Drop by Drop Read online

  “Paris is such a cliché, Cookie,” he’d chided. Pushing his plate aside, he had propped his new AllCom on the table and begun scrolling through the stock quotations. Earlier AllComs had employed several metal alloys for the sake of versatility, but now were considered too heavy. More recent models used plastics that imitated metal in everything but weight. Rob’s, which was waterproof, functioned as a videophone and texter and provided full internet access as well as computing. The insatiable consumer market created by PCs and smartphones had morphed into a demand for total electronic connectivity. Microchips were embedded in every possible object. AllComs could even control security systems and household appliances from miles away.

  Nell sought to get her husband’s attention. “What’s so romantic about Panama City, darling? I don’t even know where it is.”

  His eyes had remained fixed on the small screen. “It’s in Central America and there’s a famous cathedral. You really must expand your horizons.”

  “Paris would be expanding my horizons. Please, Rob, I’ve been looking forward to this for ages.”

  They had gone to Panama City.

  Rob had made business contacts in the Canal Zone and spent most of the time in meetings. Nell went shopping for clothes she would never wear again and souvenirs that would mean nothing to the people she bought them for. The semitropical heat caused sweat to pour from her scalp. Constant rain depressed her. When she retreated to the relative comfort of the hotel beauty salon, they insisted on brightening her hair with peroxide and ruined it.

  I wonder if Lila Ragland dyed her hair, Nell thought now. Probably. Did Rob know the girl? Probably not.

  In the years following their marriage the ferocious determination that had allowed a young Robert Bennett to destroy an enemy sniper nest single-handed had been channeled into his business. RobBenn had become his obsession, his one true love.

  It would have been easier to compete with Lila Ragland.

  Nell resolutely tucked her handbag under her arm and headed toward Mortenson’s In-a-Minnit to pick up her dry cleaning. From there she would go to her office, two rooms on the first floor of the Liberty Life and Casualty Building. Tasteful black-and-gold lettering on the glass door identified “Eleanor Bennett, Real Estate.”

  When she reached the corner a sudden impulse made her glance back at the bank. Someone else was struggling with the ATM. Shay Mulligan, the red-haired veterinarian who took care of the Bennett dogs, pounded the machine with his fist and looked around in frustration.

  At this moment Shay reminded Nell of a small boy—though he was a widower struggling to raise his son by himself. It couldn’t be easy. Evan Mulligan was a few months older than Nell’s daughter, Jessamyn, and horse crazy at an age when only girls were supposed to be horse crazy.

  When he saw Nell looking in his direction Shay called out, “Damn thing’s chewing up my card, Miz Bennett!” His easy drawl was as much a part of him as the forest of freckles he had never outgrown.

  “Don’t wait, go inside and ask Bea Fontaine to help you. Hurry up now, beat the rush!”

  Shay nodded his thanks. The Bennetts were valuable customers. Their three dogs—two pedigreed Irish setters for Eleanor and the kids, and a massive Rottweiler for Robert Bennett—were given the best care money could buy.

  You could tell a lot about people by their animals, Shay thought, as he passed through the security doors and entered the bank. The setters, Sheila and Shamrock—known as Rocky—were smarter than their breed’s reputation would suggest and devoted to Nell and the children. The Rottweiler was a status dog, purchased to guard the house and grounds. On rare occasions Bennett walked the dog on a very short chain to impress his neighbors. Poor Satan—and what kind of man calls his dog Satan?—wouldn’t have felt any attachment to Bennett. Mary Shaw, the housekeeper, fed him and let him into the garage on stormy days. She was his god in an apron.

  Dogs, thought Shay. Dogs know who people really are.

  The scene inside the bank caught his attention. The door of the vice president’s office stood wide open. Dwayne Nyeberger could be seen inside, with his arms folded on his desk and his head resting on them. Other people were milling around the lobby, eagerly telling each other what had just happened.

  Shay found Bea Fontaine at her window. The position enabled her to keep an eye on the vice president’s office. “Yes, Mr. Mulligan?” She sounded distracted.

