“I told you I was at a design charrette. A lot more than ten people can verify that. And besides, these days, with such tight airport security measures, it would be impossible for someone to impersonate someone else.”
“Tight security also means plenty of surveillance,” I said.
“It wasn’t me,” she said. Her voice sounded hollow. “And even if it was, what does that prove?”
“Motive and opportunity,” Mack said.
“And how about evidence, detectives?” A thin, satisfying smile crossed her lips. “I’m not answering any more questions without a lawyer. So if you think you have something on me, then arrest me. Otherwise, I’ve got to pick up my boys from preschool.” She rose, and without looking back, she walked out the door.
“She’s right about evidence,” I said to Mack. “Even if we can prove she rented a car and got on a plane, we’ve got to put her at the scene.”
“What about Diana Lane?”
“What about her?”
“We going to talk to her?”
“I’ll handle that,” I said. “You follow up with the airport cameras and the crime scene. And show her picture around. See if she got gas somewhere along the way. The guys on the ferry may not have recognized Roberta Miles, but they may remember a slim, leggy blonde.”
Diana Lane looked thin and tired when she opened the door, but I wasn’t any less drawn to her. In fact, she looked even lovelier, even more vulnerable. As always, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. And as always, I wondered what it was about her that could so easily unsettle me, make me lose my mind and my cool. It was like I was fifteen all over again, and Harriet Tanner had smiled at me as I passed her locker.
“You sound under the weather,” I said, when she placed the tea pitcher on the coffee table.
“I can’t seem to get rid of this bug,” she said.
“Have you been to a doctor?”
“It’s nothing, Detective. It’ll pass eventually.”
“Is Picasso at school?”
“Yes,” she said. “What can I help you with?”
I told her about the airline ticket and rental car agreement.
“My name? But that’s impossible.” She seemed genuinely confused. In the past when she’d answered uncomfortable questions, I could always tell she wasn’t providing the entire truth. This time I would’ve sworn she was. She seemed surprised yet hurt, as if something that she hadn’t understood, something that had been bothering her, had become clear, but not in the way she’d hoped.
“Do you have any idea how Julie Lane might have gotten your driver’s license?”
“No,” she said.
“You misplaced it, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“You mentioned it at the beach house that day, the … um … day your husband died.”
“Did I?” she said. She began wringing her hands. “Oh, that’s right. It was a false alarm. I found it a few days later, under the sofa. It must’ve fallen out of my bag. I have this habit of putting it in there loose— Oh my. I never poured our tea.” She reached for the pitcher, but her hand was shaking too badly to grasp the handle.
I took her hand in mine to steady it. I meant to say “Let me do that,” but instead I pulled her to me and kissed her. And then I couldn’t stop kissing her.
Somehow we got to her bedroom; that I remember. The rest was a wash of skin: her lips, her thighs, her neck, her breasts, her sweet, sweet ass. Then I was inside her, lost and found simultaneously. Like murder, there’s a smell to sex, a heady combination of sweat and pheromones. Sometimes the stench two people make is stale, sour, and you can’t wait to wash it away with a shower. Other times the smell is fragrant, seductive, better than anything your body can produce on its own, and, like a kid who gets the best attributes of his parents, any resemblance to you alone is lost. That’s how it was with Diana Lane.
I didn’t drive back to Cooper’s Island that afternoon; I got a hotel room. I took a shower and camped there until I was sure my showing back up at the house wouldn’t tip Picasso off to what I’d been doing with her mother. On the way over, I stopped off at the grocery store to pick up dinner and wine. I tried not to think about the case. I tried not to think about the fact that even though it might look as if Julie Lane killed her husband, the entire thing could just be a red herring. I tried not to think about the fact that even if Julie Lane was the shooter, Diana was still complicit.
Picasso answered the door when I returned, two grocery bags in my arms. “Mama said you were coming to dinner. Are you cooking?”
“What gave it away?” I asked, and smiled.
Picasso
Smad: to be very, very, very angry with someone.
Hate: to feel intense or passionate dislike for someone.
