HARD AS A ROCK

by Marianne Wilski Strong

I suppose I wouldn’t have gotten so involved in Mrs. Forelli’s disappearance if my mother hadn’t had to go into a nursing home five months ago. She had a stroke and needed considerable medical care. The doctors insisted that I couldn’t take care of her properly at home, and I knew they were right. But that knowledge didn’t prevent me from feeling guilty every time I saw an old woman who looked as if she needed help. And Mrs. Forelli sure needed somebody’s help.

I first saw Mrs. Forelli two months after I had returned to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to stay in my mother’s house. I was working half-heartedly on a series of articles for the Philadelphia Inquirer about inns and family restaurants of northeastern Pennsylvania. So, on days when my mother had lunch with the therapist, Jeanne, who was teaching her how to swallow again, I roamed around eastern Pennsylvania taking pictures of restaurants I thought were candidates for the articles. I had made a few choices already and settled down one afternoon to write. After a few hours, I decided to switch directions and get a little physical. So I did some yoga lunges, but after a while my knees rebelled. I took stock in the mirror, decided that my thighs and butt would never really get smooth and rock hard again, and so dragged out the list of restaurants I still had to explore.

The third one on the list was Forelli’s Restaurant. I’d actually eaten there a few times with my mother and father when I was a teenager. I decided that it might be fun to see how much I remembered about the place. I grabbed my camera and set out.

Forelli’s was a fifteen minute walk. As I approached, I was pleased to see the facade hadn’t changed much. It had an almost European ambiance created by the dark wood of the door and the gauzy effect of long white curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows that flanked the door.

The sun was setting just across the Susquehanna River. The rays gave a golden sheen to the wood and curtains. I lifted my camera and adjusted the lens. A curtain on the second floor fluttered, then moved to the side. An old woman, in a dress whose pattern was too indistinct to decipher, stood at the window. She was thin. Her face was framed with wisps of gray hair, making her look gaunt and forlorn.

I moved my camera upward and snapped.

The woman jerked back, and the curtain dropped back into place.

I wondered if this woman were the Mrs. Forelli I had seen years ago. She’d been middle aged then, full bodied and jolly. This old woman had seemed furtive, frightened, as if she were hiding from someone or something. But then, perhaps, this was nothing more than my imagination at work, or worse, a replay in my mind of the look I had seen on my mother’s face when she first entered the nursing home.

I wasn’t sure, but something about the old woman drew me in. So I decided to come back for supper.

At home, I developed my pictures, tucked the one of the putative Mrs. Forelli into my purse, and dressed. I wasn’t that slim, pretty, honey-blonde teenager I once was when I dined at Forelli’s with my parents, but I still had a nice head of medium-length curly hair, somewhat darker than it used to be, and a figure whose bulges here and there were pretty easily disguised with a flowing dress.

Inside, Forelli’s was pretty standard for an Italian restaurant: tables with checkered tablecloths, candles, vases of artificial flowers, and, on the walls, pictures of Rome, Sorrento, and Venice. The one distinguishing feature was the framed needlepoint canvases: one of a child holding a loaf of bread, one of peach-colored houses strung along the coast of a blue sea, one of a gothic cathedral, one of St. Joseph at a carpenter’s workbench, and one of a man whom I think was meant to be Vince Lombardi.

The waitress, a woman of about forty, attractive except for her stiffly permed orange hair, waved me over to the left side of the restaurant to take my choice of tables beneath St. Joseph or Vince Lombardi. I choose Vince. He’d make a less austere dinner companion. Only one other table was taken. An elderly couple had ordered already and were sitting silently, apparently having little need to chitchat. Perhaps they’d been married so long that each pretty well knew what the other thought about things. That looked good to me; I never knew what James, my ex, thought about anything, including the young and lovely daughter of the Mercedes dealer, where my ex was an accountant. Of course, I knew what he thought of the alimony I’d demanded. His lawyer told me.

The waitress came over and I gave her my order. Shortly, she brought me my salad. It was damned good. I decided to put Forelli’s on my list of restaurants for the series. While I speared dandelion leaves, tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce from their their Italian dressing, I tried to think of how to approach my waitress for some information about the restaurant and the old woman I’d seen at the window. I already thought of her as a prisoner. It was a matter of giving my mind something to concentrate on in lieu of my mother’s situation. Forelli’s not being a modern restaurant, my waitress hadn’t announced her name and told me that she would be my server for the evening. She seemed to take it for granted that I knew that. So I decided on the direct approach.

