around the back?”
“I don’t see why we don’t both go to the front door. Do we look threatening?” He grinned at her. “We look like a nice couple. We need directions. We need the phone. Listen, once he opens the door, we’re walking right in.”
Nicole reached down, gave the top of the ice pick that was tucked into her boot a reassuring tap. Lewis rooted around between the seats for a backpack that contained a few things he might need, including the tape.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They got out of the van, crossed the street, and walked up the drive. Lewis went up the porch steps first, but waited until Nicole was standing next to him before he knocked.
FIFTY-TWO
It wasn’t the FBI.
It was Marie Prentice. She was standing there with a dark blue soft-sided bag the size of a picnic hamper. It looked insulated. I wondered whether she’d come alone, or if Len was in the car, waiting for her. I glanced out, saw that the car sitting next to mine was empty.
“If I can’t get you boys over for dinner,” she said, her body listing to the side that was holding the bag by a broad strap, “the least I can do is bring something over for you. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long, but sometimes I don’t have as much energy as others.” There was a warm aroma wafting upward. Spices, cheese.
“Marie,” I said, “you really shouldn’t have.”
“It was no trouble at all,” she said.
“Let me take that from you,” I said. “It looks heavy.” I took hold of the bag’s strap and eased it out of Marie’s hand. “It smells wonderful. Come on in.”
While I didn’t like Len much, I didn’t have the same feelings of animosity toward his wife. I didn’t want to offend her, and what the hell. I was hungry.
“I was just thinking about ordering a pizza,” I told her.
“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” she said.
I put the bag on the kitchen table and unzipped it. “What is this, Marie?”
“It’s my own recipe,” she said, sounding slightly out of breath. “Well, not exactly. I mean, it sort of started off as a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa? But instead of using tuna steaks, I used tuna from the can, because that’s the only kind Len will eat, and she threw in all kinds of things like lentils and wasabi powder and I put in some peas and noodles, and I guess when you get right down to it there’s really nothing the same about them except both recipes have tuna in the title.”
“It looks great,” I said. “The pan’s still hot. Did you just take it out of the oven?”
“I did. Where’s Thomas? Is he upstairs?”
“He is, Marie,” I said, but did not offer to get him. Given his run-in with Len, I was worried that finding out his wife was here might be troubling to Thomas.
“Do you think he’d like to come down and try the casserole?”
“If it’s okay with you, I’m just going to leave him be for now,” I said. “But I’ll tell him you’re the one to thank for dinner.”
“There’s some buns in the bag there, too,” she said, but her voice was suddenly less cheery. “You see, part of the reason I came by is, I just wanted to apologize to him. And to you. For Len’s behavior the other day.”
“Len and I already spoke about this,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“I heard the two of you talking in the basement and he really shouldn’t have said those things to you, about your brother. Even if Thomas is a bit off, Len shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”
“And Thomas shouldn’t have hit him,” I said. “Lots of blame to go around.”
Marie said, “Len was just trying to do a good thing. It was my idea. I was the one who suggested he try to get Thomas to go out, for lunch, or to come back to the house. Actually, he’d come here to invite you both, but you were gone for the day.”
“That’s right.”
“Where’d you go? To the city?”
“Yes, Marie.”
“Len just doesn’t understand why Thomas has to be the way he is. You have to forgive him for that. Len thinks everyone should just buck up, you know? I don’t think he gets that some people are different. That they can’t help being the way they are. He figures if he can do something, everybody should be able to do it. Sometimes he’s even that way with me. He says to me, ‘Just stop being so tired. It’s all in your head. Come with me when I go on a vacation.’ But it’s not in my head. I have a disease. You can look it up on the Mayo Clinic’s Web site. Can I sit down? I get tired when I stand too long.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs for her. She sat, letting her arms hang down straight at her sides.
“I’ll be fine in a minute or two,” she said. “In my kitchen at home I’ve got a chair right there by the stove. I can sit anytime I want, even stir things while sitting.”
“I’m going to put this in the oven to keep it warm,” I said, taking the casserole and putting it on the center rack.
“He doesn’t even understand that I can’t do everything he wants to do,” Marie said, and then, realizing her comment might be taken any number of ways, blushed. “I mean, you know, like traveling. He’s up to it, but I’m just not. But I tell him, if you want to go away, you go. You have a good time. The first time I said that, I didn’t think he’d actually go, but off he went once he found somebody else to go. And he had such a wonderful time over there, I didn’t see how I could say no when he wanted to go back.”
“Well,” I said, since I had no comment.
“And not for a second do I believe what Len’s been saying about Thomas,” she said.
“What would that be, Marie?”
“He can’t hear us, can he?” she asked worriedly.
“No.”
“Len’s been saying if the police ever started to investigate what happened to your father, they’d probably be taking a pretty good look at Thomas.”
“Why’s that, Marie?”
“Len says your dad always took chances on cutting grass on the side of that hill, but even so, he was the kind of man who always knew what he was doing. He says if the police ever started thinking he got pushed, that someone was there and let that tractor fall on him, well, they’d have to look no further than Thomas. I’m just telling you what Len says. I was thinking he might have said as much to you when you were over, before I opened the basement door, and I wanted to tell you I’m very sorry if he did. I don’t think Thomas would do that. He’s a good boy, basically. How high you got that oven set? Don’t put it up to 350 or anything. Just warm it a hundred degrees. Just for ten minutes or so.”
I adjusted the oven.
I thought I’d put it behind me, this obsession I’d been having about the tractor key being in the OFF position, the raised housing. Julie’s interpretation of things had made a lot of sense. But now I was wondering whether my earlier supposition, that someone had stopped to talk to my father, and might have been there when he died, could still be true.
But I didn’t hold Len in very high regard, especially lately, so the fact that he and I might be on the same wavelength also gave me pause. And why the hell was he doing this kind of speculating? What had kicked off this line of thinking? I’d only started letting my mind run a bit wild after I’d examined the tractor. Len, so far as I knew, had not been out here to inspect the accident scene before I moved the machine to the barn.
Was he basing his opinion on what my father had told him? If so, it seemed a stretch to draw a line from a push on the stairs to toppling a tractor onto someone. Especially when that someone was your own father.
Or was it possible Len was up to something else? Did he believe what he was saying, or was he trying to
