Killer's Cousin

by Nancy Werlin

  “It’s great,” I said again, sincerely. “I’m—”

  “I should live here,” said Lily. She had seated herself cross-legged in the very center of the living room floor. Her face was expressionless. “Why can’t I move up here? Why should we give it to him?” She didn’t look at me.

  “You’re too young, Lily,” Vic said. “You’re best downstairs with us.”

  “She lived here,” Lily said. Vic turned away abruptly. Kathy, I thought. “She wasn’t that much older than I am now when she moved up here,” Lily said. The words had the whiny singsong quality of frequent repetition. “I don’t see why I can’t—”

  Vic cut her off. “That’s enough, Lily.”

  A silence. Then, barely audible: “It’s all wrong,” Lily whispered.

  “Well,” I said. I found myself struggling with the desire to tell Lily she could visit me, and an equally strong—no, a stronger—desire to keep my mouth shut, to preserve the privacy I had only just realized I would have. Real gratitude to Vic and Julia filled me, for the first time. I turned to Vic. “I’d like to say hello to Julia,” I said. “I thought I heard her before.”

  Vic’s mouth tightened. “She’ll say hello later, probably.”

  Probably. “Oh,” I said.

  Lily chortled obnoxiously, and then clapped a hand over her mouth.

  I looked around again at the perfect little apartment. At Vic as he scraped away some bit of grit he’d suddenly noticed on the kitchen counter. At Lily, who had sprung up from the floor and gone to insinuate herself against Vic, who gave her an absentminded hug. At a stray slender shadow that flitted for the barest instant past the corner of my vision.

  I was tired, okay, but I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t need a high-school diploma to figure out that Julia didn’t want me there. Or Lily. But I had no choice. I was not welcome in Baltimore either. Davey had died when Emily did.

  Now I was David, and I lived in Cambridge with strangers.

  And shadows.

  CHAPTER 2

  No doubt partly because of the separateness of my living quarters, but also, I was sure, because it was her preference, I did not see my aunt Julia for two full days. She didn’t even come to dinner my first evening, when Vic took Lily and me out to Harvard Square for burgers.

  During those two days, Vic was away much of the time as well—he’s an electrical contractor—and yet it was Julia’s absence that I noticed as I unpacked and tried to settle in. To my knowledge, she didn’t work. On the evening of my arrival, as I trudged upstairs with my boom box and CDs, I thought I heard her voice. But by the time I reached the landing, she’d retreated toward the back of the house. I kept listening after that, as with Vic’s help I brought up the pieces of my computer, my TV and VCR, and armloads of clothes and videotapes, but I didn’t hear her again. I certainly didn’t go looking for her.

  The next night, Vic gave me something that served as an explanation. He rapped on my door and came in, asked how the unpacking was going. Then he said, “Uh, in general, we all make do for ourselves around here. Even Lily. As you’ve got your own kitchen, Julia thought perhaps … she’s quite busy, you see, and we’ve never been ones for formal family meals. And you are pretty much grown-up. I told her you’d want to take care of yourself, you’d appreciate your privacy …”

  It took me a minute to understand what he was really saying. Then I said, “Of course. It’s very considerate of you.”

  Vic avoided my eyes. He reached out tentatively and touched my shoulder. I knew—and he knew—that this was not what my mother had had in mind when she sent me to her brother’s.

  I was beginning to wonder if this really had been Vic’s idea. Would my mother have lied about that to me? To my father? Or just to me?

  “About money for food,” Vic began.

  I cut him off. “I have a credit card,” I said. “And a bank account. My parents didn’t want me to be a burden to you. It’s no problem.”

  “But I’d like to give you—”

  “No.” I looked him straight in the eye. “Thank you, but no. You’ve been quite generous as it is.” I busied myself arranging some stuff. After a few minutes Vic left, closing the door gently behind him. I thought he said something about seeing me later, but I couldn’t be sure. There was a buzzing in my ears.

  Emily, I thought. Emily.

