Salem Falls Page 3

  But Delilah wasn't there. Instead, a tall blond man who looked entirely too polished to be working as a dishwasher was standing at the big sink, rinsing out cookware. He finished another cast-iron pot and set it down--with a righteous, ear-splitting clank--onto a makeshift drying rack. "Delilah went to the bathroom," the man said over his shoulder. "She should be back in a second."

  Delilah had left several burgers going on the grill. Fire hazard. He never would have done that in his days on the line. "Who the hell are you?" Roy barked.

  "Jack St. Bride. I was just hired as a dishwasher."

  "For crying out loud, you don't do it by hand. There's a machine just over there."

  Jack smiled wryly. "Thanks, I know. It's broken." He stood uneasily before the old man, wondering who he was and why he'd appeared from a back staircase. The alcohol fumes coming off the guy could have pickled the cucumbers Delilah had sliced for garnish. Jack grabbed another dirty pot and set it into the soapy water. As he scrubbed, black smoke began to rise from the grill. He looked at his hands, at the pot, then at the older man. "The burgers are burning," Jack said. "Do you mind flipping them?"

  Roy was two feet away from the grill; the spatula lay within reach. But he sidled away from the cooking area, giving it a wide berth. "You do it."

  With a muttered curse, Jack turned off the water again, wiped his hands dry, and physically pushed Roy out of the way to flip the hamburgers. "Was that so hard?"

  "I don't cook," the older man said succinctly.

  "It's a hamburger! I didn't ask you to make beef Wellington!"

  "I can make a hell of a beef Wellington, matter of fact, if I feel like it!"

  The swinging doors that led to the dining room swelled forward like an eruption, then parted to reveal Addie. "What's going on? I can hear you yelling all the way up front ... Dad? What are you doing down here? And where's Delilah?"

  "Bathroom." Jack turned to the sink, assuming his hired position. Let the old man explain what had happened.

  But she didn't even ask. She seemed delighted, in fact, to find her father in the kitchen. "How are you feeling?"

  "Like a guy who can't get any rest because someone's downstairs banging around."

  Addie patted his hand. "I should have warned Jack that you were upstairs napping."

  Napping? Comatose, more like.

  "Jack, if you've got a minute ... there are some booths in the front that need clearing."

  Jack nodded and picked up a plastic bucket used for busing tables. His heart started to pound as he entered the front of the restaurant, and he wondered how long it would take until he no longer felt like his every move was being watched. But the diner was empty. Relieved, he cleared one table, then headed toward the counter. Jack put a coffee cup into the bin, then reached for a full plate, the food cold and untouched. French fries and a cheeseburger with extra pickles--someone had paid for a meal and hadn't even taken a bite.

  He was starving. He'd missed breakfast at the jail because he was being processed for release. Jack glanced around ... Who would ever know? He grabbed a handful of fries and quickly stuffed them into his mouth.

  "Don't."

  He froze. Addie stood behind him, her face white. "Don't eat her meal."

  Jack blinked. "Whose meal?"

  But she turned away without a response and left him wondering.

  At fifteen, Thomas McAfee knew he was going to be a late bloomer. Well, at least he sure as hell hoped so, because going through life five feet five inches tall, with arms like a chicken, wasn't going to make for a pleasant adolescence.

  Not that ninth grade was supposed to be pleasant. After taking medieval history last semester, Thomas figured high school was the modern equivalent of running the gauntlet. The hearty survived and went off to Colby-Sawyer and Dartmouth to play lacrosse. Everyone else slunk to the sidelines, destined to spend their lives as part of the audience.

  But as Thomas stood on Main Street after school that day, freezing his ass off, he was thinking that Chelsea Abrams might like to root for the underdog.

  Chelsea was more than just a junior. She was smart and pretty, with hair that caught the sunlight during the keyboarding class Thomas had with her. She didn't hang with the cheerleaders, or the brains, or the heads. Instead, she was tight with three other girls--including Gillian Duncan, whose dad owned half the town. Okay, so they dressed a little weird, with a lot of black and scarves--a cross between the art freak Goths who hung out in the smoking pit and gypsy wannabes--but Thomas knew, better than most, that the package was far less important than what was on the inside.

