“We hadn’t planned on having kids, but when she came to me about it, I told her it was fine with me if she wanted to keep it. We’d be a family, and I’d love it just like I loved her.” Gerard dropped the pen on the desk and leaned back in the chair. He finally took off his hat, and ran his hand over his wiry brown hair.
Karin Powell hadn’t cheated on her husband because he was unattractive, Lucas noted. If that had been the measure, she would’ve been as faithful as a dog. She and her husband were in the same league when it came to looks.
Gerard continued, “But from the look on your face, I’m guessing you don’t believe me.”
“You must be a very understanding man, Mr. Powell,” Lucas said.
“I’m not a moron. I didn’t want my wife to die. Maybe you would dump your wife for screwing around, but my wife had an addiction she’d struggled with since she was a teenager. I’m not saying anyone else would choose to live the way we did.”
Lucas got up to pace.
“Why would you assume that we think you’re responsible for your wife’s death? We’re just talking about her health, here. We have to look at both her physical circumstances and state of mind.”
“I already gave you her psychiatrist’s name,” Gerard said.
“There are just a couple of other things,” Lucas said. “She had Lorazipam in her car.”
“For anxiety,” Gerard said. “It’s not uncommon, I gather. She had a couple of different prescriptions, but, really, stress was her drug of choice.” He looked pointedly at Lucas. “Along with sex, of course. With me. With other people. But you knew that.”
“Tell us when you knew about the abortion.”
Lucas watched Gerard carefully. Finally, he saw what he had been waiting for. The guy had had no idea.
Chapter 32
Gerard drove home on autopilot, certain that he wasn’t going to find any answers there. He felt like he’d only just started grieving her death, only to have her die a second, more painful time.
They’d fought at the party because she’d been drinking. She had promised to drink no more than a couple of glasses of wine a week while she was pregnant. By the time he pulled her aside to ask what in the hell she was doing, she’d already had three. Yet she’d fought him instead of telling him what was going on. Hadn’t told him that the kid he’d finally accepted, the kid he’d actually been looking forward to, was gone like it had never existed.
He’d never understood how she could have been so careless as to become pregnant. It wasn’t like her. He’d found out about the first affair—at least he had assumed it was the first—a few months after their wedding. He’d accidentally knocked over her purse in the kitchen one Saturday morning while she was in the shower. The pills were in a small plastic folder that looked like a cheap business card case. It had taken him a few moments to figure out what he was looking at, but not more than a few seconds to know what it meant. She didn’t need birth control pills if she was only having sex with him.
Her addiction wasn’t a secret. In his heart he’d known it had only been a matter of time.
After putting the packet on the counter where she would see it, he’d left the house for the rest of the day. When he came home drunk, and angrier than he should’ve been, Karin’s car was gone.
That night, he awakened in their bed at two o’clock in the morning with a murderous erection, and Karin’s moist, gentle mouth on him. For the next hour they made love that bordered on brutality, and in the morning it was as though nothing had changed. It had stayed that way. Over the years he wondered what she’d seen in him that led her to believe he would be okay with what she was doing. He couldn’t name it himself. It felt like weakness, sometimes. Other times, it made him feel rational. Powerful. Even, perhaps, merciful.
Since her death, he’d looked carefully through her things. She’d been open with him about so much, but she knew well how to keep a secret. When she was deep into an affair—even an affair he knew about—she kept all evidence of it away from him, as though pretending it wasn’t happening. This was the only time he wanted to know the name of her lover: this man who had given her what he couldn’t.
When she’d first told him about the pregnancy, she brought up the subject of an abortion, but there was something in her eyes that told him it wasn’t what she wanted. And he’d seized on it. He’d seen an opportunity to make her cleave to him in a way she never had before.
“You’re sure you want it?” she said.
“I want you,” he said. “I want whatever’s a part of you.”
