A Fool And His Honey

Chapter Tour

I'm no psychic, but Rory Brown seemed genuinely stunned by this news. He sank back down to the couch, his face contorted with horror and disbelief. "But he was alive just a few hours ago!" Rory protested, as if it took a long time to die.
"I'm sorry," I said. "He was killed last night. We found him lying on the steps to the apartment."
"Where's Regina?" Rory's voice was hoarse with, I swear, unshed tears. "She's nowhere to be found," my husband told him. Martin was in his thinking posture, arms crossed over his chest, fingers tapping. As he reached a decision, Martin moved toward the telephone.
"You calling the police?" Rory slid onto his knees. "Man, please don't! I'm violating my parole. They'll send me back to jail for sure. I'm not even supposed to see Craig, much less leave the state with him!" "Parole." Martin said it thoughtfully, as if parole were a common condition among his acquaintances. "You were in jail with Craig?" "Uh, well, yeah. You know. We, uh, we wrote a few bad checks." So Rory wasn't any desperate felon. I hadn't known how tense I was until I relaxed.
"Whose name did you sign to the bad checks?" Martin asked. I glanced at him admiringly, for making a point I'd never have considered. "Well," Rory said, trying on his charming grin, "ours. Or it'd have been forgery. Much more serious."
Rory seemed to know his way around the penal code. "Craig's boss would have paid him that money at the end of the month; we just needed it a little earlier than that."
Martin and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows. This sounded very weak to me. It was becoming all too clear that Regina had made a poor choice in the man she married. Of course, some people thought I had done the same when I married Martin. Ha! At least Martin had never been in jail! I thought. I opened my mouth to make what would have been a very ill-timed query, when we were interrupted...he phone rang, startling all of us out of our skins. In Hay-den's case, this naturally meant he started to cry. I began patting him more rapidly, saying "Sshhhh, baby," in an increasingly frantic whisper, as Martin grimaced at me while he tried to hear the caller. "Give him his Binky," suggested Rory.
"His what?" I patted faster.
"His pacifier."
A lightbulb went on in my head as I remembered seeing Lizanne's baby sucking on a plastic thing.
"Where?" I asked eagerly. "Where is one?"
"You didn't find one in the diaper bag?"
Martin's scowl increased in ferocity.
"No." I scooted into the kitchen as fast as I could burdened with Hayden, and returned with the diaper bag. I thrust it at Rory. "Find one!" I told him. The young man turned the bag around, opened a Velcroed flap, and reached in a pocket, one I hadn't even noticed. He pulled out a plastic and rubber object and offered it to me.
It looked like it had lint on it. I stuck it in Hayden's mouth anyway.
Blessed silence.
Rory beamed at me angelically. Hayden's face looked just as sweet, all of a sudden. Martin became my handsome husband instead of Ebenezer Scrooge. I felt as if the vise clamping my temples had been loosened a couple of turns. I sat down on the couch very carefully, easing Hayden onto his back. He looked up at me with hazy blue eyes, relaxed and content.
"Hello, sweetie," I said softly, watching the baby's hands curl and straighten.
His fingernails, his tiny fingernails, how would I ever cut them? Martin said into the receiver, "So you haven't found her or seen any sign of the car?"
I snapped back into our current situation with some reluctance.
"Umm-hrnmm," he said. "I understand."
Rory was looking down at the shabby boots on his feet, and I could practically feel the force of his hope that Martin would say nothing. "She hasn't called here," Martin said, as if he was confirming what the caller had already stated. "No." While he was talking, Martin was eyeing Rory with the same calculation he showed when he was hiring someone. Martin seemed to reach a conclusion. He turned his back on the boy. "No, we don't know anything more than you do. Please keep us posted. Anything you find out, we want to know as soon as possible." After another minute's worth of listening, Martin hung up. "If you don't explain things to my satisfaction," he told Rory grimly, "I'll pick up the telephone in a minute. Now, when did Regina have this baby and why didn't anyone know about it?"
