Never Too Late

by Jo Barney

  “Like he had a plan?”

  The agent sat back. “If he did, I didn’t suspect anything.” He grimaced, looked at me. “I’ve told you what you want to know. Now it’s your turn. When did you find out that Art was taking atenolol?”

  “Never. Art and I never talked about it.” But I did know about it, in a misplaced way. I didn’t want to explain to this person who also has been lying to save his guilty skin. Like I was.

  “You were married to him. How could you not know? My wife hands me my pills with a glass of water every morning.”

  “We didn’t have that kind of marriage.”

  “And his being depressed? You knew?”

  “Art Finlay was born depressed.”

  “Any different or strange behavior before his death?”

  “He left sometimes in the evening, returned hours later, did not explain.”

  “And?”

  I’d shared enough. “I never knew where he went. Like I said, we didn’t have that kind of marriage. Maybe not a marriage at all.” I stood, held out my hand to the insurance salesman, who, on reflex, took it. “I hope I helped you, Mr. Crandall. If you are wondering, I will not protest the policy’s beneficiaries. And I truly don’t know if Art somehow killed himself chemically. It’s very unlikely, given his strong feelings for a young woman. If anyone, he probably wanted to kill me. You have my permission to convey that thought to your superior.”

  Then I tell Lynne what Sergeant Durrell told me about beta blockers, about stopping them, hinting that maybe Art stopped them on purpose, to send me, everyone, a message.

  Lynne frowns. “It might have been a message to you, his wife. But what message would the girl get? No guy in the middle of a relationship, of whatever kind, with a willing young woman would want to die. Besides, Art wasn’t that creative. If he had wanted to die, he would have made you so miserable you really would have killed him.”

  My friend is reading my mind again. Even she can imagine his empty-of-love wife willing him to die.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “How wrong can a person be, Brody? I have suspected that smiling girl of being his daughter. Now Stephen Crandall and Lynne believe she could have been his lover. Maybe I do too.” We are eating breakfast, Brody chomping loudly, me stirring my coffee. When the door opens, I half expect Art to walk in, smelling like his other life. Instead, it is Kathleen, who hands me a bag of cinnamon apple turnovers and pours herself a cup of coffee.

  “Got some time, Mom?” she asks.

  Brody edges in on the bag being emptied and yips for us both.

  Kathleen hesitates as she bites into a warm crust. “Do you know about the insurance policy Art took out?”

  “Yes. I’m interested that you know, too.”

  “I’m now reading Brian’s mail, along with a couple of other undercover activities. Apparently, he may receive $200,000, which is good, I guess. But who is this Latisha person?”

  “Art’s lover.” When I say this out loud, I begin to accept the truth of it, the motivation fueling those late-night walks. Seems logical. A man, old, tired, probably sick, searching for one last reason to be alive, finds it in a lovely, joyful young woman who he knows will weep when he is gone––unlike the shrew he has lived with uncountable years, a woman who cannot find it within herself to even talk to him.

  “Migod, Edith.” No Mom here. Kathleen’s not looking for help. “What do you mean? Art could hardly rouse himself to crawl out of his big chair. Lover?” Then she seems to reconsider what she’s just said. “Oh.” The turnover lies forgotten on her saucer.

  “There were probably reasons.” I don’t tell her what’s going through my mind because it feels too painfully true. Maybe the next time we talk. Instead I repeat what I’ve learned at the insurance office, including the fake telephone number Art used yet one more time, and when I finish, I change the subject.

  I remember to ask, “So what about you?”

  Kathleen shrugs. “Brian’s being good with the kids and, I have to admit, really good with me. He still works late once in a while, and I am tempted to call the office. Usually, he calls me first. Maybe a husband having a secret lover isn’t so bad for the wife.” Then she grins, shakes her head. “Sorry. Secret lovers seem to be the theme of the day.”

  “Yep.” I’m through trying to make sense of men, their vulnerable undersides when it comes to their penises and their unspoken hollow places. I am mostly, right now, glad that a daughter is sitting at the other side of the table and pouring each of us another cup of coffee. “When lovers aren’t secret any more, a lot is explained.”

