Free Mummers' Curse by Gillian Roberts

that was instantly replaced by burning resentment that the idea seemed ridiculous, laughable, to Vincent. What was I, chopped liver? At thirty-one, I was older than he by half a decade—maybe more, but so what? Didn’t that give me seasoning?
    “The thing is, I used to go with Dolores. Jimmy Pat’s fiancée. In high school. Six years ago.”
    Dear Lord, he was young. I had assumed that with a house, a wife, a toddler…
    “You know how wives are about old girlfriends.”
    Wifely attitudes are not my special area of expertise, but I did think that high school romances were like training wheels on your first bike. Valuable helps for getting up to speed. Beyond that, they provided fodder for scrapbooks, reason to mist up at old songs, and cause to act out during a midlife crisis. Vincent was too young for the last option, and I couldn’t believe he was honestly suggesting that his wife, his real-time love, the mother of his son, thought he might have killed Jimmy Pat in order to get Dolores back or avenge her being claimed by another. That was ludicrous, or at least I sincerely hoped so.
    “So what?” I finally asked. “What relevance does that have?”
    “Everybody knows. It’s not like the cops aren’t going to find it out right away.”
    “Find what out? That was then and this is now. What does high school or Dolores have to do with this murder?”
    “Nothing. But, see, when I ducked out—before anything happened, Jimmy Pat was fine—I checked, because, well, I left to see…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Her.”
    “Dolores?”
    I had spoken in a normal tone, and he winced and glanced up the staircase before he nodded. “Why?”
    He shook his head. “She was in distress. I can’t explain. Made a solemn promise.”
    “To her?”
    “To myself and my God, that’s who.”
    “Okay, so tell the police the truth. She’s your alibi. Let her tell the secret, whatever it is. It can’t be as bad as murder.”
    He shook his head again. “I can’t.” He looked toward the staircase.
    “Barbs will have to understand.”
    “Dolores dropped me. Dolores is that kind of girl, being so pretty, being a Grassi, having everybody look up to her, her family, having things easy, whenever she wants them. Fickle, you could say. But in the end, even if you know all that about her, and I did all along, being dropped still hurts, and hurting makes it different, not really over, you understand? Barbs still worries about it, but when Jimmy Pat started dating Dolores, what, was I not supposed to see him, my best friend, because of who he’s with? I adjusted, but Barbs, we could go out with Jimmy Pat and Dolores a million times and she’s still never relaxed.”
    I couldn’t help but note that he hadn’t said his feelings for Dolores were no longer romantic, only that he’d adjusted to being with her as Jimmy Pat’s girl. I wondered if Barbs’s suspicions were justified, even if it was only dumb yearning on Vincent’s part.
    “As long as Dolores makes it clear why you were looking for her,” I said, “then Barbs won’t have anything to be upset about. Am I right?”
    “She can’t. Dolores can’t. Wouldn’t. It’d shame her, asking to secretly see me while she’s engaged and all. And now, with Jimmy Pat…”
    “But she asked to meet you?”
    “What did I say? Didn’t I say that?” The temper was back on a high simmer, ready to break into a boil.
    “Whoa,” I said again and waited till he stopped overreacting. “She asked to see you at a specific time, right?”
    “But, the thing is,” he said, “she wasn’t there, so I didn’t see her and she can’t say where I was, so why stir up a hornet’s nest, create shame? Because you know, people will talk—if it’s me, and then Jimmy Pat dead and all.”
    “You never found her?” He shook his head.
    “So after a while you gave up, went back, and found Jimmy dead?”
    He nodded mutely, sorrowfully.
    “Bottom line is, you have no