Sisters

by Patricia MacDonald

  ‘Ms Woods,’ said a low, rumbling voice. ‘Alex Woods.’

  ‘I’m Alex Woods,’ said Joy.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then the man said, ‘No, you ain’t.’

  Joy murmured something but the man persisted. ‘’Less there’s two of you.’

  Joy faked an airy laugh. It came out sounding tragic. ‘I’m kidding. We’re cousins,’ she said.

  ‘I smell gas,’ he said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  ‘I don’t smell anything,’ Joy said.

  Yes, it’s gas. Help. Alex tried to cry out through the gag in her mouth. All that emerged were grunting noises. She tried to dislodge the dishrag with her tongue to no avail.

  ‘It sure smells like gas to me,’ the man at the door said.

  ‘Well, I can’t help that,’ Joy said impatiently. ‘Is that all, officer?’

  Officer? Alex thought. Was it Detective Langford, she wondered, her heart leaping up in hope. The man’s voice sounded as if he might be black.

  ‘Don’t go closing that door on me,’ said the man. ‘Answer my question, please. Where is Alex Woods? This is her house, isn’t it?’

  ‘She’s not here,’ said Joy. ‘Look, I really have to go.’

  ‘Ma’am, that is gas that I smell. You better get out of this house. I can call the gas company for you from out here.’

  ‘No, don’t!’ Joy cried. ‘Just go away. It’s fine.’

  ‘Fine? The house could blow up.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe the flame went out on one of the burners. I’ll go have a look.’

  ‘And Ms Woods?’ the man said stubbornly.

  ‘Do you have her number?’ Joy asked.

  ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘You should call her.’

  ‘I need to talk to her face-to-face,’ the man insisted.

  ‘Can’t help you with that,’ said Joy. ‘Now, if you don’t mind . . .’

  Alex could not hear what the man said in reply. She heard the murmur of his deep voice and then silence. She was praying that he would insist on coming in. That he would not acquiesce. After a minute, she heard Joy mutter, ‘Finally.’ The front door slammed shut.

  Alex’s heart sank. Between the smell of the gas and the rag in her mouth, she felt like she was on the verge of suffocation. And now the man at the door had given up and departed. He may have been unconvinced, but he probably wasn’t about to force his way into a house where the lone occupant appeared to be a young woman. She didn’t blame him. That was lawsuit territory. It could be the end of his career. But she felt as if she had lost her only hope for escape.

  Maybe he’ll call the gas company, she thought. And then she felt a renewed sense of futility. The gas company never responded promptly. Everybody knew that. Joy will have set off the explosion by then. At that moment Joy walked back into the kitchen.

  Alex looked up at her balefully.

  ‘That was close,’ Joy said. ‘For a minute I thought he was going to insist on coming in here. He doesn’t realize how lucky he is. One flick of this lighter . . .’ She had taken it from her pocket and was looking down at it as if mesmerized.

  Alex’s stomach churned. Was it coming now? No, she thought. Shit. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Joy, picking up the tranquilizer gun from the counter and tucking it into her waistband. ‘I’ll knock you out before I set it off. You won’t even feel it.’

  Joy’s phone rang, and she pulled it from another pocket.

  The desperate look in her eyes softened. ‘It’s Therese,’ she said. ‘I have to take this.’ She walked out of the kitchen, and, from the next room, Alex could hear the sound of her voice rising and falling. She must be saying her goodbyes, Alex thought. How nice for her. What about my goodbyes? She thought of Seth, arriving tomorrow. A day late. She thought of the life she would never have with him, and it made her heart ache. Tears seeped out from under her closed eyelids.

  All of this had happened because she had decided to search for her sister. Her mother could never have imagined that her letter, revealing Alex’s long-lost sister, would lead to this. You couldn’t have known, Alex thought, addressing her mother in her heart.

  Suddenly Alex heard a faint tapping sound. Her eyes widened. She turned her head and looked in the direction of the porch door. Darkness had fallen over the yard outside and darkness was all she could see. That, and the reflection on the glass panes in the door of the lights from the house. And then, with a start, and a cry muffled by her gag, she realized that she was looking into a pair of eyes in the darkness. They were frowning at her. Peering past the reflections in the glass, she made out the contours of a face.

