Misfortune (47 page)

Frances felt her heartbeat quicken. Her mother had been at the Fair Lawn Country Club on July Fourth. She had been with Louise Lewis. She had gone to the bar to say good-bye. She knew what Louise had ordered. “You killed her.”

Aurelia squinted at Frances but said nothing.

“Why?”

Aurelia’s lower lip began to tremble. She diverted her eyes. Suddenly her legs buckled under her, and she lowered herself to the floor. “Stop, Frances. I didn’t do anything. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Why did you do it?” Frances repeated. She didn’t move.

Aurelia tilted her head back and rested it against the wall. She placed her hand on her neck, fingering her throat. “I don’t expect you to understand. You don’t have that capacity. You’re not a mother. You weren’t forced to watch what that woman did to your children, how she made them feel, these young girls, good girls, sweet girls, made to feel bad, monstrous, as if you were undeserving. She wouldn’t have come into your existence if it weren’t for me, if I hadn’t left your father. So it was my responsibility to eliminate her.”

Frances’s head pounded. “Why now?” Whatever misery Clio had inflicted on Frances and Blair as children, nearly thirty years had passed.

“Why not now? I should have acted sooner. Every time I turn around, she’s caused more hurt. Your sister was going to lose her business because of Clio, because she wouldn’t allow your father to help out. As if they would even miss the money.” Aurelia covered her mouth with her fist and seemed to chew on her fingers. Then she dropped her hand to her lap. “And rather than just tell Blair no, Clio managed to make her feel worthless, incompetent. Your sister has worked extremely hard to build that gallery.”

Frances thought of Blair at Clio’s memorial service, telling Penny Adler to come visit the Devlin Gallery’s new space. Blair, so animated about the discovery of Marco, her secret playboy, who within twenty-four hours of Clio’s death had managed to turn the bad situation around, to take advantage. Miles had, too. He had jumped on the bandwagon of revelers profiting from Clio’s death to cement his Pro-Chem deal.

“Clio kept Henry Lewis out of Fair Lawn. After years of friendship with his in-laws, after Louise and Blair had grown up together as children, she threatened to blackball him. So his daughters, his adorable little girls, will be excluded, treated differently, just like you and Blair were ostracized. You two didn’t even feel like you had a home. The effect of that woman continues.”

Aurelia rubbed her eyes, then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I see it every time I look at you. You were the most joyful, trusting child. If you had seen yourself with your father. You sat on his lap every night and told him all the details of your day, what happened to you, what books you read, what games you played. Then she came into his life, and it was as if you were afraid. Your affection withered. Your whole sense of the world, the goodness of the world, changed. I see you alone, because you have no faith in relationships. I see you isolated, because you can’t trust anyone enough to get close. I see you unable to love, because you’ve never understood that you were lovable. And that’s because of her.”

Frances listened, but only partially heard, as her mother explained what had happened. The idea had come to her not long ago, after her show at Guild Hall had been a failure. Depressed, she’d thought that a diet and exercise regimen might help her spirits. She’d bought a package of Thinline. The pharmacist had recommended it as the number-one-selling appetite suppressant in the country. After she’d read the package insert, though, she had realized that amphetamines were contraindicated because of her heart condition. Several weeks passed, and she forgot about the pills. She had been caught up in the agonies inflicted by Clio, comforting Blair and Henry, both injured in their own ways by her malevolence. As she was lying in bed one night, unable to sleep, it had occurred to her that her money had not been wasted. The dosage in one box of Thinline was enough to kill Clio. It said so right on the label. Death by overdose of diet pills—the perfect weapon in a society where everyone wanted to be thin. Who would ever suspect murder?

The planning had been relatively simple once she’d made up her mind. She and Louise played tennis. Aurelia had a chance to look over the sign-up sheets at the Fair Lawn Country Club. She could see when Clio’s next game was, and Louise was only too happy to play anytime. July Fourth. The tournament. A big day. Aurelia hadn’t been sure the opportunity would arise, but it was a good guess.

