Deadly Beloved(80)

“The thing is,” Joey said, “if you look at it this way, then she’s likely going to try to strike again, right? The question is, where?”

“You mean Patsy Willis is going to try to blow somebody else up?” Kevin looked shocked.

“It stands to reason,” Joey Bracken said.

“I don’t think it stands to reason at all,” Kevin said. “You don’t even know she blew that party up. That’s just speculation.”

“It was the same kind of bomb,” Joey said.

“It’s a really simple kind of bomb,” Kevin told him. “I could show you how to make one myself. I have made one myself. Back when I thought I was going to be a revolutionary.”

“I never knew you thought you were going to be a revolutionary.” Sarah brought the nuts to the table. Joey Bracken grunted when he saw them and reached out for a handful of cashews and Brazils. The peanuts were oiled and salted. Joey got a wash of grease across his palm.

“Are you just going to buy Molly the lot for a birthday surprise,” Sarah asked him, “or are you going to get a builder and put the house up and present the whole thing to her as a kind of big package?”

Joey looked down at the paper he was supposed to sign. “Oh, I couldn’t build the whole house without telling her. She’d know there was money missing. This is about as big a surprise as I’m going to be able to get. And I’m not going to be able to keep it a surprise at all.”

“I keep a private checking account for things like that,” Kevin said. “You ought to think about it. Otherwise, you can’t buy them anything serious, and they like to have things bought for them. Wives, I mean.”

“Yeah, I know. But Molly says she doesn’t trust me with money. I work in a bank, she ought to trust me with money.”

“I know just what she means,” Sarah said. “I have the same problem with Kevin all the time. Men just don’t have the same priorities women do.”

“Molly wants to have a baby,” Joey said. “It just doesn’t seem to happen for us. I was thinking that maybe this would cheer her up.”

“Well, it certainly is a cheerful place,” Kevin said. “Sarah and I can attest to that. We get cheered up every time we think about it.”

“And it’s still so reasonable,” Sarah said. “Oh, I know it doesn’t sound like it when you’re used to land prices in Pennsylvania, but in Florida these prices are ridiculously low. Especially for waterfront. Friends of ours just bought a waterfront lot in Boca Raton and it cost them three quarters of a million dollars. For the lot.”

“Oh, I know. I know,” Joey said. “And Molly wants a vacation place. She’s said so over and over again. Did the Willises have a vacation place?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “We didn’t know the Willises all that well. They were—well, you know. Older people. Set in their ways.”

“Stuffy,” Kevin contributed solemnly.

“I was just thinking that if the Willises had a vacation house, Patsy could have gone there.” Joey reached into the little bowl and took the rest of the nuts out of it. His whole hand looked salted. “She has to be somewhere. She can’t just have disappeared. And yet she has disappeared. Just listen to the newspapers.”

“Listen to the newspapers?” Sarah said.

Joey waved his greasy hand in the air. “To the television news. You know what I mean.”

“The television news doesn’t know everything,” Sarah said. “I’ll bet the police know where Patsy is right this minute. They’re just biding their time.”

“Biding their time for what?” Kevin asked.

“To have all the evidence they need before they go to trial,” Sarah said. “To make sure they can lock her up. All those things. They don’t like to make arrests and then later have the person go free at the trial. You know how it is.”

“You watch too much television,” Kevin said.

“I’d better sign this thing,” Joey told them. He leaned over the paper and signed, which Sarah and Kevin didn’t pay any attention to. Then he took the cashier’s check out from under its paper clip and signed the back of that over to Kevin Lockwood. Sarah and Kevin did pay attention to that. That was what really mattered here. That was what was going to get the bills paid for the next couple of weeks.

“Well,” Kevin said as Joey handed the check over.

“I got to thank you for doing this,” Joey said. “I couldn’t ever have done it on my own. I don’t know enough about this kind of thing.”