Last to Know (2 page)

Every now and then, though, he would see other members of the Osborne family dashing in and out, a remote-looking college-age son, who gave off “keep away from me” vibes that spelled a problem to Harry; a couple of fluffy teenage girls; and a boy, elevenish, small, skinny, ginger-haired and, unlike the rest of that busy household, always alone. Harry noticed things like that and it made him wonder why the kid was always alone. He also noticed that the boy would hide up in the fig tree where a branch led, he guessed, to his bedroom window. So the kid sat up there and spied on his family and the rest of the world. He would probably make a good detective.

And then there was the husband, Wally Osborne. The famous writer. Wally wrote scary novels that could make the hair stand up on the back of your neck and which were made into films that made you want to shout out loud, “Look behind you, the killer’s there!”

You might expect a writer of evil books to look evil, or at least a bit mad. Wally Osborne looked neither. He was tall, lean, and handsome with permanently tousled blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a light summer tan which, Harry knew, must send the local women into raptures. He thought Rose Osborne probably had a hard time keeping tabs on a husband like that. But that was none of his business.

Anyway, he was at Evening Lake, it was three in the morning, and he was climbing into the sweatpants he wore to the gym and a soft dark blue sweater, a present from his ex, thrusting his feet into sneakers, grumbling as he laced them up, glancing at the dog, still expectantly waiting.

“So, okay, let’s see what’s up, Squeeze,” he said resignedly. He wasn’t sure what it might be but the dog surely knew something, and since he was still a cop, even though he was thinking about quitting, Harry needed to investigate.

2

The Osborne house nearby Harry’s sat squarely on the edge of Evening Lake. “Sat” rather than “perched” because this was a solid house, built to last, ninety years before by a generation that respected solid workmanship and the art of a true craftsman.

It still sat, rather than perched, all these much-lived-in generations later, a white clapboard structure, raised on stilts at the waterfront with a veranda, or “porch” as it was always to be called, running the length of it lakeside, and a jetty where variations of small boats were moored. Omar Osborne was one of the first settlers and certainly one who voted for the irrevocable rule that no motorboats be allowed. Evening Lake would remain unpolluted, he hoped, for his descendants.

New houses now edged the lake, some of them Gatsbyish in their size, but local laws kept them to “simple” splendor, and many of the first old shacks were still there, the brown wood faded to a silvery gray, a reminder of times past though still lived in and enjoyed.

The house was traditional. A row of French doors opened onto the porch, fronting a spacious light-flooded room with oversized “lived-in” sofas covered in nut-brown heavy linen, and comfy chairs with rarely plumped-up cushions, covered in cream brocade, obviously brought from some other house to join the mix-and-match melée, because this house had never felt the hands of a “decorator.”

“It all simply came together, the way it should,” was what Rose Osborne told her visitors, apologizing for the trek up the wide creaking wooden staircase—she never knew when asked whether it was oak or chestnut, and was always surprised by the question because she was too worried about guests having to march up three floors to their rooms.

The main guest room was on the second floor and had gables jutting like eyebrows over the short windows. Rose’s favorite color was turquoise, and she’d had the gables painted that cheerful color, though now because they weren’t too keen on having the upset caused by repainting every three years they had faded to what Rose called her “passionate blue.”

“Why ‘passionate’?” guests would ask and be rewarded with a smile and Rose’s answer that many people had asked her that, but it was her secret. Hers and her husband, Wally’s. She had never even told her three children what it meant. Which, in fact, was that it was exactly the color of the pure silk nightgown her husband had surprised her with on their honeymoon, bought in some outrageously expensive boutique and which they certainly could not afford, but that he’d said he’d just known would look wonderful on her and that he wanted to make love to her wearing it.

So he had. They had. And the nightgown was still there, wrapped in special tissue to preserve the silk, in the second left-hand drawer of her vanity, under lock and key. A memory preserved. Occasionally, dreaming of the past, Rose would unlock the drawer, take out the package, carefully unwrap the tissue, and look at the most beautiful garment she had ever owned. Its pale champagne lace trim was as delicate as ever, its blue as turquoise as the Mediterranean on a summer evening when that coast turned luminous in the fading light.

