From Cradle to Grave (13 page)

Morgan shook her head sadly. ‘This is such a nightmare,’ she said.

‘Yes. Well . . .’ Astrid lifted the box from the counter, and then walked past Morgan into the dining room where she picked up the garment bag and slung it over her arm. ‘We must face it . . .’ she said.

‘Do you need help with that?’ Morgan asked.

Astrid shook her head. ‘No. It’s under control.’

Morgan went with her to the front door and opened it for her. Astrid walked out on to the front step and looked over at the car where her husband waited. Dick sat there looking dazed, and made no move to get out of the car.

‘I can open the trunk for you,’ Morgan offered.

Astrid lifted her chin. ‘I can manage,’ she said. ‘I have to.’

FIFTEEN

T
he tiny white church, so recently the site of Drew’s christening, was overflowing with mourners, who were lined up out the door and down the sidewalk. Morgan, waiting in line, was grateful that the weather was cooperating, not dumping rain on the assemblage. The first person Morgan saw when she finally entered the church was Fitz, standing among the other dark-suited pallbearers at the back, looking uncharacteristically grim. Morgan tried to remain inconspicuous in the line which snaked down the side aisle of the church, hoping he would not notice her.

The people waiting to file past the open coffins at the front of the church inched along. As she edged forward Morgan had plenty of time to observe the church and the crowd. The altar and the two coffins were banked with a profusion of elaborate, stiff-looking flower arrangements. The members of the Bolton family formed a receiving line beside the coffins. All except Eden. Though Morgan scanned the church as she moved slowly toward the front, she saw no sign of Guy’s daughter. Dick, his normally tanned complexion now pasty white, stood stoically beside Astrid, who leaned against him, weeping into a crumpled hanky. Lucy, who flanked her father on the other side, was dry-eyed and wearing an ill-fitting black pantsuit and a turtleneck with Dalmatians on it. Father Lawrence waited, almost out of sight, near the altar, talking quietly with various mourners who approached him.

As those who had come to pay their respects passed by the coffins, the sight of Guy’s body seemed to cause weeping and head-shaking, but the sight of the tiny baby, Drew, in his christening dress, resting on satin in the miniature coffin, provoked wails and despair. Despite the coolness of the day, it was warm in the tiny church, and Morgan felt almost overcome by the raw emotion surging through the crowd, the cloying perfume of the flowers, and her dread of approaching the open caskets. Why did they have to leave them open, she thought? Wasn’t this whole thing awful enough without having to view the embalmed bodies?

The sound of raised voices at the back of the church caused Morgan to turn around. Eden had arrived, dressed in her black leather jacket and jeans, and looking as if she had rolled in the dust. She and Fitz seemed to be having an angry discussion. Eden was agitated and wild-eyed, while Fitz spoke quietly to her. Morgan could not make out the words for the cries of the mourners and the lugubrious music of the organ. Eden started to march defiantly down the center aisle of the church, but Fitz caught her by the arm and held her back.

Eden protested and shook off his grip, scowling at Fitz like an angry child, while Fitz continued to murmur in her ear, pointing to the Bolton family and explaining something to her as she shook her head and clenched her jaw.

Suddenly the woman behind her poked Morgan in the ribs. ‘Go on,’ the woman hissed. It was Morgan’s turn. Startled, Morgan lurched forward on wobbly legs, and hesitantly approached her godson’s bier. Looking at his small, round face, she found herself remembering a long-forgotten religious teaching that newborns were free from sin and welcomed into heaven. Despite her lack of faith, Morgan found the thought strangely comforting. Tears began to run down her face, and she did not bother to wipe them away. She remembered plans she had secretly made for this baby – that she would take him to the monkey house at the zoo, and ice skating at Rockefeller Center for Christmas, and ball games at Shea Stadium when he got older. She would be Aunt Morgan, and he would look forward to her visits, maybe even think she was a cool godmother. Morgan kissed her own fingertips and placed them briefly on the baby’s cold, plump cheek. ‘Goodbye my angel,’ she whispered. She couldn’t bear to gaze for long at the baby. She noted that there was a white prayer book with a gold cross in the corner of the coffin, and a stuffed brown bear which Claire had kept in Drew’s bassinet. Even if she had wanted to, it was impossible to linger, given the press of the crowd behind her, and Morgan moved on.

