“The death of former mayor Hubert Norris.” I paused to gauge the effect. Appleby was definitely surprised.
“How are the two connected?” he asked.
“Connor was born here in Athena, Mr. Appleby,” Laura said. “He lived here with his parents until he was about five, I think. That would have been in 1984.”
“Call me Ray.” Appleby nodded. “Yeah, I knew Lawton was born here, but I still don’t see the connection.”
“The Lawtons lived next door to the Norris family,” Sean said.
“Okay,” Appleby said. “But what’s the connection?”
I realized then that I had never fully articulated my idea. Mainly because there was a piece still missing, one last, vital link that needed to be uncovered. But what was it? There was something I wasn’t getting. But what?
Then I had it. The kitchen cabinet.
But Appleby and the others were staring at me, waiting for an answer to the question.
“I’ll get to that,” I said. “First, let me ask you some questions, Mr. Appleby.”
“Ray,” he said. “Shoot.”
“Okay, Ray.” I nodded. “You covered Hubert Norris’s death and the investigation into it for the Register.”
“Yeah, it was my first big assignment,” the reporter said. “I’d been with the paper about a year then.”
“Why did the investigation drag on for three months?” I asked. “It sounded pretty straightforward to me. Accidental death of an elderly man in his bathtub.”
“On the surface, that’s exactly what it seemed like.” Ray nodded. “Old man Norris was a pretty heavy drinker, and his wife swore up and down that he liked to soak in the tub and drink.”
“That much was in the paper, more or less.” I said. “Is there more to it, then?”
“I always thought so. Norris had a lot of money, and he was notoriously tightfisted with it. There was a son, a teenager. Yeah, Levi, that’s his name. Anyway, he was always in trouble of some kind. Shoplifting, joyriding, you name it, and the old man was always paying someone off to keep the brat out of jail.” The reporter paused. “A couple of weeks before Norris died, Levi had finally landed in jail. A hit-and-run in which a child was badly injured. Norris refused to post bail, from what I recall.”
“What happened to his money when he died?” Sean asked.
“The wife got it all,” Ray replied. “And not long after the old man died, his wife posted bail for Levi. She must have paid off the family whose child was injured, because it never went to court.”
“This child who was injured,” Laura said slowly. “It wasn’t Connor, was it?”
“No,” Ray said. “I forget the name, but it wasn’t Lawton.”
“Hubert Norris’s death turned out to be pretty convenient for his son, wouldn’t you say?” Stewart regarded Ray with a knowing expression.
“Sure did,” Ray replied. “I believe the police thought so, too. Norris had soaked in the tub, drinking, hundreds of times before, so why did he fall asleep and allegedly drown this time? Too convenient.”
I remembered Connor’s notes and the word bruises. “Was there anything to indicate that it might not have been an accident?”
Ray frowned. “The only thing I can recall is that Norris apparently had a bruise on one ankle. The family couldn’t explain it, and I think the police eventually just had to drop it and let it go as an accident.”
“But you think there was more to it.” I felt certain I was right about that.
“The whole thing was odd,” Ray said. “I spoke to the widow and the daughter a couple of times. I never got the impression that anyone was grieving over the old man’s death. The daughter seemed almost happy, frankly.”
“That’s really sad.” Laura frowned.
“Back to my original question.” Ray tapped his notebook with his pen. “What’s the connection with Lawton?”
All eyes turned to me, and even Diesel—who had been unusually quiet until now—sat up and warbled.
I took a deep breath and hoped what I was about to tell them didn’t sound completely far-fetched.
“It all has to do with a little boy and a kitchen cabinet.”
THIRTY-NINE
As I expected, they all looked puzzled by my statement. Even Diesel meowed.
“Bear with me,” I said. “This is going to take a few minutes to explain. First off, we know that Sarabeth Norris, now Conley, used to babysit Connor. Evidently he would stay with the Norrises when his parents went out of town.”
Ray was scribbling in his notebook.
“In fact,” I continued, “Sarabeth was my babysitter too, although quite a few years earlier.”
Sean and Laura smiled at that.
“Now, jump forward almost thirty years, to a party held not long ago in Sarabeth’s house, the house that belonged to her parents. I was sitting alone in the kitchen, not feeling much inclined to rejoin the party. I was over in the corner, out of sight, when Connor came in to get something to drink.”
“I sort of abandoned you, didn’t I?” Laura frowned. “Sorry about that, Dad.”
“I was fine.” I smiled. “Anyway, there I sat, drinking my wine, when Connor came in and got himself a beer. He leaned against the counter and lit a cigarette. While he drank and smoked, he was staring at something in the kitchen. Then he went over and squatted in front of a cabinet in the wall and opened the door. He looked inside, and then he said, ‘Not so nuts after all.’”
“What a strange thing to say.” Stewart scratched Dante’s back, and the poodle whimpered with pleasure. “What the heck did it mean, though?”
“That cabinet obviously held some kind of memory for him. In his notes he even wrote the word cabinet. All kind of strange, but then when you add to it another odd remark he made to Laura, it starts to make more sense.” I paused to let Laura speak.
She looked puzzled for a moment, and then I could see that she figured out what I was talking about. “Yes, he said something about a fat woman. That she ‘may think she can shut me in like she used to, but I’m too big now.’ Do you think he was talking about someone who shut him up inside a cabinet?”
I nodded. “I think he was. I think Sarabeth might have put him inside that cabinet, probably to punish him. I imagine he was a pretty rambunctious child.”
“He was also a little claustrophobic,” Laura said. “Maybe that’s why.”
“That’s all interesting speculation,” Ray said. “But how does that connect with Norris’s death?”
Stewart snorted. “Come on, Ray, don’t be so dense. Remember the old saying, ‘Little pitchers have big ears’?” He shook his head. “They probably locked the kid in the cabinet and forgot he was there. No telling what he might have heard.”
“There was a child in the play,” Laura said. “A child named Connie. I thought Connie was a girl.”
“But Connie could be a nickname for Connor,” Sean said. “He could have called himself that, or something close to it. I remember I had trouble with Laura when I was small.” He smiled at his sister. “I called you Lah-wuh until I was five or six.”
“What’s this about the play?” Ray looked puzzled, and I couldn’t really blame him. He didn’t have all the details that we did.
I hastened to explain. “There are scenes in the play that are reminiscent of what happened in the Norris family. In fact, the family in the play is named Ferris. Not that different from Norris.”
“So you think the play Lawton was writing was based on his childhood memories?” Ray scribbled some more in his notebook. “Fascinating.”
“Repressed memory, isn’t that what it’s called?” Stewart asked.
“Yes,” I said. “According to Laura, Connor didn’t remember much about his life in Athena until he came back here. Then, slowly, memories started to surface.”