If the Witness Lied

  On the counter is an untouched loaf of bakery bread in a paper wrapper. “I’m making toast for everybody,” says Madison. “Grab a piece as you go by. Don’t worry about getting butter on Cheryl’s clothes.”

  One time the whole family—back when they were a whole family; back before Tris—went to London for a week. They didn’t stay in a hotel for Americans but in a hotel occupied largely by Brits. Afternoon tea came in a shiny brown china pot, accompanied by stacks of buttered toast and thick jams in little glass tubs. For a long time afterward, the Fountains went on toast binges.

  Madison catches her last thought—back when they were a whole family; back before Tris—and prays: Dear God, this is my whole family. Let me cherish them. Please let me be the good one for a change.

  The fury seeps away. Because the bathroom is over the kitchen, she can hear water running in the tub. Thank you, Diana, she says silently. She doesn’t mean it, but maybe someday she will.

  Even the interior of the refrigerator is Cheryl’s. There’s no real butter. Mom’s cookies were so good because of real butter. Madison gets out the plastic tub of fake butter. She makes perfect toast—golden brown all over—and slathers it on. They are starving and would eat anything anyway.

  The three of them lean over the kitchen bar, munching toast, wasting what little time they have. Madison doesn’t point this out. She just makes more toast. No matter what they do tonight, they cannot achieve an ending. They can only set up a continuation. If Madison wants this nightmare to end, she has to acquire a grown-up on the team. But who? Who will believe them implicitly, without an argument, without letting Cheryl get a lawyer and a TV station?

  Church comes to mind. Mom spent so much time volunteering and loved her church family so. But the church friends, constantly there when Mom was sick, vanished over time. Once Dad died, they were invisible.

  A new thought creases her mind. The edge of this thought is sharp enough to cut her heart. Madison actually whimpers. Jack and Smithy quit buttering toast and wait for an explanation. She shakes her head back and forth, as if to make this new thought splash over the edge and out of her brain. She looks up the minister’s phone number.

  Smithy and Jack stand close enough to hear.

  “Madison!” says Reverend Phillips. They remember his voice. He has two of them: a large forward-motion voice for sermons—even though the church has a fine sound system—and a warm conversation voice, always half laughing, as if the minister has the inside track to a good mood. “I’m so glad to hear from you. The youth group was heartbroken when you left town, but we respected your wish not to contact you. Tell me how you’re doing.”

  “I didn’t have a wish like that. Who—um—who told you that?” Her voice is cracking. It was one of the terrible hurts of this year. Why didn’t those fifteen kids, with whom she’d spent her Sunday evenings, ever call?

  “Why, your aunt, of course. She said the counselors and your other relatives and your godparents decided you would be better off with a fresh start. Mrs. Rand asked me to see to it that—” The minister breaks off. He’s not young; he’s dealt with human nature for a lot of years. “That isn’t true?”

  “No.” The lump in Madison’s throat is so large she cannot say more. Forgetting her plan to acquire an adult, she hangs up.

  “It’s good that you drive, Madison,” says Smithy. “You can run back and forth over Cheryl till she’s as flat as roadkill.”

  Madison vaguely recalls hanging up on somebody else today. This must be what shock does to you; you lose the edges of proper behavior.

  Cheryl doesn’t lose just the edge of proper behavior, she loses the sides and the center. How incredibly angry she must have been to turn Dad into roadkill. Angry enough to make his little son pay as well. Angry enough to wreak havoc in Madison’s life, and no doubt in Smithy’s. As for Jack, how has he stuck it out?

  She stares at her brother in admiration, but what she sees chills her.

  Jack is towering with rage. Literally. He’s taller with it, back arched and shoulders expanded. If Cheryl comes in now, Jack will go for her jugular.

  This is why you call the police, thinks Madison. So they handle it.

  * * *

  Smithy and Jack lug the immense flat-TV screen from the living room to the cellar. Nothing will upset Cheryl more than the loss of her TV. Cheryl doesn’t do cellars any more than she does the outdoors. There might be mold and crawly things down there. And if it does occur to her to hunt for her television in the basement, they don’t think she can get the TV back upstairs. She prides herself on her inability to do heavy lifting.

