“Tell me what happened,” he said.
“I gave Sarah my statement at the scene and you got Pip’s last night.”
“But you didn’t give yours to me,” he said. “Go slowly, take your time.”
Claire took a deep breath and blew it out. She told him everything she could remember, but she didn’t mention her amateur detective work. He didn’t speak until she mentioned the hundred dollar bill.
“They said there was nothing in his wallet,” Laurie said. “Big self-important guy like that probably carried around a big wad of cash, don’t you think?”
Claire shrugged. She wasn’t supposed to know Knox was broke, so she couldn’t say anything about it.
“Didn’t you talk to Sarah about the case?” she asked.
“She basically said ‘Stay out of the way and we’ll handle it.’ ”
“The county always takes over when there’s a suspicious death,” Claire said. “That’s the way it is here.”
“Whoever was driving the sedan wasn’t at all worried about being seen,” Laurie said. “I think that was more of a harassment tool than a murder-for-hire. Any idea who’d want to kill the guy?”
Claire told him about the conversation she overheard between Knox, his brother, Trick, and former mayor, Stuart Machalvie.
“What a charming fellow,” Laurie said. “You think one of the other two might have done it?”
“Stuart’s capable but I can’t see Trick doing it,” Claire said. “He’s more the whiny little brother who always screws everything up but thinks it’s just bad luck.”
“Sounds like Knox is a bigger liability to the congressman and senator.”
“He never cared who he stepped on to get ahead,” Claire said. “He made a lot of enemies.”
“What about you?” Laurie said. “Any reason you’d like to see Humpty Dumpty have a great fall?”
“He put my parents in a ridiculous balloon mortgage,” she said. “When I found out about it I went up to his office and decked him.”
Laurie’s solemn face broke into a delighted smile.
“You socked ole Roly Poly Rodefeffer?”
“I did,” Claire said. “I also rescued his second wife out of his office safe.”
“This, I need to hear,” Laurie said.
Claire told him the story of how Meredith disappeared and Knox’s first wife, Anne Marie, told Claire he used to lock her up in the room-size safe behind his office when he was mad at her.
“Hannah and I went up there, and while Hannah wrestled with Courtenay, the secretary he was having an affair with, I found the safe and let Meredith out. Knox arrived right as I released her, and she attacked him with a coin box; put him in the hospital.”
Claire shared what Scott had told her about Meredith threatening to kill Knox.
“So it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch to imagine her whacking him on the head,” he said. “So this was the same Courtenay who was living with Pip when she was murdered?”
“Anne Marie’s assistant said it was Knox and Anne Marie who put him up to it.”
“What do you think?”
“I heard Anne Marie tell him to take care of Courtenay, but she didn’t say to kill her.”
“How did you overhear this?”
“I was hiding under a bed in the Eldridge Inn,” Claire said.
“You’re going to have to explain that a little more thoroughly,” Laurie said. “Can we go somewhere and get a cup of coffee or something?”
Claire hesitated.
“Please,” Laurie said. “I know the county has this case, but it happened on my watch. How can I look Scott in the eye when he returns if I haven’t at least made an attempt to figure out who killed the big lug?”
“All right,” Claire said.
“Your house? My house?”
“The station,” Claire said.
“Probably safer that way,” Laurie said. “I hadn’t realized how violent your temper is.”
Back at the station, Skip was playing some sort of Internet game on the computer and Frank was taking a nap on the sofa in the chief’s office. Laurie shut the break room door behind them.
“I hate to disturb Crockett and Tubbs while they’re working on a case,” he said.
Claire made the coffee, and while it was dripping she washed two mugs for them to use.
“Just a few more days,” Laurie said. “You won’t have to put up with me much longer.”
“I’m not going to pretend with you,” Claire said. “If you don’t stop drinking you’re going to lose that job, or kill yourself.”
“I thought we weren’t going to talk about it.”
“Fine,” she said, and told him the story of Anne Marie coming to Rose Hill to hold a seminar in the Eldridge Inn.
Gwyneth had hired Claire to set up a temporary spa space in the basement of the inn, and while working there, Claire had been privy to some private conversations between Meredith and Anne Marie, and Anne Marie and her assistant, Jeremy. It was while Anne Marie was in town that Knox’s Aunt Mamie and Courtenay both died under suspicious circumstances.
“I was there when Trick found his Aunt Mamie dead,” Claire said.
“You’ve been back here for four months and you’ve found how many corpses?”
“Just four,” Claire said. “My friend Tuppy, Mamie, Diedre, and Knox.”
“That’s more than I’ve seen in the past four months, and that’s part of my job.”
“I can’t help it,” Claire said. “It just happened that way.”
“Where is Meredith now?”
“I think she’s in town, trying to sell the tea room,” Claire said.
“I wonder if she still has a key to the house.”
“He probably changed the locks after she tried to kill him.”
“I’d like to see what the county has on this,” he said.
“Sarah’s still sweet on you,” Claire said. “Buy her a pair of shoes, why don’t you?”
