Never Tell a Lie Page 8

  Mr. Vlaskovic’s fingers hovered over the silver top of the hair receiver.

  Ivy pulled out the photograph. She’d taped the halves back together.

  “Oh,” Mr. Vlaskovic said. He took it from her.

  “Is that you?”

  “On my father’s lap?” He looked at Ivy and back at the photograph. “No, that’s my older brother, Stefan. And this”—he poked a gnarled finger at the woman—“I can only presume, must be my mother.”

  “Presume?”

  “We had no pictures of her. This would have been taken just before I was born. In fact, not long before…” His voice trailed off.

  Ivy examined the photograph more carefully. She had found a dress like that in the wicker trunk. She remembered that it had had no waist, just a tie in the back. The somber woman could easily have been pregnant.

  Mr. Vlaskovic barely nodded. “I was born, and then my mother—” He cleared his throat.

  He picked up the diary, opened it, and lifted out the lock of hair tied with a blue ribbon. He read the first entry. Then he sat there, holding the lock of hair in his palm and staring into space.

  “This dresser set must have been hers,” Ivy said.

  “That would appear to be the case,” he said, though he seemed lost in thought.

  “I thought you might want them back. Heirlooms, family history. Something to remember her by.”

  “Pfff.” Mr. Vlaskovic exhaled, shaking himself out of his trance. “Memory is a much-overrated commodity. Spend any significant amount of time in a place like this and you’ll see what I mean. Besides, heirlooms require heirs. Family. There is none. I’m the end.” He chuckled. “Soon the dead end.”

  He tucked the photograph and the lock of hair into the diary and snapped the book shut. He began to give it back to Ivy, then withdrew his hand.

  “Thank you. I think I will keep this.” He gave her a thin smile. “With the rest, you’re welcome to do whatever you wish.”

  Ivy returned the mirror and hairbrush and hair receiver to the bag.

  Mr. Vlaskovic got to his feet and offered her his arm. Together they walked back inside.

  “By the way,” Ivy said, “the other day I ran into someone who knew your family. Melinda White. She said her mother used to work for you?”

  “White?” Mr. Vlaskovic slowed, mulling the name. “Can’t say as I remember…. Or wait—there was a Mrs. White who used to clean for us. But that would have been a very long time ago, twenty-five years at least.”

  “That sounds about right,” Ivy said.

  “Twenty-five years.” Mr. Vlaskovic worked his lips in and out. “Funny how these days that doesn’t seem so very long.”

  When they reached the lobby, he dropped Ivy’s arm and craned his neck to look up at her. “It was very kind of you to come all the way over here to see me. You could have just as easily thrown those things out.”

  “We did throw out some clothing that we assumed no one would want. And there was…” Ivy hesitated, uncertain whether to continue. “There was a straitjacket.”

  “Ah, yes. That.” Mr. Vlaskovic’s eyes turned watery. “Something else we never talked about,” he said in a low voice that Ivy might not have heard if she hadn’t been standing so close.

  “Your brother?” Ivy asked, remembering the story the real estate agent had told them.

  “Heavens, no. Whatever gave you that idea? More likely my mother. I remember so little, but she was…an invalid. Unhappy. Depressed, I suppose, would be the diagnosis today. Back then there was no treatment. Just custodial care, which, fortunately, my father could afford.” He shook his head. “He did his best. Hired nurses. Tried to keep her from harming herself.

  “And then one day she just vanished. That’s how it was in those days. Illness, especially mental illness. Death. They thought it best to move on, not dwell on unpleasantness.

  “But, you know, it’s actually a very bad thing. My father—” He looked away, without completing the thought. “As a small boy, I was afraid to go up to the attic. I had nightmares about it. I thought she was still up there, waiting for me, waiting to gobble me up. It would have been so much better if they’d just told my brother and me what had happened to her.”

  He gave Ivy a piercing look. “Secrets can be toxic,” he continued. “The truth is rarely as dreadful or as terrifying as what one imagines.”

