The Gift of the Magpie Page 10

  “I think I’ll wander over and see if I can guide the conversation into a productive channel,” Michael said. “If I can think of one.”

  “The fact that they’re not native to this part of the country,” I suggested. “And that we don’t know whether conditions here are suitable for them to have a long healthy life. Plus the fact that we have no idea what harm they’re doing to the local ecosystem.”

  “Excellent.” He drifted off in Grandfather’s wake.

  I went back to the buffet for another helping.

  The party flowed on. From time to time I heard Grandfather holding forth on some natural history topic or other. I wasn’t sure why he was telling one brace of cousins how to hypnotize a frog, and I suspect Aunt Verity would have been happier not knowing that three percent of the ice in Antarctica was composed of penguin urine. Or that fields and forests generally contained an average of fifty thousand spiders per acre. But at least Grandfather seemed to have lost interest in brain-eating praying mantises.

  I saw Mrs. Diamandis chatting animatedly with Dad and several other garden club members. Apparently they’d all been admiring her roses from afar for years, but for some reason had never gotten around to introducing themselves to her, much less inviting her to share her obvious expertise and love of roses with the club. Well, now that would change. Another victory for the Helping Hands.

  Eventually the crowd began thinning out. Everyone seemed to have had a great time—well, with the possible exception of Aunt Verity. Everyone stopped to say goodnight to Harvey and wish him a merry Christmas. Harvey had had a glass or so of wine, and seemed slightly tipsy and utterly happy. It occurred to me that I should pitch in to clean up, but then I realized that everything I could think of doing had already been done. The leftovers that hadn’t already been taken away were neatly packed up. The trash had been taken out. The kitchen and bathroom were scrubbed clean.

  Maybe I’d actually get to bed on time.

  “Who’s taking Mr. Dunlop home?” Jamie asked.

  Chapter 12

  Drat. Yes, someone had to take him home. And it should probably be us, which was unfortunate, because the route to his house led in almost exactly the opposite direction from the one that would take us home. Dropping him off would add at least half an hour to our trip.

  But when I glanced around at the people still here, I realized that only a few of them were people Harvey knew well enough that I’d feel comfortable suggesting he ride with them, and those were all family and friends who’d be taking the same direction out of town.

  “We can take him,” I said. “I’d actually like having a chance to see what you all got done after I left.”

  “It’s out of your way, isn’t it?” Harvey said. “I hate to be a bother.”

  “I have a better idea,” Cordelia said to me. “Meg, why don’t you take my car and drop him off? I can take your spot in the Twinmobile.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “I was thinking of asking if someone could drive me home anyway,” she said. “You know how I hate driving after dark with my terrible night vision—especially since they’re predicting rain any time now. I’ll feel much safer riding with Michael.”

  I didn’t recall her ever complaining about her night vision, and while Michael was certainly a very reliable driver, I also couldn’t recall any previous occasions when she’d preferred being driven by anyone to getting someplace under her own steam—was this a new sensible aging thing or was she just trying to avoid making Harvey feel he was a burden?

  I’d figure that out later.

  “Perfect,” I said aloud, and caught the keys she tossed me.

  I had to wait until Harvey said good-bye to various new-made friends, and expressed his eagerness to accept all their invitations and suggestions. Yes, he would love to see Rose Noire’s greenhouse and herb-drying shed. And he’d always wanted to see the Caerphilly Zoo—the idea of getting a behind-the-scenes tour was wonderful. And yes, he would like nothing better than to meet the Waterston family llama flock. And he would love to see Michael’s performance of A Christmas Carol. And yes, maybe he would come to the next meeting of the library’s book discussion group—what was this month’s selection again?

  This was what the Helping Hands project was really about, I decided. Maybe we weren’t just making a small improvement in someone’s physical surroundings. Okay, in Harvey’s case a pretty big improvement. But we just might be making an even larger positive change in his whole life.

