I understood. I noticed that the water was still running in the sink even though she had finished washing up. I leaned across the counter and pushed the handle down. “He didn’t suffer,” I lied. Not if you don’t count the massive blow to the head. “Maybe it was a heart attack,” I said, hoping that just one punch to the head couldn’t kill someone. And that was coming from a literature professor, an excellent source for cause of death if there ever was one. “He just fell to his knees and …” I thought of a more appropriate word. “Took his last breath. It was very fast.” More than I wanted to say but it would have to do.
“Did he say anything?” she asked.
I searched my memory. Although I thought the experience and every detail of it would be seared in my memory forever, I found myself losing pieces of it already. Was he wearing his glasses when he came back in? Did he ever retrieve the missing shoe? What color was his shirt? It was all a blur. I couldn’t remember if he said anything and I didn’t want to lie and say something like “tell Lydia I love her” because that would just sound too made up. But I couldn’t help myself. “He said, ‘Lydia.’ ” If she ever caught me in the lie, by trying to confirm this detail with Greg or the police officer, I would say that everyone was in a state of shock at the time and that their memories were betraying them.
“But he didn’t suffer,” she said, more of a statement than a question.
“No,” I replied. “He didn’t suffer. It happened very quickly.”
“Because I don’t know what I would do if I thought that he had suffered greatly.” Her gaze returned to the sink.
“I’m very sorry for your loss.” It was a sentiment that didn’t bear repeating but I had nothing else to contribute.
She smiled politely, but briefly, and leaned onto the edge of the sink, her sizable bracelet clanging against the side. “What happened to your eye?”
Again, a lie seemed better than the truth. “A door. Actually, a doorknob.” I shrugged as a way of conveying my klutziness. “Should have turned on the light when I got up in the middle of the night.”
She looked at me pityingly and pursed her lips, beginning to say something but thinking better of it. It was clear that she wasn’t buying my story, but she obviously hadn’t put two and two together about how I had ended up looking like this and I was glad for that. I wondered if the police had told her that because of her husband’s major brawl with George Miller, I was going to look like Rocky Balboa for the better part of a week. I’m guessing that they had but I was also guessing that she had decided to put that somewhere else in her brain where she wouldn’t have to think about it.
“The ME still doesn’t know for sure what he died of.” She was concerned obviously about that fact. “They suspect blunt force trauma to the head but they won’t be sure until the autopsy is done.”
“It was quick.” I decided that after adding that little repeated gem, I wouldn’t speak unless spoken to.
“What were you doing there?”
“Where?”
“Beans, Beans.”
Wasn’t that obvious? Maybe not. The coffee was horrendous. “Getting coffee.” I let go of the counter. I don’t know why I felt compelled to offer my unsubstantiated opinion, but I did. “Maybe it was a heart attack. Or an aneurysm. Something major and fatal. A stroke, maybe. There was no time.” I found myself choking up, something that I shouldn’t be doing in front of a dead man’s wife. “And they tried,” I said, a tear falling onto the counter. “I was there. They tried.”
Lydia came over to me and graciously put her arms around me. “It must have been horrible for you,” she whispered.
It was! I wanted to cry, but I gently disengaged from her hug and wiped a hand across my face. “I need to go,” I said. “I just wanted to say I was sorry.”
Lydia called out to me as I passed the powder room in the hallway. “Alison. One more thing.”
I went back into the kitchen, once again astounded by the view from their French doors. I went back to my place at the counter.
“It doesn’t matter how he died,” she said. “He would have died eventually.” She saw my face and quickly amended, “We all do.”
I thought about George Miller and his involvement in all of this. Was he the one who had attached the device to the car engine, sending pieces of it sailing through town? Or was the fight completely unrelated to what would have been the eventual murder of Carter Wilmott? I didn’t know, but I did know that I had spent way too much time in his house and I had to get out. I didn’t even think about asking the question that was on my mind but for which I already had something of an answer: who wanted your husband dead? Short answer? Everyone. I bid good-bye to Lydia again and left the kitchen. I went into the hallway and was just about at the door when I heard Elaine’s voice behind me.
