Lies That Bind (22 page)

She wondered why she couldn’t stop thinking about Dolores Donovan.

CHAPTER 39

Maeve had no interest in Sebastian DuClos dropping by the store, and with the first of the year approaching, she drove over to Wendell Lane, dropped her rent check off at his house, and beat a hasty getaway. He wasn’t home, thank God, so she stuffed the check into his mailbox, which was overrun with catalogs, bills, and other things that had been delivered.

Looked like Sebastian hadn’t been home in a few days. No sign of Bruno either, or the people who had been driving in and out of the street, hastily getting what they needed and taking off for parts unknown.

Later that evening, she met Doug at Mickey’s, after he got off work but before he went home.

“How are you feeling about things?” she asked, truly interested. “Better, I hope?”

He pushed a black-and-white photo toward her. “This helped.”

She had already seen it. It was a photo from Jo’s latest sonogram, their baby boy front and center, his thumb in his mouth. “What? The other ones weren’t good enough?” Maeve asked, knowing that Jo had had several sonograms prior to this one; this latest one was just to gauge how her amniotic fluid, which had decreased a bit over the last few weeks, was holding up. Maeve was preparing herself for the inevitable “bed rest” edict that was sure to come from Jo’s doctor and which would leave Maeve shorthanded at the bakery.

“He has her profile,” Doug said. “Jo’s.”

He did. The donor egg was from Jo’s cousin and showed that the boy was going to favor his mother’s side of the family, at least in the short term and before he truly grew into his features. “Well, look at that,” Maeve said. “I hadn’t noticed before.”

“Maeve, you’re not going to tell, right?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Even though I’m not entirely sure what there is to tell.” She spotted a customer from the store at the front door and gave her a wave. “What did you do, Doug?”

“Nothing happened,” he said, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. “It was just…”

“A distraction?” she asked.

He nodded, glum. “Yes. A distraction. From all of this.”

“Here’s the thing, Doug: most people would find the prospect of a beautiful wife and a healthy baby on the way something of a…” She searched for the word that Jo often used to describe her good fortune. “Is it
mitzvah
?” She didn’t think that was right.

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I was a Hebrew school dropout.”

She decided that, Yiddish words aside, she needed to be clear with him. “I’m not sure how I’ll do it, or what I’ll do, but I will hurt you if you do anything to upset this new life that Jo has created. She loves you. She has always wanted a child. She has always wanted a devoted husband.” She waved to another customer from the store, keeping a smile on her face as she threatened her best friend’s wayward husband. “Got it?”

He knew he was caught but he tried to hang tough in the conversation. “You’re threatening an officer of the law,” he said, his inner Barney Fife making an appearance.

“You bet I am,” she said. She wondered why he didn’t tell her to take a hike in more pointed terms, to mind her own business, but something in her tone and on her face told him that she wasn’t really prone to hyperbole. She would hurt him if this didn’t work out, if he didn’t work out. He nodded, if only to get her to stop talking.

He tried to throw her off, not really knowing who he was dealing with. “Anything about the finger?”

“Not one more word,” Maeve said as she eyed the bartender drifting toward them. “That’s between me, God, and the Farringville police department.” When he looked suitably chagrined, she slid the photo she had brought along toward him. “So, here’s the story,” she said, even though she knew Jo had shared most of it with him. He knew about the finger; why not give him all of the details on her sister? “I have a sister. I don’t know where she is. This is the last photo I have of her. She looks to be around six or seven. Is there someone at the precinct who could do some kind of drawing of her, letting us know what she looks like now?”

Finally, Maeve saw a scintilla of excitement pass across his face, something she hadn’t seen when he and Jo had gotten engaged, when they had announced to Maeve that they were having a baby. Deep in his heart, Maeve thought, he’s a detective; he likes to figure things out. She was expecting to have to cajole him, or worse, remind him of their deal, not taking into account that he was nosy, a byproduct of the Job.

He studied the photo. “I can do that.” He finished off his beer and ordered another round for both of them even though Maeve had barely touched her wine. “Tell me more.” He already had the basics from Jo and needed her to fill in any missing details, anything she had discovered in her own search and investigation.

