Don't Die Under the Apple Tree (11 page)

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Authors: Amy Patricia Meade

BOOK: Don't Die Under the Apple Tree

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The bid to earn the woman's sympathy worked. “Oh, dear, I'm sorry. And now here you are at another funeral.”

“Oh, I only came to be neighborly. We're staying with my aunt and, since she can't get around anymore, I thought I should pay my respects on her behalf. I don't know the Finches and, from what I've heard about him, it's probably just as well.”

“Hmph,” the woman snorted. “Got that right.”

“You knew him?”

“I, um ... yeah, but ...”

“You can tell me. I swear I won't say a word to anyone. Heck, I don't think I'll even be in the neighborhood long enough to tell anyone. My sister and I are looking to share a place in Greenpoint.”

This part of Katie's story, at least, was true.

The woman looked longingly at the baby. “Greenpoint is a lovely neighborhood. That will be good for him. Say, what's his name?”

“Charlie.”

“Charlie.” She smiled. “The fresh air in Greenpoint should be good for Charlie. He'll have more room to run around, too. Boys need lots of space to play.”

“I'm sure. He's already pretty active. I can't imagine what he'll be like when he starts crawling and then walking. Tell me, um ...”

“Lois.”

“I'm Katie. Tell me, Lois, do you have children?”

“No.” The woman frowned. “I've never even been married. And now I ... well ... I can no longer have children.”

Katie felt awful for asking. “Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't mean toâI mean, I wouldn't have pried, only you didn't seem that old.”

“I'm not. Age had nothing to do with it. It was all stupidity.”

Katie's face looked a question.

“Well, since I've gone this far, I guess I might as well tell you. Bob Finch and I were friends.
Close
friends.”

Katie's eyes grew wide. “You meanâ?

“Yeah. I'm not proud of it. But you gotta understand that Bob could be a real charmer when he wanted to be.”

Be it her naÃ¯vetÃ©, her unflinching devotion to her late husband, or the fact that her brother-in-law had run around on her sister, Katie could not fathom how some people could even think of cheating on a spouse. However, this was not the time for moral judgments. “When did you meet him?”

“About a year ago. I was moving into the building two doors down from Bob's when he spotted me. He said hello and helped me carry my things upstairs. Once I was settled in, he invited me to have dinner with him and his wife.”

“He did? You didn't go, did you?”

“Of course I did. It was the first day in the neighborhood. There was nothing going on then. I had only just met him and he seemed like a ... gentleman. And Marie was sweet, too. Over the next couple of months, I'd go over there and ask for Bob's help with some things around the apartment. My landlord is okay, but he's slow to make repairs. Bob was always at the ready with his toolbox. It was nice. And nice is tough to come by these days.”

“Oh! So you and Bobâer, Mr. Finchâreally
were
just close friends.”

“Oh, honey, you're sweet, but you really need to get out more!”Lois laughed. “No, no, no. What happened is this: the first few times that I stopped by to ask if Bob could fix my sink, or help me set a mousetrap, Marie was happy to see me. But after a little while, she was ... well ... displeased. Looking back, it was probably because she knew what her husband was up to. But Bob told me she was sick. That she'd fly into fits of rage and then get so melancholy she'd spend days inside, all the lights off, just crying.”

Lois drew a heavy sigh and then continued the story. “I just felt so bad for them. Bob especially. He seemed so lonely, like he had no one in the world to talk to. So I started to ask him over to fix things, only nothing needed fixing. Instead, we'd talk over coffee, or I'd make him lunch. During one of our meetings, we kissed. Well, one thing led to another and ... well, you know. After about a month or so of us getting together, Marie started to balk about Bob coming over. I'm not sure whether she was jealous or whether she had gotten wise to what was going on, but we decided to meet in secret.”

“How could it be secret if Mrs. Finch already knew you were ... lovers?” The word made Katie blush.

“Bob promised Marie that he wouldn't see or talk to me. But meanwhile, he gradually began leaving earlier for work each morning. Bob always ate breakfast at a coffee shop near the yard, so Marie slept in. She was none the wiser.”

“And he went to see you?”

“Yes, we'd have about an hour or so together before he left for work.”

“He saw you every day?”

“Well, every day the yard was open. Five days a week at first, but since the war started, six days. Not that we ... um, all the time. Sometimes I'd just make breakfast or coffee. Other times we would ... well, you know.”

Katie's eyes narrowed.

“Like I said, I'm not proud of what I did, but I was lonely and thought he was lonely, too... .”

“But he wasn't?”

“I don't think Robert Finch was capable of feeling anything as deep as loneliness. He had one thing on his mind and one thing only.”

“Why do you say that? What did he do?”

“He gave me the clap,” Lois whispered.

“The ... the what?”

“The clap. Gonorrhea. It's a social disease. I ... I didn't even know I had it until I got pains in my stomach,” she stated as tears ran slowly down her face. “When I went to the doctor, he sent me to the hospital right away, but it was too late. I needed an emergency hysterectomy.”

Katie rested a consoling hand on Lois's shoulder.

