Death & Decluttering

by Nancy McGovern

  “I’m happy, too,” Joy said. “It’s actually much easier to function with everything in it’s place. Who knew?”

  “Keep it this way, would you? I’d hate to see it slide back,” Joy’s mother said, placing a hand on her daughter’s forearm. “I’d hate to see you slide back.”

  “It’s our fault, too,” Aunt Giulia said. “We should have helped clean up a long time ago.”

  “No,” Joy said quietly. “I’m an adult. It’s my house now, it was my duty to keep it clean and tidy.”

  “Still, one can always ask family for help,” Aunt Giulia said. “That’s the entire point of family.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Joy’s mother considered. “Family can help, but each person makes their own choices in life, and faces their own consequences. If we’d helped her clean up, it would just have gotten messy again because she wouldn’t have valued it. Now she does, so she’ll work harder to keep it this way.”

  “Oh, Mom, you’ve got to stop with all the lectures.” Joy rolled her eyes. “I was just…not ready to clean up. I told you, I’d get around to it eventually. You should thank Aurora. And Matt and Tilly - their little blender experiment was the event that triggered it.”

  “Those two need a sterner hand.” Aunt Giulia smiled. “They’re sweethearts, but they totally run circles around their moms.”

  “Just like our kids did around us.” Joy’s mom laughed. “Need any help?”

  “No, this’ll be quick and easy,” Aunt Giulia said. “I’ll make spaghetti ajo ojo peperoncino. Aurora, this is normally a midnight snack, but we can have it any time.”

  “Oh, this one.” Joy’s mom smiled. “When we visited Naples for New Year’s, everyone used to stay up all night throwing old dishes and furniture out of the window and lighting fireworks. Then sometime around 2am, your grandmother would make this. Just spaghetti dressed in a lot of olive oil with garlic and chile. Peasant food, really. But so tasty and filling.”

  “Don’t forget the crumbled breadcrumbs on top,” Aunt Giulia added.

  “Speaking of midnight adventures,” Aurora said, a little impatient with all this reminiscing, “You never did tell us what you were doing in Chip’s house in the middle of the night.” She leveled a gaze at Joy’s mother and held her eye when she tried to look away.

  Aunt Giulia turned around, open-mouthed, and looked from Aurora to Joy. “You two…you’ve been fighting?”

  “Oh, yes. But nothing serious. Joy’s just been accusing me of murder.” Aurora’s voice was soaked with as much sarcasm as the spaghetti with the olive oil.

  Joy’s lip curled. “I don’t want to discuss this.”

  “No, I’m the only one who has to give answers, apparently,” Aurora said. “Well I’ll trade you an answer for an answer, then. What were you doing that night, Mrs. Russo?”

  “Aurora…” Joy’s mother shifted uneasily and cast a glance at Aunt Giulia. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Oh, but you should,” Aurora said. “Because I suspect I know what you were there for. You were there to read Chip’s book, to see if he had written anything that could implicate your family. Isn’t that right?”

  Joy flushed. “You don’t talk to my mother that way!”

  “She’s right, though.” Joy’s mother sounded resigned. “That’s exactly why I was there.”

  “Well? Did you find anything?” Aurora pressed.

  “From the quick scan I did, no,” Joy’s mother shook her head. “They say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but, I’ll be honest, it’s a pompous, badly written book. I expect nobody will read it. Still, it tells the history of the town, and Chip’s world through his own eyes. I could see he was proud of it.” Joy’s mother gave Aunt Giulia another quick glance, and Aurora caught it. There were layers of meaning in that glance. There was an unspoken understanding in that glance.

  Aurora’s next words were only an educated guess, but she made it nevertheless. “You’re not telling us the whole truth, are you?”

  Joy’s mother only shrugged. Aunt Giulia turned her back to them and focused her attention on the stove again. She tossed the pasta in quick flips, coating it well with oil, garlic and chile. Then, turning off the flame, she plated it and placed it in front of Aurora and Joy.

  “Eat,” she said.

  Aurora refused. “Not till we hear it.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” Joy’s mother gulped.

  “Yes there is,” Aurora pressed. “You can tell me, or I can go to the chief. It’s completely up to you. But, if I do go to the chief, I’ll be telling him everything - and I mean everything - about your family.”

  “No!” Joy exclaimed. She stood up quickly and her chair fell to the floor with a crash. “Mom, please. Don’t let that happen. For Uncle Beppe.”

  Those were the magic words. Almost instantly, the atmosphere in the room changed. The older women grew pale and exchanged glances again. They looked at Aurora, not with maternal concern, but with fear this time.

  “What do you know?” Joy’s mother asked.

  “Never mind what I know. Tell me what you did that night,” Aurora said.

