Lies That Bind (Maeve Conlon Novels Book 2)
Page 29
Cal, despite his serious “wound,” as he called it—his oft-talked-about forehead stitches—claimed to have finally “fixed” the powder room doorknob even though she still got locked in there from time to time. The box of ornaments still sat in the kitchen and Heather still complained that there was never any food to eat. Life, as Maeve knew it, had returned to normal.
Heather had gotten a job and was paying her sister and her father back, week by week. She hated working at the local grocery store, particularly on Senior Day, but she wisely kept her mouth shut about her unhappiness.
And gave her mother the senior discount.
Tommy Brantley had gone away to a school far, far away in Plattsburgh, near the Canadian border where it was winter for nine months a year. Maeve hoped he was freezing his other nine fingers off.
Maeve hadn’t seen Billy or DuClos and that’s the way she liked it. She wondered who would take over the landlord duties now that DuClos was in the wind. Chris said that they were still looking for him but that he felt confident the odiferous building owner would surface again, dead or alive, his Mob connections in the hunt, too.
Because, as Chris said more than once when they talked about everything that had happened, a twinkle in his eyes, “Criminals are stupid. They always turn up.”
Maeve turned on her laptop and slipped the DVD into the drive. In seconds, Jack’s face filled the screen; his look of confusion, prevalent in his last days, was there but fainter, almost imperceptible. This had been a long time ago, obviously.
“Is this thing on?” he asked.
Jimmy Moriarty’s Bronx-hewn accent was heard in the background. “Yeah! Start talkin’.”
Jack turned toward the camera. “Hiya, Mavy. How’s my beautiful girl?”
She burst into tears. She had cried more in the last few weeks than she had in her entire life.
“Don’t cry, honey,” he said. And then softly, he repeated, “Don’t cry.” He reached out toward the screen and Moriarty reprimanded him for almost smudging the lens. “Okay. If you’re watching this,” he said, “then I’m gone. But with the way things have been going,” at this he paused and pointed to his head, “it’s probably better this way.”
Maeve looked up at the ceiling, trying to stem the tide of tears.
“So, I’m seventy-two years old…”
“Seventy-five!” Moriarty called from off-camera. So the recording had been made six years earlier.
“Seventy-five. And I hope I lived a little bit longer so I could be with you. You were … are … the best daughter a guy could have, Maeve. Sure, I hate it here…”
Moriarty chimed in. “Me, too!”
“But I know it’s for the best. Some days are great and I remember everything but others…” He drifted off. “Anyway. I have some things to tell you.”
She wondered why he waited until after he died to reveal his motivations.
“I bet you’re wondering why I’m waiting to tell you this.” He drew a hand across his eyes. “I don’t think I ever want you to know but that’s Jimmy’s call after I go. I just didn’t think that right now, the way I feel, I could look you in the eye and tell you the whole truth. It’s a lot and it’s painful.” He drew in a shaky breath. “Turn it off, Jimmy.”
When they came back, Jack was wearing a different shirt; it was another day. “I’m back. Let me tell you what happened.” He tried to appear strong, make it seem like telling her this story was the most normal thing in the world. But his first admission—“she wasn’t mine”—made his voice crack in a way that she wasn’t sure that he could go on. “I loved your mother, Mavy. More than life itself. So that’s why, even though she was pregnant with someone else’s child, I married her.”
Maeve stared at the television, wondering if she had heard him right.
“Because I couldn’t live without her.”
It was not easy having a developmentally challenged child back then, she imagined. Add to that that the child wasn’t yours, belonged to someone else, and sending her away and then never speaking of her to your biological daughter may have seemed the only answer. She couldn’t understand it, as hard as she tried, but it was what it was, as Jo often said. He didn’t want her to know, to tarnish Claire Conlon’s memory, so he kept the secret their entire lives, visiting the girl at the group home, having taken her out of Mansfield as soon as he had seen the first hint of impropriety at the place, the news story. That was her only guess.
