Keepsake (24 page)

"All set?" he asked, holding the door for her.

"Starving," Olivia said. She stepped around the
puddled
image on the floor as if it were a chalked-in body at a crime scene, and let Quinn lead the way to his car.

Ray Buff
i
tt was the same amiable slob he'd always been,
only now he was able to convert his bad habits into a social asset: The rented house in which he dwelled was considered a paradise by every one of his wife-fearing pals.

Quinn was given a quick tour of the place before the six men who were gathered there hunkered down for their marathon of football viewing. Since Quinn had never had the chance to go away to c
ollege, what he saw was an eye-
opener.

Half-full beer cans, empty Doritos bags, crumpled Ding Dongs wrappers, and dried-out bean dip floated throughout the house like water lilies on a pond. There were exotic waterfalls, two of them: one from the leaking sink in the kitchen, and one f
rom the sink in the downstairs
—no one in his right mind would call it a guest—
bathroom. There was white sand:
from a litterbox tucked in a corner of the kitchen, its gritty contents half kicked out and grinding under
foot. There were tropical fish (four guppies
swimming in a tank) and tropical snakes (a boa constrictor in
another tank, waiting perhaps to be fed the fish). All in all, a paradise, a
fantasy.

A pigpen, just as Mike Redding had said.

As for the media equipment, it was all state of the art and thoughtfully arranged. The
big
flat
-screen TV was
integrated with
the
sound system
and jammed against a window to block the sun from washing out one's viewing pleasure.
The
CDs, many hundreds of them, were arranged on the eye-level shelves of two bookcases for easy selection (the
Sports Illustrated
s, except for the dog-eared swimsuit issues, were confined to the lower shelves and were harder to peruse, but it couldn't be helped). A pair of speakers as tall as Quinn were situated for excellent sound separation on each side of the non-working fireplace, which itself was being used to house part of Ray's vast and valuable collection of beer bottles.

"He had
'em appraised once," Mike explained to Quinn as they slugged down their Coors before the first game. "They're worth a fortune. Take that Blow Hole from
Wyoming
,
Rhode Island
," he said, pointing to an unopened bottle with a pristine label. "That one alone is worth two hundred bucks—extremely limited edition," Mike said in a voice of envy.

"I'd love to have an awesome hobby like that," Mike added with a sigh. "But Mitzi says beer caps only, no bottles." He shrugged and dropped his empty Coors can into a bamboo magazine rack. "What're you gonna do?"

Quinn made sympathetic noises, but the whole scene was beyond him. He had been raised by his father to be both methodical and thorough, and acts of domestic defiance left him unimpressed. Besides, seventeen years of exile had made him something of a loner; it was unlikely that he could ever feel like one of the guys the way he once did.

And yet they had welcomed him into their haven easily enough. Mike, Ray, Neal, Cutter, Todd—all of them were friendly and accepting in an offhand way. As far as they were concerned, Quinn was just another fist pumping in the air after a kick-ass play.

Quinn settled into a plaid easy chair whose arms had been shredded by the cat he now knew was called Digger, and began munching his way through a bag of Ruffles as
Tennessee
kicked off against
Nebraska
in the Cotton Bowl. His interest in the game was minimal; he was there strictly to keep his eyes and ears open for useful scuttlebutt.

In fact, he hadn't wanted to come at all, not after the cape episode. But Olivia had refused to let him stay behind just to stand guard over her. She was bound for the outlet malls with Eileen, she had told him, while
Rand
stayed home with the kids. Eileen would have her head if Olivia begged out of their annual foraging expedition.

In any case, Olivia was far too independent to be watched over. It was both her great strength and her maddening flaw.

"Bronsky said the guy couldn't run—hah! Look at 'im go!" crowed Neal. "Bronsky don't know from squat!"

They watched the replay and then Cutter turned to Ray and said, "You ever gonna let Coach back in your house, Buffitt-man?"

"No way," Ray said. "Not after that."

