Retribution (#3)

by M. M. Mayle

  “Is this what I think it is?” he says.

  “It is if you think it’s an ultrasound picture of an eleven-week-old fetus.”

  “Is it . . . do you know if it’s a boy or—”

  “I didn’t want to know until you’d heard the news.”

  “Does this . . . does the news make you as happy as it does me?”

  “Yes. Maybe more.”

  The ghostly image of their child-in-progress slips to the floor when she moves to his side. His shoulders heave under her embrace; she shares his effort to hold steady against yet another emotional challenge. In a day of emotional extremes she’s closer now to losing it than she was when David’s dead body was wheeled past her. She fights back both tears and hiccoughs as Colin narrates in broken phrases his fresh horror at now envisioning her in a fight for two lives when she fended off Jakeway’s attack.

  He blinks repeatedly as he retrieves the picture from the floor and traces a vague outline on it with a fingertip. “Funny time to realize we never talked about having kids,” he muses.

  “I always meant to bring it up and I never found the right opportunity. Besides, I think I was afraid to. I think I preferred not knowing how you felt over the possibility of your saying a flat no.”

  “Were you afraid to tell me just now?”

  “No . . . Well, maybe a little. I was afraid you might think it was too soon for us to have a child.”

  “How could it be too soon when we already have two?”

  “Valid point. One I should have thought of.”

  He splays his hand across her belly. “Will the baby be marked . . . by any of this . . . do you think?”

  The first answer that springs to mind stays there. “No, absolutely not,” she says instead of “don’t be silly.” The father of a child who was marked in utero has good reason to ask the question. “That’s nothing but an old wives tale,” she adds for good measure.

  “How long have you—”

  “How long have I been keeping this news from you? Less than a week. I found out for sure on Monday when we were neck-deep in wedding preparations. I decided to wait until there wasn’t so much going on. Until things were less chaotic. Little did I know how chaotic things would become.”

  “Rather like your first full day with me in the UK. Another time when you had no idea what you’d gotten yourself into.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were scarcely off the plane when word came of Rayce’s death and this time round you’re married to me less than twenty-four hours before the fucking sky falls in.”

  “My God but you are tiresome with this blame thing!”

  “My God but you are tiresome playing the prickly bitch instead of carrying on the way a regular person would! Can’t you just have a good blub? Can’t you just be normal?”

  “No, I can’t! I wouldn’t know normal if it fell on me. Where do you find normal in a situation like this? Tell me!”

  He resumes the tired posture, slumps forward, head down, elbows on knees, hands loosely folded between knees. “We’ll start over, Laurel,” he says without looking at her. “We’ll get married again. Just the two of us and hired witnesses at a register office. We’ll establish a different anniversary date, one that won’t stir up bad memories when it’s observed. We’ll arrange for another honeymoon and leave all this behind. Till then we’ll declare this space off limits to sorrow the way we did in the car soon after Rayce died.”

  “Yes! Please! Please let me forget for a little while . . . let me crawl into bed and watch the concert video of you and know that when my fantasies reach fever pitch you’ll be there to fulfill them. Please let me have that much.”

  “Bloody hell, woman, you don’t have to beg. You don’t want anything I don’t want.” He straightens up and smiles at her, tweaks her nose.

  She springs to her feet, activates the video, steps out of her dress and slips into bed under a gaze she doesn’t mind at all. Then she’s torn between watching him remove his shirt and watching his video image take shape on the monitor. He slides into bed beside her and she’s again torn between suggestive imagery and reality when he comes to life against her, warms her with his breath, sparks her with his touches.

  “No!” She startles him when he throws back the covers and bends to kiss the scrapes on her knees. “No, don’t do that!” She confuses him altogether when his mouth moves upward on her thigh. “No foreplay, no fooling around. Do me the way you did the first time. Like it’s an emergency, a fucking emergency.”

  “Jesus, are you sure?” He lifts his head and looks at her as though she’s gone prickly bitch on him again.

