Hard Feelings (18 page)

“Yes, we mind,” I said. “You’re not looking at anything in this apartment without a search warrant or until I talk to a lawyer. What else do you want?”

Burroughs smiled, and then he stood up. Freemont stood too, closing his notepad.

“I guess there’s no use wasting any more of our time,” Burroughs said to me. “After all, you have an alibi. We’ll just see if any of the bartenders at this bar remember you from Friday night. You’ll have to give us a picture of yourself, though, unless you want to come to Jersey and meet our photographer.”

“I’ll give you a picture,” I said.

“I’ll get one,” Paula said, and headed toward the bedroom.

“A clear one,” Burroughs added.

I walked ahead of the detectives, leading them toward the foyer. From behind me, Burroughs said, “I see you bought the
Times
last Sunday.”

I turned around slowly and saw him standing over the basket of newspapers in the corner.

“Yeah,” I said, wondering what he was he getting at. “So?”

“Just an observation,” Burroughs said. “I noticed the Metro section is on top—that’s the section where the story on the stabbing appeared.”

“So?”

“So did you read the Metro section or not?”

“I only read the Business section and the Week in Review,” I said.

“Me, too,” Burroughs said, smiling.

There was awkward silence and I tried to avoid eye contact. Finally, Paula returned with a few photos and said, “Are these any good?” Then she said to me directly, “They’re from the Berkshires.”

“This one should do,” Burroughs said, picking one of me in front of the Red Lion Inn, taken right after we’d checked out.

At the door, Burroughs said to me, “Last question—do you happen to know a teenaged boy with a ponytail and a goatee?”

“No,” I said. “Why do you ask that?”

“No reason,” he said, smiling again. “We’ll definitely be in touch again soon.”

When the detectives were gone I said to Paula, “Can you believe this shit? They’re really trying to pin a murder on me—a murder.”

“Why did they ask if you knew that teenager?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “This whole thing is so crazy, like a nightmare. I come back from my first A.A. meeting and next thing I know I’m being accused of murder.”

“Want me to make some tea?”

“Whatever,” I said.

I went into the bathroom and leaned over the sink, splashing cold water against my face. My mind was spinning but I was finally able to relax. I figured that the detectives would come back after they talked to the bartenders at the Old Stand, but at least I had bought a little more time. What worried me was why the police had decided to question me at all. I didn’t know if it was just a routine part of their investigation, or if they knew that Rudnick had lied about the teenager.

Heading back toward the kitchen I heard one of the counter drawers closing. When I entered the kitchen, Paula was trying to look busy, removing dishes from the dishwasher.

“You were looking at the knives, weren’t you?” I said.

“No,” Paula said. “I was just putting away dishes.”

“Please don’t lie to me,” I said.

She continued to stack dishes for several seconds, then she stopped what she was doing and said, “Why did you pack a suitcase on Saturday?”

“What do you mean?”

“There was a packed suitcase on the bed on Saturday. Were you planning to go somewhere?”

“Yes, I was, actually,” I said. “I was thinking about moving to a hotel for a few days.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? You were locking me out of the bedroom—I thought we could use some time apart . . . What’s this all about anyway? You think I killed him, don’t you?”

“Of course I don’t—”

“Then why are you acting like this?”

“I’m not sure.” She looked away for several seconds, covering her eyes, then turned back and said, “Of course I don’t think you’re a killer, Richard, but things have been so screwed up between us lately I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”

“Look,” I said, “everything’s gonna be okay. They’re gone now and they’re not gonna come back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

The tea kettle started to whistle. Paula turned the flame off and I asked her to make me a cup of Earl Grey. A few minutes later she brought the filled mug to me at the dining room table, then she sat down across from me with her own mugful.

“Maybe the kid’s father killed him,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Paula said.

“Rudnick,” I said. “The police said the soccer-team kid changed his story, but let’s say Rudnick really did it. Maybe the father killed him—getting revenge.”

“Tell me what happened,” Paula said.

“What do you think of my theory?” I said.

“I think it’s possible,” she said.

She waited, staring at me.

“I really don’t remember anything more than I told the detectives,” I said. “It happened and it’s over and I just want to forget about it.”

My hand was gripping the handle of the mug. Paula reached over and put her hand around mine and said, “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” I said.

“Sometimes people tend to blame themselves instead of the other person.”

“Believe me, I don’t.”

“You don’t have to feel ashamed—”

“I’m not.”

“Or guilty.”

“I don’t. Really—I’m okay. I mean I understand what you’re saying, but it happened a long time ago and it’s over now. I guess it’s really over since Michael Rudnick’s dead.”

“You might
think
it’s over,” Paula said, “but something like this won’t just go away. It might take years until you understand how you really feel.”

“I don’t need therapy.”

“I’m not saying you do—”

“That might work for you, but it won’t for me. Believe me, I’m a lot better off just working things out myself. I know it wasn’t my fault, that it had nothing to do with me. I know all that crap. Who knows? Maybe if I never remembered what happened, I would’ve had more problems to deal with. But now I know I’m over it.”

“You might not be,” Paula said. She let go of my hand and sat up straight. “I’m not going to tell you to see a therapist, so just hear me out, okay? I think therapy would help you, but if you don’t want to do it, then don’t do it—that’s completely up to you. It probably wouldn’t help anyway, if you didn’t believe in it. But you should definitely open up about your feelings more. If you don’t talk to someone about things like this it can cause other problems in your life.”

