“I’m going to put this in the oven to keep it warm,” I said, taking the casserole and putting it on the center rack.
“He doesn’t even understand that I can’t do everything he wants to do,” Marie said, and then, realizing her comment might be taken any number of ways, blushed. “I mean, you know, like traveling. He’s up to it, but I’m just not. But I tell him, if you want to go away, you go. You have a good time. The first time I said that, I didn’t think he’d actually go, but off he went once he found somebody else to go. And he had such a wonderful time over there, I didn’t see how I could say no when he wanted to go back.”
“Well,” I said, since I had no comment.
“And not for a second do I believe what Len’s been saying about Thomas,” she said.
“What would that be, Marie?”
“He can’t hear us, can he?” she asked worriedly.
“No.”
“Len’s been saying if the police ever started to investigate what happened to your father, they’d probably be taking a pretty good look at Thomas.”
“Why’s that, Marie?”
“Len says your dad always took chances on cutting grass on the side of that hill, but even so, he was the kind of man who always knew what he was doing. He says if the police ever started thinking he got pushed, that someone was there and let that tractor fall on him, well, they’d have to look no further than Thomas. I’m just telling you what Len says. I was thinking he might have said as much to you when you were over, before I opened the basement door, and I wanted to tell you I’m very sorry if he did. I don’t think Thomas would do that. He’s a good boy, basically. How high you got that oven set? Don’t put it up to 350 or anything. Just warm it a hundred degrees. Just for ten minutes or so.”
I adjusted the oven.
I thought I’d put it behind me, this obsession I’d been having about the tractor key being in the OFF position, the raised housing. Julie’s interpretation of things had made a lot of sense. But now I was wondering whether my earlier supposition, that someone had stopped to talk to my father, and might have been there when he died, could still be true.
But I didn’t hold Len in very high regard, especially lately, so the fact that he and I might be on the same wavelength also gave me pause. And why the hell was he doing this kind of speculating? What had kicked off this line of thinking? I’d only started letting my mind run a bit wild after I’d examined the tractor. Len, so far as I knew, had not been out here to inspect the accident scene before I moved the machine to the barn.
Was he basing his opinion on what my father had told him? If so, it seemed a stretch to draw a line from a push on the stairs to toppling a tractor onto someone. Especially when that someone was your own father.
Or was it possible Len was up to something else? Did he believe what he was saying, or was he trying to make trouble for Thomas? Why would he do that? Was he trying to plant an idea in Marie’s head? And again, why?
“The thing is,” Marie said, “Len’s always judged people harshly. He’s like that. You should hear him go on about the people in Thailand. They’re nice and all, but he says they don’t drive like Americans, their building standards aren’t the same as here, and the place can be so politically unstable at times. He says they need to get over all their petty squabbles and just run their country. And Len has never had much patience for monarchies. He doesn’t get why someone should get to run a country just because they were born into the right family. But it doesn’t stop him from going back, even if he has to go without me.”
Thailand.
Over the years, I’d heard friends talk about what a wonderful place it was. Hot, lush, one of the most beautiful countries on the planet. Terrific nightlife, a rich culture, spectacular food. But every travel destination had its problems. Paris had its pickpockets and unpredictable strikes. London was expensive and, occasionally, subject to terrorist violence. There were those bombs on the buses, and in the tube, a few years back. Same with Moscow. Mexico had its drug wars. Some of America’s greatest cities had to contend with vicious gang wars.
What was it I’d heard about Thailand? Certainly the political unrest Marie had mentioned. But there was something else.
Prostitution. Child prostitution.
I wondered whether Marie’s inability to travel was the real reason Len went on these trips without her.
FIFTY-THREE
“THIS is the sort of thing I’d have thought you might have checked first,” Nicole said, sitting in the passenger seat, her feet propped up on the dashboard, the ice pick poised between her two index fingers.
Lewis said nothing.