She Wore Mourning

by P. D. Workman

  He shook off the thought. Bridget was right; he did have a deep-seated paranoia surrounding his relationships. A paranoia engendered by repeated abandonment and his inability to form a long-term relationship. What else did she expect from him, given his past?

  “I know it wasn’t you,” he said. “It was something to do with work. With one of the cases I’m working on.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. Her face softened. “Which one?”

  “I don’t know.” Zachary rolled his eyes and forced out a breath, frustrated. “It would be nice if people who left threatening notes would be more specific.”

  Unless it wasn’t anything to do with a case. If someone had a personal grudge against him, they wouldn’t have any idea what his current cases were. The threats pointing toward his investigations might just be misdirection. An effort to keep Zachary and the police looking at his current cases instead of his personal connections. That opened up the possibilities to a lot more people.

  What about Gordon, Bridget’s new boyfriend? He probably didn’t appreciate having his carefully-arranged Christmas plans disrupted by Bridget running off to her ex’s house to make sure he hadn’t offed himself. Zachary knew little about the man. He had done only very basic background on Gordon; little more than his vital statistics and resume. If Zachary dug deeper, what would he find? A history of violence? Connections with organized crime? A propensity to start fistfights in bars? An auto mechanics course?

  “Maybe you should consider a change in career,” Bridget suggested. Not for the first time. It had been a recurring theme during their doomed marriage. Private investigations work was too dangerous. It reflected poorly on her. She was always full of suggestions of things he could do instead, things that held absolutely no interest to him.

  Zachary wasn’t looking for a desk job. He liked the ability to leave his computer and head out to the field. He liked the flexibility of working for himself. Having something legitimate to do when he couldn’t sleep. If he were really to be honest, he even liked skirting the law. The minor, not-so-legal things he did to dig out the truth and get justice for his clients. Even that was alluring.

  “You need to remove me as your emergency contact.”

  Zachary looked at Bridget.

  “You can’t have them calling me whenever you get into an accident,” she expanded. “We’re not together anymore, Zachary. I’m not the person they should be calling.”

  “Oh.”

  He considered this. On the surface, it made sense, of course. But who would he put in her place? He didn’t have any family. No close friends. He couldn’t make every new girlfriend an emergency contact. Someone he barely knew. Besides, what if, like Kenzie, they were in the same car with him when something happened?

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  Zachary couldn’t drive and hadn’t replaced his car yet, so he took the bus to Molly’s house. He was conscious of his legs and feet as he walked from the bus stop to her door. Walking was not yet automatic. He felt like he did when someone was watching him critically. Awkward, like he didn’t know where to put his feet. He had to think out every step and was sure he must look jerky and robotic to anyone watching him. He had rejected the idea of a cane for stability but was starting to regret it. If nothing else, it would at least signal to anyone watching him that he had a condition, that he wasn’t drunk or impaired but had a good reason for wobbling and hesitating like he did.

  Molly answered the door. She looked Zachary over, her eyes bright and curious.

  “Come in, come in,” she invited, and opened the door the rest of the way, directing him in.

  Zachary’s toe caught on the edge of the carpet at its transition from the floor, and he skittered a bit but managed to avoid flailing or landing on his face. Molly walked to his right and slightly behind him, holding her hands out a bit like she wanted to catch him or guide him to his seat. He got into the chair and shifted, settling himself in.

  “How are you feeling?” Molly asked. “It looks like you’re healing.”

  Zachary nodded a little jerkily. “Yes. I’m doing well. Everything will be back to normal soon. My doctors are happy with the rate of my progress.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard about your accident. They said it was very bad. That you had a spinal cord injury and were paralyzed.” She shook her head solemnly. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you walking around so soon.”

  The police must have interviewed her, as one of his clients, to find out her alibis for the times he had received the threats or when the brake lines had been cut. He knew they had been making the rounds, trying to narrow down the suspect list. They didn’t have any forensic evidence. No fingerprints or DNA. There must have been tool marks on the brake lines, but maybe nothing could be matched to the tool used. Or maybe matched to a common tool that they all had access to.

  “There was just swelling around my spinal cord,” he explained. “Inflammation. It’s mostly gone, now. I just… have to be careful. Think about what I’m doing for a while until it all becomes natural again.”

  “No permanent damage?”

  “No. I was very lucky.”

  “And your girlfriend? Her injuries were not severe?”

  Had she heard that from the police? Or had she checked up on him through other channels? It wouldn’t be hard. A call to the hospital. To one of the reporters who had covered the crash. Not a lot of information had made it into the news articles, but the reporters knew that there had been a second person in the car. They had those details.

  “She’s… not exactly my girlfriend. We’ve been out together a few times, but… it’s not that serious yet. We’re taking things slow.” He didn’t know why he was telling her so much. What did it matter whether she thought Kenzie was a serious girlfriend or not?

  But Zachary didn’t like the thought of anyone thinking Kenzie was a serious girlfriend. If someone was out to hurt him, out to coerce him into closing a case, he didn’t want them threatening her. Someone who was serious enough to cut Zachary’s brake lines might be serious enough to take a hostage.

