Lies that Bind

Minotaur Books

Maeve knew a guy who knew a guy, well, who knew this guy.

What a gorgeous day for a ride, she thought, heading up the Taconic in her sensible Prius. She pulled into a rest stop about forty-five minutes after she left her house, spying her contact immediately. Handsome, with waist-long dreadlocks, he looked exactly as he had been described to her, standing out among the elderly leaf-peepers who stopped to eat their bag lunches, the families on their way to the apple orchard off the highway that Maeve had once taken her girls to a long time ago.

Plus the state trooper idling in his car in the parking lot.

No one looked twice at the petite woman in a hybrid stopping by a rest stop on a beautiful day, one made for the people touring the Hudson Valley. She sat in the car and waited until the trooper drove off, his lights turning lazily as he hit the highway, trolling for speeders on a scenic, twisty road.

The guy she was about to meet had been given a wide berth by the other people there, the area surrounding his shiny sports car devoid of other vehicles. He was young, and if he didn't have the hair, would have looked like any other college kid she knew. Dark-washed jeans, a nice designer polo shirt. Clean shaven. Bright, white smile. If she didn't know what he did for a living—or maybe it was just a sideline—she would have picked him out for Rebecca, at college and unhappily single. She pulled up two spaces away and looked over at him. He gave her a warm smile and a quick wave.

"Hello," he said when she emerged from the car. In the sunlight, she noticed a wide streak of caked icing on the right thigh of her jeans. What must he think of her, this rumpled little woman with a very particular, peculiar, need?

"Nice to meet you," she said, offering her hand, sliding an envelope into his palm with a polite shake. He didn't look scared to meet her, this guy who was young enough to be her son—or maybe her nephew if she was feeling generous. Why should he?

Maybe he didn't know she was likely more dangerous than he was.

"A beautiful fall day," he said. "Warm." The bag he handed her, the one that he reached into the front seat of his car to get, was a recycled gift bag. He had gone so far as to stuff the top of it with brown tissue paper, tying the handles with some jaunty raffia. It looked as if he were giving her a birthday present.

"A gift?" she said. "For me?"

"A gift," he said, with fake solemnity. "For you." His laughter shook his dreadlocks.

It wasn't really a gift; that's what the envelope stuffed with cash had been for. It was more of a transaction. She held the bag; it was heavy, just like she expected it would be. "So, what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

He pointed to the backseat of the tiny car, where his little boy sat in a booster seat, drowsing peacefully, his thumb hanging from a slack mouth; Maeve hadn't noticed him up until this point. "I'm taking the little guy to the haunted house at a farm up the road. He loves to be scared."

"Don't forget to get some apples," she said. "The Macouns are particularly tasty this time of year." The talk of apples jogged her memory and she opened the back of the Prius. "That reminds me," she said. She pulled out a plain brown box; in it was a freshly baked apple pie. "Named 'Best of Westchester' by a local magazine," she said.

"Is that a pie?" he asked, a little surprised by the gesture.

"It is."

"Our mutual friend told me about your pies. And your cupcakes. He loves those. My granny will be so happy."

She was finding out more than she needed to know, wanted to know. She had to end the conversation. "Have a safe trip home."

"I will."

Good. He didn't seem to know her name. And she didn't know his. Better that way.

"I'll be off," she said.

He reached into his pocket. "Here's my card. In case you need anything else," he said.

But she wouldn't. One was enough for now and probably ever, if she took good care of her purchase. The card had only a number on it, no name. She put it in her jeans pocket, making a mental note to throw it out the window as soon as was acceptable and he was out of sight. She didn't want to offend him on the off chance she needed him again. Her friend would be able to find him again; the card was unnecessary. "Have fun at the haunted house," she said, walking around to her side of the car. He was still standing there as she drove off, heading south on the Taconic, marveling at the beautiful colors of the changing leaves.

It had been a wet end to the summer. That's why the leaves were so brilliant. At least that's what they had said on the news the night before. She drove along the highway, enjoying the time alone, the respite from her busy store. For the first time in a while, she felt free.

And her hands—her palms really—had finally stopped itching. It took her a moment to figure out what felt different.

It was all she could do not to pull over and caress the gun that lay in the bag beside her.

Why did she need a gun? She wasn't sure. But she needed it; she was sure of that and that was all that mattered. Security, a feeling of safety, of never being afraid, had been robbed from her years ago and while she had no immediate—or even future—plans to use this item in the bag, she felt safer having it. No one really would understand that, ever; after all, she was a suburban mom, a business owner. A nice lady, as one of her clients called her. It made sense, but only to her.

She would keep it hidden; no one would ever know.

"Thanks, Rodney Poole," she said, the utterance of his name bringing a smile to her face.

