Grave Surprise

Page 18

I was kind of wondering the same thing, so I didn't blame him for his coolness. Oddly enough, on our previous job we'd also been invited to the client's home for a lunch. But that was hardly the normal procedure. Normally, we were in and out of the town as quickly as we could manage. I didn't like this social fraternizing with clients; it seemed to lead to deeper involvement in their problems, and that meant trouble. I promised myself on the spot that I wouldn't do it again.
Though Fred Hart remained aloof from the little crowd, the older Morgensterns had decided I was in their charge. Since Ben and Judy were persistently dragging me (and Tolliver, too) around the room from guest to guest, there was no way I could dodge the next person on the route.
"This is our son Joel's former sister-in-law, Felicia Hart," Judy said, and her voice had taken on a distinctly cool tone. "Fred's daughter."
"Joel's first wife, Whitney, was just a dear," Ben said, which was one way of saying Whitney's sister was not. There was definitely some bad blood there. I wondered what could have happened to make the older Morgensterns dislike Felicia so heartily.
I said, "We know Felicia," at the same moment Felicia said, "Of course, I saw Tolliver and Harper the other day at their hotel," and shook hands with us both with perfect aplomb. But her eyes weren't as neutral as her manner. I hadn't expected her to care about seeing me today, but I had expected her to have a strong reaction when she saw Tolliver. I'd expected that it would be a pleasurable reaction.
I'd have to classify it more as smoldering, or maybe volcanic.
Not "take me in your arms and let's jump into the volcano of love," but more "let me push you into the molten lava."
I began a slow burn. What was up with her? Maybe she imagined Tolliver would refer to their past relationship in front of her father, or maybe, like David, she didn't think we belonged at a family gathering (though surely she didn't have that much claim on Joel's present family). If that was the case, shame on her. If Tolliver was good enough to be her bed partner, he was good enough to break bread with her nearest and dearest. But just as I was tensing up and looking for a moment to say something barbed, Tolliver squeezed my hand. I relaxed. He was sending me a clear message that Felicia was his problem.
After I'd chatted for a brief moment with Diane's friends Esther and Samantha, I tried to find a spot to hole up. Not only were the emotional crosscurrents a little draining, but my leg was hurting. It tingled and felt weak, as though it might decide to give way on a whim.
I found an empty chair right by that of another person who seemed to be feeling like an outsider: Victor, Joel's son by his first marriage. The boy the young man was hunched in a chair in a corner, defiantly apart from the rest, and he eyed me with apprehension as I walked over and sank down in the soft chair beside his. Victor gave me a brief look of acknowledgement, then fixed his gaze on his hands.
I was sure that Victor, like me, was remembering our encounter in another living room, in Nashville, and how he'd lost all his restraint and wept on my shoulder. It had made me feel good, actually, to be trusted like that.
For all I knew, Victor was recalling his breakdown with profound regret.
What I could be sure of was that Victor thought this gathering sucked. He was trying to get as far away from the grown-ups as he could. He'd had good manners ingrained in his character, and he'd gotten taller and more mature in the past few months--but he was still a teenager; a teenager who would far rather be out with his buds than hanging around with his family on this dismal occasion.
I didn't blame Victor for that, either.
So the room was full of people who didn't particularly want us there; some of them were pretending to be pleased, some of them weren't. Even our host and hostess were acting sheerly out of an imagined obligation.
I could see their point of view. I could even share it. Yet here we were, with no graceful way to get out of this uncomfortable situation. The only exit laid through a blatantly transparent excuse, such as a sudden illness, a phone call summoning us elsewhere, or something equally lame. I couldn't think of how to arrange such a thing without causing even more unhappiness.
In silence, Victor and I watched Samantha carry a glass of iced tea to Joel, watched him accept it with a pleasant nod, watched the woman's eyes as she stood by him hoping for another crumb of his attention.
