Summer Of Joanna

“Lost your car?”

She turned, thinking the man from the church had followed her to the parking lot. But the man a few feet to her right was another stranger. He was short, balding and red-faced from the heat. His baggy tan slacks dipped beneath a bulging stomach, and the rumpled sports jacket looked as though it had been acquired at a secondhand clothing store. His white shirt, straining at its row of buttons, clung to him in unsightly patches. He threw the cigarette he’d been smoking onto the pavement, ground it under his heel and huffed his way toward her.

Watching him made Kate feel cool. “When I got here, there weren’t so many vehicles,” she said.

He glanced behind her at the lot. “Uh-huh. And most of them limos.”

Kate suddenly noticed a sleek black limo angled in front of the Escort, blocking any quick exit she might have made. “Great,” she muttered. She pulled the material of her navy blue sleeveless dress away from her damp skin. Five more minutes in this lot, she figured, and she’d look like the man standing beside her.

“Problem?” he asked.

Kate sighed, tugging at the dress again. “My car—it’s behind that black limo in the second row.”

“Uh-oh. Hopefully the owner won’t be long. Unless he—or she—is attending the postfuneral reception in the church manse.”

Kate fanned herself with the rolled-up funeral service program. “How long will that be?”

“You’re not going?”

“No. I’m not family and…well, it wouldn’t be appropriate.” In fact, she was thinking, it would be downright awful to have to mingle with a bunch of strangers, picking up snippets of talk about Joanna.

“Not family, eh? You in the fashion trade, too, then?”

His eyes, small and deep-set in his fleshy face, swept over her.

“No, I’m a teacher,” she replied, wishing he’d go away. What was it with all the questions? she wondered.

She glanced around to see if the owner of the limo might be walking their way, but all she saw was a group of uniformed drivers standing smoking under a tree in the far corner of the lot.

“Friend of Mrs. Marchant, then?”

Kate turned her head. He was almost her height, making the top of his glistening forehead about even with her nose. His face was tilted up, allowing a brief glimpse of trickles of sweat dripping off the folds of skin beneath his chin. Kate looked away.

“Guess I’ll see if one of those drivers can move the car,” she said, moving off, hoping to put some distance between herself and the man.

But he followed. “Were you a close friend of Mrs. Marchant’s?”

The way he used her married name told Kate he wasn’t exactly Joanna’s bosom buddy, either. She stopped and turned toward him. “No, I wasn’t. Why are you asking?”

“Just curious about why you came to the funeral.”

Kate narrowed her eyes at him. “And what business is that of yours?”

He’d taken a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and was now mopping his forehead with it. “Guess I should have identified myself. Sergeant Tom Andrews, Westchester County Police.” He started to extend the arm holding the handkerchief, then apparently thought better of it.

The introduction didn’t exactly warm Kate to him. Instead, she wondered why he’d taken so long to get around to it. “And?” she prompted in her best schoolteacher voice.

He straightened at her tone, tucking away the handkerchief and digging in his jacket pocket for his badge. Kate scarcely had a glimpse of it before it was stowed away again. “Just making a few inquiries of the funeral guests, that’s all, Miss…?”

“Reilly. Kate Reilly. Is it customary for the police to attend the funeral of a suicide victim?”

He seemed to look at her with new interest. “Police like to get information on any death where there are unusual circumstances.”

A calm stillness settled over her while a tiny voice inside whispered, I knew it! I knew it! “And…what are the unusual circumstances around Joanna Barnes’s death?”

He frowned. “Sorry, I can’t get into the details. What exactly was your connection to Mrs. Marchant, or Miss Barnes?”

“I met her when I was a young girl. We haven’t seen each other in nineteen years, but she corresponded.”

“She ever talk about being depressed? Suicidal feelings?”

Kate bit down on her lower lip and shook her head. After she’d managed to regain control of her voice, she said, “No. We…uh, we weren’t close enough for her to talk about things like that.”

He kept his eyes on her, nodding his head thoughtfully. “I see. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Miss Reilly. How about if I find out which one of those guys over there belongs to the limo blocking your car? I’ve got to talk to them, anyway.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it,” Kate murmured, his question still pounding in her ears. She ever talk about being depressed? If only Joanna had written about her personal life more, rather than elaborate on information Kate had already gleaned from newspapers and magazines.

