Page 15 of Go Home
“Did he carry a gun?”
Manda shook her head.“A little air pistol, in the kitchen drawer.He’d sink a few beers and do target practice.”
Kate sipped the tea and tried not to gag.She should have guessed that “Manda, short for Mandala” might have an alternative view of tea.
“Licorice and fennel,” Manda said.“Boosts fertility, if you’re trying.”
“I’m not,” Kate said.
“Zbigniew complained about it.Not the tea.I mean, Tom getting lit and firing his gun.He thought Tom might hurt someone.”
“And how did Tom take that?”
“Badly.Not because of what he said.The way he did it.Zbigniew wrote a letter to the Bishop.Not about the air pistol, all the other stuff.”
“Like what?
“Father saw that as sneaky,” Manda carried on, as if Kate’s question hadn’t happened.“He told Zbigniew it wasn’t working.I mean, the job and sharing the house, not… anyway, he said he wanted him to leave.It was a big thing for Tom.People doing stuff behind his back.He always said – say it to my face if you’ve got a problem.”
“Always?”Kate echoed.“Did he have occasion to say that more than once?”
Manda had a broad, rather beautiful face, with a sensuous mouth and long-lashed, expressive eyes.A cloud passed briefly across those features right now, as if she’d talked herself into a corner.Then she took a breath, as if making a choice.“One other time.TheDouglas Cove Trove.It’s the local newspaper.It wasthe local paper.I mean, it still exists, just not on paper.It’s all online.”
Kate smiled tightly.Inwardly, she thought Mandala’s conversational style could have tested the Buddha’s patience.
“The Father wrote a Christmas piece every year.Not just that, I mean, he wrote other pieces, too, right?But this one time… it was a couple of days after that thing in Syria… And in his Christmas piece, he said believing in a fixed idea of God could be as dangerous as not believing in Him at all.Fundamentalists were a threat, whether they were Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Jiminy Cricket.Didn’t go down too well.People wrote letters.I think they got the Bishop in then, too.It blew over, but…”
“And how did Zbigniew respond to the Father’s request?”
“He asked the Father to reconsider, but he wouldn’t.I was surprised about that.Then again, I was surprised Zbigniew wanted to stay.It wasn’t like he made friends or got involved in the town.”
“Unlike Tom.”
“I think the Father tried his best with him.Took him down to the square to meet the rest of thep’tonkcrew.”
“The what?”
“Pétanque,” she enunciated, with a perfect French accent.“French bowling.There’s a gang of guys who meet up in the square, early evenings.Six or seven of them.”
“Do they play every evening?”
“Nah, they used to play two, three times a week.”
“Used to.” When this yielded no further response, Kate asked, “Did they stop because of Tom’s death?”
Manda shook her head.“It stopped middle of last year.” She seemed to be considering what else to say for a moment, but eventually she just shrugged and gave a little smile.“I’ve got to finish up the kitchen and…” Her voice trailed off.She seemed to have just realized that she didn’t have to finish anything here, because there was no one to clean for.
Kate gave her a sympathetic look.
“How could I make contact with the Pétanque Crew?”
“Hugh and Remy run the waffle stand on the square – but I warn you, they’re old guys, they ramble on a lot.You need a lot of patience...”
+++++
It took Kate no more than ten minutes to walk to “the square,” which was a circle ringed with benches and trees, and a white bandstand in the dead-center, around which a posse of skater kids was practicing an assortment of flips and trips.It was an altogether homey scene: small town America, a flag fluttering on what might have been the town hall, a pair of young mothers chatting on the pavement while their babies dozed, the wholesome smells of coffee and waffles and warm sugar.Taking in such a scene, Kate thought, you could believe there was no evil in the world.
The waffle stand was an old French Citroën van plus an awning, and it was surrounded by a horde of hungry school kids, dollars held out in inky fingers while a pair of harassed-looking patriarchs dished up the goods on paper plates.Kate had made contact with Marcus, who was going to meet her there and fill her in on what he’d discovered.
