Mrs. McSweeney sat across from Maeve in an identical chair, the whole living room suite one matched set of old but cared-for furniture. She rested her arm on the doily-covered rest. “Questions?”
“I guess I should start by saying that my father passed late last year.”
Mrs. McSweeney clutched her chest. “I’m so sorry, Maeve. He was a lovely, lovely man.”
“He was.” Maeve looked down at her shoes. Just what was she doing here anyway, going down memory lane with a woman who didn’t know her intentions? She decided to blurt it out, not wait any longer, waste any more of the old woman’s time. “I have a sister I never knew about. Her name is Evelyn.”
Maeve studied the woman’s face and saw an almost imperceptible cloud pass across it. She had already known, Maeve guessed. But she remained silent, not giving anything away.
“She has been living in a group home in Rye for many years. She’s well taken care of. We’re still getting to know each other, but I’m just so glad to have the family, you know?” Maeve said, realizing, too late, that she was talking to someone who had no immediate family of her own. “I’m sorry.”
Mrs. McSweeney raised a hand and waved the apology away. “It’s fine, Maeve. I’ve become rather good on my own,” she said, chuckling sadly. “A sister?”
“Yes. My father never told me. Didn’t want to burden me.” She pulled a loose thread on the doily on her armrest. “Do you remember her?”
“No, I don’t.” Maybe she was telling the truth.
“But you were here then?”
“Yes. Probably. Maybe. But I don’t remember her.”
“Really?” Maeve asked. “Not even a little bit?”
Mrs. McSweeney shook her head. “Not even a little bit.”
Maeve pushed a little harder. “See, the reason I want to know is that my father was not her father.”
The woman’s face went slack, but Maeve couldn’t tell if it was the shock of hearing that or the knowing; it was hard to tell.
“He adopted her, and she was his own in his heart, but he definitely wasn’t her biological father. He told me so on a video he made for me.”
“Well, that’s quite a story, Maeve,” Mrs. McSweeney said. “So you’re not just stopping by for a visit, then? Revisiting the past?”
“No. I’m not,” Maeve said.
“I imagine that those days would be hard for you to relive. Your mother’s death.”
Maeve swallowed. “Yes. My mother’s death,” Maeve said, even though the truth was much worse. She was murdered, left to die in the street, the victim of profound recklessness.
Mrs. McSweeney clucked sympathetically, in a way that let Maeve know she really didn’t understand the gravity of what had happened.
“It was Marty Haggerty. Drunk driving,” Maeve said. “He ran her down and left her there, and my life was never the same.”
The old woman sank back in her chair and rested her head in her hand. “And you found that out how?”
“The police,” she said, leaving out that it was Poole, the one person she trusted completely and with her life.
“The police.” Mrs. McSweeney crossed one leg over the other, trying to affect a posture of nonchalance, of not caring. But she cared, and she was troubled; those two things were written on her lined face. “Maeve, I can’t help you. I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through, but I can’t help you.”
“Please, Mrs. McSweeney. Anything. If you know anything about my sister or who her father was, please tell me. I remember this street well. There were always secrets and more than a few lies, but someone always knew the truth.” Maeve sighed. “Maybe everyone. I think maybe everyone knew the truth. And it can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
The old woman shook her head sadly. “But not this time, Maeve. It was a long time ago, and I really don’t remember.”
Maeve dug around in her pocketbook for a business card from The Comfort Zone. She held it out, but the other woman didn’t take it. Maeve dropped it on the coffee table. “If you happen to remember anything, will you call me?” When Mrs. McSweeney didn’t respond, Maeve pleaded with her. “Please? I have to know.”
Finally, the woman spoke, staring at the card. “Yes. If I remember anything, I’ll let you know.”
Maeve let herself out, pausing briefly at the large photo of Jamie McSweeney. She knows loss, Maeve thought. Maybe that will push her to tell me everything she knows.
Because I’m betting she knows a lot.
