Turn of Mind (7 page)

From my notebook. My handwriting:

Two men and a woman were here today. Detectives. I must write it down, Magdalena says, I must keep my head clear. Know what I've said. Think straight.

The men were clumsy and heavy, perched awkwardly on my kitchen chairs. The woman was one of them: coarse, almost, but with a more alert, intelligent face. The two men deferred to her. She mostly listened, putting in a word now and then. The men took turns asking questions.

Tell us about your relationship with the deceased.

What deceased? Who died?

Amanda O'Toole. Everyone says you were very close.

Amanda? Dead? Nonsense. She was here, just this morning, full of schemes for a new neighborhood petition. Something against excessive dog barking, about imposing sanctions and fines.

Let me rephrase the question. What is your relationship with Mrs. O'Toole?

She is my friend.

But one of your neighbors—
the man who was talking consulted his notebook—
said you had a loud argument on February fifteen. The day after
Valentine's Day, around two
PM
, in her house.

Magdalena broke in.
They were
always
fighting. They were that close. Like
sisters. You know how family is.

Please, ma'am. Let Dr. White answer. What was that particular argument about?

What argument? I asked. It is a bad day, I can't concentrate. This morning Magdalena put a red and white stick in my hand at the bathroom sink.
Toothbrush,
she said, but the word meant nothing. I came to later at the kitchen table with a half-eaten stick of butter in front of me. Then I had another fade-out and a fade-in. I found myself sitting in the same place, but now with a glass half full of an orange liquid on the table in front of me, a pile of multicolored pills. What is this? I asked Magdalena, pointing. The colors were wrong. The bright liquid and the small hard round bursts of blue, magenta, buttercup. Poison. I would not be fooled. Was not fooled. Flushed it all down the toilet when Magdalena was not looking.

But back to the main point:

The argument you had with Mrs. O'Toole in mid-February,
the man repeated, somewhat impatiently.

Can't you see that she doesn't remember?
asked Magdalena.

Convenient,
said the other man. He looked at the first man and raised his eyebrow. Coconspirators.

She's not a well woman,
said Magdalena.
You know this. You have her doctor's
statement. You are aware of the nature of this disease.

The first man started in again.
What was the state of your relationship with
Amanda O'Toole in February?

I imagine it was what it always was, I said. Close, but combative. Amanda was in many ways a difficult woman.

The woman spoke for the first time.
So we've heard,
she said. She allowed herself a small smile. She nodded to the first man to continue.

You had a fight with her in her house seven days before the body was discovered.
About the time of the murder.

What murder?

Just answer the question. Why did you go to Amanda O'Toole's house on February
fifteen?

We were in and out of each other's houses all the time. We had keys.

But that particular day? What were you doing? According to our witness, you
didn't knock but let yourself in the front door. This was at approximately one
thirty
PM
. At two
PM
this neighbor heard loud voices. An argument.

I shook my head.

Look, clearly she doesn't know,
Magdalena said.
She won't even remember you
were here ten minutes after you're gone. Can't you leave her alone? How many
times are you going to ask these questions?

The first man started to talk, but the woman silenced him.
That evening
was the last time anyone saw Amanda O'Toole,
she said
. She visited the
drugstore, bought some toothpaste, and picked up some food items from Dominick's
around six thirty
PM
. But she didn't take in her paper after that day. The
timeline fits. If nothing else, Dr. White was one of the last persons to see Mrs.
O'Toole before she was killed.

The world shifted sideways. Darkness descended. My body turned to stone.

Killed? Amanda? I asked. But it was true. Somehow I knew that. This was not shock. This was not surprise. This was grief, continued.

After a short silence, the woman spoke. Her voice was gentler.
That must
be difficult. Reliving that moment over and over again.

I willed myself to breathe, to unclench my hands, to swallow. Magdalena put a hand on my shoulder.

And why are you here today?
asked Magdalena.
We've gone over this several
times. Why again. Why now? You have no evidence.

There was only silence to that.

So why are you here?
Magdalena asked again. No one was looking at me.

Just routine. Trying to find out if Dr. White can help us in any way.

How could she help you?

Perhaps she saw something. Heard something. Knew something about what was
going on in Amanda's life that no one else knew about.
The woman turned to me suddenly.

So, was there?
she asked.
Anything out of the ordinary in Amanda's life? Anyone
who had a grudge? Had reason to be
. . .
disgruntled?

Everyone looked at me. But I was not there. I was in Amanda's house, at her kitchen table, we were laughing wickedly over her imitation of the head of our block's Neighborhood Watch program, her rendition of the 911 tape in which the woman reported a dangerous intruder trying to break into the church, which turned out to be a stray Labrador urinating under a bush.

It was a humble kitchen, never renovated to the standards of the neighborhood. Peter and Amanda, schoolteacher and PhD student in religious studies, bought the house prior to the area's gentrification.

