She turned to him then, her eyes glistening. "He wouldn't be there now if he hadn't taken me to the movies."
Joe actually laughed as he leaned over and kissed her. "You probably saved his life. He would've been driving at twice the speed with some bimbo in one of his favorite wrecks. Tell me I'm wrong."
She smiled despite her sadness. "He doesn't carry on as much as he claims. But I suppose you're right."
Joe hadn't told her about the missing tie rod nut.
They spent much of the day getting used to each other. Joe hadn't been at home without Leo in more years than he could recall, and he had a hard time gauging between too much together time with his mother and too little. She and Leo were like an old married couple, working on instinct, memory, and habit. Joe had only the first to draw on, and that was dulled by their both thinking of the missing member of their small company. He had to ask her about lunch, to discover if and when she napped, whether she could handle the bathroom on her own, what her rhythm was for reading, watching TV, and moving about in pursuit of various errands or tasks.
For her part, of course, he appeared like a fish out of water. He did nothing like his brother, had little here that belonged to him or would occupy him for long, and knew even less about the house's organization.
Still, they managed, mostly with humor, sometimes with reservations, and were clearly relieved when the doorbell rang.
At that moment they were both in the kitchen, where she was giving him a crash course on product geography, as he mentally termed it, struggling to retain how she liked her groceries organized.
More to the point, since dinner was looming, they'd also been discussing the upcoming meal. Sadly, Leo was the house's primary cook-Joe had no such talent, being of the opinion that all food should come packaged and ready to eat, preferably unheated-and it was becoming clear that the kitchen was where their cordiality might collapse.
"Who would that be?" Joe asked, the sound of a doorbell being a rare thing in a farmhouse.
"Maybe one of the neighbors," his mother suggested, "seeing we were home and knowing my son was about to poison me."
Joe moved toward the door. "Just trying to broaden your mind, Mom. We came out of the caves eating with our fingers. Sandwiches are an homage to a cultural heritage."
"We came out of the caves eating other people, period," his mother corrected him. "Go see who it is."
The other oddity, of course, was that the doorbell belonged to the front entrance, which almost everyone knew to ignore in favor of the kitchen door, around to the side, where the car was parked at the bottom of the wheelchair ramp.
As a result, Joe was expecting either a salesman or a Bible thumper as he opened the door.
Instead, there was a tall, slim, long-haired woman, looking both expectant and nervous.
Joe stared at her in astonishment, his hand frozen on the doorknob and his mouth half open in a generic greeting he didn't deliver.
He knew her, but not from around here. It was from a case a couple of years ago, when they'd met in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and he'd interviewed her in her capacity as a local bartender. She'd been helpful, aiming him toward someone who proved useful later on, but more importantly, in giving him a single kiss after a conversation laced with a subtle and meaningful subtext. That gesture had filled his head with thoughts, questions, yearnings, and possibilities that he'd retained ever since. By then, he and Gail had begun their slide away from each other, if only in small increments, and the woman now standing before him had loomed as an occasionally comforting fantasy to ease the transition.
But he'd never called her, had never thought of her except at odd moments, and had certainly never expected to lay eyes on her again. He didn't even know her last name.
At his stunned befuddlement, her nervousness yielded to an embarrassed smile. She stuck her hand out. "Joe Gunther…"
"Evelyn," he blurted, interrupting her.
She wrinkled her nose, the smile expanding. "You remember. I never figured how that got out. It's my real name-Evelyn Silva-after my grandmother." She added with a laugh, "But I don't like it much. Wasn't too crazy about her, either. Most people just call me Lyn."
He was still processing her appearance. Names could come later. "What are you doing here?" he asked, the host in him hoping it didn't sound too hostile, while the cop wondered if maybe it should.
"I read about your family's accident in the paper," she explained. "I wanted to see if you needed any help."
He stared at her. "In the Gloucester paper?"
She shook her head, her cheeks flushing. "No, no. The Brattleboro Reformer. I live in Brattleboro now. I moved."
"Who is it, Joe?" his mother asked from behind him.
Joe stepped aside to reveal his mother rolling up to them. Lyn broke into a wide smile. "You're all right," she exclaimed. "They said you were in the hospital." She hesitated only a moment and then took one step forward and stuck her hand out. "I'm Lyn Silva, Mrs. Gunther. I'm really just an acquaintance of your son's, but I wanted to see how you were doing."
Joe's mother looked at her son. "I'm freezing. You're heating the whole state." Then she smiled brightly at their unexpected guest and shook hands. "He's still in training. I'm happy to meet you."
Joe removed his fingers from the knob as if it had been electrified. Like most locals, he was usually compulsive about open doors and drafts. He reached out and gently steered Lyn across the threshold. "I'm sorry," he said. "Wasn't paying attention."
"Come into the living room," his mother said, preceding them. "We have a fire going in the woodstove. Where are you from, Miss Silva?"
"Brattleboro now," Lyn told her, entering the cluttered, homey living room, adding, "Oh, I love this room. When was the house built?"
"Eighteen-thirties," Joe told her, bringing up the rear. "And we haven't done much to it since, except for the modern amenities."
He studied the back of their guest as if she might suddenly pull a gun. He kept retrieving fragments of the one time they'd met, and coming up with only good memories. She was a single mother of a then twenty-year-old girl, a bookkeeper by day and a bartender at night, and at the time, at least, she'd been genuine, smart, sexy, and remarkably appealing-just as she appeared today.
But what was she doing here? When they last parted, he'd felt they had forged a definite connection, one that he would have pursued in Gail's absence. He'd even thought of locating her after his breakup, but had been stalled by both geography and a general emotional inertia.
On that level, therefore, he was astonished and pleased to see her again. But at his core he remained a cop and, as such, wary and watchful. Once the social niceties were dealt with and he found a quiet moment, he planned to inquire about the details behind this visit.
His mother parked her chair in her docking station of tables before asking, "What brought you to Brattleboro? And did I overhear that you came from Gloucester?"
"Yes, ma'am," Lyn answered. "I was a barkeep there, and I just bought a bar in Brattleboro-I found it through the Internet, if you can believe that."
"And how did you two meet? Have a seat in that armchair."
Joe glanced up at that question, trying to read between the lines. His mother's face was cheery and her eyes bright, but he knew her well and had clearly heard the interrogator's edge in her voice.
Lyn sat carefully in the old leather armchair. "Your son came to Gloucester to investigate a murder-a man who lived over the bar where I worked." She looked over at Joe with a smile. "He sat at the end of my bar drinking Cokes for a couple of nights before he said anything, just watching the crowd. It was fun seeing him study people." Again she reddened slightly, adding, "Including me. He's quite an observer. And when we finally did talk, he had me remembering things I didn't know I could." She touched her forehead with her fingertips. "You had me close my eyes and slowly redraw the scene in my head, detail by detail, until I could see that guy you were after-the one with the scar on his hand. Did you ever catch him?"