The Mill River Redemption (30 page)

“Alex, sweetie, are you up? I think a cold front came through last night,” she said as she went into his room. Alex was still in bed, and he stretched as she came in and sat down. Two paperback books lay facedown and open at the end of his bed.

“It feels a lot better in here,” he said. “Almost like there’s air-conditioning.” Alex sat up and reached for his glasses on the nightstand. “I think I stayed up too late reading.”

“That’s nothing new,” Rose said. Thinking how wonderful it was to be comfortable instead of sticky and perspiring, she reached over and rumpled his hair. “I think we should put fans near the windows to air out the place.”

“Can I sleep a little more?” Alex asked as he lay down again. “I’m still tired.”

“Sure,” Rose said. “There’s nothing we need to do today. I’ll make some breakfast and leave it on the table for you.” She leaned over and kissed Alex on the forehead before she left his room.

Downstairs, Rose opened all the windows as far as they would go. She also unlocked and propped open the heavy front door, reveling in the fresh breeze that blew through the screen door against her face. When she looked down at her front lawn, though, her jubilant mood vanished.

On each side of the stairs and sidewalk leading down from her front door, large swaths of her lawn were yellow and wilted. She came down from the stoop to get a better look. As she stood facing her house, she realized with a sick feeling that the large, dead areas of grass were in fact letters that had somehow been burned into the lawn:

LUSH

Rose gasped and immediately looked over at Emily’s house.
She started toward it, then backtracked. With a final glare at her lawn, she ran up the stairs into her house and grabbed her cell phone.

Her hand was shaking so much that it was difficult for her to hold her cell phone as she was connected to the Mill River Police Department.

“Mill River Police, Officer Hansen speaking.”

“Hello, my name is Rose DiSanti Frye. My yard has been vandalized, and I’d like for someone to come out and file a report on it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Frye. You’re over on Maple Street, right? Across from The Bookstop?”

“Yes, right across from it, number 130.”

“All right. I’ll be down in a few minutes to take a look.”

Rose hung up the phone. She was standing at the front door, staring straight ahead and trying not to look at the grass, when Alex came up behind her.

“Mom? Were you going to fix breakfast? I can always have cereal if you decided not to.”

“That would be good, baby.”

“Mom?” Alex came closer. “Mom, are you okay? Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine, Alex. Someone messed up our front lawn, and I’m waiting for the police to come.”

“You called the
police
? Really?” He stood on his tiptoes as he peered out the front storm door, trying to get a look at the lawn. “What did they do?”

“There’s a word etched into the grass. Whoever did it must’ve poured something on it to make it die off in the shapes of the letters.”

“Is it a dirty word?”

Rose hesitated a moment before answering. “No.”

“Well, can I see, then?”

She held open the door. “Go look and then come right back.” Alex ran out the door and stood staring at the lawn for a few minutes before returning.

“Who do you think did it? Do you think it was Aunt Emily?”

Of course it was
, Rose thought.

“We don’t really have any way of knowing.”

“Whoever did it, it wasn’t very nice, but at least they picked a word that describes our lawn. I mean, it is
lush
. Maybe whoever did it was jealous of how nice it looks? You think so, Mom?”

Despite everything he’d read and could instantly recall, her brilliant, sweet, naïve son hadn’t yet come to understand the double meaning of the word or the insult it delivered so openly for all to see. She wasn’t about to explain that to him, either. It was a relief when a Jeep with the Mill River Police Department logo pulled up alongside the curb.

“Stay inside, Alex.” She put on her sunglasses and stepped outside as an officer got out of the vehicle and waited on the sidewalk for her.

“Hi, Ms. Frye?” he said. “Hi, I’m Officer Hansen. We spoke on the phone, and I think we actually met earlier this summer.”

“Yes. Well, you can see what’s been done,” she said. She lowered her voice, so that Alex wouldn’t hear what she said next. “And I’m sure it was my sister, Emily, who did this, but there’s no way I can prove it.”

“Your sister?”

“You probably know she lives next door there.” Rose jerked her chin in the direction of Emily’s house.

