Gourdfellas Page 5

  Michele Castro didn’t show a flicker of emotion. “I don’t know anything yet. I need you to come down to the department and get fingerprinted and give a formal statement about the rifle. And I need you to stick around for a couple of days.”

  My throat closed up. “A couple of days? I can’t. I have to go to New Hampshire tomorrow. You know, it’s not so far. I’m in a new show at a prestigious gallery there. My work has to be set up for a show on Saturday afternoon. I’m not going to run away or anything. But I have to be at that opening.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t force you to stay. But I can make sure you have a police escort the whole weekend. And I still need you to come to Hudson and give me a statement and get fingerprinted—after I follow you to your house so we can get that rifle and check things out.”

  I doubted that the sheriff ’s department had the manpower to spare someone to babysit me for a trip to New Hampshire, but even if Michele Castro wasn’t making idle threats, no way would she stop me from going to New Hampshire.

  “Fine. I’ll come by this afternoon. And that escort? You want to try for Officer Garrison? He looks like he’d know how to behave around a bunch of patrons of the arts.”

  Her boyfriend would, in fact, not be bad company for a weekend. She glared at me and then strutted off to her car and gunned the engine while I managed to turn the car without landing in the ditch.

  I’d been mugged once on a deserted street on the Lower East Side, and hustled by a couple of would-be thieves on the subway, but I’d never felt as helpless as I did when three members of the Columbia County Sheriff ’s Department tossed my small home. They went through every drawer and closet, every box and bag, impersonally peering beneath T-shirts and under towels. They opened every container in my gourd studio, and pawed through each folder in my file cabinet, until I was ready to scream.

  But they were relatively neat and they were efficient and they made an attempt to be courteous and even apologetic. Nobody answered my questions about how the rifle might have gotten into my attic—they just poked through everything and then left. Michele Castro directed traffic, and directed herself to go through my underwear drawer. At least she was the one to learn that I had thirty pairs of the same off-brand panties, in red, blue, purple, and white. What she didn’t know was that they served as a private, color-coded reminder to help me get through the day—red when I needed energy, blue when I wanted to be calm, purple when I had to be assertive, and white when I felt in need of a spiritual boost.

  Today, I should have been wearing one of each color.

  Not that it would have helped. My feeling of violation gave way to a weariness that felt bone deep. I still had to get fingerprinted and then go the mediation session. But not before I spent ten minutes lying on the sofa and staring out the window at the sparrows fighting over the seed in the feeder. Which helped me remember that Elizabeth had asked me to call her when Castro and company were gone.

  “He wants you to meet him at the Creamery tomorrow morning at ten,” she said when I’d identified myself.

  “Who? What are you talking about?” Puzzles and word games, usually among my favorite forms of entertainment, were more annoying than intriguing right now.

  “The lawyer, the one I said I’d call. B.H., remember? He thinks this may get some attention because of the casino connection and he wants to meet you before the news hits the fan.”

  “Tell him I’ll meet him tonight at nine,” I said. Even my attorney wasn’t going to stop me from making that gallery opening.

  I’d been through the messy ink-and-roll procedure once before, when I applied for a job at a bank. That time, I hadn’t cleaned one of my fingers thoroughly and had ruined a perfectly fine yellow cotton sweater. This time I’d be more careful. As double insurance I threw an old denim work shirt that was stained with leather dye and gilder’s paste over my mediation slacks and sweater, and then drove into Hudson.

  Warren Street buzzed with activity as the county prepared for the return of seasonal visitors. I was still too protective of the slow, uncrowded quiet of my new life to welcome the intrusion of Them—city people. If that casino was built, the stream would turn into a flood. Maybe, too, I just didn’t get the appeal of gambling because I was missing the gene that got excited when the dice stopped or a little ball rolled into my number. Instead, the gene that hated losing kept me from getting involved in matters of pure chance. Either way, I’d heard about how gambling joints changed not only the look of a town but also its feel. The culture of neighborliness became corrupted into theme-park friendliness that disappeared when the money ran out. All the arguments about jobs and expanding the tax base and seeing that justice was served for Native Americans wouldn’t convince me that a casino was the only way to achieve those good ends.

