Lie in Plain Sight (10 page)

The woman who answered the door didn't have black hair anymore, but she was still turned out in a blousy white shirt and slim jeans, a miraculous medal around her neck. “Can I help you?” she said when she saw Maeve.

“Hello, Mrs. McSweeney. It's Maeve. Maeve Conlon,” she said, feeling like a young girl again in this imposing woman's presence.

It took a moment for the realization to dawn on the woman's face that the small woman before her had once been a little girl. Mrs. McSweeney was old now, as old as Jack had been when he died, but still sharp, still living life, unlike her late former neighbor, Maeve's father. “Maeve Conlon?” she said. “It must be…” She searched her brain for the number of years.

“Almost thirty probably,” Maeve said.

The woman opened the screen door. “Nothing like seeing a grown-up you knew as a child to make you feel old,” she said, letting Maeve in.

In the narrow hallway, pictures hung on a wallpapered wall. Although it had been a long time ago, Maeve remembered the day Jamie McSweeney—his picture hanging in the center of all of the other family photos—had died, two uniformed military men showing up on Mrs. McSweeney's stoop to let her know that he had served honorably and well.

Mrs. McSweeney stood in back of Maeve, reaching over her shoulder to touch the large photo. “Phuoc Long sounds like a very exotic place, and today, probably is. For all I know, it's got fancy hotels and spas. Back then, it was hell.”

“I'm sorry,” Maeve said, though it sounded empty. Her recollections of Jamie McSweeney were few, but she did remember seeing him once in his uniform and thinking that he looked old, older than she would ever be. Little had she known that that was as old as he would get. “I remember Jamie.”

“Great boy,” the woman said. “Come.”

They walked into a living room that seemed frozen in time, an overstuffed, chintz-covered sofa against another wallpapered wall, a large mahogany coffee table in front of it. Mrs. McSweeney lived in a house almost identical in layout to the one in which Maeve had grown up, the difference being that the orientation was opposite. Her living room had been on the other side of the house, the stairs going up on the north side instead of the south. She took a seat in a Queen Anne armchair, sitting near the edge, not wanting to get comfortable or give the impression that she was staying for long.

“Something to drink?” Mrs. McSweeney asked.

“No, thank you,” Maeve said. “I'm sorry to barge in like this, but I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

Mrs. McSweeney sat across from Maeve in an identical chair, the whole living room suite one matched set of old but cared-for furniture. She rested her arm on the doily-covered rest. “Questions?”

“I guess I should start by saying that my father passed late last year.”

Mrs. McSweeney clutched her chest. “I'm so sorry, Maeve. He was a lovely, lovely man.”

“He was.” Maeve looked down at her shoes. Just what was she doing here anyway, going down memory lane with a woman who didn't know her intentions? She decided to blurt it out, not wait any longer, waste any more of the old woman's time. “I have a sister I never knew about. Her name is Evelyn.”

Maeve studied the woman's face and saw an almost imperceptible cloud pass across it. She had already known, Maeve guessed. But she remained silent, not giving anything away.

“She has been living in a group home in Rye for many years. She's well taken care of. We're still getting to know each other, but I'm just so glad to have the family, you know?” Maeve said, realizing, too late, that she was talking to someone who had no immediate family of her own. “I'm sorry.”

Mrs. McSweeney raised a hand and waved the apology away. “It's fine, Maeve. I've become rather good on my own,” she said, chuckling sadly. “A sister?”

“Yes. My father never told me. Didn't want to burden me.” She pulled a loose thread on the doily on her armrest. “Do you remember her?”

“No, I don't.” Maybe she was telling the truth.

“But you were here then?”

“Yes. Probably. Maybe. But I don't remember her.”

“Really?” Maeve asked. “Not even a little bit?”

Mrs. McSweeney shook her head. “Not even a little bit.”

Maeve pushed a little harder. “See, the reason I want to know is that my father was not her father.”

The woman's face went slack, but Maeve couldn't tell if it was the shock of hearing that or the knowing; it was hard to tell.

“He adopted her, and she was his own in his heart, but he definitely wasn't her biological father. He told me so on a video he made for me.”