Everything changed for the better when Detective Kennedy started coming around the house in an “unofficial” capacity. It was January, which was about halfway through Mama’s, Jewels’s, and Bert’s year apart, also known as Purgatory Year or just plain purgatory (a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven). I’d randomly zeroed in on that word a few days after Daddy died, and even though Mama and I aren’t religious, and especially aren’t Roman Catholic, I remember thinking it was a positive sign. After all, spending a little time expiating was far more desirable than the alternative. For the most part, Mama and Detective Kennedy did about the same stuff Ryan Anderson and I did. They sat on the porch swing, if it wasn’t too cold out, or the sofa, or at the dining-room table, and talked. They watched movies. They even played board games like Scrabble, Monopoly, and Clue. They didn’t seem to mind if I hung out with them. It was hard for me to stay away from a game of Scrabble. I really liked it when Detective Kennedy visited, and I think Mama did too. She quit sleeping so much, and she started wearing makeup again. But, more important, everybody seemed to have forgotten about Daddy’s murderer. There was no sign of Mama or anyone else going to jail. Detective Jones hadn’t been to our house in forever. Detective Kennedy had stopped asking official questions. And the rumors had died down.
What was weird was that sometimes it seemed like none of it ever happened. Jewels didn’t show up at our door that day. I didn’t spy on her and Bert when they were parked in the church parking lot. The three of them didn’t meet at Rainy Cove Park and plot to kill Daddy. Daddy wasn’t murdered. In fact, sometimes it felt like Daddy never lived at all, or if he had, it was a long, long time ago, in a place that wasn’t real, like maybe another dimension. Nobody ever talked about him, and since Mama had finally gotten around to taking his clothes and other stuff to Goodwill, it was easier to pretend I never had a daddy. That way I could imagine that Mama had found me on one of her ocean swims. What a pleasant surprise I’d been—a fully grown and pretty eleven-year-old standing on a big white shell, hair all flowing like Aphrodite’s. She loved me from the instant she saw me and decided to raise me on her own. Detective Kennedy was a bonus.
One day, when I was feeling pretty bad about liking Detective Kennedy so much, Kelly Morgan, who for some reason was being really nice to me, grabbed my arm as I was walking by her. She was eating lunch with Ashley Adams, Gillian George, and Ugly Cindy two tables over from where Ryan sat with Audu, which I already said was short for Audubon. What is interesting is that Audu is really good at biology, like I’m good at lying. When I have kids, I’m going to be really careful what I name them.
“Here sit.” Kelly patted the bench. The other All That Girls shifted around to make room for me. “How’s it going with Ryan?”
“Fine,” I said. “Everything’s pretty much back to normal.” For the most part it was, but I had to admit, at least to myself, that Ryan wasn’t quite as attentive as he was before the incident that I ended up apologizing for, even though I was being self-sacrificing and modest, and was letting him win all the spelling bees.
“Pretty much?” Kelly asked. If there’s one thing Kelly is, it’s astute. �
��Are you sure? You didn’t look too happy when you were walking by just now. If I hadn’t stopped you, you probably would’ve run into a wall, you were so distracted.”
“No, really,” I said. “It’s good. I was just thinking about something else.” No way I was going to say anything about Mama and Detective Kennedy to Kelly Morgan. It’d be all over the school by the time lunch ended.
“Hmm,” Kelly said. “Well, just so you know, one boyfriend is as good as another. They might look different and smell different, but when it comes right down to it, they’re all the same. So if stuff doesn’t work out, just know you can replace him.”
“Ryan Anderson isn’t replaceable,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” Kelly said. “What do you think, Ashley?” Ashley had finally stopped flipping her hair at Ryan. Her new boyfriend was Audu.
“Kelly’s right,” Ashley said. “I don’t miss Ryan one bit.”
“That’s because Audu is so hot,” Gillian said.
Ashley’s back was to the table where Ryan and Audu sat, so she had to turn all the way around to look at him. “He is, isn’t he?”
“See,” Kelly said to me. “Not just replaceable, better.”
