“Why didn’t you stop her!?” I shouted, flinging the stone at my former bedroom window. I missed—the rock skipped across the shingled roof with a thud. Tears ran from my eyes, sobs coming in painful throes. The anger became hot in my throat and blurred my vision, leaving me to feel completely out of control. I dropped to my knees and dug into the ground with my hands, clawing and scratching out mounds of grass and dirt to throw at the house. “You could have stopped her!”
I sought out the large scab in the ground where my father’s tree once stood.
He knew.
And in my gut, I think he’d always known who my mother was. I was his baby girl, and he was afraid of her.
“You should’ve protected me,” I cried. “It was your job to protect me.”
The lawn’s grass had grown wild in the weeks before my mother’s death. Slender stalks sprouted from the weave of thick blades, climbing into the air, their round tops engorged and set to bud, to drop their seed for the coming year.
The yard was a tear-filled blur, and twice I had to stop and heave as the crying became too much. My body ached. I could have lain down and cried myself to sleep, but I pushed on, crawling to the remains of my father’s tree. The woody scab had grown black and had become almost unrecognizable. I got up on my knees as if I were going to pray. My mind filled with a crazy mix of anguish and resentment—but disdain cut through all reasoning like a razor’s edge.
Why was I born to a woman who used me and to a man who was too afraid to protect me?
“How could you?” I blurted, only my words came out in a blubbering cry. I hitched up, straightening my back and reaching beneath my skirt until my fingers were looped onto my underwear. I yanked the sides, began sliding the sheer fabric down my thighs, intending to piss on the one thing my father did protect. “You were weak and didn’t deserve m—”
“Amy!” a voice hollered from the street. My body pulsed like a raw nerve ending. “Babe? What . . . what are you doing?”
“What?” I answered as I quickly pulled up on my underwear and covered my bare legs. I rocked my head wildly, wanting to tell Steve the truth, wanting to tell him that I was losing it. I kept the truth to myself, though, and instead slumped onto the woody remains. He passed through the gate, his eyes darting around at the window and dried eggs as he stepped over the sad collection of ceramic rubble. “I . . . I had to come here.”
He winced as he knelt down and took my arms in his hands. I couldn’t move. Mourning and anger had exhausted me. He squeezed my arms, urging me to get up. I shook my head, telling him I couldn’t find the strength. The harder I cried, the weaker I felt.
“Amy, what were you doing?” In his face, I saw a man puzzled by the sight of what I could only imagine must have looked ridiculous. “I mean, your underwear . . . what?”
“If you only knew—” I said in a breath overcome with emotion. Instantly, I bit down on my tongue until I tasted blood. Steve’s hands loosened. He never missed a thing. I needed to recover quickly, and set a different course. I nudged my chin toward the house. “The bathroom—needed it, but left the key at home. Nobody was around, so—”
“Amy? If I only knew what?” he asked, ignoring my explanation. His grip became tight, knowing he’d hit on something worth exploring.
The anger I had come to my parents’ house with disappeared, drying like the tears on my face.
The case was still open. My mother’s guilty actions had been well documented, down to the forensic reenactments. But it was those same reenactments that told the investigators someone else had to have helped. Steve had shared that bit of news with me while I lay in my hospital bed, recovering. There had been someone else. The police knew, and the case would likely never close.
“Amy? Did your father . . . was your father a part of what your mother did?”
I tried to cry again, to use the anguish to distract him, but the tears wouldn’t come. When I moved to look away, Steve dipped his face until his eyes were square with mine. He knew I had more to tell him. He tried to play it cool, but I could sense his detective’s excitement. He had found another piece of the puzzle. I resented him for it. He needed to hear me proclaim my father’s involvement.
What else had the forensic reenactments told him? Did they narrow down the accomplice’s weight? If so, it would be impossible for him to consider my father. But it wouldn’t be impossible for him to consider a little girl.
