by Joy Fielding
But Sam and Lauren said nothing, their silence underlining either ignorance or disinterest, perhaps a combination of both.
“There’s a Nick Lonergan listed in here,” Detective Kritzic announced, holding Joan’s address book into the air, as if it were a Bible.
Bonnie was conscious of her heart starting to race. “That can’t be,” she protested, feeling that she was sinking into quicksand and grabbing for Rod’s arm for support. “They didn’t even know each other.”
Detective Kritzic read the number aloud.
Bonnie nodded recognition. “That’s my father’s number,” she said, then lapsed into silence. How many times could she say, “I don’t understand”?
“Did your mother own a gun?” Captain Mahoney asked, switching the focus of his questioning to Sam and Lauren. If he had any more questions about what her brother’s name might be doing in Joan’s address book, he was keeping them to himself.
“Yes,” Lauren said.
“She kept it in the top drawer of her dresser,” Sam added, pointing to the tall walnut armoire that stood beside the window on the wall opposite the bedroom door, its bottom drawers open, several bright-colored blouses hanging over the sides.
Two large strides brought Captain Mahoney to the armoire. He pulled open the top drawer, sweeping his hand across Joan’s more intimate belongings, several pairs of panty hose escaping his grasp to float aimlessly to the floor and land gently across the top of his black shoes. “What kind of gun was it, do you know?”
“I don’t know anything about guns,” Sam said.
“Ask my dad,” Lauren told him. “It was his gun.”
All eyes turned to Rod, who looked as stunned as Bonnie had felt only moments ago.
“I thought you said you didn’t own a gun, Mr. Wheeler,” Captain Mahoney reminded him.
“I used to have a thirty-eight revolver,” Rod stammered, after a pause. “Frankly, I’d forgotten all about it. Joan kept it after we separated. She claimed she was afraid to be alone.”
“There’s no gun here,” Captain Mahoney stated, after checking each drawer in turn. “But we’ll do a more thorough search after you leave.”
“Where are we going?” Sam asked.
“You’ll come home with us,” Bonnie told him, looking to Rod for confirmation, receiving only a blank stare in reply. “Why don’t you throw a few things into a suitcase. We can come back later in the week for the rest.”
“What if we don’t want to go with you?” Lauren asked, panic evident in her voice.
“You can go with your father or I can take you to Juvenile Hall,” Captain Mahoney intervened. “I think you might prefer going with your father.”
Bonnie nodded gratefully. Surely the fact that he was encouraging Sam and Lauren to go home with them meant that he didn’t seriously consider either one a suspect.
Sam and Lauren took several seconds to consider their options, then turned and walked silently from the room, Bonnie and Rod following numbly after them.
Sam’s bedroom was immediately across the hall from his mother’s, his bed unmade, the top of his dresser covered with books and paper and what looked like hundreds of loose pennies. There was a poster of Guns N’ Roses’s star Axl Rose in his underwear beside a picture of a topless Cindy Crawford. An acoustic guitar, its surface scratched, one string broken, lay on the brown carpet beside a discarded flannel shirt, an open pack of Camel cigarettes protruding from its pocket. A large rectangular glass tank sat on the sill beneath the bedroom window. A large snake lay stretched out inside it.
“My God,” Bonnie whispered. “What on earth is that?”
“That’s L’il Abner,” Sam answered proudly, his face noticeably animated for the first time since he’d come home. “He’s only eighteen months old, but he’s already over four feet long. Boa constrictors can grow to nine, maybe even twelve, feet. Longer in the wild.”
Captain Mahoney walked past Bonnie to the tank. “He’s a beauty,” he said. “What do you feed him?”
“Live rats,” Sam answered.
Bonnie grabbed her stomach, fought down the urge to throw up. Surely they weren’t really standing in the room of a young boy who had just learned that his mother had been murdered, listening to him talk about feeding live rats to his baby boa constrictor. It couldn’t be happening.
