Never Tell a Lie Page 9
It was dark by the time she pulled onto Laurel Street. She parked in the driveway, under the porte cochere, and cut the engine. It hadn’t occurred to her to leave any lights on. She checked the rearview mirror, the side mirrors, and glanced around uneasily, trying to penetrate the surrounding darkness. She felt watched, even though there were no media vans and no bicyclist with a camera phone waiting for her. The muscles in her back felt as if they were vibrating like violin strings.
She shouldn’t have caved. She didn’t want to be alone here, wondering what was happening and waiting for David to return.
She took out her cell phone, punched in Jody’s number, and listened for the call to connect.
A rap at the glass alongside her head startled her, and it felt as if someone had reached down and pulled her heart into her throat.
At first all Ivy could see were two small beams of light, like sharp eyes staring at her. Then she realized that it was Mrs. Bindel wearing what looked like eyeglass frames with tiny lights mounted at the corners.
Ivy gave a weak wave. She turned off her cell phone and took some deep breaths to slow her heartbeat before she popped the trunk and got out of the car.
“Thought you might need some bucking up,” said Mrs. Bindel, holding out a foil-covered plate. “This must be a difficult time.” She looked at Ivy, sending the light beams directly into Ivy’s face. Ivy shaded her eyes.
“Sorry,” Mrs. Bindel said. “Reading lights. Nifty don’t you think? I got them on the Internet.” She touched a corner of the frames, and the lights switched off, making it seem even darker than before. “Wonderful thing, the Internet.”
“It certainly is.” Ivy laughed. So much for that old saw that people grew more inflexible with age.
She climbed the steps to the kitchen door and felt for the keyhole. She unlocked the door, opened it, reached in, and turned on the outside light.
“It’s terrible. A woman disappears,” Mrs. Bindel said in a voice that sounded like dry leaves. “Even in my day that story rarely had a happy ending. The police showed me her picture, but I told them I didn’t recognize her.”
Ivy returned to the car and pried the box containing the fancy stroller from the trunk. It weighed a ton. When she had one edge of the box on the lip of the trunk, she tugged it forward until the center of gravity shifted and it slid to the ground.
Mrs. Bindel set the plate on the step and helped Ivy drag the box over and prop it against the side of the house. “You’d better leave that for your husband to bring in for you,” she said.
Ivy removed the gift basket and shopping bags loaded with other gifts from the trunk. Mrs. Bindel followed her to the kitchen door. Ivy dropped the basket and the bags onto the floor of the mudroom and turned back to Mrs. Bindel.
“You’re so kind to bring this.” She took the plate and lifted the aluminum foil. Banana smell. “Smells delicious. But you’re right. It’s a difficult time.”
“I’d be glad to stay, if you’d like the company,” Mrs. Bindel said.
Only minutes ago Ivy would have jumped at the offer. Now all she wanted was to go inside and be left alone. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I’ll be all right. I’m just exhausted.”
“If you’re sure.” Mrs. Bindel hesitated.
“I’m sure.”
Mrs. Bindel was turning away when it occurred to Ivy to ask, “Are you absolutely certain that you didn’t see the woman they’re looking for? She was at the yard sale when you were there.”
Mrs. Bindel turned back.
Ivy went on. “She was very pregnant. Talking to me. Holding a green glass swan and a bottle of water.”
Mrs. Bindel seemed to grow an inch taller as she took this in. “That’s the woman they’re looking for?”
“The picture they’ve got is from high school. She’s changed quite a bit.”
Mrs. Bindel raised her eyebrows, and her wig shifted forward. “You can say that again. You’re right, I did see her.” Mrs. Bindel gave Ivy a close look that made her feel like an oyster being poked. “Didn’t your husband take her inside?”
“He did. And then she left. You didn’t happen to see her leaving, did you?”
“The police were particularly interested in that, too.” Mrs. Bindel pondered for a moment, her brow knitted. “Of course, now that I know who they’re talking about…Still, I’m quite sure I didn’t see her leave.” She gave Ivy an earnest look. “I’m so sorry, my dear. I was preoccupied, thinking about all the things I needed to get rid of.”
“Remember the next day you gave us that wicker trunk, and David put it out at the curb? Did you notice anyone out there, opening it up and looking inside?”
“The police asked me that, too. I told them that everyone and his brother seemed to be stopping by, hoping to find I don’t know what—an unsigned van Gogh?”
“I thought you were out there at one point,” Ivy said.
“I was so astonished. I went out to see if I’d missed something.” Her expression was sour. “I hadn’t. I thought I saw you out there, too, later that night.”