“Babe, can we go home?” I pleaded, searching his eyes for the man I married, the man who said he’d get drunk and listen to country music with me. “I need you, Steve. I need my husband, today.”
His grip tightened until I squirmed. “Amy, what do you know?”
“What do you mean?” I answered as I jerked my arm free of him and let out a sharp cry.
I’d never had to act defensively with him before. We’d crossed a line, and the idea of that broke my heart a little. A round woman with a stroller heard my yell and slowed her push, stopping at my mother’s gate—she fixed a look of concern on us and waited there until I assured her I was safe.
“Please, Amy. I need to know!” he demanded.
“It’s nothing, Steve. Why can’t you let it go and just be my husband?”
He eased up and blinked as if clearing his head of some hypnotic trance. There was doubt in his face, but there was more too—suspicion. I caught a glimpse of it in his eyes. His detective brain refused to let go. He was chewing on another question. I snapped up a handful of tall grass, ripping the stalks from the ground, and tossed it back down.
“Don’t you ever put your hands on me like that!”
“Amy, did they do anything to you?” he asked, ignoring what I’d said. For a brief moment, his brow furrowed with compassion and concern that was clearly for me and not for his case. The sentiment was fleeting, though, and vanished in tandem with the sun passing behind a cloud. The shadow cast a sudden gloom across the house and yard, dimming Steve’s face in a gray light and turning the air cold.
“I’m going home,” I told him, shaking my head at his questions.
This will pass, I thought, trying to convince myself. He’ll get his fill, and when his appetite is satisfied, I’ll have my husband back. I just need to get through this interrogation.
There was one plausible response that came to my mind, though. One answer that would stop all the suspicion, forever. My mouth went dry at the thought of it, and I toed the earthy remains of my father’s tree.
“Amy, please. Was it your father?”
“Why do you need to know?” I asked, leaning away from him, hesitating.
“Because I just do,” he answered flatly, as if any other reason would have been absurd. His face froze like a foxhound’s locked on the scent of blood. At that moment, my wish to have my husband back vanished. “Because I’m a detective, Amy.”
Sadness filled me, and I yanked my other arm from his hand and stood up on my own, brushing away the grass clinging to my skirt. He looked perplexed, but followed me.
“My father knew all along. My mother told me he knew that night she came to the hospital,” I said in a tone that was flat and definitive.
With those words, I destroyed who my father had been to me. With those words, I could cry again. I swiped at the wetness on my cheeks. I said nothing more, let him chew on, speculate on, surmise about that.
That should give him enough to write a dozen reports.
Within days, he’d likely work out some scenario that put my father in the station wagon with my mother—he’d include some made-up scenario of my father falsifying his work travels as an alibi to cover their tracks. Believable or not, it’d take just a single news report to ruin my father’s reputation. It’d be a story of stories. A grand, historic, serial-killer story of a husband-and-wife team that’d be studied and discussed for years to come. But the case would be closed. Once and for all. The case could be buried with my mother.
My feet grazed the tops of the grass, my eyes taking in what was once
my childhood home for the final time. And I realized that I didn’t care what the world thought of my parents or what Steve needed to know. I opened the front gate, but then stopped. I waited just long enough to see if my husband was going to follow me. He remained on the ground, his eyes wide, staring at nothing as ideas turned in his mind, trying to work out how my mother and father had killed the men together. He was lost in the theories of a thirty-year-old case. He was lost—and couldn’t see me.
I bit back a cry and forced my voice to sound strong as I told him, “I didn’t need a detective today, Steve. I needed my husband. The detective can find someplace else to stay tonight.”
TWENTY-NINE
I WAITED FOR STEVE to come home. I waited alone and sat at our kitchen table, hoping he’d come and comfort me, apologize to me. But he never showed. He’d sent a text, though, telling me our children were with his mother—another disappointment. I wanted them home too, but maybe it was for the best. I sat in our empty house, sipping a glass of wine while the outside clouded up in dusky orange. I was only half-serious when I’d threatened Steve about finding someplace else to sleep—I wanted him home. I’m a cop’s wife first, so worrying is like breathing.
