by Gayle Roper
“This is my friend, Jenna.” Chloe pulled Jenna forward. “Mr. Canfield is her father.”
Mimi smiled at Jenna, ignored Drew, and turned to Libby. “We were going to call you later today. We have some very good news.”
“Indeed we do,” Cynthia said, her eyes bright. “Mike and Jack are coming home.”
“What?” Libby was clearly surprised.
“Really?” Chloe cried.
“Who are Mike and Jack?” Jenna asked, but no one answered. She looked at Drew who shrugged. He had no idea who they were either.
“They’ll be released tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Libby squeaked. “And you just found out?”
Released? From where? The hospital?
“We’ve known for a week,” Mimi said.
“And you’re just telling us?”
At Libby’s expression of dismay, Mimi said quickly, “We didn’t want to get you excited in case things didn’t work out after all.”
Libby nodded. “Have you told Tori?”
Cynthia nodded. “Friday, I think it was. Mimi called her.”
Drew saw distress flash across Libby’s face before she smiled again. He felt angry on her behalf. Her mother had called Tori but not Libby. That meant Tori had also known all weekend and not told Libby. Drew felt Libby’s hurt, and so apparently did Chloe. She slid close to her mother, slipped her hand in Libby’s, and squeezed.
“Anyway,” Cynthia continued, “we pick them up tomorrow morning, and we’re having a welcome home party tomorrow night. Tori’s free then.”
Another twist of the knife. No one had yet thought to ask Libby if she was free. Did they realize that they treated her as an afterthought and just not care at the hurt they caused, or was the subtle cruelty unconscious?
“Jack and Mike are my father and grandfather,” Libby explained to Drew and Jenna. “They’ve been—” She stopped as if she wasn’t sure what to say.
“They’ve been in jail.” Cynthia’s eyes narrowed, challenging him to react improperly. “They were falsely accused. They were set up. Their incarceration is a travesty of justice.”
Libby’s carefully neutral expression made him wonder, but all he did was nod. “That must have been a terribly difficult thing to deal with.”
“Fourteen years.” Mimi wiped at a tear. “But at last, parole!”
“The word has already spread around town,” Cynthia said. “So many people are coming to celebrate with us, and of course we want the whole family to be here to welcome them.”
Libby nodded. “Of course you do. Chloe and I’ll be there. We wouldn’t miss it!”
Mimi eyed Drew. “You can come with her if you want. And your daughter. Chloe will need a friend.”
Drew grinned. He’d never been to a party for a couple of ex-cons before, just professors ready to kill each other over tenure. “Thank you. We’d love to come.”
Tori walked down the aisle between the quarter slots. All around her were men and women, many of them seniors, pushing the buttons and watching the images rotate, hoping for their machine to act against the odds and start flashing and ringing, indicating a win. The SeaSide was a cashless casino, and Tori missed the cascades of coins that used to flow from a winning slot, clanging into the tray and at times overflowing onto the floor. Cashless meant ease of management and less theft, but some of the aural magic was definitely gone.
She finally found her quarry, a woman in her early thirties with very black hair, a freckled face that screamed that she had been born a redhead, and a very pregnant belly.
“Suzy! There you are!”
Suzy Merchant looked up but only for the smallest second. “Hi, Tori.” Her eyes went immediately back to her machine. The images rotated and settled into a mixed collection. “Bleh!” Suzy muttered as she pushed the button again.
Her belly jumped. Tori actually saw the taut cloth covering her tummy move. Suzy’s free hand came up absently and massaged the small foot or elbow that had stuck her.
“Your husband sent me to find you. He’s worried about you.”
Suzy made a face. “Ron’s paranoid. You’d think no one’s ever had a baby before.”
Ron and Suzy Merchant were among Tori’s favorite clients because they were such characters. Ron and his father owned a large garbage and refuse business. Rumor had it that they had obtained their large fleet of trucks through somewhat murky circumstances.
