Once Upon a Lie (28 page)

“Well, if this doesn’t make you believe in global warming, nothing will,” he said. It cheered Maeve to think that he could still think through the effects of a pockmarked ozone layer. They would have to take walks on windswept paths more often. “Gonna put a damper on the Halloween party at Buena del Sol, though.”

Maeve poured some melted butter into the potatoes on the stove and stirred them. “Halloween party? Why so late? Are you dressing up?”

“Yep. Sonny Bono,” he said matter-of-factly. “Lila McEntee is going as Cher.” He chuckled at the thought of his costume. “And we had a death last week—chair of the refreshments committee—so the party was postponed.”

“So you have a date?”

He looked up from the paper. “Yep. A date. Plain and simple.” He went back to the blotter. “Your mother’s been gone for twenty years, Maeve. I think it’s okay if I start dating. Don’t you?”

It had been closer to forty, but she didn’t correct him. “It’s fine, Dad. I’m glad you are seeing someone.” She opened the oven and checked the chicken that was roasting inside. “Do you need help with your costume?”

“Still got a fringed vest from when I did undercover in the seventies.” He licked his thumb and flipped the page. “What else do I need besides that and a fake mustache?”

“That should do it,” she said. “Bell-bottoms, maybe?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Moriarty may have a pair laying about.” He picked up the paper and rattled it, folding it in two. “Blotter is its usual clusterfuck this week.”

“Dad!” Maeve noticed that the older he got—or maybe it was the less aware he became—the more bad language he was starting to use.

He ignored her. “A little mystery at Jo’s old place. The house on Cedar Bridge Lane.”

“Really?” Maeve asked, getting a wineglass from the cabinet and pouring herself a healthy slug of Merlot.

“Yeah, someone went into the house,” he said, scanning the blotter entry, “didn’t take anything, but locked the doors on the way out. That’s what that skell of an ex of hers told the police, anyway.” Jack closed the paper. “There’s more to that story than meets the eye,” he said, looking at Maeve. “Know anything about it?” He might have been failing mentally, but inside the old guy still beat the heart of an investigator.

“Don’t look at me,” she said.

“That’s right. You never had a vengeful streak. We left that to your mother,” he said, laughing.

This was news to Maeve. “Mom was vengeful?”

“You didn’t want to cross her,” Jack said. “I once left the freezer open and melted your favorite cherry Popsicles, which refroze when I closed it finally. Melted all over the freezer. Stayed that way until two years later when I finally defrosted the refrigerator and cleaned it myself. Woman would have been goddamned if she was going to clean up my mess.”

“That’s not exactly what I’d call vengeful, Dad,” Maeve said.

“I didn’t mention the Popsicles she left in my work duffel,” he said, smiling at the memory. “You try looking serious with cherry slime on the cuff of your uniform pants.”

That wasn’t the woman she remembered, but time had definitely burnished her memory of Claire. While in Maeve’s mind Sean became more vile and sinister with each passing year, Claire had become sainted, an image at odds with a Popsicle-stowing harpy who just wanted her husband to clean up his own messes.

Cal had asked her each time she had given birth to a girl if she wanted to name her Claire. She opted not to; she wouldn’t know until much later if they were perfect enough to be a namesake.

Jack was back to the blotter. “Someone should beat the stuffing out of that guy.”

“Which guy?”

“Jo’s ex. Leaving that poor girl while she was going through treatment. There must be a special place in hell for people like that.”

“She’s good now, Dad,” Maeve said. “She’s got the new boyfriend. The one I told you about?”

“The guy with the khakis?”

“One and the same.”

“He love her?”

Maeve opened the oven and pulled out the chicken. “I think he does.”

“Tell her that if he does anything to hurt her, I will kill him,” Jack said, his eyes on the paper and the other blotter entries. “I will. Wouldn’t take much. I’ve still got it, you know.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, seemingly talking just to himself.

Maeve pulled the plastic thermometer out of the thick skin of the chicken, crispy and golden, and turned to her father. “Dad, in light of everything, I think we should lay off the murder threats.”

“Then you can kill him,” he said, arching an eyebrow in her direction. He folded up the paper and pushed it to the side. “We going to eat anytime in this decade?”