  “It’s about my bank card and the ATM…”

  “You too, I suppose. How much cash did you want?”

  “I … uh … enough for a good tip in a French restaurant. I’m taking Angela to the…”

  For a moment he had Bea’s full attention. “Are you still going out with the Watson girl? It’s been three years that I know of; you should marry her and give Evan a mother.” Bea slid a withdrawal slip toward him on the counter. “Here, sign this and we’ll give you your cash.”

  Shay’s ears reddened with embarrassment. Why did people keep pressuring him to marry? His son’s feelings had to be considered; the boy loved his mother very much and had taken her death from cancer hard.

  The vet fumbled with the counter pen in its black plastic receptacle, but he could not free it to sign the withdrawal slip. When another customer came up behind him, Shay gave the pen an impatient shake. It seemed to be permanently affixed to its plastic cup—which was not only chained to the counter, but stuck to it. He tugged harder.

  Pen and cup stretched like bubble gum.

  Bea leaned forward. “What happened? Oh. Uh, don’t try to force that, I’ll give you another one.” From a drawer below the counter she took a black ballpoint pen imprinted with the bank’s logo.

  The pen softened in her hand like melting chocolate and began to ooze down her wrist.

  3

  The staff door at the rear of the lobby opened and, to Bea’s relief, O. M. Staunton entered. Whatever lunacy was afoot today she could dump in the Old Man’s lap.

  O. M. Staunton—the initials stood for Oliver Morse, a name he hated—was called the “Old Man” behind his back, but never to his face. Customers also knew better than to refer to his bank as “the S&S” within his hearing. As president of the leading bank in the area he held the financial reins of the Sycamore River Valley in his hands, and sought to retain the standards of an earlier time. A time before the national economy began its long downward slide.

  For as long as anyone could remember Staunton had carried his two-sandwiches-and-an-apple lunch to the bank in a brown paper bag. In a card-dominated economy he paid his personal expenses in cash and asked for receipts, even for a single cup of coffee. A common saying around town was, “The Old Man has so much money he makes loans to God.”

  Gesturing to Shay to wait, Bea called, “Can we talk to you, Mr. Staunton?”

  The Old Man had just glimpsed his son-in-law in a state of collapse in his office and was making his way toward him. He stopped in increments as stiff joints received new instructions from his brain. With a curt nod, he turned toward Bea. In any contest between Staunton’s chief teller and his daughter’s worthless husband, Bea ranked first. When he reached her window she held up her hand so he could see the black stuff sliding down her arm.

  “What the hell have you done to yourself, woman?”

  “Tried to pick up a pen, that’s all.”

  “Nonsense.”

  For the first time in his life Shay Mulligan addressed the legendary Old Man personally. “It’s not nonsense, look at this.” He attempted to hand the ruined counter pen to Staunton. A dark substance like gritty mud seeped between the vet’s fingers and onto the countertop.

  Drop by drop.

  Staunton’s mouth fell open. “What the hell is that? Some kind of stunt?”

  “We don’t know what it is,” said Bea, “but our cash cards are dissolving too.”

  “Bea, that’s crazy.” A shrewd light crept into the Old Man’s eyes. “Would my son-in-law have anything to do with this, by any chance?”

&nbs
p; “I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Then what’s wrong with him?”

  Bea hesitated. “Hallucinations again, I’m afraid.”

  “Damn ’im! I didn’t want my girl to marry that young nobody in the first place, but she was convinced no other man would ask her.”

  Which was true at the time. As they both knew, the drug bust on the north side had changed the balance of power in the Nyeberger marriage.

  Staunton ordered the receptionist to contact his daughter. “Say her husband’s had some kind of seizure and she needs to take him home. I’ll be in my office if she wants to talk to me.”

  Dwayne Nyeberger had acquired a paranoid fear of leaving the bank building. He was afraid Lila Ragland was waiting. When Tricia Staunton arrived, complaining about being called away from her favorite game show on their interactive wallscreen, Dwayne refused to leave with her. He shouted at her to go clean the house. She turned on her heel and left the bank. “The dumb bastard can walk home,” she announced on her way out.

