CHAPTER NINETEEN

I finish my work in record time. Twelve houses in eight hours. It's not even five o clock by the time I tell Mrs. Garrity I hope to be of service to her again soon and get in the van to head home. I make it about a mile before I realize I'm not heading home.

I'm not heading to Vivian's either. I'm pretty sure I fucked that up for good. Aside from the fact that Vivian wants me to just deal with the fact that Lila's killers are going to get away with it, the way she treated me made it clear that however much she might like me in bed, she still sees me as a child. The way I reacted to the way she treated me made it clear that I am one.

So yeah, that"s probably over. Here"s to you, Mrs. Robinson, and thanks for the memories.

Instead, I go to Mrs. Winslow"s house. I have no idea why. I don"t even like her. She acted like a kindly old grandmother, then dropped bombshells like a KGB agent.

But those bombshells put me on the path that helped me discover who killed Lila Kensington. I didn't like feeling like she was manipulating me, but she was manipulating me closer to finding justice.

I'm probably just rationalizing after the fact. I'm probably just here because I need someone to talk to, and with Vivian no longer an option and Marco being about as trustworthy as a three-dollar bill, there's no one else. Worst-case scenario, I end up even more part of the neighborhood's gossip than before, but that's something I can deal with. I don't think there's anything I care less about than the opinions of the people of Autumn Downs.

Anyway, I'm here now. If I just sit in front of her house for ten minutes, then drive away, I'll look even more like a creep.

I get out of the car and head to her porch. I knock, and as usual, part of me hopes she won't answer.

As usual, my hopes matter jack-all. She answers almost immediately, and smiles at me with a mixture of tenderness and cunning that I think I'm going to start calling the Autumn Downs Grin.

"Nate! What a pleasant surprise! What brings you here?"

I realize that I have no idea what I'm going to say to her. Hi, Mrs. Winslow, I almost assaulted a neighbor of yours, and the neighbor I've been screwing until my hip blows out had to pull me away. Can we talk?

Fortunately, what ends up leaving my mouth is a little more coherent. "I think I know what happened to Lila."

Mrs. Winslow doesn't look the least bit surprised to hear that. "You'd better come in," she says. "I'll make some coffee."

She leads me inside, and I look around at all the decorations. I focus particularly on the pictures. There are pictures of dogs, pictures of cats, pictures of goldfish. There are images of breathtaking mountain vistas, peaceful ocean views, panoramas of snow-capped forests and vast canyons.

But there aren't any pictures of people. No husband, no children, no grandchildren. No nieces or nephews or kindergarten classes. Mrs. Winslow seems to have been a hermit her whole life.

"I'm going to make yours with cream and sugar this time. I know you usually take it black, but I think you need some balance today."

Balance. That's an odd thing to say about coffee. She said something last time too that I thought was odd. What was it? Something about being manly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Winslow," I remember to say after a moment.

"Of course, dear. Have a seat in the kitchen."

I sit on a chair that's upholstered almost as much as the couch, and a moment later, she hands me a steaming cup of coffee with a generous helping of cream and a less generous but still noticeable helping of sugar.

She's right. This is the perfect cup of coffee for me right now. "Thank you, Mrs. Winslow. This is delicious."

"Edith."

"What?"

"Call me Edith. You've come to visit me again, and you're asking for my help. That must mean we're friends now."

I lift my gaze to meet hers. She smiles sweetly at me, but her eyes are hard as diamonds. That's another peculiarity of the lovely folk of Autumn Downs. "Yeah," I say. "Sure. Thank you, Edith."

"Of course, dear. Now. You say you know what happened to Lila Kensington. What do you know?"

"Her father killed her. Julian."

Edith lifted an eyebrow. "Not her mother?"

I shake my head. "I don't think so. She's coked out of her mind half the time. I don't think she's aware of what's going on around her anymore."

"Oh. Oh, dear. I mean, I knew she was addled by drugs, but I didn't suspect it had gone so far."

"Yeah, well, believe it." I take another sip of my coffee, then say, "I guess she's probably involved. She at least helped him cover it up. Hell, she might even have—"

"Watch your language, dear."

"Right. Sorry. I was saying she might have been the one to do the deed, but Julian was the one who organized it."

