He next moved on to listing the facts of the case, what was known and what was not. Ray used bulleted columns on opposing pages. After he completed the lists, he studied the graphic, hoping to see a connection that had been missed earlier or something that would provide new directions in the investigation.
With Ray’s growing sense of frustration at the lack of progress, the energy that had enabled him to stand and write so long seemed to vanish. Suddenly he was very tired, struggling to stay awake. He looked once more at the diagram, hoping something would leap off the page, then closed the journal, replaced the cap of the pen, and returned them to their place in the desk.
As he prepared for bed, he thought about the things he would have to do in the morning to complete his part of the Thanksgiving dinner by the time guests arrived.
Ray climbed into bed and started reading a long profile in a current
New Yorker
. He woke at three, his bedside reading lamp still on, the magazine on his chest. He turned the light off and fell back into a heavy slumber.
He found Nora, accompanied by her two dogs, Prince Hal and Falstaff, waiting for him.
“I didn’t wake you,” she said as she walked by him, placing a large wicker basket on the food preparation counter next to the stove. Once the load was out of her hands, she looked around and then back at Ray, noting how he was attired.
“Joining a religious order? I hope it’s not one that practices celibacy. That could be dreadfully tedious.”
“Yes,” he agreed with a smile.
“And you haven’t even made coffee yet,” she said incredulously. “Ray, I’ve never known you to sleep in before.”
“What are you doing here so early?” he asked. “We were going to gather sometime this afternoon and begin cooking.”
“Well, Dotty’s kitchen is so small, and the temperature control on her oven is not dependable. It’s just so much easier to make pies here. I’ll get them put together and baked, and then I’ll disappear for a bit. I brought you some fresh banana bread for breakfast, and here’s today’s Free Press and yesterday’s Times.”
“Pies,” said Ray, “there are only going to be five of us, how many are you making?”
“Just three, pumpkin, cherry, and pecan. People have different traditions, I want to be sure everyone gets a choice.”
“Our tradition was crème brûlée,” said Ray.
“Crème brûlée! Sure, Ray Elkins,” said Nora, with a breathy laugh. “Your mother was a good cook. Baked wonderful pies and bread, but none of us had tasted crème brûlée back in the old days. Now get some coffee made and go read the paper, I need to get to work.”
Ray put a kettle on the stove and measured the dark, shiny beans into the grinder. As he started turning the crank, Nora asked, “Why aren’t you using the electric mill?”
“It makes too much noise in the morning,” he responded. Ray emptied the drawer of finely-ground coffee into a glass carafe and scanned the headlines as he waited for the water to come to a boil. He allowed it to cool for a few minutes and then poured it over the coffee. After allowing three minutes for the infusion to take place, he pushed the grounds to the bottom with the finelyscreened plunger.
Ray placed a mug of steaming coffee at Nora’s side and settled at his dining table with the papers, the banana bread, butter, and coffee. The dogs, one on each side, accepted small donations until it was clear Ray was finished eating, then they wandered off to find a place for their morning nap. Falstaff curled up in a pool of sunshine on an oriental rug. Prince Hal settled on a couch, his head elevated on a pillow.
Ray luxuriated in having the leisure to sip coffee and read the paper, occasionally glancing out at the snow-covered landscape— the shadows changing as the morning sun moved across the horizon. Nora, the dogs in tow, was on her way out before he had finished scanning the
Times
.
“The pies are done and cooling, and I hope you will note the kitchen is back to what it was when I arrived, with a few improvements, of course. What time should I come back?”
“People are coming about 3:00 to get started. Then we were planning on hiking on the Lake Michigan shore before dinner. Perhaps starting hors d’oeurves between five and six and dinner when we get to it.”
“Well, I will be here at three. The boys will love the walk. They really miss not living near the beach,” Nora said. “And stay out of those pies,” she admonished as she moved toward the door.
Before showering, Ray put in a call to the hospital and had a brief conversation with Hanna Jeffers, Lynne Boyd’s attending physician, the plucky surgeon credited with saving her life. Ray learned that Lynne’s condition, while still critical, had continued to improve and that Lynne would probably be moved to Cleveland Clinic, perhaps by the beginning of the next week, for further evaluation. Jeffers opined that Lynne would require weeks of hospitalization, followed by months of limited activity during her recovery.
