“She committed suicide,” Cooper said softly. “Slit her wrists in the bathtub.”
“Oh God. Did Kathy find her?”
Cooper nodded. Anna winced at the image. It was almost unbearable, the idea of Kathy—kind, hardworking, cosmically unlucky Kathy—finding her only child in a tub of blood. Anna didn’t know how she was still walking around and functioning.
“I think that’s why she’s lost so much weight,” Cooper said, as he fastened his helmet. “I don’t think she’s eaten a decent meal since.”
“Why did Hayley do it?”
“I’m not sure. I hear there was some bullying, online crap, from other kids.”
Cooper made Anna put on leather chaps under the dress and a leather jacket over it. He turned away while she pulled on the pants.
Anna held on to Cooper as he drove to the northeastern side of Michigan’s thumb. She was no longer scared riding with him. She felt a little woozy from Kathy’s news and was glad to have something solid to hang on to. Every time the bike turned, they leaned together.
The service was at the coach’s summer cottage on Lake Huron. After Port Huron, Route 25 headed north, skimming along the great lake. Industrial Michigan receded into the rearview mirror as farms and forests gently took over the landscape. To the right, the water went as far as the eye could see. The lakeside was dotted with trees, white-sand beaches, and the occasional cottage or motel, but this wasn’t a tourist hub. Vacationers went to the taffy-filled resort towns of Charlevoix, Traverse City, or Mackinac Island instead.
Anna wondered why the coach’s family was holding the memorial service in his second home, so far from Holly Grove. If it was to keep the crowds away, that hadn’t worked. The coach’s driveway and the road leading up to it were packed with cars glimmering under the mid-June sun. Guests had to park far down the road and walk back to the house. Cooper rolled his motorcycle into a slim space between two cars on the shoulder. Anna stood behind the cars to take off her leather outerwear.
They walked to the coach’s house, which wasn’t visible from the road. It was surrounded by a high iron fence, the gates standing open. The driveway wound through a thick stand of trees. They came around a turn and Anna finally got a glimpse of the coach’s “cottage.” It was enormous, in the rough-hewn, stone-and-log, rugged-man-of-nature way that can only be produced by a professional architect with a large budget. A swath of land around it was covered in perfect sod. On either side of the clearing, thick trees surrounded the house as far as Anna could see. If the coach had neighbors, their homes were not visible. Behind the coach’s house, she could see the steel-gray waters of Lake Huron. She calculated the value of the land and the house. Even in this remote corner of Michigan, it must have cost more than a million dollars.
“How could he afford this?” she said softly to Cooper.
“Advertising,” Cooper said “Every waterbed warehouse and used-car dealer in mid-Michigan had him in an ad at some point. And swag. He got a cut of all the Bulldog merchandise. Every man, woman, and child in the county owns at least two of those sweatshirts.”
Inside, the foyer opened to a giant living room with cathedral ceilings and three-story glass windows overlooking the lake. The walls were made of massive logs and stacked stones. People in dark clothes packed the large space. The crowd was mostly men: generations of former athletes looking uncomfortable in their best suits.
The coach’s widow stood by a massive table covered in gorgeously catered food. Wendy Fowler, née Weiscowicz, looked even better today than she had in high school. She’d always been the local beauty, renowned for her fiery hair. But as an adult, she had acquired the grace that only years, confidence, and money could produce. Her black sheath dress, pearls, and patent leather pumps were the perfect widow’s outfit: expensive, understated, beautiful. She’d also acquired excellent posture since high school. Anna supposed that years of being the queen of their small town had given her the regal bearing.
Although they’d graduated in the same class, Anna and Wendy had never been friends. Wendy had made it clear that Anna was beneath her. While that stung, Anna had never tried to win Wendy’s favor; anyone who basked in being a snob and an airhead wasn’t worth her time.
There was a break in the line of people waiting to talk to Wendy, and the widow looked up—right at Anna. Wendy’s eyes got big, then narrowed. She walked over.
