It seemed to me that a sizable teak tree had been sacrificed to construct the handsome cabin and provide the exterior trim on Sea Song, but I didn’t mention it. “And after that?”
Bill straightened the canned soup display. “After that I worked as a computer programmer for the army down at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, but I quit about a year ago, so I could write full-time.”
“Oh? What are you writing, Bill?”
“A novel.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“I figured I wasn’t getting any younger. I’m almost finished with the first draft.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s a suspense thriller. Like, John Grisham meets Stephen King.”
“What happens? A lawyer goes berserk and starts eating his clients?”
Bill didn’t laugh and looked so serious that I was almost sorry I teased him. “Oh, no! All this guy’s family starts disappearing without a trace, so naturally the police are suspicious, and so he hires this lawyer to defend him. It’s called Vanished.”
How could I tell him that Fletcher Knebel had beaten him to that title twenty-some years ago? “Sounds promising,” I lied. I didn’t think Vanished would find its way onto my towering bedside pile of to-be-reads anytime soon.
“Thanks.” He resumed sweeping.
I couldn’t resist. “Danny DeVito in the lead and Harrison Ford as the lawyer.”
“I wish,” Bill mumbled.
I looked over the shelf he had indicated, where a limited selection of pain relievers was flanked by laundry powders and dish soap on the one side and notebook paper and Magic Markers on the other. I ticked them off: “Bayer, Advil, Tylenol. What I really need, Bill, is some good drugs.”
Behind me the sound of sweeping stopped abruptly. I turned to smile at him. “Just kidding. I think!”
I had selected a bottle of Motrin and pulled a bottle of iced tea out of the cooler to take it with when Ellie suddenly appeared from the direction of the kitchen. “Poor you! Hal was in earlier and told me about the accident. How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad. It walks. It talks. I think I’ll live.” I opened the bottle of Motrin-damn thing was sealed up like Fort Knox-pulled out the cotton wadding, and tipped two tablets into my palm. I swallowed them with the tea. “Ugh!”
“Excuse me for butting in, Hannah, but I think you should see a doctor.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Look, Dr. Chase’s office opens in just ten minutes. It’s only a few doors down. He probably won’t charge you more than twenty-five dollars or so.”
“It’s not the money I’m worried about. I just don’t want to waste his time.” I rotated my shoulder to demonstrate how nearly cured I was, then winced and sucked air in through my teeth as a hot arrow of pain shot down my arm. Ellie gave me an I-told-you-so look.
“Your argument is persuasive.” I pushed the tablets toward her on the counter and saluted with my half-empty drink bottle. “I’ll just get these, then, and head on over to the good doctor’s.”
Ellie patted my hand and yelled toward the kitchen. “Angie! I need you out here!” She turned back to me. “Sorry. I’ve got the UPS guy coming in five minutes. Angie’ll take care of you. Gotta run.” She disappeared in back.
Almost immediately Angie appeared, wearing a chef’s apron over a pink V-neck T-shirt and a faded denim skirt. Tennis socks the same hot pink as her shirt peeked out over the tops of her tennis shoes. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Ives.” She raised a hinged section of the counter and squeezed through the narrow opening.
“Please call me Hannah. Between you and Bill here, this Mrs. Ives business is making me feel ancient.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
While Angie tapped the amount of my purchase into the cash register, I tried to figure out exactly what I was going to say. “Angie, could I talk to you for a minute? In private?”
She had bent over to search for a paper bag. Her head popped halfway up over the counter so I could see only small dark eyes and luxurious eyebrows with a deepening furrow in between. “I guess so. Why?”
“I just wanted to ask you a question.” Angie straightened and was staring at me now. “A question about Katie.”
She accepted my money, made a long job of counting out my change, then closed the cash drawer with a firm shove with the palm of her hand. From the body language, I expected her to clam up, tell me to mind my own business. Instead, she leaned back against her stool. “You know, after Katie disappeared, a lot of years went by before one day I stopped to realize that I had actually gone through a whole day without thinking about her even once. But now, now I just can’t stop thinking about her!”
I was aware of Bill busily sweeping next to the nearby rack of candy bars, practically breathing down my neck. “I know that, Angie, and I’m really sorry.” I waited until Bill moved around to the other side of the shelves before asking. “Can we go out on the porch?”
“I guess so. Mom!” Ellie’s head appeared from behind the UPS counter. “I’m stepping outside with Hannah. Be back in a minute. Do you mind?”
Ellie, a piece of packing tape clamped firmly between her teeth, simply waved a limp hand.
I followed Angie’s broad, swaying hips as she pulled open the screen door and passed through. I caught the door with my hand so that it didn’t slam shut behind me. Angie pulled a paper towel from the pocket of her apron and used it to wipe the dust off a slatted wooden chair, then eased her ample bottom into it as the chair loudly complained. I sat on the end of a wooden bench and faced her.
“Angie, when we talked yesterday at the funeral, you claimed you barely knew Chip. But I saw you afterward, walking down High Street with him and the other basketball players.”
“Oh, that. That wasn’t anything. They were just going my way.”
I knew that Angie and her mother lived behind the store, the opposite direction from where Chip and the Wildcats had been headed, so I tried to remember what else was out on the road toward the high school. The fire station for sure. The Royal Farms store. But nothing had been on fire, and she’d certainly had plenty to eat and drink at the reception. The library then? Angie didn’t seem the type to pass her days in the stacks. While I thought, Angie sat fidgeting with the paper towel, twisting it into a corkscrew and weaving the results around the fingers of her left hand. “Angie, I’m not going to beat around the bush here. When I saw you with Chip, it looked very much like you two were having an argument.”
Angie shrugged and glanced away. “It wasn’t an argument, Hannah.”
“You could have fooled me. You were shouting so loudly I could hear your voice all the way from here.” Angie stared at the bank across the street where a short queue was waiting to use the ATM. A teardrop materialized in the corner of her eye, and I suddenly felt sorry for her. I touched Angie’s hand where it lay, restless on her knee. “Tell me what you and Chip were arguing about, Angie.”
She pressed her full lips firmly together and shook her head, like a stubborn and unhappy child. Two big tears coursed down her pale cheeks. “Angie,” I said. She turned her head to look at me then, her face a mask of misery.
“I promised Katie I wouldn’t tell. Ever.”
“But Katie’s dead, Angie. Surely the secret can’t matter now.”
“It matters to me.” Her body sagged. “At first I thought she’d just run away and that she’d come back. Even after all these years with no word, I thought she’d come back. I expected her to walk into the store with that funny, lopsided smile of hers and say, ‘Hey, Ange. Guess who?’ But now she’s dead, and it’s all Chip’s fault.” Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.
“But the police talked to Chip, Angie. Don’t you think they’d have arrested him by now if they thought he had anything to do with Katie’s death?”