Keepsake

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  They went round and round on that for a while, but Mrs. Dewsbury was adamant. Quinn didn't want to upset her, so he dropped the matter for the moment. That brought him to the delicate business of asking her what she remembered about the attack. He knew Vickers wouldn't tell him squat, so any information was going to have to come from the victim herself, and she was old and fragile and traumatized.

  "Mrs. Dewsbury—guess what?" said Olivia before Quinn got the chance to bring up the subject. "When we were poking around under your bay window, we found a navy blue watch cap!"

  Oh, perfect. "Olivia—"

  "It's not Quinn's and I'm willing to bet hard cash it's not yours. We think it belonged to the guy who broke in."

  The widow got a blank look on her face, as if she'd just remembered that she'd left the oven on.

  "I never set the alarm!" she said, apparently realizing it for the first time. "I heard this tremendous crash and I came downstairs. And right before I was hit, I think I caught a whiff of bourbon. I know, because my Larry was partial to bourbon for his nightcap."

  "Bourbon, huh?" said Olivia, obviously intrigued by the information. "Did you tell Chief Vickers that?''

  "No. When he was here I wasn't quite ... I wasn't ... what was I saying?"

  "We were coming up with a profile of the jerk who did this to you," said Olivia, and even Quinn had to admit that she made the discussion seem matter-of-fact. How did she do it?

  Mrs. Dewsbury suddenly winced, and immediately Olivia was all solicitousness. She jumped up and said, "What hurts? Tell me."

  Mrs. Dewsbury touched the back of her head gingerly and gave her a tremulous smile. "It doesn't hurt, exactly. I think I was reliving the blow just then."

  "He hit you with your dictionary, you know," said Olivia with a wonderfully sympathetic smile.

  "He did not," said the widow, bristling.

  "But ... we found the book on the floor by the stairs."

  "Because I knocked it over when I was trying to reach a chair. Oh, no. It wasn't a dictionary, my dear. It was something hard and I think metal."

  "A candlestick, maybe?" said Quinn. "That's what he used for smashing in the television."

  "Yes, it could have been a candlestick," Mrs. Dewsbury decided.

  Quinn said, "Chief Vickers will check the one lying in the television for prints, but he didn't sound hopeful. In any case, the intruder wouldn't have smashed in the screen, then walked over to the stairs and ... and ..."

  "Bopped me on the head."

  "Bopped you on the head," said Quinn with a wry smile, "and then returned the candlestick to the TV screen."

  "Was the other one on the table? I kept them placed on each side of the bowl of wax fruit that's on the table runner."

  "I don't recall," said Quinn, but Olivia did. She said that the mate was on the table, just where it was supposed to be. Hell.

  He mentally ran though a list of possible weapons: lamp, poker, knickknacks... Suddenly a light bulb turned on in the closet of his mind and he had a pretty good hunch about what the intruder did use for a weapon.

  He turned back to Mrs. Dewsbury to say something and was dismayed to see a tear rolling down over her quivering lip.

  "I could understand how someone would want to rob me," she said, sucking in her breath in a shuddering effort to gain control over her emotions, "but why did he have to smash in the monitor? I was so excited to have it. Ask anyone."

  So that's why the son of a bitch sadist did it, thought Quinn. Because you shouted your joy from the rooftops.

  The blow to the head, that was more difficult to account for. The act seemed motivated not as much by cruelty or sadism as by simple panic. Then again, Alison had been murdered by a blow to the back of the head. Was it mere coincidence, or a pattern?

  There was nothing more to be learned. Mrs. Dewsbury was too weary to be cheered by Quinn's reassurance that he would find her another monitor. When they walked out of the hospital, it was with a fair amount of trepidation.

  "I'm going to call her son," Quinn said as he and Olivia got out their car keys. "Obviously he has to know about this."

  "I agree. Well, I guess I'll see you ...?"

  "Tonight. Should we meet here?" he suggested.

  "Yes. She needs to have visitors often, but in brief spurts. All right ... well ... bye," Olivia murmured, gazing at him with those fathomless dark eyes. Her look cut him up like a chainsaw, leaving a jagged streak of pain in its wake.

