The Dearly Departed (22 page)

“Not true,” said Fletcher. “I'm beginning to get a feel for it. Especially when I sit on my deck and look out at the lake. There's something quite Thoreauvian about it.”

“Don't you have to get back to New Jersey?” Sunny asked.

“I don't. I'm a free agent. I'm going to relax for a few days—”

“And reflect, no doubt,” said Joey.

“Of course reflect. And mourn. It's a mourning period. I think thirty days is traditional.”

“Thirty days,” Joey repeated. “That sounds like a good idea for you, too, Sunny: a month to regroup and—”

Fletcher interrupted to ask, “Anyone else dying in this heat?”

Joey muttered, “Jesus.”

Fletcher said, “Sorry. Unfortunate choice of words. I meant was there any air-conditioning. I thought New Hampshire would be cooler than Jersey, but whew.”

“Open another window,” said Sunny.

Joey said quietly, “Everything's been checked and double-checked. You can crank it up as high as you'd like.”

Sunny said, “I'll bring down the bedroom fan.”

Fletcher pointed across the room. “Isn't that an air conditioner?”

“Sunny has some reservations about it,” Joey said.

“Then let's go find an air-conditioned restaurant. Is anyone else starved?”

Joey said yes. Sunny said no.

Fletcher said, “The chief here could drive us to my car, and we'd go from there. You and me; his mother is expecting him.”

Joey said, “No she's not.”

“You're contradicting yourself,” said Fletcher.

“You're misinformed: My mother does
not
hold dinner for me on Saturday night. Or ever.”

“You pay her room and board.”

“We'll all go,” said Sunny. “What's open on Saturday night?”

“We could go to Lebanon, to a real restaurant,” said Joey.

“Do they let you leave your jurisdiction?” Fletcher asked.

“Don't you worry about me,” said Joey.

“He moonlights as a paperhanger,” Fletcher told Sunny.

“I didn't know that.”

“Painting, too,” Joey said quietly. “Interiors only. It pays the bills.”

“What bills?” Fletcher asked. He ticked off on his fingers: “You live with your mother. The town pays the rent on your office, leases you a vehicle, buys your uniforms. And correct me if I'm wrong, but policemen don't usually have college loans to pay back, do they?”

Joey crossed the room, sat down next to Fletcher, and said, “Mr. Finn and I will wait while you get dressed, Sunny. Take your time. He can look through my wallet while we're waiting.”

“I'm simply being direct. It's an urban thing. I don't get high marks for tact—”

Joey's bark of laughter cut him off.

Fletcher smiled a patronizing smile. “I'm not insensitive. I just don't like to waste my time, or anyone else's.” He gestured to Sunny. “Like us. I could have waited for the perfect moment to say, ‘I think Miles Finn sired us both,' but who's to say that in the long run that would be a better way to approach a potentially traumatic subject? I put my cards on the table. You seem to be handling it okay.”

“You don't know how I'm handling it!
I
don't even know how I'm handling it. And nothing is confirmed. It's only a theory based on a superficial impression.” Reflexively, she tucked her hair behind her ears. “This weather doesn't help, either,” she grumbled.

“Better run a comb through it before it's too late,” said Fletcher. He turned to Joey. “We're pooling our hair tips. Which reminds me of the idea I had earlier—the kits where you prick your finger or scrape some cells from the inside of your cheek and send them to a lab.”

“Look at her face,” said Joey. “Does she look like she wants to be discussing DNA?”

Fletcher held his hands up as if warding off a blow. “Okay, all right. Sue me. . . . So where do we eat? Can you get decent Chinese up here?”

“Not up to your standards, I'm sure,” said Joey.

“What about sushi?”

“You'll have to go back to New Jersey if that's what you want,” said Joey.

“Hey, I can eat Big Macs and Whoppers very happily,” said Fletcher. “Or I can order groceries on-line. Does UPS deliver up here?”

“Yes. We also have something called a supermarket,” said Sunny.

“And you can always fish in your front yard,” said Joey. “Going back to that subsistence thing we talked about. And the land is pretty fertile—not sandy at all.”

