Never Tell a Lie Page 11

  DNA evidence? Now she knew he was lying. The knife had been collected only yesterday afternoon. There hadn’t been time to do a DNA analysis. And if Melinda’s blood were on it, then someone else had put it there and then hidden the knife at Rose Gardens, where they knew the police would go looking.

  “Who suggested that you conduct that search?” Ivy said. “That’s who you should be questioning. That’s who planted all this so-called evidence for you to find.”

  “So-called evidence?” Blanchard gave her a pitying look. “We also found a few interesting items when we searched Ms. White’s apartment.” He dropped an evidence bag on the table. “Recognize him?”

  Through the plastic, Ivy could see a candid snapshot, a close-up of David.

  “We found this, stuck to the door of her refrigerator. It’s the same photograph Melinda’s co-workers at Neponset Hospital say Melinda showed them last year, before she quit her job there. She showed this same picture to colleagues at SoBo Realty. She told them all that this was her fiancé.”

  No. It was just a photograph. Ivy dug her thumbnail into her palm. Could have been taken by anyone. There’d been no relationship. There couldn’t have been.

  “When did you realize that your husband was having an affair?” Blanchard asked, his eyes drilling into hers.

  He pushed the photograph closer to Ivy and lowered his voice. “Melinda White has a sister. She has a mother. You can imagine how painful it is for them, not knowing what happened to her.”

  Ivy didn’t feel it coming in time to stop the sob as her insides wrenched.

  “Imagine how you’d feel in their place if your child, the one you’re carrying, were to disappear. Vanish into thin air.” Blanchard kept at it, relentless. “If you know anything that will help them come to terms with this, please, now is the time to speak up.”

  Ivy hunched her shoulders and turned away from the one-way glass. She didn’t want David to see her anguish.

  Blanchard tapped a pencil on the table and waited.

  “Oh, and we do have one more thing.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out another cassette recorder. He set it on the table between them. “This is the message we found on Melinda White’s answering machine in her apartment. I think you’ll find it interesting. We did.”

  He clicked it on. An electronic voice announced, “Saturday, November first, 6:05 P.M.” A beep. Then, “Melin—Mindy? Are you there?” It was David’s voice. “Please, pick up if you’re there.” There was a long pause. “Shit. You’re not there. We need to talk. I’m sorry about what happened. Really I am. I didn’t realize…. I didn’t remember…. I know that must seem insane to you, but…Can we at least talk? I don’t want to leave things like this.”

  The phone on the desk rang. A single ring, then silence. It resonated in the air like the round-ending bell of a prizefight.

  Blanchard let it ring once more before he picked up the receiver. He listened, poker-faced, then hung up, got to his feet, and fixed Theo with a placid look. “I believe your other client has a confession to make.”

  16

  Ivy watched in stunned silence as Theo jumped to his feet and left the room with Blanchard hard on his heels. Ivy stumbled after them and hung in the doorway, watching them argue in the hall.

  “None of this will hold up in court,” Theo said. “What you’re doing here amounts to coercion. Without access to counsel. There’s no excuse for—”

  “Spare me,” Blanchard shot back. “It was Mr. Rose’s choice to stay and watch.”

  “Choice? Bullshit. Whatever he’s said, it’s inadmissible in court. Any judge would agree. It’s my job to protect my clients, and you’ve made that impossible—”

  “If you’d been doing your job, Counselor, you’d have advised your clients to get separate attorneys. There’s an inherent conflict of interest here, and you know it.”

  Ivy pushed past them and into the room next door. David sat, his head in his hands. She knelt on the floor beside him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He looked at her, exhausted and drained. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake. I—”

  “David!” Theo said from the doorway. “Stop talking.”

  “I can’t do that,” David said. “I keep quiet and they make my wife look like a murderer. I’m going to tell the truth, and to hell with it. It’s all I’ve got.” David squeezed Ivy’s hand. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  Ivy felt herself go cold.