She had seen Clio seated with the Bancrofts. Louise would be uncomfortable in Clio’s presence. When Aurelia found Louise at the bar, she knew that her opportunity had come. Clio had offered to buy the round, and wanted a Perrier for herself, but there was a long line for the bartender. Louise asked that the drinks be brought to their table when the order had been filled.

Aurelia thanked Louise for the match and said good-bye. Louise returned to the porch. But instead of leaving, Aurelia went out to her car, got the Thinline capsules, emptied their contents into the palm of her hand, wrapped the empty capsules in a paper napkin, and slipped back through the crowd to the bar. She dropped the bundled plastic capsules into the waste container on the porch as she made her way back.

Inside the bar, the Pratt order sat on a tray, ready to go. The place was mobbed, people clamoring for drinks, chatting and socializing, oblivious of the single woman with a handful of Dexedrine. Leaning over the bar, she was able to empty her fist into the sparkling water without anyone noticing. Later that night, Malcolm confirmed that her plan had worked.

“Did you know Clio took Nardil?”

“I had no idea,” Aurelia responded. The amphetamines were sufficient on their own. That they did it quicker because of the interaction was a fortuity.

“Was winning Malcolm over part of the plan?” Frances searched her mother’s face. That she was gazing at a calculating killer seemed impossible.

“It only occurred to me later how much our relationship could protect me. Malcolm trusts me. We’ve discussed the investigation all week. He kept saying he shouldn’t say anything to me, but then he would laugh. ‘Who are you gonna tell?’ he said. Malcolm would never think of me. Who would? Richard and I have been divorced for more than thirty years. He’s been good to me, financially and otherwise. I have no complaints, virtually no dealings with Clio. And I don’t belong to Fair Lawn.”

And I’ve protected you, too, Frances thought. Who would look for motive in the psychological impact of Clio’s behavior over the years on now grown children, especially when one of them was in the district attorney’s office? Aurelia had been safe from detection all along.

Frances felt as if the oxygen had been vacuumed from the room. As she listened to her mother, the caverns of past pains loomed.

“I’d like to tell you I did this for you, for Blair, but it was for myself. I saw what she had done to you girls all your lives, treating you like second-rate citizens, strangers in your own home, the home that belonged to you before she ever set foot in it. I didn’t want to be married to your father, but I never expected he would remarry someone so cruel. I never realized that I’d be responsible for causing you all the heartache that you suffered through as a child, all the agony of being a hated stepchild. So I did it for myself.”

An effort to purge her own guilt, Frances thought.

Aurelia spoke through tears, choking on her words. “My life hasn’t been what I wanted. I’m not what you might call a success. But I’ve finally done something productive, something proactive to protect the world, or at least the people I care about, from her infection. She’ll never hurt anyone again. Not Blair. Not you. Can you understand that? Can you try for a minute to understand?”

Frances looked down at her mother in a heap on the floor. The folds of fabric splayed out around her body. Her eyes were rimmed in red, and her nose was filled with mucus.

“I feel great about what I’ve done. It’s the only thing I’ve ever accomplished. If I die tomorrow, I’ll die a happy woman.” She broke into sobs and covered her face with her hands.

Frances felt strangely detached. Although she heard the words of her mother’s confession, they seemed scripted, surreal. Never once, in the sleepless nights of the past week or in her relentless pursuit of the unhappy people whose lives intercepted Clio’s, had she suspected her own mother of committing the crime. Now her mind simply did not want to process the information it was receiving.

Aurelia coughed, cleared her throat, and asked, “What will you do?”

Frances didn’t know how to respond. What choice did she have? Turn her over to the police and step aside? Watch the system she had recently abandoned go to work prosecuting Aurelia? Let Perry Cogswell destroy her mother? Hope that a jury would be so sympathetic to the tormented Pratt family that they would nullify the murder indictment by deciding that Aurelia couldn’t be held accountable for her actions? When that unlikely outcome failed to transpire, watch the bailiff take her away? That was one option.

Frances remembered less than a week earlier, here in the same house, the scenario she had discussed with Aurelia.
What happens if the murderer isn’t caught?
Meaty already thought Clio’s death was a suicide. So, after a time, with no new leads, the police, the assistant district attorneys, the media, move on to something else. The case gets closed. The file goes to archives. People forget. Could she?

