No Way to Kill a Lady (16 page)

Convulsively, I stretched out my hand as if to grab a lifeline from the grave.

My fingers found something smooth and hard, and I fumbled for an instant, then seized it with the last iota of strength I could manage. Long, like a stick. I gripped the shaft in my palm and looked. It was slender and gray in the moonlight.

A bone.

The shock made me suck in a cold gulp of air and I stared at the thing in my hand.

Slowly, my brain began to clear, and the details of a magical kind of glade swam into perspective around me. The trees leaned down around an open space of dirt with tufts of grass and a rubble of white stones that looked as if they'd been washed by years of sporadic floods. Now it was a peaceful place, quiet and still and cool.

But with my cheek still flat on the ground, my body still spread-­eagled in the dirt, I blinked calmly at the bone in my hand, as if in a dream. Not just a bone, but a human one. Whose bone? Here for how long?

Madeleine's voice, sharp in my ear, said, “Did you break it on purpose?”

A slender shaft. So delicate, yet strong. A human bone.

An ulna. I knew it from having helped Todd memorize the skeleton back in his medical school days. We ate salty popcorn as we leafed through his textbooks with their drawings. We had laughed together as I quizzed him. I could almost taste the salt as I recalled how gracefully the ulna and the radius bowed together, like two graceful figures dancing. They joined at the wrist by—­what was it called? Oh, yes, the styloid process.

I sat up slowly. The rubble of stones around me turned out to be more bones that lay scattered—­not in any order, but in a jumble, as if dug up, gnawed and abandoned long ago by animals, perhaps. Why I didn't shriek and leap to my feet, I'm not sure, but instead of panic or horror, I felt a strange peace. Salty popcorn on my tongue. Or maybe it was my own blood in my mouth again. Without thinking, I began to identify the other bones—­a scapula, vertebrae cast like dice on the earth, and small bits that might have been—­what? Metacarpals?

Finally, I set the bone down. Returned it gently to its companions.

Unsteadily, I got to my feet and dusted myself off. I bent down to pick up Madeleine's book, then took two steps back. And two more. Staring down at the circle of bones on the ground, unwilling to leave them. It. Her. Him. Whoever it had been once. But I felt Todd in that moment. Not Madeleine or anyone else who was now gone from this earth, but Todd. As I stepped backward, almost as if dreaming, I left him. Or he left me—­perhaps that was it.

I turned away and pulled out my cell phone. 911. I should call for help. But . . . surely the time for emergency assistance had passed? And how was I going to explain my presence here at this time of night? With my sister arrested just a short distance away? With a rush of guilt, I put my phone back in my pocket.

The dogs were barking again.

Clutching the book, I turned my back on the bones and hurried into the trees.

Finally, I reached the embankment above the main road. By then I could think straight. I found a thick tree and crouched behind it. With shaking hands I tried phoning Emma first.

She didn't answer.

Just then, a car slowed down on the road. I could hear its throaty engine as it came to a stop below me. I realized my phone's blue screen had probably given me away, and I snapped it shut. I held my breath and prayed it wasn't the police looking for trespassers. I'd have to explain myself. The stammering of a woman who'd had the wind knocked out of her—­and with it went her wits, too—­wasn't going to make a good impression on the police. Because I still thought I'd left Todd back there. Intellectually, I knew the bones weren't his, and yet . . . I'd experienced something strange in that cool clearing.

A moment later, a male voice carried up to my hiding place, startling me. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”

“Michael?”

I edged out from behind the tree. On the road, one of Michael's jacked-­up muscle cars idled noisily. I slithered down the bank to the road. When Emma's rubber boots hit the wet asphalt of the road, my feet went out from under me and I landed on my butt with a splash.

I scrambled up and squinted across the road at the car. “What are you doing here?”

Michael leaned out the car's window to get a good look at me. What he saw made him barely hold back laughter. “I'm on my way to church. Want a ride?”

“I'm filthy dirty.”

“No kidding,” he said. “You smell funny, too. What did you do? Wrestle a bear?” Then, sharper, “You okay?”

“Y-­yes,” I said. “Something strange just—­I found—­I left—­”

He got out of the car. “What's wrong? You look— Nora? There's blood on your lip.”

His hands on my arms felt wonderfully strong. I said, “I fell. It's nothing.”

He swiped gently at the edge of my mouth with his thumb, but he saw that I was safe. Teasing gone, he said kindly, “Get in the car.”

He pulled me around the hood and helped me into the passenger seat. When he got back behind the wheel and closed the door, the bang jump-­started my brain again. I forgot about Todd.

