A Charmed Place (38 page)

Maddie stiffened at the matter-of-fact recital. Dan was a reporter, she knew, but still
.
She let out a little wounded sigh and Dan said instantly, "Maddie, maybe we should stop. I can't watch you as I do this; it's too painful. But I can't discuss a murder any other way. This isn't the place to speak in euphemisms."

"I know, I know," she said in distress, making two fists and shaking them like baby rattles. She was determined to
keep up with him as he forged ahead. "What do
you
think?"

"Well, for starters," he said, turning the lapt
op screen to face him again, "
if Michael was still your husband when this supposed affair between Joyce and him took place, it had to have been over four years ago. In which case, either this Joyce dropped Michael, or your dad was just blowing smoke when he made that threat."

"Oh. Oh! How stupid of me! I never noticed when the letter was dated. That's what's important. When was it?"

Dan shook his head. "
No date. A whole batch of letters was apparently consolidated into one big file on the same day: March 20—a couple of weeks before April 6. Your dad seems to have skipped the date, inside address, and signature when he copied each letter into this master file, which is maddening. The letter before this, though, is
a complaint about a roofing job.
"

"That was six or seven years ago!"

"And the letter after it is, let's see
... it's a request to Carnival Cruise Lines for a brochure," he said, looking up quickly at her.

"They never went on that cruise," Maddie murmured. "They never got the chance."

"All right," he said, sighing. "We can't confirm when the letter to Joyce was written. Not from this disk. Suppose we try to find the originals."

"Oh, but they'd all be with—"

"Your mother. You'll have to ask her. And, Maddie?"

"Yes?" she said, knowing what was coming next.

"You'll have to ask her about Joyce, too, if you're serious about following this trail wherever it leads."

"Oh, Dan
... no. I couldn't. That's incredibly personal."

"So was taking your father's life," he said, glancing up at her with the first flash of impatience she'd seen. He was in reporter mode now; she could see it in the way his attention stayed on the computer screen as he continued scrolling through the file.

"You're right," she conceded. Her mind raced ahead to the scene that would take place between her mother and her.

"God
... my mother is screening my calls now through the answering machine—if it weren't for Claire, I wouldn't even know if she was dead or alive—and yet you want me to knock down her door and demand that she tell me all about Joyce."

"Mm-hmm," he said, his gaze still locked on the screen.

Maddie walked back to the desk, lifted the laptop out from under his fingertips, and started walking away with it.

"Hey!"

"
T
his is a laptop computer. It's designed to work on a lap. The least you can do is move the lap in question closer to the fire. I'll curl up next to you, and we can read through the files together."

The stern look on his face softened as he said, "Leave it to a woman to find a civilized way to fight crime."

Maddie waved the computer in a sinuous ballet over the slipcovered sofa, and when Dan sank into the down-filled cushions, she laid the instrument on his lap and got up to
stoke
the fire. In the thirty seconds it took to do it, he was gone, lost in the digital halls and rooms of the small gray box.

The fire could go out and the moon fall down the chimney; he wouldn't know. He was completely engrossed in the hunt. For Maddie, it was different. Part of her didn't want to find out any more than she already knew, because every revelation so far had brought pain.

First there was the April 6 note, the first real indication they had that her father actually had an appointment with his murderer. Then, the news that he hadn't been in
Cambridge
at all, but in
Natick
. And now, Joyce. Who was this Joyce who preyed on two such different types of men? Did Maddie really want to know about Joyce? Did she want her mother to know
more
about Joyce?

And there was something else. In an unlit corner of Maddie's heart was the fear that an investigation might come too close, scorching them all with its intensity, like an asteroid that brushes a planet. It might even score a direct hit, taking them all down in flames.

So she sat in a state of hushed ambivalence, wanting to know the truth, afraid of what the truth might do to her and the ones she loved.

She read the letters over Dan's shoulder, but mostly they were mundane—stuff about conferences and seminars and glowing referrals for bright students. Once in a while a letter to a news editor would scroll up: some wry and indignant blast over a zoning variance or proposed tax increase. Those letters she liked, because they were written in her father's voice—crusty, honest, candid.

Who was this cuckoo Joyce?

Dan broke the silence just once to ask, "Was your mother possessive of your father?''

"Somewhat," Maddie said pensively, "but not wildly so. In any case, it didn't bother my father at all. He accepted that women were jealous and possessive of their mates. He was an awful chauvinist that way."

