Authors: Kevin O'Brien
The Last Victim (12 page)
“Where’s your aunt Janice?” Bridget asked.
Sitting on the sofa in Brad’s den, David held the remote control in his hand. Beside him, his toddler cousin, Emma, was asleep, and still wearing the little denim outfit she’d had on earlier tonight. Ensconced in the nearby easy chair, Eric was also sleeping. On the TV, Vanessa Redgrave was frozen in midsentence as she talked to Tom Cruise.
“Aunt Janice got tired and went to bed a couple of hours ago, so I put in this DVD,” David explained. “I think it’s almost over. Can I watch the rest? Please?”
Brad gingerly lifted Emma off the couch. She whimpered, then nestled her face in his shoulder, drooling on the lapel of his tuxedo jacket. Brad didn’t seem to mind. Nor did he seem very concerned that his wife had gone to bed and left her—still dressed in her day clothes—and in the care of her young cousin. He patted Emma on the back and glanced at the TV. “That’s
Mission Impossible
. I recognize that scene on the Eurostar with Vanessa Redgrave and the laptop. Let him watch the rest. It’ll only be a few minutes.”
Mission Impossible
. I recognize that scene on the Eurostar with Vanessa Redgrave and the laptop. Let him watch the rest. It’ll only be a few minutes.”
Brad headed up the stairs with Emma.
Bridget waited a moment before asking David in a whisper: “Wasn’t Aunt Janice feeling well?”
David hesitated before pressing the remote. He shrugged. “I dunno. She just said she was tired and went to bed.”
“Was she okay with you and Eric tonight? I mean, she didn’t get mad at you guys or anything, did she?”
David shook his head.
“Okay, thanks, sweetie,” she said. “Finish your movie.” She collected a couple of glasses and a bowl with the remnants of greasy microwave popcorn in it.
Bridget carried everything into the kitchen. Dirty dishes and an empty pizza delivery box sat on the counter by the sink. Bridget put an apron over her dress and went to work on the dishes. Among them was a highball glass—with lipstick marks on it. She wouldn’t have paid any attention to the glass, only something looking like bourbon was at the bottom of it. She sniffed the glass. Bourbon, all right.
Maybe that explained why Janice had been “tired,” leaving the dishes undone and her daughter downstairs with the boys.
She wondered what her sister-in-law was thinking, consuming hard liquor while she was pregnant—and under a doctor’s strict orders to “take it easy.” Was she drinking on the sly? Did Brad have any idea? Perhaps he turned a blind eye to it.
Back when she was getting to know Janice, Bridget remembered thinking that Brad had found a girl
just like the girl who married dear old Dad.
Maybe that notion was even more on target than she’d figured.
just like the girl who married dear old Dad.
Maybe that notion was even more on target than she’d figured.
Maggie Corrigan—like the daughter-in-law she’d never know—was blond, regally pretty, and aloof. In contrast to her husband, who showered the kids with affection, she had a stiff way of tilting her head to receive a kiss on the cheek from one of them. And she always had some reason to squirm out of a hug: “You’re wrinkling my dress,” “It’s too hot for that,” or “For God’s sake, Bridget, stop hanging on me.”
Bridget and Brad were raised by a constant, rotating crew of nannies and housekeepers. They’d just get used to one woman; then her mother would fire her and hire another. So they came to depend very much on each other—especially during those periods when their father was away on business.
Whenever their father came home, their mother would go off for a weekend shopping trip in Seattle, or she’d spend a few days at her parents’ estate in Lake Oswego, near Portland. Mr. and Mrs. Corrigan were rarely together under the same roof for a sustained period.
The only times Bridget remembered her mother showing much interest in her were on Sundays, when the family went to church. They had to be dressed immaculately, not a hair out of place.
The Corrigans were, no doubt, the richest family in McLaren—with the nutty, reclusive Fessler clan running a not-too-close second. They seemed as healthy and normal a family as the Fesslers seemed weird. And Mrs. Corrigan was McLaren’s classy, elegant, unofficial First Lady. She was deeply involved in several local charities and women’s clubs. They seemed to take up more and more of her afternoons and evenings as Brad and Bridget got older.
