Dark Rooms (34 page)

Seized by a wild violence, I look at Damon. I could smash the glass Coke bottle against the edge of the table and twist the jagged end into his face. Or. Or.

The idea has scarcely formed itself in my mind, and I'm already leaning forward in my chair. A giggle of nervous anticipation starts to
rattle out of my throat. Swallowing it back I say, “Since we're making confessions, Damon, I've got one.” I wait until he raises his head before I go on. “I'm expecting.”

“Expecting what?” A beat. “You mean, a baby?”

“I don't mean rain.”

He says nothing. And even though I'm deliberately not looking at him anymore, I can feel his shock, can almost smell it, and it gives me a nasty thrill. “Well,” I say, swallowing back another giggle, “I'm not expecting so much as expecting not to be expecting, if you catch my drift.”

“An abortion?” His voice is a ragged whisper.

“You're quick. And if you're wondering if there's a possibility that it isn't yours, there's not. No one else has raped me lately.” I pause, give that last statement a few moments to sink in, hit home. It's not true. Damon didn't rape me. Our sex was foolish not forced. I don't care if it is a lie, though. All I want to do is cause him pain. I continue, “Or had sex with me. Actually, not just lately—ever. You're my first and only.”

The silence goes on for so long I sneak a peek at him. There's no movement in his eyes now. They're as dark and hollow as just-dug graves. And, all of a sudden, the hatred leaks out of me, the violence, too, leaving me scared: of the dead look in his eye; of my need, gnawing and gnashing and relentless, to punish him, make him as full of self-loathing as I am; of this thing I've started and am now powerless to stop.

He licks his lips. “I have some money saved up. I don't know if it's enough but I could—”

“I don't want your money,” I say. “I want you to go.” I stand up and point to the door. He opens his mouth, but before he can speak, I scream, “Leave! Now!”

He nods tiredly and gets to his feet. Rather than walking away from the table, though, he says, “I understand that I have no right to ask you for anything but—”

“You're right. You don't.”

“But I'm going to anyway. Don't let what you found out about me distract you.”

“Distract me from what exactly?”

“The case.”

“We don't have a case, Damon. What we have is a crock.”

“It's not shit. It's not. We—you—were starting to make real headway finding out who the killer is.”

I snort. “Like it matters.”

He meets my stare. “Your sister doesn't matter?”

I snort again, but I'm the one who looks away first.

“And Manny's note on your dad's cell.”

“What about it?” I say.

“You didn't just find it, you decoded it, made sense of it.”

“So?”

“So don't stop.” His voice softens. “Please don't stop.”

At the word
please,
anger surges through me. And as Damon reaches up to touch my cheek, I haul back and slap him with all the strength I have. The sound cracks like a whip, echoes in the empty house until it's smothered by a terrible silence. In an instant the anger is gone, fear and desolation in its place. I'm almost too afraid to look at him.

But I do. The red mark of my palm shows plainly on his pale, spent face. He doesn't say anything, just lifts my limp hand to his lips and kisses it. Then he crosses the room, opens the door, and walks out of the house.

I fall back into my chair, drop my head on the table, and cry.

The crying jag doesn't last for more than a minute. A short but intense bout of emotion. And there's a kind of release in that intensity. My head feels clearer. My vision, too. I see now that Damon's right: I set something in motion when I began this search for Nica's killer—something bigger than me, bigger even than her maybe—and that I can't just suddenly turn my back on it.

Sitting at the kitchen table, I try to discipline my thoughts, plot my next move. It would be best, I decide, to take the systematic approach, go down the suspect list one by one. But where to start? With my dad, the suspect I regard as the most suspicious, edging out Mr. and Mrs. Amory? Or with Jamie, only on the list to shut Damon up? Jamie, I suppose, since Dad's at work and won't be available for grilling until one at the earliest. Besides, I've been putting off the conversation with Jamie for long enough. It doesn't matter that I don't believe him capable of killing Nica. He had the motive to do so, if not the opportunity. (Sure, Damon's scenario is physically possible—Jamie zipping back
and forth from Hartford to Westerly, Westerly to Hartford, Hartford to Westerly, as deadly with a Prince Airstick 140 as with a .22 Smith & Wesson—but it's also highly improbable. This isn't, after all, some murder mystery movie, an updated version of a Hitchcock thriller.)

Unless, I think to myself.

Something Jamie said at the Outdoor Club meeting, a remark he made. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time but somehow it snagged itself in my brain: the Stamford tournament was the second in the last six months in which he'd lost first round.

I get the laptop from my bedroom, look up that tournament in Westerly. Another Bronze level event. Too minor to be reported in the local paper. I call the club.

A chipper-voiced young woman answers. “Ocean House Relais and Chateaux. How may I help you?”

After I tell her, there's a long pause. Finally she says, sounding considerably less chipper, “You want to the know the results of a junior tournament we hosted in April?”

“That's right. Boys Under-19 division. I'm writing an article for my school paper. One of our seniors just won a big squash scholarship.” When she says nothing back, I add, “And I don't mind waiting.”

The young woman sighs and drops the receiver with a thunk. Five minutes later she's back on the line, eating what sounds like an apple. “Okay,” she says, through a noisy mouthful, “I found the draw sheet. That tournament was won by a J. Amory of Avon, Connecticut.”

Surprised at the strength of my relief, I say, “Jamie won?”

“That your classmate?”

“Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you so much for your—”

“Oh wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I was reading it wrong. This thing is confusing. You have to go backward. Your guy was seeded one. But he was out early, looks like.”

My heartbeat rattling in my ears, “How early?”

“Didn't make it to the second round.”

