats into my bedroom with a litter box, water, and a bowl of
crunchies
. They were accustomed to this drill on days when I had outside workmen in to do the rugs or windows or one repair or another, and they accepted their fate fairly philosophically. The patch of sunshine on my bed was just as good for napping as the one in the living room, after all.

Before heading for the office, I dialed Armando’s number. “How’s it going?” I asked, determined to be cheerful. “All set for the movers?”

“They are already here, and no, I am not ready! I will talk to you later.” Bang, down went the receiver. Not a good omen, I thought; but once again, I shrugged off my misgivings. Moving day was always awful. This one would pass, and then the worst would be over.

I let myself into the Law Barn, remembering my promise to get our anonymous letters to John
Harkness
today. The scene in the lobby as I approached Jenny’s desk was pure
déjà vu.
Once again, Jenny sat holding a newspaper clipping in her hand. I said good morning and bent to read it over her shoulder. It was another story about the University of Connecticut’s corpse flower, which apparently would reach its full and hideous glory sometime within the next week. A webcam had been installed so that anyone could tap into
UConn’s
website and witness the foul-smelling flora at a safe distance, but those with less delicate sensibilities were lining up around the clock to visit the botany lab in person.

“So what’s today’s message for us poor sinners?” I asked Jenny when she turned the clipping sideways to read the blue block printing in its margin.