Disturbed

by Kevin O'Brien

  “Maybe it’s because you’re my friend,” Molly replied. She took another swig of water and sat up straighter. “I’m the one who first reported the incident with her husband and that poor student. Chris and I started it all. And look what happened. She made Chris an orphan.”

  “And you think she was outside the church after the funeral?” Rachel asked.

  “More than that,” Molly answered. “I think she was standing right in front of me when that woman rode by on the bicycle and called out to her.”

  Rachel stared at her. “But the only people there were Jill, Natalie, and me.”

  Molly nodded. She was thinking back to the day before Jeff died, when he’d come home from work, and the same group had gathered at the end of the driveway — Rachel, Jill, and Natalie. Jeff had been home so seldom that she’d had to introduce him to their neighbors. Then he’d acted so peculiar — to the point of rudeness. Was it because he already knew one of them — and he was having an affair with her?

  One of the women in that group had spent the weekend with Jeff in Vancouver, British Columbia. She’d had another tryst with him in La Conner. And she’d poisoned him with drugs and alcohol in a hotel by the airport four days ago.

  “So — you’re saying that Natalie or Jill—or me—one of us is really Jenna?” Rachel let out a stunned, little laugh. “Do you need to see my birth certificate?”

  Molly quickly shook her head. “No, not you,” she said. “I think it’s Natalie. I’ve always had a weird feeling about her. And just seconds after that woman called out Jenna’s name, Natalie disappeared. I’d be surprised if Natalie shows her face again on this block. How much do we know about her anyway?”

  At the same time, Molly couldn’t totally dismiss her other neighbor, Jill. There was something very sensual and earthy about her that might have appealed to Jeff. She was just about the right age to have been Ray Corson’s wife. And Molly remembered they had a young son. Was he around Darren’s age? Molly wasn’t sure.

  She hated to even think it, but she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure about Rachel, either. But then that meant Rachel had set fire to her own toolshed and left herself that threatening voice mail, and sent herself the letter with the news clipping about Charlie. And even though the bicyclist had called out Jenna’s name — exposing her — there was Rachel at Molly’s bedside when she’d awoken.

  “Don’t you think we should call the police?” she asked. “I mean, they should know about this Jenna person.”

  Molly smiled a tiny bit and told herself that Jenna Corson would never have made such a suggestion.

  “We can’t call the police, not yet.” She sighed, shaking her head. “You heard me trying to explain everything to Chet Blazevich the day before yesterday. He didn’t believe me — and hell, he likes me. No, before we go to the police, we need some solid proof that Jenna Corson is responsible for all these deaths and ‘accidents.’ We have to determine whether it’s Natalie or Jill behind all this.” Molly paused. “Listen to me with the ‘we this’ and ‘we that.’ I didn’t mean to be so presumptuous. You don’t have to be involved.”

  Rachel reached over, took her hand. “Go ahead and presume, honey. I’m here for you. By the way, you’re finally getting some color in your cheeks. I’ll go see if I can find something edible for you down there. You stay put.”

  “Thanks,” Molly said, working up a smile. She watched Rachel head for the door, and her smile waned. She had to know something. Molly waited until her new friend was in the doorway, and then she said in a quiet voice, “Jenna?”

  Rachel stepped out to the hallway, then hesitated and glanced back at her. “Did you just say something?”

  Molly quickly shook her head.

  Rachel frowned at her. “Yes, you did. You said, ‘Jenna.’ ”

  “I’m so sorry,” Molly replied, grimacing. “I just needed to be sure. . ”

  Rachel sighed. “Listen, I’m suddenly not feeling so well myself. I think I’ll go home and lie down—”

  “Please, Rachel, I’m sorry.” Molly started to climb off the bed. “That was stupid of me, I—”

  “I’ll be sure to bring my driver’s license with me next time I come over, Molly,” she said. Then she turned and started down the hallway.

  “Rachel, wait!” Molly heard her footsteps retreating down the stairs. She started to get up, but felt a head rush and quickly sat down on the bed again.

  She heard the front door open and shut.

  “Hello, you reached the Nguyens. We cannot come to the phone right now. But if you leave a message, we will be back to you.”

