Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

As the Mercedes swept past him, Shaun Reid barely visible through the tinted windows, Randy spotted an Adirondack Conservancy Corporation bumper sticker and a Sierra Club decal on the rear.

Guys like Reid didn’t have to worry about losing their jobs, losing their houses. He could just picture the man, writing out checks to the ACC at some fancy fund-raiser. So what if guys like Randy were left with nothing to do but flip burgers. Reid was still going to get his. Reid, and Ed Castle, and the town, they would all get theirs. And what was Randy gonna get? Screwed.

Goddam Adirondack Conservancy Corporation. Goddam better-than-thou tree huggers. Her, too, Becky Castle, laughing at him for wanting to do something with his life instead of rolling over and giving it up to the man.

Becky Castle. Shaun Reid. The Adirondack Conservancy Corporation. It was like one of those cartoons, a big light-bulb going off in his head. He had been thinking small, thinking of stashing her car out of sight somewhere. But that was just getting some space between him and her. What he really needed to do was throw the blame on someone else, so the cops would be so busy looking at this guy they’d never go any farther.

His hands shook as he flicked on the turn signal and steered the Prius back onto the road. He drove through the gates and guided the car, not toward the old mill, as he had thought to do before, but to the administrative offices parking. There was a fancy sign fronting one spot: RESERVED FOR MR. REID. Randy pulled the Prius into the next space.

He turned the engine off and sat huddled in thought. Okay, let’s say he wanted the cops to think Mr. Reid was banging Becky Castle. She was-she had been-a pretty hot babe, in an outdoorsy way. Mr. Reid had already dumped one old wife for a younger model. Who’s to say he wasn’t looking to do it again?

He closed his eyes and pictured getting into the offices. The admin building door was sure to be shut up tight, but the plant door was never locked. From the break room, past the entrance to the mill floor, there was a dark little hall that ran all the way alongside the floor until it reached the ladies’ john. There had been three women working the floor when he was there, and that’s where they went to do their business. The trick was, the bathroom opened from both ends. It had originally been built for the reception area, and when Reid-Gruyn started hiring women at the mill, they just punched a door into the wall to give the ladies their own place to go.

Even if the door was locked on the reception side, it didn’t have anything better than one of those little punch-in buttons. He could pop that in five seconds with a credit card, plant a few things from Becky Castle’s overnight bag in the reception area, and be out again within a minute.

He grinned. And if Mr. Reid’s office had one of those feeble locks… he could really go to town.

His mother’s cousin Nane’s car in the driveway should have tipped Russ off to the chemical stench he discovered when he opened the kitchen door.

“Good Lord.” He waved his hand, trying to clear some breathing room. “What is that?”

“Happy Birthday, sweetie.” His mother sat in one of her kitchen chairs, pulled next to the sink. She was swathed in what looked like a pink plastic tablecloth. Her cousin was rolling a section of her silver hair onto a tiny pink roller.

He bent down to kiss her cheek, his eyes watering. “Hi.” He retreated as far as he could, to the edge of the washer and dryer. “Hi, Nane.”

“Hello, Russell. Aren’t you looking well? We were just talking about you, weren’t we, Margy? About the day you were born.” Nane was older than his seventy-four-year-old mom, but, unlike Russ and his maybe-relation Harlene, the two cousins bore a strong resemblance to each other. Both ladies were short and cylindrical, with plump cheeks that narrowed into pointy chins. They looked like the sort of sweet little old ladies who spent their days tatting doilies. It was a clever disguise.

“I swear,” his mother said, picking up from their earlier conversation, “I didn’t think I was going to be able to push him out.”

“You were almost ten pounds,” Nane said to him, clipping the roller into place on his mother’s head and reaching for a plastic bottle. She squirted something that smelled like chemical solvent on the new curl.

“I had an episiotomy scar you could see from the moon. They cut me from stem to stern.” She chuckled. “The first time Walter saw it he said-”

“Mom! Mom!” Russ clamped his hands over his ears. “Too much information!”

She pursed her mouth. “Really, Russell. You’re a little old to be thinking we found you in the cabbage patch, aren’t you?”

“Can you just wait till I leave before you stroll down that particular memory lane?”

“Well, what did you come for? Are you hungry? I’ve got some sandwich fixings in the icebox. Help yourself, sweetie.”

Lunch had definitely been on his mind on the drive up here, but he didn’t think he could manage eating with poisonous fumes wafting through the air. “What is that smell?” he repeated.

“I’m giving your mother a permanent wave,” Nane said. “She’s going to look like she just stepped out of a New York salon for the party tonight.”

Russ, who had been reading a new bumper sticker-THERE’S A VILLAGE IN TEXAS MISSING AN IDIOT-on his mother’s already plastered-over refrigerator, straightened. “You’re going to the dinner dance tonight? The one at the Algonquin Waters?”

“All the active members of the local ACC chapter have been invited. I told you that, Russell.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, I left a message with Linda.”

He shut up. His mother and his wife had a relationship best described as an armed truce. He wouldn’t put it past Linda to “forget” to tell him about his mother coming, just to make sure they weren’t all roped into sharing a table together. His mother must have had a similar thought, because she said, “I’m sitting with other folks from the ACC.”

“And she’s going to look just wonderful, aren’t you, Margy?” Nane smiled proudly at Russ. “We went into Saratoga and she bought a new dress.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Gee, Mom.”

Her cheeks pinked up. “Just ’cause I’m an old lady doesn’t mean I don’t like to look nice now and again.”

“I better get my reservation in for a dance right now. You’ll probably be so swamped with men I won’t be able to get near you otherwise.”

“Oh, go on. You didn’t drive up here to pitch woo at me. What’s up?”

He decided that he’d be able to stomach a sandwich in his truck. He opened the fridge and dug inside. “Do you know Millie van der Hoeven?”

“Of course. I’ve met her several times since she came back east. She’s been one of the driving forces behind this Haudenosaunee land deal, more power to her.”

He pulled out ham slices, cheese, and a jar of mayonnaise. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“The week before last. The ACC is interested in reclaiming the gardens and the cultivated areas of Haudenosaunee. Replacing the imported plants with native species. They asked for a group of volunteers, and I signed up.”

“You do love to garden, don’t you, Margy?” Nane snapped another roller into her cousin’s hair. Russ’s mother’s head was beginning to resemble a pink-and-white Wiffle Ball.

He opened the bread tin on the counter and pulled out a loaf of pumpernickel.

“We took a little tour of the grounds, made lists of what we saw, and did some brainstorming about plants and a schedule,” his mother said.

“Do you know anything about Millie’s personal life?”