"Could I have something to eat and a little trip to your bathroom before I have to explain?" Rory asked.
"You're welcome to go to the bathroom," Martin said, "but before we feed you, we have to know more about you."
The young man looked surprised at Martin's refusal. I was a little embarrassed at not offering hospitality right away, but I could see Martin's point. We'd probably already made a mistake in not calling the police the moment we'd seen him. We shouldn't compound that mistake by turning Rory into our welcome guest. While Martin showed Rory the downstairs bathroom, I put Hayden upstairs in the portable crib and took a minute or two to get dressed. Jeans and a sweater, a vigorous tooth-and hair-brushing, and I felt like a better woman. I put on my red glasses to set off my navy sweater. After I ran a brush through my tight waves, my hair crackled with so much electricity that it flew around my head like an angry brown cloud.
This might be the only moment I had to myself today, I figured, so I called the hospital in Atlanta to ask about John.
Mother answered the phone in his room. She told me in that hushed voice people reserve for bedsides of the very ill that John was resting, that tests were ongoing, and that John had definitely had a cardiac incident, which I interpreted as "heart attack."
"What are his options?" I asked, and Mother said all those buzzwords like "angioplasty" and "stress tests." I barely listened, because all I wanted was the bottom line: Was John likely to die soon or not? After I'd gathered that he was going to live, barring some sudden and drastic circumstance, I was content to save the details of his treatment until I could spare a portion of my brain to understand what was entailed.
Mother didn't say a word about the baby. She was preoccupied, too.
I tightened the laces on my high-tops and tried to tiptoe down the stairs. Martin and Rory were in the kitchen, and I saw that Martin had relented enough to pour the boy a cup of coffee and microwave a couple of cinnamon rolls for him. Rory looked up when I entered, and let a gleam of admiration show a little too obviously. So I didn't offer to fix him any bacon or eggs. "Rory here was just telling me about Craig," Martin said. He was sitting opposite our visitor, his arms crossed over his chest, his face relaxed and cool. Mr. Skeptical.
"What was he saying?" I slipped into a chair at one end of the table. The back part of my brain was wondering if I could borrow a baby monitor from someone. Wasn't that what the surveillance thing was called? "I was telling Mr. Bartell, I've been Craig's friend since we were little. Our folks were friends, too. Then when Craig's mom and dad died, Craig moved in with his aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Harbor. His brother Dylan was old enough to be on his own, but too young to keep an eye on Craig, and the Harbors were glad to have him." Rory paused to take a bite of cinnamon roll, and I worked on keeping the relationships straight in my head.
"And that was the couple at Regina's wedding, the people who acted in the place of Craig's parents?"
"That was his aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Harbor," Rory confirmed. "They had raised four girls of their own. But now Mr. Harbor, he's kind of sickly." Martin and I sat blinking at him like foolish owls. "Would that be Hugh Harbor?" Martin asked, obviously dredging the name up from his distant memory.
"Yep," Rory mumbled, caught with more sweet roll in his mouth. "Mrs. Harbor used to be a Thurlkill."
"And your folks?"
"My mother, Cathy, used to be a Thurlkill, too," Rory said, seeming rather proud of the fact. "Me and Craig're kind of related. My dad is Chuck Brown, his dad was Ross Graham."
Martin looked away from the table, letting his gaze light on the front of the refrigerator. I knew he was thinking deep thoughts because his fingers were twiddling, the way they do when he's having ideas he can't talk about. "Craig's brother was at the wedding," he said abruptly. "He seemed like a nice enough guy."
"Dylan's a great guy," Rory agreed readily. "And he and his wife Shondra, they have the cutest little girl."
Martin did a little more staring and twiddling.
I felt like I had to say something.