Then what, Reilly? Think your knowing her better would have prevented Joanna from killing herself? She closed her eyes. The small voice inside her was shouting yes! yes! No matter how hard she’d tried over the past few days, she couldn’t shake the thought that she might have had some influence over Joanna had she known her better.

“Sure you don’t want that glass of water?”

Kate jumped.

“Easy. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I thought you saw me coming.”

Kate squinted. He was standing with the sun behind him, and at first she didn’t recognize him. Then she caught his reference to water and managed a weak smile. The man from the church. “Thanks, but I’m all right. I was…lost in my thoughts.”

He stepped out of the sun to join her in the patch of shade. “Need a lift anywhere?”

“I have a car, but thanks, anyway.” Remembering the police officer, she turned her head to peer around his shoulder toward the limo drivers across the lot. Sure enough, she saw one of them talking to the officer. Then the driver sauntered toward the limo parked in front of her car.

“The black limo?” he asked, following her gaze.

Kate had to smile. “No. The white Escort behind it.”

“Aah. I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself sooner,” he said. “Matt Sinclair.” He extended a hand.

Kate placed her hand in his. “Kate Reilly.”

“A friend, but not a close one,” he added. She smiled again. “Yes. You were a friend of Joanna’s?”

“I knew her,” he said, finally letting go of her hand. “Family connection.”

He was being vague and Kate couldn’t understand why. Instinctively she stepped back, taking a second, longer look at Matt Sinclair. Unlike the policeman, he seemed cool and unperturbed by the sweltering heat. Everything about him spelled good grooming, from the cut of his lightweight summer suit to the plain silk tie knotted unobtrusively at the throat of a crisp white shirt. Grooming, she thought, and money, too. One of those limos in the lot probably belonged to him. His thick black hair was perfectly trimmed, and his eyes, still fixed on hers, were definitely gray. But not a cold gray, she thought, recalling how they’d looked in the church. Now they seemed to flicker with specks of color. Or was that glint amusement, instead?

“Do I pass?” he asked.

Kate looked away. She was certain her face had reddened, and not from the heat. “So you’re related to Joanna, after all. You mentioned a family connection?”

He folded his arms across his chest and stared across the parking lot. Kate turned her head, too, watching the black limo roll into another place. He shifted his attention back to her and mumbled, “By marriage.”

“By marriage?” she repeated. “A cousin or something?”

He shook his head. “She was married to my father.” He paused, fixing his eyes on hers. “For two years.”

“When?”

“Eighteen years ago. I was seventeen at the time. Pretty much out of the picture. Thank God,” he muttered bitterly.

“Obviously you didn’t care for Joanna,” she said.

“Frankly, no. Sorry if that offends you.”

Kate inhaled deeply. She hadn’t come to Joanna’s funeral for any kind of confrontation. All she’d wanted to do was to quietly mourn and pay her last respects to someone she’d met and liked.

“I do—did—care for Joanna,” she said, “and I don’t believe in speaking ill of the dead. Especially at a funeral.” She brushed past him to head for her car.

“Those are fine sentiments,” he replied, raising his voice as she kept walking. “And you’re welcome to them. But Joanna Barnes ruined my father. I’ll never forgive her for that.”

Kate kept walking, fixing her eyes on the white Escort and not noticing the policeman until she bumped against him as he passed.

“Goodbye, then, Miss Reilly. Maybe we’ll meet again,” Matt Sinclair called after her.

She reached the door of her car and slipped the keys from the side pocket of her purse. She wanted only to leave as quickly as possible, determined not to look back at the two men behind her. Both of whom, she suspected, were staring after her.

When the engine and the air-conditioning were running, Kate accelerated out of the lot and made a sharp turn onto the main street. She glanced at the rearview mirror and saw that the two men were now standing together as they watched her car drive away.

When the church and parking lot were out of sight, Kate pulled over at the first convenience store. She told herself she was desperate for a cold drink, but what she really needed was to wait for the trembling to stop.