By 3:00 in the afternoon Ray completed preparations for his two entrees, tenderloins of venison in a butter and thimbleberry sauce and steelhead filets poached in white wine. Marc would be preparing medallions of duck breast. Ray knew Marc would arrive with crusty baguettes just out of the oven. And Lisa would prepare a collection of greens for a salad after the entrees.
Nora and the boys marched in on the hour, Marc and Lisa fifteen or twenty minutes later, and finally Sue Lawrence, still in uniform, carrying a bottle of wine in a brown paper bag, a backpack slung over her right shoulder.
“Everything okay?” Ray asked, accepting the wine.
“As usual, it’s a very slow day,” she responded. “And we are more than adequately staffed. And short of the end of the world or the sky falling, Ben knows you are not to be called.” Sue disappeared for a few minutes and returned to the kitchen in mufti, black velour jeans and a soft, blue sweater that set off her aquamarine eyes and long, red hair. Ray was startled by her appearance. He had never seen her dressed and groomed in such a feminine manner.
The whole group, including the dogs, crowded into Marc’s vintage van. After a short ride to the Lake Michigan shore and a long walk at the base of the dunes under clear skies and waning sunshine, they returned to Ray’s home in high spirits to start the final preparations for dinner. Ray was busy sautéing the venison when he was startled by a large pop. He turned to see Nora with a newly-opened magnum of champagne.
“My family tradition,” she said with a smile, showing Ray the Dom Perignon label on the bottle.
“A good tradition,” said Ray.
The cooking and conversation continued, livened by Nora’s assiduous attention to keeping all the glasses full.
After the frenzy of preparation, they settled into a leisurely meal with the appropriate wine served with each entree: a Chateauneuf du Pape with the poached steelhead, a Shiraz to accompany the venison, and a Pinot Noir partnered with the duck. The main courses ended with Lisa’s salad, then the dishes were cleared away, and coffee and pie were served.
As they lingered over their coffee, Lisa asked, “Anything new on the Boyd shooting?
Marc looked across the table at Lisa and said, “She promised me this morning that she wouldn’t mention the subject today.”
“The day’s almost over,” she sheepishly offered in her defense.
“I wish we had the shooter,” said Sue.
“How about Lynne? How’s she doing?” asked Lisa.
“I think there’s growing optimism,” said Ray. He shared what he had recently learned from Dr. Jeffers.
“That’s something to be thankful for,” said Nora. “Those beautiful little girls should have their mother.”
“Nora,” Ray paused, thinking about what he wanted to ask, “the shooting up at Crescent Cove, the one you told me about….”
“When was this?” interrupted Lisa.
“Oh, years ago,” Nora explained.
“The person involved, the man who died, what was his name?” asked Ray.
“That was Talmadge Hawthorne,” she answered.
“And I think you said something about a settlement with his family. What was that all about?”
“As I remember, it was about Talmadge’s membership. His heir was unhappy with the buyout arrangement. He argued that the share should have been much larger.”
“This was a son of Talmadge Hawthorne?” asked Ray.
“No, it was a stepson, the child of Talmadge’s second wife. Beautiful woman she was, too, about thirty years his junior. Looked a lot like Grace Kelly, wonderful hair, beautiful eyes. Her death, what a tragedy.”
“What happened to her?” Ray asked.
“She drowned. She was out swimming alone, I think it was in August, got carried out into the big lake by that current. At first, no one noticed she was missing. The next day they found her body washed up on the shore up the coast a few miles. Some people said she had a drinking problem; I don’t know.”
“And her son, do you remember his name?”
“Oh yes. You know he was gone for years, but I’ve seen him around the last year or two.”
“His name, Nora.”
“Yes, his name, rather unusual. Let me think. The first name was like a screen actor. Hollywood sounding. Gavin, yes that’s it.” She paused for a minute. “Gavin Mendicot. That’s his name. Thank God things are still connected up in my head.