In back of the house a forest of birch mounted the hill, silver at dawn and evening, blank and peeling in the full light of day. Atop the hill, brambles tangled at a walker’s feet, thorns scratched childish hands seeking blackberries, and old wells, dry now but once the area’s only source of fresh water, crumbled, away from the main paths with warnings posted to “take care.”

The small town of Evening Lake, only a village really, lay two miles down the sandy road that led behind the house, which had a sharp gravelly turnoff that you had to watch out for or you would miss it. There was a lean-to on the left where cars could park, and a would-be vegetable garden struggled on the right where tender Boston lettuces pushed through the sandy earth and radishes grew to giant size and where, if left un-netted, birds or animals ate all the tiny sweet tomatoes that here were more true to their fruity origin than mere salad fixings.

Two chimneys sat atop the Osborne house and in winter smoke plumed straight up. The builder had done a good job on those flues, as he had on everything else.

There was a “mud room” to the left of the front door. It was called the “front” door because it faced onto the road, though no one ever used it, they always walked directly into the kitchen by the side door, now painted Rose’s turquoise blue. Fishing tackle and wellington boots, tennis rackets, dog leads and raincoats, a vacuum cleaner, buckets and a whiskery old broom were stored in there.

Rose and Wally’s “boudoir” was above the living room, a spacious sprawl with a big old brass bed. Dylan’s song “Lay Lady Lay” (across my big brass bed) used to be Wally’s favorite song: they had played it endlessly on their old hi-fi in those early days, so of course Wally had finally had to buy his big brass bed. A long white chaise stood under the window where Rose would read; there was a pretty vanity against the wall where the light fell perfectly onto the mirror; and a smallish bathroom in pale marble with a tub deep enough for soaking, and big enough for two.

Beyond that, down the hall, was the twins’ room, a girly pastel horror of dropped clothing, still-plugged-in curling irons, spilled powder and abandoned tubes of lipstick. The cat they had rescued from the side of the road as a minute kitten that had to be fed by an eyedropper slept on their beds. Now hefty, he was called Baby Noir because of his luxuriant black fur, and he scared the hell out of everybody who came near him, except, of course, Madison, whose beloved he was. There was also Peggy the Pug: beige, flat-black-nosed, soppy and snoring, and Frazer’s best friend.

Roman rarely allowed anyone into his room, which he kept in almost total darkness. He had the whole top floor to himself, accessed by a stairway leading from the kitchen, as well as from an outside flight of, by now, rather rickety wooden stairs, something Rose had always had her doubts about, especially with a teenager. When he was younger she had locked that door and pocketed the key. Now Roman was eighteen and objected to “being locked in.” His father had come out on his side and the key had been handed over, though not without misgivings on Rose’s part.

“What if he escapes at night, runs off in the dark, partying, drinking … doing lord knows what?” she’d asked Wally. But her husband had laughed her fears off with the same old same teenager get-out card.

“Look at him,” he told Rose. “He’s a quiet, well-behaved, responsible young man. He works hard, gets good grades, he’s on course for a scholarship to a good college, let him have his fun.”

It was Wally’s opinion that his son was far too quiet and could use a bit more “fun,” and should get out alone more. He stayed home too much, hung around the house, always on his phone or his tablet, always somewhere else in his head.

“That’s teens for you,” Wally emphasized to Rose. But Rose wasn’t buying in to that cliché and she worried. She wished he was more like the twins, outgoing, lovable, touchable, hugs and kisses all round. As well as “teens” she guessed “boys would be boys.” In fact all the clichés seemed to suit her son. Right now, that is.

A big house, then, though never grand. A true family house, filled with friends and people of all kinds. This was the Osborne house. Charming, calm, friendly. Until that night. When everything would change.

3

Somewhere in France

Mallory Malone, now Harry’s ex-fiancée, had thrown it all in. She’d given up her successful career as “The TV Detective”; famous for pursuing forgotten murder cases, reenacting them on her show, jogging old memories, old resentments, old feuds, and often coming up with the truth—and sometimes the killer. Beautiful, blond, cooler than any cucumber on camera, she had been a toughie to be reckoned with. Not anymore.