  David straightened and addressed Detective Blanchard. “Yes, I put the canvas bag and the knife in the Dumpster. I found them in the back of my truck yesterday when I got to work. I swear, I didn’t put them there.”

  “In your truck,” Blanchard said.

  “In the back, under a plastic tarp.”

  Blanchard got up and exchanged a few words with Officer Fournier. Fournier left the room.

  “I know that it sounds insane,” David went on, “but I can’t help it. I recognized the bag. I realized that my having it made it look like I had something to do with Melinda’s disappearance. I didn’t know there was a knife inside, because I didn’t open it up to look. I just wanted to get rid of it.”

  “David,” Theo said, shaking his head, his shoulders sagging in surrender.

  “I know, I know, I should have called the police. But I panicked. I just wanted to make it all go away. And the truth is, I have no idea when Melinda left our house,” David said, his voice flat, his face expressionless. “That’s because I never saw her leave.”

  The woman D.A. shot Blanchard a surprised look.

  “I took her inside,” David went on, “showed her the house, just like I said. But when we got to the attic, she started going on about how unhappy she’d been as a kid. It was as if being there, in that house again, flipped a switch, and she lost it. She smashed the glass swan, threw it against the wall.

  “I just watched. There was nothing else I could do. She asked me if I’d leave her alone, give her some privacy and some time to calm down. When I went back later, she was gone.”

  “How much later?” Blanchard asked.

  “Maybe ten minutes. I just assumed she’d let herself out. That’s why I called her, later that night. I wanted to check that she was all right.”

  “So you’re saying Melinda White let herself out?” Blanchard said, his voice ringing with skepticism. “That the last time you saw her, she was in your attic, alive and well?”

  “And distraught. But yes, alive and well. That’s the truth. Why would I call and leave her a message if I knew she’d disappeared?”

  “Good question,” Blanchard said. “Here’s what I think. I think you called her and left that message because you wanted to make it look as if you believed she was still alive when you knew full well that she was not.”

  “David Rose, you’re under arrest for tampering with physical evidence….” The words still rang in Ivy’s head as Theo drove her home. They’d left the police station by the back exit and slipped away unnoticed through media vans assembled for a hastily called press conference.

  In the moment that the police gave them before taking David away, he’d kissed Ivy hard on the mouth. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.” He pressed his face into her hair. “I didn’t hurt her. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t even know her. Ivy, you have to believe me.”

  Believe you? With each version of what happened, more of what Ivy believed had eroded.

  Theo drove fast, tailgating slower drivers, accelerating through yellow lights, barely slowing at stop signs. Tires squealed as he rounded a corner, and a small silver cross swung erratically from a chain that had been looped around the rearview mirror. There were Greek letters on it—she recognized the circle with a line through it, phi.

  “There’ll be a hearing tomorrow morning. We’ll post bail. Don’t worry, David will be home by tomorrow afternoon.” Arrogant. Reassuring. It was what Ivy wanted to hear.

  She reached out and steadied herself aga
inst the dashboard as the car jerked to a halt at a stoplight.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything,” he said, then went on to admonish her against talking to reporters, or neighbors, or even to friends about the details of what was going on.

  Ivy nodded as if she were listening, his words sliding by like quicksilver.

  The light changed, and Theo sped off. “As your attorney…” he droned on. Ivy watched Theo as he talked, smacking the heel of his hand against the steering wheel for emphasis and swerving through traffic.

  Maybe she’d been too quick to dismiss Detective Blanchard’s suggestion that she retain her own lawyer. The bond of friendship was between Theo and David, forged over decades of shared adventures. Then again, was it a good thing to have such a close friend as your attorney? Maybe David needed someone else, someone with more emotional distance and more experience in criminal law to represent him.

  It was nearly dark when Theo turned the corner onto Laurel Street.

  “Uh-oh,” he said.

  Ivy felt sick to her stomach when she saw the vehicles parked up and down the block. A camera crew was setting up on the sidewalk out front.

  “Don’t pull up in front of the house,” she said. “There’ll be a feeding frenzy. I’ll get out here.”

