Occasion of Revenge

18

New Year’s Eve in Annapolis, Maryland-a symphony of lights and music and laughter. Streets in the historic district, closed to the usual traffic, thronged with people in a holiday frame of mind. Paul and I, our formal wear covered with casual coats, joined the celebration, wandering up Maryland Avenue, taking advantage of the late-night hours to window-shop and spoil our dinner with the cookies and hot, spiced cider-champagne, if we were lucky-many shops put out for their customers.

Peggy Kimble snagged us as we strolled by Galway Bay and charged us with desertion for passing up their Irish shindig in favor of the one at McGarvey’s. Looking sheepish, I blamed it all on my father. The petite hostess, stunning in a white tux jacket and black slacks, good-naturedly shamed us into having a drink at the bar. When the staff began setting up for dinner, we waved a cheery good-bye and moved on.

At Aurora Gallery I oohed and aahed over a jeweled enameled pin, but Paul was being obtuse. As we left the store, Jean shot me a conspiratorial wink; she’d place the jewelry on hold. When my birthday rolled around in February and Paul turned up, clueless, she’d need to look no further than her hold drawer for a suggestion.

I dived into Nancy Hammond’s studio to admire a cut-paper-and-tempera painting of a Caribbean isle that had me pining for last year’s vacation in the British Virgins. I batted my eyelashes. Paul claimed he had forgotten his checkbook. Besides, he pointed out reasonably, I hadn’t even found a place to hang the painting L.K. Bromley had given me.

We strolled around State Circle with hundreds of revelers, then cut through the alley next to the roped-off pit where our favorite Indian restaurant had burned to the ground two Christmases ago. Like most Annapolitans, I wanted to bury the owner of this eyesore up to the neck in his own rubble.

We wandered up to the Court House where I thought we might meet up with Emily and Dante, but they’d apparently moved on. “Let’s go.” I pulled on the sleeve of Paul’s overcoat.

“This looks interesting.” Paul planted his shiny black Corfams on a carpet of flattened cardboard which had been taped securely to the floor. From the table in front of him, he selected a red plastic disposable cup with a number taped to the side. He stared inside, as if contemplating a sip of its contents, a particularly unappealing cocktail of peacock blue paint. He looked from the cup to me to the dozens of paint-by-number portraits set up on easels around the room-Einstein, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Churchill, Kennedy, Elvis-all waiting for the next Leonardo da Vinci to step up, paintbrush in hand.

Paul smiled at me like a kid, his eyes bright with excitement. I shrugged permission. How could I resist?

I was sure he’d paint Einstein. He fooled me, though. I waited, patiently amused, until he dabbed the final splotch of silver paint on the canvas of his masterpiece. Then he made me blush by singing “Burning Love” in his ruined baritone all the way around Church Circle and down Main Street, each “hunka hunka” delivered with teenage exuberance directly into my ear.

In a window of the Annapolis Shirt Company a few doors down from Mother Earth, we watched Leigh Bo, a mime wearing a white tailcoat with a fuschia tie and cummerbund, perform magic maneuvers with her top hat. By the time we barged through the door at Mother Earth, extracted the owner and her father, said hello to the temp, and listened to Ruth tell us three times how she should have gone the temporary route a long time ago, Leigh Bo was being replaced by the Beauty Shop Quartet wearing pink satin shirts and black bow ties.

Darryl, oozing so much charm that I wondered if it hurt, met us at the door of McGarvey’s. I could hardly bear to look at him. Exuding bonhomie, he escorted us to a round table in the back. Before sitting down, Daddy extended his hand to shake Darryl’s while simultaneously gripping the younger man’s bulging biceps. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help after your mother died.”

“I heard you came unglued,” Darryl said bluntly.

Daddy mustered up a smile from somewhere. “It’s as good an explanation as any.”

Darryl laid beer label coasters about on the table. “What can I get you to drink?”

I wanted a beer in the worst way, could practically taste it, could feel the hops and the malt exploding on my taste buds. I ordered an iced tea. With a quick questioning glance in my direction, Ruth ordered a coffee. When Paul followed suit by requesting a Diet Coke, Daddy shaped his hands into a T. “Wait a minute! Time out!”

All heads, including Darryl’s, swiveled in his direction. “Don’t coddle me, please! I’ve got to learn to live in the real world, a world where other people drink alcoholic beverages. Otherwise, what’s the point?” He pointed a finger at Darryl. “Sam Adams all around, Darryl. And bring me a cup of coffee, black.”

When Darryl returned with our drinks order, Daddy said, “Can you join us for a moment?”

