That sounded very much like forgiveness. I gave myself permission to hope.
Alex continued, "So I thought to myself, if that's the case, she probably did kill him, and she's going to need a good lawyer, so I went ahead and called Ralph."
"You called Ralph Ames?"
"Who else? I hope you're not mad at me. He was the first lawyer I thought of, and I know he's good. And I happened to know where to reach him after hours."
"Oh, he's good all right," I agreed. "What did he say?"
"He said he'd be here tomorrow for the wedding, and we could talk about it then. If he can't handle it himself, I'm sure he'll recommend someone. He says he'll fly into Medford first thing. He'll be here around nine."
It was a done deal. Further comment seemed unnecessary.
"And he said for you not to worry about Karen and Dave. That's all handled. They're meeting Scott and should be getting into Medford shortly after Ralph does. They'll rent their own car. They should be here by noon."
The first of the other playgoers' cars turned into the driveway. In the sudden wash of headlights, Alex leaned over and kissed me on the side of my neck.
"What do you think?" she asked. "Is that okay? I worried I was overstepping the bounds."
"You didn't overstep anything," I answered. "And I think it's more than okay. I think it's great."
And right that minute, so was I.
CHAPTER 8
I 'm not one to spend time worrying about the future. When some people learn they're about to become parents, they peer down a long time tunnel and see everything from front teeth falling out to learner's permits, from Tee-ball games to high school graduations.
My mother always told me that living in the future was borrowing trouble, and I believed her. Consequently, I never gave much thought to my daughter's wedding day; never imagined how it might be with Kelly garbed all in white, in a church festooned with flowers, and all that. Karen had, so the way it turned out was a whole lot harder on her than it was on me.
It didn't start out all that badly. Ralph breezed into town and stopped at the Oak Hill Bed-and-Breakfast at five after ten the next morning. He dragged a loaded suitcase into the living room and set it down.
"What's that?" I asked.
"I wasn't sure you packed any suitable father-of-the-bride attire," he said. "I brought some along just in case."
As a matter of fact, once I knew Dave Livingston and Karen would be in attendance, I had been concerned about clothes. For one thing, Dave Livingston is a natty dresser-he had turned up in Wickenburg, Arizona, wearing a three-piece suit, for God's sake. I was sure he would show me up. Alex had taken me to task, telling me it was Kelly's day, and it wasn't a competition, but it had bugged me all the same.
By the time I woke up that morning and thought about calling Ralph to have him bring along some other clothes, it was too late. He was already on his way. But that's the kind of guy Ralph is-the kind of friend. He had figured it out and acted on his own without needing any coaching from me.
After I carted the suitcase up to Alex's and my room, we took Ralph, some mugs, and an extra pot of coffee and adjourned to the lawn chairs on Oak Hill's secluded backyard deck.
"So tell me about this friend of Kelly's who's in so much hot water," Ralph said. "You all must have had an exceptionally busy time of it down here."
And so we told him. Ralph Ames listened patiently while Alex and I took turns recounting the various pieces of Tanya's story-telling him about Martin Shore's death and about the pornographic-film connection between Shore and the Festival's rising young actress. We told him about the Henckels slicer that had disappeared from a Festival prop table only to show up later as a murder weapon. We did a joint rendition of what we could remember of Tanya Dunseth's background, repeating as close to verbatim as possible what Kelly and Jeremy had told us. We were just in the process of recounting her economic rescue by Marjorie Connors when Florence, the retired schoolteacher/owner of Oak Hill B amp; B, came rushing out onto the deck.
By then Florence had been informed of the father/daughter connection between her part-time maid, Kelly Beaumont, and me. Florence seemed somewhat flustered.
"Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beaumont," she said, "but someone named Karen is at the front door. She wants to speak to you. She looks a lot like your daughter. Could it be Kelly's mother?"
It certainly could. Nodding and prepared for some unpleasantness, I got up and headed inside. As I walked past, Alex reached out and gave my leg an encouraging pat. "Want me to go along?" she asked.
"No, I'm a big boy. I think I can manage." All the same, I wasn't looking forward to the coming encounter.
I found Dave Livingston and Karen seated on the now-sunny porch swing where I'd discovered Alex concealed in shadows the night before. Karen is an attractive woman-always has been. She seemed to have lost weight since I last saw her, and that was fine. She had regained some of her girlish figure, but her face looked haggard. Her eyes were red and puffy, as though she'd spent most of the previous night crying. The skin on her cheeks seemed drawn too thin over her jawline, and dark smudges encircled her eyes. Standing next to her, Dave Livingston didn't look so hot, either. They were both worn-out.
I glanced around, searching for my son, Scott. I caught sight of him-rangy, well-built, and full grown-still out in the driveway, lounging casually against a rented Lincoln Town Car with his hands shoved deep in his pants pockets. He nodded in my direction, but he made no move toward the porch. Smart boy, I thought. It was wise to stay out of range until it became clear whether or not pyroclastic blasts would be the order of the day.
Before I stepped out the door, I pasted what was supposed to be a sincerely welcoming grin on my face, although I probably succeeded only in looking idiotic. "Hello, Karen," I said.
Secretly, I hoped she'd be impressed by the fact that I'd beaten the odds and stayed sober far longer than she or anyone else had expected. If she cared or even noticed, she didn't say.
Dave got up and ambled over to shake my hand. For some reason, he seemed genuinely happy to see me. Karen didn't. She sat in the swing staring up at my face.
"Hello yourself," she said woodenly.
It's sad to realize how people change; hard to believe that a man and woman who once meant the world to one another can drift apart completely until they're reduced to being virtual strangers; all but impossible to acknowledge that they can evolve so far from what they once were-lovers, sharing their innermost thoughts, dreams, and secrets-to alien beings with less than nothing to say to each other.
"Great day for a wedding, don't you think?" I asked, wanting to lighten things up and hoping no one would notice the sudden catch in my throat. Instant tears brimmed in Karen's eyes just as they had in Kelly's when we'd exchanged words on the farmhouse steps at Live Oak Farm two days earlier. Like mother, like daughter, I thought. I've always been a sucker for tears.
"I wanted her to have a perfect wedding," Karen choked. "I never wanted it to be like…like this!"
Dave hurried back to Karen's side. He sat down next to her and placed a comforting hand on her knee. "It'll be all right, Karen. You'll see."
"Well," I said awkwardly, "I'm glad you came."
Karen swallowed hard. "I didn't want to," she retorted with some of her customary bite. "And I wouldn't have, either, if Dave hadn't insisted. He said if we didn't make the effort now, we might lose Kelly for good."
Dave glanced up at me in a frank but silent appeal for help. His look touched me. For the first time, I realized that having spent years living with the same woman, the two of us had something in common, a bond. So do veterans of foreign wars.