Bleeding Heart

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  It was almost dark by the time I arrived, and as I walked down the stone steps leading to the front entrance, I could see Tom working in the brightly lit kitchen, moving from sink to stove, an apron tied around his waist.

  He met me at the door with a glass of wine and a kiss. I held the glass at my side while I let the kiss lengthen into something more than just a greeting—and with the promise of more to come.

  “Okay,” he said, taking me in with a broad smile when I finally pulled away. We were both a little breathless. “Sure you want dinner?”

  “How could I pass up seeing you slave over a hot stove in your apron?”

  “Actually most of the cooking’s done,” he said, putting his arm around my waist as he led me down the hall. “I’m at the assembly stage.”

  “Oh, Tom, this is lovely!” I said when we reached the kitchen, which I now saw opened up on a spacious dining area with a row of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the falls. Outdoor floodlights illuminated the cascading water and the surrounding banks and trees. A long wooden table by the window was set with silverware, cloth napkins, and candles. A jug of giant sunflowers sat on the long butcher block countertop that separated the kitchen from the dining area, and several bottles of wine, a tray of cheeses and crackers, and bowls of olives and nuts were arrayed along its length.

  “Hold out your glass,” he said, lifting one of the bottles. “You’ve got a little catching up to do. I had some while I was getting things ready.”

  I sat on a stool with the glass of wine in front of me on the counter, watching Tom slice tomatoes and shred basil, as we talked about my trip to Shalesburg. His movements were practiced and economical, those of a man who’d single-handedly cooked and cared for four children and an ailing wife for many years.

  “Mara told me they planned to hold the funeral yesterday,” I told him. “Can you imagine anything sadder? Poor Danny!”

  “At least he’s probably too young to remember his mother all that well,” Tom said, as he whisked together the salad dressing ingredients. “I know this will probably sound a little harsh to you, but from what you tell me, Mara’s sister wasn’t ever going to get better, right? I don’t find it sad, then, that she died. To me, it’s a great relief. The family can finally stop hoping for a miracle and start to move on again.”

  I suspected that Tom was talking about his wife’s death, as well as Mara’s tragedy, and I appreciated how frank he was about his painful past.

  “You’re right,” I said as we carried the salad bowl, plates, and wineglasses over to the table. We sat, looking out on the brook.

  “I’m sure going to miss her, though,” I went on. “And Danny.”

  “So you really don’t think she’ll be coming back?” Tom asked.

  “What for? It would mean facing some really tough questions about what she did. I know she didn’t mean to kill Mackenzie. But—though I’m no legal expert—I’m pretty sure she’ll be looking at jail time. Who would take care of Danny if that happened? What kind of future would she face with a prison record? There’s nothing left for her in Shalesburg. I think it would be better for her just to take off with Danny and try to start again fresh somewhere.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Tom said. “But once you tell Erlander what she did, don’t you think the authorities will be putting on a full-court press to find her? They’ll be tracking her phone records, credit cards, you name it. These days, it’s harder and harder to disappear into thin air.”

  “Well, speaking from experience, I know it can be done. Even when you manage to walk away with two hundred million dollars that doesn’t belong to you. Mara’s smart and very savvy with computers. I have a feeling she’ll know how to cover her tracks. At least I hope so for her sake.”

  Tom cleared our salad bowls and then served the main course of grilled salmon, couscous, and green beans freshly picked from his garden. It all looked simple enough, but I could tell that he had put plenty of thought into the meal.

  “I just hope you’re not sticking your neck out too far for her,” Tom said as he took his seat again.

  “You mean with Erlander?”

  “Yes, though I guess he’s going to be feeling pretty relieved to have the whole thing solved for him. He’s totally bungled this investigation, as far as I’m concerned. If he’d bothered to look a little more closely into Mara’s background he would have discovered the connection between her and Mackenzie himself. Instead, he’s taken a scattershot approach, intimidating everyone with his off-the-wall guesswork. He circled back to me the other day, by the way, trying to imply that I killed Mackenzie because he’d shut down my wind power initiative.”

  Tom threw down his napkin and rose abruptly from the table. He walked across the room and grabbed the corkscrew and another bottle of wine from the counter. Though I’d barely touched my own glass, I’d noticed Tom had been drinking pretty steadily over the course of the dinner.

  “A little more?” he asked as he took his seat again and started to uncork the fresh bottle.

  “No, I’m about ready for some coffee, actually,” I told him.

  “But I thought we were celebrating,” he told me, refilling his glass.

  It occurred to me that he might be nervous about what lay ahead. I was nervous as well, though I knew that drinking wasn’t the answer for me. I wanted a clear head when I went to bed with Tom. I was looking forward to giving myself over to physical pleasure—something I’d thought I would never have a chance to experience again. And I wanted to feel every single wonderful sensation. But I understood that Tom might be worrying about how well he was going to perform. It must be different for a man, I thought. Much more of a physical test and display of virility. And we were both probably a little rusty. Perhaps he thought the wine was going to give him the courage he needed.