  “So what is there to do? What would you have done if you knew then what you think you know now about Art and the young woman with black hair?”

  “I might have killed him, just for the pleasure.”

  Even before I knew about Latisha, I suspected that I had murdered him with deadly unlove, and I halt in mid-sentence and change the subject again. “Nothing I can do about it, is there? And you are satisfied with Brian’s conversion to what seems mostly like old times?” We still have a mystery to solve if she’s up to it. And I owe her, big time.

  “I probably won’t kill my husband while he’s on this good-behavior binge, but what was that citrus smell all about? And the late nights? And why don’t I trust him, really, even now? No, I’ve been investigating, like you. I’ve gotten quite good at it, still am, if you count opening envelopes and checking bank accounts daily. I have a few clues of my own. Are you up to a few visits to some places like to those we’ve already snooped in? I need a partner.”

  “Yes!” I need to be distracted from this over-whelming obsession about an unfathomable old man and his possible lover. With Brian, the mystery will be something manageable, all participants still alive, young, something to do with business, male menopause, an itch that needs to be scratched.

  “Good. I’ll come by tomorrow morning, after I take the kids to school.”

  I hope we don’t find out anything terrible. Brian is still my son, and I’m not quite ready to find out that the perfect boy has gone bad.

  Kathleen comes by at ten o’clock, and we go out to coffee to discuss our tactics. We will try to uncover a clue to wherever Brian has been going and to confront him. At least, Kathleen will do the confronting, that not being a mother-in-law’s prerogative. Or a mother’s.

  “So what do you know?”

  “That he sometimes had that strange smell. Other than that, my once-detective followed him to work, to the squash courts, to a bar, to a movie. One time he drove in a iffy neighborhood that my sleuth didn’t follow him into, just waited until Brian’s car emerged and headed home. I fired him when he couldn’t tell me street names, only about the gangs he spotted on dark corners.”

  “Good riddance. Everyone has dark corners. And gangs of worries. He wasn’t being paid to retreat from them. You and I aren’t retreating, are we?”

  “Not sure we’re getting paid either.” Kathleen grins.

  “What about the bar? Could he come up with an address?”

  “In the northeast, Boo’s Soul. Brian and I have never gone there, so that may be the only mystery, except why he keeps coming home smelling like…”

  “Oranges?” Way too many coincidences. I’m remembering again Art’s alcoholic orangey smell on Christmas Eve .

  Kathleen explains. “Once or twice, citrusy, maybe more like weed, lately.”

  “Weed, like home-on-a-Saturday-night weed?” I can imagine that. I’ve read about it, have given some thought to it, if I could figure out how to get it.

  “We don’t smoke it at home. The kids. Sometimes at parties, but not lately, not so that we come home exhaling cannabis.”

  I’m glad to hear that. “So your detective could not identify the source of the various smells?”

  “He himself smelled. Beer. God, does a person have to do it all herself?”

  Probably, I think. Who else is there “Boo’s Soul. I know that place. Get a babysitter. We’
re going there for happy hour. A good plan,” I assure Kathleen, “and our only clue.”

  Kathleen follows MiKaela to the table. Our server doesn’t recognize me. Probably the blond hair, and the peel I managed to get yesterday morning, Phoenix squeezing me in between appointments saying, “At last. I’ve been waiting.” My skin is a little red, still, but the age spots are almost gone. It’s very ego-boosting to have them disappear, to not have to call them big freckles, not have to use Cover Girl to hide them along with the bags still blooming under my eyes. Definitely, a facelift when this is all over. I’m not sure when I will know it is all over, however. Right now, I am aware of a pair of green eyes at the bar smiling at me.

  I wave. “My friend Seth,” I explain as Kathleen follows the wiggle of my fingers. “He might be helpful.”

  Seth makes his way to our table. “I’ve been waiting a while to call you, but I still have your number. How are you? And have you solved the Art mystery?”