  It was a black man, looking in. He was wearing something dark, and was rendered almost invisible in the night. But his electric gaze was sweeping the room. He looked straight into Alex’s eyes again and pressed a finger to his lips.

  Alex stared back at him. She looked in the direction of the dining room. She could still hear Joy talking on the phone, her voice strained and anxious.

  The man frowned and reached down for the doorknob. He turned it, but it didn’t open. Joy had locked it. And thanks to the recent visit from the locksmith, the lock was not about to disengage easily.

  Alex looked at him helplessly. From his place out on the porch, he was studying the kitchen, searching for something. Alex glanced back toward the murmuring voice in the other room.

  The man outside the door fastened his gaze on a waist-high, rolling wooden cart beside Alex. Alex followed his gaze. The open cart had always served as a makeshift bar for her parents. There were several bottles of alcohol on it, the liquid inside them at varying heights. There was also a pair of shot glasses, some wine glasses and two brandy snifters.

  The man at the door gestured to Alex. She did not understand what he was trying to convey. She shook her head. He pointed to the glass pane in the door nearest the doorknob. Then he pantomimed breaking the glass and reaching inside. At last, Alex understood what he was saying. He was going to break the pane, reach through and unlock the door from the inside. She watched him, hope and fear mixed in her gaze.

  Then he pointed to Alex and from her, to the whiskey cart beside her. He jerked his body as if to show her what to do. It took her a minute to read his signals. He wanted her to knock into the cart. For a moment she couldn’t comprehend why he would want her to do this. She looked at him helplessly, shaking her head. The man stood still for a moment, thinking. Then he pretended to lift a glass to his lips. He used his large fingers in a dainty fashion to indicate that it was a glass with a stem. A wine glass. She frowned as he pretended to hurl the glass to the ground. As Alex watched him closely, he pointed from his invisible broken glass to the top of the rolling bar cart. Then it came to her. There were glasses on the cart. He wanted her to knock the glasses off the cart so they would break on the tiled floor. Why? she wondered. She felt confused, the oppressive smell of the gas making it difficult to think.

  The man seemed to sense her confusion. He patiently pointed to glasses on the cart and then to himself, pantomiming once again, the act of breaking the glass pane in the door. Suddenly Alex got it. Aha! she thought. She understood. When the glasses fell, their breaking would cover the sound of the door pane breaking. Alex sagged with relief that she finally knew what he meant. When Joy heard the glass break, she would rush into the kitchen. If her attention weren’t diverted, Joy would instantly see Alex’s rescuer opening the door. This diversion of breaking the glasses on the bar cart might give the man a short but necessary window of time to enter the house.

  Alex got it. She nodded and shifted her chair slightly. Alex didn’t dare scrape it too far along the floor. If Joy heard that she would be in here in a flash, her lighter at the ready. She just moved a few inches closer to the cart so that she would be in position to knock the glasses off it.

  The man raised three fingers. Alex understood. On the count of three. She nodded again. The man
grimly mimed a fist bump. Then he raised one finger. Two. Three. On three, Alex used her shoulder, her side and even the back of the chair to crash into the cart.

  There was the sound of smashing glass.

  Joy came running in, still holding the phone in her hand. ‘What was that?’

  Alex looked sheepishly at the broken snifters on the floor.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Joy asked.

  Alex looked down at the broken glass.

  ‘You think you’re going to cut yourself loose? Use them as a weapon maybe? Forget it, Alex. You can’t stop me. This is the end for us. Use your time to say your prayers.’ Joy turned her back on Alex and put the phone back to her ear.

  ‘All right, sweetie,’ Joy said. ‘I have to go now. But I want you to remember how much I love you. Don’t ever forget.’

  The man on the porch reached through the door pane and unlocked the door. Alex made as loud a gargling sound as possible in her throat to cover the click of the lock.

