The One I Left Behind (10 page)

Reggie looked down at the floor, wishing George hadn’t corrected her mother. And lemurs made her think of Charlie and his big lemur-eyes, which made her remember how badly she didn’t want to be here in the first place.

“Is that so?” Vera murmured, draining her drink, rattling the ice around, smiling ever so slightly. “The point is, you’ve never given me one.”

George looked genuinely puzzled. “I had no idea you’d like one.”

“Of course I would. Honestly, George, sometimes I wonder if you know me at all.”

George turned back and took his shot. The ball went right down the middle, then veered off to the side, catching only two pins.

“Damn,” he muttered.

Vera ordered another drink from the bar, talking to the guy in the white shirt while she waited. When she returned, she removed her leather gloves and bowled with her left hand, telling Reggie she’d really been much better when she could use her right. George whistled and said, “You should have seen your mother, then. Back in high school, she could out-bowl anyone. She was a star here.”

Vera bowled strike after strike with her left hand anyway, and Reggie wondered how much better she could be. She wore a pale blue dress and matching scarf to tie back her hair. Reggie thought she looked like the sky, like heaven.

She caught herself staring at her mother’s scarred hand, and when Vera noticed, she held it out to Reggie, offering it as some form of proof.

“All great heroes have a flaw,” she told Reggie, her voice loosening from the gin as she reached to touch Reggie’s new ear, her fingers searching knowingly for the scars behind it. “It’s one of the things that makes them heroes.”

Vera strolled back toward the bar. “I’m gonna grab a refill and a quick smoke,” she said. She stood beside the man with the white shirt and ordered a third drink, pulling out her pack of Winstons.

Reggie was up again and George stood behind her, giving her pointers.

“Don’t hold it so tight. That’s it. Relax your arm. Now step into the swing,” George said. “Imagine a line between the ball and that front pin. Bowl straight down that line like it’s an arrow.”

She released the ball, watching it travel right down the middle, knocking down all but the two pins in the back right corner.

“Nicely done!” George said. Reggie looked back to see if her mother had seen, but the bar was empty. She got a funny, nervous feeling in her stomach, swirling around with her too-sweet root beer. Reggie listened to the chunking and grinding of the ball return, waiting. When her ball came back, she put her fingers in the holes and moved into position.

“See if you can get a spare, Reggie,” George said. “Visualize that line leading right up to those pins.”

Reggie aimed for the two remaining pins, but the ball veered too far to the right and ended up in the gutter. Turning, she saw her mother wasn’t back yet. Had she gone to the bathroom, maybe? Or outside for some air?

George bowled his frame, then said, “Your mother’s up.” He glanced over at the empty bar grimly. “I guess I’ll take the opportunity to go to the men’s room. If your mom’s not back in a minute, go ahead and take her turn.”

“But I’ll wreck her score!” Reggie squeaked, and then immediately felt like an idiot. No need to be a baby, no need to freak out.

George made a strange sound—half grunt, half sigh—and walked away.

Reggie headed for the bar, her chest feeling tight. There was an old guy polishing glasses behind the counter.

“Help you?” he said.

“Um—I’m looking for my mother.”

The bartender shrugged.

Reggie went to the back door and opened it, squinting into the early evening sunlight. Her mother was nowhere around. A tan car was taking a left out of the parking lot onto Airport Road. Reggie made out two people in the front seat, sitting close together. Then she looked down and saw the size eight bowling shoes to the left of the door.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and spun. “How ’bout you and I go for that steak dinner?” George said, forcing a smile through his clenched jaw.

“Thanks, but I’m not all that hungry.”

“I’ll bring you home, then.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him and she was suddenly sorry she’d said no to dinner. “To tell the truth, I’ve kind of lost my appetite, too.”

They returned the shoes, watching Dix spray them with disinfectant and shelve them. George paid and they went out to his van. George had his own produce business, supplying restaurants all over the valley with vegetables and fruit. He was the only person Reggie had ever met who could get excited over beets and rutabagas.