“Anna Curtis, right?”
Anna nodded, as a shot of adrenaline pulsed through her. She’d hoped to mingle and observe without talking directly to Wendy. Despite her reassurances to Jody, Anna thought there was a chance the widow would confront her about Jody’s relationship with the coach. She took a deep breath and braced herself.
“Hi, Wendy,” Anna said. “I’m so sorry to hear about your husband.”
“Thank you.” Wendy leaned forward and turned her head, presenting Anna with her cheek. Anna glanced at Cooper, then kissed it. Wendy’s skin was incredibly smooth and smelled of Chanel No. 5. Cooper gave Wendy a hug, too.
“Hope you’re hanging in there,” he said.
“Thank you.” Wendy turned to Anna. “I understand you’re a prosecutor, now? And living in D.C.?”
Anna nodded. “It’s a great city. We don’t have views like this, though. Your house is beautiful.”
“Thank you. How is your little sister? Jody, right?”
“She’s fine, thanks.”
“Is she coming today?” Wendy’s tone was like an undertow: a calm surface hiding strong and possibly dangerous currents below.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
A little girl with the same red-gold hair as Wendy came up and tugged her hand. The girl looked about ten years old, and Anna guessed she was Wendy’s daughter.
“Isabel,” Wendy said. “Say hello to Mr. Cooper and Miss Anna. They’re old friends of mine.”
“Old friends” was not the way Anna would have described their relationship. She wondered if Wendy was mocking her.
“Hello,” Isabel said dully. Her eyes flicked to Anna, then flicked away again. The girl tugged on her mother’s hand again, pulling her down. Wendy leaned over till her ear was level with Isabel’s mouth. The girl whispered something.
“Yes, you can go upstairs, honey.” Isabel floated away. “She adored her father,” Wendy said, watching her daughter climb the stairs. “This has all been very hard on her.”
Anna recalled when her own mother died. Anna had been in law school. She’d gotten the call from Jody: their mother was killed in a car accident, plowed into by a drunk driver. It had been devastating. Their father had left town years before; their mother’s death effectively orphaned them. The two sisters were all the family they had left.
“At least she has you,” Anna said. She pictured her own mother’s sad, beautiful smile. “A mother is so important to a little girl.”
“Yes,” Wendy eyed her coolly. “But so is a father.”
17
A herd of enormous teenage boys came over to the widow. They were the only people not wearing black: instead, they wore blue football jerseys. Anna assumed they were members of the current Holly Grove football team. A bear of a kid with a blond mohawk seemed to be the leader.
He said, “Mrs. Fowler, we, uh, wanted to offer our condolences.”
“Thank you, Hans.” Wendy looked at Anna and Cooper. “Excuse me. Please do get something to eat and drink. There’s an open bar on the boat outside. Owen loved that boat. He would want people to toast to him there.”
Wendy turned back to the football team. As they walked away from the cluster, Cooper leaned down and whispered, “See the kid talking to Wendy now?”
Anna glanced back. The one with the blond mohawk had the name BAKER on the back of his jersey. “Mr. Baker?”
“Yeah. I hear he was one of the boys who was part of the bullying of Hayley Mack.”
Anna knew Cooper had his ear to the ground. He kept up with Holly Grove athletics, spoke to people at his community garden, and still had family in Holly Grove.
Anna nodded. “Let’s go outside. I need some air.”
They walked out of the sliding glass doors and onto the back deck. It was beautiful summer day, the blue sky dotted with cotton candy clouds. Pine trees swayed in the breeze, which rippled the silver water of Lake Huron. They walked down to the large lawn. At the bottom was a flagstone patio, set up for the service with hundreds of white chairs facing a podium.
Anna and Cooper followed a stone path to the edge of the yard, which ended at a sandy cliff encircling a cove. Stairs went one way down the cliff side, while a wooden ramp went the other. They took the ramp.
