Blood Red (17 page)

“No way!” Rowan would shout on cue as a child, as Noreen just rolled her eyes.

“My ride is here,” Sabrina blurts into the phone. “I've gotta go!”

“Wait! Is your mom home?”

“She went to church but it must be over by now. Call her cell.”

“I tried. She didn't—­”

“I have to go. See you, Aunt Ro.”

“Bye, sweetie,” Rowan says to the dial tone.

She can see Jake and Mick through the window. They appear to be arguing again, both gesturing wildly at a tangled light string on the ground.

She sighs, wishing Braden were here. Her even-­tempered firstborn has always been the buffer between frustrated Jake and hotheaded Mick.

Aware that either her husband or son might come stomping into the house any second, Rowan quickly dials Noreen's cell again.

The phone rings several times and then goes into voice mail.

Maybe she put it on silent mode during Mass and forgot to turn on the volume afterward. But even if she did that, she'd probably have it on vibration mode.

Maybe she doesn't want to talk to you.

But why wouldn't she?

She doesn't know why I'm calling.

Or does she?

Frustrated, Rowan hangs up without leaving yet another message. She doesn't want to text or e-­mail her. Putting it into writing would mean risking that somebody else might see it and ask questions.

The house is quiet, other than the occasional jingle from Doofus's dog tags as he changes nap positions in the next room. Outside, the rain has stopped, though the wind continues to blow.

She turns her attention to her laptop. Opening a search engine, she types
Vanessa Walker
.

As before, the results are inconclusive. Nothing that pops up matches what she knows about Rick's wife; not even when she adds the word
death
, or Rick's name to the search. But when she throws in New Jersey—­bingo. Among the results, she finds an obituary whose accompanying photo shows a vaguely familiar face.

The woman's name is Vanessa, but her last name isn't Walker. It's De Forrest.

That's right, Rowan remembers now. Rick's wife had kept her maiden name—­or was it her name from her first marriage? She can't recall which it was, only that it bothered him that she wouldn't take his last name. He mentioned that once, adding that Jake must be glad she'd done that when they got married.

“I'm sure he'd have been okay either way,” she said. “It was my decision.”

“
Everything
is Vanessa's decision,” he replied darkly—­indicating, perhaps, that the marriage was in trouble very early on.

Rowan glances out the window. She can see Jake and Mick out by the boxwood clump near the lamppost, still trying to untangle the first string of lights. Assured that she has the house to herself awhile longer, she reads on.

Rick isn't mentioned in the obituary; nor is the first husband. Only the names of her four children, a brother, and her mother, all of whom survive her, and her father, who does not. Basic details about her life are listed: birth date and place, graduation, job. The exact cause of death is absent, but that's often the case in obituaries. Sometimes there's a mention of a battle with a long illness, but not in this case. Sometimes, too, the family requests memorial contributions to a specific charity, which can sometimes serve as a clue. Again, there's nothing like that here.

How did Vanessa die?

Rowan combs the article again, searching for some detail she might have missed.

She finds one almost immediately, and can't believe she overlooked it the first time.

It doesn't reveal how Vanessa died, but it reveals when: last year—­on November 30.

 

From the
Mundy's Landing Tribune

Weather

December 8, 2015

Forecast

Today: Mostly pleasant with bright sunshine. Light and variable wind SSE at 7 to 10 mph. High: 42 F.

Tonight: Increasing cloudiness with temperatures falling below freezing. Low: mid–20s F.

Tomorrow: Mostly cloudy with snow squalls developing by late morning. Chance of snow 80 percent. Northwest wind at 8–13 mph with gusts to 30 mph. Accumulation 1–2 inches before tapering off in early evening. High: high 20s F. Low: mid 20s F.

A look ahead: Winter storm developing over the High Plains may bring widespread heavy snow to the region Friday into Saturday.

