Kiss Her Goodbye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  She should have known better.

  She should have known she would pay sooner or later. That no sin goes unpunished.

  Yes, she should have known. But somehow, she didn’t.

  She should have learned from her mistakes. But somehow, she hadn’t.

  Twice in a lifetime, she managed to lull herself into a false sense of security.

  Once, when tiny Genevieve was born apparently healthy.

  And again, when Kathleen got her second chance at motherhood.

  Well, she’s finally learned her lesson.

  Never again will Kathleen Carmody blindly believe in happy endings.

  Mouth set grimly, foot sinking on the gas pedal, she plows full speed ahead toward whatever hell her future holds.

  EIGHTEEN

  Mom has been gone almost half an hour, and there’s still no sign of Daddy.

  Jen restlessly flips the pages of a fashion magazine Rachel brought her in the hospital.

  To her surprise, she’s actually getting hungry. She had to force down the cereal her mother practically force fed her for breakfast and the toast her mother insisted she eat for lunch.

  Now, for the first time in a month, she feels hunger pangs stirring in her gut.

  That’s a good sign, she tells herself, gazing down at an impossibly skinny model wearing an impossibly short skirt.

  Hunger is normal.

  She can smell the beef stew her mother left in the Crock-Pot downstairs. Her mouth is actually watering.

  Maybe when her father gets home she can ask him to bring her something to eat, she thinks, until she remembers that she shouldn’t be asking him for anything.

  Her feelings might have thawed toward Mom, but that’s different. Different because . . .

  Well, because she’s my mother.

  Nothing has changed with Matt Carmody. He’s still not her father.

  But last night, he came to check on her. He came to check on her, and he opened the shades for her. He would have changed the lightbulb, too, if she had asked.

  She refused to ask.

  Still . . .

  Maybe you’re being too hard on him, Jen thinks reluctantly. After all, he’s tried to be a decent father to her. He even coached her soccer team.

  Her gaze once again drifts to the trophies on the book shelf above her bed.

  He wouldn’t have coached girls’ soccer if he didn’t love her. Right?

  Shaking her head, she turns the page of the magazine.

  The U2 song on the radio ends. The DJ announces that it’s one o’clock.

  “Coming up in the next half hour, we continue our lunch box blocks with Phish and Blink 182, so stick around. Now Mercury Rev’s latest release opens up the one o’clock hour.”

  His voice gives way to opening guitar chords that slam into Jen like a wall of falling snow from the roof, bringing an icy chill that steals her breath away.

  That song . . .

  It was playing.

  On MTV.

  When she came downstairs.

  The song was playing, and she went into the kitchen, and Erin had been peeling apples.

  The apple corer was there.

  No knife.

  There was no knife.

  Jen clutches her head, her thoughts racing frantically.

  The knife was gone.

  And then . . .

  Then somebody was there.

  Somebody in a rubber Halloween mask.

  And the priest . . .

  “He tried to save me. Oh, my God. He tried to—”

  She presses her hand against her mouth, her fingers colder than a tombstone.

  It’s all coming back to her.

  They were wrong. All of them.

  It wasn’t the priest. He didn’t kill Erin . . .

  “And I didn’t kill him.”

  Jen squeezes her eyes shut, remembering the figure in the mask looming over her . . . even as another sound reaches her ears.

  The faintest of sounds, nearly drowned out by the music on the radio, but there, as real as her sudden memory of that night: a floorboard creaking somewhere below.

  Back in her car, Lucy instinctively steers toward Woodsbridge, knowing what she has to do now.

  John.

  Oh, God, John. Why didn’t you tell me?

  No. It’s not just that he didn’t mention it. He lied.

  Omission of information is one thing. It’s almost forgivable.

  Outright lying is unforgivable.

  What was it that he said that day in the coffee shop, when Lucy asked about his wife?

  That she was fine.

  Deirdre isn’t fine. She’s dead.