At the bottom, Anna’s shoes sank into the soft white sand. She couldn’t see the house from here, only the sandy cliff, trees, and miles of water. It was a beautiful, secluded spot.
A long wooden dock went out into the water, with a large pontoon boat tied at the end. A bar was set up on the boat, with a bartender handing out generous drinks. People stood on it drinking and chatting, while more guests gathered on the end of the wide dock. Anna had to admire Wendy’s skills as a hostess. Putting the bar there made the guests see the entire impressive property and also dispersed some of the crowd from the house.
Anna saw the familiar faces of people she’d known from high school. Cooper leaned down and whispered, “You want to stay together, or split up and cover more ground?”
“Let’s split up.” He nodded and headed to a cluster of guys on the dock. Anna stepped onto the boat. She saw a woman she recognized from high school. “Jenny?”
“Anna! Hey!” Jenny said. “You’re in from D.C. That’s awesome. Everyone here is so proud of you.”
“Aw, thanks.” Anna was touched, especially because the feeling she actually got was that she was an outsider whom no one quite understood or trusted anymore. Including her own sister.
She chatted with Jenny, who’d married and had two little girls. Her husband was an auto exec, and, it turned out, they lived down the street from the coach’s house in Holly Grove.
“What was the coach like, as a neighbor?” Anna asked, casually.
“Oh, such a nice guy. Always friendly, kept his yard real nice. And very sweet to our little girls. Paid them lots of attention. Though we didn’t see him much this summer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got the impression he was staying here the last few months. We saw Wendy and Isabel around, but never the coach. I haven’t seen him at the Holly Grove house since early this spring.”
Anna noted this with interest. The crowd swirled and she mingled, until a man in a dark suit asked everyone to go back up to the lawn; the service was about to start. Cooper was waiting for her on the dock; he held out his hand to help Anna step off the boat.
They took seats at the back of the audience. Soon, every seat was filled. More guests stood in the back. A minister took the podium and thanked everyone for making the trip to Lake Huron.
“Owen Fowler was a pillar of the community, a sports champion, and a role model. He left behind a legacy of charitable work with underprivileged children, and an athletic camp that will persist long after he’s gone. In his football championships, he gave Holly Grove honor and a cause in which everyone could take pride. And he was a devoted husband and loving father. He will be missed by many.”
Wendy and Isabel sat in the front row. Isabel leaned into her mother, who kept an arm around the girl. The minister gave a sermon about the importance of public service, and how that was fulfilled by the coach. Then Wendy walked to the podium. The breeze ruffled her hair as she gazed out on the audience. The crowd grew so quiet, Anna could hear the seagulls cawing from the water.
“Thank you, Father Dirksen,” Wendy said. “And thank you to everyone who came here today. I know many of you traveled a great distance. Owen would have appreciated it, truly.
“Most of you knew Owen as the coach of the Holly Grove football team. That is certainly what he’ll be remembered for. It was his life. He loved bringing along young men: finding raw talent and helping to shape it into something hard and good. I know he touched many of your lives. His athletes were so important to him.”
She smiled into the audience. “Ron Surocka, he helped you get your job at the tire factory after you graduated. Ben Ohebshalom, he advocated until you got a football scholarship at Penn State. Devin Hughes, I do believe he bailed you out of jail a couple times.”
The crowd laughed. Anna remembered that Coach Fowler had written her a letter that helped her get a college scholarship. Without that, who knows, she might not be where she was today. She saw several mothers nodding in the audience. Women were always asking the coach to write recommendation letters for their sons. Perhaps even more than the fathers, the mothers of Holly Grove adored Owen Fowler.
“But you already know how much he contributed to our community. What I want to talk about today is something much more personal.
“I fell in love with Owen when I was young. I had a terrific crush on him, the sort of puppy love for a local hero that usually goes unrequited. But I was lucky. He loved me back. We courted, and it was like a dream come true. Then one day he invited me on a drive. We went to Hell, Michigan. That’s where he proposed—because he’d always said it would be a cold day in hell when he got engaged.”
