An Affair to Dismember (34 page)

“This is like …,” said another, drifting off.

“Like wow.”

“Yeah, wow.”

“Is she really dead?”

“I hope so,” I said. But Jane moaned and stirred, and I knew she was still alive. They carried her to my car and put her in the trunk just as police sirens approached.

“Oh, man, like they know,” said the beer bong guy.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’re coming for me. You did good, real good. You saved my life.”

“Cool.”

“Well, see ya,” said the beer bong guy, and they were off, skating on a cloud through the fog into the deep recesses of the park to smoke another day.

I slumped against the car, sliding down until I landed on the sidewalk, my body leaning up against the back tire. The sirens meant that Grandma had gotten to Burger Boy all right, and that was what I wanted. With Jane in the trunk and Grandma safe and sound, I could rest, I reasoned. I was so cold. I couldn’t understand why it was so cold in August. My eyes drooped closed.

I WAS dancing with Spencer. He had one hand on the small of my back and the other caressed my cheek. “I’m so tired, Spencer,” I told him. “I want to stop dancing now.”

“Not now, honey,” he said, his voice deep, reassuring, and full of caring. It was out of character, and it made me nervous.

“Why are you worried about me?”

“Because you’re dying. But I’m here now. If you open your eyes, I’ll save you.”

I yawned. “I’d like you to save me. I’m tired of saving myself.”

“Sure, Pinkie. Now open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”

“PINKIE, OPEN your goddamned eyes. You’re a royal pain in the ass. You know that? Son of a bitch, if you don’t even try to open your eyes, I’m going to fuckin’ kill you.”

My eyes fluttered open, almost against my will. Spencer was standing over me and yelling obscenities while paramedics stuck tubes in me and wrapped things around my neck and head.

“Geez, you swear a lot,” I said to Spencer.

He smiled from ear to ear. Not a smirk but a true, happy smile. “It’s my second language, Pinkie. I’m bilingual.”

GRANDMA, IT turned out, didn’t have a scratch on her. After calling the police, she had the Burger Boy manager drive her home, and that’s where she stayed. She refused medical care from the paramedics, insisting that only her doctor, old Dr. Goldberg, attend to her. He made a house call, gave her a Xanax, and told her to call him in the morning.

Jane Terns was spending the night and probably the rest of her life in the loony bin. Spencer found her in the trunk around the time I was put in the ambulance. “I did it. I did everything,” she said when he opened the trunk, and she repeated it to whoever would listen.

Betty Terns was questioned, and she revealed that Jane had severe mental problems; she provided medical records to prove it. Jane’s gun was found in the park, and initial tests showed that it was the gun that had been used to kill Chuck Costas. The Ternses’ house was searched, and more letters were found. One letter contained a photo of Lulu’s head Photoshopped onto the body of a young naked woman, with a death threat written underneath in Jane’s handwriting. Apparently, Jane was a good forger. It was clear she had killed them
all: her father, Chuck Costas, and probably Jimmy the Fink, which would be most likely proven as murder after the toxicology report came back.

My disappearance from the ball had been noticed pretty quickly. Bridget told me there’d been a scuffle between Holden and Spencer on my account, but it had been Ruth Fletcher who stopped it and alerted them to the mysterious blond woman who’d given Julie a letter for me. When questioned, Julie had explained that maybe the “old blond woman” she described was around forty years old.

I had a myriad of injuries, but I didn’t need surgery. They shaved a patch of my head in order to give me stitches, and I doubted Bird could do anything to repair the damage to my hairstyle until it grew back. My arm wasn’t broken, but it was dislocated and secured in a sling, tied to me at an angle. I was stuck in my hospital bed for at least three days, according to a very young doctor with a suspect tan. I didn’t care how long I stayed in bed. I could have slept forever, although the atmosphere in the room wasn’t too relaxing. Long after Bridget and Lucy left, Spencer sat in one corner of the room, and Holden sat in another. It didn’t look like either of them had any intention of leaving.

Even though Holden was exonerated, Spencer still treated him like he was going to steal the silver. Or worse. Spencer watched over me like a pit bull terrier, slouched in his chair but jumping with every beep of the machines pumping drugs into my body.

Holden gave me water when I was thirsty and adjusted my pillows when I was uncomfortable. He cooed sweet nothings to me, assured me that my shaved patch of hair wasn’t noticeable, and promised to shave his head to match mine. But I still didn’t know what he did for a living, and I had never been in his house.

“I’ve only known you since Thursday,” I muttered
once while on morphine. Alone in the attic on Thursday, in a hospital room filled with suitors on Tuesday. A fledgling matchmaker consumed with self-doubt on Thursday, a serial-killer chaser with a cracked skull on Tuesday. What a week.

At seven the next morning, Wednesday, a team of doctors came in and spoke about me as if I wasn’t there. Then two nurses kicked everyone out and took over, changing my bed and my bandages. They chatted about murder and showed me the paper. I was on the front page. I had captured a serial killer in Cannes. I had saved lives, risked my own. And I was single and a matchmaker.

“Good advertising,” I mumbled to the nurses. And then, “Are you single?” because I felt I had to.

