The Grave Soul (5 page)

“Delia was Kira and Grace's mother.”

Evangeline nodded.

“I don't see her gravestone.”

“No. Kevin—” She glanced up at Guthrie. “He wanted to scatter her ashes on the north shore of Lake Superior. It was a favorite place of theirs.”

Seemed like the least they could do was put up a memorial marker, thought Guthrie. As he considered the significance of the omission, a rusted gray Buick rumbled over the gravel into the drive and parked next to a white van. An middle-aged woman with dark hair and red lipstick got out of the passenger-side door. From the driver's side, a balding, heavyset man in a tweed sport coat with professorial-looking patches on the elbows emerged. Neither looked particularly happy, though when they caught sight of Evangeline, their expressions brightened. The man took a moment to tap out his pipe. Stuffing it into his coat pocket, he dug through the backseat and, once the door was shut, held up two white sacks.

“That's my oldest son, Douglas, and his wife, Laurie,” said Evangeline, waving and smiling. Slipping her arm through Guthrie's, she asked, “You any good at peeling potatoes?”

“One of my best events.”

“Good man. Let's get to work.”

 

7

By one
A.M.
, Guthrie still hadn't slept. He'd eaten too much, that was a given, but it was more than that. Kira might be sleeping peacefully across the hall, but, ironically, it was her nightmare that was keeping him awake. Maybe he was being too sensitive, looking for clues to prove something that had never happened. Was it really possible that someone in Kira's family had murdered her mother?

Kira's father, Kevin, was a friendly, straightforward kind of guy. He'd spent time in the military—had served in the first Gulf War. There was a picture of him in his army uniform on the piano. As a young man, he'd been movie-star handsome—wavy brown hair, strong square chin, broad shoulders, and a confident, cocky grin. He looked much the same today, though his hair was shaggier and shot through with gray. He swore like a man who'd served in the army, and yet there was a sweetness about him, an empathetic appreciation of the others at the dinner table.

Guthrie's mother had once pointed out to him that people rarely asked questions of other people. Mostly, they waited around for a chance to talk about themselves. She told him that when he found someone who asked questions and actually listened to the answers, that he'd found a rare soul indeed. Kevin Adler was like that.

Hannah was an arch personality, liked to tease, to sit back and make acerbic comments. Doug had clearly staked out the position of family intellectual and curmudgeon. He was animated, opinionated, and surreptitiously downed hefty sips from a thin silver flask he kept secreted in the inside pocket of his sport coat. He also partook liberally of the Irish whiskey and Chardonnay Kevin had brought with him—his contribution to the meal. While Doug never seemed drunk, he clearly kept himself on the edge of inebriation throughout the day. Occasionally, he would slip in a comment that was so breathtakingly bitter, it brought all conversation to a halt.

As for Laurie, Doug's wife, Kira's assessment of her seemed accurate. She spoke very little during dinner. When she wasn't looking down, picking at her food, her attention was focused on Kevin or Doug. There was a lot more to her than met the eye—Guthrie was sure of it. She wasn't quiet because she had nothing to say.

Of all the people who'd been at the table, Guthrie liked Evangeline the best. She was warm and loving, and made every attempt to include Guthrie in the conversation. She might not allow two young unmarried people to sleep together under her roof, but she made no conspicuous show of her religious beliefs either. And she loved tea.

Like Guthrie's own family, Kira's had a hierarchy and its own kind of heartbeat. Because Guthrie had grown up with a drug-addicted mother and a father who steadfastly refused to believe he had a right to his own feelings and opinions, he'd learned early on to listen for subtext. Words weren't only used to communicate, they could also obscure. Beyond words, the truth of any interaction often lay in what wasn't said, in the emotions that underpinned whatever subject was on the table. Deciphering his parents had always given Guthrie a splitting headache. He'd been hoping that Kira's family would be a more easygoing group—what you saw was what you got. It was probably asking too much.