"Rory, when you feel like freshening up, there's a toothbrush in a plastic wrapper in the top drawer in the downstairs bathroom," I told our surprise guest. "There are extra towels in the closet by the sink, and I think I have shampoo and soap out and ready."
Rory took the not-too-subtle hint in a jiffy. "That was real good," he told Martin sincerely, carrying his coffee cup and plate over to the sink. I had another thought. "If you'd like to set your clothes out the bathroom door, I'll throw 'em in the washer," I offered. I rose to go upstairs to check on Hayden. "I'll put a robe in the bathroom first." "Thank you, ma'am," he said, smiling shyly.
Martin was staring at Rory as if he were an alien wearing an ill-fitting human suit. I padded out of the room and began taking the stairs at my usual pace, and then realized I'd have to go slower. The night before had taken its toll, and toting the baby around had already made my arms trembly. I was in no shape to be thrown into the role of mother.
It wasn't any trouble finding a robe for Rory to use, since when people can't think of anything to give Martin, they give him bathrobes. Some men get gloves, some men get ties; my husband gets bathrobes. Last year, my seldom-seen father had sent us matching green terry ones (which made us look like walking bundles of Astroturf). Martin's son Barrett had sent him a silk paisley, and my mother had given him a blue flannel. The year before that, Barby had presented him with the nicest one of all, gray polished cotton with his monogram in maroon. I hung the green terry robe in the downstairs bathroom and Rory scooted in. A few minutes later, his clothes were deposited discreetly outside the bathroom door, and I went to the washer and dryer closet at the rear of the house in the kitchen to start a load. There was always something in the laundry basket I could throw in with a small bundle of clothes.
Martin had gotten the portable phone and was punching in a series of numbers, peering at a page in his personal address book. He looked up at the kitchen wall clock as he listened to the ringing at the other end. "Hello," he said. I thought he sounded uncertain, which was rare for Martin.
"Cindy Bartell, please."
I began to load dishes into the dishwasher - anything to stay in the room and keep working without making it obvious I was determined to listen to this conversation.
"Cindy? This is Martin. Have you been doing well? Barrett told me you'd taken a partner on ... yes, he called me at work last week." Barrett hated to call here because I might answer the phone.
"I'm glad you're finally getting some free time. Who'd you ... ?"
Martin's face underwent the oddest change.
"Dennis Stinson," he said. "Hmmm." He looked as if he was restraining all kinds of comments. I gathered Dennis Stinson was not unknown to Martin; but frankly, Cindy's business dealings were not my prime concern at this point in time. I just barely heard Hayden whimper upstairs, and I cringed. I went up the stairs so fast I wished I'd had Martin clocking me. I stood by the portable crib and held my hands up in a soothing gesture, as if that would calm the baby back into sleep. I noticed that my hands were shaking, and I was saying, "Sshhhh! Sshhhh!" in a kind of frantic way. Hayden's blue-veined eyelids fluttered once more before he settled back into sleep.
Feeling as though I'd just avoided a herd of stampeding buffalo, I shambled back down, the stairs and collapsed into the chair across from Martin. I slumped over the table, burying my face in my folded arms. After a moment, I felt Martin's fingers in my hair. He stroked my head the way a man absently pats a dog, but I was so tired by my unusually prolonged turn at being the strong one that I found even an offhand caress comforting.
"So, have you seen Regina lately?" Martin said into the telephone.
I could hear a tinny buzz that was Cindy's answer. "Not in five months? Did you notice, the last time you saw her, that she'd gained some weight?"
Buzz, buzz.
"She had a baby," Martin said.
I heard a kind of shriek coming from the other end.
"Yes, really."
I raised my head to look at Martin, but he was scowling at the stove while Cindy kept talking.
"I can imagine you'd want to talk to her, but the fact is... she's disappeared."
Buzz.
"Well, no, I can't contact Craig to ask him where she is because Craig is here. I guess the sheriffs department here will have arranged to tell his brother and the Harbors by now. This is bad news, Cindy. Craig is dead, murdered." Buzz, buzz.
