That was all it took to send me into another spiral of panic. I barely made it to the side of the toilet.
When there was nothing left in me, I flushed the bowl again and turned to get some more cold water. I had expected Claire to leave when I began heaving again but to my surprise she stood by the door watching me.
“What’s wrong with you, Claire?” I managed to spit out between gargling handfuls of water.
“Don’t you get it, Susie? We are all in this together. If one of us goes down, we are all going down. How are you going to explain this to Andy? And the boys? It’s imperative that we get Laura to agree to keep her mouth shut. If not for us or ever herself, make her do it for Mia. What good is all that money going to do Mia if her mother is in jail?”
As much as I hated to admit it, Claire had a point. Mia was Laura’s reason for the job anyway. Mia needed treatments and a bone marrow transplant. That money was essential to her survival. If Laura broke now and we all were arrested, they would find the cash and take it back right before tossing us in jail and throwing away the keys. And Mia would most certainly be lost.
“Maybe you are right. I will go talk to her. I don’t know though, Claire. I have never seen her like this before. I’m not sure I can say anything to her that will work.”
I left Claire standing by the bathroom and walked back to the room where Laura still sat. Rubbing my temples as I walked, I considered the enormity of the situation and hoped I could come up with the right thing to say to pull Laura together.
Laura hadn't moved. Becca, however, paced back and forth ringing her hands again and mumbling to herself. It occurred to me that maybe we ought to be more worried about Becca than Laura. Becca was wound so tightly, I was certain she would snap at any second.
From somewhere in the house I heard a cuckoo clock chime indicating two in the afternoon. I needed to get home soon or there would be a lot of questions I would have to answer.
Crossing the room to where Laura sat, I knelt on to the floor in front of her. Taking her hand in mine, I spoke softly, “Laura? Laura, look at me.”
Slowly, she lifted her head and met my eyes with her tear soaked ones. “What, Susie?”
“What happened was terrible but it was an accident. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone, did you? You can’t punish yourself for an accident.”
“Of course, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone! But I did, Susie! I shot that poor woman and her little boy saw the whole thing! How the hell am I supposed to live with that?”
“Wasn’t your brother overseas during the first war in Iraq?” I had an inspiration of hope and I decided to throw all my cards down on the table.
“Ye… yes… but what… what does that have to do with anything.?”
“He was a Marine at the time, right?”
“Right.” She nodded.
“How many people do you think he killed?”
“What? I don’t know! How terrible of you to even bring it up!” Laura was suddenly indignant, fire blazing in her previously blank eyes.
“Can he be certain that every single person hit by one of his bullets was a bad guy? Thousands of civilians were struck down during that war.”
“I don’t understand what Kyle’s military record has to do with any of this.” I could see anger brewing in her eyes. Good A new emotion. The desired effect.
“Does Kyle have difficulty sleeping? Is he plagued by guilt?”
“Well, no, but…”
“Laura if he can live with it—and he killed people on purpose—you can do it too. You shot her by accident and she is still alive. You are not a horrible, evil person. It was an accident. You understand that?”
“Yes, I guess I do.” She sat more upright now; the tears in her eyes had begun to dry up.
“Do you also understand that if you crack under the pressure of your Irish Catholic guilt, we are all going down? And none of us shot anyone.” The last statement sounded a bit harsher than I had intended but I didn’t take it back. Instead, I stood up and folded my arms across my chest and waited for her response.
She stood up suddenly and met me eye to eye, her expression hard. “I get what you are saying, Susie. No worries here. If someone cracks, it won’t be me.”
I could tell that she meant it too. A little switch had flipped somewhere inside her and the old Laura was suddenly gone. The new Laura, the one standing in front of me not breaking eye contact with so much as a blink, suddenly frightened me just a little bit. The hardened criminal Laura, with an armed robbery and an attempted murder on her rap sheet. What I saw, or rather didn’t see, in her blank eyes worried me quite a bit.
I cast a quick glance at Claire to see if she saw the sudden change in Laura’s persona but she was just standing across the room smirking, self-satisfaction oozing from her every pore. That’s when I knew there was no going back. We were all hardened criminals now, maybe not convicted ones but criminals nonetheless. The line between right and wrong had blurred for us long ago and there was no way to go back to who we were before.
Becca had stopped pacing the room to observe the exchange between Laura and me. After Laura, Becca worried me the most. She was so sweet and naïve I wasn’t entirely certain she was going to be able to keep the incident to herself. She looked afraid. And fear could be a person’s worst enemy.
Claire nodded curtly, letting me know she saw what I saw. I stepped back and dropped my arms in a show of surrender.
“Okay, Laura, I believe you. Becca, you good?” I spoke over Laura’s shoulder, reluctant to take my eyes completely off my friend but not exactly certain of the reason why.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I won’t say anything to anyone either, I promise.” She had switched from ringing her hands to chewing on her nails.
“Good. We really have to stick together right now. This could be the end of all of us.” I tried to sound reassuring but honestly, I wasn’t sure at all how this would pan out. If there was even one shred of evidence to point in the direction of one of us, we were all going down. If Joan Crawford could convince even one person that she knew I had been involved, we were all sunk.
