Miranda doesn’t even bother to take the lid off Mrs. Crowder’s casserole and see what’s in there. She cuts up a few of the fine red garden tomatoes, sprinkles olive oil and salt on them, brings them back with forks and hunks of bakery bread.
Nobody touches anything.
“Tell me about the lawyer,” Miranda says.
The lawyer is solid, stodgy, experienced. She does not smile. She offers no comfort to these terrified parents. She will do what she can “to mitigate the seriousness of Lander’s situation.”
Does this mean Lander’s own lawyer is not trying to prove Lander’s innocence? Just trying to make Lander’s guilt less serious?
In the sweltering evening, Miranda’s hands ice up. “Has Lander explained that it was an accident? Or self-defense?”
Her father’s face is trembling. She has never seen this before. One cheek quivers differently from the other, as if he is developing a dimple there, or having a stroke. He shrugs, because he can come up with no other motion. “I guess she hasn’t said much of anything.”
Candy telephones.
Miranda stares at the caller ID of her dearest friend. She doesn’t answer. Her head thunders. She takes a few aspirin and spends Saturday night on the porch, sleeping fitfully on the chaise longue in its flat position. Every now and then she reads the news banners on her phone. There are interviews with “experts.” Nobody seems to have facts, but they’re eager to present guesses. A retired cop discusses drug dealing along the river. Drug dealing is a young man’s game, the experienced cop says. As he talks, the screen displays a photo of Lander and Jason probably taken off her Facebook. It looks like a selfie. The implication is that Jason—a young man—and Lander, his girlfriend, are drug dealers.
SUNDAY MORNING
At dawn, it is drizzling, which does not stop the bass fishermen, who continually zoom downriver. A few boats fish at the water’s edge below the Allerdons’ bluff. It’s a good spot, because several feet below the surface of the water is a jutting shelf of bedrock, and fish like it there. Miranda cannot see the men, but is forced to listen to them talk. It is not the usual fishermen’s talk, which is boring and confined to fish.
“What do you think?” The voice is excited.
“Yep. It’s this house. I checked Google Maps for Allerdon, and theirs is the only one right at the water’s edge.”
“Did you see the barge thing happen?”
“No, but there are two videos on YouTube. Neither one actually shows the guy getting sucked under, though,” says the voice regretfully.
These men are not fishing. They are sight-seeing. This is where the murderer lives! This is where she met her boyfriend!
When they motor away, Miranda slips outside, barefoot on the dewy grass, and fastens the gate at the top of the cliff stairs. It’s not a security lock, just a safety lock. Anybody could open it by feeling around the backside of the gate. Miranda pretends that it will hold off trespassers.
Back inside, Miranda realizes that today is Sunday.
Here at the cottage, they attend summer church. It’s a lovely small white clapboard church way out in the country, high on a grassy hill, open only in July and August. A retired minister who lives nearby officiates, and a pianist plays the hymns.
Summer church is airy, with the doors left open, and tall, thin windows framing green leaves and blue sky. Summer church is as much a part of their cottage world as the river. Miranda wonders what hymns they will sing this morning. Lander, who is a brilliant pianist, often plays the prelude. They probably don’t have grand pianos in prison.
Miranda and her parents toy with breakfast. Dishes are soiled, but nothing is eaten. Coffee is made, but mugs are untouched.
Although church is their source of comfort, worship and friendship, they cannot face all those people. To be the object of pity and prayer is appalling. They skip church.
Around nine, her parents leave. They will drive south to the shoreline and the jail where Lander is sitting. They will camp in the waiting room. They are desperate to see her. Desperate to meet again with the lawyer.
Desperate.
They ask if Miranda wishes to come but she doesn’t. It’s not a family outing. And again today, she is possessed by the sensation that if she just formulates the right plan, she will find Jason. He has to be the killer!
But she has no plan.
Barrel’s owners come over.