“Sand's good for some crops,” said Sunny. “Leeks, I think. And potatoes.”

“A guy could live on leek-and-potato soup,” said Joey.

“I hope you're planning to compost,” said Sunny.

Joey laughed.

“Compost?” Fletcher repeated. “Is that a verb?”

“It's when you collect your potato peels and your coffee grounds—”

“I know what composting is,” said Fletcher disdainfully. “I just don't see myself doing it.”

“I don't see you doing much of anything in King George,” said Sunny.

He smiled and said, “
You're
here. My baby sister.”

“I'm not your baby sister. I think we've established that I'm older than you are, correct?”

“A technicality,” said Fletcher. “I think you need protecting. Here, even. This”—he gestured around the room. “Who signed off on your sleeping in a house that asphyxiated our parents?”

“The board of health,” said Joey.

“I don't like it,” said Fletcher. “I'd prefer if you didn't sleep here until there's been some serious testing.”

“There were tests galore,” said Joey. “And we put brand-new carbon monoxide detectors in every room.”

“ ‘We'?” said Fletcher.

“The town. King George. The landlord.”

“What do they get for rent for—what is it?—two, three rooms? If you don't mind my asking.”

“I do mind,” said Sunny.

“He asks whatever he feels like asking,” said Joey. “He has no sense of what's off the record.”

Fletcher beamed.

“He was just bragging to me on the way over here about . . . well, let's just say, questionable behavior—never mind that I'm obliged to report illegal acts.”

Still grinning, Fletcher asked, “Did you tell your friend here that you caught the guy who shot you?”

Sunny's eyes widened.

“Would you believe at The Dot?” Joey said. “He was just a kid. I recognized him, and the rest was pretty routine.”

“I was inadvertently dragged into it,” said Fletcher.

“You were there?” Sunny asked.

“I was caught in the figurative crossfire.”

Sunny put her hand over her mouth.

“Don't listen to him,” Joey said. “There was no crossfire. The kid was on the next stool, and I cuffed him, and that was that. The county sheriff took him away to Concord.”

“I meant I could have been a hostage. He was using my father's house as a hideout. Luckily, we hit it off, so I wasn't in any physical danger.” He stood up. “C'mon, Sun. Get some shoes on. I'm starved. I'll regale you with my version on the way.”

Sunny said, “What amazes me is how you could regale anybody about anything the day after your father's funeral.”

Fletcher tried to look gloomy. “You're right. Absolutely. I only meant I was going to supply the details. But then again, I am very resilient.”

“Does that mean shallow?” asked Joey.

“Resilient means the ability to—”

“I know what it means.”

“It was an insult,” said Sunny. She said she'd have to change into real clothes. Please excuse her. “If I don't come down in ten minutes, you two go without me.”

“If you don't come down in ten minutes,” said Joey, “Fletcher will call the rescue squad.” He smiled and touched his shirt. “Me.”

With Sunny upstairs, neither spoke until Fletcher said, “She's really taking all this pretty hard.”

“Most people do.”

“Then again, I never knew her in happier times. Maybe this is the real Sunny.” He shrugged. “Reserved. Cautious. One might even say joyless.”

“Or maybe she doesn't like you,” said Joey.

Fletcher stood, and walked over to the television. There was a framed picture of Sunny as a little girl in a school uniform, front teeth missing, hair springing out of an unsuccessful ponytail. “Cute kid,” he said. “Too bad I missed all those years.”

He perched the picture on his shoulder and managed to reproduce Sunny's uncertain smile. “Pretty close, huh Joey boy? Separated at birth or what?”

Joey said, “Could you lower your voice? She doesn't want to hear any of this right now.”

“I don't get it: Who wouldn't want a ready-made brother? Without me, she's all alone in the world, which is all I'm trying to remedy.”

“She has friends,” said Joey.

“
You?
You're everyone's friend. Every person you pass waves like they have a parking ticket that needs fixing. You're spread very thin. I meant someone she's connected to, like me. A brother, who's in it for the long haul.”

Sunny yelled from upstairs, “Fletcher? Do you think I'm deaf?”

