Slightly Abridged (17 page)
Authors: Ellen Pall
“Did you know Ada Caffrey yourself?” Juliet interrupted rudely, before Caroline could go off on another tear. “I'm sorry, I was just curious,” she added, trying to soften her words.
“Oh yes, Ada.” Apparently unoffended, Caroline drank the last of the beer in her glass. “Yes, I did. I liked Ada. She was bats, but she had a lot of pluck. I knew her from AdirondActorsânot that I act, but I get props for them sometimes. It's easy for me on account of my novelty company. My dad knew Ada's folks. When he was a kid, he used to go over to Case's orchard and pick apples every fall. All the kids did. They'd earn like two cents a bushel or something. Of course, that was in the Depression. Ada was young herself, then.”
Caroline smiled. “You know about her and her brother-in-law, I guess?” she went on.
Juliet said no.
“Oh, you're a writer; you ought to hear this story. It was a big scandal; you could definitely put it in a book.”
From the corner of her eye, Juliet saw Murray straighten, his antennae going up.
“See, Ada's first husband, Mack Someone, he was killed in World War Two. After a while, she got married again to this guy Oliver Lloyd, who used to have a coffee shop in town named Lloyd's. Original, huh?”
Caroline paused to smile and asked whether Juliet wanted more cocoa or Murray another beer.
“Maybe later,” Murray answered. “You were sayingâ?”
“Oh, yeah. So she marries Mr. Lloyd, and they're together five or six years, no kids luckily, when all of a sudden she runs off with Gerry Fowler, her sister Florence's husband. I was like five or six at the time, but I still remember the hoo-ha, because their daughter was in my class. Gerry Fowler was the pastor of Mount Calvary United Methodist Church in Espyville! You can imagine the uproar. Of course, none of the grown-ups told us kids what was going on then, but Ada and Pastor Fowler went to Boston, got on a ship, and sailed to Italy together. They were gone a month or two, maybe. Then they came back and moved into Ada's houseâher folks had died by thenâand Oliver moved out. They lived there for a few months more, shunned by everyone in town, naturally, and then Ada kicked Pastor Fowler outâwell, he wasn't âPastor' anyone by then, but Mr. Fowlerâand he slunk off to live in Syracuse, I think it was, the rest of his life. Mrs. Fowler became a cafeteria lady to support herself and Claudia. She wouldn't have him back. And she never remarried.”
“Claudia was the daughter?” Juliet asked, looking meaningfully at Murray. She could see from his eyes he had already realized perfectly well who Claudia was these days. No wonder there was no love lost between her and her late Aunt Ada. And how like Ada to leave nothing to her niece, even though Claudia had done nothing wrongâindeed, had suffered greatly because of her aunt's perfidy.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Caroline was going on. “Claudia Lunceford, she is now. She married Steve Lunceford. He's everybody's orthodontist around here.”
Caroline stood up to put another small tree on the fire, then looked at her watch. “Wow, I'd better get dinner going. Hey, you guys want to eat with me? On the house, I mean. I made some vegetable soup yesterday, and I was just going to cook up some macaroni and cheese, so it wouldn't be fancy, butâ”
Juliet silently consulted Murray, who made a totally-up-to-you face.
“Sure,” she said. What were the odds they would find another such source of gossip in Gloversville tonight? “Thank you.”
They trailed Caroline through the swinging door into the kitchen, a roomy, cluttered, cheerful place, but a cold one after the warmth of the fire. Caroline busied herself with the soup and pasta; Juliet grated cheese; and Murray made a salad.
Half an hour later, while the soup simmered and the mac-and-cheese heated up in the oven, Caroline gave them a tour of the rest of her place. On the second floor were a sitting room, a library, and a full-fledged ballroom. She had turned the sitting room into a bedroom for herself, covering the bed with plum-colored velvet and the walls with quilts and woven hangings. But when she opened the doors into the ballroom and the library, they found them still as they had been when she bought the place: unheated and shadowy and, to Juliet's sensitive nose, redolent of wildlife.