“Your mother didn’t mind you having such an exotic animal as a pet?” Captain Mahoney asked.
“She just hated if the rats escaped,” Sam said.
Bonnie looked from her husband to his son, straining to find a resemblance between the two. It was there, but only faintly, in the abstract as opposed to the particular, manifesting itself more in their general posture than their individual features, the way each tilted his head when asked a question, the slight pursing of their lips when they smiled, the way each absently rubbed at the side of his nose when distracted.
Perhaps there’d been a mistake, Bonnie postulated. Perhaps there’d been one of those awful errors at the hospital that you sometimes heard about, and Sam and another baby had been switched at birth, and this wasn’t really Rod’s son at all. Rod’s son was a normal young man with ordinary brown hair and no gold loop sticking through his nostril, a boy who cried when told of his mother’s death, and liked dogs and goldfish.
“I’m ready,” Lauren announced from the doorway, a large tote bag over her shoulder, a small overnight bag in her hand.
“What’s going to happen to the house?” Sam asked.
“It’s too early to think about that now,” Rod answered.
“I don’t want to sell it,” Lauren told him.
“It’s too early to think about that now,” Rod repeated.
“How am I going to get to school?” Again, panic filled Lauren’s eyes.
“We won’t worry about school for a few days,” Bonnie told her.
“I’ll drive you when we get Mom’s car,” Sam answered, turning to Captain Mahoney. “When can I get my mom’s car?”
If Captain Mahoney was surprised by the question, he didn’t let on. “We can probably have it back to you within the week.”
Detective Kritzic entered the room carrying a small file folder that she promptly opened for the captain’s perusal. Captain Mahoney took several moments to scan the contents, glancing over at Bonnie and Rod periodically. “Why don’t we go into the hall,” he suggested casually when he was through reading. Too casually, Bonnie thought, following the officers out of the bedroom.
“Did you find something?” Rod asked.
“You didn’t tell us that your wife’s insurance policy carried a double indemnity clause,” Captain Mahoney stated.
“Double indemnity?” Bonnie repeated, twisting the words around her tongue, not comfortable with the sound.
“In the event of either accident or murder, the death benefits double,” Captain Mahoney explained. “That would make your ex-wife’s death worth half a million dollars.”
“So it would,” Rod said evenly.
“Are there any other policies I should be aware of, Mr. Wheeler?” the police captain asked.
“I have life insurance policies on my entire family,” Rod told him.
“Including your current wife and children?” Captain Mahoney pulled his notepad from his rear pocket.
Bonnie’s back stiffened at the word current, as if her position was merely transitional and might shift at any moment.
“Everyone,” Rod answered.
“Double indemnity?” asked Captain Mahoney.
Rod nodded. “I believe so.”
Sam appeared in the hallway, his guitar slung over one shoulder, the large snake wrapped across his neck and arms like a fur stole, its forked tongue flicking menacingly into the air. “I’ll need some help with the tank,” he said.
7
Bonnie stood by the side of her bed and stared at the phone for several long seconds before lifting the receiver, then hesitated again before pressing in the appropriate numbers. “Please be there,”
she whispered. “It’s after midnight. I’m so tired. Where have you been all night?”
The phone was on its sixth ring when it was finally picked up. “Yes?” the woman’s voice said clearly. Not “hello,” but “yes.” Almost as if she’d been expecting Bonnie to call.
“Adeline…” Bonnie began.
“Bonnie, is that you?”
Bonnie felt a wave of panic, surprised the woman had identified her so quickly, understanding it was too late to turn back now. “I need to speak to my father.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I just need to speak to my father.”
“I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone right now. His stomach has been acting up. Do you want to tell me what this is about?”
“Actually, it’s really Nick I need to talk to. Is he there?”
There was silence.
“Adeline, is my brother there? Tell me.”
“He’s not here.”
Bonnie took a deep breath. “You know I wouldn’t be calling if this weren’t very important.”
