Grand Avenue (43 page)

“When did you see the man, Tracey?”

“I was in the hall.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I remember now. I heard the noises. I heard my mother screaming. I got out of bed. I walked into the hall.”

“And that’s when you saw the man in the ski mask?”

“Yes. He looked at me like he was going to kill me, and then he turned and ran down the steps.”

“And out the front door?”

“I guess.”

“How did he get in the house, Tracey?”

“What? I don’t know. He broke in, I guess.”

“There were no signs of forced entry.”

“I might have left the front door unlocked.” Tracey’s eyes flickered nervously back and forth. “Sometimes I forget to lock it.”

Vicki tried to hide her growing revulsion. Innocent people never speculated. Only the guilty provided you with unexpected explanations. “Was he carrying a weapon?”

“I don’t know. It was dark. I couldn’t see.”

“It was light enough to see his eyes.”

“I didn’t see a weapon.” Again the threat of tears.

“Tracey, I can’t help you if I don’t know what happened.”

“I’ve told you what happened.”

“You heard your mother screaming and you woke up,” Vicki reiterated.

“Yes.”

“You said before it was a loud noise that woke you up.”

“I heard a loud noise. Then I heard my mother scream.”

“And you rushed into the hall.”

“Yes.”

“And you saw the man.”

“Yes.”

“And you thought it was Tony.”

“Yes. But I was scared, and he was all crouched over. It could have been anyone.”

“Your father?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Wouldn’t you have recognized your father?”

“He was wearing a ski mask.”

“Even wearing a ski mask.”

“I think it was Howard,” Tracey said. “Howard Kerble. He and my mother had a big fight last night.”

“You never said anything about a big fight before.”

“I forgot.”

“You forgot to tell the police that your mother had a big fight with her fiancé on the night of her murder?”

“I was confused. I was upset. I was afraid he’d come back and get me.”

“You said you thought it was Tony.”

“I was wrong!”

“Now you’re saying it was Howard?”

“I don’t know who it was!” Tracey bolted from her
chair with such force, it fell backward, crashing to the floor.

Susan was instantly on her feet, righting the chair, trying to calm Tracey down. “Tracey, sweetheart, it’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Why is she doing this to me?” Tracey’s eyes shot accusingly toward Vicki. “My mother is dead! Some lunatic killed her! I don’t know who it was. What are you trying to make me say?”

They heard a key at the front door, heard the door open and close, followed by the sound of footsteps in the hall and the pungent smell of Chinese food as Ariel and Whitney appeared in the doorway holding large brown bags of food.

“Oh, great,” Tracey said. “I’m starving.”

Vicki shook her head in wonderment. One minute the girl was screaming that some lunatic had killed her mother, and in almost the same breath she was salivating over Chinese food.

“Where’s your father?” a similarly shell-shocked-looking Susan asked the girls.

“He’s talking to some guys outside,” Whitney said, as she and her sister deposited the food on the counter, Tracey immediately at their side, peeking eagerly into the bags.

“Some guys? What guys?”

“Looked like cops to me,” Ariel said.

Vicki rose to her feet as Owen marched into the kitchen, Lieutenant Jacobek at his left shoulder, a smartly dressed, if decidedly plain, woman following directly behind.

“Lieutenant Jacobek,” Vicki said, assuming the role
of hostess, greeting the police officer as if this were her home and not Susan’s.

“Mrs. Latimer, Mrs. Norman.” Lieutenant Jacobek nodded toward the woman, whose dark hair matched her dark complexion. “This is my partner, Lieutenant Gill.”

“I understand you released Tony Malarek,” Susan said.

“I’m afraid we had no choice.”

“I think it was Howard Kerble,” Tracey offered.

“Be quiet, Tracey,” Vicki instructed without taking her eyes off the two police lieutenants. “Why exactly are you here, Officers?”

“We have a few more questions for Tracey,” Lieutenant Jacobek answered warily. “Is there a problem with that? She obviously wants to cooperate.”

“Can’t this wait till after dinner?” Tracey asked.

Owen stepped forward, ushered his daughters from the room.

“Why do you think Howard Kerble killed your mother?” Lieutenant Jacobek asked Tracey as soon as they were gone.

“Because he and my mother had a big fight last night. I forgot to tell you about it.”

