“She didn’t want you to give it to the cops? Then why would-”
“She told me to make sure you saw it.”
“Me? No.”
“Yeah. You. She said you’d take care of it.”
Of course she wouldn’t have gone to me directly. She thought I couldn’t stand her. I thought she couldn’t stand me. And yet there she was downstate with my stories hung on her walls, and here she was up north, trusting me from the grave to find her murderer. I tried to stop the pang of grief I felt by reading the letter again.
“So what was all the horseshit you were giving me yesterday when I was in here?” I said. “Why didn’t you give me this then?”
“For one thing, I didn’t have it with me. For another, I wasn’t about to spill my guts in front of those losers who sit at my bar all day drinking three two-buck beers. My brain wasn’t exactly working right, Trap. I mean, the last thing I need right now is to have my name splashed all over your paper. I’m barely holding on here.”
I finished my beer and stood the empty on Soupy’s folding table. “Sorry, Soup,” I said.
“You, too, man.”
We shook hands. I waved the letter at him. “You don’t mind if I take this now, do you?”
“You going to put it in the paper?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. At that moment, I had no idea how I would confirm that the letter was authentic. The person who’d signed it was dead.
“How about I just take it for now and if I want to write anything, I’ll tell you?”
“Cool. But you get it, right?”
I slipped the paper into my jacket. “Get what?”
“It wasn’t my fault, man. Either way, it wasn’t my fault.”
“Understood. Get some sleep, Soup.”
I pushed the back door open. The wind had kicked up.
“Hey,” Soupy said. “Good to have you back between the pipes.”
“It was a one-night stand, pal.”
“Nah. Once you got the kinks worked out, you looked pretty good.”
“Go to hell.”
I sat in my pickup rereading the letter beneath the flood lamp outside my mother’s little yellow house.
It was dated Wednesday, February 3, a few days before Gracie died. It looked like she had used a marking pen, perhaps blue or purple, given the gray shade of the letters on the photocopied page.
L
Here is YOUR letter.
You have taken everything from me.
And left me with nothing.
Except what I KNOW.
— G
Motive, I thought. It obviously goes to motive. I thought of those videotapes again. And I thought, Why wouldn’t Haskell at least have tried to appease her? He’d made a career of negotiating, of finding that middle ground that made Vend sneer. Why not give Gracie whatever she wanted-some money, a lousy little job driving the Zamboni at the new rink?
Unless, of course, Gracie could not be appeased. Unless she really did want her dignity back, and neither Haskell nor Vend-who might well have received the same sort of note from Gracie-could give it to her.
I stepped out of my truck. I watched the boughs of the evergreens along Mom’s bluff swaying gently in the night wind, heard the pulley cable on Mom’s flag clanging off the metal pole.
I folded the letter and slipped it into the inner pocket of my jacket. What would I do with it? What could I do, without knowing whether Gracie had actually presented Haskell with her notion of blackmail?
I thought of Haskell and his wife and his son sleeping in their mansion beyond Mom’s evergreens, across the frozen lake, two of them more than likely knowing not a thing about Gracie and Haskell and the things they had done downstate. Unless Haskell had really killed her, or had her killed, what claim did Gracie really have on him and his family? Yes, Haskell was a goddamn bastard, as Trixie had said. So was Vend, who seemed a lot more capable of doing what had to be done. But Gracie was a big girl. She’d known what she was doing.
I supposed I could just go to Dingus, or Darlene, give one of them the letter. And watch Tawny Jane Reese tell the world about it on Channel Eight.
Oh fuck, I thought.
I had to be in Traverse City-I looked at my watch-in about five hours. As Philo said, eight o’clock sharp or I would no longer be employed by Media North or the Pine County Pilot, as if it mattered anymore.
twenty-one
Voices in the kitchen woke me at 6:34.
I found Mom and Darlene’s mother sitting at the dining room table. Mom was in her flannel pajamas, Mrs. B in a faded violet housecoat. Her galoshes stood dripping on the carpet by the sliding glass doors that led to the yard. I smelled the coffee they were drinking out of matching mugs labeled B for Bea and R for Rudy, my father. My mother had the R mug cupped in her hands.
“Good morning, Gussy,” she said.
Blinking against the hanging lamp, I peered past the table into the living room. A dozen or so bouquets of flowers adorned the floor beneath the picture window facing the lake. Through the window I saw scattered lights winking on the bluffs on the north side of the lake. I remembered my father taking me on my first snowmobile ride on a yellow-and-black Ski-Doo he had borrowed from a friend. Dusk was just falling. We shot down the slope in front of the house, across the snow-covered beach, and out onto the hard white lake. I almost fell off the back as I tried to turn and wave to Mom watching from shore.
“Morning,” I said. “You guys are up early.”
Mrs. B regarded me through her Tweety Bird glasses. “Dear, I’ve been up since two. Can’t sleep for all the excitement around here.”
“What did you do, Gus?” my mother said.
“What do you mean?”
“The police called here last night. And you’re limping.”
“Took a puck off the foot. What police?”
“The D’Alessio boy. He said he needed to talk to you.”
“Ah. Just hockey stuff.”
More likely, it was Dingus turning up the pressure on me to talk. If he only knew what I had in my jacket pocket.
“Why are you up so early?” Mom said.
“Got a meeting.”
“Where were you yesterday? You didn’t return my calls.”
“I was out of town. Did you call my cell phone?”
Lately Mom had been calling my office when she meant to call my cell, and vice versa. Mrs. B reached across the table and took one of my mother’s hands in hers. “Bea,” she said.
“Of course, yes,” Mom said. “How did it go?”
“Fine.” I assumed Mom had told Mrs. B where I’d gone. I decided to change the subject. “Who sent these?”
A glass vase holding a bouquet of white lilies and carnations stood on the snack bar in the kitchen. I picked up the card lying in front of it.
Deeply sorry for your loss.
With sincere regards,
Felicia Haskell
