Worse Than Being Alone (31 page)

As he stepped out of the car, Billy tried to picture
the completed house on the site. He walked to where the front door
would be and looked through the back at the view. It was going to
be a fantastic view of the river just as they had hoped. He knew he
was being unreasonable with Marian, but he couldn’t seem to help
himself. The constant nagging brought out his stubborn streak,
something he supposed he had hidden during the dating process.
There was also something he couldn’t quite put his finger on that
disturbed him about the questions.

Admittedly, Marian also hid a lot during the dating
process. She didn’t seem to care one bit about finances and was
very interested in having sex, sometimes in some fairly surprising
places. So Billy, totally confused by her sudden, intense interest
in show me the money, while simultaneously cutting off sexual
activity, considered what his next move should be.

Billy wondered if total capitulation was the answer,
though it went against his nature. Another thing that concerned him
was whether that would even fix the problem. Would surrender now
mean he should expect every disagreement to end the same way?

Everything seemed so easy and peaceful when he first
met Marian and her children. It was so much fun back then, when his
life was filled with parties, dinners, picnics, and constant
activity. There was very little pressure except for the gentle
teasing about getting married.

For the first time, Billy wondered
if he had made a big mistake. Until now, he had resisted that line
of thought. Quitting or bailing out was also against his nature,
but the thought of facing these battles for whatever time he had
left was repugnant. Maybe it was time to issue an ultimatum of his
own.

Billy thought of Roni and wondered if he should talk
to her about his problems. He would have to figure out a way to
tell her to back off and get along with Marian. What a mess, he
thought, as he got back in the car. A better strategy might be to
wait until he had a better handle on what he was going to do. Bad
mouthing Marian now and then staying married might make everything
worse. He decided to feel out Roni over lunch, vowing to avoid
telling her how he really felt. Billy pressed Roni’s name on his
favorites screen.

“
Hey, Dad, how’s it going?” Roni
asked.

“
Ok, I guess,” Billy said. “I’ve
missed you. When can you do lunch?”

“
I’ve missed you, too,” Roni said.
“How about Saturday?”

“
That sounds good,” he said. “How
about noon at Fast Eddie’s?”

“
That works,” Roni said as her
phone beeped, indicating she had a call from Kitty. Look, Dad, I’ve
got a call on the other line. I’ll see you Saturday.”

“
Is everything OK, Kit?” Roni
asked after she pressed end call. “I know this is third time you
called. I’ve been driving back and couldn’t get service until the
last couple of minutes.”

“
No, everything is not OK. Cindy
and I got kidnapped by the FBI while we were tailing Ho Chi Minh.
Turns out Ho is one of the leaders of the biggest sex slave
operation in the country.”

“
Wait a minute,” she said. “Did
you say they kidnapped you?”

“
Yeah, Cindy and I were following
Ho. They blocked our car, pulled us out, put us in separate
vehicles, and took us to the Eagleton Building. Cindy freaked out.
To be honest, I freaked out, too, but I got past it. Cindy hasn’t.
I brought her to my condo instead of the office. Can you come
here?”

“
Sure, Ben and I will be there
soon,” Roni said.

“
Who is Ben?”

“
Technically, I guess you’d have
to say it’s Ben’s ashes,” she said. “Sitting next to me are the
cremated remains of Marian’s second husband in
Sikeston.”

“
I get it. So, you think it’s time
to play the Mary Clare card?”

“
You betcha,” she said. “Do you
want to set it up? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Chapter Sixty-One

Roni and I took Cindy home, spent the night at her
house, and eventually calmed her down after her meltdown. Overnight
thunderstorms mirrored our emotions as we struggled to find the
right words. The incident had left me shaken somewhat as well and I
think when that realization dawned on Cindy, she finally began to
get past the experience. Sleep overtook us all in the early morning
hours.