  “Didn’t Erlander imply something like that earlier in the summer?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “Did he?” Tom said. “I guess so. We’ve been around the issue a couple of times. But he recently got his hands on a video of the meeting Mackenzie and I had with the selectmen that got pretty nasty. He quoted back to me some of the things I’d said that weren’t very nice. I admit that I did kind of lose my temper. But we all do at times, don’t we?”

  “Of course,” I told him. “You know what I said to Mara when she told me about Mackenzie’s check bouncing? I actually told her I was going to have to kill him if I didn’t get the money.”

  “There you go!” Tom said, banging his fist on the table. “And honestly, Alice? I think I would have understood it if you had done it. If my life had been ruined by one swindler and then I’d gotten ripped off by another? I know I’d be in a rage. Who wouldn’t be? Who wouldn’t need to fight back? Sometimes you have no choice but to act. If I saw Mackenzie standing there looking out over the valley—as if he owned it, as if he owned the whole fucking world?—and all it would take was one little push? I’d have done it myself. He deserved to die. We both know it.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said, staring across the table at Tom. It seemed to have happened in a split second, though I realized now that he had actually been working up to it for a couple of hours. He had allowed himself to get a little drunk, and now he was spouting a lot of ugly nonsense. “Nobody deserves to die. And nobody has the right to kill.”

  “Where are you going?” Tom asked as I got up from the table.

  “I’m sorry, but I think I better head home.” And I was sorry. I’d had such high hopes for the evening. Tom had been pressuring me for weeks to take our relationship further. Perhaps, when it got right down to it, he himself wasn’t ready. Though I understood his ambivalence, I felt terribly let down and hurt. But I had no intention of sleeping with him in his current condition.

  “Why?” he said, looking up at me. “I thought you were staying. I thought we were—”

 
“No, not tonight,” I told him. I didn’t want to antagonize him, so I softened the blow with a white lie. “I’m sorry, but I’m just exhausted. These last couple of days have really taken it out of me.”

  Tom followed me down the hall and out the front door. The cool late-summer evening had turned blustery and colder. Trees groaned as the wind pushed and pulled at their limbs. The stone steps were slick with freshly fallen leaves, and I descended them with care. At one point I heard Tom stumble behind me, swearing to himself.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, turning around.

  “What?” he called back.

  “I’m fine on my own,” I told him as I reached my car. But Tom came up behind me as I clicked my key chain, unlocking the doors.

  “Why are you going?” he asked.

  “I told you, Tom. I’m tired.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think I upset you.” The climb appeared to have sobered him up a little. He steadied himself against the side of my car. But his tirade kept running through my mind as I climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door. I started the engine, but then I lowered the window.

  “What makes you think Mackenzie was pushed?” I asked him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, staring down at me.

  “I thought he collapsed under the waterfall—in the heat of the day—from the effects of the digitalis. As far as I know, nobody’s said anything about Mara pushing him off the ledge.”

  “You’re right,” Tom said. He took a step back. “I’m not sure what made me say that. I guess I must have heard somewhere that he liked to look out over the valley from that spot. That’s all.”

  But Tom’s vague answer didn’t ring true, and I think he saw my puzzled expression as I turned and started to back down the driveway. I felt uneasy as I drove home. Falling leaves tumbled through my headlights and slapped against the windshield. The evening had been such a disappointment. Tom had exposed a side of himself I’d never seen before. And one I hoped never to see again. It could have just been the falling temperatures, but I felt chilled to the bone.

  35

  I felt too restless and unsettled when I got home to think about going to bed, so I went out to the office and turned on my computer. Tom’s outburst over dinner made me think about the town hall meeting he’d mentioned, the one when he’d lost it with Mackenzie. I decided to view the video for myself. It didn’t take me long to find a link to it on the town Web site. The video lasted nearly an hour and, by the end, I could see why it had prompted Erlander to circle back to Tom with more questions.

  After Tom’s lengthy presentation, Mackenzie had very forcefully—and in front of the town officials and a packed room—dismissed the proposal. The video camera was focused on Tom in the front of the room, but Mackenzie’s voice off-camera had registered loud and clear.

  “This thing is full of holes, full of bluster, and quite frankly irresponsible.”

  “How can you accuse me of being irresponsible?” Tom had demanded, glaring toward the back of the room. “I’ve been looking into a certain lab that your company used to conduct so-called water testing in—”

  “Better watch what you say, Tom,” Mackenzie told him. “Think before you start making accusations about something you know nothing about. You keep this up, and I’ll make absolutely sure that not only your wind proposal here but every half-baked project your little consulting firm takes on bites the dust.”

  “Are you threatening me?” Tom replied.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Tom,” Mackenzie said. “I’m just swatting you away.”

  “You goddamned son of a—!” Tom shouted as he started down the aisle. But then the video screen froze and I sat there staring at Tom’s flushed face, his gaze fixed on Mackenzie with undisguised hatred.

