“‘Jack, I know what you are up to. I’m going to expose you if you don’t come through for mother.’ ”
And finally, “‘Jack, don’t test me. You think I won’t carry out my threats, but you are dead wrong, emphasis on dead.’ ” Pam thought of the letter Marie had written him. Were they even from Marie? Had Bill found out in some way about the relationship between Marie and Jack and threatened to expose them? She was going to find out, one way or another, but had to deal with this first.
“Read this,” the detective said, handing Pam another piece of paper.
“‘At midnight on March tenth, my brother, William Smith, came to my apartment on Madison Avenue. I allowed him access so he wouldn’t disturb the other tenants. He appeared civil at first, but quickly deescalated after I refused to give him money. He pulled out a small handgun and threatened to kill me if I didn’t give him the money. He also stated that he would come to my place of business and shoot my employees.’ ” Pam looked up the detective. “What does this mean? Was Bill blackmailing Jack for some reason?”
“Your brother-in-law is nearly bankrupt, Mrs. Smith. Here’s a copy of a financial statement from your late father-in-law to your husband requesting a transfer of clientele and another asking for a loan of four hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know if your husband made the loan or not, but judging by the sound of the subsequent communication, I doubt it.”
“My husband was generous to a fault, but he wasn’t stupid. If his family lost all of their money because of poor business practices, Jack would be the last person on earth to bail them out.” She added silently, and look where that got him. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. She stood up to leave. Offering her hand to the detective, she said, “Thank you for solving that mystery. It’s one less thing for me to have to worry about.” They shook hands then, and he showed her the way out. Sandra was waiting for her on the steps.
“Well, did you know who it was?” she asked.
“Bill,” Pam said.
“No way!” Sandra said, stunned. “He stole his own brother’s wallet? Left him to die on a New York train?” Her voice, getting higher, was a giveaway to her anguish. The final indignity. Bill could have saved his brother’s life. He could have called 911. They would have stopped the train and someone would have given him oxygen. Bill took his wallet with his identification so that the only way his loved ones would know what happened to him was by the last numbers on his cell phone. She broke down right there, unable to go on. The compassion she felt for Sandra, devastated by the betrayal of Jack by Bill, overshadowed her own feelings which were confused. Jack was a liar and a cheat, and Pam thought Karma was at work. It was still difficult to imagine the father of her children being so vulnerable, and the anger she felt toward Bill would grow on the drive back to Babylon.
“Let’s get to the car, dear. I’ll take you home, and we can have a nice dinner on the veranda tonight. You’ll feel better as soon as we get out of this godforsaken city.”
Pam held Sandra’s hand as though she were a small child and led her to the parking garage. They rolled the windows down and let the breeze blow their hair around. When they were going over the bridge, the air changed from hot and stagnant to fresh and warm. There was a hint of brine in the air, meaning low tide. Pam turned the radio up. The Mommas and the Poppas were playing “California Dreaming.” Sandra fell sound asleep. She woke up with Pam whispering her name and shaking her arm.
“Sandra, I think Bill is here! Wake up!”
Sandra was alert immediately. “How do you know?”
“There is a strange car parked behind Marie’s. I think it’s Bill’s. Look at that vanity plate!” The license plate said HOT BILL. She pulled up in front of the next-door neighbor’s house. “Don’t slam the door,” she whispered.
They held on to each other as they crept up the walk. Sandra held on to Pam’s arm and squeezed it. She whispered in her ear, “do you know how to use a gun?’ Pam nodded no, but whispered “give it to me.” Sandra opened her purse and pulled out Jack’s small handgun. “Here, take it. I don’t even know if it is loaded.” Pam took the gun without question.
