A Matter of Mercy (27 page)

Chapter 26

It wasn’t as if she believed Terry, but there was nothing to do except leave the library. On the way out through the salt-slushed parking lot, Caroline tried to reason with herself. The whole “appointment” business couldn’t be aimed at her personally. She hadn’t given her name when she’d called, for heaven’s sake. But the veil over Terry’s eyes had been unmistakable, and the connection she’d felt to Terry had vanished, as if an invisible force field had gone up between them.

Here was the strange part: she’d gone in expecting to fight her inclination to behave differently. After all, she’d found Terry’s name and address in Rid’s truck. Her home had been vandalized, and she’d been threatened. How could she not be suspicious? So she’d prepared herself to earn an Emmy. Instead, she’d done no acting, not really. The superficial lies had been easy. She’d been so busy reacting to the charged atmosphere around Terry that she hadn’t had to make up emotions. There was only one explanation: Terry must have figured out who Caroline was. Or she’d been tipped off.

Still, if that were so, why hadn’t Terry confronted her? Caroline would have expected as much, and Terry had every right. At the thought, a pale rose guilt began its hot bloom on Caroline’s chest and opened along her neck, throat and cheeks. As soon as the sun shone on her identity, she realized she was a stalker, no way around it. But if Terry was colluding with Rid in all that had happened to her, then Terry bore the same guilt. Caroline’s mind spun ruts trying to figure it out.

She sat in her car trying to make sense of it, then reminded herself that Terry, if she chose to look, could be watching. The temperature had warmed a bit, and the day was overcast—again. The western sky looked like it was carrying a payload of snow. Or sleet, the worst of the Cape’s winter offerings.
What now?
She turned the key, let the engine cough into an idle.
What now?
Shifting into reverse, she backed out of the parking space, swung around until she was facing the road.
What now?
The baby moved, a little series of hummingbird wings inside her, and she shifted into drive, heading for Route 6 with no plan for the day, no plan for the rest of her life.

* * * * 

She ended up in Eastham where she got her hair cut and finally bought the cell phone she told Rid she was going for.

Eventually everything fell into place, like tricks in a well-bid bridge game. She laid out what she knew as if she were cataloging a wardrobe, checking to see which articles of clothing she still needed.

She picked up the makings for dinner on the way home. Already the afternoon was sliding toward twilight, and it was only 3:45. Rid was home when she arrived.

“CiCi? Where you been? I was getting worried,” he called from the kitchen as soon as she opened the door. She heard the chair scrape and Lizzie’s paws scrabbling on the hardwood as both got up to greet her.

“Remember, I
told
you this morning? Cell phone?” She held it up as she came down the hall toward him. “Had to go to Eastham for it. You
could
have warned me that Land’s End isn’t carrying them anymore. While I was there I went ahead and got my hair done. And I went to the library first, this morning. I told you all this at breakfast.
Men
.” But her tone was light, a froth of tease on top. He helped her take her coat off and kissed her cheek as he did.

“Wonk, wonk, wonk,” He made a hand motion like an opening and closing mouth. “You know,
some
people buy cell phones so they can call their families when they’re going to be gone a long time so their families don’t worry.”

Family? Okay, why don’t you just use a stun gun on me?
“
I didn’t mean to worry you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Can I see your phone?” Rid said, reaching for it. When it was in his hand, he sat at the table and fiddled with it for perhaps a minute. “There,” he said, handing it back. “I programmed the house number and my cell number in it. If you want me to put anyone else’s, like the doctor or Noelle, I can. I mean, you probably can figure it out fine, I didn’t mean you couldn’t.”

“No, that’s good, thanks.”

Rid sat, and busied himself with further programming the phone, using the list of numbers Caroline had tacked up under a magnet on the refrigerator. “I’m putting your number in my cell phone now, too—okay?”

