Dew Drop Dead (11 page)

Estelle Barker opened her mouth to object, but the minister's raised hand warded off any argument,
and so she rose, speechless, and held out her own hands to her children. Corrie was not so quick to acquiesce.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“I'll explain outside,” her father said. “I think it would be best if you came with me.”

Corrie looked from Raymond to Marcus to Abraham. Each had the wide-eyed look of someone guilty who had been found out at last. She didn't understand what was going on, but she wanted to protect them, each of them, even if they were guilty of something.

“I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's happening,” she said.

“Corrie—”

Alex touched Junior's arm. “Corrie”—Alex's voice deepened to an authoritative baritone—“this is a police matter. I must ask you to leave at once.”

Corrie hesitated, then turned to Abraham. “Will you watch my guitar?” He didn't answer. He didn't even look at her as she got up from the cot. As she walked away, she thought what a dumb thing it was to have said. Nothing was going to happen to her guitar. It was Abraham who needed watching.

From her father's office she heard him being led away. He was howling, all gibberish and senseless rage. And then, as her father held her and she tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back her tears, she heard him cry out:

“I am Isaac! I am Abraham! I am Isaac!”

CORRIE ACCEPTED
an invitation to David's house for dinner that night. She didn't really want to go, but she didn't want to be home either. She told Sebastian she didn't know what she wanted, except for this day never to have happened.

Now she sat, her plate barely touched, half-listening to Rachel prattle on about her new exercise regimen.

“See, it's like a cross between Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons,” she said, crunching a raw carrot.

“I shudder to think,” said Josh. “Mouth closed, please.”

Rachel continued through clenched teeth, chewing like a rabbit. “Me and my friend Lindsay—”

Josh said, “My friend Lindsay and I.”

“Daddy!”

“Okay, okay.”

“Me and my friend Lindsay put it together. See, we have these charts we made and ...”

Corrie closed her eyes. She tried to imagine where Abraham was now; she saw him in handcuffs, in a cell, alone. Her throat burned as if it had been
rubbed raw with sandpaper. She wondered how the others could swallow.

Sebastian bumped her knee with his. Opening her eyes, she tried, in vain, to smile. Josh caught the exchange and said, “Rachel, I think we've heard enough about you and your friend Jane.”

“Lindsay.”

“Whatever. Let's give somebody else a chance to talk, okay?”

“How's your book going?” Sebastian asked, latching onto the first thing that came to mind.

Josh brightened. “Great!” he said. “Sebastian, since I got this idea, I'm a new man. The writing is just pouring out of me. Today I wrote a scene where a body is found in a window seat—okay, so I stole it from a play I saw once—but I'm telling you, it had me in tears, it was so funny.”

“How can you?” Corrie muttered.

Josh looked up, startled. “Sorry?” he said. “Oh, maybe we should talk about something else.”

“It's not talking about it that I mean,” Corrie said, keeping her eyes on her plate even as her voice rose. “It's your writing it. There's nothing funny about murder.”

“Not
real
murder, no.”

“Not
any
murder.” She dared to raise her eyes and use them to accuse Josh. “Murder is the taking of life,” she said. “How can you make that funny?
People dying, people . . . people hurting so much they kill somebody, how can you turn that into . . . entertainment? That man was killed at the inn, Josh,
really
killed, and they're saying maybe Abraham did it, even though he didn't, I
know
he didn't; and you take what really happened and you call it an
idea
and give it a funny title and make money from it. From other people's pain.” Her voice was shaking now. “I don't know how you can do that, Josh.
‘Dew Drop Dead.'
Someone
did
drop dead, and it isn't funny!”

She looked down at her plate again. The sight of the cold food turned her stomach, so she closed her eyes and breathed in slowly, counting the way she did when she ran. The room fell silent, except for the ticking of the clock. It made her think of the grandfather clock in the hallway of the inn and she bit into her lip so hard she wondered if she'd made it bleed.