“All right, then.” Claire stepped into the center of our small group. “They have nothing solid on us. Sure, there is ballistic evidence now but those bullets were from a manufacturer in Germany. I have never fired them before and the weapon has never been used before either. Examination of a single bullet won’t do investigators any good until they have another projectile or the weapon it came from to compare it to. Neither of which is ever going to happen.”
“Claire’s right about that,” I piped up. “I have learned enough from Andy to know that a single bullet, mangled from being fired isn’t going to cause us any grief. If we can keep our wits about us and keep our mouths shut, we will be fine.” And pray that Joan Crawford doesn’t find someone to believe her story.
“I already told you, I won’t say anything!” Laura snapped coldly. “I’m done worrying about it. Mia is my only concern now. I have to get out of here. She is going to be wondering where I am when she gets home from school.” Laura’s voice had slipped into a monotone, almost robotic in quality.
I wasn’t exactly convinced she was going to make it through the next hour let alone keep our secret indefinitely. I had to get her alone, assess the full extent of the trauma she was experiencing.
“Hey Laura?” I tried to sound light. “After we change, can you give me lift home? I’m afraid if I take the bus I won’t make it before the boys and Andy get there.”
“I thought Andy worked nights?” Becca asked.
“He is. He picks up a lot of overtime and outside details during the day though.”
“Oh.” There was something in that single syllable that really ticked me off.
“What do you mean, oh?” I snapped, a bit harsher than I meant to.
Becca looked surprised that I questioned her. “Um, oh, well, I just thought that now that you… well… since your accident, I mean…”
“You
just thought he would be watching me all the time, right? Well, it’s a damn good thing he doesn’t, huh?”
Becca crossed her arms over her chest indignantly and scowled. “I was just asking. You don’t have to be so rude about it!”
“Whatever,” I grumbled. “I need to get home. Laura, can you give me lift, please?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Laura mumbled as she grabbed up her clothes and descended the steps in to the underground room. “I’m gonna change down here. Claire, I’ll leave my things on the counter.”
I took my own clothes into the bathroom and quickly stripped out of my Lucy outfit. Catching sight of the bandage on my knee I cursed out loud. “Damned bandage! If you get me thrown in prison, so help me…” My voice trailed off as I grabbed an edge of the bandage and yanked hard on it ripping the whole thing off in one fell swoop. “Son of a bitch!” I yelled as I examined the wound now uncovered.
“You all right in there, Susie?” Becca called through the bathroom door. “Are you having another headache or a seizure?”
Still wincing in pain from the layer of skin I had just removed, I called back to her, “I’m fine Becca! Just taking the bandage off my knee!”
I heard her footsteps as she retreated back down the hall to the sitting room. I returned to inspecting the injury on my leg. It was one nasty, angry looking gash.
“All right, Joan. It’s between you and me now.” I spoke to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Bring it on, Bitch.”
With that I grabbed up my Lucy outfit and carried it back to the sitting room where I found Laura still sitting on the same sofa she had been on all afternoon. Her face held an odd expression.
Claire came up and took my clothes and headed into the storage room with the pile of clothing.
“Laura?” I eyed her suspiciously, her sudden change in mood a bit frightening. “You all set?”
“Yeah, we were just making up a quick cover story to explain where we were today. The three of you spent the day with me walking the boardwalk and listening to me bawl over Mia’s diagnosis. We had lunch at Carolina BBQ and Ribs and had ice cream for dessert—my treat. Of course, I paid all cash so there won’t be a paper trail. I figured given Mia’s circumstances, it was a good, safe cover story for today.”
Claire had returned to the sitting room, completely changed into usual Claire garb of loafers, chinos, a white collared blouse and a navy-blue sweater. She closed up the entry to the storage room and pulling the area rug and chair back over it.
“It’s sort of what I told Andy already so I like it. You ready to go now?” I prodded her again.
Laura rose and grabbed her purse and a jacket off the sofa table, “Let’s go, Susie. See you all later.” Her voice was low, indifferent.
The ride to my house was the quietest twenty minutes I had ever experienced. Laura didn’t even sniff. Several attempts at conversation went unheeded and I felt pretty frustrated by the time she pulled up in front of my ramshackle house.
Laura stopped the car, turned off the engine and shifted in her seat so she could look directly at me. “Did I really shoot that woman today?” she asked quietly.
“Yes, Laura, you did.” I answered even more quietly.
“I am going to go straight to hell. No purgatory for me, just straight up hell. Oh, God, Susie! What have I done?”
I could hear the anguish in her voice. Laura had a strict Catholic upbringing. She'd been raised by the standards of the Ten Commandments, the golden rule, and the mythical powers of Catholic guilt. I had no idea how she would work through what happened that day.
“Laura? You have to have faith. We all know you didn’t mean it and she didn’t die.”
“Not yet,” she said. “But she will. And then what? I have committed a mortal sin. There is no forgiveness for that. I deserve the fires of hell!” She wailed the last statement as she dropped her head into her hands.