“I know what you're thinking. âShe got what she deserved, the hussy. Sneaking around with someone else's husband.'”

“No! Not at all. I can't imagine being told that you'll neverâ”

“It's more than that. Bob was the only man I ever felt that way about... . I trusted him. I loved him. I thought he felt the same way. But all the time, there were other women. He was just using me and I was too blind to see it.”

“Love can be blind,” Katie said gently.

“Yeah. I'll say,” Lois said in disgust. “Do you know? The whole time I was in the hospital, Bob never once bothered to check on me. When I got out, he didn't even stop by to see if I needed anything.”

“So he had no idea what had happened?”

“Oh, I finally told him. I waited outside his building one morning just so I could see him.”

“And?”

“He thanked me for telling him and said he'd make a doctor's appointment as soon as possible. No âI'm sorry.' No âhow are you?' No sense of remorse. Nothing. I thought he might at least be sympathetic, but he was just worried about getting to the doctor. Worried about himself. My God, what an idiot I was!”

Katie was reminded of her conversation with Rosie, just three days earlier. “You're not an idiot because you loved someone, Lois. You just chose the wrong someone to love.”

“Yeah, but now my life is ruined,” Lois sobbed. “By
him.
I hope he rots in hell!”

“If that's the case, what were you doing here today? Why would you even consider paying him your respects?”

“Respects? Who said I was paying my respects? I came here to let everyone know what a weasel he was! And I was about to when ... whenâ”

“When Charlie caught your attention,” Katie recounted.

“Yes. And everything came flooding back again ... how I can never have that. How Bob took that possibility away from me.”

The church bells rang out. Slowly. Somberly. As if in mourning, not for Robert Finch, but for the lives that had been indelibly altered by his existence.

Realizing that Finch's widow would soon be on her way to the cemetery, Katie, eyes cast downward, spun around, only to witness her petite five-foot-one-inch shadow being slowly engulfed by that of Lieutenant Riordan.

She looked upward. His right hand, which had clutched his gray fedora inside the church, now had a firm grip on the handle of the baby carriage. “Charlie's chariot,” he announced. “I thought you might be needing it.”

Nonplussed, Katie placed her son into the carriage and, with a murmured thank-you to the lieutenant and Lois, barreled toward the front of the church. She arrived just in time to see Marie Finch exit through the heavy wooden doors.

“Mrs. Finch,” she cried, as she abruptly blocked the woman's path with the carriage.

The sudden appearance of the obstacle caused Marie to stop short and teeter a few moments, hands high in the air, before regaining her balance. Those few moments of lost footing, however, were enough to cause the woman to drop her handbag.

“Oh, Mrs. Finch, I'm so sorry,” Katie apologized as she scrambled to collect the purse and its contents from the church pavement.

Lipstick ... compact ... change purse ...

“I'm new to the neighborhood and wanted to give my condolences... .”

Emery board ... apartment key ...

“I lost my husband not very long ago... .”

Katie spotted Marie Finch's comb, as well as the white object passed to her by Simonetti just two feet to her right.

“Oh?” Marie responded. “I'm so sorry to hear that. Umm ... oh ... I ... I can get those things. You don't have to do it.”

Katie lunged for the items and managed to secure the comb, but a brown shoe, belonging to a man in a dark brown suit, kicked the white object another six inches north.

“Oh no,” Katie replied, “I insist.” She leaped forward and collected the item in question and pretended to place it, along with the comb, inside the handbag.

Standing upright, she fastened the clasp of the handbag and presented it to Mrs. Finch. “As I was saying, I know what it's like to suffer the loss of a husband, so if you need anything, anything at all ...”

“Well, thank you, umm ...”

“Katherine,” she inserted.

“Katherine. That's most kind, but ...”

The firm hand of the funeral director escorted Mrs. Finch toward the open door of a black car. “Ma'am, we need to be on our way.”

A perplexed Marie Finch stepped into the backseat of the car, all the while her gaze fixed on Katie, who, clutching the mysterious object in a white-gloved hand, rocked Charlie's carriage and attempted to mold her facial expression into an expression of sympathy until the funeral procession began.

Once the limousine had pulled a safe distance away from the curb, Katie opened her gloved hand to reveal the folded object, approximately two inches by two inches square, that she had, by recalling the magic tricks of her father, successfully palmed.

But before she could revel in her victory, a set of masculine fingers snatched it from her palm.

“Hey! That was mine,” Katie complained.

“No, I believe it actually belongs to Marie Finch,” Riordan corrected.

“But Iâ”

“Lifted it from her handbag? I know. I watched you. Nice work. If Charlie here grows up to have one half of his mother's sleuthing skills, I look forward to having him on the force.”

“My father had many talents: magician, amateur boxerâ”

“Detective?”

“No. Now, will you please give that back? I'm the one who got it.”

“You did, but sorry, no. Can't. Police evidence. But you know what, I'll open it up and we can read it together. How's that sound?”

“I guess so.”

Riordan carefully unfolded the sheet of paper and Katie peered eagerly around his arm: