Hollyhock Ridge (14 page)

“Hi,” Claire said.

“Hey there, Claire Bear,” her father, Ian, said. “Do you
know Laurie? He’s Chief Purcell’s son. You know Larry Purcell. He’s the chief
over to Familysburg.”

Claire gave her most sympathetic look to Laurie, and he
smiled in response. His father had died a few years ago, from complications
caused by his alcoholism. Laurie had been the chief for more than ten years by
that time.

“I do know Laurie,” Claire said. “He’s having dinner with us
tonight.”

“Well, that’s good,” Ian said to Claire. To Laurie he said,
“Last time I saw you, you were headed to college. You went somewhere real
smart. Where was it?”

“Yale,” Laurie said. “I had a scholarship.”

“What’d you study up there?”

“History,” Laurie said.

“Now, what can you do with a history degree besides teach
it?” Ian asked him.

“Become a police officer,” Laurie said.

“Are you now?” Ian said. “Your old man must be very proud.”

“He is,” Laurie said. “I’ve just about got this old wreck
tuned.”

“Where are you working?” her father asked.

“I start over in Pendleton on Monday,” Laurie said.

“You’ll be working for Shep, then. He’s a fine man; you’ll
learn a lot from him.”

“I hope to,” Laurie said. “I’ll do my best.”

“The thing to remember is that police work is as much of an
art as a science,” Ian said. “It’s delicate work in a small town; you can’t
just stomp around enforcing the letter of the law all the time, like some big
police robot. You’ve got to take everything in consideration. The context of
the crime, the likelihood that it will be committed again, the personalities of
the people involved, and what you would want done if it was your kin who
committed the same crime.”

Claire stood in shock as her father spoke like he used to,
like himself, someone she hadn’t heard speak since she returned in the spring.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Laurie said. “Thanks, Chief.”

Moving as quietly as she could, Claire sat down on the edge
of the couch, as if her father were operating under a sanity spell, one she
could break with too much noise.

“That’s all behind me now,” Ian said. “I’m happy just to
drive the school bus.”

He sat up, dislodging the sleeping cat and dog, and turned
to Claire.

“I’ve forgotten the kids,” he said. “They’ll be waiting for
me.”

“Pudge Postlethwaite took over your route, Dad,” Claire
said. “Don’t worry.”

“Pudge?” he said. “But Pudge works at the power plant.”

His eyes clouded with confusion. The spell had broken.

“He’s retired now,” Claire said. “You just forgot; no big
deal.”

“I’ve forgotten a lot of things,” he said.

Claire’s heart broke for him, like it did every day.

“My dad forgets things all the time,” Laurie said. “It comes
with age, he says; it happens to us all.”

“He’s right,” Ian said. “It’s a good thing you young folks
are around to look after us.”

“It’s the best thing,” Laurie said, and looked at Claire.
“It’s the most important thing.”

Laurie had brought a big bucket of fried chicken and all the
side dishes offered by the colonel’s chain store in Pendleton. Claire used
paper plates, which she had deemed the tableware du jour while her mother was
at the beach. Laurie was gracious and accommodating to her father, and didn’t
seem to notice when her dad dropped more bites on his stained shirt than went
in his mouth, and then talked with his mouth full.

Mackie Pea had stationed herself beneath Ian’s chair, the
better to catch falling snackies, and Junior grabbed anything the little dog
missed. Claire caught Laurie surreptitiously supplementing these snacks with
pieces of his chicken.

Tentatively, Claire allowed herself to relax and enjoy the
meal. The chicken skin was crunchy, greasy, and delicious. She added up the
carbs in her head, and rationalized to herself that the protein balanced them
out. She’d skip the mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and biscuits, and then exercise
longer tomorrow to make up for it.

After dinner, Laurie helped Ian back to the living room, and
then proceeded to play any song the older man requested on the newly tuned
piano. Claire was amazed at how many songs her father remembered. Singing along
with Laurie, he nodded his head to the music (that everyone else could hear,
for a change), and seemed content. Eventually, he got sleepy, and Laurie played
some beautiful, peaceful melodies. When he began playing “Claire de Lune,” he
turned around and looked at her.

“Remember this?” he asked her.

“I do,” she said.

When her father began to snore, Laurie stopped, shook out
his hands and whispered, “I was rusty.”

Claire and Laurie convened in the kitchen, where he ate some
blackberry cobbler and Claire made him some coffee.

“Thanks for that,” she said. “You play so beautifully.”

“My mother insisted on lessons. I hated it then but I
enjoyed it immensely tonight,” he said. “I used to play for my own father. I
miss it.”

Claire sighed.

“I keep telling myself I need to enjoy him while I have him,
but it isn’t easy. He has these delusions, about my mother, about me. It’s
hard. I saw a glimpse of my dad in there tonight, but he’s mostly someone I
don’t know and I don’t always like.”

Laurie didn’t say anything, but his sympathy was palpable.

“And now for the haircut,” she said.

Claire retrieved her haircutting equipment from the
bathroom, along with a towel. Laurie obediently sat where she told him to, held
still, and allowed her to move his head as she needed to. When she was done,
she gave him a hand mirror so he could look at her work. It was then that she
noticed his hands were trembling. He saw her notice and their eyes met in the
mirror.

“Is that from playing so long?” she asked.

He smiled that wry, sad smile that she was coming to know so
well.

“Oh,” she said.

He nodded.

“I have some whiskey,” she said.

He took her hand, kissed it, and then clasped it to his
heart.

From the cabinet over the refrigerator, Claire retrieved the
bottle of Jameson’s that her cousin Patrick had given her father many years
before. Her father had forgotten it was there, and her mother didn’t drink
anything stronger than the occasional glass of wine, so it had never been
opened. Claire only knew it was there because she found it when she was
searching for the paper plates.

She hooked her fingernail under the seal to remove it and
then unscrewed the lid. She placed the bottle on the table next to his coffee
cup.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. “Help yourself.”

Claire went to the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Now her hands were the ones shaking.

She had just given whiskey to an alcoholic.

In the moment, she had just wanted to relieve his suffering;
she wasn’t thinking about anything else.

He said he had it under control; maybe a little was all he
needed.

But she knew better.

She washed her hands and then counted to twenty before she
went back to the kitchen. Laurie was clearing the table. On top of the fridge
sat the bottle of whiskey, the level showing very little had been poured out,
and his coffee cup was upside down in the dish drainer on the counter by the
sink.

“Thank you for dinner,” Claire said.

“It was a lovely evening,” Laurie said.

He embraced her and kissed the side of her forehead.

Claire put her arms around him and hugged him. He loosened
his grip and she tipped her head back.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked him.

“Probably not,” he said.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I’m worried about
you.”

“I’ve kicked it before,” he said. “I can do it again.”

“Have you tried AA?”

“It’s not a good place for the chief of police to be seen,”
he said. “I would lose my job.”

“You say you have it under control,” Claire said, “but it
gives me pause.”

“As in, let’s take a step back and reassess?”

“I care about you,” she said. “I wish it could work out.”

He grasped the back of her shirt and pulled her close. His
kiss had fire and passion in it, but all Claire could taste was the whiskey and
coffee.

The thought came to her, ‘It’s like kissing a dying man,’
but she pushed it away.

After Laurie stopped kissing her, he kept her in a close
embrace for a few moments, then kissed her temple, let go, and left, without
saying another word.

Claire went to the back door and looked west, where the sun was
setting behind the mountains. She wanted to cry, but she also wanted to believe
he could change, could deal with the grief that drove him to self-medicate, and
that they could have something, if not exactly like what he had with his first
wife, maybe a sort of approximation, a balm strong enough to soothe them both.

When Kay returned from Morgantown, it was almost midnight.
Sonny Delvecchio was sitting on her porch swing, smoking a cigarette.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” she said.

“Only when I’m nervous about something,” he said. “It calms
me down.”

She sat down on the top step.

“That was a lovely gift you left on my desk,” she said.

“I felt stupid after I did it,” he said. “I almost went back
and got it before you could see it.”

“I loved it,” she said. “I’m glad you made it for me.”

“This thing with Diedre,” he said. “Does it change anything
for you?”

“It’s a horrible thing to have happen,” she said. “I feel so
sorry for your family.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” he said.

“There’s this wonderful phrase that I learned from that
scoundrel boss of mine, the former mayor,” she said. “When someone asked him to
comment on something and he wasn’t sure how to respond, he would say, ‘I’m
still processing that, and I’ll get back to you.’ ”

“Has Matt been by?”

“He stopped in briefly today,” she said.

