Gourdfellas (27 page)

“Nora, he’s a great kid,” I said, aware that the din around us had swelled so that no one else seemed to hear that we were saying some pretty private things. “It’s new to both of you, still. No husband, no father. I wish Neil were going to be around more. He loved hanging out with Scooter.”

“But Neil’s leaving day after tomorrow, right? That’s what Scooter told me he said the other day.”

“Yes, that’s the plan,” I said. “I’ve loved having him around, but I think both of us are ready for a little separate space. So next time you all come to my house, there won’t be four women pretending that they’re not flirting with a man nearly a decade younger. Neil already thinks it’s only natural that women melt in his presence. I’m trying to retrain him so that his wife—whoever she is—doesn’t have so much work to do.”

When I smiled down the row, I saw that Melissa had looked away from me and was staring off at the stage, where three men and four women, members of the town council, stood in animated conversation. If I’d thought about it a little, I might not have been so surprised at the sadness I saw in her eyes. My friend had a crush on my brother, and over the past few weeks I’d allowed the realization to flit right out of my head as though it were a butterfly and not a real person’s real feelings.

Nora laughed. “Wouldn’t it be great if every guy had a little bit of Neil in him?”

A man dressed in worn jeans and a faded denim shirt walked by, his thin lips pressed together and his eyebrows furrowing above his nose. His head seemed too big for his thin body, bobbing like a bulbous onion on a stalk that might give way at any second. He looked from Melissa to Elizabeth to me, stared and lifted his chin to peer further down his nose. Then he sniffed and went on his way.

Until that moment, I hadn’t seriously considered that being seen with me might have negative consequences for my friends. Everyone knew about the rifle and most people had heard about the note and the address book. As long-time members of this small community, they were putting a lot on the line.

Until the person who killed Marjorie Mellon was arrested, my own personal dark cloud would remain in position, fixed overhead. According to B. H. Hovanian, I could help myself by being watchful, and this was certainly a good place to do that. The room was crammed with suspects. I could eliminate the four women sitting next to me, and probably let Michele Castro off the hook . . . but everyone else? Seth waved to me from the front of the auditorium, and I scanned the rows between us.

I knew precious little about even the people I recognized. Ira Jackson, handyman, bigot, stepfather of Michele Castro, and owner of the land on which the proposed casino would be built. Joseph Trent, pharmacist and father of two college age students. Trisha Stern, married to the high school principal, who gloried in her new home adjacent to the proposed casino site. Connie Lovett and her husband Mel, holding hands as though that contact would keep them both safe from the disease that would eventually get her.

Any one of them could have put the rifle in my attic, made sure a crumpled note was found in the bathroom of Wonderland Toy Town, crept into my house and slipped Marjorie’s address book under the stove. But why? What had I done to any of these people, besides move into Tom’s house and start to carve out a life for myself here?

Elizabeth’s voice penetrated my self-pitying fog. “I almost forgot. I heard that B. H. has some news.”

Her news fanned the embers of my unease. “And he didn’t think he needed to tell me? What an arrogant—”

“He’s verifying it. That’s probably why he hasn’t told you. It’s halls-of-justice information, you know, passed on in the corridor in between cases. But he says he believes his source.” She tapped the purse in her lap, sounding a tattoo to announce what she’d heard. “The paper came back with several decent prints, and none of them matches yours. Plus your printer has some weird idiosyncrasies that don’t coincide with the note. So, maybe you’ve moved down from number one suspect.”

“Good—now I can give my brother back his computer. And think about whether it’s time to get a new lawyer. Or at least ask this one why he’s withholding things that I should know.” I glanced around the room again and spotted B. H. Hovanian, leaning against the back wall, his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms folded across his chest. Without saying a word he was delivering a message: “I’m relaxed and I’m in control,” he told anyone who glanced his way, and “I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

The seat folded with a slap as I stood up. He needed to tell me what he knew right now. I wriggled my way past loafers and work boots and sneakers to the aisle, where I practically bumped into Joseph Trent. His sharp features seemed to soften as I approached.

