by Jan Coffey
“Afraid I’m not much into public hangings.” He tossed the hat onto the coat tree in the corner.
“Nice shot.” Sheila motioned him to follow her to the back of the shop. “I guess you heard about it, though.”
“Yeah. I heard on the radio.” Mick sat in the chair. She draped a towel on his shoulders, and he leaned his head back into the sink.
She started testing the water. “I think it’s horrible they gave him the death penalty. I know I am probably the only one in town who thinks it, but I still say he didn’t do it.”
In a moment, she was working the shampoo into his thick sandy blond hair.
“Rich makes fun of me. I know he arrested Ted and all, but I have this thing inside of me—this sixth sense for judging character. And I say Ted Hardy just couldn’t be a cold-blooded killer and suffer like this at the same time.”
“That right?” Mick said without opening his eyes.
“Absolutely. Rich took me down to the courthouse a couple of times during the trial. I couldn’t believe how horrible Ted looked. Honey, anyone looking at him can see that he is in pain. And, my God, last time I was there, I didn’t even recognize Léa. You remember her, don’t you?”
“They were our next door neighbors. Of course I remember her.”
“Oh, that’s right. Well, I don’t really know how she turned out in looks when she grew up and all that, but seeing her in the courtroom, all washed out and wearing those dark glasses all the time, I would have tripped over her and not recognized her as the same leggy little thing that used to tag along after her brother.” She rinsed off the shampoo and started patting Mick’s hair dry with the towel. “I remember you used to let Ted hang around you and the other older boys when you were in school. Did you get down to the courthouse, at all?”
“No.” Mick followed Sheila to the front room and sat in the chair she spun around for him.
“Well, I’d say you’re the only one in town who didn’t.” She combed through his hair. “The days I went, it was like Main Street on Memorial Day. Everybody, I mean everybody was there. Reverend Webster and his wife and son. Brian and Jason. Gwen and Joanna from the flower shop. Some of Doug’s crew. I even remember seeing Andrew Rice there one day. And Rich said it was no different any other day. How do you want me to cut it?”
“Short. Buzz it.”
“No! You can’t do that!” Sheila ran her fingers through the wet curls and stared at him in the mirror. She arranged a few of them on Mick’s high forehead. “Women love this reckless, bad boy look. Come on, hon, let me do a little trim job, and I’ll work some mousse into it.”
“Jerry in the barbershop charges half your price, and he doesn’t give me any grief.”
“That’s because Jerry’s the only barber in Bucks County who’s blind in one eye and got his license through the mail.”
“Cut it short, Sheila.” Those blue eyes were unnerving when they made a demand.
“I still say it’s a crime.”
She reached for her clippers with a sigh and started in. In no time, sandy brown hair covered the floor around the chair.
“So, how are you getting along with Heather?”
“Okay.”
“I haven’t seen her come downtown at all since she’s moved back in with you. What’s it been…two weeks now?”
“She’s hanging around the house. Trying to get settled in again.”
“Sure. It must be tough for her. Not that I am blaming you,” she added quickly, holding the clippers away and looking at him in the mirror. “But it’s not like your ex lives in the next town. That poor girl, going from Pennsylvania to California and back again. A year here, two years there, and now being send back this way again. What happened? She didn’t get along with your wife’s new husband or something?”
“Heather likes East Coast weather better.”
“And if you think I believe that…” Sheila laughed and met Mick’s guarded gaze in the mirror. “How old is she now, anyway?”
“Fifteen.”
“That’s right. But not for too long. Her birthday’s near the end of the summer, isn’t it? Around Labor Day weekend?”
“Yeah.”
“Heather didn’t get down to the court house, either, did she?”
“Not likely.”
“Well, actually, when I think of it, that makes three of you. You, Heather, and Dusty.” She moved around him, looking critically at her handiwork. Even with his hair short, he still was a fox. She changed the head on the clipper.
