Roma’s small, gray house was at the far end of Mayville, out past the marina. She smiled when she opened the door and she seemed more relaxed.
“You talked to Eddie,” I said.
Her cheeks got pink and she nodded.
Roma’s mother and her father—I couldn’t think of Neil as anything else—were in the living room.
Neil Carver, even in his seventies, was the type of man who always commanded attention, imposing without being intimidating, if that made sense. His hair was on the longish side, white and waving back from a high forehead and the proverbial steely gaze. His beard was mostly white as well, and closely cropped. And he had a beautiful voice, not surprising since he’d had a long and successful career as a TV journalist.
Neil got to his feet and we shook hands. “Hello, Kathleen,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you too, Neil,” I said.
I turned to Pearl. She had the same warm smile as her daughter but other than that they looked nothing alike. Pearl was tiny and wore her hair short, very similar to Maggie’s, with the same kind of beautiful, natural curl. She was soft-spoken and serious and on the two previous times I’d met her I’d gotten the impression that she thought carefully about every word before she spoke.
“Hello, Pearl,” I said, meeting her smile with one of my own.
“Kathleen,” she said. “I’m so glad you could join us.” She tipped her head—Roma often used the same gesture—and studied my scraped forehead. “I hope that feels better than it looks.”
“It does. Thank you,” I said.
We talked about everything but Wisteria Hill and Thomas Karlsson over supper. Roma had made a chicken and rice dish and salad with lettuce and tomatoes from her kitchen window garden. Everything was delicious.
We moved into the living room for dessert. Roma sat on the edge of a brown leather tub chair and I took the matching seat beside her. I’d seen that look of determination on her face before and I knew the conversation was about to get a lot more personal.
“I know it can’t be easy,” she began. “But we need to talk about my father.” Her gaze went to Neil. “Thomas,” she added.
“You can ask me anything,” Pearl said. Neil’s hand slid over hers but he didn’t say anything.
Roma swallowed hard and I wanted badly to do something to make it easier for her. “Did you lie to me about him? About Thomas?” she asked her mother.
“Yes,” Pearl said, nodding almost imperceptibly.
“Was there…” Roma cleared her throat. “Was there anyone who would have wanted to kill him?”
“Yes,” Pearl said again.
Roma’s eyes never left her mother’s face. “Who?”
“Pretty much anyone who knew him,” Pearl said.
19
The words hung in the air like a fine haze of smoke from a cigar. Pearl edged forward on the sofa. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I shouldn’t have put it so bluntly. It’s just that Tom made a lot of enemies.”
“What do you mean?” Roma asked. There was no emotion in her voice, but I could see her left hand, against her leg, clenched into a tight, knotted fist.
“For a while Tom worked for Idris Blackthorne.”
“Ruby’s grandfather.”
“Idris Blackthorne was the town bootlegger,” Pearl said. “Tom delivered and drove for him. There was some kind of dispute about money.” She shook her head slowly. “Idris wasn’t the kind of man to take kindly to being cheated.”
“Who else?” Roma asked.
“He had some kind of fight—not just words, punches—with old Albert Coyne. Albert had been cutting pulp up beyond Wild Rose Bluff for years. A couple of days later someone put bleach in the engines of every one of his vehicles.”
“Tom,” Roma said.
“No one could prove anything, you understand,” Pearl said. “But it was the kind of thing he’d do.”
Neil picked up his wife’s cup and handed it to her. Then he looked at Roma. “Are you sure you want to hear all this?”
She smiled. It just didn’t quite make it to her eyes. “I do, Dad.”
He nodded and didn’t say anything else but I could see the pain this was causing him in the tight line of his jaw and the rigid set of his shoulders.
Pearl took a sip from her coffee and set it down again. Roma had picked up her own cup. She toyed with it, shot me a sideways glance and then, finally, looked at her mother again. “Do you have any idea why Tom might have ended up buried out at Wisteria Hill?” she asked.
Pearl rubbed the back of her narrow, gold wedding ring with her thumb. “I’ve been thinking about that since you called,” she said. “The only thing I can tell you is that Tom was a day laborer at Ingstrom’s for a little while. I don’t think they were working at Wisteria Hill. I think they were out at the old boat club, but I don’t remember for sure. And then Tom did something, or got in an argument with someone and they let him go. So he wasn’t working when he disappeared.”
She looked away for a moment. “I mean, when he died,” she added softly.
Roma stared at the floor, her lips pressed tightly together. Finally she lifted her head. “Why…why did you accept that he’d just run off so easily? Weren’t you suspicious, even a little bit?”
Pearl took a breath and let it out. She was still fingering her wedding ring. “I probably should have been,” she said. “But Tom was the kind of person who didn’t deal with things head on. He passed the blame or he did something sneaky, underhanded.” Roma was about to say something but Pearl lifted a hand to stop her. “It wasn’t all his fault, either. I want you to know that.”
Neil still had his hand over hers. She gave it a squeeze. “I told you that Tom played baseball,” she said.
Roma nodded. “They were state champions his senior year.”
“That’s right,” Pearl said. “Your…Tom was good. Very, very good. And in those days baseball and hockey were a big deal around here. He’d started playing when he was about six. By the time he was twelve he was a summer league star. There’s no doubt it went to his head.”
“The high school team had never even been to the regional championships,” Neil said. “Let alone state. Tom could belt a pitch into the parking lot.”
“As long as he was hitting, no one cared about how he was behaving or whether he passed algebra,” Pearl added.
“So if he was that good, why wasn’t he playing professional baseball?” Roma asked. She took another drink of her coffee.
“He was invited to spring training by the Milwaukee Braves,” Pearl said. She looked at Neil beside her on the sofa. He smiled, but like Roma’s smile it didn’t go all the way to his eyes. “He only lasted a week and a half.”
“He had the ability,” Neil said with a shrug. “There’s no doubt about that. He just didn’t have the discipline to play pro ball.”
Roma propped an elbow on the arm of the leather chair and leaned the side of her head against her hand. “Why did you marry him?” she asked. “Was it because of me?”
Pearl looked at me. “Kathleen, Neil and I are in the spare bedroom. There’s a small box on the bed, tied with silver ribbon. Would you get it for me please?”
“Of course,” I said. I stood up, gave Roma what I hoped was an encouraging smile, and went down the hall to the room she used as a guest bedroom.
The box looked like an old stationery box, the kind that a set of pretty sheets of writing paper and matching envelopes had come in. It was tied with a wide silver ribbon, more to keep the lid on and the battered box together, than for decoration. I took it back to Pearl.
“Thank you Kathleen,” she said. I sat back down and she untied the satin bow and lifted the top of the box. She took out two documents and handed them to Roma. One was Roma’s birth certificate. The other was Tom and Pearl’s marriage license.