I’d drunk nearly half a bottle of wine before hearing the front door: a subtle rattle of keys, the door handle turning. The sky had already faded into evening, and our part of the world was winding down. Steve limped into the kitchen and nodded his head in my direction, told me he’d gone to the station. I was still furious, but relieved to see him. Like I said, I’m a cop’s wife first and I couldn’t help how I felt. I just didn’t show it. I refused to show it.
He started right in, talking about the case, saying nothing about the funeral or if he’d checked in with his mother about how the kids were doing. I’d called, though, telling them how much I missed them and loved them. Steve was still in detective mode. I gulped my wine, then filled my glass again so the buzz would drown him out. He went on about starting new reports for the forensics team, giving them guidance to confirm or disprove what I’d revealed.
I nodded and finished another glass. He paused at the door between our kitchen and hallway, waiting for me to say something. I held my words, offering nothing. I was already feeling a little drunk and knew the dangers of mixing resentment with alcohol. I tilted my chin, gave him a short acknowledgment, then switched my focus back to my wine.
I heard about forensics next, and the kinetic sciences related to how the men died. He pawed through the refrigerator, piecing together a sandwich like a new, unsolved case. I chose to ignore most of what he said and kept drinking; anger had quenched my thirst, but I still lost count of how many glasses I’d emptied. He said something then about the men’s seminal fluid and a sloppy laugh slipped from my lips. I poured another glass, abandoning any warnings I’d given myself about feeling sick the next day. I felt gutted, though. He was home, but he wasn’t. He was ignoring what had happened in my mother’s yard, and getting drunk seemed the best way to keep from crying in front of him.
He followed me around the house, talking and eating his sandwich. Eventually we settled into bed. I stayed quiet, nodding occasionally, and finally rolled over onto my side and pretended to have fallen asleep. When his breathing deepened, I stuffed my face into my pillow and cried. I’d never done that before. I’d never had to. Steve didn’t get it. He’d become blind to everything except the case. And sadly, that included me. I squeezed my eyes and my chest shuddered with sobs, causing him to stir. I held still until he settled back into a sleepy rhythm.
This is my fault.
I thought back to how I’d lied about the homeless man. I’d planted a seed that flourished in those lies, growing, festering—I could feel the distrust. My lying about the homeless man had changed him.
How could it not? It changed me too. It changed us.
***
The next morning it felt as if I were waking next to a stranger. At some point in the deepest of the night, I’d inched toward the edge of the bed, instinctively putting distance between us. I woke to the roar of a car engine. I’d expected to hear the birds chatting or the rustle of a breeze across tree branches, but I must’ve slept through the morning—we both had. I slipped in and out of a doze, feeling exhausted and sick, with a sour taste in my mouth. I waited for Steve to stir, but he stayed still and, thankfully, quiet. My head was pounding, and I was sure I’d vomit if he started up about the case again.
The tight skin on my cheeks reminded me of having cried myself to sleep. The headachy hangover reminded me of the wine, and a deep hurt inside reminded me that Steve and I were in trouble. I couldn’t see a way back either. Doing nothing, saying nothing, seemed to be my best course. Anything else could end in disaster, and I had to think about Snacks and Michael.
Let him write the new reports. Let him write a hundred new reports if that’s what it’s going to take to get my mother’s case out of his system. And let him include my father’s name, filling the forensic gap that has left him so baffled.
I wanted things back to normal, and that meant my babies and husband and, of course, my work.
As if she knew I was thinking of her, Snacks surprised me by jumping up onto the bed and pummeling the mound of sheets without a care for who was beneath them. I had a fleeting concern for Steve’s leg, but it disappeared when he didn’t move. I heard the sound of kitchen noises clamoring and then heard Steve’s mother humming as she gathered the makings of a breakfast. I cringed, realizing I’d left the empty bottle of wine on the kitchen table—sitting alone next to just one glass.