  Why would he lie?

  It was an accident, the neighbor told Lucy impatiently, as his agitated dog barked and lunged repeatedly at the chain link fence. A fall down the stairs.

  Deirdre. Dead. All these years.

  If Lucy had known . . .

  No. It wouldn’t have changed anything. She’s still married, even if John is not.

  He knows she would never divorce Henry, just as she always knew John would never divorce Deirdre. He wouldn’t leave her and their daughter. It was that simple.

  How Lucy resented John’s wife for that. For a lot of things.

  She was married to the man Lucy loved; she was going to be the mother of Lucy’s precious baby.

  John told her that Deirdre was understandably upset at first, but that she accepted the child, had agreed to raise Margaret as her own. The one condition was that Lucy stay out of their lives.

  What could Lucy say? How could she argue?

  Deirdre had taken in her husband’s illegitimate child. She was a better person than Henry . . . or so Lucy believed.

  It was John’s wife who answered the phone the day Lucy worked up her nerve to call and find out how her daughter was.

  “I thought you promised you would leave us alone,” Deirdre snapped into the phone.

  “I just wanted to check on Margaret. Please . . . how is she?”

  There was a pause.

  “We had to send her to foster care,” Deirdre said.

  “What?”

  “It just wasn’t working out. It was too hard on me. On Susie. Our family was falling apart. So John put her into foster care . . . and she died. I’m sorry.”

  It was a token apology; one Lucy barely heard and didn’t acknowledge.

  Her baby was dead.

  Why would Deirdre have lied about her death?

  Why would John have lied about Deirdre’s?

  None of it makes sense.

  And yet . . .

  And yet, deep down, Lucy is starting to realize that it might.

  In a way, it might make perfect sense.

  Her pulse racing along with the car, Lucy drives madly toward 9 Sarah Crescent, praying that John doesn’t get there first.

  Kathleen careens into the parking lot at Erasmus Home for the Aged, pulls into a blue handicapped spot by the front entrance, and leaps from the driver’s seat.

  “Hey!” a voice calls. “You can’t park there!”

  Kathleen ignores the elderly man sitting on a bench in front of the nursing home, racing past him toward the wide double doors.

  “You can’t park there!” he calls again. “Look at you! You’re not handicapped!”

  A wall of stale, cabbage-scented heat hits her as she bursts into the lobby. She rushes to the front desk, where a startled-looking and unfamiliar receptionist looks up from the National Enquirer.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Kathleen Carmody,” she says breathlessly. “Drew Gallagher’s daughter?”

  “Yes?”

  “You called,” Kathleen tells the woman, even as she glances at her name badge and sees that she isn’t Helen; she’s Gaile.

  “Somebody called,” Kathleen amends, “and said I had to get right over here. Something’s wrong with my father.”

  “All right . . . wait here.” Clearly puzzled, the receptionist disappears for a
few moments, leaving Kathleen to battle a growing sense of panic.

  Time is running out.

  She can feel it.

  Why is that woman taking so long?

  You’d think they’d have alerted the receptionist to what’s happening upstairs. You’d think they’d have told her Kathleen was coming, and why.

  At last the woman returns, a nurse at her side. Kathleen recognizes her at once. Betty, who was named after Betty Crocker.

  “Mrs. Carmody—”

  “I came as soon as they called. Is he . . . ?”

  “He’s fine.”

  Fine?

  There must be some mistake.

  “How can he be fine?’ Kathleen asks, feeling as though she’s stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone. “Where is he?”

  Betty looks just as puzzled as the receptionist. “He’s upstairs eating Jell-O. I just saw him.”

  “But . . .” Her mind whirling, Kathleen clings to the desk for support. It’s so warm in here she can barely think straight. Could she have possibly imagined the phone call? Suddenly, she’s riddled with uncertainty.

  “Why are you here, Mrs. Carmody?” Betty asks gently.

