Love You to Death (11 page)
He nodded. “Actually, I wanted to become a rocket scientist. Really. For NASA. My parents tried to convince me to at least go for FBI, but I wanted to be a cop on the streets of Portland. I wanted to be where I could potentially save another kid from crossfire.”
“Was your brother’s killer found?” I asked.
He nodded. “He’s still in prison. He’ll be there for a long time.”
We sat there for a while in silence, and then Ben said, “I wish I’d known you in high school. I didn’t have a lot of friends back then, despite being captain of everything, as you called it. I kept to myself then, like now. I would have liked to have you as a friend.”
I smiled and reached across the table to squeeze his hand.
He squeezed back.
We spent the afternoon in various shops and businesses. Best Hat Shop in Moose City was Hatfield’s Hats, wall-to-wall hats of every kind imaginable. I bought a cowboy hat, something I’ve always wanted. Ben bought a Boston Red Sox cap, even though he said had four already. Best Place To Kiss was a tiny snow-covered garden in the park, where someone had actually carved a heart-shaped bench out of wood. We came upon two teenagers making out and were so charmed we didn’t even realize we were staring until the guy called out, “Pervs!”
We laughed and continued on down Moose City Boulevard, stopping in here, trying on there, sipping hot chocolate. Teens on the street, selling hot chocolate out of thermoses to raise money for their school team’s uniforms, had the best hot chocolate, hands down. It was Swiss Miss with mini marshmallows, but it was heaven.
In just one full day I’d amassed a list of fifteen Best Ofs. Which meant there was really no reason to stay past tomorrow morning. But I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to stay here forever. With Ben.
We were in Moose City’s Moose Memorabilia, a tiny store packed with everything moose, from books on moose to moose heads to moose-stamped pencil holders to mugs with every kind of moose imaginable. I was marveling over yet another snow globe, two moose head-to-head, when Ben took my other hand and held it. I sucked in my breath and put down the snow globe.
“Abby,” he said. “I want you know something. It’s important that I tell you this. I should have said it much earlier.”
Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. You love me, too. You’re crazy about me. You can’t wait for this all to blow over so that we can make mad passionate love on that heart-shaped bench in the Best Place To Kiss in Moose City.
He led me to the back of the store and looked into my eyes. “Abby, if you confess now, I can probably work out something with the prosecutor.”
I gasped. I am not a gasper, but I stood there and gasped not once, but twice. My puffy down coat, which I’d taken off in the warm store, just dropped out of my hands, as did my mini tote bag. I felt as if I would fall over at any moment, too.
I am an idiot. I am an idiot. I am an idiot.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “Ben, much as I’d like to help you out. I can’t confess to something I
didn’t do.
”
And then I ran.
I was halfway back to the inn and out of breath when I heard him call, “Abby, wait, please.”
I turned around. He jogged toward me, carrying my coat and bag.
“Abby, it’s sixteen degrees,” he said. “I think you need this.” He held up my coat and helped me into it. He stood so close to me, never taking those dark, dark eyes off me as he zipped up the long, puffy jacket.
Take it back,
I wanted to scream.
Take it all back so I can just fling myself into your arms and you can make this whole nightmare go away.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.
“I know,” I snapped. “You’re just doing your job.”
He stopped and put his hand on my arm. “Abby, there’s nothing truer than that.”
“No, there is,” I said. “I didn’t kill Ted. There’s nothing truer than
that.
”
And then I ran inside and locked the door to my room behind me.
I ignored his knocks. I’d watched enough
Law & Order
to know that I didn’t
have
to talk to him. Every twenty minutes he’d knock and say, “Abby? Let’s talk.”
At his fourth attempt, I surprised him by opening the door, dressed and ready to go, my notebook and brochures at the ready. “There is nothing to talk about, Ben. You are wasting your time in such a monumental way. You could be back in Portland going after a killer.”
Two heads popped out of the common room and stared at us. Ben gestured to my room, and we went inside.
I sat on my bed. He leaned against the door.
“It’s not a waste of my time, Abby. As I’ve said, if it wasn’t you, it’s very likely someone who cares about you and has a very warped way of showing it. I’m going to need you to work on a list of possibles when we get back to Portland.”
I took a deep breath. “No one I know is capable of murder, Ben. That’s what it comes down to.”
“Do you know how many times I’ve been surprised by people?” he asked.
“People you know? Your closest friends? Your relatives?”