A wooden staircase zigzagged up from this floor to the next, where, indeed, only one bedroom proved habitable. It was large and cold and featured its own adjoining bath. Caroline had given in to an impulse to furbish it in frilly chintz, with blue café curtains on the windows and a pile of throw pillows on each narrow white bed.
Even now, nothing had been said by either Juliet or Murray as to where he would stay that night. But to Juliet, the accumulating silence had begun to take on a texture, a weight of meaning, that was both profoundly appealing and a little scary. Like wine laid down in a cool cellar, the attraction she had felt toward Landis years ago in college seemed to have deepened, grown more complex on its own. Of course, she realized later, it was she and Landis who had grown more complex.
“Very pretty.”
His voice, close to her ear, startled her. She spun around,
breaking a blank contemplation of the chilly bathroom. The remark, she sawâa compliment about the decor of the bedroomâhad been addressed to Caroline.
breaking a blank contemplation of the chilly bathroom. The remark, she sawâa compliment about the decor of the bedroomâhad been addressed to Caroline.
“Thanks. I know it's kind of girly and cute, butâlisten, you two, you're really welcome to my bedâ”
Juliet stopped her. “This will be fine.”
Murray was now in her peripheral vision, enigmatic and male. She kept her eyes fastened on Caroline. There was always the Holiday Inn.
“That soup will boil over if we don't get back downstairs soon,” Juliet said.
The innkeeper led the way back down the stairs, explaining as they went that there was a fourth story taken up with tiny servant's rooms and a large attic she seldom had the courage to go into. “Bats,” she confided. “Can't get rid of them. I just keep the whole floor sealed off.”
They clattered down, the warmth of the fire and the furnace rising to meet them. Caroline went through the archway, then past the swinging door into the kitchen.
Juliet, aware of Murray behind her, suddenly felt his hand catch at her arm.
She stopped and turned. He was right there, an inch or two from her, his body almost touching hers. She felt his breath warm on her temple. Without speaking, he slid an arm around her back, his fingers skimming her ribs, then briefly touched his lips to the top of her left cheekbone.
Then he slipped by her and went ahead into the kitchen.
Juliet stood still for a moment, trying to understand what had just happened. But the event seemed to fuzz over at once, losing definition. The kiss could have been a gesture of friendly support at the end of a long day. It could have been the result of a sudden impulse. Or, equally, it could have been desire felt and resisted for
months. Soon, she was asking herself if it had happened at all.
months. Soon, she was asking herself if it had happened at all.
Rousing herself, she followed him into the kitchen. Caroline was opening the oven, talking about the Giddys.
“I know Cindy three ways,” she was saying as, hands encased in oven mitts, she lifted the heavy casserole dish from the oven. “My niece, Brittany, went to school with her. And I know her parents. And Cindy worked for me one summer at Walsh Novelties.”
She set the casserole down for a moment on the tiled counter, then hefted it again and brought it through the swinging door to the table. Murray followed her, carrying plates and silverware, and set the table. Juliet, scrutinizing his unreadable back, picked up the salad bowl and trailed behind. The dining room table was washed in heavy, uninviting shadows. She wished they could eat on the couches by the fire.
They sat down. Caroline served, like a mom.
“I hired her because I felt sorry for her,” she was going on, as she scooped and doled. “I went to high school with her folks. Joe Lang is a drunk, and I really believe Elaine is certifiably psychotic. If she wasn't when we were kids together, she must be after thirty years with Joe.
“Anyway, they live in a hovel right off Route 81. Six kids, and neither Joe nor Elaine could ever keep a job. Brittany brought Cindy over to my place once or twice, when they were maybe fifteen, andâwell, she was so pretty and young, I felt sorry for her. Just a few things she said about life at home, you know, how chaotic it was, and especially about the kids not having enough money for clothes, shoes. Even food, sometimes.”
“Poor girl,” said Juliet, with a flicker of empathy.
“Well, don't get carried away with pity,” Caroline warned. “I learned that lesson the summer I hired her. That girl embezzled from me, can you imagine? As low-level as the job was, she didn't get more than a couple of hundred dollars. But still!”
Sympathetic murmurs from the guests.