“Can I ask you a few questions about this restaurant?” I said when she came over with my Bud Light.

She shrugged and lifted a hand as if to indicate that she couldn’t imagine why I’d want to know anything about Forelli’s. I took the shrug and gesture as a “yes.”

“The owner, I understand, is a Mr. Donald Forelli.”

She nodded.

I began to wonder if she were a former cloistered nun who still maintained the vow of silence.

“He’s been the owner for about twenty-five years, hasn’t he?”

She shrugged again, and I began to despair. Then she spoke. “Looks as if you know more about the place than I do,” she said.

“Well, I used to live here in Wilkes-Barre.” I explained about my series. “Could you ask Mr. Forelli if he’d talk with me?”

She frowned and started to look a little nervous. “I don’t know. He’s, well, he’s not too talkative. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?” I repeated. “Why not? What happened to him?”

She shook her head. “I don’t really know. I haven’t been here that long. Less than a year. But Mary . . .” She paused and looked at her watch. “Mary, she’s the other waitress. She’s due in in about half an hour. She’s been here longer, at least two years.” She glanced around and then leaned over toward me. “Mary says Mr. Forelli used to be really nice. You know, joking, taking an interest in his waitresses.” She straightened up and held up her hand like a cop directing traffic to stop me from protesting. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I mean he took an interest in a nice way. You know, helpful, and all. Asking about families and all.”

“Does Mary know what happened?”

“All I know is that she says she thinks it had something to do with old Mrs. Forelli, Mr. Forelli’s mother-in-law, going away not long after Mr. Forelli’s first wife died.”

I hadn’t expected the second subject of my interest to pop up so fast. “Going away?” I asked. “Where?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest.”

“But she is here now, right?”

“Oh yes. She came back. She lives here with Mr. Forelli and his second wife.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I’m confused. You said that old Mrs. Forelli was Mr. Forelli’s mother-in-law. His mother-in-law has the same name? Did he marry his sister or something?”

The waitress’s eyes widened like two blue balloons. “Good grief, no. You see, well, it is confusing. But Mr. Forelli is Mr. Cinella.”

“Huh . . .” I said. But the couple on the other side of the restaurant had worked up enough nerve to call the waitress.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’d better go over.”

I pushed around an olive and considered the wisdom of leaving immediately. This sounded like the kind of messy family situation you’re better off not knowing about. But I was hooked. I had to find out how Mr. Forelli was Mr. Cinella.

I gestured for the waitress to return to me after she’d put bowls of spaghetti in front of the couple. The couple threw me dark looks. I felt kind of bad, but then maybe I’d given them something to talk about. They could ask each other questions like “Who does that brazen hussy think she is?” or “Why doesn’t the younger generation have any manners at all?”

The waitress returned. “So tell me, please,” I said, “uh . . . I’m sorry. My name’s Carolyn. I don’t know your name.”

“Dorothy.”

“I’m dying of curiosity. What’s the mystery about Forelli-Cinella?”

“No mystery, really. When Mr. Cinella married his first wife, he came to help run the restaurant for his wife’s father. When the father died, Mr. Cinella took over. But he never changed the restaurant’s name, so everybody just started calling him Mr. Forelli. He didn’t mind much, I guess. Anyway, Mary says that it’s very modern of him to use his wife’s name.”

“Yes, it is,” I said with genuine admiration. My ex, who objected to my using my patronym, Drisak, wouldn’t have given up his name to marry a Windsor of England. “Okay, so then Mr. Cinella-Forelli’s first wife died. And you mentioned that he married again, right?”

“Yes, he sure did.” Dorothy looked at the kitchen door which had just opened. “Oh, there’s Mary,” she said, looking relieved. “She can tell you. When you write about this restaurant, you’ll say good things, I hope. I need this job.”

“Good, yes. Absolutely. Of course, I will have to come back a few times.” I was perfectly willing to bestow a little more praise than warranted to find out about this family tangle. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get a decent night’s sleep for a year.

After a few minutes, Mary came over and delivered eggplant parmesan to me. “Be right back,” she said conspiratorially, and went over to seat a foursome who had just come in.

I sized up Mary. About fifty-five, taking pretty good care of herself except for a bit too much pasta, but then which of us didn’t have that problem. She had clear, bright brown eyes and shiny brown hair cut short for ease of care. She looked strong, motherly, and likely to enjoy a beer and a good gossip now and then.

