I have always believed that Joey would have turned the corner – if things had happened differently, if the entire ugly mess could have functioned as a wake up call and a chance to heal. If he had not come home from work early that particular night, if he’d survived the gunshot wound, if I’d had the brains to boot Carl out of our lives from the very first moment I saw how dark he was, and felt that first flood of despair.
Those days have stayed distant, and in time a wall of fog slowly settled in my mind, acting as a barrier, dividing the bad times from the now.
But fog is nothing more than mist. It drifts. And images come to me as if someone is flipping a Rolodex of days gone by, with a live-wire clarity that puts me there, and every detail is revealed.
It is the old police file that worries me.
I can see the kitchen clock in the back of my mind, the face reading three a.m. I was wrapped in a worn pink terry-cloth bathrobe, drinking coffee and thinking. I had to have a story. I needed a story before anything else. Lying to the police would be like public speaking. Know your subject matter, but don’t over-rehearse, and stick as close to the truth as you can.
Even though I was expecting it, the ring of the doorbell sent a feeling like electrical fizz jingling along the small of my back.
There were two police officers on the front stoop, both male, burly in their black leather jackets, an intimidating amount of equipment on their belts. The one who spoke first was older, early forties, trim. His shoulders were straight, his posture correct. He had grey hair cropped very close.
‘Is this the Miller residence? Could we come in, please, ma’am?’
‘Of course,’ I said. I sounded worried. Who wouldn’t? I waved them into the living room.
The older officer, Calhoun was his name, opens a notebook. ‘When was the last time you saw your husband, Mrs Miller?’
I take a minute to get control of my voice, which wants to go high and tight. ‘I would appreciate it very much, officer, if you would say whatever it is you have come to say.’
‘Ma’am, your Jeep Cherokee was found in the parking lot at the lodge at Natural Bridge State Park. A man’s body was found on the rocks beneath the bridge. We think this man is your husband, Carl Miller, and we think he may have jumped to his death.’
I open my mouth, close it. Take a step backward. ‘There must be some mistake. This doesn’t make any sense.’
Calhoun looks like he’s in pain. ‘He was seen by one of the housekeepers heading up the trail alone around dusk. She states that he was alone. And there was no sign of a struggle. We believe your husband made a point of waiting until it was almost dark, so he could be sure there would be no one else up on the bridge. He was not registered as a guest of the lodge. We think it’s likely that your husband chose to end his life.’
‘We’ll need someone to identify the body,’ the younger officer says. ‘You may want to have a friend or another relative take care of that, or come with you at least. The remains are not in good shape.’
Unexpectedly, I scream. I’m not sure which of the three of us is more surprised. The tears come easily after all. I never needed to worry.
A female officer is immediately called in for backup, proving that even the bravest men fear emotional women. They also call my friend Barbara James. I will learn that Calhoun questioned Barbara in great detail. That she confirmed that my son Joey had been at her house the last two nights. She told them I had been terribly distraught the night I dropped Joey off. She gave the opinion that our marriage was in trouble, and that I was planning to divorce my husband. She felt that the impending divorce would have affected Carl’s state of mind greatly.
Barbara James was with me when I went to identify the body. She held my hand and waited beside me in the hall. We stood in front of the viewing window, just outside the refrigerated unit where what was left of my husband Carl lay motionless on a metal gurney. A woman in green hospital fatigues waited for my nod before she unzipped the heavy plastic baggie that was used to transport the body from the mountain to the morgue.
It is here, at this moment, that the first weight settles over me. It is the first time Carl’s death actually seems real. His head is smashed like a rotten pumpkin from his long and terrible fall. The coroner’s report will note massive internal injuries, a broken pelvis and shattered left femur. He will rule the death a suicide and the jointly owned life insurance policy, no more than six months old, will not pay a death claim on a suicide because the requisite two years have not passed.
But the suicide ruling suits me. I did not want to profit from Carl’s death.
