Embers (8 page)

"Lieutenant," she said — because that was how she thought of him since the gun business. "I know you think I mother my sister too much. But in some ways she's young for her age, whereas —"

"— I'm old for mine?" he suggested cheerfully. "More war-weary? More cynical?"

"Yes. All of those things," Meg said, annoyed by his flippancy.

She stood up and tried again. "We're a very close-knit family. My mother died when Allie was three. I took care of Allie until I married, and then, after my husband died, I came back and Allie and I went through some really rough seas together. She doesn't understand this, but she saved my life. She means
everything
to me."

"I can see that," he said, giving her a level look.

His eyes were blue — not a deep, Yankee blue, but a softer shade, tinged with gray. Meg returned his look in silence; two could play the quiet game.

"This is all wildly flattering," he said at last. "But hell,
I
don't know what's going to happen. I'm assuming, nothing. It's obvious that Allie feels sorry for me," he added with a good-natured, rueful smile. "I doubt if it's anything more than that. Is that the reassurance you came for?"

"That's
not
why I came," Meg said instantly. "I came because Allie asked me to. I came because
...
because you
matter
to her," she forced herself to say.

He put aside his mug. "Look, do you mind if I say something? I think you and the rest of your family fuss too much over Allie. I suppose that's because she's so ridiculously beautiful; she's like some Ming vase you're afraid will break. But give her some credit. She's stronger than she looks."

"You're an expert, I take it, on pottery and the human psyche?"

"I've learned a thing or two about people along the way," he allowed, ignoring Meg's sarcasm.

What
nerve.
He was talking about someone he hardly knew; someone Meg knew and loved more than anyone else in the world. "Let me be more specific, Lieutenant," she said, indignant. "When Allie was a baby, she hated to take naps. One afternoon when she was three, she was being especially contrary. My mother lay down with her, hoping to lull her to sleep. But my mother never —"

Meg took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. "My mother never woke up. She had a heart attack — a silent attack, they call it. Allie had no idea, of course. She tried everything to wake her mother. She shook her, kissed her 
...
"

Meg looked away from Wyler. "Finally Allie climbed over my mother and toddled out to the yard where I was hanging laundry. She began pulling me by my skirt. She said, ‘Mommy's sick. She keeps sleeping and sleeping.' I didn't know what she meant
...
"

Meg couldn't go on.
This is all none of your business,
she thought, turning to face him at last. Her eyes were glistening, her heart constricting from the memory. But she had to make him understand how vulnerable Allie was.

"So you see, Lieutenant," she said, "it's not my sister's
beauty
that makes her so fragile."

Wyler was leaning forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, his hands locked loosely as he watched her intently.

This is how he must be when a suspect admits that he‘s stabbed his wife,
Meg realized in a flash of intuition. The thought offended her deeply. How could he sit there so impassively, as if this were all in a day's work?

"Well,"
Meg said briskly. "I guess that about wraps up my speech. Thank you for the coffee." She began heading for the door.

Behind her she heard him struggle to his feet. It must have hurt; there was a wince in his voice as he said, "I'm sorry about your mother, Meg."

Mollified, she turned and conceded, "It was a long time ago."

"But not to you. And not to Allie. I see that now."

"It's just that she's not the kind of girl to be trifled with," Meg said doggedly.

"Trifled?" he said with a hint of a smile. "People still use that word?"

"Around here we do."

"I should have guessed." He reached out his hand to Meg's hair, startling her as he untangled something there.

"A burr," he said gravely. "It looked so out of place."

The effect of his touch on Meg was electric. She blushed and stumbled over an explanation. "Oh
...
I
...
it
...
weeding. Thank you."

He took the thorny little ball and set it gently on one of the ruffled daisies that sat in a ginger jar on the library table. "I'll keep it to remind me what I'm in for if I'm ever tempted to play fast and loose with your sister," he said without irony.

"Yes," Meg said in a faltering voice. "Just
...
just remember that."

****

By the time Allie came home, Meg was asleep, so the replay of Meg's mission had to wait until Allie came down to breakfast. By ten o'clock Meg, who liked to rise at dawn, had already answered half a dozen mail inquiries, served breakfast to the guests, talked to a town councilor about a proposed parent-built playground, outlined a piece for the
B & B Newsletter,
and listened, with her brother Lloyd, to a
real
plumber pitch the merits of installing a new furnace at the Inn Between.

Allie, still in pajamas, headed straight for the coffee machine. "Dad says to stay out of your way because you're in a heck of a mood," she said. "What's wrong?"

Meg had the kitchen table buried under wallpaper books and paint chips. "Nothing's wrong. Eat your cereal at the counter," she said, holding a paint chip next to a pattern swatch for Allie's inspection. "What d'you think? Too much contrast?"

"Cut it out, Meg," Allie warned, glancing out the window.

"Damn," she muttered. "Gone again." She pulled out a chair for herself. "What did he say?"

"He? Who?" Meg asked, coloring.

Allie's violet eyes narrowed like a cat's.
"Meg!"

"Oh, all right. But I wish you'd get a life. The whole point of your coming home for the summer was to concentrate on getting a real job. You need
this
distraction like —"

"— I need oxygen. That's all there is to it, Meg," Allie said, nipping her sister's nagging in the bud. "So tell me everything. He knows about the drinking?"

"Yes."

"And why I started?"

"Some of the reasons.
Not
about my miscarriages."

