“Where does Darryl live?” I asked Virginia.
She held the door wide until Speedo, with me close behind, had both entered the house. “Up near Glen Burnie, I think.”
Virginia’s kitchen radiated sunshine. To my left, a pleasant breakfast nook, painted yellow, was built into an alcove under a window. Frilly country curtains printed with concentric, multicolored rings like the Olympic flag were tied back with wide red grosgrain ribbon. Piled on the painted tabletop were a number of magazines and mail-order catalogs. To my right was a serious stove with two overhead ovens and six gas burners. “Are you a gourmet chef, Virginia?”
“Not a bit of it.” She pulled the back door closed behind her. “Another thing I inherited from the previous owners.” She indicated the breakfast nook. “Have a seat, won’t you?”
I moved aside a pair of scissors, a pad of lime green Post-it notes, two plastic mailers from L.L. Bean, a flat, square carton from Harry and David, and a Jiffy bag from Amazon.com. Virginia lifted a stainless steel kettle from the stove, strolled to the double sink, and filled it from the tap. She set it on a front burner and twisted the knob, adjusting the flame from boil to incinerate. While she rummaged in the dishwasher for some clean cups, I browsed through the catalogs spread out before me. In addition to L.L. Bean, there was Ross Simon, TravelSmith, Signals, J. Jill, Orvis, White Flower Farms, Boston Museum of Art, and, hanging out in an awfully good neighborhood, a Sears Roebuck catalog.
“Christmas shopping?” I asked.
Virginia smiled a sad smile. “A bit. Mostly I just enjoy looking at them.”
I picked up the catalog from White Flower Farms where spring bulbs of every variety were offered for sale. “I thought you said you weren’t a gardener?”
“I’m not.” She crossed the black-and-white checkerboard linoleum, took the catalog from my hand, and riffled through it. “My husband was.”
Something about the way she said was made me look up.
She put the catalog down and looked at me directly. “Harry died five years ago.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She stood before me, her fingers neatly laced together. “It was sudden and rather horrible, but I’m pretty much over the shock of it now.”
“Did you and Harry have any children?”
Her face took on a look of such infinite sadness that I wanted to snatch back my words. Her eyes, her face, her hands-everything about her body grew still.
“I had a daughter,” she said. “But she died, too.”
To my relief, the teakettle screamed, rescuing me. Virginia hurried over to the stove where she bustled about preparing the tea. She lowered a tea bag into each cup, then looked up. “Earl Grey OK?”
“Perfect!”
“Milk?”
“No, just tea. I’m a purist.”
“I am, too. That’s why I use bone china. Real bone china.”
She set a cup in front of me and I sipped at it gratefully. In a moment, a plate of Pepperidge Farm cookies appeared at my elbow. I stuffed one in my mouth. Milanos worked better than a foot anytime.
“How long have you known Darlene?” I mumbled, my mouth still full.
“Since I moved here from Tiverton.” She looked thoughtful. “About two years.”
“Tiverton?”
“Rhode Island.”
The only thing I knew about Tiverton was that it was near Bristol, Rhode Island, where they build boats. I’d visited Bristol with Connie when she’d been shopping for a sailboat, not long before she’d bought Sea Song. On the other hand, everything was close to everything else in Rhode Island.
Virginia settled onto the bench opposite me. Silence grew in the space between us until it loomed so large I felt I had to break it. “How long did you stay at the party last night?”
Virginia must have known where I was going with that question because she set her cup down, smiled at me sympathetically, and said, “Your father was still there when I left at eleven.”
“Who else was still there?” I wanted to know.
She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That Darryl person.”
“I gather you don’t like him.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” She laughed, then her face grew serious. “In the short time I’ve known him, I’ve grown to like your father a lot, Hannah. But that Darryl I never liked. Never liked him at all.”
I thought about the untidy hair. The insolent attitude. The belligerent scowl. “He is a little hard to warm up to,” I admitted.
“And he’s a sponge. Always borrowing his mother’s car, loafing around her house…” Virginia’s cup clattered against its saucer. “He’ll never pay your father back.”
“Pay my father back for what?”
“George has been lending Darryl money.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw them at the ATM at Commerce Bank. Your father took out a wad of money and handed it over to Darryl.”
“Maybe Daddy was sending Darryl to buy him something?”
Virginia puffed air out through her lips. “If you believe that, I’ve got a gen-u-ine Rolex watch for twenty-nine dollars that might interest you.” She leaned toward me across the table. “They’re freeloaders, those Donovans, the whole lot of ’em.”
Whether Darlene was or wasn’t a freeloader hardly mattered now. “Deirdre, too?” I wondered aloud.
“Ice would not melt in that girl’s mouth.”
We sat in companionable silence for a while, drinking tea. Clearly Virginia had no use for the Donovan clan. I wondered why. Was she in love with my father? They were about the same age, Daddy and the widowed Virginia, and with her bone-white hair, porcelain skin, and sea-green eyes, she was certainly attractive in a much less flamboyant way than her late neighbor. Could she have cared enough about Daddy to eliminate her rival?
Virginia’s eyes flitted to the back door, her lips parted, and she gasped. “Oh, no! Can’t I have a moment’s peace?”
After two brisk taps, the door was pushed open by a broad hand with familiar purple fingernails, followed almost immediately by LouElla’s cherubic face. Her ebony hair was braided and twisted into a luxurious nest on top of her head. A robin could have set up housekeeping in it. “Virginia?”
Virginia rose and headed toward the door. “Oh, hi, LouElla. Won’t you…”
But LouElla had already pushed her way into the kitchen, crossed to the stove, and stooped over to pat Speedo on the head. From a cord around her neck a straw hat hung down her back. I realized who the gardener behind the picket fence must have been. Confirming my suspicions LouElla said, “I was working in my garden when I saw you walk by.”
“I was looking for my father when I ran into Virginia,” I said.
It wasn’t until I spoke that LouElla seemed to notice me. In her crepe-soled gardening shoes, she squeaked over to the table and waved a hand indicating I should scoot over. She plopped down next to me on the bench. “Terrible what happened last night. Terrible! Terrible!” She patted my hand. “Don’t worry about your father, my dear. I’m sure he’ll turn up hale and hearty!”
I wished I could believe that. I felt drained, increasingly discouraged by my inability to help my father at a time when he needed me the most. “I’m really worried,” I said. “I’ve searched for him all morning. I’ve been everywhere. There’s no sign of him or his car. It’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth!”
LouElla turned her pleasant face to mine, her eyebrows neatly arched as if painted on with a stencil. “Even if aliens got him, sweetheart, they’ll beam him back unharmed.” She patted my hand again reassuringly, then closed her eyes momentarily. She smiled a closed-lip smile then turned to me again. “I was abducted by aliens once. In Vermont.” She sighed, as if the memory were a pleasant one. “Don’t believe everything you hear, my dear. It didn’t hurt one little bit.”