  I wondered, did Julia believe the tabloids were right about me, and the jury wrong? I wondered, had my parents pressured them to invite me? If so, how? But it sickened me to try to think about it. Did it matter? It was done. And it was only for a year. An academic year. Nine months. I would not look beyond that.

  That night, I heard the oddest sound. It was a kind of … low humming—only just audible, somehow filled with urgency and … frustration? Whatever it was, it was definitely not tuneful. At first I was barely aware of it, and then, for one bare second, it swelled and seemed to fill my ears. I sat up in bed and turned on the light, briefly imagining—I don’t know—a giant fly from a horror film? Something stupid, anyway; something nightmarish. But of course the room was empty in the harsh glare of electric light. And the sound, too, was suddenly gone: in fact my ears rang with silence. After a moment, I shrugged. I’d imagined quite a few strange things this last year. What was one more? And so I sank back into the semistupor that, these days, I called sleep.

  Though I didn’t see Julia, Lily was around. She parked herself on my sofa the next day and sullenly watched me unpack. Once, when I came back from transferring a pile of T-shirts to the bedroom bureau, I found her freely rooting around in a box of my books and papers.

  “Lily,” I said.

  She looked up briefly, and then bent over the box again.

  I said, “It’s rude to go through other people’s stuff.”

  Lily didn’t change her position or look up. She reached into the box and pulled out a large paperback. “Why is it rude?” she asked. She turned the book over and began to examine the back, and then I realized which one it was, and I panicked a little. I should have been more careful when I packed, but I hadn’t thought anybody would be in my stuff. And I’d wanted to bring all my books. They’d become friends, that lonely year.

  And that particular book, Emily had given me.

  “Because everybody needs privacy,” I said. I took the book from her. “And time alone. Do you understand?”

  “No.” Lily’s eyes fixed on my face and scoured it inch by inch. It unnerved me.

  “Look,” I said, “you’d better leave. I want to unpack by myself.” And, as she continued to kneel there on the floor, I walked to the open door and stood by it.

  She waited just past the point at which I was sure she wasn’t going to move. Then she got up, elaborately dusting off her knees. “Tell me something,” she said, as if casually. “How did you feel when she went down?”

  All the air left the room.

  Lily was leaning forward, her gaze avid, sucking at mine. “Tell me. Did you feel … powerful? Were you glad? Even … just for a minute?”

  I had words, somewhere inside me, but for a long moment they were formless. I thought, She’s a kid, she’s just a kid, but that didn’t help. Greg and Emily and I had been kids too. Being under eighteen didn’t mean you were innocent. Or harmless.

  “Get out,” I said.

  Again she waited. Staring; challenging. And as I began to think that I would have to pick her up and remove her bodily—and I was abruptly prepared to do it—she lifted her chin and moved past me like a diva. Her feet thunked as she descended the stairs. I closed the door behind her. I leaned against it.

  I heard my own breath come back in and out of my lungs. It sounded as if I’d been running.

  CHAPTER 3

  In my hand I felt the weight of Emily’s book, and I remembered when she’d given it to me. To us. It hadn’t been long after we’d first slept together, and she’d been so delighted with herself. She’d gleefully described her embarrassment at the bookstore; how she’d dallied and hung
back in line to make sure she got a female cashier. How she’d also bought a couple of mysteries she didn’t want, so that this book wouldn’t be her only purchase.

  We’d laughed so hard. And then she’d kissed me, coming in close, teasing, and I’d been as self-absorbed as an onion. Astounded at my luck and at the same time confident it was my due.

  I was smug, beyond doubt. Maybe I was even dumb, not paying attention to anyone except myself. But I cared about Emily. We were good together. She was not frightened of me. I was not obsessive and jealous. I would never have hurt her. That wasn’t me.

  That wasn’t me. Not then. Not now. Not ever. No.

  But, still … still …

  Slowly I became aware that my other hand hurt. For a long moment I could not unclench my fingers. Then, slowly, I could. My palm was bloody. I stared at it. My stomach lurched. I took in one deep breath, and then, carefully, another.