  The local cable provider has twenty-four-hour service. Madison cancels their account. Now there is no backup television in the kitchen or in Cheryl’s bedroom. Television is Cheryl’s life. They’re betting she won’t live here without it.

  Smithy and Jack head for their parents’ room. It was always more Mom’s than Dad’s, filled with pillows, fluff and comfort. Dad’s realm was the outdoors. He loved anything with a ball; anything requiring a bat, a club or an oar; anything where you needed fire (the barbecue) or a motor (the snowmobile).

  Cheryl has redone the bigger walk-in closet, once their mother’s. Clothing hangs in ranks: shirts and jackets at eye level, pants on a lower rod.

  Jack spreads a bedsheet on the floor. Clothing slides quickly off hangers and they haul a mass of it down the stairs like hobos with an especially large hanky. It’s remarkable how much can be packed into the car. It takes three trips to empty the closet. Next they attack the big cherry bureau. In another life, the drawers on the left were Dad’s and the drawers on the right were Mom’s. Jack upends each drawer onto another sheet, Smithy kicks everything into the center, and they haul a fourth load to Cheryl’s car.

  The bedroom looks as if a rough crowd partied here. Knickknacks, stuffed animals, an overturned side chair and a tiny frilled lamp lie on the carpet.

  They take a toast break.

  Madison is into Dad’s laptop, hunting for more. More what? They don’t know. She updates them. “Nothing to report.”

  Smithy and Jack are getting tired. There’s a smaller walk-in closet, another bureau, the desk and the entire bathroom still to go. They almost skip the shoes, stacked in dozens and dozens of original shoeboxes. Then they go for it, emptying each pair onto the sheet and leaving a box mountain behind.

  Is this going to be enough? Will Cheryl take her clothes and her jewelry and head on out? Will the loss of television and comfort make her go? They don’t care about money. Whatever she has, she can keep. She’ll need money to go somewhere anyhow, and the whole idea is to make it easy for her.

  They stuff shoes everywhere in the Lincoln. Even to Smithy, the plan suddenly seems ridiculous. What does Cheryl care about stripped closets? She’ll just hire somebody to put everything back. This won’t frighten her out. She might even laugh. And if she comes in with Angus, what a photo op.

  But Smithy flies upstairs with Jack to fill the next sheet. They decide to do the smaller closet, once Dad’s. They spread another sheet and yank blouses off hangers.

  There, on the floor, previously hidden by a hundred sleeves, is a jewelry box.

  Laura Fountain’s jewelry box.

  * * *

  Tris won’t let Diana peel off his shirt or take his damp socks off. Diana plunks him into the tub—shirt, socks and all. He forgets his bad mood. Diana swims the duck family toward him. “I see toes!” she quacks. “Tasty toes! I’m going to nibble the baby toe!”

  Tris splashes. “You can’t see any toes. They’re inside socks.” He takes the socks off. He doesn’t want to miss having his toes nibbled by ducks.

  Diana sits on the tub rim, which is almost as uncomfortable as kneeling on the tile, and guides rubber duckies under Tris’s knees. He hardly notices when she gets the shirt off and he’s bare. The warm water is putting him back to sleep, their only hope if this flimsy plan is going to work. Diana lowers her voice and adds rhythm. “Now the mommy duck
takes the baby duck under her wing. The mommy duck takes the second baby duck under her wing. They swim in circles. They swim in rows.”

  Diana puzzles over the very strong reaction Cheryl had to the mere sight of a briefcase and a laptop.

  A possibility begins to take shape in Diana’s thoughts.

  Diana does believe that Cheryl murdered Mr. Fountain. But she does not believe that Jack and Madison and Smithy can prove it, not to the extent a court requires. But they don’t have to prove murder. They just have to prove something. Anything. If Cheryl has committed any crime or done anything unethical or immoral, they can get rid of her as their guardian.

  Madison can search Mr. Fountain’s laptop, and certainly Cheryl was frightened by it. But in Diana’s opinion, if there’s information to find against Cheryl, it won’t be in Mr. Fountain’s computer. It’ll be in Cheryl’s.

  Tris’s eyes flutter. She supports his back so he doesn’t tip over, never a good thing in water. But if she tries to take him out, he’ll start screaming again.