  Molly listened to Mrs. Nguyen’s recorded voice. She had the Nguyens’ Denver phone number in her address book by the phone in her bedroom. She sat on the edge of her bed and waited until the beep sounded.

  “Hi, Dr. and Mrs. Nguyen,” she said. “This is Molly Dennehy, your neighbor on Willow Tree Court. I need to ask you about Natalie, the woman who’s staying in your house. It’s very important. Could you call me—”

  A click on the other end of the line interrupted her. “Hello?” Molly said.

  “This Mrs. Nguyen,” she said, in her slightly fractured English. “Molly? What you talking about with a woman in our house? There’s no woman staying in our house.”

  Molly hesitated. “Ah, actually, Mrs. Nguyen, there is,” she said. “A woman named Natalie has been staying at your house for the last two months—”

  “What you mean?” Mrs. Nguyen interrupted. “No, house is empty. We have Todd to check every week. No one is living there now. We don’t know any Natalie.”

  “Mrs. Nguyen, I’ve seen this woman coming and going into your house since September,” Molly said. “She’s a thin blonde in her late thirties — or early forties — and she goes by the name Natalie.”

  “No, that not right. I call Todd to find out. It’s mistake. . ”

  “Is it possible someone named Jenna is staying there? Jenna Corson?”

  “No! Nobody staying there!” Mrs. Nguyen declared angrily.

  “Would you mind if I called your friend, Todd, and talked to him? It’s very important I find out more about this woman.”

  “One minute, please,” Mrs. Nguyen said.

  “Yes, I’ll wait,” Molly replied. “Thank you.”

  While Molly stayed on the line, she thought about how she’d hurt Rachel’s feelings earlier. Her only friend in the world, and she’d alienated her.

  A part of her couldn’t help wondering if she was a little crazy or hormonal — or just in shock over Jeff’s death. This notion that Ray Corson’s widow had infiltrated the block in order to invoke some kind of revenge was pretty far-fetched. And it was all based on the fact that some woman had called out Jenna’s name to a crowd of people.

  Now it didn’t seem so crazy. She kept thinking about the way Natalie had suddenly disappeared right after that.

  Molly remembered Natalie jogging past her house when Angela’s murder had drawn a crowd of newspeople and gawkers. She’d jogged past Lynette’s house when Jeremy’s arrest brought the spectators and news crews back to the block a week later. Though from afar Natalie had seemed uninterested, Molly wondered if her neighbor had felt compelled to be out there at that particular time. Maybe she’d wanted to witness the fruits of her labors.

  “Molly?” Mrs. Nguyen said, getting back on the line.

  “Yes, I’m here,” she said, grabbing a pen off the nightstand.

  “Have you seen this woman take anything from house?”

  “No, I haven’t, but then I can’t be sure,” Molly replied. “Do you have a phone number or e-mail for this Todd person?”

  “I call him right now.”

  “Well, could I call him, too? Please, Mrs. Nguyen, it’s important.”

  “His name is Todd Millikan,” Mrs. Nguyen said. “425-555-8860.”

  Jotting it down on the front page of her address book, Molly repeated the number out loud to make sure she heard it right past Mrs. Nguyen’s accent
. “Is that right?” she asked.

  “Yes. I call him right now.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Nguyen. If you get through to him, could you call me? He might not pick up for someone he doesn’t know. I’ll do the same for you if I get ahold of him.”

  “Yes, yes, good-bye,” she said abruptly. Then Molly heard a click on the other end.

  She clicked off and decided to wait a few minutes before calling Todd Millikan. With the address book in her hand, Molly stood up — remembering at only the last minute to take it slow. In her stocking feet, she walked out of the bedroom and down the front stairs. She could hear water running in the kitchen and the clattering of dishes and silverware. Trish was talking to her friend, Holly, in the kitchen. From the front hallway, she saw Erin napping on the family-room sofa.

  Molly quietly opened the front door. The chilly November breeze whipped against her, but she stepped outside in her black funeral dress and stocking feet. The sky was overcast, and she felt a few raindrops as she padded to the end of the walkway. Clutching the address book to her chest, Molly kept her arms folded in front of her. Down the block, the windows in the Nguyens’ house were all dark. Natalie’s blue Mini Cooper wasn’t in the driveway.

