Chat - Archer Mayor [21]
Joe stepped aside to reveal his mother rolling up to them. Lyn broke into a wide smile. “You’re all right,” she exclaimed. “They said you were in the hospital.” She hesitated only a moment and then took one step forward and stuck her hand out. “I’m Lyn Silva, Mrs. Gunther. I’m really just an acquaintance of your son’s, but I wanted to see how you were doing.”
Joe’s mother looked at her son. “I’m freezing. You’re heating the whole state.” Then she smiled brightly at their unexpected guest and shook hands. “He’s still in training. I’m happy to meet you.”
Joe removed his fingers from the knob as if it had been electrified. Like most locals, he was usually compulsive about open doors and drafts. He reached out and gently steered Lyn across the threshold. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t paying attention.”
“Come into the living room,” his mother said, preceding them. “We have a fire going in the woodstove. Where are you from, Miss Silva?”
“Brattleboro now,” Lyn told her, entering the cluttered, homey living room, adding, “Oh, I love this room. When was the house built?”
“Eighteen-thirties,” Joe told her, bringing up the rear. “And we haven’t done much to it since, except for the modern amenities.”
He studied the back of their guest as if she might suddenly pull a gun. He kept retrieving fragments of the one time they’d met, and coming up with only good memories. She was a single mother of a then twenty-year-old girl, a bookkeeper by day and a bartender at night, and at the time, at least, she’d been genuine, smart, sexy, and remarkably appealing—just as she appeared today.
But what was she doing here? When they last parted, he’d felt they had forged a definite connection, one that he would have pursued in Gail’s absence. He’d even thought of locating her after his breakup, but had been stalled by both geography and a general emotional inertia.
On that level, therefore, he was astonished and pleased to see her again. But at his core he remained a cop and, as such, wary and watchful. Once the social niceties were dealt with and he found a quiet moment, he planned to inquire about the details behind this visit.
His mother parked her chair in her docking station of tables before asking, “What brought you to Brattleboro? And did I overhear that you came from Gloucester?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lyn answered. “I was a barkeep there, and I just bought a bar in Brattleboro—I found it through the Internet, if you can believe that.”
“And how did you two meet? Have a seat in that armchair.”
Joe glanced up at that question, trying to read between the lines. His mother’s face was cheery and her eyes bright, but he knew her well and had clearly heard the interrogator’s edge in her voice.
Lyn sat carefully in the old leather armchair. “Your son came to Gloucester to investigate a murder—a man who lived over the bar where I worked.” She looked over at Joe with a smile. “He sat at the end of my bar drinking Cokes for a couple of nights before he said anything, just watching the crowd. It was fun seeing him study people.” Again she reddened slightly, adding, “Including me. He’s quite an observer. And when we finally did talk, he had me remembering things I didn’t know I could.” She touched her forehead with her fingertips. “You had me close my eyes and slowly redraw the scene in my head, detail by detail, until I could see that guy you were after—the one with the scar on his hand. Did you ever catch him?”
Joe nodded. “We did, thanks to you. It was a good description.”
With her reminiscence, he, too, was recalling that trip, and how he’d spent those many hours, in part surveilling the crowd she served—and in part admiring her.
“That must have been fascinating,” his mother interjected. “I’ve never actually seen Joe at work. But what are you doing way up here? Brattleboro’s a long drive.”
Lyn laughed. “I know. That must seem a little weird. No, I promise, I had to be up here anyhow, to get some supplies for the bar—I’m totally renovating it—and like I said, the newspaper was full of what happened. I figured I’d