Last to Know (13 page)

“Idaho,” Bea replied, picking up her muffin too and inspecting it carefully.

“That’s where the potatoes come from.” Diz’s voice came from the doorway. He stood, hands shoved in his shorts pockets as always, feet bare as always, his sneakers on the table, as always. Though Rose did notice her son had put on a clean T-shirt. It was too big for him and she knew it belonged to Roman.

To Rose’s surprise Bea smiled at Diz. “How do you know that?”

Diz shrugged. “We wrap ’em in foil and put ’em on the barbecue. When you unwrap them an hour or so later they smell great. Don’t even really need the butter.” He walked to the table and picked up a muffin. “Mom,” he complained. “I hate banana.”

“Blame Madison, she made them. And anyhow, say hello to Bea, she’ll be staying with us for a while.”

“I know. I heard all about you.” Diz stood by the table looking at Bea. “I used to see you across the lake sometimes. I saw you rowing to the island the day of the fire,” he added, eyeing her warily, carefully not mentioning the plastic bags and the man he had also seen there.

Bea looked innocently back at him. “Do you know there’s a badger sett on that island? I’ve no idea how they got there, but there they are. At first they would hide when they saw me but I just stuck around day after day and they got used to me, I guess.”

Rose wondered about a young woman spending her time on a small uninhabited island watching badgers. Looking after Bea would be a long haul. Then the front door slammed and her daughters came rushing in, all brown legs and short white shorts, chambray shirts with the sleeves rolled, long hair flying free. A breath of fresh air. Rose sighed, relieved. Even if she didn’t mean to be, Bea Havnel was hard work.

“Has she arrived yet?” they called in chorus, the way they sometimes did, because they were twins and thought alike. Now, though, they stopped in their impetuous tracks and took a look at their new “guest.”

They were tall girls and slender, but Bea was taller and skinnier, and looked as though someone had thrown her outfit together, the washed-out denims and the T-shirt.

“Hey,” Madison said, giving her a smile. “Have you seen your room yet?”

Bea gave her shy upward glance from under her long lashes. “Well, no, I sort of only just got here…”

“And Mom’s already stuffing you with my banana muffins.” Madison laughed. “Come on, then, we’ll show you to your room, we’ll help you settle in.”

“It’s the haunted room,” Diz called as the girls each took one of Bea’s arms and bustled her upstairs, flip-flops banging on the wooden steps.

Bea stopped. She turned and looked at him, bug-eyed. “What do you mean—haunted?”

She looked so scared Diz was sorry he’d said that. “Just teasing,” he shrugged it off. “Anyhow it’s not serious haunting, just stuff that goes bump in the night. Some guests have said that anyway.”

The twins groaned, while Rose laughed.

“He’s a terrible tease,” Madison told Bea. “Trust me, you’ll be okay. It’s just my cat, Baby Noir, you have to look out for.” But still Bea flung a nervous look over her shoulder at Diz as they ran up the last of the stairs.

The phone was ringing and Rose hurried to answer. It was Harry Jordan.

“I thought you’d be coming with her,” she said, without any preliminary “hello, how are you.” “She arrived all by herself.”

“That’s the way she wanted it,” Harry explained. “She’s an independent young woman.”

“Well, my girls are taking care of her, so she’ll be fine.”

“What about your husband?”

“Wally? Well, of course he’s not thrilled but he’s willing to allow it, for a week anyway. That is all I agreed to, remember?”

Harry said he remembered. Then, remembering Divon, he said, “Does Roman know Bea from somewhere? I mean, they could have possibly met, walking round the lake…”

“Roman? Why, I don’t think so, he’s never mentioned her, but surely he would have said something now, after all that’s happened.”

“I guess you’re right.” Harry wondered again about Divon. Then he said, “I have something to tell you but I don’t want to say it on the phone. I should come out there and tell you in person.”

“Oh my God, now what?” Rose held the phone closer so Diz would not listen in. That kid was so snoopy he overheard everything and she didn’t want her talk monitored, and perhaps repeated to her husband. She didn’t know why she was behaving like this about the detective, but her heart beat faster when she heard his voice. And that was that. He had never flirted with her, never indicated any interest. She was behaving the way those blond vacationers behaved with her husband. She was as bad as they were.