When she returned, she slipped into the chair beside me. “Dorothy said you might do a review of the restaurant. That’s good. We’re doing pretty well, but more business is always welcome. I’ve got to put Jenny, that’s my granddaughter, through college. So I’ll be happy to talk for a nice tip. I’d be happy to talk anyway, but the tip will make me really happy.”

I understood Mary completely. I never objected to a little minor bribery for a good story. “Okay,” I said, opting again for directness. I figured Mary to be too clever for any oily approach. “I’m doing a series on family restaurants, not reviews exactly. I certainly intend to include Forelli’s in my series, but to tell you the truth, I’ve become interested in Mrs. Forelli. The mother-in-law. I took a picture of the restaurant earlier and caught her looking out the window of the second floor.” I pulled out the photo and handed it to Mary.

She took it, studied it, and frowned. “She’s even thinner.”

“Than what?”

“Than she was. I mean before she went away. I guess she was ill. She lost some weight and was looking a little pasty. I didn’t see her after her return.”

“Her return? Oh, yes, Dorothy mentioned that she’d gone somewhere.”

“Well,” Mary said, glancing toward the kitchen. Seeing no signal that the foursome’s food was ready, she sat down opposite me. “I guess I shouldn’t gossip, but it’s all kind of strange. And since you are interested in Mrs. Forelli, just maybe you can make something of the story. About two years ago, Mrs. Forelli . . . strike that. About two years ago, Mrs. Cinella died. The first Mrs. Cinella. She’d been sick for some time. Then, about a year ago, Mr. Cinella remarried. Now shortly after the second marriage, Mrs. Forelli, old Mrs. Forelli that is, went to England to visit her youngest daughter. You follow so far?”

I nodded.

“When she returned,” Mary continued, “she . . . well, she withdrew. She used to come into the restaurant and talk to customers. Everybody liked her. So did I. I didn’t know her well, mind you, because I’d been here only a short while before she went away. But she’d make me feel like family. Then, when she came back, she just didn’t bother with anybody anymore. It’s like she just hid herself away. Like I said, she’d been losing weight, so maybe she was ill.” Mary picked up the picture and examined it again. “Funny,” she said. “She looks kind of frightened. Not that you can see her well, but . . .”

“I know,” I said. “I thought the same thing. But Dorothy said that Mr. Cinella was the one who changed.”

“Oh, he did, too. They both did. Mr. Cinella is still real nice, but he’s kind of morose.”

“Have you any idea at all of what might have happened?”

Mary leaned toward me. “Well, he did break his leg, but so do a lot of people. They don’t go morose. My guess is that the second wife has browbeaten him and his mother-in-law. The current Mrs. Cinella is pretty nasty. She doesn’t come down to the restaurant that much, but when she does, usually on Mondays to check out orders for the week, she lets us know that she thinks we don’t work hard enough. She eats a meal, devouring every morsel, then tells the cook it was not up to her standards. Dorothy and I spend the next day looking at the want ads.”

“Why doesn’t Mrs. Forelli go live with her daughter in England?”

“I don’t know.”

I thought furiously and came up with an idea. “Maybe, old Mrs. Forelli wanted to sell the restaurant and get some money for her old age. And maybe her son-in-law and his new wife didn’t want her to do that. So here she sits. It depends on who owns the restaurant now. Mrs. Forelli or Mr. Cinella.”

Mary shook her head. “Funny, I never asked. I’m not sure. I guess I assumed that Mr. Cinella owned it.”

Three more couples came in.

Mary stood up. “Listen, I’ve got to get to work. It’ll get pretty busy now.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Mary.” I slipped her a fiver.

She looked at it and slid it into a pocket. “Thank you. You didn’t really have to, but I do appreciate it. Look, I don’t know who owns this place, but you’ve got to win over Mrs. Cinella if you want to do some kind of article. You’re good looking and generous, but your looks won’t cut any ice with her. Good luck.” She turned toward the couples who had entered, then turned back. “If you can dig up some information on what might be wrong with Mrs. Forelli, that would be great. Maybe she’s just ill, but I have a hunch that something more is wrong here.”

I nodded and dug into my eggplant parmesan, rather cold now, but I didn’t want to bother Mary anymore. I also decided to forget using Forelli’s in the series. I’d had a mother-in-law rather like Mrs. Cinella and five years of a petty tyrant was quite enough for me. As for Mrs. Forelli, Mary was likely right: She was ill. There was little I could do about that. I had an ill mother to look after.