‘That is Carl,’ I tell them, and Barbara pulls me away. She leads me to the car and helps me when I fumble awkwardly with the seatbelt, telling me that Carl undoubtedly died upon impact and swearing that he did not suffer, lying through the night with his head smashed, his bones broken, bleeding from the inside out. She is kind. The possibility that Carl suffered should affect me, but does not.
I stare out the window at the familiar landscape of my town, and fumble for the sunglasses in my purse. I know that things will get better. My son and I will not only survive, we’ll be better than we’ve ever been. And though I will never escape this curious heaviness that sits like a ring of dread around my heart, the shock will fade, like it always does, and Joey and I will feel normal again. I will find contentment in my work, in being a mother to my son. If I’ve lost a treasured part of myself, I accept it as a pretty fair trade. In every tragedy, one gains experience and completes a predestined lesson. I’ve certainly learned what my priorities are, and that there is nothing I will not do, or sacrifice, to do what is best for my child.
Even when it means doing the smart thing, instead of the right one.
ELEVEN
It surprises me, pulling into the driveway, finding Marsha is still at the house. It does not surprise me that she has parked so I cannot get into my garage. She is on the phone when I go inside, her desk piled with papers, my Rolodex in the middle of the mess. Leo barks and runs in circles, and Marsha gives me a look.
‘Put him out, will you, Joy? I can’t hear myself think.’
Leo sits suddenly, knowing there will be no petting until he does, and I stroke his ears, and study my cousin. For the first time in a long time, I really look. She waves me away, preoccupied and industrious, and fury rises inside me like helium. I put Leo outside.
Marsha’s dirty coffee cup is on the counter top, along with a spray of coffee grounds, an open package of Pecan Sandies and a dirty, coffee-stained spoon. She has left the carton of half and half out, and when I put it back in the refrigerator, I find it warm to the touch. I wonder how long it has been sitting there. Has it gone bad – should I throw it away? As always, Marsha leaves these tiny messes behind. I throw the spoon across the kitchen and into the sink. The amount of noise it makes is absurd.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll tell her. Thank you, Brice. I’ll wait for your call.’ Her tone is syrupy, like it always is when she talks to members of the board. I am her boss, but they cut the checks for her salary. Marsha rounds the corner, patting at her hair, which is still in place from the day before. She must use a lot of hairspray, and sleep very carefully in her bed.
‘What on earth is all the noise in here, didn’t you see I was on the phone?’
‘You,’ I say.
Marsha’s mouth hangs open. She breathes heavily, chest rising and falling, and the pink drains out of her cheeks. ‘What in the hell is up with you?’
I head out of the kitchen to the living room, and she follows me, calling my name over and over and asking me what’s wrong. I glance into the fake gilt mirror, then turn around, because I don’t like the look of my face. I stand with my back to the ugly faux cherry console, another example of Carl’s execrable taste.
‘I spent over three hours with the FBI this morning.’
Marsha is in her stooped-forward stance, which means she is thinking instead of posing. ‘But why are you mad at me? Look, you’
re not angry that I gave them that handwriting sample, are you? They said it was just a formality, and I figured it would be OK. I thought it would get them off your back.’
She chatters on and on about the sample, and how she knew I’d want her to cooperate so the authorities could bring Andee and Caro home safe. I wait for her to wind down, and eventually she is silent. She stares at me, unhappy, but she finally stops talking and is still.
‘We covered a lot of ground this morning, Agent Woods, Agent Jones and myself. And Smitty was there, of course. Three straight hours of questions takes you everywhere. The here, the now and the past.’
Marsha looks at me sideways, genuinely bewildered.
‘They had Caroline’s diary. Agent Jones found it amusing to read it out loud. Just a couple of stupid pages where Caro oh-so-casually mentioned how hard it was on Joey to walk in on his father when he was cheating on his mother. Especially when the other woman was Cousin Marsha, and they were doing it on the living room couch.’
