On Turpentine Lane(42)

Could she know what a pittance I’d paid for my little shitbox next door? I wondered.

“You said Donna Dolan’s boy was here about ancient history. Do you know which ancient history he meant?” she asked.

“Ancient history was my term. It seems . . . I don’t really know. Maybe”—and now this was Amateur Detective Frankel leading the witness—“it referred to deaths in the Lavoie family?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised! She lost all three of her husbands.”

“Lost?”

“Passed away. Who can live through something like that? And I’d heard—it was before I lived here—that she lost twin babies. No wonder a person can’t go on living.”

Except that she went on living until she was at least ninety, I refrained from saying.

“I wasn’t here yet when the first husband died,” she continued. “But the other two were accidents.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, unnecessary in the wide-open cold air. “I think they were drinkers. At least I heard awful rows. And the little girl—little then—used to come over to my house and just sit on my porch swing. Both of the stepfathers were falling-down drunk when they died.”

“Is that what you heard?”

“You’d think being drunk would relax their muscles and they wouldn’t get hurt, but they both died from the falls—three, four years apart. One I think went to the hospital but died there. Not a lucky house. Not for her, at least.”

“Was it the cellar stairs?” I asked.

“I hope you’ve carpeted them,” Mrs. Strenger said.



Nick was reading the Sunday paper at the kitchen table. I repeated as faithfully as I could, and rather breathlessly, the entire conversation I’d just had with our elderly next-door neighbor.

He listened, reflecting none of my astonishment at the house’s continuing bad karma, then said, calmly, “The wife pushed them. Clearly.”

I said, “I thought that, too! But wouldn’t that be the first thing the medical examiner would conclude when someone’s third husband died the same way as the second?”

“You should ask your friend the cop.”

“What about autopsies? Couldn’t they tell the difference between a push and a fall?”

Nick said, “I’d put Nancy Frankel on the case. It would take her mind off Tracygate.”

I said, “Was it too much last night—the Frankel family soap opera?”

“I tuned a lot of it out.”

“Good,” I said, but at the same time I wondered how much of our conversations, at home and at work, did he tune out. When he appeared to finish the section he’d been reading, Technology, I asked, “What about your mother? I never hear about her.”

“No longer with us,” he said.

“Sorry . . .”

“Cancer. Almost ten years ago. My father remarried—a woman he’d dated in high school, the one that got away.”

“Let me guess. They reconnected on Facebook?”

“Nope, at a class reunion—which I made him go to. He waited a very respectable amount of time before he even asked her out. They’re in love. It’s very cute, actually. She’s no genius, but it works.” He smiled. “Needless to say, I was his best man.”

“And this is where?”

“Chicago.”

“Where you grew up?”

“Correct.”

I said, “Thank you—it’s like a short story—it starts with a loss, with lemons, then life gives you lemonade and it ends with a wedding—”

“I knew you’d like that,” he said from behind the paper.

Still in my coat, still standing by the table, I said, “I’ll let you read. I’m going to do a little work.”

“In other words, I’m going to try my brother again?”

“What? Too much? Too close?”

“The family dynamic . . . you’re all so . . . hovering.” He shook his shoulders as if releasing unwanted possessive hands.

I said, “We aren’t usually on top of one another like this. It’s been a very traumatic fall and winter.”

“Believe me, your brother’s fine. He’s probably sound asleep.”

I said, “Thank you. A male perspective is very helpful.”

I could tell he was trying to sound offhanded when he said, “I might call my dad today. He doesn’t even know I have a new address. Or that I broke up with Brooke.”

“When was the last time you talked?”

“A month? He doesn’t do e-mail. If his wife answers, I can’t get her off the phone . . .”

“But you’re not estranged or anything?”

“Nope.”

“Did he know Brooke?”

“He’d met her. At his own wedding, in fact.”

“Don’t you think he should at least have your new address?”

“He should, especially here, the scene of many alleged crimes—he being my next of kin.”

“Why did I buy this place?” I moaned.





28





Woe Is Us


LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON Joel finally texted back, will call Mom. I refrained from word choices such as For Chrissake, took you long enough. Instead, I wrote back, Come for dinner tonite? Frankels & beans?