  “It…It was all an accident.” Joy’s mother sighed. “I went to Chip’s house to read a draft of his book. That much is true. I was afraid he’d have badmouthed us all. You know he wasn’t very fond of my James.”

  “Why not, by the way?” Aurora asked. “What was behind that feud? James hated Chip, and vice versa. But why?”

  “It was all because of me,” Joy’s mother said. “You see, I took part in a gardening contest. Chip was an avid gardener, too. When I won, he began spreading rumors that I’d cheated. I was…well, I was quite sensitive, and I cried one day. So Joy’s father got angry and got into it with Chip.”

  “That’s it?” Aurora stared at Joy’s mother. “Something stupid like that was enough to fuel a thirty year feud?”

  “It was hardly a feud - they just never liked each other, that was all.” Joy’s mother shrugged. “Chip was still our family lawyer, though. He was perfectly fine with my father. He’s the one who handled the will, after all.”

  “It’s a Bent River thing,” Joy said. “You won’t understand. These things can just go on forever. Egos and personal grudges.”

  “Well, going back to the night at Chip’s house,” Aurora said. “What happened?”

  Maria paused then sighed. She put her head in her hands. “I didn’t intend to stay longer than ten minutes. I found the book on the computer and scanned through most of it. Then I planned to copy the file from his computer so I could read it further at my leisure back home, but I was never able to. He had a thumb drive inserted into his computer already so I put mine into the slot next to his. But right then I heard a noise in the kitchen. I was nervous enough already and it freaked me out so I decided to just run back home. I grabbed the drive and tried to run out of the house but someone hit me on the head and that was the end of it for me. Next thing I know, I’m in police custody and completely terrified. I didn’t realize until then that, in the dark, I must have grabbed the wrong thumb drive.”

  “Oh, Mom.” Joy shook her head. “What did you do with the drive?”

  “Well, once I realized I had the drive and that it was the wrong one, I panicked. Thankfully, it was before I was searched,” her mother said. “I didn’t know what was on it but clearly, whatever it was, belonged to Chip. So, when Pietro came to see me, I slipped it into his hand. I was hoping he’d get rid of it. I mean, you have to understand, I really was scared that the police would lock me up if they knew I had stolen something.”

  “So where is it now?!” Joy shouted. “How come you never said anything about it? Mom, it’s really important that we see this usb drive.”

  “It’s gone.” Aunt Giulia said with a sigh.

  “What do you mean it’s gone?” Joy looked wildly from her mother to her aunt. “Are you serious?”

  “The accident.” Aurora snapped her fingers. “Whoever tampered with your
oven took it, didn’t they?”

  “That’s right.” Aunt Giulia nodded. “We don’t know who, sadly. All we know is that it happened the night of your party, Joy. Someone had to have snuck into the café then.”

  “Did you look at it?” Joy asked eagerly. “Did you find out what was on it?”

  Aunt Giulia shook her head. “We were scared to, honestly. We were thinking of giving it to your cousin, Brady. But things moved so fast...”

  “Chip's new chapter was on that drive. I just bet it was,” Aurora said.

  “What new chapter?” Joy blinked.

  “Just before he died, Chip was supposed to hand a new chapter he’d written over to his publisher. He never did, though,” Aurora said. “I answered a call at his office from his publisher asking about it.”

  Joy frowned. “Well, Mom’s answered your questions. Now it’s your turn to answer ours. Are you really Trevor Sullivan’s daughter?”

  Giulia & Maria gasped as one.

  “I…if that’s Trevor in the photo I had, then, yes. He’s my father,” Aurora said.

  “And you claim you never knew this?” Joy sneered. “You claim you never knew your own father?”

  Shame filled Aurora but she held her head high. “My mother never talked about him. She never once said his name. When I asked about my father, she only told me that I didn’t need him in my life. I don’t know why.”

  Aunt Giulia and Maria exchanged glances.

  “Well, I think we know why,” Maria said. “Trevor was always a short-tempered, mean kid. He was in high school with me, and…” She swallowed. “I don’t want to speak ill of him but, he was a bully. Out and out.”

  It hurt Aurora’s heart to hear it. Yet she knew, she knew her mother would not have kept her away from her father without a very good reason.

  “Last I heard he was in jail,” Aunt Giulia said. “This was about ten years ago. Apparently he’s been in and out of jail at least a few times over the years. But I don’t know much about it.”

  “But you must have known that already,” Joy snarled at Aurora, still unwilling to let go of her accusations. “You probably met him. He was probably the one to tell you to hurt us!”

  “Nonsense, Joy. Can’t you see the poor girl is hurting?” Aunt Giulia put her arms around Aurora and hugged her tight. “Eat something, child. It’ll make things better.”