  In the privacy of the president’s office, surrounded by portraits of previous bank presidents who all had the same craggy features, Staunton made a call of his own. Two burly male nurses were summoned from the Hilda Staunton Memorial Hospital to administer a strong sedative to the distraught man. As soon as it took effect they bundled him out of the bank and into a private hospital room without alerting the press.

  A psychologist was summoned to examine him.

  Meanwhile Staunton told the staff to tidy up the mess and dispose of the ruined bank cards. As they began work, a red plastic hair grip worn by one of the bank’s customers dissolved and ran down her neck. The woman had hysterics.

  Staunton ordered the “Closed” sign put on the front door.

  “It’s going to be a long day,” predicted Bea Fontaine.

  * * *

  He was waiting for her when her car turned into the driveway; a tall, lean man in a white shirt and faded jeans, sitting with his feet propped on the porch railing. “You took your time about coming home, Aunt Bea,” he said as he unfolded himself from the green wicker chair. “Was it car trouble? You should trade in that old heap; with an auto-drive you could sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  “Your car is older than mine, Jack,” she said sharply. “Besides, I like to do my own driving.”

  “My Ford Mustang’s a classic. Your VW’s just transportation.”

  “That classic of yours practically lives in the repair shop, but Abraham never gives me any trouble.”

  Jack Reese smiled; a flash of white teeth in a deeply tanned face. The warmth did not always reach his pale gray eyes. Strangers found this unnerving. “Only you would call a Volkswagen ‘Abraham,’ Aunt Bea.”

  “Just think how furious that would make Adolf Hitler,” she replied as she locked the car. With her AllCom in one hand and handbag in the other, she crossed the neatly mowed front yard. “I guess you’ll want supper?”

  “Some of your fried chicken would hit the spot about now. Shake it in a paper bag with flour and seasoned salt?” He spoke as if he had only been out for the afternoon and come home hungry, though he had been abroad for over two years. That was typical. Jack used Bea’s home as a base when he was in town and came and went as he pleased. Their affection did not depend on propinquity.

  As Bea climbed the steps to the front porch she said, “I’m fresh out of chicken, Jack. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “You must have some eggs, though; you always do. I could make an omelet for us.”

  Bea tilted her head back to look up into his face. “Have you added cooking to your list of accomplishments?”

  He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Took a couple of courses in France, for a bachelor it’s a matter of self-preservation. A pal of mine in Belgrade married a woman because she was a terrific cook and it turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life. And put your AllCom away, you don’t have to unlock the front door. I already…”

  “Went in through the back, I know.”

  “Which reminds me, I brought you a present. The latest AllCom with all the bells and whistles. It has the usual functions, but it also monitors your heartbeat and blood pressure and alerts the emergency services if you need help.”

  She glared at him. “You’re raising my blood pressure; I’m not some old woman who’s about to keel over.” Then her smile surfaced like sunshine after a shower. “I really am glad to see you, though. And thanks for your offer to cook, it’s been an awful day and I’m bone tired.”

  “Show me where you keep the spices, then. Any fresh herbs in the garden?”

  As Jack prepared supper Bea watched from a kitchen chair, sipping a restorative cup of coffee. Letting the day’s tension drain from her body. Enjoying the sight of Jack in the home of his boyhood. The old rubber tire he had used as a swing still hung in the backyard. A bold little boy, he had climbed every tree in the neighborhood and did not cry when he fell and broke his leg. All he said on the way to the hospital was, “Did you see me, Aunt Bea? Did you see how high I got?”

  Jack’s mother, Florence, had been Bea’s older sister. When Florence and her husband were killed in a car crash Bea had taken their son to raise. Their home was the house she had inherited from her parents.

  By the time Jack was grown Bea was middle-aged, but her nephew had no doubt there were men in her life. She obviously liked men and they liked her. For a long time Jack had suspected that one of those men was Oliver Staunton, but he was never sure. The image of the two of them together was not one he relished.