Marsha’s mouth opens and closes, and she looks around the living room like she has dropped something tiny on the floor. She sits finally, on the edge of the couch, stands back up like she’s been burned, and moves to a chair.
Her voice is oddly soft. ‘I thought you knew.’
‘Why? Why would you think that?’
She slides deeper into the chair as I cross the room and stand over her.
‘Do you think I would have kept you around if I’d known about it? Do you think I’d still give you this job? I’d have drop kicked your butt to the curb, which is what I’m doing right this minute. Do you hear me, Marsha? Do you understand?’
At this point, anyone within five square miles can hear me. She starts to get up, but I’m not through with her yet.
‘Just answer me, Marsha. How could you think that I knew?’
She takes a breath, and tears cascade down her cheeks. Her nose is starting to run. ‘Carl told me you knew. I didn’t believe him until you came to me about the money.’ She whispers so softly I have to lean closer to hear. ‘You remember, Joy. You came to me about the eleven thousand that was missing and asked me to cover it up.’
‘Until I could pay it back.’
‘Yes. Until you could make it up.’
‘And I paid every last cent of it back, didn’t I, Marsha?’
‘Of course you did.’
I take a breath. ‘I can’t believe how stupid I was. You helped him take the money in the first place, didn’t you? You probably wrote the checks yourself.’
Marsha is shaking her head, twisting the end of her turquoise blouse in her hands. ‘No, no, no, it wasn’t like that. He took the money out himself and he forged your signature on three different checks.’
I have to sit down right away, but I don’t want to sit on the couch any more than she does. I wind up on the ottoman at her feet.
Marsha inhales and exhales, and stifles a shuddering sob. ‘Carl had it all set up so that if anybody found out about it, the blame would go on you. But I caught it. I know your signature better than I know my own. I told him he’d have to pay it back. I threatened to go to the board over it, and he said if I did he’d tell them about the affair and I’d get fired. I told him to go ahead. I wasn’t going to help him embezzle from the foundation. The board might fire me but they’d put him in jail. He warned me. He said I’d create a scandal that would end the ministries. I could see his point, so I told him I would talk to you and you could decide. That’s when he said that you already knew.’ She looks up at me. ‘I’m the one who told you the money was missing in the first place, don’t you remember?’
‘Of course I remember. What I don’t recall is you saying anything about sleeping with my husband.’
‘I was going to tell you. But when you came back to me and asked me to cover it up, and said you’d pay everything back, I figured Carl had told you everything, just like he said.’
‘How long were you having sex with Carl, how long?’
‘A few weeks, that’s all.’
‘That’s enough. Look, I have to go out of town. You can clean out your desk and get your personal things next week. I’ll give you a call when I get back and we can settle up your pay and all that.’
Marsha’s face is red, her eyes wide and streaming with tears. ‘Don’t you understand that Carl used me to get to the money? He thought I’d go along with it, with him, but I didn’t. I’m a victim, just the same as you.’
‘Not quite the same.’
‘But where are you going? Have you found out something about the kidnappers? Don’t you want me to keep Leo?’
‘No, Leo is going with me.’
‘Joy. At least wait till Andee and Caroline come back. You need me.’
I am shaking my head. ‘No. You’re exactly what I don’t need. You were easy prey, Marsha. It was obvious to Carl, just like it is to anybody with a brain, that whatever I have, you want. So be it. I don’t want you near me, ever again.’
Marsha lifts her chin. ‘We’re family, Joy. I’ve worked hard on this ministry a lot of years. You can’t just throw me away.’
I say nothing. Waiting for her to leave.
‘You’ll change your mind. When you’re not so mad, you’ll see. This is not who you are.’
I shake my head at her. I don’t know who I am anymore, so how can she?
TWELVE
The drive from Lexington to Fort Smith is an agony of tedium. I drink coffee and chew gum and listen to NPR until I am suicidal over the state of the world. By midnight I hit Memphis, and it’s all I can do to make it off an exit to a hotel.