Weeping freely, she approached Guy’s coffin. He had been dressed in a dark suit and tie, his face still handsome, even in death. Morgan had learned things about him in these last few days which had made her wonder what kind of man he really was. Not a saint, or a superhero. Only human, she reminded herself. Gazing at him now, all she wanted to remember was Guy, Claire’s husband, who was exuberant and made her laugh. Who loved her best friend to distraction. His chef’s toque, his red sash, and the block of carving knives he had received as a parting gift from his master chef in Lyon were placed beside him in his coffin. Morgan thought about Astrid, collecting a box of belongings from the house yesterday, creating her tribute to Guy and his baby son. She had given thought to the dead, and gathered up material things that had mattered in life to place beside them. Propped up against the open lid of the coffin was a heart of white roses crossed by a ribbon, which read, ‘Beloved Son’.

Morgan reached out and touched Guy’s cold hand gently. As she passed the family, Morgan murmured her regrets with a lowered gaze. Then she turned and stumbled up the aisle toward the first seat she could find.

‘Morgan,’ she heard someone hiss. She looked around, through her tears, and saw Sandy Raymond gesturing to her to come and sit beside him and Farah. Gratefully, Morgan dropped down into the corner of the pew which Sandy had vacated for her. Farah, chic in a black designer minidress with jet beads, and a black spotted veil, smiled brightly at Morgan. Sandy, who was wearing a denim work shirt under his blazer and running shoes on his feet, reached out and patted her forearm.

‘This is a freak show. Can’t believe they have open caskets,’ Sandy whispered in his gravelly voice.

Morgan wiped her eyes and murmured some non-committal reply. The sight of those two bodies in repose had shaken her more than she thought possible. They were both so young. They were in the early days and years of their lives. Now over. Finished. Morgan could not force her mind to contemplate it for long. She wished she could just close her eyes and drift away from here, and forget about the grief that was weighing on her heart.

Just then, a loud, anxious murmur raced through the church, and everyone seemed to turn at once, galvanized by the sight of the group which had appeared at the back.

Plain-clothes officers in dark glasses and uniformed guards surrounded their prisoner. Claire, her cheeks and eyes sunken, her skin gray, and her hair barely combed, walked with manacled hands, wearing the black skirt and sweater which Morgan had brought to the county jail. Her eyes dry, Claire stared up the center aisle at Guy and Drew’s coffins. One of the officers held her arm as another, looking in every direction for trouble, led the police procession toward the open biers. A gasp arose from the assembled mourners.

‘Claire,’ Morgan whispered and she rose to her feet just as Claire passed by the pew. She reached out a hand toward her friend.

‘Sit down,’ growled the uniformed officer who was clearing the aisle. He glowered at her, and Morgan quickly resumed her seat. Claire did not look at Morgan, but kept walking, her eyes wide and focused on the caskets.

Morgan looked up at where the family stood at the front of the church. Lucy and Astrid seemed shocked by the sight of Claire. But Dick Bolton, who had been visibly sagging, suddenly straightened, and his tranquilized gaze popped, as if he had been given a jolt of caffeine. He stuck out his jaw like a bulldog and began to shake his head, as if he was not going to be able to restrain himself. Morgan thought she could actually hear him growling. He took a step toward Claire. One of the plain-clothes officers walked quickly to him and spoke to him in low, sympathetic tones. Claire paid no attention.

The line of mourners was held back by another officer as Claire was allowed to approach the caskets. Claire held up her manacled hands to the guards, a questioning look on her face, but the guards roughly shook their heads. Removing her handcuffs was clearly not possible. Claire’s shoulders slumped in obedience.

Morgan felt her heart breaking as she watched her friend’s profile. Claire bent her head over the casket of her baby son and stared, dry-eyed, at the tiny, waxen face. Her eyes widened, but otherwise she betrayed no expression.

