It was clear now that certain people had been drugged. We rifled through the shelves and found laudanum, passionflower, and other chemicals that, according to Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, when mixed could put you to sleep. We flicked on a flashlight to search, and I sucked in a sharp breath when the beam landed on a paper marked “secret sleeping potion” signed “Peter, the inventor.”
Katie was just as shocked. “How does this all fit together? What happened in your dream, Pina?”
“Well, I was Billy again, and they all, Billy, Wolfie, Kevin, and Peter, had the others put to sleep, Ron included. They specifically mentioned Ron, that they had to keep him out of it, whatever it was.”
“But who were they going to do it to?” said Katie.
“Well, they were ticked at Butch, and then the voices, not sure who each one was, they said Billy owed them for protecting him from Roger. Katie, we just found out your dad didn’t know anything. Don’t you get it? He was drugged and couldn’t do whatever it was they did. Your dad’s clear!”
Chapter Twenty-three
CHILDREN AND FATHERS: ALL INNOCENT
After our midnight jaunt last night, we talked quietly for a while. We tried to figure out how Katie could tell her dad we knew he was innocent. Tell him, but not tell him we were still messing around in old camp business. He definitely wouldn’t like that.
We had just gotten to sleep by dawn, so we barely made it to breakfast. The morning mist was bracing. The woodstove usually was a welcomed morning touch, but now it only made us dopier and sleepier than normal.
By the time reluctant, morning conversations with the parents were totally finished, and breakfast completed, I was fully awake. I glanced down to the other end of the dining room to see Katie lean over to kiss her parents good morning. That was her normal M.O. before going off to play. I distinctly heard her father’s professional voice tell her to stay close at hand.
We met outside the dining hall and slinked over to the back of her cabin, where we flopped down beneath the pine trees. We discovered the two Gallos, who were not guests at Owl Lake. They were sitting in the bus hut on the side of the road. The hut was usually reserved for schoolchildren, so it seemed a suspicious place for two men to meet. We were perfectly camouflaged against the green-black needles, a short distance away from the Gallos. It actually acted like a music shell, so we heard each word distinctly, even in spite of Fifi’s accent.
“Dad, who exactly are you? What did you do back then? You’ve got to level with me,” said Joe.
“Nothing. I did nothing.”
“For Christ sakes, I just accused Ron McGuilvry, the only man I ever loved besides you, of terrible things, of rape and murder. You’ve got to tell me. Did you kill Butch for Regina? And me? Did you know about me? I confess, I would have wanted you to get Roger. He was on me, constantly. Damn near beat me to a pulp. For her, you did everything. Would you have protected me, me your sissy son?”
“My son,” said Fifi. “Come embrace your father. Nothing would make me stop loving you. I know about you, all along, it’s okay. As for the rest, I did tell Lawyer…papa of Butch…I scare the hell out of Butch, I promise him. I tell my boys, find him. Just to scare, maybe hit him, one, maybe two times. Nothing else! But, no trace of him. My boys, they never find him.”
Katie’s face looked troubled. We had to talk. About her dad, definitely, but also about us. Listening to Joe Gallo talk about his emotions with his father, I began to realize that Katie and I couldn’t avoid the discussion much longer. I knew that talk might be as hard for me as for her. How to talk about love without talking about what kind of love?
But, as usual, there was no time for that kind of talk. I heard my father calling me. He had walked over towards Katie’s cabin, thinking I was there. I had to get out from our hiding place, brush myself off, and act as if I had just been looking for kittens. No one could know that we were still looking into the camp mystery.
I said goodbye to Katie, who told me that she just wanted to be left alone for a while. As I approached my father, he was really acting weird. His tone was firm and cold when he told me just to follow him back to our cabin. When I got there, cartons of beach stuff cluttered the porch. Inside the cabin was already a mess of frantic piles: bunches of papers, bills mostly, a stack of Readers Digest Condensed Books, and two half-written postcards. My father told me to start packing.
I started to panic. “Daddy, why?” I tried to reach out for his arm, but he slapped his hand down on the bridge table.
“Because I said so. Time to go home.” Dad’s tone was still strange and harsh.
“But why can’t I stay? I could stay with Katie.”
“No. You can’t impose on strangers. The fares are cheaper this Friday. That’s when we’ll leave.”
I collapsed into the folding chair, trying desperately to think of ways to win.
“And the car? What does Mommy say?” I heard her bustling in their room.
“Don’t talk back, Pina. I’m tired this year. The train will relax me,” my father answered.
“But we were supposed to stay another week or two this year!”
“When you’re older, you’ll understand. Be quiet and help your mother pack.”
“What about the ring and the finger?”
“That’s for the police to figure out. We’re just going home.”
I had to stay and help pack all day and evening. I didn’t even have a chance to tip Katie off. I felt too sick and furious, and I was afraid I’d say too much to Katie. By the middle of the night, I was desperate enough to creep out of my cabin. Not wanting to get caught and maybe lose this last chance, I crawled on all fours over to Katie’s window.
“Psst! Katie!” I whispered, pulling myself up onto a crate so that my face was level with the sill.
“What? Where are you? Do you know what time it is?” Katie’s groggy face appeared at the screen.
