I Love You More: A Novel (11 page)

I went and sat on the fireplace hearth again and watched both of them. I liked having Detective Kennedy in our house. I wished Mama liked him more, or at least was nicer to him.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I almost forgot. I have another photograph
I’d like to show you.” He reached into the pocket inside his coat and put a photo on the coffee table.

Mama didn’t look at it right away. I could see from where I sat that it was Bert.

“Am I supposed to know this woman?” Mama asked.

“You tell me,” Detective Kennedy said.

“I have no idea who she is.”

“Picasso?” Detective Kennedy said to me.

I shook my head.

“It was worth a try,” he said. He put the picture back in his coat. “Picasso mentioned that you were at a Junior League meeting,” he said to Mama. “Fine organization. What committee are you working on?”

“You can’t tell me you’re really interested in my Junior League commitments, Detective,” Mama said. “That seems beyond thorough”—she paused—“even for you.”

“You underestimate me, Mrs. Lane,” he said. “My mother was president of the Cooper’s Island chapter for five years. Maybe you knew of her? Alice Kennedy?”

“No, sorry. Is she still active?”

“She passed, almost a year ago now.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Detective.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Are you okay with me calling you ma’am?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just that I’ve heard some women find it condescending.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask what you have in the oven. It smells great.”

“Liver and onions,” Mama said. “It’s in the slow cooker, not the oven.”

The look he gave Mama was genuine. It was a look of admiration. “I can’t believe you make liver and onions. Nobody makes
that anymore. It’s one of my favorites.” He looked at me. “How’s your mother’s liver and onions?”

“Best in the world,” I said.

I wasn’t surprised when Mama asked Detective Kennedy if he wanted to stay for dinner because that was the polite thing to do, and since Detective Kennedy was also from the South, I figured, like Mama surely did, that he would graciously decline.

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” he said.

“Well then—”

“But if you insist.” This time, he shook off his jacket faster than a wet dog, and relaxed into the sofa. “Anything I can help you with?”

Mama didn’t look too happy; she picked up the tea pitcher and went to the kitchen.

Detective Kennedy leaned toward me and whispered, “I don’t think your mama likes me. Any suggestions?”

“Flowers,” I whispered back. It always worked for Daddy.

“I’ve got a quick errand to run, ma’am,” he said to Mama.

I was setting the table when Detective Kennedy got back. He winked at me as he snuck up behind Mama and stuck the flowers in front of her face. “Do you need me to get a vase down for you? From a high shelf?”

Mama cocked her head like she was surprised that he knew her vases would be up high, and then she pointed above the stove.

Detective Kennedy filled the vase with water, cut the stems, arranged the flowers, and put the vase on the table. I couldn’t imagine Daddy arranging flowers.

Nobody was talking so I figured I’d start. “Why’d you become a detective?”

“My dad was a cop,” Detective Kennedy said.

“On Cooper’s Island?” Mama asked.

“No, ma’am. Detroit.”

“Detroit?”

“That’s where I was born. We moved to Cooper’s Island when I was five and my sister was three. She’s married now, has two kids. Matt and Molly. They live over in Wilmington.” He looked at me. “Matt’s about your age. I’ll have to introduce the two of you sometime. He’s pretty handsome.”

He’d said that
sometime
word again, like he figured he’d be around for a while. I remember wondering if that was something he just said, to be polite, like Mama saying “Nice to
see
you” instead of “Nice to
meet
you,” just in case she’d met the person before and forgot.

“Okay,” I said, even though I was pretty sure that Detective Kennedy’s nephew was nowhere near as cute as Ryan Anderson.

“What about you, ma’am? You from these parts?”

“Born and raised in this very house,” Mama said.

“You don’t hear that very often. You mentioned you didn’t have family.”

“Did I?” Mama asked.

“The day of your husband’s murder.” He watched Mama’s face. I couldn’t tell whether it was because he was concerned or was waiting to see how she’d react to his saying
murder
.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Mama said. “My parents and younger brother died in a car accident.”

“I’m sorry,” Detective Kennedy said to Mama. “That must’ve been tough.”

“It’s fine,” Mama said. “It happened a long time ago, when I was eighteen. I’d already left home, gone to college.”

“Daddy’s parents died in a car accident too,” I said. “He was about the same age as Mama was.”

“Wow,” Detective Kennedy said.

“Yes,” Mama said. “It was one of the things that brought Oliver and me together.”

It was quiet for a while, and then Detective Kennedy started telling stories about growing up on Cooper’s Island. He told this
one about him and some friends trying to break into the Catholic church attached to his school by climbing up a bunch of ivy, and I committed the image of Detective Kennedy climbing that ivy to my mind so I could enter the story, and then I remembered another story, “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and I saw Daddy reading it to me when I was very little, and I entered that story too, and found myself fading back and forth between Detective Kennedy’s voice and Daddy’s voice, between Detective Kennedy climbing the ivy and Daddy climbing the beanstalk, and then the two stories merged, and I stood on the ground between the ivy and beanstalk, and both Detective Kennedy and Daddy held out their hands to me, beckoned me to jump up and climb with them, and my heart started beating faster and faster because I didn’t know who to choose, and then something happened. I heard Mama laughing—Mama
laughing
—I hadn’t heard Mama laugh since even before Daddy died, and I followed the sound of her laughter back through that magical space that separates story from reality, back into Mama’s and my house, back to the dining-room table, and there she was, her face and eyes bright, her smile wide, and I smiled too as I listened to Detective Kennedy telling us how when he and his friends finally got to the open window they’d planned to crawl through, the boy on top lost his grip causing them all to tumble down and land right in front of the priest’s feet, and as punishment, the priest made them all altar boys, which, according to Detective Kennedy was not a fun job. By then tears were falling down Mama’s face she was laughing so hard, and Detective Kennedy snorted—can you believe it,
snorted
? I had no idea Detective Kennedy was a snorter. And me? Well, I was still smiling, but I admit tears nudged at the edges of my eyes like annoying meerkats, and I remember wondering whether they were tears of happiness or tears of sadness, because in all honesty I felt both. And then the phone rang.