I said, “How did you know where to find me?”

“Emma called. As she was being arrested for trespassing, as a matter of fact.” He put his hand through my hair and turned my face to his. He looked at my mouth again, double-­checking for serious injury, before his gaze probed mine to look for hysteria. “She said I could find you out roaming in the woods. Driving past, I saw the light from your cell phone screen, so I stopped.”

“You shouldn't be out of the house.”

“It's okay. I called in, told my keepers I was headed to mass.” He scanned my face once more before his brows relaxed and he released me. “Where I'd better go now, since they're tracking me with some kind of GPS magic. So buckle up.”

He was all brisk business again, so I obeyed, first twisting around and dropping Aunt Madeleine's book on the floor of the backseat, then reaching for my seat belt. My hands were still shaking, but oddly, I'd forgotten why. “Is Emma okay?”

“She's not happy. I called Cannoli and Sons. They're going to take care of her. They think they can have her processed in an hour or two. There will probably be a fine to pay.”

I groaned. Every time I got a few dollars ahead, something happened. “Well, I can get Libby to take me to a cash machine, then we'll pick up Emma. Maybe I need a shower first. But after that—­”

“A long shower,” he said with good humor. He put the car in gear and started to drive. “But first, church.”

Something in his tone made me forget my own situation and turn toward him. In the light of the dashboard, I could see an urgency in him. He had thought I was lost in the woods, and now that I was safe, he was back to focusing on something else. His jaw was tight, his foot firm on the accelerator.

With the car's momentum pressing me back into the seat, I said, “What's going on?”

“The long story will have to come later. I'm seeing her at Saint Dominic's—­Carrie, that is. She wants to meet face-­to-­face.”

I forgot about communing with bones in the woods. “What are you going to say to her?”

“I was hoping you'd think of something.”

“Me?”

“Come on,” he begged, clearly unnerved. “I'm desperate. What do you say to the kid you've never met?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

O
ver the last couple of years, I had decided that if you find yourself in a dysfunctional family, the most sensible course of action is to create a new family of your own. That was the mutual thinking that drew Michael and me together in the first place, and it kept us going toward the horizon together—­both believing we had a chance at happiness if we started our own family unit. Until now, I was the one who had to get past my hormonal sisters, and he was the one with the felons in his homicidal family tree. We hadn't quite accepted each other's family yet, but we had found ways to cope.

Now this.

As he got out of the car five minutes later and headed across the parking lot toward a tall young woman in a pair of desert cammo cargo pants, I realized our family dynamic was about to get turned on its ear.

I stayed in the passenger seat and watched the father-­daughter meeting unfold.

Under a streetlight outside Saint Dominic's church, she stuck out her hand to shake his, and he took it. No hug. No weeping with delight. No joyous exchange of emotion. In fact, they both took a cautious step back and gave each other a once-­over that stretched into an awkward silence.

I couldn't see her very well in the shadowy lamplight. She was very tall—­nearly six feet, I guessed—­with a dark topknot of hair that made her seem taller yet. She shoved her hands into the front pockets of a hoodie sweatshirt and stood with her weight evenly distributed on both feet. Parade rest, perhaps. Or maybe she was preparing to make a quick departure if she decided she didn't want to stick around.

Michael was the first to speak. I couldn't hear what he had to say, but it didn't go over well. She didn't smile. She said something short back to him, and he laughed. Which offended her, I could see. Her whole posture stiffened, but she didn't look away. She glared up into Michael's face.

I tried willing him to say something pleasant. Something kind. But he didn't warm up to strangers quickly. There was a natural wariness in him.

It looked to me as if Carrie had the same nature.

Michael glanced my way over his shoulder. Telling me to stay put? I couldn't guess.

The girl looked at the car, too, and I scrunched down in the passenger seat.

They had a short conversation thereafter, her snapping, him responding more gently, thank heaven.

Abruptly, they turned toward the car and came my way.

“Oh, boy,” I whispered.

I climbed out of the car and hoped the streetlamp didn't illuminate my filthy clothes.

“Nora,” Michael said, “Carrie wanted to meet you.”

“Hello,” I said, feeling like an idiot and hoping I didn't smell as bad as I thought I did.

“Hey.” Towering over me, she put her hand out. “I'm Carrie Hardaway.”

“Hi, Carrie.” I accepted her hand. “How nice to meet you. I'm Nora Blackbird.”

My first realization was that her mother had been African-­American. Carrie had skin the color of café au lait, and her hair was braided into a topknot that complemented the curve of her cheekbones and a wide, smooth forehead and arching brows. She had Michael's nose, though—­at least, the nose I assumed he'd had before it had been broken. And, remarkably, she possessed the same athletic ease he had. Except in her it was feminine.

