In Death's Shadow (7 page)

CHAPTER TEN

Brian himself answered the door. He looked like
hell. Dark stubble speckled his cheeks and covered his chin, his eyelids were at half mast, even his ponytail looked dejected, hanging limply down his back like a damp rope. He wore khaki shorts and a Grateful Dead dancing turtles T-shirt with a big coffee stain, as if the blue turtle hadn't made it to the Porta-Potty in time.

For a moment I just stood there, taking it all in, barely noticing that the casserole dish was freezing my hands off. I straightened my arms, thrusting it forward. "I thought you could use this, Brian."

He took the dish from me. "That's really thoughtful, Hannah. You didn't have to, you know."

"But I wanted to," I said stupidly. We stared at each other uncomfortably for a few moments while I tried to figure out how to wrangle an invitation inside. "It's not much—"

"Wanna come in?" he asked.

"Thanks," I said, stepping over the threshold.

The foyer looked the same as the last time I visited, except now a matched set of suitcases was lined up neatly to the right of the door. I followed Brian and my casserole to the kitchen where a menagerie of foil-covered dishes and colorful Tupperware containers littered an expanse of countertop the length of a runway at BWI. Brian turned,
Help me
writ plain in his eyes.

"It's frozen," I prompted.

Brian blinked. Clearly, I wasn't getting through. I circumnavigated the kitchen island, took the casserole from his hands and set it down between a Corning Ware dish and a rectangular cake pan. "Look, Brian. Why don't you let me help you put some of this away?"

"No, that's okay," he said. "Val's mom is still here. She's out with Miranda now, buying her a swimsuit. We're leaving in the morning."

"Well, in that case, your mother-in-law needs all the help she can get," I said, turning up a corner of foil on a blue baking dish in order to check its contents. Green bean casserole. I popped it into the freezer. "So, you're going to New Jersey?" I asked. "I thought it was just Miranda." The next dish held a salad. I found a place for it easily. Valerie's refrigerator was the size of your average New York City apartment.

Brian leaned against the stove. "We're taking Valerie home," he said. "She'll be buried in the family plot."

"Oh." I couldn't think of anything else to say, and neither could Brian. He stared out the French doors, twisting his wedding ring round and round. Seeing him like that just about broke my heart.

"I'll be back in a couple of days," he said, suddenly snapping back from wherever it was he'd gone. "Miranda will stay on with her grandparents, for a few weeks, anyway. She's going to camp."

Camp? At age four? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Sleep-away camp?" I stammered.

"Oh, no!" Brian replied, his lips lifting in a tentative smile. "It's a mini day camp. Sports, creative arts . . . you know. They'll teach her to swim." The smile vanished as quickly as it had come. "Kat will make sure she gets there and back every day."

I was standing there, gawping, holding a foil-wrapped brick of something that looked suspiciously like pound cake, when Brian came to life again. "I mean it, Hannah. Kat is going to take care of this." He took the package from me. "If you want to be helpful, I could really use another cup of coffee." He pointed to the coffee maker, a sophisticated contraption with buttons and knobs that appeared, upon closer examination, to do everything for you, including grind the beans. The bean reservoir was empty.

"Coffee beans?" I asked.

Brian pointed to the cupboard over the coffee maker.

Valerie must have really loved her coffee. The cabinet held bags and bags of coffee beans arranged in two rows and neatly labeled: Mocha Java, Kenya, Tanzanian Peabury, Sumatra Mandheling, Kona, Brazilian Santos, Costa Rica, and—my heart flopped in my chest—Val's Blend. I quickly refilled the hopper with Val's Blend, crumpled the bag into a ball and tossed it in the trash. At least Brian wouldn't stumble across that sad reminder of his dead wife.

Meanwhile, Brian had unwrapped the pound cake, sliced off several pieces, and arranged them on little plates, adding a scoop of fresh-cut fruit from a bowl sitting out on the sideboard. The man wasn't as helpless as I'd thought. When the coffee was done, we poured it into mugs and took turns adding milk directly from the carton.

"Let's sit on the patio," he suggested, using his elbow to push open the door.