She put her hand on the door, and it was unlocked, swinging open. She grabbed the knob before it hit the wall. But it was too late. He had watched them pull up in front of the house. Nelda was slouched in a kitchen chair. Bill stood behind her, with his right arm across her shoulders and a knife, one of Pam’s big carving knives, in his right hand, the blade pressed up against her neck. For one second, Pam could see nothing but the frailness of her mother. Then she saw her perfectly applied makeup, her hair styled and sprayed so every hair would stay in place. She was wearing her usual “ladies who lunch” attire, stockings, and high heels. The old Nelda had returned. She wasn’t making a sound, but every so often, he would choke up on her neck with the knife, and she would yelp. You could expect it with his movement. It was making Pam crazy.
“Bill! What’s gotten in to you?” Pam said, repeating a phrase Bernice often used with her children and in-laws. “This is no way to solve your problems. You’ll only make them worse.”
“Shut up! Shut up! You worthless wimp,” he yelled. “Go right now and get your checkbook. I want a check written out to me for forty thousand dollars. Go!” he screamed.
Pam kept the gun close to the side of her leg. She went to the desk in the kitchen, pulled out a checkbook, and starting writing the check. She tore it out of the book and placed it on the kitchen table.
“There, Bill, there’s the check. You can have all the money you want, but let go of my mother! Please!” Instead of releasing her, he tightened up on his grip, pressing the blade in further. Nelda yelped again. Pam brought the gun out in front and held it steadily in her hands. “Get the knife away from my mother’s throat!” she calmly said to Bill.
All of her life she had been discounted by those around her as fluff, silly, a wimp, and empty-headed. She saw her mother flinch as Bill pressed the knife more firmly against the soft, crepey skin of her neck. Pam squeezed the trigger, and the bullet hit him right at the tip of his elbow, throwing his arm back and releasing her mother. They dove toward her, Sandra grabbing her. Bill hit the floor. Pam kicked the knife away from Bill’s hand. He was yelling, holding onto his shattered arm, in pain, crying out for mercy. She stood over him, restraining herself from kicking him in the head. At that moment, Marie came running in from the children’s wing, and the police rushed in from the front door.
“Now who’s a wimp, Billy?” Pam said to him.
38
It took a while for the police to sort out what had happened. They handcuffed Bill and called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. His injuries weren’t life threatening, but painful. The gun was harder to deal with. They were able to determine that Jack had a permit for it, but until Bill owned up to where he had put the wallet, the police would have to take the gun. They asked Pam to stay in town until it could be determined whether she broke any laws or not. Nelda was sitting down at the kitchen table while an EMT examined the small cut from Pam’s carving knife. Bill would be booked for attempted murder if the cops on the scene had anything to say about it. Jack had been a good friend of the DA’s office.
Sandra was making a pot of coffee. Her head was still spinning. What would have happened if they had come home later? She asked Marie how she knew to call for the police. Not that it ended up making much difference thanks to her sharpshooter sister, Pam.
“I could hear Pam telling him not to hurt Mom. It was the scuffling that woke me up! My god! It shocked me out of sleep! You know something isn’t right, but the confusion of just waking up makes it impossible to figure out. I didn’t know what the hell was happening. When’d you figure out he was here?”
“Pam saw the strange car in the driveway and his silly plate and then the door was unlocked. I took the gun out of my bag and gave it to Pam. We tried to be as quiet as we could be, but he was waiting for Pam. He already had Nelda sitting down with th
e knife pressed to her throat.”
Suddenly, Sandra lost it.
“Oh my God, Nelda!” She went over to Pam’s mother and knelt in front of her. “I am so sorry you had to go through that!” Nelda took Sandra’s hand, patting it. Her own hand was so soft, the skin like a baby’s.
“I was so glad to see you and Pam walk through that door! He had me by the throat. I thought I was a goner!” She laughed. “You think you are tired of living, and then something like this happens, and it makes you so grateful to be alive. I need to stay alive for the new baby.” She looked up at Sandra, smiling. Marie moved nearer, and the three of them talked about what had just happened. Although it wouldn’t last, it was a moment of peace and of bonding.
A detective arrived to question Pam. She recognized him from Jack’s funeral, a handsome, older man of medium height, dressed in slacks and a white shirt with a gun in a shoulder holster.
