Deadly Blessings (13 page)

And then I remembered how much more I
enjoyed those evenings when I’d been up here alone.

“
No,” Dan said, with a bit
of a huff. “It was a brand new building. I saw to the decorating
myself.”

“
Ohhh,” Uncle Moose said,
drawing the word out into two syllables and rolling his eyes at
me.

My beeper went off, forestalling further
comment. Which was good. I sensed, looming, a delicate question,
indelicately put.

The voicemail was from Maria. A Chicago cop
and friend of mine since high school, I’d called her the day before
to put the word out on Matthew’s disappearance, despite Sophie’s
objections. It wasn’t an official missing persons’ report, but I
needed to do something. I listened to her terse message. “Got your
call. I’ll see what I can find out, but I need some information.
Give me a ring. I’ll be here till noon.”

“
Work?” Dan
asked.

“
Kinda,” I lied. With a
smile, I led Uncle Moose to the second bathroom. The one I’d used.
Dan had commandeered the master bath and I made it a point never to
encroach on his territory. It was one of those unwritten rules he
had. Still, even in this bathroom there were a couple of things
that belonged to him. “Pick out all the girly stuff, okay?” I got a
huge kick out of Uncle Moose’s low whistle as he took in the Roman
Bath-themed room.

“
You sure this guy doesn’t
… you know …”

“
What?”

“
Swing both
ways?”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t forget.
Just the girly stuff. But …” I winked at him, “if in doubt whether
the girly stuff’s mine or his, go ahead and take it.”

He nodded, then glanced around to make sure
Dan wasn’t in the immediate area. “I always wondered about that
guy.”

Dan touched my arm as I emerged. He shot a
wary glance toward Uncle Moose and backed away from the room,
pulling me along. “Listen. I think I’m gonna go out for a
while.”

“
Sure. Want me to leave the
keys somewhere?”

“
No. Use them to lock the
deadbolt. I’ll get them from you later. We’re still going to see
each other, right? Occasionally?” He winked.

I knew he meant it to dazzle in that sort-of
“let the poor thing down easy” way. But it did nothing for me.
Nothing. Surprised, and suddenly giddy with that realization, I
grinned back at him. “Sure,” I said.

He chucked me under the chin. “Good. That’s
my girl. Nice to see you smiling again.”

“
Oh, yeah,” I answered, but
my sarcasm was lost on him.

I grabbed one of the boxes I’d brought, and
headed to the bedroom, pulling out my cell phone again. I got Maria
on the first ring. She was rushed so I got straight to the point. I
gave her Matthew’s description and a short synopsis of the events
leading up to his disappearance. Swinging the door till it was
nearly closed as I chatted, I moved to the closet and began pulling
out armloads of clothes.

Maria listened, asking questions at such
intervals that I could tell she was taking notes. “Hey, one other
thing,” I said before we hung up. “These people knew the murdered
girl, Milla Voight. Sophie works at the same place she did. I don’t
know that there’s any connection, but I figure it doesn’t hurt to
mention it.”

Maria’s voice was tight. “You’re right. It
might be important. And I’ll see what I can do. But I gotta go. My
partner’s giving me the evil eye. I’ll touch base later.”

Just as I hit “end,” movement outside the
bedroom door caught my attention. I figured it was Uncle Moose, not
sure what to take, what to leave, and reluctant to interrupt my
call.

Throwing open the door, I looked, but he was
nowhere to be seen. “Uncle Moose?” I asked, heading toward the
central living room. “Oh.”

Dan was pacing the Persian area rug, making
footprints in the deep pile. He looked up at my entrance, with a
question in his eyes.

“
What?” I asked.

“
You’re still on the story,
aren’t you?”

“
What? No.” Then
realization dawned. “You were listening in on my phone call,
weren’t you?”

“
It’s my bedroom. I have a
right to be there.”

“
So you did
listen.”

“
You lied,” he said with an
expression that strove for “hurt” but came off as
“pissed.”

“
I didn’t. I am off the
story.”

“
Then explain that phone
call.”

