An Uncollected Death Read online

referrals every month, and this one would count. The advantage in it for you is that you’ll get more priority than otherwise.”

  “Sure, fine, that would be great. Glad to be of help.”

  Diane made the call in her usual cheerful phone voice and Charlotte heard herself being referred to as a “friend,” and her situation as “a perfect storm,” and could make out a woman’s voice saying, “YES!” when Diane mentioned Lake Parkerton.

  Diane looked over. “Nine o’clock tomorrow morning okay?”

  Charlotte nodded, and was impressed by the speed of doing things this way. Diane confirmed the appointment, along with Charlotte’s address and phone number.

  “You’re all set, then. Go home, Charlotte, take a long bath, have some wine. Time enough to deal with all of this tomorrow.”

   

  Anticipation for a long bath and a glass of wine kept Charlotte going during her sunset drive back to Lake Parkerton, but after turning into the entrance gates and following the road that wound around the lake and up the hills, the many signs saying Foreclosure and For Sale brought her firmly back into the present. The national economy was supposedly on the upswing, but many local economies were just as bad as ever. One of the area’s biggest steel mills had been purchased by a foreign conglomerate right before the recession, but instead of expanding it as promised, the new owners shut it down altogether. Lake Parkerton was where many of the original company’s executives and upper management lived, and it was now showing the effects of the economic downturn. Several lawns were looking unkempt, and a few houses had gutters coming loose. The Velez’ house was still boarded up, officially the result of a kitchen fire, but Ernie next door swore it was an insurance scam. The parents of Ellis’ first boyfriend from junior high still lived two doors down from there, but Charlotte had heard that they were splitting up. He was a funny boy, who once said that her hair was the same color as the cottontail rabbit that lived under the far end of the deck. He had been sent to a military academy, and she wondered what would happen to him now. She drove around a tow truck that was loading up a repossessed Hummer. It just wasn’t the same place it used to be. Her own For Sale sign would be going up soon. She was going to have to tell Ellis, plan a moving sale, find more work—

  Charlotte parked the Jeep in her garage and walked into the kitchen, thinking about something quick she could make for supper. Anything to put the events of the day—of the past few days, actually—out of her head and pretend life was normal again.

  Normal, however, wasn’t particularly welcoming. First, there was the clutter: countertops crammed with jars of pasta and dry beans, spices, bottles of various flavored oils and vinegars, a dozen bags or boxes of snack foods, most half-full or almost empty, a large knife block, an unpacked box containing a darling new hand-painted pasta set (bought four months ago, right before they learned Ellis was going to Paris), overhead racks with dozens of pots and pans, some of them rather nice and some simply decorative, figurines of animal cooks, including a three-foot high one of a squirrel holding a spoon and a walnut, a stack of clean dishtowels and a pile of dirty ones, a laundry basket of clean unfolded towels and napkins, and several crockery jars holding spoons, whisks, spatulas, and such. What bit of counter space that was available was occupied by a dirty cutting board with the uneaten burnt bagel from breakfast. The sink had several plates and cups and last night’s wine glass because the dishwasher hadn’t yet been emptied. Then there was the pile of mail, mostly junk advertisements, several magazines and catalogs, five days’ worth of the newspaper as yet unread, two broken plates from months ago set aside to be repaired, and by the door three large garbage bags of old school papers and girlish things that Ellis threw out and Charlotte had yet to bring herself to throw in the trash.

  No actual crime happened here, but the difference between her kitchen and Helene’s was not unlike the difference between Helene’s kitchen and Olivia’s, and this realization stopped her in her tracks. I’m turning into an Olivia, she thought. If I drop dead right now, other people would come in here and say, “Bloody hell!” She imagined Simon looking over her kitchen, and, if she was honest, her bathroom, bedroom, basement, and garage in slack-jawed amazement. And she wouldn’t have faulted him. And she thought, too, that if she died, poor Ellis would have to set aside time in her own life to deal with all this crap.