“Time passed, Mavy, and I never told you. And then more time passed, and I was raising you alone, and there was this burden I never wanted you to share. Your sister. Your mother being pregnant when we married.” He looked down at his hands. “I think you would have loved her, your sister, but I don’t know. You might have treated her like she was the most special sister in the world. But there was never the right time. You had your own children. You got divorced. You had me to worry about.” He looked at Jimmy, still off-camera. “It was never the right time,” he said, as if to convince himself. “And something’s been wrong with you lately. You’re preoccupied. A little sad. It’s not the right time now either.”
She stared back at the screen.
“And I didn’t want to see the look in your eyes that you probably have now. The look that says I did wrong by you and her.”
Her reflection was etched around his face, backlit by the windows facing the porch. He was right: she did look disappointed. She did feel wronged.
“I hope you’ll forgive me when you do find out, because when I’m gone and when Jimmy’s gone, there is no one else.” He looked down, contemplating a time when he and Moriarty wouldn’t walk the halls of Buena del Sol. “You don’t know her father, Maeve, and he didn’t know he had a daughter, so don’t worry about that.” He looked back at the screen. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”
She did.
“It’s different now, Maeve. I never wanted you to feel the burden of her,” he said, repeating the words that Jimmy Moriarty had said to her in the parking lot.
But she wasn’t a burden, she wanted to say.
She’s a gift.
CHAPTER 60
When the sun shines and the air is clear, there is nothing better than sitting riverside and enjoying a barbecue. Mr. and Mrs. Deckman were on board when Maeve told them that she was going to rent the gazebo on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and host a little party for Evelyn and her roommates. Rebecca came home and Heather had cleared her active social schedule, neither protesting in the least when Maeve gave them a shopping list filled with items for the barbecue and making the holiday-weekend trek to Shoprite, where Heather now got a discount because she had been a part-time employee for over three months.
Jimmy Moriarty had passed away the month before and Maeve had wept in the back of the church in a way she hadn’t when Jack died, her mind after her father’s death too taken up with the store and pictures of a baby who belonged to her parents, trips to Goodwill. He was with Jack now; she was sure of that. And they were telling stories about their time on the Job, most of it made up, to other cops at whatever bar they had appropriated wherever they were.
Their time with Evelyn was still marked by a little confusion, some trepidation. Maeve sometimes wasn’t sure what to say, how to act, but Evelyn made it easy. She was happy and chatty and told Maeve everything about her day when they spoke. With each passing day and each joy-filled phone call, Maeve got more comfortable, putting the past—and Jack’s secret—behind her. She had a sister.
Evelyn’s social interactions were different than Maeve was used to, but she was kindhearted and loved seeing the girls, telling them about her latest adventures at Café Americano, and bringing them little gifts whenever Maeve brought her to the house for a short visit: the all-natural lip gloss that Heather liked, the body wash that Rebecca seemed to go through with alarming alacrity. The girls did her nails, every one a different color, her toes, too. They were becoming a family, one visit at a time.
Jo stood by the wate
r’s edge with the baby, a rotund little guy with a shock of black hair, strapped to her front. Unlike watching Devon in Cal’s sling, Maeve enjoyed seeing the baby—John Stuart the final determination, or “Jack” for short—dangling from Jo’s torso, his little feet kicking with delight whenever Maeve appeared.
If she didn’t know better, she would think that the kid had a little bit of the real Jack, the old Jack, inside of him. No one should be that happy to see someone who wasn’t his mother or father.
Chris Larsson manned the barbecue, stoking the coals. “Barbecue is man’s work, Maeve,” he said, laughing when she poked him in the side in protest. “You should know that.”
She left him to it, walking back to the car to make a second trip with the cart that the Parks Department left for picnickers to transport larger items. Maeve had two cases of water in the trunk of the Prius, far more than she needed, but the amount the girls had bought. She opened the trunk of the car and hoisted both cases out, dropping the first with a loud thud onto the cart. When she had successfully loaded both on, praying that the worn tires of the cart would hold and not go flat on her, she slammed the hatch shut, surprised to find a man standing in front of her car.
“Maeve Conlon,” he said, like he always did, using her full name.
“Rodney Poole.” She held on to the cart, which seemed to have a mind of its own, not to mention bad alignment. “You turn up in the strangest places.” She looked into the park; Chris was still messing with the coals and using what seemed like too much lighter fluid to light them. She hoped he stayed there. Explaining who Rodney was, what their connection was, would be too complicated.
