“That right?” Luke asked.
“I was thinking that maybe I could repay you with an offer of a home-cooked meal this evening.”
That was the last thing he had been expecting.
“Boy, howdy,” Jason said enthusiastically. “Do you cook, Miss Stenson?”
“I’ll have you know that you are looking at the reporter who is single-handedly responsible for selecting every recipe that runs in the Recipe Exchange column of the Glaston Cove Beacon.”
Jason grinned. “Should I be impressed?”
“You would be more than impressed, you would be stunned speechless if you saw some of the recipes I’ve rejected. Trust me, you’re better off going through life never knowing what some people can do with lime-flavored gelatin and red kidney beans.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Jason said.
“By the way, you’re invited to dinner, too, of course, assuming you’re staying overnight?”
“I am now,” Jason assured her.
“Excellent. See you both at five-thirty. We’ll have drinks before dinner.” She turned back to Luke, politely challenging. “If that’s okay with you, of course?”
“One of the things they taught us in the Corps was to take advantage of strategic opportunities when they are presented,” he said. “We’ll be on your doorstep at seventeen-thirty, ma’am.”
“I assume that means five-thirty in real time,” she said. “Now, if that’s settled, I’ve got a few errands to run.”
Luke did not take his hand off the car. “You haven’t answered my question. Where are you headed?”
A glint of amusement danced in her amber eyes. “You know, that attitude might work very well in the military. But you may want to rethink it when you’re dealing with a paying guest.”
“Only two ways to do things, Miss Stenson, the Marine way or the other way.”
“For the record, I choose option number two, the other way,” she said. “However, in deference to the fact that you will be my guest at dinner tonight, I will be gracious and answer your question. I’m going shopping at the Dunsley Market.”
“Shopping?”
“You know, for food and stuff to serve you and your brother?”
“Right. Shopping.”
She smiled a little too sweetly. “Care to see my list?”
“Does it include lime gelatin and red kidney beans?”
“Nope.”
“Guess I don’t have to worry, in that case,” he said.
“There’s always room to worry, Mr. Danner.”
She floored the accelerator. He jerked his fingers off the roof a split second before the compact shot away down the lane.
There was a short silence.
“Boy, howdy,” Jason said. “You know, you could lose a hand that way.”
Nine
Irene stood at the produce counter of the Dunsley Market, examining the limited selection of lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes, and pretended not to notice the curious, covert glances of the other shoppers. It wasn’t the first time she had been in the middle of a news story here, she thought. But this time around she was an adult, not an emotionally shattered teen.
What’s more, after five years of covering the Glaston Cove city council meetings, selecting the Recipe Exchange recipes and profiling local entrepreneurs such as the proprietor of Glaston Cove Seaweed Harvesting, Inc., she was starting to feel like a for-real investigative journalist.
She replayed the conversation she’d conducted with Adeline a short time before.
“Damnit, Irene, you haven’t given me anything I can use beyond the vague hints about an ongoing investigation, which, I might add, doesn’t seem to be happening, anyway.”
“What do you mean? I’m investigating.”
“But if the local cops aren’t doing zip squat—”
“There’s more to this, Addy, I can feel it.”
“I know.” Adeline exhaled heavily on the other end of the line. “This old reporter’s gut is churning, too, and I don’t think it’s the chili I had at lunch. Too many coincidences here. But promise me you’ll be careful. In my considerable experience, politics, sex and dead people make for a real bad mix.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“By the way, Gail and Jenny said they overnighted a week’s worth of underwear, pants and shirts. You should have them in the morning. Said to tell you they stuck with basic black so you wouldn’t have to worry about mixing and matching. Everything sort of goes together.”
“Tell them I said thanks.”
The rattle of a shopping cart stopping nearby jerked her out of her reverie.
“Why, if it isn’t Irene Stenson. I heard you were back in town.”
