The Last to Know (24 page)

It’s morning now. He has watched the sky go from black to charcoal to ashen and overcast as the night sounds of the forest give way to chirping birds and the air turns from frigid to just chilly.

Thankful for the insulating, cushioning layer of fleece beneath his parka, he ponders his next move. When he left home he was so consumed by the urgent need to take the evidence and escape that he hadn’t known where he was going. If he had anticipated spending the night in the woods, he would have brought food, water, a blanket . . .

Well, it’s too late for that now.

Wishing he had stuck out Boy Scouting, as his father urged him to do, he looks around. Nothing but a tangle of trees, vines, and rocks. The ground is rugged, sloping, marshy from streams in some spots, rocky in others. He’s seen snakes and big spiders with thick, jointed legs—none of them poisonous, or so he tried to convince himself. He has also encountered plenty of deer, raccoons, possums, squirrels, and even a skunk that luckily hadn’t sprayed him. And every so often, he hears movement: rustling, thrashing, or branches snapping beneath the weight of some concealed beast.

He heard at school that Peter Frost had fought off a wild animal when he was rescuing Jane Kendall’s little girl the other night. He didn’t believe it at the time, mostly because he heard two different versions within fifteen minutes of each other. One had Peter beating off a bear with a tree branch. The other had a bobcat attacking and Peter swinging to safety on a vine with the baby in his arms.

Are there actually bears—and
bobcats
—in these woods?

Jeremiah isn’t sure.

How far did he hike yesterday?

He has no idea about that, either.

It was slow going, though. He stopped frequently to rest, and finally, long before twilight set in, he gave up and settled in for the night, his bundle beside him. He was weary enough to sleep, and he did, but mostly he had needed to stop to collect his scrambled thoughts. To plan his next move.

All he came up with is that he needs to stay lost in the woods for as long as possible. Maybe forever.

But this is Westchester County—or perhaps Putnam, depending on how far he’s come. It’s not the northern wilderness. There’s only so much forest around here, and it’s bordered by parks and estates and suburban development. It’s not as though he has a clear escape route, say, north to the Canadian border. If he had some kind of map, or even a more thorough knowledge of the geography of the area, maybe he could chart a course. Instead he’s forced to travel blindly, feeling his way.

Still, he spent enough time in scouting to know that his first priority should be to provide the necessities: shelter, water, and food.

There’s plenty of water, though he squeamishly hesitated to drink from the streams yesterday. Today he definitely will.

And maybe he can find a cave or something.

As for food, well . . .

It’s October, damn it. The woods aren’t exactly laden with wild berry brambles. The vegetation that’s been spared by the deer is dying, shriveling away. What is he supposed to eat? Bugs? Worms? His stomach churns at the thought.

Well, maybe he can catch fish. Or a rabbit or something. Regular people eat fish. Rabbit too.

Cooked.

Jeremiah doesn’t have matches, nor can he risk starting a fire and alerting anyone to his whereabouts.

They’re probably looking for him by now. Maybe they even have dogs on his trail. Maybe he should just turn himself in. He can always bury the evidence here, deep in the woods, cover any earth he’s disturbed with piles of leaves. What are the odds that anyone will ever find it?

Still, if he shows up back home again now, they’ll assume his guilt, evidence or no. After all, no innocent person would take off the way he did.

I have to keep going
, Jeremiah tells himself firmly.
No matter what. I won’t turn myself in. Let them come and get me.

He gets stiffly to his feet and brushes away the wet leaves—snails, too—that cling to the back of his jeans. Shuddering, he attempts to wipe his filthy hands on a crumpled tissue he finds in the pocket of his parka.

Then, miserably, he picks up the bundle and begins moving forward again.

T
he policeman at the Leibermans’ front door, who introduces himself as Officer Mulvaney, tells Tasha that he’s been expecting her. Ben let them know she would be coming over.

Thus, she’s admitted to the house without question.

She steps past the door, festooned with the dried-flower wreath Rachel bought not long ago, and into the familiar front hall. She’s escorted by a young police officer whose ears stick out boyishly from his blond crewcut.

As the door closes behind her, she realizes that she might have been hoping they would detain her outside. That they would say that nobody is allowed on the premises, under any circumstances, even Ben Leiberman’s request.

But here she is, inside.

She takes a deep breath.