“It’s better if you don’t come right now,” she told Harry, “until Bea’s settled in a bit. Besides, I almost forgot, we’re supposed to be having a dinner party tonight, some of the locals. Really, I don’t have time for any more drama today, Detective Jordan.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Then Harry said, “I have no choice then but to tell you now that Lacey Havnel was murdered. I can’t say why or how, yet, but we have an investigation going on. Later today my colleague Detective Rossetti and I will be at the lake with a second forensics team, searching for evidence. I would like Bea to know that we’ll be there, but please do not yet tell her that it is murder.”

“Murder!” Rose said, holding the phone away from her, looking at it as though wondering if what she’d heard could be true. Then, “Hasn’t that poor girl gone through enough?” she asked, anguished.

“She has.” Harry’s tone was gentle. “And I promise we’ll do all we can to protect her. But her mother’s killer has to be found. We’ve arrested one person of interest but that’s all I can tell you right now.”

“I see.” Rose really didn’t see. She didn’t know what was happening suddenly to her quiet household where this evening she was giving her annual dinner party on the terrace for friends of long-standing. Just like normal.

“Please, I’m asking you not to confide in anyone,” Harry was saying. “Even your husband.”

“Wally?”

“No one, Rose. Please. Can I trust you on that?”

Rose said she supposed he could and Harry said he would see her later. Still stunned, Rose walked back into her kitchen and fixed a quick Nespresso. She thought about Wally sinking his shots of vodka and for the first time she sort of understood why.

She did not see Diz watching from the terrace door, did not know he had overheard.

Rose went back and stood by the phone, looking at it as if expecting it to ring again and Harry to say it was all a mistake … “Please forget what I said.” Of course it did not ring and Harry did not say it. She was facing a terrible reality and with the murdered woman’s daughter in her care, living in her house, she was now involved in it.

“Mom?”

She turned and looked at Diz.

“What’s up, Mom?” he asked. In the back of Diz’s mind was that scary image of his father rowing back across the lake from that house, from that woman’s house.

Rose was so lost in her own thoughts, she hadn’t known he was there. “It’s nothing, hon. Just someone calling to let me know about … about something.”

Her son looked so troubled, she went and put her arms round him in a hug. Suddenly it didn’t seem fair to be a part of this, it wasn’t fair to her family. She would forget about it, tell no one, get on with her own life. Bea Havnel would be gone in a week, then surely things would get back to normal.

Anyhow, she had guests coming for dinner, and it was getting late.

22

It was already 6
P.M.
when Rose finally made it out onto the terrace and began to set up her table. She’d had to dash to the supermarket in town to pick up “the necessary” for her dinner. Wanting to make it quick and easy she decided on melon with prosciutto to start, then good old-fashioned beef stroganoff, which no one ever made anymore and which was so dead-easy, served with buttered fettucini and a wonderful green salad full of all the best the local small-holder could provide, with, of course, her own homemade balsamic dressing and slivers of good Parmesan cheese. Then raspberries and strawberries with fresh thick cream for those who wanted, and orange sorbet for those who didn’t, with the wafer-thin almond tuile biscuits Madison would make.

She had not been able to ask Wally about the wines, since he was still out “fishing,” so she raided his cellar and the hell with him, brought up three bottles of the good French with pictures of grand chateaux and the year stamped on them. Might as well drink the friggin’ good stuff while she could, she thought, then wondered exactly why she had thought that. Was it that she thought Wally was going to leave her? What was up with Wally anyway? Why was he so on edge, so nervy? And why oh why had she lost him? Because somehow, she knew she had.

But. Right now. Life had to go on. Dinner parties had to go on. Looking after lost souls like Bea Havnel had to go on. Bringing up four kids had to go on. And maybe everything would work out.

She glanced across the lake to the Havnel house. The scene of a murder. She could see yellow police tape cordoning it off from would-be sightseers, and men in dark blue jackets with
POLICE
in big letters on them still bending over lumps of blackened beams and charred remains. Not exactly a perfect view for her guests.