“There’s nothing to tell, really. I don’t know why she was sent away and I don’t know where she is.”

“Is she alive?” he asked.

“Don’t know that either.”

He shook his head sadly. “Went through this with my partner a few years back.” He threw a couple of twenties on the bar and asked the bartender for change. Maeve was surprised. In their relationship, Jo was the spender and Doug was the saver, something that annoyed his wife. “Poole?” he asked. “You remember him, I guess.”

Maeve nodded. “I do.”

“Lost a brother in the foster system,” he said. “The kids were split up after the mother went to rehab in the sixties.”

Maeve waited for the happy ending but there was none.

“Found him in Sing Sing. He’s still there.” He took in her crushed expression. “Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you that. But your sister isn’t in Sing Sing. It’s an all-male prison,” he said, as if that would take away the sting of what he had said.

God, you are a complete dope, she thought, and in that moment wondered if he was a little challenged himself.

“It’s fine,” Maeve said, starting on her first glass of wine. The kitchen door swung open behind her and loud salsa music burst forth, breaking the pall that had settled in between them. She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse. “And here’s a license plate number. I’m pretty sure I know who it belongs to, but just want to make sure I know the name exactly.”

Doug smiled. “That’s an easy one.”

She almost apologized for blackmailing him into service but then didn’t; the thought of him happily seated on a bar stool not two miles from his home with a blonde with a home dye job still made her boil, if only a little bit now that some time had passed. She wasn’t going to be able to do this without somebody’s help; might as well be his. Cal had proven to be incapable of any critical thinking on his own in terms of finding a missing person, so she might as well use Doug.

“Don’t tell Jo,” Maeve said.

“I won’t,” he promised. He stood, smoothing down the front of his pants.

“New Dockers?” Maeve asked. The shade of his pants was a little less khaki and a little more stone-colored. They looked familiar.

“Yeah,” he said, a smile breaking out on his face. “Got them at Goodwill. Two bucks. I bought a whole bunch. Must have been seventeen of the same kind.”

CHAPTER 40

“Happy new year!”

Maeve was surprised that Jo seemed the least tired of all of them that night and had made it to midnight full of energy. She went into the kitchen and got some champagne glasses down from the cabinet, pulling out some sparkling cider for the girls and her pregnant friend, and a split of champagne for her and Doug, who was sound asleep in a chair by the fireplace.

Rebecca looked disappointed with her sparkling cider.

Chris Larsson showed up a minute after midnight, work having called him in at the last minute. He gave her a chaste kiss on her cheek, her daughters watching his every move toward their mother with an intensity that was making him nervous, if his stiff posture and demeanor were any indication.

“Happy new year,” he whispered in her ear, his lips brushing her hair.

“Happy new year to you,” she said, grasping his fingers lightly. “Dinner? The girls cooked.”

He put his hand on his stomach. “Went to the diner on my dinner break.” He followed her into the kitchen. “Thanks, though.”

In the kitchen, away from the prying eyes of the girls, Maeve allowed him to kiss her, the two of them pressed up against the back door. She kept one eye on the opening to the kitchen, not really prepared to tell her daughters about Chris or why she might be in a clench with the town’s lead detective. She pulled away, smoothing down her hair. “I’m glad you came,” she said. “I wasn’t sure…”

“If I would?” he said, finishing her sentence. He pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table, watching her open champagne and pour it into glasses, not a drop spilling over the tops. “I thought about it, Maeve: with the investigation going on, I thought it might not be a good idea to continue with this.”

She turned her back on him, concentrating on the champagne. She didn’t like where this was going.

“But I decided that it’s okay to be happy. It’s okay to have fun.” He stood and wrapped his arms around her waist. “It’s okay to do what we’re doing.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, leaning back into his broad chest.

“Hold up your hands,” he said, and when she did, examined them closely. “You have ten fingers. Five on each hand. That rules you out.” He nuzzled her neck. “And I just don’t see you as the kind of person who would exact that kind of revenge on someone, no matter what they did to you.”

She stayed silent. He was wrong about that.

