Goodnight Nobody (32 page)

"As long as she doesn't start talking about her nipples, I'm good. Go," said Janie, and shooed me toward the stairs.

Five minutes later, Janie backed the minivan cautiously down the driveway. Five minutes after that, I called
Content,
and this time, the snotty receptionist put me right through.

"I spent Thanksgiving in Cape Cod," I told Joel Asch. "I talked to Bonnie Verree. She told me what Kitty was looking for."

The line hummed almost imperceptibly while Joel Asch said nothing. I imagined him sitting behind a desk like the one I'd occupied at
New York Night,
some battle-scarred, scuffed-metal thing, and closing his eyes.

"I was a fool," he said roughly. "She was so
interested
in me..." He went silent again. My mind continued to add details to his desk; a sleek silver laptop, a fancy little stereo, a few framed pictures of his wife and kids. "I was flattered," he finally said. "And...oh, hell, I'll admit it. I wanted her. And I went after her. Until she told me why she was so interested. Then I felt like a fool." He laughed bitterly. "Which was only fair. I'd certainly been acting like one."

"But you tried to help her."

"I tried to be good to her," Joel said. "And I couldn't do much. A name here and there...an introduction to Laura Lynn Baird..."

And a pair of pearl earrings,
I thought. My heart twisted as I imagined my own father, who would have done anything for me; who'd wanted to come to Connecticut the minute he thought I might have been in danger. I'd looked at Kitty on the playground and thought that she had everything, never guessing that I had the thing she wanted most.

"We're closing the issue tonight," Joel said, jolting me back to reality. "If there's anything else I can do for you."

"Thank you," I told him. I hung up the phone and plodded upstairs to take a bath.

Twenty minutes later, I lay in the oversized soaking tub for two that I'd only used once since we'd moved in, staring at the snow splattering onto the skylight, feeling like a complete and utter failure. Thanksgiving was over; Christmas was coming. The Red Wheel Barrow nursery school would close its doors for most of December, which meant all kids, all the time, and effectively spelled the end of my free time and my investigation. Kitty's murder was still unsolved. Kitty's paternity, and her mother's death, were still mysteries, Lexi Hagen-Holdt was still missing, and I had no idea who'd put the threatening note on my car. All of the work and worry, and all I had to show for it was one idiotic memorial speech, one imperiled marriage, and one situation involving an extremely persistent, frequently irresistible other man that I had no idea how to resolve.

So Delphine had been a hooker, I thought, as I idly loofahed my legs, and Kevin Dolan had turned out to be a suburban Pygmalion. So Kitty had been searching for her father, and answers about her mother's death, among the rich and powerful men of New York City. So my husband's client had been one of the potential daddies, and Bo Baird and Philip Cavanaugh Senior had been too.

"Love," I said. "Money." I held my breath and slid under the water, letting my hair billow around my shoulders. It all added up to a great big steaming heap of nothing. Except for Janie. At least she'd leave Upchurch with a great story. Lucky Janie. At least she got to leave.

My cell phone trilled from where I'd left it on the towel rack. I stretched my arm out of the tub and snagged it. "Hi, Janie."

"Enjoying yourself?"

I shut my eyes. "More or less."

"Good. We're stringing cranberries and popcorn for holiday garlands." She dropped her voice. "It's boring as fuck, but luckily your kids are easily amused."

"Fine. Have fun!" I tried to sound enthusiastic, and failed. "I'll see you later."

I lay back in the water and thought about the women of Upchurch, the high-test supermommies who would never really be my friends. I pictured Kitty on the playground, squatting in front of my children, her dark brown hair and classic features illuminated by the sun. Then I imagined Kitty walking into that country club, long legs scissoring underneath her dress, taking in the scene with her pansy-blue eyes, looking at Philip and Flora and Philip Junior, smoothing her skirt and smiling, sitting down in the chair that had been pulled out for her, taking her place, her rightful place, right between Philip and--

"Oh, my God." I sat bolt upright, sending water cascading down in sheets onto the tile floor, and I stumbled out of the tub, groping for the telephone.

Philip Cavanaugh Senior didn't sound happy to hear from me. I didn't care.

"I just have one more question," I said, standing naked in the bathroom, while water streamed down my shoulders and puddled at my feet.