“Could I ask what makes you think it was your sister?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “We’ve not been getting along. This is just the latest.”

“Let me take down your contact information first,” the officer
said as he held up a clipboard. Rose gave him her cell phone number and her permanent address in New York.

“And do you own this property?”

“No, my mother owned it, and now it’s part of her estate. Her attorney is managing the property. I’m just … staying here for a few months to tie up some loose ends.”

The officer nodded. “You should probably inform your mother’s attorney about this,” he said. “Did you see your sister do anything to your lawn?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone else around your home? Anyone you didn’t recognize?”

“No.”

“And, is today the first time you noticed this? Was there any other damage done to your property today or at any time recently?”

She thought back to her bird-shit-covered car and felt a fresh wave of anger. “No, no other damage that I know of. I first noticed it right before I called you.”

“All right.” The officer looked down at her lawn and half smiled. “Not to diminish the seriousness of this, but you got lucky in a way. It could’ve been an obscenity instead of a … compliment of sorts.”

Behind her dark sunglasses, Rose rolled her eyes.
First her son, now the cop, and there was no way she could explain that the word in her lawn was no damned compliment
.

“You know, Ms. Frye,” he continued, “your sister filed a vandalism report with us not long ago. One of the tires on her car was slashed. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

Even though she was an expert liar, she could see when she looked the officer square in the eyes that he would not be taken for a fool. The fact that they hid her black eye nicely wasn’t the only reason Rose was glad she was wearing the sunglasses.

“No. I saw her changing a flat tire a while ago, but I have no idea how she got it.”

He stared at her without speaking for a few seconds and then nodded. “Okay, Ms. Frye. I’ll go see your sister and see if she has anything to say about this, but there’s really not much for us to go on here. At least now you’ll have this incident on file, in case you have any further trouble.”

“Fine,” Rose said. “You wouldn’t know what causes grass to do this, would you?”

The officer looked down at the yellow, wilted letters and shrugged. “I’m no lawn care expert, but I’d guess that somebody sprayed it with Roundup. It’s a fast-acting herbicide, and you can buy it pretty much anywhere. If you want to hide the letters, you could probably spray the whole area so everything turns yellow like that within a day or two. Then, you can just turn the soil over and replant.” He ripped one of the pages from his clipboard and handed it to her. “Here’s a copy of the report. Give us a call right away if anything else happens.”

“Thank you,” Rose said as she accepted the piece of paper. She watched the officer walk toward Emily’s house, and then she went back through her own front door to get her purse. It took a lot of willpower to ignore her growing need for a double-strength rum and Coke, but that would have to wait until the afternoon. Right now, she had to get to the Home Depot, and fast.

Alex was still standing in the entryway. “Get your shoes on,” she said as she passed by him. “We’re going out.”

O
NCE
F
ATHER
O’B
RIEN HAD SAID GOODBYE TO THE LAST OF HIS
parishioners after Sunday Mass, he tidied up the sanctuary and changed into more casual attire. While he ate lunch in the parish house, he looked over some paperwork relating to the town’s new
Hayes Memorial Park and Recreation Area. The plans for the land that had been Samuel Hayes’s horse farm and Mary’s childhood home were coming along beautifully. It was a stunning piece of property, tucked away down a country lane just outside of town. The perimeter had been fenced, and the playground equipment and basketball court would be installed soon. There would be other sports facilities, too—a baseball diamond and two tennis courts. A purchase order had also been submitted for two picnic tables.

Most special of all, he had arranged for a monument to be crafted for Mary’s grave site, a marble embodiment of his memory of her as a young woman. His memory of the funeral service he had conducted for her was far more bittersweet. Mary had been laid to rest on top of the hill where her father’s old farmhouse had once stood. It was a fitting location, beneath a cluster of sugar maples and with an expansive view of the whole property. He took comfort in the fact that Mary herself had helped shape the plans for the new park, which would soon be open for everyone to see and enjoy.

Slowly, on account of his arthritis, Father O’Brien rose from the table, put his few dishes in the sink. There were two wrapped packages on the kitchen counter, courtesy of Ivy. He made sure to take one of them with him as he left the parish house.