  Theo stopped the car. The chain and cross suspended from the rearview mirror ticked back and forth like a metronome. Ivy watched her hand reach for the door.

  “Hang in there.” Theo touched her shoulder. “Remember, they have no murder victim, no body, and no witnesses. You and David both have spotless records. No history with Melinda White. There are plenty of alternative scenarios.”

  Was he trying to convince her or himself?

  Theo went on. “You guys are the victims here. Everything they’ve found can be explained. We won’t have any difficulty creating reasonable doubt in the minds of a jury.”

  A jury? But David had been arrested only for evidence tampering.

  “It’s rotten luck that your house happens to be where this woman is last seen before she vanishes. Or maybe it’s not about luck at all. What I want you to think about is who’s holding a grudge? Who’s got it in for you and David? Because evidence like this doesn’t just pile up by itself.

  “But here’s what I don’t get. If someone’s trying to frame David, then why hide the body? Why not give the police what they need to charge him with murder?”

  17

  Ivy walked up the block to her house in the half-light of dusk. It was hard to be invisible when you were nine months pregnant, but she managed to slip up the side of Mrs. Bindel’s house and cut through the backyards without being spotted.

  In the shadow of the porte cochere, it took a few tries to insert the new key. She’d just managed to get the door open when the side of the house was bathed with an instant of hot, white light. Then a second blinding flash. Ivy felt herself rushed from behind.

  “Mrs. Rose, what’s your reaction to your husband’s being arrested for murder?” a man shouted.

  Microphones thrust forward.

  “What can you tell us about the evidence investigators recovered from Rose Gardens?” A woman’s voice.

  “Were you friends with Melinda White?”

  Ivy managed to wedge herself through the door, slam it shut, and lock it from the inside. She stood in the shadowy mudroom, panting and trembling. She could still hear the voices outside. These people were trying to burrow in through the walls of her home, into the pores of her skin.

  This was her home, where she was supposed to feel safe, where she was supposed to be able to walk around stark naked if she wanted to, or yell like a shrew and break dishes with impunity.

  There was a sharp rap at the door, and the doorbell chimed. Ivy clapped her hands over her ears and ran through the kitchen. She moved through the downstairs as rapidly as she could, pulling the curtains and blinds or shades in every window.

  She returned to the kitchen. There was David’s favorite coffee mug, still on the kitchen table. She picked it up and started to carry it to the sink. That’s when she noticed that the knife block had been pulled forward from its usual spot at the back of the kitchen counter. She didn’t remember leaving it there.

  The carving knife—the one that looked like the one the police had found in the white canvas bag in the Dumpster at Rose Gardens—was missing.

  From outside came a woman’s voice: “…missing since Saturday…”

  Ivy hurled David’s cup against the wall. It shattered, leaving a brown splatter. She backed up until she hit the wall. Her feet seemed to go out from under her, and she slid to the floor, landing hard.

  The baby!

  The phone rang. Let it.

  Ivy couldn’t risk hurting the baby. Not now. She put her hands on her belly, ignoring the pain that reverberated from her tailbone up her spine. Her water hadn’t broken. She wasn’t bleeding.

  The phone rang again. The baby’s sharp kick, upward into her lowest rib, was reassuring.

  The phone rang a third time. Probably one of those vultures outside. Or it could be Theo, checking that she’d gotten inside in one piece.

  Ivy got to her knees. The answering machine clicked on, and there was her own voice, telling the world to go away. Beep.

  “Phooey. Where the hell are you?” Jody’s voice echoed from the machine.

  Ivy struggled to her feet and grabbed the receiver. “Jody!”

  “Thank God,” Jody said. “I’ve been leaving you messages all day. You were supposed to call me. Remember? I stopped by, and your neighbor told me you’d been arrested.” In the background Ivy could hear Riker squealing.

  “Not arrested. They took me in for questioning. David’s the one who’s been arrested.”

  “For what?”

  “Tampering with evidence.”

