Nowhere to Run (16 page)

Beth swirled from side to side, eyeing herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the back of her closet door. She wasn’t sure if she would end up wearing the new outfit tomorrow to Linus’s party. The brown crushed velvet skirt was becoming, falling midcalf, elongating her form and making her look thinner, but she worried that it was too conservative for Linus’s tastes. She wanted him to take notice. But, after all, it was a football party. She couldn’t go prancing in there wearing cocktail attire.

Beth held her breath, sucked in her stomach, and wondered what Lauren Adams would be wearing. She always seemed to have just the right thing. It certainly did not hurt that Lauren was a perfect size 6.

Beth took off the skirt and arranged it on the bed, knowing the manicure scissors were in the vanity drawer. Taking them out, she carefully snipped the tag that was stitched on the inside of the skirt. She might be a size 16, but she didn’t need to be reminded of it every time she dressed. And if, just if, her skirt was to find itself parted from her body, she didn’t want to risk Linus’s seeing the embarrassing double digits.

She had been trying. She really had. Going to the Weight Watchers meetings, counting her points, keeping her food journal, taking the stairs rather than the elevator. It was hard, but she knew if she could just lose the extra baggage, she could get Linus to come around, to view her as a woman, not merely his capable employee.

She had already lost ten pounds. Forty sticks of butter, the Weight Watcher leader said to visualize it. Yet there was so far to go. And now the holidays were coming. Traditionally for her, Thanksgiving kicked off a six-week eating binge. Beth didn’t know how she was going to get through the season this year. She had to keep her eyes on the prize, not let herself be distracted. The long-term goal was Linus. She had to remember that.

Her stomach was growling now. She wrapped herself in a roomy robe and walked down the hallway to the small kitchen. Opening the freezer, she scanned the contents and selected a Lean Cuisine dinner. A minuscule Salisbury steak and a dollop of mashed potatoes. Five points.

While the microwave hummed, Beth made the notation in her journal and computed the points she could consume for the rest of the day. She’d have enough left for a bag of low-fat popcorn and a diet Coke when she watched TV tonight. She hoped that would be enough to fill another Saturday night alone.

The diet dinner took no time to down. As she scraped every last bit of gravy from the plastic dish, Beth wondered if a case of anthrax would lead to weight loss.

It might be worth it.

Mike still wasn’t home when Annabelle turned on the eleven o’clock news, and she was starting to be concerned. But the lead story diverted her from worry about her husband.

“People in Maplewood, New Jersey, are anxious tonight after health department officials confirmed that anthrax was found in the home of thirty-six-year-old resident Jerome Henning. Henning, a producer for KEY News, is in critical condition in Essex Hills Hospital, suffering from inhalation anthrax poisoning.

“Authorities searched Henning’s home this afternoon, finding the white powder that tests showed to be anthrax. Earlier in the week, on the KEY News morning show,
KEY to America,
Medical Correspondent Dr. John Lee claimed to display anthrax. Tests on that substance indicated that it was not the deadly powder but was, instead, powdered sugar. Tests done at selected spots in KEY News offices showed no contamination, but the building is going through more extensive testing this weekend.

“Police and federal agents are trying to put the pieces of the anthrax puzzle together, along with investigating another sad twist. The body of forty-two-year-old food-service worker Edgar Rivers was found this morning in the freezer of the KEY cafeteria. Rivers had been stabbed in the back.”

Annabelle listened in shock, trying to take in the enormity of the newscaster’s words. She didn’t know Edgar well, hadn’t ever had a long conversation with him, but she’d instinctively liked him and felt happy when she saw him in the hallway or in the cafeteria. He was a familiar part of her weekday life, and the news that he had been stabbed to death not twenty feet from where they so often exchanged smiles and pleasantries left Annabelle feeling both sickened and terrified.

Edgar. The happy man who cheerfully delivered their refreshments in the morning, his smile warm and welcoming, his shirt starched and pressed, his shoes polished with care. The pride he took in his job evident for all to see. What about those sweet little boys who so clearly adored their uncle?

Who would want to hurt that poor sweet man? Was Edgar’s murder somehow connected with Jerome’s poisoning? Was her stolen tote bag not merely another random theft in Manhattan—did the thief know exactly what he wanted?

Annabelle sat back on the sofa, suddenly aware of the soreness in her shoulder. She grabbed the telephone to call Constance, then remembered that her friend had gone to Washington to visit her mother and wouldn’t be back until Linus’s party tomorrow.

She wished Mike would come home. Annabelle didn’t feel good about being the only adult in the apartment tonight.