And that was their only
substantive
exchange until the telephone rang at 2:00 a.m.

*****

Maddie wanted so much to believe them both, but by morning she was forced to admit the obvious:
both
her daughter and her ex-husband had conspired to lie to her.

Maddie felt utterly downhearted. She and Dan had spent their first night together in twenty years, and she'd blown it by brooding in his arms for the greater part of it.

Tired from her sleepless night, she propped her cheek on the palm of her hand as she stirred extra sugar into her coffee. "Why didn't I just go along with the don't ask, don't tell philosophy? I'd be so much happier now," she said, sighing.

"Are you that certain they weren't telling the truth?" Dan asked as he dropped two slices of bread in the toaster.

"Tracey's a rotten liar, and Michael's a great one. If you'd heard either of them last night, you'd know," Maddie told him.
  "She was out late at a party."

She watched him as he moved easily around the kitchen, filling his coffee cup, tending the eggs, searching the cupboards for dishes and jam. It was a small thing, his wanting to make breakfast, but she loved him for it.

"I don't deserve you," she said with a wistful smile.

"Hell, who does? But you're stuck with me anyway," he quipped.

They heard a thunk, the unmistakable sound of a newspaper being bounced off the front door. Dan grinned and said, "A night with you, and there's the
Times.
I can die happy now."

She watched him pad barefoot toward the hall to retrieve the paper. On his way out of
the kitchen, he grabbed his T-
shirt—undoubtedly to slow down the gossip. It was another small thing, but it was another reason to love him.

I feel as if we've been together all our lives. As if like Rip Van Winkle, I've awakened from a long nap and am picking up where I left off.

She loved him so much, trusted him even more. He was the only one, she realized with a jolt, that she
could
trust. No, that wasn't true. She was being unfair. But Michael
... Tracey
... even her father.
...

She looked up to see Dan entering the kitchen with an altogether sheepish look on his face. In the next instant, she saw why: Norah and Joan were tiptoeing in behind him.

"Good
morning
," said Norah, giving Maddie a sly smile that only she could see. "We just happened to be in the neighborhood."

"Don't you two
ever
knock first?" Maddie asked, amazed at their tenacity.

"Puh-leeze. We tried that once and you barred the door," Norah reminded her.

"Yeah," said Joan, pulling out a chair. "From now on we ransack first, get permission later."

Behind them, Dan winked good-naturedly to Maddie as he said politely, "Can I get you ladies something?"

"Coffee, thank you, black."

"Coffee, two sugars. Cream if you've got it, otherwise milk."

Norah seated herself with languid grace. She looked smartly turned out, as always, this time in nubby white linen shorts and a silk tank in impressionist pastels. Maddie admired her—as always—and yet for the first time, she noticed something missing, something wanting, in her friend's strikingly beautiful face.

Joy? Maddie knew that she herself must look like hell in her oversized T-shirt and Levi cutoffs, and yet she felt pretty. More than pretty. She felt sexy. Surgery scar, puffy eyes, unset hair and all.

Sounding brisk, Norah cut through her reverie. "I really do have a purpose here, other than catching you two barefoot." She glanced at Dan and added from under lowered lashes, "Although I have to say, stubble becomes you."

Dan reached for his chin and actually blushed, which prompted Maddie to step in. "Suppose you tell us why you're here, then, because right after that we plan to kick you out again."

Joan and Norah exchanged a ritual raising of eyebrows. Joan turned to Maddie with comically pruned lips and said, " 'We?' 'Us?' Excuse me, but when did you begin making decisions in tandem?"

Dan glanced at Maddie.
Now?
his look said. Are we going to tell them now?

Yes, Maddie decided. Why not? She gave him a look that said just that.

His face lit up like a high-school band. It gave Maddie incredible pleasure to realize how much he loved her, how much he wanted the world to know that he loved her.

Grinning like a dope, she blurted, "We're getting married!" She meant to sound dignified. She failed so badly.

There were squeals and screams, giggles and hugs. Three women, all of them entering middle age—and they sounded like teens hiding in the bathroom during their first social.

Norah said, "The wedding will be at my house, of course."

"It will not," Joan said, instantly getting her dander up. "It's got to be at
Rosedale
!"

"We haven't even talked about where we're going to—"

"Uh
... how about the lighthouse?"

"It might be on rollers and in transit soon; the money's pouring in for the move. When is the wedding, by the way?"