walked toward it along the narrow sidewalk, crunching through desiccated leaves, and went down an exterior stone stairwell to the basement entrance. Inside, the Livery was a long narrow space that smelled of woodsmoke and French fries. I took a seat at the bar. There were only a few people in the pub, but all of them were talking feverishly, no doubt spreading rumors about what had happened a mile up the road. I ordered a cup of coffee and a cheeseburger from the rotund bartender. While I waited, I pulled out my notebook and looked at what I had written earlier that morning.
Polly Greenier—why would she lie for Brad? I now knew that she hadn’t lied, that she’d merely been used by Brad as an unwitting alibi.
Why did Ted have a key for Brad’s house? I still didn’t know, but I had learned from Polly that Brad and Ted had spent some social time together at Cooley’s. Whose idea had that been? Could Brad have given Ted the key for some reason?
The final note I’d written was, Why did Lily Kintner lie to me? I still wondered about that, even though I didn’t think she had anything to do with what had happened between Brad and the Seversons. Still, I pulled out my phone, checked to see that I had service, and pulled up the one image of Lily Kintner that I knew was online. A low-res photograph of her and her father from about ten years earlier, but Lily hadn’t changed much since then. Same red hair in the same style. Same pale skin and intense eyes. When the bartender delivered my cheeseburger I turned the phone around on a whim and asked if he recognized the girl in the picture. He bent close, studied the phone’s screen for about five seconds. I was so prepared for him to say no that I barely registered it when he said, “Sure. She was here earlier this week. Stayed a couple of nights. Pretty lady.”
“Why was she here?” I asked, trying to keep the surprise, and the excitement, out of my voice.
“Couldn’t tell you. Drank Sam light, I think. Always remember a drink order.”
He moved away to greet a pair of customers that had just taken seats at the other end of the bar. I looked at Lily’s picture on my phone—a few grainy dots that formed her face. Was it possible she had more to do with all this than I thought? I knew I would need to see her again, find out why she was lying to me, find out why she’d come to Maine after Ted had been killed. I didn’t expect to find out much, but it meant that I’d get to see her again. Sooner rather than later. I took a bite of my cheeseburger, which was far better than a cheeseburger had any right to be. Life was looking up.
CHAPTER 30
LILY
My father fidgeted and sighed on the entire drive from JFK out to Shepaug. “It’s just Mom,” I said. “She’s as full of shit as she ever was.” He smiled at me, but there was still watery fear in his eyes. “Give it a shot,” I continued. “If it doesn’t work, then we’ll figure something else out.”
“I could always come and live with you, Lil,” he said.
That was the inevitability I was hoping to avoid, of course, but I simply placed my hand on his knee and squeezed.
As we rolled over the low hills of Connecticut into familiar terrain, my father got quiet, looking out the window. The leaves on the trees were past their initial burst of radiant color. The reds had turned to rust, the yellows faded. Pulling into the driveway of Monk’s my father said, “I can feel my balls going into hiding—now I know I’m coming home.”
As we removed my father’s two unwieldy suitcases from the trunk of the car, my mother came to the door, aproned and paint-splattered. She had applied two slashes of bright red lipstick to her mouth. “The patriarch returns,” she said, and it sounded rehearsed. It made me realize she was a little nervous herself.
“Sharon,” my father said, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead so he could see her at a distance. “You look the same.” It was probably the nicest thing he could have said to her under the circumstances. She nodded and went back into the house.
After helping my father unpack his things and get set up in the first-floor guest room