Bridget had no idea what her mother did during her club excursions. But she noticed that her mother often returned from those meetings totally exhausted. She’d barely make it up the stairs to the master suite for a nap. They had an intercom in the master suite, and Maggie would often buzz the kitchen and instruct the housekeeper to have dinner brought to her room. Sometimes, neither Bridget nor Brad would see her again until the next day.
One afternoon, Bridget returned from school to find no one home. That wasn’t so unusual. Brad was at basketball practice; her mother had a club meeting; her dad wasn’t due back from a business trip until tonight; and the housekeeper had the day off. Bridget killed an hour dancing to Duran Duran, pumped up on the stereo, and then watching a bad talk show on TV. When the housekeeper had the day off, it was up to Bridget to fix dinner, and she was procrastinating.
At around five-fifteen, the phone rang, and she picked it up. “Hello?”
“Hi, Bridget? It’s Debi Donahue from next door.”
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Donahue.”
“Bridget, I just wanted to make sure everyone was okay. I got back from the market a couple of minutes ago and noticed your mom’s car smashed into the tree near the end of your driveway.”
“What?” Bridget murmured. “You’re kidding . . .”
But Mrs. Donahue was serious. Bridget ran out of the house and saw her mother’s Mercedes wrapped around a tree near the end of the driveway. The front bumper and hood were a tangle of twisted, exposed metal. The driver’s door was open, and there didn’t seem to be anyone inside. Beneath the car was a puddle of greenish fluid.
It took a moment for Bridget to notice the rumpled, bloody thing lying on the section of lawn on the other side of the driveway—halfway toward the house.
“Mother?” she screamed. “Mom?” Bridget ran to her mother, who wasn’t moving. She lay facedown on the grass. She must have crawled out of the car, and passed out halfway up the driveway.
Bridget carefully turned her over. She winced at the huge gash on her mother’s forehead. Blood matted down her blond hair and stained the front of her pretty, pink Chanel suit. Now it was dirty and torn. She wore only one shoe.
Bridget could see that her mother was still breathing.
“You really kept your head, sweetheart,” her father said later—in the hospital’s parking lot. “I’m very proud of you.”
“All I did was call an ambulance,” Bridget replied, shrugging.
Heading toward the car together, he put an arm around her. “You also left a message on my pager and another at my office,” he said. “And you phoned the tow company to haul the car away. I’d say you can be counted on in a crisis, Brigg.”
Her mother had sustained a broken arm, multiple fractures and lacerations, and they’d put twelve stitches in her forehead. She had to spend the next couple of nights at Longview General Hospital.
Brad had left a message at home that he was having dinner out with a couple of teammates. He wouldn’t be home until about ten o’clock. He still didn’t know about the accident.
Bridget paused under a light in the parking lot. She stared at her father, who stopped walking too. “Is she an alcoholic?” Bridget asked.
Her father took his keys out of his pocket, then studied them. He nodded. “She’s sick, Brigg.”
“How can they let her drink so much at these committee meetings? Are they all drinking like that? Or is it just her?”
He kept looking down at his keys. “She hasn’t attended a club or committee meeting for a couple of years now,” he muttered. “She’s been driving out here and going to the bar at the Red Lion. She sits and drinks and drinks, and . . . well, after that, she doesn’t hold herself responsible for what happens—or who she ends up with.”
“What do you mean?” Bridget asked.
“She’s sick,” he repeated. “It’s a miracle she didn’t smash up the car until now. You don’t know how many times I’ve had to call in favors to have different DWI charges dropped. Some of those ‘trips to your grandparents’ she took were really stays in clinics so she could dry out. Interventions. But nothing we’ve tried seems to work.”
He unlocked and opened the car door for her. Bridget climbed inside and unlocked the door for her father. He got behind the wheel, but didn’t put the key in the ignition. He stared out the windshield.
