Occasion of Revenge (24 page)

The next day, when Captain Younger paid a house call, Daddy sat in his chair and, to put it bluntly, lied through his teeth. His interview with Chestertown’s finest was a masterpiece of prevarication.

—I committed myself voluntarily, Captain, for alcohol rehabilitation.

—If I had known you were looking for me, of course I would have telephoned.

—Held against my will? Absolutely not! I needed help and Mrs. Van Schuyler was there to give it.

—So soon before the wedding? Well, that was the point, wasn’t it, to be fit and sober for my wedding day?

—Of course Darlene knew about it! Encouraged me, in fact.

What an amazing collection of fibs! They belonged in
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
. I just sat there, listening, my mouth flapping open and shut like a beached fish.

Younger wasn’t fooled, but he could hardly make an arrest. He knew Daddy had no involvement in the hit-and-run, and there was no apparent motive for him to kill his future bride. Far better to wait until after their marriage before bumping her off, if Daddy expected to benefit from what we found out much later was Darlene’s modest bank account.

Captain Younger went looking for LouElla, of course. We got this headline news from Virginia Prentice, when she telephoned to wish us a Happy New Year and say how glad she was to hear that Daddy had returned home safely. Captain Younger didn’t actually talk to LouElla, Virginia informed us, because LouElla didn’t answer the door. When Younger asked around the neighborhood, it turned out nobody had seen LouElla or Speedo for several days, and her car, an old Chevy station wagon, had disappeared, too.

If just the dog was missing, or LouElla, I would have worried. But the two of them together? They had to be OK. Speedo would see to that.

In my book, Darryl was a twofer. He had demonstrated a chronic need for money. He’d taken handouts from both his sister and my father. He’d had access to my father’s house. He’d been among the last to leave his mother’s party. Motive and opportunity. Maybe he’d decided to solve his financial problems for good by bumping off his mother before she could marry again. And you couldn’t convince me that Darryl didn’t have something to do with Ruth’s stolen credit cards.

I decided to visit the Edgewater post office. Before leaving home, I sorted again through the photos Emily had taken at Daddy’s engagement party. I found two good ones of Darryl; one staring grimly into the camera and another of his matchless profile. A little like mug shots. I tucked them into my pocket.

When I entered the spacious lobby of the new post office building, eight people were in line ahead of me. You’d think the Christmas rush would have been over. I killed some time by wandering around the lobby, studying the post office boxes, hoping to locate
the one that Officer Younger told me was overstuffed. What a waste of time! None of the boxes had peepholes like in the old days, just blank, gray metal doors. With two customers still in line, I browsed through the various items for sale in the lobby shop, selecting two padded mailers, and when the last customer left, I approached the counter.

“These, please. And a book of stamps.”

The clerk slapped the stamp booklet down on top of my bags.

I handed her a ten-dollar bill and waited for the change. “I’m looking for someone,” I told the woman. “I wonder if you could help me.”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

I laid the photos of Darryl on the counter. “Have you seen this guy?”

She picked up the full-frontal shot of glamour boy and held it at eye level. “Maybe. We see so many people here it’s hard to be sure.”

“He might have applied for a post office box,” I suggested.

“Yeah! I remember now!” She tapped Darryl’s patrician nose with her finger. “He didn’t have his driver’s license with him the first time, and had to go back for it.” She pushed the picture back to me. “He’s cuter in real life.”

I smiled back at her grimly. “Oh, Darryl is cute all right.” I retrieved the picture. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

I left the post office thinking two things. Maybe I should tape Darryl’s picture up on the wall with the other FBI Most Wanted posters. And two, Captain Younger was going to get another telephone call from me.

Back home, I found Daddy sitting morosely at my kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee, long gone cold. Ruth had dropped his mail off on her way to work and Daddy was sorting through it, his eyes looking tired and sad. Small wonder. He’d pegged the meter on his blood alcohol test and unless the judge let him off for good behavior, Daddy wouldn’t be driving anywhere for a very long time. But it wasn’t the suspension notice from the DMV I saw him staring at. It was a familiar blue-and-yellow folder from a local travel agent.

“What’s that, Daddy?” I asked.

“Cruise tickets.”

