Bleeding Heart

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “Alice?” I heard Tom call from the front of the house. I got up quickly and walked around to the front yard. He was looking through the open screen door, the light from the hallway spilling out onto the porch.

  “I was in the back,” I said, climbing the steps. “My family left a little while ago. Would you like to come in and get something to drink—and then join me outside?”

  “Yes, thanks, I would,” he said. I pushed open the door, and he followed me into the house. As I led the way down the hall to the kitchen, I could sense his gaze taking me in. I had on a pale pink sleeveless linen sundress, wrinkled from a day of wear. But I knew that it showed off my well-toned arms to good effect and contrasted nicely with my summer tan. I had my shoulder-length hair up in a clip, though strands had escaped and curled around the nape of my neck. I wasn’t sure if it was me—or the effect he had on me—but I thought I looked pretty good. Hardly one of Tom’s triplets, but still womanly and attractive. Which was not something I’d felt about myself in a long time.

  So I was surprised—and disappointed—by what Tom said when we took our seats outside on the darkening lawn.

  “I’m afraid I’m once again the bearer of bad news,” he told me. “Or at least upsetting news.”

  “Oh, dear,” I said, turning to look at him in the fading light. “What is it?” He had a profile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Roman coin: high forehead, aquiline nose, strong chin. But he seemed distant and distracted.

  “I’m friendly with Harry Corbett, who’s in the district attorney’s office,” he replied as he stared unseeing out over the wildflower field. “Apparently, they received Mackenzie’s autopsy report, and something’s not right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Harry told me they’re going to be opening up a homicide investigation into what happened.”

  “What? That’s crazy! Mackenzie had a heart attack. We were both right there.”

  “Yes, I know,” Tom said. “And I’ve been going over it again in my head. That’s certainly what the EMS guys seemed to think. And that’s what the doctor at Berkshire Medical Center told us. I was with Chloe and Lachlan when they heard the news. I’m absolutely sure the doctor said he thought Mackenzie’s heart ‘just gave out.’”

  “But now they think it wasn’t a heart attack? What was it, then?”

  “I don’t know. The DA’s keeping a tight lid on whatever the autopsy findings are—but something’s obviously wrong.”

  “Wow,” I said, trying to make sense of Tom’s news. I’d already adjusted my thinking to the idea that Mackenzie had died because of heart problems. And it seemed to fit with everything I knew about him: the high blood pressure, his distrust of mainstream medicine, the severe financial pressure he was under. I couldn’t help it, but I didn’t want to be forced to imagine a different—and possibly suspicious—scenario. I was ready to put Mackenzie’s death and all the bad things associated with it behind me.

  “You must have been there pretty early that morning,” Tom said. “Did you see anything that seemed odd to you?”

  “No,” I said, but then I remembered the eerie sensation of making my way down through the gardens in the heavy mist. “Though—I know this is going to sound a little weird—I did feel something. The mountain was all fogged in, and I was upset because Mackenzie’s last check to me didn’t clear. I hadn’t slept well, worrying about how I was going to get paid. So maybe it was just my own anxiety, but I felt something ominous in the air.”

  “That’s awful about the money,” Tom said. “Did you have the chance to talk to him about it?”

  “No, I didn’t. Nobody seemed to know where he was. In fact, I didn’t see him until much later on—maybe halfway through the morning. He was dressed in white, talking to some people not that far from where he collapsed.”

  “I don’t remember seeing him at all,” Tom said. “At least, not until I heard that scream and went down to see what had happened. Well, obviously, we’re not going to solve this ourselves. Harry told me they’ll be sending out detectives to interview everyone who might have any information. I imagine they’ll want to talk to you, Alice.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I’m an old hand at that sort of thing.”

  Tom took a moment to think about what I’d said. I could feel him glancing over at me. Finally, he asked:

  “You mean . . . because of your husband?”

  So he knew. Though I didn’t like the fact that he’d heard the gossip about my failed marriage, I was relieved that I didn’t have to explain the whole thing all over again. And yet I also realized that I wanted Tom to know what had happened from my point of view. How it had blindsided me. How it had altered my once trusting and compliant nature. But mostly, I think I wanted him to understand the person it had forced me to become.

  “Yes, that’s what I mean,” I said. “Listen—would you care to stay for dinner? I’ve all sorts of delicious leftovers from the weekend. It would be very easy to throw something together for us.”

  “I’d like that, Alice,” he said. “I’d like that a lot.”

  We had cold chicken and a variety of salads and the rest of the white wine. We ate at the kitchen table.

  “Should I light the candles?” he asked as I put out the plates and silverware.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “It’s so hot tonight,” he said after we took our seats across from each other. “Maybe you could turn the overheads down a little?”

  I turned them off and opened the French doors. We ate by the light of the flickering candles. At first we didn’t say much. I think the romantic atmosphere made us both suddenly feel a little awkward and shy. But then he asked me again about Richard, and I began to tell him the whole dreadful, complicated story. It’s one I’ve always struggled through in the past, groping for the right words and emphasis, but there was something about Tom’s straightforward questions and obvious concern that made this particular telling easy.