  “Actually, Seth, we have another mystery. This is Kathleen, my daughter-in-law. She’s trying to figure something out, and again the search has led us to this place. I thought of you.” I’ve thought of Seth often, but this isn’t the time to admit it. “It may have something to do with Art, or maybe not. May be just coincidence that her husband…”

  “Your son?” Seth is tracking well.

  “Yes, Brian, his name is, apparently has come here at least once. We’re wondering if you might recognize him.” I open my wallet to a college graduation picture of Brian. “This photo is old.”

  Seth holds the photo for a moment. “This is Art thirty years ago. I don’t remember seeing a young Art lately. Around here, at least. I’ll be at the bar. Drop by before you leave.”

  “And MiKaela?” I signal to the aproned woman looking this way from the other side of the room.

  “Hi! Welcome back, Art’s wife.” MiKaela is back on track too, probably remembering the old lady who tips well.

  “Do you recognize this person, only fifteen or more years older? Maybe without the longish hair? We’re on another hunt for lost men.” We snicker as if this is perfectly understandable, and MiKaela squints at the photo. “Looks familiar. Not your Art, though. Too skinny.” She frowns and adds, “A guy like him was here a while back. Real nice. The woman he was with was under the influence. He paid the bill, helped her out, and I guess he got her home since she wasn’t outside when I left twenty minutes later. Nice guy, like I said, a little embarrassed.” MiKaela glances at the tables in her area. “I gotta go.” She grins as she tucks her pad into her belt. “I love getting even with men.”

  As the waitress leaves, Kathleen asks, “Are we trying to get even?” She lifts her glass.

  “Even would be good,” I answer, pushing aside a few stomach-stirring thoughts of Seth, who has gone back to his stool at the bar.

  “Has it ever been even?” Kathleen glances at her watch. It’s time to get back to the kids so I don’t answer.

  At the door, we stop MiKaela as she balances a tray of drinks on one upraised arm. “So what did the person under the influence look like?”

  I tuck a crumpled bill into her apron waistband, ala Kathleen, and I hear, “Drunk. Worn down, fortyish. African American. Really bad hair. That’s all I can remember.”

  The two of us are in the car before either of us says anything. Kathleen breaks the silence. “I can’t imagine your son with a woman with bad hair.”

  “No. I taught him better than that. Hair is important.”

  We go to Kathleen’s house because the sitter needs to be home by seven and Brian has a meeting in Seaside, or at least says he does, Kathleen adds, opening the door. Winston and Meg call from the TV room as Sharon, the sitter, comes out, books and coat in hand.

  “Thanks for getting here on time,” she says, accepting the bills Kathleen counts out into her hand. “Big test tomorrow. Everybody ate their tomatoes and pizza. The broccoli didn’t find any takers until I let them dip it in ranch.”

  “Yes, I know. I was hoping you’d have better luck than I. Good move with the ranch. See you again soon.”

  As Sharon closes the door behind her, I locate the children. A young singer with shoulder-length hair is a bigger attraction at the moment than a grandma. I look around the living room. This might be the first time I’ve been in this house without Brian at my side. I’ve never been asked to babysit here, always some Sharon or Laurie taking that job, and I’ve never felt comfortable just dropping by. Something about the angular lines of the furniture, the white walls holding the strange angular paintings, the absence of toys and a neat scatter of magazines in the main rooms giving notice to the organized life my son and his wife lead has made me uneasy about stopping by without an invitation.

  “Come into the kitchen, Edith. The kids won’t need me for a while. A cup of coffee?” Kathleen leads me through the central hall to the kitchen, whose windows look out on a misty green mound of dark hills. “This is my favorite place,” she says. “Even in winter the light is wonderful here.” She begins a pot of coffee while I find a chair at the kitchen table. Like I would at Lynne’s, I think.

  “I’ve always admired this house. So…clean, calm.”

