Blameless (26 page)

“I was so happy that Jilly and I reconciled before all this happened—it would have been just too horrible for everyone involved had the family not been back together. Ironic, isn’t it? To think that I was actually up in Boston visiting with Jilly on that very day …” She stared off into space. “Frankly, I don’t know if Jilly could have survived it all without us.”

“Families can be a tremendous source of strength in difficult times,” Diana murmured, hoping to encourage Molly to let down her guard and say something that would reveal what Diana believed was her charade.

“Yes,” Molly said, nodding her agreement. “And even though our family has had its rocky moments, we’ve always stuck together when times got difficult.”

Diana tried to smile at Molly, but it wasn’t easy. She knew too much of the history, had felt too much of James’s pain, to believe a word of Molly’s close-knit-supportive-family rubbish. According to James, it had been Jill who had raised him, Jill who had made him do his homework, Jill who had bailed him out when he got caught shoplifting, and Jill who had helped him write his college application essays. Their mother had slipped into a deep depression after the Uncle Hank episode—a depression from which she never recovered, a depression, it seemed to Diana, that she had been in all her life. And although all three of her sisters lived in Norwich, they went out of their way to maintain their distance from James. James had laughed and said he was just the family black sheep, claiming that every family needed one. But Diana had seen the hurt in his eyes when he told her his aunts had stopped inviting him to Thanksgiving dinner after Jill moved to Des Moines.

“Like when my poor sister Gertie—Jilly’s mother—was having all those troubles with James,” Molly was saying. “The drinking. The drugs. The police.” She stared out the front window and sighed with labored sincerity. “It was a burden we all shared together. It was so hard for Gertie to understand, James being so smart and handsome and all. She just couldn’t see—kind of like Jilly—couldn’t see that the boy was plain bad.” Molly turned and looked at Diana. “It was his own fault, I always said. Someone that smart could have helped himself, if he had really wanted to. With his looks and his brains …” She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Don’t you agree?”

Diana looked at the older woman, amazed at the capacity of the human mind to deny what it didn’t want to see, to truly forget what it didn’t want to remember. “These things can be very difficult to understand,” she said slowly, straining to follow Mitch’s advice, but unable to help herself. “More complex than one might think.”

Molly pursed her lips. “If you had known him as a child, I’m sure you
would
agree. He had the devil in his eyes from day one.” She stood and looked out the window as a car pulled up in front of the house. “Day one,” she repeated, then frowned. “My son, Adam.”

A tall blond man in his mid-twenties sauntered through the kitchen door. “You’re James’s doctor,” he said when he saw Diana. “Adam Arell.” He held out his hand and smiled warmly. “I know that you were a good friend to James.”

Diana took his hand, vaguely remembering him from the funeral. “And I know that you were too.” James had spoken often of Adam: of how they had fended off Jill and the older cousins together; of how Adam had stood up to the high school principal for him; of Adam’s problems in Baltimore. Diana looked into Adam’s pale eyes and smiled. Although his coloring was completely different, there was something of James about him.

Molly pursed her lips again. “Why aren’t you at work?” she demanded.

Adam dropped Diana’s hand and winked at her. He turned to his mother. “I’ve got early lunch today. I’m due back at the store at noon.” He walked across the room and began pulling sandwich-makings from the refrigerator. “My mother mentioned that you were coming down this morning,” he said to Diana. “Would you like something to eat?”

Diana shook her head and, out of the corner of her eye, caught Molly glaring at Adam. Molly quickly rearranged her face for her guest. “Used to be that children grew up and moved away,” she said, sighing heavily. “Now they grow up and stay.”

“Aw, you love it, Ma,” Adam said, winking again at Diana. “You’re going to be crying in your coffee when my commissions get big enough for me to get a place of my own.”

“I doubt it,” Molly said.

Diana smiled slightly at this pseudo-friendly repartee. She didn’t need a Ph.D. in psychology to sense the undercurrent of tension. She watched and listened in silence for a while, her eyes moving between mother and son like a spectator at a tennis tournament. Mitch might not approve of her aggressiveness, but it struck Diana that in this family animosity lay an opportunity that would be lost if she continued to remain passive. “So,” Diana said into a moment of silence, “your mother has been telling me how close your family is.”

