“About what?”
“About the night Coach died.”
I’d asked her only once before. It was the evening of Coach’s funeral. We were sitting in the back of the American Legion hall. Drunken former River Rats and their dads were toasting Coach at a microphone. At first Mom pretended she hadn’t heard my question. I asked again. She patted my knee. “Let’s listen, dear.” I persisted. “Didn’t you hear me?” she said. I thought she was going to cry. I let it go.
Now she said, “That was so long ago. Who cares?”
“It’s my job. His snowmobile washed up on the wrong lake.”
“I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding and Dingus will clear it up.”
“No, it’s not a misunderstanding. Help me out here.”
She sipped her coffee. “It was bingo night. Or maybe bowling night-sweet Lord, my memory’s gone-I just remember I was sleeping like a baby, so I must’ve been out late. Leo must’ve been banging a while before I woke up.”
“He was at the slider?”
“No.” She waved toward the kitchen. “He came in the back door. I couldn’t make him out at first, because there was something bright shining in my eyes-the headlights on his snowmobile-and I was half asleep. Scared the devil out of me.”
If Leo really had come to the back door, then he would have come from the road behind the house. But why wouldn’t he have come directly from the scene of the accident and crossed the lake and come up the hill to the sliding door facing the lake?
“And he came in the house?”
“Yes. I remember he had liquor on his breath because it turned my stomach. And he was loud, which wasn’t like Leo. He said we had to call the police, call nine one one, Jack drowned in the lake. He kept saying-forgive my language, Lord-‘Goddamn Jack, Goddamn Jack,’ over and over, and he seemed so angry.” She looked at me uncertainly. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
“That he was angry.”
Why would she wonder about that now?
“Sure,” I said.
She pointed at the living room. “He came in here. I tried to make him sit down, but he just stood at the window like this”-she wrapped her arms around herself-“staring out at the lake until the police came. Dingus was with them. They went out to the lake.”
“Was he wet?”
“Who?”
“Leo. Was he wet? At least his shoulders and his head? Were there icicles in his hair?”
“Icicles? Why?”
“Because he just tried to pull Coach out of the lake.”
“Well then, I guess he must have. I don’t remember.”
“Did you give him a towel?”
“Are you interviewing me, son?”
“Mom. You were here. I just want to know.”
“What good is it going to do, Gussy?”
I finished the last of my pie. “God, that’s good,” I said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, dear.”
“You know, I went back and reread the Pilot stories from back then. I didn’t see your name in there. How did you keep the reporters away?”
“I didn’t, dear. Henry Bridgman called and called and I think he even stopped by one night. But the police asked me to keep quiet because they were investigating. I did what I was told.”
“Dingus said to keep quiet?”
“Not Dingus. He was just a deputy. Sheriff Spardell.”
“And what about the towel?”
She looked into her coffee cup. “Gus, that was so long ago. Why would I be worrying about-”
A flurry of loud knocks came at the kitchen door. Mom turned. “Who could that be?”
Through the kitchen window I saw Joanie’s red Honda Civic parked on the road shoulder. “I’ll get it,” I said.
Joanie stood on the back porch in a hooded sweatshirt, her hands stuffed inside the belly pocket. I stepped outside. “Where’s your coat?” I said. “It’s freezing.”
“I knew it.”
“You knew what?”
“There’s a bullet hole.”
“What?”
“There’s a bullet hole in the snowmobile. That’s what the forensics were about. A bullet hole. Somebody shot Blackburn.”
I glanced to make sure Mom wasn’t standing behind me. “Keep it down,” I said. “How do you know?”
She hesitated just long enough to make me resent her for not trusting me. “A department source,” she said.
D’Alessio, I thought. Always working it. “OK. Good. Go back and start writing. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“This is huge.”
“Yep. Good work.”
I knew how she felt, knowing she had a juicy story. But I just felt empty and stupid, like I’d never known anything at all.
Inside, Mom was at the sink, scraping the roasting pan. “Sorry, Mom, duty calls,” I said. “Dinner was fantastic.”
She turned to hug me. She held the squeeze a little longer than usual. “I wish you could stay. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
As I started my truck, I thought, She remembered Leo’s liquor breath but not a towel because she didn’t give him a towel, because she didn’t need to.
I parked in front of the Pilot and crossed Main Street to Enright’s. Inside, Loob was washing mugs behind the bar while music videos played silently on the TV overhead.
“Dude,” Loob said. “Brewski?”
“Loob. No, listen-were you here all last night?”
“Came in around six-thirty.” He jammed the mugs one by one onto a soapy brush sticking up out of the sink, then rinsed them in milky water.
“Did you see my reporter in here? Joanie?”
“You mean pretty-not-skinny?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Yeah, she was here for a bit. Two Diet Cokes. Left me a quarter.”
“You talk to her?”
Loob held a glass up to a bar lamp, decided it was clean, and set it in the drainer. “I suppose.”
“Francis said she was asking questions.”
“She didn’t ask me no questions.” He dried his hands with a towel. “But she did give me a message.”
“For who?”
“Teddy.”
“Boynton?”
“No, Teddy Roosevelt. Man, goalies.”
“What was the message?”
He grinned. “Heard you took a little holiday on the ice last night, Gus. Ain’t you cured of that by now?”
