After I'm Gone

by Laura Lippman

  She became aware of a strange sound in the room. It was Bert, weeping.

  “Florence Singer, my mother-in-law. I’m sure she’ll verify my account. About the money. And if you must, ask Marc if I told him I had an abortion, that I wouldn’t carry his child. I wonder if he even remembers. He was remarried within six months, a father the year after that. But I saved my mom from losing the house. And if I had to do it all over again, I would, no regrets. But she can’t know. She must never know. She carried us for so long. You know what? I almost wish I had killed Julie Saxony. But my mother wouldn’t have wanted that. She wanted my dad, and that was the one thing I could never give her. Please—whatever happens, could we not tell her about the abortion or where I got the money? Or that Julie said those things about my dad sending for her? Can’t we just leave things as they are? I didn’t kill Julie. My mom didn’t kill Julie. Can’t you just leave my family alone?”

  The detectives left, making no promises. Bert, the kind of man to have a silk handkerchief, took it out and wiped his eyes, but otherwise made no acknowledgment of his own tears. Time slowed, but it felt comforting. Rachel thought about her attempts over the years, all failed, at serious yoga practice, at meditation. For the first time in her life, she was living in the moment, but oh, what a moment. She didn’t want to leave this room. As long as she was here, none of this had happened. Bert would tell her mother. She knew he would. Bert could never keep anything from Bambi. Or he told Lorraine, who told Bambi. Same difference.

  The detectives returned. “We’re going to check out what you’ve told us,” the man said. “And, for now, we have no interest in sharing it. But if it comes to a court case, we can’t control information. Things will get out. That’s not on us. You control what people find out—if you confess.”

  “Why are we talking about court or confessions?” Bert asked. “Everything Rachel has said has been consistent.”

  “This final story has been consistent. She changed up several times getting there, didn’t she?”

  “Are you going to charge her or not?”

  “She’s free to go. But her mom, down the hall? She’s still adamant that she did it. And at this point, we’re going to let her have her way and be arrested for it. Nothing this one says negates the possibility that Julie Saxony came back the next day. Hey, maybe she sat in an ER for the next twenty-four hours, got treated under an assumed name.” Sandy pushed a piece of paper toward Rachel. “This is the press release we plan to issue later this afternoon. Feel free to scan it for any possible factual errors.”

  4:30 P.M.

  When Linda learned what was up, she couldn’t believe she was the last person in the family to know. And she wouldn’t even have found out if she hadn’t called Michelle to ask if she had heard from Rachel about how Tatiana was doing. Linda had been calling Rachel’s cell, going straight to voice mail, and sending e-mails that went unanswered, unusual for Rachel. She wasn’t the quickest person to respond to things, but she would want her sister to know that Tatiana was okay. Plus, they had to talk about their mother, this insanity. Linda thought Bambi might be exhibiting some kind of dementia. Bert was great, no worries as long as Bert was in charge, but what if they had to pay bail? With Uncle Tubby long out of the business and certain legends still vivid in people’s minds, local bail bondsmen might not be inclined to write a bond for the wife of the man famous for skipping. Or the judge might deny bond altogether. But they clearly hadn’t charged her yet, which was interesting. There wasn’t a whisper of it on television or the Beacon-Light’s Twitter account. Of course, the police reporter was, like, twelve, but 2011 had been the thirty-fifth anniversary of Felix’s disappearance, so it wasn’t that long ago that the paper had run something. It had been almost snarky in tone, ho-ho-ho, whatever happened to Felix Brewer?

  “Oh, Tatiana’s great,” Michelle assured Linda when she called her. “Rachel dropped her off this morning. But she had to go out to Baltimore County because of this whole thing with Mom.”

  “What’s she doing that Bert can’t do?”

  “She said the cops want to talk to her, too.”

  “What? And you didn’t call me?”

  “Rachel said it was no big deal, that she was just being supercautious, making sure she had a lawyer with her, that Dad always said that, never talk to the cops without a lawyer.” A pause. “Did he really say that, Linda? It seems like such an odd thing to say to your teenage daughters—”

  “Jesus, Michelle, I don’t know. I mean—what the fuck? You just sat there and didn’t even think to call me?”

  “I,” Michelle said with wounded grandeur, “have been watching Tatiana and Helena all morning. Have you ever tried to get two wound-up little girls down for a nap?”

  Linda hung up and dialed the public information officer at Baltimore County police. They were friendlyish, usually playing on the same team more or less, even now that she was working for the governor. Oh God, the governor—that was going to be fun, explaining to him why her family was in the news.

  “Linda Sutton!” the PIO said. “Damnedest thing to hear from you because I was wondering what you would do in my situation.”

  “Don’t be cruel, Bill. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “Detectives have given me two sets of facts to work with and asked me to write two press releases. In one, I’m to say your sister killed Julie Saxony. In the other, it’s your mother. Any idea which one is true? You could save me some work here.”

  “Fuck you, Bill.” Maybe they weren’t as friendly as she had thought. She called her boss, pleaded a family emergency, a gutsy thing to do when the legislature was in its final weeks, then called Michelle and told her to find someone, anyone, to take the kids. But she and Michelle needed to go to their mother and sister.