“I had just returned from seeing the police in Manhattan,” she explained when he asked her to tell him everything she could. “I identified Bill as the man who stole my husband’s wallet after he had a heart attack on the train. My friend here, Sandra, found a restraining order that Jack had taken out against his brother. Today, I found out that Bill has been withdrawing money from my account using credit cards I forgot to cancel.” She looked at the detective, embarrassed for the oversight. “Go ahead, you can say it. What a stupid move.”
“No, that’s not what I was thinking. You just lost your husband. There is no one else to pick up those pieces, is there? My wife died two years ago. She had some kind of automatic plan that sent her makeup and hair products every month. After about a year of getting this stuff in the mail, it finally occurred to me to have it discontinued. My daughters cashed in! Things get missed and forgotten. It’s human nature.”
“I’m sorry about your wife,” Pam said. “I can’t believe how fast time is going. Did you feel the same way?”
“It did go fast. The urgent stuff will come to the surface to be dealt with, like your credit cards. He’ll be charged with theft, by the way. Later on, the less important things will be revealed, like my wife’s makeup. It was sort of therapeutic to get those boxes every month. It was difficult to have them stopped.” He looked down at his hands. “However, I didn’t have the drama you obviously are having. My life was quiet, almost boring.”
“I could use a little boring right about now,” Pam replied. “We were just saying that enough is enough in the excitement department.”
“I think I have everything I need.” Then he paused, clearly struggling with his thoughts. “Listen. I know it’s just been a few weeks since your husband died. And I only mean this in the most respectful terms. But would you have coffee with me sometime? We could talk about the case.” He smiled at her.
She was thinking, Boy, if he knew what had transpired here this week, he would run in the opposite direction.
“Wow, you are really rushing me,” Pam said. But she was smiling.
39
Bernice called Pam early Tuesday morning. She saw the number on caller ID and knew she would have to get whatever was about to happen over with. She was ignoring the obvious, avoiding the painful.
“Pam,” Bernice was barely able to get the name out without sneering. Pam could hear her attempts at self-control. But she wasn’t feeling much compassion for her mother-in-law.
“I’m here, Bernice.” Seconds passed, almost a minute. “Bernice, I’m going to hang up.”
“Don’t! Please. Why’d you do it? Why’d you shoot my only son?” She didn’t try to cover up her crying now. “We took you into our home, gave you love, showered you with gifts. The way you pay me back, us back, is by aiming a gun at Bill! No wonder Jack cheated on you! You’re horrible!” Pam could hear Bernice breathing heavily, exhausted from the tirade.
“You’re kidding me, right? Did you read the charges, Bernice? Did you know he was with Jack when he died? That he stole Jack’s wallet?” Pam knew she was getting shrill, her voice getting higher and louder. “It’s not bad enough that he betrayed his own brother, but then to break into my house and try to cut my mother’s throat! By shooting him, I prevented him from committing a murder. I bet you didn’t think of that, did you? Why’d you call here, Bernice? Hurry up and get whatever it is off your chest because I am hanging up. And then I never want you to call here again, do you understand me?”
Pam suddenly knew she would talk to Sandra about keeping the baby away from the Smith family. Starting with the abuse of Jack, they were the source of the trouble that had filtered down to Marie. Bernice finally yelled out at Pam.
“I need money! You know the truth; you know we are in serious financial trouble. Bill told me everything last night. He told me Jack was helping him, giving him money to put in my personal account. I’m down to ten dollars now.”
“Wait! Let’s see if I understand what you asking of me. You are calling because you want me to give you money? You just accused me of betraying you!” Boy, talk about nerve! Although not one to dwell on past slights, Pam thought she was gaining some strength, some self-respect she hadn’t known existed previously. “Bernice, be honest with me. For once, try to have some respect for me as a human being, the mother of your son’s grandchildren.” She waited, listening to the silence on the other end of the line, wondering if she had hung up.
“Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry, Pam. I have had so much to deal with lately; this has pushed me to the edge. You deserve respect. But I am desperate! Bill was hiding how bad things had gotten, even before Harold died. I’m at my wit’s end. He mortgaged the mansion! This house has been in Harold’s family for almost one hundred and fifty years, did you know that Pam? It’s your children’s legacy! Everything in it, the piano, all of the artwork, are priceless things, treasures. A place like this would take millions of dollars to replace. I only need a fraction of that to keep it, less than four hundred thousand dollars.” She stopped, whether she was crying again or just waiting for a reply, Pam wasn’t sure.
“Let me think about it, okay, Bernice? If I do help you, how will you keep it going? Bill said himself that all of their clients are gone. I can’t force Peter, or Sandra, for that matter, to give Bill work. I have to think about this, what would be the best thing for everyone.” Bernice was silent. Pam felt certain that bailing Bernice and Bill out would be a huge mistake, a waste of money. She needed to get some advice. Jack had an entire office full of consultants and financial advisers that she would talk to.
“Please, whatever you can do for us! If Jack were alive, I know he would continue helping us,” Bernice said. “He owed it to me! Harold got him started in the business. He paved the way for him!” Pam was losing patience.
“What Jack would or wouldn’t do has nothing to do with me anymore, Bernice. Please don’t call me again and attack me. If we can’t communicate civilly, there is no way we can resolve your financial problems.”
Bernice agreed, groveling and asking forgiveness.
Pam hung up the phone. She’d have a cup of coffee and then go into the den and call Peter. He would know whom she should call. There was one thing she was sure of; she wasn’t giving money to anyone. She would make a loan at the very most, with collateral being the house and its myriad “treasures.”
She took her coffee out to the veranda. The sun was up and burning the dew off the sand. It would be a good beach day. She had three days before her beloved children would be home. They were meeting in Chicago and flying into JFK together, making logistics much simpler. She looked forward to cleaning their rooms and getting food ready for them.
She thought of the people in the house; Marie was in her room in the children’s wing, Sandra upstairs in the guest wing, and her mother above the garage in her apartment. Soon, every room would be occupied. She felt an old peace returning. Before, she was deluded into thinking all was well; now it really was, albeit for a short period of time. She felt sad that Jack, her strength and purpose for living for most of
her adult life, had been the source of anguish and uncertainty. A woman knows, subconsciously, if her partner is betraying her, hiding part of himself from view. She would suffer in strange ways, lowered self-esteem and its many components just the beginning. Pam definitely was the victim of Jack’s deceit. Now that he was dead, she was starting to relax. It was amazing how she had lived her life on the edge, wound up tight, ready to jump into action if necessary. She remembered Lisa saying to her years ago when she was trying to talk to her, “Momma, could you stop for one minute and listen to me?” Pam had to forcibly slow down and focus.
Before the children were born, Jack controlled Pam’s life by enlisting the aid of his mother, suggesting his wife needed her help entering their social circle. And after their birth, Bernice interfered in their care just enough to undermine Pam’s self-confidence.
Even after the move to Long Island, Jack kept his hold on his wife. He would show up unexpectedly in the middle of the week infrequently, but just enough to make Pam wonder every day if this would be the day he would come home. She was ready for him so that he could never come home and say that he found her without makeup or hair fixed, in a messy house or one without food to prepare for him.
Did he hate her? She wondered how he could have a long-term sexual relationship with Marie, and God only knew how many other women, and feel anything for her. It was too painful to dwell on.
The vision of Jack on the train floor, possibly writhing in pain, continued to haunt her. She needed to find out how Bill knew Jack would be on the train. Suddenly, she thought of Jack’s cell phone. What had happened to it? She got up and went back into the house and headed for Marie’s room. Maybe she’d remember where it ended up.
“Jack’s phone?” she said, sitting up in bed. Was her sister having a rough morning? She never came in and woke Marie up. “I have it. The nurse gave it to me when we were at the hospital.” She reached for her purse on the floor next to her bed, digging through it, hoping the phone was still there. “I’m pretty sure the battery must be dead,” she said, handing it off to her sister.
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