Summerkill (7 page)

As it turned out, neither Clete nor Willem was much of a physical presence on the project. Details and follow-ups aren’t really
their thing. From the beginning, Clete pretty much left the day-to-day management of Hudson Heights to his son Kyle; to Matt
Conroy, whose construction savvy he’d relied on for many years; and to Thurman. Willem, though he came around now and then,
gave me full responsibility for the installation. Both principals had definite, not necessarily compatible, ideas on how things
should go and felt free to intervene at any time. It had been a tipsy umbrella to labor under.

Where Ryan got into the act was scheduling the Garden Center work, which he took over from Eleanor on the grounds that a more
efficient deployment of crews was needed to pare down labor costs. He’d been out there a lot this season, consulting with
Kyle, Matt, or Thurman when he wasn’t hounding me. Clete was given to coming up and clapping him on the back. It seemed unlikely
Ryan would want to antagonize his patron. Still, he was both observant and opportunistic—maybe he’d found an exploitable flaw
in the Hudson Heights operation. Confronted with that sort of problem, Clete and/or one of his lieutenants might have written
me into their scenario for a solution.

So? It seemed pretty likely both that Ryan had made himself a perceived threat to someone and that this person wasn’t fond
of me either. I didn’t lack images to paste into that blank space. Narrowing the field would require digging out some particulars,
a job the sheriff probably considered belonged to him. Did he deserve an uncluttered shot at it? I should at least wait and
see how strong a suspect I turned out to be.

That business about watched pots not boiling? The dishes were rearranged, my personnel list was assembled, although I hadn’t
much notion what to do with it, and where the hell were the kids? It was pushing three-thirty—how long could it take to extract
a simple account of a few hours’ time? It wasn’t like much had been going on indoors last night. That wasn’t holding true
today. The phone had already rung a week’s worth of times, all but one (Vicky) from media people. After the second “There’s
nothing I can tell you,” I’d let the answering machine take over.

Outside, I found some progress. My Bronco was back together, in a manner of speaking—its contents were a jumble. Only two
men were left now, standing out toward the end of the driveway. Recognizing one of them as Frank, I walked on out.

“Would it help if I put a sawhorse across the end of the driveway later?”

“Couldn’t hurt, I guess,” Frank said, without observable enthusiasm. He took a small notepad from his shirt pocket, scribbled
on the top sheet, tore it off, and handed it to me. “This is the number of the cellular phone we’ll have out here. If somebody
manages to outflank us later, give us a buzz. We have your number inside, if something comes up.”

I tore a piece off the bottom of the sheet, appropriated his pen, and produced another sequence of numbers. “Call my cell
phone. It was getting to be nonstop noise, so I turned the ringer turned off my regular phone and started funneling everything
through the answering machine.”

“Gotcha.”

Walking back toward the house I tried see things from a trespasser’s perspective. There was plenty of outflanking room if
you knew the territory. It wouldn’t be such a hot prospect if you didn’t, especially after dark. I decided not to worry. Communications
seemed adequate, and I’d keep the kids indoors.

Finding the Bronco unlocked, I tentatively opened the back and leaned in. When nobody seemed to object, I set myself to restoring
order, which was going to take a while. Long before I was finished, garish hot pink CRIME SCENE, KEEP OUT! signs arrived,
to be suspended at intervals from the rope. They were barely in place when Channel 8’s people showed up, driving me to cover.
Forced to shoot their footage from a distance they couldn’t have found promising, they made quick work of it and left.

Finally, Donna’s Honda appeared. She stopped to talk briefly with the deputies, then, detouring around the roped-off area,
drove on back to where I was standing.

The boys spilled out of the car. “Can we go see, Aunt Val?” Galen asked.

I shot Donna a questioning look. “The deputies said as long as they stayed beyond the rope.”

“Check it out, then.” We watched them race back along the driveway.

“I did have to tell them, Val. When we finally got out of the school, Alex planted himself in front of my driver’s side door
and demanded to know what all that had been about.”

“How did things go? It took long enough.”

