Disturbed

by Kevin O'Brien

  She’d phoned him on Sunday, and Chet said he’d drop by that afternoon. Rachel let him in and showed him up to the bedroom. For a moment, Molly thought about how horrible she looked and how the room must smell like vomit — and here this guy had a crush on her, or at least, he used to. But she really didn’t care.

  Still. Chet looked handsome in a V-neck sweater, a tie, and corduroys. He stood a few steps inside the doorway. Rachel sat down at the end of the bed.

  Jeff’s death wasn’t his case, but Chet told her how much he knew. “Your husband checked into the hotel alone,” he said somberly, looking more at the bedroom floor than at her. “But it’s very possible he called someone later to join him. Unfortunately, an ice bucket spilled on his cell phone, and shorted it out. So we’re going through his service provider to see if we can get a record of his calls that day. . ”

  Molly shook her head. “They’ll find some number that’s no longer in service or it’s one of those phones you can throw away.” She struggled to sit up in bed. “This woman who’s doing all this, she’s very careful and clever. Every time she’s called me, the number’s been blocked. I’m sure she was with him yesterday. It’s probably the same woman he was seeing that time in Vancouver. I–I know about Vancouver. I know he wasn’t in Washington, D.C., when Angela was killed. This woman was with him then. I can tell from the prices of the meals he paid for in Vancouver. Those are meals for two people. She was with Jeff then, and she was with him yesterday. She’s the one who murdered him.”

  Chet nervously cleared his throat. “We talked to several employees at the Marriott, and nobody saw him with anyone else. It appears your husband died from ingesting a lethal combination of ecstasy-laced alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. They didn’t see anything to indicate force was used in any way — though the ecstasy in the alcohol raised a few eyebrows. Not many people would take ecstasy that way, but it’s not totally unheard of. And the hotel records show your husband logged in four hours on the pay-TV’s adult channel.”

  “He was set up,” Molly argued, tears in her eyes. “She thought it all out ahead of time. I know that sounds crazy and paranoid. But I also know Jeff. He didn’t take drugs. This woman — she’s the same one who’s been causing all these accidents to people on this block — she killed Jeff. And she killed Angela, along with Larry and Taylor. I think she may have killed Kay, too.”

  “Mrs. Dennehy,” he said. “How could she have killed those three people on Alder Court at the same time you say she was with your husband in Vancouver?”

  “She — she — must have an accomplice, or someone working for her,” Molly said, feeling nauseous. “She planned this all very carefully. . ”

  “You have to admit, Detective,” Rachel chimed in. “In just two weeks there have been an unusual amount of accidents and deaths associated with this block. I mean, really, what are the odds? Two deaths, and a near-fatal car wreck, an arrest, and a lot of little things, too — my toolshed was set on fire last week, and three children on this block were badly cut playing in a vacant lot that just happened to be sprinkled with broken glass. I think Molly has every reason to question the notion that Jeff’s death was an accidental overdose.”

  “Jeff didn’t even smoke pot,” Molly said, rubbing her forehead with a shaky hand. “So I don’t think he’d be taking ecstasy and cocaine and heroin. . ”

  “Mrs. Dennehy. . Molly,” Chet said. “Please forgive me, but you say you know your husband didn’t take drugs. Two weeks ago, did you know your husband was seeing other women? I mean, how well did you really know him?”

  Molly began to cry. Jeff wasn’t much better than Jeremy Hahn. They were both discovered in a hotel room after some illicit sexual assignation, surrounded by drugs and porn. At least Jeremy was still alive.

  Couldn’t the police see what was happening? How could they tally everything up and still call it a coincidence or just bad luck?

  The TV news coverage of Jeff’s death made him look like a sleazy character. How couldn’t it? In the same broadcast, it was reported that police believed the murders of Jeff’s ex-wife, her partner, and his daughter might not have been the work of the cul-de-sac killer, but rather a copycat. Hearing that, people certainly had to figure Jeff was somehow involved in the slayings.

  His only alibi was that he was screwing some woman in Vancouver at the time.

