Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [46]
“The police came in and took all of that stuff,” she said. “After a time, when no one was arrested, they returned it all, but I don’t remember any blue notebook like that.”
“It would have been here,” he insisted. “Her name was on the cover…Jeannie…written in silver ink with great flourishes. And at the bottom, in black letters: PRIVATE PROPERTY.”
“Then you must have seen this notebook,” she said. “Where?”
“That’s the hard part,” I said. “That might require more than cocoa.”
Odd heard neither one of us. He was concentrating on that notebook, trying to reproduce it in his mind. He shut his eyes. “It was half diary, half junk heap,” he said, “a doodle pad, a safe place for all her lists, all the things she wanted, all the things she wanted to do, to become, all the places she wanted to go, all her likes and dislikes, all her fears and dreams, everything. It would have been here. She took it to school with her every day and she brought it home after.”
“Go to the last pages of the notebook,” I whispered. “What is written there?”
The old woman backed away from us, into the doorway, ready to make what escape she could. She was trembling now, holding onto the door frame.
“In big letters…” said Odd. He lowered his head and searched through closed eyes.
I tried to help him along. “Yes, in big letters,” I said. “Are they printed or cursive?”
“Both…big and small…printed and hand written. A name…”
“Yes,” I said, “what is the name?”
He moved his head slowly, side to side, taking in the name he could now read in his mind.
“Ron,” he said. “The name is Ron…and later…now it’s James….pages of Ron, then pages of James…”
“Was there a boy named Ron in Jeannie’s class?” I asked the old woman.
“Ron? No, none that I remember. None in the school, that I know of, and I knew all the kids.”
“Where is the notebook?” I asked Odd.
“In my hands!”
“No, where now?”
He opened his eyes, turned to me and to Janet. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Are you a psychic?” she asked.
“I wish,” said I.
Janet, still trembling, continued to hold onto the door frame. She was breathing heavily. “I remember now who it was,” she said. “The twelve-year-old boy who was so infatuated with Jeannie.”
15.
The old woman had a ritual of making herself a martini at sunset, but only when there was a sunset to be seen, which kept her from having a daily drink, although it is strange how many times, she told us, how at the end of a dark gray day the horizon will open up and the sun will come out just long enough to set, providing spectacular contrasts, dark sky above, dying sun below, and then the green-blue water.
She mixed up a pitcher of martinis, Kettle One vodka. It was ten o’clock, and if there had been a sunset that evening, this far north, we would have been only minutes behind it.
I’ve seen black tar addicts start cooking with less anticipation than Janet prepping her martinis.
“You kept up the ritual,” said Odd.
The long spoon in her hand stirred faster and faster.
“You and Daddy and your martinis at sunset,” he said.
At last. There went the spoon, into the pitcher, and the woman looked liked she might dive in after. Odd went to her and took her into his arms. and she whimpered, “Oh, my God…oh, my God…”
“A mother knows,” said Odd. “Doesn’t she?”
The old woman nodded against his chest, then said hoarsely, “Yes, a mother knows.”
He comforted her in his arms for a long moment. I salivated at the martini pitcher, worried that the ice would melt. I took it upon myself to pour.
“I have so many questions,” she said.
“Me too,” he said, “and very few answers.”
“Yeah, well, I got a question of my own,” I said, handing them each a martini. Screw the olives. “Who’s the lovesick kid?”
“First a toast,” said Odd. “You can’t drink a martini without a toast. To the three of us.”
I thought he meant the three of us standing there together, fine,