I held my breath, dreading a yes.

Darryl laughed. “Not if I want to keep this job. I’m not even your server.” He waved a slim blond woman over to the table. “Take good care of these folks, Mary Ellen,” he told her. “They’re relatives of mine.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “Later, dudes!”

Mentally, I shot arrows into his retreating back while Mary Ellen took our orders. When my quiver was empty, I sat back and watched Daddy as he sipped his coffee, trying to decide if he was comfortable with it or fighting with every molecule not to reach out, grab Ruth’s beer, and down it in a single gulp.

My father must have read my mind. “LouElla was a gift from God,” he said.

“How can you say that, Daddy?” Ruth fumed. “She held you prisoner, like that poor guy in the Stephen King story.” She looked to me for support. “You know, the movie with Kathy Bates and James Caan?”

“Misery?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Daddy smiled. “LouElla wasn’t offering to break my legs with a baseball bat if I didn’t shape up.”

“Still, you were being held against your will.”

“For the last time, Ruth, I was there because I wanted to be there.”

I decided to jump in before Ruth ended up spoiling the evening. “You know, Ruth, I was thinking back to the party, and what happened may have been partly my fault. I was going into the living room to check on Chloe and I remember pointing to Daddy and asking LouElla to keep an eye on him. I didn’t realize she’d take me quite so literally.”

“She lied to us, Hannah.”

“I’m certain that in her own mind, she wasn’t lying, just giving us her own cockeyed interpretation of the truth.” I nibbled on a bit of the smoked bluefish that had just appeared on the table in front of us. “For example, she told me, ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up hale and hearty’-”

Daddy interrupted. “And abracadabra! Here I hale and heartily sit!”

I stared at him suspiciously, wondering if he weren’t trying too hard to be jovial. “And when she said…”

“George?”

I paused in mid-sentence, unaccountably annoyed at the interruption, and turned in the direction of the speaker. Deirdre wore knee-high black boots and a slim, shimmery strapless gown in an odd shade of green that did little to detract from her pale, washed-out face. Her too-black hair stuck up in overmoussed spikes. She looked like a “before” photo in a magazine makeover.

Daddy sprang to his feet, nearly knocking over his chair. “Deirdre! Do join us!” He grabbed a chair from the adjoining table and dragged it over to ours, squeezing it into the space between his chair and Ruth’s. Deirdre heaved herself into it with a grateful sigh. “Thank God! A friendly face.”

“Here for First Night celebrations?” Ruth asked.

“What a zoo! I had to park way down on South Street.” Deirdre turned to Ruth. “I’m only here to switch cars with Darryl. He’s going skiing again and doesn’t trust his jalopy to make it all the way to Vermont.”

I wondered what had happened to Darryl’s fancy motorcycle. I hoped it had been repossessed. It would have been a sight, though, to see him riding up I-95 with skis and poles tied to the side of his Harley. I wondered how he’d attach them to his mother’s Porsche.

Paul passed me a plate of crab balls and I picked one up with my fingers. Just as I popped it into my mouth, my beaded bag began to squawk. I plucked out the cell phone and stared at the illuminated window where the incoming number was displayed. “LouElla,” I groaned. I made an executive decision. LouElla had interfered with one too many family dinners, so I decided to punish her by stuffing the phone back into the depths of my bag. I chewed on the crab ball and tried to ignore the ringing tone that Emily had changed from Mozart’s 40th Symphony to laser gun warfare from Star Wars.

“Why don’t you want to talk to LouElla?” Deirdre inquired.

Ruth beat me to the draw. “She’s got some crazy theory about Virginia Prentice. What was it, Hannah?” She stared at me from across the table. “Smallpox virus in the drinking water?”

“Who’s Virginia Prentice?” Deirdre wanted to know.

Paul pushed the empty crab ball plate across the green-and-white checked tablecloth toward the center of the table. “You probably remember her from the engagement party. Stark white hair, red plaid suit?”

“Boston accent,” I added.

“Not really Boston,” Daddy corrected. “She’s from Row Die Lan.”

“Rhode Island?” I poked him in the ribs with my index finger. It was wonderful to have my old Daddy back, along with his sense of humor.

Deirdre leaned back to allow Mary Ellen to set a steaming bowl of Maryland crab soup in front of her. “I remember her now.” She picked up her spoon. “You know, that name Prentice rings a bell.” Squinting thoughtfully, she tapped the spoon against her chin. “I think Carson McPhee was married to a woman named Prentice before he married Mother.”