 

Chapter 9

B
eyond the window, the world is dark except for swirling snow in a street lamp's glow. Dawn is still a few hours off, but Casey was prodded awake by a restless ache that hasn't subsided the way it usually does after a successful conquest. If anything, it's more persistent than ever.

You can't surrender to it. You have to focus on other things: stay busy, stay strong.

Focus . . . focus . . . focus . . .

Where are my glasses?

Ah, there, next to the television. It's on, tuned to the Weather Channel as always. There's a blizzard brewing out West, but it's too soon to tell the impact or even the path. Something to keep in mind, though. A significant storm could change everything.

Humming softly, Casey puts on the glasses and picks up the antique leather strop that came with the barber's razor purchased last summer.

The idea to swap a modern blade for an antique one had been inspired by a visit to the Mundy's Landing Historical Society.

Just such a blade had been a prominent part of the special exhibit celebrating the Sleeping Beauty murders. Some, including local hypocrites who laugh all the way to the bank, might argue that
celebrate
is the wrong word. But even they can't ignore that the annual festival incites a carnival atmosphere. Last year, a vendor was selling T-­shirts imprinted with the word
Mundypalooza
and an illustration of the suspected murder weapon: a folding blade like the one on exhibit and the one Casey purchased at a nearby flea market.

I wouldn't buy a tacky T-­shirt, though. That's for damned sure. Some ­people just don't know where to draw the line.

Casey is pleased to discover that the strop works equally well to sharpen scissors. Several pulls on one blade, several pulls on the other, and the pair is good as new.

Casey places it beside the waiting scrapbook on the table and stands holding the strop, thoughtfully stroking the length of it as if caressing the long hair of a loved one.

Julia Sexton was supposed to be the last stand-­in.

But it doesn't hurt to be prepared, just in case . . .

Casey stands and walks over to the kitchenette, where the straight razor still sits in the drying rack.

It was gratifying, yesterday, to watch blood that had dried an ugly shade of brown become vivid red again as it ran into the white porcelain sink, though it gradually diluted to a watery pink. After the last drop had swirled down the drain, Casey filled the sink with steaming bleach water and soaked the razor for a while, obliterating every trace of blood and human DNA.

Now it's ready to go again. All it needs is the painstakingly sharpened edge that offers not the slightest bit of resistance, cutting through skin and tendons and muscle like gossamer strands of hair.

M
arching her fourth-­graders through the quiet halls of the elementary school on Monday morning, Rowan punctuates yet another shush with the phrase she wearily uses all day, every day: ­“People, please!”

Wriggly and chatty thanks to the season's first snowfall and a rousing game of crab walk soccer in gym class, all but a few perpetually obedient kids ignore her.

Most of the doors that line the corridor are propped open, thanks to the school's ancient boilers necessarily transforming some classrooms into saunas in order to keep others from becoming walk-­in freezers. The issue dates back to Rowan's childhood. How well she remembers being held captive at her desk, distracted by her more fortunate schoolmates who had been temporarily sprung from their own stuffy classrooms. Her own fourth-­grade teacher, Mrs. Duncan, would relish the irony that she's become the person wearily dishing out the ­
people, please
s.

“Ms. Mundy, Billy touched me again,” Amanda Hicks whines as they enter the stairwell, where their echoes bounce off beige tile.

“It was an accident! I couldn't help it.”

“Billy, please keep your hands to yourself,” she says wearily, biting her tongue to keep from calling Amanda a tattletale.

“But she stopped walking on purpose so that I would crash into her!”

Rowan doesn't doubt it, but she didn't witness the incident and she ignores the accusation. Any reprimand to Amanda would guarantee another phone call from her mother, and one conversation with Bari Hicks is more than enough in one day. While the class was in the gym, she spent fifteen minutes on the phone explaining the logistics of this week's field trip to the local historical society, which Bari's chaperoning.

She doesn't see why she has to ride the bus over with the group, because buses are loud and bouncy and make her queasy.