Cry, Morgan thought. Let it out, Claire.

All through the church, Morgan could hear the loud murmurs of disapproval, disbelief. Claire raised her manacled hands and pointed to her baby’s fingers. The guard hesitated, and then nodded briefly. Moving her linked hands as one, Claire reached out and put her index finger on Drew’s tiny hand. Her eyes closed, and her body was shaking from head to toe.

‘OK,’ said the guard gruffly, signaling that she had to move on.

Without looking at him, Claire obeyed. She edged over to Guy’s coffin and tilted her head to look at her husband’s face. Her gaze remained impassive, still as death itself. Once again she lifted her manacled hands in supplication. Once again the guard nodded assent.

Slowly, Claire lifted her hands up over the edge of the coffin. She put her fingers up to Guy’s cold face. She studied his still features as if she was searching them for some answer. Some explanation that he would now take to his grave. She whispered something, her lips moving feverishly.

Dick Bolton’s voice cut through the shocked hush in the church. ‘Keep your filthy hands off them,’ he thundered. This, Morgan thought, with a sickening certainty, was the moment he had been waiting for, the reason he had agreed to allow Claire to come. His chance to rage at Claire, excoriate her, was now at hand. He did not miss it. ‘How can you even look at them? Those two good, innocent souls. They never hurt you. They thought you loved them. You will burn in hell for what you’ve done. After you’ve spent the rest of your miserable life in prison, that is.’

‘What a bastard,’ Sandy murmured. ‘Can’t he see the state she’s in?’

‘I was afraid of this,’ said Morgan.

‘All right, all right,’ said the guard. ‘Take it easy now. Everyone take it easy.’

Claire blinked several times, but she did not look at Dick.

The guard spoke in a low voice to Claire. ‘Come on, now. That’s enough.’

Claire nodded, although her gaze was glued to her dead husband’s frozen features.

Then, before anyone could realize what she was about to do, much less stop her, Claire leaned forward. With her shackled hands she reached for the block of knives which had been tucked into the coffin, deliberately grasping the largest handle and jerking it from its resting place.

Sandy jumped to his feet. ‘Claire, don’t,’ he cried.

‘What’s she doing?’ Morgan demanded.

‘Hey stop that,’ the guard insisted. But he was too late.

It all happened in a moment. As the guard lunged for her, and the seated mourners in the church rose to their feet, crying out, Claire closed her eyes, lifted the knife and plunged it into her own chest. Morgan, paralysed with horror, watched helplessly as Claire slumped forward, a gush of her blood soaking into the satin lining of the coffin, as she fell across her husband’s lifeless body.

SIXTEEN

T
he guards from the county jail did not wait for an ambulance. They lifted Claire’s limp body themselves, and, yelling at the hysterical crowds to part, rushed her down the aisle, and out to the waiting van which was idling at the curb, waiting for the prisoner’s return.

Pandemonium broke out among the mourners, and Father Lawrence got up into the pulpit and pleaded for calm.

Sandy set his jaw. He grabbed Farah by the hand. ‘Come on. We have to get out of here.’

‘They haven’t even started the service,’ Farah protested.

‘The hell with the service. Come.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘You coming?’

Morgan nodded and followed him out into the center aisle which was swamped with people talking loudly, weeping, and crying out. Sandy bulled his way through the crowds and Morgan managed to follow in his wake. Once they reached the sidewalk, Farah dug in her stiletto heels, shaking her head. ‘What is that woman’s problem?’ Farah said. ‘She’ll do anything to draw attention to herself.’

‘We have to get to the hospital,’ Sandy said evenly.

‘I don’t want to go. I hate hospitals.’

Sandy looked taken aback at her resistance. ‘You won’t go with me?’

Farah shrugged. ‘Look, she did a terrible thing to her husband and that little baby. I don’t even see why you would want to go.’

Morgan wasn’t about to wait out their quarrel. ‘Well, I’m going. I’ve got my own car,’ she said.

Sandy’s gaze was locked with Farah’s. Neither one looked as if they wanted to give way in the argument. Morgan turned her back on them both and headed for her car.