The next morning we slept in and felt relieved when
Cindy began joking about our kidnapping. By the time Roni and I
left for out lunch date with Mary Clare Flaherty, a friend from
high school, Cindy seemed to be in good spirits. The drive to
Charlie Gitto’s was completed in silence. I can’t speak for Roni,
but my thoughts centered on memories from long ago.

High school did not represent a happy time for me.
In addition to the usual issues teenagers face, my mother had been
headed for another hospitalization. I can remember sitting in class
wondering if this was the day she would decide the mailman was
really an FBI agent and needed to be killed.

Most people I know either think high school was the
greatest time in their lives or remember feeling awkward and not
really fitting in. Other than with Roni, I chose not to fit in.
Ours was not a house you could ever feel comfortable bringing your
friends to, so for me it was just easier not to have any. Roni was
the only exception, and it was only because she refused to be
rebuffed.

I wish I could say I was the attraction, but I think
our friendship began because Roni had a crush on my older brother.
Also, since Roni was an only child, she was fascinated by the sight
of 10 children interacting. She would sit at the dinner table,
amazed at the huge bowls of food necessary to feed 12 people. My
mother liked Roni, who was smart enough to charm her into
acceptance. When Roni was around, my mother mostly was able to hide
the crazy parts as if she somehow needed Roni’s approval.

Roni has that effect on a lot of people and was
easily one of the most popular girls in high school. She belonged
in almost every group and even managed to pick up strays like me
and Crazy Cindy. Mary Clare Flaherty was the smartest girl in the
whole school with perfect test scores.

Smart girls aren’t so popular in high school. It’s
much better to be a handsome jock or a good-looking cheerleader.
That’s the ticket in high school. Lucky for most of us, that’s not
the case later on. Plain, smart girls figure out how to maximize
their looks, get an education, and the really smart ones aren’t
obsessed with marrying well.

Black clouds to the north threatened again as I
pulled into the parking lot of Charlie Gitto’s in Chesterfield. I
hadn’t seen Mary Clare for years. She fled Hillsboro after high
school, and never looked back. With scholarships to Washington
University from undergrad to medical school, she finished Summa Cum
Laude. She was well known throughout the area as the St. Louis
County Medical Examiner.

After I parked, Roni and I entered the restaurant,
headed for the hostess stand, and immediately spotted Mary Clare
sitting at a table near the entrance. This was the new and improved
Mary Clare; stylish clothes, great haircut, and perfectly applied
makeup. The dishwater blond hair I remembered from high school had
been replaced by a tinted blond hue with highlights and the big,
black glasses were long gone in lieu of contacts or lasik. Roni and
I settled in across from Mary Clare, who was the first to break the
silence.

“
You guys look great,” Mary Clare
said.

“
You do, too,” Roni
said.

“
The revenge of the nerds,” I said
as we all laughed.

Our waiter arrived, took drink orders, and left as
we traded personal history updates. Mary Clare joked about being
married to the job and seemed fascinated by our career-changing
conversion from nursing to private investigation. After the waiter
took our orders, we plunged ahead with the reason for our lunch
date.

“
So, I’m guessing this lunch isn’t
just about old friends catching up,” Mary Clare said.

“
That’s true,” I said. “Although I
think we should do this on a regular basis.”

“
I agree,” Roni said. “I’ve been
doing some personal investigation on my father’s new wife. Four of
her previous husbands are dead. I don’t want my dad to be number
five.”

“
How do you think she’s doing it?”
Mary Clare asked.

“
Some kind of poison,” Roni
said.

“
Are there bodies we could
exhume?” Mary Clare asked.

“
No, that’s the problem,” Roni
said. “She’s had them all cremated.”

“
That’s not good,” Mary Clare
said. “I don’t see how I can help you.”

“
What about cremated remains?”
Roni asked. “I have possession of husband number four’s remains.
Ben is out in the car right now.”

“
Well, I don’t want to totally
kill, pardon the pun, your enthusiasm,” Mary Clare said. “We can
test for some poisons and heavy metals in cremated remains but a
lot of them we can’t detect, at least at this point in
time.”