“He was as healthy as a horse, you know.”
I turned and looked at her. “Pardon me?”
“Carter. Healthy as a horse. He just had a checkup last week.”
That’s great, I thought. That hadn’t helped him when he keeled over in front of me in Beans, Beans from maybe an aneurysm, maybe blunt force trauma to his head. I wondered if his doctor was hiding under his desk, his malpractice insurance policy clenched in his trembling hands. Elaine looked at me, waiting to hear my response. “Well, that’s interesting,” I said, for lack of anything else to contribute. I felt as if I had stumbled into one of those real-life mystery parties where there is a dead guy, lots of suspects, and one person who can figure the whole thing out.
“Don’t you think it’s strange?” she asked.
“People die of mysterious causes all the time,” I said. Or they die from getting punched in the head. If they don’t die of that, they get in their car and get blown up, particularly if they are Carter Wilmott, seemingly the most unlucky man ever to have lived. I didn’t say anything else because I didn’t want to incriminate George Miller any more than he had already incriminated himself. Although the ME suspected the blow to the head as the culprit, Carter looked way too winded and sick for someone who had only been in a fight. “He probably had an aneurysm. A stroke.” Brought on by getting boxed in the head. I was back to my old script. Who knew? I had no experience with people dying suddenly and of seemingly natural causes. Everybody around me lately seemed to die a violent, untimely death. What was I supposed to do? Assume that he was murdered by George Miller? From a punch to the head? Or was I supposed to sit around and wonder who had the means and motive to create a car bomb and attach it to his engine? Not much of a mystery concerning the punch to the head; the ME would be all over that in a matter of days if that was the case. The car bomb, however, was definitely a more interesting twist in the case.
Elaine raised an eyebrow. “I just think it’s weird,” she said cryptically. I decided that Elaine was the sister that they kept locked in the attic; all that time alone had given her a flair for the dramatic. She had probably been constructing this mystery in her head for years after reading the Nancy Drew book The Secret of the Old Clock.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” I said, “but I just came to say I was sorry.” She pulled at a loose thread hanging from the waistband of her sweat suit and I got nervous. What if she unraveled the thread and her pants fell down? I was getting out of there as quickly as I could. “I’m sorry,” I repeated for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I just wanted to say that.”
But as I walked down the street, I admitted to myself that I hadn’t been there to say I was sorry. I had been there to nose around. Nobody just drops dead for no good reason in a coffee shop. At least I didn’t think so. George Miller, in my opinion, would have to have fists of steel to have killed Carter with one blow. But now, having met the grieving woman in person, I realized that going there was just a horrible, selfish thing to do. I got into my car, gave the news van the finger, and drove back to my house.
Six
I was in a black mood by the time I got home, still in a tizzy about what I h
ad witnessed the day before, and angry at myself for going to the Wilmotts’. I was even angrier at myself for buying into Elaine’s conspiracy theory, whatever that was. He was a healthy guy. So what? That wasn’t a guarantee that his heart would suddenly stop working, or his aorta would explode after the fight he had had with the DPW guy, or that a vein in his head would begin to bleed and would kill him almost instantly. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her beady eyes and the thread on her sweatpants and her insistence that Carter had been healthy. And about the fact that Carter would have been blown to smithereens had he not died in front of the muffin case of Beans, Beans. He was a healthy guy with a car about to blow up, and a lot of enemies, I suspected.
Although I had locked the house up before I left, Max and Fred were sitting inside, at the kitchen table, Trixie by Fred’s side. Max gave me a cheery “Hello!” while Fred just grunted. That was the best I was going to get.
The torn screen over my sink indicated Max’s point of entry. She saw me looking at it and offered a weak, “Sorry.” Max has a history of jumping in and out of windows; she’s a regular break-in artist. Given that she’s petite and wiry and has some experience at it, she’d be a perfect second-story man. Fred didn’t look contrite at all considering I knew that he had hoisted her up to the window, in, and over the sink right below it.
