A Fatal Stain (20 page)

But this time what he read E was a nonfiction book called
Groovy Greeks
, which he must have brought with him, because I’d never seen it. And although the book didn’t say anything about Nick—not even in the ad libs—it seemed to be about Greek civilization and its history written for about a fifth-grade level. Which meant that E got to ask questions until his eyes were so heavy that he fell asleep, with Pythagoras vigilantly perched on top of his chest. How E could breathe with that weight was beyond me, but he clearly could.

And once they were both asleep, Ben truly could not avoid coming out, turning the light off, and risking talking to me.

I came out of the room with him and sat on the sofa. “Sit,” I said. “I found some stuff about the murder, and I want to talk.”

“Murder?” he said.

“Almost for sure. The woman, Maria Ashton.”

“Oh,” he said.

Yeah, I definitely was going to look up the history of that house before I bought it. But aloud I said, “Yeah, look, I went and talked to her husband.”

“You what?”

So I had to tell him the whole story of what Dad wanted. He absolutely refused to believe that Peter and Collin could have betrayed his secrets or mine. Ever. “No, they wouldn’t talk,” he said. “No. Sorry. Faulty assumption.”

“Well, whatever,” I said, and told him about the blond guy with the pop-eyed look. Then I told him about the guy in the semi-permanent garage sale.

“I see,” he said. “So…someone figured out you had that table and went to talk to your parents and stuff. May I ask how you paid for the table? Cash?”

“You mean, the table in the shed? Nah. I was out of cash, so I gave him a check. He said that was all right.”

“I see.”

Which was very good, because I didn’t. In fact, it was all clear as mud. Then I told him about Jason Ashton and how I couldn’t really reconcile the man with the idea that he’d killed his wife.

“I know what you mean,” Ben said. “I have met him once or twice, and he seems like such a nice guy. I mean, not good looking or anything, but like concentrated essence of nice. I don’t think even if he caught his wife in flagrante delicto he would think of killing her. More likely he’d ask her if she wanted the place while he moved elsewhere.”

“Or offer to get a bigger house so the other guy could live with them,” I said, and hastened to clarify. “It’s not that I think he’s whipped, just one of those very rare men who don’t put themselves ahead of others, you know, and who are willing to do anything for the ones they love, even if it means sacrificing their wishes or ambitions.”

I must have said something funny again, because Ben was staring up at me, with an intent look.

“What? Do I have curry between my teeth or something?”

“Uh, no. It’s just…Never mind.”

I realized he probably thought I was being sexist. “I don’t mean it’s just rare in men,” I said. “It’s rare in women, too. In this case, I meant
men
as in
humans
, because…well, people in general, particularly in this day and age, I guess,” I said, rushing ahead, trying to cover whatever I had said that had made Ben stare at me that way. It wasn’t a hostile look, but it was a profoundly discomfiting one. “Well, we’re all self-supporting adults by the time we marry, and it’s annoying as heck to give way. I mean, look how uncomfortable I am with Cas buying a house for both of us. Given a choice, I’d rather we each put half down, but…”

The stare was back. “Yeah,” Ben said, breaking in. “But you are right. I, too, have trouble believing that Ashton would kill his wife in cold blood, much less then refinish a table in that stupid way and sell it. At any rate, that never made much sense, you know, Dyce. If someone killed Maria and got blood on the table, why would he sell it? Isn’t it possible whoever bought it would just go ahead and refinish it and then find the blood? If it were me, I’d just spray paint it with black or white or something, all over, several coats, and tell people I liked it better that way. Or dismantle it and put it way back in the attic or basement. I mean, all these Victorians have those areas. Crawl space maybe. Whichever tenant ventured to those places down the line—and it wasn’t likely to be soon—would find it. I mean, people don’t in
Victorians. There’s always this feeling that something really nasty might be lurking in the crawl space, isn’t there, and if and when someone did, they wouldn’t even know when the table was from and would be unlikely to trace it.”