Victor looked at me and snorted. "My dad, the babe magnet," he said derisively, including me in his age bracket so it would be okay to talk to me. Victor didn't sound envious, which I thought would be the case with most teenage boys. He sounded like the babes were the objects of his scorn, right along with his father. Now that he'd overcome his reluctance to speak, he seemed to feel we'd renewed our bond. He leaned closer. Victor said, "You're not Jewish, are you?"
"No," I said. That was easy.
"Victor, honey!" Judy Morgenstern called. "Go out to the Buick and get my cane, please." The boy looked at me intently. I wondered if there was something specific he wanted to say to me. He gave me a dark glance as he heaved himself up out of his chair and strode off to fetch the cane. I thought I might have a little recovery time, but no. To my surprise, Felicia took his place. I have to admit, I was curious. Not only did I wonder what she wanted to talk about, after her chilly greeting earlier, but also I wanted to discover why Tolliver had ever been attracted to this woman.
At the moment, my brother was talking to David, and he shot me a questioning glance, a little on the concerned side, when Felicia seated herself beside me. But he was too far away to hear our conversation, so I could say what I liked.
"You live here in Memphis, also?" I asked politely. I rubbed my right leg, which was aching, then forced my hand to be still.
"Yes, I have a condo in midtown," she said. "Of course, you have to have security there. My dad had a cow when I bought in the Towers. 'It's midtown, you're going to get attacked and mugged!' " She smiled at me in a conspiratorial way, as if the concern of one's parent was a silly thing. "The parking garage is completely enclosed; you can only get in if you have a sticker. And there's no pedestrian walk-in; entrance only through the building. There's a guard at the car exit, twenty-four/seven. It's expensive, but I couldn't live with my father anymore. Way past the age to move away." Her dad had a fresh drink in his hands; I'd watched him disappear into the kitchen and return with it. He resumed staring out the window. Felicia followed my gaze and flushed.
"You're very security conscious," I said, to deflect the moment.
"You have to be, when you're by yourself," she said. "Joel is always trying to get me to move out to east Memphis somewhere." She shook her head with a smile, inviting me to share her amusement with Joel's concern. The implication was that she and Joel were close; I got that. "And my dad would like me to move back with him. He lives in this huge house, all alone." Again, message received; her background was stuffed with money. "But as this family's situation proves, you can be in much more danger in the suburbs than you have to be in midtown, if you take precautions."
"Of course, they were in Nashville then," I said.
"Same difference. Everyone feels too safe in the suburbs. They take security for granted."
Diane, Samantha, and Esther left the room, and I figured they were heading to the kitchen for food preparation. I wondered if I should volunteer, but I decided they'd be much more comfortable with each other if I wasn't there. I turned back to Felicia.
"I'm sure they don't take security for granted anymore," I said, very quietly, and a shadow crossed Felicia's narrow, elegant face.
"No, not anymore. I'm afraid they'll always be looking over their shoulders, with this baby that's coming. Victor is old enough to take care of himself, at least to some extent. Vic is a typical teenager." She shook her head, smiling. Typical teenagers, evidently, were stupid. "They think they're immortal."
"Victor, of all teenagers, should know that's not true."
Felicia looked abashed. But she plowed ahead with the conversation. "It's strange; Victor's physically healthy as a horse, like I am. His mom--my sister, Whitney--she was the sickly one in our family. Whitney had all these allergies when we were kids. My parents would have to sit up with her all night, she'd be wheezing and coughing." Felicia's face looked grim. I wondered what kind of nurturing Felicia had gotten while Whitney's heath crises were front and center in the Hart household. "She got pneumonia when we were in junior high, and mono, and tonsillitis, and when she was in college she had a ruptured appendix, after she'd started dating Joel. I've never been in a hospital." She looked over at her former brother-in-law. "You should have seen the care Joel took of her. He'd hardly let anyone else in the room during the final stages of her last illness. He wanted her all to himself. Second in hovering was my dad." She looked across the room at Fred Hart, who'd suddenly decided to talk to Joel. I didn't know what the conversation covered, but Joel was looking politely bored.
