“That’s why Ry talked me into agreeing to sell the old crabbers cabin to Nick.”
“Yes. And I have to say that at first, there was no one more surprised than I was when Ry told me he was selling it. There hasn’t been so much as a foot of Devlin land sold in over a hundred years, since your greatgrandfather sold off that parcel to the town for the park and the library. Charged ’em a whole dollar for the entire transaction. But after I got to know Nick a little better, I knew it was a good thing. He respects the bay, respects its life. He’s been an asset to Devlin’s Light, I don’t mind saying so.”
“Somehow I can’t seem to picture him living in that little ramshackle cabin.” India smiled, amused at the thought of the handsome Mr. Enright sharing his limited living space with a couple of raccoons.
“Oh, but you haven’t seen it lately.” August’s eyes began to twinkle. “Nick’s mother came down from someplace outside of Philadelphia and practically had it totally rebuilt.”
“What?”
“The cabin. His mother sent some builders down to ‘fix it up a little,’ she told Ry. I can tell you that there’s none of the old crabbers who’d recognize it now.” August chuckled, not for the first time, at the thought of the cabin’s former tenants’ reactions to the new bath and kitchen, the fireplace, the deck, the Berber carpet on the newly installed hardwood floors.
“His mother did that?” Somehow, Nick Enright had not quite struck India as a “momma’s boy.”
“Oh, didn’t you know that his mother is Delia Enright?”
“The writer?” India’s eyes widened. Delia Enright, internationally acclaimed for her series of mysteries, was the only writer whose books India
always
bought on the day they were released onto the book shelves. “Delia Enright is his
mother?”
“Indeed she is. And I can tell you that she is just so lovely.”
“You’ve met her?”
“Oh, yes. She has visited several times.” August refilled both coffee cups while India scraped a little butter onto two English muffins. “She just sort of swept right down on that little cabin and took over. But if the truth were to be told, Nick seemed amused by it all. Oh, yes, Delia definitely has
a way
about her.”
“I am a huge fan of hers,” India told her.
“Really?” August asked, as if she did not know. As if she did not have autographed copies of Delia’s last two books tucked away under her bed as Christmas presents for Indy.
“She’s a wonderful storyteller.” India was oblivious to August’s sly smile of pleasure at having obtained a gift she knew would delight her niece.
“Yes, that she is.” August sat a crock of Liddy’s homemade sour cherry preserves on the table.
India sat down and began to nibble on her muffin, trying to envision what a new kitchen might look like in the old crabbers cabin.
“Don’t act as if you’re not interested, India.”
“Interested in what?”
“In Nick.” August folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t even try to pretend you haven’t noticed him.”
“Why, I …” Suddenly feeling like a fourteen-year-old again, India stammered, then blushed, then laughed out loud.
“Of course I noticed. How could I not notice?” She laughed. “How could anyone not notice a man who looks like that?”
“That’s a relief.” August sighed and spread some jam on
her muffin. “I was beginning to think you’d been working so hard for so long that you’d forgotten what a man looked like.”
“There are times when I have done exactly that,” India conceded.
“Well, Nick Enright’s not a man to be soon forgotten.” August met India’s eyes across the table. “I don’t mind saying that I don’t know what I would have done without him that first day. And you know, Indy, Nick—”
“Damn, look at the time.” Sparing herself her aunt’s recitation of Nick’s virtues, which she was certain was about to follow, India stood up and gulped down the last few remaining mouthfuls of coffee in her cup. “It normally takes me three hours to drive back, and the rain will slow me down. Do you think it will last?”
“The weather report is for thunderstorms,” August replied, pleased to have confirmed that Nick had in fact caught Indy’s attention.
India disappeared through the doorway, on her way to the second floor to grab her things and prepare to leave. August heard the squeaking of the third step from the bottom as India’s foot fell upon it as she raced up the steps, heard the door to the third bedroom—Corri’s room—open and close again softly. Corri had been permitted to stay up late the night before to help Indy pack, so it was unlikely she’d wake before Indy left. India’s soft footfall was almost imperceptible, but August knew that her niece was tracing the steps to the back bedroom. Ry’s room. The same room he had slept in as a child had been the room he had returned to after Maris’s accident and he and August had agreed that Corri needed to be surrounded by as much family as possible. August had welcomed him home and been delighted to have Corri move in with them. It had been so long since the house had been filled with young people.