Fletcher yelled back enthusiastically, “I'm showing the chief a school photo that could be of me. I was just saying you're pretty much alone in the world and isn't it nice that I came along—someone who's in it for the long haul.”

“And what did the chief say?” Sunny called.

“Nothing. He's turning colors down here. It must be the heat.”

“No it's not,” said Joey.

“I'll be down in a sec,” said Sunny. “Don't leave.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” boomed Fletcher. “That's precisely what I've been trying to tell you. I want to make amends for not only my father's—”

“Shut up, Finn,” said Joey. “She wasn't talking to you.”

Finally, Fletcher lowered his voice. “I'm not the enemy, pal. I'm her blood relative. I'm not going to date her, for Crissakes. I'd just like an hour alone with her where I'm not made to look the fool.”

“Fine. Ask her. I'm not her social secretary.”

Fletcher walked to the bottom step. “Sunny? Can we have, like, fifteen minutes alone? He could drive us to my car, then we'd have time on the ride to Babylon. The sheriff could even join us for pizza.”

She came downstairs wearing that morning's Bermuda shorts and pink sleeveless blouse. An enameled butterfly—attached to a bobby pin, and obviously Margaret's—nested incongruously in her hair. “What haven't we discussed?” she asked Fletcher.

“Us. The intersection of the Battens and the Finns. I don't think you believe me yet. Maybe you're still in shock, but I think you're being very impassive about the possibility of having a brother. I would think, under the circumstances, you'd welcome me with open arms.”

“Ha,” said Joey.

“You can see her anytime,” Fletcher said. “I'm in town for an indeterminate stay. I think it's only fair that I buy her dinner tonight. You can have her tomorrow night.”

Joey stood and faced her. “What do you say to that—Mr. Finn tonight and me tomorrow?”

“Separate, correct?” she asked. “Pizza with him tonight and dinner with you tomorrow?”

“Sure. Not pizza. Not at The Dot. Not at my mother's.”

She smiled. “Some other spot in Babylon?”

He laughed. “Babylon. It's been a while.”

“If ever,” said Sunny.

 

M
rs. Ouimet asked Dr. Ouimet if he wanted company on his after-dinner walk, generously allowing that her tender big toe would probably slow him down.

“Either way,” he said in the listless voice he'd been employing since Margaret died.

“I know you're upset,” she said, “but you can't bring her back. And you'll find another secretary.”

“Not like Margaret,” he answered.

It was one prayerful reference too many for the doctor's peevish wife. “The irreplaceable Margaret!” she sputtered. “Your little miracle worker—part nurse, part insurance whiz, part actress . . . oh, and I forgot: part surrogate wife. As if I didn't know what was going on.”

He was tying the laces on his running shoes. “What did you say?” he asked from his crouch.

“That paragon! Irreplaceable! Well, now you're back where you started. Poor you. You seem to have forgotten who found that office for you, and decorated it, and who used to sit in that chair and pack your two sandwiches and kept your patients from walking all over you. Your wife! That was my job. You don't think I know you
fired
me and that you preferred her company to mine? I had to make up excuses when every single friend asked, ‘Christine? How come you're not at the office? Did Emil fire you? Ha ha ha.' And I had to smile and say, ‘No. Someone had to be here while we were doing over the kitchen.' Or, ‘I'm a contractor now, didn't you hear? Very creative. Very
fulfilling.
' Or, ‘Emil felt sorry for Margaret, who certainly needed the job more than I did.' ”

Emil stood up. “And now she's dead! Your precious chair is empty. I'll bring it home for you!” His voice rose. “You and your fat ass can sit on it until hell freezes over.”

The rip of insults in his own voice stunned him. Never had such rude words been spoken or even contemplated inside these walls—slurs stolen from the unwashed and uninsured.

He'd never dreamed he could sound so coarse-fibered, so cruel.

Christine's lips parted. Her left hand, with its collection of wedding and anniversary rings, flared across her bosom. Like a cartoon, he thought; like a woman on the verge of an ugly scene.

He felt rational again, and a few notches less despondent. Cleansed. He'd better spit it out while she was flabbergasted, silenced, before she returned the fire.