Another Man's Treasure (a romantic thriller) (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 1) (31 page)

“So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving,” I ask Coughlin.  We’re walking through Jockey Hollow Park with Ethel on her long, retractable leash so she can have the illusion that she’s free to chase wildlife.

He sighs and rolls his eyes.  “Going to my Cousin Brendan’s house.”

“You don’t sound too happy about it.  I thought you were really into the big family get-togethers.”

“I used to love Thanksgiving.  It was my favorite holiday until Brendan and Adrienne—oh, excuse me Ah-dree-
enn
—hijacked it.  We used to rotate between four of my aunts’ houses on Thanksgiving.  Fifty people crammed into a little cape cod or split, folding tables stretched from the dining room through to the sun porch.  All the men gathered around a Motorola TV in the rec room to watch the game.  A thirty pound Butterball, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and canned green beans with the dried onions on top.  It was fun, know what I mean?  Then Brendan hit it rich trading derivatives or credit default swaps or whatever the fuck he does—sorry.  He bought this house with a
great room
and a
media center”
—Coughlin makes air quotes when he says these words— and Adrienne has dinner catered by some freakin’ frog restaurant.  Last year when Aunt Gert brought a big casserole of her sweet potatoes, Adrienne wouldn’t even put them on the table.”

“She sounds awful.” I keep my eyes trained on Ethel, who’s doing her best to intimidate a chipmunk chattering at her from just beyond the leash’s reach.  “But at least you’re all together.”

“A turkey on rye from Sol’s sounds like a good alternative to me.  Maybe I’ll join you and your dad.”

I fixate on reeling Ethel in. “Thanks for the offer, Sean.  But your nieces and nephews need you.  You’ve gotta organize the touch football.”

Coughlin looks down and scuffs the ground with one enormous hoof.  “Yeah, right.  It’s nice to be needed.”

I look away.  I’m not going there now.

He scrambles to cover the awkwardness.  “Looks like your dad will only get probation for his part in helping dispose of your mom’s body.  The DA’s got bigger fish to fry. Finneran’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow.  They’ll move him straight to the prison in Trenton.  Got a special wing there for disgraced New Jersey politicians.”

“Really?”

“Joke, Audrey.”

"Well, if they don’t, they ought to. What I can't understand is how Spencer thought he'd get away with it," I say. "He should have realized that if I turned up dead, you'd never let up on the investigation."

"Oh, I'm just a dumb clod, right? Easy to dupe--no match for
the likes of Spencer Finneran."

There’s a jab in there for me too.  “I’m sorry, Sean.  I should have trusted you when you warned me to stay away from them. I was blinded, crazed.  This thing with my parents—it consumed me.”

He brushes my hand with his.  Forgiven.

But I can’t let go of the arrogance of Spencer’s crime. “Spencer took such a risk. How could he have believed he wouldn't get caught?"

"I guess these guys reach a certain level of power and they think they’re untouchable. How else can you explain Elliott Spitzer meeting hookers in midtown hotels? Jim McGreevey chasing guys when he was married to a woman? John Edwards denying paternity of his girlfriend's baby when a simple DNA test would expose him?”

“Maybe I’m not so shocked he was willing to risk killing me. But I still can’t believe he would turn on—” Ethel bounds up.  My mind flashes to Cal carrying her home to me. A lump rises in my throat.  I can’t go on.

The tendons in Coughlin’s neck tighten.  “Why are you wasting your tears on him, Audrey?  He used you.  He set you up to be killed.”

“No!  You weren’t there.  He didn’t realize what Spencer was planning.  Cal saved my life.  He died for me.  He threw his life away on Spencer Finneran. How can I not cry over that?”

“He made his choices.  He chose wrong.  He doesn’t deserve your tears.”

“Shut up!”  I punch his arm.  It’s like punching one of the oaks lining the trail.

He grabs my clenched fist.  “I won’t apologize, Audrey.  It would be a lie. Tremaine hurt you. That’s the bottom line for me.”

His protectiveness is endearing.  Still, I resent the way he tries to dictate my emotions.  “Give up, Sean.  You’ll never get me to deny the good in Cal.”

“Better off without—” he mutters, looking away into the woods.

“Stop! You’re like my father. You think you know everything.”

“And you’re like my mother—stubborn and starry-eyed.”

