Don't Believe a Word

by Patricia MacDonald

  ‘It’s okay. We’re slow tonight. Come with me.’

  Eden followed the girl in her long, swaying skirt and boots, to the swinging door with its porthole-like window at the back of the room. Amalie opened the door and yelled in. ‘Mom, someone here to see you.’ She turned back to Eden.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Eden.’

  ‘Her name is Eden,’ Amalie called out.

  Marguerite appeared at the door, wearing a long, lavishly stained apron over jeans and a tank top. ‘Eden!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘It’s good to be here,’ said Eden truthfully.

  ‘Come in. Come through,’ said Marguerite. ‘Thanks, chérie,’ she said, smiling at her daughter, who headed back to the front of the restaurant.

  ‘I didn’t realize you were cooking tonight,’ said Eden.

  ‘It’s all right. I need a break. Come outside with me. I’ll have a smoke. Here. Take this.’ She threw together a plate of delicious-looking food and handed it to Eden. Then she picked up two glasses of wine. ‘Bring it with you.’

  Eden took the plate, while Marguerite juggled the wine and shrugged herself into a parka which was too large for her and had seen better days. She headed back through a storage area, passing a door on her left, and going to a door at the end of the room. Eden had the terrible thought that they were headed out to where the garbage was stored. She should have known better. Even casual and al fresco, it was, after all, a French meal.

  Marguerite set one of the glasses down on a small, café-style table, and gestured to Eden to join her. Eden followed her hostess and found herself on a long, narrow screen porch along the back of the building, which looked out on a dark parking lot. Marguerite closed the door to the storage room behind her and rummaged in the pocket of the parka, pulling out a box of matches and a cigarette. Eden sat down on the small, wrought-iron chair and placed her plate on the table. Marguerite took her cigarette to the opposite end of the porch and lit it, taking a sip of wine from her glass. She exhaled with a sigh of relief or contentment or both.

  Then she looked at Eden. ‘Go ahead. Eat. Use your fingers.’

  Eden needed no further encouragement. She picked up a spear of asparagus and dipped it in a creamy, garlicky sauce that tasted heavenly. ‘Mmmm …’ she said.

  ‘My smoke doesn’t bother you?’ asked Marguerite.

  ‘No,’ said Eden, and, strangely, it was true. ‘This is delicious.’

  ‘Thanks. So, what’s going on?’

  Eden hurriedly chewed and swallowed the bread and garlicky sauce in her mouth. ‘I just came from the police station. The detective wanted to talk to me about the shooting.’

  Marguerite nodded. ‘Surely they don’t think it was you that shot him?’

  Eden smiled and shook her head. ‘Nope. For my sins. It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Do they know who did it?’

  ‘No. They know he was shot with his grandfather’s gun. Service revolver. Apparently, Flynn had taken it from him long ago.’

  Marguerite looked surprised. ‘You’re kidding. So that means that whoever shot him … it was someone close to Flynn. Someone who could have taken his gun …? Do they have any suspects?’

  Eden shook her head. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. But I told them what I found out. That Flynn was having an affair with Lizzy.’

  ‘Lizzy,’ Marguerite cried. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Oh, you can believe it. I saw the pictures.’

  Marguerite shook her head. ‘But Lizzy? She’s married. She and her husband were so in love.’

  ‘Not any more. She and Flynn are now crazy about one another.’

  ‘Good God. I just … I can’t … She’s such a good girl. I would never expect this from her. Flynn, yes. Certainly. But Lizzy?’

  ‘She tried to convince me that this just started a few days ago. But I have my doubts,’ said Eden. ‘She spent a lot of time with the family.’

  ‘Yes, she did. God, I always knew he was a cheater.’

  ‘Well, you were right,’ said Eden.

  Marguerite frowned and inhaled another drag on her cigarette, gazing out into the darkness. ‘What a mess. Do you think it was a lover’s quarrel? Do you think Lizzy shot him?’

  ‘No, I don’t. She’s completely distraught.’

  ‘Oh no. Tell me it’s not DeShaun …’ Marguerite said sadly.

