Page 116 of Nobody's Fool

Archie Belmond takes a step back. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice strained now but no longer just from grief. There is something else there, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. “But it’s over now. Do you hear me? Please let us be.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply. He turns then and walks away. I stay where I am. Soon the silence is shattered by leaf blowers and lawn mowers and the whir of the yellow backhoe tractor as it covers her casket with the remaining pile of dirt. My shoulder is throbbing. I don’t care. I’m in mourning too, I guess, though it’s a very different version from anything I’ve experienced before. I am not a religious man, but I do my versions of a prayer. It is mostly asking the dead what my next step should be. There is no answer, of course. I didn’t expect one.

I reach into my pocket, shake out a pain pill, and swallow it. I don’t have to worry about operating a vehicle. Craig dropped me off with my own car. He ran to some price club to stock up on items and he’s on his way back now. I turn to head toward the parking lot where he’ll be waiting for me. That’s when I realize that Talia Belmond is standing behind me.

“They think she was hit by a bullet intended for you,” she says to me.

I say nothing.

“Do you think that’s true?”

“It’s the most likely theory,” I say.

“But not definitive?”

“No. Not definitive.”

Talia Belmond looks toward where I’d been standing with Archie Belmond minutes earlier. “What did my husband tell you?”

“To let it go.”

“That’s understandable. He means well.” Then she turns and starts toward the black car. “But don’t listen to him.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I go back to the hospital under one condition—that the doctors allow my students to visit. The hospital rules are only four visitors at a time, so Polly, Gary, Lenny, and Debbie are allowed in the room. The rest, I’m told, are waiting in the lobby, though the staff strongly requested (demanded?) that Raymond wait outside.

“They want us to rotate,” Gary says. “So everyone can see you.”

“I’m not sure I’m up for that,” I say.

Polly steps forward. “We all chipped in and got you this.”

She hands me a huge Stanley-brand mug with a straw sticking out of the top. On the side it reads:

WORLD’S BEST TEACHER

“That’s really nice,” I say. “Thank you.”

Debbie says, “Read the other side.”

“What?”

She turns the cup around. I see one word there:

NORBURY

I can’t help but smile. Norbury is mentioned in one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes tales, “The Adventure of the Yellow Face.” Whatmade this story so memorable—what I taught my class—is that Sherlock Holmes messed up in his deductions here. The point: Even Sherlock is not infallible. None of us is. And at the end of this sentimental and surprisingly modern story about mixed marriages, after a shaken Holmes and Watson return to Baker Street, Sherlock tells his dearest friend:

“Watson, if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little overconfident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper ‘Norbury’ in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.”

“Norbury,” Gary says.

“Norbury,” Polly adds.

I hold up my hand before Lenny says it. “Yeah, okay, I get it.”

“So now what?” Lenny asks. “Are we done with this case?”