CHAPTER TEN
G
erry called as I was shutting down my computer.
“Gerry? Did he say what he wanted?” I asked Gretchen, when she buzzed up to tell me he was on the line. “Nope! He just asked for you.”
I glanced at Paige standing near the door, her parka zipped, ready to go. “Would you come up here and get Paige? Keep her company in the office until I finish with him.”
“I’m on my way!”
Almost immediately, I heard the tap-tap of Gretchen’s French heels against the concrete floor on the warehouse level, and I said to Paige, “I’ve got to take this call. I shouldn’t be too long.”
“Is that the man Rosalie’s writing the book about? Mr. Fine?”
I nodded. “Did you know him?”
“I met him once. At the Heyer’s company summer picnic. It was nice of them to include us because Rosalie wasn’t a regular employee.”
Gretchen stepped into the room. “Hi, Paige! Follow me!” Gretchen said. “Let’s go downstairs. I found some yummy candy!”
As soon as they started off, I picked up the receiver. “Gerry?”
“Josie? Is that you?” he asked in a different tone than I was used to, more intense and less friendly. For the first time I heard nothing jovial in his voice.
“Yes. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Did you see Edie?”
“When?” I asked, delaying the inevitable.
“Today. When she threw the picture.”
“Yes, I saw her. She was upset.”
“How did Rosalie’s bag get here?”
“I have no idea.”
“Damn it. And now the cops have it—and her diary.”
I didn’t respond.
“What did you say to Edie?”
“About what?” I asked.
“About Rosalie and me.”
“I told her the truth, that I had no idea.”
“Was anyone else in the room when she let loose?”
“No. But Ned came in just after.”
“Shit. Did he see her do anything?”
“No.”
“Thank God for small favors, huh?”
I shut my eyes.
What a miserable beast of a man
, I thought.
Talk about blame the victim
. I didn’t respond.
“What about Tricia?”
“She was there.”
“Una too, right? She would have seen her both coming and going. Did Edie say anything to her?”
He was consulting me as if I were an ally in his attempt at damage control and I resented the heck out of it. “I think Una saw Edie leave when she was still pretty upset, but I don’t know for sure.”
“That’s just great,” he said sarcastically. “Anyone else around?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I can’t believe Edie left the diary just lying around. Did you read it?”
“Yes.”
So there
, I thought.
Now he knows that I’m aware of his affair with Rosalie
.
“Damn. Why’d Rosalie have to keep a damn diary anyway?”
I was stunned at his narcissism. He didn’t seem upset about Rosalie’s death, just put out that he’d been caught having an affair. I didn’t reply.
“More to the point, why did you tell the police about it? All you did was make a bad situation worse.”
Screw you
, I thought. “I’ve got to go,” I said, matching his icy tone. “Someone’s waiting for me. ’Bye.”
I hung up, shaking my head.
What a sleaze
, I thought.
Downstairs, I scooted everyone out early so none of us would be driving during the worst of the storm. Paige and I trudged through the ankle-high snow to my car.
Driving was treacherous. The snow was falling faster than the plows could clear the roads, and even the interstate was a mess.
“Look,” Paige said, pointing.
A car had slid off the pavement and was lying askew in the median gully. “It’s bad out here, all right. Take my cell phone and call 911, okay? Tell them the location of the car. Just south of exit seven, heading north.”
Fifteen long minutes later, I pulled to the curb in front of a nice-looking Colonial on the outskirts of Portsmouth. Paige was ready to jump out, but I insisted on walking her into the still-empty house. The answering machine stood on a small telephone table in the front hall. A red numeral one was blinking—evidently my message was still unlistened-to.
“Brrrrr,” I said. “It’s cold.”
“I can turn up the thermostat,” Paige said, stepping around the corner into the living room.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Mrs. Reilly works in Boston,” Paige explained, “and is always late. Mr. Reilly gets home around five-thirty or six.”
“What about your friend?”
“Brooke? She’s on the swim team. She practices every day.”
“Are you okay here alone?”
“Uh-huh.”
“ ’Cause you can come home with me,” I offered.
