Gourdfellas (19 page)

He was right, of course. Despite the heart-to-heart with my friends, I’d kept myself pretty closed off, even from people I loved and trusted.

That didn’t mean I had to continue to behave that way. “So many sad things—Marjorie’s murder, Connie’s health. Every time someone mentions Melissa’s Aunt Bernie, I think about Dad. And so many things to do for my freelance work and to promote the gourds, never mind try to get in some real time in the studio. I haven’t spoken to Anne in ages, so I better call her before she decides I’m the worst sister in the world. My life is made of a million little details and I’ve lost sight of the real shape of it. There’s a big picture somewhere but, I don’t know, it’s like it’s one of those pointillist paintings, you know the ones made of little dots of color. You really have to stand pretty far back to understand what the image is. If you’re too close, all you see is spots.”

“You left out two things,” he said quietly. “Me. My long spring and summer off while I sweat out whether the Mets will keep me or sell me on the cheap to get rid of me.”

As though he were damaged goods, ready to go to the first bidder at a fire-sale price. But I wouldn’t lie to him and pretend that he wasn’t on my mind. “Yes, sure, that’s one of the things I think about.”

“But the big thing, and you’re not really facing it, is that being a suspect in a murder investigation is a pretty amazing source of stress. I think that’s why you’re not sleeping.”

I’d hoped he hadn’t noticed how much it bothered me, because I didn’t want my brother to feel that he had to take care of me when the situation was supposed to be the other way around.

“I know, I didn’t do it, right? The truth should be enough. That’s what I started thinking. But then I heard about the Innocence Project. People wrongly convicted because the local police were eager to put more notches on their belts.” Suddenly, a new possibility popped into my head. “Do you think . . . Could Michele Castro have planted that notebook? She and her crew were here just a couple of days earlier. Do you think they’re the ones who—”

“Good! There you go, your brain is in gear. You’re cranking. Even though I happen to think it’s a pretty lame idea. That cop didn’t strike me as desperate. She looks like a pretty straight shooter . . . well, you know what I mean. But you had an idea, at least.”

I poured dressing over the salad and tossed it, ignoring the stray pieces of romaine that dropped onto the counter. Maybe he was right—I’d been too worried to think clearly.

“Okay, fine, talk this out with me. Someone’s trying to frame me for murder. They leave the murder weapon in my house and they drop a note in the toy store bathroom, and then they slip an address book under my stove. All meant to point to me. To give Castro credit, she seemed pretty skeptical. But nobody’s coming up with any good ideas about who might have done those things.” I paced, my brain and my body buzzing with energy.

“So my friends decide we’ll check out the neighbors, and we each try to listen more carefully, with a focus on a couple of people who might have wanted to keep Marjorie Mellon quiet. We’re supposed to look for odd behavior, maybe even prod people into saying things. And one of the things that keeps coming back to me is that Trisha Stern appears to have quite a lot to lose if the casino is built. Sometimes she really does sound as though she’d do anything to stop it.”

A grimace of disbelief replaced Neil’s smile before he looked away. “You can’t really believe that. Trisha may have strong feelings about her house and the land, but murder? She’s a healer.”

“Right. But I can’t count anyone out. So I have to look under rocks to see what’s hidden.” Getting Trisha Stern to open up to me would take a bit of doing. I hadn’t gotten very much past civil pleasantries with her. “You can do it more easily than I can. Talk to her. Find out what she thinks about Marjorie, where she was the afternoon Marjorie was murdered.”

He tossed the oily lettuce leaves into the bowl and then looked up and met my gaze. “Nope. Won’t do it. I heard you guys the other night. You made it perfectly clear that you wouldn’t go poking around into Seth’s dark corners. For the very same reason, I will not try to trick Trisha Stern into saying things I don’t want to hear. The woman is helping me, for Pete’s sake. I need her to trust me, and I need to trust her. Find out another way. You know that you’re asking me to choose between you and Trisha? Not a good thing, Lili.”