“And don't imagine she was taking it home to buy milk and bread for her little sisters and brothers. She turned up that fall in a leather coat with rabbit fur trim. She was just a kid, a high school sophomore. I really never expected her to be so”âCaroline searched for the wordâ“so grasping,” she finished, and Juliet saw in her bafflement the Peace-flashing flower child she had once been.
“Did you turn her in?”
“To the law?” asked Caroline, who had been told only that Murray Landis was a sculptor. “No. Not my style. I just read her the riot act and showed her the door. Although maybe I should have reported it, because the next summer was when she took Jenny Elwell's eye out at a party. That's her main claim to fame around here.”
“What?”
“Well, that and marrying Tom Giddy. And that is a claim. Tom could have married just about anybody he wanted. Have you met him?”
“Actually, he just rescued us,” Juliet said, explaining.
“Yeah, that's Tom. Volunteer fireman, Boy Scout, good-looking as hell, I think, and, incidentally, a damned fine mechanic. As the owner of a 1986 Saab, I can attest to that.”
Regaining her good humor, Caroline grinned her radiant grin. Juliet wondered briefly what the equivalent of a volunteer fireman was in 1813.
“So he married Cindy Lang, of all people. He's a few years older, of course. Probably thought he was saving her from herself.”
“And the eyeâ?” Juliet prompted.
“Oh, right.” Caroline raised a forkful of macaroni to her mouth. “That happened because of a fight over a drug buy that went bad,” she went on. “From what my niece told me, Cindy had become a bit of an entrepreneur by then. She is ambitious, I'll give her that. She'd given money to Jimmy Giaconelli or Mike Drelles or someone in that crowdâtough boysâto go to Albany and buy a kilo of grass. Don't ask me where she got the capital, stole it from someone, probably.
The boy bought the key, but he thought he was entitled to keep half on account of he went out and scored it. I'm sorry to say Brittany knew all this because that's the crowd she was into then, too,” Brittany's Aunt Caroline noted.
The boy bought the key, but he thought he was entitled to keep half on account of he went out and scored it. I'm sorry to say Brittany knew all this because that's the crowd she was into then, too,” Brittany's Aunt Caroline noted.
“So anyway, they're at a party at Jenny Elwell's houseâno parents around, that's the Elwells for youâand Cindy's arguing with Mike. Or no, come to think of it, it was Jimmy, because Jenny was Jimmy's girlfriend. So they're arguing, and suddenly, Jenny literally puts herself in the middle of it. She jumps Cindyâeveryone there agreed on that aspect of events; Jenny started the fightâand they begin pounding at each other. And the next thing you know, Cindy's managed to get hold of a cake knife. The next second, Jenny Elwell's permanently lost the vision in her left eye.”
Caroline speared a slice of cucumber with her fork, then looked up from her plate to ask if she could get either of them anything else.
Wondering where they'd landed, Juliet shook her head. Adolescent murderers, suicides, drug dealers, embezzlers, brawlersâit all sounded far more sinister than Manhattan. Between that and the bats on the fourth floor, she felt rather nervous about going to sleep alone upstairs (if she was going to sleep alone, a question she immediately shoved aside). That was the trouble with living in a doorman building: you got used to the idea of someone watching out for you all night.
Murray was asking if there had been a trial.
“Oh, sure. But none of the kids would admit to the drugs angle. Jenny and Cindy both testified it was jealousy over a boyfriend. And since Jenny started the fight, and since Cindy was a minor, she wound up with just probation.”
Juliet tried to figure out how long ago this must have happened. Cindy looked to be twenty-eight or -nine, so maybe a dozen years back? A person could change a lot in a dozen years, she supposed. From the spruce look of their house, Tom made a decent
living. But from the moment she had laid eyes on Mrs. Giddy, the lady had jumped to front-runner on Juliet's local murder suspect list. Would “decent” be enough of a living for Cindy Lang?
living. But from the moment she had laid eyes on Mrs. Giddy, the lady had jumped to front-runner on Juliet's local murder suspect list. Would “decent” be enough of a living for Cindy Lang?
Hoping to get Caroline talking about Ada again, she opened her mouth to ask if the AdirondActors were any good. Unfortunately, Caroline opened her mouth at the same moment.
“You first,” said Juliet politely.
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