  Surely that wasn’t Molly Hildebrandt. She was a little old lady. He couldn’t see her crawling underneath his car to cut his brake lines. He couldn’t picture her grabbing Kenzie and holding a knife to her throat or a gun to her head. Sometimes it was the least likely suspect, but he still couldn’t fit Molly into that role.

  “Oh… well, I’m very glad that neither of you was killed or permanently injured. I think we’ve all had enough of hospitals this winter.”

  Zachary nodded his agreement. “How is Isabella?”

  “She was released December thirtieth. We’re still trying to keep a pretty close eye on her. Neither of us believes she’s recovered… she’s stable as far as the doctors are concerned, but she still won’t take the antidepressants they want her to. She’s convinced that they will make her worse.”

  Zachary scratched his knee intently, considering his approach. “I have several concerns about Isabella.”

  “Yes. We all do,” Molly agreed. She avoided his eyes and didn’t ask him what his concerns were. Maybe she figured his concerns were the same as hers, or that she had enough on her plate already and couldn’t handle anything more.

  “I think… that Isabella was the one who gave Declan cough medicine the day he died. Whether she was scared by his reaction, or she had been expecting it… I suspect she was the one who took him to the pond that day.”

  Molly’s eyes went wide and two bright spots appeared in her cheeks. Her voice when she addressed him was not weak or wavering. There was no uncertainty.

  “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Isabella wouldn’t let anyone give Declan cough medicine. She would never give it to him herself. She would certainly not plan his death or do anything that led to it. You are wrong, Mr. Goldman. Your brain must have been addled by your accident. There is no way my daughter had anything to do with Declan’s death.”

  “You weren’t there.
You weren’t with her. The possibility is still open.”

  “No. It’s not. That’s ridiculous. Why? Explain to me why she would give him cough medicine when she knew he would react negatively to it. Explain why she would take him to the pond and drown him?”

  “She gave him the medicine so that he would be unconscious and not fight her.”

  “Why? Why would she harm her own son?”

  “Because she didn’t want to be a mother. She hadn’t realized how difficult a job it would be, and how much he would interfere with her job and with the order she and Spencer had developed in the house. She didn’t realize how his care would interfere with her routines, day after day. Every day it wore on her. She wanted to paint. She wanted to tape her shows. She wanted to live a predictable, ordered existence. Declan screwed that up.”

  “No, you’re wrong.” A tear slid down Molly’s cheek. Was it a sign that he’d hit the mark? He had hit too close to the truth, and she couldn’t help reacting? “My daughter wasn’t like that. Isn’t like that. She loved Declan dearly.”

  “That doesn’t preclude her doing something to harm him. She could love him and still decide that she just couldn’t handle him anymore. It happens. You read about it in the news. People who are overwhelmed with their children’s care. Or with the stresses at work or in other areas of their lives. They decide that they can’t go on like that anymore, and they decide to take the child or children out of the equation.”

  “She didn’t do that. She would never do that.”

  “Drowning is a common method of disposing of unwanted children.”

  “Drowning is a common method of disposing of unwanted kittens. Not children. People don’t just drown their children because they are inconvenient. They get help. I could have helped her. I could have spent more time there. If she wanted me to babysit Declan, I would have been happy to do it. All she had to do was ask.”

  Zachary sighed. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands and wished that she had offered him coffee or a cookie so that he could avoid fidgeting. He held his hands in his lap but wanted to move them around, to use them to illustrate his point.

  “You say that you would have been happy to babysit him, but maybe Isabella didn’t feel like she could ask you. You were already doing too much for them. Or maybe she didn’t approve of your parenting methods. Kids often don’t appreciate their own parents. They think they know better.”

  “I was a good mother to Isabella!”

  Zachary didn’t answer for a few seconds, considering it. Had she been a good mother? Or had she done the wrong things and damaged Isabella? No one had offered any reason why Isabella was the way she was. Had she just won the genetic lottery? Or was it the result of something traumatic that had happened in her childhood? Or throughout all of her childhood? Most parents, if confronted, would admit that they had made mistakes in parenting. Maybe Isabella wouldn’t agree that Molly had been a good mother. Maybe she hadn’t been. Maybe Isabella was incapable of parenting because she hadn’t had a good example herself.

  “I’m sure you were a good mother,” he reassured Molly, trying to keep her calm. “But Isabella might not think so. All children think they can do a better job than their parents.” He gave her a conspiratorial smile. One that invited her to agree with him about the follies of children and admit that Isabella might not always agree with her.

  “Isabella never had any complaints about the way that I took care of Declan,” Molly said sullenly. For the first time, Zachary could see another side of her. The person who wasn’t always upbeat and positive. The one who had doubts and took offense and who wasn’t the perfect example of a loving, devoted parent. A human being.

  “How is Isabella as a wife?” Zachary spun the conversation in the other direction.

  Molly blinked at him, disconcerted. “What do you mean, how is she as a wife?”

  “Does she enjoy being married? Does she get along with Spencer? How have they made out together?”

  Molly opened and closed her mouth. She tried several times to approach the question, seeing a minefield and trying to figure out how to navigate it.