CHAPTER 14
Maeve took Rodney’s advice, starting at the beginning the next day, thinking about those days, not so long ago, when she spent time at the soccer field. Taylor played soccer. That was all she knew about her, beyond the fact that her mother was encouraging her to go to a state university in the hope that she could afford it. That made Maeve wonder: If they were as destitute as Trish claimed, surely financial aid would be of assistance? Cal had navigated that entire process for Rebecca, and Maeve knew that they hadn’t qualified for one penny of assistance, but Trish’s situation was different. Maeve wondered about the delinquent father that Trish referred to and how well off, or not, he was.
After the store closed, she drove over to the high school. She remembered that when Rebecca was on the team, the team practiced constantly when they weren’t playing games. So, a Sunday practice was not out of the realm of possibility. She parked in the same spot in which she had parked when she had visited Judy Wilkerson.
The girls’ soccer team exited through the back door a few minutes after she arrived, ready to take the short walk over to the soccer field to start practice. Rebecca had been off the team for two years, so Maeve didn’t recognize a lot of the girls. If they had been freshmen when Rebecca had been a senior, then they had changed into young women Maeve wouldn’t know. Gone would be the knobby knees and angles of ninth grade, and in their place would be more weight, a bit more heft, and a change in their features. Every one of them, or so it seemed, was long and lithe, jogging effortlessly from the back of the school building and down the hill to the soccer field, a place where Maeve had spent many an afternoon, watching Rebecca run up and down the length without losing her breath or really breaking a sweat. Maeve marveled at her older daughter’s athletic ability. Sure, Maeve had played CYO basketball and youth softball, but she was small and not wiry and really, when she thought about it, not all that coordinated. Her body, like the bodies of her female ancestors, was more suited to long hours in a field, low to the ground, nimbly picking the day’s harvest. The Irish peasant body, she called it. Rebecca’s prowess must have been inherited from the Callahan side of the family, but Maeve had never considered Cal that much of an athlete either, something with which he probably would take issue. The way he saw himself was often at odds with the way the world viewed him, which as of now was middle-aged, trying to be hip, too old to be the father of a toddler.
She got out of the car and followed the team down the hill, walking past the playground where the girls used to play and where now, younger siblings of varsity soccer players spent hours while their sisters were on the field. There was the porta-potty that she had used more than she cared to admit, her bladder control having taken a hit after she gave birth to Heather and never recovering, that little bit of wetness every time she sneezed reminding her that as hard as she tried not to think it, Heather provided challenges both great and small as a daughter.
She took a seat on the hill overlooking the field. The last year Rebecca had played, a new coach had joined the coaching staff, a young guy—too young as far as Maeve was concerned, a little too close in age to her almost-eighteen-year-old—who ran the girls ragged at practice and demanded nothing less than perfection, both on the field and off. There had been curfews and grade minimums, uniform checks—more than one of which Rebecca failed because Maeve was incapable of getting grass stains out of white shorts, no matter how hard she tried—and a host of other requirements. Team dinners. Big buddies. Study partners. Running drills. Maeve could never kee
p track of what was required and what was optional, and apparently neither could Rebecca, because she did everything he asked and more, going so far as being the equipment manager in her senior year, long after she should have been saddled with that responsibility.
She had to say this for the guy: He was good-looking. Running around in his baggy soccer shorts, a loose Arsenal jersey on his thin frame, David Barnham was the all-American boy type that every woman found attractive, even Maeve, even though she was dating a meaty Germanic type who looked like he would be just as comfortable behind the counter of a butcher shop wearing a white apron as in the sport coat and dress slacks he wore to his actual job. Barnham ran up and down the field with the girls, blowing a whistle every now and again to stop the play, to instruct the girls on the field.
Maeve pulled out her phone. It was the rare occurrence when she called one of her girls and she answered the phone; today, she was in luck. Hell must be freezing over, she thought as Rebecca answered, breathless and on her way somewhere, the sound of cars in the background.