"Two hundred dollars."

The words hung in the air between Maeve and her landlord, an unsavory character who she tolerated, but only because she had to. Given the least bit of provocation—provocation that went beyond raising her rent—she would feel no guilt in blowing his head off; his proclivity for standing just a little too close to her, laying a hand on her arm or shoulder in a way that made her uncomfortable just two reasons for her dislike of him.

Then, there was the garlic.

Sebastian DuClos seemed to bathe in it, his odor making its way into the store before his physical presence. Maeve could smell him coming a mile away even if he didn't always pick up the rent on the same day, the first of the month, twelve times a year.

"Two hundred dollars?" Maeve repeated. "A month?"

"A month," he said, smiling slightly. "Do you have a problem with that?" he asked, leaning forward, his ample belly grazing the edge of the butcher-block island that ran almost the whole length of the kitchen. From a bag, he took out a ripe tomato, something she didn't expect to see in December. "And a little peace offering, Maeve. Something to take the sting out of our conversation," he said.

She took the tomato. "Thank you?" Maeve said. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it, so she placed it on the counter between them.

He usually came alone, but today, he had brought along a helper, a kid he introduced as a local named Billy, who grunted a greeting while pocketing Maeve's envelope of cash. Billy's lack of conversational aptitude aside, he was well dressed in a blue oxford shirt and khakis, low Doc Martens on his feet. He had that well-tended look of a Farringville teen, one who always got a trophy for showing up and whose parents fed him the best locally sourced vegetables, those that looked like DuClos's beautiful tomato. If nothing else, he was polite, addressing Maeve as "ma'am" and keeping his mouth shut while DuClos spoke.

DuClos looked around the kitchen. "Looks clean."

"It has to be. Board of Health and all," Maeve said.

Billy walked over to the pantry door and jiggled the handle.

"Can I help you with something?" Maeve asked, donning a clean apron in the hopes that she would send the message that she had work to do. "That's a pantry." As she did every month, she handed DuClos a loaf of bread, fresh from the oven, and a box of cupcakes. "Are we done here?"

DuClos seemed in no hurry to leave, leaning against the counter, settling in for a chat. "You've been here a while, Maeve. Right?" he asked.

She knew where this conversation was going and she didn't like it. She checked her watch, hoping that whatever he had to say would be said quickly and she could get over to Buena del Sol to see her father before it was too late. The longer Jack Conlon was awake, the less cogent he was, and she feared this might be the day she would walk in and he wouldn't know who she was or why she was there.

"Well," DuClos said, clutching the loaf of bread that Maeve had given him between his hands, exhaling a breath that filled the kitchen with the pungent odor of garlic previously consumed. "Time to raise the rent then," he said. "Don't you think?"

She was glad that he wasn't evicting her. She had too much on her plate: an ailing father with Alzheimer's, two teenaged daughters, one college tuition, another one on the way, and a mortgage. The business was finally firmly in the black and she wanted to keep it that way; a move to another location would have been a problem she didn't have the energy to solve.

Two hundred dollars. Ten more loaf breads a month or two big cakes. No sweat.

"You're successful," DuClos said. "I hear things. 'Best of Westchester'?"

"Yes," Maeve said. The accolades hadn't done all that much to increase business.

"Then two hundred a month should be a piece of cake for you," he said. "No pun intended."

Next to him, Billy looked around the kitchen, staring an inordinately long time at the ceiling tiles, the keypad for the security system by the back door, looking anywhere but at her forlorn face. When he caught her looking at him, he smiled in an approximation of sympathy.

"Fine," she said, opening the refrigerator. "When does this begin? First of the year?"

"First of the year," DuClos said, fingering a button right over his ample belly that had come undone during their conversation. "New year. New rent. I hope it won't be a problem."

She shook her head. She didn't want to give him the impression she was happy with just two hundred dollars, nor did she want him to think it was out of her reach. "Fine. First of the month."

"My associate here will be picking up rents in the future," DuClos said, the smell of his garlicky breath filling the small space. "Will you be closed over the holidays as usual?"

Maeve nodded. "As usual." She filled the butcher-block counter with the ingredients for an order she had to fill, a bridal shower cake for sixty people. "Nice to meet you, Billy," she said, though she didn't really mean it. She wanted them out of her store, but couldn't be rude. Time was ticking away. Her father's handle on the present was slowly leaving his mind like the sunlight dwindling outside in the little swath of parking lot that she could see from the open kitchen door.

"Ma'am," Billy said, nodding solemnly. She wondered what DuClos would have an "associate" do exactly, besides pick up the rent from the shopkeepers. She decided, just as quickly, that she didn't want to know.

Her landlord and his lackey made no attempt to leave. "I need another loaf of bread, Maeve," DuClos said.