Briarwood Hospital had not been able to give Morgan any patient information. Morgan asked to be connected to the Emergency Room as she drove with one hand and tried to talk on the phone. She wondered if perhaps Claire had been taken right back to prison, to the infirmary there. She didn’t know whether to continue on to the hospital or head directly to the county jail. As she was pondering these unappealing options, a woman’s voice answered. ‘Briarwood ER.’

Morgan heaved a sigh of relief and asked about Claire.

The woman on the other end did not hesitate. ‘She’s in surgery.’

‘How is she? What kind of surgery . . .?’

‘I can’t tell you anything,’ said the receptionist.

‘But she’s my best friend,’ Morgan pleaded.

‘The privacy laws are very strict,’ said the receptionist. Then she hung up. Morgan slipped her phone in her bag, and made the next left turn. She still remembered, from the days surrounding Drew’s birth, the way to the hospital.

It took her a while to find the waiting room for the surgical theater, but she finally found the correct hallway. She instantly knew she was in the right place when she spotted the guards in uniform who were milling around outside the closed double doors. Morgan took a seat and waited. The guards glanced at her and then looked away. After a while, a woman garbed and masked in blue, blood-spattered scrubs, emerged from the operating room. Morgan jumped up and tried to inquire, but the woman held up a hand to silence her and kept walking, hurrying away on quiet, crêpe-soled shoes. The guards looked curiously at Morgan but made no effort to speak to her. Morgan was the only person waiting for news of Claire. Obviously, Farah had won the argument with Sandy, Morgan thought. The fact that no one else seemed to care whether Claire lived or died made the whole situation seem even more tragic. Morgan put her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. Please God, she thought, don’t let her die in there.

After what seemed like an hour, a man in scrubs emerged from the operating room, pulled off his mask and gloves and nodded to the guards, speaking to them in a low voice. He seemed to be answering their questions but Morgan could not hear what they were saying.

When the man, whom Morgan presumed to be a surgeon, left the guards, she summoned all her courage and approached him. ‘Excuse me, doctor,’ she said.

The man slowed down and looked at her impassively.

‘I’m . . . Claire is my best friend. Is she alive? Is she . . .?’ Morgan felt tears welling in her eyes.

The doctor hesitated, and then he nodded. ‘She’s alive. But she’s critical. She tore herself up pretty well. The next forty-eight hours will determine the outcome.’

‘Are they going to take her back to the prison?’

‘No,’ he scoffed. ‘They can’t care for her there. She’s on a ventilator. She’ll stay here.’

‘Thank you,’ said Morgan. ‘Thank you for saving her.’

The doctor nodded and walked away. Morgan sank back down on the chair, and took a deep breath and whispered a prayer of thanks to the God she often doubted. Claire was still alive. People always said that where there was life, there was hope. So, she would keep hoping. After a minute’s relief, Morgan realized how hungry and exhausted she was. Forty-eight hours. There was nothing to do now but wait. She decided to get herself some coffee and a bite of something to eat. As much as anything else, she wanted a change of scene. She got up from the chair where she had sat for so long, and made her way to the elevator and the cafeteria on the ground floor.

Numbly, she went through the cafeteria line, took a cup of coffee and a roll and found a table in the corner with her back to the door. As she was stirring some milk into her cup, Father Lawrence, in his black suit and collar, walked up to her table and pulled out the chair across from her. ‘May I?’ he asked.

Morgan nodded. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Is the funeral over?’

Father Lawrence nodded. ‘Somehow, we got through it.’ He took a seat and looked at her sadly through his steel-rimmed glasses. ‘How is Claire doing?’ he asked.

Morgan sighed. ‘She came through the surgery. But she’s in critical condition.’

‘I’m glad to hear that she survived the surgery,’ said the minister.

‘That’s nice of you to say,’ said Morgan.

‘I mean it. Are you all alone here?’ he asked.

Morgan tried to smile. ‘Just me and the prison guards.’

Father Lawrence shook his head. ‘I don’t understand why she did this . . .’