  ‘I don’t know who shot Flynn,’ Eden said. ‘DeShaun seems to have an alibi. The police are working on it.’

  Marguerite shook her head. ‘Wow. I didn’t know about any of this.’

  ‘But you saw them together, right? While my mother was alive?’

  ‘Who? Lizzy and Flynn?’

  Eden nodded.

  Marguerite took another drag on her cigarette, frowning. ‘I saw them in the same room from time to time … Why?’

  ‘Lizzy swears that they never acted on their feelings while my mother was alive. But now I am wondering if my mother suspected there was something between them.’

  Marguerite shook her head slowly. ‘I know what you’re asking. But no. I never saw anything going on between them. No. I didn’t.’

  Eden felt vaguely disappointed. ‘Well, you probably weren’t expecting to see anything so you didn’t.’

  ‘Your mother only had the nicest things to say about that girl. Always.’

  Eden thought about that. It seemed unlikely that her mother would be singing the praises of her rival for Flynn’s affections. Unless she really didn’t know.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s true that they didn’t consummate it when my mother was alive. But Flynn isn’t known for his self-restraint. Or his moral fiber.’

  ‘Well, you know how I feel about him. I told you the last time we talked …’ Marguerite crushed her cigarette with the toe of her boot. ‘In fact, I never told you this, but I was so suspicious of him that I called the insurance company and the police and suggested they ought to look into whether he might have … helped your mother and Jeremy on their way.’

  ‘That was you?’ Eden exclaimed. ‘You were the source of the tip?’

  Marguerite glanced at Eden, and nodded sheepishly. ‘Believe me, I have never done anything like that before. I did it anonymously. It wasn’t as though I knew anything concrete. But I just had such bad feelings about that guy. I hope you’re not angry I did that …’

  ‘No …’ said Eden, although, in truth, the anonymous tip now smacked of innuendo, and not actual facts.

  ‘When I heard about all that insurance money. The thought of him getting that when your poor mother …’

  ‘I understand,’ said Eden. ‘I suspected him too.’

  Marguerite peered at her. ‘You say that like you don’t anymore.’

  Eden thought of Flynn’s outraged eyes when she accused him. ‘No, I don’t. Not anymore.’ She sipped her wine. It gave her a warm glow despite the chilly seat on the porch. ‘But I did want to ask you about something. You told me that story about seeing Flynn in a car with a woman. You said she seemed to be crying, and he was consoling her. Do you think that was Lizzy?’

  Marguerite frowned. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  Eden was surprised. ‘No? Why not?’

  ‘Because …’ Marguerite was searching her memory. ‘No. I don’t know why. I’m just sure it wasn’t Lizzy.’

  Eden was dissatisfied with that response. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘It’s a gut feeling. I’d have to think about it.’

  ‘Is it possible that he had somebody else before Lizzy?’ said Eden.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Marguerite exclaimed. ‘Of course it’s possible. I don’t think Flynn has any scruples. Let me think.’ Her brow was furrowed as she tried to remember the sequence of events. ‘Wait. I remember this now, Eden,’ she said, jabbing the air with a fresh cigarette. ‘I was coming from your mother’s house that day. I was on my way to my house when I saw him in the car with the weeping woman. I hav
e no idea who she was. But when I walked in my house, Lizzy was there. She was halfway through the interview with my husband, Gerard, and the children. In fact, she had my middle one on her lap. She was already there at my house. Had been there for some time. They got tired of waiting and started without me.’

  Eden stared at her. ‘So it couldn’t have been Lizzy,’ she said, half in disbelief.

  ‘Flynn is worthless. But no. It wasn’t Lizzy.’

  ‘Maybe he threw this other woman over for Lizzy, and she shot him.’

  Marguerite shook her head. ‘That guy should learn to keep it in his pants.’

