They had to squeeze past people to reach the only open seats, in the middle of one of the rows of folding chairs. As they inched their way in, Charlie stumbled. Claire reached out and caught her shoulder, steadying her. Underneath her fingers, Charlie’s arm seemed impossibly fragile, the bones no bigger than a child’s. Even Mackenzie must have twenty pounds on Charlie.
Charlie’s eyes were shadowed, and she had not spoken a single unnecessary word since the police interview. Dante was just as concerned about her as Claire was. In an odd way, Tom’s murder and their concern about Charlie had pulled them back together, made them a team again. If Charlie could barely make it through this funeral, then how would she be able to bear Tom’s later in the week?
The service was brief and nondescript. It was clear that the speaker had never heard of Nova until after she was dead. In well-practiced cadences, he combined a few not very revealing tales of Nova – obviously fed to him by others – with quotations from Kahil Gibran, ee cummings, and a child’s bedtime story.
Afterward, they gathered for punch and cookies out in the lobby. It was here that the real Nova was revealed. Claire heard stories about the men Nova had dated, the hearts she had broken, the trysts she had consummated in unlikely places, the clever ways she had snatched men right out from under their girlfriends’ unsuspecting noses. Everyone brightened at these tales. Color appeared in wrinkled cheeks, laughs were low and knowing, winks and nods were used as often as words, and someone produced a flask to “freshen up” people’s cups of punch. Just talking about Nova seemed to make the twenty or so men and women who remained feel more alive themselves.
One of the ladies leaned toward Claire. She was dressed to the nines, in a black Chanel-style suit and a black hat with a large brim and a small dotted veil that covered her eyes. In a Brooklyn accent, she said, “I’m Jean Rivin. I live across the way from Nova. I saw you and your friend visiting her the other day, didn’t I?”
“Yes, I’m Claire. I’m so sorry that she died. I’m just glad I never took up smoking. It’s such a hard habit to break.”
Jean’s laugh was surprisingly low. “Cigarettes! Nova? I don’t think so. I’ve seen all those guys coming and going. It was too much S –E–X.” She spelled out the word.
Claire said, “The doctor said she had a stroke.”
The older woman shook her head. “But what brought it on, hmm? The night she had her first stroke, I heard her cry out. I looked through my peephole and I saw a man leaving in a big hurry. When he saw what that she was getting sick, he must have pulled the emergency bell and then turned tail and run.” She dropped her voice lower. “And when I went to visit her in the nursing unit, outside her door I heard her making these little moans, and a man’s voice, too low for me to catch the words. I couldn’t believe that she was still fooling around in her condition. I just turned and went on back to my condo. An hour later, I heard she was dead.”
Charlie’s voice started Claire. “You saw a man leaving her place the night she had a stroke?” Her voice was a rasp, rusty from disuse.
“Yes,” Nova’s neighbor said. Her tone was nervous now, as if she had been caught telling tales out of school. “I’d never seen him before. He must have been a new one. Of course, she has – had – a new one every month.”
“What did he look like?” Charlie’s words were speeding up. “How old was he?”
“I only saw him for a second,” Nova’s neighbor protested. Charlie’s eyes drilled into her. “Well, he was about our age. Tall. Thin. White hair.” There was a long pause. “Oh - and I think he was carrying a cane.”
Chapter 47
I12KSU
“Allen killed them. He killed them all,” Charlie said as they hurried out to Claire’s car. “Elizabeth, Nova, Tom.” It wasn’t sorrow that strengthened her voice, but anger. “First he killed Elizabeth. Then he killed Nova to stop her from figuring out the truth. And then he tried to kill me and ended up killing Tom.”
It made sense. “And that’s the reason the spray-painting looked different at our house. Allen must have read about the skinheads, and decided to play copycat. It was a cover for what he planned to do later.” Even as she said the words, a doubt teased Claire, but it slipped away when she tried to pin it down. “But I don’t know how we can prove it.”
