Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

you mean?” asked Tom. “Billy was harmless. His sister even let him tag along on our dates. How many big sisters do that?”

“Ones whose boyfriend won’t behave?”

“I’m serious, Joe. Who would want to harm a nice kid like Billy Pearce?”

“Kill,” said Joe quietly. He picked up a stick and used the crooked end to snag a soggy sneaker that had drifted beside a floating fish carcass. “He may have been a nice little kid, Tommy. But he hung with a different crowd after his cute little brother days.”

“Like who?”

“The Cashins, Frankie Heller, that bunch.”

Tom couldn’t picture Billy Pearce having anything in common with local bad boys, and he said so.

“Pickings get slim around here after the school crowd leaves for college,” Joe reminded him. “What’s left is all there is, unless you want to stay home and drink.”

That Billy Pearce was a disappointment to his over-achieving family was something the family never hid. But Tom couldn’t imagine the aristocratic Dr. Pearce sitting idle while his offspring dragged the family name to the trailer park. He kicked a spray of stones toward the water and, as if in response, the Blackberry in his pocket began to bleat. A swift, smothering hug pinned Tom’s arm to his side, preventing him from answering it.

“Fair warning, Tommy. You had that thing glued to your ear the whole time you were here last year. Mom says that if she sees it there again, she’s going to shove it in with her cane.”

Tom tried to free his arm, but it was pancaked to his ribcage.

“Unless it’s a girl calling.”

The phone continued to vibrate. “Look, I got a cryptic phone call as I was getting off the plane. I may have to go back to New York.”

“Sweet Jesus, brother!” The squeeze tightened. “Mom will kill you. Bonnie will help her. The girls will truss you up with their jump ropes, and Luke will gnaw off your feet at the ankle.”

“Norman Rockwell meets the Far Side,” The words escaped with the last of Tom’s breath.

“We love you too, brother. But if you don’t stay off that god damned phone… or if you try to leave early because some fat cat snaps his fingers… be afraid for what your loving family will do to you.”

Tom struggled to free his arm. “Let me answer the phone, Joe.”

“Not a chance. If you need an action fix while you’re here, put that Ivy League brain of yours to work on something important for a change. Help me find out who killed Billy Pearce.”

* * *

Joe drove the patrol car into the hills east of town, where the pavement gave way to gravel and then dirt. Minutes later, he turned onto a one-lane track that came to an end in front of a three thousand square foot log cabin on ten acres of cleared land overlooking Coldwater Lake.

Tom whistled. “You win the lotto or something? This is your new place?”

“It’s private,” Joe growled. “And secure.” He punched a code into the keypad next to the front door. “I’ll leave you here to visit with Mom, if she isn’t napping. I need to get over to the morgue. But if she’s up, try not to push each other’s buttons, okay? It’d be nice to have a quiet, peaceful visit for a change.”

Easier said… Tom loved his mother, and knew that all of his best qualities came from her. But a wall had risen between them that had not been there when he was growing up, bricked and layered by his choice of career and lifestyle, and mortared by her displeasure with both.

He set his bags in the hall, catching his jet-lagged reflection in the polished copper pans that dangled above the island kitchen. A timbered room filled the greater part of the ground floor, bordered by a ceiling-high stone fireplace on one side and bedrooms on the other. Sliding glass doors led to a wraparound porch that overlooked the lake.

A thin, raspy voice rose from a couch at the center of the room. “You’re letting your hair grow.”

Tom crossed the room and gave his mother a kiss. A policeman’s widow for a dozen years, Mary Morgan had long since decided that life doesn’t get much better than a quiet afternoon on the magic carpet of a moderate alcohol buzz. She was thinner than when he had visited a year ago, and the thigh-high cast made her seem frail.

“I’m on vacation, Beautiful.”

“You didn’t grow that in a week.”

He laughed. “A client talked me into it.”

“Does she have a name?” Mary didn’t hide the hope in her voice. She exaggerated it.

“Ed,” he said firmly, moving a pile of magazines from the end of the couch to clear a spot beside her.

“Pshaw!”

Suppressing a smile, he watched his mother’s graceful fingers comb a crop of silver curls that had been black and straight when he and Joe were growing up, with an off-center streak of white as if her habit of running her hand through her hair had worn away its colors.

“You know I worry about you flitting around all those foreign cities. So does your brother—though he’d never say so to your face. It isn’t safe. Americans aren’t as popular as they used to be.”

Tom reminded himself to be patient and let her work her beads. Afterwards they could relax and enjoy each other’s company. But as his brother had cautioned, if Tom tried to stop or shorten what had become an annual ritual, there would be no peace for any of them. “I’m in London more than any place other than New York,” he said. “It’s pretty safe these days… as long as our people don’t start blowing up pubs again.”

Don’t bait her, Tommy.

Mary’s face puckered, and she gave him the look. Her maiden name had been Flynn, but she refused to admit the Irish were her people. “Ne’er-do-well cousins” was as close as she’d come. “And you stayed, I suppose.” It was a statement, not a question, and an unveiled reference to the congenital recklessness