The Death of Perry Many Paws (10 page)

I heard Cam and Grace in the front hall commenting on the great smell coming from the kitchen. Those of us with dubious culinary skills have to savor our praise when we can. When I felt they had peaked in their olfactory compliments, I went to greet them, hoping tonight’s dinner would be more serene than last night’s.

Cam had had a lot of interesting adventures at work. He was a good storyteller and even incidents that were only mildly amusing seemed more exciting when he told them. Grace actually laughed and seemed to enjoy herself. By dessert, Cam’s one-man show was starting to wind down and over coffee and chocolate cake we lapsed into more serious issues. I told Grace and Cam about my trip to the cottage with Syra and how I had shown her the photo and gotten no reaction from her.

“Since Syra never talks about her parents or her childhood, we have no idea if she and her mother are still in contact or whether she’s even still alive. Maybe Syra hasn’t seen her for so long that she is just sort of a vague memory,” Grace suggested. She accepted a second piece of chocolate cake but refused another scoop of ice cream. “It could be that she never saw a picture of her mother as a young girl. I’m not sure I would recognize photos of my parents as kids. Maybe Bing would have a different reaction.”

“He’s younger than Syra so if she doesn’t recognize her mother then he isn’t going to,” I reminded her.

“Still, it couldn’t hurt to try. What other choice do we have? I’d be interested in asking Claudia more about the kids in the photo and what became of them and if she knows what happened to Hetty Foster. We know what happened to Claudia, Franklin and Sybil. But what about that Edward person?” Grace asked.

“Edmund. Edmund Close. No idea what happened to him. Are there any Closes around here? Do either of you remember any family named Close when you were growing up?” I asked Cam and Grace. They were both Birdsey Falls natives whereas I was the outsider who had only lived here for twenty-five years.

Cam refilled his and Grace’s coffee cups and sat back down. “There was a guy named Close in high school, wasn’t there, Grace? He had a strange first name.”

Grace shook her head.

“I remember him because we were in a couple of gym classes together. He never hung out with anyone that I can remember. Sort of a loner. His last name was definitely Close though. I remember that. Maybe he was the son of this Edmund Close.”

“Let’s get out your high school yearbooks and check him out,” I suggested. “Maybe there were other Closes in other grades that you didn’t know about ...”

“I didn’t even know about the Close who was in my own class …” Grace interjected.

“Maybe they were all reclusive.”

“And maybe they are no relation to Edmund Close. Just because they have the last name doesn’t mean they were related,” Cam reminded us. “Also, I have no idea where my high school yearbooks are. It may take me a while to track them down.”

“Let me look for mine first, Cam; my house is much smaller than yours …” Grace’s voice trailed off as she remembered that she wasn’t exactly living at her house right now.

Cam picked up on Grace’s discomfort before I did. “Come to think of it, I’m sure mine are in my old bedroom someplace. Let me check in there. It’s easier than you going home to look for yours, Grace.”

“Yeah, you should see his old bedroom. His mother left it like a shrine with all his old posters on the walls and clothes in the closet.
It’s kind of creepy but also an interesting look back into the teen-aged Cam. Now Abbey expects us to do the same with her room. In a few generations we will have a museum of social history here with examples of bedrooms from teenagers of several generations.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea for a museum. I’d enjoy walking down a hallway with an example of a bedroom from several generations of fifteen-year-olds. Do you have your dad’s bedroom from when he was a teenager?” Grace asked.

“No, the shrine starts with Cassandra’s and my rooms and continues with Abbey’s. When my grandchild gets his or her bedroom enshrined we’ll be ready to open the museum up for viewing. I think we need at least three generations to make it interesting,” Cam laughed.

Grace began clearing the dishes but I shooed her back to her seat and took over rinsing and putting the dishes into the dishwasher. Cam waved the coffee pot around inquisitively and when Grace declined, poured the rest of the coffee into his cup.

Mellowed by chocolate, we headed into the library to once again join Mycroft lounging by the fire. I started thinking about Cam’s and my future in this huge old house. If I got to the point that I couldn’t get up and down the stairs, I think I would move my bedroom into the library. I could easily live in just this room, the kitchen and the solarium and be happy. I didn’t picture Cam and I ever leaving our home but who could predict how we would feel about the house if one of us were gone. Sometimes you just know it’s time to move on.

“What did you and Hugh decide to do about the situation with Ryan’s bloody shirt?” Cam asked. “Did Ryan have a good explanation for it?”

“He had an explanation but it wasn’t a good one,” Grace said. “He claimed he and some friends found a deer lying on the side of the road. He went over to have a closer look and got blood on his shirt.”

“Sounds made up. And why hide the shirt in his closet?” I asked.

“He said he didn’t know how to get the blood out so was going to look it up on the Internet and try to clean it. Neither Hugh nor I are very happy with the story but, no matter how much Hugh pushed him, he wouldn’t change it. Eventually they both got mad and stormed off.”

“What happened to the shirt?” Cam asked.

“Hugh took it. That really made Ryan angry. He’s definitely been acting strange, but then he’s always strange if you ask me. Even Hugh seems to feel he’s stranger than usual. Hugh asked Ryan to show him the deer but Ryan refused on the grounds that having to show his dad the deer meant his dad didn’t believe him. Which is true. We don’t believe him.”