I pointed at the screen. “You’re paying for that.” I went to the refrigerator, opened it, and peered inside. Unless I wanted a caper, pickle, and mayonnaise sandwich on stale bread, there was nothing to eat. I looked at the clock; it was twelve-thirty. I had a little breathing room before Crawford appeared. “And you’re getting it fixed today, so I hope you can find a hardware store that’s open.”
“Where were you?” Max asked. “And have you been crying?”
I closed the refrigerator with a loud thud; I wasn’t in the mood to explain. “What do you guys want to eat?” I asked. I pointed at the screen again but was at a loss for words. Surely Fred could have found a better way to gain entrance to the house.
Max and Fred stared at me; it’s the rare occasion that I call them out on their venial sins, but today was one of those times. My meeting with Lydia Wilmott, while seemingly uneventful, had left me rattled. I was mad at myself for having insinuated myself in her life under the pretense of compassion. It was just plain wrong. And I was going to make myself, and everyone around me, pay.
Even the sight of Crawford coming through the front door earlier than I had expected him did nothing to dampen my feelings of shame and self-loathing. He sauntered down the hallway toward the kitchen, took in the faces on the three of us, and whistled through his teeth. “What am I walking into here?”
“What do you want for lunch?” I asked. “These two have gone dumb,” I added, hooking a thumb in Max and Fred’s direction.
Crawford leaned down and let Trixie nuzzle his neck. “Turkey. Ham. Tuna. Whatever.”
“That’s not helpful,” I said. “And what are you doing here so early?”
He gave me a steely look; Crawford does not enjoy crankiness, particularly mine. He turned and walked back down the hall toward the front door. “Let’s start over.” He let himself out, and then back in, calling, “Honey! I’m home!”
I couldn’t help but smile. When he came back into the kitchen, I put my arms around him and buried my head in his chest. “They broke my screen.” I didn’t have to mention that I had seen a man die and subsequently, his dead body, and that was the reason for my sullenness; telling Crawford that would be a little ridiculous. He had probably seen a dozen dead bodies in as many days in the past month.
He looked over my head and saw the damage. “Have I taught you nothing?” he asked Fred. “You’ve got better skills than that.”
“I was hungry,” Fred said. Oh, that explains it.
I asked Crawford to come with me to the grocery store. Before we left, I asked Max to walk the dog. When I saw that she was going to object, citing her hatred of anything on four legs, I shot her a look and pointed at her. “Not a word. The leash is hanging right there,” I said, pointing to the hook that Crawford had installed by the back door.
We went outside and I heard someone call my name. Across the street, my neighbor and friend, Jane Farnsworth, was jogging across her lawn and making her way toward mine. “Alison!” she called, waving as she ran. She joined us on the driveway and caught her breath. “Did you hear what happened?” she asked and then, taking in my appearance, revised her question. “What happened to you?”
“Long story,” I said.
She stared at the black eye for a few seconds and that reminded me of just how bad I looked. I needed a big pair of sunglasses. “Did you hear about Carter Wilmott?” she asked, starting to cry.
“I did,” I said. “Did you know him?”
She nodded. “Lydia is a friend of mine,” she said. “We met in playgroup when Brendan and her son, Tyler, were two.”
Small town, I thought. Everyone knows everyone. Except for me. I don’t know anyone except for Jane, her two sons, and her partner, Kathy. I had never laid eyes on Carter or Lydia before the past two days. “I just saw Lydia,” I said, and could sense Crawford’s surprise; I knew there would be questions to answer on that front. “I was there when he died.”
Jane grabbed her chest and gasped. “You were?”
“I was. He died quickly,” I assured her, this becoming my mantra. I suspected it wouldn’t be the last time I recited that fact about Carter’s death.
