Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

  Jane wanted to roll her eyes. She couldn’t believe he was doing this now. “Don’t be so cruel. Jasper loves you. He always has.”

  “It’s you he loves. And that’s fine. It’s good that he looks after you.”

  “I’m not a child who needs a minder.” Jane couldn’t keep the peevishness out of her tone. They had fought about Jasper since they were little. Andrew always saw the worst in him. Jane saw him as her savior. “Do you know how many times Jasper took me to dinner when Father was in one of his moods, or helped me pick out something to wear when Mother was too drunk, or tried to talk to me about music or listened to me cry about boys or—”

  “I get it. He’s a saint. You’re his perfect baby sister.” Andrew sat down on the stairs. “Sit.”

  Jane begrudgingly sat on the step below him. There were so many things she could say about Jasper that would only hurt Andrew, like the way that, every time Andrew overdosed or disappeared or ended up in the hospital, it was Jasper who made sure that Jane was okay.

  Andrew said, “Give me the key.”

  She retrieved it from her pocket and handed it over. Jane studied his face as he worked the key in the lock. He was still breathing hard, sweating profusely despite the cool breeze.

  “Here.” Andrew finally opened the lid on the metal box.

  Jane saw that it was filled with file folders. She recognized the Queller Healthcare logo printed along the bottoms.

  “Look at these.” Andrew handed her a stack of files. “You know Father got Nick a job at corporate.”

  Jane chewed her tongue so she didn’t snap that of course she knew that her boyfriend was working for her father’s company. She scanned the forms inside the folders, trying to understand why they were important enough for Nick to hide. She easily recognized the patient packets with billing codes and intake forms. Martin routinely brought them home in his briefcase, then Jasper started doing the same when he joined the business.

  Andrew said, “Nick’s been snooping around.”

  This, too, was not news. Nick was their man on the inside, as he liked to say. Jane flipped through the forms. Patient names, social security numbers, addresses, billing codes, correspondences with the state, with medical professionals, with accounting. Queller Bayside Home. Queller Hilltop House. Queller Youth Facility.

  She told Andrew, “We’ve seen these before. They’re part of the plan. Nick is sending them to the newspapers.”

  Andrew flipped through the folders until he found what he was looking for. “Read this one.”

  Jane opened the file. She immediately recognized the name on the admitting form.

  ROBERT DAVID JUNEAU.

  She shrugged. They knew that Robert Juneau had been at Bayside. Everyone knew. It was the place where all of this had started.

  He said, “Look at the admitting dates.”

  She read aloud: “April 1–22, 1984; May 6–28, 1984; June 21–July 14, 1984.” She looked back up at Andrew, confused, because they knew all of this, too. Queller had been gaming the system. Patients who stayed at the facilities for longer than twenty-three days were considered long-term patients, which meant that the state paid a lower daily rate for their care. Martin’s way around the lowered rate was to kick out patients before they could hit the twenty-three-day mark, then re-admit them a few days later.

  Jane said, “This is going to be released after Chicago and New York. Nick has the envelopes ready to go to the newspapers and the FBI field offices.”

  Andrew laughed. “Can you really see Nick sitting around stuffing almost one hundred envelopes? Licking stamps and writing out addresses?” He pointed to the file in Jane’s hands. “Look at the next page.”

  She was too stressed and exhausted to play these games, but she turned the form over anyway. She saw more dates and summed them up for Andrew. “Twenty-two days in August, again in September, then in . . . Oh.”

  Jane stared at the numbers. The revulsion she had felt for her father became magnified.

  Robert Juneau had murdered his children, then killed himself, on September 9, 1984. According to the information in his file, he’d continued to be admitted and re-admitted to various facilities for the next six months.

  Queller facilities.

  Her father had not just exploited Robert Juneau’s injuries for profit. He had kept the profit rolling in even after the man had committed mass murder and suicide.

  Jane had to swallow before she could ask, “Did Laura know that Father did this? I mean, did she know before Oslo?” She looked up at Andrew. “Laura saw these?”

  He nodded.

