The Deadly Neighbors (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) (39 page)

Susan was confused. “Why exactly are you digging up the floor?” Susan gawked, struggling to understand what was going on.

“Go ahead, Bertram. Explain.” I was balanced on the edge of a crate, waiting for pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t been able finish on my own.

Finally, he rubbed his eyes and caved. His voice carried me back, repeating what I’d told him, showing me what I’d seen and tried to forget. I saw my mother, crying, holding a precious treasure, more valuable than anything else she owned. My father tried to take it from her, just as in my dream. They fought over it. My father tried to grab it; my mother wouldn’t let go. Frustrated, pleading with her in vain, my father stomped out of the room empty-handed. My mother sat for a while, holding the bundle, then went downstairs. I’d watched her go, followed her, saw her hide the treasure in the basement, near the cedar closet.

It was that treasure that Bertram now sought. He hadn’t found it.

“That’s it?” I wasn’t convinced. “The whole story?”

Bertram nodded, avoiding my eyes. Was he lying?

I got up and, hopping over to the hole, removed chunks of linoleum, sifted through the bits of displaced cement and dirt, digging with my fingers.

“What was it?” Susan followed me, stooped beside me, watching. “Your mom’s big treasure…Was it diamonds? Coins?”

No. It wasn’t diamonds or coins. It was something far more valuable. And I’d found it. I scooped out a few handfuls of dirt and suddenly, there it was. Hidden in a fragment of worn flannel, a tiny, fragile piece of the treasure.

Susan yelped in shock. Bertram gaped. And, in a jolt, I remembered. Everything.

M
Y MOTHER SANG AND
rocked, but the treasure remained cold. It didn’t move or make a sound. It didn’t even cry. My father begged my mother to let go, but she wouldn’t. He tried to take the bundle from her, but she clutched it more tightly. They argued.

When he finally gave up and left the room, my mother carried the baby downstairs. I followed, watching from the stairs as she buried him. There was no cement or tile yet. No cedar closet or clutter. The basement had been an empty expanse with a dirt floor then, and she dug a hole and buried the dead, swaddled baby.

Now I held his tiny skull in the palm of my hand, tears streaming down my cheeks.

“Oh, man,” Susan kept repeating. “A buried baby?”

“That’s the treasure?” Bertram gawked. “The treasure was a dead baby?”

He began walking in circles, running his hands through what was left of his hair, laughing too wildly, chanting. “That’s just great. It was a baby. A fucking dead baby.”

Susan tried to sort out facts. “Who is it?”

“My baby brother.” Why had I said that? I didn’t remember; I just knew. “My mother called him her precious little treasure.”

Behind us, Bertram wailed. “Oh, God. I’m a genius. What was I thinking? Taking a five-year-old at her word. Looking for her treasure. A moron, I’m a goddamn moron.”

“How old were you when he was born?”

I didn’t know. “Four or five.” I stared at the little skull, trying to put a face on him. Or a name.

“Do you know how he died?”

I didn’t know that, either. “I think he just stopped breathing.”

“Maybe crib death,” Susan suggested. “SIDS.”

“Maybe not.” Bertram stopped walking. “I think your mother had postpartum depression. I think she might have killed him.”

“But then, you’re a moron.” Susan glared at him.

I cupped the skull in my hands, trying to remember the baby. Had I held him? Had I helped feed him a bottle or give him a bath? I strained, closing my eyes, coming up with nothing. Then I saw a blue room with soft clouds painted on the ceiling, a white crib in the middle of the floor. A rocking horse in the corner near the window. And outside, on the porch, a huge black pram with shiny silver wheels. I saw myself standing beside it, reaching inside, feeling a strong little hand wrap itself around my finger. Were these memories or imagination? I didn’t know. But my forefinger twitched away from the skull, as if releasing itself from the tightness of a tiny grip.

Susan was still asking questions, wanting to know his name, to figure out when he was born, to understand why nobody had missed him in all the years, to comprehend how I had survived a childhood that was so confusing and dark. And Bertram kept lamenting his lost marriage and career, his final lost hope. I closed my hands around the skull of my dead baby brother and drifted into my own thoughts, piecing together images, beginning to understand the meaning of my recurring dream. Much of it had actually, literally happened. My mother had really buried a bundle downstairs, just as she had in my dreams. But what about the rest? Why was I terrified of her? Why in dreams did she reach for my belly, arms clawing, legs chasing, floating through the air? There was more to the dream than just the treasure, and Bertram had deliberately omitted it.