“This other trash guy was driving north on I-95 one evening,” Luke had told her, “and he looks into the southbound lanes just in time to see two of his big trucks going south. Thing is, he didn’t think there was any reason for them to be going anywhere at that time of day. So he calls his office, but nobody’s there. He calls the police, but what can they do when you say, ‘I think I saw my trucks’?”
“I take it he did have two stolen trucks and they were never recovered?”
Luke nodded. “By the time he got home, checked his lot, and found two trucks missing, they had disappeared from the face of the earth.”
Whether Ron and his father actually owned a fleet of stolen vehicles wasn’t Tori’s affair. The facts that they were making money hand over fist—interesting in this day of strict EPA regulations—and that they loved gambling made them her concern.
“Ron thinks you should go up and take a nap,” Tori told Suzy, who made another bleh sound.
The whirl of a red light and the shrill ring of a clarion made them both spin to watch an old lady stand rapt with joy as she watched her slot machine indicate she’d won a hundred dollars.
Suzy made another bleh, pulled her credit card from the slot in the top of her machine, and rose, still rubbing her stomach. She suddenly looked tired.
“Come on.” Tori took her arm. “Upstairs for a nap.”
As they walked past the old lady whose payout had everyone around her pushing their buttons faster than ever, Suzy said, “Congratulations.”
The old lady looked at them with a dazed smile. “First time I ever gambled. I thought it was hard. Boy, was I wrong.”
Tori and Suzy walked toward the elevators. Suzy glanced back over her shoulder toward the lady. “She’ll lose it all before she’s done. Wanna bet?”
“Just so that’s all she loses.” Miles climbing aboard that Greyhound flashed through Tori’s mind. “You being careful?”
Suzy shot her a look. “I am not a loser.”
“I didn’t mean to imply you were. I’ve just had too much experience with the overreachers.”
Suddenly Suzy looked sad. “Me too.”
Tori waited, but Suzy didn’t say more. She just fell into a grim and brooding silence.
The elevator door slid open and Tori held out a hand in a you-go-first motion. “In you go.”
They rode in silence and walked down the hall with Suzy’s depression casting a funereal pall about them. In a weird way, Tori found the bleak mood encouraging. It proved there was more to the woman than the frivolous gambler Tori had previously seen. It also made her feel slightly better about the future of the coming baby.
Tori used her master key card to open the door to Suzy and Ron’s suite. “Want something to drink before you lie down?”
“Why? I’ll just have to get up in five minutes to go to the bathroom.” A ghost of Suzy’s normally sassy smile tugged at her lips.
While Suzy flopped on the bed, Tori pulled the drapes over the big window to shut out the brilliant summer sun.
“Thanks,” Suzy mumbled as she tried to find a comfortable position. “You might want to consider things carefully before you ever decide to get pregnant.”
Laughing softly, Tori pulled the bedroom door closed behind her. Sarcastic Suzy was back.
Tori walked to the center of the room and studied the chaos that Suzy seemed to generate wherever she went. Tori smiled.
There on the coffee table were the diamond earrings Suzy had worn the first night she and Ron arrived, three nights ago. When worn, a large diamond rested against the earl
obe and five others dangled on fine gold chains. Suzy’d had them on with a pair of black maternity slacks and a black sleeveless empire waist silk top. They looked terrific as they caught the light every time Suzy moved her head.
Tori slid them into her cleavage. Suzy would never even notice they were gone.
15
“HAVE MR. CANFIELD DRIVE past where you grew up and past the store, Mom,” Chloe said as we walked to the car to leave Haydn. “I want to show Jenna.”
Drew complied, and soon we were driving down Carlisle Road. Memories, many painful, some wonderful, surged. I pointed out the store, really Madge’s garage, with its striped awning, and then across the street, Mom and Dad’s house. It was slightly ramshackle with its porch needing painting and the lawn semibald. I studied it sadly.