August leaned on the wide window ledge and looked out toward the bay.
Prima lux.
First light. She had never missed this favorite moment of each new day. It was hers, and she cherished it and gave thanks for it. One more morning. One more day.
One more day to be there for Corri, for India. One more day to mourn Ry, to carry the void her beloved nephew had
left. One more day to anchor the Devlin family, to breathe the salt air and to hear the gulls cry, to watch for the herons, to listen for the call of the geese as they passed overhead, heralding the coming of fall.
Tempus
doth indeed
fugit.
She sighed.
Twenty minutes later a red-eyed India came into the kitchen, suitcase and travel bags in hand, and kissed August goodbye before leaving. Watching her from the doorway, August said a little prayer that the trial would go quickly so that India could be back in Devlin’s Light before Corri might begin to wonder if India, like her mother and Ry, had vanished from her life for good.
“Hey, Indy, welcome back.” Barry Singer, a detective from the city’s vice squad, greeted India as she plowed through the ever-crowded space allotted to the district attorney and his staff in the basement of City Hall.
“I told you I’d be here for the trial,” she told him.
“Indy,” Singer said, laying a hand on her shoulder, “we’re all sorry as hell about Ry.”
“I know, Barry. And I want to thank you guys for the flowers. I appreciated the thought. So did Aunt August.”
“How’s she taking it?” Singer, himself raised by an elderly grandmother, had been extremely solicitous to August on those few occasions when she had visited India at the office.
India paused in the doorway of her assigned workplace and reflected. “Aunt August is strong. She is the backbone of the family. Even my dad acknowledged that, that it was August who kept us all together over the years. But she adored Ry, and frankly, I am concerned about her. She is terribly sad. As we all are. And of course, now there’s Corri …”
“Did Ry appoint you as her guardian?”
“He didn’t spell it out in a will, if that’s what you mean. But of course, between Aunt August and me, Corri will have all the loving family she could want. And since Ry had formally adopted her, Corri will inherit his share of the family trust. She’ll be well provided for, in any event.”
“Anything we can do, me and Liz”—he made reference to his wife—“we’re there.”
“Thanks, Singer.” India acknowledged the kindness with a half smile, then turned the corner of the gray divider used to create cubicles for the assistant district attorneys in the basement of City Hall.
“So”—India plunked her pocketbook and briefcase on the floor next to her desk in the overcrowded and chaotic cubical and was suddenly all business—“did you get a statement from that kid who was hiding behind the swings when Axel scooped up the Melendez girl?”
“His mother won’t let him talk to me. And Indy, I don’t know that I blame her. Axel Thomas is a really nasty guy. Between you and me, I don’t know that I’d want to bring my little boy to his attention.”
“Maybe I could give it a try.” Indy flipped through a pile of messages on her desk. “Do you have their number?”
“Yeah, I’m sure you can convince her to let her five-year-old come in to open court and make an I.D. on a child molester who may or may not go to jail. You are smooth, Devlin, but if it was my kid, I’d tell you to—”
“The number, Singer,” India deadpanned, “or I’ll tell everyone that ‘Barry’ is short for ‘Bardolf.’”
“That’s low, Devlin. Real low.” The short, stocky detective turned pale.
“That number was …” She batted her eyelashes expectantly.
The detective wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “India, I really don’t think—”
“Look, Barry, it won’t hurt for me to talk to her. I want this guy.” She dialed, then looked up at him. “I’m not going to try to talk the parents into letting their son testify, if that’s what you’re worried about. I would not jeopardize a child’s welfare for the sake of a conviction. I just want to talk to him, maybe get just enough information so that we won’t need to have him on the stand—Hello, Mrs. Powell? This is India Devlin, Paloma district attorney’s office. I’d like to stop in this afternoon to speak with you about Axel Thomas …”
By seven-thirty that evening, India had met with the Powells and, through careful questioning, discovered that there may have been another witness. The Powell boy had described a woman who had been leaning out the second-floor
window of an apartment overlooking the park at the same time that he had seen Thomas take off with the little girl. India called Singer and asked him to try to track her down and see if he could get a statement.