  Molly was sick in front of Chet Blazevich. Fortunately, Rachel got the wastebasket to her in time. While Rachel cleaned out the wastebasket, Molly drank a little water, but she still didn’t feel any better. “I’m sorry,” she muttered feebly to Chet. “It’s been — it’s been like an Exorcist marathon here lately.”

  “Have you seen a doctor?” he asked gently. “You look like you belong in the E.R.”

  “I’m pregnant,” she admitted quietly. “I saw a doctor yesterday morning. I’m not sure how much of this is morning sickness, and how much of it is stress. Anyway, the kids don’t know yet about the baby. Jeff didn’t know, either. I never got a chance to tell him. . ” She started to cry again. She couldn’t help it. All her defenses were down, and she felt so horrible.

  Before leaving, Chet reminded her that Jeff’s death was still under investigation. But Molly knew he’d probably chalked up everything she’d said as the paranoid ramblings of a sickly, hormonal, pregnant woman — just made a widow.

  She felt so frustrated and useless. Poor Chris had to drive by himself to the coroner’s office and identify his father’s remains. And Erin couldn’t take much comfort in a stepmother who was bedridden, groggy, and throwing up every few hours. For both of them, more than anything, she wanted to climb out of bed and be strong again. Rachel and Trish were there on and off, but Molly couldn’t help feeling she’d let down Chris and Erin just when they’d needed her the most.

  She wanted so much to call her mother. She missed her. And it would have helped to know if this severe morning sickness was something hereditary. Rachel was just about as far along in her pregnancy, and she admitted to feeling nauseous a lot of the time. But it didn’t seem to slow her down.

  That Monday morning, the day before Jeff’s funeral, Molly told herself she had to get up no matter how awful she felt. The ginger capsules didn’t seem to do any good — in fact, they only made her sicker and groggier. So Molly decided not to take any. At 6:45, before anyone else woke up, she crawled out of bed, opened the window, and took several, deep fortifying breaths of the cold November air. Leaning on the banister, she managed to get downstairs to the kitchen, where she found a Sprite in the refrigerator and some deli ham. She made herself a cold ham and Swiss sandwich and gobbled it up at the breakfast table.

  Outside, it was still dark. Inside, the house was quiet. For a few minutes, she managed to convince herself it was one of those mornings when Jeff was on a business trip, and the kids weren’t awake yet — and she had a few quiet moments before the morning rush to school.

  To her amazement, she kept the food down. She was still a bit frail and once again relied on the banister for her slow ascent back up the stairs. She had every intention of making her bed, but she crawled under the covers again for a moment — and fell asleep.

  The next thing she knew, her nightstand digital clock read 11:23 A.M., and she could hear the TV on in the family room. Molly forced herself to get up. A shower was too much of a commitment — even with her hair limp and greasy. She washed her face, put on a sweater and jeans, and then made her bed.

  Down the hall, she checked Erin’s room to see if the bed was made. It wasn’t, and clothes were strewn on the floor. She’d do a load of wash. It wasn’t much, but she was taking baby steps. She gathered up Erin’s clothes, then paused and sat down in Angela’s rocker with Erin’s dirty clothes in her lap. Molly noticed yellow paint on the long sleeve of Erin’s pink pullover. There was a yellow smudge on her jeans, too.

  Molly could see the shade of yellow wasn’t from Erin’s limited watercolor collection. It was artists’ oil paint, probably Naples Light Yellow. A s
ix-ounce tube cost eighty-two dollars, plus tax.

  She could see a few yellow stains on Erin’s door, too. Molly shook her head. “Damn it,” she murmured. Erin knew she wasn’t allowed up in the studio by herself, and using Molly’s paints was strictly verboten.

  Molly got to her feet, and Erin’s dirty clothes fell from her lap to the floor. She stepped over them on her way to the hall. She noticed a pale yellow paint smudge by the knob of the attic door. Molly opened the door and told herself she couldn’t be mad at Erin, not now. For all she knew, maybe Erin had painted her a Get Well picture. She’d done that for her before, when she’d had the flu last January. But Erin had used her own paints then.