“Galen isn’t into concise plot synopses,” she answered dryly. “And Alex had to demonstrate his superior understanding from
time to time. I thought it went well. We were all satisfied that you were indeed inside in the house with the boys last night
from the time you got home until one
A.M.
Mrs. Judson may not have approved of such late hours, but she did believe.”

“How did the boys hold up?”

“Galen was in his glory. Alex? Part worried, part bored. A little cranky because his brother remembered more than he did.”

“What about after you told them?”

“Not many questions, but they couldn’t wait to inspect the place where it happened. It’s probably just as well. That outline
they’ve drawn inside those ropes doesn’t seriously look like a body to me.”

“Maybe you had to see the real thing first. God, I hope so. They were just starting to once in a while feel this is their
turf. Hard to argue now that it’s safer than a South Albany street.”

“Or the interior of a South Albany apartment. We both know it is, though. You and Vicky made the right decision in not whisking
them away.”

“I hope. What did Sheriff Dye have to say?”

“I bear messages. First, you’re free to drive the Bronco. Second, let me get the exact wording … He can’t offer official clearance
yet, but you shouldn’t deprive yourself of a good night’s sleep. Val, I get the strong impression he doesn’t think you killed
that man.”

“This morning I didn’t have a clue what he was thinking.”

“He’s on the quiet side. Seems to have a way with children. As we were getting into the car he came over and told Alex he
should renegotiate his television privileges, whatever that might mean. For maybe half a second Alex looked puzzled— then
he started grinning.”

I found myself grinning, too. Mr. Nice Guy or no, it hadn’t been a bad little cross-check.

When Donna left, promising her continuing availability on what she proclaimed was the off chance it might be needed, I had
the boys come on in the house and explained, trying to keep it low-key, why I wanted them to stay inside the rest of the day.
I got two incredulous faces. Summer evenings they’re usually in and out till dark. Still, their protests were brief enough
that I suspected the boys were kind of relieved to have the restriction.

Both had gotten to the bottom line on the afternoon’s questioning: “We alibied you, didn’t we, Aunt Val?” Galen put it.

“That’s about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us first so we could’ve done it better?” Alex demanded.

“For one thing, I didn’t know there was a dead man out front until after you left this morning. For another, what you want
to put in an alibi is the truth. From what I hear, you guys did just fine.”

“So who was it got killed, anyhow?”

“A man I worked with. You never met him.”

“Did you like him?”

“Not much. But I surely didn’t want him dead, either. Especially in our front yard.”

Galen, I could see, believed unconditionally. For Alex it was not that easy. It was already part of his take on the world
that people did rotten things to one another sometimes. Even the people you happened to love. He’d give me the benefit of
the doubt, but he could not manage the larger gift of absence of doubt.

I
t wasn’t so bad, being sheltered from the rest of the world by the cops out front. Before dark and for an hour or so after,
there was extra traffic on the road, several dozen cars in all. A few stopped, briefly; when I went to the back door to check,
I could hear the distant slowing down then speeding back up as the drivers concluded there wasn’t much they’d be allowed to
see.

Alex’s television privileges restored, I let the boys watch the six o’clock news, keeping custody of the remote and insisting
on Channel 8, since they’d been kept the farthest away from the crime scene. The place looked like a dump in their footage,
but at least there was nothing visually grisly showing. All they said was that the Patroon County Sheriff’s Department was
investigating the apparent murder of a young white male; the victim’s name had not yet been released, pending notification
of next of kin.

The news hurdle past, I said they could watch whatever they felt like. They both seemed okay, Alex maybe a little too quiet.
When I announced at quarter after nine that it was absolutely, no-arguments bedtime, they went upstairs with only the normal
amount of stalling. Galen gave me his trademark generous hug, Alex a harder quickie than usual.

The biggest problem turned out to be the answering machine. It kept running out of tape before I got around to scanning, as
Mariah acidly pointed out when she finally found space for a few comments. There were lots of disconnects but plenty of messages,
too, a strong majority from the media. Our three Albany network TV channels plus the independent channel operating out of
Poughkeepsie; the two county radio stations and several from farther north; both county newspapers, the daily and the biweekly;
both Albany dailies, morning and afternoon: all now had my name and were on record at least once as wanting me to call them
back. I didn’t.

