Lies That Bind (Maeve Conlon Novels Book 2)

by Maggie Barbieri

  In Heather’s room, she could hear the girls talking to each other, deep in conversation, their voices low, the subject of their conversation unknown to her. She leaned against the wall of her bathroom, the one that divided the two rooms, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Why they weren’t texting each other from the comfort of their respective bedrooms, like they usually did, she didn’t know. All she knew was that they weren’t fighting. After the night she had had, she didn’t think she could take much more of that.

  After going to Dunkin’ Donuts and being served by the delicious Tamara—don’t think she didn’t watch every single item that was put in her coffee—Maeve settled in for the drive to Rhineview.

  “So if she’s alive, she has a guardian?” Maeve said as she pulled onto 9 North, thankful for the Bluetooth that Cal had insisted she install in the car when she bought it. Little did he know at the time that her chat with him now about lost sisters, guardianship, and the law would be facilitated by the device. She knew the answer but wanted confirmation from a professional, a onetime lawyer. She merged onto the highway just as Doug exited in all of his Taurean glory, his overnight shift completed. She watched in her rearview as he drove straight past the strip mall that housed the Dunkin’ Donuts and toward his home.

  That’s right, Doug. Keep going. Your wife will make you some coffee at home.

  “Correct,” Cal said, interrupting her reverie about Doug, his old-man car, and his adoring wife, the one who needed him now more than ever.

  And here we go again, she thought. In his voice, she heard what she had been thinking but didn’t want confirmation on: now that Jack was dead, Evelyn’s guardian—unless it was the state—would likely come forward and let Maeve know about her sister. Where she was. How she lived. If she was happy.

  “Well, then how do we find out if she’s a ward of the state?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cal said. “Petition the state?”

  “Can we do that?”

  “You’re going to need a law guardian, someone who specializes in stuff like this.” The sigh was barely perceptible on the other end but she heard it. Apparently, his patience with this search was wearing thin. He had organic, pureed baby food to make and eco-friendly chemicals that needed to be sprayed on the glistening marble countertops in the Tudor. He didn’t have a lot of extra time to help Maeve.

  As with most things, the time had come when Cal had lost interest in this particular venture, even though it had only been a day before when he had shown enthusiasm for this missing persons case. Why the change? It could have been a host of factors, issues that had shown themselves during their marriage and then after. Interest in something else, like a new piece of technology. An admonishment from his new wife that he was focusing too much on his old one. An ailing baby. A home-improvement project that he didn’t have the chops to start, let alone finish. She didn’t know and she didn’t care. He had promised his help and she was going to get it, one way or another.

  “One more thing,” she said. “Winston Alderson?”

  “No death certificate,” he said. “Not that I could find online, anyway.”

  She tried to keep her voice steady. “His mother passed away last night.”

  “What? How?”

  “Hit-and-run accident,” Maeve said, not believing the words she was saying; it had been no accident, “in the parking lot of the Y. She died pretty much instantly.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I was there.”

  “Oh, Maeve.” In his voice was the sympathy she had been looking for, letting her know that he was back with her on this and would help her until the truth was revealed. “This might take a while,” he said, “but we’ll figure it out.”

  But Maeve only had a few days left until the store opened and more to do when it came to finding her sister. She was going back to the house in Rhineview to talk to Regina Hartwell, getting the information she needed if it was the last thing she ever did. She had texted Margie a few times to see if she could cajole her into revealing the rest of what she knew—Maeve was certain she did know more than she was letting on—but the radio silence from her former neighbor was deafening. Margie was done helping, too, it would seem, and Maeve hadn’t had the time to hunt her down in person.

  Jack had always said she was stubborn, “just like your mother, God rest her soul.” Maeve preferred to think of it as “tenacious.” The word “stubborn” held so many negative connotations, and her tenacity, she felt, was what let her be successful at the things she excelled at—culinary school and motherhood, specifically—although the latter provided many opportunities for self-doubt.

  She found the little cutout at the side of the road and waited. She didn’t know if Regina Hartwell was home but she did know that she needed to collect her thoughts, think about what else she could do or say to compel the woman to talk. All of her efforts so far had been met with a stone wall.

  Stubbornness.

  She sank in her car seat, her warm sigh misting over the cold windshield.

  A car raced past her on the road, not the Rambler, going very fast and kicking up a spray of rocks as it rounded the bend not far from where she sat. Maeve sat up a little straighter. She had driven this road from end to end and there was but one house—the falling-down house where Regina Hartwell lived—so anyone who passed her would be going there. Or was hopelessly lost. Maeve started the Prius and, keeping a safe distance, trailed the car directly to the Hartwell house.

  The car pulled into the driveway; the Rambler was absent from its usual little parking pad. The man who got out of the car wasn’t hesitant at all; he had been here before. He was tall and thin, on the older side, wearing an overcoat over creased suit pants. A tie peeked out where the coat was unbuttoned. He looked surprised to see her, and behind his smile, Maeve could see the wheels turning inside his head.

  It was Michael Donner, the man who had been at the support group the night before.

  “Hi.” She stuck out her hand, acting more confident than she felt. “Maeve Conlon. You were at the support group last night.”

