Dying to Remember

by Karin Kaufman

“Bite your tongue.” She kicked off her shoes and headed straight for my living room. “It’s not just your birthday, by the way, it’s our goofy TV movie night. Laurence left for Afghanistan this morning.”

  “What?”

  “I’m exaggerating. He’s off to Hungary. He won’t be back for a week, and the kids aren’t even in town. Whatcha say?”

  “I’ll get the plates. Give me your jacket and I’ll put it in the kitchen.”

  “You need a mudroom where your foyer is. And one of those big, open closets with lots of hooks in them.”

  “Got ten thousand dollars?” I called back to her.

  A few minutes later we were on my couch, eating pizza and watching the sappiest movie I’d seen in a long time. Half an hour into it, I switched off the TV and asked Emily if we could talk about Ray and the six-year-old murder of Alana Williams. She shared my love of thrillers and murder mysteries, so she didn’t need convincing.

  “I remember that,” she said, pushing a strand of her short, copper-colored hair behind one ear. “The police were useless. A load of Barney Fifes. They never arrested anyone and never even had a serious suspect. Her killer could be running around Smithwell right now, free as a bird. Probably is. Is Ray having nightmares about her body?”

  “No, he had a strange conversation in the supermarket yesterday.” I recounted my talk with Ray, making sure Emily understood how troubled he had been by his encounter in Hannaford’s. “I haven’t heard him talk about Alana Williams in almost six years,” I said. “He stopped talking about her soon after he found her body. I know it’s haunted him, finding her like that, but he’d put it behind him.”

  “Until this conversation, you mean.”

  “I’m having coffee with him tomorrow morning, so I’ll see if he remembers anything more about the conversation.”

  “It’s kinda weird,” Emily said, working her mouth around a substantial bite of pizza. “I mean . . .” She held up a finger as she finished chewing. “Why would the town manager and the lead detective on the case be talking about Alana Williams after all this time? And in the canned soup aisle?”

  “That’s what Ray wondered.”

  “It could be a coincidence. Alana was killed in October, and maybe one of the two happened to see or hear something that sparked a memory, then met the other one and raised the subject.”

  “Then why was Detective Rancourt jumpy when he saw Ray? And why did he lie? Ray was positive he was lying.”

  “What exactly was he lying about?”

  “Ray didn’t say, but it was something about the case.”

  “It’s a crazy thing to lie about. Everyone in town knows about that murder.”

  “I’m sure the police know much more than they ever told the public.”

  “So the detective remembers things differently—so what? It’s been years.” About to reach for another slice of pizza, Emily stopped, her hand hovering over the box. “I hear sirens.” She decided against the pizza, brushing the crumbs from her hand and declaring she was ready for cake. “The cops are probably after some unsuspecting driver going five miles over the speed limit on his way home from work. Either that or someone with out-of-state plates. I guess they need more money in the town’s coffers. Where’s the cake knife?”

  “Next to the pizza box,” I said, handing her two small plates from the coffee table. As she cut the cake, my thoughts ping-ponged from Ray to chocolate and back again. “I’ll take a piece to Ray tomorrow. He’s got a thing for chocolate too.”

  “Smart man.”

  “Did you bake this?”

  “Do I look like Martha Stewart? It’s from Donahue’s. They call it Bittersweet Decadence. The name alone sold me. I was torn between this and a German chocolate cake called ‘German Chocolate Cake.’ Needless to say, I chose ‘Decadence.’ Here you go.”

  “You made an excellent choice.” Plate and fork in hand, I flopped back in my seat. “What if Conner Welch had something to do with Alana’s murder? It’s possible, isn’t it? Or maybe Detective Rancourt was involved somehow. Maybe they were discussing how one of them got away with it and Ray overheard them, but he’s not sure he heard them right.”

  “This is really bothering you.”

  “It was really bothering Ray. You know how even-keeled he is, or at least how even-keeled he tries to look.”

  Emily nodded. “Cool and calm as a cucumber. A man of the world.”

