Gertrude shook her head. “Not that I remember. He
seemed kind of off his feed, though.”
There was no point in pressing her mother for details. If Gertrude remembered something later, fine.
Besides, Dade Costello’s moodiness seemed to be an
integral part of his personality.
Or so Judith was thinking when she smelled smoke.
“Mother,” she said, sniffing the air, “did you put
something on your hot plate?”
“Like what?” Gertrude retorted. “You think I could
roast a turkey on that thing? I can hardly boil an egg on
it.”
Nor did Gertrude ever try, preferring to have her
daughter wait on her. Still, Judith went out to the tiny
kitchen, with its sink, small fridge, microwave oven, and
hot plate. Nothing looked amiss, nor could Judith smell
anything burning. She went back into the living room.
“It must be coming from outside,” she remarked,
and headed for the door.
Gertrude didn’t respond or look up. She was writing
again, her white head bent over the card table.
The smell got stronger as Judith stepped outside and
closed the toolshed door behind her. The rain had
stopped, but fog was settling in over the rooftops. She
could barely make out either of Hillside Manor’s chimneys. Perhaps Joe had started a fire to ward off the increasingly gloomy October afternoon.
Then she noticed the barbecue. It sat as it had all
summer on the small patio by the statue of St. Francis
and the birds. Like the kitchen cupboard door, the barbecue had been another source of Judith’s prodding.
Joe should have taken it into the garage at least two
weeks earlier when the weather had made a definite
transition into autumn.
Instead, it remained, and smoke was coming out
from under the lid. Judith went to the patio and opened
the barbecue. A sudden burst of smoke and flame made
her step back and cough.
Reaching out with a long wood-and-steel meat fork
that was lying nearby, she stirred whatever was burning. Peering with smoke-stung eyes, she saw that it
was mostly paper. Quite a bit of paper, and attached to
a plastic binding, most of which had melted.
Judith was no expert, but she thought that what was
left might be a movie script.
TWELVE
JOE HADN’T YET detached the garden hoses or covered the faucets for the winter. Judith turned on the
hose by the back porch and gently aimed it at the
barbecue. The stack of paper hissed and sizzled, but
didn’t go out. When she increased the pressure, the
smoke finally died down and the heat faded away.
Standing over the barbecue, Judith stirred the ashes