“I didn’t get the good looks in our family,” Sonny said.
“That was Anthony’s gift, straight from our beautiful mother. I didn’t get her
full head of hair like Pauly and Matty, either, that’s for sure. I got my
height from my mother’s side of the family but I got my father’s bald head and
this big honkin’ schnoz. But along with that, I also got his big heart. If my
wife hadn’t left me, I would never have stopped trying to make her happy. I’m
not saying you couldn’t be happy with Matty, and if you two end up together,
I’ll raise a toast to you at your wedding and dance with you the appropriate
number of times. I won’t make a fool of myself. I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll
be all right.”

“It’s too soon after Diedre’s death for that kind of
speculation,” she said. “It’s dishonorable to her memory.”

“I know it’s what my brother wants,” he said.

“But what about what I want?”

 “You take your time and consider your options. As long as
I’m one of them, I don’t care what anybody thinks but you.”

“You’re so sweet,” Kay said. “I don’t know what you see in
me.”

“I see myself in you,” he said. “You got a big heart, too, the
kind that gets stomped on. We saps oughta stick together.”

“I’ll give it my deepest consideration,” Kay said. “Thank
you for being so kind.”

“You got any pie left?”

“One thing you can always be sure of,” Kay said, “is that
I’ll have something sweet in my kitchen. Come on in.”

“You know,” he said as he followed her inside, “you got some
boards on this porch could use replacing. I’ll bring my tools over on Saturday
and work on that for you.”

Claire rested her head on the desk and considered taking a
nap. How did people do it? Working at the same desk, looking at the same
computer, the same view, day after day?

Claire thought of how often she had complained about her job
when she worked for Sloan; the travel hassles, the temper tantrums, and the
movie sets in far-flung places where any inconvenience was always Claire’s
problem to solve. At least it was different every day and often interesting, even
when it was brutal.

There were occasions when she felt boredom, while waiting on
film shoots for shots to be set up or the light to be right, or while waiting in
the VIP lounge in a foreign airport, listening to Sloan berate someone over the
phone. At least there was always something to do while she waited, or some
bitchy assistant-something-or-other to gossip with.

This, this forced
containment
, was pure torture.

She had once again sworn off shopping, so of course all she
wanted to do was look at the pretty shoes and handbags online. She had also
sworn off any gossip site that might accidently tell her something new about
her ex-boss’s fake engagement to her ex-boyfriend. Without constantly
anticipating the needs of an insanely entitled she-devil, shopping, processing
Hollywood gossip, or obsessing about some man, Claire didn’t know how to be.

‘Shallow,’ she thought. ‘The shallow concerns of a shallow
person.’

She wanted to become someone better than that; someone who
cared about important things. It was no wonder Ed was still married to Eve; at
least she could talk to him about the things in which he was interested.

Maybe she could get better informed about world events.

She opened an Internet browser and went to a world news
site, but after fifteen minutes she shut the browser with a pounding heart.
Terror, murder, torture, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, irreparable
ecological decay, political parties accusing each other of atrocious behavior,
children suffering from incurable diseases, loved ones killed in heartbreaking
accidents, abandoned animals, homeless elderly, and on every page: death,
death, and more death. Reading the vicious reader comments on every page only made
everything seem worse.

She was reminded of what Laurie had said about life being a long
slog of sorrow.

Now she was depressed.

As an antidote, Claire got back online and went to her
favorite female-centric, aspirational-themed website where the young women who
hosted it posted funny photos, celebrity gossip, and photos of beautiful rooms
in expensive homes, as well as encouraging posts about keeping in shape and
losing weight. Today, however, she noticed a proselytizing post on achieving
the “thigh gap” situated right above a post filled with photos of and recipes
for high-calorie desserts.

‘It’s crazy-making,’ Claire thought, ‘what we do to
ourselves.’

She recognized the urge to do something to feel better: to
eat something, to shop for something, or to saturate herself with celebrity
baby photos. Maybe she could slip out early and go for a long run, work off the
calories she consumed the day before.

All addictive behaviors, she realized.

What else was there to do?

She considered calling the nice woman in the human resources
department at Eldridge College, but she had already left her several messages,
and by not returning her calls, Claire suspected the woman might be avoiding
her, even though it was more likely she didn’t she didn’t have anything new to
tell her.

Claire called Professor Richmond instead. She rolled her
eyes at his voicemail message.

What a ham.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here,” he intoned, as
if from a stage in London’s West End. “Record a message, if you must.”