"No, it wasn't over drugs." Martin raised his eyebrows to me, indicating that we had learned another fact about the deceased Craig. "We don't know what happened, exactly, but Regina is gone, Craig is dead, and we have the baby." Then Martin had to tell Cindy that Barby was out of touch on a cruise, and that we didn't know what to do with Hayden.
"Yes, I guess we could," Martin said cautiously. Cindy was offering some advice, I gathered. "Yes, I guess we could do that. Well, we'll talk about it, and if we decide to come, I'll give you a call when we get there." He hung up a moment later. "Before Rory gets out of the shower," he said, keeping his voice low, "Cindy says she had no idea Regina was pregnant, and she bets no one in Corinth knew about it. Cindy said Craig had been in jail for one or two things: possession of marijuana, bad checks, that kind of stuff. His friend Rory was almost always involved with Craig's law problems, too." "Are we going to call the sheriff about him?" I asked, tilting my head toward the bathroom door as if Martin had a choice of subjects. We could hear the pipes groan as hot water gushed out of the showerhead. The downstairs bathroom was the noisy one.
Martin stared across the hall to the door as if it could give him an answer. "You're really thinking about not calling the sheriff," I said, my voice full of incredulity.
"Cindy suggested we bring Hayden to Craig's aunt and uncle in Corinth, the ones who raised him," Martin said. "We might as well take Rory with us. Do you think he knows anything more than he told us?"
"I have no idea." I drew myself upright in my chair, trying not to breathe fire at the stranger sitting across from me. "But I don't think we're the best judges of that. I think we've been as kind as possible, feeding him and giving him a chance to clean up, but I think now he needs to go face the music." "You amaze me," Martin said with no evident amazement.
"You're giving me a surprise or two yourself," I said with equal grimness.
"Do you think that boy has brains enough to lie?"
"Just because he's stupid and sweet doesn't mean he's good," I countered.
"But, Roe, if we turn him over, it'll make things that much worse for Regina." "How so?" If my eyebrows could've crawled up any higher they would have been in Maine.
"Because he knows why Craig came to Lawrenceton," Martin pointed out. "And he's the only one."
I gaped at him. I honestly tried to think that one through. Finally, I shook my head. "I'm not following you at all," I admitted. The water had stopped in the bathroom.
"He's going to tell the police whatever puts him in the best light," Martin said. He'd also noticed the water had quit pounding through the pipes. "By his own admission, Rory's been in trouble with the law, in a minor way, for years. His dad and granddad before him have done jail time. I recognized his dad's name as soon as he told me. The Thurlkills, the mother's family, is just as bad if not worse. Rory isn't going to tell anyone anything he doesn't want to." "So what's the profit in taking him with us?"
"He may tell us. We may be able to tell, once we get on Craig and Regina's home ground, what they were doing. Find some way through this without Regina ending up in any more trouble than she's already..." His voice trailed off, as he realized it would be pretty hard to find more trouble for Regina. "Why would he tell us?"
"I can only hope he will. Now that Craig's dead, why not? We can't revoke his parole or punish him for whatever he's done. Maybe if we leave him out of this as far as the law is concerned, he'll reciprocate with information." I could think of one word for this theory, and it wasn't a polite one. What had happened to my incisive, figure-all-the-angles husband? He could only be this gullible because it concerned his family. Had Martin ever been foolish about me? I thought not. Did that mean he loved his sister and niece more? His son? What about his first wife? I had a moment of sheer irrational rage as I stared at Martin. Then, once again, I took a deep breath and made myself recall that he had had a terrible shock the night before, that he must in some sense feel responsible for Craig's death, that his niece was missing and might, for all we knew, be dead.
Be calm and patient, I advised myself. Calm and patient.
But I was pretty close to being clean out of calmness and patience. I heard Hayden's little noises from upstairs, and once again I plodded up and back down, this time bringing him with me wrapped in the only blanket Regina had brought. He was definitely awake. I sat at the table holding him, looking at the bundle in my arms.