I realized at once what they must have been for: his honeymoon with Darlene. I stood behind his chair and placed my hands on his shoulders. With my cheek next to his ear I asked, “Where were you going?”

“To Cancún.”

“You should be able to get a refund.” I swallowed hard. “Under the circumstances.”

“I don’t want a refund.”

“So, what are you going to do with them?” I was a silly millimeter away from tears.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. I just don’t know.”

chapter
17

On the last day of 1999, the day that was to
have been Daddy’s wedding day, we conspired to keep him busy. After a fortifying lunch of split pea soup and hunks of sourdough bread, I contrived to look so pitifully inept that he volunteered to clean the ashes out of both fireplaces. Then I walked him from our house all the way to Mother Earth with him complaining the whole way, “What? You afraid I can’t take care of myself, Hannah?”

We were on Maryland Avenue at the time, just passing the entrance to Galway Bay. I thought about the cheerful bar inside and about all the other friendly Annapolis watering holes Daddy used to frequent and said simply, “Yes.”

Ruth welcomed her shift as caretaker. She gave Daddy a quick lesson in cash register management—reassuring him that its computerized brain wouldn’t go into Y2K-induced seizure at the stroke of midnight—then put him to work behind the counter while she busied herself restocking the shelves. I hung around
for a while, chatting, until Daddy rang up a sale for Cornelia Gibbs, a widow we knew from St. Anne’s Church. I eased out of the store, smiling. Daddy was attractive, charming, and sober. It wouldn’t be long before he’d begin dating again, his affair with Darlene merely a chapter in a closed book. I hoped the book would end with the revelation of her killer.

Back home, Emily and Dante were preparing to leave for First Night Annapolis’s gala citywide, multi-event New Year’s Eve celebrations. Chloe lay placidly on the sofa and was allowing herself to be dressed in one of the outfits I’d given her for Christmas: a pink turtleneck shirt tucked into a pair of Calvin Klein minijeans that cost almost as much as the ones I buy for myself. Miniature Nike tennis shoes and pink, lace-trimmed socks completed the ensemble. As I said, the saleswoman saw me coming.

Dante picked up a Santa cap from the sofa and slipped it on his head, settling it carefully over his neatly combed ponytail. He fiddled with the snowball dangling from the end of the cap until, to my amazement, the ball began blinking. Emily giggled and kissed her husband on the nose. “A man of culture, refinement, and taste.” She swatted the ball with the back of her hand, setting it swinging. “And way cool.”

While Emily slipped into a coat, I pulled my granddaughter’s arms through the sleeves of her pink Polartec jacket then helped Dante wrestle her into the Gerry pack. I watched with affection as the three of them hustled out the front door and down the steps.

I was waving good-bye from the porch when Emily turned. “Oh, by the way, Mom, there’s a wacko message from LouElla Van Schuyler on the machine.”

Dante adjusted Chloe’s legs more comfortably around
his waist and added, “That woman gets stranger and stranger. She needs to be locked up.”

“She’s a little kooky, but I don’t think she’s dangerous,” I said. I was actually relieved to hear that she had turned up safely.

“I don’t agree, Mrs. Ives. Since your father got away from her, she’s lost focus. I think she’s going off the deep end.”

“Yeah, Mom. Listen to the message. She was threatening Virginia Prentice.” Emily pulled her gloves off and tucked them into her pocket. She took a step closer. “I don’t know how you can be nice to LouElla after all the anguish she put us through with Gramps. I’ll
never
forgive her for that.”

I was struggling to deal with that, too, but the fact remained that Daddy was stone cold sober and hadn’t had a drink in almost two weeks. But it was more than that. His
attitude
toward drinking had changed. And he’d joined Alcoholics Anonymous. I had to give LouElla full credit for that.

With long fingers circling his daughter’s ankles, Dante pranced Chloe around in a tight circle. “I agree with Em, Mrs. Ives. This time LouElla’s really lost it. Seems that Virginia’s been putting viruses into people’s mailboxes in order to take over the world for Communism.”

“Or something,” Emily added. “She’s so wigged out that I called Mrs. Prentice to warn her. I asked her to keep an eye on Mrs. Van Schuyler. They’re supposed to be friends, aren’t they?”

I nodded. “I certainly thought so.”

