Grace went into the kitchen to whip up a snack, insisting I rest.
“You look like you need to lie down,” she said.
I sprawled on the chaise by the window and stared across at shelves full of books and family photos, lingering on the picture of Grace and Mac at their wedding. I’d glanced at it so many times in passing. But I studied it now. Gallant, snowy-haired Mac stood behind his bride with his strong arms wrapped around her waist. She leaned back into him, her hands covering his, secure at her center. Both of them were beaming and genuinely thrilled.
Snapshots of my own wedding arose in my mind unbidden. Grace’s oldest, Leon, toddling down the aisle and flinging rose petals up in the air at whim. Dappled sunlight shining through the windows of our loft onto fluted champagne glasses. The smiling, expectant faces of guests watching the civil-court judge conduct the ceremony.
But had those faces really been smiling? Or was that how I’d chosen to remember them? Because worried expressions began to appear in my mind, on Grace’s face, on Mac’s and Aunt Lada’s. Did they know marrying Hugh would bring me so much unhappiness? Had they suspected his infidelities? Even the groom seemed subdued, in retrospect. Was Hugh in turmoil at the altar? Had he just lacked the nerve to call off the wedding? The trouble with having a partner who lies and cheats is that it can make you question everything.
The snow was still drifting down twenty minutes later. Leon and Otis played outside, winging snow angels. Grace was speaking with her sister on the phone in the kitchen. Mac, in his typical ADD style, had grown bored with the snowball fight. He’d come inside to watch Deadliest Catch on TiVo in the den while he worked on his fishing lures and monitored the stock market’s afternoon moves all at the same time.
I’d filled Grace in on Lada’s ministroke, Stokes’s desperate visit and, reluctantly, Detective Roche’s “drop-in” about the stolen gun. “Another summer house burglary? Right down the road from you? And they stole a fucking gun. Jesus, why can’t you catch a break here?” She never doubted my innocence for a second.
When I told her Gubbins thought I should prepare for arrest in the next few days, she was adamant that I come stay with her and Mac. I argued that I should see Lada again right away, but Grace disagreed. “She’s in good hands. You need a little loving care, too.”
I lay on the chaise making calls to car rental companies and keeping an eye on the boys through the window. The smell of fresh coffee mixed with the mouthwatering scent of baking brownies. It would have been a typical fall afternoon at Grace and Mac’s, except for the snow drifting down outside. And the cop car parked across the street. And the fact that I was tracking down evidence in a double homicide investigation.
I’d spent the last five minutes on hold as Avis played Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” The agent finally picked up. I cleared my throat.
“Hello! I work at Lynchburg Media. My boss rented a car from you last weekend in New York City. Unfortunately, he seems to have misplaced the receipt. I’m trying to get a copy for his expense report. His last name is Walker. First name Tobias. I’d really appreciate your help.”
She bought the story. “I’m sure we can locate that for you. It might take a minute,” she said. “Rhapsody” resumed while she put me on hold again.
Grace appeared carrying a tray of scrumptious chocolate squares. She set them on a small bamboo table near the chaise along with a stack of paper napkins.
“Take a few. I don’t want the kids to eat too many. Did you find anything yet?”
“Nothing at Hertz. I’m on with Avis. If Tobias didn’t rent a car there, there are still six more companies.”
Grace started back for the kitchen. Suddenly, I felt a crushing weight in my chest. I reached for her hand and held on, barely getting my words out.
“Grace. Sometimes it feels like none of this is real. It can’t be. It’s too insane.”
“I know.”
“If I let myself think about Hugh, what happened to him, what he was feeling right before the gun went off. If he watched them kill Helene first or . . .”
“Don’t.”
Grace squeezed my hand. I took a breath.
“What if they never find out who murdered them? What if I go to jail, or worse? Even if they don’t charge me, people will always wonder if I killed them.” I’d always wonder.
“I feel so helpless,” I said.
“You’re innocent, Nora.” Grace sat on the arm of the chaise, still holding my hand. “We’ll do whatever it takes to prove it.”
I couldn’t summon my own faith, but I held on tightly to hers. “I really needed to hear that. You’re my rock, Grace.”
“Oh, honey.”
