Gourdfellas (15 page)

“So you’re buying season tickets to the Mets home games?” Nora asked with a twinkle. “That means more work for me, partner. So maybe we need to renegotiate our arrangement.”

I definitely needed to avoid making comments about Melissa and Neil, but that didn’t mean everyone else would.

Before Melissa could respond, Susan breezed in, all twinkle and high energy. Elizabeth was the only one who didn’t smile a hello at her.

“Do you think anyone followed me here?” Susan peered under the long, scarred butcher block work table and then grinned. “Nope, we’re safe. I can’t wait to tell you what I found out.”

Nora took down one of the chalkboards the staff used to list daily specials, and looked expectantly in Susan’s direction. “Spill it, girl. We’re ready.”

“Nathaniel Bartle has gotten together with Oneida Gaming and they’re planning a sweat lodge ceremony to purify their hearts before they go to the next meeting. Where they plan to convince the town council to change the procedure. They want to cut out the public referendum and let the town council vote decide.”

My jaw dropped. According to established procedure, the nine-member town council could make recommendations, but a referendum had to follow. Of course, the county and the state hadn’t yet passed the bills that would grant their seals of approval to expanding gaming into Columbia County, never mind Walden Corners. If too many people in our town and too many people in the entire county disapproved, it was likely that nothing would go forward. But if town councils thought they could skip right to what
they
wanted instead of having voters decide . . . I didn’t even want to think about the chaos that was sure to follow.

“If you don’t like the rules, change them? Isn’t that, like, illegal or something?” I still found it hard to believe that a man of principle would suggest such a thing. Nathaniel Bartle, gentle and compassionate, had embraced the end of providing justice for Native Americans by accepting the means of behaving unethically. “And the rest of them went along with it?”

Susan pushed a springy red curl away from her forehead. “Some of them. Tony Caterra said that he knew that five of the council members would vote yes. He practically guaranteed it. But someone else said that it would take a referendum after the council vote to clear a rules change like that, so they were back where they started.”

I noticed that Susan was referring to what
they
were planning. What had happened to her sense of
we
? Now didn’t seem the right time to ask, so I said, “Did anyone say anything about Marjorie?”

“Everyone.” Susan shook her head. “Every single soul there said what a lovely service it was and how the pastor had said such nice things. They all talked about what a shame that she was gone, but nobody seemed to care about her life—just her death and the loss it would be to their cause. I could hardly stand to listen to them talk about her as though she were a tool that had gone missing and now they were terribly inconvenienced.”

“Wow, that’s harsh. Didn’t her friends speak up?”

“She was a loner.” Nora handed slices of white cake with chocolate frosting all around. “Did her work, mostly at night. She was pretty active in the local Rotary, you know, again the business thing. But I never heard of anyone having dinner at her house. Never saw her out shopping with anyone. I’d say she wanted it that way.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrow rose, punctuating the skepticism in her voice. “Nobody really wants it that way. I always think there’s either a little bit of misanthropist or a lot of fear of being hurt in people who stick to themselves as much as she did. You know, as though the rest of us weren’t good enough, or were bound to do something nasty. Anyway, Marjorie really was a loner. Even her daughter didn’t have much to do with her.”

“What’s her daughter like?” I didn’t know much about Anita or any other aspect of Marjorie’s personal life. I had built a picture of Marjorie Mellon based on what I’d heard, and on three brief encounters. It all added up to an energetic, self-aware person whose sarcasm provided a facade to keep any tender parts hidden from view.

“Anita. She moved to Tennessee right after high school. Of course, she came back for the funeral, but she didn’t stay long. At least, not in Marjorie’s house, the house where she grew up. She went to school with us, but she ran with a different crowd.” Melissa shook her head. “Connie was the school social worker then. She tried to help Anita sort things out, but nothing seemed to get through to her. I always thought she wanted bright lights and big city, but she ended up in an even smaller town in Tennessee. Maybe she just needed to get away from Marjorie’s constant carping and criticism.”

“Anyone else hear anything?” Elizabeth glanced at her watch, her eyes suddenly tired.

