As I made up the bed in the guest room for Phillip- though he usually ended up getting spooked at spending the night in a strange place and came in my room-I realized anew how abnormal the week had been. Usually, when I knew Phillip was going to make one of his four or five annual weekend visits, I spent several days preparing. I stocked all his favorite foods, planned lots of activities, checked out an armful of children’s books, consulted the local movie schedules. I overdid it.
This was probably the appropriate amount of preparation for a six-year-old’s visit; I made a bed for him, checked to see if I had the ingredients for his favorite dessert, and decided to take him to his favorite fast-food place for lunch on Saturday. And I looked forward to seeing him, this unexpected brother I had acquired after I’d become an adult. In the middle of the awfulness I’d seen lately, and the anxiety I’d suffered in so many unprecedented situations, having Phillip to visit seemed like a welcome return to normality.
Benjamin Greer.
I tried to believe it.
Chapter 16
I woke up smiling. It took me a second to remember why, but when I remembered, I grinned all over. The murders were at an end. I had convinced myself in my sleep that Benjamin was confessing because he had done it and wanted the attention and infamy, not because he hadn’t done it but wanted the attention and infamy anyway. After all, he had announced his candidacy for mayor, that should have given him enough fuel to run on for a while. It was Friday, I didn’t have to work this weekend, Phillip was coming, I was interested in two men and what’s more they were both interested in me. What more could a twenty-eight-year-old librarian ask for?
I made myself up with great care, had some fun with my eye shadow, and picked my brightest skirt and blouse to wear. It was a definitely springy set, white with yellow flowers scattered all over, and I let my hair hang loose with a yellow band to hold it back.
I had a large breakfast, cereal and toast and even a banana, and sang on my way out to my car.
“You’re chipper this morning,” said Bankston, who was dressed in a very sober suit befitting a banker. He was smiling himself, and I remembered I’d seen Melanie’s car pull out of the parking lot very early this morning.
“Oh, I have reason to be! You may not have heard yet, but someone admitted to the murders.”
“Who?” Bankston said after staring at me for a moment.
“Benjamin Greer.” Then I wondered belatedly if I was betraying a confidence. But my assurance returned when I remembered Arthur hadn’t asked me to keep it quiet, and I hadn’t told him I would. Also, I’d already told Robin, who would have throttled the news out of me if I’d hung up from my conversation with Arthur and refused to tell him. Wait; I wasn’t even going to say exaggerated things like that to myself anymore.
Bankston was thunderstruck. “But he was just in to see me last week to get a loan for his candidate’s campaign! Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned that. It was a private transaction, bank business. But I’m just so- flabbergasted.”
“I was too,” I assured him.
“Well, well, I’ll have to stop by Melanie’s and tell her,” he said after a moment of thought. “This will be such a relief to her. She’s had a hard time since Mrs. Wright’s purse was found in her car.”
Right. Being pronounced a martyr at church and getting a marriage proposal was really a hard time. But I felt too cheerful to envy Melanie; I’d gone out with Bankston twice and wouldn’t have him on a silver platter, as my mother always said.
Mother. That was someone who should hear the good news, too. I’d call her today. She was going to love being termed “what was worst about capitalism.” That was a hard line to take after all Mother’s hard work and struggle during the first few years with her business, though then she’d had my father’s presence to give her renewed strength. He hadn’t left until she was well on the road to success. I was trailing off into unpleasant thoughts, and snapped myself back quickly. Joy was the keynote of the day.
At work, all the librarians and volunteers seemed to have heard the good news, and I was back in the fold. Lillian went back to being her bitchy self, which was almost comforting.
Sam derrick ventured forth from his charts and graphs and budgets to pat me on the shoulder in passing. I poked book cards in the stamper vigorously, took overdue money with a smile instead of expressionless disapproval, shelved with precision. The morning didn’t just hurry by, it hopped, skipped, and jumped by.
The telephone rang twice while I was eating my micro-waved egg rolls and browsing through an encyclopedia of twentieth-century murderers. I’d had that familiar irritating feeling that someone, sometime, had said something interesting that I wanted to pursue, mentioned some names I wanted to mull over, and I’d thought flipping through the book would help. But the phone destroyed even this wisp of idea.
The first caller was my father, who always opened with, “How’s my doll?”
He hated calling me “Roe” and I hated him calling me “Doll.” We hadn’t come up with anything neutral. “I’m okay, Dad,” I said.
“Is it still okay with you if Phillip comes?” he asked anxiously. “You know, if you are upset about the situation in Lawrenceton, we can stay home.”
In the background I could hear Phillip piping anxiously, “Can I go, Daddy? Can I go?”
“The crisis seems to be over,” I said happily.
“They arrest someone?”
“They got a confession. I’m sure everything’s going to be okay now,” I said. Maybe I wasn’t all that sure. But I
“Well, I’ll be bringing him about five o’clock, then,” Dad said. “Betty Jo sends her love. We really appreciate this.”
I wasn’t so sure about Betty Jo’s love, but I was sure she did appreciate having a free, reliable babysitter for a whole weekend.
The next call was from my mother, of course. She still had some sort of psychic link to Dad, and if he called me she nearly always rang within the hour. If she was like Lauren Bacall, he was like Humphrey Bogart; an ugly guy with charisma coming out his ears. And bless his heart, he seemed quite unaware of it. But that charisma was still sending out alpha waves or something to my mother.
I knew that she must already have heard of Benjamin’s confession, and sure enough, she had. She’d also heard he’d said Morrison Pettigrue had mailed her the chocolates. She was skeptical.
“How would Morrison Pettigrue hear about Mrs. See’s?” she asked. “How would he know I always eat the creams?”
“He didn’t have to know you always eat the creams,” I pointed out. “There’s just no way to get rat poison in the nut-filled ones.”
“That’s true,” she admitted. “I still have a hard time believing that one. I barely knew the man. I’d met him at some Chamber of Commerce meeting once and if I remember correctly, we talked about the need for new sidewalks downtown. It was a cordial conversation and he certainly gave no sign then that he thought I was some kind of leech living off the masses, or whatever.”
But if Benjamin was lying about the chocolates, he could also be lying about other things. And I wanted him to be telling the truth and nothing but the truth.
“Let’s just shelve this until we find out more about it,” I suggested. “Maybe he’ll say something that’ll make sense out of the whole thing.”
“Is-your brother-still staying with you this weekend?” Mother asked, in one of her lightning turns of thought.
I sighed silently. “Yes, Mother. Dad’s bringing Phillip by around five, and he’ll be here until Sunday evening.” It would have been beneath Mother’s dignity to avoid the sight of Phillip, but having made a point of talking to him once or twice, she usually stayed away while he was at my place.
“Well, I’ll be talking to you again,” she was saying now. I could bet on that. I asked her about her business, and she chatted about that for a few minutes.
“Are you and John still thinking about getting married?” I asked.
