Gourdfellas Page 4

  “Okay,” I said. “Neil’s alive. That’s the biggest deal. And nothing has affected his brain or any other important system. So we have to remember that it’s going to be hard, but he needs us to be loving and not so worried that we turn him into a perpetual patient.”

  My mother’s eyes narrowed and she pushed to the edge of her chair. “You mean, I shouldn’t turn him into a patient. I have no such intention. He’s a grown man, and I’ll always be his mother but I don’t need him to be dependent on me. Speak for yourself, Lili.”

  “I was.” Funny how easy it was to choose my words carefully in a mediation session, and how that skill went out the window when I was with my mother and my sister. I liked women, valued my friendships, but I still hadn’t figured out how to connect to those two. “Maybe we should get something to eat. The doctor won’t be out of there for three or four hours.”

  We rode the elevator to the ground floor. Outside, the world was going about its normal business while my brother was having his leg put back together. I told my parents I’d catch up to them in a few minutes and I lingered behind as they walked down the street, their shoulders bowed with the weight of Neil’s condition. When they were half a block ahead, I punched in Susan’s number, half expecting an answering machine. Instead, her chirpy voice greeted me.

  “You’re home. I thought maybe I’d get a message machine. No headaches? No seeing double? Nothing?”

  Her laugh was clear and strong. “Nothing. Only the pain of knowing that my perfect face won’t ever be in a Revlon commercial. Jack’s home, so that’s a big relief. Thanks for staying with me, Lili. That mattered. A lot.”

  “Just lucky I was out there in the parking lot.” I wanted to say that anyone would have done the same. “Listen, my brother’s been in an accident and I’m down here in the city. I just wanted to let you know why I haven’t stopped in to see you.”

  “No, don’t worry about that. He’s going to be all right?”

  “That’s what the doc says. He’s out for the season and it’s not clear yet whether he’ll ever play ball again. Professionally, anyway. He’ll need rest, a positive attitude, and a good physical therapist.”

  “And are you going to be all right?” Susan’s voice was quiet, concerned.

  “Oh, I’m just tired. Haven’t slept well in the past couple of nights. Between you and my brother—”

  “Hey, don’t you worry about me. And your brother? He can get everything he needs plus fresh air and some time to get back on his feet—so to speak—in Walden Corners. Trisha Stern, you remember, she was at the casino meeting? She worked for the New York Liberty, you know, the women’s pro basketball team, for five or six years, then married my principal, Jonathan Kirschbaum. She’s a terrific physical therapist.”

  And, just like that, I knew what I would do. It was one of those moments in which everything felt so completely right that I was grateful to be on the receiving end of such good luck.

  “Susan, that’s so perfect. I’m so happy to know about Trisha. That’s great, thanks so much. I have to run. Talk to you soon. Thanks a gazillion times!”

  She’d provided me with some good ammunition to use when Neil was well enough—and clearheaded enough—to make decisions about his post-op care. I’d give him a real choice. He could go to his apartment and have someone come in to help him—and do too much himself and probably re-injure his leg and end up on the receiving end of a disability check. He could go to Mom’s—and have her hover and get chatty and then weepy every evening as the number of Glenlivets rose. Or he could come to my house—and let me bring him his meals, hook him up with a great physical therapist, and be only as much company as he wanted.

  I thought I knew which one he’d choose.

  “Go home, Lili.”

  He said it with one of his deep-dimpled smiles, so I joined the game. I kept my tone light when I said, “Tired of my face? Or is it my conversation? Anyway, I was about to leave. My mediation case was rescheduled for six this evening and I want to do some laundry before then.”

  “Good. Plus, you’ve got that gallery opening. You have a whole life to live. And most of it takes place one hundred miles from here. Your offer is great, but I can’t think that far ahead.” The speech left Neil tired, and he sank into the pillows, his smile still bright.

  I nodded and leaned over and kissed his stubbly cheek, then rubbed a finger over the one-day growth. “Isn’t it your leg that’s a problem? Your hand and arm are still okay, right?”