  ‘Maybe this will teach him,’ said Eden. ‘If he pulls through.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Eden let herself into Flynn’s quiet house and closed the door behind her. She had thought about stopping by the hospital to check on him, but what she felt was more curiosity than concern. So it didn’t seem to be the right thing to do. She felt sorry for Lizzy, sitting by his bedside keeping watch over him. He had come into Lizzy’s life with the same whirlwind force for destruction with which he had once entered Tara’s life. And it would probably have the same result, she thought. Lizzy’s carefully ordered life would be in ruins. Flynn was good at that.

  But was it any more than that? she wondered. Now that she knew the tip had come from Marguerite, she had less reason than ever to accuse Flynn. She kept thinking of the look in his eyes when he denied having anything to do with Tara and Jeremy’s deaths. She found it impossible not to believe him.

  Not your problem, she reminded herself. Flynn could sort out his own life, if and when he recovered. Tomorrow you can leave this city, and hopefully nothing will pull you back here this time. Last-minute flights were expensive, and she had already blown off one flight this morning. DeLaurier Publishing had paid for that one, but she would have to pay her own fare this time. She was going to have to be more frugal in the future, since she was now without a job, she reminded herself. But in this one instance, price was no object. She wanted to get out of Cleveland, no matter the cost. She would worry about the cost of it later.

  Eden wasn’t satisfied with the results she had achieved while she was here, but at least she had the consolation of knowing that she had convinced Detective Burt to reopen the case surrounding her mother’s death. For now, she would have to be satisfied with that. She agreed with the detective that the attempt to assassinate Flynn had to be related to Tara and Jeremy’s deaths, and part of her was desperately curious to know who it was that shot Flynn, but she told herself that she would know in time. Right now, the important thing was to reclaim her life.

  She got a beer from the refrigerator, and then went down the hall to the tiny bedroom where she was supposed to stay the night. She looked into her suitcase, and realized that there wasn’t much packing to be done. She had not yet taken anything out. She got her toiletries out and put them in the bathroom across the hall. Then she got out an outfit for travel, and hung it up on the closet door, so it wouldn’t be utterly wrinkled for the trip.

  That done, she went back to the dining area, still clutching her beer, and sat down at the dining table. She pushed the newspapers and unopened mail aside, and set up her iPad. She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. Now, she thought. The ticket home.

  But her efforts were stymied. In the hotel she had been instantly able to access the Wi-Fi. It did not take her long to realize that she could not access the server here without a password, and she had no idea what the password in Flynn’s house might be. She thought about her mother, and the dates which were important to her. For a few moments she tried combinations of logical passwords, but felt completely frustrated when none of them had the effect of unlocking the stubbornly frozen computer and putting her online.

  I can’t buy my ticket, she thought. A feeling of panic swept over her, but she forced herself to remain calm. Try your phone, she told herself. She had never used her phone to buy a ticket, but of course it could be done. She got out the phone and had begun to punch in airline names and schedules, squinting at the small print, when she suddenly reminded herself that there was another, simpler option. Flynn’s computer was still open, still online, out in his office. She could do it there. Easy, she thought. She slipped her phone into her pocket, went through the house to the attached garage and into his office, making herself comfortable in front of his monitor. This is more like it, she thought, as she quickly pulled up the information she needed and bought her ticket. She could not ever remember a time when she was more eager to get home. She texted her father, asking him if he could pick her up at the Westchester County Airport tomorrow at two p.m. His response was almost instantaneous, as if he had been sitting, waiting to hear from her. Knowing her father, she didn’t think that was out of the question.

  Eden sat back in the swivel chair and sighed. That’s done. I am out of here.

  Now that she was finished with Flynn’s computer, she knew that the polite thing to do would be to avert her eyes and not meddle any more in his business. But the photo file seemed to entice her to look again.

  She decided not to snoop any further into the file with the photos of Lizzy. Any further looking was just prurient, and she was repulsed by the thought of going down that road. But she was curious to see more recent photos of her mother, and her stepbrother, whom she had never really known. She opened the file with her mother’s picture on the icon, and began to look through them.