The speaker had one of those harsh, irritating voices that somehow always manages to rise above the background noise. Irene recognized it instantly although it had been seventeen years since she had last heard Betty Johnson’s uniquely grating tones. A searing memory set her heart pounding.
She stood with Aunt Helen in the shadow-drenched vestibule of the Drakenham Mortuary and looked at the crowd in the parking lot. The pouring rain had done nothing to dampen the curiosity of the residents of Dunsley.
“Vultures,” she whispered.
“Everyone in town knew your parents and they know you.” Helen gripped Irene’s hand. “It was inevitable that they would all come to the service.”
Ben Drakenham, the funeral director, had not been pleased with Helen’s choice of cremation for Hugh and Elizabeth Stenson. Irene knew that was because it cost considerably less than the full casket-and-burial arrangement that he preferred to sell.
Her elderly great-aunt had made the decision for reasons other than price, however.
“Headstones in the local cemetery will be lead weight, drawing you back to this time and place, Irene. Your parents would not have wanted that. They would want you to feel free to get on with your life.”
She had accepted her aunt’s wisdom, but privately she wondered if Helen had made the right choice. Headstones might have served as touchstones, providing her with some tangible links to the past that had been ripped from her.
Every seat in the funeral home’s small chapel was filled that cold, rainy day. But Irene was sure that the majority of those present had come to gawk and gossip, not to mourn her parents.
Betty Johnson had made certain to get a ringside seat at the service. Now she and several other people hovered just beyond the front door, waiting to offer their phony condolences and meaningless platitudes.
The car that waited in the drive seemed as distant as the moon.
“Come, Irene,” Helen said quietly. “We will get through this together.”
Irene drew a deep breath and squeezed her aunt’s hand very tightly. Together they went down the steps. The crowd parted before them. Helen acknowledged the expressions of sympathy with a regal nod. Irene stared straight ahead at the car.
They were only a few feet from the vehicle when she heard Betty Johnson’s voice rising above the hushed murmurs of the crowd.
“Poor little Irene. Bless her heart, she’ll never be normal, not after what happened.…”
Irene picked up a head of romaine lettuce with exquisite care and turned slowly to face the big-haired, sharp-featured woman behind her.
“Hello, Mrs. Johnson,” she said politely.
Betty gave her a superficial smile. “I hardly recognized you. You look so different.”
“So normal, do you mean?”
Betty went blank. “What?”
“Never mind.” Irene put the lettuce into the cart and gripped the handle. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a number of things to do.”
Betty regrouped and tightened her grip on the shopping cart handle. “Must have been a dreadful shock, finding poor Pamela Webb the way you did.”
With her peripheral vision, Irene watched two other shoppers halt their carts a short distance away. One woman was making a show of choosing carrots. The other pick
ed through a pile of baking potatoes as though searching for one made of solid gold. Both had their heads cocked in a way that indicated they were listening intently.
“Yes, it was a shock,” Irene said. She steered her cart around Betty Johnson.
“I heard that nice Luke Danner was with you when you found the body,” Betty said, swinging her cart around in hot pursuit. “You’re staying out at the lodge, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.” Irene wheeled the cart around the end of an aisle and plunged between rows of shelves filled with six-packs of beer and bottles of wine.
She chose a modestly priced white wine and then hesitated. Luke looked like the type who preferred beer.
“Someone noticed that you seemed a little upset this morning after you talked to Chief McPherson and Senator Webb,” Betty called out behind her.
Irene grabbed a six-pack of beer and kept going. She could hear Betty’s cart picking up speed behind her.
“Pamela Webb was a very troubled woman, you know,” Betty said. “Always was wild. Why, I remember the time your father found her using drugs along with some of the local kids in one of the boathouses at the old marina. Had to sweep the whole thing under the rug, of course, what with her being Ryland Webb’s daughter and all. But everyone in town knew what had happened.”
That did it. Irene halted suddenly, let go of the cart handle and stepped quickly to the side.
