The Silent Sister

  * * *

  The concert was poorly attended, so much so that she felt embarrassed for both the string orchestra and for San Diego State that it couldn’t turn out a better crowd for a classical concert. The poor attendance, though, had enabled her to get an excellent seat in the middle of the second row and she got there early, sitting alone in the row, staring at the stage and barely breathing as she waited for the musicians to take their seats. Please be here, she pleaded to Matty in her head. Please, please.

  Ever so slowly, the seats around her filled. The audience was made up mostly of music students and they talked and laughed like they were in a classroom rather than the small auditorium. She envied them, not for their camaraderie, although that was certainly part of it. She envied them for being able to study music. They could go home tonight and pick up their instruments, while all she could touch was air.

  When the lights dimmed, a hush fell over the students and polite applause echoed in the building as the musicians took the stage. She recognized Matty right away. He went directly to the first chair of the second violins, and she caught her breath, pride welling up inside her. He was only heading into his third year at Peabody, and already in a leadership role. He’d always been a strong and passionate musician, though he’d never been at her level. But he was doing well. He was being appreciated.

  His dark hair was still a wild mass of curls, but although she wasn’t quite close enough to make out his features, she could tell from the shape of his face alone that they had changed. What if he’d changed along with them? she thought. What if he’d come to hate her?

  The orchestra opened with Barber’s Adagio for Strings and no one in the audience seemed to breathe as the wistful music filled the space. She hadn’t anticipated the pain, although perhaps she should have. Why had she thought seeing him, hearing him, was a good idea? It hurt so much. She couldn’t possibly talk to him. It wouldn’t be fair to ask him to keep a secret so enormous. She loved him too much to put him in that position. It hurt, too, to see him doing the thing she longed to do: play the violin. Watching him was agony in too many ways to count.

  Still, as she sat there choking back tears, she imagined going backstage after the performance. Finding him. Pulling him aside. Pressing a finger to his lips to keep him from saying her name. She would wrap her arms around him and settle into the safety of his embrace. But the fantasy was only a fantasy, and when intermission came and she stood up, she knew she wasn’t going backstage. She was leaving the theater, moving away from temptation. Away from the danger.

  26.

  Riley

  “There were definitely two sets of footprints in the area the night Lisa supposedly killed herself,” Danny said the moment I walked into his trailer. He sat barefoot on his bed, his back against the wall and his computer on his lap.

  “How do you know?” I sat down on the bench seat by the table.

  He lit a cigarette and inhaled, his gaze never leaving my face. “I hacked into their data system.”

  “Whose data system?” I asked, perplexed. “The Kyles’?”

  “The state police of ol’ Virginny.” He smiled. “They need much better security.”

  “Danny! Tell me you’re kidding. How did you do that?”

  “Do you literally want me to tell you how or would you rather just know what I found out?”

  “Can they catch you?” That thought wiped all others from my mind. The last thing Danny needed was time in prison.

  He shook his head. “Very doubtful. I’m sure no one up there is looking at records from 1990.”

  “They were using computers back then?”

  He nodded. “At least partly. I got the feeling they were just starting to digitize. I’m sure they had more on the case than I could get my hands on.”

  “You’re amazing.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it; I felt proud of his skill, even if he’d used it for something illegal. “What did you find out?”

  He took a pull on his cigarette. “It snowed pretty heavily that night,” he said through a stream of smoke, “and that apparently screwed up the investigation. But there were definitely signs of two people being there. Here’s the weird thing, though.” He moved his computer from his lap to the bed and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “That second set of footprints? They withheld that tidbit from the media. There’s no way Tom Kyle could have read about them anywhere.”

  “How could he know, then?”

  “That’s a really good question, isn’t it?” He blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling. “They’re sure the second set of prints was from a man’s boots, but—”

  “Matty,” I wondered out loud. “Remember I told you about him? They were really close friends, and we have pictures of—”

  “Matthew Harrison,” Danny said. “Assuming it’s the same guy as the one mentioned in the police report, that’s his full name. They questioned him because he was there the night she killed her teacher, so—”

  “He was?”