Sighing, Rose turned to look at her own house. Her beloved lake house, the best place in the world: a square, simple white house with dormer windows above and a row of French doors below; a chimney of course—didn’t all fairy-tale houses have chimneys? And this house was her fairy tale. There was the flagstone terrace with its white painted fence with the little lights slung between the posts; and the wooden jetty where a yellow dinghy bobbed, and the rickety boathouse that looked ready to be torn down and replaced. And of course their own small sandy cove, with the silver birches crowding in the back, and always the lake … sometimes blue as the sky, sometimes silently silver, and sometimes when the winds and the storms came, inky and tossing with whitecaps, foaming onto their little shore in sudden anger, leaving behind a trail of greenish weed that later they would rake clear.

How many times, she wondered, had she dived off that jetty? Did Wally remember the first time? Her in the white one-piece bathing suit that fit her like a second skin, breasts spilling out the top? Did he remember diving in after her, sliding down the bathing suit straps, holding her against his chest until their heartbeats sounded as one?

Rose pulled herself back from those memories. She had work to do. Shaking out the linen cloth she smoothed it over the battered redwood table that had been on the terrace forever and that could and often did seat twenty at a pinch. And there had been a lot of “pinches” over the years. Tonight, though, they would be fourteen. No, fifteen now, with Bea. She had almost forgotten the girl. Where was she anyhow?

As if in answer to her unspoken question, Bea came out from the kitchen bearing a heavy three-pronged silver candelabra. “Look,” Bea said, placing it at one end of the table. “I cleaned it for you. It was so badly tarnished, from this damp lake air I suppose.”

Rose, who liked her silver tarnished almost black because it looked more “casual” that way, forced a smile and said enthusiastically, “Well, my love, that’s so good of you. I can’t believe how … how nice it looks now.”

“Oh, I did both. I’ll go fetch the other.” Beaming, Bea disappeared back into the kitchen.

Rose thought at least she looked happy. In fact that was the first time she had seen her really smile, not just that upward tilt of eyes and the shy hint of a curve to her lips. The girl had smiled. Harry Jordan might be right, perhaps she had done the right thing after all. If only Wally would agree, but Wally had not put in an appearance since Bea got here. And their guests were expected at seven.

The twins arrived bearing piles of the plain white plates Rose always used at the lake. Rose went and got the cutlery and set Bea to work tying knives, forks, and spoons together with strips of green raffia and placing them on top of the green linen napkins. Frazer and Madison were sticking stubby green candles into the silver holders and scattering green glass votives. Bea disappeared inside for a few minutes then came out holding a tray.

“I made these for the table,” she said, putting the tray down carefully. On it were eight short green water glasses, in each of which she had placed a small fern from the garden, and a single white rose. They looked beautiful, Rose thought, astonished. And perfect for her table. She had bought those roses at the market herself, intending to quickly shove them in a vase and put it in the center. Now Madison and Frazer were exclaiming with delight at their beauty. “How clever of you, Bea, they’re just lovely,” they were saying, as Bea set a flower glass between each place.

Rose said, “Thank you, thank all of you, no doubt I’ll be needing you in the kitchen later. Time to get changed now.” She remembered the Target bags and wondered if Bea had anything to change into. Looking at her uncertain face, she guessed she did not.

Catching on, Madison said quickly, “Don’t worry, we’ll lend you something, it’s not that fancy anyway, just locals, but parents do like to see us in dresses occasionally. Don’t know why, it’s just the way parents are.” Then, remembering about Bea’s mother, she shut her mouth quickly and said, “Oh, sorry, Bea. Come on then, let’s hurry.”

Rose took one last look at her table. A couple of leaves fluttered down onto her white cloth and she glanced up at the fig tree, frowning. Could the wind be getting up? Please God don’t let there be a storm coming. But the evening sky was clear. All she had to do now was quickly shower and change into the loose blue and white caftan that felt like gossamer against her skin and hid, she hoped, smiling ruefully, a multitude of sins.

23

Diz crawled back along his branch and was back in his room when Rose knocked, then stuck her head in the door.

“Shower, Diz Osborne. Clean pair of shorts, a polo shirt—there’s clean ones in your closet, and don’t forget the shoes.”

“Sneakers,” Dix muttered unwillingly.