Grace released my hand and stroked my head. Mac’s voice interrupted us.
“I think I’d better drive to the hardware store and pick up a bag of salt for the driveway,” he announced.
I sat up and pulled myself together as he walked in from the den.
“The brownies done already?” He made a beeline for them and grabbed one. “The weather alert just said they’re predicting fourteen inches by morning. We’re breaking a record. Maybe I’ll order takeout at Mao’s for dinner while I’m at it?” He bit into his brownie. “Mmm. Outstanding. Do we have enough for me to bring one to Crawley?”
“Why would you do that?” I asked, offended.
“I feel for the guy. He pulled such a crap assignment,” he said as he wrapped another brownie in a paper napkin. “He’s sidelined here watching you while his buddies at county get to hunt the killer.” He walked over to the coatrack and grabbed his coat and cap. “It’s only a matter of time before they nab whoever did it, and poor Crawley will have missed all the action.”
I was touched. He had faith in me, too.
“What if I pick up a DVD at the library? Or how about Thai food instead of Chinese? Or is Italian better?” he asked, bundling up for the storm.
Grace shrugged, accustomed to Mac’s multiple-choice questions.
“Anything you decide is good,” she said.
“What makes you so sure they’ll catch the killer, Mac?” I asked.
“It helps to think positive.” He walked over and gave Grace a peck on the cheek. “Hey, maybe we skip the takeout and cook chili together? I could stop at the market . . . You’re staying for dinner, right, Nora?”
No. I was meeting Ben for dinner tonight, and I desperately wanted him in my corner along with Grace and Mac. I was determined to own up to the sleepwalking. I’d tell him about the gun and the arrest warrant. Grace knew it all, and she believed in my innocence. Ben might, too. Grace said he shouldn’t be in my life if he didn’t.
“Thanks, but I’m having dinner with a friend.”
I felt at peace for a moment, until I looked out the window at the heavy, swirling snow. Ben might not be able to make it back.
“Unless the weather makes that impossible,” I said.
Mac stopped at the front door. “There you go again. Don’t be a neg head. Ben drives a Land Rover. He’ll make it.”
Frowning, I turned to Grace.
“You told him about Ben?”
She looked sheepish and stuffed a piece of brownie in her mouth. “Pillow talk.”
“I think it’s great,” Mac said. “I’m taking the Jeep. Back in an hour or so. If you think of anything else we need, let me know.” He went out, calling over his shoulder, “Remember, Nora. Positive.”
I wasn’t sure whether my thinking was positive or negative, but I decided to start eating a brownie, suspecting that the rental agent would come back on the line the moment I took a bite. It worked. I swallowed quickly.
“Okay, ma’am. Sorry to keep you waiting. I have—”
“Hello? Yes?”
Grace sat down on the arm of the chaise, eager to hear.
“Hello? Hello? Hello!” I slumped and stared at the phone. “Fuck.”
“What happened?”
“I got disconnected.”
The front door flew open and the boys t
umbled in, bringing a blast of frigid air.
“Mom! Aunt Nora!” Leon shouted. “I made a snow devil! He has horns!”
“Fantastic,” I said, trying to rally for the boys.
“Brownies!” Otis screamed.
“No brownies until those wet boots come off and you both get into dry clothes,” Grace said.
She helped the boys with their coats and boots and then went off with them to the bedroom. I was about to try the call again when my phone buzzed. I picked up.
“Gubbins here. Bad news, I’m afraid.”
A shudder went through me. I sat up straight, steeling myself. “Go ahead.”
“Thomas O’Donnell called me as a courtesy. The DA’s office is preparing the arrest warrant. They’ll take it over to the judge’s house in a few hours. You can expect an arrest before sundown and a bail hearing in the morning.”
“Oh no. Oh God. No.”
“We’ll sort this out, Nora. We’ll get you out on bail as soon as possible,” he assured me. “I think it’s better if they pick you up at my office. It will lower the temperature. And I’m sorry to keep pressing, but bring along that check, please, if you would.”