  Inside the sheriff’s department, the smell of disinfectant nearly knocked me over. I was reminded that policing was a job in which you might be exposed to bad odors and bodily wastes, and in a county jail that would happen regularly, especially in the drunk tank. I shivered with distaste and headed for the desk.

  “Hi, is Officer Castro around? She asked me to come by.” I smiled in the direction of the heavily mascaraed woman on the other side of the counter, but she continued to stare at her computer screen as though I hadn’t said a word.

  Seconds marched by, my patience seeping away with each tick of the clock. Public servants, my foot. Public torturers was more like it. “Hello!” I shouted as I slammed my hand on the counter and sent two papers fluttering to the floor. “Anybody home?”

  Glaring, the woman glanced away from the fallen papers and pushed her chair back. She pointed to a sign on the counter.

  PRESS THE BUZZER FOR ATTENTION.

  In the uninflected voice of someone who has never heard the melody of human speech she said, “No need to be sarcastic. What can I do for you?”

  The notice was as clear as my regret. “Sorry. I didn’t see the sign. Michele Castro wanted me to come in.”

  The woman followed my speech with her eyes, not her ears. I waited while she dialed an extension, spoke into the receiver, and then motioned me to a seat on a bench. How would it be to live in a silent world, to not hear music, to have only your eyes, your nose, your skin to alert you to changes or dangers in the world? Maybe it was peaceful. No traffic, no jackhammers, no shouting.

  I was so lost in thought that I didn’t hear Castro’s footsteps. Startled by her sudden appearance in front of me, I jumped up to a standing position.

  Funny, I’d made myself deaf for a few seconds.

  “You all right?” she asked, and when I nodded she led me down the corridor to her small office. As I had last fall after I’d found Nora’s husband’s body in a pond, I sat across from her, wrote out my statement on the yellow legal pad she pushed toward me, and tried to include every detail. Without looking up, I knew Castro’s eyes were on me. When I was finished, I handed her the paper.

  “Am I still a suspect?” I asked, keeping my voice light. “Do I still need a babysitter this weekend?”

  Michele Castro pushed her ponytail behind her shoulder. Fine lines crisscrossed her tan cheek, and a frown furrow had begun to form between her plucked brows. She was too young to be sporting worry lines, but there they were. The stress of work, the sun, irregular hours, eating food that came from a chemistry lab instead of a farm, had all left their mark on her. For a second, I wanted to send her home with a hot meal and some expensive skin cream. The impulse didn’t last long.

  “You and everybody else in town. But, yes, you. The rifle was in your house and you have no corroborated alibi for the time of Marjorie Mellon’s death. Not yet, anyway, until I check out your statement. So, yes. That’s why I told you to stick around town, that’s why I needed to search your house, and that’s why you’re here now.” Her chair squeaked as she leaned back. “We’re looking at some other people too. I’m not going to say who.”

  Great. Other people. The only thing that kept me from utter des
pair was the knowledge that my prints were not on that rifle. Thank goodness I hadn’t touched it.

  “When will you check my prints against the ones on the rifle? Because if they don’t match, then I move down on your list, don’t I?”

  “As soon as we can.” She got up and poured herself coffee, gestured to ask if I wanted any but I declined in the interests of my stomach.

  “Okay. Whatever that means. Is it all right if I have someone come out and fix my roof? I mean, I found the rifle because my roof has a leak somewhere. I don’t want to be charged with tampering with evidence or anything, but I don’t want the whole house to get ruined.” No rain was forecast in the near future. Still, I didn’t want to watch my bathtub go floating down Iron Mill Road because my damaged shingles were evidence in a murder case. She could take all the pictures she wanted, but I intended to have that leak fixed before the week was over.

