The Chemistry of Death

Chapter 54

Joe spread a red-and-white checked blanket across the groundcover. He set the picnic basket smack in the middle and lay down on his lawn. The plants felt strong and springy under his back. They had grown lush in the past few months, and he’d spent a lot of time watching them while his leg and shoulder healed.

Edison rolled around on the ground, yellow legs kicking at the painted sky. Joe turned from his back to his stomach and breathed in the fresh smell of green life. Edison had the right idea.

It was their garden now. The house was legally Joe’s. Celeste had deeded it to him and all his descendants in perpetuity. Not that it looked like he’d ever have any descendants. Not at this rate.

His phone rang. Celeste.

“I was setting up for dinner,” he said.

He panned the camera around so she could see the painted tunnel and the lush green plants. As always, he ended on the picture of the seagull.

“I only have a minute before I have to go. I don’t want to lose the light.” She was painting again, in a snug little studio up in snowy Maine.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“A seven,” she said. “At least.”

Seven was slate, a strong number for Celeste. Her ALS had improved since Leandro had been locked away. Joe suspected that her brother had been poisoning her, but she refused to discuss Leandro with him. She said he’d forfeited that right when he almost killed her brother. “Good number.”

“It’s always good numbers these days.”

Maine agreed with her. Before the move, they’d met weekly, usually at the Museum of Modern Art. Joe had become a patron so he could access the museum via the steam tunnels. They had clung together like survivors of a shipwreck, buffeted by cataclysmic events beyond their control. Paradoxically, they hadn’t grown closer, but rather farther apart.

The secret pieces of themselves that had been revealed on the roof — her suicidal desires and his murderous actions — had put up a wall neither of them seemed to want to climb. So, they drifted away from each other.

He’d been almost relieved when Leandro had hung himself in prison, and she’d left New York the same day. Now their weekly visits were weekly calls, calls that got shorter and shorter.

“Show me what you’re working on,” he said.

She fumbled with her phone and nearly dropped it. Her motor control was still compromised, but she could move her left arm enough to paint.

Joe’s tiny phone screen zoomed past a snowy outdoor landscape and settled on an easel fitted with a wooden contraption that helped her control the brush when she worked. A stylized yellow and green object was slowly taking form on the canvas.

The image was so abstract that it was difficult to recognize, but Joe knew it by the color, by the way the bright yellow circle lifted itself up to a stippled gray sky. The yellow blob was supported by a slender green stalk that looked too fragile for the bloom.

“A sunflower,” he said.

“Just barely,” she answered, and that was true, too. The sunflower seemed to recede back into the canvas, as if being pulled into the gray-white sky.

“It’s gorgeous,” he said. “I want it for my library.”

“It could replace one of those fusty Victorian oils,” she said.

He liked those oils. “It could.”

“I gotta run,” she said. “Metaphorically.”

Edison bounded across the grass toward the elevator. He gave a happy bark. Joe knew who had arrived.

“Me, too,” he said.

There was a long moment of silence between New York and Maine, and then Celeste broke the connection.

Maeve strolled into view with Edison at her side. She’d dyed her hair silver for winter. Silver hair was trendy in New York now, and it looked good above her youthful face.

She carried a potted plant with dark purple flowers. Edison cavorted around her feet until she fished a treat out of her pocket and tossed it to him.

“Who’s a good dog?” she asked him.

Edison wagged his tail as if he knew the answer.

“You know we’d both be happy to see you, even without the treats,” Joe said.

She made a face. “I pulled this violet out of Macy’s window. It was left over and going to be cast out into the snow, so I brought it here.”

“Will it live?”

“If you put it in the parlor next to the grow light for the lemon tree, it should have a long and happy life, although it might not flower again.” She put the plant into his hands. It had a bright silver pot that matched her hair, and an electric thrill went through his hands when her fingertips touched his.

“I’ll do my best with it,” he said.

“If it starts to look bad, let me know. I’ll nurse it back to health for you.”

He set the plant down next to the picnic blanket while Maeve wandered through his yard.

“Just checking on my babies.” She bent to caress the tops of the blue star, then picked off a few yellowed leaves. “They look very healthy.”

He hated to imagine her reaction if they didn’t.

She came back to the blanket and sat cross legged on one side.

He opened a grape leaf picnic basket right out of the Victorian era. She’d bought the basket for him as a lawn-warming present once the ground cover was strong enough to sit on, and he’d invited her to this picnic as a thank you.

“What goodies do we have in here?” she asked.

“I dropped it off at Mendy’s Kosher Delicatessen and told them to surprise me.”

“Corned beef sandwiches.” She held one up. “And pastrami.”

He helped her unpack a giant bunch of champagne grapes, a bottle of red wine, a round container that smelled like potato salad, and another that might be coleslaw. At the bottom was a package wrapped carefully in white paper that must have been a steak for Edison. On the sides rested two smaller packages that he suddenly hoped were cheesecake.

“A nice haul.” She unwrapped Edison’s steak and set it on the ground, using the paper as a plate.

Edison looked over at Joe. He wagged his tail.

“Go ahead,” Joe said. “You know it’s yours.”

Edison downed it in two bites and collapsed on the ground next to Joe. Joe ruffled his ears.

“Winter Wonderland caught on fire again,” Maeve said. “The roof started to smoke on Santa’s workshop. It’s a wonder no elves were melted. We had to do a little triage on a few that got singed. Which makes me an official elf medic.”

“I think that puts you square on the nice list,” he said.

“How was your day?” she asked.

“I got a weird proposition.”

“It’s New York. It happens all the time.”

He laughed. “A government agent I hadn’t seen in a long time stopped by the office.”

The silver hair made her blue eyes snap with color. “Did he want you to join a superhero team?”

“Basically. He wants me to work on an anti-hacking task force.”

“But I thought you were a hacker.” She set out plates and wineglasses.

“That’s a problem and a solution, according to the guy.” Joe had said he’d think it over, but he’d already known that he would sign up. He’d be able to track down international criminals — pedophiles, terrorists, and who knew what else. He could make a difference.

She ran one hand through her silver hair. It settled again like a cap of feathers. “Sometimes you gotta accept those weird propositions. See where they go.”

He splashed wine into their glasses and picked up a sandwich.

She lifted her glass in a toast. “To weird propositions.”

He could drink to that.