“I know,” I said. “Frankly, that puzzles me, too, unless someone took the table because he or she panicked, and also to give the idea that Maria had taken something with her.” I told him about her taking her clothes. All her clothes, including the maternity ones, and added, “And though Ashton didn’t tell me that baby clothes were also taken, the guy at the garage sale says Ashton sold him those, too.”

Ben frowned. “He might not know the baby clothes were missing. I mean, they don’t have babies right now, right, so why would he notice there were no baby clothes in the house?”

“Point, but that again argues for his being innocent.”

“Yeah,” he said. Then he got this weird sideways smile he gets, when he finds something terribly amusing. “Not that the two of us have ever been wrong before, of course.”

The vast panoply of the many times we’d been wrong, without even touching the times we’d been wrong because one or the other of us had fallen in love with a bastard, didn’t need repeating.

“But I still think,” he said, “you’re wrong about Collin and Peter. They wouldn’t have talked. Seriously, they wouldn’t. They’ve been my friends for years, and some of the stuff they don’t talk about is stuff even you don’t know.”

I gave him a long side glance.

“Stuff you don’t want to know, truly. Stuff you don’t even want to think about.”

“Yeah,” I told him, but in the sort of tone that let him know I wouldn’t buy it, even offered at a discount. Not that I really wanted to know everything possible about Ben. I suspected even Ben didn’t want to know some of the stuff about Ben. But just on principle, because if I didn’t know something about him, then no one else should know it, either.

But I didn’t want us to be mad at each other—look, I don’t own a TV. It was talk to Ben or go to bed and read a book, and right then I didn’t have any books I really wanted to read, having left my parents’ home before they could shove an improving tome at me. Or the latest book they’d fallen in love with, at least.

I still thought his friends had told Sebastian—and perhaps some unspecified crazy—where I lived. But that, too, didn’t bear arguing. So instead I told him about my mom’s efforts to have me accept Fluffy as a maid of honor. This amused him enough that he was laughing hysterically. “You don’t mean it,” he said. “You can’t possibly mean it.”

“Yep. The cat that hates me. But she’ll have a wisp of material in some nice color around her neck.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “What about wasshername who used to be your friend in school?” he said. “You know, the skinny little girl with the big—” He motioned over his chest to indicate what she had that was big.

“They were not that big.” Ben had issues with breasts. As in, he thought all of them were much too big. I think
he’d been traumatized in childhood by watching Benny Hill’s skit with the giant pursuing breasts.

“Right, but you two were thick as thieves. If I remember until the end of high school. What became of her? You two no longer talk?”

“Ben, I hardly talk to anyone,” I said sullenly. “Except you. And you only because you didn’t give me much of a choice.”

He looked concerned. “Uh…should I ask…”

I shrugged. “No. It’s E. He doesn’t seem to bother you. And he probably wouldn’t bother a bunch of my old friends, either, but see, by the time I came back to Goldport, after college, many of them had moved out, and I was busy setting up house with All-ex. And then, you know, even in the early days, I had this feeling my friends would know something was wrong. The friends I still had, that is. And then, suddenly, I was divorced and there was E, which prevented my making more friends. Heck, most of the time, between looking after him and refinishing enough stuff to sell to keep pancakes on the table, I barely have time to sleep.” I made a face at him, because he looked much too serious. “I’d penciled in
Make new circle of friends
for after E goes to elementary school, two or three years from now.”

“Uh,” he said. “And for when had you penciled in
Find new boyfriend and get married
?”

“I hadn’t,” I said. “Cas just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Right,” Ben said. “Seems to run in the family, that. So you’re stuck getting married and you don’t have a maid of honor or, I suspect, any bridesmaids, right?”

“Right,” I said. “And if I push it, and Mom can’t make
me take Fluffy, she’ll find some beginning or self-published author and convince her it’s good publicity to be my maid of honor. And then my dad will convince her there will be a murder.”