  March 27, 2012

  6:30 P.M.

  Bert and Rachel sat. What else could they do?

  “What’s going on, Bert?”

  “They expect you to confess. They’re bullying you. They think if they tell you that they’re going to charge your mom, you’ll break down.”

  “Oh, I’m about to break down. But I can’t confess. I didn’t do it, Bert.”

  “I know. Neither did your mother. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s a weak case. An earring. The confession of someone who couldn’t have possibly done it, an honest and plausible recitation of events that refutes the confession. I do wish you hadn’t been there that day, much less admitted to hitting her—”

  Rachel smiled. “I thought the truth was supposed to set me free.”

  “Not in this legal system, honey. The truth just gets in the way sometimes.”

  “I’m free to go. That’s what they said.”

  “Yes. And when you leave, they will charge your mother. They’re waiting to see if you’re up for that.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know, Rachel.”

  A knock, the round face of the female detective. “Your sisters are here. We don’t have to let them in to see you, but we’re nice that way.”

  “They’re here? Both of them? Who’s taking care of Tatiana?”

  “I got the nanny to come back early from her day off,” Michelle said, pushing her way into the room. “And you’re welcome.”

  “Bert, what’s going on?” Linda asked, right behind her. “Why is Mother doing this?”

  “I don’t know, girls. I just don’t know.”

  Rachel looked at her sisters, at Bert. She wondered if they had ever longed, as she had, to have him for a father. Or, more accurately, to have Felix be like Bert—steady, loyal, there. There. She thought about the famous children’s book, the one she was reading to Tatiana now, the special pang that only a nonbiological mother can understand. Are you my mother? Why can’t a bulldozer or an airplane or a frog be a bird’s mother? Pretty-but-ordinary Rachel was the mother to be
autiful Tatiana, with her silky hair and perfect eyes and her soon-to-be-perfect face, although it was incomparably lovely to Rachel even before the surgeries. She didn’t, couldn’t, judge the woman who had abandoned her. She owed that woman everything. And her father had abandoned her, so there was that.

  Another knock. The male detective this time. “She wants you.”

  “Me?” the sisters chorused.

  “No, him, the lawyer. We’re going to allow it, although we don’t have to. She says she has to speak to him before she signs the confession.”

  6:45 P.M.

  Bambi was exhausted, but it was that weird kind of exhaustion that leaves one wired. Yet she was sad, too. Life was so horribly sad. Didn’t anyone get what they wanted? She thought, hoped, her girls had. They had used her as an example, choosing men unlike Felix. Although Marc, Rachel’s first husband, had been very much like Felix, too much like him. Worse, actually. Felix never would have done what Marc did. She wished Bert hadn’t told her that. But Bert always told her everything he knew about her girls, even when he shouldn’t.

  “Bert,” she said when he came through the door. “Remember the first time we met?”

  Clearly not the opening he was expecting. “Of course I do.”

  “We had grown up in the same neighborhood, only a few blocks apart. Only a year apart at school, although it might as well be ten years when the girl is older. Then, at least. Rachel’s Joshua is almost two years younger than she is. You were handsome, too. Yet I looked right through you. I only had eyes for Felix, as the song said.”

  “That wasn’t the song, though. It was ‘Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Bill Me.’ The lawyers’ anthem.” Making a small joke, out of bravado.

  “So you remember?”

  “Well, you and Felix told the story so many times, it’s hard to forget.”

  “You were always there. Always there.”

  “Yes, I’ve tried to be there for you and the girls.”

  “No, I mean before. We went everywhere together. Felix and Bambi, Bert and Lorraine. She’s a good person, Felix. She really is. A good mother, a good wife.”

  “She is.”

  “And you were there when Felix met Julie, weren’t you? You were with Tubby when he ‘discovered’ Julie, suggested he take her to the club. You knew Felix’s type by then. He liked them long and leggy. You know, as a contrast. I was many things, but long and leggy isn’t one of them.”

  “Bambi, I didn’t condone what Felix did at all. Not at all. I’m not that kind of a guy.”

  “Really? You never cheated on Lorraine, not even once?”

  “No.”

  “Not even in your head?”

  He sighed. “Bambi, what is this about?”

  “It’s about alibis, Bert. Yours and mine. That was the word you used. You have a perfect alibi. I mean, I know it’s a legal term, but it just struck me a little while ago. Yes, I did. And so did you. Rachel would have, too, if she could have borne to come to the beach that weekend, but she was moping. We all had such perfect alibis. You saw to that. The elaborate party for Lorraine—a surprise for her forty-first birthday, thrown after the actual date, pulled together in just a matter of days. Because, you said, that’s the only way to keep a surprise. I’ve never seen you do anything like it.”

  “Oh, I think it had more of a lead time than that.”

  “Not much. Certainly, the party was planned after Rachel had her grandstanding moment with Julie Saxony. She told me that she went to see her on June twenty-eighth. Of course, she also told me that Julie agreed to pay my debt and the police now tell me that was a lie, that my daughter got the funds from a source she refuses to disclose. Still, I believe the first part. She went to Julie, confronted her about the money. And Julie denied that she had taken it, refused to give it to her. Do you know where Rachel got it?”

