Read The One I Left Behind Online
Authors: Jennifer McMahon
“I was just visiting your father.”
He smiled. “Bo-Bo.”
“Yes,” Reggie said. “Bo. He and my mom, Vera, they used to go steady back in high school. Back before he met your mom. In another life.”
He smiled again, dropping his head down, then bringing it back up as he concentrated on getting more words out. “Pretty girl,” he said, spittle covering his lower lip.
“Your mom? I’m sure she was. I’m sure she was beautiful.”
He shook his head. “Not her,” he said slowly, frowning. “The girl Yogi stole.”
L
ORRAINE WAS IN THE
kitchen making herself a cup of tea when Reggie walked in.
“Would you like one?” Lorraine asked, holding up her mug.
“Sure,” Reggie said. She watched her aunt get down a second cup, drop a bag of Lipton into it, and fill it with water from the kettle.
“You got a call from a Sister Dolores. She said she was going home for the day but that she’d call back tomorrow.”
Reggie nodded. Why hadn’t the nun called her on her cell phone? She’d left both numbers.
“Detective Levi stopped by, too.”
“What did he want?”
Lorraine shrugged. “The usual, I guess. He tried to talk to your mother for a few minutes, but you know how that goes.”
“What’d he ask her?”
“Mostly about Tara. Then if she could tell him anything at all about Neptune.”
“I’m sure she was quite forthcoming.”
“Actually, she sang him a song: ‘Oh do you know the Muffin Man.’ ”
Reggie laughed.
Lorraine filled a little cow creamer with skim milk and carried it to the table.
“Was that Charlie Berr who dropped you off?” Lorraine asked.
“Yes,” Reggie said, bristling as she picked up her tea and took a sip, burning the roof of the mouth.
“You’re seeing a lot of him.”
“We’re old friends,” Reggie said. “That’s all.” Charlie and his Rolling Stones shirt, the fresh aftershave he had on when he met her. Was he hoping for this to develop into something more?
Lorraine nodded, stirring milk into her own tea. “So is there a man in your life, then?”
“No,” Reggie answered too quickly. “I mean yes. Maybe.” She pulled the bag of tea out of her cup, played with the label attached to the string by a tiny staple.
Lorraine smiled at her. “It’s not good to be alone, Regina.”
Reggie nodded, her fingers working at the little staple, opening it, then, realizing what she was doing, setting it down.
“I don’t know what I’d do without George. He’s my lifeline. Especially now.”
Reggie took another sip of tea. What an odd couple they made, Lorraine and George. But somehow they were perfect together. Both of them sort of lost and awkward, two misfits. George with his ducks, Lorraine with her fish. It was kind of endearing to Reggie, the idea that their relationship had lasted so many years. They’d never married, never even lived together. They’d invented their own definition of romance: they cooked dinner together a few times a week, George gave Lorraine rides to doctors’ appointments and shopping, Lorraine did all his mending.
Was this how she and Len would be in years to come? Each in their own separate space, coming together when they needed each other?
Maybe she and her aunt weren’t so different after all.
Lorraine set her cup down and turned to Reggie. “I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t do all this on my own. George helps all he can, but he’s so busy with work. You being here makes such a big difference. George, George is my family, but you and your mother, you’re more than that. You’re blood.” She reached out and put her hand on Reggie’s, giving it a tentative squeeze.
Reggie nodded and squeezed back. “Thanks.” They felt like the first kind words she’d heard from Lorraine in a long, long time. But Reggie was to blame for that, wasn’t she? She’d shut Lorraine out, been needlessly cruel in the way that only teenage girls can be.
Reggie felt suddenly guilty for her fleeting thoughts just days ago that Lorraine might have something to do with Neptune, that she might have been the one who’d given Vera the newspaper article.
“I’m sorry that I ran away like that last week, when Mom first came home.”
Lorraine nodded. “It was a lot to take in all at once, I imagine.”
“And I’m sorry for blaming you when Mom disappeared. It wasn’t your fault. I was just so devastated, so furious, I guess I needed someone to direct all that at. It wasn’t right, leaving home and never coming back. I just couldn’t face things. I didn’t know how. It was cowardly, and I’m sorry.”