  “Because . . . they called and said something was wrong.”

  “Who said it?”

  “The nurse. Helen. She had a southern accent.”

  Betty and the receptionist exchange a blank glance.

  “Mrs. Carmody,” Betty is shaking her head, “I don’t know who you spoke to, but there are no nurses here with southern accents, and none named Helen.”

  “Who’s there?” Jen calls faintly, her heart pounding in dread as she listens to the footsteps treading up the stairs. “Daddy?”

  No answer.

  She shrinks back into her bed, chilled and trembling.

  The footsteps pause outside her door.

  Then, slowly, it creaks open.

  Jen braces herself to come face to face with the monster in the rubber mask again.

  Then the crack in the door widens and she sees a familiar face behind it.

  “Sissy! Oh, God, you scared the crap out of me.” Relief courses through her as she sinks back against the pillows at the sight of her mother’s cleaning lady.

  “I’m sorry. You scared me, too. I didn’t know anybody was home.” Sissy, clad in her usual sweats and white sneakers, steps into the room, a ski jacket slung over her arm. “Usually nobody’s around when I come to clean.”

  “How did you get in?” Jen asks, wondering if her mother forgot to lock the house in her haste to leave. If she did, anybody could have snuck in. Anybody could be hiding, wearing a rubber mask, waiting to pounce . . .

  “I have a key,” Sissy tells her.

  Okay, so the killer hasn’t snuck in yet, Jen assures herself. She’s safe, and she’s no longer alone.

  “Are you here all alone? Where’s your mother?”

  “She had to go check on my grandfather.”

  “And your father’s at work?”

  “Yes. Listen, as long as you’re here, would you mind doing me a favor?”

  “Sure.” Sissy steps closer to the bed. “What is it? And how are you feeling?”

  Jen dismisses the question with a shrug and says impatiently, “I just need you to bring me the cordless phone. I have to make an important call.”

  She’ll dial 9-1-1 and ask to be put in touch with the police station. She’ll tell whoever answers that she needs to talk to Detective Brodowiaz. She has to tell him that Father Joseph wasn’t the one who tried to kill her—that whoever it was got away.

  “Who do you have to call?” Sissy asks.

  “Just . . . it’s kind of personal. And I can’t get out of bed. My leg is still really messed up.”

  “It stinks being in bed, doesn’t it?” Sissy asks, bending over to pick up a clutter of tissues Jen haphazardly aimed for the wastepaper basket these last few days. “I was in bed last year for two weeks and I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

  “Really?” Jen asks impatiently, watching the cleaning lady straighten the chair in front of Jen’s desk.

  “Yeah, I had the flu. Did you ever have the flu?”

  Jen shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. Look—”

  “I get it every year,” Sissy cuts in, coming closer to the bed. “Every single year. People ask me why I don’t just get a flu shot, you know? But I can’t. For one thing, I hate needles.”

  Needles.

  “I hate them too.” Jen closes her eyes, finding herself back in the hospital, being poked and prodded painfully. There’s still an angry black and blue scar on her upper wrist from the IV.

  “But it isn’t just that,” Sissy goes on.

  The mattress sinks and Jen opens her eyes to see Sissy perched on the edge of her bed.

  “Mmm hmm.” Jen doesn’t want to be impolite, but she wishes the cleaning lady would just shut up and go get the goddamned phone already.

  “Is that why you don’t get your flu shot?” Sissy asks. “Because you’re afraid of needles?”

  “No, it’s because I’m allergic to eggs.”

  “That’s such a coincidence, Margaret.” Sissy leans in to pierce Jen’s eyes with an unexpected glare. “So am I.”

  “Detective Brodowiaz?” A young police officer pokes his head into the room. “You need to take a phone call.”

  He gestures at Stella. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of—”

  “It’s urgent, Detective.”

  Brodowiaz mutters a curse and excuses himself from the room, promising he’ll be back momentarily.