He walked over to the bed and sat down next to me. “A few months after my brother died, my mother had a complete breakdown. She left her husband, me, her entire life, and moved to a commune. She’s still there. Then again, maybe that’s not so surprising. I have no idea what it’s like to lose a child.”
“I’m so sorry, Ben,” I said. “You know what it’s like to lose a brother.”
“I guess you know something about a parent just up and leaving, too.”
Now, there was something that wasn’t surprising. I had no doubt that by now Ben knew every part of every major facet of my life. “I was two days old when my father left.” I shook my head. “I can’t even begin to imagine how my mother felt, how she coped.”
He glanced at me. “She had you.”
“Oh, I’m sure a two-day-old was a big comfort,” I said. “Trust me, I see how hard Olivia works. Totally hormonal, not a second to herself, nervous wreck about caring for a newborn.”
“No, I mean, that’s what your mother said. I asked her how she coped. And she said, ‘I had Abby. I had Abby, and that was like having the world.’”
“She really said that?” I asked, my heart flipping. “That’s really, really nice.” And definitely surprising. My mother was loving, but my father’s betrayal had changed her—or so people who’d known her before and after had said—and she’d moved down to Florida the second I graduated from high school. She was remarried now and had her own life.
Ben nodded. “She really said that. See, even close relatives are capable of surprising you.”
“I guess so,” I said.
“So what’s next on our agenda?” he asked. “Dinner? Do we have time for Best Place To Make Snow Angels in Moose City?”
I smiled. “Let’s go.”
We made our snow angels. Twice our hands and feet bumped together. The second time I didn’t move my foot right away. He glanced at me with those unreadable dark, dark eyes, and then sat, holding out a hand to pull me up.
“So why don’t you take the next couple of hours to yourself,” he said. “I need to catch up on some phone calls anyway.”
Either he trusted me or he wanted me to think he trusted me.
Regardless, my butt was freezing and I had to get up.
We headed back inside to change out of our wet clothes. The moment walls and doors were between us, I missed him.
Two hours later he knocked on the door. He looked gorgeous, as always.
“Wow,” he said, eyeing me up and down. “You look incredible.”
I smiled. Beaming inside, of course. “Well, I figured since it was our last night here, and it would be back to reality tomorrow, reality I don’t particularly want to face, I’d get all dressed up for Moose City’s finest restaurant.”
At the last minute I’d changed out of my f lippy skirt and sweater and gone for the black wrap dress and knee-high boots. There was a hint of cleavage. Curves. If he found me at all sexy before, he’d find me very sexy now. If I did nothing for him, then the dress would be my Magic 8 Ball and reveal all.
So far, so good.
When I picked up my coat from my bed, he took it and held it open for me. Again he was so close I would barely have to move to kiss those lips.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Definitely,” I said.
We hurried to Carelli’s, one of Moose City’s few expensive restaurants. It was Italian, and Finch was an Italian food freak and always liked The Best Place To Get an Old-Fashioned Bowl of Spaghetti and Sauce in his on-location columns. Carelli’s didn’t have spaghetti as an entrée; this was more a bizarre vegetables-and-vertical-food type establishment.
A perfect white candle flickered between us, casting shadows on Ben’s face. I had the urge to reach across the table for his hand, but luckily the waiter stopped by to recite the specials and take our drinks order.
“Wine?” Ben asked.
I smiled, and he ordered the house red.
Please let this be a good sign, I said heavenward. Instead of, say, a tactic to get me to drink up and spill my guts on a snow-covered street corner. Not that there were guts to spill. Except for being madly in love with him.
Oh, hell. There it was. I was madly in love with the cop who thought me guilty of murder. Later I could tell Opal that it wasn’t my fault, since there hadn’t been a first date.
Do not drink more than three sips, I ordered myself. Or you will make a total buffoon of yourself.
Of course, I’d had the third sip before our salads arrived. Not the best salads in Moose City. Nor the best pasta. Ben had ordered some crazy chicken dish with layers of vegetables. He ate three bites.
“Let’s get out of here and hit Fry Hut,” he said, smiling. We’d passed Fry Hut four times on our route today, and there was always a long line. It was a take-out joint that served only thin-cut French fries. There were five kinds of ketchup.
We bundled up and walked the four blocks to Fry Hut, where there was a crowd of teenagers waiting. The little storefront smelled so good. It took almost twenty minutes, but we each had our white bag of fries, salted and ketchuped. We walked back to the inn, popping fries into our mouths. Best fries in Maine. Possibly the world.
