The Probable Future

“This has always been his attitude,” Henry Elliot said to Matt. “He was like this in high school. He would copy my homework and wind up getting a better grade than I did.”

This past fall, Matt had been hired by Henry’s wife, Annette, to put in a Zen garden, something the family thought that terrible old lady, Henry’s grandmother, Sissy, would enjoy. There were a fair amount of bees on the property, always a sign of good luck. Matt himself never worried about stings, since the bees ignored him, always attracted to his brother, who was deathly afraid of bees, due to his allergy. Matt was thankful to have the bees share the landscape with him; he enjoyed the thrum as they went about their business and he worked away.

He had used natural rocks and sand from the marshes for the Elliots’ garden; he’d planted bamboo in stone containers, but the matriarch of the Elliot family had trouble making it down the stone path because of her walker. When she got there, she scoffed at the notion of planting bamboo.

That’s a weed, she had announced. It may be from China, but it’s still a weed.

Sissy Elliot hated the garden, and now Henry said he was the only one to use it; he went there to escape from the troubles of the world. He’d probably head there that very evening when he got home.

“I think we might want to hire a detective,” Henry told the Avery brothers. “Maybe find out something the police have overlooked. At least see if there’s someone out there with a motive of some sort. It’s in your best interest to clear your name,” he told Will, who appeared bored. “No one’s buying that crap that your daughter told you the victim was going to die.”

“Is that what he told them?” Matt asked. Henry Elliot nodded grimly. “What an idiot.”

“Stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here. I am here, and I’m listening. Stella was the one who told them that, not me. But if you want to get a detective, be my guest. …”

Henry looked at Matt. Will didn’t seem to understood this undertaking would demand money. “Sure, go ahead,” Matt said, thereby agreeing to foot the bill. “Sounds like a good idea.”

“How about a lift?” Will said when it came time to leave. Henry had an appointment, so it was left to Matt. They walked round to his truck. “This is what you drive?” Will laughed and took note of the rust and the dents. “Good old Matt. No BMWs for you.”

He was referring to the way he’d spent his own inheritance from their mother. He stopped working full-time, took Jenny and the baby to Paris, where they’d fought bitterly, and bought that damned car, the BMW, which had flipped over on him when he was driving on the beach at Duxbury after a few too many cocktails with a woman whose name he didn’t remember. Something with a C, Charlotte, perhaps, or Caroline, or, God help him, Catherine, the same as their mother’s name. In the end, Will had sold that lemon of a car for next to nothing and he’d regretted the trip to Paris. Matt, he supposed, had invested his half of their mother’s life savings wisely and was now fairly well off, in spite of his rust heap of a truck. Plus, he’d gotten the house, now worth double what it might have been eleven years ago. At this point, he probably had thousands piled up in the bank, an old miser of a bachelor with no one to spend his money on.

“Where to?” Matt said when he pulled into traffic. People liked to honk their horns at you here in Boston, he’d noticed that. In a few more minutes he’d be rid of his brother, at least for the time being, so he might as well keep his temper.

“Marlborough Street.” Will grinned. “When all else fails, there’s always Jenny.”

They drove there in silence. Although he hadn’t been back since that awful New Year’s, Matt remembered the way. Why, he could have found it in his sleep, blindfolded, tied up with rope. He recalled exactly what Jenny had been wearing that night—a black sweater decorated with glitter and pearls, and a red skirt. Too festive? she’d asked him right before the party. Do I look like a Christmas tree? He thought he’d never seen anyone quite so beautiful. No. Wear it, he’d told her, and she had. Wear it, he’d said, when all he’d really wanted was to undress her, right there in the living room, with the guests already at the door.

“Want to come up? For old times’ sake?” Will suggested when they pulled alongside the apartment building. “Rest your bones before you head back to the old homestead.”

Matt shook his head. No way was he going inside.

“And by the way,” Will told him, “I never minded that Mother left you the house.”