A Lie for a Lie (21 page)

I had receipts and bills I needed to be reimbursed for, and some lists that would help Veronica as she worked her way through the remaining Idyll paperwork. As soon as Ed came home to make sure Deena didn’t get a tattoo or run off and join a motorcycle gang, I had the perfect excuse to visit Emerald Estates.

 

 

At four o’clock I knocked on the Hayworths’ door. I hadn’t spoken to Veronica since the night of Grady’s death, although I had heard she was planning a memorial service at her own church in a week or two. I was beyond relieved that Ed wouldn’t have to do
that
eulogy.

Just before my knees gave way, Winona answered the door. She looked tired, but not as grim as usual. She almost seemed glad to see me.

“I was afraid you were a reporter,” she said.

All the local Ohio newspapers and television stations had sent crews to dig up whatever they could, but luckily their enthusiasm had fallen short of a media blitz. A couple of news programs had offered me a moment of fame on camera if I would tell them about finding Grady’s body. I had refused, as had everyone with real information. Instead, only people who knew absolutely nothing had been recorded for posterity. Passersby with strong opinions, people who knew people who had once crossed our city limits. I hoped the hubbub would die quickly. Grady just hadn’t been enough of a star to keep the news in play until a trial.

“The media’s been after me, too.” I held up the folder of papers I’d brought. “Is Veronica in? These are leftovers from the Idyll.”

“I can give them to her.”

I held on tight. “She’s not home?”

“She’s not seeing anybody.” Maybe Winona read the disappointment in my expression, or maybe her own defenses were lower, because she explained. “She’s upset. Still. She says she’s not fit company.”

“Their friendship went back a long way.”

Winona didn’t say anything, which I’d come to expect. But just as I was about to give in and hand over the papers, she spoke.

“You know, I went to school with him, too. The three of us were there together.”

This surprised me. “Part of my reason for showing up today was to see what I could find out about his years here.”

“Why?”

This didn’t seem like the best time for that truth, whole truth thingie. Instead I gave her a sliver. “I guess I’m trying to make sense of it, you know? It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, and until I feel like I have a picture in my head to work on, it’s just a bunch of pieces.”

“You did a lot of work up close with him, didn’t you?”

I gave a short nod.

“Did he ever mention me?”

“Honestly? He never mentioned anybody in this whole town. Not to me. I don’t think he even said anything about Veronica. But the other night somebody else mentioned his years here. A man who went to school with you, a state trooper?”

She smiled a little. “That would be Hal Jorgensen. Big guy?”

“Savvy, too.”

“What did he say?”

“Let’s just say Grady wasn’t at his best when he and Hal were,
ummm
. . . reintroduced. Hal told me that considering the way Grady had been raised, his lack of people skills made sense.”

This time she laughed. I was surprised at the way laughter changed her face. Different clothes, lose the headband, and Winona would be a pretty woman.

“That’s Hal all right,” she said. “Straight to the point.”

“Would you know what he meant?”

She propped a shoulder against the doorframe now, more relaxed than I’d ever seen her. “Grady and I grew up in Weezeltown. Not far from the button factory. You know Weezeltown?”

“Enough.” There were plenty of poor but honest folks in Weezeltown, the least attractive section of our fair city. There were also plenty of people who didn’t fit into either of those categories. Weezeltown was not the community of choice for raising children.

Winona looked over my shoulder as if she were seeing a different time and place. “Veronica grew up on the other side of town in a house with five bedrooms and a live-in housekeeper. On her sixteenth birthday her father gave her a red convertible. Her mother and her mother’s bridge club used to bring discarded clothing and toys to be distributed to the needy in my neighborhood. I probably wore some of Veronica’s old skirts and blouses to school, and felt lucky to have them.”

“And Grady?”