  “An all-around sensible man, not given to worry. But he was worried over this.” The more I considered what Ray had told me, the odder it seemed. I didn’t believe in coincidences. Those two men, a town manager and a detective, might have accidentally run into each other in the soup aisle, but they wouldn’t have accidentally stumbled onto the subject of Alana. And Rancourt’s reaction to Ray’s memory of the case wasn’t normal. But what had Ray’s recollection of the case been and how had it differed from that of Rancourt? “We should go to the library tomorrow afternoon and look up some old articles from the Smithwell News. Better yet, we can access them on the internet.”

  “We’re talking six-year-old papers.”

  “The library scans them. You have to pay a fee, but it’s no big deal.” I dug my fork into my cake. “I needed chocolate today. Thanks, Emily.”

  “Happy birthday to you.”

  I had just eaten my first bite of delicious decadence when the doorbell rang.

  “Don’t suppose you want to get that?” I said, reluctantly abandoning my plate and heading for the door. Through the glass panel, in the bright light at my front door, I saw a Smithwell police officer. Freckle-faced and far too young to inspire confidence. The shoulders of his uniform were soaking wet, though his cap looked snug and dry under a clear plastic rain cover. In my twenty years in Smithwell, never once had a police officer shown up at my door. In fact, except for the rare occasions when I spotted a patrol car on the road, I never saw them at all. This officer’s appearance did not bode well. With mounting trepidation, I opened the door.

  “Ma’am,” he said with a nod. “I’m Officer David Bouchard, Smithwell Police.” He glanced at the little notebook in his hand. “Is it Mrs. Brewer?”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” My heart began to race.

  “I’d like to talk to you about your neighbor, Ray Landry.”

  I stood back from the door to let him inside. “What about Ray?”

  He stepped into the foyer, glancing hesitantly at his shoes. “I’ll stay here. Don’t want to ruin your floors.”

  “What is it? What about Ray?”

  “I’m sorry to inform you that we found him dead inside his home, about fifteen minutes ago.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Ray is dead?” Surely the officer meant someone else. “Ray Landry, four houses down?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’re talking to his neighbors as a matter of course. When was the last time you spoke to him?”

  “Hold on a minute.” Bouchard was moving too fast. How could Ray be dead? “Where are the police cars?” I craned my neck for a better look at the road. “I don’t see any.”

  “We’re parked in front of his house. It’s hard to see from here.”

  “Ray lives alone. Did he call you? Did something happen?”

  “When was the last time you talked to him?” Bouchard asked.

  At the sound of footsteps behind me, I turned to see Emily coming to a stop where the foyer met the living room. Judging by the expression on her face, she’d heard what Bouchard had said and was having as much trouble as I was taking it in.

  “Um . . .” Needing to sit, I pulled the door shut, walked past Emily, and sank to the arm of my couch. Not Ray. Please not Ray. Let him be wrong. When I invited the officer to join me in the living room, he declined, pointing at his muddy shoes.

  “I’m fine here, ma’am. I can hear you standing right here.”

  “I saw him about two hours ago,” I said. “I was in my front yard, planting a rhododendron, and he was taking a wal
k.”

  “Are you sure you’re talking about the Ray Landry on Birch?” Emily said. She spun back to me, disbelief in her eyes, then joined me in the living room, perching herself on the edge of the coffee table.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What happened to him, and why did you go to his house?”

  “He called 911,” Bouchard said. “It was a hang-up call, but we investigate those.”

  Emily swallowed hard. “How did he die?”

  “You are?”

  “Emily MacKenzie from next door. To your left as you go outside. My husband is out of town, so there’s no one there.”

  “Right now I can’t tell you how he died,” the officer said. “Tomorrow or the next day the coroner’s office will—”

  “Now hold on,” I said, bounding from the couch. “He’s my neighbor, and if someone killed him, we need to—”

  “Killed him?” Bouchard was incredulous. “This is just a routine call on his neighbors. Did he complain of chest pain, did he complain of food poisoning—that kind of thing. It looks like he had a heart attack—and you did not hear that from me.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said.

  “He was eighty-two, wasn’t he?”