“You still sore about that?” Laurie asked. “I thought you were through with me.”
“I’ve been trying to be through with you. Lord knows why I can’t just walk away.”
“You love a lost cause? You’ve always been attracted to the antihero?”
“If you drink because of your grief over the death of your first wife, I can understand.”
“I had this problem way before I married her.”
Claire was surprised by this confession. She had the urge to snap at him, but he looked so vulnerable and miserable, all her righteous indignation evaporated.
“When did it start?”
“In college,” he said. “Everyone partied, some much worse than me. Most of them got it together after we graduated; I just learned to hide it better.”
“Why did you start?”
“For some people, all pathetic losers like me, to be alive is to be overly aware, with no filters, no defense, like it’s always raining acid and you have no skin. The question then becomes how much awareness can you take?”
“Georgia said it was usually about feelings of anger, shame, and guilt.”
“All of the above,” he said. “Things I’ve done in the past haunt me. That’s the thing about the past; it won’t ever leave you the hell alone. It’s noisiest at about three in the morning, when I can’t sleep for agonizing over the shitty things I’ve done. In theory, I can atone for my bad behavior, as long as my victims are still alive. Unfortunately, I feel the most guilty about things I didn’t do when I had the chance, for people who are now gone. And that’s just guilt; we’ve still got anger and shame to deal with.”
“I guess I never thought about the difference between shame and guilt.”
“Shame is an unslayable dragon. How can you atone for who you are?”
“But what’s wrong with who you are?”
“I’m not blaming this on my parents; you have to know that. I was always the problem. I was the cuckoo’s egg dropped in their nest. My father was this toug
h, manly, larger-than-life loaded gun, filled to the brim with angry, righteous morality. My mother lived in her head, where she escaped into her books, music, and art. They coexisted but just barely, and neither one understood me or knew how to relate to me, let alone each other. I was so lonely growing up; I never felt that I belonged anywhere. I expected to figure it out in college, but that didn’t happen. There was nothing I was terribly interested in, nothing that filled me with passion. I graduated not knowing what to do with myself. I took the job working for my father thinking, well, at least maybe I could earn his approval, his respect.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “My father viewed tender feelings as weakness. I always knew when I’d disappointed him, but the opposite of that was nothing, only the absence of his disapproval.”
“And you don’t like police work.”
“I loathe it,” he said. “I’m the lifeguard at a sewage-filled cesspool of the worst examples of human behavior. I’ve come to detest my fellow man. I expect the worst of everyone.”
“Why don’t you do something different, then?”
“Like what? I look around and I don’t see any more attractive options. I couldn’t work for someone else now; I’d be fired the first day for being such a sarcastic jerk. In this job at least I can be of some use in the world. I’m not actively making things worse for innocent people, and I can sometimes protect them from the bad guys. No, I’ve made my life into this mess and it’s too late to change it.”
“There’s nothing else you’d like to do?” Claire said. “Even if there was no guarantee you’d succeed, nothing you’d even be willing to try?”
“Life doesn’t work like that, Claire,” Laurie said. “There’s no magical reward for self-actualization. There’s only us, the human race, down here in the mud, ruining everything, fighting over shiny objects, and trying to gain power over each other.”
“That’s so depressing.”
“That’s life,” Laurie said. “Anyone who thinks differently is a fool.”
“So why bother?”
“I think that’s the point I was just making.”
“Would you consider talking to a doctor about this, maybe try an antidepressant?”
“I don’t have a delusion about how awful the world is, Claire, I have an accurate awareness of reality.”
“But you still believe good things can happen, don’t you?”
“I believe you believe that,” he said. “I want to warm my hands by that fire every chance I get.”
“You have to find a reason to believe it for yourself.”
“What I would give to live in County Claire. I’d swim the moat made from your tears; I’d climb the walls built from the failures of lesser men.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“I could get better if I knew you were waiting for me.”
“I can’t save you.”
“But you could soothe me, I know you could.”
“I think if I let myself love you, you’ll pull me down with you.”
“No doubt,” he said.
To Claire’s surprise, Laurie’s eyes filled with tears. She reached for his hand and he pulled it away.
“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” he said.
He attempted a smile but it dissolved.
“Laurie,” she said.
“Run,” he said. “Save yourself.”
The plea was there. Claire could feel it pulling her like a natural force, like a whirlpool. The urge to jump in, to embrace him, even if it meant drowning, was so strong it was disorienting, intoxicating.
“I would gladly destroy you,” he said, through his tears, “in order to be loved by you.”
Claire fled.
Claire ordered a pizza delivered for her father’s supper, and he said it was the best he had ever eaten. One convenient thing about taking care of someone with a severe short-term memory problem was that he didn’t complain about having the same meal several nights during a week because he couldn’t remember that he had.
Claire had deliberately ordered a pizza covered in toppings she didn’t like, but still she found herself picking at the crust. To stop herself eating it she put the leftovers down the garbage disposal. She ate some celery with fat free cream cheese, but that did not satisfy her hungry ghost.