“Lydia is devastated.” She wiped her hands across her eyes. “She hasn’t made arrangements yet. There’s going to be an autopsy. He was as healthy as a horse.” Clearly, Jane didn’t know the exact details of what had happened, the blow to the head, or the fact that Carter was in distress before that happened. She also didn’t mention the car exploding and I wondered if Lydia left that little tidbit out of the conversation. Seemed likely. A lot had happened that day.
“Would you let me know when the arrangements are finalized?” I asked.
Jane seemed a little surprised that I would want that information but she assured me that she would. “I’ll call you later.” She broke down and I put my arms around her, happy to be comforting her and not the one being comforted. I’m in that position far too often and felt as though I were using up all of the good will I had in the comfort bank. When she composed herself, she kissed my cheek and started back toward her house.
Inside the house, I heard Max calling to Trixie. I knew the dog wouldn’t come. She finds Max exhausting and hides under the dining room table every time she’s around. I took that into account when I had asked Max to walk her; it would take at least a half hour to track the dog down and get her on the leash, which would hopefully keep Max occupied during my absence. Leaving Max without a task is akin to giving a toddler a roll of toilet paper: there won’t be too much of a mess but you’ll still have a lot to clean up. “Will there be a murder investigation?” I asked as we walked to the car.
He opened the passenger side door for me. “Sounds like they’ve already got the guy.”
I slid in and waited for him to get into the car. “George Miller.”
“They’ll probably get him on manslaughter. The fight, the big blow to the head, it’s all there.” He looked over at me and could tell that I was dubious. “Whatever you’re thinking, Inspector Clouseau, forget about it. The police will investigate, and hopefully find out, who put the device on the engine, and that person will go away for attempted murder along with George Miller,” he said, stressing “attempted.” “But if you want more information, call my brother, the hotshot lawyer, and have at it.” He backed down the driveway, our conversation obviously over. There’s nothing worse than a hungry Crawford.
He drove us to the Stop & Shop at the corner of Route 9, but thankfully, he didn’t ask me about my visit to Lydia Wilmott’s house. That didn’t mean we wouldn’t be discussing it later. I grabbed a cart and wheeled it inside, happy to be doing something normal and ordinary
, like looking at fruit and deciding between potato salad and cole slaw. He followed behind me, admiring the big selection of fruits and vegetables; Crawford lives on the Upper West Side and gets most of his groceries from the Korean grocer two doors down from his apartment. Suburban grocery stores never ceased to amaze him with their size and selection. I turned to hand him a bag of limes but instead found myself staring at Lydia Wilmott, an Hermès kerchief on her head, giant black sunglasses hiding her presumably red, tear-filled eyes. I stuttered out her name, careful not to alert the other shoppers that the newly widowed woman walked among us in the grocery store.
Crawford dropped the kiwi he was holding and waited for an introduction. “Lydia Wilmott, Bobby Crawford,” I said, and she took his hand tentatively. I didn’t go into the whole, “he’s my boyfriend even though we’re too old for that terminology but I haven’t decided whether or not to mess up a good thing by marrying him” spiel.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Crawford said, good former altar boy that he was.
Lydia stood, straight-backed, her hands gripping the handle of her shopping cart. Her lips were set in a grim horizontal line and she stared at Crawford from behind her very expensive designer sunglasses, ignoring his condolences. “I appreciated your visit this morning, Alison.” She plucked a kiwi from the stack next to Crawford and threw it into her cart. “I had to get out of the house. There are too many people there and I just need to be doing something normal.”
“I understand,” I said. I handed her a bunch of bananas that she was too far away to reach and she thanked me.
She turned to Crawford and addressed him. “What did you say your name was?”
“Crawford,” he said. “Bobby Crawford.”
She nodded slowly. She continued to appraise him from behind her dark glasses, and while I was used to Crawford getting admiring glances from the opposite sex, I sensed that this wasn’t one of those occasions. She was studying him for some other reason, its nature indeterminate to me. “And what is it that you do for a living, Mr. Crawford?”
Third Degree Page 5