  Neil smiled. “This is not laziness. I’m growing a beard. I’m not going to shave until the docs and the team tell me I can play again.”

  I suppressed the obvious question and settled for a little mood-boosting. “Then you probably won’t get past your first whisker trim. You’ve convinced me. I’m going home. But I’ll call you. I want you to think about it. No pressure, but I might not talk to you again if you don’t come back with me when they let you out.”

  “No pressure, but if you aren’t careful, you’re gonna put Mom out of a job,” my brother said, squeezing my hand.

  I thought about Neil’s comment all the way up the Taconic Parkway. A pounding rain had forced me to slow to under fifty miles an hour as my worn wipers smeared the fat drops across the window. April showers—except this was a deluge that would have made whales happy. I stuck Janis Joplin’s Pearl into the tape player. My mother used to sing along with everything, but this one always felt like a special talisman when she needed extra strength. Maybe I had absorbed parts of her—and maybe that wasn’t so bad.

  By the time I pulled into my driveway the rain had stopped. I navigated past three pond-size puddles and made my way to the back door.

  I tossed my keys on the kitchen counter, dumped my backpack on the floor, and walked directly to the bathroom. I’d used the restroom at the Stewart’s where I’d stopped for gas on the way home, but I’d also fueled up with a large container of coffee. My sense of relief was cut short by the plink of water hitting the toe of my left sneaker.

  The stain on my new white bath mat matched the one darkening the ceiling tile. My bathroom had sprung a leak.

  It must have started slowly, unnoticed. Water—a silent traveler that moves along the smallest slope and finds an opening, any unsealed place, the tiniest space. Patient, persistent it makes its way along the path of least resistance, even if that means cutting through sandstone and shale. If the great river valleys of this beautiful green earth can be formed by water wearing away the rock, then a ceiling covered in acoustic tiles had little chance against its power. Tom Ford had apologized for those cottage cheese tiles, had said he’d meant to replace them, and so had I. But neither of us had gotten around to it.

  I stood in the 1950s green-and-black, functional but far from beautiful space. No way to tell from here where the leak was coming from, but if I pushed up the ceiling tile, maybe I’d see something obvious. I grabbed the flashlight I kept on my bedside table, pulled a folding stepstool into the middle of floor, and climbed up, bracing against the wall with my right hand. With my left, I pushed up on the tile with the large, damp ring in the center and moved it aside.

  A rifle crashed to the floor, just missing my head.

  Funny how many things can go through a person’s mind at once. I waited for a flash and the searing pain that I’d heard accompanies a gunshot wound. I wondered whether Tom Ford had stashed the gun in the attic and I’d missed it when I moved in. Or maybe someone was trying to get me arrested for possession of an illegal weapon because I’d been helpful to Susan Clemants, who supported the casino.

  The next thought was that whoever put that rifle in my attic might still be in my house. And might be dangerous.

  I was careful stepping down from the ladder. Then I grabbed my pack from the kitchen counter and ran to the car. I backed down the driveway, turned left onto Iron Mill Road and headed toward Walden Corners. By the time I’d gone about a quarter mile, sanity returned. I didn’t need to drive eight miles into town to re
port what I’d found. I had my cell phone.

  The brilliant sun made the rain-soaked grass sparkle. I pulled over into the shade of a graceful willow and dialed the number for Michele Castro, at the Columbia County Sheriff ’s Department. Maddeningly, the phone rang and rang but nobody picked up. Great. Law enforcement was taking a coffee break? My annoyance became jittery frustration as the phone continued to ring. Eight times, ten. I was about to hang up when a tentative male voice said, “Hello? I mean, Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Can I speak to Michele Castro?” The man who answered might well have been a janitor or a computer geek—he hardly sounded as though he knew his way around a crime scene.

  “She’s out in the field,” the voice said. For a second, I was confused at the notion of Michele Castro tromping through beds of alfalfa, but then I realized that was cop talk.

  “What about Sheriff Murphy?”

  “Not here,” the voice intoned.