The nurses told me how reporters wanted to interview me and how Spencer had stopped them. They talked endlessly about the good looks of the men around me. Spencer had the dreamiest eyes. Holden had the sexiest smile. I couldn’t argue.

But I felt diffuse, like someone had let the air out of me, and I couldn’t get excited about anything. Besides, I had a worrisome doubt inside that threatened to worm its way out, a theory that I was pretty sure was right.

After the nurses left, Spencer came back in. Holden had gone to work or garden or some secret activity that I wasn’t allowed to know about. Spencer hadn’t gotten any sleep, but there wasn’t a wrinkle on his suit or a hair out of place.

“How long are you going to babysit me?” I asked Spencer.

He shrugged. “How long are you going to run around investigating mysterious deaths?” he asked.

“I think my running days are over.”

Spencer took off his jacket and stretched his legs out in front of him. His chest was wide, his arms large. He
let his head rest on his hand, and his eyes closed. Asleep, he looked younger. I could picture him playing catch with his father, going to baseball games. Maybe he would want to do that with his own son. He would sit his son on his shoulders, hike, picnic, play catch.
Whoa
. I stopped myself. It was not healthy to imagine Spencer as parental material. He probably never wanted to reproduce, anyway.

I dozed for a while, too, until Spencer’s cellphone rang.

“It’s for you,” he said, passing me the phone.

“Dolly, it’s Grandma. I can see again,” she said.

“That’s great, Grandma. I’m glad you called.”

“I know you are. I thought I would wake you so you wouldn’t be late.”

“Late? Oh, yeah, Randy Terns’ memorial,” I said. “I should go. I need to talk to someone.” I had unfinished business that needed finishing. I had a theory that needed to be proven.

“You might want to get there thirty minutes early,” she said. “If you have a problem with Spencer, tell him to call me.”

Spencer was ornery, but he was no match for Grandma. An hour later, I was in Spencer’s car. I had a three-hour pass from the hospital with strict instructions to stay in a wheelchair and have Spencer wait on me hand and foot.

“I don’t think this is a good idea. Have I told you that?” Spencer said, driving away from the hospital.

“I lost count after the fifteenth time you said it.”

“You have to be very careful with what you say at the memorial,” he said. “In fact, don’t say anything. Don’t get yourself wound up.”

“Spencer, I’m on so much happy juice, it would take a lot of winding to wind me up.”

We arrived thirty minutes early. A hearse was parked
in front of the funeral home, along with a couple of other cars. Spencer sat me in the wheelchair and draped a blanket over my legs, even though it was August and a particularly hot morning. We stayed by Spencer’s car for a moment, looking around and waiting for the sky to fall or missiles to land or whatever else was in store for us. We didn’t have long to wait.

Betty Terns, in her pink polyester suit, stormed out of the funeral home and lit up a cigarette. After a few minutes she must have noticed our reflection in the windows of the hearse, because she flinched and turned slowly toward us. By the time she was facing us she’d regained her composure and her initial surprise had been replaced with a welcoming smile. She inhaled the last of her cigarette and lit a new one with the butt.

“Are you sure about this?” Spencer muttered to me.

I nodded, and he went back to his car. Betty watched him walk away. When he was securely behind the wheel, she turned her attention to me.

“Oh, Gladie. I’m so happy you’re doing well. I can’t tell you how touched I am that you came all the way out here to pay your respects,” she said.

“Touched in the head,” I said under my breath.

She pursed her lips. “I’m sorry about Jane. She’s had trouble since she was a little girl. She used to cut the heads off Barbies, and there was this babysitting incident.”

“But you and Jane have always been real close.”

“She’s my daughter. Of course we’re close.”

“But you were closer to Jane than to the rest of your kids. Peter told me how you and Jane would skulk off to a room and talk, how Jane was a kiss-ass, as Peter put it. Jane felt she needed to protect you. Jane felt responsible for your happiness.”

“She was a responsible child,” Betty said.

“That’s what I thought to begin with,” I said. “I
thought, Here is a crazy woman who has done terrible things in some misguided notion of doing you favors. But maybe it wasn’t a misguided notion. Maybe the notion was given to her, fed to her over her whole life.”

“Are you calling me a monster?”

Yes, I was. I was glad she had caught on to that.

“So you had Jane write the letters,” I said.

“Letters? Why would I do that?”

“You had Jane write threatening letters to Lulu Finkelstein, your husband’s mistress, and threatening letters to your husband.”

Betty squinted, as if she was studying me.

“It’s disrespectful of you to mention her name to me, Gladie. Especially today of all days.”

“I’m sorry, Betty. But you had Jane write her letters.”

She pointed her cigarette at me. “Maybe that whore deserved those letters. Did you ever think of that? Maybe it wasn’t crazy or wrong to send them. Maybe the both of them deserved to be punished for the way they acted.”

Betty’s eyes rolled in their sockets like she was trying to capture thoughts as they swirled in her mind. Her crazy quotient was actively rising. I hoped Spencer was watching and had remembered to bring his gun.

“What Randy and Lulu did was wrong,” I said.

“You bet your ass. So maybe it was right to send the letters, to make the whore run away from Randy as fast as she could and stay away, to make Randy focus on me, his wife, the one he should have been loyal to. So maybe those letters were a good thing.”