  Molly climbed the stairs to her art studio and felt a bit dizzy by the time she reached the top. Catching her breath, she glanced around. Just past the easel and the back of her latest project — the cola ad — she spotted the tube of Naples Light Yellow. It was on the stool that usually held her water glass, soda, or coffee while she worked. The cap was off, and some of the paint had oozed out of the tube. She saw a thin paintbrush on the floor.

  “Oh, Erin, for God’s sake,” she said under her breath. She moved toward the easel to clean up after her. That was when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Molly swiveled around and stared at her painting of the twenty partygoers through the ages drinking cola — and the yellow X slashed across it.

  “Oh, no!” she cried, a hand over her mouth. She automatically turned away — toward the bookcase. Then she realized her painting wasn’t the only thing that had been destroyed up here. On one shelf, blotches of yellow paint haphazardly ran across several of the elephant figurines. A few of the glass and china ones had been smashed with a putty knife that lay on the floor among the broken shards.

  “No, no, no,” Molly sobbed. “God, how could she?” Some of those elephants had belonged to Charlie.

  She staggered down the two flights of stairs to the family room, where Erin was in her pajamas, sprawled on the sofa, snacking on a Fruit Roll-Up and watching a cartoon on TV. “My God, Erin, why?” she asked, out of breath and half crying. “Why in the world would you do that?”

  “Do what?” Erin sat up. “I didn’t do anything!”

  “You ruined my painting!” Molly cried. “You know how hard I’ve worked on that. I’ve spent hours and hours on it—”

  “I did not!” Erin screamed. “I didn’t do anything to your dumb old painting!”

  “And you destroyed a whole shelf full of my elephants! Are you going to deny that, too? Why would you do something so hurtful? Are you mad at me? Is that it? You know you’re not allowed up in my studio, and yet you went up there and—”

  “I didn’t go up there! I didn’t do anything!” Tears in her eyes, Erin glared up at her.

  Molly felt a wave of nausea, and she took a deep breath. She plopped down in the cushioned chair beside her. “Okay, I–I understand you’re very upset,” she said in a shaky voice. “And I realize you might be angry at me because I’ve been so sick lately — or maybe you somehow blame me for what happened to your dad. Whatever it is, we can talk about it. But first, you need to own up to what you did. Now, don’t lie to me, Erin. You went up to my studio. You broke some elephants, then you took a tube of yellow paint and you painted a big X—”

  “I did not!” Erin shrieked, jumping up from the sofa. She threw down her Fruit Roll-Up. “You’re the liar! I didn’t do anything to your stupid painting! I hate you, I hate you!” Crying, she ran out of the room and charged up the stairs.

  “What the hell was that all about?”

  Molly turned and saw Chris had come up from the basement. She heard Erin’s bedroom door upstairs slam shut. She rubbed her eyes. “Your sister decided to touch up the painting I’ve been working on for the last two weeks,” she said. “I guess she has some unresolved anger toward me — though I guess she figured out a way to resolve it. Go on up and take a look. My painting’s ruined. She also destroyed about a dozen of my elephants. Some of those I’ve had since I was her age.” Molly found a Kleenex in the pocket of her jeans, and she blew her nose. “I’m sorry I’ve been so ill the last two days. I can’t help that. I know how you and Erin must feel. This is a time when you’ve really needed me to step up to the plate. And I’ve let you down. I understand if you’re angry and confused. . ”

  Half a room away, Chris shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the kitchen counter. “It’s okay,” he said, frowning.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s not okay. You’re upset with me, too. I can tell, just by looking at you. You don’t even want to come near me. Talk about unresolved anger. . ” She blew her nose again. The tissue started to fall apart in her hands. “You know, I have some anger issues, too,” she admitted. “I’m so mad at your father right now. He was a good man, and he loved you and Erin very much. But he — he made some foolish decisions as far as women were concerned. I guess you heard enough about that from your mother. But I can’t help being mad at him for letting this woman — whoever she is — set him up that way. I don’t care what the police say, or what you hear on the news, he was not in that hotel room alone.”

  Chris nodded. “Yeah, I heard you talking to that cop yesterday, the one you seem to know so well.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing, forget it.” He started to turn toward the basement again.