“Corrie,” Josh said, “maybe this isn't the best time for this conversation. I know you're feeling bad about what happened. And it
is
a tragedy. But I'm not going to apologize for what I do. I want you to know that I don't confuse real suffering with the stuff that's found in books and movies. Nothing I can write—I don't care if it moves you to tears or makes you want to change the world—nothing can compare with one moment of real pain. Or real joy, for that matter. Look, all I want to do is tell a good story. I wouldn't mind if I gave my readers a good laugh or a cry along
the way. Maybe I'll even get them to think a little. And if they look at
real
life differently—the pain they see in others, the pain they feel themselves—that's about the best I can hope for.”

“But why make it funny?” Corrie asked.

“Because people need to laugh. We're all afraid of the dark, Corrie. We're like David here—when we're the most afraid, we most need to giggle.”

“I guess,” Corrie said. “I just don't feel much like laughing now. You know?”

Josh nodded. “I know,” he said.

The doorbell rang.

“I'll get it,” David said, shoving Rachel back into her chair.

A moment later, he returned with Alex and Rebecca in tow.

“Just stopped by to say hello,” Alex said. Seeing Sebastian and Corrie, he asked, “How are you two doing tonight? Corrie?”

“Okay,” Corrie mumbled.

“Join us for dessert?” Josh asked. “Rachel, help your brother clear the table.”

“But—”

“It's good exercise. Jane Fonda recommends it.”

“Of course we'll join you for dessert,” said Alex, tossing his hat on a pile of newspapers on the counter. “You don't think the timing of this visit is accidental, do you?”

Alex pulled up a couple of chairs for himself and Rebecca.

“So can you tell us what really happened?” David asked, once the dirty dinner plates had been replaced by clean ones and dessert was being passed around.

“As much as we know,” said Alex. “We've just sent the shirt to forensics, along with Abraham's shoes to see if they match the footprints out by the creek. And we're still waiting on the coroner's report. Admittedly, the evidence we have is largely circumstantial.”

“You mean Abraham might be innocent?” Corrie asked.

“He is innocent,” Alex said.

Corrie looked confused. “But you arrested him.”

“He's innocent until proven guilty. We arrested him because we suspect he committed the crime. Since he's an unknown and homeless, we can't risk his running out on us. But I'm getting ahead of myself.”

“The dead man was named Kevin Moore,” said Rebecca.

“Not Isaac?” Sebastian asked, surprised.

Alex shook his head. “From his identification, we were able to locate his mother in a trailer park in Pennsylvania. She said her son had called her about a week ago to let her know where he was. He told her
he was traveling with a man named Abraham, whom he described as being ‘crazy but kind.'”

“She also told us,” said Rebecca, picking up the story, “that her son had a long history of problems, including alcohol abuse. He'd started running away from home when he was twelve. But he always called her to let her know where he was.”

“So she wouldn't worry,” Alex said, shaking his head. “What did she call him? ‘A good boy living a bad life.' Anyway, as she described it, this man, Abraham, had become a sort of father figure to Kevin, and she was glad to know someone was watching out for him.”

“Then why would Abraham kill him?” Corrie said. “It doesn't make sense.”

“Who knows?” said Alex. “We're a long way from having the answer to that. All we know is that the deceased was traveling with a man named Abraham, that the man named Abraham at the church was in possession of the magazine and shirt you said you saw at the inn—yes, he admitted they were his, along with the Bible you found by the creek. And—Rebecca, why don't you show them the picture?”

Rebecca leaned back in her chair and reached for the bag lying next to Alex's hat on the counter. “By the way,” she said, “your pie is out of this world. Don't tell me you made it, Josh. I don't know if I can stand it. You're too perfect.”

Josh placed a hand over each of his kids' mouths.
“That's what Rachel and David tell me all the time,” he said.

The deputy lifted a framed photograph out of her bag and laid it on the table. “Is this the one you said was missing from the inn?” she asked.

Sebastian nodded. “Where'd you find it?”

“Among Abraham's belongings. He kept it under the mattress of his cot at the church.”

