old college, and they keep trying to be like Harvard. Anyway, Dad would take me there every chance he got. He taught me a little about using a hockey stick. Then, well, then, a year or so after Dad died, when I was six, my mom enrolled me in lessons and then a league.'
'Your father died?' I repeated quietly.
He nodded. 'After his death I became an angry little kid. Mom hoped sports would help me channel that. It did more-it earned me a college scholarship.
Nothing too impressive-to Chase-but it's full tuition for four years.'
'Congratulations. Your father would be very proud.'
'Yeah.'
I heard the wistfulness in his voice.
'I'm sorry.' I thought of telling him that my own father had died recently, but sometimes, when people respond to your sadness by immediately telling you their own, it's as if they take away the importance of yours. We sat quietly, watching the gulls, which had discovered us and were circling close, hoping for a handout.
'I want to get Patrick started in hockey,' I said at last. 'He's a kid with some problems, and it would help him to get involved in a team sport.'
'What kind of problems?'
'It's a long story.'
I have three more Danishes and can chew very slowly.'
I told Sam about the situation at Mason's Choice, the quarreling and resentment, and the way Adrian's cancer and the favoritism he showed Patrick made a bad situation worse. I recounted how the others treated Patrick, ending with my suspicions about the loss of his hamster.
'They'd kill a little kid's pet? Don't they have anything better to do with their time? I can't believe it-though I don't know why!' The anger in his voice surprised me.
I have no proof that it was deliberate, but I'm suspicious. Brook used to do the same kind of thing to Ashley, let out her pets, though we usually found them.'
'Ashley-the girl who was murdered?'
'Drowned,' I corrected. 'She fell through the ice.'
His eyes narrowed. 'You said, 'we usually found them.' Who is we?'
'My mother and I. My father was an artist hired by Adrian, and my mother sometimes took care of Ashley. We played together.'
'You're-you're Venerelli's daughter!' He spoke it like an accusation.
'That's right.'
He hurled the pastry straight out in the river. The gulls dove.
'Is that some kind of problem for you?' I asked.
'You might say that.' When he looked at me, his eyes were cold black glass. 'My father was a detective for the N.Y.P.D. We moved here because the violence he saw every day was getting to him. My mother grew up on the Eastern Shore-it was the only other place they knew. But Dad had trouble getting work in Wisteria-all his training and experience were in detective work-so he hung up his shingle as a private investigator. He was hired by Adrian Westbrook to investigate Victoria Venerelli.'
'Investigate.. my mother-why?'
'For killing Westbrook's granddaughter.'
For a moment I was speechless. It was like being in a dream, trying to scream, wanting desperately to tell him he was wrong, but unable to make a sound.
I rubbed my throat. 'No one killed Ashley. She fell through the ice.'
'Or she was pushed.'
'She was looking for her rabbit!'
'Okay, she was lured,' he said.
'By my mother? You're mad, you're completely mad!'
'By whoever took the rabbit, then placed it on the ice.'
I was outraged. Victoria wasn't capable of murder. She was too motherly a person-before she ditched her only child, I reminded myself. How could I presume to know anything about the woman who had abandoned me?
Still, what motive was there? I regained my composure. 'She had no motive.'
Sam stood up and paced back and forth behind the bench.
Joseph was right, I thought. I couldn't trust Adrian, telling that tale about my father's artistic temper tantrum. No wonder he was nice to me now. He was responsible for my parents' sudden departure, frightening them, hiring a private detective to find evidence against my mother. My father probably stole the ring because he knew they'd have to lie low for a while, but when my mother left us, it became possible for him to work in the open again.
My thoughts took a surprising turn: Maybe my mother hadn't really wanted to leave us. Maybe she had had no choice. But if she was innocent, why would she have run scared? Perhaps she was guilty — at least, of neglect.
'She had no motive,' I repeated to Sam. 'Didn't you hear me? What is your problem?' I asked angrily.
'Dad was following your parents the night they left Mason's Choice. Later the sheriff received a call about a possible accident. They found Dad's car upside down in a ditch. He was dead.'
I mouthed Sam's words silently, trying to understand them. I felt sick, the taste of cake going sour in my throat. I remembered huddling between the seats of our car, terrified of the storm and the speed at which my father was driving. The car had taken a sharp turn, then spun out of control. I remembered the crashing sound that came almost immediately after our car had stopped. It was deer, my parents said, a herd of them rushing across the road and crashing into the brush on the other side. Farther on, at a dark petrol station, my father had made a telephone call. He never told me that someone had been following us that night, that someone had been killed on the road.
I rose, the liquid in my stomach threatening to come up. Steadying myself, I walked past Sam. A distance away, I stopped to look back. He was kicking at the planks in the dock, jamming the toe of his shoe against the uneven edges.
'Feeling sorry for yourself?' I asked.
He looked up. 'I don't expect you to understand. Your parents and Westbrook are responsible for my father's death. Hating them helped me get through it.'
'At least you have your mother,' I replied, 'which is one more parent than I.'
'What do you mean?'
I continued walking, heading toward my car, wanting to get away from him. I, too, was good at feeling sorry for myself. Like Sam, I had dealt with the pain of losing a parent by turning it into anger and resentment. I had funneled my hurt into an effort to hate-hate my mother. And I suspected that, in the end, the effort had brought as much peace and happiness to Sam as it had brought to me, which is to say none.
I spent the rest of the day on the road and in stores, driving as far as a popular shopping mall in Delaware, but it was impossible to drive away from my thoughts. It occurred to me that Joseph had been no more forthcoming than Adrian regarding the investigation of my mother. He must have known about it, yet he had gone along with Adrian's story about my father's artistic temper tantrum, indicating that was the reason we had left Wisteria. About 7:30, angry at everyone, I returned to Mason's Choice.
'I warned Mr. Westbrook you would bring trouble,' Mrs. Hopewell greeted me as I came in the kitchen door.
'It's lovely to see you, too, Mrs. Hopewell.'
I knew it from the moment you telephoned.'
'And you made it quite clear,' I said, continuing toward the hall. I guessed that something had happened while I was gone, but I would not take her bait and ask what was wrong. I walked quickly, anxious to find Patrick.
'Kate,' Robyn called.