  “No, I won’t forget it,” Molly retorted, unsteadily getting to her feet. “And you can’t just say something like that, and then leave the room. . ”

  Stopping, Chris turned around and frowned at her.

  “If you’re insinuating that anything at all has gone on between Detective Blazevich and me, you’re way off. And if you’re trying to blame me — or — or justify why your father. .”

  Molly couldn’t finish. She felt sick to her stomach. She shook her head and retreated for the stairs. She made it up to the master bathroom, where she sat on the floor by the toilet until the nausea passed. Then she staggered back to bed and climbed under the covers.

  She wished she’d never gotten up.

  Chris stared at the big yellow X scrawled across Molly’s unfinished painting. The X had finished it — for good. It was just as Molly had described it to him hours ago. Too bad, because what Molly had created so far was pretty cool, like something out of Mad Men with all these different characters through the century. Chris could tell she’d used a photo of him as a model for the 1940s sailor who was drinking a cola with this sexy blond woman with a peekaboo bang over one eye. She’d made him look handsome.

  He glanced over at the elephants that were broken and splattered with yellow paint. It was the third shelf up — just at Erin’s eye level. He’d seen the yellow splotches on Erin’s door — and on her clothes. He’d talked to his kid sister after dinner tonight, and she’d denied any wrongdoing. She’d insisted she never came up here to “Molly’s stupid old studio.” But it reminded him of when Erin was a toddler and not totally potty-trained. She’d occasionally wet her pants and then insist that a lion had come along and splashed her with a glass of water. Why a lion, he wasn’t sure. But she’d tell the lie and stick to her guns — even when the evidence was stacked up against her.

  He knew she was upset, confused, and angry. He felt exactly the same way. He gazed at Molly’s ruined painting and those elephants she’d had since she was a child — and his heart broke for her. Yet he kept thinking back to what Mrs. Hahn had said a few nights back, about how when Molly moved in, that was the start of all their troubles.

  Every person he’d come to depend on had died within the last few months — starting with Mr. Corson, then his mom, and then his dad.

  Molly had told him earlier today that she was mad at his father for getting himself killed. Chris was angry at him, too, but he also missed him. He had to remind himself this wasn’t one of his dad’s business trips. He wasn’t coming back.

  He plodded down the attic steps t
o the second floor. He glanced toward what was once his mom and dad’s bedroom. Now it was Molly’s room. The door was closed. She was probably sleeping. He knew why she was so sick and run-down lately. He’d heard her tell that cop that she was pregnant. So he was going to have another kid sister or a kid brother. He couldn’t get all that excited about it, at least not right now.

  Down the hall, Erin was asleep with her door open and her night-light on.

  He went downstairs, where his Aunt Trish had some new age music playing on the iPod station while she prepared food for a brunch tomorrow. A medley of vegetables, bottles of olive oil and cooking wine, and packages of tofu were spread over the counter. His mother’s younger sister had long, wavy gray hair, glasses, and a buxom figure she covered with loose, billowy, earth-tone clothes that always looked secondhand.

  Heading toward the refrigerator, Chris worked up a smile. “Hey, Aunt Trish, what are you cooking?”

  She was doing something with grape leaves. “We’re making vegetable kabobs, tofu wraps, and meatless meatballs.”

  He didn’t have the heart to tell her that most of his parents’ friends probably wouldn’t touch that vegan stuff. He took a Coke out of the refrigerator.

  “Chris, I need to talk to you about something,” she said, glancing up at him for a moment.

  Sipping his Coke, he leaned against the counter. “What’s up?”

  His aunt started cutting the tofu in cubes. She looked down at her work while talking to him. Or maybe she just couldn’t look him in the eye, he wasn’t sure. “I need to make it clear to you — and Erin — that this is just for the next day or so,” she said. “I can’t stay here permanently — and I won’t be able to look after you two. I don’t know if you were thinking that or not. But I have my own life in Tacoma. I’m still planning to go to India for three months starting in February. I don’t know exactly how well you and Erin get along with your stepmother. I suppose it doesn’t matter much to you, because you’ll be going off to college next year. But — there’s Erin to consider. Have you — have you talked to Molly about her plans?”