  She listens to Smithy and Jack, tearing up and down the stairs. Tris is at the comatose end of the energy scale, while Smithy and Jack are at the hysterical end. They can’t have finished cleaning out the entire master suite, but suddenly they are shouting on the stairs. “Madison! Guess what we found!” They clomp noisily down, having forgotten that the plan requires silence and dark.

  Tris’s eyes are closed. He’s still upright, but not very.

  “I have the biggest towel in the whole wide world,” sings Diana. “A big big big big towel. We’re going to wrap you up like a mummy. And then you and I are going to be spies.”

  Tris watches Saturday-morning cartoons. He knows what spies are. “Who do we spy on?” He can’t even lift his lids halfway.

  “We’re going to be computer hackers.”

  Tris loves computers but only at the library is he allowed to touch one. At home, they are forbidden. Even Jack will yell if Tris dares to touch his computer. Tris drags his eyes open. He doesn’t want Jack mad at him.

  Diana soothes him. “We’re going to spy in Aunt Cheryl’s computer.”

  * * *

  Their mother rarely wore costume jewelry. Her few pieces are real. She liked to wear the same ones every day. They buried her with her thin silver cross on its narrow silver chain.

  This is Mom’s jewelry box from when she was little. When it opens, it plays the Nutcracker Suite, while the tiny china ballerina circles, her slender pink leg gracefully extended. Smithy wants to wind it before she opens it.

  In the kitchen, Smithy and Madison hover over this find. Smithy winds slowly and carefully, using the fat key that sticks out the side. Then she sets the box on the kitchen counter. Smithy got to wind it, so Madison gets to open it.

  The music of tiny bells begins before the lid is fully open. The ballerina springs up and begins to twirl. Smithy realizes now why she characterized Kate as the ballerina on the jewelry box.

  Through her tears, Smithy examines the jewelry. She and Jack have yet to clear out the bathroom, where Cheryl’s jewelry spreads over the long counter, lies in the shallow top drawer and hangs from little plastic trees. Smithy may have to check all of it, make sure none of it is Mom’s.

  * * *

  Jack has no jewelry memory. He can picture his mother’s smile and hear his mother’s voice, but he cannot picture her wrists or throat or earlobes. Did Mom wear this stuff? Jack can’t prove it.

  Then he frowns. He pushes Smithy’s hand away. He’s in his nonbreathing mode.

  He dumps out the envelope of prints. Shuffles through them. Chooses two.

  In the photograph where Cheryl’s fingers clutch the brake, her right hand is ringless.

  In the photograph where Cheryl has not yet reached into the Jeep, but is standing outside the window, her right hand touches the glass and she is wearing a ring.

  The ring lying in this box.

  * * *

  Diana winds the bath towel around Tris until his arms are trapped and he is swaddled, like a newborn. How much time before Cheryl, and perhaps Angus, returns? If they went to a restaurant, dinner would last a while. But Cheryl’s company is tiring. Diana thinks they went for a drink, and will be back shortly.

  She turns off the bathroom and hall lights, and walks in the dark to the master bedroom. Cheryl’s bedroom is chaotic. But Smithy and Jack have not yet reached the desk. Cheryl’s computer sits untouched.

  Diana is holding Tris upright in front of her, a cylinder of thick toweling, easy to hold. Inside the towel, he’ll be very warm. Maybe he’ll fall asleep instead of demanding a turn at the keyboard.

  No such luck. “I want to turn it on,” whispers Tris. Whether it’s the coffeepot or the sound system, he wants to push the buttons. If Diana says no, he’ll raise his voice.

  She frees his little right arm, lets him start the computer and then tucks his arm back in. “You’re all bare,” she whispers. “You have to stay inside your towel or you’ll freeze to death. Brrrrrrrr.” She walks back to shut the door behind them and turns off the bedroom lights. “Brrrrrrr,” she reminds Tris.

  She sits, rocking him. “Brrrrrrrr,” she sings softly. “Brrrrr.” She pulls down Cheryl’s list of bookmarks. Cheryl seems to have largely celebrity interests, but one bookmark speaks to Diana.

  Cheryl Rand does her banking online.

  Cheryl will kill and Cheryl will lie. Diana is betting that Cheryl will also steal.