"And that I've fallen like a ton of bricks?"

"I didn't put it that way," Meg said dryly.

"You should have; it's true. Who would've believed it?" Allie said with a faraway look. "Love at first sight."

"It's
not
love at first sight," Meg said sharply. "There's no such thing." But she was thinking of Tom's touch on her hair, how completely electrifying it was, and becoming frightened.

"What else? What else did you find out?" demanded Allie. Meg was forced to answer a nonstop barrage of questions from her sister: what Tom was wearing (clothes), how he looked (good), how he sounded (fine), how he
really
sounded (fine).

Exasperated, Meg finally said, "I don't know anything else
about
him! I didn't get into his life story. I did what you told me to do. You want to know more about him, ask him yourself. Now
please.
Get dressed. You have to pick up Comfort from the Shop ‘n Save."

"Me? Why can't Lloyd do it?"

"He's working on the pickup again. I guess it's an oil leak this time."

Allie rolled her eyes. "Well, what do you expect for five hundred bucks? God. Will we ever have enough money?
Ever?"

"Get dressed."

Allie was still off on her errand when a knock came at the screen door. Tom Wyler, waving a white bakery bag, grinned and said, "Danish. Still warm. Finest kind."

"Oh! Allie's not here —"

The phone rang and Meg answered it, holding the door open for the detective and motioning him inside.

The caller, sounding urgent, was Orel Tremblay's nurse.

Would Meg please come around at once? Mr. Tremblay was in a dangerous state of agitation and refusing medication. Apparently he wanted to finish some business he'd begun with Meg a few days earlier. Could she come? At once?

"I can't, right now," Meg said, distressed. "I don't have a car. Can it wait another —"

"I'll drive you," Tom volunteered, without knowing whether it was to the corner or to
Alaska
.

Meg whispered to him, "It isn't far. Thanks."

She hung up, and not many minutes later they were pulling into the drive of Orel Tremblay's neglected house. The weather was gray and still and cool, a twilight time between sun and rain. Meg was struck anew by the forlornness of the place; Tom, too, seemed oppressed by the scene.

"Shall I wait in the car?" he asked.

"Yes — no. I'd rather you came in, if he lets you," she said. "After all, you're used to this sort of thing."

Tom cocked his head at her. "What sort of thing?"

"Well — disorderly conduct. What if he has to be subdued?"

"Heck, and me without my baseball bat," Tom said dryly.

"I didn't mean anything by that," Meg said apologetically as they walked up the steps. "I had no idea city cops were so thin-skinned."

"We get that way after we've been spit on a thousand times."

She looked at him, shocked.

"Forget it," he said. "Probably you babysat for the police chief's kids."

"How did you know that?"

"Call it a hunch."

They were at the door, which was opened instantly. A different, younger nurse than the one Meg had seen on her first visit stood before them, looking relieved that they had come. Behind her was Orel Tremblay, crouched over his aluminum walker like an angry gray squirrel. The nurse was right; he was very upset.

He stared at Tom in surprise. "Gahdammit, who the hell are
you?"
he demanded.

Meg introduced him. "He's my ride, Mr. Tremblay," she explained.

"Ah, never mind," said the old man impatiently. "Get in here, both of you. I don't have time to be sorting you out."

He turned and began working his walker toward the room that held the dollhouse. He moved in a kind of frantic slow motion; Meg sensed that he was using up a precious last hoard of energy, something he'd been saving under his mattress for a day like this. The young nurse stayed behind him, all the while mugging incomprehensible warnings to Meg and Tom.

At the door to the dollhouse room, Orel Tremblay dismissed the nurse, flipped on the light, and shuffled inside, with Meg and Tom bringing up the rear. When Tremblay threw the switch that lit the dollhouse from inside, Tom permitted himself to look impressed.

He lifted one of the dolls, beautifully dressed in a velvet gown of hunter green, for a closer look.

"Don't
touch!"
the old man said, scandalized.

Tom smiled an apology and put the doll back gently.

As for Meg, she was deliberately keeping away from the dollhouse, reluctant to be caught in its spell again. Since her first visit she'd thought many times about the house. But her fascination kept rolling into a brick wall of unease, and each time, she would turn her thoughts in some other direction.

The dollhouse was an exact replica of the house in which her grandmother had burned to death. That was an undeniable fact, and it spoiled the charming plaything for Meg. So she studied the dusty venetian blinds instead as she waited for the old man to tell her why she'd come.

Tremblay had settled into an armchair placed strategically for the best view of the dollhouse. He was calmer now, but whether that was because he was gazing at his beloved miniature or because Meg had finally come to see him, Meg didn't know.

Tremblay held up a palsied hand to his visitors, warning them not to say a word. A stillness as thick and heavy as a
Maine
fog fell over the room as Meg and Tom waited to hear what he had to say.

"Margaret Mary Atwells!"
Tremblay said abruptly.

Meg jumped in her chair.

"This is your story, long overdue."

"Margaret Atwells used to bring the two Camplin kids over to the carpenter's shop whenever the weather was wet," Tremblay began. "The boy — James was five at the time — took it on himself to oversee my repairs to the dollhouse. I can see him still, strutting around it like some pint-sized lord of the manor.

"Sometimes I'd let his younger sister play with a few of the less valuable pieces — the maid dolls and their beds and bureaus and such. She was too young to play with such finely made things, of course, but Margaret was very fond of the girl, and I hated to put myself in the way of her pleasure.