“Ha!” Adam snorted as he spread mayo on a couple of pieces of bread.

“And,” Diana continued, as if unaware of Adam’s cynical response, “how pleased she is that she and your cousin Jill have reconciled their differences.”

“Not the we’re-all-so-happy-sweet-Jilly-has-returned-to-the-fold bullshit again?” he said, pulling a thick wad of turkey from a plastic bag.

“Adam!” Molly stood abruptly and carried her cup to the sink.

He sidestepped neatly around her and grabbed a glass from the cabinet. “Along with the James-was-plain-bad-from-day-one story, I suppose?”

“You know that James was in trouble all of the time.” Molly slammed her cup into the sink and turned to her son. “You know that just as well as I do, Adam Francis! You can do all the pretending that you want, but he—”

“And the rest of us were all perfect?” Adam asked.

Now Diana took Mitch’s advice. She sat back in her chair and said nothing, letting Adam and Molly take their argument wherever it might go, hoping it would give her what she needed.

“Far from it,” Molly said with venom in her voice. “Especially when you were around
him
. But that doesn’t change the fact that—”

“Did I ever tell you what really happened the time Elizabeth broke her arm?” Adam asked his mother.

“We have company, Adam.” Molly’s voice rang with icy authority.

Adam carried his plate to the table and placed it across from Diana. He sat down and addressed Diana as if his mother hadn’t spoken. “When we were kids, all the cousins were afraid of Jill. She might not have been ‘bad from day one.’ And she might not have been ‘in trouble all of the time’”—he flashed his mother a roguish grin—“but she was a real hothead. No way to figure what she was going to do next. Even James was afraid of her—and he thought she could walk on water. One minute she was protecting you from Mike Carlson, the bully of Hilldale Road, and the next she was pushing you off the jungle gym.”

“That’s quite enough, Adam,” Molly ordered. “I won’t have this kind of talk in my house.”

“You and all the aunts thought Elizabeth fell and broke her arm, didn’t you?” He shook his head sadly. “Wasn’t so. ’Twas your precious Jilly who pushed her.”

“I won’t listen to your nasty lies,” Molly said. “And I must apologize to you, Dr. Marcus. Adam has been so surly and hateful of late.” She glanced down at Diana’s stomach. “You do everything for them when they’re young. They’re the light of your life. Your beautiful children. And then—”

“Cut the crap, Ma,” Adam said. “It’s important for Dr. Marcus to hear both sides of the story. Did you bother to tell her anything good about James? Anything about how close he and Jill were? How he supported her for the last decade or so? What about how he helped her when she got into that mess in Des Moines? Or how about when he dropped everything and came down to Baltimore to bail me out?” Adam waved his sandwich in the air. “Did you tell her any of that, Ma? Did you?”

Diana shifted in her seat, trying to look as if she were terribly uncomfortable, although actually she was thrilled by the family feud she had so easily instigated. She was also enthralled. This discord was the soil in which James had been nurtured, in which he had grown. Jill too.

“No,” Molly said. “Nor did I tell her that since James cut Jilly off, the poor thing’s been in terrible financial straits.”

“Not that sad car repossession story again,” Adam said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Seems to me Jill is old enough to be responsible for herself.”

“Oh?” his mother asked, raising her eyebrows. “People who live in glass houses …”

“Touché!” Adam said, grinning, then took a bite of his sandwich. “So who do you think killed James?” Adam asked Diana conversationally.

“I have my literature class at noon,” Molly said before Diana could answer Adam. “I’m on my way out the door.” She picked up Diana’s mug and placed it in the sink. “And so is she.”

Diana didn’t move.

“I don’t have your book—and neither does Jilly.” Molly handed Diana her purse. “I know that for a fact.” She grabbed Diana’s coat from where she had placed it over a chair. “I’m sorry if I got you here under false pretenses. Perhaps it was terribly selfish of me, but I just wanted to apologize to you. I had been feeling badly about the whole thing ever since the funeral. Although”—she scowled at Adam—“I suppose you have no better picture of our family after today.” She held Diana’s coat open, politely—and pointedly.

Diana’s own politeness overcame her desire to stay. She stood and slipped into the offered coat. “Thank you for the coffee,” she said.