I hung up in despair. I knew this was coming. I knew it. And still I wasn’t prepared. How could a person prepare for this? What was I going to do? Practical issues first: I had to get money to pay Gubbins, the court, Lada’s clinic bill and her Cedars rent, not to mention my own due next week. But I couldn’t negotiate with the auction houses about Hugh’s sketches from jail. Could I ask Grace and Mac for a loan? They lived on such a tight budget. I knew they would try to raise what they could, but they’d probably have to take out a second mortgage. That would require time I didn’t have, and besides, I couldn’t bear for them to do it. What about Ben? Should I ask him? Just the thought made me want to shrivel up and disappear.
I was dazed, staring at the plate of brownies with absolutely no appetite as Otis came running back into the living room in his underwear. He was waving a notebook.
“Aunt Nora! Look at the picture I made yesterday. It’s a monkey wishing on a rainbow,” he said as he grabbed a brownie and plopped the open book in my lap.
I gazed down at the crayon drawing: a hairy brown circle with a smiley face and stick legs standing next to a large, multicolored arc.
“Beautiful, Oatsie,” I murmured, ruffling his soft brown curls, realizing I might never see him again.
He smiled, his teeth full of crumbs. What would he think of me if I were convicted of murder? I’d become a scary story in his show-and-tell. “The Point Killer Was My Godmother.” No. This was nothing to joke about. He’d be traumatized. His ability to trust might be impaired. That would be an awful legacy to leave him and his brother while I wasted away in a prison cell.
Otis grabbed the last two brownies, holding one in each of his pudgy little hands as Grace walked back in.
“Bunny! Don’t eat too many of those.”
I closed Otis’s book and noticed the image on the cover. A picture of Sesame Street’s Big Bird. I gawked at it. My pinball brain began pinging again. What time was it? I checked my phone. 2:16. I had to move quickly. But how could I leave here without Crawley following? I glanced over at Grace. She was cleaning the chocolate off Otis’s fingers with a napkin. Think, Nora. Think. What would Nathan Glasser do?
“Grace?”
“Hmm?”
“I need a big favor.”
She looked up. “Anything.”
“I need to borrow you for a few hours. For your own good, don’t ask questions.”
I walked out right under Crawley’s nose, nodding and waving. He rolled down his window and shouted, “Thanks for the brownie!”
He watched Grace clear the snow from her Prius in the same outfit she wore at the chapel. Only Grace was me. I was wearing her coat with the collar turned up. Her long black wool scarf covered the lower half of my face, and my hair was tucked under her black hat with the white silk rose. The wide brim hid the rest of my face in shadow. We’d traded purses, too, after switching out the contents. Grace’s large, rectangular, black leather bag hung from my shoulder.
Crawley had already seen Mac leave. The idea was for him to assume Nora Glasser was staying behind to babysit her friends’ kids. He didn’t suspect anything as I dusted myself off, climbed in the car and threw the snow brush in the back seat. Step one had worked. I hoped Mac wouldn’t get too angry with Grace for aiding and abetting.
The car’s clock read 2:33 p.m. Somewhere above the blizzard of snow, the sun was still high. It wouldn’t set for another two hours. That gave me just enough time to enact my plan. The scarf felt hot and scratchy on my mouth as I backed out of the drive, but I was careful to keep it on until I’d traveled safely out of Crawley’s view. The world was in disguise, too. Snow had transformed bushes into pillows and lawns into feather beds. Flakes seemed to drift down in slow motion along the muted back streets as I drove toward the town’s center.
Pequod Avenue had a completely different, almost frenzied energy as people converged on the shops to buy storm supplies. Only the Laundromat had closed early. Crossing the bridge, the Prius began to glide on the icy, elevated roadway. The beauty of the blizzard disguised its danger. A hunk of snow flew off the hood and smashed on the windshield, blocking out the road until Grace’s wipers swatted it down. I held tight to the steering wheel for the rest of the drive. Despite the weather, I made it home fairly quickly, parked and trekked through virgin snow into the Coop. I marched straight to my bedroom, unconcerned about the trail of white clumps on the rugs and floors.
I changed into jeans, a sweater and warm socks—a skirt wouldn’t do for this venture—and then foraged in my closet and found the second hatbox. Inside was another Ushanka, identical to the one I’d left at Grace’s. The second hat was a gift from Aunt Lada last year on my birthday—she’d forgotten about the first. I’d stowed the hat away, not wanting to acknowledge it as a sign of her emerging dementia.