  Her stomach growled. She grabbed a clean wine glass, a fresh bottle of pinot noir, and heated up a frozen diet lasagna dinner in the microwave while she looked for the corkscrew, which after ten minutes’ search was discovered under the pile of dirty towels. She took her dinner and the folder from Diane into the living room—like Olivia’s, the one room that wasn’t too bad—to get away from the mess. She settled into her usual corner of a tan Italian leather sectional and clicked on the gas fireplace with the remote. A sip of wine, then a bite of food—for prefab frozen lasagna, it wasn’t too bad, she thought. As she looked over the budget plan, however, she knew that convenience food wasn’t likely to be on future grocery lists, along with a lot of other things.

  With only the light from the fire in the living room, Charlotte could look over the darkening lake through the clerestory windows and see the lights from houses on the other side. It looked like the Olewskis were having a party, or maybe it was their kids, it was a little too far away to tell for sure. She had seen a lot of them when she first moved here, as their daughter and Ellis were the same age, but as the girls drifted apart in high school, so, too did the adults. Next door to them was the Pannetti’s house, dark, foreclosed and deadly silent without the happy racket from their five kids. She had liked them a lot, too. At one time there was such vitality in Lake Parkerton, and all of a sudden it seemed there was nothing. Perhaps her only connection to these people was as Ellis’ mother.

  Charlotte never admitted to anyone, not even Diane, her real reason for moving here: she wanted Ellis, who showed great promise even at the age of six, to have piano lessons with Helene Dalmier, one of the most well-regarded and well-connected teachers in the region. She’d heard that Helene had cut back on her teaching schedule, but still seemed willing to take students from Lake Parkerton. Charlotte had quietly gone with her instincts on this, because talking about one’s child’s “gift” was to invite all sorts of eye-rolling and talk about stage-mothering and such. It was a gamble, but it paid off. Ellis flourished under Helene’s calm but firm assurance, so different than Charlotte’s own style, which was more akin to putting out fires. Charlotte never wanted Ellis to know about the gamble, to feel guilty if it didn’t work out.

  But now Helene was no longer in her grand house, which was one of the original fifty houses designed and built by Paul Dalmier and his associates when they founded Lake Parkerton, in a variation on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian style that featured pitched rather than flat roofs. The house-slash-studio he built for himself and Helene was the most striking, with two levels of glass windows facing the water. It was a pleasure to take Ellis to her piano lessons where Helene’s matching pair of grand pianos—which she referred to as “The Twins”—seemed to float in the sky.

  The house, however, was not well-suited for an aging widow: 6,000 square feet of open staircases, multilevel floors, terraces, a steep driveway, and a long drive from doctors, hospital, drugstores, grocery stores, and other services. So Helene, with a graceful acceptance of reality, sold up and moved to the 1,200 square foot Elm Grove condominium two years ago, just down the block from her older sister. The Twins were now nestled together like a yin-yang symbol in what most people would have used as the living room.

  Charlotte’s house was one third the size of Helene’s old house, but it was one of the original fifty; buying it gave her an instant introduction to Paul Dalmier, and in turn to Helene. She looked around at her own living room, from the wood-and-steel open staircase, to the baby grand piano, to the collection of art and sculpture and books, a room which was now full of contrasting areas of gold and darkness from the fireplace. She loved fire
places, had never had one until she moved here—would she ever have one again? The wine in the glass glowed blood red. It was tempting to just lie here like she did the night before, for hours and hours until she fell asleep in a stupor under the soft silk-and-merino throw.

  Charlotte’s thoughts this evening, however, hurtled through her brain in a random whirl: split-second images of Ellis hugging her goodbye at the airport, Olivia’s senseless body on the oriental rug, Jack handing her divorce papers, house-hunting in Lake Parkerton, the blood on the bat, Simon’s long legs in snug black jeans, Ellis at the state competition, Jack on their wedding day, Helene beaming at Simon, Olivia pointing at her with a bony finger and saying, “So what do you do?”

  The notebook Olivia had given her the other day was on the coffee table. Charlotte picked it up and shifted her position to get more light from the fireplace. The first thing that caught her eye was the words written on the inside cover: Put the pieces together and bloom. Then she began reading the first page, which was dated several years ago. Some words were immediately clear, some became clear in context, and a few