Malice Times Page 12

  “What happened to all of your grand dreams of becoming the next great director? Of becoming the next Steven Spielberg?”

  “Dreams often fade away under the weight of reality. You weren’t the only good thing I abandoned when I left Malice Grove. I didn’t hate everything about this place, you know. I did miss you a lot. I missed Marie and her cooking especially. God, how I miss Marie’s cooking. And I missed Brad. What happened when Brad and Celia Archer disappeared last year? All anyone will say is that they ran off together.”

  “Is it really true that you have to stay until you solve your brother’s murder or you lose The Malice Times?” she asked obviously evading my question.

  “News travels fast in Malice Grove. I had almost forgotten.”

  “You must feel very confident that you are going to find out who killed him.”

  “I generally am,” I said.

  “Doesn’t it occur to you that the life expectancy for someone trying to dig up that kind of information isn’t very long in this town?”

  “It does. Brad and Celia?”

  “That was nicely done, the way you worked your way to that question. So, I’m just another informant now?” She wasn’t mad, just curious.

  “No. I just don’t know what to make of it. It seems pretty clear to me that they have to be dead, but the newspaper stories around that time were pretty vague and everyone wants me to just drop it.”

  “You’re certain they’re dead?” she asked.

  “It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

  “That would be one of those things that I would file under dangerous to stick your nose into, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not you, too,” I said.

  “Isn’t it bad enough you’re digging into Michael’s murder? Do you have to undercover what happened to Brad and Celia? If you want to investigate every suspicious disappearance or death in this town, you’ll have everyone trying to kill you. Just be careful. Brad was a dangerous man. I know you loved him, but Brad wasn’t that guy. He’d slit your throat as soon as look at you if you got in his way. To answer your question, I don’t know much about it. Why don’t you ask your dad? From what I heard, they were both at your father’s Fourth of July party. Stephen Archer was there, too. That was the last anyone remembers seeing him or Celia Archer.”

  “I hear Stephen Archer and your father are friendly now.”

  “I like to take credit for that myself. Stephen’s daughter is my best friend after all.”

  “How did Archer take it when Celia disappeared?” I asked.

  “He was inconsolable. It ruined their relationship.”

  “Wait. What? I didn’t know Archer had a daughter.”

  “No one did. He kept it pretty quiet. It happened before he met Celia.”

  “Regina is Archer’s daughter,” I said. I knew she was hiding something from me. And I thought I was just being paranoid.

  “You are a good detective.”

  I sat there for a moment trying to digest that. Regina hadn’t exactly lied to me, but she had hidden the fact. So far, I had Watkins girlfriend working for me, Archer’s daughter and had just fired Dempsey’s girlfriend.

  “Tell me about Lynda Cranston,” I said.

  “Please, I’ll lose my appetite.”

  “How long have they been seeing each other?”

  “Too long. About ten months. She came rolling into town and swept dad right up off his feet. I don’t blame him really. He’s been awful lonely recently. I know you don’t take her very seriously, but dad does. Regina says your dismissal of her was pretty over the top. She won’t stand for that. She wants that paper and she’ll do anything to get it. I expect my father will be around to see you soon to see if he can work something out.”

  “Everyone wants that damn paper. Did you know that Lynda and my brother were having an affair?”

  “Of course, I did. My best friend was sitting right outside of his office.”

  “Did you tell your dad?” I asked.

  “Of course I did. He told me to mind my own damn business. You know she came to Malice Grove with Tom Watkins?”

  I stared at her blankly. I tried to wrap my head around that little nugget and didn’t know what to do with it.

  She smiled at me. "So there is something you don't know?"

  "Honey, I don't know anything. I just got back."

  "They came here from New York together. And not just as friends or lovers. They’re married. Sill are as far as I know.”

  Tom Watkins and Lynda Cranston were married. They came to Malice Grove. Lynda and Tom break off their marriage. Lynda takes up with Robert Dempsey. Tom Watkins starts dating Dulcy Baxter.

  “Is your father serious about her?” I asked.

  “As serious as my dad can be about anyone. There will never be anyone for dad except mom.”

  I knew that Mrs. Dempsey had died of cancer. It was one of the rare moments where the Marchellos and Dempseys met in harmony. I remember thinking all sorts of terrible things about Rae as a young child going to school together. She had her circle of friends and I had mine. But something strange happened out of that tragedy, we became friends the day of her mother’s funeral. We were only ten. We kept our friendship a secret. I look back at that time and laugh when I think that all we were doing was being friends. But hiding it from everyone, sneaking into her house to hang out. Even for a ten-year-old, that is pretty romantic. I never knew her mother, but she needed someone to talk to and her father was just not available to her. We talked. We played games. As the years grew on, we fell in love. We used to argue about who fell in love with who first.

  I changed the subject. “Your dad seems kind of checked out.”

  “He’s done. He just doesn’t have the stomach for it anymore. You ever have that happen to you where you are just done and you can’t do it anymore? That’s where dad is, I think. He has worked hard his whole life and now he is just ready to move on and enjoy himself.”

  “So is he getting out?”

