“Hello, darling,” said his mother, who never used his name. Had she chosen Bentley and then regretted it? “It’s so busy here!” she cried joyfully. “We’re getting ready to leave, and we’re packing like mad. Won’t you rethink your plans and come?”
“Really, Mom, I can’t. I’m working. Now listen, I need Aunt Clemmie’s actual address.” What do I think I’m going do with it? he asked himself. I can’t give it to Borobasq. I can’t go down there myself. There’s no point. I don’t know how to demand stolen goods from neighbors.
“Oh, darling, she never gives that out. I’ve always thought that your aunt Clementine was in the CIA or else witness protection, because she uses only post office boxes and we are not allowed to visit her; she always visits us.”
“I thought she was a Latin teacher.”
“It’s a cover. Nobody studies Latin anymore. But she’s retired now and lives in Sun City and plays dominoes. Do you know, darling, Harp isn’t coming to my wedding either? I’m a little hurt.”
“Harp can’t afford it,” said Bentley. “It’s your own fault for going so far away.”
“Arch has his heart set on it.”
“I thought his name was Morgan.”
“Yes, but he loves McDonald’s and his whole career was with McDonald’s and he used to be called Arches, as in Golden, but I shortened it to Arch. He loves that. It makes him laugh. You know, if I have one skill, it’s making people laugh.”
“Yes, but Mom, if you had to get in touch with Aunt Clemmie, how would you do it?”
“Phone her, for heaven’s sake. I was being silly when I said the CIA. She really was a Latin teacher. I think she might still be, actually. She used to correct millions of papers when she visited, and do you know what, darling? Even though I think she’s retired, I somehow feel she’s still correcting papers, which means she isn’t retired. Could she be subbing? Would a sane person in her seventies agree to be a substitute teacher? Or even a sane person in her twenties? I have to run, darling. I’m sorry I can’t help. We’re such a tiny family. And we’re not as close as we should be. It breaks my heart,” she said cheerfully. “Kisses!”
* * *
Cards ran about two and a half hours, and of course there was after-game chat, and rounding up sweaters (the clubhouse was drafty), and saying hello to people in the parking lot (which was blazing hot, so now the sweaters had to come off), and then Joyce had to stop on the way home at the grocery for a quart of milk, and when Clemmie was finally home alone, she was tired in that exasperating age-seventy-plus way. She wanted to put her feet up, read a chapter in her mystery, and play Words with Friends.
What she should do was deal with the tree dragon situation, but that seemed impossible, so she read her emails.
Clemmie’s mother had loved correspondence, an endeavor in life now completely vanished. When Mama died, Clemmie’s sister-in-law, Jeannie, took over writing the weekly letter, letters being the obligation of the women, not the men; Clemmie’s brother, Pete, would never have dreamed of writing to his sister. Jeannie wrote mainly about their darling daughter, Peggy, but always enclosed clippings from the local newspaper. High school teams: their triumphs and failures. Church news. Obituaries. Engagements and weddings. There were many of these, because back then, everybody got married, except Clemmie.
Over the years, two new topics had crept into the news: crime and scandal. For a few years, Jeannie was shocked, but eventually she enjoyed crime and scandal as much as anybody else. Then Jeannie became a real estate agent and turned letter writing over to Peggy, who by now was out of college and married.
In those days, you loved mail, and if you were to receive mail, you had to send it, so you kept a good stock of fine writing paper: thank-you notes, card sets, condolence notes, and a supply of high-quality blank paper, perhaps with one engraved initial or a tiny Greek key design along the top edge. When email was invented, Peggy was on board in a minute. It was so much easier, and no stamp to buy. Clemmie was a teacher, and since school systems moved so quickly to digital communication, Clemmie was the first of Peggy’s letter recipients also to go to email.
Clemmie, Peggy had written today, Costa Rica! Remember? Are you coming? Book the flight, forward the bill, we’ll cover it. I want you there. What’s a wedding without my only aunt?
I love you, Peggy, she thought. I’m willing to go to as many weddings as you’re willing to have. But why does it have to be Costa Rica? It’ll be even hotter there than it is here. My wig will feel awful. You’ve never seen me without a wig.
Peggy had appended a YouTube video, a name on Facebook, and a link to a newspaper article.
Clemmie almost never opened the YouTube nonsense, nor did she recognize the Facebook name. But Peggy not only cited the newspaper article, she added Dad was always upset by this, meaning Clemmie’s brother, Pete, who had died long ago. Clemmie clicked on the link.
COLD CASE REOPENED, said the header. LONG AGO MURDER OF HIGH SCHOOL COACH TO BE EXAMINED.
Clemmie gasped.
The murdered man had been Pete’s high-school basketball coach.
She had known all the players and all the places. She was fairly sure she knew all the secrets. No one would connect her. No one would question her or even remember her. But the police would not expect to learn anything five decades later by questioning people. Cold cases were solved by DNA and fingerprints.
Her fingerprints.
Which were now on the doors and knobs at Dom’s and the Coglands’. Where police would shortly be summoned to reunite a rig with its owner.
Four
When Clemmie thought of high school, she tried to remember only her wonderful freshman year, full of friends and the excitement of being so grown up, so pretty and popular. She was very small and very curvy, and because of her tight, dark curls and the dark-red lipstick that was popular then, someone gave her the nickname Betty Boop. Betty Boop—although Clemmie’s innocence was so complete that she did not analyze this—was a sexualized cartoon character, with well-defined breasts, a sassy protruding rear end, long legs below a short skirt, and a tiny ready-to-kiss mouth.
Clemmie didn’t wear short skirts; nobody in the ’50s even owned a short skirt—even the cheerleaders didn’t have short skirts. A young lady didn’t expose her thighs in high school; she kept her ankles close and her knees together. If she did cross her knees, she carefully rearranged her skirt. No girl wore shorts or pants to school. Even on the coldest winter days, a girl’s legs were protected only by ankle socks or stockings secured on a garter belt.
But gym required uniforms: ill-fitting leaf-green, one-piece shorts and short-sleeved top, with silly, pointless pockets and a cute little belt. Most girls looked ridiculous, but Clemmie looked delightful.