Now I replaced Grace’s unwieldy hat with the spare Ushanka and pulled my boots back on, but instead of a parka, I slipped back into Grace’s long, black coat—it was far warmer than any I owned. I’d need it for what lay ahead. Then I lifted the corner of the mattress, bent and reached further underneath until my fingers found Hugh’s sketchbook.
Chapter Nineteen
Wearing the Russian army hat and long, black wool coat, I might have been a character in Doctor Zhivago trekking to my dacha in the snowy woods to hide from the Bolsheviks. Such quiet. Silence except for my own breathing, and the faint crinkling of the plastic bag tucked in the waistband of my jeans. I’d stowed Hugh’s sketchbook there to keep it dry. Instead of driving into the front entrance of Pequod Point, I’d decided to go by way of the blind in case the county police were still posted on Hugh’s road. Tricking them might not be as easy as it was with Crawley.
I was aware that this venture was risky. It wouldn’t help my case if I were caught returning to the scene of the crime again. As icy crystals slashed my face, I tugged the Ushanka farther down on my brow. Golova nyet, shopka nye nooshno. She who has no head needs no hat. Golova nyet, shopka nye nooshno. Was I a fool? Was this an act of pure recklessness?
Thank God the Dune Club lot had been empty. Snow could bring out hunters. It gave them an advantage by concealing their sounds and smells from prey. Grace and I often saw men in camouflage outfits on our winter walks before the gruesome hunting accident. We’d watch men heading off the trail in pairs, or alone, toting medieval-looking crossbows on their shoulders. But this freak snowstorm must’ve sent the huntsmen out to shovel their driveways or buy rock salt, like Mac. The parking lot was deserted. The only trespasser in these woods was yours truly.
I tramped on, wiping the snow from my cheeks and remembering Mac’s advice to “think positive.” Was it so different from Helene’s edict to “manifest?” If Helene could manifest, why couldn’t I? I’d manifest the sale of the sketchbook and the arrest of Tobias. I’d manifest a big
celebration with a triple feature of Russian movies for Aunt Lada and her friends. Fiddler on the Roof, Anna Karenina, Reds. Why not throw in a buffet of blinis, borscht and stuffed cabbage—Lada’s favorites? In fact, I’d manifest it every year with The Lada Levervitch Annual Russian Film Festival.
In spite of my grim circumstances, I was trying to be optimistic. I really was. But as I threaded my way deeper into the silent woods, my gut began twisting with anxiety again. It was a certainty: I’d be spending that night in jail, and not a cushy Martha Stewart jail, either. What if I had one of my sleepwalking incidents in prison? I could almost hear my cellmate jeer: “Yo, Guard! There’s a fuckin’ zombie freak in here!” If she didn’t misinterpret my moves and beat me senseless first.
I tried to shift my focus to the immaculate snowy landscape—white earth, white trees and white air. Pristine and beautiful on the surface. But all I could think about was what the white concealed. Mold and rot and insects. A dark and twisted world. A sense of menace increased with every step I took.
As I rounded a curve on the trail, the blind came into view at the bottom of the incline—a gingerbread house trimmed with white frosting. I approached slowly to avoid slipping on the icy trail and finally reached the door. It resisted when I pushed. I shouldered it. Pushed again. Nothing worked until I finally stepped back and kicked, La Femme Nikita–style. The smack of my boot cracked like a gunshot in the quiet woods.
Inside, snow blew through the open wall. Drifts covered the floor. The army blanket was still folded neatly on the bench, and I used its scratchy fabric to wipe my face. I assumed I’d be able to assess the situation from the blind, but a thick curtain of falling snow obscured Pequod Point. Only the glow of house lights came through, nothing more. It had been impossible to retrieve Lada’s opera glasses from my car with Crawley watching, and I wasn’t sure they would have helped. I’d just have to head in the direction of the lights and hope Abbas was alone.
“Protect me, Champ. Bring me luck,” I murmured, touching Ben’s knife in my pocket before I turned and walked out the blind’s door. I had brought it with me to deliver to Ben tonight in case I didn’t have time to stop at the Coop after returning Grace’s car.
Tips for Living Page 25