  “He’d like to. It isn’t really that simple. You can’t just up and leave. I suppose he could, but there would be consequences and dad doesn’t want to leave a big mess for anyone else to clean up.”

  “Who is he selling his properties to?”

  “He won’t say. Smart money is on Bruce Drake.”

  “Bruce Drake, huh? How would you like to take a walk with me down to The Diamond Schooner?”

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  “I apparently have a reservation there.”

  We looked out the window down Main Street where the pier reached out into the lake where Drake’s big nightclub boat sat. I paid the bill and looked for Joshua. I couldn’t locate him. We walked out into the cool night air. I held out my arm and Rae took it.

  20

  We walked across the street to the beach. The waves lapped gently against the shoreline. A half-moon reflected off the relatively calm water. We walked arms interlocked up the beach towards the pier.

  "Do you remember the first time I told you I loved you?" I asked.

  “Just because you said it first, doesn’t mean you felt it first.”

  I laughed. "Same old argument. It holds as much water today as it did then. You were playing basketball. I was up in the stands. I was just watching you move. I was sitting by myself, because I was always by myself. I was sixteen-years-old. We had been friends for six years and no one knew and then it hit me. I was in love with you. I couldn’t stop myself. I stood up and started walking down the bleachers.”

  "I remember," she said. "It was the middle of practice. Our first game was that Friday. And I look up and here comes you all gangly down those steps. You looked like you were in a trance, just staring at me. I stopped in the middle of the court. Someone tried to pass me the ball. The ball whizzed by my ear and bounced off of the wall behind me. I remember Carol Grady shouting at me to get the ball.”

  "I try to forget she was there,” I said. “It was rather awful that she had to witness
it. I mean I was dating her at the time.”

  "Carol Grady was a slut."

  "I don't argue that at all," I said and laughed.

  “I bet you don’t.”

  “I wonder whatever became of Carol.”

  “Oh, she went to school, met someone, got married. He became an attorney and is running for senator.”

  “Good for Carol,” I said. “I remember everyone on the court just standing there watching you watch me. I leapt off the last two steps trying to be cool and managed to land on my feet instead of tumbling onto my face.”

  “Coach was saying, ‘What are you doing, Joe? This is practice.’ I know that you want to forget Carol Grady was there, but she turned to you and smiled. She started to walk towards you. She thought you were walking towards her. That somehow this was going be a moment she would always remember. It would be. You walked right past her. I knew you would. Your eyes were on me. They had this sad longing look in them.”

  “I walked up to you.” I said. “There was no one else in the gym at that moment. If there had been, there is no way I could have done it. Everyone else just faded away. I grabbed you around your neck.”

  “And looked down into my eyes.”

  “And I kissed you.”

  “You kissed me and I melted. And you’re right, there was no one else in the gym. Everyone had just faded away. It was just me and you in an embrace.”

  “I pulled my lips off of yours and let my forehead rest on yours and I said, ‘I love you.’”

  “And I said, ‘I love you, too. I always have.’ And you said, ‘I have always loved you, but I didn’t realize it until just now.’ And then you got hit in the head with a basketball.”

  “It hurt like hell,” I said. “My eyes got all watered up.”

  “You hit the floor. I looked up and saw Carol Grady storming out of the gym with three of her friends on the basketball team. We didn’t win a game that year. But it was worth it.”

  We had walked the length of the beach and up the pier. I was still in love with Rae Dempsey. I couldn’t help myself. Not being around her had just made it easier to lock away, but being there walking down that pier with the wind swirling around us undid that lock and threw it to the bottom of the lake. I stopped her there right before the entrance to The Diamond Schooner. I looked into her eyes and she started up at me. I kissed her. It was like stepping back in time, like skipping a stone across a pond. I pulled away from her. There were tears in her eyes. One released and started down her cheek. I didn’t say anything at that moment and neither did she. The blue neon of the sign shown down on her face giving the tear an almost ethereal quality.

  On both sides of the gangplank were small statues in gold in the shape of seagulls on top of wooden pedestals. Their necks craned, beaks pointing up the gangplank. I took her hand and walked up the gangplank. The structure was like something out of a movie. It was at least three hundred feet long, probably longer, with three decks and a below decks area. The first deck where the gangplank landed you on was a large dining area. There was an inside dining area and then at the bow of the ship was an outdoor dining area. The second floor was where the gambling tables existed. The third floor had a jazz band and a large dance floor. The sounds of trumpets and saxophones drifted down as if from Heaven.

  A man stood behind a podium at the top of the gangplank. I walked up to him and handed him the card that Joshua had given me. He looked down at the card and pocketed it. “Please, follow me, sir.” He walked me towards a table at the bow of the ship by the side of the boat looking out across the vast lake. We sat down. The menus were sitting on the table. It was a very brief menu. My mouth watered reading each of the six options.

  The host walked away from our table as a small man in his mid-thirties wearing a dark blue suit with a light gray shirt and a pink tie walked to our table. The small man had hard green eyes. The smile he wore didn’t match. His black curly hair didn’t move in the breeze from the lake. He nodded at Rae. “Ms. Dempsey.”