Vicky and Donna, like Mariah, were looking for updates, which I supplied. Sue told me her husband Denny remembered hearing
two cars, close together, turning in at their corner pretty late the previous night, after he’d gone to bed. For our road,
that qualified as unusual. He’d mentioned it to the deputy when he stopped by.

Then there were the people I knew who’d heard something—though not from me—and wanted more. I got back to them all, but only
my friend Ayesha from Birchwood and Skip Boyles, the Garden Center crew chief Ryan had forced out, were treated to anything
resembling depth. Willem consumed a good chunk of tape saying he still couldn’t believe I’d killed Ryan, in spite of what
“everyone” seemed to think, but even if I had he’d be there for me, I must know that. Communications from the remainder of
the Etlingers and any main-branch Donnellys were conspicuously absent.

I didn’t try to return Willem’s call. Granted, he was always way too uncritical in what he absorbed from his family, but I
was still pissed. I ran his “everyone” past Mariah, whose “Humph!” we both left at that. Since the shrub shipment had arrived,
I told her that barring complications I’d be over in the morning to start getting them into the ground.

Should I call Pete and Janey, who were out west somewhere, RVing their way into retirement? We’d kept in touch over the years—more
than birthdays and holidays but not quite family-strength contact. I knew Pete periodically checked out the area newspapers
on the Internet, so he was going to pick up on the story sooner or later. I decided to hope for later, when I might have something
reassuring to say. What could I tell them now, and what could they do from wherever they were? If the alibi thing didn’t work
out, though, I’d definitely summon them into my corner.

At a few minutes past ten there was a spirited banging that set Roxy to barking furiously from the living room. Having programmed
in the number for the cops out front, I grabbed my cell phone and speed-dialed. “Somebody’s outside my porch, pounding on
the door. Did you guys send anyone back?”

“Nope. One of us better come check.”

“Hold on a sec.” I reminded myself it was a solid door, securely locked, and whoever was out there listening to Roxy could
not see her tail wagging. The intruder wasn’t persisting with the noise-making, and the boys could do without a larger commotion.
“I don’t think you need to bother. My dog seems to have scared them off.”

“There were several news guys hanging around bugging us. My guess is one of them managed to pick his way around through the
woods, hoping to get at you. More of a nuisance than a danger, but if you’d like one of us to reposition back there for a
while—”

“No, I think we’re fine.”

About half an hour later the cell phone beeped. “Do you know somebody named Sandy Borland?” the cop asked brusquely when I
answered.

The Garden Center’s ill-chosen summer intern. “Sure. We work together.”

“She claims she didn’t come all this way just for the exercise. Want to talk with her?”

“Send her on back.”

I watched from the kitchen doorway as the one headlight made its up-down way along the driveway. Sandy’s vehicle is a bicycle,
her rented room is in the village. She’d never been out to my place, and I wondered how she’d managed to find it, especially
in the dark. Also why.

She dismounted and approached. Plain of face and flat of chest, Sandy must, like me, have come to realize early on that she
wasn’t going to make the cut for the traditional male concept of femininity. In her unrelentingly serious expression, touchy
independence, and strong appetite for physical work she reminded me of myself at that age. I’ve mellowed some, or so my older
friends allow. Sandy was in a totally pissed-offat-life phase, an orientation her recent coming-out seemed only to have intensified.
With her cultivated unwashed look and prickly disposition I thought it unlikely she attracted many members of her own sex,
either.

I felt mildly guilty about Sandy’s rotten summer, having been the one to tell Willem’s parents about the intern program they
acquired her from. Hiring anyone sight unseen is a mistake for the Garden Center—appearance may not be all for Eleanor and
Rodney, but it’s way up there. After the first horrified appraisal they started compiling a list of minimum-visibility assignments.
Minimum interest, too, most of them. I’d appropriated her for a little of Mariah’s stuff—they would not let her near Hudson
Heights. She knew damn well what was going on and was furious but couldn’t afford to have a walk-away on her record. They’d
have loved to ship her back but didn’t dare, discrimination suits being so fashionable these days.