Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin (14 page)

“What’s up?” he asked. He put his arms around me and I settled back against him with a sigh.

“Look at them,” I said, nodding toward the twins’ tousled heads. “They’re so close now that they finish each other’s sentences. They’d rather be with each other than anyone else in the world, including us. I can’t imagine them moving apart, going in opposite directions, losing each other.”

“Like Lizzie lost Kenny?” said Bill, reading my thoughts.

“She adored him, Bill,” I said. “You can see it in every photograph in the album. She worshipped the ground that little boy walked on, but—”

“It’ll never happen,” Bill broke in. “Not to our sons. We won’t let it.”

“We might not be around to stop it,” I said mournfully.

“Yes, we will,” said Bill. “What we’re teaching them now will always be with them.”

“What are we teaching them?” I asked.

“Lessons in love,” Bill said. “Not adoration, Lori. Love. There’s a difference.”

I turned to look up at him questioningly. “I adore
you.
”

“No, you don’t.” He chuckled softly, took me by the hand, and led me up the hall to our bedroom. “If you adored me, Lori, you’d never be angry or impatient or fed up with me. It would drive me insane. But you love me enough to be all of those things, sometimes in dizzying succession. That’s how it should be. Love includes everything, not just the good bits. That’s what we’re teaching our sons. That’s why they won’t fly apart when the bad bits come along.” He closed the bedroom door behind me and took me into his arms.

“You’re awfully good at the good bits,” I murmured.

“Mmm,” said Bill, and spent the rest of the evening proving me right.

Eleven

Bill flew out the door—with a smile on his face—before seven the next morning, warmly clad to ward off yet another dank March day. Annelise and the boys, having accepted an invitation to breakfast at Anscombe Manor, followed shortly thereafter. I took full advantage of my solitude by enjoying a blissfully peaceful, unhurried breakfast, then settled in the study to bring Aunt Dimity up to date on the discoveries Gabriel and I had made the day before.

“We’ve learned that Miss Beacham was a secret doer of good deeds,” I concluded, “but not much else.”

Nonsense.
The word curled crisply across the blue journal’s blank page.
You’ve learned one other, extremely valuable thing about her.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m not so sure,” I said. “She was a listener, Dimity, not a talker. She knew all about Mr. Mehta’s brother, but he didn’t even know she had one. I don’t think she told anyone about Kenneth—no one but Mr. Moss, her solicitor, and the only thing
he’s
been willing to tell me is that Kenneth
probably
isn’t dead.” I pursed my lips. “So much for Mr. Moss.”

“Not entirely,” I said. “Emma’s going to help, when she can find the time. And Bill’s making more phone calls. And Gabriel’s put himself at my disposal.”

“Yes,” I said, and hastened to explain, “It’s not what you think, Dimity. Gabriel’s still getting over a messy divorce—his wife ran off with an economics professor a year ago so he’s not interested in romance at the moment. He’s devoted to his cat, but he’s put a wall up when it comes to women. He’s too twitchy to even think about flirting.”

I smiled sheepishly. “I can’t help being interested in Gabriel. Miss Beacham was, too. Mr. Mehta told us that she would have found the right woman for Gabriel, if she’d had the chance, but she didn’t live long enough. It’s too bad. He’s a nice guy and he seems so lonely.”

I recalled Gabriel’s last words to me, in the parking lot behind Miss Beacham’s building, and the sadness in his voice when he’d spoken them.

“I don’t think Gabriel knew he was creating his,” I said. “It just sort of happened, partly because his marriage blew up in his face, and partly because . . . well, because in his world it’s normal to live on tiny islands, cut off from each other. He doesn’t seem to like it, though. No matter what he says, I think he’s pretty miserable.”

I had to read the sentence twice before Dimity’s sly implication leapt out at me.

“Forget it, Dimity,” I protested. “I’m no matchmaker.”

“I couldn’t
possibly
. . . ,” I sputtered, but Dimity’s handwriting was already fading from the page. I closed the journal and returned it to the shelf, then stood with arms folded, shaking my head.