“Dusty hasn’t left town in fifteen years, at least.”
“I know. But Dusty was really close to Marilyn. You knew that, right?”
Mick didn’t answer.
“I mean, who’d figure it? Here’s a homeless weirdo that no one wants to get within a mile of…”
“He’s not homeless.”
“I know that, Mick. I’m just making a point. Who’d figure on Marilyn, of all people—the perennial homecoming queen—regularly giving him food and money and God knows what else.”
“I have to get back to work.”
“Oh, yeah. Almost done.” Sheila blushed, realizing that she’d stopped cutting and was just talking. She started on Mick’s sideburns. “I hear your company got the contract for the renovation job on the old Lion Inn?”
“You hear everything.”
“Of course.” Mick bent his head so Sheila could shave the back of his neck. “Did you know Marilyn used to rent one of the Inn’s cottages by the lake up there year around?”
“Rich tell you that?”
“Everybody knew it!” She stood behind him and eyed the sideburns to make sure they were even. “But why do you think she’d be needing that, when she was staying at her own family’s house on the edge of the town? Don’t answer—I know, I know—she had to be discreet while she was fighting Ted for custody of the girls.”
She brushed the hair off Mick’s neck.
“Now, there were some juicy rumors going around about …certain people…she entertained at the Inn.”
“I like the haircut.” Mick said casually, pulling the towel and apron away from around his neck. He stood up and reached for his wallet, following Sheila to the register.
She punched in some numbers. “I know we’re supposed to believe that this great judicial system works and everything, but everyone in this town knows there was a lot of dirt in Marilyn’s past that never surfaced during the trial. Some of it might have mattered, too.”
“Nice way for the girlfriend of the town policeman to talk.”
“I’m serious. I mean, if somebody really took the time to look at Ted and Marilyn, they would have seen that she had more screws loose than he ever did…in spite of everything.”
Mick handed her the money, waiting for the change.
“Everybody says you got to know her pretty well after your divorce, Mick…before she married Ted. What do you think?”
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Your boyfriend was the guy that did most of the work on the murder.”
“I know, I know. But you know Rich. He was born and drug up here. He’s as loyal as an old dog when it comes to this town and the people we grew up with. I think the biggest thing going against Ted was that he was a Hardy. Do I need to say anything more?”
~~~~
Léa glanced up at the gray clouds racing in from the west.
“…the band of severe thunderstorms will cross the area in the evening hours. Heavy downpours and wind gusts of up to fifty miles per hour have been reported in Berks and Montgomery counties…”
“Oh, please.” She switched off the radio. “I really don’t need this now.”
The first drops of rain hit the windshield of her eight-year-old Honda as Léa pulled off the highway and turned down the country road toward Stonybrook.
She passed a motel that looked like something out of another era, but the place had its neon No Vacancy sign lit. The parking lot was packed with small trucks and antique cars wrapped in canvas co
vers. Who would have thought there’d be a car show and a balloon festival in the area the same weekend that she wanted to work on the house?
Léa had heard all about it on the local radio station. There was not much point, she decided, in driving up and down these roads hoping to find room somewhere else. Her sleeping bag and the house on Poplar Street would have to do, at least for the night.
She passed a fancy carved sign with gilt lettering welcoming her to Stonybrook, but the very sight of it caused Léa to tighten her fists on the steering wheel. The houses started coming closer together, with well-manicured lawns ending right at the road. She’d had to look at a map this morning to jog her memory. Twenty years was a long time to be away, but the recollections were coming fast now.
Léa forced her fingers to relax on the steering wheel and tried to think of everything she had on her plate right now. The past few days had been a constant push. The meeting with Ted hadn’t gone well. As she’d pleaded with him, he just sat and stared at his hands. She might have been talking to a rock. And yesterday, two full days after the sentencing, she’d found out that David Browning still had not contacted his client.