  There were a lot of photos of Tara, and of Jeremy. She recognized the photo of the two of them in the field on a blue-sky day which Flynn had enlarged for the funeral. She clicked on photos, one after another, of holidays, birthdays complete with candles on the cake, and ordinary days. Changes of season. There were photos of gatherings at the house, where Aaliya was ever present, serving cake and minding the children who were visiting. Marguerite and other parents with afflicted children appeared. Eden marveled at the fact that everyone looked so cheerful, all of the time. As if they didn’t realize that their children were facing almost certain doom. How did they do it? she wondered.

  There were even several photos of Jeremy with Flynn’s grandmother fuzzy in the background, wearing a proud and happy smile, the light reflecting off her glasses. She must have been in better health then, Eden thought. They must have made a trip out here to see them. There were, however, no pictures of Michael Darby. No doubt he was off sulking somewhere, thinking of ways to make everyone feel bad.

  Eden felt as if she had seen hundreds of photos by the time she quit the file and picked up the boarding pass she had printed. She was almost dizzy with exhaustion, and all she wanted was to take a quick shower and go to bed. She was packed, she was ticketed, and she was ready. She turned off the light in the garage, and went back through the garage and into the house. As she closed the garage door behind her, she was suddenly overcome with the feeling there was something in what she had just seen on the computer which troubled her. Something that seemed … wrong somehow.

  Never mind, she thought. It’s not your problem. Everything is in order. Time to get ready to go. She slipped her phone back into her pocket and went along to the guest room to grab some clean clothes.

  She was in the shower, rinsing the conditioner out of her hair, when she heard her phone ringing in the pocket of her pants, which were hanging on a hook behind the bathroom door. Eden turned off the water and climbed out of the shower, carefully, so as not to end up a victim of her own clumsiness. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her as she rummaged for the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  ‘Eden Radley? This is Nurse Thomas. I’m calling from the Cleveland Clinic.’ The nurse’s voice sounded fresh and cheery.

  ‘Yes,’ said Eden warily.

  ‘You left me your number earlier today in case your stepfather awakened.’

  ‘I did,’ said Eden.

  ‘Yes, he just regained consciousness about a half an hour ago.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Eden. ‘That’s … tha
t’s great.’

  ‘If you want to come down and see him, you can. Just for a very brief visit. Only a few minutes. He’s in room 1229.’

  ‘Um … okay.’

  ‘I thought you’d want to know,’ said the nurse, more guarded now that she had heard Eden’s lukewarm response.

  ‘No, I appreciate the call,’ said Eden. ‘I may … just wait. Until tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, that’s probably a good idea,’ said the nurse. ‘He really needs his rest.’

  ‘Do the police know that he’s awake?’ Eden asked. ‘I know they want to talk to him.’

  ‘I’m sure someone will tell them,’ said the nurse coolly.

  ‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Eden. ‘Thank you for calling me.’

  ‘Just doing my job,’ said the nurse, and hung up.

  Eden sat down on the closed toilet seat. She was still wrapped in a towel, and she was shivering with the cold. The steam from her shower had begun to escape the bathroom. I should call Detective Burt, she thought.

  Put your pajamas on first, she told herself. You need to get warm. She forced herself to stand up and dry off. Then she put on her pajamas, and a bathrobe she had found. She pulled a pair of woolly socks on her bare feet. Then she picked up her phone. She dialed the police station and asked for Detective Burt.

  ‘Gone for the day,’ said the dispatcher. ‘Is this an emergency?’

  Eden hesitated. ‘Not exactly,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll give you his voicemail. You can leave him a message. He’ll be checking them this evening, I’m sure.’

  Eden thanked the dispatcher, and waited through the detective’s identifying message. ‘Detective Burt,’ she said. ‘This is Eden Radley. I just got a call from the hospital. Flynn is conscious, if you want to question him.’ She thought about telling him that she knew where the tip came from, but then she reminded herself that she did not need to get anyone else involved. ‘Okay, that’s all,’ she said. ‘Have a good evening.’

  She padded down to the dining table and gathered up her iPad. She took it with her to the guest room to pack it in her bag, since it was pretty well useless here without the password. She switched off all the lights in the house as she went. All the while she was thinking of Flynn.