“Hi, Professor Richmond,” Claire said. “This is Claire
Fitzpatrick; I was just wondering if you had heard anything about the position,
and if we’re still on for Scrabble tonight. Give me a call when you have time.”

Claire ended the call and looked around. She realized she
was slumped in her rolling office chair, so she sat up straight. She realized
she was frowning, so she smoothed her facial features into what she thought was
a cheerful, pleasant expression.

“Who are you making faces at?” Melissa said from the
doorway.

“I have resting bitch face,” Claire said. “So I’m working on
it.”

“That’s the silliest thing I ever heard,” Melissa said.

“I’m so bored,” Claire said. “How do people stand this?”

“I know it,” Melissa said. “I took today off but I woke up
at the regular time, cleaned the whole trailer, and now I’m antsy.”

“I’m stuck here until they deliver Sean’s copier printer
thingy,” Claire said. “Let’s take the table out front and get some ice coffees
from the bookstore.”

Once seated outside with their beverages, they got caught up
on family gossip.

“I guess Bonny’s bossing everyone around something terrible
down at the beach,” Melissa said.

“Better them than you,” Claire said. “Sean said he was
basically serving as chauffeur and man servant to all the old people.”

“If you get the job at the college, do you think Sean would
give me the secretary job?”

“I don’t know what Sean’s going to do,” Claire said. “Have
you tried anywhere else?”

“I have, but I got a feeling that prison record’s all they
see when they look at my resume.”

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I know you’re a good person and
you didn’t deserve to go to prison; I wish everyone else knew that, too.”

Melissa shrugged.

“I kidnapped a baby out of a meth house,” she said. “I
pretended to be his mama and let everyone think the real me died when the place
blew up. I know I done wrong, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

“Tommy has you to thank that he’s alive and well,” Claire
said. “Everyone seems to love that kid.”

“I wish he was home,” Melissa said. “I like knowing where he
is, even if he ain’t with me.”

“Kay heard from them,” Claire said. “They’re having a great
time.”

“She done told me,” Melissa said. “Kay’s a good egg.”

“I guess you heard about Diedre Delvecchio dying.”

“That’s all anybody’s talking about,” Melissa said.

“They never found her car; don’t you think that’s odd?”

Melissa shrugged.

“I guess that don’t hardly matter since she’s dead.”

“After they deliver the copier thingy, I’m going to go look
for her car,” Claire said. “Do you want to go with me?”

“Why?” Melissa said. “The police should do that.”

“Because I don’t have anything else to do,” Claire said.
“Because sitting in this office every day all day is driving me mad.”

“I’d give anything to have a job like this,” Melissa said
with a wistful look on her face. “Somebody with a job like this is
respectful-like. You get to wear nice clothes and don’t get flour all over you.
No hot kitchen, no hot grease. Nobody looks down on you if have a job like
this.”

Claire knew that wasn’t true, but she didn’t say it. No
matter what you did, or how experienced or well-educated you were, there was
always somebody who would enjoy looking down on you.

She wanted to help Melissa; how could she do that?

“You know,” Claire said. “If you work on your grammar, it
will help you get a better job.”

“You sayin’ I sound stupid?” Melissa said, with a raised
eyebrow. “I ain’t as dumb as I look.”

“I know you’re not dumb,” Claire said. “You just need to sound
as smart as you are. Would you like that?”

“I dunno,” Melissa said. “I don’t wanna sound like no big
fake.”

“Actresses have to learn to speak in different ways so they
can get better parts,” Claire said. “That’s part of the job; how would this be
any different? You’d be playing the part of a smart secretary to get a job as a
smart secretary.”

“How would I even go about doing something like that?” she asked.

“There’s bound to be an online class,” Claire said. “We can
enroll you, and then you can go online in the evenings and do the lessons.
It’ll be super easy. Then you practice what you learn every day. Bad grammar’s
just a habit; it can be broken if you want to do it.”

“I think I might be Tennessee to the bone,” Melissa said. “I
might be able to get the words right but I’ll still sound like Chattanooga’s in
my veins.”

“The grammar is more important than the accent,” Claire
said. “We still want you to sound like Melissa, but Melissa the
professional-sounding secretary.”

“If you think it will help,” Melissa said. “I’m willing to
try anything.”

