He went on. “I became James’ other son, the good one. I became the golden boy. He’d make fun of me for saying it but I know I was his second chance. He’s certainly the closest to a father I ever had. And I would do anything for him he ever needed me to do, anything at all, no questions asked.”
I believed him. His voice was hard, and my heart seemed to be beating in double time. Where was this going?
“One time, when I was an adult, but young still, I found him, my cousin, at James’ place, working his way through a bottle of very good Scotch, with another waiting next to his glass. All by himself. First time he ever let me see him like that. He had a lot to say about how he’d been high most of the time since he was in high school, and that it had all been a great ride.”
He shook his head. “Of course his hands trembled when he tried to pour, he smelled, and his skin looked like he’d crawled out of six months in a POW camp.” Steven looked as if he was seeing a very old picture, certainly not one he would have chosen.
“He rambled on about living in righteous houses—that’s how he said it—all over the east coast. Maine, then Berkeley, somewhere in the Smoky Mountains, and then Brooklyn. In our world, that was falling off the earth as much as moving to a cabin in the woods. Maybe even more. We understand the woods part, if not the cabin. But a crummy house in Brooklyn?”
“This house?”
“This house.” He met my eyes with a face carved in stone. “It didn’t sound like a commune with a philosophy. Actually, to me it sounded like a vision of hell, but he insisted it was great. For a while. People drifted in and out. Some were his more rebellious prep school buddies, some were roommates, some were crashing. His landlord’s underage daughter was one of them. Nobody worked or went to school or did much of anything, just slept and partied and ate junk and got stoned. High times, he said. But then something happened. Here.”
I could barely force the words out.
“The body we found?”
He nodded, one quick movement. “It all came pouring out that night, as if he’d been waiting for a chance to make a confession. She was a crasher, a young teenager from the mid-west somewhere. Someone in the house picked her up somewhere and they shared house, food, and dope in return for housekeeping and sex.”
I felt sick to my stomach. This was my worst imaginings, the cards in Leary’s file come to life. I almost couldn’t bear to hear any more.
“It was pretty bad, the story he told me. That person I looked up to? That night he went up in smoke forever.” He stopped, swallowed, stared at the wall above my head.
“I think you’d better finish this sick story, now that you’ve gone this far.” I could barely say the words. I knew, in my heart, I had already seen the end.
“One night, they had the dumb idea to use every drug in the house, have a big party and mix it all up. She wanted in on it and had nothing to contribute, but she really begged.”
“So he said.”
“Yes, so he said. So she banged each of them—sorry to be so crude, his words I never forgot—and got to try some different substance each time. Then she passed out. They were so stoned, they thought it was funny and laughed and tried to wake her up. Then they decided she was no fun any more, and they partied some more, and when they noticed her again, she was dead.”
I could hardly breathe. “You mean, they watched her die? They had sex, and she died, and no one did a thing to help? Called an ambulance? Tried CPR? Nothing?”
He nodded again.
“They watched? They watched? And laughed? Those lousy, stupid….” Words failed me, and then words exploded that I hadn’t used since I was trying to be tough at fifteen. It took me a minute to be able to ask another question.
“So they must have covered it up? Buried her in the fireplace?”
He swallowed hard. “He never told me exactly what they did, only that they hid her. I never knew, until….”
“Until you met me.”
“All he said was that next morning, when they woke up and understood, they panicked, and hid the body, and bailed out of the house as soon as they could. They felt bad, he said…he wasn’t saying it was high times by that point in the story….”
“A sort of a burial, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “He said they hid her away with her favorite things, and tried to say some suitable words, but they were so scared. They got out of the house as fast as they could and simply…disappeared.”
Mrs. Rogow’s words floated back into my head.
“The tenants who left a mess and disappeared. Garbage everywhere to cover up the carpentry. And the smell! They were a group of cold-blooded little s.o.b.’s weren’t they? Or worse…” Light dawned. “They had help, didn’t they? To hide it? Your uncle?”
“I didn’t know about that until recently.” He stopped, then added, “JJ never talked about it again. I tried a few times and he said he didn’t know what I was talking about, I must have had a bad dream, nothing like that ever happened. And then he was dead.”
I pictured that lost girl, and thought that he had it coming. Poor child. She could have grown up out of her troubles. Found some kind of life. Found her family again, or a better one. I thought of Chris.
“You knew it was my house.”
He looked at me, mouth set in line, eyes as cold as marbles.
“Oh, god. Darcy must have told you about what I found. She was chatting, the way she does. Filling in the background.”
More light. “You bugged my house, didn’t you? So easy when you install a security system. And that scary phone call just after we talked about installing some security. How did I not suspect the timing?” I felt like an idiot. More light. “That van that keeps parking near my house. That’s you too. Spying on me! That thug photographer too? And the threatening note? Dear lord. It’s all been a sick undercover game.”
He said, “Don’t you know better than that?”
I could feel my face turning red.
“I was attracted from the start. Darcy was right about that. She said I’d be fascinated, that we would connect, that you were not at all like anyone I knew. She was right.”
“But you said yes after you knew about the body in my house.”
One nail at a time, I was hammering together a cage. Or a coffin.
“Hell, no, I’d already said yes. Then she told me, in passing, really. It was one of those weird coincidences that happen in real life.”
He finally raised his voice. “You don’t know how hard it’s been! I knew you were stepping into a hornet’s nest. James would do…I wanted you to leave the past in the past, where it belongs. I was worried about you, up in the night worried, wanting to kidnap you and take you out of the country worried.”
“You have to go.” I stood up quickly. “You have to, right now. I am either going to be sick, or I might start throwing things at you. I don’t want you here in my house.”
