Лори Касс - Wrong Side Of The Paw

Ash sighed. “Mom, let it go.”

I looked from mother to son and back. “Let what go?”

Our waiter approached and there was a pause as water glasses were filled and drink orders taken, which was basically us agreeing to the bottle of wine that Kristen had recommended. When he’d left, Lindsey said quietly, “Marrying that man was the dumbest thing Bev Diesso ever did. Her parents told her not to. Her grandparents told her not to. I told her not to. But she was in love”—Lindsey sighed— “and she wouldn’t listen to any of us.”

Lindsey knew Leese’s mom? One of these days I would have to stop being surprised at the interlocking relationships I kept stumbling over. “What was so bad?” I asked.

She laughed shortly. “I can tell you never met him.”

“Mom—”

Lindsey put up a hand against Ash’s mild protest. “To put it mildly, Dale was a misogynistic ass, and I was glad to offer Bev and Leese refuge when she left him. Yes, dear, I know Dale was your father’s friend but he was never mine. Never.”

It occurred to me that not only had I never met Ash’s dad, but I didn’t know anything about him. I tucked the thought away. Now wasn’t the time. “You and Leese’s mom are friends?” I asked.

“In a way,” Lindsey said. “I’m good friends with Mary, Bev’s older sister. Bev is a few years younger than us.”

Small towns. “I know Leese, but I’ve never met her mom. Did she stay in the area?”

Lindsey nodded. “She went back to school and became a registered nurse. She’s assistant director up at Lakeview Medical Care Facility.”

“Never remarried?” I asked, hopping my chair to make sure I was out of the way of a gray-haired man using a walker who was being escorted to a nearby table.

“Not for lack of trying by a certain gentleman,” Lindsey said, smiling. “Bev is a fantastic skier and goes out to Colorado regularly. Twenty years ago she met a man who proposed after she avoided a child who fell in front of her. She did this by going airborne.”

I was a skier myself, but I couldn’t imagine having either the presence of mind or the technical ability to do something like that. “Sounds like a reasonable basis for marriage.”

“Better than many.” Lindsey laughed. “Bev wasn’t interested, though, and still isn’t. But they’ve worked out a long-distance relationship that works for them.” She made a very unladylike noise. “She would have been better off if she’d had that kind of relationship with Dale Lacombe.”

The world was truly a strange place. And if Bev was happy in her post-Dale life, there was no reason for her to strike out at him decades later. Not that I’d suspected Leese’s mom of killing her ex-husband, but it was nice to keep her off my mental suspect list.

Behind us, I heard the man with the walker murmur to the hostess that he’d prefer a table closer to the window, which was where we were sitting. I hitched my chair forward another couple of inches, just to make sure I was out of the way.

“What about the current wife?” Ash asked. “Carmen.”

His mother studied him. “Am I being questioned by an officer of the law or by my son?”

“To which one would you give the most information?”

Lindsey, however, did not return the smile. She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, when I was about to break the increasing tension with a comment about the weather, she said, “My darling boy. You’re working to be a detective, a career choice I admire, but please think carefully about the questions you’ll be posing to your family and friends and the complicated situations that might result.”

She was absolutely right, and I hadn’t once thought about the awkward positions Ash might put people into. He could potentially be asking the people he knew best to betray confidences. To spill secrets. To blab.

I slid him a sideways glance and wondered at what point I’d stop telling him things. Of course, we didn’t exactly have many soul-baring conversations, which was another sign that the love I’d hoped would blossom was never going to burst into flower.

Ash nodded at his mother. “I know. Hal and I have talked about this. It’s something I’m working on.”

“Good,” Lindsey said. “Since that’s settled, I’ll tell you about Carmen.”

“And Leese and Brad and Mia?” Ash asked.

She considered the question. “The only thing I’ll share about the kids is about Brad. He had a horrible temper when he was a child and I’ll lay the blame for that at his father’s cold feet. From what I’ve heard, since he broke away from his father, he has turned into a fine young man.”

“Carmen,” Ash said.

Lindsey glanced at our new neighbor, but continued. “Not from around here,” she told us.

My chin went up the slightest bit. “Neither am I.”

“But you fit with the way things work Up North,” Lindsey said. “Carmen hasn’t stopped complaining about the way things are done around here since the day she showed up.” She shook her head. “She and Dale make an excellent pair.”

“Not much of a pair any longer,” Ash said.

“No.” His mother sighed. “I couldn’t stand the man, but I didn’t wish him dead.”

Though that seemed to be a common sentiment, he was undeniably deceased. Lindsey’s information about Bev was reassuring, but I certainly hadn’t wanted to know that Brad Lacombe’s history included a horrible temper.

And that Lindsey hadn’t wanted to say anything about Mia.

Or Leese.

At that point, Ash’s phone started buzzing frantically. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced down. “Sorry,” he said, rising, “it’s Hal. I have to take this.” Thumbing the phone’s screen, he walked out of the room and toward the front door.

I was trying to figure out why Ash’s sudden and frequent departures didn’t bother me nearly as much as the similar departures of my former doctor boyfriend had when Lindsey said, “Minnie, I need to use the restroom. Do you mind if I leave you alone for a moment?”

After shooing her off, I considered the options for the next few minutes of my life. Was there enough time to pull out the book I always carried with me? There wasn’t much point in looking at the menu, but hope did spring eternal that I might someday be able to order something different from what Kristen wanted me to eat.

“Excuse me,” said a male voice.

I jumped the slightest bit. It was the man sitting at the table behind us. I turned and smiled politely. “Hi.”

“Were you talking about the Lacombes?”

One of his eyes was looking at me, but the other was staring into a slightly different direction. The poor man probably had horrible headaches “Yes,” I said cautiously. In the years I’d lived in Chilson, I’d learned to accept the fact that personal conversations with strangers were commonplace, but I wasn’t always comfortable having them. “Do you know them?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

He smiled, and the skin over his right cheekbone drew up oddly. I was so distracted as I tried to think what could have caused the effect—Skin cancer? Plastic surgery gone awry? A bad burn? A congenital problem?—that I almost missed his next question.

“Leese has to be, what, in her mid-thirties by now?” he was asking.

“That’s right.” I wondered if I was about to be the bearer of bad tidings, and said, “Did you know that Dale Lacombe was killed just over a week ago?”

The man nodded briefly. “I hear Leese is an attorney these days.”

“That’s right. She’s specializing in elder law.”

“Interesting,” he said, but I got the feeling I hadn’t told him anything he hadn’t already known. “Well, have a good dinner.” He smiled again.