Both the Nevilles are doctors. They practice in Hartford, and do not frequently get down to their weekend place. They have a live-in housekeeper, whom Miranda never sees except when the woman fills Barrel’s bowl. In Miranda’s opinion, the Nevilles have a dog solely to bolster their persona as the kind of people who rescue dogs.
Their slim, trim bodies are clad in matching silver-and-green running outfits and they are dancing on their very expensive running shoes, preparatory to the sort of five-mile jaunt they like.
“Miranda, darling,” says Dr. Neville the wife. “We are horrified. How can we help?”
They probably are horrified, but if they really wanted to help, they’d have come over before her parents drove away.
Perhaps Miranda should ask for money. The doctors surely have tons of it.
“How is your poor sister doing?” they ask.
Miranda does not know how Lander is doing.
Is Lander confessing strings of wild sentences explaining how she came to be a murderer? Sitting quietly, mentally running through the chemistry formulas she will need in medical school? Making friends with other female prisoners, perhaps helping them to prepare a defense? Pounding her fists on a barred door, screaming for release?
“We’re going out for breakfast after our run,” says Dr. Neville the husband. “Would you like to come with us?”
The Nevilles have no interest in the neighborhood and do not participate in the barbecues, picnics and celebrations that her parents so often host.
Why do they even have this house when they are so rarely here? Who really is that housekeeper who is not just invisible but also afraid of Barrel? Why do they have Barrel? Why do they suddenly want Miranda’s company?
Jason Firenza must deal drugs, because that package of cocaine must be his. To whom does he deliver?
It seems to her that the entire neighborhood is packed with people who could be part of this; who could be the reason Jason is ever on this stretch of the river to start with.
Right there, while they jog in place, she checks the Nevilles’ Facebook page on her cell.
They have one of those blank snooty pages, without even a photograph of either one of them. They do of course list the colleges they attended, which are famous and important.
Even if she sends a friend request to these doctors so that she can see what they’ve really posted, they probably work eighteen-hour days and won’t notice until next week.
“That’s so nice of you,” she says. “But I have phone calls to make.”
She will start with Willow, Lander’s best friend. What has Lander told Willow?
—
“Mir-an-da!” cries Willow, and in those three stretched-out syllables Miranda knows this is not good. “Miranda, how are you? You poor, poor thing. I’ve been so worried about you.”
Shouldn’t Willow be worried about Lander? “Willow, did you talk to Lander this week?”
“A couple times. She is madly in love with this guy, you know. Jason this, Jason that. I mean, Lander is skeptical of men. And for her to fall so hard. I wanted to laugh. But of course I was very, very supportive and asked when we all could get together.”
Henry and Hayden arrive. “Don’t worry, we brought our own breakfast,” they tell Miranda, shaking a box of sugar cereal and holding up a quart of milk.
Are Mr. and Mrs. Warren happy to have a break from their sons? Or do they want a break from witnesses? The Warren property is far and away the most private on the river side of the road, because to their north is that deep ravine. Nobody can see anything that happens in th
e Warrens’ backyard. On the other hand, they do not have dock rights. A boat cannot tie up along their property.
Miranda has no reason to suspect a single person in her neighborhood of drug trafficking. I’m just so desperate, she thinks. I’ll shove Lander’s guilt off on anybody. She slogs on through her phone call. “I need your help, Willow.” Her voice squeals like a bad hinge. “I need you to tell me everything Lander said about Jason Firenza.”
“She said he was perfect and romantic and thoughtful and funny and adorable. I mean, I knew from the beginning she would kill for this guy.”
Miranda gasps.
“I’m sorry!” cries Willow. “Of course I didn’t mean that. It’s just a phrase. Of course you and I know that Lander is a fine person, a moral person, a good person, and yet the facts look very bad, Rimmie, and we have to face the facts. Even a fine, fine person can have a moment of rage or whatever.”
Miranda hates Willow. Hates her so passionately she could stab the woman. This is how murder happens. Willow is lucky she’s in West Hartford. Miranda grits her teeth. “Forget that,” she says to Willow. “We have to identify Jason Firenza.”