“Knox, if that’s you trying to get me to eat too much, take a hike,” she said. “I’m not going to embezzle money or run for office, either, just so you can get your ghostly rocks off.”
“Who are you talking to?” her father called out.
“I’m on the phone.”
To distract herself, Claire took a long, hot bath, put on her yoga pants and a T-shirt, and settled in on the living room couch with Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey, one of the books from Professor Richmond’s collection. She kept re-reading a page and then realizing she wasn’t retaining a thing. She couldn’t get Laurie’s tear-stained face out of her head.
She had just begun the first chapter for the fourth time when the house phone rang. Claire ran to grab it before her father woke up, but he kept snoring in his recliner, a small cat and dog tucked in between his legs.
“I need to talk to you,” Sarah said when she answered.
“I’m beat,” Claire said. “I was about to go to bed.”
“I’m right outside your house,” Sarah said.
“Meet me out back.”
Claire slipped on some tennis shoes and quietly let herself out the back door. She sat down at the picnic table in the back yard just as Sarah rounded the corner.
“I need you to do something for me,” Sarah said.
“I’m not wearing a wire,” Claire said. “One near-death experience per year is my limit.”
“No,” Sarah said. “I need you to find Knox’s wife, Meredith.”
“If you can’t find her, how in the world am I going to find her?”
“No one in this town trusts me,” Sarah said. “But you get to hear all the gossip.”
Claire bit her lip.
“You know something.”
“I heard something,” Claire said. “But I don’t remember who told me.”
“Fair enough,” Sarah said. “Let’s have it.”
“Meredith went to see Trick Rodefeffer, to contract him to sell the tea room. I heard she needs the money.”
“So, you can make an appointment to see the tea room,” Sarah said. “Nose around there and see if you can get Trick to tell you where she’s hiding.”
“I could do that,” Claire said. “My cousin is interested in buying the place, so I could take him with me in case she shows up and tries to kill me.”
“Let me know when your appointment is and I’ll make sure I’m nearby,” Sarah said. “And keep this to yourself; I don’t want the feds to know I’m tracking her down.”
“I really am beat, Sarah. Can we wrap this up?”
“How’s Purcell?”
“I’m not his babysitter, Sarah.”
“He’s going to crash and burn in Pendleton,” Sarah said. “There aren’t several decades of loyalty to his old man to protect him there.”
“I wish him the best,” Claire said. “I just don’t want to go down that road with him.”
“But I would,” Sarah said. “And yet he doesn’t give a damn about me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sarah shrugged.
“That’s life,” she said. “Nobody lives happily ever after.”
Kay came home from a campaign committee meeting to find Marigold Lawson sitting on her front porch.
“I know you’re surprised to find me here,” Marigold said.
Marigold’s hand was trembling as she shook Kay’s.
“Come in,” Kay said. “I need to get these shoes off and you look like you could use a glass of wine.”
Marigold followed her inside and looked around.
“Your place is so cute,” she said, “but Lord, it’s tin
y.”
“It suits me,” Kay said. “Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll be right back.”
Kay changed into some casual clothes. When she returned to the front room, Marigold was perched on the edge of the loveseat, dabbing at her eyes with a wadded up Kleenex.
“Whatever it is, a glass of wine and a good cry may help,” Kay said.
“I’ve cried enough tears over Knox Rodefeffer,” Marigold said.
Kay fetched two glasses and a bottle of white wine. She poured them both a glass, pushed the tissue box closer to Marigold, sat down, and put her feet up.
“Tell me about it,” Kay said. “Whatever it is, it’s not worth the high blood pressure.”
“Claire said you wouldn’t use this against me,” Marigold said.
“Unless you killed Knox,” Kay said. “I can’t keep that kind of secret.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Marigold said. “I don’t know what happened after I left his house, but he was alive the last time I saw him.”
“Start at the beginning,” Kay said.
Marigold drank her glass of wine in one swallow so Kay poured her another.
“We dated in college,” Marigold said. “It was our first semester in the fall. I was in the sister sorority to Knox’s fraternity. We were both from Rose Hill, and my dad was mayor at that time.”
“I’d forgotten that,” Kay said. “You’ve never mentioned that in your campaign.”
“It was only for a short time, as interim, after the incumbent mayor passed away, and only until the next election, which he lost. It was humiliating. He thought he was more popular than he was. He felt betrayed by the whole town. He never got over it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Anyway,” Marigold said, “my dad was the mayor, and Knox was impressed with that. He had political ambitions even back then. He dumped me, of course, as soon as Dad lost.”
“Jerk.”
“Yes, he was,” Marigold said. “I was heartbroken. I thought it was something more than it was. I did things I wouldn’t have done if I’d known.”
“You were young,” Kay said. “We all make mistakes.”
“I got pregnant.”
“Oh, my.”
“You went away, back in those days, to a group home in southern Pennsylvania. I had the baby there and then went back to school the next fall. We told everyone I went to Europe for spring semester. I got good at acting like nothing happened. Eventually, it felt like it happened to someone else.”
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