Hadley watches me cook for a moment before saying, “You remind me of your father. But only the good parts. You’re not a rampaging murderer. And you already know where I was that day.”
“Tell me again so I have it on tape.”
“I was in Kosovo. At a reception. I have a photo of me dancing with the Swiss ambassador.”
Hadley flew out of Kosovo the morning after the murder, as soon as she heard what had happened at the lake. She watched over Reid and me for the rest of the summer while our mother recuperated from her injuries.
I retrieve a can of whole tomatoes from the pantry. “I’m making a podcast,” I say. “You’re the only one who knows. You and Seton.”
“If you told Seton, her mother will know soon enough, and then everyone in town will find out, so get ready to fess up.” Hadley nodsout the window, toward the kayaks. “The two of them will be pissed off. Practice on me. Why do this? And why at this moment?”
“They never found my father’s body.”
“They won’t find it now,” Hadley says. “Not after twenty-five years.”
“Why not?”
“Because a bear probably ate him.”
“Be serious,” I say. “We all pretend that day never happened. Most of what I know I learned from reading police reports or old newspapers. I’ve barely spoken about it with Reid or Jane.”
“You still call your mother Jane?”
“It’s her name,” I say.
“Well, she hates when you call her that,” Hadley says. “Butter her up by calling her Mom. You may need to when she finds out about this project.”
“I want the whole story, and to understand why my father did what he did. He was a monster.”
“Mark wasn’t a monster.”
“But he is to me,” I say. “And I want to know who he was, because that’s who I might be.”
“Youare definitely not a monster, Charlie Kilgore, no matter who Mark became. But if you want to know more, here are some things to start with: Mark was a good skier, but not as good as he wanted to be. He played ukulele and sang ‘Tiny Bubbles’ at the firepit each summer. It drove me crazy, but I’d give anything to hear him sing it again. And he wasn’t happy in New Hampshire, doing the books for the construction firm. He wanted something else, something bigger.”
Hadley steps to the window. My mother and Reid have paddled halfway across the cove. “What do those two talk about when they’re alone?” she asks. “Do they ever mention that day?”
That’s the kind of question Julian wants me to ask.
Hadley leans toward the digital recorder. The red record button flashes. “Don’t look too close,” she says. “You might not like what you find.” She pauses. “How’s that for a sound bite?”
“You’re a natural,” I say.
Chapter Six
The docks are in, and the motorboat delivered from the marina. Paul arrives at Idlewood and joins Hadley, Reid, my mother, and me on the dock, where we light candles at the base of paper lanterns as the sun dips below the foothills. Around the lake, flames flicker, and white orbs rise into the air for the Lantern Festival, filling the night sky and reflecting their light in the inky water.
Afterward, on the screened porch, we uncork bottles of Chianti and fill our plates with Bolognese. Then the cards and the scorepad come out for a game of Oh Hell!
“What happened at Burkehaven this afternoon, anyway?” Hadley asks, as I deal.
Paul runs through the highlights of the confrontation with Andrea Haviland.
“Tempest in a teapot,” Hadley says. “I’d expect nothing less from a visit to Hero.” She points at my mother, who sits on my left. “Jane, what’s your bid?”
“Two,” my mother says. “But Andrea has a point, Paul. You don’t need to sell the whole property. There are other options.”
Paul bids zero. “Not ones that would line both of our pockets with cash,” he says. “I barely come here anymore. Keeping that property isn’t worth the tax burden. Besides, I won’t let Andrea pull what she did at Rocky Nook. She blocked that whole development.”
