unhappily. “The way Peter tells it, the only way she could be with him would be if Merle were to leave. Or die.”
Sam shot a contrite glance at me. But, I realized now, it didn’t matter; the government guys had known all that Sam or any of the rest of us might’ve clued them to, and more. Not that picking up personal facts was all they had accomplished:
They’d already taken photographs, bagged up the apron and gloves Faye Anne had been wearing, and sent Merle's remains down to the medical examiner in Augusta. They’d talked to the neighbors and taken all the cutting tools out of Merle's shop, too, they indicated, and they would go over Faye Anne's house one last time in the morning.
And that would be that. “Wrapping it up” was a perfect phrase for their day's activity; not information, but confirmation, was all these two wanted.
Of the obvious: that she had done it. “What a guy,” George said, meaning Peter Christie. “Real bail-out artist.”
My thought exactly. What I didn’t know was how come these fellows were telling us all this? It didn’t seem usual, so I asked them about it.
“It's not, I suppose. But it's no big secret, either. Christie's not bound to keep quiet about anything he told us. And if’ it came to trial, the defense attorneys get it all anyway. We have to tell what we’ve got,” the DA's primary investigator said.
“But you think there won’t be a trial because of…”
He gestured with his dessert spoon. “The battered-woman aspect. Juries don’t like chronic abusers, andeveryone in the county knew the victim was one, just from what we’ve heard already. So she's probably going to get offered some kind of a deal.”
“She’ll plead to a lesser charge and accept a sentence, no matter what she says now,” his second-in-command declared, scraping up the last morsel of baked apple.
But Ellie was shaking her head: no, she won’t. And these two guys worked well together, but to my ears that last comment had sounded rehearsed; I decided we were being played.
Then Joy Abrams spoke up unexpectedly. “Peter Christie might not exactly be the right one to believe, where Faye Anne Carmody is concerned.”
“Joy,” Victor said, “are you sure you want to discuss this? It's really not the sort of thing…”
Victor liked his women to confine their conversation to suitable topics: cooking, sewing, flower arranging. The evening wasn’t going as he’d planned, either, although the government men had given no sign of recognizing his name—contrary to his belief, people the world over didn’t spend all their time thinking about him—so he’d relaxed a little.
Joy touched his hand lightly, silencing him. Under other circumstances this alone would have been worth the whole evening; silencing Victor ordinarily requires a brickbat.
“Peter's a stone liar,” she said. “And a flatterer, sort of a… a serial romancer, but with a twist. He likes women, all right. Just not in a nice way.”
She swallowed some wine. “Don’t ask me how I know. I’m not going to tell you. It was told to me in confidence. But I will say, if Faye Anne turned Peter down she's smarter than I thought. He's trouble. You be careful of what he says, is all.” Then, to me:
“Dear…” Dee-yah: the downeast Maine pronunciation.
“I just can’t thank you enough for the truly wonderful dinner.” Dinnah.
Victor's little pinch-purse mouth kept opening and closing as Joy went on: “I keep telling him he was a fool to lose you, Jacobia.” She laid the accent firmly and properly on the second syllable; I do so enjoy people who know the difference between a woman's name and the seventeenth-century English historical period.
Although strictly speaking it is a man's: James, in Latin, though my mother wouldn’t have realized. She spent her girlhood in a Kentucky hill town, never learned much history except maybe for Russian history. But that was later and another story.
Joy looked around at the
Sam shot a contrite glance at me. But, I realized now, it didn’t matter; the government guys had known all that Sam or any of the rest of us might’ve clued them to, and more. Not that picking up personal facts was all they had accomplished:
They’d already taken photographs, bagged up the apron and gloves Faye Anne had been wearing, and sent Merle's remains down to the medical examiner in Augusta. They’d talked to the neighbors and taken all the cutting tools out of Merle's shop, too, they indicated, and they would go over Faye Anne's house one last time in the morning.
And that would be that. “Wrapping it up” was a perfect phrase for their day's activity; not information, but confirmation, was all these two wanted.
Of the obvious: that she had done it. “What a guy,” George said, meaning Peter Christie. “Real bail-out artist.”
My thought exactly. What I didn’t know was how come these fellows were telling us all this? It didn’t seem usual, so I asked them about it.
“It's not, I suppose. But it's no big secret, either. Christie's not bound to keep quiet about anything he told us. And if’ it came to trial, the defense attorneys get it all anyway. We have to tell what we’ve got,” the DA's primary investigator said.
“But you think there won’t be a trial because of…”
He gestured with his dessert spoon. “The battered-woman aspect. Juries don’t like chronic abusers, andeveryone in the county knew the victim was one, just from what we’ve heard already. So she's probably going to get offered some kind of a deal.”
“She’ll plead to a lesser charge and accept a sentence, no matter what she says now,” his second-in-command declared, scraping up the last morsel of baked apple.
But Ellie was shaking her head: no, she won’t. And these two guys worked well together, but to my ears that last comment had sounded rehearsed; I decided we were being played.
Then Joy Abrams spoke up unexpectedly. “Peter Christie might not exactly be the right one to believe, where Faye Anne Carmody is concerned.”
“Joy,” Victor said, “are you sure you want to discuss this? It's really not the sort of thing…”
Victor liked his women to confine their conversation to suitable topics: cooking, sewing, flower arranging. The evening wasn’t going as he’d planned, either, although the government men had given no sign of recognizing his name—contrary to his belief, people the world over didn’t spend all their time thinking about him—so he’d relaxed a little.
Joy touched his hand lightly, silencing him. Under other circumstances this alone would have been worth the whole evening; silencing Victor ordinarily requires a brickbat.
“Peter's a stone liar,” she said. “And a flatterer, sort of a… a serial romancer, but with a twist. He likes women, all right. Just not in a nice way.”
She swallowed some wine. “Don’t ask me how I know. I’m not going to tell you. It was told to me in confidence. But I will say, if Faye Anne turned Peter down she's smarter than I thought. He's trouble. You be careful of what he says, is all.” Then, to me:
“Dear…” Dee-yah: the downeast Maine pronunciation.
“I just can’t thank you enough for the truly wonderful dinner.” Dinnah.
Victor's little pinch-purse mouth kept opening and closing as Joy went on: “I keep telling him he was a fool to lose you, Jacobia.” She laid the accent firmly and properly on the second syllable; I do so enjoy people who know the difference between a woman's name and the seventeenth-century English historical period.
Although strictly speaking it is a man's: James, in Latin, though my mother wouldn’t have realized. She spent her girlhood in a Kentucky hill town, never learned much history except maybe for Russian history. But that was later and another story.
Joy looked around at the
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