  The next moments seemed to pass in slow motion. The man pushed the door open as Joy turned and suddenly realized what was happening. Alex saw, as if from underwater, the door banging open. The man, who was wearing a midnight-blue uniform, lunged across the room and tackled Joy before she could react. Her phone skittered across the tiles, landing near Alex.

  ‘No,’ Joy wailed. ‘Let me go. I have to do this.’

  But Mr S. Robinson, for Alex recognized him at last, was huge and strong, and in no mood to be blown sky-high. ‘Sorry, lady. Not gonna happen today.’ He pressed Joy’s face to the floor, straddled her and, with one hand, took his handcuffs off his belt and fastened them around her wrists. Then he stood up, dragging Joy to her feet, and hauled her out onto the porch where he shoved her roughly into a chair. She began to weep, crying out in frustration.

  He came back inside, rushed to the stove and turned off the gas. He ran to the windows and threw them open. Finally he picked up Alex, chair and all, and half-dragged, half-carried her out onto the porch, leaving the door wide open. He removed her gag.

  Alex gasped and drank in the air. Her lungs ached, but her heart rose up like a balloon. ‘Thank you,’ she gasped.

  Joy slid from the chair to the floor, on her knees, wailing.

  ‘She has a tranquilizer gun. And a lighter,’ Alex said.

  Robinson crouched down and patted Joy’s pockets. He tucked the gun into his own waistband and pulled out the lighter. He slipped it into his own pocket. ‘Not anymore she don’t,’ he said.

  ‘I was so afraid you were going to leave,’ Alex said.

  The man shook his head as he untied her. ‘No. But I could tell that, for some reason, she didn’t care if she ended up in an explosion. I had to be careful.’

  ‘You’re right. She was planning to blow us both up.’

  The man exhaled. ‘Whew. What’s she got against you?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Alex.

  ‘I’m gonna call for some help here,’ he said.

  Alex nodded as the man opened the door to the porch and went out on the steps. He fished his phone from the pocket of his jacket and punched in 911. Alex shook out her arms and legs and looked in amazement at Joy, who had tumbled all the way over onto the porch floor, her hands cuffed behind her. Her face was streaked and puffy with tears.

  ‘What have I done to my baby?’ Joy cried.

  ‘Stop it,’ Alex said. ‘At least you’re still alive. She still has you.’

  ‘Her life will be ruined. I can’t stand to watch it.’

  ‘You think that Therese would be better off living her life with that terrible secret? She’s already suffering. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself.’

  ‘FUCK YOU!’ Joy screamed.

  ‘Scream all you want,’ said Alex. ‘It’s over.’

  Mr Robinson ended his call and came back to the porch.

  Alex rubbed her liberated wrists and studied his face. ‘I recognize you,’ she said. ‘You’re the guard from the county jail.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said.

  ‘How did you find me?’ Alex asked.

  Robinson sighed. ‘You gave me all your information at the jail,’ he said. ‘Remember?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Alex. ‘That’s right. God, I’m so lucky that you showed up here.’ And then Alex was struck with an alarming thought. ‘Wait a minute. Why did you show up here?’ she asked.

  Officer Robinson grimaced. ‘I need to talk to you about your sister,’ he said.

  ‘Dory? What about her?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Well, when you visited her earlier, you made such a fuss about her being depressed. You said that if we didn’t watch out for her you’d be all over us. I’m ashamed that we kind of blew off your concern. ’Cause you were right. I figured I had better come over here and tell you what happened in person.’

  Alex stared at him, hardly daring to ask. She was trembling from head to toe. ‘Right about what?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Woods. You weren’t gone half an hour when your sister hanged herself in her cell.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  ‘No!’ Alex cried. ‘No. She’s dead?’

  ‘She’s not dead,’ said Robinson. ‘Thanks to you, she’s not dead. After you came around raising hell like that, Witkowski decided to go and make an unscheduled check on her cell. He found her just in time. She’d used her bedsheet to make a noose. She’s in the hospital though.’

  ‘Oh my God. Is she gonna live?’ Alex asked.