She’s always been aware that every house bas a unique aroma. Her in-laws’ city apartment smells of disinfectant, mothballs, and ripening fruit. Her mother’s home back in Centerbook smells like homemade bread, old wood, and the cinnamon-apple potpourri she keeps in bowls everywhere. And the Liebermans’ house smells like the lemon furniture polish Ramira uses, and fresh flowers, and Rachel’s perfume.

Inhaling the scent, realizing that today it’s slightly tinged with a foreign odor, Tasha sways, suddenly dizzy.

It’s death. The smell of death.

“Are you all right?” the police officer asks.

She nods mutely, steeling herself against the flood of emotions.

Rachel was murdered upstairs.

Somebody walked into this house and killed her while her children were asleep down the hall
 
. . .

No, Tasha. Don’t go there.

She wants to bolt.

She half-turns back toward the door.

Stop. You need to do this for Ben.

Then she has to get this over with. The sooner she gathers the things he asked her to retrieve, the sooner she can escape this house.

She numbly moves forward, down the hall, into the small playroom. It’s still impeccably organized. The Duplo blocks she removed for Max to play with the other day are back on their shelf, and so are the Barbie dolls and clothes that Mara and Victoria took out later.

“I just need to remind you that this is a crime scene, ma’am,” Officer Mulvaney says behind her. “Everything is exactly as it was left on Thursday night. Please touch only the items you need to get for Mr. Leiberman, and I’ll need you to show me what you’re taking before you remove anything.”

“All right.” Tasha locates Noah’s yellow dump truck and Mara’s Etch-A-Sketch in their familiar spots on the shelf, shows them to the cop, and hastily retreats from the room.

The sippy cup is next. Noah’s blue one. Tasha can hear Rachel’s voice complaining,
He refuses to take milk from anything else. It has to be that cup.

Tasha swallows hard.

Oh, Rach. You’ll never see him weaned. You’11 never see him go to kindergarten, or play soccer
 
. . .

Pushing back the lump in her throat, she turns abruptly to the police officer. “I need to go into the kitchen.”

He nods his permission.

As always, she’s struck by the polished stainless-steel appliances, clean counters, and spotless tile floor. Somehow momentarily forgetting the horror that brought her here, she thinks about her own cluttered kitchen, its floors and counters spotted with crumbs and sticky splotches.

Her in-laws will be there in less than an hour. She should clean—

Christ, what are you thinking?
she demands of herself as the truth comes rushing back at her.
Rachel’s dead.

Tears well in her eyes. Unwilling to cry in front of the young cop, she fixes her gaze, knowing that if she blinks, the tears will spill over.

She looks down at the familiar table beside her with its vase of fresh flowers in the middle. The stargazer lilies that were tightly closed buds when she was last here are now open. The air here is pungent with their sweet scent.

There were lilies at her father’s funeral. The perfume carries her back.

Daddy.

And Rachel.

Rachel loved fragrant flowers. . . .

Don’t,
Tasha warns herself, swallowing over the lump that still aches in her throat.
Don’t make yourself cry.

She forces her gaze away from the speckled pink blooms. It falls on a wooden puzzle lying beside the vase on the table. She idly notices that it’s a colorful nursery rhyme picture, and the words printed around the border flit through her thoughts in a childish, singsong echo.

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring
 
. . .

Okay.

Okay, she’s going to be all right here. She isn’t going to fall apart. Not in Rachel’s kitchen, not in front of the young cop. She’ll make it until she gets home. Then, she promises herself, she can go into the bathroom, lock the door, and sob her heart out.

M
argaret feels along the back of the built-in bookshelf beside the master bedroom fireplace, her thoughts drifting back to that long-ago day here with Jane.

“You’ve got to see this, Margaret,” her sister said, standing on tip-toes to reach the shelf above her head.

Jane was several inches shorter. It’s no stretch for Margaret. Yet she doesn’t know exactly what she’s feeling for. She only knows that Jane reached up, and then, a few minutes later, there was a subtle clicking sound.

After making sure that she’s truly alone in the room, Margaret swiftly removes the row of Jane’s hardcover novels—romances, most of them—from the shelf. Now they’re stacked haphazardly on the floor at her feet.

If Owen comes in and sees her—

Oh, what will I do?

She can’t even think of it.

Just hurry, hurry, hurry
 
. . .

Margaret’s fingers graze a small bump, a barely raised knob of wood along the bottom of the shelf.

Can it be?

She presses it and is rewarded with some give . . . and then, pressing harder, with the same faint click she heard that day with Jane.

Sure enough, a section of the back wall of the shelf has fallen away like a small trapdoor. Behind it is a small niche.