The one bright thing that had happened since the sentencing was that she’d spoken to Sarah Rand on the phone yesterday afternoon. Even through the phone line, the attorney’s questions about the case and about Ted, his past, and the type of person he’d been, had made Léa realize what a loser Browning really was.
Attorney Rand had been willing to read through the trial transcripts over the weekend to see if she might be interested in the case. She would talk to Léa on the phone again on Monday.
Léa had gone overnight to Maryland to clean up some loose ends with Janice’s things and the apartment. But she was now back in Bucks County, hoping to revive the albatross of a house hanging around her neck. And she had little more than a single weekend to do it. Hiring someone like Sarah meant Léa had to liquidate fast.
“Never say it can’t be done.” She turned the radio back on and changed the station until she found an oldies station out of Allentown.
The drops of rain turned into a downpour just as she reached the edge of the downtown area.
Léa stopped at the red light before turning onto Main Street. Waiting for the light to turn, she realized she was not in any hurry to drive directly to the house. The early years of her life had been spent in this town. Almost perversely, she wanted to see it, to see if she could remember some good to go with the bad. She wanted to see if the town had changed as she had.
In truth, she wanted time to build up her courage before facing the house where her childhood had exploded in a single afternoon.
On her left, she looked at the old movie theater. No glittery chrome and plastic cinema-plex, the place still showed one movie, with one showing each day. Cheap and safe, the theater used to be a good hangout for teenagers on Friday and Saturday nights. Léa smiled as she saw a van parked at the curb with a half-dozen kids piling out and running for cover under the marquee.
She turned her attention to an impressive new two-story office building on her right. An out-of-town bank branch occupied the bottom floor.
The light changed and she made the turn. The downtown was straight ahead, and she drove slowly through it. Despite the years and the teeming rain, the solid beauty of this street was just as she remembered it. Large half-barrels of flowers every few yards on clean sidewalks added color. Signs of hunter green and black and royal blue with gilt letters hung out from above the shop doors. Wooden benches sat under a green and white awning at the ice cream shop.
No cheaply done, homemade signs. No lit-from-within stuff. No neon. Nothing to jar the quaint effect. No troublemakers in this downtown to ruin the image of stolid, conservative affluence.
Thinking back to her childhood, Léa didn’t remember ever seeing anyone poor or homeless walking along this street. Not for all the years she’d spent in Stonybrook. Even Dusty Norris knew better than to hang around Main Street. The Army vet who came home with his wires crossed had probably been warned off, she thought now.
Everything in Stonybrook’s downtown was in order. It always had been, she realized. Safe, orderly, refined. With one exception. Her family.
Léa slowed the car and crawled past Hughes Grille. How many nights, she wondered, had John Hardy stumbled drunk out of that place and lurched along these sidewalks? There was a new awning. Hanging plants by the door. The windows were no longer smoked. Nonetheless, the place was still here.
On the next street corner was Bob Slater’s bank, the Franklin Trust, where his wife’s money—made from the mill that had once been the backbone of this town—probably sat moldering in a musty vault. Léa’s father had once run that mill, in spite of his alcoholism. And then Ted, so many years later, had married Marilyn, the product of Stephanie Slater’s first marriage to Charlie Foley. Marilyn would have been the sole heir to that fortune.
She sped past the bank, but stopped at the next intersection as a couple of pedestrians ran from the large park that stretched out behind the buildings on the left. She stared at the people as they crossed the street to get out of the rain, wondering if she once had known any of them. Darkness had descended with the onset of the storm, and the few people left on the sidewalk were rushing to get where they were going.
Léa’s attention was drawn to the police station to her right. Regardless of his episodes of drunkenness and a quick and sometimes violent temper, John Hardy had never been brought down here. But then again, Lynn, Léa’s mother, had never complained, either. And in the end, she’d paid the ultimate price for her silence.
Léa turned at the library and drove across the river. Slowing the car on the bridge, she looked downstream. There was a paved bike path along the river now, and she knew that if you followed it down beyond the closed mill, you would come to a burned out house where a woman and her two innocent children had died horrible deaths.