I left Forelli’s and went out into the brisk October air.

I don’t know why I turned round to take a look at Forelli’s from my car, but I did. Mrs. Forelli, that same thin woman with the wispy hair round her face, sat by an upstairs window, looking down on the street. She had her head resting on the arm she had propped up on a windowsill. She could have been a woman in an Edward Hopper painting entitled “Longing,” or “Loneliness.” Forelli’s was on the series list again. I just had to come back.

* * * *

That Monday, Mary looked surprised that I’d returned. “Okay,” she said to my request that she ask Mrs. Cinella to talk to me. “Your funeral.”

Before Mrs. Cinella came out, Forelli’s Restaurant went in and out of my series list about eight times. I’d decided on “out” when Mrs. Cinella appeared and identified herself to me. She was quite an attractive woman of around fifty or so. She had short but full hair swept neatly down around a nicely pointed chin. She had two bad features: her puffy cheeks and her hard, small eyes. She looked like a cute chipmunk with attitude.

I explained who I was and what I wanted, enticing her with the prospect of possibly increasing the restaurant’s business.

Her hard black eyes glinted.

“Is Mrs. Forelli the current owner?” I asked, partially for information for the series and partially because I thought I could get Mrs. Cinella to part with some information about the old woman. When I’m wrong, I’m really wrong.

“Yes,” she said.

“Would I be able to talk with her?”

Mrs. Cinella’s cheeks puffed out even more. I thought she was going to spit some chewed-up nuts at me, if that’s what chipmunks eat. “No.”

“Oh,” I said brazenly. “Why not? Is she ill?”

“Yes. She’s bedridden.”

“She is? But I saw her a few days ago, sitting at the window.”

“Maybe you did. She feels all right some days, but not most. And she doesn’t like to see anybody.”

“I wouldn’t talk to her much,” I persisted, out of pure spite. “I’d just like to get a little history of the place, maybe a picture of her.”

“That’s not possible. And I don’t think I want you doing any article.” She looked as if she were contemplating rolling me into a ball and stuffing me down some dark chipmunk hole.

We stared at each other for about thirty seconds. I blinked. Mrs. Cinella turned and marched back into the kitchen.

Mary came over. “Could you use a glass of wine?”

“I could use a bottle,” I said. “Wow. She is one buzz saw.”

“I warned you,” Mary said, and went to get my wine.

I didn’t stay long in Forelli’s after that. I was scared Mrs. Cinella would come back out of the kitchen with her carving knife. But that night, I got to thinking. Why had she gotten so defensive when I’d asked to see Mrs. Forelli? She’d been curt even when I asked if Mrs. Forelli were the owner of the restaurant. Something was wrong. I decided to go down to the courthouse on Tuesday. A guy I’d dated back in high school worked there.

On Tuesday, I really dolled up. Big hair, curling just above my shoulders, lashes thick as male mink fur with tons of mascara, just a touch of blush, and a touch of blue shadow over and under my eyes, making them look even bluer.

I got some stares from two men I passed on the way into the courthouse, but they looked too much like my ex to spark any return interest in me. I don’t need any more business types; I’m looking for a mountain climber or a scuba diver.

Paul, my old high school flame, still looked pretty good himself. He sputtered with flattering comments when he saw me. I might have gotten interested, but when he stood up, he looked as if he’d been doing a lot more beer drinking than mountain climbing. So I smiled and reminisced about our dates just enough to soften him up. When I hit him with my request to check on the ownership of Forelli’s, he was too far into dreamy high school days to refuse. He trotted off and came back with confirmation I’d sought. Mrs. Forelli was sole owner of the restaurant and had been so since her husband died. It had never passed out of her possession.

Paul wondered what my interest in Forelli’s was. I told him.

“Writing articles about small town restaurants?” He pulled back a little, as if he just found out the mink coat he was going to buy was actually rabbit. “I thought you were a reporter in New York or Paris or somewhere like that.”

“There isn’t anyplace like New York or Paris,” I snapped, then calmed down. After all, he’d done what I’d asked. “My mother’s in a nursing home now, so I came back home for a while.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking down at his protruding stomach, thereby dragging us both out of high school and plunging us back into middle age. “I guess we’re all getting old. Even Forelli. Or Cinella. Or whatever his name is.”

“Oh? Do you know him?” I asked, ready to let a lock of hair droop seductively over an eye if I had to. I didn’t have to.

