Swan Song

by Judith K Ivie

  “Wait a minute. Martin Schenk is Renata Parsons’ brother?” We could hear the astonishment in Strutter’s voice, followed by the sound of Isabelle breaking into improbable laughter.

  “What is so funny?” Marian wanted to know, as did we all.

  “Just when I thought this situation couldn’t get any more ludicrous …” Isabelle choked, but she dissolved into giggles again.

  Instead of being offended, as I feared she might, May grinned wryly. “Ludicrous, yes. An excellent description, proving once again the truth of the adage, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool.’ I’m the living proof of that.” Her smile faded.

  Margo rushed to her aunt’s defense. “We were all taken in, Auntie May, not just you. He had us all believin’ he was who he said he was.”

  I hastened to add my assurance. “It’s not as if he’s a completely rotten person. Yes, he lied about his true identity, but he did what he did to protect his sister. Nobody believes he had anything but the best intentions toward you. He was aware of Renata’s growing mental instability and followed her to the convention to keep her out of trouble and try to persuade her to get some help. He saw Renata hammering on Lizabeth’s door in the wee hours and hung around in the hallway to confront her when she came out, but by that time, it was too late—or at least, that’s what he thought.

  “When Renata burst out the door and ran, he saw Lizabeth arranged in her bed, what did he call it, almost ceremonially? He thought it might be possible that Renata had been responsible for her death, and in a way, she probably was. The stress and fear engendered by her barging into Lizzie’s room may very well have triggered the final rupture. While trying to erase any evidence of Renata’s presence, Martin found the letter stuffed under the pillow. Everything he did from there was in an effort to keep Renata from doing you harm, May. For the past week he pretended to be helping her find the flash drive so he could stay close to her and keep her from hurting you. That’s what he said at the station, and I believe him. I think John does, too.”

  We all sat quietly for a minute. Isabelle’s voice floated ethereally from the Spiderphone, all traces of laughter gone. “I never thought he was a bad person, May, and I still don’t. He very naturally was trying to protect his sister from herself, but it’s clear to me that he would have moved heaven and earth to protect you from her, as well.”

  We heard Strutter clear her throat. “What she said,” she agreed.

  May thought this over and nodded to herself. “What will happen to Renata now?” she asked.

  “Well, the good news is she didn’t actually manage to do anyone in, but she certainly had the intent. She stalked and harassed you, and Martin confirmed that it was Renata who tore up your house, so that’s breaking and entering and the associated property damage. Then there’s the matter of the illegally obtained gun, although lord knows that’s easy enough to do these days. So there are many possible charges, but John believes she will be released into Martin’s custody and subjected to a professional evaluation. Further action will depend on those results. Either she’ll be charged and tried, or she’ll be committed, one or the other.”

  The two young people were subdued, watching and listening as the details of the story unfolded, but finally their youthful curiosity reasserted itself.

  “So what happens now?” Duane asked, reaching for yet another slice of pizza.

  “Yes, what next?” Becky wanted to know.

  Margo, May, Marian and I exchanged weary glances. “Now we clean up this mess, get Marian safely home and take ourselves back to Wethersfield,” I suggested. After that,” I shrugged, “I guess it will be up to each of us to figure out what’s next for ourselves.”

  Epilogue

  For some reason the month of June had come to represent the beginning of a new year to us, perhaps because it heralded the full-on start of the prime real estate season. After that, we would be flat out, and there would be few opportunities to fritter away an hour on chitchat. So each June, if the weather cooperated, we would find an afternoon to take a break from the workday, share a cappuccino somewhere in the sunshine, and talk about our plans for the coming year.