“Buckle up,” he said to Reggie with a smile. Then he pushed a cassette in and Johnny Cash started to sing “Ring of Fire.” George eased the van out of the parking lot. He was a careful driver who never went over the speed limit and always seemed to have an eye on the rearview mirrors. His van was always freshly vacuumed; the dashboard sparkled. A tree-shaped air freshener hung from the rearview mirror. The back of the van was covered in AA bumper stickers that said
EASY DOES IT; FIRST THINGS FIRST; ANOTHER FRIEND OF BILL W’S
.

“I’m sorry,” Reggie said.

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for, young lady.”

“She shouldn’t have left like that.”

His jaw clenched again. “No, she shouldn’t have,” he said with an edge to his voice that Reggie hadn’t expected. “It was our night. The three of us.” He gripped the wheel tight, then turned to Reggie. He smiled. “Listen, kiddo, your mother’s gonna do what she’s gonna do. I learned a long time ago that there’s no point trying to change her. Live and let live.”

They drove in silence a minute, coming into the center of town now. Reggie looked at the neat row of shops—The End of the Leash pet store had once been her grandfather’s cobbler shop.

“How’ve things been at home, Reg?” George asked.

Reggie bit her lip, thought of her mother crawling into bed with her, telling her about a new man; Lorraine warning her to start locking her door. “Fine, I guess,” Reggie said, staring down at her sneakers.

“Good,” he said, smoothly switching lanes. He sounded like he was smiling again. “That’s real good.”

T
HAT EVENING IN THE
tree house, Reggie, Tara, and Charlie were crowded around the
Hartford Examiner.
POLICE FOLLOWING LEADS IN MCFERLIN MURDER
said the headline.

“What leads?” Reggie asked, leaning in for a look, but Charlie was hogging the paper. The dim light coming through the open windows was hardly enough to see by. The blue tarp over their heads flapped and rustled in the wind.

“They don’t say,” Charlie said. “Only that this is the official statement from the police department.”

Tara’s cigarettes were out on the floor and Charlie reached for one, his long fingers circling the pack. Reggie hadn’t told them about her mom ditching her and George at the bowling alley. She’d only said they’d decided not to go out for dinner, which was great, because that meant they could put a few shingles up before it got too dark. But so far all they’d done was fight over the paper.

Reggie lit the candles and set them up on the floor so they could see better. She looked out the tree house window. The sky was dark and full of clouds, a storm on its way.

Tara pushed Charlie aside and scanned the article on page two:
FAMILY AND COLLEAGUES STUNNED BY LOSS
. It was written by a reporter named Martha S. Paquette. There was a photo of Andrea McFerlin. She was a chunky woman with frosted hair and lots of makeup. She was wearing a white blouse with a ruffled collar and a mauve blazer. “Christ,” Tara said, looking up from the
Examiner
. “She had two kids. Little girls. Three and six.”

“What about a husband?” Charlie asked, trying not to choke as he puffed on his cigarette. “It’s almost always the husband. Or a boyfriend.”

Tara scanned the article, shaking her head. “She’s a widow. Her husband died in a car crash two years ago.”

“Guess that rules him out,” Charlie said. “Maybe she had a boyfriend, though.”

“Oh my God,” Tara squawked. “Listen to this: ‘An unidentified source at the Brighton Falls Police Department has confirmed that Andrea McFerlin’s stomach contents showed her last meal, eaten only hours before she died, was lobster with drawn butter. There was also a large amount of morphine in her bloodstream.’ ”

“Lobster?” Charlie said. “Weird.”

Raindrops hit the roof and tarp, slowly at first, then harder.

“Has your dad talked about it at all?” Reggie asked. “I mean it’s his case, right?”

Charlie shook his head. “He never talks about work. Not even now, when the story’s all over the news like this. Shit, I know more from reading the paper than I do from talking to him.”

“I don’t get it,” Reggie said. “This lady leaves for a business trip, makes it to the airport, but never gets on her plane. Was the killer just there, waiting in the parking lot? And it’s an airport parking lot, right? If he grabbed her, how is it that no one saw anything?”

“Maybe it was someone she knew. Maybe she never intended to take that business trip and was planning a romantic weekend getaway with her secret lover,” Tara said. Her eyes were wide and her normally pale face was flushed. “I mean, the guy gave her lobster! He took care of her.”

“He cut her freaking hand off!” Charlie shot back.