‘Well, it was horrible for
me
to see Guy and the baby like that. Imagine what it was like for her,’ said Morgan.

Father Lawrence shook his head. ‘I spent some time with her at the prison yesterday.’

‘They told me that she had a visitor. Was that you?’

Father Lawrence nodded.

‘What did she say?’

Father Lawrence folded his hands on the Formica tabletop. ‘I urged her to confess. To seek absolution. I told her that God would forgive her anything, if she was truly repentant.’

‘So did she do that? Confess?’ said Morgan, taking a sip of her coffee.

Father Lawrence frowned.

Morgan waved a hand. ‘Never mind. I know you can’t talk about that. Even I know that a confession to the clergy is sacrosanct.’

‘No, that’s just it,’ said Father Lawrence. ‘There was no confession.’

Morgan looked up at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She said that she was beginning to think that she did not kill them.’

Morgan’s heart thudded. ‘What?’ she said.

‘She told me that all she could remember now was waking up and finding the baby in the bathtub.’

Morgan peered at him, as if he were speaking a language she could barely understand. ‘But she told me that she did it. She described the whole thing to me. Why in the world would she say that if it wasn’t true?’

Father Lawrence shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘She confessed to the police. You don’t just admit to a murder you didn’t do . . .’

‘Well,’ said Father Lawrence with a sigh, ‘I’m afraid that she may be starting to deny the truth to herself. It’s all too overwhelming. And then today . . .’

Morgan’s gaze was on the priest, but her mind was beginning to race. ‘Or . . .’

‘Or what?’ he asked.

‘Or maybe she’s finally realized the truth. That she didn’t do it.’

Father Lawrence looked at her balefully. ‘Now, Morgan. There’s nothing to be gained by clinging to a false hope.’

‘You don’t know her, Father,’ Morgan pleaded. ‘Not like I do. It’s never seemed possible to me.’

Father Lawrence’s eyebrows were knit together in consternation over the steel rims of his glasses. ‘Morgan, the police knew that Claire was guilty before they even started to question her.’

Morgan stared at him. ‘How could they know that?’

‘Apparently,’ said the cleric with a sigh, ‘Guy was found alive. He implicated her before he died.’

‘NO,’ Morgan cried out. The other diners in the hospital cafeteria looked around at her in alarm. Morgan lowered her voice. ‘That’s impossible. Claire told me that he was dead.’

‘She also told you that she killed him. Which is true?’

‘No,’ said Morgan. ‘She couldn’t have mistaken that . . .’

‘Claire is not a doctor,’ the clergyman reminded her. ‘She might have assumed he was dead, when, in fact, he wasn’t.’

‘Who said that he was still alive?’ Morgan demanded. ‘Who told her that? Who said he implicated her?’

‘The detectives who were interrogating Claire told her that Guy explicitly accused her before he died.’

‘I never heard anything about that,’ Morgan protested.

Father Lawrence dismissed her protest with a wave of the hand. ‘Well, he did. And, Claire is doing herself no favors by denying this now. When a man names his killer with his last breath, there isn’t anyone who would doubt it . . .’

‘No, I know that,’ Morgan admitted. Her mind was racing.

‘This is something we just have to accept . . .’

Morgan was silent for a moment. ‘What if he didn’t?’ she said. ‘What if he
was
dead, and he
didn’t
implicate her. What if they only said he did?’

Father Lawrence frowned. ‘Oh come now, Morgan. You can’t believe that. The police have no reason to lie about it.’

Morgan was not listening to the clergyman’s words. ‘I guess it would be easy enough to find out,’ she mused aloud.

Father Lawrence grasped Morgan’s forearm and leaned toward her. ‘Morgan, stop this. Claire has a chance to make peace with her God, and with her fellow man. She was in a very disturbed state of mind, and people will understand that. God will understand that. But she has to heed her conscience. Denying that it ever took place is not the answer. As her friend, Morgan, you have to encourage her to take responsibility for her actions.’

Morgan nodded automatically, as if she were agreeing, but her mind was elsewhere, nurturing a glimmer of hope, and impervious to every word he said.