“Sit down, Bertram.” I was furious. Even now, he was hiding something from me. “You’re not done.”

“What?” He tried to look innocent, failed miserably. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing else. Nothing substantive, anyway.”

Susan looked from him to me. “You mean there’s more?”

I got up, gently replaced the skull in the hole and stood by the cedar closet, my mouth becoming dry, pulse accelerating. Something had happened right here in this spot. There was a reason I dreaded that closet. What was it? I closed my eyes, tried to remember. And saw my mother’s face. My mother? What about her? “Dammit, Bertram. Tell me.”

He sighed. He paced. He turned, faced me, opened and closed his mouth.

“I’m counting. At three, Susan is making the 9-1-1 call. One…two—”

“Fine.” He spun around, snapping. “You want to know? You want to deal with it? Okay. Here it is: You found her. You were five years old, and you found your mother here.”

I found her? So? Bertram watched me, waiting for his words to sink in. And, yes, they did. I saw her, right there where we stood. Floating above the ground, just as in my dream. Her feet hovered in the air, right in front of my eyes, and her lacy nightgown was soiled. Her head was cocked at an odd angle, her hair draped forward, hiding her face. She didn’t answer when I called. She ignored me, didn’t come down to the ground. I reached up, tapped her on the leg. And she swung. Back and forth, toward me and away, like a yo-yo on a string. Her arms dangled, limp, and I stood, frozen and bug-eyed, swallowed by the black shadow of her swaying form.

I took off. I ran across the basement, up the steps. I flew, unable to breathe or to scream, afraid to look back, certain that she was behind me, coming after me, reaching and clawing and gliding through the air, her feet not reaching the floor.

“O
KAY. YOU CAN GO
, Bertram.”

Bertram didn’t leave. He stood there, studying me. “You can see why I didn’t want to tell you. You weren’t ready to remember, and it’s a lot to digest. Are you okay?”

No, but that was not his concern. “We made a deal. You kept your end. Thank you. And good-bye.”

“But, about this…” He gestured at the hole in the floor. “About what happened here…We’re cool?” He sounded shaky and repentant.

“Completely cool. Very cool.” What could be cooler? My mother had buried my brother and killed herself, and I’d found her hanging from the basement ceiling. Bertram had known about her suicide and that I’d buried the memory, and he’d exploited me, hypnotizing me not so much to ease my contractions as to find my mother’s buried “treasure.” He was pitiful and repulsive, and I wanted him to leave. I’d have said anything to get him to go, even that we were cool.

“Anyway, for what it’s worth…” He looked away. “I’m sorry.”

Susan pointed at the stairs. “You can find your own way out.”

Bertram began to say something else, but thought better of it and scooted up the steps, leaving his pickax behind.

For a while I sat, glued to the crate, silently replaying what he’d said, trying to absorb the implications.

Remembering my mother, I ached. I was consumed by loss and grief. And by nagging questions. How could she kill herself? How could she leave a five-year-old child? I thought of Molly and how nothing—no power in the world—could force me to abandon her. Hot rage surged through me, first at my mother for leaving me, then at myself for allowing her to go. I could have stopped her… If only I hadn’t gone upstairs and left her down there bereft and alone, maybe she wouldn’t have died.

I reminded myself that I’d been only five years old. I’d been jealous and resentful because, all day, she’d ignored me, paying attention only to her “precious little treasure.” I’d thought that, now that he was buried, she’d stop crying and forget about him. Maybe she’d spend more time with me, coloring pictures and baking banana bread, as before the baby had come. I sneaked upstairs and waited for her to come up and look for me, but she didn’t. Finally, I gave up and went downstairs. And found her near the baby’s grave, in the spot where there was now a cedar closet.

I remembered all of it. Clearly. As if no time had passed. As if I were reliving it. Susan handed me a tissue, and I smeared tears off my face.

“Can I do anything?” She sat beside me on my crate, thigh-to-thigh, watching me, a hand on my back.

I shook my head. “I’m all right.”

