Killer Image (An Allison Campbell Mystery) (3 page)

Four

“Get out of the damn barn, Buddy, and leave those chickens alone!” Mia raised the broom over her head and lunged for the mutt. He glanced up from the melee in the chicken house just long enough to give her the dog version of the finger and then dove in for another round of chase-the-hens. O’Connor, Mia’s favorite bird, squawked indignantly and scurried across the dirt floor, head up and tail feathers wagging. She hid behind Mia’s legs. “Buddy! Now!”

Mia dropped the broom and ran toward the dog, but not before he cornered two more chickens against the back wall of the building. Scalia puffed his chest in normal rooster fashion, but Mia knew he lacked the
cajones
to attack. As the only cock in this hen house, he’d gotten too used to a sure thing and had gone soft. Sure enough, he turned his back to the dog and let Kennedy handle the intruder.

“Buddy! You little pest, come here.” Mia grabbed Buddy by the collar and dragged him to the door, kicked the gate open with one foot, and pushed the dog into the yard. Then she turned back to the chickens. Scalia still stood with his back to the room, shifting his weight from one foot to the other nervously, but Kennedy had waddled back toward the middle of the small enclosure. Ginsburg and Thomas were already pecking at the leftover feed on the floor.

“Come here Kennedy. Poor baby. Mommy’s here.” Mia knelt down and took the shaking chicken into her arms. She stroked back the bird’s black and white crest and let her peck gently at the flesh on Mia’s palm. “There, there. Your little heart is beating so loudly. Calm down, Kennedy, that bad Buddy is gone now.”

“I always knew you had some granola in you, but this is ridiculous.”

Mia froze. She hadn’t heard a car come down the long driveway. Buddy hadn’t barked. And the sound of that voice felt like ice water in her veins.

“Edward.” Mia stood, slowly, and faced him, the bird still in her arms. She forced her features into a neutral mask. She wasn’t prepared, though, for the changes four years had wreaked on her ex-husband. The skin on his face, once tan and glowing from hours of tennis and golf, was lined and gray. Deep wrinkles were etched around his mouth and nose and on his forehead. Where once he’d had a head of thick blond hair, thin strands of white stuck out from under a Phillies cap. Serves him right, she thought. Time had turned this demon into an old man.

Mia placed the bird on the ground. Her hands strayed upward, and she pushed her long hair away from her face. She saw in his eyes that he too was taken aback by the changes the years since their divorce had caused. Mia knew any aging had less to do with the breakup of their marriage and more to do with her daughter Bridget’s death, but she didn’t have to tell that to Edward.

“I came with some news, Mia. Do you have time?”

Mia stared at him, suspicious. He was the last person she wanted to see. Then, in an effort to collect herself and hide just how shaken she felt by his presence, she said, “Where are my manners? Come in the house.”

Edward backed out of the chicken coop and into the gloom cast by thick clouds and the setting sun. Mia followed and closed the half-door that secured the enclosure. She watched Edward’s form—the arrogant broad shoulders, the cocky athlete’s gait—make its way from the lower yard that housed the chickens and goats, up through the stone path that meandered through the flower gardens toward the house. Like the cock of the walk, she thought. Some things never change.

She wondered what news he could be bringing. And why did it need to be said in person? Apprehension coursed through her. Calm down already, she told herself.

Mia found him waiting by the porch door that led into the back of her house. “Go ahead,” she said and watched his face adjust to the sight. The bungalow she now called home was a far cry from the five-bedroom Tudor in which they’d raised Jason and Bridget. She looked around, trying to see the property through his eyes. The hand-split cedar shingles she treasured looked jagged and rustic, the stone paths and small patio, built with flagstones dug from her field, seemed uneven and amateurish. She followed him inside and absorbed his reaction to the Spartan porch, the table made of saw horses, and an old barn door, on which flower pots and gardening tools waited patiently. She saw the plain screen door that led into the kitchen, its frame in need of a fresh coat of paint. The expanse of brick floor, unswept, the cranky old AGA stove, the farmhouse sink, its white porcelain basin stained from years of honest use.