“We will ask for Howard’s help. He did love Elizabeth, even if it wasn’t how a man loves a woman. All these years, he has lived next to the Lisacs. He has watched them. If we put our heads together, perhaps he will remember something that will give us a clue we can take to the police.”
Claire thought about Howard, his desperate loneliness. There was something else about him, but what was it? “I don’t know, Charlie,” she said slowly, “aren’t they old friends? Why would he betray him?”
Charlie said grimly, “I will make him afraid not to. Everyone else who knew the truth is dead. Howard has got to see that he is next.”
They parked on the street, then hurried up Howard’s driveway, which paralleled the Lisacs’. Claire had a hard time keeping up with Charlie, who was practically running. Howard was polishing his car, his back to them. Mary looked up from her garden next door. She was on her knees, a basket of cut flowers beside her.
“Howard,” Charlie called, her voice low and urgent. He turned. “We’re here to talk to you, Howard. To talk to you about the truth.”
In the next second, everything changed.
Howard dropped the yellow sponge he was holding. In five long strides, he was at Mary’s side, leaning over her. Hooking his left arm around her neck, he pulled Mary to her feet. At the same time, his right hand grabbed something from her basket. There was a single sharp scream, abruptly cut off. Then Claire saw why Mary had frozen, her scream dying in her throat. Something that flashed silver in the sunlight. The tip of a pair of garden shears was pressed against the loose skin of Mary’s throat.
“Back off or I kill her!”
Mary let out a tiny, strangled gasp. Claire didn’t know if Howard had been proving his seriousness or Mary had shifted, but now a thin line of blood began to snake slowly down her neck.
Allen appeared on the front step, his empty hands spread wide as he patted the air, the way you might calm an over-excited dog.
“Howard, what are you doing?”
Howard tightened his arm around Mary’s neck, raising her chin to the sky.
“Howard, can’t we –.”
“Shut up and let me think!”
A few of the pieces fell into place. Nova inquiring eagerly into Howard’s marital status, then saying, “Better the devil you know,” as she prepared to go on a date the night she was to have a “stroke.” And there had been a thunderstorm the night she died, Claire thought. She remembered the old-fashioned umbrella in Howard’s living room, the one that, furled, might have looked like a cane to an old woman peering out a peep hole. Howard’s big hand suddenly slapping the window, scaring away the squirrel. Howard asking if there had been anything else in the wall, as if he had already known the answer. And how, when presented with the ring, Howard had said, “I’ve spent fifty years wishing I had done something different, said something different.”
Charlie must have been thinking some of the same thoughts. Now she said, “It was you.” It wasn’t a question.
Howard said, “What Warren didn’t know was that his lies were true. He told everyone that Elizabeth had slipped, fallen and hit her head. But that’s what really happened. I didn’t mean to kill her.” His grip on Mary loosened a fraction. Her eyes rolled as she tried to see where the garden shears were, but otherwise she was as still as a statue.
Charlie shook her head. “But why? Why hurt Elizabeth?”
“School had just started up again, and the class was very unruly. I got this terrible headache that got worse as the morning went on. At lunchtime, I asked the principal to sub for me, then walked home. As I came up the hill, I saw Tom and Charlie walking away. He was carrying a picnic basket and had his arm around her. I
called to you,” Howard said to Charlie, “but you didn’t hear me.
“But Liz did. She came out on the front porch. She was wearing only a nightgown, so I hurried inside before the neighbors saw her. I knew she and Allen had had a big fight the night before. I had heard them yelling at each other. She looked terrible. Her eyes were swollen from crying. And she told me that she was pregnant. And that it wasn’t Allen’s baby.”
“Whose baby was it, Howard?”
Howard sighed noisily. “Liz had been too much the innocent to ever notice how Warren looked at her when she started dating Allen. At first she wouldn’t tell me who it was, but when I asked her if it was Warren’s, she started to cry. And then Liz told me she had gone to Warren, and he had refused to help her get rid of it. It was like he was proud of himself, not ashamed at all. He told her she should just pass it off as Allen’s baby. It would even look like him – because it was his brother or sister.” Howard looked directly at Allen. “The only thing your father hadn’t counted on was you, Allen. That you would say no. That you would tell Elizabeth that you wouldn’t marry her, that the wedding was off. She was – lost.