Lorraine bowed her head down, as if studying her shoes. “I understand,” she said.
They were silent a minute. Outside, a siren wailed in the distance.
“I went to see Bo Berr today,” Reggie confessed, grateful to be changing the subject. “I thought maybe he was Neptune.”
“Why on earth would you think that?”
“Because of something George told me once. About Mom coming back and living with Bo after being in New York. Then I did some digging and found out Bo was the one who picked her up from the bowling alley that night. He came and got her in a borrowed car.”
Lorraine pursed her lips. “Your mother and Bo, that’s ancient history. Heavens, I felt so bad for him back when they were still in high school. She treated him terribly. Both of them. Stringing them along, playing them off each other like puppets.”
“Who?”
“Bo and his younger brother, Stuart.”
“Wait . . . Mom dated Stu? Charlie’s dad?”
Lorraine shrugged. “I can’t say for sure what was happening when. But in the end, I think she broke both their hearts when she ran off to New York.”
R
EGGIE FOUND HER MOTHER’S
senior yearbook right where Tara had set it down years before—on top of the trunk in the attic.
Reggie could hear Tara’s voice:
She was beautiful. You look like her.
Reggie held the yearbook and glanced into the three mirrors, Vera’s dress dummies behind her like old, familiar ghosts. She did look like her mother. She saw it now. In the eyes, the cheekbones. She was a darker version of Vera—the proverbial black sheep.
Reggie opened the yearbook and went through it page by page, reading the notes and autographs. And there, near the end, a photo she’d missed before. Vera and a dark-haired, serious-faced boy with their arms around each other. Her head was on his shoulder and she looked peaceful, content. Next to it, in neat cursive he’d written:
They do not love that do not show their love.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Love is a familiar. Love is a devil.
There is no evil angel but Love.
—Shakespeare
Always and forever,
Stu
Suddenly, like the tumblers of a lock turning, everything clicked into place.
Stu Berr.
Stu Berr, who’d led the investigation. Who’d let his brother off the hook. Stu, a man in a position of power.
Reggie remembered her mother’s horrified reaction at seeing Charlie’s face. And didn’t Charlie look just like his father?
Oh God. It all made sense.
Reggie pulled out her phone and dialed information, asking for Bo Berr’s number. She got it and punched it in.
Frances answered. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Berr, it’s Reggie Dufrane. I was hoping I could speak to your husband.”
“He’s resting. I’m afraid your visit wore him out. And he’s just had his pain medicine.”
“Please, it’ll only be a minute. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
Frances put the phone down and Reggie heard muffled voices. Then Bo got on the line with a groggy “Hello?”
“Mr. Berr. It’s Reggie Dufrane. There’s something you said earlier that I’ve been wondering about.”
“Is that right?” His words were ever so slightly slurred.
“You said that the morning after you dropped my mother off, your brother came to see you to question you. Are you sure it was that morning?”
A few wet coughs and throat clearings.
“Yeah, it was early morning. Right after they’d found the hand, I think. He knew right away that I’d been the one who dropped her off at the bar. He was the one who told me the hand was Vera’s.”
There was only one way Reggie could think of that Stu had known it had been Bo who’d dropped her off.
A chill ran through Reggie. The hand that was wrapped around her cell phone began to tremble.
“Thanks, Mr. Berr. Take care of yourself.”
She hung up and dug the tiny staple from the teabag, the one she didn’t even realize she’d brought upstairs, deep into the skin of her thumb.
It’s almost a cliché: after a murderer is brought to justice, his neighbors and coworkers come forward in complete disbelief, saying what a nice guy he was. He went to work every day. Kept his lawn mowed. Seemed friendly enough. He blended in, camouflaging himself effortlessly, passing for normal.
It’s my strong belief that that’s just what they’d say about Neptune.
He’s everyman and no man. Someone you’d pass on the street and not give a second thought to. He probably owns a house and lives alone. He’s an intelligent man. He’s methodical. Patient. He’s probably good-looking, charming even—there was no sign that any of these women struggled when he abducted them. They must have gone willingly, trusting their killer right up until the end.