  Sometimes we gathered on the memorial benches clustered in front of the Keeney Memorial Cultural Center on Old Main Street, but an unusually warm spell motivated us to visit the Main Street Creamery & Cafe farther down the street. Not only were the ice cream, baked goods, coffees and other treats exceptional, but the owner had gone out of her way to create a comfortable and welcoming presence in our little town. Free water on the shady veranda was available for thirsty people and dogs, and lots of comfortable seats offered an unfettered view of nearby gardens and bird feeders. It had become a favorite Sunday afternoon stop for Armando and me during the summer months, and we looked forward to it reopening each year. On this Wednesday afternoon our large-ish group was able to appropriate most of the seating, at least until school let out an hour or so hence.

  We had many reasons to celebrate, not the least of which was the settling of Lizabeth Mulgrew’s estate. Attorney Henley had been accused of, and confessed to, the wrongdoings to which Renata had alluded during our confrontation at the Hubbard Library, and the affairs of his clients had been reassigned to other members of the bar. As Lizabeth had specified in her letter to May, publication rights to her final manuscript—Swan Song, written under the pen name of Wilhelm Z.B. Trague—were given to May with royalties to be paid to a charity of May’s choice. If she decided to have her little publishing company, Romantic Nights, issue the title, all other proceeds would accrue to her as owner and principal.

  So far, we weren’t sure if that was her plan. Since the happenings of February, May had been withdrawn and thoughtful and spent a good deal of time outside of the office with Isabelle, who had become a good friend, as well as her business partner. Clearly, something was afoot, and they would clue us in when they were ready.

  “Yum yum,” Margo enthused over her cherry vanilla cone. “I always forget from one summer to the next how good this ice cream tastes. How’s yours, Sugar?”

  I licked my no sugar, no fat, chocolate ice cream from a plastic spoon and smiled. “Delicious and totally guilt free,” I told her. “I’ll bet the kids aren’t having anything fat free.” I nodded toward Duane, Becky and Strutter’s son, Charlie, who were taking turns letting Charlie’s little sister Olivia sample their sundaes and banana splits. “Enjoy your efficient metabolism while it lasts, Olivia, because that train will stop running sooner than you’d believe possible.”

  Strutter just laughed at me. “It’s great to see the four of them together again. The spring term at UConn lets out so early, it seems as if it was just Christmas break.”

  “Yet so much has happened since then,” May mused. Isabelle shot her a questioning look and raised one eyebrow.

  “Shall we break the news now?” she asked May.

  “It’s as good a time as any,” May responded. “Let’s do it.”

  Isabelle took a lusty slurp of her root beer float and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Okay, you start.”

  “Goodness, how much news is there, Auntie May?” Margo looked a little alarmed.

  May reassured her with a smile. “A lot, but it’s all good. For openers, I have a new listing for Mack Realty—my house on Wheeler Road. It’s been totally cleaned up and repainted inside since the vandalism, but I simply can’t face redecorating and replacing the furniture and all that. Besides, I’m afraid the house doesn’t hold many happy memories for me any longer, not like the house your Uncle Douglas and I shared in Atlanta.”

  Now Margo looked truly stricken. “Auntie May, you’re not leavin’ us and movin’ back to Atlanta, are you?”

  “No, no. I’m sorry. I’m not making myself clear. I’m moving, but not anywhere as far as Atlanta. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time over at Isabelle’s comfortable apartment at Vista View, and she’s persuaded me that a similar unit will be just the thing for me, so convenient for when we work together.
In fact, I put a deposit down on one this past Monday. I move in the first of July, so you’d better hurry up and sell the Wheeler Road house. I plan to pay cash for my new unit.”

  My partners and I looked at each other in amazement. “Okay, that makes sense, and of course we’ll help you out, but does this mean you’ll be vacating the upstairs of the Law Barn? You did just say you’ll still be working together, right?” I asked.

  “Your turn,” May said to Isabelle, and she picked up the narrative.