“We need to have a certain number of chaperones on the bus with the kids,” Rowan explained. “I counted you into that equation.”

“I can take Amanda in my car, and a few of her friends. They'll be much more comfortable. I have plenty of room.” Her car is a luxury SUV that seats eight, but Amanda only has two friends to speak of, both of whom are her neighbors in Mundy Estates.

“The district doesn't allow that. I can try to find someone else to chaperone if you're—­”

“No, no, I'll do it. But I wish you had told me I had to ride the bus in the first place.”

Ordinarily, Rowan would muster infinite patience, but this morning, overtired and preoccupied, it was all she could do not to snap at the woman that any idiot with half a brain knows that chaperoning a field trip means traveling
with
the kids.

But somehow, I managed to keep my cool. Now all I have to do is try not to explode—­or fall asleep—­for the rest of the day.

She'd lain awake nearly all night wondering what happened to Vanessa De Forrest last November thirtieth.

Several times yesterday, she almost called Rick to ask how Vanessa had died. But she couldn't. She was afraid to do that, afraid of him.

She wants to believe the date is a mere coincidence, and might have convinced herself of it if she hadn't received the package last Monday.

Who, besides Rick, would have reason to force her to open that ominous door to the past?

Jake?

Rowan refuses to let her mind venture very far in that direction.

She's never felt so alone in her life.

You can't talk to Jake, you can't talk to Rick, you can't talk to the police . . .

You can talk to Noreen if she ever calls you back . . .

But now that Rowan knows about Vanessa, that no longer seems vital.

Her head is spinning with possibilities at this point, and only one thing is certain: she has to protect her secret, at least until she finds out who is threatening her with it.

They've reached the second floor of the school, filing down another hallway lined with drying snow boots, closed lockers, and open classrooms.

­“People, please. Others are trying to work.”

“Hey, Ms. Mundy,” someone calls, “what's that?”

“What's what?” she asks before catching sight of the small red and green gift bag hanging from the doorknob of her classroom.

The students swoop in like tag sale early birds on a crate of Depression glass.

“It's a present!”

“Who's it for?”

“Let me see!”

“Stop pushing!”

Some days, it doesn't take much to turn a group of fourth-­graders into tiny kids. This is one of them.

Amanda viciously wrangles the bag from someone's grasp and bestows it with a beatific smile more befitting gift giver than gift snatcher. “Ms. Mundy, it's for you.”

Wary, Rowan takes the bag. The tag dangling from a rope handle bears her full name, printed in well-­defined, evenly spaced, perfectly straight or rounded letters. The printing style is distinctive among elementary school teachers. Early this morning, she left a similarly addressed gift box on the table in the deserted teacher's lounge for the library aide.

The principal's secretary wandered in and spotted her leaving the bag. “Let me guess. Secret Santa?”

“Ho ho ho.”

“ 'Tis the season,” the secretary responded with a grin. She was wearing a jingle bell around her neck on a red silk cord and mentioned that it had been left by her own Secret Santa, tied to the Reserved sign in front of her numbered spot in the employee parking lot.

Yes. 'Tis the season. Ordinarily, Rowan wouldn't bat an eye at an anonymous gift, but this year things are different. Yes, she's fairly certain the package contains her Secret Santa's Monday offering, but she can't entirely erase the nagging doubt from her mind.

“Aren't you going to open your present?”

“Not right now.”

“But don't you want to see what it is?”

“Not right now,” she repeats to whichever of the girls is asking the question. For a change, it isn't Amanda.

“Wow, what a Grinch.” This time, it is Amanda, and while the word
Grinch
is innocuous in the grand scheme of things a fourth-­grader can call a teacher, it throws Rowan right back to the snow day again.

This is ridiculous. It's consuming her life, and it has to stop.

You have to confront Rick. Better him than Jake.

For now, she stashes the gift bag in a desk drawer where it won't distract the class—­or her.