“Somebody has. You haven’t looked at Facebook in a few hours. He’s a person named Jason Draft.”
Miranda disconnects. Her interest in Willow is permanently over.
Jack still has her iPad. She texts. Come over. Bring iPad.
He texts back. Dad’s taking me to a ball game in Norwich.
She texts. Either be too sick to go or bring me the iPad first.
The knock on the front door is immediate and she whirls around, startled. It’s Stu, waving a white paper bakery bag. Wasn’t he just here? Didn’t she just get rid of him? Or was that yesterday? How many weeks have passed since the police arrived at their door? Or is it only hours? Why does Stu care more than Willow? Why aren’t Miranda’s parents here to hold her tight? Why did Lander go anywhere, ever, with Jason Firenza?
Henry and Hayden attack Stu. “What did you bring? Can we have some?” Really, they’re a little pack of canines.
Stu lifts the white bag out of the boys’ reach. “Donuts. For Rimmie. Sugar solves so many problems.”
Stu is an idiot. Sugar won’t solve a thing. Finding Jason Firenza, also known as Jason Draft, might.
Stu drops into a wicker chair, as if planning to stay; as if he might ask for coffee next. Or worse, want to know if everybody enjoyed his mother’s casserole.
Stu offers Miranda a donut but she shakes her head.
“How is Lander?” asks Stu. “I’m so worried. Do they have her in with violent criminals and stuff?”
It has not occurred to Miranda that there will be other prisoners. She pictures vicious women circling her sister, making knives out of plastic plates and stabbing her. She has to get Lander out of there! She has to find Jason Firenza. She wants the iPad back from Jack. She doesn’t need Stu or the little boys noticing. She texts Jack again. Hide it under your jacket.
And now here’s Geoffrey! Is it always like this? Do neighborhood boys crawl out from under the shrubbery on normal summer days? Or have they synchronized their watches and decided to do this on purpose to tip Miranda over the brink into insanity? Not that anyone wears a watch.
They just want to be part of the action, she thinks. If only there were action here! I am the symbol of non-action. I’m staring at rocking chairs when I should be rescuing my sister from jail.
Geoffrey approaches awkwardly. He doesn’t quite look at Stu and he doesn’t quite look at Miranda. “Hi,” he says. “You weren’t in church this morning.”
Stu looks as if he might laugh.
“We prayed for you,” says Geoffrey. He flushes. Prayer is intense; private; hard to bring up. She wants to be grateful but she is simply more horrified. The whole congregation knows. Pretty soon she’ll have even more casseroles.
At last Jack texts back. What jacket? It’s 86 out.
Miranda is desperate to be alone with that iPad. She wants Stu and Geoffrey to leave. She wants Jack.
Yet another car comes down the driveway. It is the minister from summer church.
He’s quite elderly, having been retired for decades, but he loves the eight weeks each year when he has his vocation back. He gets out of the car and simply holds out his arms to Miranda.
Miranda, whose parents are too shocked to offer comfort, cries against the soft fabric of his shirt. There is nothing like a loving grown-up. When she stops crying, he gives her a real cotton handkerchief, snowy white and ironed. She mops her face.
Stu is gone. Geoffrey is gone. The little boys are playing in their tree house.
Well, now she knows how to empty the place: call in the clergy.
The minister says gently, “Your mother and father?”
“At the jail. Hoping to visit Lander. They haven’t been allowed to yet.”
The minister looks somber. Under the circumstances, how else could he look?
“Miranda, my grandson is worried about you. I do not understand much about Facebook and Twitter and so forth, but my grandson came to summer church this morning hoping to see your family. He says you are advertising for a murderer. And that murderer is out here somewhere.”
Miranda is joyful. “You believe Lander didn’t do it?”
“I’ve known Lander all her life. She is not a killer. But I suspect she has made dreadful decisions. I don’t want you making equally dreadful decisions. Staying alone would be one of those. We are dealing with a killer and you are letting him know that you are hunting for him.” But Miranda is hunting online and is herself invisible and unnamed. She is not alarmed.