  Aphrodite, a plump tabby cat of dubious morals who refused to acknowledge that Shay Mulligan had neutered her, rolled seductively on the floor to display her belly to Apollo, who ignored her. He had whiskers to clean.

  Jack remarked, “I hope I never get like him.”

  “It would serve you right,” said Bea.

  She knew her nephew was a born adventurer. He spoke with firsthand knowledge of exotic places many people only knew from the pages of National Geographic. He went from country to country, job to job—and woman to woman—with effortless ease, never finding anyone or any place that could hold him for long. The only real stability in his life was her house.

  Aside from her time in college Bea Fontaine had spent her entire life in Sycamore River. When asked if she ever got bored, her invariable answer was, “A town can be the whole world in microcosm.”

  The cat flap in the back door banged several times as the other members of Bea’s feline family entered the room. They knew better than to beg for food; they would only be fed after she had eaten. They contented themselves with making figure eights around the ankles of the humans. Silent reminders of their presence.

  Jack put the dinner plates in the oven to warm while he grated cheese for the omelets. “Tell me about this awful day of yours, Aunt Bea. Did they have the bank auditors in?”

  “I wish it were that simple. Actually we had a couple of rather nasty incidents. This morning Dwayne Nyeberger suffered a nervous breakdown in the lobby; for a while it looked like he’d lost his mind. He had a hallucination that really scared him. Aren’t those omelets ready? I’m starving.”

  They ate at the kitchen table. Bea sat with her back to the sink, Jack preferred to sit with his to the wall. The table was laid with a checked cotton tablecloth, as practical as it was plain. Over the years Jack had brought his aunt Belfast table linens and damask napkins from Belgium, but she never used them.

  After one bite of her omelet Bea put down her fork and beamed at her nephew. “That’s absolutely delicious! What on earth did you put in the eggs?”

  “Bit of this and pinch of that. You should know, you watched me.”

  “Watched you work some sleight of hand, more like. You must have stirred in cream cheese when I wasn’t looking. By the way, there’s still coffee in the pot if you want any.”

  “I’d prefer some of that vodka you keep in the freezer.”

  “That’s Stolichnaya from St. Petersburg,
the genuine article! One of our best customers brought it to me.”

  “You have life by the short and curlies, don’t you?” Jack teased. “Break out the Stoli and I’ll replace it the next time I go to Russia, I promise.” He sketched a cross over his heart. “You mentioned a couple of incidents at the bank, Aunt Bea. What was the other one?”

  “What were you doing in Russia?” This was an old game between them. She tried to put together the patchwork quilt of his life from the bits and pieces he chose to reveal.

  “Handling a little matter for North Atlantic Refineries.”

  “A refinery?” she said eagerly. “Do you know much about oil?”

  “I’ve needed a basic knowledge of petrochemistry because of some of the work I do. And I have degrees in—”

  “I know all about your degrees; you have a mind like a vacuum cleaner, but you’ve never used any of that education to get a permanent job.” It was an old sore point between them. Bea pushed back her chair and stood up. “I have something to show you; wait right here. And finish your supper before it gets cold.”

  She went into the living room and returned with her black leather handbag. From its capacious depths she produced a white handkerchief stained with a dark, partially clotted substance. She held the handkerchief toward Jack’s face. “Sniff this. What is it?”

  4

  Jack’s nostrils flared at the acrid odor. He drew back and gave her a puzzled look. “That reeks of crude oil, Aunt Bea. And something else I can’t identify. Why’s it on your handkerchief?”

  “This morning it was a counter pen in the bank.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do we. But our pens and their holders have turned into this stuff.”

  “Weren’t they made of plastic?”

  “They were this morning; this evening they’re like the goo on my handkerchief. Our bank cards have dissolved too.”

  Jack raised a single eyebrow. It was a trick he had practiced for hours in front of a mirror when he was a teenager. “They did this while pigs were flying overhead?”