He laughed thickly. "Sure, why not?"

"When Kitty showed up at the country club--"

"Walked in there like she owned the place," he said crossly. Ice cubes rattled in the background. Clearly Janie and I weren't the only ones consoling ourselves with drink. "Like she had a right. I wonder if her real father was Jewish?"

I let that slide. "You said Philip was there with a girlfriend. What was her name?"

The pause felt like it stretched out forever. "Chesty little thing," Philip Senior finally said. "Suzie something?"

We used to date,
I heard Sukie saying, a secret smile lifting her lips, cheeks flushing under her makeup, the blush of a girl who can't believe that the guy of her dreams is smiling back at her--a blush I'd certainly worn myself, the night Evan had showed up at the Lo Kee Inn on New Year's Eve and kissed me on the street.
A million years ago.

I hung up without saying goodbye, started to run out of the bathroom, slipped on the wet tiles and landed flat on my ass. I ignored the pain and punched in Janie's number with shaking hands. Her phone rang once...twice...three times.

"Hello?"

"Janie, take the kids and get out of there!"

"Huh?"

"Janie, listen to me. Think of an excuse and get them out of there right now. It's important!"

"Okay," she said dubiously.

"I'm on my way." I scooped my clothes off the bathroom floor, pulled on my shirt and pants, dispensing with underwear and bra, and pushed my wet feet into my sneakers. I sprinted down the stairs, praying that Janie had thought to leave her keys when she'd taken my van. I shoved my hands through the clutter on the table in the entryway hall: junk mail, old newspapers, two-week-old fingerpaintings the kids had brought home, before I found the keys on a monogrammed key chain.

I ran out the front door, sprinted through the snow, and threw myself behind the wheel of Janie's Porsche with my cell phone pressed to my ear. "I'm sorry, Chief Bergeron's not on duty this afternoon," said the same bored-sounding dispatcher I'd talked to the day I'd found Kitty, the one who'd scratched at her scalp with the tip of her pencil.

"Page him!" I screeched.

"Can you spell your name for me, please?"

I jammed the key into the ignition, stomped on the clutch, and went lurching backward down the driveway, right into my mailbox. "Shit!"

"Ma'am, there's no need for profanity."

I put the car in drive, pulled forward, backed up again around the splintered wood, and roared off toward the end of Liberty Lane.

"Have somebody meet me!" I said. "I'm going to Twelve Folly Farm Way. The woman there, Sukie Sutherland, is armed and dangerous!" I shouted.

"Can you repeat that, ma'am?" the dispatcher asked.

"Twelve Folly Farm!" I yelled. I turned left, almost hitting an SUV, whose occupant glared at me and leaned on her horn. Forty miles an hour. Forty-five. Fifty. The Porsche's suspension groaned as I ground the gears and rounded the curve just before Folly Farm Way. I dialed Evan's cell phone. "...'lo?"

"Evan? Can you hear me?"

"...can't...out."

"Goddamn this fucking quaint asshole town!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. Snow was splattering on the windshield, and I couldn't figure out how to work the windshield wipers.

"Okay," said Evan. "That I heard."

"You need to come here!" I screamed. "I know who did it, and--"

"Kate? Say that again!"

"Twelve Folly Farm Way!" I said over the roar of the engine. Then I hung up, slammed on the brakes in front of Sukie's house, left the keys in the ignition and the car door open, and I sprinted for the door.

I didn't knock, and I didn't ring. The door swung open as soon as I put my hand on the knob. Sukie Sutherland stood in the entryway, smiling.

"Kate!" she said, brown eyes wide but unsurprised, like I'd stopped over to borrow a cup of sugar and join her for a cup of coffee and the latest neighborhood gossip, like I was perfectly dry and completely dressed instead of standing in front of her out of breath and dripping wet, without a hat or coat or socks on a thirty-degree day in the snow. Sukie was the picture of grace and competence in her mommy uniform. Her brown hair was shining, and her neatly pressed khakis and pink pearl-buttoned angora sweater were accented nicely by the little silver gun she held in her hand. "Come on in and stand over by the refrigerator, okay, Kate?"

I followed her inside on leaden legs. "Where are my kids?"

"Kate?" I relaxed a little bit as I heard Janie's muffled voice coming from behind the basement door. "Hey, we're down here!"

