Dead In The Hamptons by Elizabeth Zelvin Page A

and peed on his shoes. Dropped acid and set off the alarms in an art museum. That won him an unwilling grin from me. Jimmy, still propped up against Barbara’s shins, reached up and grabbed me by the ear, pulling me down so he could whisper.
    “See? I told you if you listen long enough you’ll hear your story.”
    He released my ear. I grabbed him by the hair to whisper back.
    “And here I thought we’d done something original.”
    “Hallucinogens and grandiosity— horse and carriage.”
    Then Barbara shushed us and we shut up.
    When Oscar finished, they went around the circle so everyone could share. I passed. Playing it safe. Stewie talked about how he missed Clea and cried a little. Phil said how pissed off he was at the police for picking on him. Everybody listened to both of them in respectful silence, the way they do in meetings. I hoped Cindy would drop a clue or two about her outside life, but she didn’t. She was pretty funny about how badly she’d screwed up while she was drinking. Ted said he was still in shock from Clea’s death and wished he could have been here before she died. He and Phil kind of sizzled at each other, like electric wire in water. But neither broke the no-crosstalk rule. I thought we were home free. Then Barbara raised her hand. I have to hand it to her; she’s good at weaving recovery jargon into whatever damn thing she wants to say.
    “I need to talk about Clea,” she said. “The police think it was an accident. I keep telling myself ‘Let go and let God,’ but I can’t turn it over. I have a disease of not minding my own business. I know that. But is it so terrible to want more closure?” She might as well have said, “I plan to snoop.”
    I looked at Jimmy. He had slumped over with his elbow propped on his knee and two fingers held to the furrow between his eyebrows, as if identifying the location of the headache the woman he loved could be.
    I slapped a supportive hand on his shoulder.
    “Oy veyzmir,” he murmured.
    When the meeting ended, they brought out coffee, fruit, and a couple of Mrs. Dowling’s pies. Everybody stood up to shake out the kinks and started milling around. We got Barbara in a corner, out of earshot of the others.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” Jimmy’s voice was strained with the effort not to screech. “Hi, I’m Barbara, I’m nosy, and my inner T-shirt says ‘Tethered Goat’.”
    “I was just sharing,” Barbara protested. “So I stirred the pot a little.”
    “What do you think will happen?”
    “If it really was an accident, nothing. If it wasn’t, you don’t want a murderer running around getting away with it, do you?”
    “Shoot me now, Jesus,” Jimmy breathed. “If someone comes after you, who do you think will have to jump into the line of fire?”
    Barbara waxed indignant, not a stretch for her.
    “I don’t need protecting! I can fight my own battles, thank you! Only there won’t be any battles. You’re just projecting.”
    It occurred to me that I was superfluous to this conversation. I cleared my throat, jerked a thumb at the other end of the deck, decided they’d already forgotten me, and fled.
    I found Cindy perched on a rail with her feet propped against a big planter filled with marigolds and petunias. She held a Styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands.
    “You never quite mingle, do you,” I greeted her. “You’re always a little apart. Are you one of those terminal loners they talk about?”
    “I’m not alone, I’m with you. Have a perch.” She shifted her butt along the rail and made room for my feet on the rim of the planter. “You didn’t share.”
    “I still have trouble baring my soul in meetings,” I said. “I didn’t feel up to it tonight. Or playing the clown either.”
    “Is that what you do?”
    “Yeah, that’s my defense.”
    “What’s your friend Barbara up to?”
    “Nothing much.”
    “Bullshit. She still thinks it’s murder, doesn’t she?” She clamped a small hand on