“We were wondering if we could ask you some questions,” I said. “Of course.” She still didn’t move or look up. Her voice was just above a whisper.
“How about over here?” I gestured to a living-room gathering of armchairs and a sofa near the large window I’d sat at before.
She raised her head then, embarrassed. “Of course, I’m sorry. Turn on some lights.” She wheeled over to one of the lamps and switched it on.
I did the same with another, shoving back the gloom of the overcast day outside. Spinney and I settled on the sofa, facing her.
“How’re you holding up?” I asked.
%228 “All right, I guess. I daydream a lot. It’s hard being interested in anything. Buster’s a help.” “He’s been coming over a lot?” “Oh, yes.” She smiled that smile again. “I’ve had to throw him out a couple of times.” “He’s very fond of you-I know that.” I was aware of Spinney staring at me, wondering why I had made a total fool out of him in front of Sarris so that we could both come chat with Nadine about my uncle.
Nadine got a soft look in her eyes. “Buster’s like a surrogate father.
My own father was aloof and judgmental-he’s dead now. But when he was alive, Buster would come over to drink and play cards. On the surface, that made him Dad’s friend, but I always had the feeling that Dad wasn’t the reason Buster came over at all. I think he did it for us, to see how we were doing.” “He had reason to be concerned?” It was an open question, possibly innocent, but we all knew what I meant, and Nadine didn’t duck the darker connotation, even while a faint smile played on her lips, an homage to lost innocence. “Looking back, I think he did.
Earle and I didn’t know it, though; life was what was handed out to you.
Dad yelled a lot, sometimes he’d give me the back of his hand. Earle usually caught worse. I never understood what fueled Dad’s rages, but he never let up. Buster knew what was going on he became our guardian angel.” She chuckled briefly. “Buster’s no saint, of course. He talks too much and drinks too much, and I would guess he’s a terrible businessman, at least that’s what Rennie always said.
But he was a godsend to us.” “How did Buster and Rennie get along?” I had to go slowly here, despite Spinney’s growing restlessness. What I wanted from Nadine had to come naturally; I didn’t want her to later blame herself for what her information would help me to do. “It’s funny you should ask… I think Buster looked at Rennie like a son who’d never measured up. That always made me sad, because they were the two men I loved most. They both had very good qualities that I could see, but which they couldn’t see in each other. Still, there must have been something good between them, or they wouldn’t have spent so much time together. Maybe their problems had to do with competition.” “What about Earle?” I asked, finally getting to where I wanted to be.
“How did he get along with Buster and Rennie?” “He and Buster got along to a point. I think he appreciated that when Buster was here, Dad left him alone. But after Buster left, and %229 Dad would start bad-mouthing him-just like he did everybody-Earle would go along, like a backup singer. Somehow the bad-mouthing kind of stuck, like some oil that won’t wash off.” “And Rennie?” There was a pause at that. Nadine had her head bent, apparently looking at her hands. Only after a few moments did I notice her shoulders gently shaking as she wept.
“I’m sorry, Nadine. Maybe we should go.” I still didn’t mean it. By now, the stimulus that had put me in front of her was strong enough that I was prepared to be ruthless in its pursuit. She raised her head then and reached out to touch my knee, possibly sensing my dilemma. “It’s your job, Joey. It can’t be any worse than what I’ve just been through.” I took hold of her fingers and gave them a squeeze, looking into her tear-stained face. Her gesture allowed me to be more sincere with my regret. “I wish I could be more like Buster and help you, instead of adding to your troubles.” She shook her head and smiled weakly. “One Buster is enough.” I was impressed and touched by her strength. When we’d first met, when suspicion on Rennie verged on conviction, she’d struck me almost as a lost child, caught in her chair, swept aside by events. She’d spoken in a whisper, struggled morally to stand by her man, and had backed up his Wednesday night alibi. But during the course of this conversation, I’d totally changed my view of her. What I had thought was a fear of the unknown had now proven to be a firm grasp on reality: Her husband was dead, she was on her own, and she had the ability and the emotional wherewithal to deal with that.
She took a deep breath. “What did Earle think of Rennie? He hated him.
It was an irrational kind of thing, the kind of thing my father would do.” “Why the hatred?” She looked like someone trying to move a huge weight out of the way. She gave that sad smile and tapped the arm of her chair. “This had a lot to do with it-and those Wednesday nights.” I was stunned.
“You knew what Rennie was up to?” She pursed her lips but her voice was steady. “I had my suspicions. It made me unhappy, but I didn’t blame him.
“We hadn’t had much of a physical relationship since this.” She touched the chair. “And he was a very physical man. I knew he’d replace what we had with someone else, and I appreciated that he tried to spare my feelings.” I crossed the room to the picture of Earle I’d noticed days earlier, %230 the one of him with a looped bandolier of climbing ropes.
“And Earle found out about Rennie’s infidelity?” She shook her head in frustration. “Nobody understood what Rennie and I had. They all thought he was a crude, short-tempered womanizer, and that I was a fool for putting up with him. Earle used to go on and on about him, telling me I deserved everything I got for hanging on. The funny thing was, I agreed with him. I did deserve Rennie, just as he deserved me. What people chose to see as major problems were nothing to us-little glitches, as we saw it. We loved each other. He didn’t change after the accident; people’s view of me did. Just because I was in this chair, people thought he was supposed to become a whole different person. Well, he didn’t and I loved him for that. The fact that life’s disappointments wore him down a bit, and that we no longer had in bed what we once had was our business, and we’d come to terms with it. I love Buster but he looks at me as a cripple. Rennie never did that, and to me that was worth putting up with a lot.” It was an eloquent and suitable note to end on, but I had one question remaining. I noticed Spinney was now sitting on the edge of his chair, watching us carefully.
“What did you mean when you said your wheelchair had a lot to do with Earle hating Rennie?” Nadine took a deep breath and then lifted her eyes to meet mine. “Rennie pushed me down the stairs. It was an accident. He was drunk, didn’t know what he was doing. But Earle never forgave him.” “I never heard Rennie pushed you,” I said. “Word had it you just fell.” “Small town, Joe, you keep things like that to yourself.
Even Earle did, which always surprised me. I didn’t think he had it in him.” I stood up abruptly, trying to keep my voice neutral. “Maybe he had his reasons.” Nadine had said we couldn’t miss it, a single rectangular building, alone among the trees, the only house within a ten-square-mile area, at the end of a rutted, dead-end track in the woods. I stopped the car about a hundred yards away, watching for signs of life.
“No smoke from the chimney,” Spinney said. It was a one-story rectangle with one of the narrow walls facing us. We could see a door, with a small window on either side.
“He could have a bead on us right now.” Spinney scanned the trees all around. They were packed so close together that even without their leaves, they cut what feeble daylight there was in half.