“Listen, it’s late.” I was aware that everyone, especially Susan, had to be up early the next morning. “We can do this another time. You all have to get to work tomorrow, so maybe we should just—”

“Keep going. We should keep going.” Nora pointed to the wall clock. “At least another twenty minutes. You know what they say about how important it is to collect information while it’s fresh? So let’s do that.”

I grinned. “I thought you didn’t have time to watch television. Okay, so did you hear anything else, Susan?”

Susan shook her head. “Nothing worth mentioning. Everyone seemed a little down, everyone still wants the casino to go through, nobody acted any more strange or upset than usual. What about you guys? You hear anything?”

“Trisha Stern certainly had something to say to me as I was leaving.” Melissa poked at her slice of cake. “She went on and on about how Marjorie’s ideas threatened her comfort and her privacy, you know, with the casino right next door. She made it pretty clear that she’s been terribly upset. And that it’s gotten so bad that Jonathan’s thinking about applying for a job in some school district up in the Adirondacks.”

“He can’t do that!” Susan’s dismay turned to anger. “He’s the best principal I’ve ever met, certainly the best one I ever worked for. If Trisha is so upset about the casino, she should talk him into selling the house and buying something else. Maybe a little farther out of town.”

That wouldn’t be a true solution, at least not for the woman who had stood in my kitchen and rhapsodized over the wonders of living in her home, on that particular piece of land, surrounded by the those very trees and fields.

“You know, our meeting was quiet, too,” Melissa said, “except that most people were pleased, happy that it looked like the casino would be defeated. There were lots of good ideas for things that might bring money into town. The only person who didn’t sound so optimistic was Connie. She looks so tired, so pale. I can’t help thinking she doesn’t want to spend whatever time she has left fighting against a casino.”

We were all quiet. The Connie I knew would want this controversy to be resolved so that she could give her attention to other, happier things.

“You’re right, Connie hasn’t been looking so good lately,” Nora said. “I wish I could help her, but right now I feel like we need to concentrate on things we
can
change. Okay, we went to a meeting. And there was all that high energy. All those proposals to bring new businesses into town. What do you think about Seth’s retirement-slash-arts center?”

Melissa’s eyes narrowed and she smiled. “Maybe I could run a concession stand. Sell chocolate cupcakes and fancy madeleines and coffee drinks and Italian sodas. And maybe even get to hear some good concerts. Sounds like a decent idea to me.”

It sounded like putting up with a lot of extra traffic in return for some potentially diverting theater to me, but saying so probably wouldn’t go over too well with my Walden Corners friends. “Well, it’s better than the casino, that’s for sure. Don’t you feel like we’re this big family trying to figure out how to live with insufficient resources to meet our needs? And it just keeps getting worse.”

Susan poked at the crumbs on her plate. “If we were a big family, we’d probably be eating beans five nights a week and squabbling about whether we should switch to peanut butter. Listen, you guys haven’t said anything new about your meeting. Didn’t anyone hear anything that we should . . . I hate to use the word, but that we should
investigate
?”

We looked at each other. The clock above the stove ticked loudly. Nobody said anything.

“Joseph Trent made this weird remark. About Marjorie’s murder muddying the waters around the casino issue. And you know what? I think he’s right.” Melissa drummed her fingers on the table. “It puts all the discussions on a whole ’nother level. Emotionally, I mean. Everyone’s afraid and upset. So nobody is thinking clearly.”

“Maybe that’s what the killer had in mind.” As soon as I said it, it sounded wrong to me. “Nah, way too complicated. Whoever killed Marjorie wanted her dead for personal reasons. Wanted to keep her from leading the charge to bring in the casino maybe. Or maybe it was something else. But it doesn’t seem likely that it was just to create a diversion.”

Nora sighed. “We’ve been sitting here for over an hour and haven’t said a single helpful or interesting thing. Maybe we’re just being too passive about this. Maybe we need to go out there and actively talk to people. About how they felt about Marjorie. About where they were when she was killed.”