“But isn’t that what we’re doing now . . . talking?”

“I mean all the time. From now on we can’t just . . . I mean look at us lately. I can’t remember the last time we had a serious talk about anything. We have to be closer. It’s not good for two people in a marriage to be acting the way we’ve been acting. And especially now—with this whole crazy situation with this guy winding up dead. You’re going to have a lot of issues coming up—scary issues—and you can’t keep them to yourself.”

Paula looked down and I realized she’d started to cry. Suddenly, everything made sense.
This
was her “big issue” that she talked about with her therapist, but that she never wanted to discuss with me. It also explained why she used to tell me she always had “trouble getting close to people.”

Paula was quiet for a while, then she told me how when she was nine her uncle Jimmy had abused her. Whenever Paula went over to her cousin’s house to sleep over, Jimmy would tell her to bring a homework assignment. Then Jimmy would take her into his office, explaining to the other kid that they needed privacy. After Jimmy helped Paula with her homework he would force her to give him a hand job. Paula never told on Jimmy for the usual reasons—guilt, fear, shame—but unlike me, she didn’t block out the memories for years. As a teenager, she remembered everything that had happened to her, in vivid detail.

“I’m glad I didn’t repress any of it,” she said, “or who knows? Maybe I would’ve become a drug addict or a prostitute. Or maybe I would’ve gone crazy.”

Still, the abuse had a major effect on her. When she was seventeen she started missing her period and her doctor diagnosed her as “borderline anorexic.” She had problems dating in high school, going out with verbally, and occasionally physically, abusive guys. When she went away to college she fell in love with me and was convinced that her troubles with relationships were behind her. But then, after we got married, she started feeling bad about herself again.

“I’m not making any excuses,” she said. “Cheating on you was stupid and hurtful and it was probably the biggest mistake of my life. But at least I realize why I did it, and I never would have been able to do that without therapy.”

She paused and took a sip of tea. I reached over the table and held her hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” she said. “If I could live my life over I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve learned that what happened to me with Jimmy is part of who I am. If it wasn’t for Uncle Jimmy I’d be a completely different person and I don’t want to be a different person—I like myself now.”

Thinking that she was even deeper into this therapy crap than I’d thought, I said, “I just wish you’d talked to me about it right away. I could’ve . . . I don’t know . . . helped.”

“I tried to talk to you about it once,” she said, “but I couldn’t. Communication was a big problem for us—it still is a problem. That’s why I still need therapy so badly. Except for Dr. Carmadie, you’re the only person I’ve ever talked to about any of this.”

“Well, it’s over now for both of us,” I said, starting to massage her hand gently. “Now we can go on with our lives.”

She jerked her hand away.

“It’s not over for me,” she said. “Maybe it’s over for you, but it’ll never be over for me. I don’t mean to belittle what happened to you, but do you really have any idea what I went through? This guy, Michael Rudnick, he wasn’t related to you. Can you imagine growing up, having the person who’s abusing you in your
family?
Watching your parents treat him like he’s this great person when you know he’s a scumbag? I don’t think anyone can understand what that’s like unless it’s happened to them. In a way, you were lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Maybe not lucky—
fortunate.
You had a chance to confront Michael Rudnick before he died. I never had that chance. My uncle died a year after he moved to Chicago. Just dropped dead mowing the grass in his backyard one morning. I cried for days when I found out. How fucked up is
that?
I actually cried over that sick fucking bastard. I mean I can really understand why you went to his office that day to confront him. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fantasized about confronting my uncle. I’d look him in the eye and say, ‘Fuck you, you ugly son of a bitch. How could you do that to a child?’ Other times, I imagine him sitting there in the reclining chair in his office, in the same chair he used to make me sit in when . . . Anyway, he’s sitting there, smoking one of his stinky cigars, and I sneak up behind him with one of those strings that Mafia guys use. I put the string around his neck and then pull, so hard he gets lifted up off the chair. Then I watch his big bald head turn purple until he stops struggling, until I just let go, and his fat, ugly body falls back onto the chair.”

Suddenly, Paula’s face was turning bright pink, as if someone were strangling
her.
I could tell that in her mind she was there, killing her uncle, and I remembered how exhilarated I had felt when I was attacking Rudnick in the parking lot, as if for a few seconds I was outside my body, watching myself, the way people are supposed to feel before they die. I felt an urge to tell her the truth about everything. Maybe she’d understand why I’d done it and I wouldn’t have to keep it a secret from her anymore.

But instead I said, “I’m glad you didn’t do that.”

“Why?” Paula asked, her face still flushed.

“Because people might not’ve believed you. You could’ve gone to jail, your life ruined because of some fucking pervert.”

Paula was crying. I went over and put my arms around her waist. After a while, she put her arms around me and we held each other that way for a long time.

While Paula was getting ready for bed, I walked Otis. Now that Paula and I were back on good terms, there was a noticeable change in Otis’s personality. He was much spunkier than he had been lately, walking ahead of me, exploring all the people and objects we passed, keeping the leash taut.

As I walked Otis toward Second Avenue, I realized why Rudnick had told his wife about me. He was afraid I would blackmail him, so he’d told his wife that I had accused him of molesting me
before
I had a chance to make any demands. He’d probably told her that I was crazy and had made up the molestation story to capitalize on what I’d heard about him and the kid on the soccer team. This way, if I took my story public there would be a chance his wife would believe him.

I smiled, thinking about how desperate Rudnick must have been during his last days alive.