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, so hurry up, will you?”

  No more than ten minutes later they’re sweated and panting and eyeing each other the way they did after the amazement of their very first coming together in an atmosphere of near-desperation.

  “You can ask me again,” she says when she catches her breath.

  “Ask you what?”

  “If I can sleep now.”

  “Can you?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “You’re saying my lovemaking puts you to sleep, then.”

  “Well, it always seems to work for you.”

  The crying that wakes her is too distant and plaintive to be coming from a squalling infant, so it’s not baby Emily she hears; it’s nothing to be alarmed about, she can believe when the crying tapers off. But in a minute or two it starts again. And this time it’s louder, more insistent and coming from closer by; this time it could be coming from one of the little boys crying for his missing mother. But that can’t be because now the crying is coming in fits and starts, the way it would from a child who didn’t want to be overheard, the way an older child would cry. That’s not right either, because all she can hear now are the muffled sobs of a grownup attempting to conceal grief. But before she can process this conclusion, the weeping upgrades into brokenhearted wails that become full-throated screams of unbearable anguish accompanied by bright lights and horrified faces.

  — EIGHT —

  Morning, August 16, 1987

  Laurel steps out of the shower no less cautiously than she would step off a curb in Piccadilly Circus. She doesn’t go so far as to look both ways; she’s not anticipating the equivalent of onrushing traffic or an ambush of some kind. But sleep has not lessened the terrible sense of foreboding that invaded her with David’s death, so she’s helpless not to gasp and recoil when she’s surprised by Emily, who confronts her in the bedroom.

  “We came up with possible solutions during the night,” Emily says without preamble. “We won’t have a traditional funeral for Daddy, at least not right away. And while we’re waiting for the uproar to die down we’ll collect tributes and reminiscences from his former students through the alumni office at his—”

  “Hold on,” Laurel says. “I never meant for . . . I wasn’t being fair last night . . . I wasn’t . . . I was way out of line to go off on you and your brothers that way.”

  “No you weren’t. You were totally right about our doing something for a change. So we are. So Ben will get in touch with Daddy’s school first thing Monday—tomorrow—and Mike and I will get started with the arrangements for the house. The plan—subject to your approval and permission from the cops—is to have the contents inventoried and put in storage until we’re ready to decide what to keep and what to toss.”

  “I see,” Laurel says, shifting from one bare foot to the other, ill at ease in the face of this unexpected resourcefulness.

  “We hoped you would. Then if everyone agrees—”

  “Meaning me.”

  “Yeah, if you agree we’ll have the house bulldozed. Didn’t you say that was David’s recommendation? Wasn’t he always telling you the land was worth more than the structure and nagging you to get rid of it?”

  “Yes, it was . . . yes, he did, and if I’d acted on that advice sooner none of this would have—”

&n
bsp; “Jeez, Laurel, not you too. That’s all I’ve heard this morning—Colin and Nate going at it over who could’ve prevented what and Amanda trying to get a piece of the action. Enough of that shit, okay?”

  “You could be quoting me.” Laurel huddles deeper into the terrycloth robe she’s wearing, tightens the belt around a waistline she imagines to have thickened since she got out of the shower. “You’re absolutely right,” she says. “Enough of that shit. And enough of my carrying on. I’ll assume you heard me when I broke down in my sleep last night.”

  “Yeah, I did. Everybody in the house heard and maybe a few on the street. But you know, when it was over and Colin got you calmed down, we all said it was for the best—that it was about time you let go. I mean you did just lose your father and you did just see your former boyfriend and mentor cut down right in front of you. And before that you lost your mother and your freedom and you had to grow up before your time and give up the hopes and dreams you had with—”

  “That’s enough, Emily. I scarcely need reminding. My outburst in the night attests to that.” Laurel plants herself behind the poufy boudoir chair, employs it as a lectern of sorts. “Now, if we may continue . . . I was about to say the solutions you offer are brilliant and I don’t use that word lightly. I especially like the idea of soliciting reminiscences from Daddy’s former students without the stifling effect of a ceremony, and you’ll get no argument from me about the house. I never want to see it again. I’m afraid the happy times we had there aren’t enough to offset the bad.”