  Exasperated, I nearly tossed the cell phone into the newly green bushes, but instead I took a deep breath and said, “Listen, I live on Iron Mill Road. I found a rifle in my attic and I want to report it. I’m afraid to go back into the house myself because the person who put it there might be—”

  “Hold on. Stay where you are. What did you say your name is?”

  “Lili Marino,” I said. Generic disco music filled my ear. As I waited in confusion, a white and blue police car screamed past me, screeched to a halt about one hundred yards down the road, and then backed up, fishtailing on the blacktop until it came to a stop in front of me.

  Either that dispatcher was more efficient than I thought, or the officer in the cruiser was more interested in me than she should have been.

  Chapter 5

  Michele Castro Stepped out of the cruiser and approached me, her right hand resting lightly on the revolver that hung at her hip. I still couldn’t get past the cheerleader image—blond hair pulled back into a low ponytail, steady green eyes rimmed by lashes that didn’t need mascara, a figure made to wear tailored jeans and snug, colorful T-shirts. “Stand up and hold your hands out at your sides,” she said.

  Confused, my heart pounding, I obeyed.

  She continued to take careful steps forward, her eyes locked onto mine. Static crackled from some piece of equipment hanging from her belt. Her face seemed to be cast in stone—no twitching, no movement, no expression at all to give away her feelings. We might not be friends, but I hardly expected her to treat me like a criminal because I’d discovered a gun in my attic in a truly freakish way.

  “What are you doing parked by the side of the road?” Her right hand gripped the handle of the gun.

  “I—didn’t you get my message? About the rifle?” My idea of a perfect Thursday afternoon did not include standing in the dappled shade of a large willow facing off against a law enforcement officer growling questions at me.

  “Answer my question. How come you were parked at the side of the road?”

  My frustration ballooned into exasperation. “I just called your office from my cell phone. Someone left a . . . I don’t know . . . I found a rifle. It fell out of my bathroom ceiling. I thought whoever put it there might still be in my house so I left. And I called the sheriff ’s department and then you came and here we are.”

  Her face softened, but only for a second before hardening back into a stern, official mask. “What kind of rifle?”

  “The kind that shoots.” The words were out before I could deflect my smart remark into something that might not raise her hackles. My father’s handguns were familiar to me, but rifles? Not in Brooklyn. “I don’t know. It was big, so I knew it was a rifle, but that’s all I can tell you.”

  “Where is it now?” She didn’t brush away the gnat that flew in front of her face, but she did blink. Somehow, I found that reassuring.

  “On the floor in my bathroom. Right where it fell. I didn’t touch it, and I didn’t move it. It would be fine with me if you came back to the house and just took it away. I don’t want it or anything. I mean, I want to get rid of it, you know.” Babbling through my nervousness, I maintained eye contact with Michele Castro, Columbia County undersheriff, who watched me with a cool, analytical stare.

  An hour earlier, I would have said that my biggest problem was figuring out how to juggle too many demanding parts of my life. Ten minutes ago, I’d have said that the only way my name and the word suspect would be linked would be if my mother had phoned me and said, “Lili Marino, is this fellow you’re dating a usual suspect or is he someone ready to settle down?”

  I began to feel like a bantamweight mouse being batted around by a Sumo cat. My impatience with this little charade bubbled over. “Are you going to get the rifle or not?”

  “Where were you this morning?” she replied.

  Great—that wasn’t a question a cop asked without a reason, and that reason was surely bad news for me. “Driving home from New York City. Where I was visiting my brother in the hospital. And, yes, I was alone. Maybe a gas station attendant at the Stewart’s at Oyster Point would remember me. You make it sound like you’re going to haul me in for murder,” I said to lighten the tone.

  “That depends on what forensics finds out about the rifle.” She motioned me into the rear seat of the cruiser and called in her position on the walkie-talkie she pulled from her belt.

  Murder? She was probably just sticking to her script, ticking off procedural requirements one by one.