Plain pine cupboards painted a flat white. Checkered linoleum tiled floors. A twenty-year old avocado green Frigidaire. Amanda brought out a stale Bundt cake, a leftover from a PTA function, and cut us each a dry slice. I took a bite and spitted it out at the exact moment she did the same. We started laughing again. And suddenly I ached with loss.

The female detective had been watching me intently.
Enough,
she said.
That's all for today.

Thank you, I said, and our eyes met for a second. Then the three of them took their leave.

March 1, according to the calendar. Our anniversary. James's and mine. I usually forget, but James, never. He doesn't buy me extravagant gifts on schedule—those he saves for when I least expect them—but the ones he brings on these occasions are nevertheless deliciously unusual. What will it be today? I feel doglike, capable of wearing out the carpet with my pacing. Not that I'm often in this mood. No. And not that I would let him catch me. But nevertheless, there
is
this excitement, this anticipation, that has not dissipated. My parasite, thriving in darkness, his essence remaining mysterious throughout the mundanity of marriage. The shared bathroom, the clothes abandoned on the floor, the crumbs under the breakfast table. Still an enigma despite all this. A gift from the gods, James was. And today, as I wait for his return from parts unknown, I give thanks to them.

I pick up the first photo album, labeled
1998–2000.
The woman who helps me insists. She doesn't understand how utterly stupefying it is to be guided through the sea of unfamiliar faces and locales. All labeled in large black capital letters as though for an idiot child. For me.

To be asked, over and over,
And who is this? Do you remember her? Do
you recognize this place?
It's like being forced to see someone's holiday snapshots of places you never wanted to go.

But today I will do what the leader at our support group suggests. I will examine each photo for clues. I will think of the book as a historical document, myself as an anthropologist. Uncovering facts and formulating theories. But facts first. Always.

I have my notebook beside me as I look. To record my discoveries.

The first photo that has
Amanda
written in the caption is dated September 1998.
Amanda and Peter.
A vibrant older couple. They could be in an ad for healthy aging.

The woman with longish thick white hair caught up in a ponytail. You can tell how strong and capable she is. Her wrinkles augment this authority. You wouldn't want to be in a subservient position to her. You'd have to hold your own or be vanquished. An executive? A politician? Someone used to controlling crowds, multitudes even.

The man next to her is a different sort altogether. Although his beard is gray, his hair still has traces of black. He stands a little behind the woman and is only very slightly taller. More humor in his smile, more kindness.

You would turn to him for help, advice. To her, for decisive action. I cannot see his left hand. Hers has a wedding band on it. If they were husband and wife, there would be no doubt who would be in charge.

The photo has few other points of interest. They are standing on a porch—a rare feature for the brownstones on this street. It is summer: They are wearing T-shirts, and the honeysuckle vine climbing up the railing is in full bloom.

Behind them are folding lawn chairs, the kind woven from cheap multicolored plastic strips. A small oval plastic table immediately in front. On it, three empty tall glasses and one full one that contains a flat watery amber liquid. There is a slight blur in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo—perhaps the photographer's hand, gesturing the couple to move together.

The sun must be behind the photographer, because his (her?) shadow shades the woman's neck and breasts.

And suddenly I remember. No, I
feel.
The heat. The insistent buzz of cicadas that were everywhere that year—the seventeen-year plague, everyone said, only half kidding. They crunched underfoot, spattered across our windshields, forced us inside during the hottest months of summer.

Peter and Amanda's house had a screened-in porch, which is what made it possible to sit outdoors that day, to relieve the claustrophobia, the sense of incarceration. We were waiting for James, who was late, as usual.

We'd drunk our beers and were debating whether to open some more when Peter suggested capturing the moment.
What moment?
Amanda and I had exclaimed, in such perfectly matched tones that we both laughed.

Peter, characteristically, was unruffled.
This moment that will never come
again
, he said.
This moment after which nothing will ever be the same.
Amanda made a face but went inside for the camera agreeably enough.

And what is likely to be different after this moment? I teased Peter. Do you have an announcement to make? Some revelation? That made him uncomfortable.

No, of course not,
he said.
Nothing of the sort.
He shifted in his chair, picked up his glass, and raised it to his lips again, even though it was empty.

I guess I'm grateful,
he said, finally.

That's an odd emotion to feel when it's more than one hundred degrees at six o'clock in the evening, I said.

He refused to smile.
No, grateful is the right word,
he said.
Grateful for every
moment that the bottom doesn't fall out.
He paused, then laughed.
It's those
damn cicadas,
he said.
They make one think about Old Testament–style wrath-of-
God type things.

You know,
he continued,
there are remarkable parallels between events documented
in an ancient Egyptian manuscript,
Admonitions of Ipuwer
, and the
book of Exodus. Pestilence and floods, rivers turning red, and no one able to see
the face of his fellow man for days on end because of locusts. Many a doctoral
candidate has been grateful for these points. Although if I never read another
thesis with the word
locust
in it, I myself will be eternally grateful.
He stopped, leaned forward, suddenly intent.