Jack arrives. He is wearing jeans, a T-shirt and bright floppy sneakers without socks. A small backpack hangs from one strap on his shoulder. The iPad must be in the backpack.
In his hands is some huge concoction. When he is closer, she sees that it is a fruit arrangement: the kind where they carve cantaloupe into daisies and put them on sticks in a watermelon basket. Jack is fending off bees and wasps that want some of the sweet juice.
With the minister holding the front door open and waving the bees off, Jack scoots in first, then Miranda, and then the minister.
One bee gets in. Jack carefully deposits his fruit bouquet on the coffee table, lets his backpack slip to the floor, picks up a magazine and efficiently swats the bee. He beams proudly. He doesn’t pick up the dead bee.
The minister repeats his statement that Miranda must not be here alone. “We are talking about drug traffickers who shoot each other. I want to be sure that you are safely among friends, Miranda. Now. Have you had dinner? My wife and grandson and I would love to take you to dinner.”
Sunday is the only midday meal referred to as dinner. Miranda hasn’t eaten since yesterday. She loves the minister, who is on her team, and she loves his grandson, of whom she has never heard and who could be sixteen or forty, and she loves his wife, a pretty lady now deep in dementia, who has retained nothing but her beautiful smile.
There is no question about dinner, however. Miranda must stay here and stay focused. She has to read up on Jason Draft. She will fib, and say that her good friend Candy’s family is driving down to get her.
Jack has a better move. “She’s coming to the ball game with us. It’s in Norwich. Have you ever been to that stadium?”
“I have,” says the minister, smiling. “I love baseball. This is perfect, Miranda. It will take your mind off a situation you cannot change.”
I can change it, thinks Miranda. I have to change it.
“I will stop worrying,” says the minister, giving her a last hug. He gets into his car. “And I will keep praying,” he promises.
When he is out of sight, Jack says, “I think you should come to the ball game.”
She shakes her head. She is probably the only person in the whole world who hasn’t yet seen the posts on Jason Draft. And she has to check out the rest of the neighborhood. She’s done only the Nevilles and the Warrens.
 
; Jack says hopefully, “Do you think he’s right? Do you think drug traffickers and killers are hanging around right now?”
“I think they’re done killing,” says Miranda. But is anybody ever done with drug dealing? Isn’t it always going on?
Jack is reluctant to leave, even for a great baseball game. Or a bad one, which is often the case in the minor leagues. “Keep texting,” he says. “I want to know everything.”
“If we knew everything,” says Miranda, “we would be getting Lander out of jail.”
Jack gives her a funny look, and she realizes that he does not expect Lander to get out of jail at all.
This time when the detectives question Lander, the lawyer will be with her.
The police will ask questions she isn’t going to answer and the lawyer will tell her not to anyway.
She drags herself down the hall. She is so tired she could sleep for a week.
The lawyer says it is Sunday.
Day of rest. Day of worship. Day of thick heavy newspapers.
She is religious. But she cannot pray. If she has shot a man in the back, she cannot face God. God forgives the person who repents, but he also knows that Lander fakes repentance. Lander’s usual sins are brushing somebody off, speaking sharply to somebody she thinks is stupid or ignoring somebody when she knows perfectly well they’re there. She does it constantly, knowing she’s being ugly, but enjoying herself. It’s fun being superior. On Sunday, routinely, she repents, knowing she’ll behave the same way next week.
Today it is possible that her sin is murder.
God knows. Perhaps Jason knows. But Lander still does not know.
She is desperate to get her mind on something else. She throws her thoughts toward summer visitors, summer days, summer church. During that boring date with Stu, he laughed at her for attending church. “Weed,” he had said, “does the job just as well.”
“Just as well as what?” Lander had asked.
“All that prayer stuff. Smoke a little weed, Lanny, and you’ll drift off into heaven. Plus, weed is more portable than church. And it never judges you.”
Lander got to her feet then, saying, “Stu, I have better things to do with my time than listen to somebody whose only skill is getting high.”