I said the first thing that hit me. “Michael's mother used to be a showgirl in Atlantic City, you know. I've never met her, but I've seen pictures. You're just as beautiful as she is.”

Surprise bloomed on her face. “I didn't know that.”

Michael said, “Carrie's read about me in the newspapers. Nobody mentions my mother.”

“Well, don't be fooled by the newspapers, Carrie,” I said lightly. “He's not nearly as awful as they say he is. He cooks. And he likes to go fishing.”

“I'm allergic to fish,” she said, voice flat.

“Oh.”

“Okay, not really.” She wrinkled her nose. “I just don't like the taste. Too . . .”

“Fishy?” I guessed with an encouraging smile.

She nodded, but her gaze slipped down my ruined feathered jacket to Emma's crusty riding breeches and splattered rubber boots. “What happened to you?”

“It's a long story,” I said. “And very embarrassing.”

“I bet.”

Michael took out his handkerchief and tenderly wiped a hunk of something sticky off my eyelid.

“Thank you,” I said. “But I wish you'd done that ten minutes ago.”

“Sorry. Listen.” Michael gave me the handkerchief and hooked his thumb toward the church. “I gotta go inside and say hello to Father Tom. Okay if I leave you two . . . ?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Don't tell her all of my bad habits,” he said and left us alone together.

To Carrie, I said, “He's nervous about meeting you.”

Watching him go up the stairs and into the church, Carrie said, “I'm nervous, too.”

“You were very brave to contact him. That took a lot of courage.” More gently, I added, “I'm very sorry to hear about your mother.”

Carrie's jaw hardened, and she nodded. “Yeah, she was sick for a few years. Breast cancer. We thought she had it beat, but . . .”

“I'm sorry,” I said again.

She turned and looked at me more carefully. “I don't know what I expected. I mean, I saw his pictures in the paper and stuff. My mom never really talked about him. I guess she never told him about me, either.”

“She must have had her reasons.”

“She was really young. I mean, she was sixteen when I was born. So I guess I—­I grew up with this idea I had a perfect dad somewhere. A fantasy dad, you know. When I found out it was him, I—­well, maybe my mom was right to keep me away.”

I thought maybe everybody kept the fantasy of perfect parents alive for as long as possible. I wondered if there really was such a thing. For her, Michael must have seemed a kind of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel—­a parent who appeared just as she lost her loving mother. But like the old joke, he turned out to be a speeding train. I didn't know how to make her feel better about learning who her real father was, so I said, “Do you have other siblings?”

Carrie shook her head. “Just me and my mom. My grandmother was alive for a while when I was little, but she died, too.”

“So you're alone now.”

A proud gleam shone in her eyes. “I'm not alone. I got friends.”

“And Michael says you're in the army.”

She gave me a curious stare, her dark gaze scanning my face in an effort to read my personality. Her brows twitched. “Why you call him that? I thought his name was Mick. That's what I read in the news. That's what my mom called him.”

“That's what he calls himself, too, but I—­I just never used that name. It always seemed like the name of a man I didn't really want to know. I know him as Michael.”

“Not as The Mick? Not as the mob guy?”

“He's not in organized crime.”

“He went to jail.”

“Yes, but—­that's behind him now.”

Carrie made a disgusted noise in her throat. “You brainwashed, or something?”

“Maybe I am,” I admitted. “But I accept him as the man he wants to be. He's done some things he's not proud of, but now he's trying to do the right thing.”

“Huh,” she said.

“Maybe you've been sent for a reason,” I said. “To be a part of his new life, too.”

She stuck her hands into her pockets again. “I'm not asking to be a part of anything. I just wanted to meet him. Tell him a few things.”

My heart ached for this solitary young woman who was disappointed to discover that her dream dad wasn't the man she'd hoped for. I said, “I know he'll want to hear what you have to say. He's a good listener.”

She shrugged, unwilling to confide in me.

We stood quietly for a moment as the night sounds whispered around us. The river murmured a few hundred yards to the east in the darkness. From inside the church, we could hear the baritone cadence of a solitary voice—­Father Tom speaking to his late-­night flock. Only three other cars were parked in the lot. On the nearby road, a pickup truck with a whining engine drove past and kept going. The truck's radio played a thumping rock song.

“My mom raised me right,” Carrie said when the music faded into the distance. She sounded argumentative. “She worked hard, helped me with school. I'm going to college as soon as I get done with my hitch.”