“I assumed as much, since this is the first time we’ve heard from you in over three years.”
Bonnie closed her eyes. She was too tired to go into all this now. “Look, I just need to get a hold of Nick.”
“All I can do is give him the message you called,” Adeline said.
Bonnie pictured the woman on the other end of the phone. She was little, barely five feet tall, with soft blue eyes, short gray hair, and a will of iron. At almost seventy years old, she was still a formidable force, even over the phone. Bonnie was no match for her, never had been, she conceded, smiling sadly at Rod as he walked into the room, watching him unbutton his shirt. “Fine. Just tell my father I called,” Bonnie said. “Tell him it’s extremely important that I speak to Nick as soon as possible.”
“I’ll give him your message.”
“Thank you,” Bonnie said, although the woman had already hung up. “Tell me this is all a bad dream,” she instructed her husband, as he came forward to wrap her in his arms.
“This is all a bad dream,” he said, obligingly, kissing her forehead, taking the phone from her hand and returning it to its carriage.
“The kids settled?”
“More or less.” He kissed the side of her cheek.
“I’ll go say goodnight to them.”
“I think I’d leave them be,” Rod advised gently, his voice wrapping around her ankles, like an anchor, securing her in place.
“I just want them to know that I’m here for them.”
“They know,” he told her. “And they’ll come around. Just give them a little time, a little space.”
She nodded, hoping he was right.
“Let’s get to bed.”
“My father might be calling….”
“I didn’t say we had to go to sleep.” Rod’s lips moved provocatively to hers.
“You want to make love now?” Bonnie asked, her voice incredulous. She’d just spent possibly the worst day of her life. She’d discovered the murdered body of her husband’s ex-wife, been dragged down to the police station for questioning, inherited two hostile stepchildren, not to mention a four-foot baby boa constrictor. She’d been beaten up and beaten down. From her stepdaughter to her stepmother. She was confused and angry and exhausted. And her husband was…what? Her husband was amorous. “Careful my lip,” she cautioned as he kissed her again, this time more forcefully, his hands moving across the front of her dress. Well, why not? she thought, responding to his caresses, despite her fatigue. Did she have any better ideas?
“Mommy!” Amanda’s voice scraped against the air, like a pebble on pavement bouncing unsteadily toward its target. “Mommy!”
Bonnie slowly extricated herself from her husband’s embrace. “I guess it’s just too much excitement for one night.”
“Mommy!”
“Coming, sweetheart.” Bonnie hurried down the hall, passing both the guest room that Lauren was now occupying and the small study in which Sam and his snake were ensconced. “What’s the matter, baby?” she asked, stepping inside Amanda’s bedroom.
Amanda sat in the middle of her small four-poster bed, surrounded by a veritable zoo of stuffed animals: a giant pink panda bear, a small white kitten, a medium-sized brown dog, two miniature black-and-white teddy bears, and Kermit the Frog. The large stuffed kangaroo she’d fallen in love with at Toys “R” Us stood on the floor at the foot of her bed, its arms outstretched, as if warding off evil spirits.
“I can’t sleep,” Amanda said.
“I know. It’s hard.” Bonnie approached the bed, watching Amanda’s round little face grow increasingly visible through the darkness, as if she were being lit from within. And perhaps she was, Bonnie thought, marveling that she could have played a part in creating anything so beautiful, so absolutely perfect Amanda Lindsay Wheeler, she repeated to herself, all blond curls and puffy chipmunk cheeks, huge navy blue eyes and tiny turned-up nose. Sugar and spice and everything nice. That’s what little girls are made of. Bonnie brought her hand to her lip, felt it sting.
And then they grow up, she thought.
Soon the chipmunk cheeks would thin out and become more sculpted; the eyes would grow less curious, more fearful; the lips would narrow from smile to pout. Already, the toddler’s skin had been shed to make room for the little girl. Already, the sleeping adolescent hovered, threatening to burst prematurely out of its cocoon.