Returning to her office, she read through piles of statements that had been taken while she had been in Devlin’s Light pertaining to yet another case before pulling out the files on the Thomas case. She would need to refresh herself on the facts if she was going to go to trial on Monday.
Welcome back. India rotated her neck in a full circle to unkink it and glanced at the clock. Eleven-forty. The night had gone by in a blur. It was too late to call Aunt August and Corri. She would have to call them first thing the next morning. She packed three files into her already overstuffed briefcase. Frowning when she could not get the brown leather satchel to close, she pulled out one file, tucked it under her arm and hoisted her shoulder bag over her head to hang from her neck, thereby freeing up both hands for carrying.
The hallway was darkened except for the lights over the doors and the exit sign. Walking past the double doors leading to the annex housing the city morgue always gave India a severe case of goose bumps, and tonight was no exception. Her heels made muffled popping sounds on the old tiled floor as she struggled down the hallway to the elevator, where she pressed the button for the lobby with an index finger. The old lift groaned as it slowly ascended, reminding her once again that the slowest elevators in Paloma were, in fact, in City Hall.
“Can I give you a hand there, Miss Devlin?” Paul, the night guard, who pronounced her name
Dev-a-lin
, rose from his wooden chair, which stood right next to the elevator, halfway between the front and back doors of the building.
“Oh, I’ll make it to the car if you can open the back door for me.”
“Certainly, Miss Devlin.” He nodded and walked briskly, with purpose and importance, to the back door, his heavy ring of keys clanging loudly in the silent building.
“Thank you.” India smiled at him gratefully as he held the door open for her to pass through. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’ll just wait here till you get to your car.” Paul stood on the top step, his right hand on his gun, as if daring some unseen felon to jump out at India. As she reached her car, he called to her across the quiet night: “Miss Devlin …”
“Yes?” she called back as she hit the security button on her key ring to open the car door with a “beep.”
“I was sorry about what happened to your brother.”
“Thank you, Paul. So was I. Thank you for remembering him.” India opened the rear door on the driver’s side and threw her heavy bundles onto the seat and slammed the door. She slid in behind the wheel and turned the key. Waving to Paul, the silent, shadowy sentinel who still watched from the top step, she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the rain-slicked streets of the city that had been her home for the past five years.
Paloma was a city on the mend. At one time it had been a busy manufacturing center, but the textile mills moved south and those days were long past. Concentrated efforts begun ten years ago to revitalize the downtown area, however, had met with some success. The shopping district was coming back to life, the new shops having been joined by a variety of cultural attractions and fine restaurants; a music hall built at the turn of the century today served as a popular venue for plays as well as concerts. Over the years the university had grown on the north side of the city, bringing with it a well-endowed library and a highly regarded museum of natural history.
Driving through this, the oldest part of town, India rechecked the locks to reassure herself that all the doors were secured. It was dark and it was late, and this was not the best place in the city for a young woman to be driving alone. Old City had stubbornly refused gentrification and had seemed to decline as rapidly as other parts of the city had improved. There were pockets of Paloma that resembled a war zone, where crime was so common it was rarely reported. India always felt relieved when she reached her street, which was several blocks beyond Old City and on the fringes of a section of Paloma known as the Crest, a totally renovated area that had caught the fancy of upscale buyers ten years ago and was now the fashionable place to live.
India’s townhouse was narrow and three rooms deep, three stories high. She had seen similar homes in Philadelphia some years before, but there they were called “Trinities.” Here in Paloma they were known as “treys.” Everest Place lay as still as a sleeping child as she pulled up to the curb, grateful to find her usual parking space in front of her house empty and waiting for her return. The slamming of her car door echoed through the neighborhood, a rude interruption in the night silence. She unloaded everything at once, piling suitcases amid work files on her front steps so that, once inside, she would not have to venture back out onto the deserted street. Unlocking the front door, which swung without a sound into the small foyer, she tried to step over the mail, which had been propelled through the mail slot for the past week and now littered the entire floor of the entryway. Some pieces had made it all the way into the living room, she noted wryly.