Murder Came Second (14 page)

“Sometimes we both need it, sometimes I need it for myself alone. Do you ever need it alone?” She held up her empty glass.

I got up and gave us both refills. “No, not alone, not yet, anyway. Sometimes I like being here just with the animals before you get here.”

“But you might need it, and it should be here if you do. We
can
afford it, you know.”

“Yes, in a way, of course I know we can. At least for now. But what about thirty years from now, old age creeping up. Seems like you should start saving for it in kindergarten.” I looked over at her.

“Nursery school is better.”

I swished the ice in my drink. “And it seems a bit extravagant, sort of conspicuous consumption, you know? A couple of people have made some veiled comments. It would be different, maybe, if it were up in New Hampshire or Maine, I guess. It’s just that it’s so close.”

She shrugged. “Let ’em talk. We need it, we can pay for it, we got it. We’re well invested. You’ve got your own IRA now, plus you’re putting away the money we save having you on my medical insurance. I’ve got a good 401K at the bank. Leave old age up to me. When you start doddering, we’ll be able to buy you a cane.” Her words were light, but her voice was very firm.

“You sound very certain,” I said.

“I am. We need a getaway Alex, for us, for me, and in a sense for you, even if you never spend one night alone here. You need to think you have some safe little escape hatch, or someday you’ll get up a head of steam and make a big breakout we’ll both regret.” She ground out her cigarette emphatically.

Hey, wait a minute, I thought, those are my lines. “Darling,” I began haltingly. I wasn’t ready for this. I needed time to make sure it would all sound the way I wanted it to. “I love you and—”

“I know you do,” she interrupted. “And I love you. That’s why I’m saying all this. It isn’t exactly easy. Remember my bugbear about one of us coming home changed by a trip? It wasn’t easy for me to admit that, but it did seem much less frightening in the light of day. I think we’ve all got bugbears that may seem silly to other people, but can scare us into doing really stupid things. Like my getting bitchy or needy every time one of us is going away.”

“I suppose so. I guess it’s just a matter of working through them,” I hedged.

“Well, you’ve got a similar one you won’t even talk about at all. You’re afraid of being tied too tight, right? You’re afraid of losing yourself. You’re afraid you can’t hack it, right?”

I clutched her hand as if it were all that was keeping me from falling off a cliff, and maybe it was. “Well, maybe in some ways . . . yes . . . oh, hell, you’re right.” And suddenly it all came bubbling out. Once begun, it would not be stopped. She listened, without laughing or criticizing or getting angry or teary, without disagreeing or adding her own little interpretations.

So there were all my fears and doubts, spread before her like the unappealing wares left on a tag sale bargain table. She still remained silent, merely bending forward to pick up her glass and drain it. I wondered if she were trying to think of a nice way to say good-bye.

Finally, she spoke. “I was trying to think of a good way to put this, and I can’t, really. But think of this: visualize a giant piece of paper with a graph on it. Starting at the left margin there are two lines, one blue, one red. They go across the paper, sometimes together, sometimes one moving a little up or a little down, crossing, re-crossing, going along together or slightly apart till they reach the right-hand margin.” She took another cigarette from the pack on the table, but I made no comment.

“That’s us, Alex. Sometimes we’re closer than others, but we’re basically together until the paper runs out. Together, but definitely one red line and one blue line. We do not turn into a purple smear!”

I poured the small remains of the old-fashioneds into our glasses. “I like that. Together until the paper runs out.” I smiled.

“Don’t be flip!” Her face was serious. “It’s
you
I love, Alex, not some featureless blob of an extension of myself! You don’t have to live scared. You know, loving someone who doesn’t swim in your own gene pool or have four legs and a tail is not a terminal illness!”

“I believe you.” I spread my hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s simply that I have spent the last ten years, in and out of relationships, doing the same thing over and over and wondering why I got the same catastrophic result each time. Now—well, you and I have a relationship unlike anything I’ve ever known. I want it. I love it. I treasure it. And what if I’m not big enough, or adult enough, or stable enough or something enough to handle it?” I sank my head into my hands. I couldn’t believe I’d said that to anybody, much less Cindy.

She lifted my chin and leaned over to give me one of those Cindy kisses that said she was both lover and friend. “I think you’re something enough.
Being
together does not necessarily mean officially
living
together. Loving each other does not mean forsaking our own self to meld with the other. We shall be together until the paper runs out, under a multitude of roofs, in a plethora of beds. We’ll even dine at separate tables if we feel like it, especially if you and Fargo keep wrecking the one in the dining room.”

I grinned at her, and then felt a sudden shyness. “Ah, you think it would hurt dinner if we postponed it for a little while?”

She stood and held out her hand, giving me a smile that was sexy and impish and yet, somehow, kind.

“Dearest Alex, nothing could hurt that dinner.”

Chapter 12

We went back to the house a few days later. I’d been picking up my phone messages two or three times a day, but really didn’t like to be out of touch even that long this time of year. This was my time to do at least preliminary investigations on fairly numerous insurance injury claims. It was my bread-and-butter income, and I couldn’t be unavailable.

After the season’s bizarre start, the cases had all continued to be blessedly predictable. A woman took a quite legitimate fall on a wet spot in a supermarket. That incident would be handled out of Boston. A man had tripped and fallen over a barstool. Probably faked, but the unthinking bartender had served the guy a drink when he was already drunk. That one was settled on the spot with two of the crisp new bills I kept available for such times. A man claimed “food poisoning” after lunch at a local seafood stand. The clinic said it was more than likely too much hot sun combined with the giant banana split that had followed the mayonnaise-heavy lobster roll and fried onion rings. I always tried not to think of exactly how the clinic arrived at such diagnoses.

