Twillyweed

by Mary Anne Kelly

  “I never imagined it had anything to do with us,” I whispered, “but it’s the eyes from the statue! It has to be,” I cried. “Mom, what’s the story with this statue?”

  “Sure, that’s a terrible, wicked thing. Lust for power, it is.” She stomped back in and tapped the table firmly with her pointer finger. “Those criminals don’t know the half of what they’ve got themselves mixed up in. That there’s a miraculous statue.”

  I looked at Jenny Rose. “They probably just took the jewels and threw the statue away.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” My mother glanced to the side and leaned in close. “People pray through that statue and miracles happen. Sick people get well. That sort of thing. Really, what’s a couple of stones? Stones you can pick up easily enough on the shopping network. It’s the statue itself that’s of value, the blessing within that contains the mystery of healing.”

  We stared at her.

  “Sure, look at Sal and Terry down in Florida; his father had the pancreatic cancer and the doctors gave him four months to live. Patsy McKenna told them about the statue and the lot of them came up and stormed heaven. When they opened the old man up, what do you think? There wasn’t a trace of cancer! And they couldn’t explain it. He lived eight years! That statue will find its own way home. You’ll see.”

  “You believe in all that?” I said.

  She cracked me on the head. “And for what did I send you to Catholic school!”

  I ducked and covered my head with my arms. She never hurt you much. “But we were also constantly warned against idolatry,” I pointed out. “And trickery.”

  “That’s the devil, in case you’ve forgotten. That’s his job. You kids! You act like there’s no source of wickedness. It’s all understanding the perpetrator and Prozac. That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in, filling us up with the courage to fight!”

  Jenny Rose whispered, “She means it’s not the statue that cures, it’s the faith it inspires.”

  “That’s it.” My mother lifted my chin. “A test. That’s exactly it.”

  I thought of Morgan Donovan. That great hunk of a man, humble in church. If a man like that ever came at me, I doubted I would have the strength or goodness to resist. “You’re the warrior, Mom,” I murmured softly.

  “Not anymore I’m not. It’s your turn, now, Claire. My fighting’s done.” She sighed, worn out, and sat down with a heave, spilling her tea as she reached for more toast. I’d been just getting ready to tell her about the gems and then, for some reason, when I looked at the spilled tea, I couldn’t.

  “You’d better go collect your clothes, Auntie Claire. I think we ought to be leaving, now.”

  “What, leave, now?” my mother cried and I cringed at what was to come, but it turned out she wouldn’t get as disgruntled as she used to, as I’d imagined she would. It was getting on late in the day anyhow so we packed up and left, my mother only slightly put out that we wouldn’t be staying for supper. Sadly I realized I hadn’t had much of a fight with her because, and this came as a shock, she was getting old. My ma. The brigadier general, letting things pass. It broke your heart. But tomorrow my father’s sisters—the bad aunts renowned to have a fortune but who were tight as string and would doubtless leave all their money to the dog and cat hospital—would be coming in from Ridgewood and this way she’d have everything already prepared.

  “You can drop him off here anytime,” my father said about Wendell. “He and I get along very well.”

  “And I don’t mind at all that you smell,” Wendell rhymed and my father chuckled.

  My mother wrapped her shoulders in a peppermint-striped apron and walked us to the car with enough instructions on life to fill a catalog. “Drive slow. Here, take some gladioli, they’re the last of them but they’re lovely! Watch out there’s no one lurking in the backseat. Put your seat belts on. Have you enough gas? Whose car is that, by the way?”

  “It’s my boss’s,” I said, looking away. The rain had stopped and the stars were out. It was cold now again, and I found I was still shivering but, in an odd way, ready. It always pays to go home, one way and another, if only for how wonderful you feel when you leave. Jenny Rose wrapped Wendell up in one of my mother’s woolen blankets, worn soft and pink from years of laundering, and I overheard him explaining patiently to my mother as she strapped him in, “Paige says you must say a little attention and a lot of attention when you’ve got to go make.”

  “Is that right,” my mother answered him without missing a beat, “and I’ll be waiting to hear your multiplication tables when you come back next time.”

