When Secrets Die (6 page)

There must be something wrong with the washing machine, I thought. I said, “There must be something wrong with the washing machine. Judith? Beer?”

“Please,” she said.

“Wine if you have it,” Rick said.

“Beer then.”

I went to the refrigerator, smiled fondly at the dirty dishes on the countertops, pleased that I had gotten Joel out of the kitchen
before
the dishes were done, though I've never known any man to refuse what Joel had not been able to refuse either. I like it when men are predictable.

There were chilled beer flutes in the freezer, thanks to Joel, who was more of a homemaker than I'd ever be. But I didn't want to add to the considerable mess I'd made cooking dinner, so I took the beer out in bottles. I checked the washing machine on my way back through. Definitely on cold water. I wasn't stupid, for God's sake.

I made two trips, handing round beers. Joel had gone upstairs to slip into something a little more comfortable, and came back in his favorite pair of paint-splattered sweatpants just as Judith was lighting up a cigar.

“Sooo bad for you,” Rick said.

She smiled and blew smoke his way, then handed it to him across the room so he could take a puff. He inhaled deeply and looked so much like a man enjoying good sex that Joel and I exchanged looks. Rick was doing it on purpose, of course.

Rick waved a hand, and made a sad little face when Judith took it away from him. “Those sweatpants look inhumanly comfortable, don't you dare let Lena get near them.”

I peeled at the edges of the label on my beer bottle. “I don't know what happened to the clothes, Rick, but it wasn't anything I did.”

“No, of course not, dear. Juvenile delinquents broke into your laundry room and shrank them while you and Joel were deep in … discussion, there on the couch.”

“What's with the glasses, Rick? You don't have to be in character here. Take them off.”

My ex is an actor. He runs a debt rescue service now, where he fends off creditors for people in financial distress. The name of the business is You're In The Right Place, and he's good at his job because he used to
be
a debt collector, to his everlasting shame. Which is what he used to do between acting jobs, which meant he did it a lot. I know most of his “characters” and their props because I was there in the old days when he created them.

“Those are real,” Judith said.

“Real?”

“Just reading glasses, Lena Bina. And don't try and change the subject. Shall I tell them how you did laundry when we met?”

“No, you shallent.”

He took the cigar back from Judith and puffed away. There was no point in offering him his own. He and Judith always smoked together, a small intimacy I somewhat envied and admired. Rick had loved me very much, way back when, but he was absolutely mad for Judith. Well, we all were. She was just that kind of person. If I had to choose between her and Rick, naturally, I'd have to choose her.

Rick looked at Joel. “Lena Bina used to leave the washing machine lid up, as a matter of course, and just shove her clothes in right after she took them off, then dash naked across the apartment to get dressed. After the washing machine was full, she'd dump in twice the soap required, then wash the clothes on HOT water, with the water level on low. Then she'd forget about them and by the time she got them into the dryer, they'd had a good two or three days to stay wadded up and wet and get nice and sour smelling, which is something you can't always wash out.”

“Rick, that only happened one time, and it was an experiment to see if the no-trouble system would work. I just didn't happen to check the water level.”

Rick dismissed me with a wave of the cigar, which he handed over to Judith. “The lesson is, Joel, don't let her near a washing machine.”

“Rick, do you know how annoying it is that you always tease me like I'm your sub-intelligent little sister?”

“Lena, considering that we were married, don't you consider that remark … I don't know, vaguely incestuous? Even for Kentucky?”

“Depends on what you mean by vaguely. As in too vaguely … or not enough?”

I saw Judith give Joel a look. They knew we couldn't help it.

“Oh oh oh there he is my little Maynard Kitty.”

That was sure to piss Joel off. Maynard loves only me and Rick, no matter how much Joel makes up to him.

Maynard struggled to jump into Rick's lap. “Oh, baby,” Rick said, scooping the cat gently up. Rick looked at me sadly. Maynard was getting very old.

