Catch a Falling Knife

Chapter 21

The temperature soared on Sunday as we gathered at Albert’s farm for brunch. After several weeks of cool and sometimes rainy weather, I welcomed the change. The heat and humidity of the North Carolina summers get to me after a while, but I like an occasional hot day in the spring. Spring had officially sprung, as we had just passed the spring equinox.

I had invited Burt to come, thinking that this was an ideal opportunity to hold a family conference about Mark, with Burt’s input, and hopefully agree that we would do everything in our collective power to clear Mark of the murder charge. Sandra and Albert had driven to Bethany the day before, Saturday, at my urging, and talked to Mark on the internal telephone at the police station. That was a step in the right direction.

After arriving at the farm, I released King from the back seat of my old Mercedes so that she could play with her friend, Romper. Winston trotted down the sidewalk as I retrieved the rolls and pies I had baked from the car.

“Hello, Great Grandma,” Winston said as I gave him a kiss. Always one to keep his relationships straight, he eschewed use of the name Gogi, which is what Sandra called me.

“How are you, Pumpkin?” I asked, wondering how long he would allow me to call him that. He certainly didn’t look like a pumpkin, having lost his baby fat. He would grow up to be tall and thin, like most members of the family, except Sandra, who was short and thin. Albert was tall, but his thinness had thickened in recent years, in spite of his exertions on the tennis court.

“How are your tires?” Winston asked, surveying them with a practiced eye. He had been born at the age of 40 and already had the cares of the world on his shoulders.

“They’re fine. I had them checked recently.” I couldn’t remember how recently.

“Look, there’s a car,” Winston said, pointing to the edge of Albert’s woods, where Burt’s Lexus had just appeared out of the trees. Cars were Winston’s staff of life.

“That’s Mr. Brown’s car. What color is it?”

“White,” Winston said, with the assurance of one who has long known his colors. “There’s another car.”

Sure enough, right behind the Lexus came a less flashy model, one I didn’t recognize. As Winston announced that this car was green, I was more concerned about who was inside it since I had hoped there wouldn’t be any extra people to interfere with our discussion.

We waited for the two cars to negotiate the long driveway and pull up beside mine. Burt got out first and gave me a hug. I introduced him to Winston and they gravely shook hands. A good-looking blond woman, prematurely wearing a short summer dress, got out of the other car. She showed a lot of leg as she did so, but if Burt saw the show he diplomatically didn’t let on. She was somewhere in her thirties, an age range Albert preferred for his women, so I assumed that he had invited her.

“Hi,” she said, brightly, to the three of us. And zeroing in on me, “You must be Dr. Morgan, Albert’s mother. “I’m Daisy Templeton. I work with Albert.”

We shook hands and I introduced her to Burt and Winston. After a brief hello she ignored Winston, leading me to infer that she probably didn’t have any children of her own.

Albert appeared from the house and after kissing me and shaking hands with Burt, reintroduced Daisy to us and reinformed us that Daisy and he were colleagues. Apparently not yet kissing colleagues, at least in front of other people. Albert took my pies and Daisy my rolls and he and Daisy led the procession along the sidewalk to the front door. Winston, Burt and I followed. By the time we entered the house Winston had Burt’s key case and had identified the key to the Lexus.

The remaining member of the party, Sandra, met us in the kitchen, with kisses, hugs and handshakes, as appropriate. At one time I had had visions of Sandra and Burt getting together, but that had never happened. Sandra hadn’t met Daisy before, and I saw her surreptitiously eyeing the graceful newcomer as we prepared brunch, probably wondering the same things I did: How much older than Sandra was her father’s new girlfriend and was she wearing any kind of support beneath the spaghetti-strapped top of her dress, because, if not, she had a lot going for her.

We sat down at Albert’s round table, the six of us fitting snugly, and ate a delicious meal, the main course consisting of an omelet concocted by Albert, which had some ingredients that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find in an omelet, but which tickled the palette. He was a good cook.