“It used to be a showplace, the grass thick and green, manicured lovingly by my father. The azaleas were the fullest in town, and the garden was alive with blooms from April through October. I think he worked off the tension of his job by working outside.”
“What did he do?” Drew asked.
“He was a cop.”
He frowned and I could feel his questions. “A crooked cop who gets out of jail tomorrow,” I said. “Don’t you love the red and white awnings at the shop?”
Drew swallowed all his questions and studied the awnings. “Wonderful. Attractive. Especially to women, who I assume are your main clients.”
I fell silent as we drove back to Philadelphia, worrying about my father and grandfather as well as Drew’s opinion of us now that he knew a bit more of our history.
I had worried for years about when Dad and Pop got out of jail. What would they do with themselves when they were again free men? Obviously they could no longer be involved in law enforcement. With their criminal records they couldn’t even get a private investigator’s license. My darkest fear was that they would become involved in more shady doings for lack of training in anything else. Well, maybe it wasn’t my darkest fear. That was reserved for telling Chloe about Eddie. But it was a close second.
If ever I felt a mix of emotions, it was at this moment. I was really glad that Dad and Pop would be getting out of that horrible place, and I rejoiced with Mom and Nan that they would have their husbands back. They were already more ebullient and upbeat than I’d seen them in years.
Of course, once they had to live with their husbands again, things might well change. Certainly the men had been altered by their incarceration, and the husbands returning were not the men who left.
Still, if I had my druthers, I would have preferred that Drew not know about my family’s unhappy circumstances yet. I liked Drew, probably more than I should. He seemed to like me. However, there was a big difference between wanting to get to know a woman with just an untrustworthy sister and a woman whose whole family was sailing on the other side of the law. Some information was better kept quiet until a friendship was more secure, when the woman’s charms and positive attributes could overcome her family drawbacks.
I sighed. Who was I kidding? Nice Christian men liked nice Christian families. I did not have this to offer Drew or any man.
Anyway, it no longer mattered. The cat was out of the bag and stalking the blossoming friendship between Drew and me like a tabby lying in wait for a cardinal. I shoved that happy thought aside. There were plenty of real problems to be concerned about. I’d handle the disappearance of Drew from my life if and when it happened.
I glanced in the backseat. The girls had fallen asleep, no doubt a result of spending half the night talking.
“They were guilty,” I quietly told Drew as we drove up the Black Horse Pike toward the Walt Whitman Bridge. He might as well know the worst. “Selling confiscated drugs. Selling confiscated guns. A couple of the guns they allowed back in circulation were actually used in cop killings.” I shuddered. “I’ve always thought that was the reason for the long sentence and the lack of an earlier parole.”
“How did they manage all this? Didn’t any of the cops who worked with them report them? Or did one and that’s how they got caught?”
I frowned, surprised at his overt interest. Most people had the sense to avoid the topic. “It doesn’t matter. They did it, okay?”
“Yeah, but how? They didn’t actually go out on the streets and sell the drugs themselves, did they? I mean, talk about risky! And they didn’t stand on street corners until someone came along, then flip open their raincoats to show all the guns stashed in pockets sewn into the coat.”
“Very funny.” My voice could have chilled sub-Saharan Africa. I knew he was only being curious. He was, after all, a researcher, and researchers asked questions. But I’d lived all the pain of their activities and all the anger at them for being so consummately stupid as to think they could avoid detection. Add to that the ignominy of their trial and incarceration.
Drew glanced at me and began back-pedaling. “I’m sorry. I forget that, for you, this isn’t just a fascinating story.”
Somehow his step back with its intrinsic understanding of how much it had all hurt allowed me to open up, something I rarely did. “The guns they sold to a couple of gun shops in Philly, neither known for keeping good sales records or for requiring firearm registrations. The drugs they got kids to sell for them.” I thought of the conversation I’d overheard all those years ago. “Eddie was one of them.”
Drew blinked. “Eddie? And he never got caught.”
I didn’t say anything, just shook my head. What was there to say? We rode in silence as we swept through Runnemede, Bellmawr, and Mount Ephraim.
