Murder Never Forgets Read Free Page A

not, moss on the ocean side of the palm trees. Someone, a long time ago, worked very hard at the overblown surreal effect; God and the Pacific climate have done the rest. The garden has flourished, flowing down the hill in profusion, up the hill in triumph, as far as the base of the Manor where an assortment of spires and stained glass windows and awkward Manor towers finishes the effect. It looks like Harry Potter’s school, which my father wouldn’t know anything about. Or like Jack-and-the-Beanstalk’s castle.
    I stop and put my arms around a fat palm tree. “So where is my harp of gold,” I ask the air, “if this is my beanstalk.” Meanwhile telling myself, you total lunatic; you’re crazy, too, it runs in the family. How could your poor parent not be confused? The palm tree has crystal fog droplets trembling at the ends of its fronds.
    In a minute a lady joins us at the tree, a small question-mark lady, bent sideways over her walker. I know this person, whose name is Mrs. Dexter; she’s one of Daddy’s three-person fan club. That is, three ladies, all old and in different ways attractive and interesting, who like to eat with him when he goes to the dining room. I think that they eat with him because they see that he is also still attractive and interesting, although somewhat damaged in transit.
    Mrs. Dexter bump-clunks down the path toward us and stops to stare up at the palm tree. “There are monarch butterflies living in that tree,” she says. “Hello, Carla, hello, Ed, how are you?” And she reaches out and grabs a butterfly and holds it, upright wings together, under my father’s nose.
    Her white hair is smashed into even, accented waves, and her pink face stares sideways at the sun. She tucks the butterfly back in its palm tree cleft.
    “They sleep all winter, a butterfly doesn’t dream.” She adds, “It doesn’t have the nerves.”
    “They stand for the soul, of course,” Daddy says. “Like . . .” He had straightened up cheerfully when Mrs. Dexter first arrived, but now his body contracts. “There was a woman on the beach. They seized her soul . Three people. With a fishing net.”
    Mrs. Dexter looks over at him, her flat, heavy face creased. “Perhaps it just looked that way, Ed.”
    “No. No, Miss . . .” Names are hard for him.
    “Dexter.” She touches his arm briefly. “It’s easy to misinterpret.” She’s firm in proposing this. “Things change in a certain light. Or if events happen quickly it can be confusing.”
    “I did nothing ,” my father says. “I simply was there. I didn’t act . That’s a sin. The Negative Confession pledges: I did not cause to weep. I was not deaf to the words of truth .” He touches his hand to his cheek as if he’s feeling a sore place.
    “Daddy,” I put an arm around him, “let’s go look at the mermaid.”
    This mermaid statue glimmers down at the end of the path, a bronze copy of the one the travel brochures show in the Copenhagen harbor. She has a plaque on her pedestal that says she’s a memorial to somebody’s parents. Unlike the original mermaid in Copenhagen, this one has blonde hair. Or reddish-blonde. The sculptor did something to the bronze to make it that color. My father is fond of her.
    The mermaid statue area is also a local hangout for the long-legged hares who frequent this garden, inquiring noses quivering, ears aloft. My father likes them, too. “They look like former President Coolidge,” he says.
    “I’ll examine the mermaid alone.” He rejects me with a shoulder movement and plods away down the path.
    Mrs. Dexter leans on her walker to watch. He’s still agile and moves all right, but his back looks stiff and unhappy. “What a pity,” she says.
    “He’s worse,” I suggest.
    She inclines her head.
    “How long?” I ask.
    She shrugs, which is difficult for her, bent over the walker and not in a good position for shrugging. “One week? Two?”
    I say, “The books all talk about plateaus. The person