Lilac Avenue (14 page)

“Man, I couldn’t tell you,” Trick finally said. “Maybe the eye doctor, maybe last month.”

“Had anything changed about her e
yesight?” Scott asked.

Trick finished the bottle and
flung it into the grass near the last one. He reached for his next, and had trouble opening the cooler.

“Why don’t you slow down?
” Scott said. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“I am sick, man,” Trick said, and glanced at Scott, making brief eye contact. “I am one sick son of a bitch.”

“What did you do?” Scott asked. “What did you do to your Aunt Mamie?”

“Nothing,” he said, and opened the next beer. “I didn’t do anything. And I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

“What do you mean, Trick?”

Trick tipped the bottle up and chugged the whole thing. Scott saw what was about to happen a split second before it did. Trick projectile vomited a massive amount of beer across the patio
and into the pool. Then he rolled forward out of his chair into the mess. Scott jumped up and rolled him over onto his back, whereupon Trick pissed himself, a large puddle forming under his vomit-covered body.

“Sandy!” Scott called out.

He turned Trick’s head to the side so he wouldn’t choke. The smell was nauseating. Sandy came out the sliding glass doors from the lower level, and calmly dragged a garden hose out of the shrubbery. Scott watched, aghast, as she blasted Trick with it, and then scoured the patio. Trick came to, sputtering and gagging.

“Dammit, Sandra,” he said. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“I wish I could,” Sandy said, as she reached for the pool skimmer. “I wish to God I could.”

Early Wednesday morning, Claire waited for Ed to catch up so they could walk the last mile. Lucida, the young female of the pair of black labs he kept, the one that ran with Claire, was happily sniffing the bushes, looking for rabbits. When Ed finally arrived, jogging and out of breath, he had Hank, the older black Labrador, running alongside him, his tongue hanging out. They both seemed glad to slow it down to a walk.

“You’re getting better,” Claire said.

“You’re not cutting me any slack,” he said.

Lucida tried to engage Hank in a game of tag, but he ignored her. Hank stayed next to Ed while Lucida ran off in loping loops, disappearing over the hill and reappearing further on, only to double back before disappearing again.

“Your dad was quiet this morning,” Ed said.

“He thinks Doc Machalvie is having an affair with my mother.”

“What?”

“Yes, sir,” Claire said. “His dementia has reached a new level, apparently. He thinks Delia is fooling around with Doc.”

“You want me to talk to him?”

“It won’t help,” Claire said. “Doc already tried. If he won’t believe Doc, he’s not going to believe anybody.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ed said. “What’s Doc say?”

“That he’ll continue to treat him as long as Dad lets him,” Claire said. “But we may have to get a different doctor if it agitates him too much.”

“It’s so sad,” Ed said. “It must be frustrating for your mother.”

“She’s patient with him,” Claire said. “But I know it hurts her feelings. Doc says not to take anything Dad says personally, but you try that; it’s not easy. He bites my head off because he thinks I’m helping Mom cover up her affair with Doc.”

“He’s like a totally different person, isn’t he?” Ed said. “Nothing like the Ian we used to know.”

“Nothing,” Claire said. “As far as I’m concerned, my dad’s already gone. This guy’s just taken his place.”

“It’s a horrible situation,” Ed said. “Do you have enough help?”

“More than enough,” Claire said. “I stayed here to help, but every time I turn around there’s Melissa, doing all the things I’m supposed to be doing.”

“She lived with your parents for a long time,” Ed said. “They helped her raise Tommy from a baby. I think she probably feels the same obligation to help that you do. Plus they didn’t turn their backs on her when she went to prison. She found out who her real friends were when she went away.”

“And I guess Patrick realized how he felt about her,” Claire said. “Does that bother you?”

“At first, maybe,” Ed said. “But I’ve had three years to get used to the idea. We broke up before I even knew the whole story. I didn’t know her real name was Melissa, or that she wasn’t really Tommy’s mother. That was all a surprise to me.”

“Tommy was lucky he had you,” Claire said. “Who knows what would have happened to him?”

“Your parents wanted him,” Ed said. “But his biological grandmother felt they were too old. I was really his second choice.”

“It seems like it’s worked out,” Claire said. “How is it between Tommy and Melissa now that she’s back?”

“It was awkward at first,” Ed said. “But they’re working things out.”

“Have you heard from him? Is he having fun in Florida?”

“I don’t hear from Tommy,” Ed said. “Jane keeps me updated; it sounds like they’re having a blast. Walt Disney World, Harry Potter, Sea World, and then Busch Gardens.”

“I’ve never been to any of those places,” Claire said. “I have, however, been to many of the actual places they copied for those theme parks. I think that counts for something.”

“I went fishing in Canada once with my Dad,” Ed said. “We didn’t take family vacations even when my mom was still here.”

“Do you ever hear from her? Your mom, I mean.”

“She sends a Christmas card,” he said. “She has great-grandchildren now.”

“Does it seem weird to have half siblings you’ve never met?”

“I’ve met two of them,” Ed said. “They came to my dad’s funeral.”

“You were so young when she left,” Claire said. “We were still in grade school, weren’t we?”

“I was nine,” Ed said.

“What a shitty thing to do to a little boy.”

“I guess she was very depressed and unhappy,” Ed said. “At least that’s what she told my dad.”

“Does she ever visit?”

“Heavens, no,” Ed said. “And I don’t want her to.”

“People suck,” Claire said.

“You’re Miss Merry Sunshine today,” Ed said. “Is this just about your dad?”

Claire told him about Denise’s newest offer for the hair salon.

“Open your own salon,” Ed said. “If that’s what you want to do.”

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Claire said. “I feel stuck.”

“I’ve only ever wanted to do what I’m doing,” Ed said. “The problem is the industry is disappearing, or turning into something I can barely recognize as journalism.”

