Рита Браун - Rest In Pieces

By the time Harry arrived at work she felt a little sheepish about her concerns. Outside the windows she saw road crews maneuvering the big snowplows. One little compact car by the side of the road was being completely covered by snow.

Mrs. Hogendobber bustled around and the two gossiped as they worked. BoomBoom was the first person at the post office. She’d borrowed a big four-wheel-drive Wagoneer from the car dealer just before the storm. She hadn’t bought it yet. “How fortunate to have such a long-term loan,” was Mrs. Hogendobber’s comment.

“Orlando arrives today. The ten-thirty. Blair said he’d pick him up and we’d get together for dinner. Wait until you meet him. He really is special.”

“So’s Fair,” Harry defended her ex. If she’d thought about it she probably would have kept her mouth shut, but that was the trouble: She didn’t think. She said what came into her head at that exact moment.

BoomBoom’s long eyelashes fluttered. “Of course he is. He’s a dear sweet man and he’s been such a comfort to me since Kelly died. I’m very fond of him but well, he is provincial. All he really knows is his profession. Face it, Harry, he bored you too.”

Harry threw the mail she was holding onto the floor. Mrs. Hogendobber wisely came alongside Harry . . . just in case.

“We all bore one another occasionally. No one is universally exciting.” Harry’s face reddened.

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker pricked their ears.

“Oh, come off it. He wasn’t right for you.” BoomBoom derived a sordid pleasure from upsetting others. Emotions were the only coin BoomBoom exchanged. Without real employment to absorb her, her thoughts revolved around herself and the emotions of others. Sometimes even her pleasures became fatiguing.

“He was for a good long time. Now why don’t you pick up your mail and spare me your expertly made-up face.” Harry gritted her teeth.

“This is a public building and I can do what I want.”

Miranda’s alto voice resonated with authority. “BoomBoom, for a woman who proclaims exaggerated sensitivity, you’re remarkably insensitive to other people. You’ve created an uncomfortable situation. I suggest you think on it at your leisure, which is to say the rest of the day.”

BoomBoom flounced off in a huff. Before the day reached noon she would call everyone she knew to inform them of her precarious emotional state due to the personally abusive behavior of Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber, who crudely ganged up on her. She would also find it necessary to call her psychiatrist and then to find something to soothe her nerves.

Mrs. Hogendobber bent over with some stiffness, scooping up the mail Harry had tossed on the floor.

“Oh, Miranda, I’ll do that. I was pretty silly.”

“You still love him.”

“No, I don’t,” Harry quietly replied, “but I love what we were to each other, and he’s worth loving as a friend. He’ll make some woman out there a good companion. Isn’t that what marriage is about? Companionship? Shared goals?”

“Ideally. I don’t know, Harry, young people today want so much more than we did. They want excitement, romance, good looks, lots of money, vacations all the time. When I married George we didn’t expect that. We expected to work hard together and improve our lot. We scrimped and saved. The fires of romance burned brighter sometimes than others but we were a team.”

Harry thought about what Mrs. Hogendobber said. She also listened as Miranda turned the conversation to church gossip. The best soprano in the choir and the best tenor had started a row over who got the most solos. Mrs. Hogendobber interspersed her pearls of wisdom throughout.

At one o’clock Blair brought in Orlando Heguay. The airplane was late, the terminal crowded, but all was well. Orlando charmed Mrs. Hogendobber. Harry thought he was exactly right for BoomBoom: urbane, wealthy, and incredibly attractive. Whether or not he was a man who needed to give a woman the kind of constant attention BoomBoom demanded would be known in time.

As Blair opened his post box a hairy paw reached out at him. He yanked back his hand.

“Scared you,” Mrs. Murphy laughed.

“You little devil.” Blair reached back into his box and grabbed her paw for a minute.

Orlando walked around and then paused before the photograph of the unidentified victim. Studying it intently, he let out a low whistle. “Good God.”

“I beg your pardon,” Mrs. Hogendobber said.

Harry walked over to explain why it was on the wall but before she could open her mouth Orlando said, “That’s Tommy Norton.”

Everyone turned to him, ashen-faced. Harry spoke first. “You know this man?”

“It’s Tommy Norton. I mean, the hair is wrong and he looks thinner than when I knew him but yes, if it isn’t Tommy Norton it’s his aging double.”

Miranda dialed Rick Shaw before Orlando finished his sentence.

59

After profuse apologies for disrupting Orlando’s holiday, Rick and Cynthia closed the door to Rick’s office. Blair waited outside and read the newspaper.

“Continue, Mr. Heguay.”

“I met Fitz-Gilbert in 1971. We were not close at school. He had a good friend in New York, Tommy Norton. I met Tommy Norton in the summer of 1974. He worked as a gofer in the brokerage house of Kincaid, Foster and Kincaid. I was seventeen that summer and I guess he was fifteen or sixteen. I worked next door at Young and Fulton Brothers. That convinced me I never wanted to be a stockbroker.” Orlando took a breath and continued. “Anyway, we’d have lunch once or twice a week. The rest of the time they’d work us through lunch.”

“We?” Cynthia asked.

“Tommy, Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton, and myself.”

“Go on.” Rick’s voice had a hypnotic quality.

“Well, there’s not much to tell. He was a poor kid from Brooklyn but very bright and he wanted to be like Fitz and me. He imitated us. It was sad, really, that he couldn’t go to prep school, because it would have made him so happy. They weren’t giving out as many scholarships in those days.”

“Did he ever come up to Andover to visit?”

“Well, Fitz’s parents were killed in that awful plane crash that summer, and the next year, at school, Fitz was really out of control. Tommy and Fitz were close, though, and Tommy did come up at least once that fall. He fit right in. Since I was a year older than Tommy, I lost touch after graduating and going to Yale. Fitz went to Princeton, once he straightened out, and I don’t know what happened to Tommy. Well, I do remember that he worked again at Kincaid, Foster and Kincaid the following summer and so did Fitz.”

“Can you think of anyone else who might know Tommy Norton?” Rick asked.

“The head of personnel in those days was an officious toad named Leonard, uh, Leonard Imbry. Funny name. If he’s still there he might remember Tommy.”

“What makes you think the photograph reconstruction is Norton?” Cynthia thought Orlando, with his dark hair and eyes, was extremely handsome and she wished she were in anything but a police uniform.