  At least I wasn’t spread-eagled against the hood of my car, enduring a pat down in full view of any neighbor who happened to drive by. As my breathing slowed, my mind started into gear again. Michele Castro was going to a lot of trouble, asking me questions and making me wait in the patrol car. Something big, perhaps even unthinkable, had happened. Nothing as simple as an accident along this quiet country road. Clearly, it had something to do with a rifle. Hunting out of season? That wouldn’t be serious enough to treat me as though I were a . . . murderer. That was the word I’d been trying to avoid.

  In the rearview mirror, I watched Castro’s normally pretty face screw into a look of puzzlement as she paced from one side of the road to the other. Finally, she flicked off the walkie-talkie and opened the door on the driver’s side.

  “I need to see the rifle you found.”

  “Good, I’d love to have you take it away.” But I felt no relief. Her still-tense expression told me that this wasn’t going to be a quick and easy jaunt.

  “And we need to search your house. We can do it two hours from now, after we get a warrant, or we can do it now with your permission.”

  My head dropped against the seat back. I didn’t need this, not when I had so many other things demanding my attention. No clear answers came out of the soup that was my brain, but I heard my Dad’s voice echoing in my head.

  If you’re ever in a jam, don’t be stupid. Lawyer up. It’s the only smart thing.

  He’d told me that when he was on the job, the only judgment he made when someone called a lawyer was that they had brains. Not every cop felt the way he did, he’d said, but that didn’t matter. The smart ones protected themselves.

  “I’ll give you my answer in a minute. After I call my lawyer. Can I get out and have a little privacy?”

  Castro’s steady gaze was accompanied by a curt nod. I climbed from the cruiser, walked a few steps down the road, and punched in Elizabeth Conklin’s number. I explained the situation in two seconds, and then she put me on hold. Now it was my turn to pace. Disintegrating tissue wads dotted the ditch, along with crushed beer cans and cigarette packs. On the other side of the road, a torn gym bag and a formerly white sock lay abandoned. The detritus of bored teens, I thought, on their way to becoming joyless adults. What was Elizabeth doing? The minutes dripped by like molasses in January. Finally, I heard a click and a voice.

  “Listen very carefully. Marjorie Mellon was found in the woods about a quarter mile from your house. Somebody shot her with a rifle. Are you sure you didn’t touch the o
ne in your bathroom?”

  I stopped pacing. Marjorie Mellon, dead? Near my house? Her bouncing steel gray curls bobbed into my mind, her brown eyes flashing beneath them. Every bit of her moved when she spoke about starting a consortium to support the casino. Now she was dead.

  “Lili? You didn’t touch the rifle. That’s right, isn’t it?” Elizabeth sounded exasperated.

  “I didn’t. I don’t think I did. I was too scared. When it fell out of the ceiling, it scared the crap out of me. What do I do now?”

  “You let them take the rifle, and you let them search your house. They’d get their warrant, so there’s no use appearing uncooperative. Meanwhile, I’ll call B.H., just in case.”

  “B.H.?” Was I supposed to understand, or was this some kind of lawyer code I hadn’t learned?

  “Sorry. B. H. Hovanian, the smartest criminal defense lawyer north of the city. You probably won’t need him, but I want to alert him. Like I said, just in case. And call me when the cops leave.”

  She clicked off before I could say thank you. And before she could say Don’t worry, this will blow over in a couple of hours. But then, Elizabeth wasn’t much of a hand holder. I’d known that for months. Maybe the lawyer, whom I hoped was a combination of Gerry Spence folksy and Alan Dershowitz passionate, was a good idea. It was a stretch to think I’d need his services, but he’d probably be better to work with than Elizabeth, whose clients came to her for wills and pre-nups and business contracts.

  Michele Castro walked towards me, her head tilted in a question.

  “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go. You can take the rifle and you can search my house.” So, she’d get what she wanted and I’d go on with my life. After I made a couple of important points. “But I didn’t murder Marjorie Mellon. First of all, I hardly know the woman, so why would I kill her? Second of all . . . Oh, hell, you know I didn’t do it.”