“Do you think Lauren’s pretty?” Amanda asked suddenly, catching Bonnie off guard.
“Yes, I do,” Bonnie answered. “Do you?”
Amanda nodded vigorously. “Is she going to be my big sister now?”
“Would you like that?”
Again, Amanda nodded, throwing up her arms for emphasis.
“Get some sleep now, sweet thing.” She kissed her on the forehead, tucked her back under the covers, walked to the door.
“I love you,” Amanda called after her.
“I love you too, angel.”
“I love you more.”
Bonnie stopped, smiled at what was becoming a nightly ritual. “You couldn’t possibly love me more.”
“Okay,” Amanda giggled. “We love each other exactly the same.”
“Okay,” Bonnie agreed, walking to the door. “We love each other exactly the same.”
“Except I love you more.”
Bonnie threw her daughter another kiss from the doorway, watching as Amanda reached up to pluck it from the air and glue it to her cheek. Then she stepped back into the hall.
The light was still on in the den, beckoning to her from under the closed door. Bonnie hesitated, then knocked gently, gingerly pushing open the door when Sam failed to answer.
Sam lay spread across the sofa, which doubled as a pull-out bed, wearing only his baggy brown pants, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, ashes dropping onto his bare chest. He jumped up when he saw her, and the ashes spilled onto the taupe carpeting.
“I know I’m not supposed to smoke in the house,” he said quickly, looking around for a place to extinguish his cigarette, finally butting it out between his fingers.
Bonnie looked helplessly around the small den, once intended as her sanctuary, a room to which she could retreat to mark essays and exams, to prepare her lessons, to read, to relax. Now, clothes hung over the top of the large-screen TV, a guitar stood propped against one soft-green wall, gray ashes mingled with the yellow and green flowers of the sofa bed, and a large glass tank had all but overtaken the top of her stately oak desk, pushing the framed photograph of Amanda unceremoniously off to the side and relegating her computer to the floor. She froze. “Where’s the snake?” she asked, her brain suddenly registering that the tank was empty.
Sam raised one long skinny arm and pointed toward the window. “Right there—on the windowsill. He thinks he’s a cat.”
Reluctantly, Bonnie’s eyes veered toward the window at the far end of the room. The mint green curtains were partially open t
o reveal the coiled body of the snake behind them.
“Would you mind keeping him in the tank when we’re home?” Bonnie asked, her voice small, fighting the almost overpowering urge to run screaming down the hall.
“Sure thing,” Sam said, though he didn’t move.
Bonnie paused in the doorway. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”
“Like what?” the boy asked.
Bonnie didn’t know what to say—How about the weather? Or the Red Sox? How about the fact that your mother was murdered this morning?—so she said nothing. She waited, trying to penetrate the boy’s opaque features, finding it ironic that boys so often resembled their mothers, while girls tended to look more like their dads. At least such was the case with Sam and Lauren. And such had been the case with her and Nick. “Goodnight, Sam,” she said finally, wondering if her brother would call. “See you in the morning.”
Bonnie stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her just as the door to the guest room opened and Lauren appeared. Instinctively, Bonnie took a small step back.
“I’m just going to the bathroom.” Lauren motioned toward the small room at the end of the hall.
“There are fresh towels and a new bar of soap,” Bonnie said as Lauren brushed past her. “If you need anything else…”
Lauren entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
“…just call,” Bonnie said. “Give her time and space,” she reminded herself, returning to her bedroom, seeing Rod already underneath the covers. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said, pulling her dress over her head, dropping it to the floor, sliding out of her underwear and into bed beside her husband, looking forward to the luxury of his arms. Maybe he was right. He’d always known exactly how and where to touch her. She snuggled in against him, felt the steady rise and fall of his bare chest.
He was asleep, she realized with a smile, running her hand along his warm skin, delicately kissing his slightly parted lips. He looks like a little boy, she thought, the troubled lines around his eyes and mouth now smooth with sleep.