  “The case is still open. Periodically, I get calls when a new investigator comes on board or some fresh piece of evidence crops up, but nothing ever comes of it. I know they’ve given up on actively trying to find him—or I guess I should say them.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Tom asked, looking at me from across the table. His gaze was warm and curious. “Does it still upset you?”

  “No,” I said with a rueful laugh. “It infuriates me! I can’t abide the idea of the two of them living in the lap of luxury on some exotic island off their ill-gotten gains! But you know what’s kind of funny? Richard never really enjoyed lazing around on vacation. I just hope he’s going stir-crazy wherever he is!”

  “You can laugh about it, though,” Tom observed. “That’s good. And your daughters seem to have turned out wonderfully. That kind of thing can really tear a family apart. My own kids went through a bad time when Beth was so sick. My youngest is still really struggling to find his path in life.”

  “How many children do you have?”

  “Four altogether,” he said, looking down into his half-filled glass. “Beth had a hard time conceiving when we first got married. We finally decided to adopt two sisters from China. Then—as so often happens, apparently—Beth got pregnant a year later. So we had three all under the age of five. But it worked out great. Lily and Rose are in their late twenties now, both doing basic research in Boston. Peter’s with Apple in Cupertino doing something in content management—something way beyond my grasp. Timmy was the surprise, coming along a year or two before Beth was first diagnosed. He got the brunt of it—and he’s the one I really worry about. He dropped out of U Mass last fall and is working at some divey restaurant in Amherst. One week he’s going to be a cartoonist. The next he’s planning some indie film. But he’s just drifting, really.”

  “I guess we never stop worrying,” I said. “Even when they’re doing great.” I was
about to tell him about Olivia’s big news, but he went on.

  “The trouble is Timmy just doesn’t listen! He lives in his own little world—convinced he’s some kind of great artist. But it’s all just magical thinking as far as I’m concerned. He has no idea how to deal with reality. How to behave like an adult. I get so angry with him! I keep trying—” But he stopped himself in midsentence, shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling at me in that self-deprecating way I’d come to know and like. “I’m venting. Which is incredibly rude and selfish of me after you’ve been so gracious. I just haven’t been able to talk to anybody about all of this in a while. At least not somebody who listens as well as you do.”

  “Oh, please, no apologies needed,” I said, getting up and starting to clear the table. “It’s a relief actually to hear about someone else’s problems for a change.”

  “That damn check!” he said, standing as well. “I hope it hasn’t affected your business.”

  “It could have,” I told him honestly. “But my family’s helping out. Which I’m both enormously grateful for and terribly ashamed of.”

  “It’s hardly your fault. And from what I’ve read, you’re not the only one Graham took to the cleaners.”

  Tom helped me load the dishwasher and hand-wash the wineglasses. For some reason, doing these simple domestic chores together felt more intimate than anything else that had passed between us that evening. I was suddenly overly aware of him. He was a couple of inches taller than me. So when he turned, put down the towel, and drew me into an embrace, I had to reach up to put my arms around his neck. It felt so natural—and at the same time electric with sexual tension. What was I doing?

  “This was nice,” he said, leaning over and brushing his lips against mine. Then he kissed me for real—but slowly, gently. I held back. Though my body ached for more, the rest of me wasn’t ready. But it was wonderful just to feel desire again—something I’d long thought was behind me—and perhaps even better to feel desirable.

  He left soon afterward, but his presence lingered on while I closed up the house and headed upstairs to bed. Despite Tom’s disturbing news, I fell asleep that night with a smile on my face.

  Part Three

  21

  T he story was on the front page of the Berkshire Herald Tuesday morning under Jeff Isley’s byline: MACKENZIE DEATH RULED SUSPICIOUS. Isley obviously didn’t have any more information than Tom had, but the reporter managed to stretch the piece by adding rehashed segments of the article he’d written soon after Mackenzie’s passing. Though Isley had mercifully left my name out of the original story, I was horrified to come upon it toward the end of his new, lengthy feature.

  Due to his outspoken advocacy of the practice of hydraulic fracturing, which helped him amass what had once been a considerable fortune, Graham Mackenzie could be a polarizing figure in our area. Several local environmental groups have criticized the danger “fracking” poses and the aggressive tactics Mr. Mackenzie’s company MKZEnergy used to obtain lease agreements from landowners in states that permit gas drilling along the Marcellus Shale. In the past several months, as MKZEnergy’s share price plummeted, Mr. Mackenzie also came under attack for overleveraging his company and underreporting its many problems.

  Locally, however, Mr. Mackenzie was not without his supporters. Alice Hyatt, proprietor of Green Acres and the landscape designer who created Mr. Mackenzie’s lavish garden, had only words of praise for her employer. Shortly before the Open Day event during which Mr. Mackenzie collapsed, Ms. Hyatt called him “a very generous human being. He has a real passion for gardening—and garden preservation. I feel that this garden has been a true creative collaboration and, in many ways, Graham Mackenzie has been my inspiration.”