  I would not think about Emily, or about Greg’s compelling lies, or about my own doubts. I could not afford to.

  And I could not afford to waste any emotion on Lily. Or on Julia. I was here in Cambridge. I had a job to do: a year of school to complete in a strange place, surrounded by new people who would at best be suspicious of me, and at worst—

  No. I wouldn’t think about that.

  I moved to the bookcase and, working rapidly, filled the bottom shelves with my old science fiction books: Asimov, Bear, Bujold, Card, Heinlein, others. I tucked Emily’s book, inappropriately, behind these other books that I needed to keep but knew I would probably not read again. Then I went to the sink to run cold water over my stinging hand.

  I would be attending a private preparatory school called St. Joan’s, which had once been an exclusive girls’ school.

  “But, ten years ago,” Dr. Edythe Walpole, the headmistress, had said during the interview that my father arranged at the beginning of the summer, “we decided to allow boys to enroll as well.” She’d fixed me with a steady look over her half glasses.

  I nodded. I didn’t really care about the school’s history. She had to know that.

  “This is a small school,” said Dr. Walpole. “Small and quiet. Fewer than a hundred students in each grade; classes with a low teacher-student ratio. We pride ourselves on the quality of our faculty; the depth of our courses. I teach a senior seminar in history, myself. Everyone who works here teaches, no matter what else they do.”

  Oh, really? I thought sourly. The custodian too? But I just nodded. I was hyperaware of my father, waiting outside the office, probably pacing. We’d flown up together from Baltimore that morning and were due to take another plane back in a couple of hours. “That sounds impressive,” I said. I wondered how much my parents were planning to pay. Twice the normal tuition? More? Despite what the papers said, we weren’t rich. How much would this year cost them, on top of all the legal fees?

  Silence had fallen. I looked up and saw Dr. Walpole paging thoughtfully through my file. I knew what she was seeing there. The A’s. The IQ number. The S.A.T. scores. Probably even the cross-country times. Davey was just about perfect, you see.

  I waited. Finally she looked up, at me, at David. “Very well,” she said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

  I said, “Thank you.” I wanted to say something else—there was a little silence in which I felt I was expected to say something else—but I couldn’t think what.

  In my attic apartment, I winced, remembering. School would begin the next day. There would be countless such encounters to get through. Weeks, maybe months, to make myself blend into the walls. Settle everybody down. I would just have to do it. For the rest of my life, over and over, I would have to convince everyone—including me—of my harmlessness.

  Nearly everything was unpacked. I decided to take a break, go for a walk. See if I could find some local stores. I needed a desk lamp. I needed to get out of the house for a while. I needed—badly—to run, and I would, as soon as I figured out where I’d put my running shoes.

  I went down the stairs, through Vic and Julia’s apartment, and down again. On the front porch, I nearly careened into a tall, skinny girl carrying a huge canvas. The artist, I guessed, who Vic had mentioned lived on the first floor. “Sorry,” I said. We danced around each other; somehow, the girl managed to keep her grip on the unwieldy canvas.

  Behind the canvas I caught a glimpse of her profile: dark skin, a high cheekbone, a sweep of brown hair tucked behind a lovely, delicate ear. Oddly penetrating, her eye stopped on me for an instant and my face flamed. She was beautiful, and she would think I—she’d have read the tabloids, heard what Greg had said …

  I ducked my head to hide. The girl might have said something; I wasn’t sure. I heard the rattle of her keys as she fumbled with them. Finally she got her door open and edged her canvas inside. I got just a glimpse of the interior of that first room, the living room, and it astonished me almost out of my hideous self-consciousness. The room was completely empty.

  Her door closed, softly.

  After another second I looked over at her mailbox and read the name on it. An unusual name: Raina. Raina Doumeng.

  CHAPTER 4

  To my surprise, that evening I got a formal invitation to dinner. Vic knocked on my door to deliver it. “Julia is making a stew tonight,” he said. “Why don’t you come down at six?”