"You're sure of this?"

I nod and sip more coffee. "I read Lila's diary."

"You read Lila's diary? How?"

"I broke in."

Edith's eyes widen in shock. "You what?"

"Last night. Julian and Clara went out to party or something, so I broke in while they were gone and read Lila's diary. It's all there."

"What's all there? She knew they were going to kill her?"

"No, but she knew all about Clara's drug use, and she knew a lot of criminal activities that Julian was involved in. I'm talking seriously bad stuff. Like organized crime stuff. Extortion, racketeering, embezzlement, political deals and at least one case where someone was ‘gotten rid of.'"

"Oh, my stars."

"Yeah, I know. He's basically the Al Capone of Autumn Downs."

"Oh, my word." Edith leans back in her chair and stares out the window, eyes wide with shock.

It occurs to me that I've just unloaded a lot of heavy stuff on a seventy-two-year-old woman. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Winslow. You don't need to hear all of this."

"Edith," she reminds me, "and I knew most of what you just said, or at least suspected it. I'm just surprised that Lila knew. It makes a lot of sense now."

"Yeah." I sip the rest of my coffee. "I just hate that no one's doing anything about it."

"Have you told the police?"

"I told them that the Kensingtons killed Lila. I haven't told them about the diary yet."

"You should."

I scoff. "Why? So they can have me arrested for breaking and entering?"

She gives me a gentle but stern smile. "I don't mean to be cold, dear, but when you consider what happened to Lila, a little time for burglary is a small price to pay."

Except it wouldn't be small time for me. With my criminal history, I'd be looking at the maximum sentence of six years. Still, Lila got the death sentence, so Edith has a point.

But… "It's not that simple. The cops had evidence to at least look into the parents, and they ruled the death an accident in two days. The ink was barely dry on the coroner's report, and they swept it under the rug. When I told Detective Ramirez that I had caught Clara doing drugs, she didn"t even care. She just wanted to know why I was back at the house. She thought I was selling drugs to Clara and Lila."

"I see."

"Yeah. They really want to stay off of Julian's bad side."

"Do you have the diary still?"

I shook my head. "No, she…" I catch myself before I tell on Vivian. When I lift my eyes to Edith, she has that hard look in them again. I don't know if Vivian could get in trouble for anything she did, but I know that people talk in this neighborhood, and I don't want to make anything harder for her than I already have.

I feel a pang of guilt for my earlier behavior. Vivian was only trying to protect me. I need to go apologize to her.

I finish with, "He took it back."

"Julian? How did he take it back?"

I redden. "I… I confronted him." Edith sighed and looked down at her coffee. "I know, I know. I fucked up."

"Language."

"Sorry. I messed up. I was just angry, and no one was doing anything. I figured that someone should let them know they hadn't gotten away with it."

"But they have so far. And allowing your emotions to control you only increased the chances that they'll still get away with it."

Her correction is delivered far more gently than Vivian's, but it cuts far deeper. I lower my head and feel tears come to my eyes again.

Edith stands and takes the empty coffee mug. "Tears don't help. Save them for later."

The gentleness is gone from her voice. I lift my head and see her eyes boring into mine. If anyone looked in through the window, they would probably wonder why a six-foot-one nineteen-year-old boy was shrinking under the glare of a seventy-two-year-old woman who might be five feet tall in heels, but that's exactly what I do.

"If you want to punish someone," she says, "You have to be smart, and you have to be patient. So no more confronting Julian. No more robbing their home. No more lurking and trying to catch Clara doing something that the wider world couldn't care less about. Talk to the police and tell them what you know. I agree that they would rather ignore crimes committed by the wealthy, but eventually, the headache of hiding things becomes too much for them to continue. Handle this the right way and accept that it takes more time than the wrong way." She straightens. "The taste of victory will be all the sweeter for it."

She takes the mugs to the kitchen and leaves me there to wonder who the hell I just talked to.

When she returns, she's the sweet, grandmotherly lady I remember. We talk about things that have nothing to do with the Kensington. She tells me about vacations she's taken earlier in life and asks me about school. I relax a little and leave feeling a bit better than I do when I arrive.

But the look in her eyes from before—that cold, hard stare—remains in my mind long after I leave.