  Robinson nodded. ‘Luckily she didn’t snap her neck. And didn’t have time to asphyxiate herself. The doctor said she’s gonna be all right. I swear, it was just luck that you came by and raised hell about that. It turns out you were right on the money.’

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ said Alex. ‘Oh, Dory.’ She turned on Joy who was still on the floor, sniffling. ‘This is your fault,’ she said. ‘You framed her. Both times. Did you hide that knife so it would look like Dory was the one who attacked me?’

  Joy nodded, her body shuddering with quiet sobs. ‘I had to,’ she said.

  Alex glared at her. ‘You have not done Therese any favors. Although you’re probably more likely to go to jail than she is.’

  Joy stared ahead blankly and did not reply.

  Alex turned to Officer Robinson. ‘Look, I shouldn’t ask you for another thing, but I don’t think I can drive. I’m too shaken up. Could I ask you to take me to the hospital where Dory is?’

  ‘Sure. That’s one reason I came by. I figured you might need someone to take you there. It seems like the least I could do. But we have to stay here a little longer until the police arrive. They’re going to want to question you.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Not too long, I hope,’ he said. ‘Try calling the hospital.’

  ‘Which one? I don’t even know where she is.’

  Officer Robinson took her phone and began to punch numbers into it. He handed the phone to Alex. ‘At least you can check on her condition.’

  There were sirens approaching and it sounded as if the noise was going to engulf the house. Alex put a finger in her ear and waited while the phone rang.

  ‘Boston General,’ said a pleasant voice.

  ‘Hi,’ said Alex. ‘I’m calling to check on my sister’s condition. She was brought in to emergency this evening.’

  While Alex sat on hold, listening to a classical music quartet, a phalanx of policemen entered the house, led by Officer Robinson who had greeted them at the door. Robinson pointed out Joy, who was curled up on the porch floor, seemingly oblivious to the cold night air.

  ‘This woman was planning to blow up this house and everything in it. Including herself and this young woman over here on the phone. I found this one gagged and tied to a chair.’

  Alex’s call had reached the nurse’s station. ‘I’m calling about my sister, Dory Colson. They brought her in earlier.’

  The nurse hesitated. ‘This the one they brought in from the prison?�
��

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Alex.

  ‘She’s stable. But she’s not leaving. She’s under observation in the psych wing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Alex. At least she’s stable. That was some consolation, she thought. Before she gave the phone back to Officer Robinson, she made one more call. The phone rang and a woman picked up.

  ‘Elaine,’ said Alex.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Alex. I’m calling about Dory. She attempted suicide at the jail this evening.’

  There was a silence from Elaine’s end of the phone.

  ‘She tried to hang herself but luckily they found her in time. She’s at Boston General. She’s stable. She’ll survive.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ asked Elaine in a confrontational tone, although her voice was shaky.

  ‘You’re her mother. I thought you would want to know,’ said Alex. ‘I thought you also might want to know that Joy tried to blow up my house this evening. With me in it.’

  ‘Joy? Our Joy?’

  Our Joy? Alex thought. What about our Dory? ‘Yes, your Joy. She tried to kill me. She’s about to be arrested for that. Also for stabbing me in the back last week and hiding the knife in Dory’s room,’ said Alex. It was undeniably gratifying, relating all this to Elaine.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Elaine weakly.

  ‘Well, it’s a long story, which will all come out in due time. But I’ll tell you right now. Dory had nothing to do with Lauren’s death. That’s for sure.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Elaine demanded.

  ‘Because now I know who her killer was.’

  ‘Who?’ Elaine demanded anxiously. ‘You have to tell me what you know.’

  Alex looked up at the detective in charge, who was waiting to talk to her. She liked the idea of Elaine having to wait. How long had she made Dory wait? ‘I can’t talk now. I have to go,’ Alex said. ‘I have to go get my dog free. She locked him in the shed out back. I just called to let you know about Dory.’

  It was almost an hour before the police were finished with Alex and Joy had been taken away, under arrest for attempted murder. Alex looked regretfully at Officer Robinson. ‘It’s late. You probably want to get home,’ she said. ‘You’ll miss dinner.’