The Accident (16 page)

“What the hell’s going on, Darren?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “You’re in some kind of mess, and you’re in over your head.”

He shot me a sly grin. “I might not be the only one.”

“Excuse me?”

“The way I figure it, you may have come into a little windfall lately. Like, within the last few weeks.”

“I’m not following you, Darren.”

His grin shifted into something menacing. “I’m just giving you a heads-up. That windfall, it’s not yours. And hanging on to it, that’s a real risky thing to do. You take a day or two to think it over and do the right thing, because after that, you’ll be running out of options.”

“I don’t have a goddamn clue what you’re getting at, and now it’s my turn to tell you something: threatening me, that’s a risky thing, too. I don’t care what you do for a living.”

“Couple of days,” he repeated, as if I hadn’t spoken. “After that, I won’t be able to help you.”

“Go home, Darren. Your family needs you.”

He started walking back to his truck, then stopped. “I gotta say, it’s a hell of a thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Your wife, my wife, both friends, both with little girls that play together—both dying in accidents within a couple of weeks. What are the odds of that?”

FIFTEEN

Kelly made the point, once she was in the car with Fiona and Marcus, that she hadn’t had any breakfast, and since it was almost lunchtime, maybe they should get something lunchlike to eat. It was Fiona’s plan to take Kelly, first, to the Stamford Town Center and buy her a new winter coat because she’d outgrown the one she’d worn last year and Fiona was not confident Glen would notice. Then, after that, they’d backtrack to Darien, where it was Fiona’s plan to take a tour of two of the local private schools, give Kelly an idea where she could go once Fiona had managed to sell Glen on the idea.

“We’ll eat at the Stamford Town Center,” Fiona decided. Kelly said they had a pretty good food court, so she could wait. Fiona would have preferred a sit-down restaurant where someone took your order and brought it to you, but she was inclined to indulge the child, because there were some things she wanted to ask her about what had happened with her friend’s mother, and she wanted the girl to be forthcoming.

Once the three of them sat down, Marcus and Fiona each with a latte from Starbucks and Kelly with a slice of pepperoni pizza, Fiona asked about the sleepover.

“I thought it was going to be fun but it was really not so good.”

“Why’s that?”

“I came home early. I called Dad to pick me up.”

“Weren’t you having a good time?”

“I was sort of at first, but then it wasn’t fun anymore.”

Fiona leaned in a little closer. “And why was that?”

“Well,” Kelly said, “Emily’s mom got really mad at me.”

“She did?” Fiona asked. “Why did she get mad at you?”

Kelly said, “I’m really not supposed to talk about this.”

“I don’t see why you can’t talk about it with me. I’m your grandmother. You can tell your grandmother anything.”

“I know, but …” Kelly studied her slice, picked off a pepperoni slice and popped it into her mouth.

“But what?” Fiona said.

“I kinda promised not to tell anybody, except I told my dad because he’s my dad.”

“Who did you promise?”

“Emily’s mom.”

Fiona nodded. “Well, she’s not with us anymore,” she said matter-of-factly, “so you can’t really break a promise to her now if you talk about it.”

“It’s okay to break promises to dead people?” Kelly asked.

“Absolutely.”

Marcus was starting to shake his head. “Fiona, what are you doing?”

“Excuse me?” she snapped.

“Look at her. You’re upsetting her. She’s starting to cry.”

It was true. Her eyes had filled with tears. One threatened to spill over and trickle down her cheek.

“I know this may be troubling, dear,” Fiona told Kelly, “but sometimes, talking about a traumatic event can be therapeutic.”

“Huh?” said Kelly.

“If you talk about what makes you feel bad, it can end up making you feel better.”

“Oh. I don’t think so.”

“What sort of promise did Emily’s mom ask you to keep?”

“She didn’t want me to tell anyone about the phone call.”

“Phone call,” Fiona said. “A phone call. What phone call was that?”

“The one I heard her make.”

Marcus was shaking his head disapprovingly, but Fiona ignored him. “You were listening in on someone else’s phone call?”

“Not on purpose,” Kelly said hastily. “I wouldn’t do that. That would be eavestroughing.”