Outside, I set my cup on a honey-gold teakwood table, pulled out a chair and lounged back appreciatively. "What a view!" Over the vanishing edge of the Stone's in-ground swimming pool, sun sparkled on the gray-green water of the Chesapeake Bay. A windsurfer zipped past, his pink vinyl sail glistening. Because it was a Sunday, sailboats were out in force, too, scooting back and forth across the bay and in and out of the mouth of the South River like white-winged butterflies.

"It is wonderful, isn't it?" Using his fingers, Brian picked up a cube of pineapple, popped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Valerie loved sitting out here."

"I can see why," I said. "If I lived here, you'd never get me off the patio."

Brian leaned back in his chair, propping his feet—flip-flops and all—up on the table. He stretched, laced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes.

Out on the river the windsurfer had turned and was heading in our direction, skimming along at maybe twenty knots. Just feet from the shore, he jumped, spun and flipped the sail, heading across the river again, completely at one with his board.

"We talked about buying a boat," Brian said languidly, "but we never got around to it."

I reached over and gently squeezed his arm. "Valerie didn't have any regrets, Brian, and you shouldn't, either. Those last months? You made her so very happy."

Brian turned to me, his eyes moist "You think so?"

"I know so."

"It's just that I feel like such a shit sitting here, enjoying all this . . .” He waved an arm. “. . . when I know Valerie paid for it with her life."

"But Valerie was given the time to enjoy it too. Surely that counts for something?"

Brian shrugged. "I suppose."

We sat in silence for a while, drinking coffee. At one point the telephone rang, but Brian ignored it, letting the answering machine pick up. "Brian?" I said after a bit.

“Ummm?"

"I went to see Gilbert Jablonsky yesterday."

Brian's head swiveled around until he was looking directly at me. "Did you like him? Isn't he great? Are you going to go with him?"

I raised both hands. "Whoa! One question at a time!"

Brian grimaced. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound like an infomercial for the guy."

"That's okay." I grinned back, hoping to put him at ease. "Yes, yes, and no."

"Huh?"

"Yes, I liked him. Yes, I think he's great. And, no, I don't know whether I'll be selling my life insurance policy or not." I paused, letting those blatant falsehoods sink in before continuing. "It's just that Paul's away on a sailing trip and I'll need to talk it over with him first."

"What's not to like?" Brian swung his feet to the ground, rested his arms on the table and leaned toward me. "When Jablonsky called us, we jumped at the chance."

"Wait a minute! Jablonsky called
you
?”

Brian nodded.

“How did Jablonsky find out that Valerie was sick?"

Brian shrugged. "Who cares? It was a good deal and we took it."

If what Brian said was true, Jablonsky had to have someone—like at the doctor's office or at the hospital—on his payroll. My stomach lurched. I swallowed twice, trying to calm it.

"Do you mind if I ask you something about your deal, Brian?"

"Sure. Shoot."

"Jablonsky told me he's just a broker, that some other company actually buys the policies."

Brian nodded. "Right."

"So, do you know who bought Valerie's policy?"

"An outfit called ViatiPro, Inc."

I squirmed in my chair. "I don't know about you, Brian, but it makes me really uncomfortable thinking that there might be some investors out there wishing me dead."

Brian shook his head slowly. "I can see where you're going with that, Hannah, but you're way off base. Valerie died quietly in her sleep. ViatiPro had absolutely nothing to do with it." Brian's chair legs screeched on the concrete as he scooted it closer to mine. "Let me explain. ViatiPro buys hundreds and hundreds of policies. If somebody doesn't die as soon as they expected—?" He shrugged. "They're a big company. One policy, more or less, wouldn't make the least bit of difference to their bottom line."

"How about the investors, then? What if one of them—?"

"Hannah," he said with exaggerated patience, "ViatiPro sells policies in packages. So, investors are buying shares in more than one policy; and the policies mature at different times."

Mature
. There was that word again. The only way an investment like this could "mature" was when somebody died.

"Even so, just for the sake of argument, what if some investor . . . some desperate investor, say, got tired of waiting for his investment to, as you say, 'mature'?"

Brian stopped me. "I see what you're getting at, but let me assure you, ViatiPro erects pretty secure firewalls between policy holders and their investors."

"Okay. I can buy that. But I'm still puzzled. If they keep the names of the viators secret, then how do the investors know they're buying
legitimate
policies?" I remembered some of the articles I'd read, like "Scam Watch: Grim Reapers Target Deathbed Investors." "How do investors know that ViatiPro isn't just taking their money and buying imaginary policies with it? You know, ripping them off?"