  He took her hand in his gloved one, hesitating with his introduction and greeting. Turns out the latter didn’t exist. “Michael Donner.”

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Hartwell. Are you a relative?”

  He was smiling but it wasn’t quite right. “Yes. Brother-in-law. By marriage.”

  “Right.” She pulled her hood over her head. Unseasonably warm, it was starting to rain. “So you knew her husband?”

  “Yes. James.”

  “He died, yes?” Maeve asked.

  He nodded, his eyes narrowing. “And who are you, Miss…?”

  “Conlon. Maeve Conlon. From the support group last night,” she said, looking at his face to see if the name rang a bell, if there was any recognition. Did he know the name? His craggy, lined face gave nothing away if he did. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain. She told him her story. “I’m looking for my sister. She lived at Mansfield. I was told that Mrs. Hartwell might have some information with regard to my search.” She sounded stilted, not herself. How many times had she told this story? It was hard to remember. For something she had only learned a few weeks earlier, it was now part of her history, even if the words sounded unnatural coming out of her mouth.

  “Well, I don’t know if we … she … can help you. It’s been a long time since Regina worked at Mansfield.” He turned toward the house. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

  “She’s not home,” Maeve said. “Her car’s not here.”

  “I know,” he said. “I can see that.”

  “Social visit?” Maeve asked.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Social visit or work?” Maeve asked, keeping a smile plastered on her face. See? I’m not threatening at all. Not nosy. Couldn’t care less as to why you’re here but hope you’ll tell me. “I think my sister is one of the Mansfield Missing. I want to find her.”

  “Well, I’m sor
ry, but I can’t help you. I doubt Regina can either.”

  “Really? Nothing? Any suggestions as to where I start? Please?” she said, sounding a bit more plaintive than she intended. It was clear he had no intention of helping her, even if he could.

  But he didn’t respond, bidding her a hasty good-bye and signaling that their conversation was over.

  It was clear that he wasn’t going to move until she left, so she got in her car and drove away slowly, keeping an eye on him in her rearview mirror. He stayed right where he was on the driveway, watching her drive down the road.

  At home, she went straight to her computer and searched the name “Michael Donner,” finding that he was exactly who he said he was: a worker in the social services department of the county to the north. Then she tried “James Hartwell.” She hit pay dirt when she got to his obituary from three years prior.

  James Hartwell died peacefully at his home in Rhineview on May 13, 2002. Devoted husband of Regina Hartwell (née Haggerty) …

  Maeve slammed the computer shut and banged her head on her desk, wondering how she had been so stupid. Why hadn’t she looked up Regina Hartwell before? She picked up her phone, dialing the one person she was now sure would always help her, always be there for her.

  Her own personal secret-keeper.

  CHAPTER 45

  Poole answered her call on the first ring.

  “Maeve Conlon,” he said as he always did. Her first name. Her last. Together.

  “Rodney.” She was out of breath, the air having been sucked from her lungs at the discovery. “What’s the name of Margie Haggerty’s company?”

  He was at work. In the background was the din that accompanied working in a busy squad with too many open cases. Cursing. Yelling. Protests of innocence. Proof of guilt. The odd breakfast order. Bacon and egg on a roll. “I don’t remember,” he said. “Why?”

  “It’s too long a story to go into. I need to see her. Where did you say it was?”

  “Hold on,” he said. He put the phone down and rummaged around on his desk. “Two thirty-eighth and Broadway, if my knowledge of addresses in that area is correct. Somewhere under the El. Over a bodega.” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “What are you going to do, Maeve Conlon? The warrior queen isn’t making a reappearance, is she?”

  He knew what she was capable of, so he was right to be concerned.

  She slowed her breathing; she couldn’t be this keyed up for an extended period of time. Gather your thoughts, calm down. That’s what she needed to do. “I need to see her,” she said again. “That’s it. We need to talk.” She wasn’t going to call her, give Margie time to make up another story.

  Heather wandered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, Maeve getting a view of her pajama-clad backside as she pushed items around on the shelves, looking for that one thing that would appeal to her as the first thing she put in her mouth that day. She’d never get used to the sleeping habits of teens. How they could sleep so late was beyond her, her internal clock waking her up before dawn. She bent over farther to pull out the bread drawer and knocked the phone from Maeve’s hand.

  “Hello?” Maeve said, picking it up. “You still there?”

  “Yes.” Someone was screaming the name “Juanita!” over and over, the man’s shrill voice coming through loud and clear. Someone told him to shut it and the place quieted down for a moment. “Be careful, Maeve. You may be a little out of your league here.”

  She watched Heather bumble around with the toaster, changing the settings, leaving a knife dangling off the side of the counter. She moved it and gently pushed her daughter out of the way before she hurt herself and burned the house down. “What do you mean?”

  “She was a bad cop. Hear she’s a lawyer now. And we know that most of them are bad, too.” He paused, thinking better of adding something. “I don’t know. It just sounds as if you should be done with her.”

  “A cop? A lawyer? Last I heard, she went into the Peace Corps,” Maeve said. “She’s had quite a life since I left the neighborhood.”

