Little Girls

by Ronald Malfi

  “That’s irresponsible.”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Ted, we don’t even know those people. And you just want to leave our daughter with them for an evening so we can go to dinner and a movie?”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “Jesus Christ. They’re not serial killers. You met the mother—”

  “The aunt,” Laurie corrected.

  “—and Susan likes hanging out with the girl, so what’s the big deal? I swear, you make things bigger than they need to be.”

  “Is that what I do?”

  “What you do is have situations dictate your life instead of having your life dictate your situations.”

  “Is that one of your arty amendments?”

  He frowned. His nostrils flared. More calmly than she would have suspected, he said, “Why is it you always have to take a jab at my career? Is it because I don’t make enough money to suit you? That you think I’m wasting my time with all this?”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “I’m proud of what I do, Laurie. Lately, you’ve been trying to downplay all of my accomplishments. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

  “This has nothing to do with your accomplishments.”

  “Then what does it have to do with? Tell me, because I’m dying to know.”

  Susan appeared in the doorway. They both fell silent.

  “What’s for dinner?” the girl asked.

  “Would you like to go over to your friend Abigail’s for some tacos tonight?” Ted asked her before Laurie could say anything.

  Susan’s face lit up. “Can I? That would be great!”

  “Go on up and put your shoes on,” Ted said. “I’ll walk you over.”

  Susan turned and bolted down the hallway, then thundered up the stairs.

  “Well, that was just wonderful,” Laurie said. “Thanks so much.”

  “We’ll have a nice time.” His smile glowed. “You’ll thank me for it.”

  Fifteen minutes later, as Ted walked Susan next door to the Rosewoods’, Laurie watched them from one of the dining room windows. The two of them paused for a few moments at the foot of the driveway and Ted dropped to one knee before the girl like someone proposing marriage. He talked for a while and then Susan nodded and said some things, too. At one point Susan pointed toward the house and both she and Ted glanced up. Laurie’s heart leapt; she thought they had spotted her spying on them. But then Ted stood and squeezed Susan’s shoulder. Susan snaked a thin arm around Ted’s waist as they continued into the street. Laurie wrung her hands the moment they disappeared from view on the other side of the fence.

  She had been twenty-eight when she learned she was pregnant with Susan. The knowledge struck cold fear into her heart—fear at the prospect of being a parent. Previously, both she and Ted had confessed a passing disinterest in being parents, and her pregnancy was what some people termed “an accident.” But accidents made her think of fender-benders and broken drinking glasses in the kitchen trash. Laurie thought it was more tragic than accidental. When she informed Ted of her condition, she had expected reciprocal despair. Yet his elation astounded her. Ted had scooped her into his arms and twirled her around the kitchenette of their small apartment in Newington.

  She had progressed through her pregnancy like someone preparing for an exam. She attended the requisite visits to the OB/GYN, was responsible about her diet, and ingested the prescribed bouquet of prenatal vitamins. She attended classes for new mothers-to-be, and she checked out countless books from the library on what to expect from a first pregnancy. And while all these totems were certainly informative, she realized that none of them promised her any success at her impending new career as a parent. She became convinced that no matter how many books she read and how many classes she attended, she was destined for failure. This certainty terrified her. Her own mother had still been alive back then, and she found herself speaking to the woman several times a week during her third trimester, as if to siphon some motherly wisdom from the woman over the telephone. But those phone conversations, while pleasant, did little to assuage her fear. Toward the end of her third trimester, she began frequenting the neighborhood playgrounds and parks, where she would sit on a bench and feign interest in some paperback novel. In actuality, she was there to observe. Mothers chased children around the playground, pushed them on swings, wiped snot from their noses and brushed dirt off their Oshkosh overalls. These mothers were curious creatures. Their hair looked uniformly choppy and serviceable at best. They wore horrendous jeans with high elastic waistbands and drab blouses that looked like they hadn’t seen an iron since the previous presidency. It was when Laurie began to feel like Dian Fossey among the apes that she finally abandoned this morbid little enterprise.

  Ted had turned the extra bedroom of their miniscule apartment into a nursery. He did this of his own accord, without any prompting from Laurie, and she found his behavior endearing. She tried to absorb some of his confidence, but it was a futile exercise.

  And then there she was—Susan Leah Genarro. Laurie became a mother not in learned and practiced increments, but instantly and all at once. Maybe that was how it was done. And she found that she had been good at it, and that she loved her little girl, and maybe she wouldn’t turn out to be a failure as a mother after all. Maybe she could, in fact, keep her daughter safeguarded against the evils of the world....

  As she watched Ted and Susan disappear over the fence into the Rosewoods’ yard, she felt that old familiar fear begin to tremble at the core of her being. It was no different than watching her daughter slip away into that crowd of children on the first day of preschool, just another face blending among the crowd. The fear had been gone so long its sudden presence now—albeit a faint presence—was nearly alien. Yet she recognized it, and the recognition chilled her.

  Before she could turn from the window, she saw a dark brown sedan pull up the driveway. Its windshield was cracked and there was an ugly ding in the hood. When a tall man in a dark suit and necktie got out, she went to the front door and opened it.

