To Love and to Perish - By Lisa Bork Page 0,37

Phillips gave us Danny because he thought we’d be best for him, and you’re doing a great job. Danny’s got a wicked spiral. I saw him outside playing with the boys.”

Ray chuckled. “I know. He’s awesome. I can’t wait to see the game.” He pulled me a little closer. “Hey, we’re alone here.” His lips ran up and down my neck, sending shivers up my spine. “We could take advantage of this opportunity.”

I slid my fingers underneath the back of his shirt. “We could.”

His lips slid to mine. My heart started beating faster. I pressed closer.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. The front door f lew open. “What’s for dinner?”

Danny’s steps pounded across the living room. His bedroom door crashed into the wall. “I need a second to change for dinner then I’ll be right there.”

Ray sucked on my bottom lip and pulled away, a rueful expression on his face. “I need more than one second.”

I smiled. “Yes, you’re always very thorough.”

He resumed slicing the cucumber. “The other call was from your sister.”

“What did she want?” I went to the cupboard to get plates for the table.

“She wanted you to know your mother thinks canoeing is a really bad idea.” The sardonic tone of Ray’s voice let me know what he thought, too. “Your mother said if your sister was meant to float, she’d be a hippopotamus.”

Although our mother died more than twenty-five years ago, Erica claimed the two of them still were in communication. I didn’t know quite how that worked, nor did I want to. However, often when Erica got an idea in her head, she attributed it to Mom. “So she’s not going canoeing?”

“On the contrary, she and Maury are going first thing in the morning on Saturday. She just wanted to let you know.”

Strange, but then we were talking about Erica. “Am I supposed to call her?”

“No, she said she’d call you afterward.”

Oh, I couldn’t wait for that conversation.

_____

After dinner, Ray went outside to mow the lawn. Danny sat at the dining table to do his math and social studies homework. I spread out the newspaper I’d picked up in Watkins Glen and perused it from cover to cover. I found one tiny article about James Gleason’s death, accompanied by an equally tiny snapshot of a woman and a man. The man had his arm around the woman. Both had their heads bent, obscuring their faces.

According to the article, Gleason had been buried in Albany on Wednesday morning, following an autopsy performed by the county medical examiner for the Watkins Glen area. The photo was a shot of Gleason’s estranged wife and his son, leaving the medical examiner’s office on Tuesday with a bag probably containing the personal items found in his pockets. I could tell from the photograph that the wife was dark-haired, his son blondish. Her name was Suzanne Gleason, the son’s Matthew, both of Albany. The article also said Brennan remained in the county jail, pending his ability to make bail. That was old news.

I refolded the paper and went out to the garage to toss it in the recycling bin, wondering if Cory and I should pay a condolence call on Gleason’s wife and son to see what more information we could ferret out about Gleason’s anger at Brennan. It would be tricky to make such a call. We’d have to admit to being at the scene and perhaps knowing Brennan, which meant they might not speak to us. We might also agitate them during their time of grief, which would be cruel, perhaps even unnecessary. Now that Brennan had made bail, he might be more forthcoming with information. Our investigation might be over. Cory had certainly planned to ask him about all the news reports of Monica Gleason’s death.

Assuming nothing, I entered the house and fired up the computer in our office to search for pictures from the Watkins Glen festival. Hundreds of photos were available and for sale, the majority featuring cars on the actual racetrack. After forty minutes of clicking through photographs, I began to despair. No one had been standing on the opposite side of the street from us. I couldn’t find a single shot of the cars coming around the Franklin Street corner where we’d been standing.

Then I found the YouTube video.

Granted, it was fuzzy and a little bit shaky. The parade of cars passing by was clearly visible, though. The crowd beyond on the other side of the road had featureless faces but their clothing, hair, and