  Her hands were shaking when she looked back down. “I feel like a fool,” she said. “I was guilty—feeling guilty—this morning. Yesterday. I kept remembering these stupid moments when Father wasn’t a monster, but he was—”

  “He was a monster,” Andrew said. “He exploited the misery of thousands of people, and when the company went public, he would’ve exploited hundreds of thousands of more, all for his own financial gain. We had to stop him.”

  Nothing that Nick had said over the last five days had made Jane feel more at peace with what they had done.

  She paged to the back of Robert Juneau’s file. Queller had made hundreds of thousands of dollars off of Robert Juneau’s death. She found paid invoices and billing codes and proof that the government had continued to pay for the treatment of a patient who’d never needed a clean bed or medication or meals.

  Andrew said, “Turn to—”

  Jane was already looking for the Intervening Report. A senior executive had to sign off on all multiple re-admissions so that an advisory board could convene to discuss the best course of action to get the patient the help that he needed. At least, that was what was supposed to happen because Queller Healthcare was allegedly in the business of helping people.

  Jane scanned down to the senior executive’s name. Her heart fell into her stomach. She knew the signature as well as she knew her own. It had appeared on school forms and blank checks that she took to the mall to buy clothes or when she got her hair cut or needed gas money.

  Jasper Queller.

  Her eyes filled with tears. She held up the form to the light. “It must be forged or—”

  “You know it’s not. That’s his signature, Jinx. Probably signed with his special fucking Montblanc that Father got him when he left the Air Force.”

  Jane felt her head start to shake. She could see where this was going. “Please, Andrew. He’s our brother.”

  “You need to accept the facts. I know you think that Jasper’s your guardian angel, but he’s been part of it the whole time. Everything Father was doing, he was doing, too.”

  Jane’s head kept shaking, even though she had the proof right in front of her. Jasper had known that Robert Juneau was dead. He’d talked to Jane about the newspaper stories. He’d been just as horrified as Jane that Queller had so spectacularly failed a patient.

  And then he had helped the company make money off of it.

  Jane grabbed the other files, checked the signatures, because she was certain this had been some kind of mistake. The more she looked, the more desperate she felt.

  Jasper’s signature was on every single one.

  She worked to swallow down her devastation. “Are all of these patients dead?”

  “Most of them. Some moved out of state. Their patient credentials are still being used to charge for treatment.” Andrew explained, “Jasper and Father were running up the numbers. The investors were getting antsy that the public offering wasn’t going to be as much.”

  The investors. Martin had taken them on a few years ago so he could buy out the competition. Jasper was obsessed with the group, as if they were some sort of all-seeing monolith who could destroy them on a whim.

  Andrew said, “Jasper has to be stopped. If the company goes public, he’ll be sitting on millions of dollars in blood money. We can’t let that happen.”

  Jane felt a quiver of panic. This was exactly how it
had started with Martin. One bad revelation had followed another bad revelation and then suddenly Laura Juneau was shooting him in the head.

  Andrew said, “I know you want to defend him, but this is indefensible.”

  “We can’t—” Jane had to stop. This was too much. All of this was too much. “I won’t hurt him, Andy. Not like Father. I don’t care what you say.”

  “Jasper’s not worth the bullet. But he has to pay for this.”

  “Who are we to play—” She stopped herself again, because they had played God in Oslo and none of them had blinked until the second it was over. “What are you going to do?”

  “Release it to the newspapers.”

  Jane grabbed his arm. “Andy, please. I’m begging you. I know Jasper hasn’t been the perfect brother to you, but he loves you. He loves both of us.”

  “Father would’ve said the same thing.”

  His words were like a slap. “You know that’s different.”

  Andrew’s jaw was set. “There’s a finite amount of money in the system to take care of these people, Jinx. Jasper stole those resources to keep the investors happy. How many more Robert Juneaus are out there because of what our brother did?”

  She knew he was right, but this was Jasper. “We can’t—”

  “It’s no use arguing, Jinx. Nick’s already put it into play. That’s why he told me to come here first.”