“Erica…”
“I mean it. Right now.” I was blinking back angry tears. “And call off your spies, too. I’ll be watching to make sure you do.”
I had the door open by then, and he finally walked through it, brushing my mouth lightly with his fingertips before he left. “Erica, please. I’m begging you. Be very careful.”
After that I was really and truly, thoroughly sick. When I was done, and wiped my sweaty face and brushed my teeth twice, and drank some soda, I didn’t know what I needed to do next. Throwing everything breakable felt appealing, but not, finally, useful. Words slipped into my mind.
“If you’re troubled, keep moving. Makes it harder for anything to catch you.” Rick used to say that. Damn it, Rick, I thought, why aren’t you here to tell me what to do? I remembered his words, that the strange events in my life must be related to finding the body, and I wondered if everything that had happened was connected, the threatening note, the attack on Leary, Brenda Petry’s insane behavior. Rick.
It all might have been—must have been—but I couldn’t think anymore. I could barely take in what I had learned from Steven. My brain was in shock, overflowing with horror about that poor girl, crushed by the truth about Steven, appalled at how foolish I felt.
Was I Chris’ age, to get so swept away? To entirely lose my Brooklyn attitude? To be such a dope to think he felt something for me? And all mixed in was the anger—no, the rage—at those trashy young bastards. Prep school friends, he said. Rich young bastards who treated everyone like a toy. Break it and there would always be more.
I wrote down everything Steven had told me. I would make a file with those notes, the lease, the photo, all my research, and give it to the police as soon as possible. I hoped it would be enough.
Keep moving. I knew they might never figure out who she was, our girl, but with all that I had, maybe someone would be made responsible, finally. That was not nothing.
Then it was 3:00 a.m. and I couldn’t sleep. I had collapsed into a dreamless stupor, but something woke me up later. I wasn’t sure if it was a noise from outside or the streetlight coming in or my own racing thoughts. Steven’s words circled around in my mind on an endless loop, with other thoughts drifting in and out around edges. Memories of Rick, Chris being home, Chris sulking, Leary in the hospital. Everything.
I went downstairs as quietly as I could on our creaky old steps. I wandered out to the deck, leaving the lights off, hoping that the night air and scents from the Pastores’ garden would ease me back to sleepiness. I remembered sitting out here with Rick, shortly after we had found the skeleton in the fireplace. We talked about that, and Chris was especially interested even then. And one little piece fell into place.
I went in and stood at Chris’ doorway, watching her sleep. Her long legs now almost filled the bed we bought when she was two. Makeup and CDs from some group I had never heard of cluttered her dresser top and stuffed animals covered her bed. The last hours showed me the gutsy girl she was becoming and the kid with bad judgment she still was.
I hesitated. Things that loom large deep in the night become trivial in daylight. Memories haunt me and then melt away in the sun. Brilliant insight turns to gibberish in the morning. I finally gave in to the suspicion that was floating around in my head, and woke her up.
“Mommy? What?” She burrowed her head back into her pillow. After I shook her softly and shook her again and switched on the clown lamp that had been in her room since she was born, she opened her eyes.
“What? What?” She sat up abruptly. “Is something wrong?”
“Maybe. You tell me.” I touched the silver charm around her neck, a cross with a loop at the top. “I need to know where this came from. There was something a lot like it in the fireplace where you found the skeleton.”
She squinted at me. “What time is it?” She squinted at the clock. “You woke me up at 3:30 to talk about jewelry???”
“No, honey, not jewelry. This piece of jewelry.”
“Well, we have a workshop at camp and I…” I drilled my eyes into her face and she faltered. I was right.
“I want the truth this time. No more stories. Did it come from the fireplace? I finally remembered where I last saw something like this.”
One quick nod and then a dive back into her pillows.
“Oh, no, Chris. We need to talk about this. Sit up. Right now.”
She straightened up but would not meet my eyes.
“I’m not yelling at you—not yet,” I said very quietly, “but I do need to know about this. Talk now so I don’t have to yell. What were you thinking?”
“It was…it was….” She shook her head, and then went on, still not looking at me. “It started out like, an impulse? You know? It was such a strange thing, and so scary, but when I realized it was a girl. I don’t know—I wanted something to keep.”
“You mean like a souvenir?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“No! Do you think I’m some kind of ghoul? I don’t know, really, I only wanted to have something to—you know—remember her.”
“A keepsake?”
“Yes, that’s it! I’ve worn it every day. So, you know, she would know someone remembers her. I mean—I don’t think she’s a ghost, not really, but she shouldn’t be, like, lost and forgotten.”
My warm-hearted daughter. With the judgment of a little kid. Or a magpie, even, hoarding bright objects.
“What is the matter with you? Didn’t you understand that it was evidence? The cops said don’t touch anything.”
“But they had everything else. They didn’t really need this too. What difference could it make?” She had that look with the set jaw. The look that said, she knew what she knew and she was sticking to it.
“Well, it does matter! I’m pretty sure this is illegal, which certainly matters, and it’s wrong, which matters, and it’s dangerous, which also matters.” I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “How could you have been so stupid?”
She didn’t even try to argue.
“If I restrain myself from yelling at you, however much I feel like it, will you promise to take it in first thing in the morning? Full confession to that Lt. Russo? I have the number downstairs.”
She had her hand wrapped protectively around the charm but she whispered “Yes.” And then added “Will you come with me?’
“I don’t know about that—you’re not missing how angry I am, are you? And I’m not making decisions in the middle of the night, either.” I shook my head. “Nope, not now. Back to sleep for both of us.”