  Before she could answer, her phone rang. “Castro,” she said in her official voice. She tapped the eraser end of a pencil as she listened. Once, her eyes cut to me before she scribbled something on the note paper in a neat cube on her desk. “Don’t let anyone near it,” she said, standing and motioning me to the door. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  It had sparked Castro’s interest enough for her to almost forget that I was supposed to be fingerprinted.

  “I don’t know where the fingerprint room is,” I said matter-of-factly.

  With an exasperated sigh, Castro led me to another small room, told the lab tech what she wanted, and then kept going down the hall. The technician, an overweight boy whose hair was cut so close I could see whitish patches of scalp, mimed his way through the printing procedure. With my encounter at the front desk still fresh in my mind, I went along with his gestures. He pointed to the table, then grasped my thumb with a hand so soft it startled me. Gently, he rolled each finger first in ink and then onto the paper. The silence doubled my apprehension. To distract myself I tried to remember the lyrics of an old Bob Marley song about some kind of vibrations. The words didn’t stick. Instead, I found myself traveling through a labyrinth of disturbing questions about casinos and friendships in jeopardy, about Marjorie Mellon lying dead in the woods, and Connie Lovett living fiercely, and Neil trying to recover from having his dreams crushed.

  What could I, should I do to change any of this? That question wasn’t real, I knew—I’d given up thinking I could fix everything a long time ago. Maybe my mediation session would restore my belief that I had at least some power to make certain things right again.

  Chapter 6

  The room was calm and dignified, in a low budget kind of way. Posters of mountains and a shining sea brightened the beige walls and three healthy pothos plants lined the windowsill. They helped set a tone that made dealing with angry people easier. I was too late to sit quietly and close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing, a practice that allowed my personal concerns to recede. Neil and Connie and Susan and that rifle hovered at the edges of my consciousness. Marjorie drifted among them. No use trying to make them disappear completely, not today.

  The case file listed Mr. Smith as complainant and Mr. Caterra as respondent. To encourage fairness, the mediation center’s policy was to tell the mediator very little about a conflict. I only knew that this was a business dispute involving a contractor and a homeowner—a relief, because this wouldn’t be the best time for me to deal with the high emotions of a truant teen or a child custody case and maintain my equanimity.

  The two men sitting on benches across from each other in the waiting area couldn’t have been more different, although they looked familiar to me. I’d seen them before, around town, in the Agway, at a casino meeting, perhaps. One was tall, with a balding head tonsured in white, a navy button-down shirt, and knife-creased khakis. Smith, the homeowner/complainant, I decided. The muscular man sitting across from him wore paint-spattered jeans and T-shirt. His hair hung to his shoulders. Caterra, the contractor.

  I called them into the room and we took seats around the battered library table.

  “Hi, my name is Lili Marino. Thanks for coming in. I know we’re getting a bit of a late start, but we always try to accommodate everyone’s schedules. If time runs short, we can schedule another meeting.” Both men nodded at me, avoiding eye contact with each other. “Please tell me your names so that I can pronounce them correctly.”

  The shorter man flipped his hair off his shoulder and grinned. “I never heard a single person pronounce my name wrong. What can you do to Smith?”

  I felt my cheeks redden. I’d violated a basic principle of mediation by making assumptions about these two men based on their appearance.

  I explained that mediation was voluntary and confidential, which meant that I couldn’t be called on to testify in court about anything that happened during the sessions. They’d be the ones to determine the outcome. “I’m not a judge. I’m here to help you talk to each other. We’ve found that the process works best if we observe a couple of guidelines. First, one person at a time speaks. I’ve given you paper and pencil so that you can write down what you want to say when someone else is talking. Can you both agree to let one person at a time speak?”

  Mr. Caterra sat taller in his chair and rubbed his bald spot. He said, “No problem.”