  11

  So their real estate agent had gotten it wrong, Ivy thought as she drove the winding road back to the highway. The attic bedroom had been finished for Paul Vlaskovic’s mother, not his brother. Stories from the past, handed from person to person, often got twisted around like that. Emilia Vlaskovic had written those diary entries when she was pregnant with Stefan, her first child, at the start of what turned out to be a descent into a depression from which she never emerged.

  Had she been carted off to an asylum somewhere? Become ill and died? Committed suicide? Whatever had happened, was it any less dreadful or terrifying than what her young son Paul had imagined?

  People didn’t just disappear. Or did they? Ivy touched the hollow of her neck where her grandmother’s silver amulet should have been hanging.

  She swung the car onto the highway. The TV station with its giant satellite dishes mounted on a roof along the side of the road reminded her of the pert commentator who’d delivered her breathless report from their front lawn last night. A local woman remains missing at this hour. Ivy turned on the radio, hoping for a news update.

  She was at the Brush Hills exit when she remembered the baby shower. Damn. It was already three o’clock. Guests would be arriving.

  Ivy accelerated across town, slowing through the speed trap that Brush Hills cops set to snare commuters taking the back way through to the city. She turned onto a side street and into a neighborhood where the horsey set had lived for generations in gracious old homes.

  The street sloped down to the broad mouth of the Neponset River. Lower, where there had once been marsh, then farmland, stood a dozen abandoned McMansions in various stages of unfinished. Unable to line up buyers, the developer had run out of money, and construction had come to a dead halt.

  Ivy turned at the handsome carved sign with gold embossed letters: ROSE GARDENS AND LANDSCAPING. She continued down a tree-lined dirt road and onto one of the town’s few remaining largely undeveloped parcels of land. Officially, David leased the land from his mother, whose family had farmed it back in the 1800s.

  David’s father had been apoplectic when David dropped out of Boston College in his junior year to start Rose Gardens. He’d done the unthinkable—walked away from a football scholarship. Varsity football had been Mr. Rose’s all-consuming dream. Earning an M.B.A. and becoming a business executive were part of his father’s vision of David’s glorious destiny. What David wanted was to spend as much time as he could outside, working with his hands.

  Rose men didn’t rake and mow the lawn, his father had fumed. That’s what “help” was for. David’s parents’ retirement and move to Park City, Utah, five years ago had been a relief—for both David and his dad. Now David’s parents were on a cruise ship, somewhere far down the coast of South America.

  In the beginning, David’s office had been a one-room trailer, your basic ventilated tin can. The business specialized in creating environmentally friendly gardens with native, low-maintenance plants and spectacular hunks of granite from local quarries. His sales philosophy: It’s disrespectful to sell people something they don’t want and can’t maintain.

  Having said that, David hadn’t fallen far from the family tree. “Your husband could sell shit to a zookeeper,” Rose Gardens’ office manager, Lillian Bailiss, had once told Ivy. From a one-man crew, David had grown the business to a staff of four full-timers and a half dozen regular day workers whom he kept busy three seasons a year.

  Ivy pulled up to the log house that had a few years ago replaced the trailer. It was divided into an airy showroom with large plate-glass windows in the front and offices
in back. A broad, welcoming porch, with wooden rocking chairs on it, stretched across the width of the building.

  The parking area out front, bordered by a hitching rail, was full. Ivy recognized the black Camry that belonged to her boss and director of marketing at Mordant Technologies, Naresh Sharma. The red SUV belonged to her co-worker, Patty-Jo Linehan. The black Lexus was Theo’s. The acid green VW belonged to Jody. David’s truck and his employees’ cars would be parked around back.

  Ivy checked her face in the rearview mirror and ran her fingers through her hair. The showroom door opened, and David appeared, his hands open in a Where the heck have you been? gesture.

  There was applause when she entered. Six or seven of her co-workers were there, all dressed for business, along with David’s employees in jeans and work shirts. Jody waved from across the room. Moon-faced Riker was perched on her hip, waving a pretzel stick like he was conducting the crowd. Theo, the only one in the room in pin-stripes, lounged against the wall.