Now it was Ruth’s turn to ask, “Who’s Carson McPhee?”

“Lucky husband number two.” She grinned wickedly over her soup spoon. “He augered his Piper Cub into a cornfield in New Jersey rather than stay married to Mother. My theory, anyway.”

Something LouElla had said was nibbling at the edges of my brain. Wasn’t Carson McPhee from Fall River, Massachusetts? Or was it the Tinsley guy? The Lizzie Borden house was in Fall River, too. I had visited the Borden house once, and remembered Fall River being just across the state line from Tiverton, so close to Rhode Island it was practically in it. And didn’t Virginia tell me she came from Tiverton? With growing curiosity I asked, “Who was the first Mrs. McPhee?”

Deirdre wrinkled her brow. “I don’t remember. Maybe Darryl does.”

When Mary Ellen returned with our entrees I asked her to find Darryl and send him over to our table.

Eventually Darryl swaggered over, tucking a plastic bill server into the back of his pants. “Whatcha want, Didi?”

“Didi” rolled her eyes. “Do you remember the name of the woman Carson divorced so he could marry Mother?”

Darryl squinted and wagged his head back and forth like a metronome, thinking hard. “Can you give me a hint?”

“She was youngish. Had a name like an actress, you know, the one with the fat lips?”

Darryl’s face brightened. “Kim Basinger?” he tried.

Deirdre shook her head. “Not that one. She was with Hugh Grant…” She turned to me in triumph. “Julia Roberts! That’s it. Her name was Julia. Julia Prentice.”

I tried to remember if Virginia had mentioned her daughter’s name, but couldn’t.

Deirdre favored her brother with a plastic smile. “Thank you, Darryl. You’ve been such a help!”

“Don’t mention it, dudette.” He thrummed his fingers on the top of his sister’s head, disturbing her over-laquered do, then moved quickly out of the range of the flat of her palm.

“Does that help?” Deirdre asked as she fluffed up her hair with nimble pinches.

“Yes, thank you.” I nibbled thoughtfully on a cracker. “Virginia told me she’d had a daughter once, but she died. I wonder what her name was.”

“You could always ask her,” Paul suggested.

“That would be insensitive.”

“I’ll bet LouElla knows,” offered Deirdre. “She knows everything.”

I remembered LouElla’s dining room lookout post and was sure she knew a lot about a lot of things. The problem was sifting the truth out of the fantasy. I sat there in a haze listening to the banter going on around me-the subject had shifted to Super Bowl XXXIV-but I couldn’t have cared less about the Rams or the Titans. In my right ear, Ruth’s voice was insisting that the Rams were from Los Angeles and on my left Paul was saying St. Louis, St. Louis, while a voice in my head kept repeating Prentice, Prentice, Prentice, Julia Prentice. What if Virginia Prentice’s daughter had been married to Carson McPhee and Darlene had broken up the marriage? That would give Virginia a powerful motive to bump off Darlene. Revenge.

Then there was the funny business with the mailboxes. Something I’d overheard at Darlene’s party was gonging loudly in my head. Hadn’t Marty O’Malley, the charming retiree, mentioned something about getting his prescriptions by mail?

Ruth was conceding that the Titans were from Tennessee when I excused myself and took the stairs to the second floor. I parked myself in the hallway next to the cigarette machine, reached into my bag, and pulled out the cell phone. I dialed four-one-one and asked directory assistance for Marty O’Malley’s number in Chestertown. For an extra thirty-five cents I let the operator connect me, then waited impatiently through the rings, praying that Marty was spending the waning hours of 1999 at home in front of his television set.

On the sixth ring, someone picked up. “O’Malley.”

“Marty, this is Hannah Ives. Remember me? From Darlene’s party?”

He remembered me, down to the sweater I was wearing.

“Sorry to bother you tonight of all nights but I was just wondering something. You get your prescriptions by mail, right?”

“Saves me money.”

“Has any medicine ever gone missing?”

“Once or twice a shipment got lost, but they always replaced it.”

“What medicine did you lose?”

“Vitamins once. And my stress medicine.”

“What do you take for stress?”

“I can’t remember. Just a minute.” Marty clunked the receiver down. While I waited, listening to his TV playing softly in the background, I paced the hallway outside the rest rooms. It seemed like forever before he returned, rattling the pill bottle in my ear.

“Something called Compres.”

I swore softly and sagged against the wall. Must be a brand name. “What do they look like?” I asked.

Marty rattled the bottle again. “Little orange buggers with a seven on ’em.”

