Kill Me If You Can

3

I slid the note open.

Call me! Aunt Candice.

A local telephone number accompanied the scribbled letters.

No friendly face popped to mind at the inscription. I had no memory of an “Aunt Candice,” nor any other relations. Maybe I’d recognize her once I saw her face.

I gathered up my purchases, gave the cashier a parting smile, and headed out.

“Welcome home, Tish,” she called behind me. I let the words get lost in the wind as I pushed open the door.

A patch of blue sky broke through the cloud cover, sending sunlight glinting off the fresh snow. The sudden glare made my eyes water. I loaded the groceries in the Explorer. Before I left town, I stopped at the bank to open a new account. The teller seemed to recognize my name, but allowed me the dignity of my privacy. At least one institution in town practiced confidentiality.

I ducked my face against the wind, jumped in my car, and headed north. I’d already come to the realization that there was no such thing as anonymity in this day and age. One word from the real estate agent, one look at the national headlines ten years back, and anyone would know who I was. Patricia Louise Amble, Grandma Slayer. I thought I’d shaken the feeling that people were judging me. But I guess it would take more time. And if Gram had been related to half the peninsula as the clerk said, then I could expect a few evil eyes for my past deed. I’d just have to hold my head up and not let it get to me. They weren’t going to run me out of Port Silvan like some Frankenstein’s monster. I planned on sticking around awhile.

I slowed and took the turn down my driveway. Snow flew from the tires in my rearview as I gunned the engine through the drifts. I pulled up to the cottage feeling like a cowboy who’d just rounded up a herd of cattle. Yee-haw. I loved the power beneath the hood.

I brought in the groceries and water jugs. While I put things away, I thought about where I might find the water shutoff valve so I could get the faucets working again. I couldn’t remember seeing any doors on the first floor that might conceal waterworks. That meant there had to be a crawl space or a freestanding pump house somewhere nearby.

I tried picturing the yard without snow, as I’d seen it every summer back when. The only structure that came to mind was a garden shed that stood about a hundred feet from one end of the house, at the edge of the woods. That left the probability of a crawl space. Hopefully the access door was inside the house.

The sound of an approaching vehicle seeped through the thin glass of the kitchen windows. I headed toward the back door, wondering who would brave the driveway in this weather.

I stepped onto the porch. Snow dust blew down the neck of my jacket. I zipped against the ice-cold pinpricks. The roar of a diesel engine reverberated through the trees. A truck pulled into sight. Snow flew to one side in front of it like a white geyser. The driver slowed, angled into a snow bank, then backed up, revealing a rusty red plow attachment. The truck took another swipe at the opposite bank. After a few more maneuvers, the vehicle parked on the cleared driveway. The engine cut out. The rust-eaten driver’s side door opened. A pair of brown Sorels, laces dangling, appeared.

“Morning, young lady.” A burly man wearing tan canvas-type outerwear stepped into view. Curly white hair and a matching beard circled his face. He carried a to-go cup in one hand.

“Hi.” I held on to the rail as I went down the porch steps.

“Thought you might need some help cleaning up this mess.” He spit a stream of tobacco into the snow.

“Thank you.” I put my hand out. “I’m Patricia Amble.”

He took my fingers in a loose grip. “I know who you are. You’re Beth’s little one.”

Beth. That was a name I hadn’t heard in years.

“Did you know my mother?” I couldn’t contain my excitement.

His eyes roved my face. “’Course I did. You look a lot like her.” The old guy shook his head. “Too bad how things ended up for your mom.”

“Yeah.” Tears stung my eyes. Dead at the bottom of a quarry was a pathetic end for anybody. I sniffled. “So how did you know her?”

“I’m hoping for a fill-up on my coffee. Got any?” He lifted his travel mug.

“Oh, gee.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I was working on that when you pulled up. Come on in.”

He followed me inside. He leaned against the wall and started to pull off a boot.

“Please,” I waved a hand. “Leave those on. It’s too cold in here for stocking feet.” I poured water from a jug into the coffeemaker. “Besides, nothing can hurt this old linoleum.” I wrinkled my nose at the tan-and-black-flecked tiles.