“Can you talk for a minute?” Maeve asked.
“That’s exactly what I have,” Rebecca said. “I’m almost to the library. I’m behind on a paper.”
“Okay, I’ll make it brief. I don’t know if you saw the news, but—”
“Yes. Taylor.”
“Right. You played soccer together, didn’t you?”
“She was a midfielder.”
“Anything else you remember?”
“I’ve gotta go, Mom. What are you asking?”
“Anything else? Happy? Sad? Popular? Unpopular?”
“Not sure ‘popular’ is the right word,” Rebecca said, but there was a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “And one of Mr. Barnham’s favorites.”
Maeve detected a subtext. “What do you mean?”
“He had parties. Invitation only. She was on the list.”
Maeve felt that familiar tingle in her gut, her mouth going dry. “Parties?” She wondered why this was the first time she was hearing about this, and then wasn’t surprised that it was. That last year Rebecca had played soccer, Maeve had been preoccupied a lot of the time, her father the lead suspect in a murder investigation despite his failing faculties, her attempts to keep him out of jail alternately ham-fisted and brilliant. “Did you go to these parties?” Maeve asked, her eyes zeroing in on Mr. Barnham, her mind whirling with thoughts of just how she would kill him, how she could isolate him and remove him as a threat once and for all.
“No!” Rebecca said. “Even if I had been invited, I wouldn’t have gone.”
“What happened at the parties?” Maeve asked, not sure she wanted to know.
“Nothing that I heard of.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am telling the truth,” Rebecca said. “I would have heard. I would have known. But I still thought it was weird. He’s single. No wife. Just weird that he would have girls over.”
“No assistant coach?” Maeve asked.
“Nope.” Rebecca had reached her destination. “I’ve gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you later.”
But Maeve knew she wouldn’t and she would have to track Rebecca down again. She had a whole new life at school, one that didn’t include or involve her mother or her sister, and she was happy there. Maeve wondered if she would come home after she graduated, if they would ever live together again, and the thought of that made her sad. The thought that her girls would go their separate ways and maybe not be close was something that she thought about frequently, wondering, again, if that would be her fault.
Things were changing. Life was different. People moved on.
She wondered where she would fit in once all of the pieces were shuffled and reassembled.
She stood and stretched, her eyes still on the field below. From the street side of the field, a car pulled into the parking apron and came to a stop. The Farringville police weren’t great at hiding the fact that their one unmarked car was a Dodge Charger that anyone with one good eye could tell was a cop car. Chris got out of the passenger side as his chief, a taut and thin brunette named Suzanne Carstairs, got out of the driver’s side. Maeve had seen her photo in the local paper a few times. They approached the field with purpose, standing to the side until Barnham made his way over, commanding the girls to keep drilling until he returned, something Maeve gleaned from his hand gestures and the fact that the girls kept running without breaking stride.
In the distance, Chris put a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun, looking around the area, his eyes landing on Maeve, high on the hill above the field. Maeve couldn’t see his expression—time for progressive lenses, which her ophthalmologist had recommended the year before and which she had never gotten around to getting—but if she had to guess, she would say that he was confused, wondering why she was there, if he could even tell it was her in the distance.
She wasn’t so big a soccer fan that she could profess to wanting to see the girls practice, so she got up and started for her car, thinking that she’d have to come up with a reasonable explanation for why she was watching soccer practice.
Whether he believed her or not would be the question.
She took one last look down at the field, watching the girls congregate midfield, running some kind of drill that looked like it would be painful in execution. She didn’t recognize any of the girls anymore, or so she thought. Because suddenly she did recognize one.
Heather.
