"What's the latest on Leo?" she asked as she worked, her voice self-consciously nonchalant.
He smiled at her. "As if you didn't know. I did just come from there, though. I think he's looking a little better. He certainly has more to say, which isn't pretty. I figure in a week, the nurses'll kill him and that'll be the end of it."
She gave him a dark look, which he knew not to take seriously.
"He's got company, by the way," Joe added.
"Who?"
"Cops. I found a state trooper there tonight, just visiting, and Leo said there'd been others. Word got out, and guys from a bunch of departments are dropping by, just showing support. They even started a guest book you can see next time you're there."
She nodded once, visibly moved. "That's very sweet."
"It's a small world I work in," he told her. "And cops are pretty sentimental. What did the doc tell you on the phone?" he then asked, knowing she'd called.
"That he's past the worst of it but has a long way to go." She cracked an egg into a bowl and put the shell down beside it, sighing. "I keep wondering if all this will change things."
He reached out and patted her hand. "One step at a time, Mom. Leo's pretty irrepressible. He'll have some physical therapy afterward, and you might be taking more care of him than he ever did of you for a while, but I'm guessing he'll be back in full form by the end."
She nodded and broke another egg. "What did you learn about the accident?"
He raised his eyebrows. "How did you know I was looking into that?"
She looked up at him. "I would be."
Good point, he thought. Part of the reason he'd turned out the way he had was because she'd trained him to be curious about everything and everyone.
"A piece of the car fell off," he said. "That's what messed up the steering. The sheriff's department is going to see if they can find it tomorrow, using metal detectors."
She kept working, whipping the eggs in the bowl, her eyes down and her voice neutral. "That seems like a lot of work."
He shrugged. "I've teamed up with one of their deputies, Rob Barrows. He says they have an Explorers troop that are all eager beavers. Won't cost them a cent."
Again she nodded. "Laura Barrows's boy. He was in the MPs in the Army. Got out three years ago. A nice man."
"Yeah. Seems so." Joe was watching her carefully, knowing something was brewing.
After a small pause, she added, "If you know the accident was caused by something falling off, why do you need to find it?"
Ouch, he thought. Too smart by half. "Just to make things neat and tidy."
She stopped whipping and fixed him with a baleful look. This one he did know to take seriously. "Joseph."
He pushed his lips out in defeat. "You're good, Mom. If I knew how to scramble eggs, I'd trade jobs with you."
"I wouldn't wish that on the rest of humanity," she told him. "What's going on?"
He studied the tabletop for a couple of seconds, pondering his response. "Truth? Maybe nothing, and I'm not pulling your leg. It's just that the piece I mentioned shouldn't have fallen off a car as new as the Subaru."
"What else?" she asked.
"That's it. I told you it was probably nothing."
She frowned at him. "You were the same way as a child. You could never just spit it out. Parts fall off of new cars, too, Joe. All the time. What are you not telling me?"
Joe repositioned his chair, crossed his legs and arms, and reconsidered his strategy.
"Cops are professional paranoids, Mom. You know that, right? It keeps us focused and it keeps us safe. It also makes us look under the bed, even when we know there's nothing there."
She kept studying him, the eggs temporarily forgotten.
"So," he resumed, "two members of a cop's family get injured because a relatively new car falls apart, you gotta wonder why, especially when that car is serviced by a business belonging to E. T. Griffis."
She nodded, satisfied at last, though not happily so. "Ah."
"You knew about Andy?" he asked.
"Yes. Poor boy."
"Well, I didn't. Barrows just told me. When did it happen?"
"Late this summer. He hanged himself."
"I heard E. T. and Dan took it hard."
She seemed to notice the bowl before her for the first time, gave it a couple of last swirls with the whisk, and set to work on dicing up a piece of ham. She spoke as she worked.
"Dan confronted me in the grocery store afterward."
"What?" Joe leaned forward in his chair.
She put her knife down briefly for emphasis. "I'm only telling you this because I assume you'll hear it from someone else, and I don't want to explain why I kept silent. It's the worst part of living in a small community."
"What happened?" Joe demanded.
"Essentially nothing. He just came up to me in the grocery store when I was there buying a few things-Leo had gone across the street-and he let me know he was unhappy with the way things had turned out."
Joe let out an angry laugh. "Oh, right. I bet that's the way he phrased it. Come on, Mom. What did he say?"
She was back to cutting up the ham. "It was unpleasant and said in the heat of the moment."
Now he was the one merely staring in silence.
She let it drag on for almost a minute before finally conceding, "He said we'd be sorry. That we'd pay for it."
Joe rubbed his forehead. "Great. Did you know E. T. handed Steve's Garage over to Dan?"
That stopped her in mid-motion. "No," she allowed.
Joe sat back and thought for a few seconds. "What was the reason given for Andy doing himself in?" he then asked in a calmer voice.
"The most I ever heard was that he was having problems, whatever that means." She looked up from her task and then asked, "What did you arrest him for?"
Joe smiled bitterly and shook his head. "For something I couldn't prove he didn't do."
"He didn't do?" she parroted.
"It was a burglary. The store owner interrupted it and was injured in the process-an older lady. She didn't see who hit her, but she saw a car driving off afterward, tires squealing, and got the registration. It belonged to Andy, and when we went by his place to talk to him, the tools used in the break-in were right there in plain sight and were later matched not only to the marks left on the lock of the place he rifled, but to a blood smear belonging to the woman."
"That sounds pretty strong," his mother suggested.
"On the face of it," he agreed. "My problem was that he'd never done anything like that before and there was nothing in his private life to explain why he would-except for having a loser brother who happened to be facing what his type calls 'the Bitch.'"
Her eyebrows shot up. "I beg your pardon?"
"That's the habitual offender label that can turn a standard sentence into a lifetime in jail. The SA will slap it on you if he's had enough of giving you second chances, and I happen to know that Dan was nose to nose with it big-time back then. I couldn't prove it, but I always bet Dan was in Brattleboro when all this happened-that he'd done the job and convinced Andy to take the fall because he'd get off light."
"Three years doesn't sound light."
Joe didn't argue with her. "It was an election year, the SA had been accused of being too easy on criminals, the old lady was a charmer, complete with bandaged head, and did I mention that Andy copped to having done it? According to statute, he was looking at fifteen years. I figured-and I swear this is what Dan sold him, too-that he'd get a suspended sentence and probation. But that's not how the SA saw it, and for some reason, the judge let it fly, too. It was pure Russian roulette on Andy's part, with five out of six chances of being lucky."
Joe sighed heavily, remembering his irritation at the unusual outcome. "That's what upset me when you said Dan had confronted you in the grocery store," he added. "If Andy's death does have anything to do with my quote-unquote sending him to jail, then Dan better not look into any mirrors, 'cause he won't like what he sees."