My heart did a rat-a-tat-tat on my ribs. Clonodine hydrochloride! I thanked Marty and wished him a happy New Year. I leaned against the wall, still holding the phone, trying to catch my breath and wondering what to do next. Circumstantial evidence, I told myself. Nothing that would hold up in a court of law. But Captain Younger needed to know about this. I rummaged in my bag, looking for the card he had given me. You’d think I’d have the blasted number memorized by now. I couldn’t find it in any of the pockets or nooks and crannies so I called 911, asked to be connected to the Chestertown Police, and left a message for Younger to call me. I was putting the cell phone back in my bag when Darryl appeared at the top of the stairs.

He swaggered in my direction, his lips twisted into a half smile, half sneer. “Hannah! We can’t go on meeting this way.”

I looked for an escape route, but I was standing in an alcove next to the cigarette machine. Now Darryl hovered between me and the emergency exit on the landing. He was so close I could tell he’d had garlic for dinner. I lifted my bag and clutched it to my chest, like a shield, fighting the urge to clobber him with it. “I had to make a phone call.”

He loomed closer. “Calling the boyfriend, huh?”

I hugged my bag even closer. “Do you mind if I tell you something?”

He folded his arms and leaned toward me. “What?”

“You are disgusting.”

“That’s no way to talk. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”

That wounded, as he knew it would. I yearned to slap that triumphant look off his face. “Get out of my way, Darryl.”

He touched a finger to my cheek. “I could have been your brother.”

My head was so far back against the wall that I had to duck to one side to escape. “But now, happily,” I shot back at him, “that doesn’t seem very likely.”

“I’m just trying to be friendly.”

I prayed somebody would show up to use the rest room soon. Usually there was a line a mile long. If nobody came, I might have to get physical with this irritating creep. “If you don’t get out of my way, I’m going to start screaming.”

He ignored me. “Didi is such a stuck-up bitch. Thinks she knows everything.”

I put my hand against his chest and pushed him away. “Move!”

Darryl raised his hands, palms out, and took a step backward. “OK, OK. Don’t get all bent out of shape.”

I scurried around him and bolted for the stairs.

“Don’t you want to know about Julia Prentice?”

As much as I wanted to put twenty-five miles, maybe even an ocean, between me and the Dearly Departed’s son, his question pulled me up short. Halfway down the stairs I turned and looked up at him.

“I thought so.” He leered.

“What about her?” I asked, hoping that he wouldn’t ask me to do him any favors in exchange for this information.

“Come here.”

“If you can’t say what you have to say from up there, forget it.”

He shrugged. “OK. Just thought you’d be interested to know that Julia Prentice killed herself.”

I swallowed my revulsion long enough to ask “How?”

“Jumped off the Mount Hope Bridge.”

I shuddered. “Does anybody know why?”

“Couldn’t deal with the divorce, I suppose, and the prospect of raising her baby alone.”

“She had a child?”

“Sort of. She was seven months pregnant when she took the plunge.”

I staggered back, catching myself against the wall. Poor Virginia. If she held Darlene responsible for her daughter’s death and that of her grandchild…

“Mother considered it a lucky break,” he continued, peering down the staircase and studying my face as if to gauge my reaction. “Carson not having to go through the trauma of divorce and all.”

Maybe my father had a lucky break, too, then. The words hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I remembered I was supposed to be a grown-up. I clamped my lips tight and forced myself to look at Darlene’s poor excuse for a son. “My father is devastated by your mother’s death.”

Darryl leered. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry about that.” He started down the steps. “I can think of a lot worse things than being your stepbrother, sis.”

I’d have a better chance of being struck by an asteroid than ever being related to a troglodyte like you. With admirable self-control, I managed a grim smile. “As I said, Darryl. I don’t think that’s very likely.”

“Don’t count on it, Hannah. I’ve seen how your father’s been looking at Deirdre lately.” His teeth gleamed white in the shadows at the head of the stairs. “How does Uncle Darryl grab you?”

The duck I had eaten for dinner rose to the back of my throat, and I thought I might do a Linda Blair all over the loathsome toad. Rather than give him the satisfaction of seeing me rattled, I turned and fled down the stairs, into the lights and comforting din of the crowded restaurant.

And ran smack dab into Ruth, who had been appointed head of the search party sent to find out what was keeping me. “Hannah! You’re red as a beet. Are you OK?”

“That Darryl is a creep.”

“You won’t get any argument from me.” She peered into the depths of my eyes as if more information were hidden there. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later. C’mon, let’s get back to the others.”