I even took a cheating spouse case because I felt sorry for the older man who was “absolutely certain” his pretty young wife was cheating on him. I had hopes of proving she was not. He was, however, absolutely correct. Only two nights of surveillance revealed that the young woman had reunited with a doubtless more virile and, according to her, more romantic partner. I wasn’t sure which of the two spouses I felt more sympathy for.

After a late night, thanks to the illicit lovers, and an early morning, thanks to Fargo, I set out rather groggily on my errands. The cleaners, the post office, the drug store. As I walked toward the drug store, I was startled to see my mother and Noel walking from the supermarket toward her car, Noel pushing a loaded cart. He grinned and waved. Mom blew a kiss, but made no effort to come over. I assumed she had run into him inside, picking up some snacks for himself and the others and, knowing he had no car, she was giving him a ride home. She was always considerate.

Returning from my parking lot encounter, I got my second surprise when I saw that Cindy had come home for lunch.

She was hunched over the small dining room table—now with a pristine new tablecloth and lampshade—eating a salad and reading some magazine. She barely looked up long enough to explain, “This is the new issue of the
A-List
. I want to finish it so I can leave it for you. Your salad is in the fridge. It needs dressing. There’s a pitcher of tea, too, if you want some.” She returned to her reading.

“Oh, okay, thank you.” I’d been thinking of a salami on pumpernickel and some chips and a pickle, and maybe a cold beer. Oh well, a salad and iced tea were nice on a hot day. Refreshing and healthy, just what I wanted, really. Maybe if I kept saying it, I’d believe it.

I took my now-dressed salad and a handful of club crackers and glass of cold tea into the dining room and sat down.

I hate watching someone else read something I can’t see. Cindy sat across from me, so of course the copy of the A-List was upside down to me. As she read, Cindy favored me with little exclamations and opinions.
Uhmnn. Oh-oh. I’ll be damned. Oh, really. Te-hee. Oh, no way. Wow. Hah.
Since there was no way for me to guess what these remarks referred to in the article, I was getting more irritated by the moment.

“Cindy, please either read the damned article out loud, or be quiet. Your conversation is not quite understandable.”

“Well, pardon me! I thought I was doing you a favor. These things are probably all sold out by now. The guy at the newsstand said he could have sold twice as many as he had in stock.”

“Sorry, do continue to enjoy your mumbles.” I punched a fork into my salad.

“My mumbles?” She looked up and burst out laughing. “You are just envious that I got it first and ticked off that you didn’t get a thousand calorie sandwich and beer for lunch. Now be good, you’ll get this in a minute.”

I sipped my tea sullenly. How did she know? How did she always know?

True to her word, she finished the article quickly and passed the magazine across to me. “It’s interesting and just about what you’d expect, I guess. A lot of people in this town are not going to be thrilled. Neither are the cast members. I’ve got to get back to work. Bye for now.”

I tried to look disinterested and not to grab the magazine. At least not until she got into the kitchen. I vaguely heard her put dishes in the dishwasher and say good-bye to Fargo. I was already turning to an article entitled, “The Life of a Play.” There was a subtitle reading, “Survival in a Small Town.” Already I didn’t like it.

Terese did not plagiarize her description of the Provincetown area from the Chamber of Commerce brochure. She referred to our rolling dunes as giant sun reflectors that hurt the eyes. Our roaring surf and sparkling beaches were the Coney Island of New England. She referred to the Brownlees’ lovely inn as “stripped down living quarters.” She harped on our plethora of souvenir shops, with no mention of our interesting and good quality gift shops and art galleries and museums. She didn’t think much of our restaurants or various boating and fishing activities either. I got up and added some more ice to my tea. I needed something cooling.

Terese did approve of the amphitheater. “A starkly perfect setting for the multi-talented Paul Carlucci’s latest dramatic triumph. He has written a masterful modern adaptation of
Hamlet
, so in touch with so many of today’s emotions and challenging issues, it defies description . . . a classic which will prove timeless.” Wow! Was she talking about the script Noel and Elaine had described to us the other night?

The cast, Terese hoped, would live up to the writer/director. Professionals all, she assured us, but having just a few problems along the way. She phrased her gossipy items in a tone of high-minded concern for the production. Actually, she shot them down like ducks at a carnival booth.

To her, David Willem seemed to be having difficulty maintaining his focus and projecting his depth of feeling for his role, perhaps due to the lack of his “aristocratic” founding father Dutch family and his “artistic” wife to keep him company and provide support in free moments. I wondered exactly what that meant.

Could Teri work past her upbringing in New York’s more difficult environs to portray Ophelia as the truly delicate and sensitive young southern belle of the play? It would take, Terese feared sympathetically, a quantum leap.

Noel seemed to be just the teeniest bit stiff in his love scenes with Elaine. Could it be she brought back painful memories of his first wife? I didn’t get that one, nor did I fully understand her crack that Nick Peters thought he’d make a better Hamlet than stage manager. Was Nick a wannabe actor? I didn’t know.

Terese then moved on to the locals. When I noticed Sonny’s and Harmon’s names in type, I went and got a cigarette before reading it. It was a good move. A stiff bourbon might have been an even better one. I began to read.