  Molly turned and headed back to the house again and found Trish in the doorway. Her friend Holly, a thin thirtysomething blonde with a Joan of Arc buzz cut and glasses, hovered behind her. They both gaped at her as if she was crazy. “Molly, are you all right?” Trish asked, glancing down at her stocking feet.

  “I’m fine.” She nodded distractedly. “Did Chris and Elvis go out?”

  “No, they’re downstairs, watching TV,” Trish replied. She and Holly stepped aside as Molly came into the house.

  “Good. Everyone’s home, everybody’s safe,” she murmured.

  Trish closed the door behind her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Could I get you a plate of food?” Holly chimed in. “There’s plenty left over.”

  Molly shook her head, and then, without thinking, she suddenly hugged Trish. “Listen, thank you so much for everything,” she said. “You’ve both been so terrific. I’m sorry I’ve been ill. . ” She pulled back. “Oh, and don’t worry, I’m not contagious. Anyway, thank you.” She nodded toward Jeff’s study. “I need to make a call, okay?”

  Trish and Holly both nodded and seemed to work up smiles for her — as if she were someone on probation from a mental institution.

  Molly ducked into Jeff’s study and closed the door. Rain tapped against the window, and it was dark enough that she had to turn on the lamp on his desk. Consulting the front page of her address book, she picked up the cordless phone and punched in Todd Millikan’s number. She counted four rings until a message clicked on.

  “Hi, it’s Todd,” the recording said. “You’ve missed me, but you got my voice mail. You know what to do. Talk after the beep. Ciao for now.”

  Beep.

  “Hi, Todd,” she said into the phone. “My name is Molly Dennehy, and I live down the block from the Nguyens’ house on Willow Tree Court. I can’t get ahold of Natalie, and I’m kind of concerned about something. Could you please call me as soon as possible?”

  Molly left her phone number, and then clicked off.

  She gazed at Jeff’s computer monitor for a moment, and then reached for the mouse. She went to Google, typed in Jenna Corson, and clicked Images.

  The response came back, “Did you mean Jenna Carlson?” And there were dozens of pictures of Jenna Carlsons, but not one picture of a Jenna Corson. Molly tried Facebook, and came up with a nineteen-year-old Jenna Corson at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and a fifty-two-year-old mother of five in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.

  She glanced out the rain-beaded window at Rachel’s house next door. She needed to apologize to her — and she wanted to tell her about Natalie. But reaching for the phone, Molly hesitated. Instead of making the call, she went back to the computer keyboard and tried a new entry on Google Image: Rachel Cross.

  Most of the results were for a singer/songwriter named Rachel Cross, and there were a lot of photos of purses called Rachel Cross Body Bags. Molly went through eleven pages with twenty Rachel Cross pictures per page, and she didn’t see her neighbor in any of the photos. She’d really hoped to find something, too. She still wanted to call her, but right now, she couldn’t afford to trust anyone.

  She tried Jill Emory. After six pages of the wrong Jill Emory, pictures of Jill St. John started coming up. Molly refined the search, and typed in Jill Emory, Seattle Art Institute. At the bottom of the first page was a small photo of someone who looked very much like Darren’s mom, posing with another woman — at some formal occasion. Molly clicked on the image. Stepping Out in Style! Friends of the Arts Gala Fundraiser Nets $50,000 at Seattle Art Institute was the headline of the story — from 2007. Scrolling down past about twenty photos, Molly found the one with her neighbor, looking slightly slimmer in a black dress with a red satin jacket. All smiles, she posed with a pretty blond woman. The Art Institute’s Jill Emory chats with Keynote Speaker, Barbara Campbell, said the caption.

  That cleared Jill.

  She wished she knew Natalie’s last name — so she could try looking up her image. She kept glancing over at the phone, waiting for it to ring. She started sketching on the desk notepad — a cartoon of a woman. It looked a little like Natalie.