“Henry DeGolier used to keep his tobacco in here,” Jane told Margaret, laughing.

“Who’s he?”

“The millionaire who built the house way back in the eighteen-hundreds. He had all kinds of quirks built in.”

“How do you know?”

“The real estate agent showed me most of them the first time I came through, without Owen. He could care less about stuff like this, but don’t you think it’s fascinating?”

Margaret agreed that it was.

“Wait till I show you what’s in the basement!” Jane said, closing the secret bookcase panel and leading Margaret from the room.

Now, holding her breath, Margaret feels her way past the back edge of the shelf, into the dark space beyond.

For a moment, she feels nothing but rough boards . . .
ugh
, and cobwebs.

Then her fingers close over something.

It can’t be.

It was too easy.

And yet she knows without a doubt, even before she pulls it out and looks at it, what she’s discovered.

Jane’s missing journal.

Chapter 11

K
aren dials Tasha’s number after finishing her solitary lunch seated at the kitchen table. Taylor is still asleep in the swing. Normally, Karen welcomes the chance to eat without interruption from the baby. Today, however, she would welcome it.

“Hello?”

“Tasha, it’s me,” she says, carrying her plate to the sink.

“Oh, hi.”

“You sound relieved.”

“My in-laws are on their way over, and they always call from the car when they get close. I was hoping you weren’t them. I need another half hour at least before they get here. The house is a disaster. And I want to order a couple of pizzas.”

Karen is sympathetic, having weathered her own in-law visits—and having heard horror stories about Tasha’s.

“So how are you dealing?” she asks. “I mean with the Rachel thing, not the in-laws.”

“It’s been hard. I had to go over to the house a little while ago.”

“To Rachel’s?” Karen leans against the counter. “Why?”

“Ben needed me to pick up some things for the kids. It was awful, Karen. I went upstairs, and . . . the door to her bedroom was closed, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened in there.”

“Did you see Ben?”

“I spoke to him on the phone. Joel just left to drop off the stuff at his sister’s house. I told him to tell Ben that we can take the kids for him again if he needs us. I don’t know what else we can do to help.”

“I know. I feel the same way.” Karen clears her throat. “Tasha . . .”

“Hmm?”

“Are you scared?”

There’s a pause.

“I’m trying not to be,” Tasha says. “I want to think that what happened to Rachel happened for a reason.”

“What could she possibly have done to deserve that?” Karen protests. “Did you hear what they said on the news? She was bludgeoned with a blunt object. They think it was one of her own barbells—you’ve seen them. She kept them by the bed. Whoever it was beat her head and face in so badly that she was unrecognizable.”

“My God, Karen. Of course she didn’t deserve that.” Tasha’s voice is tight. “I mean that whoever killed her didn’t do it as a random thing. Because if it was random, then . . .”

“I know,” Karen says when Tasha doesn’t finish her sentence. “If it wasn’t random, then you or I could be next.”

T
he phone rings. Fletch jumps, then rises from the couch and crosses the family room to answer it.

Silence, and then a click.

He frowns. Sharon’s lover. It has to be. Fletch is no fool. This has happened before, when he’s been home to answer the phone at a time when he normally wouldn’t be here.

When he’s not working or in Florida, he usually plays golf on Saturdays and then has drinks at the club.

Today he’s done nothing but doze on the couch, waiting for some word about his nephew, or for his brother’s return call. And when the phone finally rings, it’s just a lousy hang-up.

Well, he realizes, maybe this is a twisted kind of justice. After all, he’s made his share of hang-up calls.

“Uncle Fletch?”

He looks up to see Lily poking her head in from the kitchen, with Daisy right behind her.

“Hmm?”

“Was that someone calling about Jeremiah?” Daisy asks.

“No,” he says simply. The twins have been nervous all day, drifting aimlessly around the house and holding whispered conferences. Yesterday Sharon sat them down and told them that their brother is missing. It turned out they already knew that the police suspect him in the Leiberman murder.

“Everyone at school is talking about it,” Lily told Fletch last night. “Carrie Frost said her brother Peter thinks he might have seen Jeremiah in the woods near where he found that lady’s baby the other day, too.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Fletch said, and the twins looked relieved. Then they wanted to know whether Fletch thought Jeremiah had anything to do with what happened to the lady down the street.

“Of course I don’t think that,” he said, and then he changed the subject.

“Uncle Fletch?” Lily asks again now. “When is Jeremiah’s dad going to come home?”