“Sure. Don’t forget to put Elsie on mine,” she said, trying to keep her suspicion at bay.
Why this, why now?
“I bought stuff for a casserole and salad. I’ll get it going now, so we can eat early.” Caroline stifled a sigh. She was tired of trying to understand things that didn’t make sense, tired of trying to act like she was okay. She went in to the bathroom to pee, splashed some cold water on her face and washed her hands. In the mirror, the woman who returned her gaze looked black-eyed and disheveled. At least her hair looked better. She returned to the kitchen and began cleaning vegetables. In a clatter, Rid pulled plates from the cabinet and piled silverware on top. The baby did a tiny brief dance as she stood at the sink, as if wanting to join in on the “family” activities.

* * * * 

The next day, Rid went up Cape to look at some used oyster cages he thought he could buy cheaply and repair. When his truck had crunched off the gravel drive and been gone for fifteen minutes, Caroline called Tomas.

“This is Caroline Marcum, Rid’s friend. I’d like to keep this just between us. Are you comfortable with that?”

“Meaning you don’t want Rid to know?”

“I mean not Rid, not Mario, not anyone. It has to do with helping, about the flats, not harming anyone, I promise you.”

A hesitation on the other end. “I guess that would be all right.”

“You’ll understand why when I go into details, and I’m sure you’ll be fine with it. Could you and I meet sometime today? It won’t take long.”

“That’d be all right. I’m tied up until late afternoon, but I can stop at The Oyster on my way home.”

“I’m afraid that might be too—public. Is there another place?”

“Billy’ll let us use the private room. I’ll stop for a coffee this afternoon and check. He can keep his mouth shut when he needs to. You could come to my house, but my wife is about as quiet as a full-page ad in the newspaper.”

“All right. Thank you. What time?”

“Five?”

“I can do that. Thank you, Tomas.”

The rest of the day she fidgeted or busied herself, Lizzie always at her heels. There was the one necessary bank errand that consumed an hour. She caught up all the laundry, organized and packed her own things. She started to cry when she hugged Lizzie. The Lab fussed at her face with her long tongue. The baby’s things—starting to be an accumulation now—she left in the room in which she and Rid had them stored. Once, Rid had actually called it
the baby’s room
, but she’d taken it to mean the baby’s storage room. She trusted Rid to keep them, and she didn’t have it in her to make that many extra trips up and down stairs to try to cram it all in her car. This was only a matter of going to Noelle’s until she knew the connection between Rid and the mother of the boy she’d killed, how that fit with a threat on her door step and a rock through her window. Maybe she
would
have to leave for good. Not yet, though. Not yet.

* * * * 

Caroline left for Noelle’s before two in the afternoon to make sure she wasn’t there when Rid got home. The note she left on the kitchen table, which she knew could be either little surprise if he was guilty or a blade in the heart if he wasn’t, read,
Rid, I think it’s best if I let Noelle and Walt help me get back into my own home. I need to find out if and how the threats and vandalism are connected to my past or my present, get honest answers, and resolve it before the baby comes. I can’t keep hiding here and pretending nothing is wrong. When I know what’s really going on, you and I will work things out. All the baby’s things are upstairs. CiCi.

Later, having stashed her things in the yellow and white guest bedroom, tired from the trips up and down the stairs at both houses, Caroline made herself a cup of tea in Noelle’s kitchen. Walt was at a doctor’s appointment, and it was the first time she’d been alone in their home. The room was cheery—red paint, rubbed wood, gleaming copper and brass artfully hung along with live plants in the large breakfast area windows—but she felt displaced all over again, as she first had at Rid’s. Strange how she’d begun to feel at home there, how close she’d gotten to him, or thought she had. Maybe it was Lizzie, who loved her and she loved back without complication, or maybe it was the house, which had become a refuge from danger, and she’d confused the feeling of safety with feelings for Rid.

She sat at the table with her tea, looking out the window in the direction of the water where Rid and the others tended their grants in a handed-down way of life based on the tides, her own family home alongside. For a few moments she cried while inside, her baby moved in primal water, as if tethered to the ebb and flow of the sea. And then it was time to go meet Tomas.