  The aroma of moist loam wafted into the generous, light-filled room from the adjacent greenhouse. Baby gifts were piled in a corner.

  Ivy felt a rush of pleasure, seeing all their friends and colleagues, there to wish them both well, and pride at this beautiful space that David had created. Photos of “before and after” landscaping projects covered one wall, and another wall was hung thick with awards and certificates of appreciation from local organizations and charities that David supported.

  Lillian Bailiss strode into the room. Tough and sinewy even into her late sixties, Lillian was a force of nature. David considered it the smartest business decision he’d ever made, coaxing her out of retirement. Since then she’d coaxed order from chaos, and the Rose Gardens balance sheet had moved steadily deeper into the black.

  Lillian’s eyes crinkled with pleasure. “Hi, hon.” She put a cool hand on Ivy’s cheek, and her expression clouded as she looked into Ivy’s eyes. “You hanging in there?” Ivy knew she meant more than the pregnancy.

  Ivy managed a nod.

  A young woman Ivy didn’t recognize came over, smiling. “So you’re Ivy,” she said. Her turned-up nose was sunburned, and her cheeks were the color of a ripe peach. “I’ve heard so much about you.” Her ponytail bounced as she offered her hand. “I’m Cindy Goodwin.”

  She had a strong grip, and her palms were callused, the nails on her stubby fingers cut short. Work gloves sprouted from the hip pockets of Cindy’s low-rise jeans.

  “Cindy’s our new assistant manager,” Lillian said.

  Ivy tried to hide her surprise. She knew that David had been looking to hire a second-in-command; she even recalled him telling her that he’d interviewed a woman for the job.

  “I-eee!” The shriek got Ivy’s attention. She turned to find Jody holding Riker, who was canted forward, reaching his chubby arms out to her.

  “Hey, buddy,” Ivy said, catching Riker in her arms. At just a year old, he was a solid, exuberant cherub, all pink cheeks and dimples.

  “Hi, sweetie,” Jody said. With her tawny curls and plump curves, Jody had always been Ivy’s polar opposite. A sprinter, Jody ran fast, short strides, her pumping legs a blur like the cartoon Road Runner. Ivy matched her speed with half as many loping strides. “So who’s that?” Jody nodded in Cindy’s wake.

  “Rose Gardens’ new assistant manager,” Ivy said.

  “Assistant manager? And here I pictured someone in bib overalls, not Cheerleader Barbie. Stomach’s like a frickin’ board, damn her,” Jody said under her breath. Jody hadn’t managed to shed the last twenty-five pounds she’d put on carrying Riker.

  “What are you two whispering about?” David asked, slipping his arm around Ivy. Grinning like a fool and raising a bottle of champagne overhead, he announced, “To my beautiful wife!”

  There was scattered applause.

  David put his mouth to Ivy’s ear. “Hey, Stretch. I do love you, you know. You and whoever it is that you’ve got hiding out inside you.”

  Emotion welled up, and Ivy sniffed back a tear. She handed Riker to Jody and hugged David.

  Cindy appeared from an inner office carrying a bunch of pastel-colored helium balloons and a big cellophane-wrapped basket. Attached to the basket was a baby-size baseball cap with the Rose Gardens logo on it. Lillian carried in a sheet cake with white icing and yellow trim.

  Theo wheeled over a desk chair, and Ivy sank into it, accepting a proffered glass of bubbly. She took a tiny sip—sparkling apple cider—and leaned back. She let go and allowed her brain to fog with the aromas of peat moss, bark mulch, and sugar frosting.

  An hour later Ivy had consumed an embarrassing amount of cheese and crackers, gourmet potato chips, and cake. She opened the presents. The big package from her colleagues at Mordant was an Italian jogging stroller. The label trumpeted its “125-pound capacity.” She imagined herself running along pushing Baby Huey.

  “Watch out,” Naresh said. Though he’d been her boss for four years, they’d collaborated as equals on the architecture of Mordant’s Web site. “The kid will expect nothing short of a Porsche after riding around in this chariot.” Usually a painfully formal individual, Naresh now wrapped Ivy in a stiff hug. He pulled away and fixed her with a long look, his eyes misting over. “So.” She started to choke up, too.