He settled the cat into the “meatloaf” position that Maynard favored, then tilted his head up and raised an eyebrow. “What's with leaving your car in my front yard and driving away in a BMW? Have you come into money or something?”

Joel laughed unkindly and muttered something about magic beans.

“It's my fee for a new case.”

“Lena Bina, do you never ever get paid in actual dollars? Even euros would be—”

“Rick, I don't remember asking for your opinion or advice. Or yours either, Joel.”

Rick looked at Joel, who refrained from making the comment he no doubt wanted to make.

“What makes any of you think this subject is open to discussion?” I said. “Because I promise all of you, it's not.”

Rick just gave me the mysterious smile. It was quite mysterious, so clearly he'd been working on it.

“What's the case?” Judith asked. “Is your client the woman you were in the restaurant with?”

“Yes. Her name is Emma Marsden. She's the one you've been reading about in the papers.”

I noticed that Joel was sitting up a little straighter.

“The Munchausen Mama?” Rick said.

“I don't believe in Munchausen's.”

“What is it, anyway?” Judith asked.

“Oh, you know, the one where the mother makes her child sick so she can get attention.” Rick raised an eyebrow at me. “Lena, of course, will predictably think that the entire syndrome is made up by evil men to keep perfect women under their thumb.”

I nodded. Rick, as usual, had nailed it.

“Except it does happen,” Joel said.

I looked at him.

“I've seen it, Lena.”

I shook my head at him.

“Videotapes, made in hospitals, where the mother actually injected the child with something, air bubbles. Or put a pillow over their face to suffocate them.”

“Are you telling me this is common, Joel?”

“No, rare. More accusations than proof, and I'm aware of at least three other incidents where this particular doctor made an accusation that didn't stick.”

We all turned to look at him, Judith, Rick, and myself.

“You seem very up-to-date on the subject, since I just talked to the woman today and took her case a few hours ago.” And awfully forthcoming with information, I thought, but did not add, because I did not want to impede the flow.

Joel stared at me. “There will be something in the newspapers tomorrow. Maybe on the news, concerning Emma Marsden.”

“Which naturally you can't tell us about,” I said.

“No, it was leaked to the media on purpose, by the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, so there's no reason I can't leak it to you.”

I clenched my fist. Joel had a mournful air that did not give me a good feeling about the future of my client.

“There's a videotape,” he said.

“No no no.”

“It's not what you think,” Joel told me. “It's a tape of Emma Marsden in the parking lot of a local restaurant having sex with her ex-husband.”

Rick leaned forward. “Have you seen it?”

“Bits and pieces. They were playing it in one of the interrogation rooms.”

I sighed. “What does that have to do with Munchausen's, Joel?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. Except it was taken on her child's birthday, the first birthday after he died. She and the child's father—”

“Clayton Roubideaux,” I said.

“They'd evidently gone out to mark the occasion, and wound up in his car.”

“So she's guilty of what? Sex?”

Rick took the cigar from Judith's reluctant fingers. “Well, Lena Bina, you have to admit, on the anniversary of her child's death—”

“Is there anybody in this room who
hasn't
had sex in a car?”

I saw no hands. Certainly not my own.

“Joel, is she going to be charged?”

“On the basis of the tape? No, as far as I know she's not. That's why the information is going to the media, instead of before a grand jury.”

“Trial by public opinion?” Judith said.

“The doctor who treated the child is raising a lot of fuss,” Joel said.

“What have you guys got on her?” I asked him.

Joel shook his head at me. “That wouldn't be what I was worrying about, if I were you.”

“And what would you be worrying about?” I asked him.

“Who took the videotape. From what I understand, it came in anonymously, through the mail, to the office of the Commonwealth Attorney.”

“And you guys just take it on faith?”

“It's not my case, Lena, but the guy working it takes nothing on faith. If I know Jack Linden, he'll be trying to establish whether or not it really is Emma Marsden in the tape, as the letter states—”

“Oh, so it came with a letter,” Rick said.

“Yes, but you'd need a court order to look at it.”