  “Eighty-one,” I replied, wondering what Ray’s age had to do with it. But to be fair, the officer didn’t know what I knew: Ray was healthy as a horse. A strong heart, a sharp mind.

  “So either way, he wasn’t young.” Bouchard nodded sagely. No doubt he’d been taught that question-quelling nod at the police academy.

  “He was healthy,” I said. “He worked in his garden all the time.”

  “Are you saying he wasn’t attacked?” Emily asked.

  “There was no sign of an attack or struggle or anything of that nature,” Bouchard said. “It looks like he died peacefully, eating soup. And I did not tell you that.”

  “Eating soup?” I said.

  “At his kitchen table, yep,” the officer replied. “It’s possible he had a heart attack—and that’s all I can tell you.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You said he called 911 but hung up?”

  “It happens all the time.”

  “Not to people I know it doesn’t.”

  “He was eighty-one, Mrs. Brewer.” He raised his cap and gave his short brown hair a ruffle. “That’s about it. I’m sorry, and thank you for your time.”

  “Wait a second. Is that all you’re going to ask me? Is that all you’re asking other people?”

  “If you can think of anything else, let me know.” He dug into his uniform and produced a card. “Here’s my number. Feel free to call, or call the station.”

  I was on the verge of telling Bouchard about the conversation Ray had heard in the supermarket when I thought better of it. One of the last things my friend had said to me was that I was too trusting. And he’d especially cautioned me not to trust anyone I didn’t really know. Well, I didn’t know Bouchard from Adam. “Officer Bouchard, I just told you Ray was healthy.”

  He gave me a saccharine smile. I was about to be told how foolish I was. “The coroner can make that determination. One thing I will tell you—and you didn’t hear this from me either—is that he was eating mushroom soup, and it looks like the mushrooms weren’t from the Hannaford, if you catch my drift. You get it, right? Bad mushrooms and a man of his age are not compatible.”

  I glared at him. “Ray foraged for mushrooms all the time, along with a lot of other things. Maine is carpeted with edible wild mushrooms, and he was an expert at them. He taught me and my husband to forage in the woods across the street.”

  Bouchard’s eyes narrowed, and for a brief moment I thought I’d gotten through to him.

  I hadn’t. In the officer’s judgment, Ray was old, his ticker had ticked its last, and that was that.

  “Well, Mrs. Brewer, my guess is his heart gave out and he just happened to be eating soup at that moment. I’ve seen heart attacks before, and that’s what it looked like to me. At his age, it’s to be expected. To be blunt, we’re just going door to door to let his neighbors know what happened since we had the sirens going. But let me know if you think of anything else,” he said, tipping his hat as he moved for the door. “And again, my condolences.”

  I stopped myself—just barely—from saying something rude before I shut the door.

  Emily walked up to me, hugged me, and then stepped back. “I can’t believe it. I saw Ray yesterday. It’s like you said—he’s healthy as a horse. How could this happen?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. All that officer talked about was Ray’s age and how the mushrooms weren’t store-bought.”

  We returned to my living room and slumped into the couch, trying to take it all in. Ray was gone. That sweet man who had taught me and Michael to forage for wild blueberries and wild leeks in the woods. Who had taught me most of what I now knew about gardening. He had not picked bad mushrooms. Simple fact.

  Emily took a shuddering breath. “We don’t like coincidences, do we?”

  “Ray overhears talk about Alana Williamson’s murder, he’s concerned enough to mention it to me, and two hours later he’s dead? No, we don’t like coincidences.”

  “I couldn’t help notice you didn’t tell that officer what Ray heard in the supermarket.”

  “I was going to, but Ray told me not to trust anyone.”

  Emily’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

  “You I can trust, of course, but he said not to trust anyone I don’t know. Unfortunately, that leaves six thousand people, just about the entire population of Smithwell, not to trust.” I sighed and brushed my bangs from my eyes. “And now that I’ve told you about what Ray heard, you shouldn’t repeat it to anyone you don’t know. As a matter of fact, don’t repeat it, period.”