Brian grinned. "Well, it was a little weird," he said, "but a ViatiPro rep used to call us up once a month to see how Valerie was doing, so they could report back to their investors."

"Ugh!" It just slipped out. I couldn't help myself. "What kind of report?" I asked.

"Every viator has a number. ViatiPro has a website where you can type in that number and track your investments . . ." He drew double quotes in the air with his fingers. ". . . on-line."

The cake I had just been nibbling turned to sawdust in my mouth. I washed it down with the last of Valerie's special coffee.

My husband watched the stock market go up and down on CNN or the Business Channel. What could possibly be going through the mind of an individual who logged onto the Internet each morning checking (hopefully!) to see if anybody in his investment portfolio had died!

"High tech," is what I said.

I was thinking, though, that financial speculation in the death of others didn't strike me as evidence that our species is advancing.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The whole viatical thing was giving me the creeps.

After my matter-of-fact conversation with Brian about Valerie, I went home and took a bath—a long, hot bath—hoping to soak the revulsion out of me beginning at some deep molecular level. It didn't work. Every time I leaned back in the tub and closed my eyes, vultures began to gather and circle beneath my eyelids, peering down with flame-red eyes at Valerie, sunning herself poolside, oblivious to the danger hovering overhead.

After I dried off and changed into pajamas, I tried to telephone Paul, but got switched to his voice message.
Northern Lights
must be out of cell phone range. I checked the itinerary tacked up on the bulletin board in the kitchen: they would be somewhere off the coast of New Jersey that night. If they were making good time, Montauk Light—110½ feet tall, with a beam that was visible for miles—would be flashing every five seconds on the horizon. If they weren't, well, let's be optimistic. Maybe somebody on the beach at Fire Island would be flashing.

I left a message for Paul to call me, then cobbled together a dinner: leftover tuna noodle casserole and what remained of a can of stewed tomatoes.

Then I did what anyone else would have done under the circumstances. I ate a half pint of Hagen-Dazs rum-raisin ice cream all by myself, crawled into bed, and fell asleep watching a rerun of
The X-Files
.

Our lives are defined by milestones. Graduations, weddings, the birth of our children. For me, life is either BC or AC—before cancer or after. Every day AC is a precious gift. I'm sure Valerie thought so, too.

Monday, June 15. My friend had been dead for a week. When I got out of bed that morning, I stared at my polished toes and thought that when I got that pedicure, Valerie Stone was still alive.

I didn't feel much like breakfast, but figured I'd better eat something, so I toasted a bagel.

As I sat at my kitchen table, munching thoughtfully, it bothered me that I still didn't know very much about Valerie's passing.
Peacefully in her sleep, of heart failure.
More than that, the newspaper hadn't said. And who had discovered Valerie's body? Brian would know, of course, but it would have been crass and insensitive of me to ask.

I wondered, too, if there had been an autopsy. I knew that the bodies of people who died under suspicious circumstances were sent to the Office of the Medical Examiner in Baltimore; that was the law. Yet, nobody seemed to think there was anything the least bit suspicious about Valerie's death. Nobody, that is, except me.

Paul would tell me I was overreacting. Maybe so. But rock a few boats, shake a few trees, and sometimes the truth falls out.

After a few minutes I trudged outside in my slippers to pick up the newspaper, tossed it, still in its blue plastic sleeve, on the kitchen table, and tucked my mug and dirty plate into the dishwasher. As I filled the little trapdoor with dishwashing detergent and snapped it shut, I remembered with a pang that ghastly day when my mother had a heart attack, collapsing right where I stood, on my kitchen floor. The paramedics had been amazing, and everyone, it seemed, worked in concert to save my mother's life, even the neighbors who poured out of their houses and stood on the sidewalk, praying she'd be okay. Police and emergency vehicles blocked the street, lights flashing, for nearly an hour. Valerie couldn't have passed on, I reasoned, without somebody in her neighborhood noticing something. The people living in the faux Tudor disaster across the street, for example, or the house I had taken for a tool shed just next door.

You never know until you ask.