  He chattered happily—and a little tipsily—all the way to his house. About how beautiful the New Life Baptist Choir’s concert had been. How nice all the Helping Hands people were. How much he was looking forward to his new decluttered life.

  I parked right beside his front walk and decided it would probably be a good thing to wait until I’d seen him safely inside. Better still, I should go in with him—make sure he didn’t trip on the cracked and broken walkway. If he questioned it, I could say that I wanted to remind myself how much there was left to do.

  I was pretty sure Randall already had a new walkway on his list of repairs the house needed. We should add a nice bright porch light to the list. And maybe a second light here at the street end of his walk. I’d jot the idea down in my notebook once I’d seen Harvey safely inside.

  He was standing just outside the car with the door still open, and he had fallen silent. I glanced over and saw him staring into the darkness, his face turned anxious.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “There’s someone out there,” he whispered, pointing.

  He wasn’t turning paranoid, was he? No, I spotted it, too. Just a hint of movement, a shadow barely seen against the not-quite blackness of the moonless night.

  I motioned him to get back in the car while I pulled out my phone and called 911.

  “What’s your emergency, Meg?” Debbie Ann, the dispatcher said.

  “I think there’s a prowler at Mr. Harvey Dunlop’s house.” I climbed into the car myself and clicked the button to lock the doors. “I just pulled up to drop him off, and we spotted someone in his yard.”

  “Hang on a sec,” she said.

  Harvey and I waited in tense silence for a few moments. Any second, I told myself, Debbie Ann would tell me that one of the deputies was only a few minutes away. But it seemed to be taking forever.

  “Meg,” Debbie Ann said. “Is the prowler waving at you?”

  I peered through the window. A shadowy figure had detached itself from the larger shadow of the house and was waving both arms overhead, as if trying to attract our attention.

  “Yes, the prowler is waving,” I said. “So I guess I should deduce that it’s not really a prowler.”

  “It’s Aida,” she said. “And she says the coast is clear, so meet her at the front door.”

  “It’s Aida,” I told Harvey. “Deputy Butler. She was here helping earlier.”

  “That’s all right, then.” A little of his good cheer returned. “But I wonder why she’s here.”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  Aida was waiting for us on the front porch. The almost completely decluttered front porch—apart from two wicker rockers flanking a small weathered wooden table, it was empty. Under any other circumstances I’d have found it a little stark. But compared with what it looked like when we’d arrived this morning—okay, stark probably still applied. But starkly beautiful.

  “Sorry,” Aida said. “Didn’t mean to spook you. Mrs. Gudgeon next door called in a prowler report. Didn’t see anybody, but I was checking the backyard when you drove up. And I didn’t recognize the car, so I slipped behind the house to see what you were up to.”

  “Glad it was a false alarm,” I said.

  “But what if there really was a prowler?” Harvey asked. He was fumbling with the key to his front door.

  “If there was, they were long gone by the time I got here,” she said. “And if you ask me, Mrs. Gudgeon is … well, I just wish I had a nickel for e
very time she’s called in to report prowlers. Or bears. She’s real big on the bear sightings, too. Still, if you like, I’ll check the premises before you settle in.”

  So Harvey and I waited just inside the front door while Aida methodically went room to room, inspecting every place large enough for even a stray cat to hide, and checking that all the windows and doors were secure.

  “All clear,” she said. “And if it’ll make you feel better, I can ask for extra patrols on your street tonight.”

  “It would,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “You want to look around yourself?” Aida asked. “See if everything looks okay?”

  He nodded, and made his own tour of inspection. While he did, Aida radioed in the request for extra patrols. Harvey finally returned to the living room, looking slightly uneasy.

  “I think everything’s okay,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to tell.”

  “Did you notice anything missing?” I asked.

  “Yeah—about half my stuff.” He gave us a surprisingly goofy grin. “But I’m pretty sure it’s all in boxes over at the furniture store.” His grin faded. “It just looks so different.”

