That Summer (6 page)

“Thank you, Mrs. Wellington.”

My parents and I moved first into the library, where a number of people were gathered. I looked around for Liam.

Leslie was in the corner standing in front of the Federal breakfront that held a writing desk and a collection of rare books. Kevin was with her. She saw me and signaled for me to join them.

“I'm going to talk to Leslie and Kevin,” I told my parents and they nodded and let me move away.

Leslie and Kevin were drinking champagne and as a waiter went by with a tray full of glasses, Kevin snagged a glass for me. I took a sip and said, “Where's Liam?”

Leslie gave me an amused look. “He's around here somewhere.”

Kevin grinned at me. “You look great, Anne.”

“Thank you. So do you.”

And it was true. Kevin in a tuxedo was something to behold. My eyes went to Leslie. She was wearing a gold dress and her hair was loose around her shoulders. She looked absolutely gorgeous.

“You look beautiful, Leslie,” I said.

“Thank you.” She was so accustomed to compliments that she merely accepted them as her due.

As I took another swallow of champagne, Kevin signaled the waiter, who came over with his tray of drinks. Both Kevin and Leslie took another glass.

“Alyssa is sober tonight,” Leslie commented.

Kevin said, “Yes. Uncle Lawrence read her the riot act. I heard him.”

“I wonder that they stay together; they certainly don't seem happy.”

“Aunt Alyssa is Catholic and doesn't believe in divorce.”

Leslie laughed. “How uncomfortable for her.”

I took another sip of my champagne. “This is good.”

Leslie smiled at me. “It's delicious. I always like to start a party with champagne.”

She was always nice to me, which only made me hate her more. I didn't want her to be nice. I wanted her to be a bitch. If she were mean to me, Liam would get mad at her.

Leslie and Kevin had each finished their second glass of champagne.

“If you've had enough of the bubbly, the bar is set up in the family room,” Kevin said.

“Sounds good to me,” Leslie replied.

“Come on, Anne, and I'll get you another glass of champagne,” Kevin said.

I looked with a little surprise at my empty glass. “Okay.”

The three of us crossed the hall and went into the salon where people were dancing. We passed through and went into the room just beyond it. This was a less formal room, with comfortable furniture, a television set and a sound system. It was where the family usually hung out. A bar had been set up here and Leslie and Kevin went up to it and got glasses of Scotch on the rocks.

I wondered that nobody monitored their underage drinking.

“Leslie. How nice to see you here.” It was Randal Johnson, a member of the hunt. He was twenty-six and had that look on his face that men seemed to get when they beheld Leslie.

“My dad is a member, so I got to come,” she said.

Kevin said, “I got to come because I live here.”

“Oh sorry, don't you know each other?” Leslie said. She made introductions.

“Would you care to dance with me?” Randal said.

“Sure,” Leslie replied. She put her half-drunk scotch down on a table and went with Randal into the next room where the music was playing.

Kevin looked at me. “What will it be, Anne? Do you want to dance or do you want to go and get some food?”

“You don't have to take care of me, Kevin. You can wait here for Leslie if you want.”

“I don't want,” he said shortly. “So which will it be?”

“Food, then.”

“Good choice. Come along.” I followed him back through the salon, into the hallway, then behind the stairs where an addition had been put on the house for the dining room and kitchen.

Liam was in the dining room, talking to Maisie Fuller-ton, one of the hunt members. I approved. Maisie was thirty, at least.

“There you are,” Kevin said to him. “Anne was looking for you.”

He gave me a mechanical smile. “You look very nice in that dress.”

Nice,
I thought. I
bet you've never told Leslie she looked nice.

“Thank you,” I said.

“What are you drinking?” Liam said to Kevin.

“Scotch.”

“I think I'll get some.”

“Leslie is there. She's dancing with Randal Johnson.”

Liam's face darkened. “I don't care where Leslie is.”

My heart leaped. It sounded as if Liam was mad at her.

Kevin said lightly, “Come on, Liam. Don't be sore. What does it matter that Leslie gave a little of her time to me?”

