Chosen for Death (4 page)

Chapter 3

Everyone pretended they didn't mind, but I could tell by the rise in volume, by all the projects that suddenly needed to be done, that the family was nervous about talking to a policeman. Not because we had any secrets, but because we'd be forced to deal with the reality of Carrie's death in front of a stranger. Until now, we'd faced it together, sharing the burden, there to comfort each other. We all had a common bond, so much remained unspoken. It would be different with an outsider. We didn't know whether we'd have to talk with him alone or all together. It didn't matter. We knew we had to help the police; it was just that none of us wanted to talk about her. There was something else, too. No one had asked exactly how she died. We didn't want to know and we were all afraid he might tell us.

The Fosters and the Hodgsons excused themselves and left. Mom let them go reluctantly, clinging to them at the door. Having the distraction of people to feed and wait on kept her from thinking about what had happened. Uncle Henry and Aunt Rita stayed.

I helped Mom clear the buffet and put food away. Rita and Henry did the dishes. As soon as everything was put away, Mom, who couldn't stand being idle, began getting things ready for lunch. Dad laid a fire in the fireplace, an elaborate process which involved sweeping up ashes, carrying in armloads of wood, arranging newspaper and kindling, and getting the damper set just right. Only Michael seemed unconcerned. He sprawled on a sofa, reading the Sunday paper. He didn't even look up when Sonia yelled good-bye as she went out the door.

At twelve, precisely the time he'd said he would arrive, Detective Andre Lemieux of the Maine State Police rang the doorbell. Aunt Rita dropped the plate she was drying. Dad lit the fire. Uncle Henry gave Mom a quick hug and bent to help Rita pick up the pieces. Michael stayed on his sofa, inert. Which left me to answer the door.

I don't know what I was expecting. Something bad. The devil, maybe. We were all dreading this interview so much. The man standing there seemed perfectly normal, no horns or tail. He wasn't even wearing a uniform, just a simple tweed jacket, blue shirt, and corduroy slacks. As he stepped past me into the hall, I realized we were almost the same height. He seemed surprised at that. Maybe he'd expected we'd all be small and fair, like Carrie.

I held out my hand. "I'm Theadora Kozak."

His handshake was firm and dry. "Detective Andre Lemieux, Maine State Police." He smiled. "I guess that's obvious, isn't it?"

I hadn't expected a policeman with a sense of humor. It might make things easier. He seemed puzzled about who I was. "I'm Carrie's sister. Was, I mean," I explained. "My parents, Mr. and Mrs. McKusick, are here, and my aunt and uncle, Henry and Rita McKusick, and my brother, Michael. They're waiting in the living room. But one thing, before you go in. Please be gentle with my parents. They're taking this very hard..."He didn't say anything, but he gave me an odd look. I couldn't tell whether it was amusement at my presumption or displeasure at being told what to do. Otherwise, his face was unreadable. An attractive, square-jawed blank beneath a bristle of dark hair. He looked like an ex-marine. Or a classic, tight-assed cop. I just hoped he was good at his job. I turned and walked into the living room. Maybe I'd just imagined that look. It didn't matter. It's my experience that cops can't resist power-tripping. I had neither the energy nor the inclination for mind games today.

Maybe I just had a chip on my shoulder. A boulder, actually. When David died, the police were awful to me. First with a phone call asking to speak to his next of kin, but refusing to talk to me because the card in his wallet listed his mother rather than his wife. Who thinks of things like that? No one expects to die young. Then, when they reluctantly told me which hospital he was in, another officer refused to let me in to see him because they wanted to talk to him if he regained consciousness, so he died asking for me and getting a policeman instead. They did let me see him then, while he was still warm, but after the life had gone out of those wonderful brown eyes. So I didn't like cops, and this one, despite his good manners and firm handshake, was no exception.

I took a seat on the far side of the room, near Michael. Lemieux introduced himself to everyone, sat down, and pulled out a notebook. My parents sat together on one sofa, holding hands. Uncle Henry and Aunt Rita were also holding hands. The four of them, the giants of my youth, suddenly looked old and diminished. This detective had better behave, or I'd throw him out on his ear. But I didn't get the chance. He behaved. He sat quietly, not picking his nose, asking questions in a gentle voice, and writing down their answers, also taping the conversation. He accepted the coffee Mom offered, and declined lunch.

He asked all the predictable things. Why had Carrie moved to Maine? When had she moved there? Did we know who her friends were? Had she spoken to us about any serious boyfriends? Told us about any trouble she was having with anyone? He asked us what Carrie was like. We took turns answering, or supplementing each other's answers. He made it easy to talk about Carrie, and it seemed like we talked for a long time, but nothing we were telling him looked like it would help him catch Carrie's killer. No one wanted to say anything bad, or even too personal, about Carrie, in front of everyone else.

Not that we knew much about her life in Camden. Even though Mom and Dad and I had all been up to visit her, Carrie had been pretty distant since her move to Maine. He seemed disappointed that we didn't know more about her life up there, but it wasn't surprising, really. Carrie was a very private, secretive person. Being adopted had made her insecure about her identity. She guarded information about herself closely, as though someone might find it out and take it away from her. I was closest to her, and there was a lot she didn't even tell me.

