The Man Who Wasn't All There by David Handler (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

and steadied me while I dried off and stepped into clean boxers and jeans. I was able to put on a T-shirt, cashmere turtleneck and socks on my own in the bedroom while she drained the tub. Then I stretched out on the parlor sofa in front of the fire she’d built. Lulu hobbled in and climbed into my lap, her tail thumping.

I heard a pair of pickup trucks pull up outside. Doors open and close. Mr MacGowan came in by way of the mudroom. He didn’t bother to knock. Neighbors in Lyme don’t.

‘Well, now, how are you feeling, young fella?’ he asked me as he fed the fire with a hickory log.

‘Better than my four-footed companion,’ I said, stroking her gently.

He nodded gravely. ‘I hear she dug you out of that root cellar practically by herself.’

‘Mr MacGowan, I sure am glad you were home and heard Austin fire his gun in the kitchen. I hate to think what might have happened if you’d been …’

‘Don’t think about it. You’ll be better off. Besides, I brought you a cure for what ails you.’ He fetched a jug from the kitchen table. ‘Some more of my hard apple cider.

He called it hard apple cider. I called it Connecticut calvados. It was intensely flavorful and warmed the tummy beyond belief.

‘Why, thank you. Care to stay and share a glass?’

‘Can’t. Too much to do. Tony and Gas Hardy are here to hang those big old storm windows for you. Merilee said you’re forbidden to stand on a ladder in your concussed state. Tony has a real good touch with glazing compound. He’ll freshen up what needs freshening and prime them for you. They can also put in your storm doors. Those mothers must weigh a hundred pounds apiece. Anything else needs doing, you just ask them. They’re good boys.’ To Mr MacGowan anyone under the age of fifty was a boy. ‘I’ll tell them to get started.’

‘I’d like to thank them first. Could you ask them to come in?’

He fetched them and led them in by way of the mudroom door and the kitchen. They were both big, husky guys in their forties dressed in heavy wool checkered shirts, jeans and work boots. Tony was fair-haired with a flushed, weathered complexion. Gas’s shaggy hair and full beard were black, though his beard had a smattering of gray in it.

Lulu let out a whoop when she saw Gas. He immediately went over and patted her with the gentleness of a true dog lover. ‘Hey, girl, you feeling better? She’s a sweetie.’ He had a hoarse, raspy voice. ‘And those paws of hers were an awful mess. After Dr Jen took care of them she started to worry about Lulu’s teeth and gums, too, what with that breath of hers. But she said Lulu’s gums were in the pink and her teeth are tartar free.’

‘They are. She just has unusual eating habits.’ I stuck out my hand. ‘I wanted to shake your hands. Both of you.’ Which I did. It was like squeezing two rough-cut boards of wood. ‘If you hadn’t hiked into those woods and found us, we wouldn’t be here right now.’

‘It’s what we train for when we join the volunteer fire department,’ Tony said. ‘No big.’

‘It’s very big. You’re both good neighbors.’

‘Which is why they won’t accept any money for helping out around here,’ Mr MacGowan said pointedly.

Gas nodded his shaggy head. ‘That’s right.’

‘Bushwa,’ Merilee said as she breezed in from tidying the eucalyptus spa.

‘Hullo, ma’am,’ the brothers said, blushing in her presence.

‘If you do an honest day’s work you get an honest day’s pay,’ she said. ‘And I won’t take no for an answer.’

Gas scuffed at the rug with his work boot. ‘Well, if you insist.’

‘I’m sorry about what happened to Austin,’ I said to them. ‘I understand you were cousins.’

‘He was family,’ Tony acknowledged. ‘But we hated his guts.’

‘Ever since we were kids,’ Gas said angrily. ‘One summer afternoon me and Tony was running around in the ruins up on the mountain with our pup, Tige, and Austin started throwing rocks at us to make us go away. It was like he considered the ruins his. We didn’t take kindly to it, so I gave him a bloody nose. Next morning we found Tige dead in the backyard. Our dad took him to the vet. Turned out he’d eaten some hamburger meat laced with rat poison. It was Austin who did it. We never had any doubt.’

‘He was an evil little bastard his whole life,’ Tony said.

‘I hear you had some trouble with him on White Sand Beach a couple of weeks ago.’

Gas nodded. ‘You hear right. We were kicking back over a bonfire with friends. That lunatic shows up, playing cops and robbers like he was still a kid, and confiscated our beer. Also a couple of doobies. We, uh, didn’t mention nothing about the doobies to the resident trooper. Appreciate it if you’d …’

‘Not to worry.’

‘Time for you boys to get started,’ Mr MacGowan broke in. ‘Miss Nash keeps her storm doors out in the barn. Hoagy hadn’t gotten around to those yet. I’ll show you where they are.’

‘We can get those in for you right away, Miss Nash,’ Tony promised. ‘Once these old places get cold they stay cold.’

Merilee thanked them and they filed out the mudroom door toward the barn. I watched the shaggy brothers go, wondering just how deeply held their life-long grudge against their billionaire cousin had been.

Merilee reheated the leftover four-alarm chili that was in the fridge and brought me a bowl of it with some pilot crackers and a glass of milk.

‘Aren’t you going to have some?’ I asked her.

‘Brett is supposed to be svelte. Can’t have her looking like a hippo. But I’ll keep you company,’ she said as another vehicle came up the drive and parked. Through the front windows we could see that it was a silver state police Crown Vic cruiser.

The man who got out of the passenger