“Tracey …,” Vicki interrupted.

“I was just telling Mrs. Latimer and Mrs. Norman about it,” Tracey continued. “They had this huge fight because my mother told him she didn’t want to marry him. She even gave him back his ring. That’s why she wasn’t wearing it.”

“What time did this argument take place?” Lieutenant Gill asked, carefully noting down everything Tracey said.

“I don’t know. Around seven o’clock, I guess.”

“Howard Kerble was having dinner with his son at seven o’clock last night,” Lieutenant Jacobek said.

“It was later,” Tracey corrected immediately. “It must have been closer to nine.”

“He didn’t leave his son’s house until almost ten.”

“Then it was ten. What difference does it make what time it was?”

“Be quiet, Tracey,” Vicki said again. “What are you getting at, Officers?”

“We’re just trying to find out what happened,” Lieutenant Jacobek stated, exactly as Vicki had known he would.

“Is my client under suspicion?” Vicki asked.

“Is she your client?”

“Is she under suspicion?”

“A bloody golf club was found hidden at the back of Tracey’s closet. A diamond ring was found in her jewelry box.”

“What were you doing going through my things?” Tracey protested. “Don’t you need some kind of warrant?”

“Shut up, Tracey,” Vicki said. She looked at Susan, saw her holding her breath. “I repeat, is my client under suspicion?”

“We’ll go you one better, Counselor,” Lieutenant Jacobek answered. “She’s under arrest.”

Susan gasped as the two officers approached Tracey.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Lieutenant Gill began.

Tracey giggled. “This is just like on
Law & Order.”

“Don’t say another word,” Vicki said over the lieutenant’s
continuing drone. “Call her father,” she instructed Susan as the officers escorted a bemused-looking Tracey out the kitchen door, Vicki directly on their heels. “If he’s not home yet, leave a message. Tell him to meet me at the police station as soon as possible.”

“And then what?” Susan asked.

“Have your dinner. Get some sleep. Something tells me things are only going to get worse.”

C
hris sat in the darkness of her apartment without moving. In front of her the television screen flickered without sound. Images of Barbara, of Tracey, of the house on Grand Avenue, took turns assaulting her dazed eyes until she almost didn’t see them anymore: Barbara smiling her Mona Lisa smile, the smile that disturbed as few muscles as possible but still managed to convey the unrestrained joy in her heart; Barbara, her eyes radiating maternal pride, her arms wrapped tightly around Tracey, who stared impassively into the camera; Tracey as a pudgy infant, as a curly-haired moppet, as an awkward adolescent in a pink taffeta dress, a lone ringlet falling past her forehead toward the large, empty circles of her eyes. Why had she never noticed this emptiness before? Chris wondered. Or was it only in retrospect that Tracey’s eyes seemed so void of emotion?
There was a little girl
, Chris could hear Barbara sing over the continuing barrage of photographs,
who had a little curl
.… Chris sat motionless,
a sharp ache, like a knife wedged between her breasts, stilling the erratic beating of her heart, so that she had to remind herself to breathe.

How could this have happened? How could anything so horrible have happened to someone as wonderful as Barbara? How could Tracey be in any way responsible? No, it simply wasn’t possible. Someone had made a mistake. Barbara wasn’t dead; Tracey hadn’t been charged with her murder. None of what Susan had told her was true. Susan was playing some sort of sick, practical joke. She was just angry at her for disappearing after the funeral, for not staying over at Barbara’s house as she’d promised, for being gone all day and half the night.

“Where have you been?” she’d demanded as soon as Chris picked up the phone, before she’d even said hello. “I’ve been calling you all day.”

“What’s the matter?” Chris asked in return, knowing something was wrong, afraid to imagine what it was.

“You haven’t heard? Where the hell have you been?”

“Heard what? What’s going on?”

“Oh, God.”

In that moment, Chris’s stomach slid through her bowels to her knees. Her first thought was of her children. An accident involving Montana or one of the boys. Montana was old enough to drive now. Dear God, if anything had happened to her … “Tell me,” she said, a strange gargle disrupting the normal cadence of her voice, as if her throat had been slashed from ear to ear, and each word was being forced to navigate its way through a violent rush of blood.

“It’s Barbara,” Susan’s voice echoed even now.
Barbara. Barbara. Barbara
. “She’s dead.”
Dead. Dead. Dead
.