“This was a very good idea,” I said. “Finch appreciates good fries.”
“Me, too,” he said.
“Me, too.”
And then we were back at the inn.
He glanced at me. “Well, I’ve got hours of paperwork to catch up on, so…”
So I guess this is it.
“What time are you planning to leave tomorrow?” I asked.
“Whatever time you’re leaving,” he said.
“You’re going to be behind me the entire way, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “I was behind you coming up, too. Didn’t you know that?”
I should have.
“Well, good night,” he said. “See you in the morning.”
Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go. Let’s make more snow angels. Let’s drink tea!
I’d even talk about the case, if it meant keeping him next to me.
But he smiled and disappeared behind his door.
I
pulled into a restaurant to use the bathroom. So did Ben. I stopped for gas. So did Ben. I sped up to see if a cop would go past the speed limit. (The answer was yes.) I went annoyingly slowly for a stretch, just to see if he’d get frustrated and pass me.
Nope.
Every time I looked in my rearview mirror, there he was. Except once, three hours in, when I thought I’d lost him, only to find he was right beside me. In that moment, when I looked in the mirror and expected to see his car, his face barely visible behind the windshield, and seen a bright red Jeep Cherokee instead, my heart had sunk.
Foolish, foolish girl.
Finally I pulled into my parking space near my building, Ben idling a few feet away. I waved, and he waved back, and I went inside. When I looked out the window, he was peering up at me. And then he drove away.
Marcella was her new gushing self when I arrived at work on Monday morning.
How was the bed-and-breakfast? I hope to your satisfaction. We all missed you!
Uh-huh.
The little red light on the phone on my desk was blinking. No doubt there were hundreds of messages. When I got home from Moose City on Sunday afternoon, my answering machine was so full that it had stopped recording. Two messages were from Olivia. “Oliver’s just being overly cautious. He’ll come to his senses. I’ll see to it.” Several were blasts from the past, all the same. “Abby! Been so long! Just calling to say hi and let you know I’ve been thinking about you!”
Uh-huh.
“Hey!”
I looked up, and there was a face I was happy to see: Shelley’s.
“Any news from Baxter?”
“Well, we’re talking. Not making any headway, but at least we’re talking. How was the trip?”
“It was good to get away,” I said.
She smiled. “I’ll bet.” Her phone rang and her head popped down.
I had my own phone to attend to. Fifty-four voice mails. I usually had no more than ten.
Out of morbid curiosity, I checked my e-mail. Seventy-three.
I listened to my voice mail first. Three were from former boyfriends who were now shaking in their shoes. Marco Cantinelli, famous for def lowering the most girls in Chillsworth Hall, just so happened to be thinking of me this weekend and “wanted to say hello! Hope you’re doing great! Wish we could get together, but I’m heading to Tibet to soul-search. Take care, now!”
Jonathan Alterman, pig latin king, was living in New York City. “You don’t get down here much, do you?” he asked, his voice at a slightly higher pitch. “If you do, of course, I’d love to see you, but give me advance notice, okay, like a few weeks, so I can plan.” Yeah, plan to go to Tibet to soul-search.
And then Slade! Unbelievable. Slade, whom I dated for just a few weeks when I was twenty-two, was the typical tortured-artist type who wore black turtlenecks, even in summer, and decided to speak only ten words a day to conserve world energy. Oh, but was he cute! “Abby, Slade. Look, if you have any interest in killing me, could you wait until Saturday? I have a gallery showing on Friday night and would like to live for it. Thanks.” Click.
The first honest one. For that, I would let him live.
And
quelle surprise,
Charlie Heath, who hoped my aunt Annette’s ankle had healed properly. “I was such a fool for letting you get away. I was crazy about you. But I was so young and stupid…”
I think he was forgetting that was two years ago and he was thirty then.
I pressed number seven for delete so many times, my pointer finger started to go numb.
“Abby?”
Ugh. I knew that voice. Henry. I swiveled around in my chair, trying to perfect my man-killer smile, something Uma Thurmanesque. He was carrying a bouquet of roses in one hand and my four-foot-tall fuzzy monkey in the other. I supposed the honey cake had turned to mold.
As he stepped into my cubicle, I realized he was limping.
“Skiing accident?” I asked.
His face was frozen into a polite smile. “That’s exactly what I told the police,” he whispered.
Oh, good Lord! “But what
really
happened, Henry?”