“But he did it carefully,” Tara said, closing her eyes. She reached out and circled her own right wrist with her left hand, running her fingers over the knobby bone of her wrist, then up the tendons on the back of her hand. “Lovingly.” She popped open her eyes, stood up, and paced in a slow circle; then she stopped right in front of Charlie and Reggie. Her whole body seemed to be vibrating, and she couldn’t seem to hold still. Reggie had never seen her this worked up about anything.

“This wasn’t some drooling psycho with a chain saw in a dirty garage,” Tara said, her voice crackling and dramatic. “This guy must have used a tourniquet, proper surgical tools. He gave her morphine. I’m guessing he knew this lady. He cared about her.” Tara gave a rueful smile. “Maybe even loved her in his own sick puppy way.”

Her eyes moved to the pile of board games in the corner of the tree house. “I’ve got an idea,” she sang, practically running to the games, pushing aside Clue and Monopoly.

“What are you doing, Tara?” Charlie asked.

She turned back to them, holding the Ouija board. “We’ve gotta try to talk to her. Maybe she can tell us who the killer is!”

“You’re kidding, right?” Charlie said, brown eyes practically popping out of his head.

“Come on, Reggie,” Tara said, taking the board out. “Do it with me.”

Reggie and Charlie had tried the Ouija board once when they were ten—Charlie made nervous wisecracks while Reggie asked again and again, “Is anybody there?” and got no answer. Eventually their hands got tired, and their legs full of pins and needles from sitting too long, so they packed the game away.

“Please?” Tara begged. “You need two people to make it work.”

Reggie sat across from Tara, legs crossed, her knees touching Tara’s, the board held on both their laps. They rested their fingers lightly on the plastic, heart-shaped planchette. Reggie studied the board with the sun in the upper left corner, the moon in the right; the two curved rows of letters; the word
Goodbye
at the bottom.

“We call to the spirit of Andrea McFerlin. Can you hear us?” Tara asked, her voice loud and teacherlike. The candlelight flickered, making Tara’s face glow.

“You shouldn’t mess with stuff like Ouija boards,” Charlie said. “Look what happened to that kid in
The Exorcist
.”

“Shh!” Tara hissed.

“Captain freakin’ Howdy, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Would you please shut up?” Tara said. “You’re interfering with our connection to the spirit world.”

Charlie made a disgusted chuffing sound and picked up the newspaper, turning to the comics. Reggie looked down at the letters on the board, staring without blinking until everything looked blurry.

“We wish to speak to Andrea McFerlin,” Tara repeated, trying to sound proper, speaking in what sounded like her unique attempt at an English accent. Reggie wondered if Tara was playing out a scene from some movie she’d watched.

“It’s not like making a long-distance call,” Charlie snorted, not looking up from the paper.

Reggie thought about
The Exorcist,
wondered if you could really get possessed by using a Ouija board. What if it really was like opening the door to the spirit world and inviting any old ghost or demon in?

But that kind of stuff was made up. Only in movies. Then again, killers who cut women’s hands off, then fed them lobster before strangling them, sounded like something from a Hollywood blockbuster, too.

Suddenly the planchette moved, nearly jumping out from under Reggie’s fingers. She made a little yelping sound without meaning to.

She knew Tara must be moving it, but at the same time, she wanted to believe it was real. Reggie’s breath came fast and shallow; the candle between them gave them each giant shadows that hung on the walls like ghosts themselves.

“Andrea? Are you here?” Tara asked, nearly breathless.

The plastic marker moved up to the top of the board, the little window hovered over the word
Yes
.

“Tara’s totally moving it,” Charlie said to Reggie, but he was leaning in to watch over the top of the newspaper, his brown eyes wide.

“Shut up, Chuckles,” Tara hissed under her breath. And then, clearly: “Andrea? Do you have a message for us?”

Nothing. Reggie willed it to move again, wanted it so badly she felt herself start to drag the planchette, but then, realizing what she was doing, stopped.

“Can you tell us who the killer is?” Tara asked. She was leaning down over the board, studying the letters. Her face looked orange-red, like a devil. Like Captain Howdy, maybe.

Reggie held her breath, waiting.

Tara’s eyes rolled back into her head and she started to tremble, gently at first, like her body was made of leaves and the wind was passing through her.