  Bert nodded but said nothing.

  “Are you going to keep my children’s confidences now? That would be a first. After all, you’re the one who told me about Michelle’s problems, how we had an IRS agent all over us because he had noticed those things provided by her lover. You never figured out who he was, did you, Bert? Michelle didn’t trust you that much. But I know. It was Marc. She had an affair with her sister’s ex-husband. She told me, Bert. Me, because I’m her mother. You’re a good friend, like family, but you’re not Michelle’s father.”

  A pause.

  “No matter how much you wanted to be.”

  He put his hand on hers. How many times, over the years, had Bert touched her this way. A hand on her hand. A hand on her shoulder. Putting on her coat. Patting her back. Hugging her the day Julie’s body was found. And how many times had she failed to see him. She had never seen him. That was the problem.

  She moved her hand away. “She was supposed to go with him. That’s why you got her the passport. Because you hoped she would go with him. The first time. When she didn’t—well, I guess you kept the money to see if that would force me to rely on you. You knew I would come to you for help, and I did. But did you really think it would ever be more than that between us, that I would betray Lorraine that way?”

  “It was moot,” Bert said. “Lorraine became pregnant and—I couldn’t. You wouldn’t, I knew that. But I also couldn’t figure out how to tell you what I had done.”

  “So you kept Felix’s money. And used it, at least some of it, I’m guessing. I mean, you make a good living, but you always seemed to live awfully high to me. The endless renovations on the house in Garrison Forest, an oceanside house in Bethany—I guess my husband bought you that, didn’t he? Okay, so you took my money, hoping I would fall in love with you, and you tried to get my husband to take his girlfriend with him, but that failed. Why kill her, Bert?”

  “She began to figure it out. After Rachel went to see her. She knew there was money and she had given it to me. I managed to stall her. I told her that Felix made bad investments, that the money was never there. But she didn’t believe me. And she cared, cared terribly because she did believe that Felix had been in touch with you and you had slandered her. It was only a matter of time before she confronted you, told you that she had taken the suitcase to me as instructed, that I knew where he had stashed everything, all the off-shore accounts and safe-deposit boxes. So I called her July first, told her Felix wanted her, and told her where to go.”

  “And where did she go?”

  “Saks Fifth Avenue. That part was always true. She met a man there, a man I knew from my work. She thought he was going to forge a passport for her. He took care of things. And that was that.”

  “Is that man still alive?”

  “No. He died a few years ago. But he never spoke of it. I knew he wouldn’t, even if he was arrested, even if he needed the leverage. He was honorable that way. And he knew I would help him out, if he got in trouble. But he never got in trouble.”

  “Honor among thieves,” Bambi said. “As the old saying goes. So how far are you prepared to go, Bert? Are you ready to represent Rachel in a murder trial, knowing she’s innocent? Or are you going to sit back and let me enter my confession? I know enough now. I can get it right, I think. I’ll tell the cops that I hired the man who met Julie at Saks. After all, my husband was a criminal. I’ll take your story and make it mine. All the pieces will fit now. Is that what you want?”

  “No—never. What I wanted—” He could not finish.

  “You wanted me. Probably because Felix had me. I wanted Felix. Julie wanted Felix. Tubby wanted Julie. Lorraine wanted you. I wonder—” She looked to the ceiling, saw the years, her husband’s face, an image that never quite faded. “I wonder what Felix wanted. It would be nice if at least one of us got what we wanted in this world. At least our kids seem to have. There’s some comfort in that.”

  Bert got up to leave. “I’ll tell them,” he said. “I won’t let you do this. I can’t. I’ll tell th
em.”

  “Go home first,” Bambi said. “Tell Lorraine. Tell her it was about the money, nothing else. Tell Lorraine, then call your children and tell them the same thing.”

  “Is that what you would have had Felix do?”

  “Yes.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Tell the detectives something, anything, to stall them. Tell the girls that everything is going to be okay, because it is. Go home, say good-bye to your wife. The woman who loves you and admires you so. Tell her how much you love her. And you would have loved her, Bert, if you hadn’t been so very stupid. You would have seen this woman, right in front of you, who loved you, and you would have honored that.”

  Bert left. For the first time, Bambi noticed the chill in the room, the rankness of clothing worn on the second day. She was thirsty and hungry. Could she ask someone to bring her something? She probably could, yet it was too much of an effort. Of all the things she had learned today, one stood out: Felix had meant to provide for her. He never knew what Bert had done. Julie had not stolen from her—well, not her money, at any rate. Felix had never sent for Julie, but Rachel thought he had, and she had kept that from her mother for almost thirty years.

  She saw herself at nineteen, the college dropout with the impossibly tiny waist, heard the Orioles sing, felt Felix’s arms, firm but not too tight as he steered her around the ballroom. She tried to remember Bert’s face, and she had a vague impression of noticing him that night, the younger, more conventionally handsome man. But, for her, it had been Felix, only Felix. Would things have been different if—

  But things could always be different, if. It was more important to know what things were. She was a realist.

  If only Bert had been one, too.

  Never

  Let

  Me