Slipping out of bed, Guthrie grabbed his bathrobe and headed out to the hallway in search of a bottle of Maalox, or failing that, something fizzy to drink. He rummaged through the medicine cabinet in the second-floor bathroom, but finding nothing, he tiptoed toward the stairs. He didn't want to wake the sleeping family.

Before he got halfway down, he heard voices in the kitchen. The stair treads creaked under his weight, so he stopped, wondering if whoever was in there had heard him. When they continued, he sat down to listen.

Kevin and Doug appeared to be the only two people in the room.

“You didn't vote?” said Doug's voice. “What the hell's wrong with you?”

“Didn't like any of the candidates,” replied Kevin. “So what would have been the point?”

“The point? What's the
point
?”

“I'm not up for an argument, Dougie.”

“Don't call me Dougie. You don't deserve citizenship in this country if you don't vote.”

“Back the hell off or I'll take my bottle of Jameson and drink it somewhere else.”

Doug muttered. “I'm just saying—”

“
Doug
.”

“All right, all right. Jesus.”

They stayed quiet for a few minutes.

Guthrie was ready to head back up to his bed when Doug said, “You must really like working with Laurie.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because sometimes she doesn't get home until four in the morning.”

“We do cleanup after we close the bar.”

“For two hours?”

“Sometimes we sit down and have a beer together. You got a problem with that?”

“Maybe.”

“Meaning what?”

“Hell, Kevin. You sleep with half the women in this town. Can't you leave my wife alone?”

“Oh Lord. I should have known you'd think that. It's not happening.”

“No?”

“
No
. If you got problems in your marriage, it's not because of me.”

Doug grunted.

More clinking glasses.

“Since we're on the subject of my wife,” said Doug, his gravelly voice starting to slur, “I have to say, she kind of surprised me. She's usually so quiet. When I see her behind the bar, it's like she's had a personality transplant.”

“She's quiet around you, asshole, because you suck up all the air in the room.”

“You are so full of it.” Chair legs scraped against linoleum.

“You wanna fight, Doug, or you wanna drink?”

Guthrie waited for the brawl to begin. Instead, he heard the sound of wood creaking as Doug resumed his chair. After that, neither man spoke for a while.

Finally, Doug muttered, “All the beds in this house should be taken out and burned. They're so old they probably have fleas.”

“The price we pay,” said Kevin.

“We all know about paying prices.”

Kevin said nothing.

“I think … I … am officially drunk,” said Doug.

“I think you've been officially drunk all day.”

“Shut up. On my days off, I like to relax.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That kid,” continued Doug. “You ask me, he had a lot of nerve asking all those questions about Delia. I felt like we were being interrogated.”

“He's head over heels for Kira,” said Kevin. “But yeah, he's definitely the nosey type.”

Guthrie stiffened. He'd joined Doug and Kevin in the living room to watch the Green Bay game after dinner. Had he gone too far with his questions? After all, he and Kira were serious about each other. It stood to reason that he'd want to know about her mother.

“It just pisses me off,” said Doug. In a voice apparently meant to mimic Guthrie's, he said, “Where'd you meet Delia? Was she depressed before she died? God, Kevin, I hope you weren't the one who found her.”

“He doesn't know jack shit,” said Kevin.

“Exactly,” said Doug. “We covered our tracks. End of story.”

“Except, it's not the end. I'm not sure it will ever end.”

A wave of apprehension rolled through Guthrie's chest.
Covered our tracks?
What did they mean by that?

A new voice was added to the mix. Hannah's bedroom was on the first floor. Guthrie hadn't heard her moving around downstairs, but suddenly she said, “What are you boys talking about at this hour?”

“The usual,” said Kevin.

“You gonna share that whiskey?”

When Guthrie heard chair legs scraping the linoleum again, he assumed that Hannah had joined them at the table. He was so freaked at how easily he might be caught eavesdropping from the stairs that he got up and headed back to his room. How could he ever tell Kira what he'd just heard, especially since nothing had been explicitly stated? Would she really want to know if her family was responsible for her mother's death—or, at the very least, was keeping some aspect of the death a secret?