  “You’re home alone?”

  “Alone? I wish. There are a million reporters outside.”

  “Do you want to come here? Of course you do. I’ll come get you.”

  Out of pure reflex, Ivy started to say, I’m okay. But Jody got in first with, “Pack a bag. Now. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, max. I’ll call from the corner.” The line went dead.

  Ivy stared at the receiver. Jody was exactly what she needed. Thank heavens one of them was still sane.

  Ivy called Theo and left a message that she was going to stay with Jody and that she’d have her cell with her. Ten minutes later she was sitting at her kitchen table, coiled to spring. She’d thrown a toothbrush, a nightgown, and a change of clothes into a shopping bag.

  When the phone rang, Ivy grabbed it.

  “I just came through the square,” Jody said. “Now I’m coming up Elm Street.” There was a long pause. “There’s Laurel Street.” Another pause. “Okay, now I’m turning your corner. Cripes, where’d all those people come from?”

  “Don’t stop in front. They’ll barrage you with—”

  Jody cut her off. “Who said anything about stopping? Listen to me…. Here’s what I want you to do. You listening?”

  “Go on.”

  “You’re in the kitchen?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Turn out the lights and check whether anyone’s at the side door.”

  Ivy did. “No one’s there.”

  “Good. Hang up and let yourself out. I’ll count to twenty and swoop by. You run out and jump in.”

  Run? Jump? Yeah, right.

  “It’ll be just like old times,” Jody went on. “Girls rock!” It sounded pretty lame, but that had been their war cry, shouted as the girls’ varsity relay team broke from their huddle before each race.

  “Okay, now start counting with me. One, two…” Jody said.

  “Three, four,” Ivy joined in and disconnected the call.

  Five, six… She looked down at her stomach. This girl wasn’t going to be rocking so much as lumbering. Eight, nine… She grabbed her purse and the shopping bag, let herself out the side door, and locked it. She crept to the edge o
f the porte cochere.

  From what she could see of the people milling in front of the house, no one had spotted her yet. Down the block she could make out only headlights, but she knew that it was Jody’s Beetle, idling at the corner.

  When she got to twenty, she held the bag in front of her face and bolted out the driveway to the sidewalk, then to the curb, surprised that she could move that fast.

  “Mrs. Rose!” a voice shouted.

  But already Jody’s car was there, a streak of yellow-green, the door swinging open. Ivy clambered in. There was a squeal of rubber as Jody accelerated, and the door slammed shut.

  “Wahoo! Fasten your seat belt,” Jody said as she skidded around the corner.

  The exhilaration lasted about ten seconds.

  “So David’s arraignment’s in the morning?” Jody said later as she bounced Riker in her lap at the kitchen table of her fifties ranch-style house. Chinese take-out containers with dregs of shrimp lo mein, kung pao chicken, and moo shoo pork remained on the table.

  “David’s arraignment”—those were two words Ivy never imagined that she’d hear together in a sentence.

  “Theo says he’ll be out on bail by tomorrow afternoon.” Ivy reached into her pocket and felt for her cell phone. She checked that it was on. No messages.

  Jody removed Riker’s sippy cup and a wad of crumpled napkin from his high-chair tray and deposited them on the counter. The top of her loose-fitting navy blue sweats was streaked with what might have been oatmeal.

  It felt good to be in this chaotic household with dirty dishes in the sink, toys all over the floor, and Cheerios crunching underfoot. Riker was rubbing his ear and fussing.

  Jody’s husband, Zach, came into the room. He wore dusty jeans and a maroon sweatshirt with raveled cuffs, and he smelled of sawdust, varnish, and cigarettes. He was a finish carpenter—which explained, Jody liked to joke, why their house was a mass of unfinished projects. There was a half-completed wall of bookshelves in the den and a trough in the kitchen floor where he’d ripped out a wall to what had once been a mudroom. He’d get started on a project during a lull, then drop it when paid work came along. With Jody still on leave from teaching, they needed every cent he could bring in.