“Oh, Gavin,” said Lisa, coming back into the conversation.
“What do you know about him?” asked Ray, turning his attention to Lisa.
“Not much. He’s a couple of years older than me and was around in the summer when I was in high school and college. He was an Adonis. Lots of blond hair, great definition, a real six-pack. If he had only had a brain.”
“Brain?”
“He was real political, far right wing. And he drank a lot and was into drugs. He went to one of those colleges that cater to dimwitted children of car dealers,” Lisa explained.
“Is she always this hostile?” asked Ray, laughingly.
“You don’t know the half of it,” responded Marc. “Fortunately, I’m a calming influence.”
“Anything more about Gavin?” Ray asked Lisa.
“I heard he joined the military, Special Forces. I think he was in Iraq. Someone told me he was eventually mustered out of the service with severe emotional problems. I ran into him at the hardware last spring. He knew me by name; I didn’t recognize him; he had changed so dramatically.”
“How so?” asked Ray.
“He’d ballooned up, gone mostly bald, and had this vacant, confused look about him. And when blond guys go to seed they just look like hell.”
“Wasn’t he the man Donna Bateman was living with?” asked Sue, looking at Ray. “The source of the….”
“Yes,” Ray answered, exchanging glances. He looked back at Lisa. “Anything else?”
“ I think that’s about all I remember.”
“Nora, anything more you can add?”
“Let me think. It seems to me that he was around when his stepfather had that accident. Ray, that was a while ago, and what I heard was mostly gossip. I don’t remember anything else.” Before she could say anything, Prince Hal interrupted with a sharp, command bark. “The boys need walking, I think they want to go home.”
“It is getting late,” said Marc. “We need to get things cleaned up and out of here so Ray can get some sleep.”
A flurry of activity followed and finally the kitchen was in order and everything put away. And then the final hugs as Marc, Lisa, and Nora said their good-byes. Sue was last, retrieving her backpack. She gave Ray a parting hug, and to his surprise it turned into a passionate embrace. She pulled his head to hers, their lips met, and Ray felt her tongue slide slowly back and forth across his lips. They embraced a second time, this time Ray responding to her passion. Then Sue suddenly pulled back.
“I’d better go,” she said.
Ray desperately wanted to reach for her, but he restrained himself. He remained silent as she quickly slipped out the door.
“Ray, it’s Ben. Sorry to wake you so early when you’re suppose to be off, but I think you’d like to know this.”
“What’s happening?” Ray asked.
“Dispatch just took a call from a department in the U.P. wanting us to do a notification of death. I called them back and verified the information. It’s Dirk’s brother, Ray. He died in a snowmobile accident.”
Ray did not respond. He let the information seep in.
“I’m happy to make this run alone, but I thought you might want to be involved.”
“Yes,” he responded.
“Want me to pick you up?” asked Ben.
“Sure,” said Ray, “give me about twenty minutes.”
Ray was waiting just inside the front door when Ben pulled his patrol car in close. Ray slid into the passenger’s seat, moving his insulated coffee mug to his left hand so he could pull the door closed.
“Have a good Thanksgiving?” Ben asked as he carefully maneuvered his patrol car down Ray’s snow-covered drive.
“Yes,” Ray answered, the rather surprising events of the previous evening flashing through his brain. “Spending time cooking and eating with old friends,” Ray continued, needing to fill the silence, “was very special this year.”
“I know Sue was excited to be invited,” said Ben. “She’s told me when you and your friend Marc get together the food is amazing. I bet she enjoyed herself.”
“Seemed to,” Ray responded. “How about yours?” he asked, needing to move away from the topic.
“Everything was ready when I got home, and fortunately it was a quiet night, nothing to pull me back in. The kids were home from college. Jamie brought her fiancé, and Maureen was worried about the sleeping arrangements.”
“How did it work out?”
“Well, you know when they were small we built on that wing for them with bedrooms and a family room of their own. We had dinner and sat around and talked over dessert. Then we got things cleaned up and went off to bed. Maureen finally stopped worrying. She said the kids would figure it out. No one did bed checks. You’ve avoided these crises by not having children.”