If Guthrie took a cold, pragmatic approach, he supposed Delia's passing, however it happened, could be considered water under the bridge, unlikely to have any impact on Kira's life today. And yet, he knew himself well enough to realize that if he and Kira got married—and he was planning to pop the question on Christmas Eve—it was a scab he wouldn't be able to stop himself from picking. Even more worrisome was the fact that Kevin Adler knew that he was more interested in Delia's death than he had any right to be. That had been Guthrie's mistake, though there was nothing to be done about it now.

This trip hadn't turned out to be the kind of up close and personal he'd been looking forward to with the Adler family. He'd be a fool if he didn't wonder, now that he'd linked his life with Kira's, what kind of a hornet's nest he'd just stepped into.

 

PART THREE: LATE DECEMBER

For every complex problem there is a solution—simple, neat, and wrong.

—H. L. MENCKEN

 

8

SIX DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Minneapolis

Jane leaned back in her chair and tossed her reading glasses on the desktop. She'd been concentrating for hours on the late-winter menu, sourcing possible options for specials, working on expanding some of the “Small Bites” options for the Lyme House's main-course menu. She needed a break. The dinner rush wouldn't begin for another couple of hours, which meant that this was the perfect chance for her to grab something to eat. She hadn't had a decent meal today and her stomach was growling so loudly it actually made her laugh. She called up to the kitchen and asked for a plate of bangers and mash—and some coarse grain mustard—to be sent down to her office.

After saving the page she'd been working on, she glanced through her calendar, seeing that she had an interview with a reporter for
City Pages
on Friday morning. It would be great PR for the restaurant, and also for the brilliant new sous chef she'd hired to develop a separate Scandinavian menu.

Rising from her chair, Jane headed down the hall to the ground-floor pub. She still had a bunch of shopping to do before Christmas. This would be the first Christmas she'd spent in Minnesota without her brother, Peter, and his family. They were in Brazil, where he was shooting a documentary on the Latin American Spring. Their father had recently turned seventy and had also broken up with his on-and-off girlfriend, both big changes in his life. Jane wanted to make sure his Christmas was filled with warm fires, good food and wine, and family—the last part meant not only Jane, but her best friend, Cordelia, and Cordelia's niece, Hattie. Jane had recently ended a romantic relationship of her own, though it hadn't taken her long to rebound. In truth, she felt she was in a great place.

Stepping into the pub, Jane found a few regulars seated at the bar, as well as a foursome playing cribbage in one of the raised booths. The hearth in the back room was burning hardwood logs, low and slow, ready for those brave souls willing to negotiate the frigid temperatures in order to grab a beer and a burger after work.

Jane made small talk with the bartender while she poured herself a mug of coffee. She bent down to get a napkin and when she straightened up, she saw a familiar figure sitting alone at one of the tables.

“Guthrie?” she said, walking over to him. She hadn't seen him in years. In that time, he'd let his brown hair grow long. It was pulled into a ponytail and trailed midway down his back.

“Jane, hi,” he said, standing, smiling at her. The strain in his voice betrayed a degree of nervousness.

Guthrie Hewitt had begun working for Jane as a busboy during his senior year of high school. The following summer, he'd graduated to waiter. At the time, he and his older brother were living at home, saving their money so they could rent an apartment together. Since they both worked two jobs, they saved a significant amount in a fairly short period of time. The following summer, they'd blown it all on a backpacking trip to Japan, China, Thailand, and India.

Jane remembered talking to Guthrie after he'd come back. Both he and his brother had developed such a passion for tea that they were thinking of getting into the import business. She didn't know the particulars, but after they renovated a space next to a busy smoke shop on Hennepin Avenue, the Hewitt & Hewitt Teahouse was born. It quickly became one of the trendiest spots in the uber-trendy Uptown area. Jane had never stopped in, though she'd always meant to.

“Great to see you,” said Jane. “How's the tea business?”