  “Backing up for a min,” Emily says, “I forgot to mention that we’d like to establish a scholarship in Dad’s name. We borrowed the idea from Nate and Amanda. They’re talking about endowing a chair at David’s alma mater.”

  “I like the scholarship idea—that’s fine—but I think it’s a little soon to endow a chair in David’s name—not that it’s my place to say.”

  “Why is it too soon? He’s every bit as dead as Daddy, isn’t he?”

  “Good lord, Emily! Must you be so blunt?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who taught me to face things head-on.”

  “So I did . . . So I did,” Laurel echoes herself in a half whisper. “And yet I’m the one having trouble believing David is dead,” she says full voice. “And I can’t quite believe Daddy is gone either, even though I was prepared for his death . . . Perhaps not the way it allegedly happened, but I was prepared.”

  “Are you prepared for another session with the detective, the Grillo guy? He’s gonna be here in an hour. At eleven, Amanda said. That’s what I really came in here to tell you—that they want you to hear whatever he has to say firsthand.”

  “And they sent you to find out if I was up to it.”

  “No one put it that way.”

  “Maybe not in so many words, but they’re thinking it. Tell me, has Colin made any announcements this morning?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. And if you mean to the press, nothing’s changed there, that lid’s still on.”

  “I see. Well then, if you’ll give me a few minutes I’ll join you downstairs.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell ’em you’re on the way.” Emily hesitates at the door.

  “Yes?” Laurel says.

  “Nothing . . . I probably shouldn’t say . . . but I have to. I have to say how pissy I think it is that everything got spoiled. We should be gushing about how beautiful your wedding was and how mind-blowing the reception was and what a blast it was to party with all those celebs. That’s what we should be talking about, not funerals and memorials and—”

  “We will, sweetie, we will, but not for a while.” Laurel kisses the wonderfully astute girl on the cheek and watches her leave as though she were going a greater distance than downstairs.

  “Emmy?” Laurel calls out as her sister nears the stairwell. “Come back for a minute, will you?”

  “You change your mind?” Emily returns to the doorway. “You wanna blow off the meeting with the detective?”

  Laurel beckons Emily across the threshold and back into the supposed sorrow-free zone. “No, I haven’t changed my mind. I’m still willing to meet with Grillo.” She maneuvers Emily to the foot of the bed, invites her to sit, indicating the spot Colin occupied last night when he was given the news. “This is about something else.” Laurel sits down beside her. “Something unrelated. I was just wondering . . . I was wondering if you would consider taking your sophomore year abroad.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be junior year?” Emily lifts a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Traditionally, but I feel sure an exception could be made.”

  “But why? Why now when I’m already registered at New Haven and due there next week?”

  “I’m going to have a baby in February and I’d love it if you were nearby.”

  “Omigod-omigod-omigod,” Emily gasps, wide-eyed, openmouthed, hands against cheeks in a replay of her reaction the day she first met Colin. “You’re not shitting me, are you? Just to make me feel better?”

  “I most definitely am not shitting you.” Laurel retrieves the sonogram evidence from the bedside chest where it spent the night. “Here.” She hands it to Emily and gets the desired reaction.

  “Does anyone else know?” Emily says.

  “Colin knows, of course. I told him last night and I’ll tell the others after the detective leaves.”

  “Oh, wow. This is so cool. Something we can be happy about.”

  “My thought exactly,” Laurel says. “Now scoot so I can straighten up the room and get dressed.”

  The prevailing mood in the kitchen is one of nervous anticipation. But it’s not her arrival that has them on edge. During an impromptu briefing from Amanda, no reference is made to last night’s disturbance and if Colin told anyone of her pregnancy, the news is secondary to the imminent arrival of Detective Grillo. She’s out of the spotlight, for which she should be glad, and would be if her sense of foreboding wasn’t gorging on atmospheric conditions.