“He belongs to the same church I do. Didn’t you talk to him? He runs the restaurant. He and his second wife.”

“No. I haven’t talked to him yet.”

“He’s got a bit of a limp. Used to be quite a hiker. Even got on the local news once. He always hiked in Hickory Run. You remember, the state park about fifteen miles east.” Paul drooled a bit.

“Of course,” I snapped. I had enough old-fashioned modesty left to blush. Paul and I went swimming in that park in our senior year. Nude. My introduction to sex. To this day, my mother knows nothing about that episode. “So how did he make the news?”

“He used to take Boy Scouts hiking in the park. I mean Boy Scouts came from all over the country and he’d lead groups up there to see Boulder Field. Knew it like the back of his hand, they said.”

Boulder Field, I recalled, was the area’s claim to fame. It’s a national landmark, an area over a football field in width and six football fields in length, full of Ice Age rocks. Nothing but rocks: no grass, no trees, just rocks, ranging from little ones of about four inches to big boulders of twenty or more feet. Not a soft spot to be had. If you fell in Boulder Field, you’d break something, or die.

“So something happened to his leg in Boulder Field?”

“Sure did. Happened about a year ago.”

“A year ago,” I repeated. About the time Mrs. Forelli went to England and about the time Mr. Cinella turned morose. Maybe having to stay home with his new wife did it.

“It was in the local papers,” Paul said. “I think Cinella had to be rescued. He couldn’t get out of the park or something.”

“It was in the paper?”

“Yeah.” Paul looked at me as if he suddenly didn’t recognize me. “What’s the big deal anyway. You interested in Cinella?”

“No. His mother. Thanks, Paul. Maybe we can have lunch sometime.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure.”

I could feel his eyes on my back as I left.

I wanted to go straight to the Osterhout Library, but I knew my mother was waiting for me. I stopped to pick up some magazines for her and headed for the nursing home.

Fortunately, the Osterhout was open that evening so I didn’t have to lose another night’s sleep. After leafing through several months’ copies of The Citizen’s Voice, I found the article on Cinella. Cinella had been hiking in the park on a cold day in November, had slipped on one of the many snow covered boulders, fallen, and broken his leg. He’d had to crawl out to the parking lot and drag himself into his car, where he passed out. A park ranger found him a few hours later and transported him out of the car and to a hospital. The ranger didn’t retrieve Cinella’s car for a week, as an ice storm, following two days after the snowstorm of a few inches, made the park’s unpaved road impassable.

I wondered what the hell Cinella was doing out in Boulder Field right after a snowstorm? Okay, it was only a few inches, but even a light snow makes Boulder Field a pretty dangerous place to hike. I forgot about old Mrs. Forelli and began to wonder how and when the first Mrs. Cinella had died and where she was buried.

I found myself getting antsy to see Boulder Field and to find out if the first Mrs. Cinella had had a standard death, with a death certificate, open casket, wake—the whole ritual. So I put in a call to Stan Rychek. He’s the sheriff for the district and quite an outdoorsman himself. I’d dated him too. Fact is, I’d have married him. He’s a great guy, but he fell in love with the Atlantic Ocean instead of me and joined the navy. How the hell can you compete with an ocean?

I was in luck. Stan said he’d hook me up with a geologist who was doing some research on Boulder Field. Even luckier, the geologist, whom Stan called Raymond the Rockman, was planning to make a helicopter pass over the landmark in a few days, and Stan figured Raymond would take me along if I was having a good hair day when I asked. That suited me just fine. Even though you can drive right up to the edge of Boulder Field, you have to drive over several miles of unpaved roads through forests of pines and thickets of mountain laurel and rhododendrons. It’s beautiful, but I get nervous when I’m too far away from restaurants and paved roads. Maybe I should look for a race car driver instead of a mountain climber.

On Wednesday, I met Raymond the Rockman at a local airport at one in the afternoon. I wasn’t in a good mood. My mother didn’t have ther-apy that afternoon so she’d miss me. Moreover, I would miss her. We’d had a good time the day before going over all my old boyfriends. Mom agreed that I’d missed out when Stan got away.

Raymond would have met with Mom’s approval. He was pretty good looking, taught at a community college, did research on his own. Not exactly high power jobs, but steady enough for Mom and me. I didn’t care that much about a fat bankbook anymore. If I did I would have stayed with my ex. I wondered if I could learn to love rocks as much as this guy did. I doubted it.