  “Kate, do you realize that the person who killed Alana six years ago may have killed Ray?”

  “I wonder if his next-door neighbors saw a visitor at his house this evening.”

  “The way this street bends, it’s hard to see your neighbors unless you’re way out on your front lawn.”

  “True.” Incapable of sitting still, I began to pace my living room, taking only five strides in each direction before I encountered furniture and had to spin about and pace the other way. “That officer wanted to brush his hands of Ray’s death. Emily, I don’t think they’re going to investigate. What do I do? I wish you could have seen Ray. When he told me not to trust anyone, he meant it. I don’t dare tell the police about our conversation. Just before he left, he said we both read thrillers so we could put our heads together and come up with something.”

  “An answer to Alana’s murder?”

  “That must be it. Because then he said he had some thinking to do about the past.” I stopped and spread my hands. “If only he’d said more to me.”

  Emily got up from the couch and started doing a little pacing of her own. “Okay, hang on a minute. We’re two jumps ahead of ourselves. If Ray died of a heart attack, an autopsy will tell us that, and if he was murdered, we’ll find that out too. Right? Bouchard said the coroner would make a determination in a day or two. Until then”—she stopped dead in her tracks and swiveled to face me, her blue eyes narrowing—“we say zip. Nada.” With her thumb and forefinger she made a key-locking motion across her lips.

  “Agreed.”

  The tragedy of Ray’s death was beginning to sink in—for both of us, I think. Although we remained standing, we both stopped talking, and we stood there, limp-armed and slouching. It was as though the air had been let out of our figurative tires.

  “Are you as tired as I am?” Emily asked.

  “At least. I can’t believe what just happened. Let’s call it a night.”

  “Breakfast here tomorrow morning? I’ll bring chocolate croissants.” She gazed down at the coffee table. “I’m leaving you with a mess.”

  “Hardly. Anyway, cleaning up will take my mind off things for a few minutes.”

  “I’m sorry for your lousy b
irthday.”

  “The cake wasn’t lousy. Tomorrow I’ll wrap a couple pieces for you.”

  Emily got her jacket from the kitchen and I walked her to the door, watching her as she headed for her house. For an instant it crossed my mind that she might be in danger, but I dismissed the thought. No one knew Ray had spoken to me about his Hannaford encounter, let alone that I’d talked to Emily.

  She made her way across my lawn and then along the flagstone path that Michael had laid between the two houses more than a decade ago. Though we were technically next-door neighbors, our homes were half an acre apart, and the path made up for the lack of sidewalks. Michael and Laurence, Emily’s husband, had taken turns shoveling snow from the path in the winter. Now it was Laurence’s job. When he wasn’t in Hungary or Afghanistan.

  I shut and locked my door, marched to my kitchen, and then checked the deadbolt on my back door. There was nothing wrong with an abundance of caution. When I turned back, I was confronted by the sight of the terracotta pots and the dirty trowel. And Ray’s memoirs. His life tapped out on his old electric typewriter and held together by a binder clip. I’d momentarily forgotten about his precious bundle of papers.

  Feeling too upset to go to sleep, and wanting to delve into Ray’s memoirs, I decided to make a cup of herbal tea and take it and the memoirs to bed for a long read. I flicked on the stove, got the kettle going, and sat down at the table.

  “All Officer Bouchard can see is your age, Ray,” I said aloud. The police weren’t going to look at anything else. Ray was in his eighties, so of course he’d had a heart attack. His had been a “natural” death, as if death was at all natural. My only hope was that the coroner wasn’t the fool Bouchard apparently was.

  Propping my elbows on the table, I let my chin sink into my hands and stared at the title page of Ray’s memoirs. It read, quite simply, “My Life.” A flood of love and grief for my friend welled up inside of me, and for a moment, I let the tears fall. Then I got down to work.

  I flipped the page up over the binder clip and immediately noticed a handwritten note: “Kate, I’ve gone over this in my mind and I think my memory is quite good and potentially useful. Look at chapter 14 on Alana Williams. But I will talk to you about this.”