Television's intrepid Jessica Fletcher might have gone trundling off to Hillsmere on her bicycle, but I went looking for a cover. That sent me back to the deep freeze for another of my rainy day casseroles. I set it carefully on the floorboard of my car and drove it to Hillsmere, hoping that the Stones weren't surrounded by commuting couples who couldn't tell you whether their siding was white or yellow because they so rarely saw it during daylight hours.

With my tires spitting gravel, I brought my LeBaron to what I hoped was a conspicuous, screeching halt in the Stone's driveway, then, carrying my casserole, I strolled casually up the walk and rang the bell. Nobody answered. Shading my eyes with one hand, I peered through the tall, narrow windows that flanked the door. The suitcases that had been there the day before were gone. A good sign.

I left my car parked in the Stones' driveway and carried my casserole out onto East Bay Drive. According to the mailbox, the house next door belonged to an R. Carpenter. It was much larger than a tool shed, of course. I could see that clearly as I rounded the hedge and strolled leisurely up a walk of round concrete slabs, each one decorated with a different fossilized plant. R. Carpenter and his missus—if there was a missus—shared a modest, sixties-style split foyer. The aluminum siding—in creamy vanilla—was complemented by dark green shutters. All of it looked brand new. A copy of the
Washington Post
lay on the lawn. A good omen. Someone must be home.

I tucked the newspaper under my free arm, rang the bell.

Just on the other side of the door, a dog barked. After a few seconds the door swung wide and I found myself gazing into a pair of pale blue eyes set in a plump, pleasantly round face, fresh-scrubbed and pretty, without a speck of makeup.

Even without her strand of fat pearls, I recognized her immediately: the woman in pink I'd seen talking to Brian at Valerie's funeral. Now she was dressed in a soft apricot warm-up suit the same color as her hair, and she'd clumped downstairs to greet me wearing a pair of white crepe sole creepers so clunky that I was amazed she could even pick up her feet. On the steps behind her a miniature poodle was yapping.

"Hi," I said, raising the casserole dish slightly for illustrative purposes. "I'm Hannah Ives, a friend of the Stones? I brought this casserole over for Brian, but I can't get anyone to answer the door."

The longer I talked, the faster the dog yapped. The little mutt must have been on speed.

Mrs. Carpenter covered her ears with both hands, turned her head and shouted, "Shut up, Yacky!"

"Yacky!" I had to laugh. "What an appropriate name for your dog."

Still holding the door open with one hand, she beamed out at me. "It is, isn't it? Didn't start out that way, of course. Yacky's short for Cognac. Sorry, you were saying?"

"Uh, I wanted to leave this casserole for Brian and Miranda, but nobody seems to be home."

Mrs. Carpenter joined me on the little porch, pulling the door closed behind her, probably to keep Yacky from escaping and terrorizing the neighborhood like Dogzilla. "Such a pity about Valerie, isn't it? She was the sweetest thing . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"Valerie and I used to jog together," I told her, stretching the truth just a smidge. "I still can't get used to the idea that she's gone."

"We haven't been neighbors for long, but in that time I grew to love her like a daughter." She half leaned, half sat against the wrought-iron railing. "When the Stones were building their house—you should have seen the old place, it was such a dump!—Valerie used to come over and visit with me while Brian talked to the contractors." Her eyes glistened. "I feel so sorry for Miranda."

My casserole was melting. The foil had frosted over; water had condensed on the sides and sweated off, dripping on my toes, which stuck naked out of the ends of my sandals. "I guess I should take this home," I said.

"Oh, no. Don't do that. Why not leave it with me? I'll just pop it in my freezer and keep it until Brian gets back." She pushed open the door, stepped back into her foyer and motioned for me to follow. "They've gone to New Jersey, by the way. With Valerie's body."

I figured some sort of response was required, so I said, "Oh."

The instant I stepped over the threshold, Yacky went nuts.

"Just ignore him," Mrs. Carpenter said. Easy for her to say. She wasn't carrying a newspaper and balancing a casserole with a maniac dog nipping at her heels. "What is it?" she asked.

"What's what?" I said, puzzled.

"The casserole."

"Oh, eggplant parmesan."

"My, my," said Mrs. Carpenter. "I'd better label it 'Tofu Delight' or Dick—that's my husband—will be all over it the minute our backs are turned." She waved an arm. "Come in, come in."