  Though unconfirmed, rumor has it that Mackenzie’s sprawling multimillion-dollar mountaintop estate will soon be on the market. The house has been shuttered, and the gardens partially dismantled. Driving past the site on a recent afternoon, this reporter was reminded of the similar fate of Xanadu at the end of Citizen Kane. The mystery surrounding Mr. Mackenzie’s death has all the makings of that rags-to-riches-to-rags-again classic, and will certainly be just as fascinating to follow as the story unfolds.

  “What a piece of crap!” I said out loud, though I was alone in the kitchen. I tossed the newspaper into the trash. Yesterday, after I confirmed that the wired money had come through, Mara and I had mailed out a large number of checks. But it would take another day or two for the payments to reach their recipients. In the meantime, my already angry suppliers would be further put off by my out-of-date comments quoted in Isley’s front-page story. When the phone rang, I half suspected it to be one of them.

  But it was Gwen, finally returning my call from the day before.

  “Have you heard the news?” she asked.

  “Yes, that’s why I tried to reach you.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I was told that the DA’s office is trying to keep the autopsy report under wraps.”

  “I need to talk to you,” Gwen said.

  “How about dinner? I’ve got—”

  “No, now. I really need you. I’m at work. How soon can you get over here?”

  Gwen was not an alarmist. She was not a taker. I couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d said she really needed me—or anybody else, for that matter. I stopped by my own office first and left a note for Mara. Then I drove into town and bought two tall coffees and some muffins at the general store. A needy Gwen would probably also mean a hungry Gwen. Thirty minutes later, I pulled into the parking area behind Bridgewater House, where Gwen worked during the summer months. From mid-October to early May, when the unheated and weather-beaten old estate was uninhabitable, she operated from her modest Cape just outside of town.

  The Woodhaven Historical Society might well have had grand plans for the complete restoration of Bridgewater House, but the place was currently in a pretty sorry state of disrepair. The three-story white clapboard structure—originally Colonial with Federal and Victorian additions and embellishments—had visible signs of serious problems: flaking paint, crumbling brick, a fantail window missing panes. But I knew from the architectural report Gwen had commissioned that its unseen structural problems were even more serious. The stone foundation had eroded, and dry rot was setting in. I was careful to watch my step as I climbed the rickety stairs at the back of the house that led up to Gwen’s improvised office area. The little suite of rooms with its whitewashed walls and wide-planked floors had been the servants’ quarters originally. Gwen’s desk, an elaborate golden oak affair that she’d borrowed from the estate’s extensive furniture collection, was the only note of ostentation in the otherwise simple and utilitarian setup.

  When I pushed open the door I saw Gwen’s laptop sitting open on the desk, surrounded by papers, books, and stacks of file folders. But the room was empty.

  “Gwen!” I called, putting the coffee and muffins down on the desk. “Hey, Gwen! Where are you?” Silence. I’d never actually ventured beyond Gwen’s work area when I stopped by Bridgewater House in the past, and I wasn’t sure where else to look for her. As far as I knew, the main part of the house was closed to visitors, the electricity turned off, and the furniture under protective sheeting. I opened one door to find a walk-in closet stacked with boxes of Woodhaven Historical Society letterhead, note cards, and mugs. I tried another, which opened to an ancient tiled bathroom with a pull chain toilet and a rust-stained sink. It also had a small window that offered a partial view of the backyard. The windowpanes must have been original; they were dimpled and wavy in the way that old glass can be. So the glimpse I caught of my friend—hurrying from the stables to her car—seemed distorted, as though she was moving underwater. She stashed something—a cloth bag? a rolled-up shirt?—in the trunk of her car before turning back to the house.

 
“Coffee! You’re a saint!” she said, closing the door behind her as she came in. “God, what a horrible morning!”

  “So you read that asinine article? I could strangle Isley for quoting me like that.”

  “Where? In the Examiner?” Gwen said, prying off the plastic top from her coffee as she sat down behind the desk. “No, I haven’t seen it. I got a call from a state police detective first thing this morning. Before I’d even brushed my teeth, let alone had a chance to read the paper. He’s coming by here later this afternoon to interview me.”

  “They’re not wasting any time,” I said.

  “You didn’t give him my name, did you?”

  “What? No—I haven’t spoken to anybody yet. I just heard that the police were going to start getting in touch with people who knew Mackenzie.”

  “But why am I on the top of the list? The detective told me that he wanted to ask me about my ‘relationship’ with Graham. Who would have told them about that? Who else knew?”

  “Well, let’s think,” I said, pushing the bag of muffins across the desk. But Gwen ignored it. “Eleanor might have said something. She was probably one of the first people they talked to. I bet they interviewed her yesterday and she told them about you then.”

  “You’re right! Of course. That bitch. Well, I’m going to deny there was anything—anything romantic—between us. It was just a professional relationship. Plain and simple.”

  “Gwen, you can’t do that. This is an official investigation. A homicide investigation. You can’t lie about something this important. You could find yourself in serious trouble.”

  “I’m in even worse trouble if I tell the truth,” she said. “I can’t have the whole world knowing about Graham and me! Especially in light of his anonymous pledge to Bridgewater House. I think I might be able to survive as executive director if I come clean about Graham being the anonymous donor. Everyone knows now that MKZ’s probably heading for bankruptcy. But I’ll be totally sunk if my conflict of interest comes out.”