Lucy stared at the image we’d printed out from my computer. “Kevin Brookfield must be a helluva lot better looking than this picture if every woman in this burg would be so all-fired happy to see him relocate here.”
“We don’t know that Donnelley is Brookfield. You may be looking at a picture of someone else. But Brookfield has something. No denying. It’s something else,” I said, trying to figure out what it was. Lucy and I had time before our meeting with Nina Mazzo, so we doubled back to the Paradise to pick the brains of the town’s resident expert on men. Maybe Babe could put her finger on it.
“It’s true. I am generally acknowledged to be an expert on a great many subjects-movies, music, and men included,” Babe said. We’d parked ourselves in a rear booth and made our guru join us.
“What makes a woman gravitate toward a man?” Lucy asked.
“She kidding or is this some Sphinxlike riddle?” Babe said.
“We’re serious.”
“You mean if he isn’t wealthy, famous, or powerful and doesn’t look like Johnny Depp, act like Mr. Darcy, and make love like Don Juan?” She gave it some thought. “Okay, he’s got a sad story. How’s this? He’s a single parent whose wife died young-and tragically-and he nursed her until the bitter end. Could be his mother dying but not as effective as the wife. The kid’s not necessary; in the absence of a kid, a dog would work. Dogs are chick magnets, but best for generating one-night stands, not lasting relationships.”
Lucy and I were extremely impressed. “Where do you get this?” she asked.
“Soap Opera Digest, 1994. Classic story line. I think it was on Another World,” she said. Babe continued spinning her hypothetical situations. “Hoping to reconnect with a childhood sweetheart is another good one, but the dead wife story works really well. Shows he’s a romantic and will stay faithful-even after you’re in the ground.” She stood up to go back to work.
“Did Brookfield say anything like that to you?” I asked.
“He suggested it. Single guy, not too handsome, not too neat, so probably straight, looking for real estate in a new town, to start a business. To start over. Charming, no ring, or ring line, as if he’d just taken it off. A little flirty but nothing overt. Screams ‘you can trust me, I have a broken heart.’”
Even if she was wrong, it was a damn good answer on the fly and something to be filed for future reference. Oddly enough, apart from the wife and the part about being new in town, she had also just described Mike O’Malley-romantic, faithful, looking after an aged parent, and a dog owner, always a plus. And just at that moment entering the diner.
“Oh, this looks a mite scary. Three beautiful women conspiring? Or is it gossiping?” O’Malley said. He sat at a counter stool a few feet away and waved off the young waitress’s efforts to bring him a menu.
“Why is it when men talk, they’re discussing, and when women talk, we’re gossiping? That’s very misogynistic of you,” Lucy said. “Very disappointing. I’m going to stop telling Paula and Babe that you are the cutest guy in Springfield.”
“This conversation is taking an intriguing turn, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time for verbal foreplay. I just came in because I saw your car and thought you might like to know. You can tell Caroline that she doesn’t have to worry about Countertop Man anymore. He’s dead.”