“Well, that's quite a story, Maeve,” Mrs. McSweeney said. “So you're not just stopping by for a visit, then? Revisiting the past?”

“No. I'm not,” Maeve said.

“I imagine that those days would be hard for you to relive. Your mother's death.”

Maeve swallowed. “Yes. My mother's death,” Maeve said, even though the truth was much worse. She was murdered, left to die in the street, the victim of profound recklessness.

Mrs. McSweeney clucked sympathetically, in a way that let Maeve know she really didn't understand the gravity of what had happened.

“It was Marty Haggerty. Drunk driving,” Maeve said. “He ran her down and left her there, and my life was never the same.”

The old woman sank back in her chair and rested her head in her hand. “And you found that out how?”

“The police,” she said, leaving out that it was Poole, the one person she trusted completely and with her life.

“The police.” Mrs. McSweeney crossed one leg over the other, trying to affect a posture of nonchalance, of not caring. But she cared, and she was troubled; those two things were written on her lined face. “Maeve, I can't help you. I'm so sorry for everything you've been through, but I can't help you.”

“Please, Mrs. McSweeney. Anything. If you know anything about my sister or who her father was, please tell me. I remember this street well. There were always secrets and more than a few lies, but someone always knew the truth.” Maeve sighed. “Maybe everyone. I think maybe everyone knew the truth. And it can't hurt anyone anymore.”

The old woman shook her head sadly. “But not this time, Maeve. It was a long time ago, and I really don't remember.”

Maeve dug around in her pocketbook for a business card from The Comfort Zone. She held it out, but the other woman didn't take it. Maeve dropped it on the coffee table. “If you happen to remember anything, will you call me?” When Mrs. McSweeney didn't respond, Maeve pleaded with her. “Please? I have to know.”

Finally, the woman spoke, staring at the card. “Yes. If I remember anything, I'll let you know.”

Maeve let herself out, pausing briefly at the large photo of Jamie McSweeney.
She knows loss,
Maeve thought.
Maybe that will push her to tell me everything she knows.

Because I'm betting she knows a lot.

 

CHAPTER 14

Maeve took Rodney's advice, starting at the beginning the next day, thinking about those days, not so long ago, when she spent time at the soccer field. Taylor played soccer. That was all she knew about her, beyond the fact that her mother was encouraging her to go to a state university in the hope that she could afford it. That made Maeve wonder: If they were as destitute as Trish claimed, surely financial aid would be of assistance? Cal had navigated that entire process for Rebecca, and Maeve knew that they hadn't qualified for one penny of assistance, but Trish's situation was different. Maeve wondered about the delinquent father that Trish referred to and how well off, or not, he was.

After the store closed, she drove over to the high school. She remembered that when Rebecca was on the team, the team practiced constantly when they weren't playing games. So, a Sunday practice was not out of the realm of possibility. She parked in the same spot in which she had parked when she had visited Judy Wilkerson.

The girls' soccer team exited through the back door a few minutes after she arrived, ready to take the short walk over to the soccer field to start practice. Rebecca had been off the team for two years, so Maeve didn't recognize a lot of the girls. If they had been freshmen when Rebecca had been a senior, then they had changed into young women Maeve wouldn't know. Gone would be the knobby knees and angles of ninth grade, and in their place would be more weight, a bit more heft, and a change in their features. Every one of them, or so it seemed, was long and lithe, jogging effortlessly from the back of the school building and down the hill to the soccer field, a place where Maeve had spent many an afternoon, watching Rebecca run up and down the length without losing her breath or really breaking a sweat. Maeve marveled at her older daughter's athletic ability. Sure, Maeve had played CYO basketball and youth softball, but she was small and not wiry and really, when she thought about it, not all that coordinated. Her body, like the bodies of her female ancestors, was more suited to long hours in a field, low to the ground, nimbly picking the day's harvest. The Irish peasant body, she called it. Rebecca's prowess must have been inherited from the Callahan side of the family, but Maeve had never considered Cal that much of an athlete either, something with which he probably would take issue. The way he saw himself was often at odds with the way the world viewed him, which as of now was middle-aged, trying to be hip, too old to be the father of a toddler.