  “Being a wife is… hard for Isabella,” she admitted.

  “I know marriage was pretty hard for me,” Zachary said. “I wasn’t a very good husband. I wish I could say that I always thought of my wife and that I did everything I could to keep our marriage going smoothly. I made a lot of mistakes. In the end… I drove her away.” That was what Bridget said, anyway. The story worked for Zachary’s purposes.

  “Molly didn’t have a good example of a successful marriage growing up,” Molly said. “She never had a father, and I didn’t have any strong, long-lasting relationships when she was a girl. She was a very difficult child, and there wasn’t any space in my life for a man. She needed all my attention. A man would just have felt neglected.”

  “That makes it hard. You can’t just take your example from TV.” Zachary smiled at her. “The Brady Bunch might seem perfect, but that’s not the way families really work. Husbands and wives don’t always agree. They’re not always compatible.”

  Molly got up and paced across the room, stopping to retrieve the photo of Isabella, Spencer, and Declan. She sat back down with it, showed it to Zachary for a moment, and then sat staring at it.

  “I thought her marrying someone else with a mental illness was a bad idea. Isabella thought it would be perfect. They would be able to understand what the other was going through. Because their tendencies were opposite, they would each… complete the other. Spencer would complete her. Would fill in the gaps.”

  “But that’s not the way it worked out, is it? Spencer told me about the blue plate.”

  Molly smiled softly. “She had that plate since she was a girl. She ate from it every day. She had to have it. When Spencer threw it out… I think that was the first sign that it wasn’t just going to be a bumpy ride. It was going to be a rollercoaster. Or a bungee jump. It wasn’t going to work… not the way they thought it was.”

  “How did Isabella react to the difficulties with Spencer? How did she react when he did something that she didn’t like, or that interfered with her space or her routines? How did she feel when he did something like throwing out her plate?”

  “It would send her into a tailspin. She’d be impossible to talk to for days. She needed her therapist on the set or needed me there to help direct her. To work things out so that she could tape the show. The network understood that she had emotional problems, but… they weren’t very understanding.”

  “Her job was in jeopardy? Because of the way things were going at home?”

  “No, I’m just speaking generally. They had trouble with her. Not constantly. Things went very smoothly most of the time. I just meant, when Isabella and Spencer were fighting, it spilled over into her professional life.”

  Zachary pounced on the word. “Tell me about their fighting.”

  “No… not fighting… not like you’re talking about. I mean disagreements. Conflicts. Nothing physical.”

  “Are you sure nothing ever got physical?”

  “Isabella would never have abided anyone who laid a hand on her. If Spencer had hit her, she would have called the police. I’m sure of that.”

  “And what about her hitting him?”

  “Her hitting him?” Molly laughed and shook her head. “She didn’t hit him. Never. She isn’t a violent person.”

  “Spencer has broken ribs. I’ve seen the bruises. Can you explain that?”

  Molly’s brows drew down. She shook her head at him, scowling blackly. “She never did anything to hurt him. How could she? He’s bigger than she is.”

  “That doesn’t mean she couldn’t hit him. I’ve known little tiny women who beat the hell out of their big, strong husbands. Size has nothing to do with it. Women can be just as violent and abusive as men.”

  “Not Isabella. That’s ridiculous.”

  “How did Spencer get the bruises? He works from home. From what I’ve seen,
he rarely goes out. Who is beating up on him? Who caused those bruises?”

  “I don’t know,” Molly said flatly. “I’ve never seen any sign of either of them hurting the other. Isabella has never said anything to even hint at abuse. You’ve got it wrong, Zachary. I don’t know where you’re getting this, but you’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Have you ever seen Spencer with injuries? Bruises or cuts on his face? Unexplained injuries?”

  “No!” Zachary could see it wasn’t the truth. She had seen it. He could tell by the shock in her eyes. Maybe she hadn’t registered the thought that her daughter was abusive, but she had seen unexplained injuries.

  Zachary let the silence build for a couple of minutes. He didn’t ask anything further, but let Molly think about it. Watched her grow uncomfortable with the silence and try to justify it to herself.

  “You’ve never seen him with unexplained injuries?” Zachary prompted.

  “Everybody has accidents. Spencer is no exception.”

  “What kind of accidents did he have?”

  “I don’t know. He never really tried to explain. He just brushed them off and said it was nothing. Or sometimes he said it was Declan. They’d been play-wrestling, and Declan had kicked him in the eye. Or Declan had been playing a game with him where Spencer was blindfolded, and he walked into something. I don’t know. Things happen. People get hurt. I often get bruises and don’t know where I got them. On my legs and knees. Sometimes my arms. It’s just part of life. It doesn’t mean I’m being abused. I don’t believe Spencer was either.”

  Zachary traced figure-eights on the arm of the chair with one finger. “Maybe you really don’t know what was going on,” he said. “Maybe they both had you fooled, and you didn’t realize. You know that things were difficult between them.”

  “Yes, but they had worked things out. They had set up boundaries and rules. Ways that they could get along with each other. Live with each other without driving each other totally crazy.”