“That's wonderful. She was very proud of you, I'm sure.” I heard the stupid guidance counselor tone of my words and felt foolish for being patronizing to this capable young woman.

Carrie rolled her eyes, but they were suddenly glassy with tears. “Listen, my mom was great. She wasn't some welfare crack whore. She was a teacher, and plenty of kids loved her. She made a big difference. She wouldn't like me being here, meeting him. She didn't ever want me to know him, and she probably had her reasons—­good reasons. I should have honored her wishes. I shouldn't have come.”

She turned away from me, full of remorse, but I reached out to seize her hand. “Don't go, Carrie.”

She pulled free of my touch. “I shouldn't have done this.”

“Come home with us,” I urged. “We can make omelets and talk.”

Carrie didn't stick around to listen to more. She put her back to me and walked away. I wanted to run after her, but it wasn't my place to chase her. She hadn't come to meet me. I was an added complication, that's all. A moment later, Carrie climbed into a low, dark car and drove away.

Michael came out of the church a little while later. “What happened?”

“I'm sorry.” I stopped pacing the parking lot. “I'm really sorry. She left.”

“What did you say to her?” There was a note of accusation in his voice.

“I said at least twelve more sentences than you did,” I shot back. “You ran like a frightened rabbit, Michael!”

He blanched and ran one hand through his hair. “Sorry. You're right. I was scared to death. Which way did she go?”

“We're not following her,” I said firmly. “She's already prepared to be afraid of Don Corleone. Let's not push that button, all right?”

“She wasn't afraid. Did you see the way she looked at me? Like I was a worm or something.”

Softening, I touched his shoulder. “You're not a worm. Her mother had a lot of years to tell her side of the story. You'll have your chance soon. She'll call again.”

“You think so?”

“Give her time.”

Michael swore under his breath, perplexed as I'd ever seen him.

We had been standing in the middle of the parking lot, but suddenly a set of headlights raked over us. It was a police cruiser.

The car pulled close and the driver's side window went down. “Mick,” said the cop. “You headed home now?”

Michael didn't answer.

“Come on.” I took his arm and felt the tension in his body. He was on the edge of an outburst, but I steadied him. “Let's get you home before you turn into a pumpkin.”

While the state trooper watched, we got into Michael's car.

When he'd started the engine and pulled out onto the highway, he said, “What about Emma? Should we swing by the police station? See if she's been turned loose?”

“No, I don't want both of you spending the night in jail. Let's get you home before some kind of ankle alarm goes off. Anyway, I have to regroup before I can cope with Emma's situation.”

The cop followed us the whole way home. At Blackbird Farm, Michael paused at the end of the driveway and exchanged mono­syllables with his crew, who were gathered in a tight knot and blowing agitated puffs of cigar smoke into the air. One had a baseball bat in hand. I could see something had them worked up.

“Now what?” I asked when Michael rolled up his window with an exasperated sigh.

He drove around the back of the house in the dark. “Something's making a weird noise out in your pasture.”

“One of the ponies?”

“Nope. Whatever it is, it's making scary yowling noises. They decided it's Bigfoot.”

“Bigfoot! Oh, for the love of—­! It was probably a cat, that's all.”

“Bruno went to check it out, but he hasn't come back. So they're spooked.”

I had observed that most of Michael's posse were the inner-­city kind of mob enforcers. They didn't like getting their shoeshines muddied up. Country life alarmed them more than the hint of gangland war. I knew one of them had quit when he was handed his Green Acres assignment.

As the headlights swept the paddock fence near the barn, we could see eight inquisitive pony faces poking through the rails. Their ears were pitched toward the pasture, listening alertly.

Toby dashed partway out into the pasture and back, barking. Ralphie ran back and forth after him, squealing with anxiety.

“Now what?” Michael asked, exasperated.

We climbed out of his car, and I saw immediately what had Toby and Ralphie going crazy.

Emma marched out of the darkness, hitching up her pants. Behind her, Bruno followed, daintily hopping over piles of manure and cursing. He held one hand to his swollen eye socket.

I ran across the grass. “Em! What are you doing here?”

She was cussing a blue streak. “What the hell does it look like I'm doing? I had to pee, but the house is locked. So I went out behind the trees. Next thing I know, this asshole is whacking the bushes like I'm an alien intruder. Who locked the damn door?”

Michael was right behind me, trying to smother his laughter. “Sorry, Emma. That was me. I gotta say, you have the smallest bladder of anyone I've ever known.”

“The size of my bladder is not the problem, you smart-­ass bastard.” She punched him in the chest and blew past us.

Michael planted his hand on his chest and turned to me. “What'd I say?”