CHAPTER TWO

MATT WATCHED her car zip out of the lot and disappear down the quiet, tree-lined street. A swirl of conflicting emotions threatened the grim determination he’d felt earlier when she’d rushed to defend Joanna Barnes. He wondered why he cared so much. Probably everybody else at the funeral had also been friends with Joanna.

He wiped away the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. For the first time he questioned his motives. He didn’t like the uneasy feeling in his gut when he envisioned Kate Reilly’s pinched red face and the angry flicker in her jade-green eyes. It wasn’t the anger that had struck a nerve, but the almost simultaneous hurt. As if she couldn’t comprehend why he was attacking someone she obviously cared for.

Except it’s Joanna, buddy. The last person he could think of to deserve such fierce loyalty from a friend. Matt expelled a mouthful of bitter air and spun around to go back to the church. The man standing to his right said, “She’s definitely worth pursuin’, don’tcha think?”

Matt grimaced and kept right on walking.

THE FLAT THROBBED with heat. Kate headed straight for the kitchen and flicked on the small air-conditioning unit she’d just bought. She peeled off her dress and, seconds later, was standing under a cool shower in the bathroom. Was it her imagination, she wondered, or were those really wisps of steam pluming off her body? Or was she still angry at how the afternoon had played out?

She raised her face to the fine spray, and the band of pain across her brow began to ebb. But a pulse of disappointment was still there, right at her temple, when she finally stepped onto the bath mat. It came from the sense that she’d been robbed of her day of grieving for Joanna.

Kate rubbed a towel over herself before slipping into a cotton nightie that instantly stuck to her damp skin. She was suddenly reminded of the short, pudgy police officer at the funeral and grimaced as the pounding in her head amplified. Together with the Ivy League lawyer-type, the two men had succeeded in wiping out all thoughts of Joanna, leaving behind an ugly smear of doubt and innuendo.

The air-conditioning was going full blast by the time Kate returned to the kitchen to get a glass of ice water. Splurging on the unit had been an act of desperation, driven by forecasts of a hot summer in the Big Apple. So far, she hadn’t regretted the purchase, even though it had removed a significant chunk from her already tight budget. Kate took a long swallow from the frosty glass, then rolled it across her forehead.

Perhaps she ought to have signed up for another summer-school course, after all. At least she’d have had a few hours of daily relief working in an air-conditioned building. But having the whole summer off had been part of the plan. Time for Carla, as promised. And time with Joanna. As promised.

Kate closed her eyes, fighting a stab of pain. A week ago, the whole summer was an uncharted map. The thrill of anticipation—of promise—had yet to draw lines on that map; to mark days and nights of events that Kate had only recently allowed herself to dream about. She’d been finally going to see Joanna again. Finally to tell her how that summer’s meeting long ago had changed her life. How it had fixed a real place in her childhood, a place called hope.

Maybe Joanna could be repaid through Carla, Kate thought. Carla. She hadn’t telephoned to confirm their weekly get-together. Signing on as a mentor and Big Sister to thirteen-year-old Carla Lopez had stemmed from another promise Kate had made to herself, years ago. Somehow, in some way, she’d help another troubled teenager the way Joanna Barnes had motivated her.

Glass in hand, Kate strolled to the living room to check her voice mail. She quickly punched in her password when the beeper indicated a message. Carla’s piping tones unspooled from the tape.

“Hi—Kate? I know tomorrow’s our day, but something’s come up so, uh, I can’t make it. Talk to you later. Bye.”

Kate frowned. She called Carla’s foster home and, after several rings, finally reached Rita Santos, the teen’s foster mother.

“Nope, she isn’t here, Kate. Took off about an hour ago. Didn’t say where she was headed. As usual.”

There was a moment’s silence. Thoughts of Carla filled the void. Kate felt more annoyed than worried. Carla’s street sense was twice what hers had been at the same age. Of course, by thirteen Kate had already met Joanna and was working on her goal to get out of Queens.

“No doubt she’ll turn up with some excuse,” Rita said. “If not, guess I’ll have to call her worker again. Sorry she let you down, Kate.”

“No no, don’t say that. Carla’s not letting anyone down—except maybe herself. I’ll call back in the morning, but if…you know, there’s a problem, please call me. Even if it’s the middle of the night.”

“Sure. Meantime, I wouldn’t sit up worrying, I was you.”