Stop.
Mia took a deep breath. She caught her reflection in the window—recognized the thinker’s crease in her forehead and the anxiety in her eyes. He’s not doing this to you, she thought. You are doing it to yourself.

She said,
“Tea or coffee?”

“Tea.”

Without waiting for an invitation, Edward took a seat at the small Formica table she’d pushed up against the far wall. Mia picked up the blue-enameled teapot and turned on the faucet. The place
was
small. A kitchen, bedroom, and living room downstairs and a small bedroom upstairs. The upstairs lacked heat, and, in the winter, she closed it off with a heavy tarp placed at the bottom of the steps. She could see that tarp now from her vantage point by the sink. Gray and utilitarian.

Mia had bought this house after the accident that had killed their only daughter. Edward had been drunk. Bridget had been nineteen. Edward’s drinking had been out of control for a long time, but after the crash, Mia could no longer make excuses for the man. When he refused to get help, she filed for divorce. But she supposed she was as angry at herself as she was at Edward—for letting his problem go for so long. Bridget’s blood was on her hands, too.

“Mia?”

She looked down and saw the water had overflowed the pot and was running down her fingers.
Damn it,
Mia, focus.
She turned off the faucet, poured out the excess water, and placed the teapot on the stove.

“Mia—”

She reached for two mugs on the same overhead shelf and fished two teabags out of a porcelain jar. She placed a teabag in each cup. Edward’s presence stirred up memories Mia hadn’t been prepared to face. She and Bridget had been close. Impossibly close for a teenage child and a parent. Bridget had been a freshman at Yale. She wanted to be a doctor. She had everything going for her. She was smart and kind and gentle—

“Mia.”

—and her future had been snatched away from her because this man could not say no when it came to gin. Witnesses said Bridget had argued for the keys, but Edward insisted on driving. And then the head-on collision. Maybe if his reaction timing hadn’t been impaired, the accident would have turned out differently. But instead, in the face of her loss and his obstinate refusal to accept blame, Mia left. And when she did, she left everything: her business, her house, her life. And eventually she’d come here to the rundown farmhouse, away from anyone who used to matter.

“Mia!”

Mia jumped. She knocked one cup to the ground. It broke. Ceramic shards shot across the floor. She looked down. Edward rose to pick up the pieces.

“I don’t need your help.” Mia said.

He grabbed her arm and led her to the table. “Sit. You’ll cut yourself.”

She sat, the venom draining, suddenly feeling every one of her fifty-six years. She watched him throw away the ceramic pieces and wipe down the floor with a damp paper towel to catch any small slivers. He took another cup from the shelf and finished making tea for both of them. He placed the cups on the table and sat back down.

He looked around. After a pause he said, “What the hell are you doing, Mia?”

“What does it look like, Edward? I was making tea.”

“I meant with your life. This house, your reclusiveness. It all looks like a lot of escapee nonsense.”

His voice was not unkind, but that made it worse. She felt off-balance. He didn’t deserve an explanation. And, anyway, how to explain that here, with the quiet and the animals, she felt some semblance of peace? The expectations were clear and largely unchanging. But Edward would never understand that. Wasn’t it the very thing he’d tried to twist during the divorce? To make her look crazy and unstable. No, explaining was pointless, the divide between them, too vast to bridge.

“This is my life now.”

“It’s been four years since Bridget died, Mia.” He reached across the table, but Mia pulled her hand away before he could touch her.

He winced as though she’d slapped him. “Fine.” His tone turned brusque. “I just came to tell you that Arnie Feldman is dead.”

She looked at him blankly. “Arnie? Arnie Feldman?” She repeated the name until it dawned on her. Edward’s divorce attorney. In a flash, she saw a small man, big nose, ingratiating smile.  Tiny pointed teeth. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Edward, but I don’t understand. Why are you telling me?”

Edward met her gaze with a harshness that startled her. “Because he was murdered, Mia. And a murder means an investigation.”

“So?”

“So the police are looking at anyone who’s had a conflict with Arnie. Anyone with motive.”

She swallowed, sudden comprehension tearing through the layers of denial she’d so carefully stacked, layer upon layer, like bricks. “No.”

“Yes.” He stood and turned toward the door, his tea untouched. “And this,”—he motioned around the room—“will not look normal to the police. Normal people don’t get off the grid, give up a marriage and a career because of one accident.”