“I don’t know. I put in a call to him. I left word that there’s an emergency. As soon as he gets the message, I’m sure he’ll call us back and make plans to come.”

“I guess.”

Daisy says, “Remember when Mommy died? We couldn’t reach him right away then, either.”

“Your stepfather has an important job,” Fletch tells them. “It isn’t always easy to get in touch with him.”

“I know.” Daisy looks glum. “But I wish he would hurry and come back so he can help us find Jeremiah.”

“Maybe your brother will turn up on his own,” Fletch suggests.

“Maybe,” Lily says, giving her sister’s arm a squeeze. “Come on, let’s go outside and jump rope.”

I should offer to do something with them
, Fletch thinks, watching them leave the kitchen.
I should take them out for ice cream, or down to that festival in town.

He knows they had their hearts set on entering their giant pumpkin in the annual contest. They told him that Jeremiah had promised to help them get it into town.

Fletch offered to do it in his place, but the twins turned him down. Clearly their hearts aren’t in it now that their brother has disappeared.

Fletch heads upstairs to find Sharon. He can’t stand it anymore. He’s got to get out of the house for a little while.

He walks into the bedroom. Sharon is there, standing in the open closet doorway, wearing only a bra and panties. She cries out when he speaks her name behind her.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, as she whirls around, wide-eyed.

“You scared me. My God, Fletch, don’t go around sneaking up on people.”

“Why are you so jumpy?”

“Maybe it’s because a woman was murdered a few doors down and whoever did it hasn’t been caught,” she flings back at him. She grabs a sweater from the closet and pulls it over her head. “Or maybe,” she adds slowly, shaking her hair free of the neckline, “it’s because I’m worried that the killer might happen to live under this roof.”

Jeremiah. She means Jeremiah, he assures himself, keeping his face carefully expressionless.

“I’m going out,” he tells her. “Listen for the phone.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. Later.”

He turns and walks away. He’s halfway down the stairs before he realizes that she hasn’t asked him who called earlier. Which means she probably already knows. So he was right. She must have been expecting a call from her lover.

That’s fine, he tells her silently as he puts on his leather coat in the hallway at the foot of the steps. He’s not jealous of the other man. When all of this is over, he and Sharon will go their separate ways at last. It’s ridiculous to keep up the charade any longer.

After all, he knows all about her.

And he’s beginning to wonder what, exactly, she knows about him.

H
aven Meadows looks just as its name suggests, Paula thinks as she drives through the entrance gates. On either side of the lane are broad, grassy fields. The last time she was here, they were still dotted with wildflowers. Now the blooms have dried and faded with autumn.

The old rambling clapboard farmhouse at the end of the lane does indeed seem like a haven tucked among the ancient, brilliantly colored trees that seem to be standing guard over it. It was privately owned until the early seventies, when it was converted into an infirmary.

Paula parks in one of the half-dozen spaces to the left of the house, turning off the car engine. She takes a last drag on her cigarette, then unplugs her cell phone where it has been charging in the cigarette lighter socket. Mitch called earlier, finally. He said he had just gotten up, and of course she believed him. He always sleeps late on Saturdays.

Their conversation was brief. He assured her that he was fine and that he would see her tomorrow night when his father drops him off at home. Paula refrained from questioning Mitch about Frank pulling him out of school early. No need to drag her son into it. The battle is between her and Frank.

“Be careful, Mom,” Mitch had said before hanging up.

“I’m always careful, Mitch.”

“Well, have they caught the guy who killed that lady yet?”

“No,” she said grimly. “They haven’t. But don’t worry about me, Mitch, okay? I’m safe.”

Tucking the phone into her pocket now, Paula opens the door and steps out onto the gravel drive, acutely aware of the hush that is broken only by chirping birds. It’s peaceful here.

When she was younger and he was always working, Pop used to say that he only wanted a little peace and quiet.

Well, now you’ve got it, Pop
, she tells him silently as she mounts the steps and opens one of the double front doors.
Only I bet this wasn’t what you had in mind.

The place might look like a quaint home outside, but upon entering, a visitor becomes instantly aware of its clinical purpose. The front hall, which surely must once have had a carpeted or hardwood floor, is paved in white linoleum. The lighting overhead is bright and fluorescent. Several vinyl chairs and a low table stacked with well-thumbed magazines make up a small waiting area to the right of the door. Straight ahead, there’s a long counter manned by a youngish woman in a nurse’s uniform, and behind her are rows of file cabinets. The scent in the air is more musty and medicinal than it is homey.