We stand there glaring at each other.  Then at the same moment, crack up.

“Why do we always argue like this?” I ask.

He reaches out and tugs my hair gently. “Why do boys pull girls’ pigtails?”

Coughlin’s body hulks there beside me, vulnerable as a fawn.  My smile fades. “I’m not ready for this, Sean, not ready to move on.”

The sentence lands like a shotput between us.  Coughlin steps away. “Understood.  You don’t have to tell me twice.” His long stride pushes him ahead of me on the path.

“Sean, wait!”

He stops but doesn’t turn.  I touch his arm.  The hairs on his wrist are downy and golden.  “In a while…maybe….”

He hunches his shoulders against the breeze and keeps his eyes on the horizon.  “I can live with maybe.”

The sound of pleading reaches me before I open the door.  “What do you mean?  Not even to wash pots?”  Jill’s voice escalates toward desperation.  “C’mon, you have to let us come!  Okay.  Yeah, I understand.  So maybe next year…”  The receiver slips from her fingers as her head plops down on the desk.  Her shoulders shake.  I realize she’s crying so hard she can’t even catch her breath to wail.

“Jill, honey, what’s the matter?” 

“The Soup Kitchen wo-wo-n’t let my mom and me work,” she pauses to smear tears across her face with the back of her hand,  “there on Thanksgiving.”

“So?”

“Now we have to go to Uncle Ph-i-i-il’s.”

“Wait, you wanted to volunteer at the soup kitchen to get out of going to your Uncle Phil’s house?”

“In Staten Island.  It’s awful.  They make fun of mom and me.  Try to trick us into eating meat.  Snicker at my mom’s Brussels sprouts.  Ask stupid football questions they know we can’t answer.  It’s ghastly.  I can’t go there again.”

“So why don’t you just stay home and have Thanksgiving at your house?” I ask.

“All alone?  Just the two-o-o of us?” Jill keens like a coyote.  “That’s not what Thanksgiving is about.”

Tell me about it. But if Jill and her mother are also lost souls on T-giving, maybe we can join forces. Trouble is, I can’t cook and Jill and her mom live in a funky bungalow that’s long on cats and short on conventional furniture.  I wouldn’t mind going there, but I don’t really see Dad curling up on a Peruvian hammock as he tucks into his Tofurky, edamame and Brussels sprouts.  And whither I go, Dad goest.

Ty comes in.  He looks from Jill’s tear-stained face to my grim one and back again.  “I only been gone a half hour.  Who’s dead now?”

“No one.  Jill’s feeling down in the dumps about Thanksgiving.”

“Really?  This the first year in a long time I’m lookin’ forward to it.”

“How come this year is different?” Jill asks.  

“’Cause last year I was in jail eatin’ turkey slop off a foam tray with a spork.  An’ most years before that, my grandma didn’t have enough money to buy all the food for a nice meal.”

Ty drops into his favorite chair.  “These white church ladies always comin’ to our house to give us stuff.  Dusty old cans from their kitchens that they didn’t want no more.  Pickled beets.  Saurkraut.  Chick peas.   One year we got something called hearts of palm.  My grandma opened it up just to see what was inside.  Looked like soggy white sticks in water. Nasty.”

One big basketball shoe swings as he warms to his story. “Worst thing about it, my grandma always hadda say, ‘Oh, thank you very much.’  Act all grateful an’ shit.  This year I told her, those ladies come knockin’, you tell’em we don’ need their damn hand-outs.  I took my grandma to Shoprite yesterday.  Told her to buy everything she needs.  I paid for it all.  She’s startin’ on the pies today—pumpkin and apple.”

At the mention of pies, Jill’s head drops on to her desk and she starts sobbing again.

Ty springs up. “What?  What’d I say?”

“It’s not you, Ty,” I explain.  “Jill’s feeling like she and her mom don’t have anyone they actually like to spend Thanksgiving with.”

“Hell, ain’t no use to cry over that.  Come have Thanksgiving with us.”

The switch controlling Jill’s tears clicks off.  “Really?  We could come to Grandma Betty’s house?” 

“Sure.  You know she likes you.”

Jill immediately starts dialing.  “Wait’ll I tell my mom!  No Uncle Phil for us.”

Great. I’ve succeeded in finding a date for my date. 