  Good. But it was Mr. Muscular Smith I was more concerned about. He’d been sitting with his arms folded across his chest, scowling and shaking his head. After a few seconds, I said, “Mr. Smith? Do you agree?”

  He unfolded his arms and slapped the table. “He’s all agreeable now because we’re in public, but I don’t care if it’s one person or three people speaking, if he talks trash to me I’m out of here and in court. He cheated me, he promised to do work on my bathroom and he did a crappy job and used crappy materials. He charged me for the good stuff and pocketed the difference. Plus, he’s taking my money, the money he stole from me, and giving it to that group that thinks building the damn casino is gonna solve everybody’s damn problems.”

  No matter where I went, I couldn’t get away from the casino.

  “You’ll have a chance to talk about everything that’s on your mind, Mr. Smith. But I want to know if you can agree to let one person at a time speak.”

  “He’s got a temper and he—”

  “Shut up, Caterra. I can talk for myself.” Mr. Smith gripped his pencil so tightly it nearly snapped. “I’ll try.”

  He didn’t say that going to court was an expensive, time-consuming alternative that he wanted to avoid, but I could see it on his face. So far, so good—nobody had leaped across the table or made threatening gestures or stormed out of the room.

  For the next fifteen minutes, first Smith and then Caterra told their stories. Smith claimed that he had hired Caterra to redo his bathroom, that the work had taken a little over a week as specified, and that he had paid $4,359 for labor and materials. He slapped a sheaf of receipts on the table, each marked paid. And then he told how a week later, a leak had caused his bathroom to collapse into the dining room downstairs. He slapped another thicket of papers on the table—estimates of damage to his table, a family heirloom, and the repair of the plumbing, the sheetrock, and all painting. He claimed that Caterra had used inferior materials and had neglected to seal and caulk crucial joints. He wanted full compensation for all the repairs and restoration, plus enough money to cover the two days he’d had to miss work.

  “He thinks he’s gonna get a piece of the construction work for that casino? I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. I’ll take this jerk to court and then the whole county will know what scum he is and how he screws over honest, hardworking families. Just because I don’t have a college degree don’t mean you can run your little scam right over me like a Sherman tank,” Smith declared between clenched teeth.

  There it was. In business disputes, respect was almost always one of the unspoken concerns. “So, Mr. Smith, there’s been some damage done to your furniture and your dining room ceiling. You believe that M
r. Caterra used materials and processes that were inappropriate to repair your leak. You also feel that Mr. Smith hasn’t treated you respectfully, and you’re upset that some of the money you paid him might go to help bring a casino you don’t support to Walden Corners. Did I get that right?”

  Smith scowled, but he nodded. Then it was Caterra’s turn.

  Caterra denied everything. He had used materials that were within Smith’s budget and his workman had properly sealed joints and edges. The problem, he said, was that Smith had dumped sludge from his motorcycle down the new drain, causing a backup and the subsequent flooding.

  “And how I spend the money I earn is my business. If I want to buy a million purple lollipops or give it to a girl who wants to open a massage parlor then that’s what I’ll do. But let’s get this clear. You’re blowing foul air all over town—I want you to stop telling people I’m a crook. If you continue to badmouth me, I’ll sue your butt for defamation,” Caterra said with a smile, “and enjoy every minute of it.”

  And there was the other unspoken concern. Reputation—a businessman’s make or break commodity. Again, I summarized what Caterra had said, ending with a recognition that he was concerned about maintaining his reputation in the community. Caterra smiled at me, as though it was our little secret that he was going to win this case, but I ignored his manipulation.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, “it seems that there’s a lot more to talk about, but we can’t do it tonight. It’s eight o’clock, and the center is closing. Can we come back next week, same time, same place, and pick up where we left off?”

  I expected grumbling from Smith, and he didn’t disappoint me. In the end, though, they both agreed to return to try to work things out.

  My day had been longer and filled with more surprise challenges than I’d anticipated. And it wasn’t over yet.