"I guess Victor was too young to visit the hospital much."
"Yeah, we didn't want him to remember Whitney like she looked toward the end. I stayed at their house and took care of Victor. He was so little, so cute."
"He's a handsome young man," I said politely.
"I still keep an eye on him for my sister's sake. It's been great, having them here in Memphis. Victor stays with me sometimes if things get too tense at home."
She was dying for me to ask her why things would be tense at home. Surely, the abduction and disappearance of a little girl was reason enough? "He's lucky to have such a conscientious aunt," I said, selecting the least weighted of responses. "I saw your brother a couple of times," Felicia said suddenly, as though tossing a pebble into a pool to see what happened.
"That's what he told me," I told her in a completely neutral voice.
She seemed stymied when I didn't continue. After a pause, Felicia said, "I think he took it a bit hard when the distances between us made me think we'd be better off apart."
I had no response to that, but I was angry, you can bet on it. This was totally not the story Tolliver had told me. So, of course, she was lying.
"It must be difficult to find someone to date, when you're at that in-between age," I said.
Her eyes narrowed.
"I mean," I continued, "men are either married, or they're on their first divorce, and they may have kids and all kinds of entanglements."
"I haven't found that a problem," she said through clenched teeth. "But I suppose since you travel all the time, it's very hard to meet eligible men."
Oh, ouch--not. If she thought it would bother me to be reminded that I was always in Tolliver's company, she was wrong. Besides, why should I cross swords with this woman? Tolliver was an adult, and he could handle her mixed signals, all on his own.
"Do you know Clyde Nunley?" I said, looking anywhere but at her face.
"Well, we went to Bingham together," she said, which gave me a jolt. I'd been so sure she'd say she'd never met him. "He's a couple of years older, but we know each other. Clyde and David are actually fraternity brothers."
She nodded at David. He looked questioning, and when she smiled at him, he came over, though a bit reluctantly. David Morgenstern would not want to be president of my fan club. But he shook my hand civilly, and when Felicia said, "Harper was asking about Clyde Nunley."
David rolled his eyes. "What an asshole," he said. "He was a wild guy in college, lots of fun, but he decided he was the establishment as soon as he became a professor. Smarter than mere mortals, cooler than dry ice. I don't see him socially, but I do catch a glimpse of him at alumni meetings."
Not any more.
"Look, Diane wants us to come into the dining room," Felicia said, and I rose to follow the others. David excused himself and went down the hall to a door I assumed was a bathroom's. Tolliver was having a serious talk with the older Morgensterns, but from the few words I caught, he was talking about the Memphis city government. I thought they looked a little relieved, maybe glad not to have to be talking about Tabitha, just for a few minutes. I trailed in the direction Felicia indicated. We were both glad to have an end to our t?te-?-t?te, I think. I didn't know what Felicia had thought she needed to convey to me, but I'd missed it. "Why'd you ask about Clyde?" Felicia asked suddenly.
"He came to our hotel last night, kind of irate," I said, after a moment.
She looked astonished. "What on earth about?" "I don't know," I said, not wanting to talk about it any longer.
Diane had simply made a buffet out of all the food the neighbors had brought over. She and her two Nashville friends had arranged the dishes on a long counter in the spotless kitchen. There was an eat-in area at one end of the room, and the gray winter sky loomed through the large windows around that table in an unpleasant way. There was also a breakfast bar with high stools forming a right angle to one end of the counter, and I'd passed through a formal dining room. This house was focused on eating.
Some of the dishes were hot, some were cold, and there were a lot of casseroles. Some of the flowers and plants the family had received were arranged in with the food and on the two dining tables, formal and informal. This attractive presentation was a talent of Diane's I hadn't expected. I wondered if her friends had done it all, and then chided myself for not giving her enough credit. I'd never seen the unstressed side of the woman.