“And how do they feel about you and your fiancee?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at him.
“You’ve heard about us, have you?”
“Who hasn’t? You and our resident trooper are the talk of the town.”
“She’s not. My fiancee, I mean. We’re not engaged. We were. But we’re not anymore. Although we’re getting along great.”
“And they’re okay with the… differences?”
“You mean the part about how she carries a fully loaded SIG-Sauer and I don’t?”
“You know what I mean.”
“They just want me to be happy.”
“That’s all that any parent wants, Mitch. Kenny’s engaged, you know. To a girl here in town named Kimberly Farrell.”
“Kimberly? No way!” Although this sort of thing was not unusual in small-town Dorset, Mitch had discovered. It was a world of wheels within wheels. “She’s my yoga teacher.”
“Very sweet girl,” Beth said with a noticeable lack of conviction. “Mind you, there’s baggage. She was married once before-very briefly. A local fellow named J. Z. Cliffe. I don’t suppose you know him, too, do you?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“I can’t help asking myself why it didn’t work out. She and Kenny have discussed it, but Kenny won’t share the details with me. He doesn’t usually keep secrets. I suppose it’s none of my business. It’s just that I’m concerned. Kenny… he isn’t that experienced when it comes to women. And he’s done really well financially.” Beth’s mouth tightened. “There’s also the matter of her father’s notoriety. Dex and Maddee live across the hall from me. That’s how the two kids met. Kimberly has been living with her folks for the past few months. Maddee needs the emotional support, I gather. Kenny ran into her one morning as she was heading off in her yoga gear. They struck up a conversation. Next thing I knew he was coming down every weekend to see her, not me. Please don’t get me wrong, Mitch. He and Kimberly positively glow in each other’s presence. I’m excited for him. For both of us, really. I’m loving my new life. I’m taking sculpture classes at the art academy. And I dash into the city whenever I feel like it. My girlfriends and I go to the theater together, shop til we drop, talk our heads off. I’m having a lot of fun.”
And yet Mitch saw sadness in Beth’s eyes. He saw loss. He knew all about these things. He’d lost his own beloved wife, Maisie, to ovarian cancer after only two years of marriage. Had spent months telling people how great he was doing when he was actually a lonely wreck. Although he figured Beth had to be dating someone by now. A woman who looked like Beth didn’t stay alone for long. “Where are Kenny and Kimberly planning to live?”
“Up in Cambridge. She wants to keep the fitness center running. Her trainer, Hal, will manage it during the week. She’ll come down on weekends to teach a few classes and keep an eye on her folks. The wedding’s next month. Maddee has her heart set on a big fat Dorset wedding at the Yacht Club. Two hundred guests, an orchestra, the works. She’s hoping it will get her back in the good graces of their former friends.” Beth wrinkled her nose slightly. “I must confess, I have problems with her. And Dex I just plain can’t stand.”
“Well, you’re not alone there.”
Indeed, Dex Farrell was a pariah not just in Dorset, but all across America. As the head of Farrell and Co., the venerated credit-rating agency started by his grandfather, Dex Farrell was one of the Wall Street power brokers who’d been at the epicenter of the subprime home-mortgage meltdown. Dex Farrell had misrepresented the rating on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities. His name was synonymous with Wall Street recklessness, dishonesty and greed. The only reason he hadn’t been indicted for fraud was that federal prosecutors had concluded he was off his gourd. When pressed by a committee of the U.S. Congress to justify the high ratings he’d given to so many risky securities, he’d famously testified: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.” And then proceeded to start quacking. And wouldn’t stop quacking even as he was being led from the chamber. His personal physician attributed Farrell’s unusual behavior to an adverse reaction to a prescription medication for stress. Whatever it was, the disgraced Dex Farrell and his shamed wife, Maddee, had unloaded their shorefront estate in Dorset-where a lot of their blue-blooded, old-money friends had lost a lot of that blue-blooded old money-and fled to Hobe Sound, Florida. Recently, they’d slipped quietly back into town.
“There’s no worthwhile cause that Maddee won’t donate her time to,” Beth said. “She delivers hot lunches to the housebound for Meals on Wheels. Stockpiles canned goods for the Food Pantry. Collects old clothes for the Nearly New shop at St. Anne’s. She’s quite the juggernaut. And so desperate to get back onto Dorset’s A-list that it’s kind of sad. Or it would be if she weren’t always reminding me how many servants she had when she was growing up.”
“And Dex?”
“He keeps to himself. Doesn’t talk to a soul, near as I can tell. God, maybe. If he believes in God. Do you think swindlers like Dex Farrell believe in God? Or do they just worship money? I’ve always wondered about that.”
“How do they feel about Kimberly and Kenny?”
“You mean because he’s a J-E-W? They’re okay with it. Kenny’s the one who’s not okay. He’s dreading this fancy Yacht Club wedding of Maddee’s. It’s just not Kenny’s style. Or Kimberly’s. They’re honeymooning at an ashram in the Himalayas, for pity’s sake. Kimberly doesn’t want to disappoint her mother. But if you ask me, it’s their wedding and they ought to do what they want.”
“Which is…?”
“Get married on a beach somewhere at sunset with a few close friends.”
“Well, if they change their minds, I have one.” Mitch finished off the last of his smoothie.
“One what, Mitch?”
“A beach. And we get a sunset pretty much every day.”
They headed back to the fish counter now to purchase their dinners. A glistening slab of striped bass for Mitch. Two slender fillets of sole for Beth. Dinner for one. Then he walked her out to the parking lot. Mitch got around town in a bulbous, kidney-colored 1956 Studebaker pickup. Beth was driving a frisky, red Mini Cooper convertible.
“I know, I know-it’s too young for me,” she acknowledged as Mitch stood there admiring it. “But I love it. And Kenny likes to drive it when he’s here. Mitch, why don’t you and your lady friend join us for dinner tomorrow night?”
“I wish we could, but she’s not exactly free on the weekends these days. Not after dark anyhow.”
Her face dropped. “Our village flasher, of course. How stupid of me. Well, what about an early drink? Say, five o’clock?”
“Sounds perfect. I can’t wait to see Kenny again. It’ll be just like old times.”
“No, it won’t. It’ll be better.” Beth gave him a good-bye hug, planting a warm, soft kiss on his left cheek.
Much to his horror, Mitch instantly flushed beet red. Couldn’t help it. This was Beth Lapidus.
She drew back from him, her eyes widening in surprise. “Why, Mitchell Berger, are you blushing?”
“Absolutely not. I just took a hot shower, that’s all.”
“Of course you did, dear. Of course.”
CHAPTER 2
Thwacketa-thwacketa-thwacketa…
It was the end of a hot mess of a day and Des was making a quick pit stop at her stuffy little cubbyhole in Dorset’s Town Hall, a stately, white-columned edifice which smelled year round of mothballs, musty carpeting and Bengay. She had a mail slot there. Folks could leave her messages, tips, leads. Or slide notes under her door. Lately, she’d been swinging by a couple of times a day just in case someone had. Hoping for a break in this case. And really hoping to avoid a certain someone.
Thwacketa-thwacketa-thwatcketa…
The air-conditioner in her window was over twenty years old. All it did, besides make a racket, was wheeze gusts of warm, stale air. This was the downside of quaint-it generally meant cramped work spaces, outmoded wiring and mold. Hell, her heavy horn-rimmed glasses were fogging up. Des removed them, squinting at the newly printed fall school bus schedules that she’d found in her mail slot. Dorset’s elementary, middle and high school were