  “That stroller,” Ivy managed to say. “It’s the nicest present ever. Perfect. Who picked it out?”

  Naresh beamed at her, then hit his fingertips lightly against his forehead. “Oh, yes. I have another little something for the new father.” He fished in his pocket and came up with a small package. He handed it to David.

  David held the box to his ear and shook. Whatever was inside rattled like dry beans. “Earplugs?”

  “I know. A year’s supply of Ambien,” Ivy offered. From Naresh’s shocked expression, she could tell that she’d guessed.

  The room rocked with laughter, and David put up his hand for quiet. “Thank you all so much. You’re the best friends—” he began. From outside came the sound of tires on gravel. A car door slammed. “—We could ever have wished for.” Then another slam, and another. Heads turned. “And—”

  Theo stepped to the window, then moved to the door just in time to intercept Detective Blanchard and three uniformed officers.

  12

  More cake, champagne, anyone?” Cindy asked. Her voice sounded artificially cheerful and naked in the awkward silence that filled the room as David and Theo talked to the police outside.

  Jody stood beside Ivy, her hand on Ivy’s arm while Riker whimpered, sensing the unease. Lillian Bailiss stood at the window, looking out. Everyone seemed to be avoiding Ivy’s gaze.

  Finally David and Theo returned. Detective Blanchard followed them in. He hung in the doorway, taking in the balloons, the mounds of wrinkled gift wrapping, and the remaining cake.

  “Hey, everyone. I’m sorry about this,” David said. His smile did little to mask the tension in his face. “Thanks to all of you for coming. For the good wishes. And for the wonderful gifts. If all my employees could stay here for a few moments after everyone else leaves, that would be great.”

  Moments later it felt as if two-thirds of the guests had simply evaporated. Cindy sat curled in a chair, chewing on her thumb and looking very much a little girl. Lillian tore a black garbage bag from a roll and shook it open with a snap. She made an efficient circuit, scooping up wrapping paper and ribbon, plates of half-eaten cake and plastic champagne glasses. The men, David’s employees who worked in the nursery and managed crews, stood watching.

  David cleared his throat and held up a piece of paper. “This is a search warrant, as I’m sure some of you guessed. The police are investigating the disappearance of a woman who was last seen at a yard sale at our house this weekend.”

  David gazed out the window for a long moment, a muscle working in his jaw. “I have no idea how long they’re going to be. So, everyone, please take the rest of the day off.” He held his hands open. “I’m as anxious as anyone else for
them to find out what happened to this woman. We need to stay out of these guys’ way. They’re just doing their jobs.”

  Encroaching pine trees shadowed the parking area later as David and Theo loaded gifts into the trunk of Ivy’s car. When they’d left the showroom, a police officer had been going through desk drawers in David’s office. Another was in Lillian Bailiss’s office. Ivy could hear the thock…thock…thock of a shovel hitting the pile of bark mulch by the barn.

  “I’d really like to stay here,” she said.

  “It’ll be better if you leave us to deal with this,” Theo said.

  “But this concerns me, too.” She looked to David for support, but he was staring down at his feet and grinding a stone into the dirt with his heel.

  “If you’re not here,” Theo said, “then they can’t ask you questions and you won’t have to refuse to answer. David needs to be here. Rose Gardens is his business.”

  His life and not hers?

  David came around in front of her. He put his hands on her shoulders and pressed his lips against her forehead. “I know it’s hard, but I’ll be much calmer dealing with this alone, knowing you’re somewhere safe.”

  Somewhere safe—and where exactly was that? Home felt like a fishbowl.

  “How long do you think…?” she started. It felt as if one of the stones from the driveway were lodged in the back of her throat.

  “Until they’re satisfied that there’s nothing to find,” Theo said.

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” Theo said, opening her car door for her. “The best way you can help right now is by not being here.”

  Reluctantly, Ivy got into the car. She waved and backed out of the parking spot. Traffic crawled across town. All these people on their way home after a day of work, their major concern whether to eat in or get takeout.