Deadlock (FBI Thriller #24)(31)
It was time to talk to more of the locals. Pippa turned right off Columbo Square, with its giant bronze statue of General Columbo in the center astride his rearing horse, its hooves flying high. The square looked wilted from the hot summer, and the grass was brown. She started to sit on one of the benches, thinking perhaps someone she recognized would come by, but she decided to keep walking toward her former family home and see how it was faring. Maybe the owners would come out and talk. She walked two blocks down Pilchard Street and turned onto Blue Lagoon Lane. Her former home was on the left, three houses down. She stopped and stared. She couldn’t believe her once-tidy clapboard house and immaculate yard with flowers blooming everywhere, thanks to her mother, was now painted a virulent pink, a car on blocks in the driveway. The yard looked like it hadn’t been tended or a flower planted since her parents left. She wanted to scream, or cry. She remembered her parents saying they’d sold the house for a great price to a lovely couple from Norway. Apparently the folks from Norway had decided to go back to Oslo and sold it to some yahoos. She wanted to burst through the pink door and yell at whoever lived there. Calm yourself. It’s only a house. It has nothing to do with you now. Still, she snapped photos with her phone. Should she send them to her parents? No way. She deleted them instead. As she stood staring at the house, the front door opened, and a young man stepped out, yawning, wearing only a pair of tatty jeans, looking buff and scruffy. He made a sprint to the driveway to pick up the St. Lumis Herald and stopped in his tracks when he saw her.
18
“Hey, who are you? Why are you standing there?”
Pippa shook herself. What the house looked like didn’t matter. The derelict yard that would make her mother weep, it didn’t matter, either, not for seven years. She called out, all bonhomie, “I stopped to admire the lovely pink paint.”
The man guffawed and gave her a white-toothed smile. “Yeah, right, funny girl. It’s a bloody nightmare, but that’s Ma for you, loves her pink. The pinker the better. I’m only visiting. I couldn’t live here. It’d make me nuts, send me screaming into the night. My name’s Hunt. You want to come in for a cup of coffee? Ma’s at church. Hey, once you’re inside, there’s no more pink, I promise.”
Too bad Hunt didn’t live here. The chances of his being of any help were close to nil. She gave him a big smile. “Not today, but thank you.”
He waved and turned back to the house, whistling.
Pippa walked another block inland, past an older square brick apartment building, circa 1970, surrounded by denuded maple trees and small older houses with smaller front yards built nearly to the worn sidewalk. There was a new sign for a hair salon in one window. Otherwise everything seemed the same. There were children playing football in a side yard, young girls going wildly high on swings hanging from low oak branches. She heard parents’ voices from inside the houses and the sound of TV cartoons, but mainly football games blasting out. She supposed as long as Sunday football was king, things would remain the same.
She kept walking through the neighborhoods, getting a feel again for the town she’d once known down to her callused bare feet. She saw a new café on her right, June’s Eats, and thank goodness, it was open. She walked into an art deco movie set, beautifully done, with booths and tables, a long counter with stools, the open kitchen in the back. A pretty young woman stood behind the cash register, giving change to a customer. Pippa recognized her immediately. June Florio, her dad a banker in Annapolis, her mom a schoolteacher in Mayo. And now she owned a café? Amazing what paths people took. Look at Pippa, from lawyer to FBI agent. The place was popular, already filling up for lunch. There was a waiter tending to the dozen customers.
June looked up and smiled. “Can I help you?” The friendly smile changed to a dawning look of recognition. “Wait, I know you. Pippa—yes, that’s right, Pippa Cinelli. Goodness, I forgot how pretty you were. Welcome home.”
Pippa gave June Florio a big smile. “Thank you. What a beautiful café, and I love the black-and-white art deco squares on the floor. Were you at the party last night at Leveler’s?”
“You wouldn’t know it now, but last night I was Marie Antoinette. My husband, Doug, came as one of my lovers and draped himself all over me the entire night. As you can see, he’s not around. The idiot is home in bed, groaning. I was tempted to pour cold water over his head. Between moans, he said everyone would be hungover today after last night at Leveler’s Inn, and we should just stay closed. Happens every year. Look around, he was dead wrong.” She waved her hand toward the dozen or so people seated around the café. “Over there’s a big tub of cold bottled water, great for a hangover, in case you drank too much of that vodka pretending to be punch?”
Pippa smiled. “I didn’t have another drop after I saw yet another Einstein with electrified hair pour in a full flask of vodka. I’m out for a walk on this beautiful November day. Visiting all my old haunts.”
“Where do you live?”
“Down the road in Washington. This is a mini-vacation for me. It’s good to see you, June. So far, I’ve got to say, nothing much has changed.”
“No, nothing ever changes here. Well, except I’m married to the guy holding his head at home. I’m June Sweazy now. Do you remember Doug Sweazy? He was our running back in high school, had a smooth tongue, a great body?”