Raymond gave me a running commentary as we flew over Boulder Field, informing me that the boulders actually ran twelve feet deep. Boulders on boulders.

You could hide a hundred bodies in there.

After fifteen minutes of flying over boulders, my eyes started to glaze over. I couldn’t imagine what I’d hoped to see.

“The field was formed twenty thousand years ago at the end of the last ice age,” Raymond the Rockman droned on.

“Twenty thousand,” I repeated.

“Yes, but not by the glacier itself.”

“Not by the glacier.”

“By the changes in temperature. Repeated cycles of freezing and thawing broke up the hard bedrock and brought the boulders to the surface. This is the largest field of its kind in the eastern United States.”

“What’s that?” I said, peering down out of the helicopter’s window.

“I said it’s the largest—”

“No, I mean what’s that back there on that big boulder? Can you turn this thing around?”

Raymond looked a little wary. “What do you think you saw?”

“Something painted on one of the rocks.”

“A lot of the rocks have something painted on them. The Kilroys of the world feel the need to let us all know where they’ve been.”

“This rock didn’t have writing on it. Can you turn this thing around?”

“Of course, but I doubt we can find the exact boulder you want to see. Do you know how many boulders there are down there?”

“No. Can you turn this thing around?”

“Nobody knows how many boulders. That’s the point.”

I let a lock of my hair fall seductively forward. “Could we try to find the one I saw? I’m telling you, it had something strange on it.”

“Oh, okay,” Raymond said. I was pretty sure than he was more interested in the possibility of something strange rather than my lock of hair, but I didn’t much care as long as he turned around.

It took three passes, the last one accompanied by a good deal of mumbling from Raymond, until I spotted again what I’d seen. About halfway into the field from the road was a large boulder, maybe fifteen feet long, with a lot of small boulders nestled up against it. On one end of the large boulder, someone had painted a cross, a white cross about two feet long. Hard to spot, but clear once you saw it. I was willing to bet that I’d found the first Mrs. Cinella.

I decided not to reveal my finding until I’d checked out some data. So I said nothing when Raymond contemptuously dismissed the cross as just graffiti from a religious nut. I thanked him for the ride, left him mumbling about a waste of fuel, and called a friend, a female friend. I like female friends. The only bribe they require is a drink or a lunch, and most of the time not even that. And it doesn’t matter how your hair looks. Shirley had lived near Forelli’s Restaurant until she moved to a four bedroom, three bathroom house in our local lake community. I figured she might have kept in touch with the gossip about the old neighborhood. But Shirley wasn’t available for a few days. She was recovering from laryngitis and, after ten minutes of conversation, she sounded like a whistling teakettle whose whistle was going on the blink.

So I stewed for about two days and then gave in to a nasty idea. I decided to locate Mrs. Forelli’s daughter in England. I called Mary to see if she knew the woman’s last name, hoping against hope it wasn’t Thomas or some other name possessed by half the population of Britain. Fortunately, it wasn’t. The name was Merryman and she lived in Croydon. According to Mary, letters for Mrs. Forelli arrived at the restaurant on a regular basis so I could be pretty sure the daughter hadn’t moved.

After some discussion with an overseas operator, I secured a number and dialed. I have to admit that I felt like some CIA spook or the star reporter for a tabloid. But I convinced myself that I was just acting like lovable Miss Jane Marple.

When I connected with Mrs. Merryman, I told a whopper of a lie. I said that I worked at the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre and that we were trying to replace some records that had been lost. Fortunately, Mrs. Merryman didn’t ask how we’d been so careless as to lose records.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “if I’m intruding or bringing back a sorrowful time, but I wondered if you could confirm for us when your sister, Mrs. Cinella, died.”

Mrs. Merryman was very cooperative. She gave me the date and said that her sister had died after a long bout with multiple sclerosis.

I wanted to ‘fess up then and there and go find some nails to walk on or maybe go read the dictionary to calm down my obviously overblown imagination.

I thanked Mrs. Merryman, who observed that I needn’t have wasted a call to England since her sister’s husband or her mother could have answered the question.

I sank into even deeper mud, telling her that I hadn’t been able to reach Mr. Cinella and certainly hadn’t wanted to bother Mrs. Forelli since she was obviously up in age. “Is she in good health?” I asked.

“Yes, so she says. To tell you the truth, I am rather worried about her. She sounds funny, and she doesn’t call or write as often as she did. When she does write, her letters are, well, short and flat, if you know what I mean. I’m afraid I haven’t seen her since my sister’s funeral. I wanted her to come live with me then, but she didn’t want to leave the States.”