“Is that because he withdrew? Or defaulted maybe?” Either scenario would make sense, I realize. More sense than him losing, actually. He'd have won his match on Friday, then got the call about Nica Saturday morning. I feel a spark of hope.

A second later, the spark goes out. “Nope,” says the young woman. “He was defeated in the first round by a B. Wong of Old Lyme, Connecticut. I can read you the scores if you—”

I hang up, my mind racing. That Jamie lost on Friday doesn't mean anything or change anything. He still checked into the hotel. The police said he did. But maybe he checked in before the match, drove home after. Didn't see the point in spending the night in Rhode Island if he wasn't playing the next day. Maybe he returned to his parents' house, only fifteen minutes from Chandler by car. Then maybe he—

Stop, I tell myself. No more thinking. Enough is enough. Thinking isn't going to get me where I need to go. This isn't something I can work out in my head, only face-to-face. I have to talk to Jamie.

After a fast shower, I'm about to walk out the door and over to Chandler when I remember that it's the start of the weekend. Not just any weekend either, a weekend in September, mere months away from the biggest squash tournament of the year: the U.S. Junior Open. Jamie's far more likely to be at his house, close to the club in Canton that Oscar coaches out of, than at school. Even better. I can check out his parents, too, while I'm there.

I grab my cell phone and keys. Then, on impulse, I run back upstairs and pull Nica's denim jacket from the top shelf of my closet, where I've been stashing it since Damon wrapped it around me the night of Luis Ramos's capture. After putting it on, I reach for a pen, start writing Dad a note in case he stops by to make a sandwich for himself in between tutoring and bartending. Midway through,
though, I scrap it. Since when does Dad stop by to make a sandwich? Since when does Dad eat solid foods?

I get in my car. Light out for Avon.

The Amorys' house is dark, and, apart from a lone sprinkler, whirring on the front lawn, silent. I'd have figured they were out of town for the weekend, except that Mrs. Amory's silver Volvo is parked by the toolshed next to Jamie's Land Rover, also silver. As I walk past the beds of lush, expensive flowers, the tall, carefully pruned bushes, I think about the last time I was here. My fingers unconsciously brush the scar above my eyebrow.

I lift the lion's-head knocker, let it fall. Thirty seconds pass. Then a minute. Then two. I'm about to head back to my car when I hear the sound of shuffled steps. Locks are fumbled with, bolts turned. Finally, the door opens. Behind it is Mrs. Amory. She's not looking so hot, her skin puffy-pale, violet-tinged around the eyes, her hair flat on one side, like she's been lying on it.

“You,” she says, her voice thick with sleep.

“Hi, Mrs. Amory. I hope I'm not bothering you.”

She neither confirms nor denies. Just looks at me, mouth half open, the expression on her face somewhere between bewildered and accusatory.

“I didn't interrupt your nap, did I?”

More of the same.

Starting to feel uncomfortable, I say, “Is Jamie around?”

Hearing her son's name seems to bring Mrs. Amory back to herself. Closing her mouth, recovering some of her poise, she says, “Ah, no, dear. He's at school.”

“But his car's here.”

“He left it yesterday. The engine light's flashing. He asked me to drop it off at the dealer for him.”

“Oh,” I say.

Mrs. Amory has one of those lipless drawstring mouths that are always tightening in disapproval or irritation. It's tightening right now. “Is that all? Because I'd—”

“What about Mr. Amory?”

A long sigh. “He's not here either.”

“Where's he?”

“At a business meeting.”

What kind of business meeting could a guy without a job have on a Friday at six
P.M.
?

Mrs. Amory must guess what I'm thinking because her drawstring mouth cinches even tighter. “It's with our financial planner in New York. The meeting was at four this afternoon, so my husband thought it made sense to just spend the night in the city, take the train home in the morning.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“As I said, he's taking the train home in the morning.” She starts to shut the door.

“Don't you want to know what I want to talk to him about?”

“If you do decide to come back tomorrow, call first, please.” She goes to shut the door the rest of the way.

I jam my foot in it. “About my sister. You know—his daughter?” Mrs. Amory's body slumps a little, but otherwise she doesn't react, just stares at a patch of air a few inches above my head. Still, it's enough. “Unless,” I say, “you'll talk to me about her instead.”

Mrs. Amory continues to stare off into space. At last, though, her face gives a twitch and her eyes come back to mine. She shrugs, turns around, starts walking down the dim, high-ceilinged entrance hall, padding along on her bare feet, robe flapping behind her. She trips on the edge of a Persian rug, steadies herself by leaning against the wall, then disappears into the kitchen.

I close the door and follow her.

The Amorys' kitchen is old-fashioned-looking: glass-fronted cabinets, a sink with a faucet that comes right out of the wall, black-and-white tiled floor. Mrs. Amory sits at the antique farm table at the center. It appears as if she's set up camp there. Before her is a mug of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, Gauloises—I recognize the logo from an exhibition of Motherwell collages Mom took me and Nica to a few years ago—an ashtray choked with butts.

I take a seat across from Mrs. Amory as she lights a cigarette. The cigarette's smelly. Not smelly enough, though, to cover the raw whiskey fumes floating up from the coffee mug. Guess it isn't sleep her voice is thick with.

“I really shouldn't be doing this,” she says, waving out the match, dropping it in the ashtray.

What, I want to say back. Chain-smoking? Spiking your coffee? Spending the entire day in your jamjams?

She clarifies: “Using this ashtray. My mother gave it to me. It's been in the family since the 1830s.”

It looks like a regular old ashtray to me but I say, “It's pretty,” to be polite.

“It's made out of Bohemian crystal,” she says, sounding aggressive about it. “It's one of a kind. Really just for decoration.”