The group went silent. “Nick?” I said. “I should probably save this for our wedding, but in case we elope—and there’s no one there to hear it except some strangers at city hall enlisted as witnesses—let me say this now: I look back and I picture that former person—me—sharing an office with you, my secret crush . . . if anyone had told me then that we would live together, that we’d food shop and cook and drive to work in one car, let alone kiss . . . let alone share a bed. And now this! Engaged . . . well, I never would’ve believed her, that former me. I pinch myself every day.”
Nick said so softly, so heretofore un-Nick-like, that we all leaned closer, “Me, too, kid.” Then: “In that office, watching you blot the sentences you’d written with your fountain pen. And eat cheese sandwiches you brought in a wax-paper bag. I thought it was obvious. I thought you could tell. I thought we’d be sent to Human Resources jail.”
“Now you kiss,” said Leslie.
Was it Nick or I who asked Brian before he left, “Anything new on the case?”
He grimaced. “I didn’t think this was the time or the place to talk business—”
Nick said, “What better place than this?”
“It will probably be in the Echo tomorrow.”
What did I expect to hear that didn’t fit our happy occasion? That Anna Lavoie was going free?
“It was Theresa Tindle,” Brian said.
It took a few long seconds for that to register.
“The daughter,” he said.
“What about her?” I asked.
“Arrested.”
Theresa “Terry” Tindle, lately not of Maui, if ever. “Why? What for?”
“Manslaughter.”
“Of?” asked Nick.
Brian cocked his head toward the kitchen and beyond.
“The daughter did it?” I whispered. “How do you know?”
“Not from the batty mother, I assume,” said Nick.
“The sister came to us,” he said.
What sister? Jeannette, of course—chronic tipster, the sibling Theresa had never known until I made the match.
Brian said, “I’m only telling you because it’s going to be in the paper tomorrow.”
“Is she in jail?”
“Out. On bail.”
“She must’ve been a kid when she did it,” I said.
“Not a kid under the law. Sixteen. And was sent away. She pushed the first stepfather, and her mother apparently thought it was such a good idea, and easy—if a kid could do it—whammo. Good-bye, husband number three.”
I asked if Mrs. Lavoie had been rearrested—if there was such a thing.
“She’s already in custody. Don’t forget she’s ninety-one. Just had a birthday . . .”
“What about the blood? All that crime-scene investigation in my still-torn-up basement.”
“We know the blood was from males. Head injuries bleed a lot. But no match and no likelihood of a match.”
“I take it you didn’t exhume either body?” I asked.
“No need. Couldn’t anyway. Both men were very conveniently cremated.”
“And how did Jeannette piece this together?” Nick asked.
“She didn’t have to piece it together. Tindle confided in her. And if you thought it was a confession, unburdening herself, forget it. She was bragging! You hated my mother? I hated her worse! I did her this big favor, made it look like an accident, and what thanks did I get? She sent me away to a home for bad girls, so you and I, sis—neither one of us had it so great.”
“So now I know who I bought my house from: a teenage murderess.”
Leslie said, “But if you hadn’t bought this house, you and Nick might never have become housemates, let alone objects of each other’s affections.”
Nick said, “Oh, I think we would have, regardless.”
I said, “Ten Turpentine Lane’s best work.”
Patty asked, “Think you’ll stay here?”
I said, “Murder times two? By four hands? I could sell tickets to this place.”
“Let’s change the subject,” said Brian. “Too much shop talk.”
“It’s our turn to toast the happy couple,” said Patty.
“L’chaim, right?” her husband asked.
48
Nancy Knows
IT WAS JEANNETTE Pepperdine who called to tell me that Mrs. Lavoie had died. What did one say to the unwanted birth daughter of an alleged criminal and sociopath? Consolation would sound hollow. I asked Mrs. Pepperdine how she was taking it.
“I’m taking it by functioning as the next of kin, making the arrangements.”
“Not Theresa?”
“She has an ankle bracelet, if that’s what it’s called. She can’t leave her apartment.”
“How did you hear that Anna died?”
“The warden called her lawyer. Somehow, from some list of contacts, it trickled down to me. An officer came to my home.”
“That’s nice. Like police on TV do.”
“Nothing is nice about this,” she said.
I asked what Mrs. Lavoie died of.
“Probably old age. She went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”
“No autopsy? Wouldn’t that be the usual protocol when someone dies in prison?”
“How and why would I know what prison protocol is?”
“Sorry. Of course you wouldn’t. Well . . . thank you for letting me know.”
“There’s something at O’Donnell’s Funeral Home on South Main at eleven a.m. tomorrow.”
“A funeral?”
“A service, we’re calling it.”
“Not at a church?”
“I tried. I called Sacred Heart and Saint Stephen’s. No one returned my calls. Apparently priests read the newspaper.”
I said I’d try to attend, but it was a work day. I’d have to ask the head of my department.
Next to me in bed, Nick said, “Go. It could be fascinating. I’ll hold down the fort. But I can think of an obvious plus-one for this occasion.”
I called my mother. “Delighted,” she said. “We’ll make a day of it.”
She was dressed for a celebrity’s funeral in an Ascot-worthy black hat and a black suit with a lavender silk rose pinned to her lapel.
“Dad didn’t want to come?” I asked.
“He’s painting.”
“Here?”
“At the studio, night and day. Or so he says.”
“?‘So he says’? That doesn’t sound very friendly.”
She shrugged. “He thinks all he had to do was come home. He says that if you look at all the years we’ve been together his time with Tracy was just a grain of sand passing through the hourglass of life.”
“Dad said that?”
“It’s from some song. I said, ‘Henry, it’s me. I’d prefer if you didn’t wax poetic.’?”