Chapter 22: Served at Lunch

At noon I sat at a round table in the Brookhaven dining room, with Poppy in the sling and a plate of chicken salad I couldn't eat.

The silver-haired woman sat on my left.

Two women from the board sat across from me, the one with her hand at her throat and another in a green suit.

Nobody at the next tables was pretending not to look.

"Eat," said the silver-haired woman. "You'll need it."

"What's going to happen?"

"Something the club has not seen in forty years."

At twelve-ten the hostess opened the double doors, and Eleanor walked in.

She wore a fresh jacket, a different one from the boardroom, and her pearls.

She walked straight to the head table by the window, where a place card read Mrs. Angell, and she sat down.

A waiter brought her tea.

"Look at her," whispered the woman in the green suit. "She's still ordering."

Conversation came back around the room, thin and careful.

Then the doors opened again.

The young deputy stepped in from the lobby with his hat under his arm and a manila folder in his hand.

He stood just inside the door and looked around the tables.

The hostess said, "Sir, may I help you?"

"I'm looking for Mrs. Eleanor Angell."

Eleanor lifted her chin and didn't turn her head.

"She's at the window," said somebody at the back.

He walked down the center aisle, past all sixty members, with his boots loud on the wood.

I knew that walk.

It was the one he'd used on my own front step in October, when he'd said he could stand there while I knocked.

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