I stripped the mattress, stuck the used sheets in the washer, and by the time Dwight came downstairs, had made it up with fresh sheets and blankets, ready for us to crawl into when we got back from Paul’s.
From what I had seen so far, Jonna’s taste in decor was unadventurous and a little too girly, but the overall effect was attractive enough, and certainly in keeping with someone whose ancestors had founded the town.
Nevertheless, the whole house made me uncomfortable as hell. Its owner was dead and I had no right to be here, looking at her things, making judgment calls on her taste and intelligence or level of cleanliness. Dwight is a good detective, but men simply do not look at houses the same way women do. I want our marriage to work and I didn’t want to start comparing what his marriage to her must have been like. And although I believe him when he says he didn’t love her at the end, he must have loved her at the beginning, so what sort of woman had she actually been?
No way would I ever ask Dwight. Not when there were others I could question.
“Have you spoken to any of Jonna’s friends yet?” I asked as we drove over to Paul Radcliff’s house.
“I haven’t, but Paul’s office did a quick-and-dirty call around. Maybe you could talk to some of her closest friends tomorrow? See if they know more than they’ve told?”
“Sure,” I said.
Sometimes it’s too easy.
Like Paul, Sandy Radcliff’s brown hair was going white early and she wore rimless bifocals instead of the usual contact lenses. Dressed in dark blue sweats over a green turtleneck, she was generously built and equally generous in her welcome. Even before we took off our coats that evening, I knew that I was going to like her, especially since she was obviously fond of Dwight. I soon learned that they’d all known one another in Washington.
Their youngest son, Jimmy, was a grade level ahead of Cal although they were only a few months apart in age.
Their daughter, Michelle, was fifteen and son Nick was thirteen.
When we got there, Nick and Jimmy were watching a DVD and Michelle was messaging back and forth to her friends on the computer, which sat in the family room with its screen visible to whoever passed by, a policy sub- scribed to by all my kin with kids in the house. (“Putting an online computer in a child’s room is like giving him a big bowl of candy bars and expecting him to eat only one a day,” says April, my sister-in-law who teaches sixth grade. “No matter how much they promise, they can’t resist going where they shouldn’t, bless their sneaky little hearts.”)
All three responded politely as I was introduced, but before returning to her computer, Michelle said, “We’re really sorry about Cal, Mr. Dwight. All my friends are keeping an eye out for him.”
“Mine, too,” Jimmy chimed in.
“At the mall today,” said Nick, “my friend and me?
There was a kid with this woman in a blue parka. We were sure it was going to be Cal, but it wasn’t.”
“Thanks, guys,” said Dwight. “I hope you’ll keep it up.”
We went on through to the big eat-in kitchen, where we sat down at the round oak table. “I fed the children early so we could hear ourselves talk,” Sandy said.
She took a lasagna out of the oven and let it sit a few minutes to firm up, while Paul poured red wine and she passed bread and olive oil to go with our salads. Although the talk kept circling back to Cal and Jonna, we also compared backgrounds, exchanged anecdotes from earlier years, and engaged in the usual small talk that lets close friends open their circle to a stranger.
Sandy was a good cook but neither of us had much ap-petite and we turned down dessert. So did Michelle, but both boys pulled up chairs as Paul put on the coffee and Sandy brought out the chocolate cream pie she’d baked that afternoon.
“Either of y’all tour the Morrow House with a scout troop last month?” Dwight asked.
“That was me,” said Jimmy.
“Our class did it last year when we were studying the Civil War,” said Nick, who wavered between being too 17 cool to evince interest while still kid enough to want to be included.
“Did you see the guns?”
Both boys nodded. “Swords, too,” said Nick.
“Is there really a ghost?” I asked.
“Nah,” said Nick.
“Is too!” Jimmy said. “Cal showed me.” His face reddened in instant guilt.
“Showed you what?” Nick challenged as he dug into his pie.
“Nothing,” said Jimmy, scrunching down in his chair.
“Is this about you and Cal sneaking off from the rest of the Cubs?” Sandy asked, eyeing him sternly over the top of her glasses.
Paul frowned at his youngest, who looked as if he would gladly slide under the table.
“Cal must know the house really well,” I said, “since his mom worked there.”
Encouraged, Jimmy nodded. “And his grandma used to stay there when she was little, and his mom played there, too, Cal said. She lets him go anywhere he wants to as long as he doesn’t mess with anything, so when Mrs.
Hightower wasn’t looking, we went all the way up to the third floor and he showed me her bedroom.”