Liam looked grim. “Time? She gave you something more than time.”

Kevin's golden eyebrows shot up. “You can't know that.”

“I saw how the two of you looked when you came back to the party last night. I don't think you were just talking.”

“What does it matter what we were doing? No one would have noticed if you hadn't made a big deal of it.”

Liam said through his teeth, “I don't share. Leslie can have me or she can have you, but she can't have us both.”

The two of them had forgotten that I was there and I stood very still and quiet so they wouldn't notice me.

Kevin's blue eyes glittered. He said, “We were all drunk.”

“I know.”

Kevin shrugged. “Have you tried the food?”

“Not yet. First I'm going to try the Scotch.”

“Okay. See you later.”

I put some food on a plate and let Liam walk away.

I had taken a few bites of ham when someone said my name. I turned and saw one of the boys from school. He was a senior but we had worked together on the school newspaper. “Hi, Michael,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“I came with Kim Malone.”

I nodded. Kim was a senior also, but she was not part of Leslie's crowd. She was a horse person, like me.

“You look very pretty,” he said.

“Thank you.” Pretty was better than nice.

We stood talking for a few minutes and then Michael asked if I wanted to dance. I was anxious to get back to the salon so I could find out what Liam was doing, so I agreed.

The next few hours passed uneventfully. I danced with Michael, with my father, with Kevin and with Liam. I spent some time with Justin Summers, who had come as someone's date. I tried to keep an eye on Leslie, but she disappeared for a while. At least she didn't disappear with Liam, because I was watching him too. I also drank two more glasses of champagne.

It was after midnight when I went out to the back patio to cool off. I was flushed from all of the champagne, and it wasn't until the door had closed behind me that I realized I wasn't alone. Liam and Leslie were standing in front of the fountain that was the centerpiece for the backyard garden. They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying, but they appeared to be having a fight.

I should have left. I had no business spying on Liam's private moments, but I couldn't tear myself away. All summer I had been miserable watching Liam and Leslie together. If they were going to break up, I wanted to know about it.

Suddenly, Leslie reached up and pulled Liam's head down to her. For a long moment, while my heart silently cracked, they kissed. Then Liam pushed her away. He said something and her face blazed with anger. She shouted at him. I could hear her voice although I couldn't make out what she was saying. Liam said something back. He looked furious.

/
don't want to be caught here if one of them comes back to the house.
Slowly and carefully I opened he back door and let myself back inside. I waited by the door, pretending I was just coming out when they came back.

Liam came first. His eyes were blazing with anger as he almost bumped into me. “Get out of the way, Annie, “ he said grimly and went on by.

Instead of pursuing him, I waited for Leslie. Her color was higher than usual as she came in the door, but she looked more composed than Liam had. She went into the dining room and I saw her begin to talk to Justin Summers.

Shortly after that, my parents left to go home and I had to leave with them.

The next day we found out that Leslie had never come home. Her father had driven her to the party and stayed for a while, but had left when Leslie promised that either Kevin or Liam would drive her home. Kevin said he looked for her but, when he didn't find her, he assumed Liam had driven her home. Liam said he had a headache and had gone upstairs to bed. He said he hadn't spoken to Leslie during the party.

The police talked to me as well. I said I had spoken to Leslie at the start of the party, but that was all. I said I had no idea where she could have gone. I never said a word about the argument I had witnessed between Leslie and Liam. If Liam wanted it to be known, he could volunteer the information. I would die before I would give him away.

The pot of flowers I had been looking at began to blur, and I blinked and came back to the present.

There was going to be another murder investigation. Leslie hadn't buried herself. Someone had hit her with a baseball bat and then buried her in the Stanley woods.

If the police began making inquiries again, Liam might be in danger. After all, it was his baseball bat, even if his fingerprints had not been on it. Someone had wiped the bat clean and, now that there was a body, the police would be looking for more evidence.

And I was more determined than ever not to tell anyone what I had seen.