Actually, nothing should have happened. If I followed Ben’s logic, Henry was safe until he found someone to marry him. Since I had actually liked him quite a lot before he ditched me in L.L. Bean, the killer shouldn’t go after him, in order to spare me additional heartache. If the killer did know me well, that was.
So did I believe the killer was someone I knew? Someone who cared about me, albeit in a very sick and twisted way?
What if the killer knew that the moment Henry took to the highway because of a little ceremonial snipping, I’d been so turned off by his wussiness that I wouldn’t be the least bit devastated by something a little bit awful happening to him?
Not death. Not even pain. Just a little public humiliation of his own.
Had I talked about Henry to anyone? Opal. Olivia. Various relatives at the bris. But then the telephone version of events had made its way around the party, so the only people who really knew what had happened—and how I felt—were my sisters. Opal wouldn’t let me be a brunette in her wedding; she wouldn’t kill for me. And Olivia wouldn’t even let me see my nephew because she thought I
could
be guilty of murder. So I felt very certain that I could cross my sisters off Ben’s list.
Henry was standing here alive and well. So the killer clearly wasn’t going after him.
“I took a bad curve skiing the intermediate slope,” he said.
“No one came crashing down from behind you?” I asked. “Wearing a ski mask?”
He peered at me. “Why, were you there? Wearing a ski mask?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, Henry, I was not.”
He thrust the roses at me. “Uh, look, the thing is, I guess I didn’t realize how much you liked me. If I knew, I never would have—Why don’t we try again? If you have any more brises to go to, you can count on me to attend. I really miss you.”
Henry was a worse actor than I was. His good leg was trembling, and that polite smile was still plastered on his face. Which I no longer found cute, by the way.
I leaned toward him and beckoned him closer with my finger. He took one step. Then another. He was in such a state of panic that I almost laughed. “Henry,” I whispered, “do you really want to make it easier for me to kill you by having me around as your girlfriend?”
His lower lip trembled and the blood drained from his face. He dropped the monkey and ran.
I put the roses in a vase and set them out on the conference-room table. By the time I got back to my cubicle, Ben had left a message. Henry had called to tattle on me.
By noon I’d finished my Best of Moose City column, e-mailed it to Finch for approval and answered all last week’s reader letters, dropping off my responses in Roger’s box for copyediting. Now I could once again focus on who was trying to do me a warped favor.
Or, or, or: was someone framing me? But why? Could someone else have had Ted Puck, Riley Witherspoon and Tom Greer in common? How could I find out? And what was up with Mary-Kate Darling and her connection to Mary-Katherine Mulch? If there was one.
Ugh. I could see why Ben focused on the someone-who-knew-and-loved-me-to-death theory. It actually made sense.
I heard Roger’s trademark whistle, which most of my coworkers found annoying. I turned around, and there he was, hunched slightly so as not to hit his head at the top of the frame of my cubicle’s doorway.
“You must have a lot on your mind,” he said, placing copy in my in-box. “These reader-letter responses were full of grammatical errors. Usually you’re a much better speller, too.”
How’s this:
G-O A-W-A-Y.
“Thanks for cleaning up my copy as always,” I said, offering a smile. “Appreciate it.”
“I know you do,” he said. “Unlike some people around here,” he added, gesturing his head to the left, where the features editor’s cubicle was.
I smiled. Roger was okay, if a little—just slightly—creepy.
Creepy.
If you didn’t kill Ted, someone you know did…
Did Ted have any enemies? Just you, Roger…
“Um, Roger, I’d better get back to finishing up my first feature column or Finch’ll demote me,” I said.
“Don’t get too big for your old friends,” he said, shooting me a smile.
The minute he was gone, I grabbed some letterhead and wrote People I Know Who Could Possibly But I’m Sure Did Not Kill Ted, Push Tom in Front of a Speeding Truck and Let a Pit Bull Loose in Riley’s House.
I couldn’t even write down Roger’s name. He was harmless. A big, lumbering, geeky, copyediting harmless guy who had a harmless crush on me.
Which meant I had to do a little digging on our Mary-Katherine Mulch and our Mary-Kate Darling. She was the only person I wanted on that list. Of course, I’d have to cross out the last two incidents and chalk those up to coincidence.
I picked up the phone and called Ben.
“Orr here” came that voice I heard in my sleep.
“Ben, it’s Abby. I need to know something.”
“Shoot,” he said. I waited for him to make a joke, but he didn’t.