Maeve grabbed a plate and filled it with her father’s favorite foods, giving him an extra dollop of mashed potatoes and skimping on the brussels sprouts, a vegetable he hated and which he swore Maeve made just to torture him intestinally. She covered the whole plate with gravy and handed it to him.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked. “Hot date?”

She took her place across from him and moved the salt where he couldn’t reach it. “Yes, Dad. George Clooney is flying me to his romantic hideaway in Lake Como for three nights. The girls are going to stay with Cal while I’m away.”

“Don’t like that Clooney guy. Too much of a leftie-Commie-liberal. Pick someone else. How about Rush Limbaugh? Or that Hannity fellow?” He dug into his plate of food, finding the brussels sprouts under a puddle of gravy and pushing them aside. “Hey,” he said as if he had just remembered something vitally important. “Have you seen that little girl?”

“Little girl?” she asked.

“The one from the park. The one who looked just like you,” he said.

“They come into the store sometimes. She’s a sweetheart.”

“A real cutie,” he said. “I saw them at the grocery store on our Wednesday trip and she looked so sad.” He drained his glass of Coke. “The mother, too. What goes on in that house?”

He couldn’t remember what year it was or how long he had been widowed, but even he was perceptive enough to see that there was a dysfunction in the Lorenzo house that went beyond normal family dynamics. Why did it take years and the onset of dementia to show him something in someone else that he hadn’t seen in her? Did old age and the freedom it gave one give him the perceptiveness that he hadn’t had when he was younger, working, and raising a daughter on his own? She stared at him, not sure whether to be happy that he was seeing things as they were or angry that he hadn’t when he should have. When it had mattered to her.

“I could swear that kid had the tail end of a black eye,” he said. “I asked the mom. Said she fell off a swing.” He shook his head. “Kid didn’t say a word, but after I walked away, I turned around and she was looking at me. Smiling. If she isn’t the spitting image of you, Mavy, I don’t know who is.”

“Funny how that works, Dad.” Maeve pushed her plate away, her food half-eaten, her appetite gone.

“He’s another one I should kill,” he said.

She listened for the joke in his voice, but it wasn’t there. “Who, Dad?” she asked, a little shiver of anxiety pulsing through her nerve endings.

“The kid’s father.” Jack held out his glass for more soda. “For doing that to her.”

“Seriously, Dad. Don’t say things like that,” she said, handing him another napkin after refilling his glass. Food speckled the front of his shirt; he tucked the napkin in under his chin, hoping to stave off more damage.

He dropped his fork on his plate and looked at her, his blue eyes shining. “Just let me do this one thing for you, Mavy.”

The conversation was taking a decidedly dangerous turn.

“And what’s that, Dad?”

He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Just let me take the fall. I deserve it.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know.

He looked at her blankly.

“And do you remember beating up Sean, Dad?” It was a shot in the dark.

He didn’t. That was clear from his shocked expression. “Now why would I do that?” he asked. “He was my nephew.”

The back door opened, the screen door slamming shut so hard that it almost fell off its hinges. “Grandpa!” Heather yelled, launching herself at her grandfather and giving him a tight hug. She ignored Maeve completely. “I forgot my geometry book,” she said, heading up the stairs.

“Hey!” Jack called.

She stopped at the bottom of the banister and peered around the corner into the kitchen.

“Got something to say to your mother?” he asked.

She chewed on that for a moment. “Oh. Hi, Mom.” As she went up the stairs, she called down, “And I need a check for the yearbook.”

“Rotten little wench, that one,” Jack said. “Cute as a button, but rotten to the core.”

Maeve was still unnerved from their conversation, her hands shaking. She placed them under her thighs and leaned forward. “How’s your dinner, Dad?”

“Excellent,” he said, any thought of what they had discussed gone with Heather’s appearance. He cleaned his plate, leaving the brussels sprouts hidden under a piece of chicken skin. “I think I’m good. What’s for dessert?”

She had made his favorite, tiny pecan pies with homemade ice cream. She put the pies in the microwave for a few seconds to warm them, then scooped rich, buttery vanilla ice cream over the top. “The girls are sorry we couldn’t have dinner together. This is their night at their father’s.” As she said it, she heard Heather thunder down the stairs and run out the front door without a good-bye; she was sure Cal was waiting by the curb, the car idling.