“No way,” I said to Reginald. Hamish didn’t appear to be listening. “I refuse to turn into one of those interfering women who poke their noses into everyone else’s business. I am
not
Mrs. Mehta.”

I stamped my foot to emphasize my resolve, and kept it for all of three seconds, when a small, underused part of my brain began thoughtfully to review the limited list of Finch’s youngish single women. Mrs. Mehta would have been proud.

 
I rang Gabriel’s bell at ten o’clock on the dot. I was burning with a true Finchling’s curiosity to see the inside of his apartment, but he thwarted me by coming to the lobby with his jacket on, ready to leave. I didn’t even get to say hello to Stanley.

“All set?” he said.

I nodded, and off we went down St. Cuthbert Lane. Much to my dismay, and without my consent or cooperation, the interfering Mrs. Mehta in my head began immediately to pair Gabriel with every unmarried woman I knew. To shut her up, I asked, “Are you still letting Stanley roam at night?”

“He refuses to leave,” said Gabriel. “Now that he has a steady supply of Miss Beacham’s gourmet cat food, he’s content to stay indoors. When I think of the amount of dry food he’s been forced to choke down over the years, I feel like an abusive parent.”

“Stanley would be pleased to hear it,” I said. “My friend Emma tells me that cats have a finely honed knack for guilt-tripping. Stanley didn’t look underfed to me.”

“That’s because Miss Beacham was supplementing his diet,” Gabriel said gloomily.

“Are you okay?” I asked, stopping. “You’re not letting Stanley get to you, are you?”

“It’s not Stanley,” he said. “It’s something else, something so petty that I’m embarrassed to tell you about it.”

“My dear Gabriel,” I said, “nothing you can say will shock me. I am the
queen
of petty.”

He shuffled his feet and said, without meeting my eyes, “I’m jealous of Miss Beacham. Ridiculous, isn’t it? But true. I’ve known Mr. Mehta for four years, but he still thinks of me as nothing more than a good customer. I’m sure the other shopkeepers will say the same thing—I’m a familiar face, but Miss Beacham was a cherished friend. I’m envious.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe against the sidewalk. “Petty enough for you?”

“It’s not petty to want to be liked,” I said. “But you can’t expect it to happen on its own. You have to make an effort. Miss Beacham did. She treated me as someone worth knowing, and it’s pretty clear that she treated everyone else the same way.”

“I’m not sure I want to make the effort,” Gabriel murmured. “I’m not like Miss Beacham. I’m not sure I have room in my life for so many new friends.”

“Room in your life, or in your heart?” I asked.

“Both, I suppose,” he admitted.

His words brought to mind my early days at St. Benedict’s, when I’d done my best to avoid men I didn’t want to know, and the change that had come over me when I’d finally forced myself to reach out to them. I tilted my head to one side and smiled.

“The funny thing about hearts,” I said, “is that the more you use them, the bigger they get. You can’t fill them up, Gabriel. They just keep expanding.” I punched him gently in the shoulder. “Give it a try. What’ve you got to lose besides your anonymity?” Before I could stop myself, I found myself adding, “It might help if you’d stop shrieking inwardly every time a pretty woman looks at you.”

“Sorry?” said Gabriel, taken aback.

“Uh, n-nothing,” I stammered. “Just be a little more friendly, that’s all. A little more open.”

“You make it sound easy,” he said.

“It gets easier with practice,” I told him as we moved on. “Consider today your first lesson. I’ll let you take the lead in our interviews. You may surprise yourself.”

 
Gabriel was a quick study. As we moved from shop to shop along Travertine Road, he surprised himself and the shop owners who thought they knew him by becoming nearly as chatty as me, while I scarcely got a word in edgewise.

We’d wait for a lull in customer traffic to enter a shop, the shopkeeper would call out “Good morning!” and instead of responding by rote Gabriel would say, “Not such a good morning for me, I’m afraid. I just heard the sad news about poor Miss Beacham. She and I lived in the same building, you know.” And that would be enough, more than enough, to get the ball rolling, sometimes in unexpected directions.

