“To hell with all of you,” she said.
Then she put her arm flat against the counter and swept it as far as it would go, sending plates and cups crashing to the floor, Naomi’s coffee, Henry’s tuna fish sandwich, the young reporter’s BLT. There was suddenly glass everywhere, bouncing up from the linoleum, skittering along the floor.
“I’ll call the police,” Betsey screeched. “I’ll call the police right this minute.”
“Call anyone you want to,” the woman said. “I’m over at the Super Eight Motel on the Hartford Road. Room 233. I’ll be there for the rest of the night.”
Then she strode to the diner’s front door, yanked it open, and walked out.
Henry felt the tension in the room like a thin film of mayonnaise. He thought somebody else was going to blow, more damage was going to be done. Instead, way behind his back where he couldn’t hope to see, a faint giggling started. It got louder and louder and stronger and stronger and suddenly they were all doing it, all the reporters. Henry and Naomi and Betsey were struck dumb. Some of the reporters were laughing so hard, they were choking. The young man sitting next to Henry had his head down on the counter and his eyes were streaming with tears.
To Henry, of course, it was his worst nightmare become real, it was everything he had ever been afraid of happening at once.
He was in a public place, and everybody was laughing at him.
2
OUT AT THE BEACH, David Sandler sat in a canvas chair on his deck, nursing a glass of wine and watching Maggie Kelleher watch the moon. It had just come up, and now its pale light was a stream across the water, like a streak in a woman’s dark hair. David had called Maggie up as soon as he realized that Gregor would not be back for dinner, again. He had had no idea, when he asked Gregor down here, that investigating a murder would mean he never saw his houseguest at all. Or hardly ever. The wine was a good Vin Santo David had brought down from New York. He had a pile of almond biscotti on a plate on the deck floor, in case Maggie should want to dunk cookies while she drank. It would have been a good evening, except that Maggie was depressed, and that made David depressed, too. He had known Maggie on and off now for at least five years, but only recently had he begun to know her well.
“So,” he said, “do you think it’s all true? Do you think Zhondra Meyer killed Tiffany and Carol and then killed herself out of remorse?”
“No,” Maggie said.
“I don’t either,” David admitted. “It’s too easy, isn’t it? I can’t imagine Zhondra Meyer actually committing suicide.”
“I’ve been hearing things ever since it happened that it might be a murder after all,” Maggie said. “Did your friend say anything? I heard somebody say that the police wanted to talk to Stephen Harrow.”
“Stephen Harrow? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they think he did it. Maybe he was Zhondra Meyer’s lover.”
“Zhondra Meyer was a lesbian.”
“Well, David, that doesn’t always do it, does it? People do all kinds of crazy things, especially with sex. And Zhondra always appeared to me to be the kind of person who did what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it, and the hell with everybody else.”
David shifted slightly in his chair. “Gregor doesn’t tell me anything. It’s no better than reading the morning papers, having him here. Except that Gregor is Gregor, and I like having him here. I like having you here, too, Maggie.”
“I know you do. I like being here.”
“You ought to give a little more consideration to my proposition,” David said. “I know it sounds radical at the moment, moving back to New York, but believe me, we could work it out.”
“I never said we couldn’t.”
“You just don’t want to. Maybe it’s just that you don’t want to with me.”
Maggie swung her foot around and nudged him in the knee. “It’s not you that’s the problem, David. It’s New York. I’ve already lived in New York.”
“And you didn’t like it.”
“I liked it fine. It didn’t like me. There are people who are natural New Yorkers, David, and I’m not one of them.”
“It would be different this time, Maggie. I have a perfectly good apartment on Riverside Drive. You wouldn’t have to shack up in some godforsaken hole you’re paying fifteen hundred dollars a month for.”
“I know that.”
“And you wouldn’t be—trying all the time, if you know what I mean. It wouldn’t be a test. I think that’s what goes wrong with New York for too many people. They only go there to make their fortunes. They don’t go there to live.”