The most revealing stuff was what Mom told him, reluctantly, in response to his question about why Carrie had gone to Maine. About a fight they'd had. Carrie had wanted Mom to help her search for her birth parents. Mom has always been a wise, understanding parent, but on this subject she was adamant. She wouldn't discuss it. Maybe it was because she had had to work so hard and wait so long to get Carrie, or because she'd tried so hard to be a perfect mother to her. Whatever the reason—and since she wouldn't talk to me about it I didn't know, either—she was so threatened by Carrie's curiosity that she refused to even consider her request.

"The last day, before she left," Mom said, "Carrie tried again to persuade me that she was right. She said she didn't look anything like us. That she'd always felt odd and out of place and not like one of us. Disconnected. Not chosen, like we'd always told her, but abandoned. Unwanted. She wanted to know who had discarded her, and why they'd given her away. Why they didn't love her enough to keep her. She said she needed to find them and ask them why. She said she might have real brothers and sisters, as if Thea and Michael were fake." She started crying.

Dad gave her his handkerchief and put his arm around her, pulling her tight. "You don't need to talk about this anymore, Linda, if you don't want to."

The detective sat impassively, letting her decide. After a minute, she drew her head away from Dad's chest. "It's OK, Tom," she said. "Carrie said she couldn't understand why, if I loved her, I wouldn't help. She wasn't interested in how I felt. Of course, her head had been filled with nonsense by that search group she was involved with. It was as though we—her family—meant nothing to her. Not our love, or our lifetime together. What mattered were some people she'd never known, who didn't even want her."

Mom shook her head. "She had no idea what she was getting into, and she wouldn't let me tell her. Carrie believed her birth parents would provide all the answers, fix everything that was wrong with her life. Once she found them, she would know who she was and where she came from, and she would finally be satisfied. Nothing I said, about us being her family, or the risks of such a search and the dangers of disappointment, made any difference." Her voice was getting weaker, as though talking about this exhausted her.

"Linda," Dad began again, "you don't have to talk about this." She put a finger over his lips. "Thea," he said, "will you get your mother a glass of water?"

She took a few sips and set the glass heavily on the coffee table. "Carrie was always searching for something. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. Or reacted so strongly. But I did. She told me that she had a friend who was going to spend the summer in Maine, working in a restaurant. The friend could get her a job, and she was going up there to put some space between us and think about things for a while. She packed up that very day, and she left."

"When was that?" Lemieux asked.

"Early June."

"And was that the last time you saw her?"

Mom smiled. "Of course not. Tom and I drove up to see her twice. Carrie might have been mad at me about that one thing, but she was still a loving daughter." She said it defiantly, as though the detective might not believe her. "Thea visited her once, too, didn't you, dear?" I nodded obediently.

Lemieux asked a few questions about the visits, but it was clear that none of us had seen or heard anything, or met anyone who appeared to dislike Carrie or had any reason to hurt her.

The whole interview made me impatient. Impatient with his questions, with the time it was taking which was keeping me there, instead of at home, getting on with my work. I had to fight my own urge to take over and ask different questions—questions which would have made everyone furious with me. When he was finished, I felt like I do after a bad restaurant meal—dissatisfied and still hungry. He hadn't followed up on things he should have, like why searching for her birth parents was so important to Carrie, or even why it was that we knew so little about her. No one had even uttered the words private or secretive or lost, and they were important words in describing her. He didn't have enough information to understand Carrie yet, and if he didn't understand her, how could he find her killer?

I stifled the impulse to tell him so. I was too tired to bother. I'd been following the interview like a coach at a tense basketball game, watching the conversational ball as it flew up and down the court, silently urging everyone to open up, do more, say more, until I felt as though I'd asked and answered every question myself. I knew that memories of Carrie, and the sense that we'd failed her, rested heavily on everyone in the room.

Yesterday I'd made her a promise that her killer would be found. Today that didn't look so easy. This detective wouldn't be here talking to us if the police had an obvious suspect or anything better to go on. And we weren't giving him much. There had been a couple of calls from Carrie on my answering machine in the last month. Calls I hadn't gotten around to returning yet, because I'd been so busy. If I'd answered them, I might know something that would be useful to the police. Or they might have been calls for help.

"Do you have any idea who killed Carolyn?" my mother asked.

"I'm afraid we don't, Mrs. McKusick," he said. "Not at this point in time." He seemed genuinely sorry, but then, catching criminals was his job, so maybe he was just sorry because it meant more work to do. Maybe he'd hoped one of us would confess. I didn't know why I was letting this detective bother me so much. He hadn't said one harsh word to anyone. Maybe it was because it was so important that he find Carrie's killer and he admitted he didn't have a clue. Maybe I was just worn out from the scene with Todd. And remembering David.

I got up to see him out and found my legs were so shaky I barely made it to the door. I had to lean against the wall to keep from falling over. He didn't miss it, either. He hesitated in the doorway. "Mrs. Kozak," he said, "are you all right?"

"Fine," I said, too loudly. "I'm just tired."

"Mr. Kozak isn't with you?" he asked.

"Mr. Kozak," I said, "is dead." I shut the door in his face.

Chapter 4