“Okay, Rita. Talk to you soon.” Kate hung on to the receiver a few moments longer, thinking about the ominous turn Carla’s behavior had taken over the past few months. Rita had had about as much as she could take from the girl, who’d been with her for almost a year.

The pity of it was that Kate knew Carla really liked her current foster home. Only she liked her gang of friends more. Keeping Carla away from that gang had been an ongoing project for Rita, Kate and Carla’s social worker, Kim, for several months.

Kate still remembered vividly her own desperate efforts to be part of a group that wasn’t controlled by adults. Fortunately for her, the vow to make good and show Joanna Barnes that she could, had supplanted her need to be a gang member. It was a goal that took her off the streets. She was determined to do the same for Carla.

For now, though, she could do little but hope that Carla would have the sense to go home. Kate prowled around her small apartment. It was barely past nine and the city was just now succumbing to the cooling embrace of dusk. She’d eaten a fast-food dinner on the way home from dropping off the rental car, so didn’t have to worry about conjuring up a meal from the meager contents of her refrigerator. Still, she was restless.

She peered out the bedroom window through the geometric frieze of the fire escape on the other side of the glass, over the treetops and row houses of SoHo. Last summer she’d flung open the window and lain awake most nights in fear of intruders taking advantage of the heat wave to climb to her second-story flat. But now, thanks to her air-conditioning, she was both safe and cool. Except that she felt like a prisoner, barricaded against the heat and the night.

She stared down into the street and watched couples stroll in the balmy evening air, envying them. She could understand why Carla preferred the street to the family room, dominated by a blaring TV and the constant bickering of youngsters. On summer nights in the city, the streets were alive with excitement, anticipation.

Kate let the venetian blind drop, hiding the night away. Loneliness overwhelmed her. Thinking she’d be busy doing things with Joanna, she’d turned down a chance to travel out West with a friend and colleague at her school. Now, except for outings with Carla, the summer loomed empty and unpromising.

She wandered around the room, pausing before the mirror above her dresser. Her chin-length, damp, reddish-brown hair framed her face in limp tendrils, making her look like a waif out in a storm.

Kate moved away from her reflection—no comfort there—and slumped onto the edge of the bed. Too early for sleep. Too wound up for television. Ginny, the tenant downstairs and also a friend, was visiting her parents for a few days.

Maybe she ought to go down to the streets and look for Carla. Her quick smile vanished just as abruptly. No, she warned herself. Worrying about Carla, making sure she was all right, could be a full-time job if she was foolish enough to make it one. Both she and Rita Santos had already come to that conclusion.

Thoughts drifted back to the afternoon. Joanna’s casket. The flowers. Had Joanna liked lilies? So much she didn’t know and now, no possibility of ever learning. Impulsively, Kate went to the closet, drawn there by a need to find some clue, some hint in the few letters she’d received from Joanna Barnes over the past nineteen years. Why, Joanna? Why?

The album sat on the shelf above the clothes rack. Kate carried it to the bed, stacked the pillows against the headboard and made herself comfortable. Then she opened the first page.

August 15, 1982. Today is my birthday and I got my first real birthday card in the mail. It was from Joanna! She’s kept her promise and I’m going to keep mine. The one I made to myself the last night of camp. Not to get in trouble anymore. Not to ruin my life.

Taped beneath the scrawled entry was the card from Joanna. Its message read simply:

Happy Birthday, twelve-year-old! Don’t celebrate too much. Manhattan’s amazing and I’m loving it. Watch for my byline in the papers—whenever. Have a great year and see you in eighteen!

Joanna

Kate passed her hand along the card’s glossy surface. She’d read the card more than a dozen times the day it arrived. It had been the first piece of personal mail ever to be delivered to her. She remembered, too, the way her foster parents and their children had stood openmouthed in surprise as she read the card. And the questions that had followed.

Who is this person, Kate? Where did you meet her? What’s this all about, anyway?

She’d been afraid then that somehow the whole thing—the cards and the promised reunion with Joanna—would be snatched away from her. But in the end, her partial explanation had satisfied her foster mother, who’d only muttered a last warning—I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. Kate hadn’t appreciated the irony of that comment until many years later.