“You haven’t seen her since the funeral?”

“Well, it’s my son, you see. He has asthma and I can’t leave him. I just can’t.”

“Your mother hasn’t been to visit you since the funeral?”

“No. You see, she just won’t fly, and I can’t leave my son or bring him. I just can’t.”

Mrs. Merryman sounded more guilty than even I felt.

I tried to make amends. “I can check up on your mother and let you know how she’s doing, if you would like.”

“Would you do that? My brother-in-law isn’t very communicative.”

“Of course I’ll do that.”

I rang off. “What the hell is going on?” I muttered, guilt swept away by curiosity, puzzlement, and even anger. Someone had frightened Mrs. Forelli into withdrawal from the world, even from her remaining daughter. Moreover, unless Mary had simply made a mistake, someone had lied about her flying to England after Cinella had remarried.

I called Shirley and told her I’d be over tomorrow, carrying some nice chicken soup that would do wonders for her throat. I didn’t give her time to protest.

* * * *

The next day, Shirley really did seem grateful for the soup. I filled her in on the latest pomposities from my ex who calls me now and then with tales of job promotions and European jaunts to let me know exactly what I’m missing. Then I told her about my restaurant series and asked about the Cinella family.

“I really can’t tell you much,” Shirley squeaked. “I haven’t really kept up. I hear his leg never healed properly and that he limps a little. Did you know that he broke his leg?”

“Yes,” I said. “Paul told me.”

Shirley’s eyebrows shot up.

“No, we haven’t renewed our passionate senior-year affair. Neither of us are quite up to passion. But apparently Cinella is, or was. He remarried pretty fast after his wife’s death.”

Shirley nodded. “Roberta had been sick for a long time. She wasted away. Donald Cinella took care of her well enough, even heroically. But he was worn out emotionally. I think he desperately needed someone to lean on, and his second wife fit the bill. She was a practical nurse, you know. Helped take care of Roberta. And probably old Mrs. Forelli too.”

“Good grief,” I said. “A nurse. I would have guessed she was a construction machine operator or a demolition expert.”

“Ah,” Shirley said. “You’ve met her.”

“And lived to tell about it. I had dinner at Forelli’s a week or so ago.”

“What’s the old place look like?”

“I’ll show you.” I pulled out the picture with Mrs. Forelli in it and handed it to Shirley.

“The restaurant hasn’t changed any,” she said. “Who’s the woman?”

“Mrs. Forelli,” I said.

Shirley looked up at me and cleared her throat. “No, it isn’t.”

I stared at her. “But of course it is. It has to be.”

“Well, it isn’t her. Why do you say it has to be?”

“Everyone at the restaurant says so. Anyway, who else could it be?”

Shirley tilted her head and peered at me. “I don’t know, but I know it isn’t Mrs. Forelli. Mrs. Forelli was bigger boned than this woman. Besides, her face was round, really round, like a smiley face.” Shirley handed me the picture. “This is not Mrs. Forelli.”

“Well, she’s been ill, I understand.”

Shirley shook her head. “Maybe so. But I knew Mrs. Forelli well. I’m telling you this is not her.”

“So who is it then?”

Shirley shrugged. “I don’t know. A relative of Mrs. Cinella’s?”

“But Mrs. Cinella said it was Mrs. Forelli or, at least, she didn’t contradict me about it. And the waitresses say it’s Mrs. Forelli.” I paused. “At least, they think it is.”

“Why would anybody pretend to be Mrs. Forelli?”

“Why indeed?”

“And anyway,” Shirley croaked, her voice starting to give out, “where is the real Mrs. Forelli?”

“Another good question. I can make a guess.” I got up to leave.

Shirley started to protest but managed only a few squeaks.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’ll be back as soon as I get some answers.”

* * * *

Stan Rychek was skeptical. He absolutely refused to barge into Forelli’s and demand to question the old woman living there. Something about search warrants and probable legal cause and all that. But he did agree to collect Raymond and go up to Boulder Field on what he called “a wild body chase.”

With coordinates from Raymond, we clambered over the rocks to the boulder with the white cross. Stan and Raymond pulled away the small rocks. When I heard Raymond gasp, I looked. But I never really saw what was left of the body. I got only a glimpse and retreated to find a place to throw up. Animals are, well, animals. They don’t let much go to waste. Water doesn’t have much respect for human flesh either. But because it was winter when Mrs. Forelli was, uh, laid to rest, she wasn’t entirely gone. In cold weather, maggots— You don’t want to hear the rest.