“But Ryan wasn’t hurt, right? The blood couldn’t be his?”

“We aren’t even sure of that. He doesn’t have any cuts or signs of injury that we can see. That’s one of the reasons Hugh took the shirt. He wants to find out if it’s human blood or animal blood.”

“How’s he going to do that?” Cam asked. “He’s an antiques dealer, not a CSI tech.”

“He has a friend who’s a biology professor at the college. He’s going to ask him to analyze it. It certainly would make us both feel better to know it’s animal blood rather than Ryan’s or some other kid’s.”

The three of us sat in comfortable silence for a while. This was a peaceful room meant for reading and contemplation. I think my blood pressure dropped significantly whenever I stepped into the library. It was impossible to be upset or agitated in here.

“Oh my God!” Cam exclaimed, obviously not feeling as mellow as I was. “We’ve got to be the three most stupid people in the world!” He pounded his fist several times on the leather armrest, jumped out of his chair and began pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

“What is it?” Grace and I asked in unison.

“We’ve been so stupid …”

“Okay Cam, we have the stupid part down.
What
have we been so stupid about?” I demanded.

Cam rushed back to his chair, flopped back in his seat and moved to the edge of the cushion, putting his elbows on his open knees as he leaned closer to Grace and I seated on the couch.

“Okay, Tamsen, imagine this. Grace brings you a picture of a group of young kids. You honestly do not recognize any of them. She tells you their names—John Smith, Rosie Jones, Abbey Mack …”

I could feel all the blood rush from my head. Grace’s eyes opened so wide I thought they were in danger of popping out. Of course. It was so obvious. Syra didn’t necessarily need to recognize anyone in the photograph, but she should have recognized the name “Hetty Foster.” At the very least wouldn’t she have said, “That girl has the same name as my mom”? She may not have thought it actually was her mother but anyone would have mentioned the coincidence. But Syra hadn’t said a thing. She’d acted like she’d never heard the name Hetty Foster before. Ryan wasn’t the only person who was hiding something.

t had been twelve days since Uncle Franklin’s murder. Diane had hosted WOACA on the interim Tuesday but I hadn’t gone, since I was still in my shocked stupor stage. We all agreed it was time to get back to normal life and an afternoon meeting at my house seemed a good place to start. Bing had brought one of the group’s favorite treats—pecan sticky buns. Bing didn’t skimp on the pecans, and you didn’t need to ration out the sticky sweet topping because it was all over the place. Even with the abundance of sugar and nuts, they were surprisingly non-filling and we were all able to eat at least two; some of us three. Bing also was considerate enough to bring a tub of wet wipes and we were passing those around and scrubbing our hands and faces when what had been a sunny fall day suddenly turned overcast and windy. Without saying a word, we all grabbed the remaining sticky buns, the coffee pot and our knitting, and moved to the library. I lit the fire and we all resettled ourselves. The sudden output of physical energy apparently made everyone hungry so the sticky buns made their third trip around the circle and everyone freshened up their coffee.

Diane was telling us funny stories about Keith and Kevin and their adventures at college. I usually enjoyed hearing about their exploits now that Abbey was also in college. The Keith and Kevin stories involved a lot of partying and late nights and near misses with campus police. I couldn’t really identify with that sort of behavior because I
knew Abbey spent most her time in the library studying or with her girlfriends eating popcorn and watching old black-and-white movies in their pajamas. I was pretty sure Abbey had no idea there even were campus police.

While Diane was telling some tale about climbing on the roof of some building and hanging another school’s mascot, my eyes and my mind began to wander. Eventually both landed with a jolt on Diane, who was removing her cardigan and displaying quite a bit of flesh in her V-neck sweater underneath. Diane always wears twin sets; she must have one in every color. They are always the same, a cardigan with a short-sleeved crew-neck sweater underneath. Sometimes, in the dead of winter she will wear a turtleneck. Never a V-neck. Diane had bought a new sweater, one that showed cleavage. I glanced over at Grace, who was also staring at Diane. Slowly she drew her eyes away and turned her head to me. Our eyes locked. Without saying a word, the following conversation took place:

Did you see Diane’s sweater?

Of course, how could I miss it?

I can’t believe no one else is noticing
.

I can’t believe Diane has that much cleavage
.

She must have bought some new underwear when she bought the sweater
.

Why is she wasting it on us?

I told you she was having an affair
.

You may be right. What should we do?

I have no idea
.

Grace and I turned our attention back to Diane’s story, which was just winding up with one of the twins falling off the roof but luckily being so drunk that the fall didn’t hurt him. Everyone without college-age children thought it was hysterical. I was starting to feel nauseated. I’m not sure if it was the idea that being drunk and falling off roofs was widely accepted as normal college behavior, or the realization that
Diane might very well be having an affair that was the culprit. Or maybe it was the four sticky buns. Diane took one look at my bilious countenance and immediately turned the conversation over to me.

“I’m sorry for monopolizing the whole meeting with stories of Keith and Kevin,” she apologized. “I know you want to talk about Perry and I’m anxious to hear how negotiations are going with your editor.” Everyone murmured agreement that it was time for a report on the latest on my book, so I roused myself with a slug of diet soda and reported.

“I’ve sent several drafts of new story beginnings and outlines and Tim has rejected them all. He’s really being adamant about keeping with the formula. I’ve lost all enthusiasm for the project …”