Maggie Dove (9 page)

Heading toward the woods. Heading toward a place that was dark, inaccessible and likely exceedingly muddy, Maggie thought. Oh joy. At least it was too early in the day for the coyotes to be out—wasn't it? Last time she'd gone there she'd been sure she heard one baying behind her, though it wound up being a deer, though quite a scary-looking deer. People thought deer were harmless because they were vegetarians, but they are big creatures and surprisingly testy. Maggie didn't want to mess with another one.

Driving to the woods would save her a few blocks' walk, but then she'd only have to park the car, and it would take just as much time to walk to her house and get the car. Better to just do what she had to, she thought, as she started up Main Street, each cross street in alphabetical order. Past Alcott and Bryer and Carson and so on, all streets named for a family she had known.

As she passed the hair salon, Iphigenia waved. Past the police department. She was Sisyphus without the ball, a cranky lady going up a hill. She could actually imagine her fear as something separate from herself, something that weighted her down. The village smelled so sweet. There was always one day in April when spring erupted, when everything smelled alive and young. Past the bagel place and the dry cleaner, and the manicurist and the other manicurist and the real estate agent and a third manicurist, which reminded her that Bender had manicured nails. Her husband, who had not been the most macho of men, had always been disturbed by manicures.

She called Peter again on his cell phone as she trudged up Main Street in the direction of the woods. “Peter, this is ridiculous. We have to talk.”

She imagined him sprawled on his couch, drinking, sulking. “It's not hopeless,” she said.

Up past the Chinese restaurant and the yarn store and then across Broadway and into the development of homes built on what had once been a cow pasture. Then farther up to a point where she used to go sledding when she was young. Suicide Hill, they'd called it, and she'd used it as a title for one of her mysteries. Then up past the high school and finally into the woods. Immediately the air changed, wet and promising. The ground was covered with dead leaves. A dog ran at her, closely followed by a man. “He's friendly. Sorry.”

She kept going deeper into the woods. She heard peepers, coming from a pond a little bit farther on. She used to love to try and sneak up on the peepers, but they always stopped right when you got there. You couldn't trick a frog. She used to love to walk around here when she wrote dialogue. People looked at you oddly when you spoke to yourself, particularly if you spoke in a French accent, as Inspector Benet did. But no one cared in the woods. The only other people who went there were dog walkers and they seemed accepting of foibles. She'd gone there for so many years she knew all the spots, the tulip tree cut in half by lightning, the shoe someone must have lost in the 1950s, the stream that went dry suddenly every summer, the weird bush that bit you with bristles when you went by.

She kept going, heading in the direction of the rock that she knew to be Peter's favorite place. It was a giant flat rock in the middle of a stream, and he loved to sit there and think. He'd gone there as a Boy Scout, before he got thrown out. He'd been on track to be an Eagle Scout, but there was one last badge he'd refused to get and although his mother had begged him, he wouldn't do it. She'd come to Maggie then and asked her to try, though it did no good. Poor woman was so tired, worn down by her son and misfortune.

Because of the storm a few days ago, the trails were wet, lots of branches were down. There was a wild energy to the whole place that made her feel like a party had taken place. Off in the distance, Maggie thought she heard a gun fire, but then realized that it was a branch crashing to the ground. She smelled something unusual. Not fire, but gasoline. An unexpected smell. There were no cars allowed in the woods and no room for them. She made her way toward the smell, assuming it was Peter, up to no good. She didn't feel afraid. Not really. There was no danger in these woods beyond that of falling branches and the occasional deer hunter with a bow and arrow, and yet she felt unsettled.

“Peter,” she said aloud.

Now she definitely heard an engine noise and she turned toward a small clearing and saw that someone was on a dirt bike and as she watched, horrified, the dirt biker rode right into a rock and crashed to a halt.

She yelled, started to run toward it, but then the driver turned to her, waved, walked his bike back a few yards, got onto it and rode it into the rock once again. It was the Asian boy from the river, the one who had been on a skateboard, and was now trying to kill himself with a dirt bike. Or so it seemed. Back again and again. He crashed into the rock ten times.