  She turned to leave, but he caught her by the arm. "Olivia," he said, "I know I've been a shit. I'm, uh, having a real hard time with something right now. I hope ... I hope that ..."

  What he was hoping was that she would understand. Blindly, without questioning, that she would somehow smile and say, It's all right. Go wherever the path of justice leads you. I don't mind. Indict my uncle. Arrest my brother. Lock my dad in a small room and beat him until he howls. Break my mother's heart completely. Do whatever you have to, as long as you find out the truth. That's what counts.

  But her smile was sad and baffled, and worse, the spark that he loved seeing in her eyes was fading fast. She wanted him to share what he knew, and he couldn't. Not yet, and maybe not ever.

  "I hope that we can work this through," he said at last in a voice wrung dry of emotion.

  It wasn't much, but she seemed to take comfort from it. "I know we can, Quinn," she said earnestly. "We have so much going when we're together—as long as we are together, we can work anything through."

  They kissed, a tender, hurried kiss that felt almost painful to him, and then they got in their cars and drove off in opposite directions—Quinn, with murder on his mind.

  ****

  Olivia ducked into Miracourt just long enough to ask the help to hold down the fort until mid-afternoon, and then she got back in her car and headed for her parents' grand house at the end of upper Main. Her father would be at the mill, of course, which was fine with her. It was her mother she wanted to see.

  The morning was gray but mild. Winter was easing its grip on Keepsake, at least for the moment: It was the January thaw, right on time. Olivia rolled her window part of the way down, sniffing the gentleness in the air. What would it be like, she mused, if every day were as kind as this?

  She daydreamed, again, about moving to California but decided, again, that she'd make a crummy Californian. How could she stand all that fine weather? When you lived in New England, moments like these—when Mother Nature stopped screaming at you long enough to give you a hug—seemed to make life all the more worthwhile.

  How pathetic, she realized. I'm thinking like an abused child.

  She was right about the weather, though: At the head of the drive she saw her mother wearing no coat, only her camel-hair blazer.

  She tooted twice on her horn in reply to her mother's surprised wave, then pulled under the portico and left her minivan there. She'd dressed with special care and had left her coat unbuttoned so that her mother could see the olive-green silk dress she wore. With its autumnal scarf cinched by a pin, the outfit was a little on the fancy side for Olivia, but Teresa Bennett loved to see her little girl all decked out.

  "Don't you look nice, honey," her mother commented predictably as Olivia bussed her cheek. "I've always liked that dress."

  "Hi, Mr. Thurber," said Olivia to the gardener, who took himself off to the side to peruse his notes. "Mom, we have to talk."

  "I'm afraid not now, Olivia," her mother said in mild reproach. "You can see that I'm busy with Mr. Thurber."

  "But it's important. It's got to do with Quinn."

  Anyone would think that Olivia had just let out a string of four-letter words. Her mother silenced her with a scandalized look and said, "Put on some coffee, then; I'll meet you inside when I'm done here."

  "Mom, I don't have much time—"

  "Olivia," her mother warned with a dangerous smile. "You'll have to wait your turn."

  Chastised, Olivia said, "Okay, I'll wait, but I don't really want coffee. Thi
s'll only take sixty seconds."

  She paced the length of the redone kitchen for twenty minutes as she waited for her mother to finish her business with the gardener. It was dumb to have tried cutting ahead of Mr. Thurber. Teresa Bennett had always treated the help with at least as much civility as she treated her friends and relations; it was the reason people liked to do business with her.

  Olivia sighed and put on the pot of coffee after all.

  Eventually her mother came inside, and Olivia meekly set a steaming cup in its saucer on the marble-topped island where her mother liked to sit and read her morning paper.

  "I'm sorry I interrupted you and Mr. Thurber," said Olivia before being handed an official reprimand. "By now I should know better. And I was indiscreet. About Quinn, I mean."

  "I know what you mean," said her mother. "What's this all about? You come flying up the drive like a sparrow two steps ahead of a hawk, and you start flapping on about Quinn. What's wrong with you, Olivia? Do you understand the word discretion at all?''