  “I wouldn’t pass any heat on that,” he retorted in a replica of Jenny Rose’s fresh way of speaking, and as we set off his eyes batted and struggled to stay open but he lost the fight even as we pulled away. We passed Enoch’s and my rented house, but I didn’t say so to Jenny Rose. This was my new life, I thought. What was the point? Also, I was ashamed of how ugly that house was. But as we tooled past I caught a glimpse of my dog, Jake, at the window. He was standing up at the glass, his big paws up on the sill and he was gazing forlornly down the road. The house was dark. I only noticed him because of the streetlamp’s glare from the huge saliva stain on the glass. I felt an actual tug at my heart. Then I thought, Hey! Enoch said he was going to take him with him to the firehouse when he worked. And if Enoch wasn’t there, it was a perfect time to pick up some clothes. I turned right at the corner and swung around the block.

  While Jenny Rose waited in the car, I went in with my key. You’d have thought I was the greatest person ever invented the way Jake carried on at the sight of me. We hugged each other a good long time and I could actually hear his true pleasure whine groaning from the depth of his rib cage. I was shocked to notice he smelled like he needed a bath. Jake loved his bath. Saturday night, he’d wait by the sink until I would lug him up into it and give him a nice sissy bubble bath. “Enoch?” I called up the stairs. But he wasn’t home. I felt my lips tighten at the empty water bowl. Gently I held open the back door and let Jake into the yard to take care of business, which he did with such alacrity and volume I had to wonder just how long he’d been left alone. I stole up the stairs and packed as many clothes as I could fit into Enoch’s duffel bag. The hell with him if he needed it. I tossed in my other cameras, cell-phone charger, my electric toothbrush, and my double-duty jar of Nivea cream. I remain loyal to Nivea because when I was in Germany, the company booked me to photograph the still shots of a commercial in Rio, a job so exorbitantly plush and luxurious and fun, I remain impressed and grateful to this day. I took one last look at the neatly made bed. Fussy, when you thought about it. At that moment I felt no remorse, only anger that he’d left Jake alone so long in the dark, cold house. I lugged the bag downstairs and looked out. Violets were strewn across the clumpy lawn and for a second I felt a pull of regret in my throat. Enoch always said how lovely it smelled when you mowed. But Jenny Rose was moving uneasily back and forth in the front seat of the car—probably worried she was in some scary New York neighborhood. I rinsed Jake’s bowl and filled it up with nice cold water and called him back in, explaining in a reasonable way about what had taken me away after I’d promised I’d always be there for him. “Look,” I said as I stroked his brown bear fur, pretending to sound happy, “you’re better off here with Enoch. Go ahead, now, hop into your beddy-bye. I’ll see you soon. I promise. Be a good boy. That’s it.”

  Jake did as he was told. But as I took my leave, he held my eyes with such trusting devotion that I was overcome with guilt. Never mind, I told myself, grown-ups had business to attend to and this was Enoch’s fault, not mine. I made it as far as the door and then made my mistake, turning for one last look at Jake’s rumpled face, his broken ears that someone had once tried to trim then given up and so they hung like floppy, clobbered leaves. He’d dropped his gaze at the sound of the doorknob, knowing I was really off, and now his gaze held on to noth
ing, where it would be stuck for hours and then days, no doubt imagining that I’d been devoured by predators and would never come again.

  Jenny Rose was alarmed to see me emerge with a bounding, colossal dog, a duffel bag, a doggy bed, and a whopper-sized bag of dry food. “What is it?” she cried in fright.

  “He’s part pit bull, part Irish wolfhound they tell me. His name is Jake.”

  Wendell, utterly unafraid, threw open his arms in delight. He scooted over right away and patted the seat beside him. Jake tumbled in.

  When we were well onto the Northern State and both boy and dog had fallen asleep, Jenny Rose said sternly, “You didn’t tell your mum we’ve got the stones.”

  “How could I tell her? She’d worry herself sick. She’s got a stent, you know.”

  “Yeah. It’s bad enough she thinks you’ve got AIDS.”

  “And now I’ve got to go get a blood test.” I squirmed in my seat. “That bastard!”

  “At least you won’t miss him now you’re so mad at him.”

