Occasion of Revenge

9

Captain Younger of the Chestertown Police Department wanted to know the same thing. While his officers secured the scene upstairs and we waited for the Kent County medical examiner to arrive, Younger, dressed in dark blue uniform trousers and a light blue shirt, shotgunned us with questions.

The man was good. Almost before I realized what was happening, he had pried open the family closet and the skeletons had come rattling out in all their sordid splendor.

During the interview I sat stiffly on a two-cushion sofa next to Paul, our shoulders touching. Through the French doors I could see Speedo snuffling joyfully about in the patches of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme in Darlene’s immaculate garden. I wondered if I’d ever again experience such pure, mindless joy.

“Your father was living here, then?” Younger asked.

I nodded. “Most of the time.”

“So, where is he?”

“Captain Younger, I honestly don’t know.”

The Kent County medical examiner turned out to be a nurse from the local hospital. When she showed up, followed by the Maryland State Police crime lab, things got busy and Captain Younger let us go.

Halfway back to the hotel I grabbed Paul’s arm. “Holy Mother of God! I forgot to call Emily!” We found our daughter waiting inside, pacing the long central hallway from the front door of the hotel to the reception desk in the back, holding Chloe and frantic with worry. “I didn’t know what to do,” she complained. “I finally let them clear the plates away.”

After we explained what had happened and arranged with the hotel to stay another night, Paul suggested we go back into the restaurant and order some lunch, although it was well past two o’clock by then.

I had forked up the last bite of a poached pear tart when a white police cruiser with a splash of red on its rear quarter panel pulled into a parking space on High Street just outside the dining room window. I watched, chewing thoughtfully, as Captain Younger uncoiled himself from the driver’s seat, adjusted his sunglasses, slammed the door of the cruiser, then stepped onto the porch. “Oh, oh,” I said.

Paul eased himself out of his chair. “Best to get it over with.” He waylaid the officer at the door to the dining room, just as he passed by.

We invited Younger to join us for coffee. While I filled his cup, he pulled up a chair, moved some glassware, dirty dishes, and the salt and pepper shakers aside, then dealt some items out on the tablecloth in front of us. They looked like greeting cards encased in plastic sleeves. “What do you know about these?”

I started to pick up one of the cards, then withdrew my hand, waiting for his permission to touch them.

“It’s OK,” he said. “Have a look.”

I used my fingertips to slide the cards around the tabletop. I must have had a question mark on my face because Younger suddenly said, “We found them in a pigeonhole in her desk, tied in a bundle with white string.”

Each plastic sleeve held a greeting card, open and flat. The illustrations and writing on the face of each card seemed tame enough, but if you flipped the sleeve over, you could read the ugly sentiment inside.

When it comes to describing you,

One word says it all…

Bitch!

Emily leaned toward me, reading the card over my shoulder. “Well, she wasn’t a very nice woman.” She smiled at the officer, then picked up another card and read aloud,

Consider this a personal invitation…

Go fuck yourself!

“Emily!”

“I didn’t use the F word, Mother, the card did.” She flapped it at me.

I tried to look serious. “Daddy mentioned that somebody was sending Darlene poison-pen mail. This must be some of it.”

The jeweled ring in Emily’s eyebrow shot up. “You don’t think Darlene was murdered, do you?”

I looked into the officer’s intelligent eyes and said, “Somebody did try to poison her dog.”

Emily gasped. “Speedo?”

I nodded. “Daddy told me about it.”

Paul was examining a postcard of Arlington Cemetery on which someone had scrawled, “Wish you were here.” He laid down the card and stared at the officer. “What’s going to happen to Speedo?”

“One of the neighbors showed up. Virginia Prentice? She volunteered to keep the dog until Mrs. Tinsley’s kids decide what to do with him.”

That was good news. I fell back into my chair and prayed that he’d run out of questions and head back to the police station soon. Fat chance.

“Mrs. Ives, do you have any idea, any idea at all, where your father is?”

I shook my head. “Maybe he went home?”

“Nobody’s seen him in Annapolis.”

I spread my hands, palms up, and shrugged.

“Places he hangs out?”

I shook my head.

“We do need to talk to him.”

“Captain, if I knew where he was, I’d certainly tell you.” I met his gaze squarely. “We want to find him just as badly as you do. I’m worried about him.” I explained about Mother’s recent death and Daddy’s even more recent engagement to Darlene. “If she died in her bath and Daddy found her body…” I paused and took a deep breath. “… There’s no telling what he might have done.”

Paul reached for my hand, squeezed it, and didn’t let go. “How can we help you find him, Captain Younger?”

As Paul told Younger about Daddy’s accident on the Bay Bridge and described the rental car, I watched a range of emotions play across the officer’s face. I could see the wheels turning, almost hear Younger thinking, This must be the unluckiest guy alive.

But my radar was down. That wasn’t what he was thinking at all. “Where would your father have been at approximately one-fifteen last night, Mrs. Ives?”

“I don’t know. We left the party around ten.” A wave of nausea and dread washed over me. “Why? Is that when she died?”

“We don’t know when she died; that’ll be determined by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner over in Baltimore.”

“Then why do you ask?”

“We had a hit-and-run last night. Somebody ran down an elderly gentleman out near the intersection of routes two-thirteen and three-oh-five.”

I gasped, my head swimming. If I hadn’t been holding Paul’s hand, I might have keeled over. “My father?” I croaked.

He shook his head. “No. He was a local waterman, on his way home from a late-night card game.”

“Was? Do you mean he’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so.”

A nightmare scenario flashed through my head. Daddy, drunk as usual, discovers Darlene dead and drives off in a haze of alcohol and grief. An old man, crossing the road, frozen in the glare of oncoming headlights. A cry. A sickening thud. I opened my mouth to proclaim Daddy’s innocence when Paul squeezed my hand again, hard. “Perhaps if you talked to the other guests. My wife and I didn’t know many of them, but…” Paul looked at me. “What was that strange lady’s name, honey?”

“LouElla,” I said. “LouElla Van Schuyler.”

“Yes,” Paul continued. “Check with LouElla. She appears to know everybody.”

Captain Younger smiled cryptically. “And everybody in town knows LouElla.” He gathered up the plastic-covered greeting cards, tucked them into a folder, and stood to go. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll put out a broadcast. We’ll find him.”

I received this promise with mixed feelings. With Paul’s arm around me, I watched Captain Younger climb into his cruiser, ease it out of park, and merge his vehicle smoothly into the traffic moving north along High Street.

“Look at this!” Emily’s voice was muffled.

When I turned, Emily was kneeling on the dark carpet next to Chloe’s high chair. She struggled to her feet holding one of the greeting cards by the edges between both hands. “It must have slipped out of its sleeve.”

Emily dropped the card onto the tablecloth.

Do me a favor… (Paul read before opening the card with the tip of a knife)

Eat shit and die!

“Well, what do you know,” said Emily. “Maybe she did.”