Silva paused. “Likely. Everyone’s home today because of the storm. Schools let out at noon. I’m going to close up here at two o’clock. Tell you what. Those boys probably wouldn’t talk with their moms and dads hovering over them. But they’re kids. They like to eat. The pizza place in town is staying open until four o’clock. I just sold my last sandbags to the guy who owns it. Let me call their moms and tell them you’re here for Gussie’s wedding. You’re a college professor, right?”
Maggie nodded.
“I’ll tell ’em you’re doing research on the effects of drugs on kids. You’d like to talk to their boys about how they feel about what happened to Tony, and you’ll buy the boys pizza if they meet you at two o’clock. No moms or dads. Just half an hour with you, and the kids get pizza.”
“Bob, that’s a fantastic idea! I love it!”
“I don’t know if it’ll work. But I’ll try. Sean Jacobs and Josh Sewall. Be at the pizza place at two o’clock and we’ll see if they show. Give me your cell number. If both families say ‘no way,’ I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you; thank you so much,” said Maggie, scribbling down her number.
“No one’s asked about Tony in months,” said Bob Silva. “You care. I don’t know why. But you do. If you can find out anything, I want to help. Let’s hope your idea works. If it doesn’t?” He shrugged. “Nothing ventured.” He turned. “I’ll make those calls now.”
Will didn’t look happy when Maggie got back to the car. “I was about ready to come in after you.”
“I got flashlights for us, for tonight,” said Maggie, showing him her purchases.
He picked one up. “Not exactly super-strength, are they?”
“They were the only lights left. A couple of hours before a hurricane you don’t have a lot of choices.”
“Not surprising,” said Will. “And now, back to Six Gables?”
“Yes,” said Maggie. “But I’m going to have to go out for a short time in about half an hour.”
“Where are we going then?” asked Will, his voice very calm. “More sleuthing?”
“Just me this time,” said Maggie. “I’m going to meet with one or two of the boys who played baseball with Tony Silva, the boy who overdosed last spring.”
“You’re what?” said Will. “I thought we were going to have a quiet afternoon. Resting. Spending time together. Saving our strength for the craziness of whatever this evening brings.”
“We will! I promise. You’ll just start your rest a little before I start mine. I won’t be long. The boys are only going to be at the pizza parlor for half an hour. That’s what we’ve promised their parents.”
“Who’s this ‘we’?”
“Bob Silva is calling their parents now, trying to convince them to talk with me.”
“And, let me guess. You’re bribing them with the pizza.”
“They’re teenagers. Of course I am.”
Will didn’t answer. He turned the key in the ignition, and headed the car back to the B&B.
The silence in the car would have been even denser if it hadn’t been for the winds that were picking up and swirling leaves and small branches on the roads and lawns. A few larger branches had already fallen. Will swerved around one that blocked part of the road.
When he pulled into the parking lot at Six Gables he turned to her. “Maggie, I don’t want you to go. The roads are getting worse.”
“I told you, Will. I’ve already made plans. I won’t be gone long. This is important.”
“More important than listening to me? More important than being with the man you love?”
“I love you, Will. You know that.”
“If you love me, why don’t you ever listen to me?”
“I do listen to you.”
“Then why don’t you ever take anything I say seriously? You always do exactly what you want to do, without thinking about how it might affect someone else. About how someone else might worry about you. About how someone else might have a legitimate idea sometime.”
“But I—”
“You get involved in one of these missions of yours to help someone, or to solve some crime, and there’s no stopping you. Sometimes I love you for it, Maggie. But I need you to make time in your life for me, too. I don’t want to spend my life waiting around for you to have an extra minute for me, when no one else needs you.”
He got out of the car, closed the door carefully, and went up the stairs into Six Gables, leaving Maggie alone in the front seat of Aunt Nettie’s car.
Chapter 35
The American Base-Ball Players in England—Match Between The Red Stockings and The Athletics, Prince’s Ground, Brompton.Wood engraving (black and white) full-pageillustration from Harper’s Weekly, September 12, 1874. View of field from behind catcher, where bats have been flung. “Boston” is clearly visible on the shirts of both the player at bat and one player waiting his turn. The Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first all-professional baseball club in 1869. In 1871 a pro club was organized in Boston. It hired away half the players from Cincinnati and called itself the Boston Red Stockings. That club eventually became the Boston Braves. Today’s Boston Red Sox was established in 1901. Early baseball prints are rare. 10.5 x 15.5 inches. $250.
This was not the way Maggie had intended the weekend to go.
She wanted to follow Will into the B&B and explain. He didn’t get it. This was something that had to be done, and no one else was doing it.
Damn. It wasn’t as though no one else could do it. She wasn’t that egotistical. But no one else was. And there was a chance. Maybe a small chance. But still a chance, that she could help figure out who’d killed one, or two, or maybe even three people.
She refused to throw that chance away. Not even for Will.
She stalked over to her own van. After all, the hurricane wasn’t here yet. She wouldn’t be in any danger. She was only going to talk to a couple of high school kids. And she’d be back in, what? Thirty minutes. Forty-five minutes, tops.
She’d spend the rest of the weekend with Will.
If he couldn’t cope with that, then no wonder he didn’t want to be a father. He’d never be able to share her attention with a child. It was a good thing she’d found that out now.
She was pulling into the pizza parlor before she’d finished talking to herself. Only a few cars were there. Most people in Winslow were spending their afternoons at home, not ordering pizza.
A tall man came out of the restaurant carrying three pizza boxes, put them in the back seat of his car, and drove off.
Except for those who planned to nosh on pizza while waiting out the storm.
Almost two o’clock. Bob Silva hadn’t called. That should mean Sean and Josh were coming. Good for Bob; he must have been convincing. She’d been afraid the boys’ parents wouldn’t want them to come.
A man and a woman were standing at the restaurant counter, waiting for orders. Only one table was filled: a mother and pre-teen daughter starting on a veggie pizza. The girl was carefully picking the mushrooms and onions off her piece. The mom watched her for a minute, and then took the discarded vegetables and put them on her own slice. Neither of them spoke.
Would she be that way with her daughter? Had those two argued? Or were they so comfortable with each other they didn’t need to speak? Were they waiting for someone to join them? That large pizza looked like a lot for only two of them.
The restaurant door behind her opened.
“Are you Dr. Summer?” The young men who came in were both taller than Maggie; the taller of the two had an acne problem he’d tried unsuccessfully to cover with medication. The other had a tattoo of an anchor on his forearm. “The college lady?”
“I am. You’re Sean and Josh?”
They nodded. Josh was the taller one.
“What would you like on your pizza?”
They agreed on an extra-large pepperoni, meatball, and sausage pizza and large Cokes. And a large bag of barbecue-flavored Cape Cod potato chips to hold them until the pizza was ready. Maggie ordered two bags of the chips. She’d take one bag back as a peace offering for Will. For privacy, they sat at a table as far from either the cook or the mother and daughter as possible.