  “So cold.” Kathleen pushes the ON button on the coffee maker. “When Brian bought it five years ago, he had a vision of how he wanted live in it. I had no vision. I didn’t even want a new house back then, just a place where we could both land every night, talk, and escape from our days. I was still working, the kids were little and in day care. His job was going well, you remember, but he said he wanted roots, like his parents, but different, of course. He hired a designer. I worked with her on this room and the garden. He fell in love with Eames and black leather. And oriental rugs. I fell in love with evening blooming primroses and Oregon grape. And my gorgeous stove. Then I lost my job and found out what living in a house like this is really like.”

  “It’s really quite special, the art, the rugs…”

  “No place to sit around in my nightgown and clip my toenails. Or eat popcorn or spill soda or lounge about reading murder mysteries and drinking box wine. A couple of years later, we added the TV room and that was more me than anyone else. Brian conceded that maybe he’d gone too far design-wise. We de-sanitized the white bedroom, got rid of the fourteen pillows the designer had piled at the head board, and added a wall of bookcases for the paperbacks I’d been collecting, waiting for a new career.”

  “God, where was I during all this time?”

  “It was both of us, Edith. I was sure you didn’t like me. Remember that day I had the neighbors and you and Art in for a barbeque, and Brian dropped the fish on the patio, and I yelled at him. You shook your head and walked out, dragging Art with you, as if I had committed a terrible crime. Other times…” Kathleen gets up, pours coffee into our mugs.

  “I remember being upset at the fish episode, but I wasn’t mad at you. I was astonished. That you could let Brian know exactly what was on your mind at that moment. I could not do that, ever, with Art. I left because I was crying. I didn’t want to cry. Especially in your house.”

  “But, admit it, you never liked me, did you?”

  “I guess what matters is that I like you now. I was a foolish woman consumed by jealousy that was gnawing on me one cell at a time. You were a perfect wife. I had become a Grimm’s fairytale mother-in-law. You had the perfect husband, my son. I had…” I close my eyes, a sound heaves out of my throat that feels like a distant wail.

  “Mom!” The table shakes as Kathleen pushes against it. She comes to my side, touches my shoulder. “It’s okay, Edith.”

  Then I am blinded by two soft breasts pushing into my forehead, am deafened by a body wrapping around me. My hands reach out to hold the hips leaning into me. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

  Winston decides for me.

  “Mama, can we watch one more show? It’s only eight thirty.” He stands looking confused but hopeful at the doorway.

  I lift my head, fin
d my breath and my composure, and answer, “I’ll read you both a story if you are in bed in fifteen minutes. And don’t forget your teeth.” I wipe my eyes on the lovely cloth napkin Kathleen had handed me with my coffee, and as the children go to their rooms, I laugh, “Thank you, daughter.”

  We’ll talk about the drunk woman at Boo’s Soul tomorrow, and maybe my swarm of Latisha guesses have been calmed for a while over a kitchen table.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The calm doesn’t last long. The next morning I realize I need to talk to someone other than Brody. Kathleen is not answering her phone, probably out prowling the streets. I call Lynne.

  “So, how’re the new cheeks?”

  “I haven’t called Dr. Johansen yet. I will, later, when I solve a mystery. Have time to listen? No Thursday/Sunday guy? I can come over if you’ll be home.”

  Sometimes I use the public transit to get places, but Lynne lives in a new part of town, across the river, and I don’t know the bus routes. Going there by car requires feeding a parking meter. I drive over one of the five possible bridges, fortunately the one that leads to her condo. I find a parking place, and it takes me a few minutes to figure out how to get my money into the machine, the first quarter going into an abyss. I know I look like a senile old lady as I squint at the instructions, and I hate that look. Especially when I’m wearing it.

  “How long you gonna be?” His smell precedes his words. A grocery cart sidles up beside me and his stained fingers reach out towards my change-filled hand. I look at him and then down the street. This bearded man leaning on his plastic-bag-stuffed grocery cart is the poster boy for street persons. Only his eyes seem okay, the rest of him stiff with oily grime, the origin of the several layers clothing hanging off his narrow shoulders unidentifiable. He wipes his hands across his ragged beard. Except for the two of us, the sidewalk is empty. He grins, displays five-and a-half yellow teeth. “I can help you.”