  “Yes, but they don’t think he had anything to do with it. He didn’t get there till after the guy was shot. But since he was already on their radar, they questioned him about the suicide. Turned out he was out of town the night she supposedly killed herself.”

  “Oh, my God!” I said, excited now. “Supposedly? Did the police think she—”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “Most likely, she did it, but—and don’t freak out about this—one of the theories they were looking at was that the second set of prints might have belonged to someone who killed her and made it look like suicide.”

  “But she left a note, remember?”

  “Could have been faked. And the other set of tracks could have been from before she was in the area, or it could have been someone who saw her abandoned car and was checking it out.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray on his bed. “Like I said, the snow made checking out the scene a challenge. Anyhow, it seems they stopped looking into it, so it’s a cold case at this point.”

  “If she’s alive, I want to find her,” I said.

  “Well, good luck with that wild-goose chase,” he said, “but if you do happen to track her down, let me know, so I can give Harry a call. He loves a cold case.”

  “Danny.” I stared at him and he stared right back. “You’re teasing me, right?”

  “When have you ever known me to tease?”

  As a boy, he’d teased me relentlessly and good-naturedly, but the grown-up Danny had lost that playful side. “I know you didn’t like her,” I said. “I know you blame her for everything that’s ever gone wrong with our family. But you were only six when she died … or disappeared. You never really knew her.”

  “You need to accept the fact that she’s a murderer, Riley.” He shook another cigarette from the pack on his bed.

  “She never got to have a trial,” I said.

  “And whose fault was that?” he asked as he lit the cigarette.

  I stood up. “If I find her,” I said, “I just won’t tell you.”

  He leaned back against the wall again, his face momentarily clouded by a puff of smoke. “That’s probably a good idea,” he said.

  OCTOBER 1992

  27.

  Jade

  She sat on the cool floor in the hallway of the music building, leaning against the wall outside a classroom. Inside the room, an ensemble rehearsed a Bruch concerto. They were good. A dull ache traveled down her arms as she listened to them, and her throat was tight from the effort of holding back tears. She’d skipped her child development class to sit here and listen, like an addict who couldn’t stay away from her next fix, and she knew she was in trouble.

  Her first few weeks of college had been an out-of-body experience for her. The campus swarmed with students and she didn’t remember ever feeling a part of something so enormous. Having been homeschooled all her life, she found it hard to adjust to moving from one classroom to another. The structure was so impersonal; the crush of students
daunting.

  She was quiet in her classes, afraid to draw attention to herself, and she didn’t interact with her fellow students. The only people she could sincerely call her friends were Grady and Ingrid and some of the regular customers, like Charlie, who came in every week to talk music.

  The ensemble reached her favorite part of the concerto and she rested her head against the wall, shutting her eyes to listen. She didn’t know why she tortured herself this way, hanging out in the music building, but she couldn’t stay away.

  When the ensemble had finished rehearsing, she opened her eyes and noticed a bulletin board on the wall across from her. Unlike the boards where she’d found the poster about Matty’s concert, this one had small typed or handwritten notices: students advertising instruments they wanted to sell. She caught her breath. Standing up, she crossed the hall to scan the notices. There were three violins, none anywhere near the quality of Violet, but there was a Jay Haide for five hundred dollars. More than her car had cost her, but probably in better shape.

  * * *

  She’d gotten in the habit of using Ingrid’s phone on those rare occasions she needed to make a call. It was cheaper, easier, and less disgusting than using a pay phone, but it came with the possibility of Ingrid overhearing the conversation. She could usually wait until Ingrid was working in the garden or taking cookies to the homeless on the beach. This afternoon, though, she was too impatient. She needed to call about that Jay Haide violin before it was snapped up by someone else, and it didn’t matter if Ingrid was in the kitchen or not.