The teary look of happiness in her eyes was something new. Different from the way she responded to a big commission, a new piece of jewelry, or a new—God help them both—lover. Still, he knew it was risky. She could be manic that way, incredibly excited and passionate about something, then suddenly regretful. It was part of the cycle.
But he’d been willing to take the chance. Trusting her.
Something had happened. What?
When he got home, he found Molly standing at the kitchen sink, cleaning up the lunch dishes. Seeing the back of her, looking so much like Karin, gave him a guilty twinge of pain. But where Karin’s energy had come from a place of boundless determination—even in her weakest, most troubling moments—Molly’s came from an angry tension he could never understand. She was successful in her own way. As a cookware buyer for a major catalog and store retailer, she pursued her work as though it were some kind of holy mission. She had no lightness and very little humor in her. It made her less attractive than Karin, who was always down for a laugh, and revealed itself in worry lines on her forehead and around her mouth. She was three years younger than Karin, but looked five years older.
“I made Dad take Mom on a drive out of the valley. Anywhere,” she said. “They needed some time away from the house.”
“Good idea.” Gerard opened the refrigerator, knowing he should eat something. He was rarely hungry these days, so he had to make himself search out food. Ellie came to sit beside him, looking for a treat. She wagged her tail hopefully.
“If you’re looking for something to eat, there are six kinds of chicken casserole. I put a couple in the freezer, too,” Molly said. “What is it with people and chicken casserole?”
“Their hearts are in the right place, I guess,” Gerard said. He pulled out the box with the chicken dish Rainey Adams had brought by. At least he knew what to expect from it. Rainey had a sensibility about her that he liked, and he felt vaguely sorry about having treated her so badly when she’d come to the door. What he’d wanted from her was information. Not sympathy or food. He still wondered about the strange, secretive daughter. Surely she knew something.
He pulled a dog treat from the jar and tossed it for the now-drooling Ellie. As always, she caught it in her mouth, then carried it to her rug by the kitchen patio door to gnaw it in private. He heated up the casserole in the microwave and poured himself a mug of the coffee from the pot nested in the coffeemaker. Karin’s father made several pots throughout the day, so it was always relatively fresh.
“Dad wants to know when they’re going to release Karin’s body,” Molly said. She bit her lip after she spoke. It was such a bald, ugly phrase: Karin’s body.
“Detective Chappell said the medical examiner’s office would let us know.” Gerard spoke in between bites. “We’ll need to tell them what funeral home will be picking her up.” He knew his in-laws had discussed it a lot, but he hadn’t given serious thought to a funeral. Karin knew just about everyone in the county, so there would be a crowd of both the concerned and the curious. Certainly the man who had fathered her child would show up. Would he be able to find him in the crowd, pick out the one man who had changed everything?
“I think you should let me and Dad handle the arrangements,” Molly said, her tone suggesting she was expecting an argument.
Gerard shrugged. “If that’s what you all want. We can talk about it, sure.” In the end, it was just a body. Karin, the woman
he had loved, was gone. He had no attachment to the empty shell left behind in Bliss House.
“Why didn’t you care more about her?” Molly said, not bothering to hide her irritation. “She should’ve left you a long time ago.”
Gerard put down his coffee mug.
“Quit playing me, Molly. If you and your Dad get what you want, what else is there?” Ellie, sensing the tension, got up from her rug and came to lean protectively against his leg.
“I want to know what happened to her, you bastard. I want to know why my sister is dead, and no one—not even you, who saw her every damned day—knows why. I want to know why she didn’t tell me what was going on.” Molly’s eyes filled with tears. “She used to tell me everything.”
“Did she tell you she had an abortion within the past couple of weeks?” Gerard said.
The stunned look on Molly’s face gave him his answer.
“Don’t even say that. How could you say that?” Her already fair skin blanched to bone white. “Karin was pregnant?”