  "Not by this family's definition, that's for sure," Olivia shot back. She slipped onto the high stool opposite her mother's. "But listen to me, Mom. Something's happened. Mrs. Dewsbury was attacked in her house last night. She's in the hospital now."

  Olivia related the few details she knew to her shocked mother, then said, "In a way, the attack just shows that Quinn is right. He has to prove his father's innocence—otherwise, whoever is doing these things will just keep on upping the ante. I could be next," she threw out, trying to alarm her mother into endorsing the logic of the plan she was about to announce.

  So much for psychology. Her mother went directly past logic into a state of high anxiety. "Quinn has got to leave Keepsake!" she said, slapping the marble with the palm of her hand. "He's putting everyone around him in peril. Everyone!"

  "Don't you think he knows that? That's why he's going out to see Uncle Rupert this afternoon."

  "What ... do you mean?" asked her mother. Her face had turned a deathly shade of pale.

  "'Well, you know. He's going to ask them about agreeing to have Alison's body exhumed for DNA testing. If she wasn't pregnant by Mr. Leary, then there would have been no real reason for him to have murdered her. That's pretty obvious."

  Her mother simply stared. "But I thought that was all done with. I thought the district attorney refused to do anything about Alison. Why would he? Francis Leary is dead. I thought ... that was all done with," she repeated numbly.

  "I know it's upsetting to think about, but we have to be rational about this. Eliminating his father as a suspect is the only way that Quinn can stay in town without having to worry constantly that people he ... he cares about are in danger. I mean, let's face it," Olivia said lightly, "he can't go installing a burglar alarm in the house of everyone whose hand he shakes. As soon as the test results become known—"

  "They can't become known!" her mother cried. "That's nobody's business!"

  Olivia stood up. "Of course it is, if there's a crime involved. That's why I'm going over to Uncle Rupert's now," she said, slipping into her long wool coat. "To help Quinn talk them into cooperating."

  "What! Are you insane?"

  "Why does everyone keep asking me that?" Olivia said with a laugh, determined to seem unconcerned. If she showed the least bit of empathy at her mother's distress, she'd never make it out the front door.

  "Olivia, you cannot go there!"

  "Of course I can, Mom," she said. She kissed her mother's cheek in farewell. "I know it's painful, dragging the whole thing up after all these years. But people have Alison on their minds anyway, with all these horrible acts going on. The whole town's on edge—except for Mrs. Dewsbury, of course. You can't believe how unflappable she is."

  She glanced at her watch. "Shoot! Look at the time!" Snatching up her butter-soft bag from the back of the chair, she hooked it over her shoulder and said, "I still have to stop at the bakery for something sweet to bring Aunt Betty. Gotta run. If Quinn beats me there, he won't have a prayer of getting inside the house, though he'd be the last to admit it."

  "Don't go!" her mother said in a sharp cry of agony, grabbing her arm. "Olivia, I'm begging you—don't!"

  "I have to," Olivia said, unsettled by the depth of her mother's distress. "I'm only telling you beforehand because I don't want to do anything behind your back. Please, Mom," she said, freeing her mother's hand from her sleeve. "I've thought this all out. Aunt Betty was always fond of me. I used to stay over when I was a kid; she won't have forgotten that. She'll listen to me, even if she won't listen to Quinn. I promise I'll let you know how it goes. I'll even offer to tell Dad, if you don't want to."

  Her mother grabbed her by the shoulders. Swaths of emotion were splashed across the tawny skin of her cheeks. Above her burning cheekbones, her dark eyebrows, heavier than was strictly fashionable, were pulled down in pain. Her look was as tortured, and as fierce, as the grip she had on her daughter.

  "If you go," she said in a choked and agonized voice, "then don't bother coming back to tell me. Ever!"

  Olivia blinked. "You don't mean that, Mom," she said, amazed and almost annoyed by her mother's melodramatic tone. "You're just saying that."

  "I do mean it!" Teresa Bennett cried, and she burst into sobs. Tears rolled over her cheeks as she said over and over between hiccups of pain, "Don't, honey ... don't ... please don't ..."