Claire helped Melissa enroll in an online grammar class, and
while they were looking over the lesson plans, a man delivered the printer. He
set it up and then showed them how to make copies, scan documents to save as
PDFs on the computer, and to fax documents. When he left, they printed out
Melissa’s lessons from the online class, and then scanned and emailed them to
each other.

“If you already know how to run all the office machines and
improve your grammar,” Claire said, “you’ll be ahead of the game.”

“I can keyboard 100 words per minute,” Melissa said, “but I
don’t spell too good.”

“Well,” Claire said.

“What?”

“Never mind,” Claire said. “That’s what spell check is for.”

Claire put up a “be back in an hour” sign on the door and
locked the office behind her.

“Pip’s supposed to be doing finishing work on Sean’s
office,” Claire said, “but since he didn’t show up this morning I don’t imagine
he’ll show up now.”

Since Melissa’s car was parked out front, they took it to
the storage unit complex where Diedre’s body had been found.

“I do need to rent a storage unit for all the stuff that
will be shipped from California,” Claire said. “That will get us in the gates,
and then we can nose around.”

Melissa sat on the hood of the car and texted while Claire
went inside the office. She asked if they had something on the back side of the
lot and the woman didn’t seem to think that was odd.

 “I got one needs cleaned out,” she said, consulting her
chart. “It’ll be ready in about a week.”

“Is that the one they found the body in?”

“I don’t know anything about that and I’m not supposed to
talk about it.”

“I don’t mind taking that one,” Claire said. “Can I at least
drive back there and look at the outside of it?”

The woman showed her on the map where it was, but Claire
already knew.

“If you don’t tell anybody I gave it to you, I’ll give you
the key,” the woman said. “Just be sure and bring it back here before you
leave.”

“That’s okay,” Claire said, and her distaste must have shown
on her face.

“There’s no blood or anything,” the woman said. “We got a
company that cleans that stuff up for us.”

“This has happened more than once?” Claire asked.

“People do crazy things in those units,” the woman said. “We
had one guy living in his for a couple of months before we figured it out. When
you’re homeless, it’s cheaper than an apartment.”

Claire accepted the key and promised to bring it right back.

She and Melissa drove around to the back of the property and
parked next to the chain link fence across from Diedre’s unit.

“I’ll pass,” Melissa said, when Claire told her she had the
key.

Claire braced herself for a bad smell, but it smelled like
someone’s musty basement full of junk, plus a bleach smell from the big clean
spot on the floor. Claire looked around the small section of floor space that
was clean, but she didn’t know what she was looking for.

‘What am I even doing here?’ she asked herself. ‘This is
silly.’

A truck drove past slowly and two shady-looking characters
gave Claire up-and-down looks and sly smiles. They drove on down to the unit at
the end, and Claire rolled the door down and locked it. She definitely didn’t
want her stuff to be kept back here with those guys nearby.

Melissa was standing outside of the car, leaning back
against it, texting again. As Claire walked up to her, she could hear the door
to the unit at the end roll up. She watched the men go in and immediately roll
the door down behind them.

“I think I got all wound up for nothing,” she said to
Melissa. “Let’s go home.”

Melissa stopped texting and lifted her head, but she wasn’t
looking at Claire.

“Do you smell that?” she asked.

Claire sniffed the air, and there was something, a chemical
smell, acrid but faint.

“I guess, why?”

“I know that smell,” Melissa said.

Melissa hurriedly walked over to Diedre’s storage unit,
flattened her back against it, and then edged her way down closer to the end
unit. Claire watched in amazement as Melissa reached the garage door of the end
unit, sniffed the crack between it and the cement block wall, and then ran all
the way back to the car.

“We gotta get outta here,” she said as she opened the
driver’s side door. “Get in, get in, get in!”

Claire scurried around the side of the car and got in right as
Melissa started backing up. She was still closing the door as the car moved.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Melissa zoomed up the driveway and screeched to a halt in
front of the office.

“Tell ‘er you changed your mind,” Melissa said. “You don’t
want it. Hurry!”

Claire went inside, told the woman she wasn’t sure yet, but
would get back to her, and gave her the key. The woman shrugged, irritated but
obviously disinterested.

When Claire got back in the car, Melissa was sunk down low
in the seat, had sunglasses on and had stuffed her hair up in one of Patrick’s
ball caps. She pulled out of the parking lot so fast the tires screeched.

Claire was still trying to put on her seatbelt.