Quinn's ears pricked up. "What'd he do?"

Ray said, "Ah, the asshole got drunk and smashed up some of my beer bottles. I like a drinker as well as the next guy, but I hate a mean drunk. If he—way to go, Dejuan! How many yards was Dejuan good for this year, Todd?"

Whenever anyone needed to know something, he asked Todd. An accountant by trade, Todd had an encyclopedic memory. Not to mention, he'd once won a pair of tickets to the Superbowl in a bar-sponsored trivia contest.

The game was pretty good. After a scoreless first quarter, the lead moved back and forth between the two archrivals. Quinn made sure that he hooted and hollered with the rest of them, but his mind was fixed firmly on the torn-up cape that Chief Vickers had recovered early that morning.

While the others gnawed on beef jerky, Quinn chewed on the ongoing mystery. Was he the only one who believed that each of the "pranks" was more ominous than the one before it? The goal was obvious—to get Quinn out of Keepsake—but how far was some creep willing to go to achieve it?

By halftime, the score was tied and everyone in the room was beered up and pumped. They switched to another game, but it was laughably uneven. Ray Buffitt, ever the perfect host, had anticipated th
e dread possibility and had pro
grammed the best of two dozen CDs into a nonstop blitz of rock and roll.

"Don't wanna lose momentum, right?" was his explanation as he cranked up the volume.

Between the music and the two or three conversations being shouted back and forth over one another as the game played on the giant screen, there was a real danger of sensory meltdown. Quinn, used to the serenity of the outdoors, was going nuts. It was probably quieter in the commodities pit the day after Oprah told her audience that hamburgers scared her.

Quinn was about to rip the CD player out of its perch in the bookcase and throw it into the fireplace when Cutter shouted to him, "Hey, I forgot! Guess who asked me about you the other day?''

Quinn shrugged and shouted, "You got me. Who?"

"Alison's old man, that's who! I guess he recognized me from the old days when he used to bring in his truck for a tune-up; I don't know where he takes it now. Anyway, we were at the same self-serve island at the Shell—near the IHOP? I haven't seen him in years. Man, the old bastard is as ornery as ever. I don't know how Alison ever put up with him."

"She didn't," Neal said, flattening a beer can with his shoe. "She got herself her very own knight in shining armor."

"Oh, yeah—Sir Lancelot," Cutter said with a snort. "A lotta help
he
was."

"What did you expect? What did Randy Lancelot ever end up doing for any of us?"

"Not take us all the way, that's for sure. Sixth place, that he could do. Whoopee."

They laughed contemptuously and turned to other talk, leaving Quinn sitting there stunned. The exchange had come and gone in the crunch of a potato chip, but it left no doubt in Quinn's mind that Rand Bennett had been deeply involved with his cousin Alison. The question was, what kind of involvement? Quinn had never seen any evidence that the two had been close. Did that itself point to a secret involvement of a sexual nature? Or had
Rand
simply and quietly been acting like the big brother that Alison never had?

Quinn felt as if he'd been staring into a kaleidoscope and someone had given it a giant turn.

"Hey, Cutter!" he said, trying to get the talk back on track. "You never told me what Alison's old man said."

"Oh, yeah. He said, 'Is that punk still hangin' around town?' And I said, 'Which punk would that be, Rupert?' And he goes, 'It's Mr. Bennett to you, you little punk.' And I go, 'Not if your truck ain't in my boss's garage.' "

"Good one, Cutter," said Neal. "What'd he say then?"

Cutter popped a tab on another can and said, "His exact words were
'
Tell Quinn I know where he lives.' That was it. Then he went inside to pay for his gas and leer at this chick behind the counter who was young enough to be his daughter, naturally."

"He's had plenty of practice at
that"
said Todd, sneering into his beer.

"Todd, put a lid on it, would you?" Mike Redding snapped. "It's ancient history. Ray, turn that damn thing down! The game's starting, for chrissake." He glanced at Quinn apologetically, as if he could no longer be responsible for the juvenile behavior of their old teammates now that they were grown.

It was another wild turn on that kaleidoscope. Quinn sat back in his plaid chair, mesmerized by all the new pieces he saw. A mere ten percent of his brain was needed for following the game and keeping up with the score; the rest was focused on the shocking innuendo that had been run past him in the last few minutes.

Rand
. Alison. Rupert. It was a triangle of involvement that Quinn couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams. Immediately his mind, like a computer, began mulling the possible combinations. The more he mulled, the queasier he got. He pushed away the half-eaten jerky; he couldn't stand even to look at it.

Someone impregnated Alison, and someone killed her.

Those were facts. Alison hating her father, Rand becoming her knight, Rupert leering at girls—that was all gossip. Quinn knew all about the downside of gossip. It wrecked dreams and it ruined lives.

But assuming that there was some kernel of truth in the guys' drunken remarks—what then? Quinn couldn't think about Rupert without picturing his niece. He couldn't think about
Rand
without picturing his twin sister. And he couldn't think about Alison without picturing her cousin. Olivia was everywhere in his thoughts, slinky in silver, soft in wool sweaters. Olivia—idealistic
... loving
... defiantly loyal to family and friends, including outcasts like him.

Oh, damn. Oh, hell. Please
... let it have been someone with no connection to her. A bum. A teacher. The mayor of Keepsake.

By the end of the first game, Quinn resolved to corner Mike Redding in the next couple of days and find out what he knew. If Mike wouldn't talk, Quinn would go to Cutter, then to Neal, and on down the line. Someone had to be willing to pass on the full dirt—which was all Quinn believed it was. If there had been anything truthful to it, Mrs. Dewsbury or Father Tom would have heard about it over the years.

Yes. Idle gossip between horny teammates who'd lusted after the mysterious Alison themselves. Quinn remembered well their locker-room talk about the girl. Everyone wanted her; none of them had had her.

The Cotton Bowl ended in overtime. Quinn groaned inwardly as he cheered outwardly. Eventually
Tennessee
beat
Nebraska
and they all moved on to the Sugar Bowl. From the first pass, run all the way in for the touchdown, the Sugar Bowl was a blowout—boring, interminable, and embarrassing, at least to Quinn. The rest of the guys loved it, of course. As with sex, they didn't care who scored, as long as it was often.

By halftime Quinn had had all he could take. Over everyone's protests, he stood up to leave. His excuse was lame—he told them he'd promised to bring back a prescription for Mrs. Dewsbury. It was the best he could do.

"Y'know—you may as well be married," said Neal with more than a hint of condescension.

Quinn laughed it off, but Mike was feeling his beer. "You should talk, Neal," he said with a burp. "You're gonna have to install a freaking dishwasher for having today off."

"Oh, like you're here free and clear? Who's in charge of the sleepover at your house next Friday? Huh? Who?"

"You guys are pathetic," said their bachelor host. "Tell you what. I'll give you eight bucks an hour if you come and clean this dump on your next day off," he teased. "I'll even supply all the rags."

"Hey, here's a thought," said Cutter, also single. "You can call yourselves the Merry Mates. Get it? Merry
Mates?"

"Haw-haw-haw."

Their pissing contest was still in full swing when Quinn waved them all a genial good-bye and took off.

Somewhere during the second quarter of the Cotton Bowl, he'd had a premonition. He didn't like to think of it that way; he was more comfortable calling it a hunch. Either way, he wanted to act on it.

Before heading back to Mrs. Dewsbury's house, he drove downtown, parked his car on one of the deserted streets there, and strolled around the corner to check out Miracourt. He was relieved to see that it looked the same: sophisticated and warm and inviting, and all in one piece. He strolled up to the window and peered inside, checking out the interior to make sure that everything was okay. Several glass-shaded lamps threw a soft glow over the fabrics and
trimmings
scattered around the shop. It all reminded him of Olivia. He liked that.