  I wanted to point out that a lot of people had been working very hard to achieve that difference, but I wasn’t sure how he’d take it.

  “Is that a bad thing?” I asked instead.

  A look of surprise crossed his face.

  “No,” he said. “I guess maybe it’s a good thing. Just really different, you know. It’ll take some getting used to. But … well, I guess I can get used to it.”

  He flashed us the grin again.

  “Starting to look pretty nice to me,” Aida said,

  “You know, it’s a little less cozy,” he said. “And I feel … I don’t know … disloyal, maybe? Or wasteful?” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “But you know, I think maybe I can breathe better in here now.”

  Maybe he was just reacting to the fact that all the dust we’d raised during our packing efforts had settled while we were at the concert and the party. Or maybe his reaction was emotional rather than physical.

  “You know, I’m glad I know the Helping Hands can also fix the place up after it’s empty,” he went on. “Without the stuff in the way you kind of focus on everything that’s wrong with it. Dents and scrapes and broken parts.”

  “It’ll be like new when you move back in again,” I said.

  He smiled at that. And that made me suddenly very happy, in spite of my tiredness.

  “Do you think we’ll finish tomorrow?” he asked. “Moving the stuff out, I mean.”

  “We might,” I said. “If not tomorrow, then certainly the day after. It’ll help if we get an early start. Would it work for us to come by at eight a.m.?”

  “That will be great.”

  “Oh—I almost forgot something.” I fished into my purse and drew out one of the keys Randall had given me. “Your key to the furniture store. So you can go over and look at your possessions any time you want to.”

  “Thank you.” Harvey got a little choked up. I did too, actually. So we all watched in solemn silence as he added the key to his own key ring.

  Then Aida and I wished him goodnight and filed out. We paused on the front porch and listened until we heard him lock both of his doors and put on the security chain.

  “He should be okay,” Aida said as we picked our way carefully down the uneven surface of his front walk.

  “Do you really think there’s some kind of danger?”

  “Probably not, but why take chances?” She stopped just outside the hedge and surveyed not only Harvey’s house but the neighboring ones. “You want to know what I think? I’m not even sure there was a prowler tonight—I’m guessing maybe all the activity over here has unsettled Mrs. Gudgeon. Got her jumpy. Doesn’t take much with her. But some of the other prowler calls were real. And I bet it’s someone in the neighborhood who’s trying to scare him. Get him upset enough that he moves out.”

  “I doubt if it would work that way,” I said. “I don’t think he’d be capable of organizing a move, and the more scared he got the more he’d freeze.”

  “Could be—but they wouldn’t know that.” Aida had given up glaring at Harvey’s two next-door neighbors and had turned to glance at the neighbors across the street. Directly in front of us was a small playground. The houses to either side were both dark. For that matter, so were most of the houses up and down the street. Even Harvey’s now. “Most of the neighbors aren’t thrilled with how his house looks, but they’re not being jerks about it that I’ve heard. Just Mr. Brimley and Mrs. Gudgeon. I’m betting if there is a prowler it’s one of them. Or maybe the two of them are in it together.”

  “Don’t forget his cousins,” I said. “Especially the one who showed up here.”

  “A good point. We won’t.” Aida turned her gaze back to Harvey’s house. “You know, as long as the Helping Hands project is fixing up his house, let’s install a good security system. One with cameras and motion-activated lights. The whole shebang. Maybe he won’t need it—maybe once he’s no longer the neighborhood eyesore the prowlers will stop bothering him. But just in case they don’t, it would be nice to get the goods on them.”

  “I’ll add it to my list,” I said. “Along with a light for that damned front walk.”

  “Now you’re thinking,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”

  I climbed into my car and headed home.

  When I got home, things were quiet. The relatives had gone to bed, except for a few hardcore gamers playing either Dungeons & Dragons or Settlers of Catan in the library. Michael was pacing in his office, doing a little bit of last-minute rehearsal for his annual one-man performance of A Christmas Carol, since the first show was tomorrow.