“So do you think Jill could have done it?” Adam asked, then took another bite of his sandwich.

“You have gone quite far enough, young man,” Molly said, glaring at Adam as she put on her own coat. “You know that I was up in Boston that day—”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Jill was always good at covering her ass.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Molly cried. Her son’s implication that she might be lying caused her voice to quiver with anger. “You yourself said how close Jill and James were—you know how much she loved him. She didn’t kill him anymore than I did!” Molly ripped her purse from a kitchen chair with such force that the chair toppled to the floor. She grabbed it and thrust it back into its original position.

“Then how come she flipped when she found out that Dr. Marcus here got all of James’s money? Why is she planning to contest the will?” Adam asked, his demeanor growing increasingly calm as his mother’s became more agitated. “How come Zach had to give her those tranquilizers?”

“You should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking such nonsense,” Molly growled. “The poor thing had just lost her only brother. She was a complete wreck that afternoon. A complete wreck,” she repeated, twisting the strap of her purse around her fingers.

“But my question is why?” He tilted his head and looked up at his mother. “Which brings me back to my original question: Who killed James?”

“Don’t you see that neither of those questions matter anymore?” Molly snapped. “What matters is picking up the pieces and going on. What matters is for a family to stick together.” She pulled the door toward her and then turned and glared at her son. “Something you could learn a bit more about.”

Diana caught Adam’s wink over Molly’s shoulder as she was ushered out of the house.

22

D
IANA’S MIND WAS REELING AS SHE HEADED TOWARD
Boston. With only one wrong turn, she found the two-lane highway that would take her north to the Mass Pike. The road was clear, and the sun hung above the bare treetops. Mitch had been wrong. She wasn’t coming back with anything. All she had gained was a conviction she couldn’t prove: Molly Arell was lying.

Even her son knew it. And Molly’s agitated response to Adam was further testimony to her guilt. But the fact that Molly was lying didn’t prove Jill had killed James. It didn’t prove anything. And as long as Molly stuck to her story, Jill had an alibi that would eliminate her as one of the police’s suspects.

Diana cranked up the heat as a thick bank of clouds streamed across the sun.
Show that either one of these other jokers had equal motive and opportunity
, Mitch had said.
And you’re off the hook
. While the fact that Jill had gotten upset after discovering she wasn’t the beneficiary of the will, and that her car had been repossessed, indicated a possible motive, the operative part of Mitch’s sentence was the word “and.” Without opportunity, all the motive in the world was useless to Diana.

About half a mile ahead, Diana could see an overloaded truck dragging its way up a steep incline, slowing all the traffic behind it to a crawl. The double yellow line to her left forbade passing, but in any case, it was obvious that there was nowhere to go.

Diana smiled ruefully to herself. She should have been clever, like Jill. She should have gotten someone to cover for her too. Maybe she could have talked Gail into claiming that they had had a late lunch that afternoon, or perhaps Sandy could have been confused into thinking she had been at Diana’s office for an appointment. Diana shook her head in frustration; she would never involve a friend or a patient—or anyone—in a lie. Adam would say that Jill was far better at “covering her ass” than Diana was. And Adam would be right.

Diana was exhausted, her back ached, and she really needed to get to a bathroom. If only she were home. Here she had rearranged her entire day—and would have to make up the work over the rest of the week—and placed herself in an awkward and difficult situation, just to come home empty. Worse than empty. For now she knew there was no salvation for her in Jill.

Diana finally pulled onto the Mass Pike and around the slow truck, only to find the six-lane highway moving at a skulk that matched the road she had just left. What was the use of all the nudging and maneuvering? What was the point of her becoming Mitch’s detective? Did any of it really matter? Yes, she reminded herself: It mattered a lot. It mattered because she needed an alternative plausible suspect in order to clear herself. In order to keep the police from arresting her for murder. Diana saw all too clearly how the scenario would appear to Levine: She had both motive and opportunity, Jill had only motive.

The traffic thinned, and Diana pulled into the passing lane. She wouldn’t allow herself to succumb to depression and self-pity. She had too much to lose, too much to fight for. If Molly’s statements destroyed Jill as a plausible suspect, then she would just have to switch to Ethan. She would call Mitch as soon as she got home and start focusing on the elusive Ethan Kruse.