Page 21 of Den of Iniquity

“I suppose that’s true,” Kelly said. “But do you think he’s going to be okay? Really?”

That was the Kelly Beaumont Cartwright I had always known and loved, the sensible girl who cared for her children more than life itself.

“I think he’ll be fine,” I said. “He’s a likable, responsible kid with a good head on his shoulders. What he needed was some distance from the situation.”

“You mean distance from me.”

“No, I mean distance from everything. Being away may let him gain perspective on what’s happened. Right now it all seems likethe end of the world, or at least the end of the world as he knew it. Eventually he’ll be able to figure out that’s not the case.”

“But what if all the schools end up getting shut down because of Covid?” Kelly asked.

I may have been on a self-imposed news blackout, but Mel wasn’t. She, too, had raised concerns that school shutdowns were most likely coming sooner than later.

“I’m telling you the same thing I told Mel,” I said to Kelly. “We’ll cope, and Kyle will cope. I said we’d look after him, and we will, come what may, but Mel and I are both going to have to upgrade our cooking skills.”

“I miss him,” Kelly said sadly.

“I’m sure you do,” I agreed, “but try to think about it this way. Kyle’s eighteen. Even with all the family upheaval, chances are he’d be leaving home to go to college in the fall. How about trying to think of this short stay at our place as his getting an early start on that?”

“You mean look on this as an opportunity for him rather than a failure on my part?”

In that moment I wanted desperately to take my grieving daughter in my arms, hold her close, and tell her that, no matter what, everything was going to be okay.

“Look,” I said, “it strikes me that your whole family is trying to make the best of a very bad bargain, including Jeremy, I suppose. He may have been a crappy husband all this time, but he’s always struck me as a good dad, and that catch-colt baby of his is going to need a father.”

“What kind of baby?” Kelly asked.

“A catch-colt,” I explained. “It’s something my mother used tocall me—her little catch-colt. When I was little, I thought it meant I was part horse. It wasn’t until years later that she told me it was an old-fashioned term for an out-of-wedlock baby. All it really meant was that she and my father weren’t married at the time I was born.”

“So, illegitimate then,” Kelly said.

As a catch-colt myself and with both an out-of-wedlock daughter and granddaughter, the wordillegitimatewhen used in regard to children rubs me the wrong way. If I were Kyle’s age, I might even say it “triggers” me.

“No, Kelly,” I said. “The parents may be screwed up six ways to Sunday, but I don’t think babies are ever illegitimate—they’re all just fine.”

In that moment it occurred to me that eventually the same statement would apply to Caroline and Jeremy’s baby as well—that he or she would be perfect, too, but I was smart enough to not say that out loud. Instead, I changed the subject.

“So tell me how you and Kayla are doing? How’s the new job?”

You’ll notice I also had brains enough not to ask anything about whether or not Kelly had a new man in her life. Maybe there’s something to be said for getting older and wiser.

The remainder of the conversation had to do with what would happen to both Kyle and Kayla in the event schools did shut down in the face of the coming pandemic. I tried to reassure Kelly that one way or the other we’d all get through it, but I doubt she was convinced. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I was, either.

I arrived home in Fairhaven in time for dinner. Mel had brought home a heat-and-serve meatloaf. Kyle had made macaroni and cheese. It wasn’t gourmet, but it was food, and no one left the tablehungry. After dinner, Kyle took charge of the cleanup, which, according to Mel’s “rules and regulations,” was going to be one of his primary duties.

Once he finished and disappeared into his room, Mel and I settled in the living room for some privacy. I brought her up-to-date on my long conversation with Matilda Jackson, including showing her the contents of the envelope that had contained Darius’s personal effects. She went through them one by one. When it came time to examine the hundred-dollar bills, she held one of them up to the lamplight.

“There’s no security strip,” she announced. “So these bills are either very old or very well done counterfeit. There’s no way to tell how they happened to be in Darius’s possession?”

“When I found them, I could tell from Matilda’s immediate reaction that she was afraid he might have been dealing drugs. Considering Darius’s history, that’s a reasonable assumption.” Then, after a momentary pause, I asked, “How long ago did the US mint start printing bills with security strips?”

Without a word, Mel picked up her iPad and typed in a few words. Moments later she provided the answer. “It says here that happened in 1990.”

Putting down the iPad, Mel picked up one of the bills and ran her finger over it. “This doesn’t feel that old,” she objected. “And it doesn’t feel used, either.”

“So who goes around buying drugs with thirty-year-old cash?” I asked.

“Or maybe it’s counterfeit,” Mel suggested, “but if that’s the case, whoever printed it did a hell of a good job.”

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