But couldn’t Lennie just have walked away from Mike’s scheme? Maybe. But he didn’t. Instead he decided to play a macabre practical joke of his own.
“So the victim—” Mike said haltingly. “The man in the trunk—”
“Clyde Wrighthouse,” the detective said. “The owner of the Wrighthouse Junk and Salvage Yard. Your son Kevin is being held at the county jail on suspicion of murder.”
Mike O’Shea stared first at the lieutenant, then at the sergeant.
“You’ve got it wrong,” he said, fighting to control his voice. “I’m the one responsible for this. Not Kevin. It was my idea.”
Sergeant Mitchell, sensing a domestic tragedy of some kind, stopped him. “Maybe you’d better call your lawyer, Mr. O’Shea.”
Mike sagged into the swivel chair behind his desk. He could see a bleak future opening up before him. He felt himself trapped in his own scheme. He didn’t dare finger the real villains, Lennie the Loon and Just Plain Ed. It would be too dangerous to the other O’Sheas. He couldn’t, wouldn’t expose his family to the possible wrath of the mob. He would have to take the fall himself.
What did Marty Robbins say in that old country song? — “One window, four walls, and a door that won’t open.” That was what Mike foresaw. No more shining vista of purple mountains, green farms, and the winding silver river. Well, he consoled himself, he would have time to watch a lot of movies.
Sergeant Mitchell repeated her advice. Mike O’Shea, not responding, kept his head lowered. Finally, he looked up with composed determination. “Tell Ted — Number Four Son — the restaurant is his. Tell him to buy the Ayrshire Dairy Farm from the Wrighthouse estate.”
Sergeant Mitchell, puzzled, studied some notes she had made on a yellow legal pad. “I have a question, Mr. O’Shea. Is it Ted you want us to tell? Or is it Sean? Sean is your fourth son, I believe. He lives in Tulsa.”
Mike waved impatiently. “Ted. Tell Ted. He’s at Cornell.”
The sergeant moved around the desk and, in a most undetectivelike gesture, laid a comforting hand on Mike’s shoulder. “You seem to have some explaining to do. You may be able to save yourself trouble by getting some legal advice. You really should.”
“No,” Mike said sadly. “It’s all over. Gone with the wind. I’ll never be able to look down on that valley in the same way again. Even after the junkyard is cleared, I’ll have an image of it burned in my mind. Not to mention the memory of Clyde Wrighthouse. No. It’s history. What’s important now is to get Kevin out of jail. I can’t abandon one of my nine kids.” He thought for a moment. “Or is it ten?”
Sergeant Alissa Mitchell’s expression took on the pitying look of understanding perfected over the years by actress Angela Lansbury.
Mike looked up at Detective Mitchell with a resigned half-smile.
“I know you think I’m being foolish, Alissa. Well, I’ve been foolish all my life. I’m not likely to change now. As for what happens to me from now on—” His reflective musings tailed off, and he finished in a world-weary voice that was a fair imitation of Clark Gable’s: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Recipe Secrets
by Joan Richter
©1998 by Joan Richter
Though she took a ten-year break from short story writing while she went “rocketing around the world” on a job for American Express in the 1980s, Joan Richter made a splash comeback in 1995 with a story that ranked in the top ten in the Mystery Writers of America’s Golden Anniversary Short Story Contest. She is best at characterization, hut her new story for EQMM shows that she also knows how to deliver a surprise.
After the real-estate agent left, Larry stood in the front doorway of the house where he and Evelyn had lived for most of their marriage and contemplated the quiet tree-lined street. His glance drifted from house to house, each on an oversized lot, beautifully landscaped, typical of suburban Philadelphia.
“I’m not sure I even want to sell,” he told the woman when she first arrived. “It’s only a possibility.”
An accommodating smile had multiplied the wrinkles of her grandmotherly face, framed in wisps of gray hair. “I understand. Big decisions need to be taken in stages. It’s hard to leave a house you’ve lived in for so long.”
“Twenty-one years,” he said with something of a sigh and hoped it didn’t reach her like a pitch for sympathy.
She appeared not to notice. “This is a marvelous house and a lovely neighborhood. When you decide, you’ll have no trouble selling. Could we start with the kitchen? For me that’s the heart of a house.”
He’d wondered if it had been that for Evelyn. No question it had been important to her, but the heart? He led the way and then stood aside as Mrs. Brody took in the last of his wife’s redesigns. His reward was the woman’s small gasp as her gaze traveled over black and white cabinets, marble counters, the broad sweeping length of a center island. Her eyes widened when she entered the breakfast room, where floor-to-ceiling windows gave view to a terraced garden, banked with specimen evergreens and flowers that changed with each season. It was June. Mounds of white peonies alternated with clumps of salmon-colored poppies.
“It’s magnificent,” she said.
Larry nodded, thinking. So were the earlier kitchens, and the other gardens. Evelyn had never been satisfied.
“The Wilsons told me your wife was a professional. I can see how important this space was to her.”
It was Madge Wilson who had given him Mrs. Brody’s name. “She’s not pushy, and you can learn a lot from her,” Madge had said and so he had given the woman a call.
“Phil and I play golf together. Evelyn and Madge were best friends.”
“I understand your wife was a food and flower stylist. I’m not sure I know what that is.”
“I’m not the best to explain it. Evelyn was a terrific cook and liked to fiddle with flowers. At some point she turned a hobby into a profession. She prepared food and flowers for magazine ads and TV commercials. She did things like paint a roast turkey with shellac to keep it looking shiny and crisp. Madge can tell you more.”
They toured the rest of the two-story house at an efficient pace, and in less than an hour were seated in the living room going over a few details. “Have you thought where you might move?” Mrs. Brody asked.
“Something much smaller. Maybe one of the townhouses on the golf course. But I need more time. I don’t know where to begin with all of this.” He waved an arm, embracing the sprawling house and its contents.
“An inventory of each room will help. Decide what you can’t part with, and then what you hate.” She gave a sharp little laugh. “I won’t bore you with how I know about that, except that my late husband collected birdcages. I got rid of every last one.”
Larry felt himself grinning, not at what a house full of bird cages must have been like, but the prospective fate of the big painting in Evelyn’s study, by that long-haired artist who called himself Aztek.
“When you’re ready,” Mrs. Brody went on, “I can recommend people who run estate sales. You give them a list of what stays and what goes. They find buyers for the bigger things. The rest they tag and sell. You don’t even have to be around; in fact, it’s better if you’re not.”
At the front door, she smiled. “It helps to start by throwing things out. The kitchen is a good place to get the feel for that — stale cereals and cookies, all those baking ingredients your wife kept on hand...”