Chris couldn’t remember what happened next. She vaguely remembered someone screaming, although she couldn’t be sure now whether it was Susan or herself. Someone filled her in on all the horrible details. Maybe Susan. Maybe the TV. She didn’t remember turning it on, but there it was, flashing at her like a strobe light, noisy and invasive even with the sound turned off. When had she turned it on?

Her purse lay on the floor beside her thin mauve sweater, where she must have dropped them in her rush to answer the phone. Somewhere there was the faint odor of vomit, although only the unpleasant taste in her mouth reminded Chris she’d been sick. “Who did it?” she recalled asking. “Do they know?”

“The police arrested Tracey.”

It had to be a mistake. Or one of Tony’s sick pranks. That was it—Tony. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of him earlier? It hadn’t been Susan on the phone. It was Tony disguising his voice. Over the years, he’d perfected a pretty good imitation of all her friends. What was the matter with her that she hadn’t recognized him right away?

Except, of course, how did that explain the images flashing across her TV screen, pushing themselves in her face, pressing against her nose and mouth like a deadly pillow, no matter how many times she changed the channel? How did that explain the curiously interchangeable announcers who recited the same grisly details of the crime with a bland indifference bordering
on cruelty? Chris had pushed the mute button to silence their well-rehearsed nonchalance once and for all, although something stopped her from turning off the television altogether.

So it wasn’t Tony.

And it wasn’t a joke.

Barbara was dead. Tracey had been charged with her murder.

“Where is Tracey now?” Chris remembered asking Susan.

“At the Helen Marshall Correctional Institute for Women. Ron was going to post bail, but apparently his wife didn’t want Tracey in the house.”

There was probably more, but Chris was too tired to retrieve it from wherever her shocked brain had hidden it. Let it come to her in fits and starts, bits and bites, snips and snatches, Chris thought restlessly. Let it come and let it go.

Was this really happening?

Last night had been so wonderful. Everything was finally falling into place. And now this.…

Chris leaned her head back against the lurid blue-and-green checks of her couch. It was a hideous sofa, as uncomfortable to sit in as it was to look at, but what could you expect from a furnished apartment in one of the more modest sections of town? When she’d rented the one-bedroom unit, she hadn’t expected to be here more than a few months. As soon as Tony discovered her address, he’d start harassing her again, bombarding her with phone calls at all hours of the day and night, standing for hours at a stretch outside her window, regaling her landlord with wild stories about her,
leaving dog feces outside her door. It didn’t matter how tight the security, Tony always found a way to breach it. It didn’t matter what floor her apartment was on, it was never high enough. “Rise and shine,” he’d sing through the phone wires at four o’clock in the morning. “And give God your glory, glory.”

But now here it was the end of August, and until Tony’s unexpected appearance at Susan’s house the other day, she hadn’t seen or heard from him in months. Part of his grand plan for keeping her off guard and on her toes? Or maybe he thought this apartment was torture enough. He had no way of knowing that Chris was happier here than she’d been anywhere since leaving Grand Avenue. That she’d finally found the peace that had eluded her all her life.

What would he say when he found out where she’d been last night?

What would any of them say?

What would Barbara have said? Chris wondered, a fresh scream building in the back of her throat. Barbara. Oh, God, Barbara. Why Barbara? What had Barbara ever done to deserve such a gruesome death? “It should have been me,” Chris wailed out loud. Wasn’t she the one they’d all feared for? Hadn’t they all been holding their breath for years, waiting for that awful phone call in the middle of the night, the phone call that said their friend had been bludgeoned to death in her bed?

Except that when the call finally came, it hadn’t been Chris’s name whispered across the wires. It hadn’t been her battered corpse lying, limbs akimbo, at the foot of her bed in a pool of her own blood.

And what had Chris been doing while her friend’s
head was being hammered to a bloody pulp? She’d been in a cozy double bed in a quaint little inn on the outskirts of town, listening to sweet phrases of love. As Barbara screamed in horror, Chris had been screaming with delight, brought to orgasm by the most delicate of touches, the gentlest flick of the tongue. Chris had drifted off to sleep as Barbara lay dying on the floor, waking up in the arms of her lover at the same time her best friend was being wrapped in a body bag and taken to the morgue.