  “That’s true.” I shook my head in exasperation. “As if we don’t have enough to worry about with the moonstones! What are we going to do?”

  “Beats me.” She worried a cuticle with her teeth.

  “Well, we’ve got to tell Mr. Cupsand,” I said. “That’s the first thing.”

  “What? And what if he’s the one who stole the gems to start with?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly.”

  She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the boy was still asleep. “Don’t be silly? Listen to you! Somebody stole them. Wendell got them somehow. You just want to go straight to Daddy, the male authority figure, so it’s out of your hands.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but I realized she was right. I said, “It could have been anyone. Wendell’s teacher. A kid in school. Maybe we should go to the police.”

  “Oh, that’s smart. I’ll be the first one they suspect. Working illegally. They’ll send me back.”

  “Hmm. Well, we’ve got to tell someone. We’re in over our heads here.” We drove in silence. Then I said, “Maybe my mother’s right and the statue is the real object of value. Then the stones could have been used to pay off the thief. If we find the thief, we find the buyer.”

  Jenny Rose glared at me. “Who are we, Detectives Scott and Bailey?”

  I gave her a hard look and she said, “Right. I’ll make a list.” She ruffled around Morgan’s glove box and came up with a ballpoint and paper.

  I said, “Clearly, what we’re looking for is a collector. Fine arts. That sort of thing.” Even as I said it, I thought of Morgan.

  “That reminds me,” Jenny Rose said, “the day I pulled Radiance out of the drink, there was something suspicious about it. Come to think of it, she wasn’t very grateful. And she had marks on her. I thought at the time I’d done them but the more I think about it, it doesn’t fit. Now I’m sure of it. See what I’m saying? Maybe she’s afraid of someone.”

  Startled, I looked at her. “You mean like someone threw her in?”

  Jenny Rose shrugged. “What the fuck do I know?”

  Again I thought of Morgan Donovan. That day I’d met him, his wrist was hurt. I started to tell her then stopped myself.

  “Well, what is it?” she said shrewdly.

  I wasn’t going to protect him, was I? If Jenny Rose and I were partners, we were going to have to be honest with each other. “I was just thinking Morgan’s wrist was hurt that day.”

  “Doesn’t strike me as a thief, though,” she said and then she looked at me. “Oh, there you go thinking it’s Glinty. Just because he looks so … what was the word Paige used?”

  “Slippery,” I supplied.

  She gave me a mean look. “He’s just hot,” Jenny Rose defended him. “Dishy.” She struggled to find a word her old auntie would understand. “Hip.”

  “Write down Patsy Mooney.”

  “Oh, please. She wouldn’t know a work of art from a coupon.”

  “Look. If we’re going to investigate this, we’ve got to think of everyone who had opportunity and motive,” I said.

  “Well then, investigate Teddy.”

  “Teddy?”

  “Why not? He’s always hanging around. What’s he after?”

  I tried not to laugh at the thought of wholesome Teddy as a criminal, but I remembered his bitterness toward Morgan. I didn’t object as she wrote him down.

  “Let’s put on the list whoever was in Sea Cliff after the statue was stolen.”

  “Right.”

  “How do you want to do this?”

  I said, “We can eliminate the two of us.”

  “No. To be fair, we should head the list.”

  I laughed. “That makes no sense.”

  “But it’s fair.”

  I held my head, “Oh, fine. You and me.”

  “Paige?”

  I remembered the pen at Noola’s, which I had little doubt was hers. What had she been up to at Noola’s? “Yes. Put her down.”

  “Oliver?”

  “Sure. He could have done it. Everybody. And don’t forget Glinty.”

  “Uh! He wouldn’t dare.”

  Don’t be so sure, I thought but didn’t say. I said, “Come on. Everybody in the pool.”

  “All right, all right, I put him down.”

  “Morgan.”

  “Yes. I wrote his name.”

  “Mr. Piet?”

  “Ah, Mr. Piet. If anyone threw Radiance overboard, it would be him.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he’s always got it in for her. Telling her what to do—and she a grown woman! He thinks Twillyweed is like Upstairs Downstairs and she’s the parlor maid.”

  I felt sorry for Mr. Piet. Jenny Rose was so young. She couldn’t know what it was like to have an unruly child.