“How am I doing?” Gabriel asked as we left the bakery.

“Just fine,” I replied. “That bit about Mr. Blascoe’s bunions was really interesting. I wouldn’t have thought to ask him about his feet.”

“It seemed natural to me,” said Gabriel. “Bakers spend a lot of time on their feet. I’m not being too nosy, am I?”

“You’re doing great,” I assured him, recalling Finch’s unspoken motto. “Don’t stop now.”

The next three hours were filled with fascinating chatter about dogs’ ailments, neighbors’ quirks, and grandchildren’s triumphs, but produced nothing whatsoever about Kenneth. Although the shopkeepers were eager to talk about Miss Beacham, their stories were strikingly similar to the ones we’d heard from Mr. Mehta and Father Musgrove.

All of them had been helped by Miss Beacham in thoughtful, personal ways and had received bequests of varying amounts. All remembered her raisin bread fondly. All were sincerely distressed by the news of her death and anxious to attend the memorial service at St. Paul’s. None had any information to offer about her brother, and when Gabriel asked if she’d had a job, he received uniformly blank looks.

“Must’ve done,” said Mr. Jensen, the bearded owner of the computer repair shop. “She passed my window twice a day, morning and evening, except for weekends. Always waved a hello and more often than not stepped in for a chat. Stands to reason she must’ve worked somewhere, but—and it’s funny, now that I think of it—I don’t know where. She wasn’t the sort of woman who talked overmuch about herself.”

“Maybe she was a spy,” Gabriel muttered as we left Mr. Jensen’s shop. “Maybe she wasn’t
allowed
to talk about herself.”

“Right,” I said. “Beacham must be an assumed name.” I paused to pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Are you all right?” Gabriel asked.

“I can feel a headache coming on,” I said. “It’s all the noise and the traffic. I’m not used to it.”

Gabriel drew me into a dim, narrow passageway that separated Mr. Jensen’s computer shop from the café on the corner. “You need a break and so do I. Fortunately”—he consulted the list—“our last stop is Woolery’s Café, which is well within staggering distance.” He patted the wall opposite Mr. Jensen’s. “I’ve eaten here many times, but I’ve never spoken with the owner.”

“He’s in for a treat.” I smiled and was about to step out of the passageway when a pair of strong hands seized me from behind and jerked me into the shadows.

“Hey!” I shouted.

“Hey!” shouted Gabriel, and before I had time to panic, he grabbed my assailant, slammed him against the passageway’s brick wall, and pinned him there with a forearm across the throat. “What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed.

“N-n-nothing, mister,” my attacker stammered. “D-d-didn’t mean no harm.”

“So you grab women off the street for fun, do you?” Gabriel snapped.

“I wasn’t g-g-grabbing women,” said the man. “I was g-g-grabbing the missus.”

The last word caught my attention. I peered past Gabriel at the man’s scruffy clothes and his terrified eyes, and recognized one of Julian Bright’s flock.

“Blinker?” I said.

“Y-y-yes, missus,” he said. “It’s B-B-Blinker.”

“Gabriel,” I said, “let him go.”

Gabriel looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Do you know this creep?”

“He’s not a creep,” I said. “He’s a friend. A bashful friend. Let him go.”

“Don’t get any funny ideas,” Gabriel growled at the man, and stood back.

Blinker crumpled into his customary groveling, hand-wringing position. His head was in constant motion, turning from side to side, as if watching for enemies, and his rheumy eyes twitched nervously with each turn.

“Blinker,” I said quietly, “this is my friend Gabriel Ashcroft. Gabriel, this is Blinker McKay.”

Both men mumbled something that sounded like an extremely insincere “Pleased to meet you.”

I turned to Gabriel. “Would you mind leaving Blinker and me alone for a minute? He’s not comfortable around strangers.”