Kate sighed and quickly flipped the page. This one—a postcard from Paris—had caused a real stir in the household because no one else had even known anyone who’d gone to Europe. Weeks before its arrival Kate had rushed to check the mail every day. She might forget. Don’t get your hopes up. But Kate had had the blind faith of a child. And she’d never been disappointed.

Suddenly she couldn’t take any more. Her only memories of Joanna Barnes were now permanently sealed behind plastic in an ordinary photo album. She’d never have the chance to transform all those bits of paper into a real person. Kate closed the album, sank back onto the bed and stretched out her arm to click off the table lamp. Street light dappled the room with a pale rainbow of color. But Kate closed her eyes to the summer night, turned her head into the pillow and cried.

KATE DIDN’T HEAR from Carla until two days after Joanna’s funeral, but she suspected the girl had tried several times to call her. There’d been a few hang-ups on her answering machine. She figured Carla had already been read the riot act from Rita and Kim, so she kept her voice light and neutral.

“Hi, Carly! What’s up?”

There was the slightest of pauses, as if Carla had been expecting another response.

“Uh, not too much. Guess you heard I got grounded.”

“Yes.”

Carla cleared her throat. “Well, I don’t know why everyone was so ticked off at me. I was okay. Not in any trouble or nothing—until I got home, anyway.”

“Maybe they were worried, Carla.”

“Yeah, right!” she scoffed. “More like Rita was thinkin’ she’d lose that check every month.”

Kate sighed. She’d heard the line before. “Is that fair? I don’t think Rita’s in this for the money.”

A longer pause this time. Then Carla mumbled, “Maybe not. But I wasn’t doing nothin’. Just hangin’ with my buddies.”

Kate counted mentally to ten. She’d had this conversation with Carla so many times she felt like screaming. Why aren’t you getting this, Carly? What does it take from all of us? Finally she said, “It’s all about communicating, Carla. Let people know where you are and when you’re coming home. Call, for heaven’s sake.”

A hoarse laugh drifted through the line. “If I’d’a called, Rita would’ve told me to get home. And I was having a good time—you know, with my buds.”

Kate knew better than to malign Carla’s friends. She’d seen Rita do it and it always brought Carla rushing emotionally to their defense. Besides, she’d heard all the excuses. Carla could pull them out of the air like a magician popping rabbits from a hat.

“So now what?” Kate asked, softening her voice.

“My last chance. Kim said next time she’ll have to send me to a group home. Out in the suburbs!”

Kate might have laughed at this final indignity, obviously a fate worse than death, were it not for the catch in Carla’s voice. The threat of a group home was now suddenly very clear to her. Kate sighed again. It had taken six months of “last chances” for that sober reality to register with Carla.

“Carla, be cool, okay? Look, my plans for the summer have altered a bit. I’ll have more time than I thought. We can do some things together.”

“Like go shopping?”

Kate smiled at Carla’s raised inflection on the last word. “Sure. Things like that. Maybe check out a museum or art gallery, too.”

“Yeah,” Carla murmured, less enthusiastic now.

“I’ll call you tomorrow about two and we’ll set a definite time and place. All right?”

Carla agreed and hung up quickly. Before I changed my mind? Kate wondered. Or because she had an incoming call? Kate shook her head as she set the receiver down. In spite of Carla’s attitude, she hadn’t yet crossed the line into serious trouble. Kate just hoped she could deflect the girl from that course before it was too late.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent in completing errands that Kate had postponed. She was grateful for the chance to be busy, thus removing thoughts of Joanna from her mind. Until she returned from feeding her neighbor’s cat and picked up the phone to order a pizza. There was a message for her from the law firm representing Joanna Barnes.

Kate sat down on the armchair next to the phone and listened. The cheery voice on the line requested her to attend a reading of Joanna’s will the next day at ten in the morning. Please bring some identification. After the message finished, Kate sat and stared into space, her sweaty palm clamped onto the receiver.

WHEN THE ELEVATOR DOORS parted, the man who’d spoken to her in the church after Joanna’s funeral was standing on the other side. The look of incredulity in his face must have matched her own, Kate thought, for they stood gaping at each other until she murmured a faint “hello” and stepped out onto the carpeted hall.