* * * * 

She needn’t have worried about it being too public. There were eight cars in the parking lot at The Oyster, nine with hers. That had to include the staff. She recognized Tomas’s truck. She parked her own off to the back, where sand and shrubbery crept onto the asphalt, and twilight had long since overtaken the area of the closed bookstore.

She’d worn the black sweater that hid her pregnancy best, jeans, and her boots with the two-inch heels. Even makeup, a necklace and earrings. She didn’t want to look pathetic. She wanted to look like she had choice, dignity, and knew exactly what she was doing.

“I’m meeting Tomas,” she said to the bartender. There wasn’t a hostess on duty. Both the bar and restaurant sides looked cavernous, abandoned, but it was early.

“I’m Billy. We’ve met before. You’ve been here with Rid, aye?” He flounced a bit, purposefully, as if to say
how could you forget me?
then chuckled. White-hair partly covered with the kind of scarf her mother wore when dusting the rafters, heavy white eyebrows over deep set sky blue eyes, a bristly white mustache, earrings, and several gold necklaces layered over a black US NAVY sweatshirt pulled over a pot belly, a rainbow flag insignia on the left breast. Billy made her blink while her brain searched for a category.

“I remember,” Caroline said, meaning it. “I’m Caroline. And once again, dammit, you’re jewelry is better than mine.” She gestured to his necklaces, and then, disdainfully, at her own.

Billy threw back his head this time. “Your first beer’s on me just for the flattery.”

“Make that a virgin hot toddy and you’re on.”

“I knew that, I knew that! You’re on the wagon. Tomas is in the back room with his first beer, though. Make that cheapskate buy you something to eat.” He started to lead Caroline down the hall past the kitchen door and the hallway to the restrooms, and then turned, hand on hip. “Oh my. There’s not trouble in paradise is there? I mean, will Rid be coming or is this a clandestine
meeting?”

“No on trouble. Yes on private. It’s business. I’ll really appreciate your not mentioning it to anyone,” Caroline said, breathing in Billy’s broad Boston accent, so like her father’s it might have been his cologne.

“Well, honey, you can absolutely trust me.”

“Actually, Tomas vouched for you.”

“Really? How sweet of him. Damn. Now I’ll have to buy
him
a beer. You know, some nights I end up working for nothing here.” As he spoke, Billy pushed open a door to a private dining room where Tomas had his feet up on one chair as he slouched with a beer and the paper in another. A bowl of peanuts rested on the table in front of him on another section of the
Cape Cod Times.

“Ready for another beer?” Billy said to Tomas.

“Hey, CiCi. Sure, Billy, and bring the lady whatever she’d like.”

The use of her old nickname—which Tomas had obviously heard from Rid—was startling.

“How about an appetizer?” Billy said to Tomas, with a wink to Caroline. “Some wings? A mixed platter? You’re each getting one drink on me.”

Tomas faked a double take at Billy and said to Caroline, “Who is this and what have you done with the real Billy? Should we have him bring us an appetizer?”

“Fine by me. I’ll help you eat it—nothing spicy, though.”

“Do your thing, Billy. Thanks.”

When the bartender had disappeared, Tomas got up and pulled out a chair for Caroline. The man was huge, and Caroline would have instinctively been a bit afraid if his voice hadn’t been gentle. He had a wild look with untamed gray hair and beard, broad face. One side, his overalls were fastened, the other dropped over his upper arm and chest. A red-plaid flannel shirt was buttoned to the neck under the denim. Work-worn hands, burly as tree limbs, chapped and nicked like Rid’s.

“I’ll just put your coat over here,” he said, laying it on another table. “What’s on your mind?”

“I want to give you Rid’s share of the money to buy the flats,” she said.

Tomas raised his brows. “Why don’t you just give it to Rid?”

“I tried. He refused.”

“So—you’re doing an end run? What do you want that’s making Rid say no?”