“You know I didn’t do it, Edward.”

“You may want to call your son, Mia. Jason won’t speak to me, or I’d ask him myself. But you just may need a lawyer. The police have already visited me. They wanted to talk about you.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, I didn’t kill anybody. Bridget’s gone. Nothing can bring her back. I made those threats against Arnie during the divorce because I was angry. Hurt. You and Arnie tried to make me look like a paranoid lunatic. I would never kill someone. You know me better than that.”

“I
knew
you, Mia. Before. But this Mia,” he said, gesturing toward the window, at the barn and fields beyond. “This Mia, I don’t know at all.”

Fear and anger closed in on Mia. The result was rage. “Leave, Edward. Now.”

Edward opened the door to the porch. “Just call that son of yours and tell him to get his head out of his ass long enough to recommend an attorney.” He slammed the screen door closed but turned back before leaving. “Just in case.”

Allison stood at her parents’ door for what felt like eons, unable to act.

The rain had turned to a biting sleet that pummeled the walkway behind her and landed at an angle, so that even standing under the small vestibule, the pellets struck her back. She barely noticed. Instead, she felt the same twisting anxiety she always felt when she returned here.

She turned the knob. Locked. She put her head against the doorframe and knocked. Nothing.

She knocked again, harder. Eventually, the door opened and Faye’s angular face peered around the edge.

“Can I come in?”

Faye stepped back to let her inside, but not before she gave Allison a disapproving once over. “Suit yourself.”

Over her sister’s shoulder, Allison caught a glimpse of the darkened living room.  A sagging floral sofa perched against the far wall, between mismatched coffee tables. A large bronze crucifix hung over an ancient television set, which had two knobs missing and a pair of pliers affixed to the dial. A smaller, newer television sat on top of the old one. The curtains were drawn, shutting out any remaining daylight and the world beyond these walls. Smells of onions and cooking oil and Lysol wafted from within.

Her father sat slumped in a chair in the corner, a caricature of the man who haunted her childhood. He raised his head to look at her. Allison saw no warmth in his expression. His thin legs were propped on a ragged beige ottoman. She noticed socks worn threadbare at his heels, and ankles that looked too skinny and too frail to support his weight. 

“It’s them spics across the street, Ally,” her father said, as though continuing a conversation he’d had with her just yesterday instead of years ago. “They’re the ones taking our stones. Every morning I notice some missing. They’re storing ’em up to make their own rock garden. Bit by bit, I tell you.” He shook his head. “When them foreigners move into a neighborhood, it goes downhill fast.”

He raised a fist for emphasis, but the energy needed to project his anger at this bit of fantasy was too much, and he sank back against the cushion and closed his eyes.

Allison was at a loss for words. How do you respond to a man whose last real words to you were, “Get your fat, lazy ass out there and make your own damn living”? Her mind tug-o-warred between revulsion and pity.

Shaken, she let her eyes travel from her father to her mother, who sat on the old Queen Anne chair next to him. Allison knelt beside her. She took her mother’s hand in her own, ran her fingers across skin that felt dry and papery, and squeezed gently. Her mother didn’t squeeze back.

“Was this what you expected?” Faye said.

“I didn’t know what to expect.”

“That’s because you don’t see it every day like I do.”

“Yes, Faye, I know. And you take every opportunity to remind me what an awful daughter I am.”

Faye looked away. “I didn’t mean that, Allison.”

“Yes, you did.” Unwilling to rehash old hurts, Allison changed the topic. “Did she go to the hospital?”

“No. The medics were here. Physically, she’s not in any immediate danger.”

Allison nodded, unable to escape the feeling she was moving through a dream. For most of her childhood, her mother had been like a ghost, lurking upstairs in the shadows. Even before the Alzheimer’s, her mother suffered debilitating migraines that kept her in bed for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. Allison’s memories of her younger years were a patchwork quilt of bright spots, marked by her mother’s warmth and laughter, and large, dark squares shaded by sickness and her father’s poor attempts to parent Allison and her two sisters. And now even the bright spots were dulled by this awful disease that stole the few memories the sisters shared.