Ben got up and went to the kitchen. He came back shortly with two beers. I had no memory of his buying beers, but Cas rarely bought them, so perhaps Ben had left them there the last time he’d come over. I hated that my fridge had become the United Nations, with various interacting fiefdoms assigned to various interests. Not that either of the guys had ever complained about my drinking their stuff or eating anything they’d brought over. But all the same, the fridge didn’t feel exactly mine anymore. The only thing I felt safe eating or drinking was stuff I’d bought and remembered buying, which at the moment restricted me to the cat’s food and half a stick of butter. I felt very much like a parasite.

But not such a stupid parasite that I’d turn down a good beer. The bottles were clearly from a microbrewery and had a cutesy label with a bunch of dogs and
Barking Mad Ale
. Turned out to be a pale ale, malty and unobjectionable.

Ben took a sip of his, and said, “It would almost be worth the trouble and aggravation,” he said, “just to see your mother try to push some anonymous, struggling writer on you. And to see how panicked she became when your father was…himself.”

“You have a mean streak, Benedict Colm. What have struggling writers ever done to you?”

“What have struggling writers ever done
for
me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Remember that dark-haired guy who did a signing at the store when we—”

He grinned. “Has anyone ever told you a good memory is unpardonable?”

“Jane Austen,” I said, dredging it up from high school memories. “The least that Cas could have done, honestly, was have a sister. Or Nick could have been a girl.”

This made him laugh so hard he had to swallow the beer hastily, so it wouldn’t come out of his nose at speed. “I’ll tell him you said that,” he said. “He’ll be hurt.” He paused for a moment. “But you…I mean…Have you considered asking my mom or one of my sisters?”

“Oh, heck, Ben. I don’t think I’ve been to your parents’ place in over a year. Last time I was there, E did something to the dog while I was talking to your mom. I have no idea what it was, but the dog wouldn’t come out from under the table, afterward.”

“The dog is a scaredy-cat. Okay, that sounds funny, but it’s true. And there’s nothing E could do to the house or the family that my siblings and I didn’t try at least once. Seriously, ask my mom. You can have her as matron of honor. Get one of my sisters as maid of honor. They clean up okay. One of them should be free. They’ll probably do it for the cake. Incurable sweet tooths. Mom will be honored. She always liked you. Besides, it will get her mind off weddings.”

“Oh?”

“Nothing material. The woman just has weddings—or something—on the brain.”

“Ah,” I said, feeling, once more, that everything was clear as mud. Mud glimpsed through ten-inch-thick metal plates. At midnight. With a blindfold on.

“Meant to tell you I talked to this woman at work, and she got her dress from this place in Denver that she says
sells discount wedding dresses. Like, you know, last year’s? But they’re designer, and she says they have a great selection. Surely you’ll find something there. Wanna go next week?”

I almost said yes; then I remembered the dress by Cthulhu and the funereal dress, and I thought that because Ben thought a place had a great selection—or for that matter, just because Ben thought I needed a dress—it wasn’t necessarily so. I could go to a discount store and pick up a skirt suit. Cream or peach or something. It would do. “I don’t know. I don’t think I need a dedicated wedding dress. For that matter, I’m not sure I needed a dedicated wedding. Perhaps I’ll just—”

He put what remained of his beer down on the cheapest coffee table in the world—it was so bad I’d never tried refinishing it, much less selling it—causing it to buckle, and said, “Candyce Chocolat Dare, you are not buying your dress at a discount store. If you want a skirt suit—”

At which point the phone rang again, and I answered it.

“Sorry, hon. I will be home to sleep, but it will be another two hours at least. So if you need to go to bed, don’t wait up for me. We’re still working on this ID.”

I should have asked him if the dead person was Maria Ashton. Though, of course, you’d think he’d tell me, since I’d mentioned her before and all. But he didn’t tell me, and I was too much of a coward to ask.