Who Kissed Charlie Fine?

Chapter 18

She shut the door in his face.

Before Charlie could pound on the door again, the front porch light was turned off. Mary opened the door with a finger to her lips to signal him to be quiet and then waved him inside. She had turned the front hall light off too. It was early for all the lights to be off in the house, but as Mary led him through the living room and up the stairs to the top floor, he saw that Imogene was asleep on the couch, the soft white light of an episode of 'I Love Lucy' on the television flickering across her doll-like features.

Mary made Charlie wait just outside her bedroom, turning the main light off and switching on a small lamp with blush coloured shade so that her room was illuminated in a pinkish glow. It was less mood lighting than the trick to stop Eric's cameras from recording whatever they were about to say. Charlie thought about turning his phone recorder on again, but he couldn't bring himself to be another spy in her life. Not, at least, while he still trusted her.

She offered him a choice of seats either on the narrow bench in front of her window or in a small chair near her bedside dressing table. He was too agitated to sit and said he'd prefer to stand. Mary sat at the foot of her large bed, still and small in a room which swirled in patterned decor: a covered headboard with large floral print, a broadly striped comforter, colourful birds on the green backed wallpaper of an accent wall, a harlequin-diamonded rug in some pastel colour he could not discern in the dimness. She rubbed her hands anxiously in her lap, waiting for him to speak.

"I know there are situations where secrets aren't the same as lies," he said, "but in this case, they would be."

"I know," she said, meeting his eyes briefly before looking away.

"I just found out Eric has plans to turn Kiftsgate into a ski resort and guess whose land he needs to do it?"

A shallow, sickened huff tilted her head back. "That son of a bitch," she said quietly.

"You didn't know?" he prodded her, his tone more condescending than he'd intended, but only in anticipation of a vague answer.

"No, I didn't," Mary said coldly, her expression one of sadness and disgust. "I may be a captive audience, but I don't give him the pleasure of asking him what he's up to . He certainly wouldn't be so stupid as to tell me something I could use against him."

"No, I guess he wouldn't," Charlie said, adjusting his tone to a fairer one. "Now comes the part where I tell you Opal's in on it too."

"What?" Mary gasped, but her disbelief was no match for an awful truth. Her eyes immediately filled with water and she bit her lips to keep from crying. Despite her well-forged shield of stoicism, a single tear did escape her to roll down her cheek and Charlie knew it was because her last vestiges of faith were being decimated.

She wiped the tear away quickly, angrily, nodding her head as though accepting defeat. "Well, that's what this life is, isn't it?" she said, her pained eyes searching him for agreement. "Between garbage and goodness, there isn't a whole lot of room."

Charlie wished he could give her a consoling argument, but considering what he had to say next there seemed little point.

"She tried to bring me in as an investor, but it was something she said about sharing secrets with Creed that made me realize he has a silent stake in the game too. That, and she lied about his eye. I had to ask myself why she would, and then it all just fell into place. Since I can't imagine her of all people sneaking through Claire's trees to infest them with beetles, it makes sense that she'd need a partner. One besides Eric. One who might become violent if someone came across him in the woods at night, woods so easily accessible to you. You, always with your knitting needles."