The Death of Perry Many Paws (21 page)

I plunged ahead, using my most subtle questioning techniques. “My mom’s name is Elizabeth. She never really liked it. How about your mom? Did she like her name?” Oh my God this was painful. I was embarrassing myself. Luckily Bing was not the suspicious type.

“She never really said. Her name was Mary so I guess there’s not much to dislike.”

Mary? Didn’t he even know his own mother’s name? Claudia and Sybil had said Hetty Foster was Bing’s and Syra’s mother. It was a testament to my belief in Claudia’s ability to always be right that I actually assumed she was more likely to know Bing’s mother’s name than he was.

“Her name was Mary? Mary Foster?”

“Well, it was Foster after she married my dad. Her maiden name was Willard.”

“So when she was a young girl, say around fifteen, her name was Mary Willard, right?”

Bing narrowed his eyes and stared at me. “Yeah, she was Mary Willard until she married my dad. Is there something strange about that?”

He had no idea how very strange it was. “No, it isn’t strange at all. It’s just that for as long as I’ve been friends with you and Syra I’ve never heard much about your childhood or your parents. It’s interesting. What was your dad’s name?”

“Fulton.”

Fulton Foster. Try saying that three times fast. This was making no sense at all. What had happened to Hetty Foster? Was Mary Willard the same person as Hetty Foster? And who the heck was Fulton? For the first time in my entire acquaintance with Claudia I wished she was here. She would get to the bottom of this fast.

“Are your parents still living?”

“No. My dad died when I was a baby. I don’t remember him. My mom died the year before Syra and I moved here, around sixteen years ago I think. I still miss her but when I’m baking it’s like she’s in the kitchen with me. I can remember her telling me how much of each ingredient to use and explaining to me the right way to present different dishes to show them off. We used to talk the whole time we were cooking. I had so much fun.”

“It sounds like you and your mom had a special relationship. You’re very lucky. How about Syra? Were she and your mom close?”

“Just average, I guess. They fought a lot when Syra was a teenager but from what I’ve heard at WOACA, that was normal. Syra wasn’t interested in doing anything in the kitchen. She was reading all the time and that annoyed my mom. She thought people should be doing things.”

As an author I wanted to disagree. Reading
was
doing something, something very important. If more people did it I would have better job security.

“Does Syra remember her dad?” What I really wanted to ask was whether Fulton was Syra’s dad also but I couldn’t bring myself to be quite so crass.

“She was about three when he died so probably not very well. We don’t talk about him. We talk about our mom sometimes but never our dad. Do you want another cinnamon bun?”

“I do but I really can’t stuff another one in me. Thank you.” Bing got up and wrapped up the buns to put them in the refrigerator. I
went into summarization mode. So this Fulton Foster guy, who no one remembers, was both Bing and Syra’s dad. Claudia was wrong on that. She swore they had different fathers. Also, it didn’t sound like Bing’s mother was either the dedicated tomboy or the thruway floozy that Sybil and Claudia made her out to be. I mean, she stayed home and baked all day. Maybe she was a reformed thruway floozy. Reformed by Fulton Foster, the man who lived long enough to father two children, then died before either of the children was old enough to remember him.

Bing was looking at me expectantly and too late I realize I should have accepted another cinnamon bun, because now I had no excuse to linger and continue to question him. I reluctantly got out of my chair, picked up my jacket and sauntered toward the front door.

“You and Syra have such unusual names, Bing. Your mother must have had a great imagination. Do you know how she came up with them?” I slipped my arms into my coat and fussed around getting my bag situated on my shoulder.

“Our real names are Syracuse and Binghamton. My parents went to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon and liked the names of these cities along the thruway so that’s what they named us. I guess it’s kind of imaginative.”

“Yes, very imaginative. Thanks so much for the treats, Bing. Tell Syra I said hi.”

I didn’t want to interrupt Grace in case she was involved in family matters so I sent her a long email to tell her about my conversation with Bing. When Cam came home with a sack of Franklin’s newspapers I went over the entire conversation again with him. Neither writing about it nor talking about it made it any clearer. Was it possible that Claudia was wrong about Hetty Foster? It seemed so unlikely and yet the other option was that Bing had no idea who his mother really was. That too seemed unlikely. Was there a third version that made
more sense? I wondered what Syra would say if I asked her the same questions I asked Bing.

Cam had brought home sesame chicken, beef and broccoli, egg rolls and a mountain of rice. I’m ashamed to say my appetite was good and I ate my fair share. So much for the positive effects of the walk to the bookstore yesterday. I’d completely negated those ten times over with what I’d eaten today.

“I wish I’d asked Bing where his mother was from but every time he answered one of my questions I was so totally dumbfounded that I couldn’t sort out the best question to ask next,” I told Cam as I polished off the last egg roll.

“Well, Bing can be a little skittish. It sounds as if you did a good job getting as much information out of him as you did. I mean, you couldn’t just come out and tell him Claudia said his mother had a different name and that she was a tramp, conceiving children at various cities on the NYS thruway, all the way from Albany to Buffalo.” Cam pretended to scratch his leg but I knew he was really giving Mycroft pieces of beef under the table.

“When we look at those newspapers we can keep an eye out for Fulton Foster and Mary Willard as well as Hetty Foster and the other kids in the photo with Franklin. Maybe something will pop out at us and it will suddenly make sense.”