I buried my mother yesterday. Maybe she won’t judge.
Snacks pounced like a cat, crushing the pockets of air between us and letting out shrieks and giggles. I played along, acting as if I were still asleep, waiting for the right moment to grab her. Her little fingers poked and her tiny hands fished through the sheets, finding my legs and hip and then my sides, inching up until I could feel her breathing on my neck.
“Gotcha!” I yelled. She squealed a laugh that hurt my ears. I wrapped my arms around her and smothered her in sheety folds.
“You supposed to be a-sleeping. Mum-mum said so, said you needed rest.”
Sounds like Steve’s mother did see the empty wine bottle.
Snacks wormed herself through the bedsheets and found the daylight, her hair ballooning from the static, and asked, “Where’s Daddy?”
I’d never looked to my left, never crept a toe over to his side. I’d assumed he was still laying next to me, but her father was gone. My eyes bleary, I scanned the top of our bureau, searching for his wallet and badge. They were gone too. My heart felt heavy with disappointment. Snacks and Michael were coming home this morning, and I’d hoped—expected—he’d make an effort to be with his family today. Snacks saw my reaction, and I put on a smile to hide the hurt.
“Your daddy had to go to work early,” I told her, tickling her sides until she waved her arms in defeat. “How was your trip to Mum-mum’s yesterday?”
“Pancakes,” she blurted, not hearing my question. “Mum-mum making pancakes.”
“I missed you,” I said and laughed at her hair standing on end, looking like a beach ball. “I missed you this much.” I took my baby girl in my arms and hugged her until she pushed away. She wasn’t much for hugs—we had that in common. But I had at least forced a short one.
When I finally let go of her tiny frame, I saw the fun had drained from her face, her smile flattened. She pegged my chin with the tip of her warm finger and asked, “You had to bury your momma?” I hadn’t expected such a question and propped myself up to face her. “Mum-mum told me. Mum-mum said your momma died. Grandma gone?”
“She is,” I answered, but I had no idea how much Steve’s mom had shared with Snacks. “Listen, baby girl, your grandma died. But she’s in a better place now.”
Snacks frowned. “Better place?”
“That’s right. She’s in a better place.”
“But why is it better than
here?”
I hated having phrased it that way, when I really had no idea whether it was better or not. “It was just her time, baby,” I answered. I’d heard that one before too, and hated it just as much.
“That makes me feel bad.”
“I know it does, baby.” I pulled her close to me.
“Is it gonna be my time too?” she asked. Her eyes were dry, but I could hear the emotion in her voice. “I don’t want to go to a better place! I like it here.”
“No, no,” I assured her, a lump rising in my throat. “You’ve got a lot of time. You, and Michael, and Daddy. A lot.”
Her stomach growled, sounding out a squelchy trill; her face lit up with surprise. “Hungry!” she bellowed. The smell of pancakes had crept into the bedroom, and the idea of eating didn’t seem all that bad.
One dry one. That’s all.
My stomach flipped at the thought, objecting, but I decided to eat.
“I think I smell pancakes!” I said, raising my voice to a near shout. She startled and rocked back and forth, laughing and covering her ears. “Why don’t you go down and help Mum-mum? Maybe you can cook one or two for me.”
“And I get to flip ‘em too?”
“You do,” I nodded.
“Pancakes! Pancakes!” she screamed, her feet thumping onto the floor as she ran out of my room. I listened to the patter of her feet racing down the hall, toward Michael’s room. Then came the scream of, “Michael! Michael! You want my pancakes? Mom says I’m making ‘em!”
“Go away,” I heard Michael say, his voice groggy and nasally. He’d probably stayed up late and crashed as soon as they got home. Snacks was at the steps, bracing the rail, when I heard him add, “Three. I’ll take three. Extra syrup.”
Affair with Murder The Complete Box Set Page 40