“It’s OK,” he said. “Have a look.”
I used my fingertips to slide the cards around the tabletop. I must have had a question mark on my face because Younger suddenly said, “We found them in a pigeonhole in her desk, tied in a bundle with white string.”
Each plastic sleeve held a greeting card, open and flat. The illustrations and writing on the face of each card seemed tame enough, but if you flipped the sleeve over, you could read the ugly sentiment inside.
When it comes to describing you,
One word says it all…
Bitch!
Emily leaned toward me, reading the card over my shoulder. “Well, she wasn’t a very nice woman.” She smiled at the officer, then picked up another card and read aloud,
Consider this a personal invitation…
Go fuck yourself!
“Emily!”
“I didn’t use the F word, Mother, the card did.” She flapped it at me.
I tried to look serious. “Daddy mentioned that somebody was sending Darlene poison-pen mail. This must be some of it.”
The jeweled ring in Emily’s eyebrow shot up. “You don’t think Darlene was murdered, do you?”
I looked into the officer’s intelligent eyes and said, “Somebody did try to poison her dog.”
Emily gasped. “Speedo?”
I nodded. “Daddy told me about it.”
Paul was examining a postcard of Arlington Cemetery on which someone had scrawled, “Wish you were here.” He laid down the card and stared at the officer. “What’s going to happen to Speedo?”
“One of the neighbors showed up. Virginia Prentice? She volunteered to keep the dog until Mrs. Tinsley’s kids decide what to do with him.”
That was good news. I fell back into my chair and prayed that he’d run out of questions and head back to the police station soon. Fat chance.
“Mrs. Ives, do you have any idea, any idea at all, where your father is?”
I shook my head. “Maybe he went home?”
“Nobody’s seen him in Annapolis.”
I spread my hands, palms up, and shrugged.
“Places he hangs out?”
I shook my head.
“We do need to talk to him.”
“Captain, if I knew where he was, I’d certainly tell you.” I met his gaze squarely. “We want to find him just as badly as you do. I’m worried about him.” I explained about Mother’s recent death and Daddy’s even more recent engagement to Darlene. “If she died in her bath and Daddy found her body…” I paused and took a deep breath. “… There’s no telling what he might have done.”
Paul reached for my hand, squeezed it, and didn’t let go. “How can we help you find him, Captain Younger?”
As Paul told Younger about Daddy’s accident on the Bay Bridge and described the rental car, I watched a range of emotions play across the officer’s face. I could see the wheels turning, almost hear Younger thinking, This must be the unluckiest guy alive.
But my radar was down. That wasn’t what he was thinking at all. “Where would your father have been at approximately one-fifteen last night, Mrs. Ives?”
“I don’t know. We left the party around ten.” A wave of nausea and dread washed over me. “Why? Is that when she died?”
“We don’t know when she died; that’ll be determined by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner over in Baltimore.”
“Then why do you ask?”
“We had a hit-and-run last night. Somebody ran down an elderly gentleman out near the intersection of routes two-thirteen and three-oh-five.”
I gasped, my head swimming. If I hadn’t been holding Paul’s hand, I might have keeled over. “My father?” I croaked.
He shook his head. “No. He was a local waterman, on his way home from a late-night card game.”
“Was? Do you mean he’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so.”
A nightmare scenario flashed through my head. Daddy, drunk as usual, discovers Darlene dead and drives off in a haze of alcohol and grief. An old man, crossing the road, frozen in the glare of oncoming headlights. A cry. A sickening thud. I opened my mouth to proclaim Daddy’s innocence when Paul squeezed my hand again, hard. “Perhaps if you talked to the other guests. My wife and I didn’t know many of them, but…” Paul looked at me. “What was that strange lady’s name, honey?”
“LouElla,” I said. “LouElla Van Schuyler.”
“Yes,” Paul continued. “Check with LouElla. She appears to know everybody.”
Captain Younger smiled cryptically. “And everybody in town knows LouElla.” He gathered up the plastic-covered greeting cards, tucked them into a folder, and stood to go. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll put out a broadcast. We’ll find him.”
I received this promise with mixed feelings. With Paul’s arm around me, I watched Captain Younger climb into his cruiser, ease it out of park, and merge his vehicle smoothly into the traffic moving north along High Street.
“Look at this!” Emily’s voice was muffled.
When I turned, Emily was kneeling on the dark carpet next to Chloe’s high chair. She struggled to her feet holding one of the greeting cards by the edges between both hands. “It must have slipped out of its sleeve.”
Emily dropped the card onto the tablecloth.
Do me a favor… (Paul read before opening the card with the tip of a knife)
Eat shit and die!
“Well, what do you know,” said Emily. “Maybe she did.”
10
By Monday morning I’d organized the Ives family troops. I remained in Chestertown, moving into a smaller room on the second floor of the hotel. I instructed Paul and Emily to drive to Annapolis at a horn-provoking crawl while scanning the highway on both sides for skid marks, tire tracks in the grass, or breaks in the guardrail. Ruth agreed to hold down the fort at Daddy’s house on Greenbury Point. And although it seemed crazy, I even notified the couple who had bought my parents’ old place in Seattle to be on the lookout for him.
Daddy hadn’t been seen since midnight on Saturday.
He hadn’t telephoned.
He hadn’t e-mailed from some anonymous cyber-café.
Even if Darlene’s death had sent Daddy off on a drunken binge, I couldn’t believe that he would fail to get in touch. I knew that something must have happened to prevent him from contacting us, and I feared the worst.
I spent the morning zigzagging through the streets and alleyways of Chestertown-down High, along Water, up Canon to Cross, back to High and up to Spring-searching for my father’s rental car, checking behind hedges, and peering into ditches. In the parking lot behind the Old Wharf Inn I spotted a dark blue Taurus with Maryland plates parked behind a boat hauled up on carpet-padded jack stands. With my heart banging against my rib cage, I combed the waterfront all the way to the bridge, praying I wouldn’t catch sight of anything floating in the Chester River wearing Daddy’s familiar blue sweater and gray wool pants. But I saw nothing except a wayward crab pot float, and when I returned to the parking lot, a grizzled fellow carrying a paint can was just climbing into the Taurus.
Around noon, I found myself opposite the police station, an L-shaped brick building with two police cars parked at an angle out front. Hoping that there might be some news, I went inside.
A Coke machine nearly filled the waiting room. On the wall to my left were two armless chairs and a potted plant, flanked on one side by the Maryland state flag and a Lions Club gumball machine and on the other by a water cooler. I stepped up to the window on my right, leaned my arms against the counter, and waited, studying the various notices and framed certificates that hung on the wall.