Daisy, it turned out, was an associate professor in the Women’s Studies program at the University of North Carolina. Albert looked hard at me when he gave us this information because I sometimes make inappropriate comments on subjects like women’s studies.

Today, however, I was on my best behavior. But I couldn’t find a way to bring up the subject of Mark with Daisy present, and had resigned myself to discussing him later in smaller groups.

Then Sandra said, “Burt, I’m glad that you’re defending Mark. I feel a whole lot better now that you’re on the case.”

“Thank you,” Burt said, bowing his head slightly in the Sandra’s direction. “I’ll do my best.”

I think they would have made a good match. But Mark was a good substitute for Burt, if we could get him out of jail. From Daisy’s expression at this exchange, I gathered that she hadn’t been clued in about Mark. Fortunately, Mark’s arrest had been buried in the Raleigh News and Observer. Albert gave her a quick overview of why Mark was in jail, skipping very lightly over the details and hinting broadly that Mark had been framed. He didn’t mention sexual harassment.

There didn’t seem to be anything else we could say about Mark so the talk turned to other topics, including, somehow, global warming. Daisy apparently accepted global warming as an established fact. And it was obvious from what she said that she blamed men for it.

“Yes,” I said, casually, “global warming is a possibility. The earth has been getting warmer and cooler for billions of years without the help of any men. It would be very surprising if it weren’t doing one of those right now.”

The group ignored this remark as the ramblings of an old lady, except for Albert who gave me another hard look, but then Daisy started documenting all of the horrible results that would undoubtedly accrue from global warming and again implied that the male members of the human race were responsible for the forthcoming catastrophe.

Sometimes the devil makes me do things. I said, “Chaos theory suggests that the effects of global warming are completely unpredictable.”

This time Albert glared at me, but this too might have gone unnoticed by Daisy, as I suspect they don’t spend a lot of time on chaos theory in women’s studies. However, Sandra took up the ball and said, “With all the obvious problems in the world, does it make sense to pour billions of dollars into something that may not be a problem?”

“You’re asking for a lot if you expect government policy to make sense,” Burt said, with a smile, apparently not taking the attack on his sex too seriously.

“Mother,” Albert said, firmly, “could we serve the pies now?” And turning to Daisy, “Mother makes the best apple pie you ever ate.”

That effectively cut off the discussion before Daisy could answer us and we got into a real brouhaha. I could picture Albert saying to us later, “Can’t you children behave yourselves when I bring somebody home?” Maybe not those exact words, but he sometimes lectured me as if he were the parent and I were the child.

I managed to get Albert’s attention, briefly, while we were washing the dishes and Burt was talking to Daisy in the family room. She was actually quite charming and I could see why Burt would be attracted to her. I told Albert that Mark had a bail hearing tomorrow and that, if possible, I planned to put up his bail.

This got his attention since he was the executor of my estate and my principal heir. I also said, “You’re welcome to come along. I always welcome your advice on financial matters. Besides, Burt and I are going to try to talk to Detective Johnson and you could help us with that.” I briefly outlined what I had in mind.

Albert was clearly uncomfortable telling me not to guarantee Mark’s bail because it would make him sound disloyal to Mark. I had counted on that. We called Sandra over and I told her what I had told Albert. She was all for getting Mark out of jail and wasn’t concerned that he might skip town. It appeared to me that she still loved him. Neither of them could get off work to go with me.

“Well, you’ll just have to trust Burt and me to do the best we can,” I said, somewhat relieved that they weren’t coming. We would have a free hand.

When Albert went to join Burt and Daisy, Sandra said, “Gogi, do you still believe Mark is innocent?”

“Yes,” I said. “Do you?”

“Yes. Things were going so well between Mark and me. I wish all this had never happened.”

She had tears in her eyes. I gave her a hug and said, “Don’t worry, Honey. Everything’s going to be all right.” I hoped that was a true statement.