Leo and I are on the road again by six a.m., and by noon we’re rolling into Fort Smith.
It’s a smallish town. I frown over the directions I have printed out from MapQuest. It takes me twenty minutes and two wrong turns before I find Caroline’s place. Her Jeep Wrangler still sits in the driveway. I never came to visit them. I always meant to.
The flower beds in the front yard are carefully weeded, and next door the grass has been cut so recently I can smell the green. White Impatiens grow thickly in the window boxes. The yard is shaded by old trees, their roots like veins just below the surface, the grass so thin beneath that you can see the sandy soil, the pine needles.
The door is blocked with crime scene tape, an embarrassment in this gentle neighborhood. I have a key Caro sent me three years ago for a visit I never made.
The porch creaks when I walk across the warped wood planks. The beautifully arched front door is painted grey. There is a scratched brass mailbox hanging on the door and it looks empty. I wonder if someone is picking up the mail.
My key works just fine. I break the crime scene tape and walk in slowly, almost on tiptoe, absorbing the silence. There is a brass umbrella stand on the left, just behind the front door. The great room is cavernous, with high ceilings and worn wood floors. The furniture is simple, antique store bargains.
There is mud smeared on the staircase. Left by the intruder, I think.
The great room opens on to an octagonal dining nook, directly off the kitchen. There is a bank of windows, and a drop-leaf cherry table. This is the one she told me about, bought at the bargain rate of one hundred eighty-seven dollars. The surface needs refinishing. It is scratched and cloudy with abuse. A square of lace in the center covers the worst of the wear, and on top of that is an oversized rattan basket with old mail.
I sort through what is there. A car insurance bill, a flier from Lowe’s, a bank statement from Arvest Bank. A newspaper lies folded next to the basket, the rubber band that held it tossed to one side. The Arkansas Democrat – dated the day Caro and Andee disappeared. I look through the back window and see where Burton Stafford took the privacy fence down between their backyards, giving Caroline and Andee access to the in-ground pool. Since then he had put up a gazebo and a swing set, and re-cemented the basketball hoop and tetherball pole the Stafford kids had used growing up.
The sound of a car horn makes me jump.
It sounds very much like my Jeep. I go to the front door and look outside. Leo has scrambled to the driver’s side and his front paws are propped on the steering wheel. He sees me looking and plasters himself against the window and whines.
I let him out and he races up and down the front yard, sniffing, moving in random patterns that no doubt make sense to him. A pudgy yellow-tailed squirrel chatters at him from its perch on the fence and he thunders across the yard. I head up the sidewalk to the porch. Leo appears instantly beside me, trying to crowd ahead. I block him until he sits, then I push the door open. Leo follows me in. He is full of curiosity and without inhibition. He circles the couch, runs into the dining nook, stops long enough to prop his front paws on the table and sniff Caroline’s boots, then hops down and tears into the kitchen.
Ruby’s doggie bowls sit neatly on a small braided rug by the refrigerator. Leo sticks his head in the water and laps loudly. He dives into the stale kibble with rapture.
I walk softly. I would love to have a kitchen like this. The wood floors are in beautiful shape, the walls freshly painted, vanilla cream, and there are white plantation shutters on the windows. The counter tops are tiled, cobalt blue, and the stove is a Jenn-Air gas with a grill. There’s a built-in pantry with glass doors, a deep red teapot on the stove, and the cabinets are white and spotless. A wood-burning stove is perched on a small brick hearth. The ceiling is bead board, painted white.
There is a wine bottle on the counter top. Australian Cabernet, Yellow Tail, three quarters full, the cork jammed into the throttle, a dried smear of wine on the tile.
The kitchen table is a small, perfect square. It’s old wood, painted yellow, with three matching yellow chairs. A small pot in the center holds brown, crispy irises. I picture myself there, with Caro and Andee, eating toast and jam and eggs.
Even In Darkness--An American Murder Mystery Thriller Page 8