Midville was shaken by the discovery of Leslie's body. Andy and Gloria were well known and well-liked by everyone in town. The undeniable confirmation that their daughter was indeed dead was hard on them, and the town sympathized.

I found out about the police investigation from an impeccable source. Michael Bates was a policeman in town and he called to ask me out to dinner after we met in the Safeway in town. Wait long enough and you would eventually meet all of Midville in the Safeway.

We went to see Kevin's new movie and then out for drinks and a burger afterward. We sat in a booth in the Coach Stop and I quizzed him about the investigation.

“Her skull was caved in,” he told me soberly. “It will be in the papers tomorrow. Someone used that bat with great efficiency.”

I shuddered, as if I felt that blow upon my own skull. “Poor Leslie,” I said. “What a terrible way to end.”

“At least her parents will have something to bury now.”

We were both quiet for a minute as we thought about that. Then I said, “Is the inquiry into her death going to be reopened?”

“It will have to be. Although, now that ten years have passed, I don't know how we're going to gather new evidence.”

I sipped my wine. “There was that Skakel trial. The jury convicted him after twenty years.”

“Yeah, but he confessed a number of times. No one has obliged us by confessing that he killed Leslie.”

“True.”

“Who's in charge of the investigation?”

Michael took a swallow of his beer. “The chief is taking charge. He'll be questioning all the old witnesses, and looking for new ones, I expect.”

“Will they think it's Liam?”

He shrugged. Michael was a very nice-looking man, with smooth brown hair and hazel eyes. “I don't know, Anne. It was common knowledge that Liam and Leslie had a falling out. Leslie punished him by going off with Kevin. The night of the Hunt Ball the two weren't speaking to each other. Did Liam kill her in a jealous rage? Maybe, but we have no proof. Justin Summers was at the party also, and everyone knows he was angry at being jilted.”

“What about Kevin?” The more suspects the police had, the better, I thought.

“Kevin looks to be in the clear, although he certainly had access to the bat. It seems as if Leslie was in the process of changing from Liam to Kevin, which leaves Kevin with no discernible motive.”

“What if it was a stranger?”

He shook his head. “I don't think so, Anne. Why would Leslie go out to the summerhouse with a stranger? And why would a stranger want to kill her?”

“I don't know. There are these serial killers who just go around killing people indiscriminately.”

“I don't think that's the case here. Leslie was killed by someone she knew.”

I sighed.

“Hey!” he said. “We're on a date. Let's talk about ourselves.”

“Okay,” I said. “You go first.”

“What do you want to know?”

“How long have you been in police work?”

“I went to college and got my degree in law enforcement. When I graduated I was lucky enough to find an opening on the Midville force. I've been on the job for six years now.”

“And you like it?”

“Very much.”

“That's good. And what about your love life?”

He took another swallow of beer. “I married Kim Ma-lone after I graduated from college. We divorced last year.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

He shrugged. “Don't be. It was just one of those things. We had gone together for so long that I think we got married because we were expected to. Anyway, it didn't work out.”

I swallowed a piece of my hamburger.

He said, “How about you? Any serious boyfriends?“

“One. We almost got engaged, but then I realized that I liked him but I didn't love him.”

“You were lucky to find that out before you got married.”

“I know.”

“Is there anybody special in your life right now?”

There was always someone special in my life, only he didn't know it.

“No,” I said. “No one special.”

He smiled at me. “That's good.”

It occurred to me—actually it had occurred to me when I accepted his invitation—that keeping in touch with Michael would be a good way for me to keep in touch with what was going on in the murder investigation. I gave him my best smile in return.

CHAPTER 5

T
he Bartholomews held a private service and burial for Leslie, and life went on in a seemingly normal way in Midville. It wasn't normal, though. There was an undercurrent of anxiety in the town as the police conducted their questioning of all the people who had attended the Wellington Hunt Ball.

Chief Murphy came out to the house one day after school and questioned Mom and me about the ball. Mom had nothing to tell him. “What about you, Anne?“ the chief inquired. “You were a part of Leslie's crowd. Do you know anything about this fight between Leslie and Liam?”