  “First?” she repeated, alarmed. “First before what?”

  Instead of answering, Andrew rubbed his face with his hands, the only sign that any of this was bothering him.

  “Please.” She could not stop saying the word. Her tears were on an endless flow.

  Think of what destroying Jasper will do to me, she wanted to say. I can’t hurt anyone else. I can’t turn off that switch that makes me feel responsible.

  Andrew said, “Jinx, you’ve got to know that this decision is not up to us.”

  She understood what he was telling her. Nick wanted revenge—not just for the bad things that Jasper had done, but for snubbing him at the dinner table, looking down his nose at Nick, asking pointed questions about his background, making it clear that he was not one of us.

  Andrew reached into the metal box again. Jane cringed when he pulled out a bundle of Polaroid photos. Andrew took off the rubber band and snapped it around his wrist.

  She whispered, “Don’t.”

  He ignored her, carefully studying each photo, a catalog of the beating that Jane had endured. “I’ll never forgive Father for doing this to you.” He showed her the close-up of her pummeled stomach.

  The first time, not the last time, that Jane had been pregnant.

  “Where was Jasper when this happened, Jane?” Andrew’s anger had sparked. He could not be talked down. “I own my part. I was stoned. I didn’t give a shit about myself, let alone anybody else. But Jasper?”

  Jane looked into the parking lot. Her tears kept falling.

  “Jasper was home when this happened, wasn’t he? Locked in his room? Ignoring the screaming?”

  They had all ignored the screaming when it was happening to someone else.

  “Jesus.” Andrew studied the next photo, the one that showed the deep gash in her leg. “Every time over the last few months, if I felt my nerve slipping, Nick would take these out to remind us both of what Father did to you.” He showed Jane the close-up of her swollen eye. “How many times did Father hit you? How many black eyes did we ignore at the breakfast table? How many times did Mother laugh or Jasper kid you about being so uncoordinated?”

  She tried to make light of it, saying her family nickname, “Clumsy Jinx.”

  Andrew said, “I will never let anyone hurt you again. Ever.”

  Jane was so tired of crying, but she seemed incapable of stopping herself. She had cried for Laura Juneau’s broken family. She had cried for Nick. She had cried, inexplicably, for Martin, and now she cried from shame.

  Andrew sniffed loudly. He put the rubber band back around the Polaroids and dropped them into the box. “I’m not going to ask you if you knew about the gun.”

  Jane smoothed together her lips. She kept her gaze steady on the parking lot. “I’m not going to ask you, either.”

  He took in a wheezy, labored breath. “So, Nick—”

  “Please don’t say it.” Jane’s hand was pressed flat to her stomach again. She longed for Laura Juneau’s serenity, her righteousness of cause.

  Andrew said, “Laura had a choice. She could’ve left when she found the gun in the bag.”

  The same words from Nick had not brought Jane any comfort. She knew that Laura would never have backed out. The woman was determined, totally at peace with her choice. Maybe even glad of it. There was something to be said for being the master of your own fate. Or, as Nick had said, taking out a bastard with you.

  Jane said, “She seemed nice.”

  Andrew made himself busy closing the lid on the box, checking the lock.

  She repeated, “She just seemed really, really nice.”

  He cleared his throat several times. “She was a wonderful person.”

  His tone spoke to his anguish. Nick had put Andrew in charge of handling Laura. He was her sole point of contact for the group. It was Andrew who’d walked Laura through the details, given her the money, relayed information on flights, where to meet the forger in Toronto, how to present herself, what secret words would open this door or close the other.

  He asked Jane, “Why did you talk to her? In Oslo?”

  Jane shook her head. She could not answer the question. Nick had warned them that anonymity was their only protection if things went sideways. Jane, ever-eager to follow his orders, had been hiding in the bar when Laura Juneau walked in. There was less than an hour before the panel. It was too early to drink and Jane knew she shouldn’t be drinking anyway. The piano had always worked to soothe her nerves, but for some inexplicable reason, she’d been drawn to Laura sitting alone at the bar.

  “We should go,” Andrew said.