Everyone laughed.
“That’s how he was. Funny, surprising. He loved beautiful things: cars, clothes, women. And they loved him back. When he proposed, I was over the moon. He had so many choices and—”
She paused, her attention drawn to something to the side. Anna followed where she was looking. A dark cloud floated toward them from the trees. Anna blinked and the cloud came into focus: it was a flock of butterflies. The crowd let out a collective “Ah!” A bunch of monarchs, orange spotted with black, flitted around one another. They flew right over the gathered audience and, for an instant, the air was filled with the butterflies. Anna felt the soft touch of wings on her cheek. They circled Wendy and kept going toward the beach. When they reached the cliff, they floated down and disappeared from view.
“Well, that was lovely,” Wendy said. “We get those here sometimes, but I’d like to think that today it’s a sign from the angels. God is celebrating—celebrating Owen’s life along with us.” She cleared her throat, looked down, and seemed to gather her thoughts. “As I was saying, Owen had so many choices—and he chose me. He wanted to build a life with me, for me to be his partner.
“Owen Fowler gave me many things. But the greatest gift he ever gave me was Isabel. You can win all the football games in the world. There’s nothing like a beautiful, smart little girl to change your world. I thank God for her every day, that I have the privilege of being her mother.” She looked down at her daughter. “Isabel, honey, I know this is a tough time for you. But we’re going to make it. We have each other. And look around you. All these people are here for your father. They’re also here for you. You have a lot of people supporting you.”
The little girl wiped a tear away with the back of her sleeve. Wendy opened her mouth to say more but choked up. She excused herself, left the podium, and sat next to her girl. Isabel cried into her mother’s chest. Wendy held her and rocked her. Anna had to pull out her own Kleenex. She saw several other people doing the same thing.
Whatever faults Wendy had, it was clear that she loved her daughter. And her elegance and fortitude were unexpected. Clearly, Wendy had grown up quite a bit since high school. As the crowd was herded back into the house, Anna mused: Maybe she had been wrong about Wendy. Maybe there were some redeeming qualities in the former Homecoming queen after all.
When the service was over, they walked back to Cooper’s motorcycle. “Did you find out anything?” Anna asked quietly.
He looked around and saw t
hat they were alone. He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “My friend is a receptionist at a family law firm. Today, he had a few too many trips to the open bar and told some tales. He said that Wendy visited the firm about a month ago and consulted with one of the lawyers. She wanted a divorce.”
18
It was close to one A.M. when the coach’s 1967 Corvette came growling up the Hugheses’ dirt driveway, kicking up a cloud of dust. The coach sprang out and strode over to the front porch, where I was sitting on the steps. He was wearing jeans and a blue pullover, and his blond hair had the rumpled look of someone who’d been called out of bed. He held out a hand, which I took, and helped me to my feet. I tried to stand steady, because I didn’t want him to know how much I’d been drinking. I was not successful. I stumbled, and he had to grab my elbow to steady me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
It was the second time that night someone asked me that, but this time it made my heartbeat quicken.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. “Maybe just a little tipsy. Sorry.”
“Your hands are freezing.” He pressed them between his, which were warm and big. “Where’s Devin?”
I pointed toward the side yard. He let go of my hands and strode in that direction. I followed. As we turned the corner, another blast echoed out into the night.
“Devin Hughes!” Coach roared. “You are in a world of hurt!”
I stopped walking and stepped into the shadow of an elm tree. It was a chickenshit move. I didn’t want the boys to know I’d snitched on them. I tucked my hands under my armpits, leaned against the trunk, and watched from the darkness.
The boys looked like dogs who’d been caught eating slippers. They hung their heads and stared at their coach with sad, guilty eyes. Coach marched over to Devin and snatched the gun out of his hand.
“Are you crazy, Hughes? Do you want to kill someone?”
“No.”
“No, what?” Coach popped open the shotgun and ejected a shell.
A Good Killing Page 9