The baby's hands fluttered, and his blue eyes were wide open. He began to make the little fussy sounds I was learning would develop into a full-blown wail. My nose told me he needed changing. And he'd want to eat after that; I was willing to put money on it. We had only one more prepared baby bottle. Where could you buy the formula? Anywhere?
"I wish we could go upstairs for a while," Martin said wistfully. But he didn't look horny. He just looked like he wanted oblivion. "Dream on," I said, spitting out each word as though it were a hunk of poisoned apple. I tried to remember if the formula had been in powder form or concentrate. Had it been milk based? Soy? I'd have to dig the can out of the trash.
My husband was staring at me with bewilderment - if you can believe that - as I picked up Hayden and trudged into the living room to change him...Rory was standing in the living room, the big diaper bag in his hands. I stopped short.
"Just seeing how many more diapers the little fella has," he explained. He put the bag down on the low coffee table with some reluctance, and backed away. "How many are there?"
"What?"
"How many diapers are left in the bag?" It sounded like one of those bizarre math problems you get in the lower school grades. If it takes Suzy ten diapers a day to keep little Marge clean, and Suzy lends Tawan three diapers and uses two, how many more diapers will she need that day?
"Six, at least, I think," Rory said.
"Thanks." When he didn't move, I said, "Do you want to change Hayden?" I held out the baby to him.
"Oh, no!" he all but yelped, backing out of the room with great speed. "No, that's okay."
I now had all the products arranged in a line on the table, and a section of newspaper spread out to put the baby on. I managed this change with relative efficiency. All the while, watching Hayden wave around his arms and legs, hearing him fuss when his bottom was exposed to the cool air, clapping a paper towel over him quickly when he began an unexpected pee, I was wondering what Rory had been doing. When Hayden was reassembled, I looked to the left, to the wide opening to the entrance hall, and behind me to the open doors to the dining room. No one in sight.
While Hayden exercised, I undertook a real search of the diaper bag. It had, besides the big central cavity, lots and lots of pockets and pouches, zippered or Velcroed. I found two extra pacifiers, a big plastic fake key ring which I handed to Hayden, four diapers, a faded blue dish towel that I figured Regina had used to cover her shoulder when she burped him. I rummaged through all the little pouches until I found one I'd nearly missed, because it was on one end of the bag right under the shoulder strap clip.
I slid a finger in beside the little Velcro tab that held it shut, and broke the seal. Yep, there was something in this one. The pocket was so tight I could only insert two fingers, and I slid one behind and one in front of the object, and pulled up.
"Oh no oh no oh no," I breathed, and slid what I'd extracted into Hayden's receiving blanket, which I immediately wrapped around him. I lifted him and made a beeline for the kitchen, trying to act casual. Martin and Rory were ensconced at the table with a map of the Southeast in front of them, and more detailed maps of each state we'd pass through lying ready to hand.
Just as I was trying to think of a plausible reason to talk to Martin privately, the front doorbell rang. I started to hand the baby to my husband, realized that he would feel the bundle in the blanket, realized he might well haul it out in front of his companion. That wouldn't do at all. So I veered through the kitchen doorway to the hall, scooted back down the hall, and awkwardly opened the front door with one hand.
Ellen Lowry was waiting with a stack of blankets in her arms.