“As a cop, what’s your
official
take on coincidence?”
“I’ve seen my share. I’m also very leery of it.”
“Good enough,” I said. “Thanks.” Leery was all well and good. But he’d seen his share. Which meant that there
was
such a thing as coincidence. Which meant Riley and Tom could be totally coincidental. Which meant Mary-Kate Darling was
guilty!
I slumped over my desk. I didn’t even know if Mary-Kate Darling
deserved
to be guilty. Yeah, she was wildly inappropriate at parties. And she’d known I was Ted’s girlfriend when she arrived with him at the party. He’d introduced me to her—his cousin, Mary—as his girlfriend, the birthday girl, Abby Foote. So she’d known. Yes, she deserved to be guilty.
“Anything else you want to share?” Ben asked. “Are you working on your list of people in your life who might have had something to do with the murder?”
“I absolutely am,” I said.
“Perhaps I could come by tonight to go over it with you?” he asked. “Around seven?”
Yes! “Okay,” I said. I am dying to see you. Not dying to make that list, though.
The moment I put down the phone, it rang again. “Uh, Abby, it’s Opal.”
“What’s wrong?”
Silence. “I really don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to tell you, okay?”
Oh, hell. “What?”
“My mom is kinda freaked about the whole murder investigation, and she and Oliver were talking this weekend while you were away, and they sort of both decided that they don’t feel comfortable with you seeing any family member, including me, unsupervised.”
“What?”
“She’s just freaked,” Opal said. “But to tell you the truth, Jackson sort of agrees with them.”
“I didn’t kill Ted!” I yelled.
“I’m sure you didn’t, Abs. But, um, if you want to come to the wedding events I’ve got planned, you need to bring Detective Orr.”
“Opal, he’s not my boyfriend!”
“We know,” she said. “Oh, and Abs, if you’re offended, like, at all, about having to wear a blond wig for my wedding, that’s totally okay. Okay?”
“I’m not offended, Opal.”
I heard her sigh of relief and the sound of a hand closing over the mouthpiece and a garbled
“She said she’s not offended!”
“Look, for what it’s worth, Abby, I’m really sorry, okay?”
There was that phrase again. It was worth
nothing.
I much preferred the sucking-up to this.
Jolie didn’t require a police escort to meet me for lunch. She took one look at my face and hopped off her stool at the burrito place and hugged me.
“Abby, in a week, two weeks, this will totally go away. They’ll find the killer and everyone will be begging your forgiveness.”
“They’d better. On both counts.” I ordered a chicken burrito that I probably wouldn’t have an appetite for. “Jolie, do you remember a girl named Mary-Katherine Mulch from high school? She was a grade ahead of us?”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”
I explained about the connection between Mary-Katherine and Mary-Kate.
“I know!” she said as our burritos were served. “Go pay a visit to Petey Strummer! You can kill two birds with one stone. Find out where
he
was the night Ted was killed and find out if he remembers Mary-Katherine.”
My appetite returned and I inhaled my burrito. Not the best in Portland.
Petey Strummer, who now called himself Peter, lived and worked in South Portland, just a five-minute drive away. On the phone he said he thought it was hilarious that I was a notorious murder suspect, given how
un
femme fatale I’d been in high school.
“But I thought you had a huge crush on me,” I pointed out. “Doesn’t that make me a femme fatale by default?”
He laughed and said he’d meet me at five-thirty. That gave me at least an hour before I’d have to leave to meet Ben at my place.
No wonder Ben hadn’t noticed me in high school. Petey Strummer had barely noticed me! I wondered why he had such a huge crush on me, then. He could very well be the first guy in the world to go for personality.
We met at his favorite pizzeria, which I’d voted Best Of two years ago. Petey, whom I couldn’t think of as Peter, even though he now had a beard, sat in a booth munching on a garlic knot from a basket full of them.
“Help yourself,” he said as I sat down. “Wow, you look exactly the same. But even better.”
I smiled. “You, too, Petey. Peter, I mean.”
“I ordered us a large pepperoni,” he said.
“Perfect. So Peter, do you remember someone from high school named Mary-Katherine Mulch?”
He popped another garlic knot into his mouth. “Mary-Katherine Mulch. Wow, she hasn’t crossed my mind in ten years.”
“So you knew her?”
“She was a grade ahead of us, but we had some clubs together. Band, Greek and Latin, fencing. Chess. She lived at the end of my block.”