  Jane didn’t argue. She just followed him silently down the steps and to the car.

  She held the metal box in her lap as he started the engine and headed deeper into the city.

  Jane struggled to keep her thoughts away from Jasper. Neither could she ask Andrew where they were going. It wasn’t just the possibility of hidden listening devices that was keeping her brother silent. Her gut told her that there was something else going on. Jane’s time in Berlin had somehow managed to remove her from the circle. She had noticed it in Oslo and it was especially obvious now that they were all back home. Nick and Andrew had been going for long walks, lurking in corners, their voices quickly dying down when Jane appeared.

  At first she had thought they were managing her guilt, but now she wondered if there were other things that they didn’t want her to know about.

  Were there more hidden boxes?

  Who else was Nick planning to hurt?

  The car crested a hill. Jane closed her eyes against the sudden, bright sunlight. She let her mind wander back to Laura Juneau. Jane wanted to figure out what had motivated her to approach the woman in the bar. It was exactly the wrong thing to do. Nick had repeatedly warned Jane that she needed to stay far away from Laura, that interacting with her would only make the pigs look at Jane more carefully.

  He’d been right.

  She had known he was right when she was doing it. Maybe Jane had been rebelling against Nick. Or maybe she had been drawn to Laura’s clarity of purpose. Andrew’s coded letters had been filled with reverence for the woman. He’d told Jane that, out of all of them, Laura was the one who never seemed to waver.

  Why?

  “Look for a space,” Andrew said.

  They had already reached the Mission District. Jane was familiar with the area. As a student, she used to sneak down here to listen to punk bands at the old fire station. Around the corner were a homeless shelter and a soup kitchen where she often volunteered. The area had been a focal point for fringe a
ctivities as far back as when the Franciscan Friars built the first Mission in the late 1700s. Bear fighting and duels and horse races had given way to impoverished students and homeless people and drug addicts. There was a violent energy emanating from the abandoned warehouses and dilapidated immigrant housing. Anarchist graffiti was everywhere. Trash littered the street. Prostitutes stood on corners. It was the middle of the morning, but everything had the dark, dingy tint of sundown.

  She said, “You can’t park Jasper’s Porsche here. Someone will steal it.”

  “They’ve never touched it before.”

  Before, Jane thought. You mean all of those times the brother you claim to hate drove down here in the middle of the night to rescue you?

  Andrew tucked into a space between a motorcycle and a burned-out jalopy. He started to get out of the car, but Jane put her hand over his. His skin felt rough. There was a patch of dry skin on his wrist just under his watch. She started to comment on it, but she did not want words to intrude on this moment.

  They had not been alone together since before they’d left the house. Since Laura Juneau had fired that last bullet into her skull. Since the politi had rushed both Jane and Nick from the auditorium.

  The policemen had mistaken Nick for Andrew, and by the time they had figured out why Jane was screaming for her brother, Andrew was banging his fists on the door.

  He’d looked almost deranged. Blood had stained the front of his shirt, dripped from his hands, soaked his trousers. Martin’s blood. While everyone was running away from the stage, Andrew had run toward it. He had pushed aside the security. He had fallen to his knees. The next day, Jane would see a photograph of this moment in a newspaper: Andrew holding in his lap what was left of their father’s head, his eyes raised to the ceiling, his mouth open as he screamed.

  “It’s funny,” Andrew said now. “I didn’t remember that I loved him until I saw her pointing the gun at his head.”

  Jane nodded, because she had felt it, too—a wrenching of her heart, a sweaty, cold second-guessing.

  When Jane was a girl, she used to sit on Martin’s knee while he read to her. He had placed Jane in front of her first piano. He had sought out Pechenikov to hone her studies. He had attended recitals and concerts and performances. He had kept a notebook in the breast pocket of his suit jacket in which he recorded her mistakes. He had punched her in the back when she slumped at the keyboard. He had switched her legs with a metal ruler when she didn’t practice enough. He had kept her awake so many nights, screaming at her, telling her she was worthless, squandering her talent, doing everything wrong.