  “Hiya,” the man said amiably enough. His smile was genuine and pleasant—cheerful, almost—and he walked with the casual swagger reminiscent of John Wayne Westerns. He carried with him a nylon case that might have held a laptop computer.

  Cop, Laurie thought.

  The man climbed the porch steps and extended a smooth, clean palm. The smile never faltered. “Mrs. Genarro?”

  “Yes.” Laurie shook his hand.

  “I’m Detective Brian Freeling.” A badge and credentials made a brief appearance before disappearing back into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Detective Freeling looked to be in his mid-forties, though the only reason Laurie estimated him that old was because his sensibly cut dark hair had started to gray at the temples. Otherwise, his features were youthful and there was a roguish handsomeness to him. He gave off a relaxed air that might have put most people at ease but only seemed to heighten Laurie’s apprehension. “This is completely embarrassing, but I feel I owe you an apology.”

  “A—what?” She thought she had misheard him.

  “There was some miscommunication at the office. I was under the impression that fingerprints had been taken when in fact they weren’t, and now I’m tasked with showing up here looking like a . . . well, a fool, Mrs. Genarro.” As if the mention of her name triggered some memory inside him, Detective Freeling’s cool, unperturbed countenance switched instantly to one of vexation. “Christ, how callous. I’m standing here blabbing and—” He cut himself off, then extended his hand to her again.

  With a bit more trepidation than she had felt the first time, Laurie shook it once more.

  “My condolences about your father,” he said. His voice had dropped nearly a full octave, rising up from deeper in his chest now.

  “Thank you. Did you want to come inside?”

  “If it’s no trouble, ma’am.”

  She widened the door and he passed through it, th
e John Wayne swagger now somewhat diminished. A quick appraisal of the house was followed by a muted whistle.

  “Nice place,” he said.

  “I grew up here.”

  “Did you? How nice.”

  “What was it that you said you needed, detective? Something about fingerprints?”

  He folded one arm beneath the other, and Laurie could see the bulge of his pistol beneath the fabric of his suit jacket. “The guys were supposed to get fingerprints of the room upstairs. I thought they’d done it, but they hadn’t. Now I’m late to the party.” The sigh he unleashed made him sound infernally bored. “It’s probably a moot point by now, but I should still see what’s there.”

  “Fingerprints from the room upstairs? The room where my father . . .”

  “Yes, ma’am. If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “Not at all. I’ll take you up, but I need to get the key first.”

  His smile widened. “Of course,” he said, as if he knew what the key was for. Perhaps he did.

  She returned thirty seconds later and led him upstairs. While he knelt on the floor and opened his nylon case, Laurie slid the key into the padlock and turned it. The lock popped open.

  “To be fair,” she told him, “you wouldn’t have had much luck had you come a day earlier. I just got the key from one of my father’s caretakers this afternoon.”

  “That would be Ms. Lorton or Ms. Larosche?” he said as he slipped on a pair of latex gloves.

  “Teresa Larosche. Do you know her?”

  “I’ve spoken with both women. Routine questioning.”

  “I didn’t realize they had a detective on the case. Do you suspect something happened to my father other than what’s in the police report?”

  Detective Freeling shrugged disinterestedly and his lower lip protruded just a bit. “Nah, not really. Your father was sick, wasn’t he? Alzheimer’s?”

  “Dementia.”

  “I’ve seen stuff like it before.” He rose up off his knees.

  “Have you really? Old people throwing themselves out of windows?”

  “The elderly and confused hurting themselves,” he said. He went to the door, pushed it open with the toe of his shoe, and then addressed the doorknob on the inside with what looked like a makeup brush. He proceeded to brush powdered ink onto the doorknob. “Are you here alone?”

  “Yes.” She made a distant wheezing sound. “Oh, you mean—no, no, I’m not. My husband and daughter are here with me.”

  “Have any of you been up in this room?”

  “I have.”

  “No one else?”

  “No. I’ve kept the door locked.”

  “Did you touch this doorknob?”

  “Well, yes. To open the door.”

  “No, not the outside knob.” He pointed at the knob he was dusting and looked up at her. His eyes were blue flecks of ice. “This one.”

  She tried to remember. “No, I don’t think so. I left the door open when I went up. When I came back down, I shut it from out here.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  “Do you suspect someone murdered my father?”

  That roguish smile reappeared. It made him look even younger. She thought of her own husband, the man who never aged.

  “Nah,” he said. When he stood, the creases in his dark pants were suddenly very noticeable. He turned and glanced up the tight stairwell. “I’m gonna go on up.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep out of your way. Can I get you anything?”

  “Coffee would be great,” he said, climbing up the steps to the tiny room.

  Twenty minutes later, when Ted returned from next door, he encountered Detective Freeling in the driveway. Through the front windows, Laurie watched the men converse, the driver’s door of Detective Freeling’s sedan standing open. Then they shook hands and Freeling climbed into his car and drove away. Ted came in through the front door and went directly upstairs. A moment later, she heard the shower clank on.