Paul, looking relieved, stood up when we appeared and held my chair out until I’d settled down into it. He kissed my cheek. “Thank God. I thought maybe you’d fallen in.”

I patted his cheek and managed a smile. “It took longer than I thought.” I’d fill him in later. Paul, who took care of business in men’s rooms as if they had revolving doors, always claimed to be completely baffled by why women took so long to accomplish the same thing, so he accepted my explanation without question.

Deirdre was staring at me curiously. I wondered if my cowlick was misbehaving again, or if I had spinach on my teeth. How old was she, anyway? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? How would I feel having a stepmother fifteen years younger than I was? I shook away the thought. The hell with Darryl; he was just rattling my cage. I sprinkled some salt and pepper on my duck and took a bite, surprised to find it hadn’t grown cold, and consoled myself by picturing him behind bars.

Deirdre pushed her soup bowl toward the center of the table and stood. “Well, sports fans. Gotta go.”

Daddy and Paul rose politely. Daddy extended his hand; when Deirdre took it, he covered both their hands with his left. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay and see in the New Year with us?” I held my breath, hoping she had other plans. Like having to alphabetize her spice rack. Or neuter her houseplants.

“No, sorry. I’ve got to get back to Bowie. My roommates are having a party and I’m expected to make the pizza.” She turned to us. “Bye. Happy New Year.”

We watched her go, Daddy looking wistful, whether from melancholy over what might have been with Darlene or for some hope of a new relationship with her daughter it was impossible to tell.

I worried about this through the rest of my roast duck, but by the time Mary Ellen cleared the dishes and began hovering tableside for our dessert order, Daddy had remained so cheerful that I knew Darryl was full of baloney.

When my cell phone rang again, catching me in mid-Key lime pie, I hurried to answer it, thinking it had to be Captain Younger.

But I was wrong.

“Hannah, thank goodness I got you!”

I closed my eyes. “Hi, LouElla.”

“No time to chat! Hurry! You’ve got to find Emily and warn her!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” All eyes at our table and several pairs from the adjoining tables glommed on to me.

“Virginia’s gone crazy! She just came over here and demanded my log book.”

That was the silliest thing I ever heard, but there was no use telling LouElla that. “Why would she do that?”

“She hit me in the face. Knocked me over,” LouElla whimpered. “I’m going to have a black eye.”

“I’m sorry, LouElla, but what can I do to help?”

“She’s going to destroy it, obliterate it, wipe it off the face of the earth! Oh, my poor log book!”

An alarm clanged in my head. “What does all this have to do with Emily, LouElla?”

“Emily?” LouElla paused, as if she’d lost her train of thought.

“Yes, Emily. What were you saying about Emily?”

“Oh! It was Emily who told Virginia about my log book. I’m sure Emily didn’t mean any harm by it, and I certainly don’t hold anything against the dear girl, but Virginia says that now Emily’s seen what’s written in it, she’ll have to be stopped.”

I sighed. Another one of LouElla’s loopy conspiracy theories. “That doesn’t make any sense, LouElla. You wrote the log book and she didn’t stop you.”

“That’s what I told her, but Virginia said that nobody’d believe a crazy old witch like me.” She snuffled noisily. “Except she used the B-word.”

“I’m sure you’re overreacting.”

“No, I’m not. You should have seen her face! All red and purple and the veins in her neck popping out.”

I needed to drag LouElla back on track before she wandered down a divergent path. “You said she went looking for Emily?”

“She blames you, Hannah, for messing up her plans. She said there was only one way to make you understand why she had to do it. You were going to find out, firsthand, how it feels.”

How it feels? Adrenaline suddenly shot through my veins, cold as ice water, but I had to ask. I had to be sure. “How what feels, LouElla?”

“How it feels to lose a child.”

I leapt up from my chair, clutching the cell phone to my ear with both hands. “LouElla! Look out your window. Is Virginia’s car still parked in the lane?”

“Just a minute.”

I filled the time with silent prayer: please, oh, please, oh, please, oh…

“She’s just leaving!” LouElla seemed suddenly focused. “But don’t you worry! I’ll follow her. I’m good at it.”

“Don’t hang up!” I shouted. “Wait a minute!”

“It’ll be OK,” LouElla soothed. “I’ve trained with the best.”

“What makes Virginia think she can find Emily, LouElla? It’s New Year’s Eve. The city is packed with people.”

“Emily told her where she was going.”

“Oh, my God!”

“And, Hannah?”

“What?”

“I know for a fact that Virginia owns a gun.”

The phone went dead in my ear.