More to sop up the garlic that would likely be in his dinner, Maeve thought. She went into the front of the store where Jo was gazing into the refrigerated case.

"They still in there?" she asked, her pregnant belly at odds with her lanky arms, her long neck. Pregnant now, some smells bothered Jo, and just the idea of being in an enclosed space with Sebastian DuClos made her sick to her stomach.

Maeve grabbed a loaf of bread from the counter and nodded. "Yep," she said. "But I think they're on their way. Stay put for now."

Back in the kitchen, there were a few additional moments of awkward silence before the two men drifted out the back door to the noisy car that had transported them to the bakery, the assault on her nose the only thing to let her know that they had been there in the first place, that it hadn't been just a bad dream. Maeve peeked through the small round window in the door that separated the kitchen from the front of the store.

Jo came into the kitchen to check on her friend. "So, now that they're gone, how's it hanging, sister?"

"Low and saggy," Maeve replied, attempting to smile but falling short. She felt like that a lot lately, as if she couldn't really make her mouth do what she wanted. "He's raising my rent."

"Rat bastard," Jo said.

Maeve turned and pointed to a large bin of flour, about half her size. "And someone," she said—and since it was only she and Jo that spent any time in the kitchen, that narrowed the suspects—"didn't close the flour last night. I just noticed it. I have to dump it now." She had been eyeing it the whole time her landlord had been in the store, willing herself to remember that when he and his associate were gone, she and Jo had ingredients to discard, something that pained her.

"Heather was here," Jo said, trying to foist blame onto Maeve's youngest.

Heather had been there, but Maeve knew her youngest daughter well enough to know that she didn't touch any of the baking ingredients if she didn't have to. A face full of flour one day when she tried to make cupcakes by herself had convinced her to let the experts—namely, her mother—do the baking. Jo peered into the bin. "Is that a bug?"

Maeve looked in. It wasn't, but it was a bit of detritus that had likely flown in through the back door when one of them had entered that morning, a piece of a leaf from a tree stripped bare long ago. It wasn't a ton of flour to throw out, but it was enough. She tamped down any feelings of annoyance she may have had and pulled out a big black plastic garbage bag from the box on the shelf and asked Jo to hold it open, tightening the seal around the bin so that flour didn't fly around the work area and get into Jo's sensitive and delicate nasal passages.

"Okay, let's get this done," Maeve said. "I need to see my father before dinner."

"How is my old boyfriend, Jack?" Jo asked. She asked about him every day, and Maeve wasn't sure why, but Jo was one of the people that Jack hadn't forgotten.

"He's good," Maeve lied. He wasn't. He was ornery, the dementia turning him into an angry approximation of his old self, complaining vociferously that he wanted out of Buena del Sol and into her house so that he could live out his final years with his only child. It wasn't going to happen. What was more likely was that he would be moved to the full-care section of the facility and reside in a state of confused unhappiness until his hale and hearty body finally gave out. Rather than focus on the truth of the matter, Maeve turned her full attention to the flour barrel.

The task seemed beyond Jo's capabilities as Maeve struggled to upend the bin into the garbage bag. The struggle continued as she poured the contents of the flour into the bag and Jo attempted not to breathe in a heavy dose of flying particles. By the time they had finished, Jo had a white nose and Maeve was laughing, something she hadn't done in a long time. It felt good.

"That was a lot more work than necessary," Jo said. Maeve tied up the kitchen garbage and put it into the bag with the flour.

"Can you carry that outside for me?" Maeve asked, going into the front of the store to make sure they were ready to close. On the counter, the place where Maeve did most of her work, its surface littered with spatulas, piping bags, and cupcake holders, her phone trilled. It was Angelle, the nurse from Buena del Sol who visited Jack every day in his apartment.

"He's gone, Miss Conlon." There was a hitch in the woman's voice, a small hiccup of grief. "I'm so sorry."

Maeve went through the motions at the wake, the funeral, and the burial, greeting the mourners and, in many cases, consoling them. But she was Irish-American and one thing she knew how to do was make plans to send a loved one to the "great beyond."

And how to throw a mean after party.

When it came to what was eaten after a good, old-fashioned Irish Catholic sendoff, one had to pull out all of the stops for the mourners. To some, it was more important than the actual funeral Mass, though Maeve wasn't one of those people. Still, she felt as if she had to have something nice.

They expected it. It was required. And she was sure that Jack Conlon would haunt her until the day she died if she didn't send him off with a culinary bang.

With that in mind, she booked Mickey's, a watering hole not far from her house where she knew the owner. Mickey guaranteed her that he would kick out the drunks who sat at the bar in the middle of the day and provide a buffet befitting Maeve's father and his appetites.