  “Okay,” I said, wondering if that meant she was just doing the cooking, and would therefore still not make an appearance. But when I came down that night, I found Julia in the kitchen, her back ramrod-straight, her hair shorter than I’d remembered and completely gray. She wore an apron fastened over casual clothes.

  Tentatively, I approached and gave her a bouquet of late-summer wildflowers I’d found up the street at a little outdoor fruit and vegetable market. She seemed surprised, and, if not pleased, at least not actively hostile.

  “Thank you, David,” she said, my name sounding precise and measured. She examined me and then averted her eyes politely from my long hair, grown, defiantly, since my Eagle Scout appearance at the trial. She instructed Lily to find a vase for the flowers. “Then tell your father we’ll be ready to eat in ten minutes.”

  Lily. All at once I could hear her unbelievable questions echo once again in my ears. I forced myself to glance at her, and found her watching me. I looked away.

  Did you feel powerful?

  She was a little girl. She could not have known what she was asking.

  In a few minutes we all took our seats. Julia sat at the foot of the small, rectangular dining room table, Vic at the head, while Lily and I faced each other across the two sides. Julia had placed my flowers directly in the center of the table, making it difficult for me to see Lily.

  And soon I felt slightly more relaxed. Julia was making an effort to be cordial, and Vic had ruffled Lily’s hair affectionately just before we sat down, making her break out briefly in a smile.

  Julia ladled out the stew, passing Vic’s down to him via Lily, and we began eating.

  “So, you start at St. Joan’s tomorrow?” Julia asked me.

  “Yes,” I said. The stew was good; I complimented Julia on it and on the bread. She thanked me. There was a little silence.

  “St. Joan’s is a very good school,” pronounced Julia finally. “I might send Lilian there when the time comes for her to attend high school. I don’t want her to stay in public school when she’s older. Because you never know. Gangs. Drugs.”

  Lily muttered something. I wondered briefly why Lily was not attending parochial school now, as Kathy had, but then realized that it must be money. “There are probably scholarships for St. Joan’s,” I began, and then faltered as I met Julia’s glare.

  “I can afford to send Lilian to St. Joan’s!” she snapped. “I don’t need charity!”

  “I didn’t mean …” I let my voice drift off as Julia continued to glare, and I remembered that my father had offered to help with Kathy’s college tuition, and been refused. And of course Kathy hadn’t stayed long in college.
I looked at Vic, hoping for help, but he was eating with great concentration, wiping the bowl with his bread, not looking up.

  More silence. Like Vic, I attended to my dinner. Pretty soon I scraped bottom. I wanted more but the tureen was out of reach and somehow I was reluctant to ask Julia. The bread was nearby; I ate more of it. I turned my head to the right and examined the many family pictures collected in two large frames on the wall. I noted several of Lily, but I did not see Kathy’s distinctive red hair.

  Finally I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “Vic,” I said, “are you a Patriots fan?”

  Vic looked up. “Not really. I prefer baseball.” He hesitated. “But maybe we could go to a game some weekend if you’d like.”

  “Sure,” I said weakly, horrified. I did not want to go to a game with Vic; I had just been making conversation. “Sometime.”

  “Okay,” said Vic. His eyes flickered away from mine, to the soup tureen, and then down to his own empty plate. He took a slice of bread from the basket.

  Next, I tried a question about the house. This met with more response. Vic was seriously into home upkeep and repair. “These old wood frame houses repay the care,” he said. He told me the history of the Boston double- and triple-deckers. “They’re democratic, these houses,” he said, looking around the room in satisfaction. “Some people think they’re ugly,”—he squinted suspiciously at me—“all crammed together on a street. But I say this house has treated us well.”

  It was the perfect opening. “Vic,” I said, “I was wondering about the skylights in the attic. Did you do something with them to diffuse the light differently?”

  “A skylight’s a skylight. What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Well, there’s this shadow I see upstairs sometimes, in the late afternoon. It’s tall, thin …” Almost womanly, I suddenly thought. “And well … anyway, I just wondered if maybe the light was funny. And also—” I was going to mention the humming, but Vic was frowning at me, shaking his head, and I stopped, uncertain.