  Stella nods, grateful for the reprieve.

  She leans back in the uncomfortable wooden chair and rakes her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp with her fingertips.

  Christ. What is she doing here, really?

  Does she honestly believe Kurt has something to do with the murder?

  Detective Brodowiaz asked her that very question a short time ago.

  Her reply?

  I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe it was possible, Detective.

  But he didn’t seem convinced.

  As he continued to question her, Stella realized what he was thinking.

  That she was a spurned wife looking for vengeance against her cheating husband.

  She wanted to tell Detective Brodowiaz that there are easier ways of doing that. She could slash all of his clothes, or . . . or have an affair herself.

  But making him the prime suspect in a homicide?

  After a few minutes, the door opens again; the detective strides back into the room.

  “Mrs. Gattinski, I think we’ve covered everything. Unless you have anything else to tell me, I’m going to have to cut this short.”

  “You’re not taking me seriously, are you?” Stella asks. “You don’t think my husband had anything to do with this case. You think I’m here to get back at him for what he did to me.”

  “Mrs. Gattinski—”

  “Let me tell you something, Detective. Kurt is very good at making people think he’s innocent. It took me ten years to figure out that he’s not. I can’t believe you aren’t even going to—”

  “We checked out your husband a month ago, Mrs. Gattinski.”

  Stunned, she asks, “You . . . you did?”

  “Did you honestly think we would leave loose ends in a murder investigation?”

  “But . . . I guess I’m surprised that I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know because he wouldn’t tell you. And neither would we. Your marriage is your business. Checking alibis is ours. Your husband told us where he was that night. We looked into it. There are reliable witnesses who can corroborate his story. He’s not a suspect.”

  “Oh.”

  She can think of nothing else to say until he’s halfway to the door again.

  Then she calls after the detective, “Where was he? That night, I mean.”

  The man hesitates, then flashes a sympathetic look. “You’ll have to ask him, Mrs. G
attinski.”

  She nods, knowing she won’t.

  It doesn’t matter now.

  Their marriage is over.

  Kurt is a philanderer, but he isn’t a killer.

  Case closed.

  At least, as far as Stella is concerned.

  Slowly, she makes her way out of the room as sirens begin to wail ominously outside.

  Kathleen’s cell phone rings as she’s heading down the thruway in the left lane at eighty miles an hour.

  Her first thought is that she can’t answer it. Not at this speed. She has to focus on the road, on getting herself back to Jen in one piece.

  Her next thought is that she has to answer it. What if it’s Detective Brodowiaz calling back?

  She fumbles for the phone on the passenger’s seat where she tossed it after she hung up with him a few minutes ago. It isn’t there.

  It rings again and she locates it on the floor beside the passenger’s side door. Keeping one hand on the wheel and her eyes on the road, she swoops down to retrieve it, praying that it’s the detective again; then praying that it isn’t.

  He promised he’d get a patrol car right over to the house.

  If he’s calling back, he might have good news . . .

  Or he might have tragic news.

  But isn’t it too soon for him to be calling her back at all?

  Maybe it’s Jen.

  But she wouldn’t be able to get to the phone . . . which, Kathleen has been trying to assure herself, is why there was no answer when she tried to call home.

  Bearing down on a double semi in her lane, she flips open the phone, blindly jabbing at buttons until she hits the right one.

  “Hello?” she yells into the receiver.

  “Kathleen?”

  “Matt!”

  “Are you okay?”

  She breaks into tears. “Matt, where the hell have you been?”

  There’s a pause. Then he says tightly, “With the police.”

  The word is like a cannonball launched directly at her, slamming into her and obliterating fragile hope.

  “No!” Kathleen wails, instinct alone guiding the struggle to keep the car between the white lines even as her emotions swerve out of control. “Please, no. Not Jen.”

  Oh, God. The police. She’s too late. The police are with Matt, telling him their daughter is—