X (Kinsey Millhone 24)

“No reason to assume the worst.”

“Do you know what’s in here?”

“I do. The mailer wasn’t sealed, so I thought it would be all right.”

“Tell me. Just so I’ll be prepared. Then I’ll look.”

“She wanted you to have the Bible she was given at her confirmation. There’s also a red-bead rosary and a Mother’s Day card you made for her.”

“I made her a card?”

“With your handprint. You must have been three. You have an April birthday, yes?”

“The twelfth.”

“She tucked in a card for your fourth.”

She took another look at the postmark. “You’re saying in late March, when she put this together, she knew what she was planning to do?”

I gave myself a moment to respond. This was treacherous territory. I wasn’t convinced Lenore had committed suicide, but I wasn’t going to sit there and suggest her father murdered her mother or drove her to kill herself. “It might have been equivalent to her making out a will. You do it for those you love. It doesn’t mean you expect to die anytime soon.”

She considered the idea. “You don’t think she was giving things away because she knew she wouldn’t be needing them?”

“I never met your mother, so I can’t answer that. It’s clear she loved you.”

“You really think so?”

“No doubt in my mind.”

“Why didn’t she ask for help?”

“She did, but I’m not sure anyone realized how much trouble she was in. People were worried, but not alarmed, if you can see the difference.”

“Like who?”

“Father Xavier was one. And Clara Doyle.”

“You talked to them?”

“A couple of days ago, yes. Clara mailed the package and Father Xavier held on to it, thinking one day you’d be in touch and he’d give it to you then. The mailer ended up in storage, and I guess people forgot it was there.”

“Why did my mom use Clara’s address and not her own?”

I was walking on eggshells here and I spoke with care. “I believe she was worried the mailer might be returned to the sender. Sometimes the post office does that for no apparent reason. She didn’t want it to show up at the house again.”

“Why?”

April was worse than a three-year-old. What was I supposed to say? I wanted to bang my head on the dashboard, but I managed to restrain myself. I understood her curiosity. There were things about my parents I’d never know and damn few people left to ask. “Possibly because your father wasn’t Catholic and she didn’t want him to know she was giving you items of religious significance. This is just a guess.”

“So you’re saying she did it behind his back?”

“You could look at it that way.”

“That doesn’t sound like a loving relationship.”

“Doesn’t to me, either, but marriages come in all shapes and sizes. Some work and some don’t.”

“How did you end up with this?”

“It’s a long story and really not that important.”

“It is to me.”

I was reluctant to go into it, but avoiding an explanation would only create more questions. “I came across it when I was going through the personal effects of a friend who died. He had this box of old files that should have gone to a shredding company years ago. I went through to see if there were documents I should pull before the contents were destroyed.”

“Did your friend know my mother?”

Despairingly, I said, “Honestly, April, I wasn’t prepared for all these questions. I expected to hand this over and let you make of it what you would.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to put you on the spot.”

“I don’t blame you for asking. I’m just trying to tell you why I’m doing such a poor job. Your dad’s the one you should talk to about this.”

“I can’t. He won’t talk about her. It upsets him. When I was a kid, I’d sometimes ask, but I learned it was better to keep quiet. There are issues I stay away from. Things that set him off. Certain holidays—Easter in particular. The subject of his mom. Mothers in general. Sometimes women in general.”

That was a topic I wanted to avoid myself lest I end up badmouthing the guy to his only child. On impulse, I said, “Did you ever meet a man named Peter Wolinsky?”

That caught her off guard. “He came to see me months ago. Is he the one who died?”