  I jumped when I heard the knock on the office door. I hadn’t turned on the outside light when I came in, so I couldn’t see who was out there. The inside of the office, however, was lit up like a stage set—and I was clearly visible in front of my computer. It was nearly midnight.

  “It’s only me,” Tom called out, knocking a second time.

  “I was just closing up,” I called back. “Give me a minute to—” But Tom turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  “You should be more careful, Alice,” he said, closing the door behind him as he stepped into the room. “You really should lock up when you’re out here alone working this late.”

  “I’m closing up now,” I told him again as I turned back to my computer and started to shut it down.

  “I saw what you were looking at,” he said as he came up to stand behind me. “I watched you watching it from outside.” I didn’t like that he’d been watching me. And I didn’t like him standing so close. I swiveled away from him as I got out of the chair.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “I came to apologize,” he said. “I feel awful about how things went before. I’m not sure what happened. But I was drinking before you came, and I guess it all just caught up with me.”

  “Apology accepted,” I said. “Now I think you better go. It’s time for us both to get some sleep.”

  “Did you see the way he tried to sabotage me?” he asked, staring at the darkened computer screen, as though he hadn’t heard what I’d just said. “Did you see how he tried to turn everything against me? It was incredible, don’t you think? That’s what people like him do, you know. Tell whatever lies it takes. Cheat if necessary. Use slander to undercut anyone who tries to stand in their way. Exploit everyone’s worst fears. It’s all about profits and power for them, but they’re able to make it seem like they’re the good guys somehow. Clean gas energy! It’s all such bullshit! But it works! People buy into it. How can you fight something like that? It’s just not possible!”

  “Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” I said, taking a step toward the door. “Let’s get some sleep and talk in—”

  “No,” Tom said, grabbing my arm. “I need to talk about it now. I need you to hear me out.”

  “You’re hurting me, Tom,” I said, but his grip only tightened.

  “I want you to sit down,” he said, pulling me back to the chair. “Just sit down and listen.”

  “He thought he was so powerful!” Tom said, his voice raw with emotion. “He thought he could just go on destroying land and lives for as long as he wanted. He treated my proposal like it was a joke! Did you hear what he said about ‘swatting me away’? I was just a nuisance to him—like a fly. A little speck of nothing.”

  Tom paced back and forth in front of me.

  “Do you have any idea what it feels like? Having your life’s work dismissed like that? Brushed away as if everything you’d done was totally worthless? And then to realize that he’d pulled the wool over your eyes, too! That you were actually working for him. That was the final straw, I think. I knew I had to get to him. I had to stop him. I had to do something with what I knew about him.”

  “And what was it that you knew, Tom?” I asked him, hoping the question might slow him down a little. He seemed to be working himself up into another tirade. But this time it wasn’t because he’d been drinking, which made his behavior that much more alarming. I wanted to get away from him. I began to calculate whether I’d be able to get around him to the door. Whether I’d be able to outrun him.

  “A couple of weeks before the special meeting I started working on another article for EcoCrisis, focusing on Mackenzie and his various companies. I was reading through lab reports on water testing that had been ordered at one particular EnergyCorp site in Ohio that was tied up in litigation. And I discovered some discrepancies in the numbers. Things that just didn’t add up. But it wasn’t until after the hearing that I decided I owed it to myself to dig deeper. So I drove out to Ohio and spent a day or two poking around. I was able to track down some of the people involved. And do you know what I found? Some
one at EnergyCorp had suborned the lab technician responsible for the reports that were submitted as evidence at the trial. He fucking paid this guy off to alter his findings!”

  “Mackenzie paid him off?”

  “Who knows?” Tom said. “It was one of his people, though. One of his henchmen. But we both know who told him to do it. Mackenzie pulled all the strings at his companies. He was behind it for sure. And do you have any idea what that means? Do you realize what he might have caused? Hundreds of people could have been sickened! Animals killed! The countryside ruined! All so that he could keep on rolling in his profits. I was able to locate the initial report the lab ran. The real one. The idiots! They didn’t even try to cover their tracks. They were so sure no one would bother to question their work. So I knew I had him then.”

  “You had evidence that Mackenzie was corrupt?”

  “Yes, exactly! That’s what I’m telling you. I had the son of a bitch—finally! So I called him. I told him I had something that I was sure he’d be interested in. That we should meet. He kept brushing me off—swatting me away. But I persisted, calling every day or so until I wore him down. I called again the night before the garden opening, and he finally agreed that I could come by early the next day and we’d talk. He said I’d find him in the garden. I walked up from my place. The sun was just rising. As I came up through the woods, I saw Mackenzie standing on that verge, looking out over the valley—over his precious view. I told him what I knew. He didn’t bat an eye. He didn’t even try to deny it. He just asked me what I intended to do about it. I said that I’d be willing to destroy the evidence and keep my mouth shut, but in exchange I wanted his support for my wind power project.”

  “But, Tom, that’s—” I started to say, but then I shut up. Some part of Tom must have realized he’d resorted to blackmail, but I was beginning to understand that by then he believed that anything he did to bring Mackenzie down was justifiable.