  Molly suddenly put down the pen and opened the side drawer to Jeff’s desk, where she’d stashed the bill from his secret MasterCard account. She glanced at the charges for the La Conner Channel Lodge, the Palmer Restaurant, and Windmill Antiques & Miniatures.

  La Conner was a little over an hour away by car.

  Molly glanced at the crude cartoon she’d drawn on the notepad. Getting to her feet, she hurried up to her attic studio. She was a bit winded reaching the top step. She still hadn’t put away the yellow paint or cleaned up the mess. Molly ignored all the destruction as she retrieved her sketch pad and charcoals. She didn’t want to work up here. She needed to be in the front of the house, where she could keep an eye out for Natalie’s Mini Cooper should it come down the block. And she wanted to be near the phone in case it rang.

  She brought the pad and charcoals down to Jeff’s study. Molly sat down and started to draw from memory a portrait of her neighbor, the woman who called herself Natalie.

  As she worked on the drawing, Molly lost track of the time. She was trying to capture on paper Natalie’s fine, limp dark blond hair when she glanced up at the window. The rain was coming down harder, and it had turned dark out. She clicked the mouse on Jeff’s computer and checked the time: 4:11 P.M.

  It had been three hours since she’d called the Nguyens and left that message for Todd Millikan. She phoned the Nguyens again. It rang twice before Mrs. Nguyen answered: “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Nguyen, it’s Molly Dennehy calling again. I was just wondering if you were able to get ahold of Todd yet.”

  “Oh, yes, I talk to him,” Mrs. Nguyen said. “You mistaken. He come by a few times to check on the house with friend, Natalie. But no one staying there. House is empty, he said. You mistaken.”

  “Mrs. Nguyen, that’s just not true. How well do you know this Todd person? He isn’t being honest with you. He—”

  “Todd is friend of my son for fifteen years!” she interrupted impatiently. “I trust him. He looking after house while we are away for two years now. You mistaken.”

  Molly said nothing. All she could think was that Natalie — or Jenna—must have somehow gotten to this Todd person. He’d put her up in the Nguyens’ house and now he was covering for her. Maybe she was paying him or having sex with him. Or maybe she was blackmailing the guy. It didn’t really matter how she’d gotten him to work for her.

  What mattered most was that Todd knew someone had caught on to the deception. And even if Mrs. Nguyen hadn’t said anything, Todd could be sure it was the Willow Tree Court neighbor who had left him a voice mail: Molly Dennehy at 206-555-2755.

  So
Natalie — or Jenna — or whatever she called herself when she was screwing Jeff — certainly had to know by now that she’d been found out.

  “Mrs. Nguyen,” Molly said finally. “Todd’s lying to you. But I guess you’ll have to find that out for yourself. Thanks for your time.”

  She hung up, clicked on the phone again, and dialed Rachel’s number. It rang four times and then the message clicked on. It was one of those impersonal automated greetings. Molly waited for the beep. “Hi, Rachel,” she said. “I don’t know if you can hear this, but call me as soon as you can. I need to apologize. And I have to tell you something about our neighbor down the block. Please call me back, okay?”

  Molly clicked off the phone, then went to the window and looked at Rachel’s house. Rain pelted the car, still in the driveway, and there were some lights on inside the house.

  She thought back to the last time she’d seen a light on in that house and no one had picked up the phone.

  She knew Rachel was upset with her, and that was probably why she didn’t answer the phone. Still, Rachel had been getting those threatening calls — just as Kay and Angela had been getting. And now that Natalie — or Jenna whatever her name was — knew she’d been found out, all bets were off. All hell could break loose.

  Molly reached for the phone again, but a knock on the front door stopped her. She hurried into the foyer and checked the peephole. Someone was holding a driver’s license up to the other side of the viewer. Molly couldn’t make out whose license it was. The photo and the writing were slightly blurred.

  “Molly, is someone at the door?” Trish called from upstairs.

  She hesitated, but then opened the door.

  Rachel was on the front stoop, with a hooded Windbreaker on to protect her from the rain. She was holding up her driver’s license. “This is my Florida license,” she said. Then she showed her a piece of paper with her picture on it. “And this is my temporary license for Washington state, and here’s my Macy’s card. . ”