  Now it was Olivia's turn to stare. Her mother had always been emotional—but this! She had always been kind to poor Aunt Betty—but this!

  "Mom, it's no big deal," Olivia said, engulfing her mother as if she were a five-year-old with a scraped knee. "You're getting way too upset for Aunt Betty's sake, honestly."

  Her mother would not be consoled. Finally, in wonder and exasperation at her hysterics, Olivia stepped back and blurted out, "I have to do this, Mom! I love him!"

  "You don't love him!" her mother shrieked, slapping Olivia's shoulder in her frustration. "You only think you do! You just want to fly in the face of your father! This is all about getting back at your father, Olivia, and nothing else!"

  "But I do love Quinn!" Olivia cried, stunned by her mother's response. "My God—how can you say I don't love him? How can you possibly know how I feel?"

  "You've never had time to love any man! They're annoyances to you, distractions from your career. Why would you suddenly think you love this one, unless it were to hurt us all?"

  Olivia's purse had slid down to her wrist. Frustrated and infuriated, she looped the strap around her hand and slammed the bag in a vicious arc onto a counter. "Damn it! No matter what I do, it's not good enough for you! Dad wouldn't let me work at the mill. Now you won't let me love Quinn. What does it take around here? You're the one who always told me to follow my heart. You're the one who always told me to make my own dreams happen. Well, that's what I'm doing! I love him, Mother! I love Quinn."

  Three little words. They silenced as efficiently as a sword plunged directly through the heart.

  Teresa Bennett became very still. Without another word, she moved away from her daughter and slipped back onto the woven seat of the wrought-iron chair at her new marble-topped island. Without another word, she moved her cup and saucer carefully to one side, then folded her arms in front of her on the stone. Without another word, she bowed her head and pressed her brow against the soft ivory cashmere cocooning her arms.

  Olivia stared at her mother for a long moment. And then she left, without another word.

  Chapter 19

  Quinn went directly from the hospital to the police station and told Vickers where he could find the weapon that was used on Mrs. Dewsbury.

  The chief laughed in his face. "You're completely paranoid, you know that? Too many years brooding in exile, if you ask me."

  "Get a warrant," Quinn said. "Go to his house. Hell, stop by for a beer. You're a pal of his. Check the place out for yourself."

  "I am a pal, Leary," he growled, "which isn't the only reason I'm telling you to get the hell ou
t of my office. You've given me no cause to search the man's home. A dirty look on New Year's Eve and some psychological claptrap about—what?—sour grapes or something? That don't qualify as cause. Stop wasting my time. I'm late for a meeting already."

  And that was that.

  Seething, Quinn decided to retrieve the weapon himself. Maybe Vickers would call and warn his old friend, but maybe he wouldn't have the chance. It was worth a shot.

  Quinn left his truck parked at the end of the block and headed for the bland little bungalow where Coach Bronsky had lived alone all of his life. He found it at the middle of a tree-lined street, looking—like its owner—saggier, baggier, somehow more mean.

  A beat-up truck sat parked next to the house. As Quinn suspected, Bronsky was home. It was the lunch period at Keepsake High. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where a boozing coach who lived nearby would spend the free time.

  The house itself presented a surly facade. The shades of the four windows that faced the street were pulled completely down, just the way they used to be. One of them had a big rip near the roller. For all Quinn knew, it was the same torn shade that had hung there two decades ago.

  Even then, Coach Bronsky used to scare the kids. Not scare, exactly; more like thrill them. He was tough and mean and called them unspeakably insulting names, and underneath all their terror, they loved it. He was a role model for them, mostly because no one had a father with a repertoire of insults as vast as his. But the allure wore thin by sophomore year, and by their senior year, most of the guys despised him.

  The coach was a bully and a browbeater, a grown-up version of the kind of boy who pulled wings off insects in the name of science. He had a meanness of spirit, a pettiness of emotion. He blamed everyone for everything. Quinn could not remember a single instance when Coach Bronsky admitted to a mistake or said he was sorry. He intimidated the younger kids with his size and the older ones with his authority. Single women shunned him. Mothers resented him. Fathers felt guilty that he had charge of their sons.

  He was a thug.