Thunder rumbled overhead. Strong gusts of wind swept across the park and covered Léa’s windshield with sheets of rain.
Her vision blurred momentarily, but she stabbed away at the tears and continued on, following the road up around the park that stretched out now to her left. The street was completely deserted on this side of the park. She pulled the car to the curb and wiped the fog from the driver’s side window.
The small lagoon was still there. Léa recalled the winter afternoons when she would follow Ted down here to ice skate. The wind and rain swept across the water. Old birch trees bowed submissively by the gazebo on the far side of the lagoon. In the murky light, she could just see the backs of the Main Street buildings in the distance.
Some of the best memories of her childhood involved this park. Léa remembered the concerts the town used to put on here. Even now she could see herself and Ted and her parents sitting by the water’s edge on a summer evening, listening to the brass band as the stars came out.
She pushed back the nostalgia and turned her attention to the line of buildings facing the park. The stone-steepled Presbyterian church. Beyond it, the huge old neoclassical mansions with their white columns. These had been the homes of the families that had built Stonybrook, but Léa remembered reading somewhere that over the years they had for the most part been changed into luxury apartments.
She flipped the windshield wiper to High before pulling back on the road.
At the upper end of the park, she drove up a tree-lined street into the old neighborhoods where she and Ted had grown up.
Oak Street. Cedar Street. Willow Street. Birch. Spruce. Léa smiled. All the streets were named after trees in this section of town. Poplar Street came up too quickly, and she stopped at the intersection, gathering her courage before turning onto the street where they had lived.
A bolt of lightning lit the sky over the downtown, over the park, and she saw the reflection of it in her rear view mirror. A split-second later, a loud crack of thunder startled her. It felt so close.
~~~~
The rain pounded down on them as they trudged up the hill from the bus stop. They were both soaked. The clothes, the shoes, the hair, the school bags. Léa’s sneaker slipped on the first step as she got to the front porch, but Ted caught her arm, stopping her from falling on her face.
The front door was closed. The windows were tightly shut and the curtains drawn. A chill ran through Léa’s body as she reached to turn the knob on the front door.
“Take your shoes off,” Ted warned, kicking his own off and pushing his way inside ahead of her.
Suddenly, Léa was frightened. It was only mid-afternoon, but she didn’t want to be left outside alone.
The living room was dark. Ted’s call was answered by silence. He dropped his school bag and shed his jacket by the steps. Léa was shivering as she started toward the kitchen.
“Mom?” Her voice scratched and clawed up a slippery well. She’d seen their car in the driveway. Their father was home. He was always home these days. Always fighting with her mother about something. “Mom?”
“Maybe she’s not home.” Ted reached the kitchen doorway at the same time she did.
Their parents were there. They were both there.
~~~~
She hadn’t walked back into that house since the day her parents died. She didn’t want to be here now. But her life had never really been about choices—w ell, not about good choices. Only hard ones.
Léa turned onto Poplar and pulled to the curb. Peering down the street through the rain and the gathering dusk, she saw well-groomed yards and nicely maintained houses. Bright lights shone out of large windows.
She had to loosen her grip on the steering wheel and take a deep breath before looking at the house where she’d been born.
In architectural style, their house at one time might had been called Victorian, though it lacked the gingerbread trim and the fancy decorative shingles that most of the neighboring houses had. But it was also so uncared for that she almost cried just looking at it. The wide porch that wrapped around the front and side seemed to be sagging dangerously, and she noticed the stair tread of one of the front steps was completely missing. She looked up at the broken windows and the dangling shutters of the second floor, at the peeling paint, at the missing shingles of the roof extending over the porch. Her gaze traveled over the overgrown grass and shrubbery and took in the ancient carriage house that sat like a hulking ghost behind the house at the end of the gravel driveway.