Stan later identified the woman as Mrs. Forelli all right, under that rock with the white cross. She’d been buried with a rosary, her wedding ring, and a beautiful medal of the Virgin and Child. It was sterling silver and had Mrs. Forelli’s name engraved on it, a gift from A. Forelli, her husband, according to Stan.

* * * *

Stan let me go with him to Forelli’s, on condition that I keep my mouth shut. I crossed my fingers and agreed.

Mr. Cinella broke down when Stan showed him the medal. Mrs. Cinella glared at him while he sobbed.

“She died of a heart attack,” Mrs. Cinella declared. “Plain and simple. We just didn’t have the money for a funeral. You can’t arrest us because we didn’t hold some expensive ceremony.”

Stan barely looked at her. “Donald,” he said. “Did she die of natural causes? If not, we’ll know soon enough anyway. The coroner is working now.”

“She died of a heart attack,” Mr. Cinella whispered. “That much is true.” His skin was stretched tight about his mouth, his eyes were dead, and he sounded worse than Shirley.

“Why did you try to hide her body, Donald?” Stan’s voice was soft, almost hypnotic. He was good at his job.

“We don’t have to say anything,” Mrs. Cinella growled at us. “I want my lawyer.”

“Beatrice,” Mr. Cinella said, shaking his head slowly, “we can’t—”

“I want my lawyer,” Mrs. Cinella said, ignoring her husband.

“Go ahead and call him,” Stan said.

Mrs. Cinella looked at her husband. “Just keep quiet. Don’t say anything.”

He didn’t answer.

She punched him in the shoulder. “You keep quiet.” She got up and went into the kitchen, accompanied by Stan’s deputy.

“So it was a heart attack that killed your mother-in-law?” Stan asked again. “But you carried her body into rough terrain. That means she must have lost a lot of weight. Yet I can’t find a doctor in town, including the one who treated her for a year, who saw her before she died.”

Mr. Cinella put his head into his hands.

“I can’t prove it,” Stan said softly, “but I’m guessing she wasn’t very well cared for. Food? Medication? Is that why you hid the body?”

Mr. Cinella nodded. “We didn’t kill her, but we neglected her. Then we realized that she left the restaurant to her other daughter, though I was to remain the manager.” Cinella said. “Beatrice said we couldn’t just give the restaurant up after I’d worked so hard for so long. She said she’d bring her mother to live with us and everybody would think it was Mom.” His voice broke. “I mean my mother-in-law, Mrs. Forelli. I tried to argue with her, but . . .” He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I gave up. I just gave up. I shouldn’t have agreed. It was my fault.”

I had to admire the man for not making excuses. I felt sorry for him, too. He had been eaten up by guilt.

Mr. Cinella spoke slowly. “I couldn’t bury her in a church graveyard or anyplace like that. So I carried her into Boulder Field. I took a can of paint and a brush. I had to give her a cross. At least that.”

“You knew someone might spot it someday, didn’t you?” Stan said.

Mr. Cinella nodded.

“Didn’t that worry you?”

Mrs. Cinella came back out and stopped short, her eyes shooting from Stan to her husband. She looked astounded that her husband had not obeyed her.

“No,” Cinella said. “I just wanted her to have something. I couldn’t just throw her away.”

“You fool,” Mrs. Cinella shouted. “I told you to keep quiet.” She advanced on her husband.

He didn’t move.

“You fool,” she yelled. “You weak fool. She was dead. What did it matter?”

* * * *

The next day, I went to tell Shirley all about the deception. I told her that Stan said the Cinellas would be fined, but probably wouldn’t get a jail sentence. They hadn’t murdered anyone.

Shirley and I worried about Mrs. Cinella’s mother, an innocent victim in the deception, kept confined upstairs in the restaurant so as not to give away the game. I decided to talk to the nuns at my mother’s nursing home. They’d take her in, I felt sure. I doubted that her daughter would object. She didn’t strike me as a loving caregiver.

“Boulder Field,” Shirley said. “Imagine, lying there through a cold, cold winter because a son-in-law’s wife doesn’t want to give up a nice business. Just lying there among all those hard, hard rocks.”

I remembered a line from one of Shakespeare’s plays. “Is there any cause in nature for these hard hearts?”

Copyright © 2010 Marianne Wilski Strong