Maggie sat down on a large log and watched him, horrified and amazed by the battering he was taking, until finally it dawned on her that this must be how he was learning to ride. It made sense. Without something solid in front of him, he could go careening into the woods. Better to go slowly and be stopped by a rock.

The air was cold, but watching this boy was warming and soothing, and he seemed to take pleasure in having her there. His helmet was huge and red, but she could see his eyes sparkling, could see him turn and look at her every time he got himself up. She began clapping and laughing and, encouraged, after the twentieth crash, he began to putt-putt in a circle. She'd never seen anything like it, such a concentration of power and grace. Such a perfect metaphor for life. Into the wall. Back on your feet. Into the wall. Back on your feet.

Finally he began to ride in a broader circle, weaning himself off the security of the rock. He rode in a slow, careful circle, round and round until before her eyes she could see him gain confidence. His arms were bent forward at a difficult balletic angle. Then he began to speed up. The air smelled sweet with oil, the sound surprisingly gentle, an urgent hum. He was dressed like a bird, in patterns of blue and red with a number 126 patched onto his back. Circling more quickly, crunch of tire over stick, the beauty of power and youth and suddenly Peter came pounding into the clearing.

He looked like an insane person. His hair was all on end, his face red and wet with tears, and he clambered toward her. She stood up, confused, assuming he was going to yell at the boy, prepared to remind him that he himself had ridden dirt bikes in the forest. The boy went roaring off, but Peter didn't even look his way. His attention was on Maggie.

“Peter,” she said. “Are you okay?

“Did you get my message?” she went on. “I met with Doc Steinberg and I was trying to reach you. I could help you find a lawyer. We'll be able to work this out,” she said, though even as she walked toward him she knew something terrible was coming. She flinched against bad news.

“I'm sorry, Dove,” he said, voice breaking. “But I just got word about Winifred. She had a heart attack. She didn't suffer, but we've lost her.”

She looked at him stupidly. She'd only just spoken to Winifred the other day and she sounded fine. There was a mistake. It was just like Winifred to play a joke, but death was no joke. Death was sudden and vicious and Maggie sank into Peter's arms and she sobbed against his chest and as she did she heard the peepers singing around her. They must have begun singing while she was watching the boy. They had turned on, but she had missed them. She cried as she thought of her friend. Sadness and loneliness stretched out in front of her, but how grateful she was to have Peter's strong arms to lean on.

The town stopped for Winifred's funeral. Three of her four husbands came and spoke, which caused a palpitation in the community. So much sex for some old woman, though of course Winifred had been young and beautiful at most of the times she'd been married. The husbands spoke about her humor and liveliness and wicked tongue, which caused them all to titter a bit.

They clustered together after the service and Maggie said hello, though she hadn't been wild about any of them: Ned, the high school football star who Winifred had followed to college, whereupon he immediately injured himself and ended his career. She'd had her daughter with him. Then there was Scottie, a jockey she met in Saratoga. After that divorce, she'd moved out to Fort Worth, where she married Jerry, the one who broke her heart, the one who hadn't come. And then finally there was Fred Melrose, who ran a catering business in Ardsley but got into some difficulties with his taxes. They'd got divorced a decade ago.

Winifred always made much of the fact that although she'd divorced her husbands, she'd never broken up a marriage and never had an affair. Each one came
sui generis.
Maggie'd never been sure why that was such a good thing, but it mattered to Winifred. She'd broken up no marriages. She had ethics, if not a long attention span.

Winifred would have liked her funeral, Maggie thought. That was the only way to get through it. To distance herself a little. To laugh. Winifred would have been pleased at the turnout. The synagogue was packed, with people standing up in the back aisle. She would have liked the rabbi's speech and the way he spoke about her good works. She'd been involved in so many more causes than Maggie had realized. She would have liked her daughter's speech too. Winifred and Amy hadn't always gotten along. Amy actually lived a mile south, but hadn't seen Winifred in five years. She put that all aside for the funeral service and talked about her mother's bravery. How she was such an inspiration.