Now, she sat alone at a café table somewhere in France, sipping a too-expensive café crème, staring into the small cup as though the remnants of froth could foretell her future. Which of course, since she herself had no idea what her future held, was a ridiculous notion. When you simply threw away your entire life in one fell swoop—your job, your man, your heart—what was left? Paris, she had supposed.

This time, though, Paris had let her down. On that first day, alone in a tiny room in a small inexpensive Left Bank hotel, she’d leaned out her window on the rue de l’ Université, listening to small children in the school across the street singing what sounded like nursery rhymes, though since they were in French, and her grasp of French was minimal, Mal could not be sure. It only added to her despair. She was not sure of anything anymore. No job. No fiancé. Certainly no children.

After a couple of days, unable to bear being a woman alone in beautiful Paris any longer, she’d gathered up her stuff, pushed it into her single suitcase, paid her bill, collected her rental car—a dusty white Fiat Uno almost too small to fit both her and the suitcase inside, and which, naturally, since she had parked on the wrong side of the street, already had a ticket tucked under the windscreen wiper. The way things were going it was par for the course.

She tore up the ticket and scattered the remnants in the Left Bank gutter. They gave her tickets, she gave them litter. About to open the car door, she stopped in her tracks and looked aghast at what she had just done. She, Mal Malone, upholder of all that was good, destroyer of all that was bad, really bad, like thieves and pedophiles and killers, had become a litter-lout. Her head drooped. Her whole body drooped. She crouched and picked up every scrap then searched for a trash can. Nothing. Where did Parisians put their trash anyway? In their handbags, she supposed, which is exactly what she did now.

She got in the driver’s seat and checked how she looked in the rearview mirror, running a hand through her shoulder-length dark blond hair before tying it back with a scrunchie. She wore no makeup. You couldn’t hide crying eyes with shadow and mascara. It didn’t work. That was okay, nobody was looking at her anyhow, and she had been scrutinized so long on her TV show she felt anonymous without the war paint.

She looked at the dashboard, checking where all the familiar things should be but in this French car were not. She pressed a button. The windscreen wipers swished noisily in front of her. Another button. Hot air swirled around her. Accidentally she touched the horn, jumping at its sudden loud bleep, waving apologetically at the man sitting in the car in front of her, who gave her a glare that she guessed said “dumb foreigner,” which, right at this moment, she was.

Her heart sank. Right at this moment she also missed Harry Jordan more than he or any man had a right to be missed. He had left her alone one too many times, not called until it was too late; not shown for dinner. His work came first, though she had been the one to voluntarily give up hers so they could be together without clashing schedules. Hers and his. Now, though, there was only his and his was all-consuming. Mal had thought they had a future; it had suddenly become clear they had not. Not, at least, the kind of future she wanted: the cozy couple spending their time together, vacations, a house, normal stuff like every woman wanted. At least she guessed they did, and every woman she knew but her had gotten it.

Mal wondered if it was her fault, after all she had a complicated past, a rough childhood with no money and a pot-smoking single mother constantly running from the law and unpaid rent, snatching Mary Mallory, as she was called then, out of schools where she had only just begun to try to fit in. “Fit in” was not meant to be in her and her mother’s future. Her mother was “complicated”: sweet and kind and loving one day, withdrawn and silent the next.

Mal was away at college. Her mom was living in a trailer in Oregon, on a big wide beach where the waves rolled, in mounting glassy green fury, spurred on by thousands of miles of wind all the way from Japan. She had come “home” for Thanksgiving, only to see her mom standing on the shore, arms raised as though daring those lethal, energy-filled waves to come and take her. Mal had cried out to warn her. She ran down the slope of the cliff to get to her, stood horrified as her mother was lifted into that wave. She saw her curled aloft on it as it peaked, and then it slammed back onto the shore. Her mother’s body was never found, and a new Mary Mallory Malone had been forced to emerge.