Audu caught Ashley staring at him. He smiled wide, motioned her to come sit with him. She balanced her tray as she carefully rose and stepped one foot at a time out of the bench. “Want to come?” she asked me.
Awkward. “I’m good here,” I said.
All four of us—the three remaining All That Girls and me—stared at her with open mouths as she trotted over and inched her way between Ryan and Audu. Then Ryan motioned for me to come over.
“Don’t,” Kelly said. “You need to play hard to get. That way you keep the upper hand.”
I pretended I didn’t understand he was inviting me over and just waved.
“Laugh,” Kelly said.
“What?” I asked.
“Act like I told you something really funny. You know, like you’re having a really good time without him.”
Now, I wasn’t one to show excitement of any kind, but because Kelly told me to, and by that time I was doing pretty much anything Kelly told me to do because I totally trusted her insight into boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, I laughed bigger and harder than I ever had. Within a few minutes, Ryan was standing over me asking if he could walk me to class.
The thing is, I liked Detective Kennedy from the very first, and when he started coming around to see Mama and me, I liked him even more. But did I like him as much as or better than Daddy? I will say this: I was happy when he started sleeping over. They didn’t think I knew what they did in Mama’s bedroom. What is it with adults? Do they think we can’t see or hear? For example, one time when Detective Kennedy came over for dinner, he started rubbing Mama’s leg under the table. I could tell because his arm was moving back and forth. I dropped my fork on purpose so I could see for sure. I figured they’d at least stop rubbing at each other when I went to pick it up, but they didn’t. They didn’t even notice. I mean the fork had made a pretty loud ping, ping sound, and the chair leg squeaked so loud when I pushed it back that it hurt my teeth, not to mention that I disappeared under the table and watched them for I don’t know how long, but even if it were only a few seconds, you’d think they would’ve wondered where I went. Obviously adults are the ones that don’t see and hear stuff.
At least right then and there, I did like Detective Kennedy better than Daddy. Thinking about Daddy made me feel sad and guilty, and being around Detective Kennedy made me feel happy and light, and the truth was, everything had gotten so much better since Daddy died. My horizontality seemed to have morphed into verticality. Not only was I tall and surprisingly okay-looking (though I worried since if that had changed once, it could again), I was clearly and officially Super Picasso. The kids at school seemed to like me. Mama and Detective Kennedy were so busy being in love that I could pretty much do whatever I wanted at home. Thanks to Kelly Morgan’s advice, Ryan Anderson seemed to have completely gotten over losing the spelling bee. But destiny, or maybe it was karma (a Kelly word), was determined to ruin my first boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
A new girl moved to town; her name was Lucy Baxter. And guess what? It was bad enough that she was in my grade and that Mr. Dork shuffled the whole class around to fit her into alphabetical seating order, which meant right behind Ryan Anderson, but on top of that, her parents had bought the house right next to Ryan Anderson’s, which was also down the street from Ashley Adams’s. Not that I was worried about Ashley anymore, but living on Ryan’s street had worked for her, so it stood to reason it might for Lucy Baxter. The first time I saw her, my jaw literally (that means not really, but used for emphasis or to express strong feeling) dropped. I had never seen a prettier girl, even prettier than Mama, definitely prettier than Ashley Adams or Kelly Morgan. Her eyes were as blue as one of those Blue Raspberry Arctic Rush slushy drinks at Dairy Queen, so blue they looked fake, like she was wearing colored contact lenses, and her long straight hair was almost white it was so blond. We were all getting breasts by then, but hers were as big as a teenager’s, and she wasn’t even fat. Svelte was the word Ryan Anderson used to describe her. We’d just gotten it in spelling practice, but still it was a kind of big word for him. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Ryan Anderson was really smart, but he was also a true boy, so he had an image to uphold. Our class was in the gym playing tennis when he said it. It was a special track with a professional teacher. We did four that year: gymnastics, volleyball, golf, and tennis. Ryan and I were sitting out the rotation. His eyes followed Lucy’s every movement.
“What do you mean, svelte?” I’d asked.
