"You have kids?"
"Uh, no, but I gave up cigarettes." Not even this was true. It was one of the few vices Tess had skipped along the way.
"Then you can't know how weird it is. Killing yourself, I mean, when you've got three kids. He loved our girls. He would have killed anyone who hurt them, but now he's hurt them more than anybody else could. I wish I could ask him why."
"Where did you two meet?"
"In Atlantic City. Tooch-Paul Tucci, his best friend-introduced us. Tucci's the one who really likes to gamble, not Wink. But I was a blackjack dealer, so he played blackjack. Won a date with me on a bet. We got married six months later. We would have gotten married even sooner, but-"
"But?"
"But we didn't," she said flatly.
"When was the last time you talked to him?"
"Friday, in the afternoon. He called me at my mom's house in Jersey. Whenever I went away, he called me every day. He was devoted to me."
Yes, a devoted husband, checking in by phone when he wasn't making passes at other women.
"When did you hear about what was in the paper on Sunday?"
"Not until Sunday night, after I got back. I don't know why Wink killed himself over it. That guy who died-I mean, so he had a bad heart. He could have died if some kid jumped out of a closet and said ‘Boo.' It wasn't Wink's fault."
Tess picked her words carefully as possible. "According to the account in the paper, Wink stood over the guy and pistol-whipped him, then bragged about it."
"That's not true. Wink couldn't have done something like that. He's-he was-a pussycat. A sweetie. Anyone who ever knew him loved him."
She stood up and walked over to a large pine armoire, which Tess knew would store the requisite electronic toys. Sure enough, the doors opened to reveal a large TV, stereo, VCR, laser disc player, and two shelves of videotapes. Lea reached behind the videos on the lowest shelf and pulled out a slim book bound in bright blue. Tess read the white lettering on the spine: The Happy Wanderer.
"This is Wink's yearbook from junior high. Before he…went away," Lea said. "He never knew I had it. I found it in his stuff, and I liked to look at it sometimes. Sometimes I wish we were the same age, that we had started going together in sixth grade and been together forever. I would have been good for him."
She handed Tess the book, and its well-worn spine opened automatically to a photograph of Wink, taken with the basketball team. He had been even scrawnier then, but his hair had been close-cropped, so you couldn't tell how curly it was. What an unfashionable hairdo, among the bushy locks and sideburns of the early '70s. Most of the boys looked like they were werewolves, caught in mid-transformation.
"And look here," Lea said, leaning over Tess and turning to the frontspiece. "Look at the things the kids wrote, boys and girls. They all loved him." She traced her fingers over the faded ink. "Right back here and out of sight/I sign my name just for spite." "Make no friends/But keep the old/One is silver/but the other's gold. You're golden, Wink. RGJH 4-ever." "That means Rock Glen Junior High forever." "Love, Lynette." Someone else, presumably a boy, had signed nearby, "Silver and gold. Gag me. Ray-ray."
Tess started to flip through the rest of the pages. Lea tried to snatch the book away from her. But Lea was timid, scared of damaging the precious memento. Curiosity sparking, Tess held it out of arm's length and scanned the pages. It took only a moment to find what Lea didn't want her to see: a classmate's photo had been crossed out with an emphatic black X, the legend "Cunt" written beneath it. Despite these additions, the name was still legible.
"Linda Stolley," Tess read out loud. "If I remember the Beacon-Light's first story, she was Wink's first wife. I guess the divorce wasn't too amicable, if he had to go back and deface her junior high school yearbook picture."
Lea looked scared, but she didn't back down. "She was a…well, I don't like to say that word, but it's what she was. Wink left her years ago, but he never got divorced from her officially. So when he decided to marry me and finally wanted to get a divorce, she held him up for a fortune. Her alimony cost more than the mortgage on this place, but it was the one bill Wink never skipped, I can tell you. Oh no, Miss Linda always had to be paid first no matter what."
"You make it sound as if he had a habit of paying other bills late." Unwittingly, Lea was confirming the Blight's story, line by line. The violence, the rage against his ex-wife, the financial problems.
"I'm not-" Lea snatched the book back. "I wanted to show you how loved Wink was. I thought you were on our side."
Tess had forgotten her role. "Look, I've upset you. That was the last thing I wanted to do. Please, wear your bracelet in good health. And if you do have to sell anything, call Jules Weinstein first. I'll make sure he does the appraisal for free. It's the least I can do."
Lea looked at her skeptically. "Was that the whole reason you came over here, to get dibs on my jewelry? Maybe you made up the whole story about this gold bracelet. Maybe you've never even met Wink."
"I met him. I talked to him just last Friday." At least this was the truth.
"What did he say?"
"He said you were very good to him, that you had a good marriage." And this was sort of true.
Lea might have pressed her for more details, but a key was turning in the lock. Tess assumed it would be her mother and the children, but there was only one person, someone with a heavy, irregular tread. A tanned man in a navy windbreaker came into the room. It took Tess a second to place the familiar face in an unfamiliar place. Paul Tucci. Tooch.
"Oh, Tooch!" Lea said. "Wait until you hear, this woman is from Weinstein's Jewelers, where Wink bought me the most beautiful bracelet last week." She held up her arm so he could inspect it.
"Weinstein Jewelers? That a fact?" Tucci stared at Tess, who hoped he would not be able to match her to the sweat-slick cyclist from Durban 's. Certainly Wink's conquests and would-be conquests must blend together over the three decades he and Wink had known each other. "When did you say Wink stopped by?"
"I didn't, but it was recently. Just last week."
Tucci looked at Lea's face. You couldn't call it happy, but it was slightly more animated than the dull, flat countenance that had greeted Tess. Lea was looking at the bracelet, as pleased as a child. Over her head, Tess shot Tucci a pleading look. Yes, I did something really shitty, but don't take this away from her. Let her believe her husband did something nice for her before he died.
"Nice work," he said. "Very classy. Maybe I'll stop by Weinstein's, pick up something for my mama's birthday."
"Call first. I'll personally help you."
"Oh, I'm counting on that," Tucci assured Tess.
Chapter 15
Tess was just pulling out of the Cotswolds when she caught the latest traffic report on the radio. "An accident on the inner loop of the Beltway has traffic there backed up all the way from Providence to Security," announced a cheerful man who happened to be hovering above it all in a helicopter. "Better find an alternate route unless you have a lot of time to kill."
This day was just getting worse and worse. Sighing, Tess snapped off the radio and resigned herself to making her way home along secondary streets. But her mind was still back at the Wynkowskis'. Would Tucci tell Lea who she really was? How dear a friend did someone have to be to warrant his own house key?
Preoccupied, she didn't notice she was on Route 40, not even a mile from her parents' house, almost as if her car had a homing device. Perhaps the Toyota was looking out for her best interests: surprise visits were worth big, big points in her family. And her mother had sounded a little plaintive at the hospital. A drive-by schmoozing, if handled properly, might erase all Tess's other demerits.