“
Eavesdropping
, Kelly,” Fiona said, not even cracking a smile. “So if it wasn’t on purpose, how did you happen to be hearing this conversation?”

“I was just hiding,” Kelly said. “From Emily. I didn’t really hear that much of it anyway because she was whispering a lot.” The tear finally spilled down her cheek. “Do I have to talk about this?”

“Kelly, it may not be pleasant to go over this, but I think—”

“Can I talk to you a minute?” Marcus said to his wife.

“What?”

“Sweetheart,” Marcus said, taking out his wallet and handing a ten to Kelly, “take this and go get yourself something for dessert.”

“But I haven’t even finished my pizza yet.”

“If you get it now, then when you’ve finished your pizza, you can start on it immediately.”

She took the ten from him. “Okay.” They watched her scamper over to the ice-cream stand.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Marcus asked his wife.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“That girl’s mother is dead. Now her best friend’s mother is dead. We’re supposed to be taking her out for a nice day and you’re conducting a fucking interrogation of her.”

“Don’t use that tone with me.”

“Fiona, sometimes … sometimes you just don’t know the effect you have on people. You can’t … Is empathy beyond you?”

“How dare you,” she seethed. “I’m only asking her these questions because I
care
about her welfare.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s something else going on with you. Is it because there’s something about this Ann Slocum you’ve never liked?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw the way you acted with her at that purse party or whatever it was called. You had nothing but contempt for her. You were looking down your nose at her all night.”

She stared at him. “That’s nonsense. I don’t know where you’re getting this.”

“I’m just saying, I’m shutting this down. You’re not going to hound this child anymore. We’ll take her shopping, we’ll drive her around to
those schools if you want to, although I swear, what makes you think Glen’s going to give up his daughter Monday to Friday I have no idea, and then we’re going to take her home.”

“She’s my granddaughter, not yours,” Fiona said.

“Funny, then, that I’m the only one who’s worried about her.”

Fiona started to say something, but then realized that Kelly was standing two feet away, an ice-cream sundae in one hand and her cell in the other.

She held it out to Fiona. “My dad wants to talk to you.”

SIXTEEN

I felt shaken as I went back into the house following Darren Slocum’s visit. I dialed Kelly’s cell the moment I was in the kitchen.

“Hi, Dad,” she said.

“Hi, sweetheart. Where are you?”

“Getting some ice cream at the mall.”

“Which mall?”

“Stamford.”

“Could you put Grandma on?”

“Just a second. She’s at the table.”

I could hear mall background noises—people talking, bland music—and then Kelly saying, “My dad wants to talk to you.”

“Yes, Glen?” Fiona’s voice was as warm as the ice cream Kelly was eating.

“Fiona, you up to taking Kelly for overnight?” I knew Kelly already had pajamas and a toothbrush and several days’ worth of clothes at Fiona’s house.

A pause, then she whispered, “Isn’t it a bit soon, Glen?” It occurred to me that she was trying to keep Kelly from hearing.

“Excuse me?”

“For you to have someone over? Is it that woman who lives next door? The Mueller woman? Sheila told me about her. I saw her hanging out the door, watching as we drove off. My daughter hasn’t even been dead three weeks, you know.”

I felt the anger welling up inside me. “Ann Slocum’s husband came over here after you left, very distraught.” I closed my eyes a moment, counted to three.

“What?”

“He was being, I don’t know, pretty unreasonable. He wanted to talk to Kelly, and I can’t see any good coming out of that. Just in case he decides to come back here later and try again, I think it’d be better if Kelly stayed with you.”

“What do you mean,
unreasonable
?”

“It’s a long story, Fiona. What would really help me, at this moment, would be if you could keep Kelly until tomorrow. Until I know this has all blown over.”

“What’s going on?” I heard Marcus ask.

“In a sec,” Fiona told him. To me, she said, “Yes, of course, she’ll stay with us. That’s fine.”

“Thank you,” I said, and waited to see whether she might offer up even the slightest apology for what she’d first assumed my motives were.

Instead, she said, “Kelly wants to talk to you.”

“Dad? What’s going on?”

“You’re going to spend the night at your grandmother’s. Just the one night.”