“And you think you’ll get the truth?” Elizabeth’s tone was sharp, almost mocking. “You’ll get evasions and polite lies. That’s how people protect themselves around here. And you’ll also get a heap of ridicule for playing at being detectives. And then they’ll start calling the town Cabot Cove and we’ll all look like fools. I think we’ve gone about as far as we can with this. Gene Murphy and Michele Castro aren’t sitting on their behinds. They’re out asking the questions. It’s okay for them to do it. It’s not okay for us.”

“We’re not just in it for the fun,” Susan snapped. “Lili’s a prime suspect.”

I could have hugged her, but Elizabeth turned to me, a challenge in her eyes. “What about Seth? You find out about those donations?”

Despite my annoyance, I forced a smile. “All I found out is that he thinks Gracious Living for Adults is a good investment. Sheesh, I can’t wait until I’m old enough to cut myself off completely from kids and new ideas and . . . I guess other folks can choose that if they want to, but the big old messy world is just exactly where I want to be. So, no, I didn’t find out any more about those checks tonight.”

“I did,” Susan said softly.

You could have dropped an elephant into the middle of the kitchen and nobody would have moved.

She blushed from her freckled neck to the roots of her carrot hair. “I gave two hundred dollars to the same person Seth did.”

Melissa paled and clenched the table, but Nora leaned forward and smiled, inviting Susan to continue.

“Nathaniel is taking donations for a scholarship fund for the Phillips family. You know, Rod Phillips, that farm-hand who died last week? He’s got two kids in high school and of course he didn’t have life insurance or any other assets. They’ll get some kind of death benefit from Social Security, but not nearly enough to live on. They’ll get welfare and food stamps and a lifetime of struggling to find work that pays enough to let them live with dignity.” Susan’s eyes filled with tears. “I know those kids. Robbie and Rhonda. They come in wearing hand-me-downs, they’re tired all the time because they worked right alongside Rod in the barn before and after school. But they were still making A’s and B’s. His wife left him about two years ago. Just after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Can you imagine, walking out on a sick husband?”

All the fun and even most of the urgency had gone out of our little spy game. We talked for a while about how unpredictable life was. If things really did happen in threes then Rod, Aunt Bernie, and Marjorie made up one very sad and unfortunate set.

We each wrote out checks for the Phillips scholarship fund, gave them to Susan to deliver to Nathaniel, and then went our separate ways into the dark night. Alone. As we had come into the world, and as Rod, Bernice, and Marjorie went out.

They looked cute, three strapping guys asleep with the television blaring. They hadn’t heard me drive up, nor had they heard my footsteps up the front stairs, through the door, into the living room. Scooter’s eyes moved under his closed lids, and I wondered what he was seeing in his dreams. His café au lait cheeks were kissed by a blush of color, hinting at some interesting possibilities. Scooter’s best friend and constant companion, Armel, curled into the armchair, looked like a fair, gangly angel who’d forgotten his wings and needed to have his blond hair trimmed. Neil groaned softly, his hand moving across the growth of beard that almost looked good after nearly two weeks. His forehead wrinkled the way it did when he was in pain.

The computer sat silently beckoning, inviting me to write another three pages on that health care booklet before I went to bed. After I got everyone safely tucked away, I thought. I’ll do it then.

“Scooter,” I said softly, and Neil’s eyes flew open.

“Movie must have been way too exciting for us,” he said, smiling and scratching at his beard. He uncapped the prescription bottle and shook out a large white pill, gulped it down with a slug of water. “I better go to bed before I get too wobbly. Your meeting go okay?”

Before I could answer, Scooter stretched and sighed and his eyes fluttered open. “Wow, I fell asleep. Some help I am. Sorry, Neil.”

Armel sat straight up and smiled beatifically. “I guess I missed the end of the movie,” he said softly.

“Buddy, we all conked out,” Neil said with a grin. “Must have used it all up playing blackjack. You gonna be all right driving home?”

I’d forgotten how much Scooter had grown until he pushed himself out of his chair and stood next to Armel, who was wrestling his way into a pale gray sweatshirt. They weren’t my children—I’d known them about a year, but even so I felt the tug of bittersweet and contradictory wishes, that they’d stay the cute, sweet boys who stumbled over their own feet and had clear moral centers, and that they’d hurry up and finish growing into adults so I could know how their stories turned out.