Dante sniffed. “Some friend! Keeping track of everything you do in some stupid notebook and threatening to reveal your deepest, darkest secrets to the tabloids.”

I had to smile at the picture of Virginia tiptoeing around town, anointing the mailboxes in Chestertown with some exotic virus. “So, what did Virginia say to that?”

“Not much.”

“She wasn’t upset?”

“Hardly. She just laughed hysterically and said not to worry. Who’d believe that crazy old broad?” Emily tugged on the zipper of her jacket. “Then she wanted to know what we were doing for New Year’s, so I bored her with that for a while.” Emily shrugged. “That’s about it.”

Dante added, “LouElla said she’d try to get you on your cell phone.”

Emily’s face grew serious. “Why did you give your cell phone number to that nutcase, Mother?”

“When I was looking for your grandfather, I gave my telephone numbers to everyone in the world.”

Emily adjusted the straps on Chloe’s backpack. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I promised to listen to LouElla’s message and waved my little family off in the direction of their first stop, St. John’s College, where they were going to see Kohl and Company, a comedy magic act that the First Night program in the newspaper guaranteed would split your sides. I stepped back into the house and closed the door firmly behind me, then leaned against it. The curious part of my brain wanted to listen to LouElla’s message right away; the practical part yearned to hit the three button and send her ramblings into oblivion, then go get my sides split along with Emily and Dante. But I was expecting Paul home any minute.

Although it was only three-thirty, I opened the refrigerator, poured myself a glass of cold Chablis, pulled
a chair up to the phone, and reached for the receiver. I held it to my ear for a few seconds, listening to the dial tone. Then I took a sip of wine, dialed the phone company’s answering service, and punched in our code.

For someone so experienced in espionage, LouElla seemed to have very little expertise with recording devices.

“
Hello
?
Hello
?”

I heard a metal object hitting the floor.

“
This is LouElla. LouElla Van Schuyler. Uh … uh. Hannah
?”

Another clang. Maybe a pot lid.

“
Virginia Prentice tells me your father came home. I’m so relieved! I spent days and days looking for him.
”

So that’s where she’s been. Serves her right! I hope she got blisters!

“
Virginia says that you were very, very upset with me. That troubles me, it really does. But, please! Let me explain.
”

This had better be good!

“
Your father entrusted himself to the Phoenix program and into my care, and I couldn’t betray that trust. Doctor-patient confidentiality, as you know, extends to nurse practitioners as well …
”

I was equally sure that it didn’t.

“
… so you see my dilemma.
”

There was a long pause, filled with the sound of music playing softly in the background, something bouncy out of the fifties, a tune that sounded vaguely familiar.

“
I must caution you, though, Hannah dear, to be more judicious in your choice of people in whom to confide. I’ve had my eye on Virginia for a long, long time. I find her completely unreliable. The other day I caught her on David White’s porch, pawing through the items
in his mailbox. Pawing! When challenged, she showed me a package from L.L. Bean and claimed it had been misdelivered. Said she was just putting it in the proper mailbox. Hah!
”

Just then I recognized the tune. Rosemary Clooney was singing “Mambo Italiano.” I strained to pick up the words.

“
I observed her at Ellen Swain’s and Marty O’Malley’s a while ago, too. There can’t be that many misdelivered packages. Our postman isn’t a moron! Hah! I warned Virginia over and over about this, and I’ve told the postmaster, too, but do they listen to me? They do not. Doesn’t everyone know that interfering with the U.S. mail is a federal offense? You can never be too careful. You never know what wicked people are going to put in your mailbox.
”

I thought about all the junk mail I’d been receiving lately and had to agree that something wicked was indeed going on. Then I wondered about the nasty cards Darlene had been receiving. If LouElla was correct in her observations, could Virginia have been responsible for them? If so, what was her grudge against Darlene? Or had other people been receiving Nasty-Grams, too? I sipped my wine. The last time I’d heard “Mambo Italiano” it was on
Your Hit Parade
, that TV show sponsored by tap-dancing packs of Old Gold cigarettes. I was tapping my own foot and singing silently along with Miss Clooney when LouElla veered hard right and the “Oh, ho, Joe, you mixed-up Siciliano” flew right out of my head.