“You did good,” Maggie said to her afterward and Amy grinned one of her rare grins.

“Thanks, Auntie Mag. Isn't it amazing what thousands of dollars of therapy can do?”

The Dolan boys came then to play their bagpipes, which wasn't a traditional feature of a Jewish service, but Winifred had loved to hear them play. Watching them huff and puff to “Sunrise, Sunset,” made Maggie tear up all over again, and she had just wiped her eyes dry when Agnes appeared, almost out of nowhere.

She was in fine form. Her hair was now a dusky shade of red, parted to the side, without bangs. She had on false eyelashes and dark lipstick and she wore a very nice white suit. She looked a little like a bride, in fact.

“I tried out a new hairdresser in the city,” Agnes said, answering the question Maggie hadn't asked. “Thought I'd splurge.”

“It looks very nice.”

“Want a ride home?” Peter interrupted. He looked like he'd been punched. His face looked a decade older than it had when she'd met him in the park.

“No,” Maggie said. “Thanks, but Winifred always got mad if I left a party too early.”

“Is there going to be a party?” Agnes asked.

She looked so concerned that Maggie felt touched. She remembered Agnes as she had been, Agnes in high school, always on the outside of things, always left out. She was one of eight children, which you would think would make her sociable, but her family hadn't gone that way. They'd all stuck together, clannish, with the result that none of them had friends outside the family. Only Agnes seemed interested in making friends, but she was a homely girl. Not part of the popular set, which consisted of Maggie and Winifred and Shelly Lundeen and Patti Baker. They'd been cruel to Agnes.

“There's no party,” Maggie said. “I just meant that Winifred would not want me to leave the funeral early.

“Oh,” Agnes said, looking flustered for the first time in all the years Maggie had known her. But then she rallied.

“Why didn't the third husband come?” she asked.

“I don't think she'd spoken to him in twenty-five years,” Maggie said. “Plus, I don't think their breakup was amicable. She never liked to talk about him.”

Maggie hadn't even met him. The wedding was out in Fort Worth, where Winifred had gone after the breakup of her marriage to the jockey, her second husband. She'd moved to Fort Worth, got a job as an assistant to someone at an oil company, left her daughter back in Darby, with her parents. Maggie couldn't go to that third wedding. Juliet was young then, Maggie busy with her husband, they'd lost touch. She must have been married to him for five years. Maybe more, and then one day she showed up back in Darby. She could see Winifred was hurting. She knew she'd loved that husband and he broke her heart; but Winifred, she never wanted to talk about him. He was like a bad dream.

“Maybe he killed her,” Agnes said.

“Nobody killed her.”

Agnes scanned the room. She was like a terrier, Maggie thought. Relentless.

“She was sick. She told me herself she was worsening.”

“For a mystery writer you have an unsuspicious mind.”

“Winifred was an old woman. She was sick and her heart gave out.” That's what Amy said, anyway. That they assumed it was heart failure.

“Only 62,” Agnes said. “Not so old.”

Maggie felt something cold encircle her heart. “What are you suggesting?”

“It's just that our small village seems to be suffering from a spate of sudden deaths. A suspicious mind, which I freely acknowledge having, might wonder if there wasn't a serial murderer at work.”

Maggie felt the ground underneath her shift, as though she'd been in an earthquake. The bagpipe music began to sound louder, more grating.

“A serial murderer. You think Winifred's death is related to Bender's?”

“Is it impossible?”

“What do they have in common that anyone would want to kill them both? They didn't even know each other.”

“On the contrary,” Agnes said, eyeing Gretchen, who seemed to be yelling at Hal. The world's most romantic couple was having an argument right in the middle of Winifred's funeral reception. Had the world gone mad? “There are more points of connection between them than you think. Including your young friend.”

“Peter? Why on earth would Peter want to kill Winifred? They were friends.”