Rick looked at me and rolled his eyes, but even though Joel and I were constantly dealing with professional boundaries in flux, this was one I knew I had no chance of crossing.

“Joel, I assume you don't have a problem with me letting Emma Marsden know?”

“No—if the media knows, I see no reason for her not to.”

“It's mean not to go to her first.”

“I won't argue the point.” He glanced at the clock. “It's late, though.”

I bit my lip. “I know. But better now than first thing in the morning when she picks up the paper or turns on the news. She's got a teenage daughter, you know.” I turned to Rick and Judith.

“Would you guys want to know?”

Rick nodded.

“Call her,” Judith said.

EMMA

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

Emma had gone through all the motions. She had done everything required. She'd cooked Blaine's dinner and cleaned up the kitchen. Read the newspaper and stayed up late watching a movie about Joan of Arc, and now she could not sleep. She got up out of bed, padded into the living room, which was almost icy cold now that the air outside had cooled, and the earth and foundations of the little worn-out house no longer released wave after wave of heat. The window air conditioner hummed away on the lowest setting.

At first the noise of it had driven her mad. But now she didn't think she would ever sleep without it, provided of course she ever slept. It was white noise, her background, her comfort. Part of the cocoon of the little house she thought of as a sanctuary. The little house that had belonged to her great-aunt Jodina, the little house that now belonged to her, legally, all the papers signed, a hug and a gruff kiss from the tall woman who was afraid of everything except responsibility.

Emma went to the kitchen, poured herself half a glass of white wine from the jug of Chablis. She didn't mind drinking wine from a jug. A box, that bothered her. But the jug of heavy glass had the right feel to it, and definitely the kind of price tag she needed these days.

The wine was cold. She took her glass into the living room and curled up on the worn fabric of her couch, set the glass on the coffee table she had kept since her mother died. It had folding edges with hinges that could go flat or stand up, making a box out of the surface. She sat cross-legged and stared at the wall and the framed cover of the 1929 edition of
Fortune
magazine. Red background, the picture of a leaping stag with arrows whizzing through the air in pursuit. Not unlike her own life. She had bought it for eleven dollars at Wal-Mart and had carted it with her, move after move. The glass in the frame had broken two moves ago, and she'd just emptied it over the trashcan, then hung it on the wall. She ought to replace the frame and told herself she would, but knew in the back of her mind she probably wouldn't. One of those small, easy, inexpensive tasks she never took care of.

As always, the presence of her son rode the backwaters of her every thought. Emma smiled at him, her little baby boy, wherever he was. She took another sip of Chablis. Said a small prayer of thanks not just for wine, but for cheap wine.

She missed her car already. She was not likely to own a BMW again.

There were worse things.

When she saw a homeless person, her first thought was always,
When
. Not
Poor thing
, not
Get a job
, not
There but for the grace of God go I;
she just thought,
When
. Her friends laughed the first time she said it out loud, and afterward, when it became one of her sayings, they just smiled and tuned it out. Dark humor was one of her specialties.

Emma was the last person in the world they would suspect might actually have such a fear. But Emma knew things that so many people don't know. She knew how close she was to the edge financially and, frankly, emotionally. She knew how alone she was in the world. She knew that some of those people who wound up on the streets had started out with more than she'd ever had, achieved more than she ever would, and had more family and friends who loved them than she did.

She was not a very good poor person. She would never forget her aunt Suki grimacing in genuine disillusionment and telling how she had gone with the church group to deliver Thanksgiving baskets to the poor families. She could still hear her aunt's contempt for the way the children in one of those families had dug through the basket right there in the middle of their living room floor and actually opened the dessert and ate it right there—not waiting to eat it properly on Thanksgiving. Everybody in the family had shaken their heads in sorrow at the inappropriateness of some poor families, and Emma had thought at the time that she would not want to be a poor person and follow the poor person rules. And she'd been right. She did not like poor person rules. They ground her up on the insides. She figured that a lot of poor people had ulcers. She certainly had one. A big fat angry ulcer, or whatever it was that woke her up at night and made her throw up.