Betty Johnson was following so closely and at such speed that she was unable to stop in time. Her cart plowed into Irene’s with a shuddering clash of steel. Betty staggered under the impact.
Irene smiled politely. “Your memory is a little faulty, Mrs. Johnson. My father didn’t do any favors for Ryland Webb.”
Betty made a tut-tut sound. “Now, dear, everyone knew what Pamela was doing down there at the boathouse.”
“The same way everyone knew that your husband was stinking drunk the night he drove his truck into the front window of Tarrant’s Hardware store.”
Betty stared, stunned. Then her face suffused with outrage. “Ed wasn’t drunk. It was an accident.”
“You could say that Dad swept that incident under the rug, too, because he didn’t arrest Ed, did he? He knew that your husband had just been laid off. He realized that an arrest for drunk driving would have made it very hard for him to find a new job.”
“It was an accident, I tell you. Your father understood that.”
“An accident.” Irene looked around and saw a vaguely familiar face at the end of the aisle. “Like the time Jeff Wilkins and two of his buddies accidentally stole Harry Benson’s new truck and took it joyriding out on Bell Road.”
Annie Wilkins blanched. “How dare you bring up that old incident? It was just a childish prank.”
“It was grand theft auto, and you’d better believe that Benson was determined to press charges,” Irene said. “But my father convinced him to calm down and back off. Then Dad had a chat with your son and his pals. Gave them a good scare. And guess what? Jeff and his friends avoided getting a rap sheet.”
“That happened years ago,” Annie said fiercely. “I’ll have you know that Jeff is a lawyer now.”
“Talk about life’s little ironies. I’m sure Dad would have found that very amusing.” Irene turned slowly on her heel, selecting another target from the small crowd. “Let’s see, who else benefited from the way my father did his job?”
A shudder went through the small cluster of people poised at the end of the aisle. Two shoppers at the rear abruptly reversed course, trying to escape.
Irene pounced on the woman with fake red hair who was taking a hard left into CAN. FRUITS & VEG.
“Becky Turner, right? I remember you. I also recall the time your daughter got mixed up with that group of summer kids who were causing so much trouble—”
Becky did the deer-in-the-headlights freeze and then lurched toward the checkout counter.
All the shoppers in the vicinity were in motion now, wheeling their carts toward the nearest exit. There was a lot of clanging and clattering, and then an acute silence fell.
For a few seconds Irene thought she was alone in the beer and wine aisle. Then she sensed a presence behind her.
She turned slowly and saw an attractive middle-aged woman watching her with an amused expression.
“Hello, Irene,” she said.
“Mrs. Carpenter?”
“Call me Tess. You’re not in my classroom anymore. No need to be formal.”
Tess Carpenter pushed her cart down the aisle, closing the space between them. For the first time since she had arrived in town, Irene experienced the kind of inner warmth that came with happy memories.
Tess had taught English at Dunsley High. She had enthusiastically encouraged Irene’s hunger for reading and her desire to write.
Her honey-colored hair was subtly streaked with blond to hide the gray, and there were some new crinkles at the edges of her eyes, but other than that, Tess seemed to have aged very little.
“Looks like you cleared out the market,” Tess said, laughing. “Congratulations. Pamela would have been proud of you. She loved scenes, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but only if she was the one causing them.”
“That’s true.” Tess’s face softened. “How are you, Irene? Someone said you had become a journalist?”
“I’m with a small paper in a town on the coast. What about you? Still teaching at Dunsley High?”
“Yes. Phil owns the garage now.”
Irene smiled. “Dad always said that Phil could work magic when it came to cars.”
“Your father was right.” Tess surveyed Irene with concern and sympathy. “I heard what happened, obviously. The whole town knows about Pamela. I’m very sorry that you had to be the one to find her.”
“The only reason I’m in town is because she wanted to talk to me. After seventeen years of silence she sent me an e-mail saying she had to see me. But we never got the chance to meet.”