He needed another CD holder. There was no more room on the entertainment center shelves for his ever-growing accumulation. Painstakingly filed by category—pop, jazz, country, rap—the compact discs stood side by side in an impressive music library. Russ was proud of and fanatical about his collection. But the CDs, along with the DVDs and videotapes, were taking over the apartment.

He needed more closet space too. A man on television had to have the right clothes, and he had been doing his best to separate himself from the entertainment reporters and movie critics on the competing networks. No navy blazers or bow ties for him. He’d invested a small fortune in suede, leather, and Italian silk. It bothered him every time he crammed a costly garment into his stuffed closets.

It was time to move. And now he could afford it. He was just waiting for a bigger place in the same building to become available. Or perhaps, if he was lucky, that pill in the apartment next door would decide to move. He could buy her co-op and knock through the wall, enlarging his place.

She was always complaining, that one, about the noise coming from his apartment. He played his music too loud, too late, she claimed, and she couldn’t sleep. She was a coward, to boot. She never confronted him face-to-face, only slid her nasty letters of protest under his front door. He would be thrilled to see her go.

Inspired, Russ snorted a line of cocaine, slid the new Matchbox Twenty disc into the stereo, and piped up the volume. His foot tapped and he hummed to himself as he began to sort through the pile of mail. Bill, bill, bill, bill. He tossed them aside, unopened.

At the bottom of the pile, he found what he wanted. He ripped open the white envelope and smiled.

It was nice to have another steady source of income, but he’d have to be more careful in the future. With Linus on the warpath, Russ couldn’t be so blatant in his praise of lackluster films.

Annabelle lay awake with the bedroom door ajar, listening for Mike’s key in the lock.

The hatch opened on the cuckoo clock the kids loved, the tiny bird chirping one time.

Annabelle toyed with the idea of calling Chumley’s but resisted the impulse. Mike didn’t need her checking up on him as she would on a child.

As she tossed in the double bed, her mind turned to Jerome’s manuscript. She wished now that she had made it a point to read it all as soon as he’d given it to her. It would be a starting point in determining the people who might want to hurt him. But had Jerome somehow mistakenly contaminated himself? What was anthrax doing in his own house?

She would call the police tomorrow and let them know about the theft. Jerome undoubtedly had a copy of the manuscript at home; at the very least there would be one on his computer. That could help the police with their investigation.

She heard footsteps now in the hall. Annabelle switched on the bedside lamp. In the bedroom doorway, Mike swayed just a bit.

“Have fun?”

“Yeah. We had a good time.” He smiled.

My God, he smiled.

“How are the guys?”

Mike pulled his sweater over his head. “You know them. They’re always good for some laughs.”

Not recently,
thought Annabelle.

“I’m so glad, Mike. It’s so good to see you happy.”

I pray it lasts,
she thought. She wanted to tell him about what she had seen on the news tonight and how she now suspected that the stolen manuscript might be tied somehow to Jerome’s poisoning and perhaps even to Edgar’s murder, but she didn’t want to risk spoiling the moment.

He came over and sat on the edge of the bed. Annabelle could smell the not-unpleasant scent of beer as Mike leaned down to kiss her.

“I miss you, Annabelle.”

Even if it was the beer talking, Annabelle didn’t care as she closed her eyes and responded with hunger, feeling his strong arms encircle her body. It had been way too long, and she wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip by.

It was an affirmation of life, and she needed that.

November 23

After the eight o’clock Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Beth knelt on the padded kneeler at the shrine to the Blessed Mother and lit a candle. She thought of Jerome and supposed she should light another one for him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Jerome had been the beginning of her downward spiral. She knew that forgiving him would be the Christian thing to do, but she couldn’t.

Nor could she forgive herself.

The light flickered behind the red glass votive as it did every Sunday. Beth stared at the flame and prayed for the unborn.

The baby would be seven years old now.

Still, she went over in her mind how she could ever have done it. She hadn’t wanted to, but she was weak and too worried about what people would say. Her mother would have been devastated to think that a daughter of hers would have found herself in such a predicament. Beth couldn’t face telling her mother that she was pregnant by a man who had no intention of marrying her.

She should have stood up to Jerome and insisted on having the baby, with him or without him. Even if she had not kept the child after the birth, there were so many people who would willingly have adopted her infant, thrilled by the prospect of parenthood, aching to give a child every advantage, swaddling the baby in love.

What did it matter that the child had been conceived in desperation? She’d known that Jerome was merely using her to get over Annabelle, but she’d hoped that a baby would tie him to her. It had done just the opposite. Afterward, he wanted nothing to do with her, avoiding her whenever he could.

But, in the end, she was the one who had gone ahead and had the procedure done. It was her responsibility, and the guilt of it was more than she could bear.

She had no right even setting foot in this church. She was a murderer.