“Maybe. Do you think Abbey and this New Zealand guy are just friends or is she just telling us that so we won’t ask her a lot of questions?” Cam bent down and scratched his leg again.

“Do you need some calamine lotion for that leg? Abbey said they weren’t romantically involved so I think we have to assume she’s telling us the truth. There’s no reason to mislead us. We haven’t even met him.”

“Mmm. Maybe. But we assumed my mom was telling us the truth about Bing and Syra’s mother and then we assume Bing is telling us
the truth about his own mother and where does that leave us? Two truths?”

“There can’t be two truths but there can be two lies. Maybe neither is telling the truth.”

“Why would my mom lie about it?”

“Maybe she isn’t lying. Maybe she’s wrong.”

“I seriously doubt that. My mother is never wrong.”

You can’t imagine how proud Claudia would have been to hear her son testify to her inability to make a mistake. I, on the other hand, was just annoyed. Cam bent down to scratch his leg.

“For God’s sake, put a dish down there for Mycroft and stop pretending you have to scratch your leg. It’s childish. And speaking of childish, your declaration that your mother is never wrong reeks of playground bravado. The next thing you’ll be telling me is that your dad can beat up my dad.”

“Here Mycroft, mommy says you can have some dinner.” Cam put some beef on a napkin and handed it down to Mycroft. He stopped and scratched his leg on the way up. “My leg really does itch, for your information. I was just killing two birds with one stone, scratching and providing nourishment.”

“Your mother predicted that Abbey was going to be a boy. She was wrong about that.”

“That was wishful thinking on her part. She wanted a boy so we could change his last name to Behrends and he could continue the family dynasty in Birdsey Falls.” Cam stood up and began to clear the table and load the dishwasher.

“Your mother really does think the Behrendses are like the Kennedys, doesn’t she. I mean how can anyone, including the Kennedys, have a family dynasty in Birdsey Falls?”

“The Behrendses have always been big fish in a little pond. I’m not sure my mom realizes just how little the pond actually is. She sees
herself a certain way and nothing, including facts, will change that. It’s harmless …”

“It’s annoying.”

“But harmless.”

“Then you admit it’s annoying.”

“Mmm …”

“Cam, that isn’t an answer.”

“It’s not annoying to me but I can see why it is to you. Mom is just mom and she’s always been that way, so I accept her as she is. As Abbey says, grandma is a queen. Her parents treated her like a queen, her brothers treated her like a queen and when she grew up she married a man who treated her like a queen. Even her best friend treats her like a queen.”

“She’s delusional. And annoying.”

Cam turned on the dishwasher then came over to rub my shoulders. He bent his head down and rubbed his nose against my neck.

“She created me.”

I leaned back against his chest. “I can’t fault her there although I think you are 99% your father and very little Claudia.”

“I’m not delusional.”

“No, but you can be annoying …”

“But not right now.”

“No, not right now,” I agreed.

“Let’s go upstairs and see if I can continue to not be annoying up there.”

That’s why we never got a chance to look at the newspapers.

o you think it’s too late to ask your mom and Sybil to dinner tonight?” I yelled to Cam as I stretched in the bed and then pulled the covers back up to my shoulders. I’d wait until the house heated up a bit before venturing out. Cam, toothbrush in mouth, popped his head out of the bathroom door.

“Wha ouu zay?”

“Don’t drip toothpaste! Stick your hand under there. I said, is it too late to invite your mom for dinner tonight? Too short of notice?”

Cam continued to just stare at me, toothbrush hanging precariously out of his mouth, hand dutifully poised under his chin. Then he shook his head and went back into the bathroom. He re-emerged a minute later and perched on the side of the bed, reaching out to touch my forehead with his palm.

“Do you have a fever?”

I gently removed his hand and propped myself up on both of our pillows, resettling the covers primly across my chest. I didn’t want him getting any ideas because I had a lot I wanted to accomplish today and I can be easily distracted when he puts on the charm.

“I realize that I rarely suggest having your mother come over here but today I …”

“… want to quiz her about Bing and Syra’s mother and try to reconcile Bing’s story with hers.”

“Exactly. Can you call her?”

“What excuse can I use? We hardly ever invite her over here for dinner unless Abbey is home.”

“Well, it’s Sunday and they don’t have a big dinner at Ashland Belle, just that fancy brunch. She might like a nice home-cooked meal.”

“Who’s going to cook?”

That might sound like fighting words but they actually made a lot of sense. I’m not much of a cook and when we have company Cam always does the cooking. He handles Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthday parties and any other kind of party we might have. So it was a legitimate question and I wasn’t the least bit offended. I was actually relieved that he was considering he might have to cook it because that’s exactly what I had in mind.

“You know how much she loves your paella. If you agree to make it, I’ll go to the store and get the seafood and pick up something for dessert,” I bargained. “Why don’t you call her while I jump in the shower and then we can make a grocery list. We didn’t have anything else planned for today and …”

“Football. I want to watch football, at least the one o’clock game.”

“You still can. We’ll invite her for 4:30-ish. And you know she won’t stay long because she hates to drive when it’s dark. And be sure to include Sybil in the invitation.”

Cam reluctantly agreed. Usually it was me who was reluctantly agreeing to have her here. I would have preferred to get the information over the phone, but when she and Sybil were together they fed off each other; since they both knew Hetty, having them talk about her together would bring out more information and memories.