  “We will be working together, but not in the intense way we have been as partners in Romantic Nights. We’ll get Swan Song onto the market, because that’s what Lizabeth wanted May to do, but beyond that … frankly, the small publishing business has lost its shine. Lizabeth Mulgrew was absolutely correct about that. With the proliferation of self-publishing programs glutting the market with a million bad books every year, it makes no sense to invest the time and money we do in producing top quality books. The new rule of thumb for majority of the reading public is ‘good enough.’ Tight editing and high production values don’t matter to most readers anymore, and they certainly won’t pay for them. The bottom line is, we’re unwilling to fight the tide of mediocrity any longer. Life is too short, so we’re moving on to more satisfying endeavors.”

  Strutter looked totally unsurprised by the news. “Such as what?” was all she said.

  May and Isabelle grinned at each other. “So many choices,” May murmured. “Our only problem is what to do first. Thanks to Lizabeth’s generous legacy to me, we’ll have the money to fund a significant charitable enterprise. We’re thinking about a foundation to educate children about truly helpful ways to interact with wildlife, especially birds and waterfowl. You know, get ‘em while they’re young. Go from class to class throughout the school system and tell them the facts so they won’t think they’re doing the birds a favor by throwing stale bread and bagels to them. What do you think about that, Kate?”

  I beamed. “Thank you! I think that’s a wonderful idea, and I know you’d be good at it. We’ve all seen how the kids in your neighborhood look up to you.”

  May nodded. “Yes, I’d miss having children around, and I’m hopeful that some of the other Vista View residents will want to help out. It’s supposed to be a retirement community where visitors of all ages are welcome, not an old fogeys’ home.”

  Margo and I laughed. “With you on the premises, May, I think there will definitely be some changes made. What else?”

  “I’ll continue to write my Ariadne Merriwether series, of course, but new titles will be spread farther apart than they have been. Isabelle and I discovered we both would like to take a cross-country road trip …”

  “Just like Thelma and Louise,” Isabelle giggled.

  “And audit some classes on classical music and the great artists.”

  “And learn how to construct crossword puzzles,” Isabelle put in eagerly. “I’ve done them all my life, so I know a lot about them. Merl Reagle was my idol. I just loved his puzzles. I wrote him a fan letter once, and he actually took the time and trouble to call me. Now that’s class. Imagine having one of my own puzzles appear in The New York Times one day.” Isabelle sighed with anticipation. “Of course, I’ll have to work up to that.”

  Margo snorted. “Ya think?”

  We all smiled at the thought as we finished up our ice cream. The four youngsters swarmed up to us, strong and feisty, enjoying the day and each other’s company. At that moment, I felt that anything would be possible for them, and I looked forward to seeing what the next few years would bring for each one.

  Charlie Putnam, his eyes the same clear aquamarine as his mother’s, hoisted Olivia onto his shoulders as she shrieked. Perhaps because they were twelve years apart, there had never been anything approaching sibling rivalry between them. She doted on him, and he on her. “Okay if we take Olivia over to the pond to check up on the swans?” Charlie asked Strutter.

  “Sure,” she said easily. “Just keep a close eye on her around the water, and be home by four o’clock. What’s the latest on the cygnet watch?” she said, addressing this last to Duane and Becky.

  A couple of weeks ago, the two swans had separated during the day, for the most part, and it looked as if one of them might be sitting on a nest back in the marsh. If true, that would mean a swan family would once again be resident on the Spring Street Pond, but nothing definitive had been learned as yet.

  “Don’t know yet, but either Goofy or Doofus—I still can’t tell them apart unless they’re standing right next to each other—swims around close to shore, begging for handouts like the bums the misguided human beings have turned him into, while the other one hangs back in the marsh.” Duane shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Even if the other one isn’t a nesting female, it will be nice to have a couple of swans in our feathered band,” Becky smiled. “This town could use a little diversity.”

  Charlie slung one strongly muscled, brown arm around Duane’s shoulders and grinned at her. “Oh, I think we’ve got that covered, Beck. Look at us, a bossy white girl, a gay man and a brother.” He laughed out loud. “Come on, even if there aren’t any cygnets, I want Olivia to see the baby geese.”