"Hey, Ellen," I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. "I'm sorry to intrude, but I heard you had troubles, and I thought you could maybe use these," she said, nodding at the stack. "These are baby blankets I used when the boys were little, and I believe they're in perfect shape. I ran them through the washer and dryer this morning to freshen them up." "How kind of you! Please, come in," I said, trying to summon some poise. I stood aside and ushered Ellen into the living room, where the square low table was covered with changing paraphernalia. Ellen smiled in a nostalgic sort of way. "You'd think it had been so long I would've forgotten about changing the boys, but to me it seems like yesterday," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. I forced myself to respond. This was a very gracious gesture of Ellen's, and I needed to be gracious in return. I asked if she needed something to drink, or eat; she refused. I urged her strongly to sit down and stay a while; she said she only had a minute, and sat on the edge of a rather uncomfortable chair. She asked about John's heart, and the health of the baby, and ran her fingertip over Hayden's soft cheek. I was afraid she'd offer to hold him. How could I explain a refusal? But the money in the blanket would be obvious to anyone who held the baby.
Luckily, Ellen stood after a brief conversation and began her good-byes. The weak winter sun streamed through the window to make her smooth blond hair glow like a halo as she bent over me and the baby to coo at him before she picked up her purse. Ellen looked like a model in a catalog for mature women. She was elegant, thoughtful, intelligent, and kind: and I could hardly wait for her to be gone.
Finally I could watch her car go slowly down the driveway to the road. I whipped around and strode into the kitchen, as much as you can whip and stride with a baby in your arms. Martin and Rory were sitting at the table, having an earnest conversation. I abandoned any idea I'd had of concealing my discovery. "Do you want to tell me about this?" I said, pulling the sheaf of bills from Hayden's blanket and tossing them on top of the map. Rory looked as though I'd slapped him.
"I didn't have anything to do with that," he said, as if he was sure I'd believe him, as if we were lifelong friends.
Martin's eyes closed, slowly. He opened them, sighed, picked up the sheaf of bills. He counted it silently. "Five hundred," he informed us. Rory's eyes had never left the money. His face altered when Martin told us the total. I could swear I glimpsed naked rage on his face. But it softened immediately into a mask of puzzlement and anxiety. "Would you like to tell me about this?" Martin asked him. "That must be the money Craig stole," his best friend said hesitantly. Then Rory fell silent, his eyes fixed on the money.
If there'd been a jug of water handy I'd have thrown it on him. "Would you care to explain a little further?" Martin's voice was deceptively mild.
Rory looked pretty darn reluctant to start explaining, but we were both waiting and I think he knew we would not change the subject. "When Regina was expecting," Rory began, "Craig began thinking of all the things the baby was gonna need, and I guess he just kinda went crazy, since he couldn't get them for her, so he robbed a convenience store." "In Corinth?" Martin asked.
I sat down with my burden to listen to this latest fairy tale. Hayden wasn't interested. He made little smacking noises. I looked down to discover he was asleep, with his tiny fist jammed into his mouth. I eased him into his infant seat to give my arms a rest.
"No, sir," said Rory. "He went across the state line into Pennsylvania somewhere. I don't know the exact town."
For an appreciable length of time we just sat staring at Rory, who ducked his head and blushed at our critical scrutiny. I eyed the telephone, tempted once again to pick it up and call the sheriff to come get this fool. But Martin shook his head, reading my thoughts.
"You were out of jail when Regina had the baby?" I asked.
Rory looked as though a lightbulb were appearing over his head.
"No, ma'am. I was in the jail."
"Was Craig in jail when Regina had the baby?"
"No, ma'am. Craig got out a few days before I did."
"But Craig was back in jail for the past... ?"
"Well, we got picked up again two weeks ago. About." I now understood why the police beat people who wouldn't confess. I knew somewhere in that cute, empty head lay the truth. And I wanted it badly enough to extract it with red-hot pincers, or at least so I told myself. I could tell by the way Martin was clenching his hands that he felt the same way, and I was willing to bet that under other circumstances Martin could make Rory talk. "We'll have to talk about this more, later," I told them both. I've never been trained to be a detective of any kind, but I'm a reasonably observant person, and this money was not the jumble of rumpled bills of all denominations you'd get if you robbed a convenience store. This was the kind of money you'd get at a bank, two one-hundred-dollar bills, the rest in twenties: a compact little bundle, smooth and flat.