We had agreed upon the story. Charlie was out of town, helping a sick friend in Slidell. So that’s what I told her. The lie came out so easily it frightened me. I used to feel sick to my stomach when I heard Mother tell a lie. How can you do it? How do you live with yourself? I used to wonder. But here I was, lying to Miss Paulsen and smiling while doing it. I even added details about Charlie possibly acquiring a bookstore in Slidell. Patrick and I had never discussed that. I made that up all by myself.
Patrick hadn’t come to the shop in days. When I stopped by the house, he was always at the piano, playing endless melodies for Charlie. Something had changed. A curtain had fallen between us. It made me want to cry. I’d give my special knock and then let myself in with my key. Patrick would turn slightly from the piano, see it was me, and then turn back around. He communicated with his father through Debussy, Chopin, and Liszt. He’d continue playing, sometimes for hours. I’d bring groceries, straighten up the house, and he’d remain seated at the piano. We wouldn’t exchange a word. But as soon as I’d walk out onto the stoop to leave, I’d hear the notes stop. He was speaking to Charlie through the music. He was ignoring me through it.
I was happy to see him come through the door of the shop. I couldn’t speak freely because a customer was browsing one of the stacks. Patrick and I had worked together for years, but today the space behind the counter felt cramped. We maneuvered around each other awkwardly and had lost our comfortable rhythm.
“Hi.” I tried to smile at him. I put my hand on the counter, signaling mystery.
Patrick looked down at the woman, shook his head, and gave me the sign for cookbook.
It was the most we had communicated in over a week. I had repeatedly apologized about what happened with Charlie. I knew he heard me, but he hadn’t responded. His simple cookbook signal filled me with joy.
“Charlie?” I whispered.
“Randolph’s there. I have to run a few errands.”
I pulled out a stack of mail and handed it to him. “I sorted the bills and checks. I figured you’d be going by the bank.”
He nodded.
The woman came to the register with the new Betty Crocker Cookbook.
“I was so sure she’d choose Agatha Christie,” I said after she left the shop.
“She desperately wants to read mysteries,” said Patrick. “But she had to buy the cookbook because her angry husband is demanding hot meals as soon as he drops his briefcase at the door. She’s miserable in the marriage—so is her husband. He drinks to escape, she cries in the bathroom sitting on the edge of the tub. They never should have gotten married. She’s even more miserable now that she bought the cookbook instead of Agatha Christie. She feels trapped.”
I looked out the window and watched the woman standing motionless in the street. I played through the scenario Patrick had created and could suddenly see her throwing the book in a trash bin, shaking her hair out, and running to the nearest saloon. Two young men crossed the street toward the shop looking at us through the window. I pegged one to buy the Mickey Spillane novel. The other boy looked familiar. It was John Lockwell’s son, Richard.
“Jo.” Patrick tugged at my arm, pulling me into him. I felt his hand slide under my hair, and suddenly he was kissing me. By the time I realized what was happening, he had stopped.
“Patrick.” I was so shocked I could barely say his name. My hand rested on his shoulder, not in a fist. I had let him kiss me and didn’t fight him off.
He quickly looked out the window. “I’m sorry, Jo,” he whispered.
His face was so close to mine, drawn with pain.
“Patrick, I’m sorry, too, I—”
He didn’t let me finish. He kissed me quickly, grabbed the stack of mail, and left the shop.
I leaned against the counter to steady myself, filled with a mixture of shock, confusion, and Patrick’s toothpaste in my mouth. I touched my lips. Was it an “I’m sorry” kiss or an “I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner” kiss? I couldn’t tell. But I hadn’t resisted and was more bewildered than fearful.
I finalized the inventory that Patrick had requested and sorted a new shipment of books. I was distracted and shelved things in the wrong place. I put the new best seller Confessions of a Highlander by Shirley Cameron in the travel section instead of in romance. I caught my mistake and scolded myself. I moved it to the register display, hoping a regretful housewife would buy it instead of a cookbook.
I kept returning to the same conclusion. Patrick and I made sense. We were comfortable. We had known each other a long time. We loved books. He was smart, talented, stylish, and very organized. He had seen all my ghosts. There wouldn’t be any uncomfortable explanations or risk of rejection when Dora hooted at me in the street, when Willie insisted I go with her to Shady Grove, or when Mother resurfaced, begging for a sirloin for the black eye that Hollywood had given her. Patrick would take a Greyhound from the station on Rampart to visit me at Smith. On Christmas Eve, he would be waiting at the station in his blue peacoat when my bus pulled in late at night. We’d listen to music together, I’d give him cuff links for his birthday, and we’d spend Sunday mornings drinking coffee and combing the obituaries for dead books.
I smiled. Patrick didn’t scare me. It made sense.
The bell jingled. Frankie walked into the shop, peering between the stacks.
“Wow, twice in the same month. Let me guess—you’ve been dreaming of Victor Hugo?” I asked.
Frankie looked around. His hands twitched. “You alone?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“You sure?” he asked, chomping on his gum.
I nodded. The ever-present humor was absent from his voice. A shadow rolled through my stomach.
“Your momma’s on her way back.”
I let out the breath I was holding. “Already? Why am I not surprised?” I slid a book into its proper place. I had to ask the question. “Is Cincinnati coming with her?”
“Don’t know. I told Willie, and she told me to come and tell you.”
“How did you find out?”
“I have a source over at American Telegram. They saw the message transmitted.”
“Mother sent Willie a telegram?” That seemed odd.
“No, the telegram was sent last night from the Los Angeles police chief to one of the head detectives here in New Orleans. They delivered the telegram to his house last night, all private.”
“I knew Cincinnati would get her in trouble. So he’s been arrested, and now she’s coming back.”
“It’s not Cinci. Your momma’s the one in custody.”
“What?”
Frankie nodded. “Telegram said, ‘Louise Moraine in custody on way to New Orleans.’ My leak in the detective’s office said that they’ve been hunting her down.”
“What for?”
Frankie blew a small bubble and looked out the window.
“What for, Frankie?”
His gum snapped just as the words came out of his mouth.
“The murder of Forrest Hearne.”
THIRTY-FIVE
I ran to Willie’s, my stomach bouncing in my mouth the entire way. Yes, Mother was stupid. And greedy. A murderer? I didn’t want to believe it. The thought scared me too much. Echoes of all her rotten promises came floating at me from the jar of shame, and with each step I took, I heard the ticktock of Forrest Hearne’s watch—the watch I had found under her bed.
I crept in through the kitchen door. Dora sat with her emerald dress hiked up around her thighs, bare foot on the kitchen table. She was painting her toenails a pearlescent shade of pink. She took one look at me and opened her arms.
“Oh, sugar, come to Dora. I’d get up, but I’d ruin my hooves.”
I walked into Dora’s arms. She squeezed me into what felt like pillows. “Now, I’ve read a couple crime novels, hon. Nothin’ has been proved yet. Willie said they’re just callin’ her in for questioning.”
“But why?”