  I pulled out my laptop so I could check my email, and sat in the living room in front of the fire. The group email I’d sent out to the Helping Hands list, asking for volunteers for tomorrow, had received several dozen answers and I wanted to acknowledge them all, if only with a quick “Thanks! See you there!” As soon as I finished that I was going to hit the hay. And—

  “Mom?” I looked up to see Josh hovering in the doorway. He looked unhappy. “Can I ask you something?”

  “What’s up?” I pushed away my laptop and sat back, stifling the impulse to ask why he was up so much past his bedtime. And braced myself for what I expected would be another frustrating attempt to think of the perfect gift for everyone on his Christmas list. I hoped I could convince him to put off the search till morning. What I wouldn’t give for them to still feel last year’s blithe confidence that they knew exactly what all of us wanted.

  He perched on the arm of the sofa and kicked its leg a couple of times before remembering how much it annoyed me and making a visible effort to hold his foot still. I couldn’t help thinking that one abrupt move would send him fleeing away, like the birds that had been flocking in our yard that afternoon, easily startled yet lured back by the birdseed.

  “It’s about Mr. Dunlop,” he said. “And his house.”

  He paused there.

  “Pretty unusual,” I said eventually, just to get the conversation moving again.

  “Yeah.” Suddenly the dam opened. “I was making fun of him. I know I shouldn’t have, but the whole thing was just so…” His hands gestured as he hunted for the right word.

  “Weird?” I suggested.

  He nodded.

  “You’re not alone,” I said. “Seems pretty weird to me, too. Did you make fun of him to his face?”

  “No. Just to Jamie. And there’s no way Mr. Dunlop could have heard me—I waited till we were outside. I still feel bad.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I’ve been having a hard time with it myself.”

  “Wanting to make fun of him?” He looked surprised.

  “A little bit, but mostly wanting to shake him and say ‘Wake up! Look at what you’re doing to yourself!’ And resenting how hard it is to be patient and move at the speed he can ha
ndle—that’s tough. Luckily Rose Noire and Gran-gran are better at it than I am.”

  “Rose Noire is,” Josh said. “I think Gran-gran feels a lot like you do. Whenever she couldn’t take it anymore she’d go out and walk in circles around the house till she felt better.”

  “She’s a good example to all of us,” I said, not trying to hide my smile. “I get that you feel bad. I think you should do what I’m going to do.”

  “Apologize to Mr. Dunlop?” He looked glum at the idea.

  “No, if you’re sure he never heard you, apologizing wouldn’t help. You could apologize to Jamie—tell him you’re sorry you said those things in front of him.”

  Heavy sigh, and then a nod.

  “But mostly what I’m going to do is try to figure out why Mr. Dunlop can’t get rid of things,” I said. “And then see if there’s anything we can do to fix that. For example, maybe he’s sad because he’s lost all his family and doesn’t have many friends.”

  “He was telling Rose Noire and Gran-gran all these stories about his things, and the family members who used to own them,” Josh said. “I can kind of get that. Some of his stuff is cool. But most of it’s just … old. And all that paper.”

  “Well, maybe he’s afraid to get rid of the paper,” I said. “What if he throws it away and then he needs some of the information?”

  Josh was silent for a bit.

  “Mason still has every video game he’s ever owned,” he said. “Even the ones that only work on the PS3 that broke when he was, like, seven. Drives his mom crazy. But he’s only really like that with games. He doesn’t get upset if she gives away his old clothes or anything. Just games. I guess Mr. Dunlop is like that with everything. You think once we get his house clean he can keep it that way?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “But even if he doesn’t, he’ll be better off for a while. And maybe if it starts getting messy again he’ll let us help him.”

  “Yeah.” he stood up, and then paused again in the doorway. “You know those old bicycles that are too small for us that you wanted us to donate? The ones we put up in the barn loft for the time being?”