“Do you really think there’s some mystery about her death?”
Irene smiled wryly. “That gossip got around fast.”
“This is Dunsley, remember? We don’t even need our own paper. News travels at the speed of light.”
A woman with a good-natured face and a ponytail came down the aisle.
“Hi, Irene. Sandy Pace. Remember me? I used to be Sandy Warden. I was a year behind you at Dunsley High.”
“Hello, Sandy,” Irene said. “It’s nice to see you again. How have you been?”
“Things are good, thanks. I married Carl Pace right out of high school. We’ve got two kids now. Carl works construction around the lake. He keeps busy.”
“I’m glad,” Irene said. “Congratulations on the kids.”
“Thanks. They’re a handful, and it seems like it takes every dime Carl makes to keep them in clothes, but we’re doing fine. We’re building a new house.”
“That’s wonderful, Sandy.”
Sandy straightened her shoulders with an air of resolve. “Listen, I couldn’t help overhearing what you said back there to Betty Johnson and the others. I just wanted to say that you were right to tell those old biddies off like that.”
“I’m afraid that I let them push a few of my buttons.”
“I was glad to see you push right back. The truth is, a lot of folks around here have reason to be grateful to your dad. Isn’t that right, Tess?”
“Absolutely right,” Tess agreed. “It’s amazing how short memories can be.”
“There were plenty of times when Hugh Stenson handled things quietly so that someone didn’t go to jail or end up with a record or was just plain embarrassed to death,” Sandy added. “And he knew how to keep secrets, too.”
Irene felt a rush of gratitude. “Thank you, Sandy.”
“One of those secrets involved my mom and me. My stepdad, Rich Harrell, was mean, real mean. He’d get drunk and slap my mother around, and then he’d start in on me.”
“I didn’t know that,” Irene said
. She felt oddly shocked. How could she not have realized what was going on in that household? she wondered.
“’Course you didn’t,” Sandy said calmly. “I never said a word to anyone. Neither did Mom. She wanted to leave Harrell, but she was afraid he might kill her and me, too. Like I said, she never told a soul, but Chief Stenson somehow figured out what was happening. One day he came to our house and told Harrell to get into his car. They drove off and were gone for a long time. When they came back, I could tell that Harrell was really nervous. He packed a bag and left town that same day. We never saw him after that.”
Tess frowned. “Abusive men don’t usually disappear so conveniently just because of a conversation with a cop.”
“They do if they get real scared,” Sandy said. “A few years later we heard that Harrell had gotten drunk, smashed his car into a tree and died. We celebrated, Mom and me. That’s when she told me what happened the day Hugh Stenson took him away to have that private chat.”
“What was that?” Irene asked.
Sandy’s eyes gleamed with remembered satisfaction. “Don’t know how he did it, but the chief found out somehow that Harrell had once ripped off a really dangerous man down in San Diego, a guy who laundered money for South American drug lords. Harrell had faked his death after he took the man’s cash. Your dad warned Harrell that if he ever came back to Dunsley or if anything suspicious ever happened to me or my mom, he’d make sure the man in San Diego got word that the guy who stole some of his money wasn’t really dead.”
Irene shivered a little. “I never heard that story.”
“Neither did I,” Tess said.
Sandy looked at them knowingly. “Like I said, Hugh Stenson kept a lot of this town’s dirty little secrets. Took them to his grave.”
Ten
Sam picked up the clicker and muted the annoying noise being made by the too-perky, too-perfect woman reading the evening news. He leaned back in the recliner and closed his eyes.
The crushing guilt closed in on him. He wondered if he would just stop breathing altogether under the weight of it. Maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
He had been doing okay in the past few years, he thought. It had taken a lot of work, but he’d finally been able to shove the guilt into a deep hole and cover it up. Sure he’d had some problems. He’d screwed up his marriage for one thing, but that didn’t exactly make him unique. A lot of people managed that trick.