“Do you think you’ll like teaching at Eldridge?”

“I’ll find out come August,” Ed said. “My real fear is that they already know everything and I’ll look like an old-fashioned fool.”

“You can teach them the history, though,” Claire said. “I think they’ll get into it.”

“Let’s hope so,” Ed said. “I am looking forward to using the printing press again.”

While he was at his house on Sunflower Street, checking the mail, Scott received a call from Deputy Frank. The cruiser was downtown at the station, so he took his SUV up to Knox Rodefeffer’s house. Knox was standing on his front porch, and his ex-wife Meredith was in the driveway. Scott could hear them yelling even before he turned up the steep driveway. Several of Knox’s neighbors were standing outside, watching the show.

Meredith was Knox’s second wife, to whom he was still married, although they had been very much separated since the day he locked her in his office safe, and after she escaped, she almost killed him by bashing him over the head with a box full of collectible coins. Meredith had a very dramatic nervous breakdown immediately afterward, and had spent the intervening months in a private facility in Maryland. Scott was surprised to see her back in town. He wasn’t surprised that Knox was so afraid of her that he had called the police to come intervene.

“My mother’s china,” she was screaming. “My father’s pipe collection.”

Scott got out of his SUV and approached her slowly.

“Mrs. Rodefeffer,” Scott said. “Please lower your voice; you are disturbing the peace.”

“It’s Stanhope Huckle,” she yelled at Scott. “Never ever call me by that man’s last name, ever again.”

“Ms. Stanhope Huckle,” Scott said. “If I understand correctly, Knox has some of your belongings in his house that you’d like to recover.”

“They are all in a storage unit,” Knox said. “I told her that.”

“You’re also an inveterate liar,” Meredith yelled. “You probably sold everything so that whore secretary could get bigger boobs.”

“Let me suggest something,” Scott said. “Let’s get the keys from Knox, and go look in the storage unit. If everything’s in there, won’t that solve the problem?”

“Here,” Knox said, and threw a key that landed on the driveway.

“That won’t solve the problem that he married me for my money and then when he found out I didn’t have any he tried to kill me,” Meredith said.

“She’s crazy,” Knox called out. “She’s been in the loony bin for two months. You can’t believe anything she says.”

“Let’s go look in the storage unit,” Scott said. “If afterward, you’d like to make a formal statement down at the police station, I’ll be glad to look into whatever alleged criminal activities you’d like to tell me about.”

Meredith seemed to reconsider her threat.

“Don’t forget about Peyton,” Knox said. “Do you really want to drag our dirty laundry through the courts and in all the newspapers?”

Peyton was Meredith’s son, who was currently out on bail after his arrest on a hit-and-run charge. His court date was coming up, and Meredith was probably thinking any bad publicity would do him more harm than good.

“I will inspect my belongings,” Meredith said to Scott
, and then yelled at Knox, “If there’s so much as one cup chipped, you’ll pay for it!”

“Gladly,” Knox called back. “Anything to never see your ugly old face again.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Meredith told Scott. “Someday, I’m going to get the jump on him when he least expects it, and I’m going to see the terror in his eyes right before I slit his throat.”

“Meredith,” Scott said. “I’m the chief of police in this town. Please don’t make threats like that just because you’re angry. I have to take them seriously.”

“I’m not well,” she said. “The doctors didn’t want me to leave but my son needs me. I just want to get my things and leave this terrible place.”

“I’ll help you,” Scott said. “Just please leave Knox alone.”

Scott radioed Deputy Frank to let him know where he was going and with whom. Although Meredith may have looked like a harmless middle-aged socialite, she had once confessed to killing both her father and husband by poisoning them, and had attempted to bludgeon Knox to death with the aforementioned collectible coin box. High-priced attorneys and Knox’s refusal to press domestic battery charges had saved her from being prosecuted for either. It was only prudent that someone know Scott was alone with her.

The storage unit facility was located north of town, close to the interstate. The whole way there Meredith furiously texted on her phone, so at least Scott was spared the challenge of finding something to talk to her about. When they arrived at the facility, Meredith stayed in the car while Scott spoke to the owner, who gave him directions to the unit.

Scott drove the SUV around to the back row, where he was surprised to see Deidre Delvecchio, the wife of IGA Foodliner owner Matt Delvecchio. She had her van backed up to the unit next to Meredith’s, and was unloading boxes of what looked to Scott like recyclable trash, including bundles of newspapers and plastic two-liter bottles. A well-known hoarder, Deidre seemed embarrassed to be seen doing this, so Scott just greeted her briefly before unlocking Meredith’s unit.

As soon as Meredith surveyed the neatly stacked boxes of her belongings, and the multiple pieces of furniture wrapped in moving pads, her shoulders sagged.

“It will take me days to go through all of this,” she said.

“These boxes are from a moving company,” Scott said, pointing to the name printed on the side. “It looks as if he had it professionally done.”

“I don’t have the strength to deal with this,” she said. “Could you just take me back to the Eldridge Inn?”

As he locked the unit
, Scott glanced into the opening of Deidre’s. The same size space as Meredith’s, approximately thirty feet by fifteen feet, it was stuffed from floor to ceiling with junk. Scott had been in Deidre’s and Matt’s house, so he wasn’t that surprised. Still, it was disheartening to think how ill she must be that this could seem normal.

Instead of texting on the way back to town, Meredith was downright chatty.

“He’ll never marry her,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Scott said. “Whom are we talking about?”

“Knox, of course,” she said. “That secretary probably thinks as soon as he divorces me he’ll marry her, but he won’t. Women like that are fine for recreational sex, and I’m sure he’s fond of her in his own way, but Knox will only marry for money or position, and she’s got neither.”