“Mom, look, there’s Tommy,” said Zoe.
He was walking along the side of the road with his head down, shoulders hunched and hands in pockets. He didn’t seem to have any sense of purpose but was just shuffling along, giving the occasional pebble a half-hearted kick.
“Can we give you a ride?” asked Bill, yelling out the window as he slowed the car.
Startled, Tommy looked up, then shook his head. His face was red and puffy, as if he’d been crying.
“Are you sure?”
Tommy nodded and there was nothing they could do but drive on. “I feel awful for him,” said Lucy, turning to watch his sad little figure straggling aimlessly along the empty road.
“Me, too,” said Bill.
CHAPTER 9
Weeks with Monday holidays were always hell at the Pennysaver and this week was worse than usual because of Mimi’s murder. Ted was already working the phone trying to track down Lieutenant Horowitz when Lucy got to work on Tuesday morning.
“You won’t get anything from him, anyway,” said Lucy, when he slammed down the receiver in frustration.
“Then I can write ‘no comment’ which is a lot better than ‘was unavailable for comment.’”
“What exactly is the difference?” inquired Phyllis, who was entering some last-minute classified ads into the computer.
“‘No comment’ means you at least got to talk to the guy; ‘unavailable for comment’ means he won’t even bother to speak to you. It’s a bigger put down,” said Lucy, who was flipping through her mail. There were lots of press releases but no anonymous letter; maybe the writer was busy over the holiday weekend. Or maybe, she realized with a start, Mimi was the writer. And if Fred had discovered the letters, it might have precipitated a fight that ended with her death.
“Thanks for that insight, Lucy,” said Ted, interrupting her train of thought. “Just for that you get to write Mimi Stanton’s obit.”
“That’s not fair,” protested Lucy, but Ted was already out the door.
“I guess he showed you,” said Phyllis. “He’s unavailable for comment.”
“Maybe Fred will be, too,” said Lucy, punching in the Stantons’s number. She hated interviewing bereaved family members; it was the hardest part of a reporter’s job and it was always worse when the deceased died suddenly, like in a car crash. The absolute worst, of course, was when the deceased was a victim of violence, like Mimi, and you suspected her husband of being the murderer.
“Hello.” The voice was male, but Lucy wasn’t sure if it was Fred or Preston or some other family member.
“This is Lucy Stone, at the Pennysaver. Could I speak to Fred Stanton, please?”
“Speaking.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize your voice,” began Lucy. “Let me begin by telling you how sorry I am for your loss. We’ll all miss Mimi.”
“Right.” Fred’s tone was curt. Maybe he was limiting himself to one-word answers because he was afraid of breaking down or maybe he wasn’t going to be missing Mimi much at all. Lucy couldn’t tell.
“I mostly need basic facts for the obituary,” said Lucy, keeping her voice gentle and soothing. “Let’s begin with her maiden name.”
“Mary Catherine O’Toole.”
After she went over the spelling, apologizing profusely for being such a stickler, she asked for information about Mimi’s parents and place of birth.
“Boston.”
“She was born in Boston,” repeated Lucy, giving him a chance to correct her if necessary, “and her parents?”
“Don’t know,” he said, cutting her off.
“You don’t know who your wife’s parents were?” persisted Lucy.
“Never met ’em.” Fred sounded defensive.
“Sisters? Brothers?”
“No,” he answered, raising his voice.
“So you and the two boys are the only survivors?”
“Why do you want to know?” Fred’s tone was becoming hostile.
“It’s just a formality. It’s always included in an obituary.”
“How long is this going to take?” he asked abruptly.
“I have quite a list of questions. It’s a summation of her whole life, you know.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“But don’t you want people to know about her life? What she did, what was important to her?”
“No.” He paused. “And don’t go bothering my boys either.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t…” began Lucy, but the line had gone dead.
The usual trick in that case was to call back immediately and say the line must have been disconnected but Lucy didn’t think it would work. Fred wasn’t going to talk to her. Luckily, there were plenty of other people who knew Mimi, like her colleagues at town hall, but it would take forever to track them down.
Lucy had to finish up the obituary on Wednesday which, in addition to being deadline day, was the first day of school. The school year wasn’t getting off to a great start, at least not in the Stone household. Sara and Zoe were running late, and the fact that the school bus now stopped over at Prudence Path instead of at the end of their driveway meant they couldn’t count on the driver honking and waiting for them as she had in the past.
“Girls! You’ve got to get over to the bus stop NOW!” yelled Lucy, who was nervously keeping an eye on the Regulator clock in the kitchen.
A desultory series of thumps announced Zoe’s arrival at the foot of the back stairs. She was wearing her brand new back-to-school outfit, a pink track suit just like the ones Britney and Jessica wore.
“Do you have a T-shirt on underneath?” asked Lucy, who knew it was going to be another hot day. “You’ll roast if you can’t take off that hoodie.”
“I’m not going to take it off.”
“Okay,” said Lucy, who had learned to pick her battles. “Whatever. Have you got your lunch? And where’s your sister?”
“She’s in the bathroom.”
Lucy pounded up the stairs and found Sara leaning over the bathroom sink, applying mascara with leisurely strokes punctuated with long pauses to examine the effect she was creating.
“You’re going to miss the bus—you’ll have to finish that at school.”
“The school bathrooms smell.”
“I don’t care. You have got to go. Now.”
“You could drive us,” said Sara, slowly screwing the top of the mascara tube.
“In your dreams. GO!”
She gave Sara a shove towards the stairs but she detoured into her bedroom.
“What now?”
“I need my book bag.”
Peering into the bedroom the girls shared, Lucy saw no sign of a book bag.