He was right, of course. It would have been easier for him to get information from her that she might not reveal to me . . . but he wasn’t willing to taint his relationship with her. He needed to believe in her. As I wanted to believe in Seth.

“Okay, okay, you’re right, sorry. Forget it. If I find out anything I won’t tell you. You can be surprised when Michele Castro stops by to arrest Trisha in the middle of a leg lift.”

“And you,” he said with a smile, “can be surprised when you find out that Trisha Stern was teaching a class in anatomy at Walden High School when the murder was committed.”

“She was?” I couldn’t decide whether I was relieved or disappointed.

Neil arranged two slices of red pepper on top of the salad. “I don’t know. I made that up. But it’s a little more plausible than her being a murderer, isn’t it?”

I didn’t say that I’d come to the point where I believed anything was possible. Even things I wished weren’t true.

I bit into my toast, but it tasted like cardboard. Nora’s homemade fig jam didn’t interest me. And it certainly didn’t make up for my lack of sleep. The valerian and warm milk weren’t working. After that semi-argument with my brother, my sleep had been even more disturbed. The dark circles under my eyes made me look like a magazine ad for hangover chic.

Neil looked up from his oatmeal. “Mom and Dad want to come up on Monday. I forgot to tell you last night. She reminded me that they’ve been pretty good, staying away all this time. They’d just be here for the day.”

“Huh. When I spoke to Mom yesterday she said something about waiting until Dad got adjusted to his new meds. I think they want to make sure I’m taking good care of you.”

My brother smiled placidly and traced circles in his oatmeal with his spoon. “And that I’m taking care of you. Mom suggested that while they’re here you might want to take some time off, maybe go somewhere with your pal Seth, let yourself off the hook for a couple of hours. Dad has a new chess strategy he wants to try on me, and you know Mom. She’ll sit here and stare at me as though that will keep me safe.”

“Mom said I should leave? She can’t stand to spend a whole afternoon with me? And you went along with the plan. That’s just great.” I tossed the last bit of toast toward the plate and watched it land, jam-side down, on the floor. “I do not appreciate sneak attacks, Neil. You shouldn’t have done this.”

He reached across the table and touched my hand. “It’s not a sneak attack, Lili. Mom called to find out if Monday was okay for a visit, we got to talking, and the next thing she was saying that she was worried about you, but that you’d probably object if she said so. She’s just trying to do something to give you a little space. She was being nice. Is that so terrible?”

“No. But someone could have asked me if that’s what I wanted.” I started slamming the breakfast dishes into the sink, realizing that my anger put me in danger of breaking something, maybe even something I’d regret for the rest of my life. “Listen, I need to pick up a few things in town, and this seems like a good time to do that. Can I get you anything?”

He started to say something, looked down into his bowl, then lifted his head. “I need a refill on my Vicodin. I’ll call it in so you don’t have to wait.”

I nodded, pulled on my sweater and marched out into the bright sunshine. I didn’t need this, my own family sneaking around behind my back. I had enough on my mind without having to worry about consoling my parents and assuring them that I was fine, thank you very much.

By the time I’d driven a mile down Iron Mill Road, my anger had turned to confusion. What was so bad about what Neil and my parents had done? Only the way they went about it . . . Why couldn’t they just have said that they were concerned about me and left it at that?

Because I would have put them off.

Because I might have felt that they didn’t trust me to take care of Neil properly and that they were coming to check up on me.

Because they had anticipated my reaction and had tried to get around it so that they could make sure things were all right with me. The only way they could do that was to slip in under the false pretense of seeing Neil.

Which I hated.

And that was exactly why I was having trouble getting started talking to people I hardly knew about Marjorie Mellon, about where they were the day she was murdered, about how they felt about her. My distaste for dishonest behavior was keeping me from checking out a couple of things that would be useful to know. For instance, if I could find out what Sue Evans knew about the note that was found in the bathroom of her store, that would be really helpful. Probably the best way to do that was through indirection, which I’d always considered to be a polite term for lying. Maybe I was being a tad too absolute about not telling truth—and had been all my life.