Gerard was silent, watching her face as the possibilities and implications flew through her mind. He didn’t dislike Molly, and hadn’t wanted to cause her more pain. But she had pushed him. He had been pushed so far lately that he felt like there were no longer any boundaries around him. Anything could happen, and he didn’t like it.
“You son-of-a-bitch!”
Molly came at him, her palms out, ready to push him or hit him. Her eyes were narrowed, angry and fierce.
Gerard got off the stool he was sitting on, nearly tripping on the worried Ellie, and grabbed Molly by the upper arms. They wrestled, knocking over two of the stools. She was screaming at him the whole time.
“You killed her! I hate you! You killed her, you impotent bastard!”
Finally, he pinned her to the floor, straddling her. She was still bucking, trying to push him off. Ellie stood a few feet away adding to the noise with short, sharp barks.
“Stop it, Molly,” he said. “Stop it. Don’t say that. Stop it, please.” A part of him wanted to cry with her, to lash out. But against whom? Karin? Himself? Realizing he was gripping her too tightly, probably bruising her, he pulled away. He stood, but Molly still lay on the floor, sobbing.
Breathing heavily, he took a long look at her to make sure she wasn’t seriously hurt. “What a fucking mess,” he said. What had brought him to this? He was disgusted with himself, with Molly, with—God help them all, again—Karin.
Calling Ellie to him, he left the kitchen, and then the house, slamming the door behind him.
Outside, Ellie, sensing his intentions, ran across the clearing ahead of him, toward the foothills at the back of the property.
Chapter 33
“Roberta, you’re acting like I don’t know you at all,” Randolph said. He slid his tie from beneath his shirt collar and tossed it onto the bed.
Bertie picked up the tie and took it to the closet to hang it on the built-in rack. She might not share a bedroom with her husband (that had ended years ago because of his unbearable snoring), but she did take pride in keeping it as neat as she kept her own. For a regimented man, her husband was surprisingly untidy when it came to his personal spaces. She and Jerilyn, his secretary of twenty years, had commiserated about it many times.
“Why go over there and then try to hide it from me?” he said. “You’re not a child, and I’m not your keeper. I just suggested that you not get too close to Rainey and her situation. When people stop talking about what happened the other night, when the Powell woman is finally laid to rest, you can perhaps start fresh with her.”
Bertie sighed. “I’m worried about her. I know you don’t like to talk about her and all the things that have happened at that house, and I promised I wouldn’t bring them up. I promised. But don’t you think she has a right to know everything?”
“You did promise,” Randolph said.
“But the nightmares. Sometimes I think about the way you screamed, Randolph. Do you remember how you screamed? The things you said in your sleep?” she said. “It nearly scared me to death.”
“You promised,” Randolph said, underscoring his words with a cold, patronizing smile. “I appreciate that promise and expect you to keep it. I couldn’t go on dealing with all the ugliness I have to deal with everyday—the sickos who rape their stepdaughters, the drug dealers who think nothing of poisoning their customers, the parents who rent out their children for drugs. Without you keeping our life at home calm and normal, I couldn’t continue.”
“If the poor woman was mentally unbalanced, then maybe it didn’t have anything at all to do with the house. Rainey told me that dear Ariel thought there was someone else in the house, too. Maybe someone else saw her and knew why she did it. Maybe someone even killed her.”
“Fantasy,” he said. He went inside the closet to finish changing his clothes. “A pathetic child looking for attention.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Bertie said. “Your opinion matters very much to me, Randolph. I just know that if I were in the same position, you wouldn’t want me to be alone.”
“You mean if I were dead?” he said from the closet. “You’re a very different kind of person, Roberta.” He came out tucking a polo shirt into the khaki pants he’d put on. Once they were zipped, he came over to where she sat on the bed and leaned to kiss her on the temple. “You’ve been a lot more sheltered than Rainey. You and Jefferson haven’t been exposed so harshly to the world the way that Rainey and her daughter have.”
“True,” Bertie said.