  The bank home page is clearly arranged. Diana clicks Account Access. She enters the user name, which she knows because Cheryl often e-mails to ask her to babysit.

  But to access the actual accounts, the bank requires a password. Diana does not have it. She cannot guess it. The bank program is designed to stop a spy.

  It works.

  * * *

  Madison picks up the ring in the jewelry box. Holds it next to the photograph. Hands it to Smithy, who slips it on. “Is it Mommy’s engagement ring?” whispers Smithy.

  “I think so. Remember how at the end her hands hurt? All her joints hurt, but especially her hands? She wouldn’t take off her wedding ring, but she did take off her engagement ring.”

  “Look inside the band,” says Jack. “Are there initials? Dad would engrave it.”

  “RF,” Smithy reads. “LS.”

  “Because when he gave it to her, she was still Laura Smith,” says Madison.

  Jack studies the photographs. “So literally, one minute Cheryl is wearing this ring, the next minute she’s not.”

  “I bet Cheryl was digging around in Mom’s stuff,” says Smithy. “I bet she put the ring on. She really did think Dad would marry her. She had the nerve to wear the engagement ring. I bet when Dad saw it, he was mental.”

  Madison takes up the narrative. “And they screamed at each other. Cheryl wanted to get married and he just wanted Mom’s ring back and she pulled it off and threw it under the car.”

  “Yes!” shouts Smithy. “And Dad put the Jeep in neutral, yanked up the brake, jumped out and got down under the car to get the diamond back.”

  They stare at each other. Dad would get out of a car to retrieve the engagement ring he gave his bride Laura. The girls’ story line fits. But it’s a guess.

  It’s Jack’s turn to hold the ring. His fingers are too big to fit even a little bit into the narrow opening, and he can’t feel the engraving.

  He imagines his father sitting in that Jeep, about to drive off with his two-year-old. Probably talking to Tris over his shoulder, describing the adventure or errand ahead. Cheryl coming out to the car. Saying something. Dad politely hearing her out. And there on her finger, the ring Dad had to take from his dying wife’s hand. His father’s fury. “What do you think you’re doing with my wife’s ring? Give it to me!” Cheryl, ripping the ring off, hurling it away, but all it does is roll under the Jeep. Dad kneels down, trying to see the little glint. Maybe he does see it. Maybe he’s way down under the Jeep.

  And then the car moves.

&
nbsp; No.

  Cheryl causes it to move.

  Because that’s the other photograph. Cheryl, face distorted, thrusting herself inside the vehicle, inches from Tris, seizing that brake.

  They pass the ring around again.

  Only the stovetop and the computer screen emit light. The buttery smell of the toast fills the air. They’re alone with their guesses, the image of their father and this jewel of their mother’s.

  The distinctive sound of a key in a lock is their warning bell. Cheryl is home.

  The front door opens. They hear her voice, the one she does not use with the children. “Thanks again!” she trills.

  Jack’s hands are hot and taut. His loathing for Cheryl spreads into his heart, like fast-moving poison from a tropical snake.

  The front door closes. Cheryl snaps the dead bolt. A moment later, a faint white line appears under the kitchen door. Cheryl has turned on the hall light.

  She will not go upstairs. Whether or not she’s just eaten dinner, Cheryl will come into the kitchen and prepare a tray of snacks. She’ll carry it into the living room and sit in front of the large-screen TV.

  She’ll get a surprise.

  That was the plan, anyway. They meant to be upstairs, silent and hiding, waiting for her shock when she sees the empty wall; waiting for her to run upstairs; cornering her in her stripped room; forcing her to see that they are serious.

  The snake in their lives opens the kitchen door and feels around for the light switch.

  THE ESSENTIAL JOB OF A TODDLER IS TO WATCH EVERYTHING grown-ups do. “It’s on the back of the computer,” says Tris sleepily.

  Sure enough, Diana’s searching fingers find a small square of paper taped behind the screen. On it are written three passwords. One looks assigned—a clutter of numbers and capital letters. Diana enters this one. The bank accepts it. She and Tris are looking at Cheryl Rand’s bank accounts.

  “Tris, you are the best spy in the whole wide world,” whispers Diana, still rocking. She switches lullabyes. She was getting tired of brrrrr anyway. “In the whole wide world,” she sings softly.