She handed Jack the plate of dessert and watched him scarf it up, the fact that she could still make him happy with her food one thing that gave her a little pleasure. She felt a little sick herself, though. Her dad’s comments had put her in mind of Tiffany Lorenzo, sustaining blow after blow with each passing day with no one to protect her, something that reminded her of life before all that ended for her. She rested her head on her hand and studied her father’s face, still handsome but carrying the worry lines for the concerns he used to have, the ones that he had long forgotten. Had he worried about her the way he seemed to be worried about this little girl? Had he ever confronted Sean? His parents? Did he even know, or did he believe what he used to say about his “clumsy little Mavy”? She had no recollection of any bad blood passing between any members of the extended Conlon-Donovan family. Their family dinners had been punctuated by drunken laughter, some mild disagreements, and a few lengthy silences over hurt feelings, but nothing dramatic, nothing all that emotional. She often said that the family dynamic swung between two emotions—anger and happiness—with an occasional stop at sadness in between. But growing up the way she had, she knew that nobody scratched the surface of a true emotional thought, a psychological breakthrough. Life was lived at the surface, with grudges held and carried in hardened hearts and accusations and recriminations spoken about after the fact and behind everyone’s backs.

“You look sad,” Jack said, folding his napkin and placing it beside his empty dessert plate.

She smiled, trying to cover up what she was feeling. Not sad, Dad, she wanted to say.

Just angry.

CHAPTER 39

Maeve dropped Jack back at Buena del Sol after dinner. The rain threatened in the black sky but didn’t fall, the wind whipping up and causing a whirlwind of leaves to pool at the front door of the facility. Maeve leaned over and gave him a kiss.

“Night, Dad.”

“Night, Mavy,” he said, giving her a hug. “Boy, that was a good dinner. If this was my last night on earth, that would be the meal I would want to go out with.”

“Dad, don’t say that,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. At his age, any night could be his last, even if she did everything in her power to make sure he was on the right medicine and taken care of in the best way possible. It had been several days since he had wandered off, and she felt more secure that he would remain at Buena del Sol without incurring the wrath of Charlene Harrison, taking that one worry off her mind.

“I’m just kidding, honey.” He opened the car door. “I plan on being here for a long, long time.” He turned around, a mischievous grin on his face. “I may not know where I am, but I’ll hang out for as long as you’d like.”

“Forever?” she asked. She gave him a playful push. “Hit the road,” she said. “Go straight to your room. Do not pass ‘go.’ And no dallying with the ladies.”

He saluted her. “I’ll be seeing you. Be safe.”

She waited until he had walked through the sliding glass doors, had turned around and given her one last wave, and had gone down the long hallway that led to the elevator before she drove off, a feeling that she couldn’t shake pressing down on her. The restlessness took her past her own street and out to the edge of town.

She drove down the long drive past the dam, stopping briefly to look at the water surging over the side. The impending storm made it rage more than usual; thousands upon thousands of gallons of clean reservoir water found their way to the Farringville River, a small tributary now swollen to three times its usual size, its banks under a few feet of roiling water. Surely they wouldn’t be here tonight—the weather was too dangerous, the conditions not ideal for a romantic rendezvous at a remote location—but there they were, Julie’s sports car in its usual spot, Lorenzo’s minivan in a secluded corner of the parking lot, its windows steamed up as if two teenagers were necking at a lovers’ lane.

Maeve’s hand instinctively went to her purse, the tacky pleather number that Jo hated but which had held Jack’s old service revolver for longer than she cared to admit, a weapon that had been discharged only once in the fifty years it had been in their possession.

She sat in the car, her head resting on the steering wheel, her heart beating a lonely thump in her chest, her soul asking her what she wanted to do. She had felt this way once before, when she had confronted Sean and not gotten the answers that she wanted, the closure that she had hoped for. It hadn’t ended well for either one of them, and for selfish reasons, she was sorry for that. Now would be different; now she would make the difference between one little girl thriving or dying a little bit inside every day.