“Hi, Lili. How’s the sleep problem? Any better?”

Anxious to move on but pleased that he’d remembered, I said, “Not much. At least I have some good books to read. Thanks for asking, Mr. Trent.”

“Stop by and I’ll give you something else. Or next time try taking three.” He nodded and turned so that I could pass, but the aisle was so crowded I could hardly get by without having to change course or crab-walk through clusters of people.

“You know how you’re voting yet?” Ira Jackson asked, his ferret-face a grimace of hostility.

I smiled and shrugged and kept going, until Connie Lovett’s husband Mel tugged at my sleeve. “Listen, I just wanted to thank you for giving my wife something to look forward to.”

My throat lumped up, but I managed to say, “I love working with Connie. She’s got enough enthusiasm to light up all of Walden Corners.”

As I maneuvered through the crowd, I realized that B.H. wasn’t holding up his piece of the wall any more, and I wondered whether he’d seen me heading in his direction and made a quick escape. I kept walking, all the way through the open doors to the large entry foyer filled with glass display cases and shiny marble floors.

“You looking for someone else who needs a breath of fresh air?”

The deep voice was unmistakable, and when I turned there he was, peering at the display of trophies surrounded by photographs of Nora’s husband, who had served as coach of the football team. In the glare of the fluorescent lights my attorney looked tired, maybe even a decade older than the forty years I’d assigned to him when we first met. I couldn’t help but notice the butterflies in my stomach, even as I pushed them off into a dark corner.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the reports on the note and the printer? And I want to know what the note said.” I knew I sounded accusatory, the second time in a single day that I’d pinned an interesting, available man to the wall with questions that revealed my suspicions. My mediation experience had taught me that in every negotiation there’s a difference between a position and an interest. One was all about posturing, the other focused on the ultimate goal you wanted to achieve. Berating him for not telling me about the note wouldn’t get me what I really wanted. It
did
send a signal he couldn’t miss.

“I didn’t think it would be news to you, but I did tell you. Your cell phone was turned off. Try voice mail. And you’ll find a message on your answering machine when you get home. You weren’t there at five-twenty. That’s when I called. Castro said you can stop by and get your computer and printer any time tomorrow.” He had the good grace not to gloat, or even to smile in triumph. “I’m not going to tell you about the note because I don’t want those words in your head. I don’t want those ideas to be floating around and maybe come out in some tangled way that might make things look bad for you. It’ll all become public knowledge eventually, but for now just do without.”

I had nothing left to protest. He’d protected my interests in both things, had treated me with respect. Almost. Respect without trust didn’t really count in this situation. “You think I’m so impressionable? I can tell the difference between real life and fiction, and I can separate what I know from the words someone wants to put in my mouth.”

“Nope. You’re not impressionable. You’re just not familiar with this particular aspect of the human mind. You know about the advice Spanish senoritas are given when they’re looking for their true love? Their
abuela
tells them to walk around the square on Friday night dressed in their finery, and as they walk they are not to think about marriage. An impossible task. If you can admit to being human, then maybe you can just let it go for now. I’ll be in touch if anything comes up. I want to hear the presentations,” he said glancing at his watch. “Trent starts exactly on the dot.”

“You think the casino is a good idea for Walden Corners?”

Berge Hartounian Hovanian folded his arms across his chest and smiled. “I’ll tell you what I think is bad for this town, and that’s people taking advantage of a murder to try to intimidate others into shutting up about what they believe. Let’s go back inside. We might hear something interesting.”

At that moment, I wouldn’t have minded standing right there in the high school foyer and talking to B. H. Hovanian about almost anything, but he patted my shoulder and pushed open the doors to the noise and heat of the auditorium.

Joseph Trent, gavel firmly in hand, banged once on the podium and peered over the top of his glasses. “Settle down. We have to clear out of here by ten tonight and there’s a lot of people want to have their say. But before that, the first thing tonight is a presentation from Connecticut, where they’ve had a casino for the past twelve years. The mayor will speak for ten minutes and then we’ll have twenty minutes for you to ask her questions.”