October 23, 2010
Brighton Falls, Connecticut
R
EGGIE PULLED UP IN
front of Stu Berr’s house and saw a pickup in the driveway. She’d thought of calling first but decided a surprise visit might yield more results.
She only hoped he didn’t have any surprises waiting for her: a rag soaked in ether and a surgeon’s saw.
Stop it,
she told herself.
Her phone was ringing. Len again. She answered, thinking that hearing his voice might soothe her, stop her hands from shaking and help give her the strength and courage she needed to go knock on Stu’s door.
“You didn’t call,” Len said.
“I’m sorry,” Reggie told him. “I got a little swept up in things here. I think I know who Neptune is.”
“Jesus. Who?”
“Charlie’s dad. Stu Berr.” She looked across the street at the neat little ranch house, saw movement inside. “He was the lead detective on the Neptune case and now it turns out he and my mom went out back in high school. I think he never got over her. I think—”
“Have you gone to the police, Reg?”
“Not yet. I don’t have any proof. And he was a cop himself, so that makes things a little complicated.”
“Listen,” Len said. “I’m on my way.”
“What? No. I can—”
“No arguments. I’ll be there in three hours or so, depending on traffic. I don’t want you to do anything until I get there, okay? Just stay at home with the doors locked. We’ll figure out the next move once I arrive. Deal?”
“Okay,” Reggie said, thinking she should be angry, but really, she felt relief.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Reg,” he said.
“I won’t,” she promised. “See you soon.”
She hung up the phone, counted to ten, opened the door of her truck, and crossed the driveway. The place had been kept up well. The driveway had been resurfaced recently, and there was a fresh coat of paint on the house. The shrubs were neatly trimmed and the leaves raked. Stu Berr had not been idle in his retirement. To the right of the front door was the wooden plaque with the house number—21. She remembered the key that used to be hidden in the little carved-out niche behind it. She rang the bell and heard a dog barking behind the door. Reggie considered turning around and running.
But then the door open slowly and Stu Berr stared out at her. Reggie was startled by how much he looked like a slightly older version of Charlie. In fact, he could have passed for Charlie’s older brother rather than his father. Gone were the jowls and the rolls of fat above his waist. He wore a T-shirt and running shorts, showing sculpted muscles. His hair was short and gray. The mustache was gone.
With his right hand, he held a large German shepherd by his thick leather collar. The dog continued to bark and growl, pulling on Stu’s arm as his muzzle pressed against the flimsy screen.
“Help you?” he said.
“Mr. Berr. I’m Regina Dufrane. Vera’s daughter?”
He stared at her a minute through the screen door. “Oh my goodness, yes,” he said. “I heard she was back at home. Come in, please.” He unlatched the door, then stepped aside, waving her in. He continued to hold the dog.
Reggie hesitated.
“Don’t worry. He won’t hurt you.”
Reggie reluctantly opened the screen door and stepped inside, keeping her back to the wall, not taking her eyes off the enemy. Her body went rigid and cold. The dog continued to roar at her, teeth bared. Reggie felt a strange tingle at the scar tissue under her prosthetic ear.
She still hated dogs. They were the one fear she couldn’t seem to conquer.
“Duke!” Stu said in a firm voice. “Go lie down.”
The dog stopped barking, put his ears back in defeat, and sulked off to a corner of the living room. He walked in circles over his plaid flannel dog bed, then settled down, curling himself into a surprisingly small ball.
“Smart dog,” Reggie said, letting out a breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding. Her entire body was chilled with cold sweat.
“He was a police dog, but he was getting a little gray in the muzzle, so they let him retire with me.”
“Nice,” Reggie said.
“We’re good company for each other,” Stu said. “Can I offer you some coffee? I just made a pot.”
“Sure,” Reggie said. She followed him into the kitchen and watched while he poured her a cup of coffee.
“Cream and sugar?”
“No thanks. I take it black.”
“Let’s go into the living room. It’s more comfortable there.”
She took the coffee from him and followed him into the living room, choosing the seat that was farthest away from Duke. The dog raised his ears, kept his eyes trained on her.