“Speaking of our son, have you seen him today?” Randolph put his watch back on.
“Not since breakfast.”
“What do you think he’s doing with his time?”
Bertie laughed. “I think it’s a girl. Somebody local, maybe. I wish I knew. He doesn’t tell me anything anymore.”
“Why would you say it’s a girl? I haven’t seen any evidence of that. Not since that Marcus girl he took to, what? Was it the prom? Hard to believe it was only a year or so ago.”
“I keep telling myself it’s healthy that he has his own life,” Bertie said.
“When is dinner? I want to go in the back yard and hit some golf balls,” Randolph said. “And I think you’re wrong about there being a girl. Sure of it.”
“Here, let me have your placemat,” Bertie said.
Randolph lifted his financial magazine from the table, and she pulled the placemat away to wipe off both the glossy surface of the mat and the cork underside before sliding it back in place.
“Book club tonight,” she said. “I’ll be home around ten. We’re meeting at that new wine bar just off the square. The one with the deck on the roof that they had to get a special permit for? Conversation al fresco. It’s a book about finding love in Provence. So romantic. It’s very well written, and full of recipes.”
Randolph murmured an assent, but she knew he wasn’t really listening. He only read law commentaries and magazines about golf and business. She occasionally bought him books on American history, but she suspected he only read them to make her happy. She’d heard him say that he’d read all the history he could ever need at UVA and William and Mary. She couldn’t imagine that a judge would get bored reading about American history. It seemed unpatriotic.
“Would you want to take me and pick me up?” Bertie disliked driving at night.
“Not unless I absolutely have to,” Randolph said from behind his magazine. “Can’t you ride in with one of the girls? I’ve got an early case tomorrow morning, and I want to go for a run first thing.”
Bertie looked up from the sink. She listened.
“That’s Jefferson’s truck,” she said. “I bet he’ll be looking for dinner.” She glanced around the already-tidied kitchen and then at the clock to gauge how much time she had before she needed to leave. She didn’t really have time to get everything back out to make a salad to go with the pork chops she’d set aside for him. But she automatically began pulling veggies, dress
ing, and the foil-wrapped chops from the refrigerator anyway.
Won’t hurt to be a few minutes late.
When Jefferson came into the kitchen trailing a draft of perspiration and gasoline, she sent him straight to the sink.
“Wash up, dear. I’ve already cleaned up the dinner table. Let’s set you up here on the island.”
“Hey, Mom,” he said, stopping to kiss her on the cheek. “What’s to eat?”
“Nice of you to join us, Son,” Randolph said, putting down his magazine. He offered him a non-committal smile. The kind that Jefferson—and Bertie—found hard to read.
“They’re blasting up on Beartrap Mountain,” Jefferson said.” I heard it when I was out at the eastern end of the county today. I guess the permits went through.”
“The discussion ended a month ago,” Randolph said. “Guess you hadn’t heard.”
Jefferson ignored the dig. Bertie wished that Randolph wouldn’t be so hard on their only son. He wasn’t too awful, but she thought it wouldn’t hurt him to be a little more loving when he spoke to him.
“What were you doing way out there?” Bertie said. She put the pre-shredded lettuce in a salad bowl, and reached for the package of mushrooms.
“Went to see a guy about a ragtop Jeep. I’ll go out and pick it up tomorrow. I’m going in on it with a couple of guys. If we get rains as good as we did last fall, it’ll be great for mudding. Nothing pro or fancy. Just some old school hills and runs.”
“Really?” Randolph said. “I’ve told you about the old Willys I had. Vintage 1962. No glass in the windows. Tires as big as we could get back in the seventies. We were limited, of course.”
Bertie liked to hear Randolph talking about something that made him happy, especially with Jefferson.
“You ought to come by,” Jefferson said. “You know. If it works out.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Randolph said. “I just want to make sure you’ve got time to be messing around with that stuff this fall. School’s a privilege. Your grades are the priority.”
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