  “Goslings,” Strutter, Becky, May, Isabelle and I corrected him simultaneously.

  “Wow, this is worse than sitting in a lecture hall,” he grumped, then turned and galloped off toward his disreputable, ten-year-old Honda, his sister giggling with glee as she hung onto his head. Duane and Becky followed, jostling each other like the children they still were, at least in our eyes.

  “Speaking of offspring,” said Strutter, looking after them fondly, “what’s going on with Emma? Has she decided to move to Portland?”

  It was my turn to smile, this time with pure relief. “No, thank heaven. She and the boyfriend have decided they’re not a good fit for the long haul. They had a lot of fun together, but that was about it, so she’ll be back in a few days.”

  “You mean he turned out to be a dick,” said Margo, ever the romantic. “I thought this one was really the one.”

  I frowned at her characterization, even though it was partially accurate. “It’s like my very first boss told me years and years ago after she watched me break up with one boyfriend or another. Gaither Lee Martin from Lubbock, Texas, she was, and for the two years I lived in California, she was my boss and mentor and mother all rolled into one.”

  Margo and May turned affectionate eyes on each other and nodded in understanding. “So what was it she used to tell you?” May asked.

  I thought for a minute to make sure I got it right. “She’d say, ‘Sugar, I like men better’n I like chocolate candy, but I could always take or leave ‘em both.’”

  That produced a predictable laugh and ended our reminiscences on a high note. Reluctant to leave the birds and the sunshine, but beginning to feel the tug of our various responsibilities, we tossed cups and napkins and spoons into the trash and recycling bins and turned our steps back up Old Main Street to the Law Barn. It was a route we had traveled hundreds of times over the past decade and knew almost by heart, yet it never got old for me.

  “What about Mack Realty?” Isabelle wanted to know. “What’s new and exciting for the new year for the three of you?”

  As if they were somehow thinking the same thing I was, Margo and Strutter gazed around at the familiar buildings and gardens. Most of them were older than we were, and yet many of their histories and those of the people who occupied them were as familiar to us as our own. Old Main Street had become home to us in a way no other place ever could.

  “It’s hard to put into words,” Margo said. “Every day brings the possibility of a new adventure, so I don’t really feel as if we need to make plans.”

  “It’s familiar and new at the same time,” Strutter added. “Every client has a story, and we get to play a part in it, so it never gets old for me. I don’t think it ever will.”

  “The events of the
past few months have surely made that clear,” I agreed. “We all go through the same things in life, but each of us sees them a little differently. It helps to have good friends to give us new perspectives. Sometimes all the future takes is fresh eyes.”

  “I hear that,” May smiled, and on that note, we let ourselves into the Law Barn and got on with the day.

  Meet Author Judith K. Ivie

  A lifelong Connecticut resident, Judith Ivie has worked in public relations, advertising, and the international tradeshow industry. She has also assisted several top executives in corporate and nonprofit settings.

  Early in her career, Judi authored three nonfiction books, as well as numerous articles and essays. In 2006 she broadened her repertoire to include fiction, and the popular Kate Lawrence mystery series, set in historic Wethersfield, Connecticut, was launched. All are available in trade paperback, e-book and audio book formats at a variety of online sites.

  Whatever the genre, she strives to provide lively, entertaining reading that takes her readers away from their work and worries for a few hours, stimulates thought on a variety of contemporary issues and gives them a laugh along the way.

  Learn more about Judi and her Kate Lawrence Mysteries at www.JudithIvie.com or contact her at Ivie4@hotmail.com.

  Sample another great mystery in the

  Kate Lawrence series.

  Drowning in Christmas

  by Judith K. Ivie

  “I wouldn’t ask you,” said my ex-husband, “but I’m desperate. I really need your help here.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Did you hear the desperate part, Kate?” Michael wisely refrained from whining, which he knew would only make me crankier. Instead, he allowed sufficient time to pass for his surprising request to replay in my mind. Yes, the man had to be on the edge.