Frances shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. She felt air fill her lungs and then listened to the sound of her breath as she exhaled. She nodded at her mother, unsure of what signal she was sending but unable to formulate words. Silently she stepped across the threshold and back down the hall.

Frances walked along the side of the road, heading in the direction of her father’s house. She dreaded telling him the truth of what her mother had done. Aurelia had deserted him decades earlier, and now she had made sure that he would die alone. Because of her, his family had been torn apart twice.

Instead of turning onto Ox Pasture, Frances decided to take a detour, to follow Halsey Neck Lane to the beach and return on First Neck Lane. She lengthened her stride and swung her arms, needing to stretch her limbs.

The grass between the curb and rows of privet was sprinkled with dandelions and other assorted weeds. As she crossed each driveway, Frances looked up at the expansive houses hidden behind the protective fences or hedges. She tried to imagine what lay inside, the differing dynamics of familial emotions. It had always seemed to her that other people’s lives were simpler, that they spent summers around picnic tables and winters in front of fireplaces, content in each other’s company, but that her family had struggled silently to maintain, at best, neutrality. She had been as wrong about all of these strangers as she had been about the people in her own family.

For all Clio’s faults, for all her hostility toward Richard’s children, she had protected the people she loved. She had kept her mother safe from the world, pampered and cared for by benevolent professionals. She had made her husband happy and then, since his infirmity, had made him safe, too. She had ensured that his privacy and dignity were intact. She had surrounded him with care-givers. Frances hadn’t done that for anyone. She never allowed anyone to depend upon her. She was self-sufficient, and she wanted everyone else to be that way, too. Emotional neediness, attachments, made her want to run.

In an odd way, Aurelia had also tried to protect the people she loved. She seemed to have the very real sense that, with a single act of violence, she could heal the emotional wounds of her daughters, her friends, perhaps, even unknowingly, the women like Beverly Winters whose lives had been affected by Clio’s cruelty.

Words she hadn’t heard Aurelia say since her childhood flashed into Frances’s mind. Each time she had skinned her knee, or stubbed her toe, or scratched her forehead, her mother would rush over, embrace her, and gently, reassuringly, say, “I’ll just kiss it and make it better.” It had worked. In her memory, the soft touch of her mother’s lips on her bloody flesh had eased the pain. She craved that comfort now.

Clouds covered the sky by the time Frances arrived at her father’s house. As she turned into the drive, she could see that the front door was open and that her father sat in the threshold, waiting. His hands clasped the metal arms of his wheelchair. She moved toward him, hesitant. When their eyes met she stopped. His dull eyes stared at her.

He knew. Aurelia must have delivered the news herself.

“What should I do?” Frances asked without moving from where she stood several feet shy of the door.

“Nothing,” Richard replied. His voice was soft but firm. “I don’t want you, or anyone else, to do a thing.”

At some level, Frances had known her father would say the words he’d just uttered. Nothing could bring Clio back. A trial of Aurelia would only make matters worse, exposing Clio’s secrets, the hidden past that had haunted her. Yet, at the same time, her father’s decision surprised her. The woman he loved murdered by the woman he’d once loved. Didn’t he want to make Aurelia pay?

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Richard’s head trembled slightly. He seemed to take a moment to mouth his words without uttering a sound, as if to practice formulating the shape of them, but when he finally spoke, his speech was deliberate. “If Justin were alive, I would think differently. But he isn’t. When I die, your mother will be the only family you and Blair have left. I won’t be responsible for taking her away from you. I won’t make you orphans.”

But she took you away from us, Frances thought.

“What else is there for me? Revenge? Never a quality I admired in anyone else, I don’t intend to indulge it in myself. Besides, revenge for what? Clio’s death? Aurelia seeking a divorce to begin with? You girls have been through enough in your lives.”

Her father’s words seemed to echo in her ears. She felt weak and wanted to cry. Richard was willing to let her mother go un-punished for the most horrendous of crimes because he wanted to protect his daughters. “It’s not—not fair to you,” she stammered.