Mama jumped.

The laughing and snorting and wondering stopped. Mama looked at the phone but didn’t answer it, which was awkward. After the third ring, Detective Kennedy stared at Mama, like the way Mr. Dork stares at kids when he asks them hard questions. “Why haven’t you asked me about the picture I showed you, Mrs. Lane?” He sounded like a detective again, not somebody who’d be knowing Mama and me for a long time.

Fourth ring.

“What?” Mama asked.

“The woman in the picture. Aren’t you curious who she is?”

Fifth ring.

Mama didn’t say a thing. I didn’t think that was very smart.

Last ring.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“Your daddy’s third wife,” Detective Kennedy said.

My ride back to Cooper’s Island was as wet and dark as my mind. I left the windows cracked just enough to let in some air but not soak me, or the car. There was something soothing about the sound of the wipers and the swirling patterns of the water on the windshield, and something eerie in its thick, meandering consistency, like the pooling of fresh blood.

Once I’d merged onto the freeway, I dialed Mack’s number.

“Hey, Boss,” he said. “What can I do you for?”

“Could you do me a favor and check the titles on Diana Lane’s house and auto. Not the BMW. It’s a Toyota crossover. License plate number is—”

“Already checked,” Mack said. “Both are registered in Diana Lane’s name. And both are paid for by the way. Same with Julie Lane’s and Roberta Miles’s homes and cars. In fact, other than the BMW, which by the way is actually registered to Oliver Lane, Esquire, his business name, it’s like Mercy said, I can’t find one thing in his name. Not even a cable bill. The guy’s a ghost. Oh, and I had a phone conversation with our vic’s therapist. Said he had mood swings. Thought he might be bipolar, but that Lane quit coming before he could get a good read. Where are you now?”

“Just getting on the road.”

“How’d she take it?”

“She denied knowing Roberta Miles too.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll give you the details tomorrow. Think I need to keep my hands on the wheel. It’s soup out here.”

“Be safe.”

“Will do.”

After I hung up, I thought about Mack’s question. Did I believe Diana Lane?

Starting with that first time I saw her at the beach house, I went over my encounters with Diana Lane. She was definitely a looker. I remembered her shivering while she sat on the sofa, holding that skimpy towel around her shoulders like it was a security blanket. Tears running down her face. Fear in her eyes. Was it an act?

By design, I’d been the last person to enter the church the day of her husband’s funeral. The vestibule, like the Buick, and everywhere else it seemed, was hotter than hell. I found a seat in an empty pew in the back near a large industrial-type fan. Slid in, until I had an unobstructed view of her profile. That time there were no tears. She was stoic. Resigned? I remember thinking that even with her drab clothing, and her hair in that proper bun, stretched tight as silk on a loom from her hairline, she was flawless. Then I started fantasizing. I imagined pulling her toward me, undoing the knot in her hair, running my fingers through it, wrapping it around my fists, pulling her lips to mine, bruising them, shoving her against the pulpit, sliding the hem of her prim black dress up around her hips.

At the cemetery, I’d hung toward the back of the crowd. It was raining then too. The scene looked like something out of a Hitchcock movie. Black coffin. Black canopy. Black skies. Black suits and dresses. Black umbrellas. Diana Lane had added over-the-elbow gloves and a veiled pillbox hat to her ensemble. Only
her lips were exposed. They never trembled. I tailed the limousine back to the church, parked on the side of the road. The storm had passed by then, yet hadn’t done much to quell the heat. I watched Diana’s legs swing from the car, stiletto heels step onto the pavement, head dip through the door. She looked in my direction as she stood but didn’t see me. Surveillance stints in my early days had taught me the art of disappearing in plain view. She took Picasso’s hand and went back into the church. I headed to her house and waited on the front porch. I remember being pleasantly surprised when she offered me tea. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, I’d thought later. Whatever she might have done, she was still a Southern lady.

Or a very good actress.

That day, I chose not to see what I knew deep down: Diana Lane had not only recognized the photograph of her husband’s other wife, she
knew
Julie Lane. Just like she knew Roberta Miles.

Beautiful, lucky, sorry, gun, motive, liar
.

My favorite dictionary says that a rumor is “a currently circulating story or report of uncertain or doubtful truth.” That definition makes a rumor sound about as harmless as a campfire story. It’s been two years since Daddy died and people are still whispering. Whereas once the rumors might’ve been somewhat factual, over time they’ve rolled around so much they’ve grown into a big misshapen and unrecognizable blob, which, like in that black-and-white horror movie that Daddy used to love, has sucked much of the life out of Mama and me. I’m thinking that there needs to be a new word for rumor, or at least a more fitting definition. Something that more accurately describes the ugly, vicious, and hateful stories people spread, mainly because they don’t have anything better to do, and because they’re ugly, vicious, and hateful themselves. In my mind there’s a difference between a rumor and a lie: intent.