“
I don’t have to explain a
god damn thing to you.”

We hadn’t shifted positions since the
conversation began. He stood in the middle of his expensive rug. I
was at the entrance to the bedroom corridor. Uncle Moose’s sturdy
frame suddenly appeared in the opposite hallway.

“
Everything okay, honey?”
he asked me.

“
Just ducky,” I said,
staring at Dan.

He looked over to Uncle Moose, licked his
lips, and scooped up his keys from a nearby table, affecting a tiny
swagger. “You know, maybe we won’t be seeing much of each other
after all.”

I felt a bubble of laughter work its way up
my chest. “Well,” I said, in a mock-serious tone, holding back as
long as I could. “I’ll try to control my disappointment.”

The giggles started and I couldn’t stop
them. Not for anything. Not even when he stormed out of the
apartment and slammed the door.

* * * * *

Aunt Lena was there when
we got back, to help me sort and settle in. I whispered a prayer of
thanks that the house was decent. My family and I often joked that
we had to get the house “Auntie Lena Clean, “ before we’d let her
visit. Today, it wasn’t quite up to that standard, but at least it
wasn’t a pig sty.

I didn’t really need the help setting up,
but she enjoyed taking over the motherly role. Both of her kids
lived out of state and since my folks did too, it was a good fit
for both of us. Close, but not too close. Before she left, I gave
her a rundown about my unsuccessful trip to Springfield, knowing
she’d keep that tidbit to herself. A long time ago I’d asked her
about my roots, hoping she knew some of the secrets, hoping she’d
share. But no luck.

I was six when the light had finally dawned
on me that I’d been adopted. It came less of a shock than a feeling
of a cog settling into place. My parents hadn’t been secretive
about the origins of my birth. They told me that I’d been “chosen”
when I was only two days old. But, despite their attempts to be
open, there came the moment when I finally understood what they
meant.

They say that the age of enlightenment is
seven. I don’t subscribe to the Catholic Church teaching that at
age six you can’t sin, but just wait till that
seven-candle-birthday and whammo, you’re in the big leagues. At
seven, you can not only commit venial sins, but mortal sins are now
on your agenda as well. Bunk. We’re all enlightened at different
ages. And though I might have grasped the significance—and had my
eyes opened at age six about my adoption—I’m still yet to be
enlightened on plenty of other topics.

Growing up, I looked more like my best
friend Rene McLaughlin than I did my fair-haired sister. Back then,
I had no clue where babies came from and the fact that I didn’t
resemble my parents, nor Lucy, nor any of my Polish cousins had
never bothered me.

All of a sudden it did.

My mom answered my slew of questions, but
there was much she didn’t know about the woman who’d given birth to
me. All Catholic Charities had said was that my biological parents
were young, unmarried, and at that point, healthy. Nothing
else.

At about age ten I came up with the idea of
searching out my birth parents, spending long nights planning the
new quest. All the Nancy Drew books I was reading at the time
inspired me to find mysteries everywhere, and here was one,
involving me, that I could attempt to solve. I was thrilled.

Bounding into the kitchen one morning full
of excitement, I laid out my strategy to find my birth mother. I
was five minutes into an explanation about how I planned to
accomplish this, before I noticed the look on my mother’s face.

With one of those smiles that can tear your
heart out, she nodded, listening. Standing next to the kitchen
table, the aluminum pot tilted, ready to pour hot Cream of Wheat
into my bowl, a small saucer of brown sugar ready for sprinkling
over it, she bit her lip and smiled. The smile didn’t reach her
eyes, which had taken on a glassy look. A lot like she looked when
my Nana had died, just a couple of months before.

Across from me, her elbows firmly on the
table, Lucy, eager to share my excitement, kept asking me what I
meant. Offering to help, too, with whatever she could do. Neither
my mom nor I answered her, and, after a few moments she stopped
asking, sensing I suppose, the heaviness that had settled in the
air.

I never mentioned finding my birth parents
again.

But I never forgot, either.