“How about you, Audge?  What you doin’ on Thursday?” Ty asks.

“Me?  Oh, I think I’ll just take my dad to a restaurant for dinner.”

Ty looks like a freshman calculating a differential equation.  “Restaurant?  On Thanksgiving?  Why don’t you come to my Grandma’s house too?  You know she l-o-o-ves you.”

“Oh, no…I couldn’t. It would be too many people for your grandma to feed…with my dad and all…an imposition.”

“You an your old man don’t eat that much, Audge. This is one big-ass turkey.” Ty picks up the sports section of the
Times
and points to me with it. “You comin’.”

The turkey in question does, in fact, have a really big ass.  So big that Grandma Betty can’t get it into her apartment oven.  Which is why, at six AM Thanksgiving morning, the party is moved to my place.  Now my condo is stuffed fuller than the fowl who’s given his life for our eating pleasure.  Folding tables normally used for estate sales stretch all the way across my living room.  Borrowing a variety of mismatched china and silverware from the Sister Alice cache, Jill has set the table for eighteen.  As the smell of roasting turkey fills the air, Jill and Ty’s Aunt Vonda discuss the pros and cons of African braiding, while Jill’s mom and Marcus debate sustainable agriculture. Vonda’s husband, Wesley, works the room dispensing beverages. Ty and his cousins watch the football game. The youngest and oldest persons in the room are together: Dad is teaching six year old Kyle to play chess. Their heads, one grey, one dark, nearly touch over the board.

“Audrey,”  Grandma Betty yells, “you stirrin’ that gravy like I said?”

I dash back into the kitchen.  As a private in Betty’s culinary army, I’ve learned it’s not wise to leave my post.  “How much longer ‘til showtime?” I ask.

“Five minutes.  You start bringing out those vegetables.  Vonda, get the potatoes workin’.” 

In a final surge of energy from the cook, the food emerges from the kitchen.  Bowls and platters cover the table from end to end and everyone gathers around. There’s a moment of quiet as we admire the feast. 

“Let’s eat!” Kyle shouts.

I’m about to agree, when Betty takes Kyle’s hand, then Ty’s.  “Not so fast, young man.  First, we got to give thanks to the Lord for this fine day and all He has provided.”

Uh-oh, I forgot about the whole saying grace aspect of Thanksgiving.  I watch Dad closely as hands begin to link around the table.  Will he go along? 

Kyle snatches Dad’s left hand.  I exhale in relief as he doesn’t pull away, and I pick up his right.  When the circle is fully linked, Betty begins.

“Dear Lord, we just want to thank you for the glory and power of your amazing works in bringing us such a
magnificent
dinner this year…..

“Uh-huh.” Vonda and Wesley murmur an affirmation.

I should have known this wouldn’t be the quick and tidy Episcopal grace of my grandmother’s table. I cast a furtive glance from under my bangs.  How’s Dad holding up?   Everyone else is looking down, but Dad is studying Betty intently.

“…and Lord, we want to offer up praise for gathering in so many of your lambs that we thought might be lost, but they ain’t lost no more…”

“Praise Jesus!” Vonda shouts. 

Ty and Marcus manage to look both embarrassed and grateful. Dad’s gaze hasn’t left Betty’s face.

I’m hoping Betty might be winding down, but she seems to be gathering more steam.

“…and Lord we want to shout our praise for sending us the gift of a woman who opened up her home to us today and who gave our Ty a second chance and that would be your sweet child, Audrey…”

“Shout it out!’ Vonda calls.

“Uh-huh,” the rest of the guests murmur.  Dad is silent.  I feel his fingers twitch in my hand.

Poor little Kyle is ready to face-plant into the mashed potatoes as Betty takes yet another breath.

“Lord, ain’t none of us know what tomorrow will bring.  Might be joy, might be pain.  We try to walk on a righteous path, Lord, but let’s face it, we all sinners and we probably gonna stray.  But we know you gonna forgive us.  That’s what keeps us goin’.  Brothers and sisters, believe the good news—we are forgiven!”

Silence shimmers and twists before us.  I can’t look up.

“Amen.” A piping little whisper.  Kyle.

“Amen,”  a ragged chorus as we break our chain.  Kyle is watching Dad, noticing his lips aren’t moving.  He elbows my father sharply.

Dad turns to face me.

“Amen.”