“You’re a baker. You’re soft. You’re gentle,” he said, his whispers sending a tingle up her spine. “You’d never hurt anyone.”

He didn’t know. And he never would.

After one last kiss, Maeve put the filled glasses on a tray and entered the living room, passing out cider and champagne. Jo nudged Doug awake and gave him a long, passionate kiss to ring in the new year. Maeve introduced him to Chris. After everyone clinked glasses and took a sip, Jo held her glass up. “I hope this year brings you everything you ever wanted, Maeve Conlon,” she said.

“Thanks, Jo,” Maeve said, clinking her friend’s glass again. “You, too.”

Jo rubbed her belly. “It’s going to be exciting.”

It was. For Jo and Doug. For Maeve, it was still an open question.

The girls and Jo were singing along to some boy band on the television, causing Doug, Maeve, and Chris to vacate the room, going back into the kitchen. Doug pulled a folded-up piece of paper from the back of his Dockers.
Jack’s
Dockers. She still didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was wearing her dead father’s khakis, opting instead to compliment him on their fit every chance she got. He smoothed the piece of paper out on the table, Evelyn Conlon’s adult image floating into place in spite of Maeve’s tears.

“That’s her,” he said. “To the best of the artist’s ability to go so many years into the future like this.” He handed Maeve an envelope with the original photo in it. He didn’t look at her when he said, “She looks like you.”

Maeve nodded, wiping a tear away before it dripped onto the paper, marring the perfect image. She looked at Chris, who was staring at the drawing, and then back at her sister’s face, noticing the resemblance. In it, her sister’s hair was short, as it had been in the original photo, and her mouth was set in a grim line. But her eyes were lively, happy.

“I’ll make her smile,” Maeve whispered.

“Sorry?” Doug asked.

“Nothing. Thank you, Doug.” Maeve turned and started to put some washed silverware away. She bagged up the garbage, asking Chris if he would bring it out back to the cans behind the house. When he was gone, she asked, “And the license plate, Doug?”

“Regina H. Hartwell.”

“Anything on her?”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Any moving violations? Arrests? Outstanding parking tickets?”

It was clear from the chagrined look on his face that he hadn’t gone much further with his investigating.

“Can you check?” she asked. She looked at him pointedly, reminding him with her eyes that they had a deal.

“Okay,” he said.

“Anything. I want to know anything you can find out about this woman,” she said. “Or, I start making trips to Dunkin’ Donuts to make sure you’re not there.”

“I don’t go to Dunkin’ Donuts anymore,” he hissed back at her. “I get my coffee from you even though you keep fingers in your refrigerator.”

He left the kitchen in a huff in his dead man’s Dockers. She wasn’t sure why he didn’t understand the terms of their deal; she hadn’t set any parameters and he hadn’t agreed to any. It was open-ended and that’s the way it would stay.

In the living room, the girls continued to carry on, screaming the lyrics of some song that Maeve was sure she wouldn’t be able to get out of her head for a long time, the chorus being that combination of catchy and annoying that was the hallmark of all the latest pop hits. She sat at the counter and stared at the picture for a long time, noticing that Evelyn’s nose had to belong to some distant relative and the shape of her eyes probably resembled Claire’s more than her father’s. There were certain things that made them look like sisters and others that suggested some recessive genes at work.

“Happy new year, wherever you are,” Maeve said quietly before folding the picture up again and tucking it between two of her favorite cookbooks on the shelf above the kitchen table.

CHAPTER 41

Regina H. Hartwell.

Maeve lay in bed the next morning and typed the name into her computer, after looking at old, grainy footage of the day that Mansfield officially closed. She hadn’t been able to do it until now, the thought of the remembered images from that time in her head and not pleasant to think about. The grounds were flooded with people, and school buses and cars could be seen in the background, some idling, most with passengers, their faces looking out at the cameras detailing their exit. Where were they going? It seemed disorganized, a hasty departure. No wonder some people had gone missing. It was also a wonder how something that happened in her lifetime could look so outdated, so ancient. Digital photography and film had really changed the landscape of documenting life’s important—and infamous—moments.