Not even close to true. I was dizzy, unbalanced. In the space of half an hour my mind had become a kaleidoscope of memories. Childhood rhymes singsonged in my head, and whispers retold jumbled secrets. I saw myself playing alone, making up games of pretend, hiding in secret places from invisible seekers. I watched my childhood self playing dress-up in my mother’s clothes, painting my mouth with her lipstick, wobbling around in her high heels, pretending to be just like her. Fresh tears poured down my face. For the first time in decades I recalled my mother’s patient face, her deep-violet eyes. How I’d worshipped her, pestered for her attention, copying her, pretending to do whatever she did, attaching myself to her like an appendage, emulating her movements, imitating her while she cooked dinner, washed dishes, folded laundry, unpacked groceries, hid money and random sundries from my father.

Even that. I’d watched her planting wads of money, pearl necklaces, crocheted tablecloths, pieces of silverware under cushions, inside linings, behind loose bricks or under floorboards. And, oh my God. I’d copied her. I remembered now. There was a treasure, a real treasure. And I knew exactly where it was.

I
BOUNCED UP OFF
the crate and my cane and I hobbled across the basement.

“Where are you going?” Susan was at my heels. “Zoe, don’t run. You’ll be back on bed rest—”

But I didn’t listen. I scuttled up the steps, heading for my hiding place under the staircase. I opened the door to the little closet and stooped, ready to climb in.

“Stop right there.” Susan stepped between me and the door. “Tell me right now what you’re doing.”

“Okay.” I was breathless, felt a contraction coming on. “There really was a treasure here. And I just remembered where.”

She didn’t look convinced. “A treasure.”

I nodded, wiping my face. “I think it’s still there.”

“It better be rare coins or diamonds. If it’s another of your relatives, I’m done.” Sighing, she crouched, looking inside the closet, making sure the space was clear.

Slowly, on my knees, I entered the cave-like niche, squatting to estimate how tall I’d been at about five years old. Taller than Molly had been. Maybe as high as the fourth step? I felt along the underside of the step to the end where a wooden support board formed a small triangular enclosure. It was empty. My hands moved a step higher, then another.

And, yes. There it was. I pulled out the small tin box and crawled out of the closet.

“You have it? Oh, God…Let’s see…What is it?” Susan could barely contain herself. “Please tell me it’s emeralds.”

“Even better.” The box seemed to swirl in my hands, timeless and magical. And when I opened it, I was breathless, overcome. New tears spilled. I couldn’t speak.

Susan stared, silent.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” My voice hushed, choking on a sob.

“Zoe? They’re buttons.”

I supposed they were, mostly. Some were shiny pieces of glass. And a few were marbles. But, to me, as a child, they’d been a prized collection, my secret treasure. Something metallic peeked out among the colors. I reached for it, but just before I saw it, I remembered. It was a tiny silver rattle, engraved “LWH,” for Lukas Walter Hayes. My brother.

S
USAN TALKED ALL THE
way home, remarking on my traumatic childhood and the odd character we’d just banished from the basement. “What a weenie. I can’t believe you let him go. He should be locked up, never allowed to practice psychiatry again.”

I didn’t answer, didn’t even pay attention to her words. But I hung on to her voice as it ran on, soothing and rhythmic, rooting me in the present.

She brought me home and walked me inside, clucking like a mother hen, asking me if I was really all right, until I had to shoo her away. And, once she was gone, when I was alone, I took my tin box upstairs, depositing it safely in my nightstand drawer. Then I climbed into bed and lay there awake under the covers, trying not to think or remember, until Molly and Nick came home carrying pizza.

Over the next few days, memories flooded back to me. No matter where I was or what I was doing, pieces of my childhood assaulted me. I knew now that my mother had been unstable; maybe, as Bertram had said, she suffered from postpartum depression. Most certainly, she’d had a compulsive disorder, constantly hiding things, mostly money, but also seemingly random, unpredictable objects. After the baby was born, she stayed in her rocking chair, unwilling to talk or eat, staring at some private darkness, and I’d watched her, waiting for her old self to emerge. But, despite Bertram’s suspicions, I knew that my mother had not, could never have killed her baby. Little Luke had to have died of some natural cause; his death had pushed my already delicate and acutely depressed mother over the edge. I was certain that she had hanged herself out of sheer unbearable grief.