Paula strides forward, offering a perfunctory smile at the nurse, who looks up expectantly. She must be new. Paula doesn’t recognize her.

“I’m Paula Bailey,” she says. “I’m here to see my father, Joe Bailey.”

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Bailey. Your father will be pleased to have another visitor so soon.”

Is she being sarcastic? If so, the attitude is uncalled-for. Paula gets here as often as she is able. She wonders if the nurse—who looks well rested, can’t be more than twenty-two, isn’t wearing a wedding ring, and has a figure that appears too perfect to have been subjected to childbirth—can possibly understand what it’s like to be a single working parent.

“I get here when I can,” she tells the nurse, who nods, wearing an understanding expression.

“If you’ll just sign in here, Mrs. Bailey.”

“It’s
Ms.
,” Paula corrects as she reaches for the clipboard the nurse slides across the counter.

She glances at the page. A line is drawn in ink horizontally across the middle of it, just below the signature of yesterday’s last visitor. At least there’s some satisfaction, somehow, in being the first visitor of the day, Paula thinks as she scrawls her name, address, telephone number, and the time on the first line below today’s date.

She’s about to hand it back to the nurse when something catches her eye.

Startled, she darts a gaze to the familiar name at the top of the page, under yesterday’s date.

What the hell . . . ?

“W
e’re going to win the prize with this pumpkin, don’t you think, Mommy?” Hunter asks, patting the enormous orange vegetable. Joel has just unloaded it from the Expedition, with help from several male bystanders. Now it’s lying amid several other pumpkin contest candidates in a sheltered corner of the shady green that runs through the center of town.

Tasha doesn’t have the heart to tell Hunter that she’s already spotted half a dozen pumpkins that are larger than theirs.

“I don’t know, sweetie,” she says, as they begin walking beneath a scarlet-and-gilt canopy of towering trees toward the cluster of concession stands set up nearby. “You have a good chance of getting the prize, but even if you don’t, you should be proud. This is a huge pumpkin. Let’s just wait and see.”

“If you don’t win, the judges won’t know what they’re talking about,” Ruth, Joel’s mother, pipes up. She’s walking between Hunter and his sister, holding their small hands.

“Well, let’s just tell the judges to pick ours,” Victoria suggests.

“That’s not a bad idea. Do you know who the judges are?” Irv, Joel’s father, turns to Tasha, who’s pushing Max in his stroller. “Maybe we can say hello to them. It’s always good to make an impression.”

“Um, I don’t know who they are.” Tasha tries to catch Joel’s eye, but he looks distracted. He probably hasn’t even been listening to the conversation. Clearly, his thoughts are miles away. He’s been quiet ever since he got back from dropping off the stuff for Ben’s kids at Ben’s sister’s house.

When Tasha asked him how they were, he said he hadn’t gone in, just handed the bag over at the door to Ben’s brother-in-law.

“Didn’t you even ask to see Ben?” she asked.

He shook his head, saying he didn’t want to intrude.

Is Joel thinking about that now? Or is it work that’s on his mind? Or something else—something Tasha doesn’t even want to think about.

He’s been so quiet all afternoon. Even his mother commented on it, back at the house, when they were all gathered around the kitchen table eating the takeout pizza Tasha ordered.

“You’re not yourself. Are you coming down with something, Joel?” Ruth asked, concerned.

Then again, she always thinks people are coming down with something, especially the kids. She goes around feeling their foreheads with the back of her hand and saying things to Tasha like, “She feels warm,” or “I don’t like his color; he’s flushed.”

In fact, just this afternoon before they left the house, Ruth announced, “Max has a fever.” She was holding the baby as Tasha packed the diaper bag and Joel got the other kids into their coats.

“He doesn’t have a fever,” Tasha asserted after feeling the baby’s head herself. Okay, maybe he was a little warm, but Ruth was overreacting.

Ignoring her, Ruth made Irv, and then Joel, feel the baby’s head. She was insisting that they get the thermometer out and take his temperature when the doorbell rang. A reporter, naturally, wanting to interview the Bankses about the murder.

That threw Ruth offtrack, and mercifully she stopped talking about the baby’s fever. Instead, she launched into a spiel about how Joel should put their house on the market and move because the neighborhood obviously isn’t safe.

“In all our years in Brooklyn, there has never been a murder on the block, has there, Irv?” she keeps saying. Her husband, of course, agrees with her. He always does when Ruth puts him on the spot, but Tasha often wonders what he’s thinking.