“True, that,” she confirmed. “But if we’d left it up to the power company, we’d still be stuck up there. Captain Polito strong-armed him a dozen young recruits with chain saws to clear the private drive. Lousy duty, but those boys got it done.”
Yolie had a few more questions for Mitch while he steered the truck up Route 156. Also a bit of news-she’d spoken to Martha Burgess, who had told her something very interesting. And then, before he knew it, Mitch was right back at the front gate to Astrid’s Castle. As he started his way up the steep, twisting drive, he was hit by this powerful, awful feeling that someone had just hit the rewind button and the whole movie was going to start all over again from the beginning. This time in slo-mo.
Truly, it was a comfort to see so many state police cars and crime scene vans clustered there by the drawbridge when he pulled up.
“This here’s a crazy one,” Yolie said as she hopped out, her braids glistening in the sunlight. “There’s nobody left to charge with anything. Nobody who did anything is still with us. Everybody’s dead.”
“Except for us,” Mitch said quietly.
“You tell my baby girl to take care, hear?”
“Will do,” Mitch promised, flooring it the hell out of there. He could not get away from Astrid’s Castle fast enough.
He stopped off at Des’s house to pick up a few things for her. Round little Bella Tillis was in the kitchen heating up some of her homemade mushroom-barley soup.
“Good, you can take this to her for me,” she huffed at Mitch when he came in the door. “I’ll go see her later on this afternoon.”
“Sure, that sounds fine.”
“Would you mind telling me why you’re wearing a turban?”
“That’s how they dress head wounds. The nurse said I can take it off tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’ll just bet she did,” Bella snapped, slamming her way around the kitchen like an angry bumper car. “Make sure Desiree eats this while it’s still hot,” she ordered him as she poured the steaming soup into a heavy-duty thermos bottle.
“I’ll sure try. But I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“No, she’s stubborn, all right. But I don’t have to tell you about stubborn, do I?”
“Bella, do we have a problem I don’t know about?”
“You tell me,” she fired back, standing there with her hands parked on her hips. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” he said, fingering his bandage. “Just a little headachy.”
“No, I mean how are you feeling-as if you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. I…” Actually, Mitch was starting to feel a bit dizzy again. “What do you mean?
“If you break that poor girl’s heart, she won’t be the only one walking around town with a broken arm, that’s what,” Bella answered, stabbing Mitch in the chest with her stubby index finger. “You’ll still have to deal with me, Mr. Hotshot New York Film Critic. And I will never forgive you. Now do we understand each other?”
“No, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tie that bull outside, as we used to say on Nostrand Avenue.”
“Bella, I have never understood what that expression means.”
“It means, be afraid,” she growled at him. “Be very afraid.”
“Trust me, I am,” he assured her, backing his way slowly out of the kitchen.
When he arrived at the hospital he found the patient sitting up in bed engrossed by an old rerun of The Loveboat on television.
“Okay, this must be all of the painkillers they’re giving you,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
“Shush!” Des ordered him, her eyes glued to the set. “She’s not really in love with the captain after all. She was just trying to make her ex-husband jealous.”
“Des, you are sitting here watching Bert Convy and Florence Henderson exchange witty repartee,” he pointed out, flicking off the television.
“Hey…!” She protested.
“Why don’t you try this instead?” he said, presenting her with the envelope of crime scene photographs that Yolie had delivered, along with the sketch pad and graphite sticks that he’d brought from her house.
“Um, okay, you may have noticed my right arm isn’t exactly functioning.”
“Your life drawing teacher told you he actually preferred your left-handed stuff. He thought it felt less restrained.”
“Mitch, do you remember every single word I tell you?”
“Elephants and Jewish men never forget. Girlfriend, you’ve been through a lot. This is how you deal. So you may as well start dealing. It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do for the next day or two.”
“Actually, I’ve been lying here thinking about what Ada told me,” she confessed. “How I shouldn’t be taking any more classes. Kind of scary.”
“Why scary?”
“Because taking classes is what I’m about right now. That’s why I’m doing this resident-trooper thing instead of humping to get back on Major Crimes. If I’m not learning to be an artist, then what am I doing?”
“Being an artist.”
Her eyes widened with fear. “Doughboy, you just sent a cold chill right up and down my spine.”
“Nah, that’s just your backless hospital gown-your booty’s waving in the breeze. Des, I agree with Ada. You’re ready to take the next step. You can handle this.”
“Sure about that, are you?” she asked him warily.
“I have no doubts. None.”
“So what’s in the thermos?”
“Mushroom-barley soup, courtesy of your roommate.”
“Yum, let me at it.”
He poured some of it into a Styrofoam cup for her and set it on her tray table, along with a spoon.
She sampled it eagerly, smacking her lips. “That Jewish mother can make soup.”
“Yolie had herself a conversation with Martha Burgess,” Mitch announced, flopping down in the chair next to the bed. “Martha cried her poor eyes out about Les. But here comes the weird part-she told Yolie she’d broken it off with him several weeks ago. Decided to give her marriage another chance.”
“So she wasn’t planning to leave Bob for Les?”
“Apparently not. Which got me to wondering,” Mitch said. “What if Les was actually planning to marry Jory after all?”
“Could be he was,” Des answered wearily. “There’s no telling what he promised Jory, or she promised him. We only have her version, and that girl and the truth were not exactly tight.” She set her spoon aside and slumped back against her pillows. She’d barely touched the soup. Her appetite wasn’t back yet.
“Are you going to finish that?” he asked her, gazing hungrily at the nearly full cup.
“Knock yourself out.”
He was not disappointed. Bella’s soup was hearty and flavorful. “We’ll never know the whole truth, will we?” he asked, slurping up every last drop.
“We never do,” she said. “Not about anyone or anything. The best we can ever do is guess. My guess? Les and Jory were each conning the other. On top of which she was conning Jase.”
“At least Les and Jory ended up paying for it. They got punished for what they did to Norma, not to mention Jase.”
Des looked at him curiously. “Jase was in on it, Mitch. He murdered three people in cold blood-and put me in this bed.”
“All true. But I still have to cut him some slack. He was trusting and vulnerable and Jory took full advantage of him. Believe me, I’m genuinely repulsed by the intimate details of their relationship. But Jory’s love was the only anchor Jase had. She threatened to take it away from him. That was more than he could handle, and Jory knew it. I put this all on her. She was greedy. She was ruthless. And, considering how easily Les duped her into killing Norma, she was also incredibly stupid.”
“She believed in the dream. Not that I’m defending the sick bitch. I’m just saying it, is all.”
“Which dream is that?”
“The one where we all live happily ever after. She deserved to be happy. That’s what she told me.”
“She deserved to die a horrible death,” Mitch argued vehemently. He was still profoundly shaken by Jase’s taking of his own life in that rail barn. He’d felt Jase’s anguish in those final few moments before Jase pulled the trigger. Gazed right into his eyes as Jase chose death over life. And Mitch could not stop thinking about it. He kept feeling as if something truly momentous had happened to him in Choo-Choo Cholly’s house.