“Shush! Let me in quick. I’m going to fall off this crate.”
“Oh, hold on!” Katie looked over my face once I pulled myself over the sill and into the light. “You’ve been crying.”
“I can’t, I just can’t go home,” I sobbed, not making much sense. “My father’s crazy. I hate him!”
“C’mon, Pina, come back to bed with me. We’ll wake up early and get you back to your cabin.”
“What if I ran away, and you hid me until after they left?’
“Pin, they wouldn’t leave if you were missing.”
“You’re right. I just don’t want to leave you. My father is making us leave this Friday!”
Kati looked stunned. After a moment, she whispered, “I don’t want you to go either.”
“I don’t want to lose what we have,” I said.
“I can’t do it without you. No one to imagine with. No one for adventures,” Katie said.
“You…just everything…I can’t go back there, where everything’s just the same! Like a cookie cutter…all the ugly stuff…all the church dresses and the noisy trains, and, and…alone…I’ll be all alone!” I was pounding her bed.
“Shush. Come back to bed. Maybe we’ll dream up a solution.”
“What if we told your father everything, everything we know with the notes and formulas and dreams, all the dreams…?”
“And all the stuff we know that clears him. Maybe he would pay us.” Katie was grasping at straws.
“Huh?”
“Well, if it shows that he’s innocent…I don’t know, perhaps he would be grateful.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll do it all tomorrow.” I snuggled into Katie’s side.
It was so cozy and safe next to Katie, I didn’t dare start talking about why next year would be different. Maybe I’d never get up the nerve to tell her how I felt, but I was too upset to risk everything now.
My father must have gone fishing at the crack of dawn. From where I was dozing, half-awake in Katie’s bed, I heard his tackle jangling against the pole and bait box, and I smelled his cigarette. He u
sually went directly back to his room when he was out early, so there was little chance he would discover me here in Katie’s bed, rather than my own.
He wasn’t the only one with things on his mind apparently. Doc, who must have been sitting on the porch, let the screen door slam accidentally when he bolted out to catch my father. I heard their conversation as though in a dream, impossible to tell how much was real.
“Barney, hold on.”
“Doc, uh, Ron, we’ve got to talk,” said my father.
“Yeah, Barney. I hear you’re leaving, suddenly.”
“That’s true. I’ve gotten messages from a certain criminal element. You’ve got to understand. I’m scared for my life and for my family. Here and in Italy.”
“What do you mean?” said Doc. “You have nothing to fear. You didn’t do anything.”
“Except find the ring and the finger. I’m not a doctor or a lawyer. I’m just a nice, Italian fellow, and we know what New Englanders think about us.”
“Barney, this is 1959. It’s not prohibition or—”
“But the other Italians are saying stuff…do you see what I mean?”
“The other Italians? Oh, his father, Fifi Gallo. I don’t know much about him, I only knew his son.”
“Thugs, all of them! I should have gone to the police. What are you so scared of, Ron?”
“You have to understand how bad this looks for me, Barney! Regina was my girlfriend, and she was attacked while we were at camp together. She was at the sister camp around the cove. They could say I killed Butch to avenge her. It looks like Bud and his uncle, Reginald Lawyer, could have been involved—”
“Then, let the police sort it out.”
“Well, Barney, I have news for you. Maine police don’t like downstate docs and lawyers and old money. They’ll never get to the bottom of this. I want to figure more out before we go to them.”
“No deal.”
“How can I convince you?”
“You can’t!”
“You know, Barney, your daughter is brilliant and talented,” said Doc.
“Leave her out of this.”
“Wouldn’t you want the best for her?”
“Of course I do. She’ll go to college and—”
“She could go on to Smith or Wellesley and the Sorbonne. Just think, Barney. Why not make that possible now?” said Doc.
“You trying to bribe me?” Barney said.
“No, just telling you how much she has done for Katie, and how she would help Katie advance if they were in the same school. Cheaper than my hiring tutors at the Albert Academy—”
“This feels a lot like strong-arming.”
“What do you say, Barney? I can do the Academy. The girls would be ecstatic and Pina would be a shoe-in, given my involvement for the Foundation for the Sister Schools, and then she could help Katie get ahead. If my father had been able to do for you what I’m proposing for Pina…just think, Barney, your college could have been Yale, and then Med School. You could have been a doc like you wanted to be, like your great grandfather.”
“You mean, instead of a measly insurance underwriter,” said my father.
Doc continued, holding up his hand, “Stop! I don’t mean to insult you, Barney. You would have been brilliant, and unlike you, Pina has a real chance. Get her away from the nuns. Let her have her castles in Sicily. Let her go back to your family in the Belice Mountains. Let her invent something or find a cure or write the world’s best novel.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just wait about the police. Hold off. I’m not going to protect the murderer but I want to spare everyone undue pain. Reginald Lawyer, the judge, is eighty-five, rather old for jail, but…if Papa Gallo did it, Joe and I will get him the best defense. His daughter was brutally attacked. Jeremiah doesn’t deserve to lose work and clients if the police start combing the property or raise suspicions about him. But…I give you my word…I, too, want to see justice done,” Doc said.