Outside, the warmth of the sun soaked into his shoulders and soothed his knees, and he knew his joints would limber up as he walked. There was only one other thing on his schedule for the afternoon—a counseling session of sorts—but the person he intended to counsel was not aware of his impending visit.

As he crossed Main Street, he thought of the phone call he’d received from Ivy Collard two nights ago. “I’m thinking that it’s time I take you up on your offer to talk with the girls,” she’d told him. “Emily says that they’re not working together or talking
much, and it’s almost August. I’m afraid they’re going to run out of time. And I have something for you to give each of them, from Josie. She prepared a little message to each of the girls, just in case they needed it.”

He rounded the corner onto Maple Avenue just in time to see Kyle Hansen exit Emily’s house. He was in uniform, and the police department’s Jeep was parked alongside the curb. Kyle smiled as he approached.

“Father, how are you?” he asked. “You picked a good day for a walk.”

“Hi, Kyle. It is beautiful today,” he agreed. “I’m actually here in my official capacity, and I suppose you are as well. I hope everything is okay.”

“Ah.” Kyle’s smile disappeared and he shook his head. “I don’t quite know what to think, Father. These two …”

“The two DiSanti girls, you mean?”

“Yep. They’re like oil and water, and living next to each other isn’t helping. Rose thinks Emily’s the one who’s vandalized her lawn,” he said as he motioned toward Rose’s house.

Father O’Brien turned and saw the wilted yellow letters in the grass. “Oh, dear,” he said.

“I know. Emily denies any involvement. Of course, there’s no way to prove anything.”

Father O’Brien sighed and shook his head.

“I think each of them has serious issues,” Kyle continued. “Maybe you can talk some sense into them.”

“Maybe,” Father O’Brien said as he patted Kyle on the shoulder. “I’ll do my best.”

Emily’s surprise at seeing him on her porch was readily apparent. “Father O’Brien! Come in,” she said when she opened the door. “Gus, back up, boy, and let the father through.” As she held the door open, she glanced past him and down the street, as if she
had expected someone else had rung her doorbell. “What brings you by?”

“Good afternoon, Emily. It occurred to me that I was long overdue in welcoming you back to town, and I wondered if you might have time to chat for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” she said with a smile. “Come on in. I was just about to indulge in a little ice cream. Could I interest you in some?”

“Well, that depends,” he said as he followed her. “What flavors have you got?”

“Butter pecan and chocolate mint,” she said.

“Oh, my,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way I could refuse a little butter pecan.”

“You got it,” she said. They passed a small room off the center hallway that looked like a den, and Father O’Brien couldn’t help but stop and stare. The room had been spectacularly transformed into a glasswork studio. There was a table in the center of the room covered in sheets of glass and spools of a copper-colored metal foil. Smaller pieces of glass that had been cut into shapes lay on the table as well, along with a torch and various hand tools.

What had first caught his attention, though, were the large windows in the room. The center window was clear and open, letting in fresh air. But, the windows on the side were almost completely hidden by various framed, finished stained glass pieces that had been propped against the window panes and hung from the ceiling. The sun shining through the windows passed through all of them, sending colored beams of light in every direction.

“My goodness,” he said. “That is beautiful.”

“Oh,” Emily said as she backtracked to him. “It’s my little hobby.”

“I didn’t know you did stained glass work.”

She shrugged. “Just something I picked up over the years. I got into it when I started renovating houses for a living. I really enjoy
it. In fact, I’m starting a new project for the McAllister mansion. I’m helping Ruth and Fitz convert it to a bed-and-breakfast.”

“Ruth mentioned that to me when I last saw her,” Father O’Brien said. He was still mesmerized by the beauty of the pieces in the windows.

“Father, would you like to see what I’m planning?” Emily pointed to a side table, where a pattern was positioned on a light box and beneath a large sheet of glass. When she turned on the lights, he could see that the illuminated pattern formed a scene of horses grazing in a field, surrounded by hills and trees.