Promise Not to Tell: A Novel by Jennifer McMahon Page B

just on the other side of the hill, near where the old deer camp used to be.”
    “Camp’s still there,” he said.
    “No way.” The surprise in my voice seemed to please Nicky, who nodded and smiled. “I thought for sure it would have fallen in years ago.”
    “No, she’s leanin’, but she’s still standing. Kinda like me, huh?” He gave a wink.
    My face flushed and I looked away.
    “I’ll be damned.”
    Maybe it was the bourbon, but I found myself remembering how, when things started to go bad with Jamie, I used to wonder what it would have been like to have married Nicky. Not that he ever asked. Not that we even knew each other as adults. But in my mind, he’d grown into this idealized man, no-nonsense, a bit rough around the edges, someone who’d never do me wrong.
    Nicky was quiet a moment and took a good slug of Wild Turkey before he spoke again.
    “Kate, do you know anything about that girl who was killed?”
    “Not much. Just what I read in the paper: she was thirteen, her name was Victoria Miller, her friends called her Tori. Opal and the other kids she was out there with didn’t hear a sound.”
    “Her mother is Ellie Bushey—married one of the Millers. Ellie and her husband, Josh, kinda took over the antique store after Mr. Miller had his stroke. It was too much for the old lady alone.”
    “Ellie. That’s someone I haven’t thought of in a long time.” A knot formed in my throat, a thick, painful knot in the shape of an E , for little Ellie Bushey and all her popular-girl promises.
    “Well, I remembered the name,” Nicky went on, lighting a second cigarette. “I remembered that something went on with you girls and Del. Just like I remembered about Artie Paris.”
    Jesus, there was another name I’d just as soon forget. Nicky was dragging all of the skeletons out of the closet.
    “What about him?”
    “That he used to be real mean to Del. That he was the one who everyone said had her down in the dirt that last day at school. He was the one teasing, singing those stupid one potato, two potato songs.”
    No, I thought to myself. We all sang . The knot in my throat tightened.
    “Yeah, he was quite the charmer,” I said out loud. “I’m sure he still is.”
    “That’s just it, Kate. He’s not. He’s dead. Happened just a few months ago.”
    I let this sink in a minute. It’s always unsettling to hear someone you know has died, and when it’s someone your age it seems even more personal, even if it’s someone you never liked. I wondered what he’d died of—heart attack? Car accident? Cirrhosis of the liver? It didn’t really matter though—however he died, as far as I was concerned, it was good riddance. God, being back home was turning me into a regular saint.
    “Really?” I asked. “Wish I could say I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t you want to know how he died?”
    I shrugged my shoulders and he continued.
    “Folks say Artie choked to death on a potato. A piece of raw potato.”
    I tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a laugh. This sounded suspiciously like the latest Potato Girl yarn. Town legend in the making.
    “There’s more to it than that, Kate. He was home alone. His wife was working the night shift at the shoe factory.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said, rolling my eyes a little, unable to believe that Nicky had fallen for such a story.
    “Just listen, will you?” He eyed me impatiently. satisfied by my silence, he leaned forward and continued, his voice low and secretive.
    “There were no potatoes in the house. Not a single one. Artie hated them. Wouldn’t let his wife buy ’em. But when the coroner did the autopsy, he found a chunk of raw potato lodged in Artie’s windpipe.”
    I laughed again. “And I suppose you saw the coroner’s report? Or better yet, you talked to him yourself?”
    Nicky’s face reddened a little.
    “Nicky, he probably had a heart attack. But that doesn’t make for good storytelling, so little by little, the tale of his death got embellished.