Flying Solo(81)

“According to my associate, he was supposed to be selling it to a librarian named Nick Cooper. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“I’ve heard of a Mini Cooper. And Gary Cooper. There’s also Alice Cooper. Are you sure your guy wasn’t going to sell it to Alice Cooper?”

Matt crossed his arms. “I know he’s your old boyfriend, and I know you’ve been doing whatever with him this summer.”

She shook her head. “I think we must be having a miscommunication. Are you saying you sold the duck to Nick Cooper? Because maybe you should ask him where it is.”

“He says he never got it. It seems to have gone missing while it was in the hands of a third party.”

“A third party?” she said. “Who?”

Matt hesitated. He didn’t like sharing this part. “I don’t know who.”

“Your associate gave it to somebody who lost it, and you don’t even know who it was? That sounds terrible. You know, it really seems like that’s the person you should be looking for. You should call the police. Tell them everything that happened. Have them call me.”

“This isn’t cute,” he said.

“You know, I have to say, you have really changed,” she said. “You have become a lot more hostile in the time since you defrauded me. I’m not sure I like this side of your personality.”

He pulled his shoulders back and puffed out his chest, such as it was. “I know you have it. I know you took it, and I have a receipt that says it belongs to me. So if you’re smart and you don’t want trouble, why don’t you give it back right now, and I’ll forget this whole thing?”

She had been trying so hard not to yell, but now she was yelling. “Are you fucking serious? Are you threatening me? You’ll forget it? You’re a felon, for fuck’s sake. You’re a thief and you’re a liar, and you steal from people who are grieving. You’re a solid man-shaped pile of decay, and the world has way too many of you, and you’re in no position to make threats.”

“You need to return what you stole,” he said.

She could have just explained it to him: The thing was not a Kittery. The thing was a Dot Bennett original. He had defrauded her for nothing. In fact, she might have saved him from trying to sell a fake to someone else. But telling him this did not, in the moment, seem at all like the thing to do.

“Do you think I’m scared of you?” she said. “You left ‘lorem ipsum whoopsy dingdong’ at the bottom of your forged document. Somehow, I’m guessing you are not a master criminal as much as you are a small-time creep who turned to theft because he ran out of ideas for apps people could use to buy pet rocks on the internet.”

“Well, good luck selling that duck once I report it stolen,” he said.

“You’re not going to report it stolen,” she said, “because then we would have to talk to the police about all the other stuff you’ve pinched while you were running your bereavement ransacking business.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Laurie stepped toward him. She raised her eyebrows. And then she said, “I know about Betty Donnelly’s tiger clock. I suspect there’s more where that came from.”

Laurie would remember a lot about that summer for the rest of her life, but the look of the blood draining from Matt’s face was something she wished she could photograph, paint, etch, or just sculpt out of Rice Krispies Treats and eat for breakfast every day for a year.

“Who the hell have you been talking to?” he demanded, just like a man who was used to assuming that voice would work on people.

She cringed. “Ooh, that’s not a very innocent response, I’m afraid. That would be something more like ‘What tiger clock? I have no idea what tiger clock you could possibly be talking about.’?” She walked over to the door and swung it open. “Get the fuck out. And if it’s not already obvious, you’re very, very fired.”

“We have a contract.”

“Try to enforce it and see what happens,” she said.

He tried for one more menacing stare, then turned away and started to leave. When he was almost to the door, she jutted her chin toward his back. “Hey.”

He turned around. “What?”

“Did you really read my piece about the Texas blue lizard?”

He smirked. “I’m not much of a reader.”

“Yeah. It shows. By the way, I’m sorry I never found those darn Andrew Wyeth letters. I know you were really excited.” She pushed the front door so that it closed with a loud bang, and then peeked through the window to watch as he kept on going, down the steps and to his car parked in her driveway.





Chapter Twenty-Eight


Laurie had called June on the day she got into her second-choice college, and on the day she didn’t get into her first-choice college. June called her when she got engaged, and even though she and Charlie waited to tell everyone else they were pregnant both times, June called Laurie as soon as she saw the plus signs on the home tests. Laurie called June right before she broke up with Chris, and right after. June called Laurie on the day her mother was diagnosed with cancer and on the day she was declared cancer-free. Laurie called June when she closed on her house, and June called Laurie when she and Charlie had just had their first appointment with a couples counselor.