“What . . .” Bridget hesitated. “What did you mean earlier when you said Mother didn’t feel responsible for ‘who she ends up with’? Do you mean she’s been . . .” Bridget trailed off.
Her father nodded. He finally started up the car, then pulled out of the lot. “I’m sorry, Brigg,” he said. “This isn’t the kind of discussion a father should be having with his daughter. Far from it.”
“Does Brad know?” she asked quietly.
“No, and I don’t want you saying anything to him. Please, Brigg. He mustn’t know.” Her father stopped at a traffic light, and he turned to look at her. “I shouldn’t have told you. I guess I’m just tired. I’ve covered your mother’s tracks and cleaned up her mess the best I could these last couple of years. And you know why, Brigg? So your brother’s future won’t be hurt by any of this. He has a chance to do something really great. He can be a congressman or senator—or even president. We can help make that happen, sweetheart. Promise me you won’t say anything to Brad about what I’ve told you tonight.”
“I promise,” Bridget said, obediently.
The traffic light turned green, but her father didn’t notice. He was still staring at her. “And promise you won’t discuss what you know with anyone else. This can’t get outside the family, Brigg.”
The driver in back of them honked his horn, but her father didn’t even flinch. His eyes were locked on hers.
“I promise, Dad,” she said.
They started moving again, and Bridget stared at the road ahead. She thought about her mother and the type of person she might “end up with” after too many drinks. “Has Mother been . . .” Bridget hesitated. “When you said she was sick, did you mean from the drinking? Or is she sick with something else?”
Eyes on the road, her father frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“She—she doesn’t have AIDS, does she?”
“Not that I know of,” he grumbled.
“Well, aren’t you worried, Dad?” she asked gently. “I mean, not only for her, but she could be passing a lot of stuff on to you—”
“That’s not going to happen,” he muttered
“What makes you so certain?”
“Your mother hasn’t let me touch her since you kids were born.”
“What?” Bridget murmured.
“Your mother thought having babies was just about the worst hell a woman could go through. And I gave her twins. She never forgave me for that.”
Bridget turned toward the window. She’d always wondered what they’d done to make their mother so cold toward them. Tears filled her eyes. “That explains a lot,” she whispered finally.
“I guess that’s something else Brad doesn’t need to know about,” her father said.
“I won’t say anything to him,” she replied, still staring out the window. Then she added under her breath—in a slightly wounded tone: “After all, we have to think about Brad’s future.”
She almost hoped her father had heard her. If he had, he didn’t say anything.
True to her word, Bridget didn’t breathe a word to Brad. In regard to their mother’s accident, he totally swallowed the story that she’d simply overshot the driveway. Her stay in the hospital was longer than they’d anticipated. They’d dried her out again, and conducted a series of tests. They discovered extensive liver damage.
The doctors sent Mrs. Corrigan to a group of specialists at the Dennison Clinic in Bellevue, Washington. She began spending more time there than at home. Brad and Bridget’s father often stayed at a hotel—near the clinic. For Mrs. Corrigan’s brief reprieves at home, she always went back to drinking on the sly and fired one nurse after another.
Brad turned a blind eye to it. He believed the “official” diagnosis of his mother’s illness: liver cancer. At least, that was the story everyone got. It was one reason their father stuck so close to the Dennison Clinic. He had the doctors and nurses in on the cover-up. Cirrhosis or cancer, it was just a label.
The label won their family a lot of sympathy. And as if Brad needed to be more popular, that was exactly what happened. Sitting alone at those basketball games, Bridget would often hear people around her talking about her brother—always about how well he was playing, how cute he was, and
Oh, it’s so sad, his mother has cancer.
Oh, it’s so sad, his mother has cancer.
She and Brad became accustomed to being alone in that big Tudor house for days—sometimes weeks—at a time. By their junior year, they didn’t need the housekeeper staying with them. Bridget did most of the shopping and cooking. She was grateful whenever one of Brad’s pals decided to spend the night—especially if it was her crush, David Ahern. An extra person in the house gave her a better sense of security. There were times she couldn’t help feeling scared and vulnerable in that large house.
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