  In the parlor, Laurie went to her father’s liquor cabinet and opened it. The bottles seemed to soldier right up to the edge of the shelves. All of them had been opened and many of them were now only half full. Ted had been getting some work done, all right. She was halfway through a glass of sherry when Ted came into the room.

  “That guy seemed more like a game show host than a cop,” he commented, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. He had changed into an American Eagle polo shirt, khakis, and thatched loafers without socks. His hair was combed back off his forehead and still damp from the shower. “I don’t buy his peaceable demeanor. Pour me a glass of that, would you, please?”

  She poured a second glass as he went to the piano and sat down. He played a soothing melody on the high keys, one-handed. He was a fine pianist.

  “Liz and Derrick Rosewood seem nice enough,” he said. When Laurie didn’t answer, he said, “Are you still mad?”

  She set his glass of sherry on top of the piano. He still tinkled the high keys playfully.

  “Is it such a terrible thing,” he continued, “that we should spend some time together?”

  No, it wasn’t such a terrible thing. No, she wasn’t still mad. Even now, she realized her anger had actually been anxiety, had been fear. She didn’t like the noises she had been hearing, and the loose board over the window upstairs troubled her. Even worse, she didn’t like Abigail’s resemblance to Sadie Russ, worsened by the fact that she was staying with her aunt in Sadie’s old house. Of course, she couldn’t quite verbalize this to Ted without sounding like a head case. Since the highway incident, she had become heedful of the things she told her husband.

  She bent and kissed the side of Ted’s face. “I’m not mad.”

  “Does that mean we can go out and have a nice time?”

  Her blood cooled at the idea of leaving the house while Susan was next door. But really, wasn’t she being foolish? Maybe Ted was right after all—maybe it was all just stress and nothing more.

  “Yes,” she said. “That sounds nice.”

  “Derrick Rosewood told me of a great wine bar downtown. Run upstairs and get dressed?”

  Laurie showered and dressed in a pair of sleek black slacks and a beige halter top. They were the best clothes she had packed, since she hadn’t anticipated a night on the town while packing her suitcase back in Hartford. As they climbed into the Volvo, Laurie’s anxiety over leaving Susan with the Rosewoods had subsided to a remote disquiet, like the solitary light shining in the window of a house that was supposed to be vacant.

  “Derrick Rosewood says it’s the best spot in town,” Ted said as he backed the car down the winding driveway.

  As it turned out, it was a nice spot. They sampled different kinds of wine and instead of ordering meals, they snacked on assorted cheese platters, toasted breads, caviar and crackers, escargot, and plates of Italian olives throughout the evening. Ted talked a lot about the play he was working on. After some wine, his complaints about John Fish transitioned to a more diplomatic opinion of what a successful adaptation of Fish’s work could mean for Ted’s career. “Even if we don’t open on Broadway,” he said through a mouthful of escargot, “Fish’s name will bring A-list talent to the production. It could change things for us, Laurie. It could change a lot of things.”

  “What about the outline?”

  “I’ve decided not to worry about it until I hear back from Steve. I’m hoping this can get squared away as painlessly as possible. And besides, what Fish is asking for is virtually impossible, so it’s not like they can replace me with some other writer.”

  She smiled.

  “You know,” he said at one point, “you should really start painting again.”

  “I’ve thought about it.”

  “Have you?”

  “It’s probably no different than your writing. A seed is planted in the center of your brain and something inside you just . . . well, it turns it into something. It wants to come out, wants to break free. It’s like growing a plant.” She thought ab
out her father’s greenhouse, now a desolate tomb hidden deep in the woods beyond the house. This made her think of Sadie Russ, and what happened to her.

  “What?” said Ted. “What is it?”

  “It’s nothing. My mind’s just wandering, that’s all.”

  “How’d that cop get up into that room today? I thought we didn’t have a key for the padlock on the door.”

  “We do now. I picked it up earlier today.”

  Ted frowned. “Picked it up from whom?”

  “Teresa Larosche. She met me in Annapolis this afternoon. You were busy working and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “This woman was your father’s night nurse, right?”

  “Yes.” She drank some wine and then added, “I also read the police report filed by the officer who responded to my dad’s death. Turned out it was in with some of David Cushing’s papers after all.” She fabricated this last part because she feared she would sound too paranoid admitting to him that she had contacted the county police and requested the report. It hadn’t seemed paranoid to her at the time—in fact, it had seemed perfectly natural—but now she wasn’t quite sure. “Ted, my father didn’t open the window before he jumped out.”

  Based on the expression that came across Ted’s face, she didn’t think he had properly heard her.

  “He jumped right through the glass,” she restated. “One of the windows up there is shattered and there’s a big piece of wood covering it up.”

  “That’s just horrible,” he said, his voice small. All of a sudden, his eyes had become these furtive little beads that she didn’t quite trust. They looked wholly unfamiliar to her.

  “Teresa Larosche said he had been concerned that someone was trying to break into the house at night, that someone was trying to come after him.”

  “The guy was probably paranoid about a lot of things.”

  “And now that police detective who came by, he took some fingerprints. . . .”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m wondering if my father jumped at all,” she said, “or if maybe someone pushed him.”