  Suddenly Chelsea turned the corner with her friends, even Gillian Duncan, who had been too sick to go to school but had made an amazing enough recovery now, to be out and about. Chelsea's breath fogged in the cold air, each huff taking the shape of a heart. Thomas squared his shoulders and came up from behind, falling into step beside her.

  He could smell cinnamon in her hair, and it made him dizzy.

  "Did you know the alphabet's all wrong?" he said casually, as if they'd been in the middle of a conversation.

  "Sorry?" Chelsea said.

  "The letters are mixed up. U and I should be together."

  The other girls snickered, and Gillian Duncan's voice fell like a hammer. "What's it like at the moron end of the bell curve?" She looped her arm through Chelsea's. "Let's get out of here."

  Thomas felt heat rising above his collar and willed it to go away. Chelsea was tugged forward by her friends, leaving him standing alone. Did she turn back to look at him ... or was she only adjusting the strap of her knapsack? As they crossed, Thomas could hear Chelsea's friends laughing. But she wasn't.

  Surely that was something.

  Charlie Saxton ate a peanut butter sandwich every day for lunch, although he hated peanut butter. He did it because for some reason, his wife Barbara thought he liked it, and she went to the trouble of packing him a lunch each morning. Around Valentine's Day, she'd bought those little sugary hearts with messages on them, and for a month now she'd been sticking one into the soft white bread: HOT STUFF! CRAZY 4 U! With a fingernail, Charlie edged out the candy of the day and read its message aloud. "Kiss and tell."

  "Not me, boss. My lips are sealed." The station's receptionist hustled into his office and handed him a manila folder. "You know, I think it's sweet when a guy over forty can still blush. This just came in on the fax."

  She closed the door behind her as Charlie slid the pages from the folder, scanning the court records of Jack St. Bride. They showed his arrest for a charge of felonious sexual assault against a minor ... but a final disposition for simple sexual assault, a misdemeanor.

  Charlie dialed the Grafton County attorney's office, asking for the name of the prosecutor listed on the fax. "Sorry, she's out for two weeks on vacation. Can someone else help you?" the secretary said.

  Charlie hesitated, making a judgment call. The list of registered sexual offenders was public record. That meant anyone could walk into the station and find out who was on it and where that person lived. As of this morning, his list stretched to all of one person. In spite of what secrets he knew as a detective, Salem Falls had the reputation of being a sleepy New England town where nothing happened, which was the way the residents liked it. As soon as word got out to the male populace that a guy who'd been charged with rape had moved in near their wives and daughters, there would be hell to pay.

  He could start a snowball rolling or he could give St. Bride the benefit of the doubt and just keep an eye on the guy himself for a couple of weeks.

  "Maybe you could ask her to call me when she gets back," Charlie said.

  Gillian had been the first to try Wicca, after finding a Web site for teen witches on the Internet. It wasn't Satan worship, like adults thought. And it wasn't all love spells, like kids thought, either. It was simply the belief that the world had an energy all its own. Put that way, it wasn't so mysterious. Who hadn't walked through the woods and felt the air humming? Or step
ped onto the snow and felt the ground reach up for one's body heat?

  She was glad to have Meg and Whitney and Chelsea as part of her coven--but they didn't practice in quite the same way Gillian did. For them, it was a lark. For Gilly, it was a saving grace. And there was one spell she didn't share with the others, one spell she tried every single day, in the hope that one of these afternoons it would work.

  Now, while her father believed she was doing homework, she knelt on the floor with a candle--red, for courage. From her pocket, she withdrew a tattered photograph of her mother. Gilly visualized the last time she'd been held by her, until the feeling was so strong that she could feel the prints of her mother's fingers on her upper arms.

  "I call upon the Mother Goddess and the Father God," Gilly whispered, rubbing patchouli oil over the candle, middle to ends. "I call upon the forces of the Earth, Air, Fire and Water. I call upon the Sun, Moon, and Stars to bring me my mother."

  She slid the picture of her mother beneath the candleholder and then set the candle inside it. She imagined her mother's laugh, bright and full, which had always reminded Gilly of the sea. Then she sprinkled herbs in a circle around the candle: sage, for immortality, and cinnamon, for love. The room began to swim with scent. In the blue heat of the flame, she could see herself as a child. "Mama," Gilly whispered, "come back."