“And then I came walking into the picture. And Liz begged me to marry her. She poured me a glass of wine, and she rubbed herself all over me like she was a cat, and I was catnip. But I just pushed her away. Her touch made me feel dirty. And then I could see her changing, making herself get harder. Liz started telling me that she had guessed the truth about me. She said it didn’t matter to her what I was or who I was with. That all she needed was for someone to give her baby a name, someone to marry her and make her a respectable woman. That we could even sleep in separate rooms.”
Claire was listening to Howard’s story, but part of her was also watching Howard. The shears no longer dimpled Mary’s neck, as the pressure he applied began to ease.
“And I argued with her. I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about, that I wasn’t that way at all. But I guess old Warren, he had taken a bit of that innocent shine off of Liz. She just looked at me, and I saw that her eyes were old. And that there wasn’t anything anymore that she couldn’t or wouldn’t do, if she thought it was necessary.
“I still told her no. And then Liz was like an animal, cornered and desperate. She said if I didn’t marry her, she would march down to the school right that very moment, and tell them the truth about me. She knew it would get me fired, even though I had never even looked crossways at those kids. They were children! Just because I’m not meant to be with a woman doesn’t mean I’m a monster, preying on babies. But she knew that no one would understand that. Back then, nobody made those distinctions. Even now they don’t.”
Howard was lost in his story now, the point of the scissors drooping toward the ground. Still, even if Claire rushed him, it would only take a second for those scissors to sink into Mary’s neck.
“Liz was right up in my face, screaming at me, pounding at me with her fists, saying she wouldn’t let her life be ruined, and that if it was, she would ruin mine as well. And I shoved her away. I had to get her away from me.” Tears began to slip silently down Howard’s face. “You have to believe me, Allen. I didn’t mean for it to happen. When I pushed her away, she fell backward over the ottoman and hit her head on the wooden arm of the couch. And then she lay there and she didn’t move. She didn’t move at all. And I looked at her mouth and I thought about how when she woke up she would use that mouth to ruin my life. So I took my hand and put it over her mouth and nose. She barely struggled. And in a minute or two, when I took my hand away, she was quiet and still, and I knew she would never talk again.
“And then I panicked. I ran out of house. I knew my life was over. Still, I made myself go back to the school. I told the principal I was feeling okay now, that he didn’t need to sub for me. I taught all afternoon, not even hearing what I was saying. I knew I was going to be found out, but I kept hoping if I kept to my old routines, then maybe no one would know. I hid my head in the sand.”
Claire could see Mary was gathering herself. Slowly, her hands began to rise, an agonizing inch at a time. But Howard had eyes only for Allen.
“But then when I came home, someone had taken care of everything for me. They had hung up Liz’s dead body so it would look like she killed herself. And I realized who it was. It was you, Allen. You did it for me. And afterward, you pulled away from me. I understood why. That you had done this one thing for me, but that was all.”
Allen’s eyes had gotten wider and wider as Howard talked. His lips parted, but no sound came out. His eyes were like stones. When he finally spoke, it was almost a stutter.
“It was you that killed her? You killed her? You sick bastard – you killed her?”
Mary’s hands froze, still at least a foot from where Howard’s hand held the haft of the shears. She let out a little moan, like a sigh, like a warning, but Allen was blazing with fury now, too far gone to hold back.
“Didn’t you? Because of, of….” Howard’s voice trailed off.
“What? You think I did it for you? You think I would have covered up for you?” Howard flinched at the sarcastic emphasis Allen gave each “you,” but Allen didn’t notice “All these years, I thought it was my father who killed her. I thought I had cleaned up after him. You think I covered up for you because of that one night before I shipped out? You think that meant anything? I was just horny, and drunk and stupid. That’s all. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean anything about me. It certainly didn’t mean anything about us. Any cat in the dark, isn’t that what they say? But not in the light, Howard, not in the light.”