  “Nah,” she vetoed. “It wouldn’t be him. He was off that day.”

  “He still could have been out on the boat with her.” Suddenly, I thought of something. I said, “Jenny Rose, he was fishing, remember? He caught that weakfish we were eating that night!”

  “That’s right! Good thinking.”

  I, who forgets why I’ve entered a room once I’m there, was happy someone thought so. “Put the heat up, will you?” I said. “It’s freezing. And Radiance. Don’t forget her. I wonder what the real reason she was out sailing was. Fishing! I thought she was a showgirl.”

  “A dancer. She wants to be one of those girls in a line at Radio City. Jake, do move your paw. How can you be in the front and the back at the same time?” She put her head back and closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Maybe the stones have nothing to do with any of them. You realize we have no idea what we’re talking about?”

  “What about that school bus driver?”

  “Right.” She stopped fiddling with the control panel. “I’ll throw him in. I can’t stand him.”

  “And the lady from the rectory.”

  “Lassiter? Oh, I hardly think—”

  “Just write her down. How many is that?”

  “Oh, creepy. There are thirteen.”

  I turned off at Glen Cove Road and we headed north.

  Jenny Rose wrung her hands. “I think you’re right. We’ll have to have a talk with Radiance.”

  “Now that she’s back at her place, we’ll go tomorrow while Wendell’s in school. We’ll say you want to check on her. See how she’s doing.” I glanced at Wendell asleep in the back. “It could get dangerous.”

  “Yeah,” her eyes lit up.

  When we got back to Twillyweed, Jenny Rose carried Wendell in and I waved good night. We were concerned about the gems, but it was all still a kind of mad adventure for us. Had we known what evil lurked, I don’t think either of us would have remained in Sea Cliff.

/>   I took off up the steep hill, realigning Morgan’s radio buttons to their original stations, then sat for a while in the car while Jake dozed and I watched the distant, dreamy lights across the sound, listening to Morgan’s Jonathan Schwarts–style station with its old-fashioned ballads. I touched the dashboard, smelled the friendly leather seats. “Take good care of him,” I said to the car, letting Jake out to sniff around. I locked it up and walked to the cottage in the hurling wind, wondering enviously about Morgan’s weather stick. When fine weather did come, I’d buy myself a little Hibachi and grill hot dogs, I promised myself hungrily. And tomorrow would be a good day, regardless. I’d put the cushions outside to air on the deck. I shivered and carried my stuff up the short walk to the cottage. Jake was delighted with everything. There’s something about putting the key into the lock of your own digs. The door swung open and I stepped in. The place no longer smelled of dust and decay, but refreshed and lived in. The little kitten’s head popped out of a sneaker. Jake bounded in and then, spotting her, froze. The kitten’s fur stood up in a shriek along her little back. My heart stood still. At that moment it could have gone either way. I said a fervent prayer to St. Francis, who has a way with animals, put down a bowl of water for Jake, and said in as calm a voice as I could muster, “All right, you two, you don’t have to like each other but we’re going to all have to live together. So draw up enemy lines or have it out now—but somehow we’re going to have to get along, got it?” More worried for Jake’s eyes than I was for the kitten, I turned my back so there would be no show for my benefit and went into the bathroom. I held my ear to the door. There were no screams or flying fur as far as I could tell. I took a nice warm shower and slipped on my own cozy, flannel nightgown, relaxing immediately. But when I went outside, the kitten was standing up on the table, still as a statue with her tail straight up in the air. Jake had slopped the water dish but he hadn’t settled down. He sat in a rigid pose, waiting, I supposed, to see what would happen next. Ignoring them, I opened the old burgundy phonograph and put a record on for company, took the slipcovers out of the washer, and threw them in the dryer. Then I put the curtains in the washer and tackled my next job, sorting through the piles of books and records, working into the night. Noola had wonderful records, Tony Bennett, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Dinah Washington, Ella in Berlin, Albinoni, Mozart, Claude Debussy, Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert. I put that one on, loud, and wiped the rest of them down with a damp cloth and returned them to their sleeves. When my cell phone jangled from my purse, I almost didn’t hear it. “Hello?” I shouted.