Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good Read Free

What about?’
    ‘Just checking in, says Joe Joe might be made police chief.’
    ‘Wonderful. When?’
    ‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell anybody, it’s a secret. Have a raisin.’
    ‘No, thanks. He had a tux.’
    ‘Joe Joe?’
    ‘Chester. Chester had a very nice tux.’
    ‘Whoa, now, Kav’na.’
    ‘He wore it to the Children’s Hospital benefit last year, remember? When he gave that huge check. So if Irene hasn’t thrown it out . . .’
    ‘Wait a minute . . .’
    ‘Why not? He made a barrel of money in the timber business, it would be a very nice tux. I’ll call Irene, she’s a darling woman.’
    He felt a provoking urge to flee to Lord’s Chapel and kneel at the railing.
    •   •   •
    ‘I RENE DIDN ’ T ANSWER , she’s probably in the garden.’
    How his wife knew so much about Irene McGraw was beyond him. He knew only that Irene was said to look like a film star whose name he didn’t recognize. He scanned his mental file on the McGraws: Baptists. Florida residents for the annual requisite of six months and a day. A lot of grandchildren.
    ‘Shouldn’t I . . . that is . . .’ If he was going to wear another man’s getup, shouldn’t it be that of somebody in his own parish? ‘Maybe somebody at Lord’s Chapel . . .’ he said, hating this.
    ‘Nobody at Lord’s Chapel is your size, Chester was an absolute duplicate.’
    Useful beyond the grave—it was everyone’s hope.
    ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘anyone who has a tux at Lord’s Chapel will be wearing it Saturday night.’
    His wife knew everything. An honors graduate of Smith, of course—he wondered if all Smithies were like this.
    ‘Ride with me,’ she said, taking her keys off the hook at the kitchen door.
    ‘Why?’
    She gave him a doting look. ‘Because I love your company.’
    But there was nothing at all to love about his company. He was a certified crank these days. Not that he wanted to be, but he seemed unable to control the mean streak that had cropped up somewhere over the Pond, possibly around Greenland.
    ‘Besides,’ she said, cheerful as all get-out, ‘that’s what retirement is for.’
    ‘I’m still trying to hammer out what retirement is for.’
    ‘It’s for jumping in the car and going somewhere on impulse.’
    ‘I’ll stick around here,’ he said, loath to beg handouts from a recent widow.
    ‘Irene won’t even see you, I’ll park in front of the hedge instead of in the driveway. Take your newspaper, I’ll just be a minute. Then we can run by the Local.’
    She gave him the look that was code for the rare pint of Ben & Jerry’s. He was suddenly cheered.
    ‘I’m in,’ he said.
    •   •   •
    S HE BACKED HER M AZDA out of the garage.
    ‘What if she gave it to the Salvation Army?’ he asked.
    ‘Too soon, I think.’
    ‘So there’s a timeline for cleaning out the spousal closet?’
    ‘Usually six months to a year. Some people do it immediately after.’
    He chewed on this arcane information, especially curious about the marital revelations of ‘immediately after.’
    ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘if I croak first, my clothes go to Puny and my jewelry to Lace, except for your mother’s ring.’
    ‘Where does that go?’
    ‘If Dooley and Lace marry, to Lace. If not, it could pass to your next wife.’
    He refused to comment.
    She made a right onto Main. ‘Just kidding, of course. Do you think you’d marry again?’
    ‘Absolutely not. I was barely able to marry the first time, much less again.’ She had just asked him this ridiculous question in Ireland.
    He could sense her staring at him.
    ‘What?’ he said.
    ‘I know how you hate hearing this, but . . .’
    ‘But.’
    ‘You need a haircut.’
    ‘I just had a haircut. Two or three weeks ago.’
    ‘That was a trim, not a cut. They left it too long.’
    His wife needed a steady, paying job, not one in which she could do as she pleased, with time left over to mind his business.
    ‘Merely a