Wait just a minute, Miss Honesty
, a small voice piped up.
What did you think you were doing when you told Ed Thorsen that you needed time alone and that’s why you were moving to the country? You could have said that you knew you didn’t want to marry him right then.

And there were other times, lots of them. I dialed Neil’s cell phone from mine, and was glad, in a chicken-hearted way, when his message came on. “Sorry I was so stupid just now. I overreacted. See? Even your elders can be jerks. But at least I can admit it. Which is what I’m doing, along with apologizing. I’ll see you later. Love you.”

When I parked in front of Wonderland Toy Town, a new and more devious me emerged into the bright morning sunshine. I would find out as much as I could about Sue Evans and the note and any other secrets she might be hiding.

The bell above the door tinkled happily, but except for the Barney theme song playing in the background, the store felt deserted. I poked around among the electric train accessories for a while, then headed for the book section to see if I could find any Tintin comics that my nephew Cameron didn’t yet have.

After several minutes, Sue Evans appeared, her patchwork vest bright against a navy silk blouse. “Lili, hi. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I should carry a list,” I said, “but I’m looking for a Tintin for my ten-year-old nephew. Are these all you have?”

She laughed. “We carry every single one we can get. They don’t sell fast but there’s a steady demand. We’re missing two of the more recent ones, but I’d bet he already has them. What about this one?” She handed me “Tintin in America,” with its picture of a tomahawk-wielding Indian on the cover.

I flipped a couple of pages. “Great, I don’t think he has this one.”

As she slipped the book into a plastic bag, she said, “Sorry, I didn’t hear the bell right away. I was in the back and I sat down for a second and must have dozed off.”

“Wish I could do that. I’ve been having so much trouble sleeping lately.” Before I plunged into full snooping mode, I needed to make sure her guard was down. “Joseph Trent gave me some herbal thing a couple of weeks ago but it doesn’t work for me.”

“That’s odd,” she said with a bright smile. “He gave me something two months ago and it did the trick. I don’t even know what it is. I just took those little tan pills twice and they worked. Maybe if I’d remembered about them last night I wouldn’t have fallen asleep at eleven this morning.”

Tan pills? Not white capsules? I’d have to ask Mr. Trent for whatever he’d given her. But I wasn’t here to find out about sleeping remedies. “You know, if I could make the tension in my life disappear I think I’d sleep better.”

Sue’s rueful smile never quite reached her green eyes. “Good trick. Let me know if you figure out how to do that. God, there’s always something.”

“Right. I don’t know about you, but I’m always going a little crazy trying to keep up with my family.” I waited for a response, but her expression didn’t change. “Or all the contradictory advice you hear about how to stay healthy. Now, there’s something good for a load of stress.”

Again, nothing. She was listening politely, but I hadn’t yet found a sore spot. “And work. Boy, if it’s not too much work, it’s too little.”

Bingo. Her eyes widened and she nodded vigorously. “I know what you mean. Except for weekends when my nephew comes in to help, I’m it around here, and it drives me nuts. I do the ordering, I stock the shelves, I help the customers. When business is good, I’m exhausted. When it’s slow, I think I’m going to have to turn the key in the door and walk away.”

“So, you really have to put up with extremes in the toy business.” Would my mediator tactic encourage her to talk? Reflecting what someone said without either judging or advising usually helped them to open up. Giving a person an opening might even help her to fall into the trap without too much pushing. “Sometimes I think I should just buy up a ton of lottery tickets or invest in a casino or something.”

“What do you mean? I thought—” Her confused frown turned into a smile. “I get it. You’re joking. Well, you never know what it’s going to take to stay afloat. You do what you have to, right?”

This fishing expedition wasn’t even landing me a soggy breadcrumb. “I guess I should have been clever enough to have rich parents.”

“Anita Mellon’s not going to have to worry, if she takes care of that money.”

My kahuna tuna might just have nibbled at the bait. I willed my face not to show my excitement as I looked at Sue. Her expression changed in a blink, as though she’d erased her frown and drawn a smile onto her face.

I matched her smile and said, “You really think Anita had anything to do with it?”