“
The technology gets better?” I
asked.

“
All the time,” Mary Clare said.
“Why don’t I test it now and see what I come up with? You’ll just
have to accept if it’s negative, it doesn’t necessarily rule out
poisoning. There’s another factor also in play here. Successful
cremains testing is tied directly to the level of efficiency
regarding the cremation process.”

“
You make the chances sound
dismal,” I said.

“
They are kind of dismal,” Mary
Clare said. “I’d rather have a body any day. Even then, though,
it’s tricky. If she uses something fast acting that dissipates
quickly like insulin or potassium chloride, you wouldn’t find that
even in a body.”

“
I get it,” Roni said. “If it’s
negative, why don’t you keep Ben’s ashes? If some new technology
comes along, you can try it out.”

Chapter Sixty-Two

Roni looked tired the next morning as she finished
marking on the whiteboard in our office. Cindy was back at work and
in good spirits. This would be Roni’s show and she had laid out the
facts of the case on the whiteboard. Lionel and my brother Dave had
agreed to attend. Roni had run out of people to interview. It was
time to go over everything and see what, if anything, could be
done.

Dave and Lionel arrived simultaneously, carrying go
cups from Starbucks.

“
Hey Lionel,” Dave said. “What are
your intentions with my sister?”

“
Whoa, Dave,” I said. “Since when
did you become my protector?”

“
Since Mom and Dad died,” he said.
“I’m a cop and your big brother. What did you expect?”

“
My intentions are honorable,”
Lionel said. “You don’t have to worry.”

“
Jeez, I can’t believe we’re
having this conversation,” I said.

“
You and Lionel have good auras
today,” Cindy said as she took a seat.

“
How’s my aura?” Dave
asked.

“
Kinda red and stressed out,”
Cindy said.

“
How about those FBI guys the
other day?” Dave asked.

“
Some of them had some very dark
auras,” Cindy said. “I think that’s what freaked me out so much. I
didn’t think they were the good guys.”

“
I didn’t always think that,
either,” Lionel said. “Especially the members of the assault
teams.”

“
They actually made some
complimentary remarks about you guys,” Dave said. “I mean you are
the ones who really broke the Sloan case. They also wanted me to
tell you they took down the Shaw House last night. Your workers’
comp cheater will do hard time. Dung is actually Sandra Ho. David
Tran and Ho ran one of the biggest sex slave operations ever busted
in this country.”

“
Any news on Sloan?” Lionel
asked.

“
Not yet,” Dave said. “I think we
all know that won’t last. He’s regrouping somewhere else. He’ll get
some new identities and start all over.”

Roni finished her whiteboard task, listing all five
husbands and the outcome of the marriages. She would fill in the
rest of the details as she went along.

“
Thank you all for coming,” Roni
said. “I’ll tell you what I found out, and then you can tell me
what you think.”

“
That sounds good, Roni,” Dave
said. “We’re all friends here.”

“
All stories start at the
beginning,” Roni said. “Husband number one was George Fitzgerald
back in Lexington, Kentucky, where Marian was born and raised. I
spoke with her only living relative besides her children, her
brother, Anthony Cirillo. He described her as cold, and claims he
hasn’t spoken to her in 40 years. He is convinced she got pregnant
on purpose, forcing George to marry her to get out of their unhappy
home.”

“
How old was she at that point?”
Cindy asked.

“
She was 17,” Roni said. “That was
in 1965. George was a drinker and couldn’t keep a job. Marian had
to work and became even more angry and bitter. George fell down the
stairs and was cremated in 1975. Marian collected a $200,000 life
insurance pay out and left town with the two kids. George’s brother
was suspicious but couldn’t prove anything.”

“
So, her own brother doesn’t like
her?” Lionel asked.

“
That’s right,” Roni said. “He
described her as manipulative and looking for a free ride. Marian
told me her mother died when she was 10, but her brother said it
was just the opposite. That her father died when she was
young.”