“Okay,” she said, not excited, but not disappointed, either. “Is something wrong?”

“Everything’s fine, sweetheart.”

“Did you find out what happened to Emily’s mom?”

“It was an accident, honey,” I said. “She got hurt when she got out to check a flat tire.”

Kelly paused a moment to take it in, then said, “So now Emily and me really have something in common.”

While Darren Slocum had claimed to be satisfied that I’d told him the extent of what Kelly had heard his late wife say on the phone, some instinct told me he was lying. As I’d told Fiona, I was worried he might come back, and keeping Kelly at a distance for another day seemed like a good idea. And I had no idea what he was talking about when he’d suggested I’d come into a windfall recently. The grass wasn’t even growing yet on
Sheila’s grave, and he was intimating I’d had some kind of good fortune because of her fatal accident?

I didn’t know what else to do but chalk it up to the distressed ramblings of a man who’d just lost a wife himself.

I did end up going to the offices of Garber Contracting after lunch. The business was off Cherry, just before you get to the Just Inn Time hotel and about half a mile down the road from the Connecticut Post Mall. While I was able to do some general tidying, I wasn’t able to concentrate when I started checking the voicemails. I’d had every intention of calling these people back, but suddenly I couldn’t face talking to any of them or going by their houses to listen to their complaints about why things weren’t done. But I made notes of the messages so Sally could get back to everyone on Monday. While her choice in boyfriends was, to my mind, suspect, Sally was always on the ball at work. We called her our multitasker, who could keep the details of countless projects in her head at once. I’d seen her carry on a complicated phone conversation with a tile supplier about what we needed at one job while making notes about plumbing supplies we required at another. She liked to say she had several programs running in her head at once, adding that she’d earned the right to have a total system meltdown one day.

After the office was locked up, I went to the nearby ShopRite to pick up a few things. A steak for myself for dinner, some salami and tins of tuna and carrot sticks for lunches for Kelly and me through the week. I wasn’t big on the carrot sticks, but Sheila would have wanted to see them not only in Kelly’s lunch, but mine. It was odd. I was mightily pissed with my late wife, but still wanted to honor her wishes.

When Kelly was attending first grade, the first time she’d had to take a lunch with her every day, she begged Sheila and me to include a bag of potato chips. Her friend Kristen got potato chips every day, so why couldn’t she have them? Well, if Kristen’s mom wants to give her that kind of crap every day, that’s her business, we said. But we’re not doing it.

Kelly asked if Rice Krispie squares would be okay. Even if they had melted marshmallow in them, the cereal was healthy, right? So Sheila had helped her make up a batch. Melted the butter and marshmallow, mixed everything up in an enormous bowl, flattened them out in a pan.
The two of them had made a huge mess in the kitchen. Kelly happily took a square to school with her every day.

About a month later, when Kristen was over playing with Kelly, she happened to ask if we could put chocolate chips in the Rice Krispie squares. She really liked them that way. She’d been trading her potato chips for Kelly’s squares every day.

As I was passing through the cereal aisle, the recollection made me smile. It seemed like a long time ago. It would be fun to make some one night with Kelly. Sometime around the start of third grade, she’d actually developed a liking for them herself.

I reached for a box just as someone else—a woman in her late thirties, early forties—decided to do the same. Shopping alongside her was a boy. Dark hair, jeans, and a jean jacket and running shoes with stripes and swirls all over them. I put his age at sixteen or seventeen.

“Excuse me,” I said to the woman when we bumped elbows. “Go ahead.”

Then I looked at her and did a double take. It didn’t take more than half a second to realize who this woman, and the boy with her, were.

Bonnie Wilkinson. Mother of Brandon and husband of Connor.

The two people who died when they crashed into Sheila’s car.

The teenage boy with her had to be her son Corey. His eyes looked dead, as though they’d cried out every tear he’d ever have.

Her blouse and slacks seemed to hang off her, and her face was drawn and gray. Her mouth opened and stayed that way when she realized who I was.

I backed up my cart to wheel it around them. I didn’t need Rice Krispies. Not right now. “Let me get out of your way here,” I said.