“It wasn’t for me?” Howard said slowly.
“Why would I have done it for you?” Allen didn’t seem to notice Howard flinching at his blunt words. “And the way my father acted afterward, I was sure it had been him. He must have been thinking the same thing about me. Making sure to keep the cops out. Making sure to get everything cleaned up and smoothed over as fast as possible. Making sure nobody talked. He thought he was saving me. And I thought I was saving him. When we were really saving you - the sack of shit who killed Elizabeth in the first place!”
“Allen, don’t!” Mary croaked, but her husband was past heeding her.
“He picked Liz out for me, you know. Or did he really pick her out for himself? I never knew. I still remember the last time I saw her alive. My parents were at the opera. I was in the living room when she walked into the living room wearing only a silk gown.” Allen’s eyes seemed focused some place far away, as if he saw Elizabeth walking toward him, slowly putting one foot in front of another as if balanced on a tightrope. “She came and took my hand and placed it on her breast and she trembled under my touch. In my ear, she whispered words that even the whores in Seoul had never said. But Elizabeth’s eyes were old and sad, just like the eyes of those whores had been.”
Claire didn’t know if it were intentional, but with every sentence, Allen moved his cane and then took a half-step closer to Howard and Mary.
“I pushed her away, but she wouldn’t leave me alone. I knew I had to tell her. Tell her that we couldn’t get married, that I wasn’t really a man any more. But then she blurted out she was pregnant. Whose baby was it, I asked her, but she refused to say, just stood there with her shoulders curled over and tears running down her cheeks. I couldn’t believe that after all those letters she wrote, all those promises she made, that she had taken up with someone else. And then she begged me to marry her, said she would be the best wife a woman had ever been. I told her I wouldn’t marry her, that I couldn’t, not after this. She got hysterical, pounded my chest with her fists. I just turned away from her, went to my room, closed the door, and lay there staring at the ceiling. Everything had shut down inside of me.”
He took another half-step forward. Charlie let out a small sound, no louder than a sigh, and Claire followed the direction of her gaze.
“All night I laid awake thinking about it. And in the morning I got up and drank three
cups of coffee and went to work before my parents realized something was wrong. And at the job site I thought about it and thought about it, turning it over in my mind. I was going crazy. Whose baby could it be? Which one of my friends had betrayed me? Or was it someone I didn’t even know – a clerk at a shoe store, a bus driver, the priest where Liz still went to Mass? I thought of everything, but nothing really seemed possible.”
Claire saw what Charlie had seen. Tucked into the small of Allen’s back, where Howard couldn’t see it, was a handgun.
“Whoever had done it must have talked her into it and talked her into it. Before I left, Liz was shy, scared of her own desires. I knew it had to be someone who had contact with her every day, who could whittle away her defenses a little at a time. Someone who could wear her down like water trickling over a stone.”
The next words tumbled out of Allen’s mouth. “And then I knew. I knew whose baby it was. My father’s! He had always been a hound, sleeping with his secretary, a barmaid, even the woman who played the church organ. He would come home with alcohol on his breath, his tie off and marks on his neck. Before I went to Korea, he had even been sneaking around with Nova. He hadn’t even cared that I knew.”
Did Claire hear a siren? She strained to hear, as if she could squint with her ears.
“That day at lunch, I went home to make Liz tell me if I was right. Instead,” Allen’s words slowed, “I found her lying on her back next to the couch. Her body was still warm, but she wasn’t breathing. I knew who had done it. My father. She must have told him that I wouldn’t marry her, and he had been afraid that everything would all come tumbling out, that he wouldn’t be able to live his double life any longer. He had done this thing, and run away. After all the years I had grown up listening to him tell me that a man always cleaned up after his own messes, that a man doesn’t run away from a problem, that a man doesn’t cry, that a man’s not afraid of a little blood. But he had been afraid and he had run away and he had left behind a mess.”