She got out of the car and followed the team down the hill, walking past the playground where the girls used to play and where now, younger siblings of varsity soccer players spent hours while their sisters were on the field. There was the porta-potty that she had used more than she cared to admit, her bladder control having taken a hit after she gave birth to Heather and never recovering, that little bit of wetness every time she sneezed reminding her that as hard as she tried not to think it, Heather provided challenges both great and small as a daughter.

She took a seat on the hill overlooking the field. The last year Rebecca had played, a new coach had joined the coaching staff, a young guy—too young as far as Maeve was concerned, a little too close in age to her almost-eighteen-year-old—who ran the girls ragged at practice and demanded nothing less than perfection, both on the field and off. There had been curfews and grade minimums, uniform checks—more than one of which Rebecca failed because Maeve was incapable of getting grass stains out of white shorts, no matter how hard she tried—and a host of other requirements. Team dinners. Big buddies. Study partners. Running drills. Maeve could never keep track of what was required and what was optional, and apparently neither could Rebecca, because she did everything he asked and more, going so far as being the equipment manager in her senior year, long after she should have been saddled with that responsibility.

She had to say this for the guy: He was good-looking. Running around in his baggy soccer shorts, a loose Arsenal jersey on his thin frame, David Barnham was the all-American boy type that every woman found attractive, even Maeve, even though she was dating a meaty Germanic type who looked like he would be just as comfortable behind the counter of a butcher shop wearing a white apron as in the sport coat and dress slacks he wore to his actual job. Barnham ran up and down the field with the girls, blowing a whistle every now and again to stop the play, to instruct the girls on the field.

Maeve pulled out her phone. It was the rare occurrence when she called one of her girls and she answered the phone; today, she was in luck. Hell must be freezing over, she thought as Rebecca answered, breathless and on her way somewhere, the sound of cars in the background.

“Can you talk for a minute?” Maeve asked.

“That's exactly what I have,” Rebecca said. “I'm almost to the library. I'm behind on a paper.”

“Okay, I'll make it brief. I don't know if you saw the news, but—”

“Yes. Taylor.”

“Right. You played soccer together, didn't you?”

“She was a midfielder.”

“Anything else you remember?”

“I've gotta go, Mom. What are you asking?”

“Anything else? Happy? Sad? Popular? Unpopular?”

“Not sure ‘popular' is the right word,” Rebecca said, but there was a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “And one of Mr. Barnham's favorites.”

Maeve detected a subtext. “What do you mean?”

“He had parties. Invitation only. She was on the list.”

Maeve felt that familiar tingle in her gut, her mouth going dry. “Parties?” She wondered why this was the first time she was hearing about this, and then wasn't surprised that it was. That last year Rebecca had played soccer, Maeve had been preoccupied a lot of the time, her father the lead suspect in a murder investigation despite his failing faculties, her attempts to keep him out of jail alternately ham-fisted and brilliant. “Did you go to these parties?” Maeve asked, her eyes zeroing in on Mr. Barnham, her mind whirling with thoughts of just how she would kill him, how she could isolate him and remove him as a threat once and for all.

“No!” Rebecca said. “Even if I had been invited, I wouldn't have gone.”

“What happened at the parties?” Maeve asked, not sure she wanted to know.

“Nothing that I heard of.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I am telling the truth,” Rebecca said. “I would have heard. I would have known. But I still thought it was weird. He's single. No wife. Just weird that he would have girls over.”

“No assistant coach?” Maeve asked.

“Nope.” Rebecca had reached her destination. “I've gotta go, Mom. I'll call you later.”

But Maeve knew she wouldn't and she would have to track Rebecca down again. She had a whole new life at school, one that didn't include or involve her mother or her sister, and she was happy there. Maeve wondered if she would come home after she graduated, if they would ever live together again, and the thought of that made her sad. The thought that her girls would go their separate ways and maybe not be close was something that she thought about frequently, wondering, again, if that would be her fault.