“That’s okay. My stuff is here, you know? Thanks, though.”
“You want company? Because I could stay.”
“Thanks, but I sort of just feel like reading, you know?”
I nodded. “You have my cell phone number. You call me anytime, okay?”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll call Mr. Bolton after I’ve done walk-throughs everywhere—probably tomorrow afternoon.” I patted her shoulder, wishing I could do more, and left. I sat in my car with the engine running and watched the Reilly house for a minute, tracking Paige’s progress as she turned on lights, then drove a block away and stopped to call Ty.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m heading home.”
“I’m sorry I snapped before, Josie.”
“I’m sorry, too. And talking to Officer Brownley was fine. She’s actually very nice.”
“Good. Listen, there’s something we need to talk about.”
“What’s that?”
“I got offered the job.”
My heart began to beat extra fast. I focused on a distant street sign, partially covered with snow. The flakes were smaller than before and swirling in the gusty wind. The temperature was dropping—I was sitting in my car in the middle of a blizzard. I still didn’t know how I felt about his taking a position that required so much travel.
And what if it leads to a promotion that takes him to Washington permanently? My business is established in Portsmouth. I can’t follow him
.
“Congratulations,” I said, knowing it was the right thing to say.
“Thanks. We’ve got a decision to make.”
I smiled, pleased at his use of the word “we.” “Yeah. A big one.”
“Listen . . . according to the weather, we’re in for a real nor’easter. We can make a fire and talk about it. Why don’t you come to my place?”
Going to Ty’s was an easy decision. His big, masculine contemporary was way more comfortable and homelike than my small rental. He had a Jacuzzi tub and two fireplaces, one in the master bedroom. Ty told me to use my key to get in, and that he’d be home by seven-thirty at the latest.
Even with a stop at the grocery store to buy the ingredients for Beef Wellington, salad, and mashed potatoes, I was ensconced in Ty’s kitchen by six-thirty. By seven, I’d changed into the pair of comfy sweats I kept stashed in a spare closet, rolled out the dough, and was sautéing mushrooms for the roux.
An old Chet Baker recording was playing in the background, and I was sipping a guavatini as I stirred the gently bubbling mixture. What I could see of the meadow that stretched from the rear of Ty’s house to the woods that marked the boundary of his property was all white. There was no sign of life. It was a good night to be inside.
My cell phone rang, startling me. I grabbed it from the counter where I’d placed it so it would be at hand. “Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello?” I said again.
I heard breathing on the line, and a sudden echoing bang.
“Hello? Who is this, please?”
Silence except for the breathing, then a click—he, or she, hung up. Maybe it was a wrong number, I speculated. Shrugging, I turned back to the stove, gave a final stir to the mushroom mixture, and readied the beef for the oven.
My mother’s instructions called for sealing the dough’s seams with a lightly beaten egg.
Apply the egg liberally, Josie
, she’d written in her precise handwriting.
It adds a golden sheen and delicious richness, too!
I heard stomping, and momentarily panicked, then peeked out of the kitchen door window. It was Ty, ridding his boots of snow. I hadn’t noticed the sound of his vehicle driving up, nor had I heard the garage door opening or closing, but there he was, reminding me that snow muffles sound. He became aware that I was watching him and smiled, and I smiled back, feeling the familiar, welcome jolt of electricity.
Later, after he’d changed into jeans and opened a bottle of Smuttynose, he leaned against the back wall of the kitchen and watched as I chopped vegetables for the salad.
“So,” I said, “what are you thinking?”
He shrugged. “It’s a pretty good opportunity.”
“Yeah.”
He’s going to take it
, I thought.
“But.”
“Exactly. But. Fifty percent travel, right?”
“That’s what they say.” He drank some beer. “What do you think?”
I continued chopping, and chose my words carefully. When I’d been offered the plum job at Frisco’s, right out of college, my dad had been unwaveringly encouraging. I’d been the one to express concern about whether I could handle the responsibility, not him. And I’d been the one to express dismay at moving from Boston to New York, not him. Instead of articulating reservations, he’d conveyed confidence in my abilities and reassured me that he’d visit New York frequently. His attitude had been a gift, sending me off into the unknown without worrying about the home front. I wanted to offer Ty the same level of support that my dad had offered me.