  So Ingrid chopped vegetables to toss in a stockpot while Jade placed the call. The girl—her name was Cara—was a senior, and she told Jade that she was moving up to a nineteenth-century Amati. They made plans to meet in one of the practice rooms at San Diego State the following day. Jade had hoped Cara could meet that evening. She would have turned around and driven all the way back to school if Cara had been free, but she said she had classes and then a date with her boyfriend.

  When Jade hung up the phone, Ingrid handed her a chunk of the celery she was chopping.

  “A violin?” She looked amused, as though she thought Jade had lost her mind.

  “I used to play when I was a kid,” Jade said, “and I kind of miss it.”

  “Cool.” Ingrid scooped the celery pieces into the pot on the stove. “I can’t wait to hear you play.”

  Jade shrugged, as though buying the violin was no big deal. “Oh, well, it’s been years,” she said. Two years, nine months, and about fourteen days, to be exact.

  “Well, good for you for pursuing a passion,” Ingrid said. “Stay for dinner? Turkey soup.”

  Jade shook her head. “Thanks, no. I have homework.” Ingrid was really nice but Jade tried not to spend too much time with her. She no longer worried about being recognized, but she did worry about the police showing up at Ingrid’s door one day, asking questions about her strange tenant.

  She barely slept that night, she was so excited about the violin. The excitement, though, was tempered by thoughts of her father. Never pick up a violin again, Lisa, he’d warned her. He’d be furious if he knew, but she would be very careful. She’d play only in her cottage. She had no reason at all to play anywhere else.

  * * *

  Cara was twenty-one and extraordinarily beautiful. Total California girl, Jade thought. The kind she could picture surfing rather than cooped up in the music building at San Diego State. But Cara was a good violinist, and Jade sat mesmerized as she played the opening section of “Czardas” by Monti. She watched Cara’s tanned and toned bare arms work the bow and her long fingers sail over the strings, and she was unsure whether she was more taken with the violin or the violinist.

  Cara finished playing, then handed the instrument to Jade. Holding a violin beneath her chin for the first time in so long felt like holding a friend she’d thought she’d lost forever. She played some scales and arpeggios to hear the sound and warm up her tense, tight fingers. Then she played a bit of Vivaldi’s Concerto in A Minor, and she didn’t have to work hard at sounding like a novice. It had been so terribly, painfully long.

  She gave Cara five one-hundred-dollar bills, then carried the violin across campus to her car, hugging the case tightly in her arms as if it were a baby.

  * * *

  San Diego was in the midst of the hot, dry Santa Ana winds of autumn, and even though her cottage felt like a sauna, Jade closed all the windows, stood in her living room, and played. Although her left hand and bow hand worked seamlessly together, her fingers felt weak from too much time away, and they moved sluggishly at first. Her control of the bow was imprecise, but none of that mattered. She cried with happiness and sorrow as she played. She’d lost so much. Her home. Her family. Her future. But in her hands she held the one thing with the power to bring her joy, and she played her new best friend until the early hours of the morning.

  28.

  Riley

  I pulled into the circular drive of the oceanfront house in Myrtle Beach and sat there a moment, thinking through what I planned to say to Caterina Thoreau. Caterina—not Steven Davis—had been Lisa’s violin teacher at the time she supposedly killed herself. I’d found her name in several of the newspaper articles my father had saved. She was the only person still alive who’d truly known my sister around the time of her death—if indeed she was dead. I felt a desperate need to talk to someone who had known her well and, I hoped, cared about her.

  Caterina had been remarkably easy to find. Now seventy-six, she’d retired from the National Symphony ten years earlier and moved to South Carolina to be near her daughter. I found her phone number online and told her who I was and that I wanted to talk to her. After expressing her shock at hearing from me, she invited me to her home. I didn’t let the fact that her home was nearly four hours from New Bern stop me. I would do whatever I needed to do to get answers about Lisa.

