Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(94)

“Well I really appreciate it. I know how much Dad needs you.” She paused. “How is he?”

“The same.”

Lucy reached over and stroked Toby’s silky head. He popped a Cheerio in his mouth and smiled at her. “The same? What does that mean?”

“It means he’s not getting better and he’s not getting worse.”

“Can’t they try something different? Some new medication?”

“He won’t let them.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s refusing treatment.” Lucy heard the anger in her mother’s voice. “He’s giving up.”

Lucy found herself slumping, as if a heavy blanket of sadness had dropped on her. “Do you want me to come?” she asked.

“There’s no need.” Her mother’s voice was sharp.

“But if he’s dying … ,” Lucy paused, realizing it was the first time since her father became ill that she’d said the word, “if he’s dying I want to say goodbye.”

“He isn’t going to die. I’m not letting him. I’m seeing a lawyer and I’m going to court and I’ll become his guardian and then I’ll tell the doctors to do whatever they can to keep him alive.”

Lucy bit her lip. “Are you sure that’s the right …”

“Of course it’s the right thing to do. I have to go now.”

Then there was a click and the line went dead.

Lucy wanted to tear her clothes and pull her hair, she wanted to yell at her mother, she wanted to feel her father’s strong arms around her one more time, but she couldn’t do those things so she lifted Toby onto his feet, standing him in CANDY CANES OF CHRISTMAS PAST

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the high chair, and gave him a big hug. Inside her, the baby seemed to do a somersault.

Toby wasn’t interested in hugs and after his long morning nap he wasn’t interested in his usual after-lunch nap. He was interested in banging pots but Lucy was developing a headache, so she decided to take him outside for a walk around the yard. It wasn’t Central Park, with its zoo and merry-goround, but it did offer fresh air and occasional sunshine.

Toby needed a hand getting down the porch steps, but then he was off and running, heading down the driveway.

Lucy ran after him, scooped him up and swung him around, pointing him in the opposite direction. He tried to dodge past her, determined to flirt with death in the road, but she blocked him and scooped him up again. “Let’s find a ball,” she said, and this time he ran for the safer territory of the backyard.

As she followed she thought about her conversation with her mother and tried to sort out her feelings.

It seemed to her that through the years she had played out this same scenario many times. She had always felt closer to her father than her mother, but whenever any real intimacy began to develop her mother would somehow intervene. It started when she was quite small. If Pop invited her to go for a walk down the street to the candy store, her mother would come up with some chore he had to do first and the little walk would be forgotten. Even when she was in college she could remember several instances when he called to say he would be in the area on a business trip and would take her out to dinner, just the two of them, but it never happened. A sudden crisis always seemed to arise—Mom suddenly developed a mysterious ailment or her car was making a suspicious noise—and he’d have to cut the trip short and return home.

Toby had found the ball, a big playground ball, and was running with it. When he got about ten feet from her he threw it to her, making a great effort, and she laughed at the 318

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sight. He was so cute. She couldn’t imagine shutting him out or turning away from him, but that’s what her mother had done to her. She’d always felt like a third wheel, like an intruder in her parents’ life together, and she’d assumed that was the natural order of things. Now she knew differently.

She caught the ball and threw it back, gently, so Toby could catch it.

Back in the house she put a Care Bears tape in the VCR for Toby and set a pot of water to boil, planning to cook macaroni for American chop suey. It wasn’t fine cuisine, but it sure stretched a pound of hamburger. While she waited for it to boil she called Miss Tilley at the library. After thanking her for letting her bake the cookies and minding Toby and giving her sherry, Lucy got to the point of her call. “Do you know anything about the glass cane your mother had?” she asked.

“Was it a family treasure?”

“I’d never seen it before, nobody had,” replied Miss Tilley.

“Perhaps it was a gift she was intending to give someone?”

“I don’t know where she would have gotten it. She hadn’t been out of the house for months.”

“Maybe someone gave it to her,” suggested Lucy.

“She was too sick for visitors by then.”

“I see,” said Lucy.

“I’m afraid I’m not being very helpful,” said Miss Tilley.

“On the contrary,” said Lucy, who was beginning to think she was on to something. She might not be Sherlock Holmes, but she could use his method. It was simple logic that if the glass cane wasn’t in the house before the murder, and if Mrs.

Tilley had no way of obtaining it herself, then the killer must have brought it. Find the owner of the cane and she would find the murderer.