“She has not died, Laura. You did not kill anyone. Malicious wounding isn’t a mortal sin, is it?”
“Oh great. So, I skipped the mortal sin and broke a major commandment. Good thinking, Susie. I should be fine now. A hundred million years in purgatory but no hell. Thanks, I feel so much better.”
“Well, you don’t have to be so damned sarcastic! It’s not like I was the one that shot that poor woman! I am just trying to make you feel better about your immortal soul!” I instantly felt horrible.
“Thank you so much for your concern. You are supposed to be my friend, Susie. Why can’t you be supportive. This is a major thing and we are all in this together, don’t you forget!” She buried her face in the steering wheel and tears began to run off the old vinyl in tiny rivers. I just sat there as sob after sob wracked her narrow shoulders not sure if I should get out of the car or wait until she was able to get herself under control.
A good solid five minutes passed where I sat waiting in the uncertain atmosphere of Laura’s car before she suddenly sat straight up and wiped at the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“You know what, Susie? You’re right. She’s not dead yet. There is still hope. No one knows who we are and they will probably never figure it out. We should just go on about our regular lives and just see how things play out.”
Her eyes met mine and I could see that same oddly empty look in them that was there at Claire’s house. But she smiled as she spoke and her tone was normal. I couldn’t bring myself to remind her that Joan Crawford knew I was there. At least she thought that she knew.
“Okay, Laura. Let’s do that.” I spoke carefully, never taking my eyes off hers but nothing changed.
A sharp pain shot through my brain and I flinched.
“You all right, Susie? Another headache coming on?”
Laura’s face flickered in front of me while bursts of white light flashed between us light like mini fireworks. I tried to speak but no words came from my lips. The flashes turned to red, orange and yellow explosions; so many that I thought my head might explode from the pressure of processing them.
And then, mercifully, blackness fell all around.
29
The Most Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Worst Time Ever
When I opened my eyes again, I lay in my bed. Across the dark room, I could see the slumped form of Andy sleeping in an old arm chair. I wondered for a moment why he was sleeping in the chair until I felt the wet cold of the sheets all around me. Oh God! Did I pee myself?
Struggling to raise my head and shoulders, I opened my mouth to speak but the words were barely more than a whisper.
“Andy?” I called out just a tiny bit louder.
“Hmmm… What?” From his uncomfortable looking position on the chair, he flailed his arms and legs like a turtle on its back trying to right itself. When Andy managed to get upright in the seat and rub the sleep from his eyes, I chuckled. He looked just as adorable now as he did when we were young and first dating. He blinked at me several times before his eyes could focus completely.
“Susie! You’re awake. How do you feel?”
“My head is a little achy and…” I motioned to the bed indicating the large wet area.
“You had a seizure, honey.”
“Yeah, I gathered that. Thanks. But what about…?” I gestured to the bed again.
“Laura brought you into the house…”
“She what? How?” I tried to imagine her lifting me but I couldn’t.
“Mom says she carried you right up the steps, opened the door and walked you to the bedroom.”
“But how? Don’t I flail around when I have a seizure? She would hardly be able to handle that despite how strong she is.”
“Not always. This time you didn’t. But your bladder did empty itself.” He smiled sheepishly as he indicated the wet spot on the flannel sheets.
“Gross.” I wrinkled my nose up at the idea of peeing all over my friend and my bed. Then I remembered the conversation Laura and I were having before everything went black.
“Andy, did you
get to talk to Laura?”
“Only for a second. I pulled into the driveway as she left the house.”
“How did she seem? Was she okay?” I leaned forward, anxious to hear what he had to say.
“Yeah, I guess so. I was a little preoccupied listening to her tell me about you but I didn’t notice anything grossly out of the ordinary.”
I relaxed against the pillows again and sighed. “I guess that’s a good thing.” But I wasn’t totally convinced.
Suddenly I had the overwhelming urge to get out of my wet, nasty clothes and clean up the bed. I was certain the urine had soaked through all the coverings and was grateful the mattress guy had talked me into buying the plastic backed mattress cover way back when.
“I’m going to get up and take a shower, Andy.” I kicked back the covers, thankful for the cover of darkness in the room. I could clearly make out the large dark circle of wetness on the burgundy sheet. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment. I really hoped Andy couldn’t see it from where he sat.
“Don’t you think we should talk first, Susie?”
The unmistakable tone in his voice washed a wave a dread over me. The seriousness could only mean one thing. Joan Crawford had already gotten to him.
Suddenly, I was afraid of my husband. I knew what he would have to do. He would have no choice but to arrest me now. I couldn't outright lie to Andy. If he asked me straight up if I had been at that bank today, he would know instantly if I even considered not telling him the truth.
We were going down with a crash. I tried to play it off like I had no idea what he was talking about but I didn't think I'd be very convincing.
“What do you want to talk about, Andy?”
I held my breath, waiting in the dim light of dusk for my husband to speak. Knowing I was facing the end of my world as I knew it.
“I think you know, Susie.”
That's it. It's all over. I wondered if Andy would let me shower and change before he took me into the booking office.
The Heist Page 17