B
ob Belinke should have been taxiing down a runway hours ago. Instead, he's in a taxi at the airport and heading in the wrong direction.

As much as he loves the Manhattan skyline looming in the gray shroud beyond the cab's furiously swiping windshield wipers, he'd prefer to be headed home to the tropical sun. He's chilled to the bone and his skin is leathery after alternate blasts of wet cold wind and dry overheated air.

He spent enough years working in aviation to have anticipated travel complications when he heard the snowy forecast last night. Strong wind and an inch or two of snow are more than sufficient to snarl air traffic at JFK, but he was hoping for a mere delay. Unfortunately, the inbound flight he was supposed to board was diverted by a mechanical problem. Rather than hang around the airport all day hoping to squeeze onto another flight with connections amid residual delays, he opted to rebook for tomorrow morning.

Maybe it's just as well.

Now I can call Rick and make sure he's okay.

He's been concerned about his old friend ever since they parted ways yesterday afternoon.

“You've got to let go of the guilt,” Bob told him on the street outside the restaurant. “It's going to eat you alive. What happened to Vanessa wasn't your fault.”

“How do you know that?” Rick snapped. “You don't, okay? You only know what I've told you.”

Bob was taken aback. It took him a moment to figure out what to say to that. “It's time for you to start healing. Don't isolate yourself in this. You still have friends, and you still have a family, too, for that matter. Talk to them.”

“Everyone has moved on. No one wants to hear from me.”

“You don't think your kids would want—­”

“Come on, Bob, you might not be a dad, but you were a stepdad, and you were once a kid yourself. You really think that after all that's happened these guys will welcome the old man barging in for a good old-­fashioned heart-­to-­heart? They've picked up the pieces and moved on, and they're busy with lives of their own. Vanessa's kids have jobs, and my kids are in the middle of finals, and none of them want to hear from me right now.”

“They might surprise you. But I'm here for you if you want to keep talking. I don't have to be anywhere this afternoon.”

“I do.”

Bob refrained from asking where; refrained from saying anything more than “Call me if you need me. Anytime.”

Rick said that he would, but he won't.

That's okay
, Bob thinks as the cab enters the Manhattan-­bound lanes on the Van Wyck Expressway.
I'll call him, as soon as I get back to the hotel.

A
fter getting the kids off to school early this morning, Noreen crawled back into bed. She meant to snooze for another fifteen minutes, but fell asleep for a ­couple of hours. Now she wakes up to the sound of the housekeeper vacuuming down the hall and is glad she's in the master bedroom this morning. Otherwise, if Kevin were home, Luz might have found her in the guest room down the hall, where she's been spending some nights lately.

If the housekeeper is aware that Noreen's perfect life has fallen apart, she hasn't mentioned it. Still, she must have noticed someone's been sleeping in the guest suite whenever Kevin isn't doing an overnight shift at the hospital. Noreen is always careful to remake the guest bed when she gets up in the morning, but she can never get the coverlet to lie as smoothly as Luz does. When she slips back in at night, she often finds that the sheets have been changed.

Luz is discreet. Good for her.

It's more than Noreen can say for Kevin.

He didn't come home last night, and she's pretty sure he wasn't at the hospital. Maybe he'd stayed at his new apartment, since he started paying rent on the first of the month—­though she doubts that, as it's still purportedly unfurnished. He said he doesn't want to fill it with “just any old furniture” and intends to pillage the house for pieces as soon as the kids are informed of the impending separation.

But Noreen isn't stupid. She's certain he's found a soft landing spot somewhere.

At least his absence spared her another long night on the mattress in the guest room. It's a perfectly decent mattress. But it cost significantly less than the five-­figure premium king-­sized one in the master suite.

“You can sleep here too,” Kevin says whenever he's home overnight. “I don't mind.”

That makes her want to scream,
Well, I do! I mind! I mind!
but of course she never does.