Marcia Talley - Sing It to Her Bones

“It’s just rumor. There’s no hard evidence.”

“Why are you telling me about it then?”

“I like you, Mrs. Ives. You’ve been real nice to Angie. I’d really hate to see anything happen to you.”

I picked up my sandwich and prepared to go. “If you ask me”-I jerked my head in the direction of the doctor’s office-“young Dr. Chase over there would have been in a much better position to supply Katie with drugs than Hal Calvert ever was!”

“You don’t have to take my word for it.” I watched while he took a deep breath and held it while he decided what to say next. “Check out the boat.”

“What boat? Pegasus ?” Bill didn’t answer but started to walk across the kitchen. “You have some sort of grudge against Hal?” I aimed my remark at his departing back. The screen door slammed behind him, leaving me standing there alone in the store, except for a calico cat curled up, napping, on the front counter.

Connie was fixing dinner when I arrived, assembling lasagna in an oversize pan. “Thank goodness you’re back! And still in one piece.” She wiped her hands on a paper towel and studied me. “So, how’d it go with Frank Chase at the office today?”

“I was fired.”

“Imagine my surprise.”

“There wouldn’t have been any point in staying on. The man could never trust me again.” I told Connie about my conversation with Dr. Chase and about what I’d learned from Bill.

She ran the back of her hand over her forehead, damp from the steam rising from a pot where the lasagna noodles were boiling. “Do you think I’d have left you alone with Hal if I’d heard even a peep about him dealing drugs?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“But I sure didn’t know that Liz and Frank were so tight.” She handed me a can of fruit cocktail and a hand-crank can opener. “Drain it in the sink.”

“I need you to come with me, Connie,” I said as I opened the can.

“Where?”

“Bill’s suggesting there’s something not quite kosher about Pegasus. ”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. And he looked so smug.”

“What could be wrong? Last time I saw Pegasus she was up on jack stands being repaired.” Connie had slipped into sailing jargon again.

“What’s a jack stand?” I asked.

“Sorry.” She dumped a container of sour cream into a bowl and folded the fruit cocktail and a cup of miniature marshmallows into it. “They’re metal braces that prop a boat up when it’s out of the water.”

My stomach growled, despite the sandwich I’d gulped down in the car. When I thought Connie wasn’t looking, I snitched a marshmallow from the bowl and popped it into my mouth. “I don’t know anywhere near as much about boats as you do,” I said, “so if I’m going to check out Bill’s ridiculous theory, you’ll need to come with me.”

Connie looked as if she wanted to rap my knuckles. “Hannah, you are trouble on wheels. Leave it be. I want to live to fifty, dah-link. Hanging around with you could be dangerous.”

“But Bill was so insistent, so… triumphant! It made me wonder what kind of ax he has to grind with Hal.”

“Can’t imagine, unless… Bill used to work for the Calverts as a ship’s carpenter until Hal laid him off and started doing the repair work himself.”

“I thought Bill had gone to work for the army.”

“He did, but not until after he’d been laid off. There was a six-month period in there when he had to take a succession of odd jobs just to eat while he waited for the government paperwork to go through.”

I could sympathize with that, but as much as I despised Coop for laying me off, I doubt I’d have turned him over to the cops. Then I remembered the way he didn’t even look at me when he ushered me out of that conference room in Washington, D.C., all those months ago. On second thought, maybe Leavenworth was too good for the miserable worm.

“C’mon, Con. Dinner can wait.”

“No, Hannah. It’s a complete waste of time. Hal and I go way back. Bill is totally off base.” She ripped a piece of plastic wrap off a roll, stretched it over the bowl, turned it, and smoothed the edges down all around before putting it in the refrigerator.

I picked Connie’s car keys up from the kitchen table where I had laid them not five minutes before.

Connie opened a jar of spaghetti sauce, threw the lid into the trash, and turned to scowl at me. “And you can forget about taking my car.”

I tossed her keys back on the table and scowled back.

“Grow up, Hannah. You should see yourself. Pouting like a three-year-old.”

I didn’t feel like a three-year-old. I felt like a teenager who’d just been told she couldn’t go to a party because her mother knew there would be boys and booze there.

Connie stood at the sink, arms folded, the cleft in her chin deepening and becoming more prominent by the second. Emily had inherited that chin from her father. How many times had she glared at me the way Connie was glaring at me now? Hundreds probably. When I’d grounded her for lying about attending a mixed-sex slumber party, I got the full sulk treatment; we didn’t speak for days. But we Alexanders can be stubborn, too. I was now doubly determined to check out Hal’s boat.

I stomped over to the kitchen door and grabbed a key ring off its hook. “If you don’t go with me, I’m going to take that old truck out of the barn and drive over there myself.”

Connie snatched the truck keys out of my hand. “What the hell are you doing? You should be doing everything you can to get out of here and go home to Paul. He needs you, Hannah!”

“I told you. I don’t have his number.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem to me that you’re trying very hard to find it. You seem less interested in patching up your marriage than you do in running around Pearson’s Corner trying to clear the name of some potential lover!”

“Lover! And how about you and Dennis? Don’t think I haven’t noticed what’s going on between the two of you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not? It’s not as if either of you are married.”

Connie stared at me with wide eyes, looking as surprised as if I’d slapped her. She opened her mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. “If you’re that determined,” she said at last, “then let’s go. Let’s get it over with.”

Connie stooped to pick up Colonel’s water dish, then thrust it in my direction. “Here. Fill this up while I lock up the house.”

I stood there for a moment, feeling foolish, holding Colonel’s dish in both hands. As I ran water into the bowl with Colonel frisking about my legs, I was determined that it would take more than a few dead bolt locks and an unreasonable sister-in-law to keep me away from the truth.

I slouched in the passenger seat of Connie’scar, uncomfortably strapped in, with the seat belt webbing chafing my neck. As we passed Ellie’s Country Store, I checked the porch, but there was no sign of Bill. I was glad. He’d have recognized the car at once and would have known exactly where we were going. I didn’t want him to think I’d paid the least bit of attention to all that garbage he’d told me about Hal.

Where High Street dead-ends at Ferry Point Road, Connie turned left. She pointed out the condo where Frank Chase lived, an attractively landscaped end unit, but his car wasn’t in the drive. I assumed he was still at his office, struggling to manage the workload alone. In spite of the lies he had told me, I felt a little bit sorry for the guy.

Five hundred yards ahead I could see the entrance to the marina which was marked by a sign, CALVERT MARINA AND BOATYARD, painted in bold blue letters on a white background. A pair of stout brick pillars flanked the entrance, from which a well-established boxwood hedge fanned out to form a fence, separating the marina grounds from the village of Pearson’s Corner. An anchor the size of a wheelbarrow, painted white, rested against one of the pillars.