With Yacky dancing around my ankles, I followed her into the kitchen.

"Dick's off at a SPEBSQA convention," she said in way of explanation. "So it's just us girls."

Spebsqua ? What the heck was a spebsqua?

Mrs. Carpenter grinned, apparently reading my mind. "S-P-E-B-S-Q-A," she spelled out. "It's the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. Dick sings in a quartet." She

opened the door of her side-by-side, shuffled a few items around, then pushed my eggplant parmesan all the way into the freezer with the flat of her hand. "There! Now we can tell Brian to come over here the next time he needs a good dinner. I'll even heat it up for him."

"Thanks, Mrs. Carpenter. I really appreciate it."

She flapped a hand. "Pshaw! And call me Kathy,
please
. Would you like some coffee?" she asked, all in one breath. “It'll put hair on your chest, but it's hot."

Kathy's coffee was as different from the cup I shared with Brian the day before as Valerie's coffee was from instant. "Mmmm, robust," I said. We were sitting at the kitchen table. A picture window, hung with cheerful yellow curtains dotted with plump strawberries, overlooked the river, which sparkled in the mid-morning sun.

"Kathy," I said after a respectful silence during which I was supposedly savoring the full-bodied flavor and aroma of her coffee, "I keep worrying about something."

Kathy set her cup down in its saucer and gave me her full attention. "What is it, dear?"

"Well, the last time Valerie and I talked, she told me Brian was going to be out of town on Monday. He had some sort of assignment, she said. I know they don't have live-in help, so I worried—" I paused. "I worried that it was Miranda who found her mother's body."

Kathy nodded so vigorously that the half glasses that had been perched on her forehead slipped down to rest on the bridge of her nose. "I'm afraid so."

I shuddered, suddenly cold in spite of the scalding hot coffee and the sun streaming through the window. "Poor little thing! What did she do?"

"She came looking for me, thank goodness. I'll never forget that day as long as I live." Kathy fished around in her jacket pocket, withdrew a wad of Kleenex and used it to blow her nose. "Eight o'clock in the morning, and there she was, at my back door, wearing her Hello Kitty pajamas, carrying her Elmo doll and telling me, 'Mommy won't wake up.'" Kathy pressed a hand flat against her chest and took a deep breath. "I thought my heart would break." A fat tear slid down her cheek; she swiped at it with the wadded-up Kleenex. "I'm like a
grandmother
to that child. Brian's parents have been dead for years and, well, you've met Katherine and Fletcher—“

For a split second I couldn't think who she was talking about, then I remembered—Valerie's parents, the Honorable Judge and missus. I set my coffee cup down on the table, narrowly missing the saucer. "Kathy, I'm so sorry. What on earth did you do?"

"I went next door with Miranda, of course, and sat her down in the kitchen with some cereal. Then I went upstairs to check on her mother." Kathy was crying openly now, the Kleenex ragged and useless. I got up, ripped a paper towel off the roll mounted over the sink and handed it to her. After a while she continued. "Valerie was cold as ice, Hannah. I don't have much experience with these things, thank goodness, but I suspect she had been dead for hours and hours."

"How awful for you."

"I dialed 911, as anyone would, and the paramedics came right away." She shook her head. "But there wasn't anything they could do." She spread the paper towel out on the table, smoothed out the creases, then pinched bits absentmindedly off the edges as she continued. "Then a policeman came, a nice young man, who stayed with us until we could get in touch with Brian."

"Where
was
Brian?" I asked.

She plowed on, ignoring my question. "It wasn't easy, I can tell you! I left three urgent messages on his cell phone. Three! It was over an hour before he called us back."

"I would hate to have been in your shoes, Kathy. How did you tell him? What on earth did you say?"

"Oh, I didn't talk to him, dear. I just couldn't! I let the policeman do it. I mean, it was private, family information, wasn't it? People to be notified. Decisions to be made. And Brian was
miles
away in Harpers Ferry."

"He must have been wild with grief."

"Oh, he was, he was. Brian was practically incoherent on the phone. Not much use to the police, I'm afraid. It was me who helped the officer find the telephone number of Valerie's doctor."

"Doctor?" I paused, swallowed, hoping she hadn't noticed that I'd practically yelped the word. "Didn't the police call the medical examiner?"