  That moment, just like always, the candle flickered out.

  Darla Hudnut twitched into the diner like a summertime mare. "Where you keeping him, Addie?" she called, unbuttoning her coat.

  Darla was the backup waitress, someone Addie asked to work when she knew she wouldn't be able to. This time, though, Addie couldn't remember calling her. "How come you're here?"

  "You asked me last week, remember?" Darla said. She adjusted her uniform, stretched tight over her bust. "You said you were going out. But first I want to know all about the guy you hired."

  "Good lord, are there billboards on the street?"

  "Oh, come on, Addie. Town like this ... someone with a hangnail's bound to get noticed. A tall, blond, handsome mystery that comes in out of thin air ... you don't think that might stir up some interest?"

  Addie began to wipe the Naugahyde seats of a booth. "What are people saying?"

  Darla shrugged. "So far I've heard that he's your ex-husband, Amos Duncan's brother, and the guy from the Publisher's Clearinghouse Prize Patrol."

  At that, Addie laughed out loud. "If he's Amos Duncan's brother, he hasn't mentioned anything. As for my ex-husband, well, that's interesting, since I was never married. And I can assure you that I'm not a million dollars richer, either. He's just a guy who's down on his luck, Darla."

  "Then he's not your date for tonight, either?"

  Addie sighed. "I don't have a date tonight, period."

  "That's news to me." Addie jumped as Wes Courtemanche breezed through the door. He was no longer wearing his police uniform but a spiffy coat and tie. "I clearly recall you saying I could take you out to dinner on Wednesday. Darla, is it Wednesday?"

  "Think so, Wes."

  "There you go." He winked. "Why don't you change, Addie?"

  She stood rooted to the spot. "You've got to be kidding. You couldn't possibly believe that I might want to go out with a man who arrested my father."

  "That's business, Addie. This is ..." He leaned closer and lowered his voice to a curl of sound. "Pleasure."

  Addie moved to another table and began to scrub it. "I'm busy."

  "You've got Darla here to do that. And from what I hear, some new kid, too."

  "That's exactly why I have to stay. To supervise."

  Wes covered her hand where it lay on the table, stilling her motion. "Darla, you'd take care of the new guy, wouldn't you?"

  Darla lowered her lashes. "Well ... I could probably teach him a thing or two."

  "No doubt," Addie said under her breath.

  "Well, then. Come on. You wouldn't want me to think you've got some objection to going out with me, would you?"

  Addie met his eye. "Wes," she said, "I have an objection to going out with you."

  He laughed. "God help me, Addie, but that piss-and-vinegar thing you've got going is some turn-on."

  Addie closed her eyes. It wasn't fair to have to deal with Wes Courtemanche on a day like this one. Even Job was eventually cut a break. She also knew that if she refused to go, Wes would just sit in the diner and get on her nerves all night. The easiest way to get rid of him was to simply go out, then plead sick in the middle of the appetizer course.

  "You win," Addie conceded. "Let me just go tell Delilah where I'm off to."

  Before she could reach the kitchen, however, Jack emerged, holding her parka. Seeing the others, he blanched and ducked his head. "Delilah said I should bring this in," he mumbled. "She said a night off won't kill you."

  "Oh ... thanks. Well, I'm glad you came out. I want you to meet

  Darla." Darla held out her hand, which Jack did not take. "Charmed," she said.

  "And this is Wes," Addie said shortly, shrugging into her coat. "All right. Let's get this over with. Darla, you'll tell Delilah to have Chloe in bed by eight?"

  No one seemed to be listening. Darla was turning up the TV volume from behind the counter, and Wes squinted at Jack, who was trying to sink between the cracks of the linoleum. "Have we met?" Wes asked.

  Jack ducked his head, refusing to meet the man's eye. "No," he said, clearing a table. "I don't think so."