“Were they?” Agnes said, looking at her so sadly that Maggie faltered, wondering what new horror was coming her way. But before she could pursue the conversation, Winifred's daughter, Amy, appeared by her side and started to cry and Maggie put her arm around her and guided her off to a secluded corner. They sat next to each other on a red couch. Maggie felt dizzy, concerned, exhausted. How desperately she wanted her friend right then! How much she wished she had Winifred there to talk to. But here was this girl. Girl, she was 44 years old, but Maggie still saw that sweet girl in front of her who spent so many years of her life crying. Even her father wasn't paying much attention to her. He'd married again, to a young, thin wife; his other four daughters took after her.

“Now I'll never have a chance to make things right with her,” she wept. Poor thing, Maggie thought. Poor girl, who had been born with a football player's body and a pair of liquid brown eyes that could tear your heart right out.

“You were a good daughter. You have nothing to reproach yourself for.”

“A good daughter.” Amy wiped her hand across her nose. Maggie searched around for a handkerchief and gave it to her.

“She was a provoking woman,” Maggie said.

“I thought she'd live forever. I always thought I'd have a chance to fix things with her. I figured she'd live to 105. I never thought she'd die so young.”

She began to cry, large fat tears that actually bounced off her legs as they fell. Tears, Maggie suspected, that came from deep within her, from a little girl who cried because her mother wasn't there. Tears she'd been crying for a long time.

“She did love you,” Maggie said. “I hope you know that. She didn't always show it as well as she should have. But she loved you and she was proud of you.”

“Yeah,” she sniffed. “Right.”

“She was so pleased you were good with numbers. Remember that time you counted to 10,000 and wrote all the numbers down on a pad of paper? She talked about that for years. She couldn't believe she had a daughter who was such a math whiz. And I think,” Maggie went on, “that even though she hadn't seen you in a while, she always knew you would come if she needed you.”

Amy nodded. “I would have.” She blew her nose strongly into her handkerchief. “In fact,” she said, “Mom did call me. Right before she…right before she passed.”

Maggie thought, So hard to say the word “died.”

“What for?”

“It was something insignificant. I thought she was calling to apologize, but she just had a question about something.”

“What?”

“It was about Peter. She wanted to know if I was going out with him, which was ridiculous because he'd be the last person I'd go out with.”

Why would Winifred ask a question like that? Maggie wondered.

“The funny thing is,” Amy said. “I actually had news I wanted to tell her. I have started seeing someone, and I'd planned to go by and tell her about him this week. I thought it might patch things up between us.”

“That's wonderful news.”

“I know. A miracle, right?” She laughed and cried at the same time.

“Well, she would have been happy, then. She always hoped you'd find someone.”

“I don't know why. She didn't have much luck with romance.”

“No, but she was always hopeful.”

“Do you suppose I could bring him by to meet you sometime? I suppose you're my surrogate mother now.”

“Of course,” Maggie said. “You don't even need to call first. Just come. Please. Better yet, let's pick a date, that way we'll be sure to meet.”

The next day Maggie went over to the nursing home to clear out Winifred's things. Amy had offered to come, but Maggie knew she had to work, and was content to do it. She wanted time alone in her friend's place. She wanted to soak up whatever remained of her. There wasn't much though. Winifred had cleared away most of her things before she moved there. So there were some clothes, some jewelry, which Maggie set aside for Amy, a bunch of books, mainly her own. The furniture she gave to Arthur, who came by looking sincerely grief-stricken.

Most of the day Maggie spent sitting on the bed, looking through the old photos and letters and bills before putting them in boxes or throwing them away. She came across a note from Juliet that she hadn't even known Winifred saved. It was a thank-you note for a long forgotten birthday present, but it touched Maggie that Winifred had hung on to it.

“Dear friend.”

She folded it up and was putting it in her pocketbook, when she heard someone at the door.

Maggie looked up and almost laughed out loud. She couldn't believe who stood in front of her.