Free StoneDust by Justin Scott

later?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOkay. Thanks.”
    â€œWhy do you ask?”
    â€œBetween you and me, Janey wants to prove that Reg wasn’t doing dope.”
    â€œThat’s crazy. What does she care? They’re divorcing, and besides, it’s obvious he was.”
    I agreed it looked that way. She said, “Why not leave it alone then?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI have enough problems fighting Steve without this turning into a bigger deal than it was. You know, ‘Lax Government Encourages Newbury Dope Fiends.’”
    â€œIt’s no big deal. I’m really just helping Janey ease into the idea that Reg ODed.”
    â€œAnd what if he didn’t?”
    â€œThen Janey has a right to her insurance.”
    â€œOf course.”
    I promised to stop by re-election headquarters above the General Store for an envelope-stuffing session and went back to my office, where I put my feet up and reviewed: After dressing and eating and gassing up, Reg had swung past the Fisk party before disappearing until eleven. Terrific. I’d filled in another ten minutes. And heard that he’d looked sad. Which was about how I would have felt if my former best friends hadn’t invited me to a cookout attended by half the town.
    It had just occurred to me that Janey Hopkins might have spent her money better on Marie Butler, when I heard a familiar scratching noise at the door.
    â€œDo I hear a muskrat?” I asked over my shoulder.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOtter?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDoes it wear braces and a smile like an Oldsmobile?”
    â€œYou rat.”
    â€œHello, Alison.”
    She scuttled in, dropped her book bag and flute case on the floor, and climbed into the client’s chair, though at eleven she’d not be house shopping, and even less likely to know Reg’s whereabouts Saturday night. From my desk I produced a mini-size Kit Kat, which she opened solemnly.
    â€œGuess what?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe music teacher?”
    â€œWho has a name.”
    â€œMr. Shipley. He gave me two tickets to the Newbury Friends of Music.”
    â€œGreat!”
    â€œThe Ping Quartet.”
    â€œReally?” An inconsistent group, the Pings. Very good when they were good, dreary when they weren’t.
    â€œFrom Shanghai.”
    â€œYes.” They had in fact been living in Chicago for some years and were a regular feature on the Northeast concert circuit.
    â€œWant to come?”
    â€œWhy not ask your mom?” I said, recalling insipid Brahms, bad Beethoven, and a grim dose of Ravel the last time the Pings had blown through town.
    Alison’s smile of gleaming braces closed like a zipper. “She won’t come.”
    â€œDid you ask her?” Mrs. Mealy was a shy woman, painfully conscious of old New England class lines that few but the very poor honored anymore.
    â€œNo. But she won’t come. Will you?”
    â€œOnly if your mother won’t go.”
    â€œShe won’t.”
    â€œAsk.”
    â€œOkay. Then you’ll come?”
    â€œSunday?”
    â€œThree o’clock.”
    ***
    Our neighboring towns in northwestern Connecticut were known for sparkling art galleries or serious antique shops (blessedly light on Ye Olde, but heavy on the checkbook), but Newbury had a lock on good music. One reason was our energetic and old-money funded Friends of Music. The other was that the movie theater in Town Hall doubled as a rather splendid concert auditorium, a gift way back in 1930 from a young heiress. Its official name, engraved above the marble portico, was Leslie Town Hall—Leslie for Edgar Leslie, a World War I hero who died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918 and whose connection to my maiden aunt was lost in history, if not in her heart.
    A big crowd was bustling in behind us.
    â€œWhere should we sit?” asked Alison, cute and squirmy in a little dress Connie had produced from her