  “She gets around. Recently left her marriage to a very nice woman, too, from what I hear.”

  “It’s not like you to gossip, Poole,” she said.

  “Just want you to have all of the facts, Maeve Conlon.”

  She pushed the handle down on the toaster. Heather went into the powder room and got stuck. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Thank you.”

  She jiggled the handle on the powder room door and released her daughter. “I need new boots,” Heather said when she emerged. “Can we go shopping today?”

  Maeve’s hesitation gave Heather the opening for a speech she had obviously rehearsed.

  “You’re never here. We don’t know where you go and what you do, but we know you leave in the morning and don’t come back for hours. We want to spend time with you,” Heather said.

  Maeve wasn’t so sure about that last part but she’d take it. It was more likely that they wanted new boots.

  “You’re never here,” Heather said again. “Where do you go?”

  Where did she go? How would she explain it without sounding like a complete lunatic? She kept it simple because, in reality, it was. “I’m looking for my sister.”

  “But what about us?” Heather asked.

  Maeve thought it was less about her looking for her sister, less about them wanting to spend time with her, and more about the fact that she was gone when they needed her. They were grieving, too. She had forgotten about that.

  As if to confirm her thoughts, Heather started crying. “I miss Grandpa.”

  The toast started smoking in the appliance. Maeve popped it up before wrapping Heather in a hug. She felt her own tears come but wasn’t sure if it was because she missed her father or because she missed her sister. A sister she had never known. On the face of it, it did sound crazy, but she was stubborn like that.

  Or tenacious.

  Depended how you looked at it.

  Heather’s outburst gave her a chance to calm down, to step out of herself and the bottomless well of anger that had built, if only for a minute. She had been mad at Heather for being the kind of girl who went for the Tommy Brantley kind of guy and she had to let that go. She grabbed some tissues from the powder room and handed them to Heather. “How about this? I need to run an errand in the Bronx”—Well, she thought, that was one way to put it—“and then we’ll hit the big mall on the Thruway on the way home. We’ll go out to eat.”

  Heather let out a shaky breath, the kind that came after an extended bout of crying. “Cheesecake Factory?”

  Maeve pushed her daughter’s dark hair off her face. “Sure. Cheesecake Factory.” She reached over and closed the photo album on the table. “Go tell your sister.”

  The element of surprise was her best and closest ally; she wouldn’t call Margie Haggerty and tell her she was on her way. She waited while the girls got ready and plotted what she would say to the woman, someone who she had forgotten many years ago and who she hoped to forget again soon.

  She responded to a text from Chris Larsson asking if he could see her that night, telling him that she was spending time with the girls. He would understand, she hoped. He had a son. The kid might not be as needy as her own progeny but that was to be seen. Maeve hadn’t met him yet, the boy spending time with his mother.

  Before they left town, Maeve stopped to get cash. Sliding her ATM card into the machine, she watched as all of her accounts came up: her savings, her checking, Rebecca’s savings, Rebecca’s checking. Cal had insisted that one of them be on Rebecca’s accounts so that if they wanted to deposit money while she was at school, they didn’t have to bother sending a check; they could just transfer money for books, necessities, or even food when she couldn’t take the dining hall anymore. Maeve hadn’t checked the accounts in a long time but glanced at them now just in case Rebecca needed money before she went back to school, something she would never tell her mother, preferring to suffer the indignities of generic sh
ampoo and cafeteria turkey tetrazzini instead, parceling her money out with Scrooge-like frugality.

  Maeve hit “Savings.” There wasn’t a dime in the account. Behind her, the door to the bank opened and someone smelling heavily of grease and oil came in. She went to “Checking.”

  Nothing.

  When Rebecca had left for school, she had had just shy of twenty-five hundred dollars total in her savings account, the money she had saved from birthdays, graduations, and working. Her checking held only a few hundred dollars, something Maeve considered her “walking-around money,” the funds she would use for coffee and lip gloss and anything else she might have a hankering for at school.

  Maeve rechecked both accounts. The man who had entered the bank cleared his throat noisily. “You refinancing your house, lady?” he asked. “On the ATM?”

  Maeve turned; it was the head of the DPW, Marc Foster. “Hi, Marc. I’ll just be a second.” She noticed that his hand was damaged but resisted the urge to ask him if he had lost a finger.

  “I’m sorry, Maeve,” he said, seeing his future of free coffee and scones ruined with one cranky comment, “take your time.”

  While she wanted to stare at the screen and see if the numbers that she expected would magically appear, she couldn’t; someone else entered the bank. She quickly withdrew a few hundred in cash for the boots and dinner and went back to the car.

  The girls sat in silence, Rebecca in the front, Heather in the back. She looked at both of them but their faces gave nothing away.

  She opened the passenger-side door. “You’re driving,” she said to Rebecca.

  “In the Bronx?” Rebecca said, whining. The sound of it got under Maeve’s skin in a way it wouldn’t have before the discovery of the missing money.

  Just what had she done at school? Was it something horrible, something shocking? Did she have a drug habit? As Maeve settled in as a passenger, she tried to think of what would make her daughter spend her entire life savings in one semester.