CHAPTER 15
The next day, the store was closed but Maeve decided to go in and bake, asking Jo if she would come in and help with any potential customers who might see the lights on and decide that it was the perfect day for a cupcake. She was far behind on her baking and although she had told Trish that it was a six-day-a-week routine, it was really seven and always had been. After making two batches of scones and cleaning out the refrigerated case, Jo took a seat at one of the café tables, a break being “just what the doctor ordered,” according to her. She had tired of reading the local news to Maeve and turned to national stories, unfolding the Times with a snap of her wrist and starting her recitation.
“Dateline, Miami, Florida. U.S. Marshals are hot on the trail of the international drug lord known as El Gato, Mexico’s most wanted criminal.” She looked over at Maeve. “El Gato? The Cat?” She thought on that for a moment. “If I were an international drug lord, I think I’d have a better nickname.”
Maeve surveyed her quiche inventory, half listening. “Like what?”
“The Jaguar. The Cougar,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay, maybe not the Cougar, because that implies something completely different. The Shark? It would have to have a kick-ass Spanish translation, though.”
The phone rang, but it wasn’t until Maeve raised an eyebrow at Jo indicating that she should pick it up that her assistant moved from the bar stool. Jo blanched at the number on the caller ID.
“The daycare,” she said. She listened intently. “One hundred?” She looked at Maeve and mouthed “Is that high?” Since Maeve had no idea what she was talking about, she shrugged in response, continuing her review of the items in the refrigerated case. “I’ll be right there,” she said, slamming the phone down on the counter and stripping off her apron. “I’ve gotta go. Baby’s got a fever.”
“A hundred?” Maeve said. “He’ll be fine, Jo. Don’t worry. Is this his first fever?” Judging from Jo’s reaction to the news, it had to be.
“Yes,” Jo said, grabbing her knapsack from under the counter. “Do you think it’s because I put him in daycare?” she asked.
“Babies get sick, Jo. You’ve been lucky so far.” But as she watched her friend race out the door, she acknowledged that the child, who up until this point had only been with his mother, had probably gotten sick from being in daycare. It was inevitable. She hoped that this didn’t bring an issue that existed between Jo and Doug to a head and would leave her without a trusted employee at the store. Outside, a large clap of thunder telegraphed an
inevitable downpour of rain, one that Jo just missed before she jumped into her car and sped off.
Maeve looked at the clock; school was almost out for the day. She texted Heather. SOS. I need you at the store. Can you help?
As was usually the case, the text was met with virtual stony silence, but fifteen minutes later, Heather walked through the back door, surly, sullen, and more than a little wet, and threw her backpack on the counter. “Where’s Jo?” she asked.
Maeve handed her a cupcake. “Baby’s sick.”
That softened the girl’s demeanor, but only slightly. “Will he be okay?”
“Just a fever,” Maeve said.
Heather donned the apron that Jo had left on the counter. “Devon had a fever once and Dad took him to the emergency room.”
“I’m sure it’s fine, Heather. Babies get fevers all the time.”
“Did I ever get fevers?” she asked, standing behind the counter and watching her mother rearrange items in the case.
“All the time. You got a lot of ear infections.”
“And what did you do?” Heather asked.
Maeve got up from her crouch; her legs were achy. She continued to look into the case, making sure that everything was as she wanted it, arranged so that it would sell. “I’d hold you and rock you until you fell asleep.” Memories of Heather’s sweaty head, her dark hair matted to her forehead, her breath coming out in yeasty gasps, were what she remembered of that time. Rebecca had been hale and hearty and her younger daughter a little more illness-prone, chronic ear infections the bane of Maeve’s existence until a kindly nurse practitioner at the pediatrician’s office suggested garlic oil drops as a homeopathic cure for what ailed the little girl. They had worked like a charm. “I used to put garlic oil in your ears.”
Heather approximated a smile. “I remember that. Smelled nasty.”
“Yeah, but it worked.” Maeve pulled a cake past its sell date from the case and put it in a box to take home. “Hey, I have a question for you.”
“What?” Heather asked, standing at the far end of the counter, her back stiff and straight, preparing herself for whatever it was. Her mother never asked innocuous questions.
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