The Smart Money by Lia Matera

Author:Lia Matera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

26

My aunt had buttonholed Sandy again. She made fluttery gestures with her hands and looked at him in a bright, party sort of way, blithering endlessly. Sandy bent closer to listen, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a drink. He smiled halfheartedly.

As often as we’d talked about Lennart’s death, Sandy had never mentioned a police examination of the VW; he’d never mentioned a carbon monoxide leak in the exhaust system. Was it something even a good detective might not discover, fourteen years after the fact? Or just one more thing Sander Arkelett had chosen not to tell me?

I’d poured out my whole tale of woe to him, reopened all the wounds. I’d allied myself with him, strategically, emotionally, and physically. What the hell was he playing at?

A voice beside me murmured, “He’s a big hit with my mother.”

“Hal!” I blinked myself back to here-and-now. “Nice of you to say hello.”

“You make a terrific couple,” he continued. “Sophisticated, elegant.” He watched Sandy shake a green olive out of his glass and into his mouth. “I suppose he explained why he flew into town a day early?”

“I didn’t ask.”

A flicker of a frown disturbed my cousin’s impassivity. “You trust him,” he concluded.

I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “You do, apparently.”

“Meaning what?”

“You saw my note, didn’t you?”

He hesitated, then admitted, “I saw it.”

My aunt glanced our way. “Henry!” she called, irritation bristling in her tone. She slipped her arm through Sandy’s, obliging him to escort her to our corner of the room. “You might exert yourself to mingle a little bit, instead of standing here bothering Laura.”

Hal did not kiss the cheek his mother offered.

Her lips pursed crossly. Then she laughed her artificial laugh. “I suppose the local boys seem quite dull compared to your friends, eh, Laura?” She winked coquettishly at Sandy.

Sandy casually draped his free arm around my shoulder. He nodded to Hal. “Good to see you again.”

My aunt yanked Hal’s lapel. It didn’t make his suit fit any better. “You’ve met my son?”

“Sure,” Sandy smiled. “We were out at Hal’s place yesterday.”

My aunt’s penciled-on brows failed to disguise a frown that would have looked much like Hal’s if nature had been allowed to take its course.

She observed to Sandy, “This is Henry’s home, of course.” She emphasized the name Henry. “And a lot of trouble he’d save the city, too, if he’d stop this camping-out nonsense.”

Hal’s mouth pinched into an angry line.

But my aunt did not let up. “The police have to send a patrol car out there two or three times a day to make sure he hasn’t started a fire with his lanterns. The only reason they don’t kick him right out of there like they would anyone else is that he’s our son.” Her voice was rich with irony as she admitted the relationship.

Hal took a step backward, looking as though he’d just seen something loathsome. Then he shook his head and turned away. I watched him thread his way through the crowd, ignoring latecomers’ attempts to greet him as he escaped through the front door.

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