  It wasn't that Wes Courtemanche was such an awful guy--he just wasn't the right one for Addie, and nothing she said or did seemed to convince him otherwise. After about twenty minutes, a date with Wes took on the feeling of slamming oneself repeatedly into a brick wall. They walked side by side through town, holding Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate. Addie glanced across the green, where the lighted windows of the diner resembled holiday candelabra. "Wes," she said for the sixth time, "I really have to go--now."

  "Three questions. Just three tiny questions so I can get to know you better."

  She sighed. "All right. And then I'm going."

  "Give me a minute. I've got to make sure they're good ones." They had just turned the corner of the green when Wes spoke again. "Why do you stay on at the diner?"

  The question surprised Addie; she'd been expecting something far more facetious. She stopped walking, steam from her cup wreathing her face like a mystery. "I guess," she said slowly, "because I have nowhere else to go."

  "How would you know, since you've been doing it all your life?"

  Addie cast him a sidelong glance. "Is this number two?"

  "No. It's number one, part b."

  "It's hard to explain, unless you've been in the business. You get attached to creating a place where people can come in and feel like they fit. Look at Stuart and Wallace ... or the student who reads Nietzsche in the back booth every morning. Or even you, and the other police officers who stop in for coffee. If I left, where would they all go?" She shrugged. "In some ways, that diner's the only home my daughter's ever known."

  "But Addie--"

  She cleared her throat before he could finish speaking. "Number two?"

  "If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?"

  "A mother," she said after a moment. "I'd be a mother."

  Wes slid his free arm around her waist and grinned, his teeth as white as the claw of moon above them. "You must be reading my mind, honey, since that brings me right to my third question." He pressed his lips over her ear, his words vibrating against her skin. "How do you like your eggs in the morning?"

  He's too close. Addie's breath knotted at the back of her throat and every inch of her skin broke out in a cold sweat. "Unfertilized!" she answered, managing to jam her elbow into his side. Then she ran for the buttery windows of the diner like a sailor from a capsized ship who spies a lighthouse, lashes his hope to it, and swims toward salvation.

  Jack and Delilah stood side by side chopping onions, taking advantage of a slow after-dinner crowd to get a head s
tart on tomorrow's soup. The scent of onions pricked the back of his nose and drew false tears, but anything was preferable to finding himself backed into corners by Darla. Delilah raised the tip of her knife and pointed to a spot a foot away from Jack. "She died right there," Delilah said. "Came in, gave Roy hell, and collapsed on the floor."

  "But it wasn't her fault Roy had put the wrong side order on the plate."

  Delilah looked at him sidelong. "Doesn't matter. Roy was busy as all get-out and didn't want to take any fuss from Margaret, so he just said, 'You want your peas? Here're your goddamn peas.' And he threw the pot of them at her."

  Delilah scraped her onions into a bucket. "He didn't hit her or anything. It was just a temper he was in. But I guess it was too much for Margaret." She handed Jack another onion to chop. "Doctor said her heart was like a bomb ticking in her chest and that it would have given out even if she hadn't been fighting with Roy. I say a heart stopped that day, sure, but I'm thinking it was his. Everyone knows he blames himself for what happened."

  Jack thought of what it would be like to go through life knowing that the last conversation you had with your wife involved throwing a cast-iron pot at her. "All it takes is a second and your whole life can get turned upside down," he agreed.

  "Mighty profound from a dishwasher." Delilah tilted her head. "Where'd you come from, anyway?"

  Jack's hand slipped and the knife sliced across the tip of his finger. Blood welled at the seam, and he lifted his hand before he could contaminate the food.

  Delilah fussed over him, handing him a clean rag to stop the bleeding and insisting he hold the wound under running water. "It's nothing," Jack said. He brought his fingertip to his mouth, sucking. "Must've been hard on Addie."

  "Huh? Oh, you mean her mom dying. Actually, it gave her something to throw herself into, after Chloe." Delilah looked up. "You do know about Chloe?"

  Jack had heard Addie speaking to Chloe in the tender, idiomatic language of a mother. "Her daughter, right? I haven't met her yet, but I figured she was around here somewhere."

  "Chloe was Addie's little girl. She died when she was ten. Just about ruined Addie--she spent two years holed up in her house, nothing but her own upset for company. Until her mom passed and it was up to her to take care of Roy and the diner."