Corrie lifted it slowly, wondering again who the people were. Aloud, she said, “Happy times.”

Alex broke the silence that followed by telling David, “Your pointing out that section of the Bible helped us put it all together, you know.”

“It did?” David asked, unable to help looking pleased with himself.

“Abraham and Isaac. It seems to be a fixation with the man. We don't know if Abraham is his real name. I doubt it. We've fingerprinted him, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's been printed before. We should have an ID soon. He's ill, that much is certain. And it's not uncommon for seriously disturbed people to have religious delusions. Perhaps he thought he
was
the biblical Abraham. Perhaps he believed he was meant to sacrifice Isaac, the man he thought of as Isaac.”

Corrie touched the photograph, the place where the name was written on the side of the boat, and said, “I think I'd like to go home now.”

Sebastian rose with her. “I'll walk with you,” he said.

They walked wordlessly through the cold night air until they reached Corrie's house. Standing at her door, all they could think to say was, “See you tomorrow.”

SEBASTIAN OPENED
the front door of his own house a few minutes later. His mother called out, “Is that you, Will? I'm in the kitchen.”

“Just me,” Sebastian said, poking his head around the kitchen door. Katie had what looked like every pot and pan they owned going at once.

“Oh, hello, dear. I thought it might be your father. He said he'd be home early tonight.”

Sebastian glanced at his watch. “Quarter to nine is early?” he asked. “What are you making, anyway? Smells good.”

“I'm trying out variations of potato-and-leek soup for the restaurant. Want some?”

He shook his head and pulled out a chair to sit. Boo woke to the sound of the chair leg scraping across the linoleum and roused himself sufficiently to meander over, jump up on Sebastian's lap, and fall back to sleep. “How come Dad's working so late these days?” Sebastian asked.

“Three reasons,” Katie answered. “Meetings, meetings, and more meetings.” She raised a spoon to her lips and tasted. “Needs something. What?”

Without thinking, Sebastian said, “Pimento. Just don't borrow it from Josh.”

“What? Oh, pimento, what a good idea. Thank you, dear.”

“Where's Gram?”

“Upstairs. She's on long-distance with Aunt Rose. Sebastian—”

“No.”

“No what?”

“I don't want to talk to Aunt Rose.”

“I wasn't going to ask you to. For heaven's sake. I just wanted to say ...” She stopped and took a breath, as if shifting gears. Sebastian looked up. “I just wanted to say that your father and I are sorry for all the tension around here lately. You haven't said a word, but I know it hasn't been easy for you.”

“It's okay.”

“No, it's not okay.” Katie turned to stir the soup as she continued speaking. “Your dad and I grew up in Pembroke, Sebastian. We moved back here after college because we couldn't imagine a better place to live. Our friends are here, our work is here, our lives are here. The last thing we want is to have to move. But we may have no choice unless . . . well, it looks almost certain your dad's going to lose his job.”

It took Sebastian a moment to speak. “Where would we go?” he asked.

Katie sighed. “I don't know. Your father is looking into other stations in Connecticut. But there aren't that many openings right now.”

“What if he can't find anything?” Sebastian said. Boo began to purr contentedly, obliviously, under his master's hand.

“We have savings and there
is
the income from the restaurant, although it isn't much. We'd get by.” Katie took another taste of soup and added, “For a while, anyway.” She laughed lamely.

“What's so funny?” Sebastian asked.

“Nothing. I was just thinking how it wasn't very long ago that our lives seemed perfect.”

Sebastian didn't know what to say to this. He watched as Katie went back to her cooking. “How was your evening?” she asked. “Okay,” he said. “What did Josh make?” “Pot roast.” “You finished your homework?” “Before dinner.” Their words didn't matter to either of them and even though it happened while they talked, it wasn't their words that made his mother start to cry.

“Aw, Mom,” said Sebastian.

“Are you sure you don't want some soup?” Katie asked. “Come on.” She pulled a bowl from a cabinet. “How can you refuse soup made with a mother's tears?”