Now, by myself, I walked through the house I
grew up in and saw it through new eyes. This was no longer my
parents’ place. This was my house, my home. I was in charge and in
control. For the first time, really, I was alone, too. When I’d
gone to college, I had roommates, and even when I got my first
apartment after I started working full-time, I had to share it to
make ends meet. For a short time I had the place to myself when
Becky moved out to be with her fiancée. But then Dan had suggested
I join him, and that was that.

This was a small house, by any standard. A
tiny cottage, it was sandwiched between a stolid brown Chicago
bungalow and a red brick two-flat on a short city block that
boasted only six homes and a gas station on the corner. The street
outside was fairly busy, and I remembered my mother’s angst any
time we wanted to play out front.

Two bedrooms, mine and Lucy’s, took up the
west side of the home, while the living room, bathroom and kitchen
lined the east. My dad built a third bedroom in the basement for
him and my mom right around when I was eleven.

My parents had taken most of the furniture
to Arkansas and there were big rectangular spaces on the living
room carpet where the deep brown rug was clean and never walked
upon, like ghost images of what had been. It was just as well. I
had money saved from not having to pay rent, and I want to give the
house a bit of a lift, anyway. I preferred light colors and
cheerful décor. My parents had redecorated in the seventies and
hadn’t bothered to change it since.

They’d left the kitchen pretty much as it
was, furniture and all, and my kitchen table wasn’t all that
different from Sophie’s. Formica top, chrome sides, and matching
chairs that squeaked when you sat in them. My dad took it upon
himself to update the set a decade ago, so now all four chairs
sported Naugahyde covers and casters that made you careful about
sitting down too quickly. I went sailing across the floor a couple
of times myself.

Although I’d been sleeping back in my own
room for the past couple of weeks, it looked different to me now,
too. I stood in the doorway, remembering the many years of writing
in my journal, of talking on the phone, of agonizing over how to
rearrange the room so that I maximized its limited space.

Back when I was about twelve, I’d realized
that I could touch two walls from anywhere in the room. Not only
was the square footage so minuscule, but because of built-in
cabinets in the kitchen, a bumped-in pantry on one side, and a
set-back from the hallway door, it was a very odd-shaped room.

It was something I was proud of, in a
strange way. That I could find myself comfortable in such a small
room, that I had the smallest room in the house, by far. As a teen,
I’d covered the walls with white latex, then used masking tape to
delineate the lines for a rainbow of colors I mixed myself. Still
here, cheering up the room with faded versions of color, they made
a complete and active circuit and it made me smile at the memory.
It was dated, but I liked it. And I wouldn’t change it for the
world.

I stood now, in the very center of the room
and touched one wall, then reached to touch another. I grinned with
the light-hearted memory of life being easy. I felt transported
back. I was home again. Some things never changed.

And then the phone rang.

I thought about not answering it, but I
hadn’t hooked up an answering machine yet, and my parents had never
gotten Caller ID.

It rang again, intrusive in its own way.

I sighed and reached for it, thinking it had
better be important to ruin my reverie. Damn important.

It was.

A hysterical Sophie told me in halting,
crying tones, that they’d found Matthew … dead.

Chapter Nine

When I got to her apartment I didn’t
understand why she’d called me. The place was filled to
capacity—milling groups of young women, all busying themselves with
the mundane tasks of cooking, cleaning, and phoning that accompany
a death. Smells of simmering Polish foods: spicy sausages, tangy
kraut, and the tomato sauce of cabbage rolls permeated the small
area. Coffee percolated on the stove.

They looked up at me, as one, when I walked
in the open door. Some faces were vaguely familiar from the salon,
and I smiled at them—hesitant.

When, through hiccupping cries on the phone,
Sophie had said that Matthew had been found, apparently murdered,
the shock hit me first. Then the sorrow. Remembering our
conversation from the other day, I rushed over, not knowing what I
might be able to do for her, but knowing that I had to try.

There must have been at least a dozen people
in the apartment, and in the close quarters, they passed each other
amid bumps and murmured pardons. It was a cacophony of Polish
speech, but the mood was subdued.