“Gorgeous day for a picnic,” he said.
“How did you know?”
He pointed at Doug, a long way away by a tree at the river’s edge, rustling around in a very feminine diaper bag for something to soothe the baby.
“Right,” she said.
“Lots of nastiness up in Rhineview this past winter.” He stated this as if he were commenting on the weather.
The graves had been dug up, DNA testing was complete, and the people who had been members of the Mansfield Missing had been found and accounted for.
“You can say that again.” In the distance, she saw the minivan that the group home used to transport its residents. He didn’t give anything away and neither would she. “You appear at the oddest times, Poole,” she remarked again, still a little mystified by his presence.
“Does it make you uncomfortable?” he asked. “Because I’ll stop if it does.”
Don’t stop. “It’s fine.” She looked at the Deckman’s minivan, pulling up into the handicapped spot not far from where she was stacking the water onto the cart.
“I just wanted to tell you that Michael Donner died last night.”
She had vowed to forget that name forever but there it was again. “Good riddance.”
“Inexplicably,” he said, a smile on his lips, “he ended up in Sing Sing. No one knows what happened. Found him dead in his cell.”
“Sing Sing, you say?” A tendril of fear traced her spine, landing in her solar plexus. Her mind went back to her conversation with Doug, about how his partner had a long-lost brother there, doing time. How much time, she didn’t know. If he was still there, had been there for Donner’s murder.
“Yes. Know anyone there?” he asked, turning and looking out at the water.
“No,” she said. But you do, she thought. She looked at him, wondering. But he was the same Rodney, rumpled and kind, the man who kept her from doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, from going too far. Had he gone too far himself? And to what end?
“I hate to think of you hurting,” he said.
“I’m not. I have a sister,” she said. She didn’t say another word lest she bring back that time when he told her what she had done, what he had figured out. How she had killed a man and never lost a night’s sleep.
“Beautiful spot,” Poole said.
“It is.” She pointed to Evelyn, bursting from the front door. “I hear you’ve been through the same,” she said, not sure she wanted to know. “Not knowing.”
His mouth, almost smiling up until this point, went slack.
“I’m sorry,” she said, busying herself with the water bottles, one case teetering dangerously to the side and threatening to fall into the parking lot. He walked over and helped her.
“We have a lot in common,” he said, as if just discovering this for the first time. His arm brushed against hers as he righted the case of water. The sound of happy voices filled the space behind them.
“I know.” She put both hands on the cart to see if she could push it herself. “Do you want to stay? Meet my sister and her roommates?”
His face got that sad look that she had seen once or twice before. “I’d better not. Conflict of interest and all.”
That didn’t really describe the situation but she let it go.
“There’s my sister! There’s my Maeve!” The little woman, shorter than Maeve but with her eyes—the shape and color—hugged Maeve from behind, taking her breath away. Maeve turned around and gave her sister a proper hug, one that wasn’t quite so painful; when she looked for Poole, he was gone, and with him went the fear that she had felt in his presence, the thought of how he had closed another door for her, again leaving her consciousness at the sight of her sibling. Her sister.
“Are my nieces here?” Evelyn asked. Today, she was wearing jeans with a neat crease down the front and a tee shirt; all of the women who lived with the Deckmans wore the same shirt when they were out in public together. It was bright orange and could be seen from a distance.
“Yes,” Maeve said. “They are. And Jo, and Doug, and little Jack. Everyone’s here.”
Evelyn looked up at her younger sister. “But not my daddy. He’s not here.”
Maeve took her sister’s flushed cheeks in her hands, kissing her forehead.
But you are and I love you, she thought. You are my gift.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maggie Barbieri is a freelance editor as well as a mystery novelist. Her father was a member of the NYPD, and his stories provide much of the background for her novels. Visit her online at www.MaggieBarbieri.com, or sign up for email updates here.
ALSO BY MAGGIE BARBIERI
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Physical Education
Third Degree
Final Exam
Quick Study
Extracurricular Activities
Murder 101
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 3
3
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
About the Author
Also by Maggie Barbieri
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
LIES THAT BIND. Copyright © 2015 by Maggie Barbieri. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.