“The job sounds perfect for you. And it’s flattering as all get-out that they asked you so quickly. You only interviewed ten days ago.”
“Well, they’re looking to fill these new positions ASAP. I was a good fit, that’s all. I mean, yeah, it’s flattering, but not all that much, actually. Mostly, it’s right place, right time, you know?”
I continued chopping. “You underrate yourself. They need skilled and experienced leaders and they recognized those qualities in you.”
“Thanks,” he said, ever taciturn. After a moment, he added, “What don’t you like about the job?”
“It’s dangerous—but so is being a police chief.” I shrugged. “Surprise, surprise, I hate the thought of how much travel is required. I’ll miss you like crazy.”
I glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking down, his handsome, rough-hewn features in repose. He could have been deciding what TV show he wanted to watch for all his demeanor revealed about his thoughts. Then he looked up and smiled, and I smiled back and returned to chopping.
Ty came up behind me and encircled me with his arms, softly kissing the back of my neck. His breath was hot and erotic. “Me, too,” he whispered.
He took the knife and placed it on the cutting board. He slid his hands up my arms to my shoulders and turned me around, and using an index finger, tilted my head back so our eyes met. After several seconds, he leaned down and kissed me. It was a long kiss, intimate and comforting and knee-weakening, and for that sweet and searing moment, I thought of nothing.
But then the euphoria passed and I pulled away. I looked up at him and touched his cheek. “You should take the job,” I said. “We’ll work it out.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. It’ll be a big change and—”
Ty’s police scanner crackled and he stopped talking to me and listened to a report of an accident on Ocean Avenue. Almost immediately, his phone rang and he answered with a brisk, “Alverez.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m on my way.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked as he flipped his cell phone closed.
“There’s a three-car pileup on Ocean,” he told me.
“Injuries?”
“Yup. EMS is en route. I’ve got to go to the scene.”
“Damn! Kiss me again before you go.”
He brushed my lips with his, and then he was gone.
The lights flickered twice, and then before I had time to register that the electricity might go out, the house went dark.
I gripped the counter’s edge and waited for my eyes to adjust to the blackness. The cloud cover was complete; I couldn’t discern a thing. I side-stepped to the built-in desk where I knew Ty kept a flashlight.
It was eerie. Concentric circles of white light shimmied on the tile floor as I sidled along the kitchen’s perimeter to the wall phone. I pushed the buttons for Ty’s cell phone and he answered before I heard it ring.
“Ty, the lights went out.”
“I heard on the news there are widespread outages. Are you okay?”
My eyes lit on the oven—an electric oven, now dark. “Absolutely. But the Beef Wellington will suffer.”
“I need a generator,” he said, not for the first time.
“Probably a good idea,” I replied, thinking of the generator back at my place. My former landlord, Mr. Winterelli, whose niece, Zoë, was now my landlady, my neighbor, and my friend, had installed it at the back of my little house about six months before he died. I’d never used it, but it was enormously comforting knowing it was there.
“What would you think about going to your place? The driving is bad, but nothing is impassible. I think the snow is letting up a little.”
“Good idea. I’ll leave now.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m on my way.”
Using the flashlight, I found an insulated container Ty kept in a high-up cabinet and eased the baking pan containing the partially cooked beef inside. Outside, bundled up, I placed it on the front seat, and turned on the motor. While the car heated up, I swept away the several inches of built-up snow, then backed out of the driveway.
Crawling along, seeking out familiar landmarks to help me stay on the road, I drove through whiteout conditions toward the interstate. Finally I made it to the relative safety of the recently plowed highway with its overhead streetlights.
According to a local radio station broadcasting from Hitchens College, we could expect the storm to last until dawn the next day, maybe longer, depending on whether the wind let up enough so the hovering storm could move offshore. They were predicting two feet of snow by morning. Power lines were down from the combination of heavy snow and wind. More than 7,500 customers were without electricity.