“Slender and elegant,” he said. Since losing that spelling bee, Ryan had become a walking dictionary. He’d even copied me and started a word journal, which I have to admit bothered me. Mama always says when people copy you it’s a form of flattery, but I think she’s wrong. I think when somebody copies you it’s the same thing as stealing from you. That’s why they invented patents.
“I know the definition of svelte,” I said. “I was wondering if you meant it as a compliment.” I was fishing, of course. How could it not be a compliment?
He didn’t answer right away. “She’s not my type.” He was lying. If anybody could tell a liar, I could.
“Am I your type?” I asked. I sounded so pathetic.
“For someone so small, she’s a pretty good athlete. Did you see her last serve? Watch. She’s up again. Wow, did you see that?” He stood and clapped.
Ryan Anderson clapped? He never even raised his hand, or did much of anything spontaneous. Actually, I was kind of embarrassed for him. I looked around to make sure no one had noticed his brief departure from coolness. Then, to my utter horror, he put his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistled.
Everyone looked, including Lucy Baxter. All the way from where she stood on the tennis court, she smiled.
Bitch.
“Who’s a bitch?” Ryan asked.
I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud. “I said rich.”
“Oh,” he said. “That would make sense.”
“Why?”
He hunched his shoulders.
“Why?” I asked again.
“She just seems so confident.”
And I’m not? I decided that was a good time to use the power of suggestion, something else I’d learned form Kelly Morgan. “Really? She seems a little too whiny to be rich.”
“Whiny?” Ryan hated whiny girls.
“Oh that’s right,” I said. “How would you know? She was whining to Kelly and me about the snow when we were all in the bathroom together this morning. Apparently she hates snow because it gets her hair wet. And she hates all winter sports. She practically hibernates all winter. Oh, and she doesn’t like to read either.”
“Huh,” Ryan said.
That got his attention. No way Ryan could like a girl who didn’t read.
The bell rang then and we dispersed to the locke
r rooms to change back into our school uniforms.
One week later, I saw Ryan and Lucy leaving school together.
Now, I’d tried to convince myself that Ryan wasn’t actually walking Lucy home; they’d just happened to leave school at the exact same time. And even if they did walk together all the way home, it didn’t necessarily mean anything. After all, they lived right next door to each other, and since they probably walked at the exact same speed, it made perfect sense that they’d end up walking side by side all the way home. I never did actually hear Ryan offer to walk Lucy home, like he’d always done with me before we became boyfriend and girlfriend. Obviously I had just imagined that Ryan seemed preoccupied the previous week. I must not have heard him right when he told me he couldn’t walk me home that day because his dad needed his help with something, because if that was true then I couldn’t have seen Lucy and him at Dairy Queen. The same Dairy Queen where he had taken me the first time he walked me home after school. The same Dairy Queen where at least half my class had decided to show up. I mean, did I miss an intercom announcement that said, “Be at Dairy Queen right after school today so you can witness the total and utter embarrassment of Picasso Lane”?
So there were the three of us trying to act like nothing was weird about just happening to all be at Dairy Queen at the very same time, even though at least I knew that I hated runny ice cream, especially in the winter, and we all knew that Dairy Queen was not even close to being on any of our ways home.
“Hi, Picasso,” Lucy said. She was all teeth.
“Oh yeah, hi, Picasso,” Ryan said. “What are you doing here?”
What am I doing here? “I came to get ice cream,” I said, wanting badly to add, Do you have a problem with that?
“Wow, me too,” Lucy, bless her heart, said with high-pitched excitement. “I’m so happy you’re here. I’ve been so wanting to get to know you and your friends.” Friends? She looked over at the table where Kelly, Gillian, Cindy, and Ashley were sitting, so I did too. Kelly saw me and waved me over, which made sense because I’d gone to Dairy Queen to meet them in the first place, since Ryan had plans, but right then and there no way could I act all fun and cool, prerequisites for All That Girl meetings. “I can’t believe how smart you are,” Lucy was saying. “Oh, do you think you might be able to help me out with spelling? I suck at spelling.”
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