"Hang on!" I shouted. Sukie leveled the gun at my heart.

"Your friend tried to make a break for it," she said, shaking her head sadly. "I would have left them alone, you know. I would have left you alone too, but you just don't quit!" She scratched her shoulder with the barrel of the gun and shook her head. "This is going to take up my entire afternoon!"

I wobbled over to the refrigerator as she directed me with the gun. I could hear Sophie's hiccuping sobs, and Janie trying to keep them calm. "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands," I heard her sing, followed by two hesitant claps. Sukie Sutherland. A part of me had probably known it all along. Wasn't there something a little suspicious about a woman who named her kids Tristan and Isolde and alphabetized her canned goods?

"Where are your kids?"

"At Marybeth's house," she said. "I sent them over to play. They'll be there until four. That should give me plenty of time." She looked at the watch on the hand that wasn't holding the gun. "Let's see," she said, ticking off items in the manner of a woman running through her grocery list. "Get the kids in your car, get your friend in the car." She looked at me. "You've got enough booster seats for everyone, right?"

I nodded dumbly, thinking,
She's going to kill all of us and she's worrying about booster seats?
"Wh-what are you going to do?"

"Take you to the river," she said. "Drop you in the water. Such a shame," she said, brandishing the gun at me until my back was flat against her stainless-steel refrigerator. "How you killed Kitty, then cracked from the guilt and the strain of keeping the secret. Killed your kids, killed your best friend, and drove your car off the bridge. That's the part I regret," she said, grinning so I could see all of her gleaming white teeth. "It's going to be the waste of a perfectly good minivan."

"You." I raked the stiff mat of my wet hair off my forehead and tried to make my legs stop shaking.

"Me," she confirmed, nodding pleasantly, as if we were discussing whose turn it was to be Parent of the Day at the Red Wheel Barrow.

"You killed Kitty."

She nodded.

"You left that note on my car."
Keep her talking,
I thought, as my knees began to shake.
Keep her talking, and I'll...what? Scream? Run? Hope the dispatcher's actually going to send the cops, even though I didn't give her my Social Security number and my mother's maiden name?

"Yep," she said, grinning like she'd just won the Nobel Prize. "And if you'd just minded your own business, instead of running around like Nancy Drew with varicose veins, you'd have saved yourself a lot of trouble. Oh, well," she added with a shrug, "your loss. It's funny, isn't it?" She tilted her head. "You always thought
you
were the smart one. So smart! So sophisticated! So much better than us dim-bulb mama bears in boring old Connecticut, right?"

"Is that what you thought?" I asked.
Nancy Drew with varicose veins,
I thought, and realized that if she didn't kill me, I was going to do my damnedest to kill her.

"All of us except Kitty." She shook her head in exaggerated sorrow. "Kitty thought you were just swell," she said.

"Sh-she did?"

Sukie shrugged. "Of course, Kitty turned out not to be such a great judge of character. She thought her husband really loved her. She thought I was her friend. Give me your hands," she said, pulling a pink and gold silk scarf out of her pocket.

I ignored her request and shoved my hands in my pockets. "Philip did love her," I said, which caused the smug expression to slide right off Sukie's face.

"He did not," Sukie said petulantly. "Not the way he loved me."

"You?" I scoffed. "Oh, please." My keep-her-talking ploy had evolved into a new strategy:
get her pissed.
Get her so angry that she'd make some stupid mistake that hopefully wouldn't involve shooting me on the spot. Not that I thought she'd actually kill me in her kitchen. She'd never get my blood out of her hand-painted Mexican tile backsplash. "You were filler," I sneered. "Kitty was the one he-really wanted. And why wouldn't he? Kitty was smart. She was successful. And, seeing as how the world of work gave him problems..." I shrugged.

"What are you talking about?" Sukie snarled.

"Nothing everyone in town doesn't already know. Phil needed a successful, ambitious wife because he couldn't cut it. The only job he could get was working for Daddy, and even then he was a fuck-up."

"That's not true!" she screeched, leveling the gun at my chest. "He's very smart, it's just that nobody ever gave him a chance!" She stared at me, panting. Then she held up the scarf. Hermes, I'd bet. My first designer scarf. Too bad I might not live to appreciate it. "Hands together."