He continued, “Leave Pina here with us for now. I’ll find someone in Portland to have her IQ tested. I think she has some other extraordinary gifts, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll start working on the application for the Academy.”
I started to stir for real. I could smell the muffins from the dining hall. It was later than I thought. If I stayed in bed any longer with Katie, I’d really be in trouble with my father. I had a vague recollection of a conversation I overheard between my father and Doc, but I couldn’t tell if it was just a dream. I felt well rested at last, as though I had been sleeping soundly and contentedly all night.
“Katie, I’ve gotta go,” I whispered.
“Let’s find my father later and tell him everything. Did you dream up a solution?”
“Well, you know, I feel like something good is going to happen,” I said, sensing a certain deja-vu.
“Really?”
“I don’t know. I just feel really different this morning.”
“C’mon, you have to go before they see you,” said Katie.
I was barely out of Katie’s cabin when I heard, “Where were you?” My father stood smiling at me from the doorway of our cabin.
“Uh, I got up real early and went to see if Katie was awake yet.”
“Come here, honey. How would you like to go to school with Katie?”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. Every fantasy I’d ever imagined was actually coming true. I ran into my father’s arms.
I pushed myself into his warm chest and mumbled through my tears, “I…uh…that would be so great. But…it costs way too much.”
“Don’t you worry about it. Doc and I have a plan.”
“Really?” I pulled back to look my father in the eye.
“Come give me another hug. I’ve got to go get washed up. We’ll talk later.”
“Does Katie know? Can I tell her?”
“You’ll have plenty of time.”
“But tomorrow…”
“Your mother and I know how much you want to stay, and Doc McGuilvry has offered to let you stay with Katie.”
“Really?” I was hooting and doing cartwheels in the pine needles. I stumbled and fell over in the dirt, still laughing, just laughing and laughing.
My father’s grin made the sun come up in my heart.
Chapter Twenty-four
GOOD NEWS
I left my father standing there in the doorway of our cabin and ran immediately to Katie’s window. I woke her up again, but this time I wasn’t in a panic, just hysterical with happiness.
Katie was only half-awake, so when I told her I was going to stay, she thought I was still planning on hiding out until my parents left.
“No, Katie. I mean stay here with you.”
“Pin, you’re crazy. You can’t, sweetie,” she said, still groggy.
“Oh yes, yes, indeedie! Your dad just worked magic with my dad.”
Katie rubbed her eyes and said, “Okay, I am really awake now. What are you talking about?”
“It’s real,” I said. “Your dad and my father agreed to let me stay for the rest of the summer with you! Hot damn!”
She bolted out of bed and tore out of her cabin, still dressed in her nightie. Outside, she threw her arms around me and swung me around in a broad circle. We were both giggling uncontrollably.
“Guess what else,” I goaded her.
“More?”
“C’mon guess, what would be even cooler?”
“Don’t know.” She wrinkled her face. “A date with the Everly Brothers? I give up.”
“Well…how would you like a roommate at Albert?”
“Huh?” Katie scrunched up her face in confusion. When she finally put it all together, she lifted me off the ground and let out whoops of joy. “Really? You’re not dreaming?”
“Nope. It’s the real thing. Can you believe it?” I said.
“C’mere then. I’ve gotta kiss you.”
I sucked in a breath of anticipation, and then I felt Katie�
��s soft lips on my forehead. She pulled away and continued to dance around with joy.
“Wait a minute.” Katie stopped dancing and spun around to face me. “But what about the money? I mean…your dad’s job…can he pay for this?” Katie looked embarrassed.
I explained that her father and mine had worked something out, that Doc would be taking care of my schooling.
Katie covered her mouth, suddenly looking anxious. “A bribe?” Her voice was barely a squeak.
Now I felt confused, too. We were convinced that Katie’s father hadn’t killed Butch. But then why was he being so generous, unless he had something to cover up? Why would my dad accept it?
The balloon of joy in my chest had started to lose its air. Before we could speculate further, Dr. McGuilvry walked up to us, beaming. Despite my fears, I threw my arms around his neck. I just knew he would explain things in a way that made sense. At least, that’s what I hoped.
Dr. McGuilvry kissed me on the cheek and said, “I thought this would make you happy, both of you.”
“Oh, Dr. McGuilvry. Thank you so much. You don’t know what this means to me,” I said. “I mean, I hope it’s okay.”
“Yes, it is. I think I do know how important it is to you. We’ll make a deal. You help Katie avoid distractions, make sure she doesn’t get lost in her chem set and forget her other studies, and I’ll send the two of you to the same college too.”
“Huh? I know you like Pina, but that’s a lot of money,” Katie said, chewing on her lip. The two of us shared a worried look.
“Don’t you worry about that,” said Doc.
Katie mumbled something under her breath, but then found her voice, “Sounds like a bribe…”
Doc pulled at his collar, looking like he was about to choke. Standing out there in the open area between guest cabins, he looked as if a whole courtroom had accused him of murder. His flush grew darker and darker. He looked at Katie, his top lip almost curled. For a moment, I thought he was going to smack her.
Death and Love at the Old Summer Camp Page 11