  “What did Grillo say to Nate when he called? Have they caught the guy? Is this good news we’re waiting for?” Laurel asks Amanda.

  “I don’t know. Nate didn’t go into it other than to say there may be a break in the case.”

  Before Amanda can be pressed further, the cook-housekeeper interrupts to ask if coffee will be served in the dining room or the library. Then Ben and Mike want to know how much longer they’ll be under house arrest, and Emily darts reproving glances when Laurel turns down the offer of a full breakfast from one of the kitchen helpers.

  Nate and Colin break out of their huddle with Bemus and Tom Jensen at the other end of the room. Laurel moves in their direction, zeroing in on Colin, intending to thank him for helping her get through the night and allowing her to sleep in this morning. But before she can murmur even an affectionate greeting, the chime announces Grillo’s arrival.

  If Detective Grillo is affected by the artwork in the library, he doesn’t show it in any conventional way. And he refuses an offer of coffee and a chair at the table where she, Nate, Amanda, and Colin are now seated on pins and needles. Instead, Grillo holds forth on foot and from a defining distance, plunging in—much as Emily did earlier—without preamble.

  “The task force has recovered the Sebastian murder weapon,” he says to a chorus of released breath. “A Bowie-style knife with a nine-inch blade was found on the unimproved slope behind the Chandler property. Evidence in the same area indicates the perpetrator may have fled the scene on a bicycle and taken a hard spill causing him to drop the knife.”

  “The . . . knife,” Laurel says. “Fingerprints?”

  “Yes ma’am. Prints from the knife match latents lifted at the scene from a doorframe in the garage and from the driver’s side of the vehicle you were in.”

  “How about the nursing home, any matches there?” Laurel says.

  “We’re still workin’ on that, ma’am, and it’s gonna be a while. Lifting partials and the sheer process of elimination could take as much as a
week. Individualization always takes time and so does matching up with prints on file.”

  “Very well. Please go on and please don’t call me ma’am.”

  Grillo resumes, mixing terse with tedious and repeating much that’s already known. Laurel is about to call him on this when he departs from the tired script.

  “We’re in contact with the Bureau,” he says and waits for a reaction he doesn’t get. “The FBI,” he says as though they might think he meant the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. “Special Agent Byron Bell is heading up a team that’ll coordinate with L.A., New York, Northern Michigan, and London, if it comes to that.”

  “London? London, England?” Colin says.

  “Yeah. The writer guy I was put in touch with . . .” Grillo fumbles a small notebook from a side pocket. “Brownell Yates,” he reads from the notebook. “Yates is convinced there’s some kinda tie-in with the drug death of your buddy, Rayce Vaughn. The Bureau don’t even wanna hear about it. Neither does the local task force, for the most part, so we’ll just have to see what develops there.”

  “Brownell Yates,” Colin says. Why’s that bloody name familiar? Do I know him?” He targets first Laurel, then Nate before Amanda answers.

  “He wrote that insightful magazine piece about you after the Concert for Rayce,” she says. “And before that, he approached Nate with data supporting Nate’s and my belief in the existence of a disgruntled avenger of Aurora’s honor.”

  “I’m glad you brought that up,” Grillo says to Amanda. “These beliefs of yours—something’s missing in that write-up—in all them color-coded charts and graphs and timelines you furnished. I’m doin’ you a favor to point this out now because you can bet your sweet bippy the Feds’ll jump on it.”

  “I’m not getting you.” Amanda bristles at the perceived criticism.

  “I know what he’s getting at,” Nate says. “In all your meticulous documentation he’s unable to find the one single incident that put me over the edge—made me into the paranoid, nursemaid I became after Colin’s accident. And, oddly enough, if the detective hadn’t broached the subject today, I would have. Because of the blood connection.”