“So how did you escape all that corrupt influence?” he asked as we paused at the light in Audubon. The Walt Whitman Bridge was just ahead.
“Well, I didn’t know about it until the arrest. None of us did.” I paused. “At least I don’t think Mom and Nan knew.” That possibility had never occurred to me before. “I know Tori was as shocked as I was. I drew inward and turned to Eddie. Tori got furious and screamed her outrage to the world.”
“But in spite of it all, you came through with your integrity intact.”
I smiled and told him about Madge and all she meant to me. “She not only gave me a job, led me to Jesus, and saved Chloe’s life. She also encouraged me when I got down, baby-sat Chloe when I needed her, and showed me how Christian love works. She also got me back in school and on to college. I only have a couple of more classes to take, and I’ll have my bachelor’s.”
Drew backed off the gas as he came up behind a Winnebago pulling a bright yellow compact behind it. “Believe it or not, Ruthie’s father was to me all those things Madge was to you. Del took me under his wing and taught me all he knew. My father was a nice enough man, but all things Christian were anathema to him. He also liked skating close to the legal edge. He did a lot of electrical work for people on the side, but he never declared the income. Stuff like that. The day a cashier gave him too much change was a day worth celebrating. So Del’s absolutes were hard to comprehend at first. I still remember when he called me on copying music illegally. I’d never thought about breaking copyright law before. But as I learned more and more about God’s Word, I appreciated Del more and more. I think the greatest hurt of my divorce was losing Del.”
“He cut you out of his life?” I was surprised, since he sounded like such a wonderful guy.
Drew checked over his shoulder to be sure no car was in his blind spot and moved out to pass the Winnebago that was weaving a bit too much for comfort, especially with the narrow lanes of the bridge fast approaching. “No, he didn’t. Ruthie was the one who had a fit because I wanted to stay close to him and Peg. She made it so uncomfortable for them, swearing at them, berating them, that I stepped back to spare them. We still talk, especially by e-mail, and we meet occasionally for dinner, and of course they love seeing Jenna, but Ruthie goes ballistic whenever she finds out.” He smiled sadly. “It’s just easier not to push that button. She has so many others that you can’t avoid pushing.”
&nbs
p; We took the bridge, turned onto 95N, got off at the historical district, and drove on past. I realized my shoulders were tense about what we’d find when we came to our lane. I breathed a relieved sigh when no one, dead or alive, was waiting for anyone on the steps. The girls woke up when the car stopped moving.
“I think I’ll stay with Chloe,” Jenna announced, chin raised.
“Sorry, sweets,” Drew said. “Not tonight. You need to come home.”
“Dad, please!”
Drew just shook his head.
With a long-suffering sigh, Jenna accepted defeat, which led me to believe she had expected Drew’s answer. “I’m going to go to my room and live there until she leaves.”
He threw his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll be okay, Jen. You’ll see.”
The two of them walked to their house and disappeared inside. I unlocked our door, and we walked into Aunt Stella’s. I was emotionally exhausted.
And tomorrow with its welcome home party would be much worse.
Tori’s cell phone vibrated. She smiled apologetically at her client as she glanced at the number. It was her boss.
“Excuse me a minute, Ron. It’s Anders.”
Ron nodded. “I just wanted to thank you again for taking care of Suzy.” With a wave he disappeared into the throngs heading onto the floor. Ron loved his poker.
“What’s up, Anders?” Tori caught glimpses of the boardwalk and the ocean when the darkened-glass automatic front doors opened. She noted with approval that more people were entering than leaving, many with red faces from a day on the beach without enough SPF. She never went out without at least 30 on her face. She glanced at her arm, evaluating her tan. She was losing valuable beach time with all the traveling back and forth to Aunt Stella’s. Pretty soon she’d be as pale as the old ladies at the nickel slots.
“It’s Suzy,” Anders said. “She’s calling for you. She’s—”