  Joy’s anger was easier to bear than this kindness. The last time Aurora had been hugged like this had been three years ago, at her mother’s deathbed. Something about having two strong, comforting arms wrapped around her undid Aurora. Her mother was gone, her father was a no-good jailbird. Aurora felt as though she were all alone in the world and so, more than ever, the little kindness she was receiving felt like a boon. She found herself beginning to sniffle, and then she was crying with no reservations.

  At the sight of her crying, both older women swept into action. Joy sat still, a little baffled, but Aunt Giulia and Maria both petted Aurora and fed her mouthfuls of spaghetti as though she were a toddler. All in all, they made her cry even more with their kindness, and she sort of wished they’d have let her run away instead.

  Joy strode out of the room, grabbing her coat on the way. “I’m not fooled,” she said as she left. “She can cry all the crocodile tears she has in her, but I’m not fooled. I’m going to expose you, Aurora. I’m going to find some way to prove what you did. Wait and see!”

  *****

  Chapter 20

  The Lightning Bolt

  Joy couldn’t believe what had happened. Aurora was clearly a very skilled manipulator. She’d somehow managed to wrap Joy’s mother and aunt around her little finger. But Joy was tougher, and she didn’t believe the “woe is me” act. Aurora had to be the killer. She just had to.

  Nothing else made sense to Joy. Surely, there was some link between Lauren’s death and Chip’s. But what?

  Needing some time to think, Joy decided to drive down to the local watering hole. She parked her car and stepped out, only to see Max Goggins pull in.

  “Joy.” Max smiled at her. “Hey.”

  “Max.” Joy nodded. It was a little awkward between them. After all, his uncle had been murdered and the chief had arrested Joy’s parents for it. There was no easy way to talk about that. So they did what everyone in Bent River always did - they gave each other a polite grimace and pretended everything was fine.

  Joy headed inside and nodded to Cole, who was printing out a bill at the register. The bar was fairly empty. Plus, Joy noted, Uncle Beppe wasn’t around. Usually he would always be slumped over in a corner somewhere, a glass of whiskey in front of him.

  “What’s your poison?” Cole smiled at her from behind the bar.

  Joy felt her heart flutter a bit. In high school, Cole had been the varsity quarterback, and Joy’s perpetual crush. She’d never worked up the nerve to ask him out, but to this day, she hoped she eventually would. He looked like he’d stepped out of a classical Renaissance painting, with his warm skin and tousled hair. As a bonus, he had a warm, approachable, yet no-nonsense personality that made him a favorite with most women in town. Joy suspected that at least a part of the reason Murphy’s did so well with students from the nearby college was Cole’s good looks.

  “Well?” Cole raised an eyebrow and Joy blushed, feeling idiotic.

  “I’ll just have a Coke, thanks,” she said. “I was actually hoping to find Tim here. Think he’ll come in soon?”

  “Sure, he’s usually here around this time.” Cole looked at his watch. He handed her a glass and then leaned on the bar. “How have you been? We’ve been neighbors all these years and yet I feel we never really talk.”

  “Yes, well, unless you include complaints about one of my family members parking in your driveway, that is.” Joy cursed herself. “Sorry, that came out snotty but was an attempt at a joke. I’ve just been busy.”

  “I can imagine. Hard few days for your family, too.” Cole nodded. “Hey, your new housemate is Aurora, right? Well, she was here earlier today for lunch.”

  “Was she?” Joy’s voice iced over. Aurora was the last person she wanted to talk about right now. Especially with Cole.

  “Did she say anything to you?” Cole shot a glance at Max, who had picked a booth in the back. “I mean, I said some stuff to her and I kind of feel bad about it. I hope she doesn’t do anything rash.”

  “Said some stuff to her? What kind of stuff?” Joy was instantly alert.

  “Well…uh…never mind.” Cole looked at Max again. “I don’t want to go around repeating it. I have a big mouth sometimes.”

  “Go on, Cole. You know you can tell me.”

  But Cole shook his head firmly. “No, I think you better ask her yourself if you feel you need to.”

  The door swung open and Tim Heston walked in. Cole straightened up and nodded to him. “What’ll it be, Tim?”

  “The usual. Sam Adams and a hamburger.” Tim took the seat next to Joy and cocked his head. “Imagine seeing you here. This isn’t your usual hangout.”

  “Yeah, well, the café’s a no-go right now.” Joy sighed. “I heard they’ll take at least a month to get it back in shape.”

  “I see.” He adjusted his spectacles, which were forever sliding down his nose, and gave her a closer look. “Something the matter, Joy? The last time I saw you like this was when you had writers block covering the mayoral elections.”

  “I remember that.” Joy smiled. “You helped me figure it out. You told me to write about it as though I were an alien just beamed to earth.”