The voices that droned on for the next hour barely reached my consciousness. I knew how I felt about the casino. I’d heard all the arguments on both sides, and, bad attitude though it was, I doubted that my feelings would change no matter what was said.

Which left me mucking about in the swamp of feelings I wasn’t so sure about. Seth and B.H. and Tom Ford tromped around, vague figures I couldn’t quite bring into focus. Connie Lovett made an appearance, with Anita and her shadow, Linda, hovering in the background. Neil paced uneasily at the edge of the mist.

At least I was getting my computer back. Maybe that would be a step toward things returning to semi-normal. If you could call being a murder suspect normal . . .

I awoke on the day Neil was to leave with the words playing like country music lyrics in my brain. Reba or Faith would smile sweetly, knowingly, and then go ahead and do whatever she needed to do. What I needed to do today was make a celebration breakfast to send my brother home feeling good about the progress he’d made. I wanted to assuage any guilt he might feel about leaving Walden Corners. He needed to put all his energies into getting better.

But from the delicious aroma of coffee, of onions and butter sizzling in a pan, it was clear that Neil had beaten me to it. I showered in record time, jumped into jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt, and reached the kitchen just as he was garnishing the plates with red grapes and bright green parsley.

“How elegant.” I admired his handiwork as I poured myself a cup of coffee. “You sure were the early bird this morning. Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

“Too well. As though someone hit me over the head. I took one of your herbal sleep things and it knocked me out in about thirty minutes and that was that. Never heard you come home, never heard the train whistle. The birds woke me at about five. I haven’t felt so rested in years.”

Why a twenty-four year old man who worked out hard every day should wake up feeling tired was a puzzle, but if Neil said it, then it was true.

“Good, because those pills don’t do a thing for me. Take them. I have to find something else. Hey, look at you!”

My hand slid over his baby-smooth cheeks. The Mets were keeping him on the roster. He believed he was going to play. I hugged him tight.

“Thought you’d never notice,” he said, grinning. He exuded a healthy glow that gave me great satisfaction—I might not have knit his broken bones together, but at least his time in Walden Corners had been well spent. “They called last night but I wanted to tell you my own way. And Trisha’s sure the docs will clear me.”

“Well, you nearly distracted me with all this food stuff.” I peered into the small glass bowls, each one filled with a different, bright ingredient. If variety of color and texture were the measure of an omelet, the one my brother was about to make would score a nine, at least.

He stopped in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. “I promised myself not to get sappy so here goes. Thanks, Lili. You were a lifesaver. You gave me a quiet, beautiful place to just be for a while. You found Trisha. You didn’t noodge me to death about how I felt about maybe not playing for my Amazin’s. You gave me . . .”

My eyes welled up when I saw his tears. We both swallowed hard. I was about to pull him into a hug, but he shook his head and stepped back.

“I have to finish,” he said, reaching for a paper towel and noisily blowing his nose. “You gave me space to find out that I believed I could come back from this and play again. You gave me hope. Thanks.”

Unlike most guys, Neil had always been able to talk about his feelings. It certainly wasn’t because he was following Dad as a role model. Maybe he watched a lot of Oprah and Dr. Phil when I wasn’t around. Whatever its source, Neil’s openness had never been quite so eloquent. I was touched.

“I’m glad I could do it. Sheesh, I’m going to miss you.” I waved my words away. “That is
not
to be construed as guilt-tripping. It’s been great seeing you in a new way, having you here so we could talk things through. I’m thrilled that it’s working out for you to play.”

This time, I did grab him in a hug, making sure to let go before his muscles tightened into withdrawal. He grinned, then turned on the flame under the cast iron fry pan. He moved the little glass dishes to the counter beside the stove, tossed another chunk of butter into the pan and then emptied the herbs, spices, and vegetables into the sizzling butter. He dumped in the beaten eggs, stirred the whole thing with a wooden spoon, then dropped the bits of bacon and shredded cheddar into the eggs.