I scooped some coffee into the filter and turned on the pot. The machine belched, then dripped fragrant, steaming liquid. “It just takes a few minutes.”

“I hear you’re going to fix this place up.” The old gentleman surveyed the kitchen.

I shook off my annoyance. I’d moved from one small town to another. Of course everyone knew who I was and what my plans were.

“It’ll probably take awhile, but with all that lakefront, it should do well on resale,” I said.

“Resale? Papa B is going to let you sell the place?”

Somewhere along the way, the guy had lost me. “Pardon? I’m the new owner. That’s why I bought this place. Fix it up and sell it for a profit.”

He put his hands up and shook his head. “None of my business. Just surprises me is all.”

I crossed my arms and leaned against the cupboards. On the opposite counter, a sprinkling of coffee grounds betrayed my hasty prep job. I ripped a piece of paper toweling off the roll and held it under the faucet. I turned the handle. Nothing. Frustrated, I wiped the grounds up with the dry toweling and flung it in the trash.

I turned to my visitor. “You were going to tell me how you knew my mother. Maybe you can start with your name.”

“Jim Hawley. I live down in the village. I’m related to the Russo family on Olivia’s side. Second or third cousins. I can’t remember.”

“Sorry, Jim. Name-dropping is wasted on me. I haven’t been around here since I was a kid.”

“Oh.” He stroked his beard. Droplets of melted snow came off in his fingers. “I just figured since you’re a Russo yourself, you’d know who Olivia was.”

I stepped back. “The last name is Amble. My grandmother used to be a Nagy.” I reached for the steaming coffee decanter. “How about that cup to go? Do you take it black?”

He nodded. “Sure your grandmother was a Nagy. I remember Eva. But your dad is a Russo. Olivia is his grandmother.” He smirked through his whiskers. “She’s the local matriarch around here. If something’s going on in this town, you better believe Olivia knows about it.”

I held the coffeepot suspended. My dad. I’d almost forgotten I had one of those. And now I had a busybody great-grandmother named Olivia.

“Olivia must be pretty old by now,” I said. I hadn’t been up here in close to thirty years. My father would have had to be young, and his parents young, in order for Olivia to still be kicking.

“The town just celebrated her ninety-third birthday last month,” my visitor told me. “That gal’s too ornery to die.”

There must have been something in the water up here. The people drank from a regular fountain of youth. Even with cancer, my grandmother had lived years past what the doctors had predicted. Too bad the water hadn’t extended my mother’s life any.

I poured coffee into his mug. “So you knew my mother through my dad?”

The old guy took a sip and nodded. “Sweet girl. She was always bailing Jacob out of some sort of trouble or another. She wanted to marry him real bad. Next thing you know, Beth was pregnant and Jacob took off.”

I swallowed hard at the story. To hear Mom’s version, theirs had been a fairy-tale romance. Two people so in love. Two families determined to keep them apart. Then I came along, the apple of their eyes. Dad worked out of town, Mom said, and that’s why we didn’t see him. But she’d always loved him. I could tell.

Once Mom was gone, however, I’d been fed Grandma’s version of things. My perfect mother fell in love with a perfect loser, who’d left town the moment he heard I existed. I remembered how Gram squirmed whenever I asked about my parents’ wedding. I’d eventually figured out there probably had never been one, though Gram always insisted I was “legitimate,” as if the term somehow made me a real person as opposed to a phony. But the fact that my name, Mom’s name, and Gram’s name were all Amble pretty much said it all.

I fixed myself a cup of sweetened coffee. I held the hot mug in my palms, soaking in the warmth as I sipped.

“Want some help getting that water back on? If I’d have known you were going to be staying here, I would have had everything hooked up for you. But Ethyl just told me to keep the road open.”

I smiled. Ethyl Merton was the real estate agent. “I don’t think she believed me when I told her I planned on moving right in. A little too rustic for her taste, she said.”

“She was shocked, let me tell you, when you called her. Papa B had this place waiting for you all these years. Then out of the blue, here you are.”

My neck crawled with heebie-jeebies. “You’ve mentioned Papa B before. Who is he?”

“B for Bernard.” He looked at me like I knew what he was talking about. “Bernard Russo. Your grandfather.”