  The bonus of driving to Myrtle Beach was getting away from the insanity in my house. When I’d first arrived in New Bern, I’d wanted to get the house cleaned out and on the market as soon as possible. Now I wanted to slow everything down, but with Christine and Jeannie on a rampage as they tore through the rooms, I wasn’t sure I could make that happen. I’d told them I was visiting a friend in Virginia and would be home some time this evening. Christine opened her mouth and I was sure she was going to get on my case about my father’s paperwork, but I left the house, shutting the door behind me, before she had a chance to say a word.

  Caterina Thoreau had the front door open by the time I got out of my car. She was dressed in white capris and a frothy blue tunic that matched both the sky and the ocean I could see through the glass wall behind her. She reached her hand toward me with a smile.

  “Lisa’s sister!” she said, physically drawing me into her house with her hand in mine. “I’m so happy to meet you!”

  “You, too,” I said.

  She led me into a high-ceilinged living room and settled me on one of two white sofas while she poured us each a mimosa. Through the glass wall, the ocean seemed close enough to touch.

  “What an awesome view,” I said.

  She nodded, handing me my glass. “I’m very fortunate.” She sat down on the other couch, curling her bare feet beneath her. She was a beautiful woman. Her hair was as white as the sofa, and her blue eyes sparkled in a face that time had treated kindly.

  She took a sip of her mimosa. “I’ve been thinking so much about Lisa and your family ever since your call.” She shook her head sadly. “What a terrible time that was,” she said. “I remember your parents so well. They tried to do everything right with your sister and look what happened. It was all very sad. How old were you when she passed?”

  “Not quite two, so I don’t remember her at all, really,” I said. “I guess I’m talking to people who knew her to try to understand her better.” What I was really doing, I thought, was trying to find out if Lisa was dead or alive.

  “Oh, we all wanted to understand
her better,” she said. “To this day, when I think about her, I shake my head. It’s hard to believe what she did and … how it all turned out.” She smiled sadly at me, holding her glass on her thigh. “How can I help?” she asked. “What would you like to know?”

  “Just anything you can tell me,” I said, hoping she was one of those people who liked to talk. “You probably know my family moved from northern Virginia right after Lisa took her life,” I said, and she nodded.

  “They disappeared,” Caterina said. “No one seemed to know where they went.”

  “They moved to North Carolina,” I said, “and they hid the fact that she’d killed her teacher—Mr. Davis—from my brother and me. We only found out recently when I came across some old newspaper articles.”

  Caterina’s mimosa froze in the air halfway to her lips. “Oh, my,” she said after a moment. “No wonder you’re curious. You need to fill in a lifetime of blanks, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Well.” She leaned forward to set her drink on her glass-topped coffee table. “I only started working with Lisa when she returned from studying with that ‘mystery teacher,’ and—”

  “Mystery teacher?”

  She hesitated. “You wouldn’t know, I guess. Were you even born then? That’s what started everything spinning in the wrong direction, in my opinion.” She put her feet flat on the floor so that she could lean toward me. “First of all,” she said, “I want you to understand that I adored your parents. You had lovely parents. Your mother in particular was a very sweet woman, and I don’t blame either of them for anything that happened. But Lisa did very well with Steve. For heaven’s sake, look at the level he took her to!” She raised her hands in the air. “I first heard about her when she was only eight years old. ‘You must hear this girl!’ people would say. The young stars in the violin world were Asian at that time, so Lisa stood out, especially with that white hair of hers.” She reached for her glass and took a sip of the mimosa. “Steve was extremely proud of her, as well he should have been.” She sat up straight and looked out toward the sea, then gave a little shake of her head as if clearing away a sad memory. “He did have a possessive streak, I guess you could call it. In Lisa’s case, I didn’t blame him. To put years into a student and then to have that student go to some unknown teacher?” She shook her head with a look of disdain. “We all thought your parents had lost their minds.”