  “Mr. Drake,” she said.

  “So you’re the infamous Bruce Drake,” I said.

  “And you are the man of whom Joshua speaks so highly of. You’ve made quite the impression on the young man.”

  “Nice place you have here. The menu looks extraordinary.”

  “It is extraordinary and almost completely new every night. Everything is delivered fresh every morning for that evening’s menu. If there is anything I can do to make your stay here more enjoyable, please let me know. I’ll send a bottle of champagne to your table. On the house.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Drake,” I said. He walked off.

  After he had left, “I now see why your father is struggling so much now. I’m surprised this floating palace hasn’t put both of our fathers out of business yet.”

  “Your father won’t go down without a fight,” she said. “Mine will.”

  “I suppose he won’t.” The man had been outwardly friendly, but there was menace beneath the façade. I saw him near some steps leading downwards. He was talking to Joshua. Joshua looked over in our direction and then back down to the little man. He stood at least six inches taller. His pony tail swayed in the lake breeze. Drake turned away from Joshua and headed down the steps. “He isn’t what I was expecting.”

  “He puts on a nice show,” Rae said. “Just remember that Joshua works for him and that is all you need to know about Bruce Drake.”

  “I figured he would be older like our fathers.”

  “Our fathers were running this town when they were his age, too.”

  “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  The meal commenced with oysters on the half shell. She ate sea scallops and I devoured the most amazing sea bass I had ever had. I looked out over the lake.

  Rae looked at me. “You’re lost in thought.”

  “I’m sorry.” I turned towards her. “I was just thinking about this place, Malice Grove. How so much has changed since I’ve been away. I’m not sure I like it.”

  “You getting nostalgic for the good old days of Malice Grove.” She laughed. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Bruce Drake bothers me.”

  “And Joshua?”

  “There’s something about Joshua that really bothers me and something about him that makes me very sad. I can’t figure it out. He’s too young for all of this, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose. He just scares me.”

  “Would you like to dance?” I stood and held my hand out. She gave me her hand and I helped her out of her chair. We walked up some steps to the top floor and danced. After dancing for a while Rae looked down at her watch.

  "It's getting late. Do you want to come back to my place for drinks?"

  We walked to her apartment building, the one around the corner from The Malice Times. I didn’t let on that I had been there earlier that day. It was a nice place, exactly the kind of place you’d expect from an interior designer. There were five large rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. She went off into the kitchen and got us some drinks. When she came back she handed me mine and sat down next to me.

  "If you don't mind," she said. "Can I ask a personal question?"

  "Be my guest.”

  “Are you going to go back to work at the security firm?”

  “Whenever I get cleared medically, I suppose.”

  “That doesn’t sound very enthusiastic.”

  “I guess it doesn’t. I don’t really love that kind of work, but I’m good. And shouldn’t you do what you’re really good at?”

  “I suppose. Maybe you should open your own agency. You never were very good at taking orders from others. I want to know all the little details of what you did all those years you were gone. What are your hopes and dreams? You never talked about that kind of thing even way back then, except that you wanted to work in film."

  “Maybe that should have been your first clue that I wasn’t really boyfriend material.”

  “There were a lot of things that should have cl
ued me into that, but I love you, so all of that was invisible to me.”

  I skipped past the I love you and answered her original question. It seemed to be the safest thing to do. "When I left Malice Grove I left my father's money and reputation behind, but you can never be totally self-made. When I took off, I left the money that was going to put me through college. So, there was no school for me. At least, not right away. I had to make a living. I chose the military. When I left, I thought it would make me feel so good and so superior. But that’s not what I felt. All I felt was guilt and shame. Joining the military was my way of claiming myself, to become something more than the sum of the parts that my father had created in me. I would never have joined the military otherwise. That was never something that I needed to do. And trust me, there are two kinds of people that join the military, those who have no other place to go and those who need to do it. I was both.”

  She laughed and moved closer to me.

  "Do you know what I really want?" she asked.

  "I can't possibly imagine."

  "I'm serious." She tilted her head back, wrapped her hand around my neck and pulled my lips down to hers. She kissed me for a second then pulled away. Her eyes bore into me with a thousand unanswered questions. Mist formed at the corner of her eyes. “I missed you.”

  She kissed me again for a longer moment. She released me and stood. I stood as well and felt her hand engulf mine. We kissed again and she dragged me into her bedroom. She unzipped herself and let her clothes fall to the floor in a heap. Her small firm breasts glistened like stardust in the moonlight streaming through the window. Her athletic frame beckoned. I undressed and pushed her back on the bed. Feelings I hadn’t felt, wouldn’t allow myself to feel, came back to me in a flood. The heat was intense, my heart pounded in my chest. Her eyes stared up at me with lust and love. When I finally entered her, it was like I had never left. The last ten years disappeared like a nightmare after waking and we were back in high school with our whole lives ahead of us. A future full of possibilities, promises, heartbreaks and triumphs. I felt myself pressing forth ready to explode. I slowed down not wanting to disappoint her again.