“I doubt Grady’s mother bothered picking through hand-me-downs. He wore his clothes until they fell apart. His mother worked as a cocktail waitress at a seedy bar downtown and probably drank up a lot of her tips, so she was gone all night and slept all day. Not alone most of the time, either. Grady was left to raise himself. I remember winter afternoons when he had noplace to go, and he’d come to our house just to get warm. His mother would lock him out, her idea of not corrupting his morals, I guess, if she had a boyfriend staying over.”

I felt a flash of pity. “So his life was tougher than we were led to believe.”

“Not nearly as picturesque, that’s for sure. He got through it by dreaming about leaving Emerald Springs. Of course none of us thought he’d ever make it. Maybe if he’d spent his time studying, so his grades improved, but Grady was too busy dreaming. I used to help him study, and it was like everything we’d learned from homework hadn’t penetrated. He wasn’t stupid. Not by a long shot. If we studied together, he could pick up enough of what he needed to pass. But grades didn’t mean a thing to him.”

“So you were that close? He came to you for help?”

“We were friends. He used to talk about his plans for the future, about being a star, about having a fancy house and a Corvette. He always said the day he was able to buy a Corvette was the day he would know life was worth living.”

“I never heard any of this.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t. In his own way he was very private. I’m not sure that many people knew how bad things were at home. I think most of them probably thought he was lazy and just didn’t care. I read his autobiography, and none of what I’m telling you was there, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if he blocked it out and started to believe his publicist’s lies.”

“Autobiography?”

“Yes, it came out a few years ago. But it was hard to find. Not much call for it. I’m surprised it wasn’t reissued after ‘Think of Me in April’ became such a hit.”

I wasn’t sure which was more surprising. Winona’s sudden chattiness, or the fact that there was an autobiography of Grady where I could get all the information I needed.

“It must have been strange to have him back here,” I said. “I hope you had some time to catch up with him before . . .” I didn’t know how to finish.

“No, Grady was much too important to bother with me.”

From her tone I knew that she meant Grady had
thought
himself too important. I was sorry his general hostility had extended to old friends.

“I did ask him if he ever got the Corvette,” she said, just the shadow of a smile playing on her narrow lips. “He said if I knew anything, I’d know Corvettes were so yesterday. I told him that under the circumstances, then, a Corvette seemed like an absolutely perfect choice for him.”

 

 

We had homemade pizza heaped with mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, and mozzarella from a local farm. Teddy and Ed made a salad, and Deena silently sliced lemons and poured iced tea. Very soon I thought we might digress to taking bets on when she would finally begin to communicate with us again.

After we say grace we always talk about our days over dinner. No matter where my own family was, or what was going on, or who happened to be traveling with us, Junie had always made sure we sat down as a family and had dinner together. I’ve carried on that tradition, although nobody’s required to talk.

Teddy told us about her bicycle theft movie, which had been harder to shoot than she’d thought. The boys had acted stupid and hadn’t followed the script. Had Ed not been there, I would have explained how much more mature girls are at her age than boys, but that seemed impolite.

Ed suggested that maybe the boys didn’t like being told what to do and ought to have some say in the script. Mars and Venus in eternal battle.

Ed had already told me about his clergy meeting. Now he regaled us with research for his next sermon about Jewish mysticism. He saves his most esoteric subjects for summer when church attendance is lower. I had to drop my silverware a few times to keep the girls awake.

“I hope I’m not in that one,” Deena muttered.

“Not unless you’ve take up study of the Kabbalah,” Ed said without flinching. “Then I might ask your advice.”

His calm and his answer won points from me. Most fathers would have overreacted, but Ed had already apologized for his mistake and knew the rest was up to Deena. He wasn’t going to wrangle with her indefinitely.

Nevertheless I jumped in, just in case things deteriorated. “I didn’t do much. I did some errands, checked out a few things . . .” Why had I said that?

“Relating to Grady Barber,” Ed said, reaching for the pizza platter and offering it to us before he took another slice. “I wondered how long it would take you to get started.”

I chewed slowly, considering my next words. “I can imagine that starting at all doesn’t please you.”

“You please me.” He looked up and our eyes met. “The way you are, not the way I sometimes wish you were.”

“Less curious?”

He shrugged. “Less likely to put yourself in harm’s way. But I appreciate that sitting by and watching an innocent woman languish in jail is completely against your nature.”

I felt a weight drop off my shoulders. I’d been resisting the inevitable, as much for my family as for myself. “I’m just looking into a few things. I’ll be careful.”

“We’d all appreciate that.”

The girls did the dishes. I heard lowered voices in the kitchen. Deena was speaking to Teddy, but I hoped that didn’t mean poor Teddy would continue to feel she was in the middle. Family dynamics give me a headache.

Teddy finished her portion and went up to her room to work on the screenplay. I had a feeling that despite Ed’s suggestion, the boys might find themselves playing bit parts in the newer version. When Deena started to follow a minute later, I stopped her.

“I need some help on the Internet. Do you have a little time?”

“Other people’s mothers can turn on a computer and move the mouse by themselves.”

“I like to think of myself as the reincarnation of some pure but possibly primitive being too spiritually advanced to use technology.”

“You are too weird.”

“That won’t be the only time you’ll say that.”

She looked torn. Deena was staging her own version of a sit-down strike. Helping me didn’t fit into her plans.

“Do I have to?” she asked.

“Nope. It would be kind if you did, though. A favor to the woman who labored for fourteen hours to bring you into the world.”

“That’s gross.”

“After the first thirteen hours I thought so, too. But really, most of the time, I think it was worth it.”

She rolled her eyes, and she’s getting quite adept at it. Just a few years ago she was a beautiful child, all peaches and cream complexion, strawberry blonde hair, big blue eyes. Now she was turning into a woman, face and body changing composition, complexion not always as perfect. Inside she was changing, too, her heart and brain sometimes at war, her hormones flourishing. I knew she had to find her way without us leading her by the hand. I only hoped she could still reach out when she needed us.

“I could try on my own, I guess,” I said. “I just hope I don’t reinvest your college fund in junk bonds.”

“Let’s go.”

Once we were seated and the computer was safely on, I told her what I was looking for. “The woman’s name is Caprice Zimboni. She used to be in a circus. She walked a tightrope. The last I know she and an infant daughter were living in Italy, but that was over twenty years ago. I’d like to see where she is now and what she’s doing.”

Normally Deena would ask why. Now she simply went to her favorite search engine and asked me how to spell Caprice’s name.

“When was the last time you checked your e-mail?” she said, as she waited for the computer to spit out results.

“Last November. Your aunt Sid sent me an article about flipping houses.” Okay, I’m not a good candidate for an e-mail account. I worry about every piece of mail. I mean, what if I did win a lottery in the Netherlands, or what if some man in Zimbabwe really is my long-lost uncle and left me a million dollars, and I’ve sent my only chance at lasting wealth into our spam folder?

Deena did the math. “That was eight months ago.”

“Your aunt gave up on me. Now she goes to the post office or calls and reads me stuff over the phone.”

“That’s pathetic.”

How could I fault her for telling the truth? “Let’s check these sites.”

Deena reads quickly. She scanned the first few, then ignored them. “These are bogus. And this third one will find her if you pay them for information. Only you won’t know if what they have is any help until you’ve sent them the money.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Everybody knows it.”

She clicked on the fourth result on the list as I contemplated being the only person in the entire world who
hadn’t
known.

When the website came up, we both read through it. It was an informal history of aerialists, and the Zimboni family was mentioned, along with names of family members who had been renowned for their prowess. Caprice appeared with nothing else about her. The website mentioned the Nelson-Zimboni circus and stated that when the split occurred, most of the Zimboni acts had just been absorbed into other circuses.

Five more results and I was getting discouraged, even though there were pages and pages left to go. “Don’t the most likely sites come up high on the list?”