“Me?”
“I happened to look up from my paper. It was dark, but I thought you were out at the curb. Folding and rearranging the things in the trunk.”
Before Ivy could argue the point, Mrs. Bindel touched the frames of her headgear and the lights came back on. “Good night, dear,” she said, and started down the driveway and into the dark, until all Ivy could see were two receding beams of light that seemed to float and waver in midair. Then the lights swung around and pointed toward Ivy.
“Tsk, tsk. I couldn’t imagine what you were doing out there, all alone in the dark.” Mrs. Bindel’s voice wafted up the driveway. “And why on earth were you wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night?”
13
Sunglasses! Mrs. Bindel had seen the same woman Ivy had seen. Ivy’s moment of elation quickly evaporated. Unfortunately, Mrs. Bindel had taken her for Ivy and probably told the police as much. Now they had an eyewitness who could testify that Ivy had been outside that night, messing around with the contents of the trunk.
Ivy locked the side door and hung her key ring alongside the set of spare keys they kept on a hook in the mudroom. The answering machine on the kitchen counter blinked—more messages than she could count. Reluctantly, Ivy played the first one. “This is Steve Hamlin calling from the South Shore Times.…” She hit “skip.”
She listened to the beginnings of the next three. More reporters. The fourth message began. “Hi—Ivy? It’s Frannie Simon. I was so sorry to hear about what’s happening—” The woman went on, and Ivy had no idea who she was until she said, “See you at the fitness center.” Ivy cut the message off. Frannie Simon had never, ever called Ivy before.
Go away! Go away, everyone!
Ivy skipped quickly through the rest of the messages. More reporters. More acquaintances calling to get their curiosity satisfied. The Roses had turned into a sideshow, and knowing them would pass for social currency.
Just as she hit “skip” a final time, the phone rang. Ivy jumped back.
It rang, then rang again. Her answering machine picked up.
“Sorry no one can come to the phone,” Ivy’s recorded voice told the caller. “Leave a message, and we’ll get right back to you.” She cringed. She most certainly would not be getting back to any of them.
Beep.
She waited for the caller to say something. There was a click, and the machine turned off.
Ivy stared at the phone, daring it to ring again. When it didn’t, she deleted all the messages and recorded a new greeting. In a brusque, formal voice, she announced, “There’s no one here to take your call.” And left it at that.
Satisfied, she hung up the phone.
Ivy walked through the dining room and continued to the entry hall, turning on lights as she went. Gazing up the grand staircase, she felt like Alice after she’d eaten the shrinking half of the mushroom, or perhaps it was the house that had expanded around her.
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“What are you staring at?” Ivy asked the bronze statue, Bessie, who seemed to be eyeing her reproachfully from the newel post.
Ivy picked up the pile of mail that had come through the slot in the front door. She threw out business cards and handwritten notes from reporters, then carried the rest of the mail into the living room.
Yesterday’s newspaper was on the couch, along with the crossword puzzle David had been working on. She raised the lid of the window seat and tossed them inside.
She was cold again. She pulled the curtains closed and grabbed the crocheted afghan, wrapped it around her, and sat on the window seat, staring down at the unopened mail in her lap.
A wall of sound, that was what she needed. Ivy got up and switched on the stereo. She turned up the volume and let Radiohead’s ethereal keyboard melodies, their fuzzes and hums of liquid percussion, fill her head.
Eight o’clock. David hadn’t come home. She called his cell phone and got no answer. Voice mail picked up at Rose Gardens.
She went up to her office and checked the Boston Globe and Channel 7 Web sites for local breaking news. There was none. She opened her e-mail. Just a message from Jody. Had Ivy gotten home okay? Ivy e-mailed back that she had.
Ivy went downstairs to the kitchen and warmed a slice of leftover pizza. She ate it and tried not to think about what might be holding up David.
At nine o’clock she tried calling him again.
Ten o’clock. She found herself sitting on the edge of a chair in the kitchen, the crocheted afghan still wrapped around her, jittery and alert to the house’s every sound. The whoosh of each car that drove by seemed to slither down her spine.
The baby poked what had to be a foot up into her ribs. Ivy put her fingers there and gently pressed back. Hi there, Sprout. You stay right where you are. We’ll get this all sorted out, don’t you worry.
At last Ivy heard the rumble of David’s truck engine. She jumped to her feet. A minute later there was the sound of the key in the lock. The side door opened, and David came into the kitchen, carrying the box containing the fancy stroller. He dropped it in a corner.
“Where were you? I tried calling,” Ivy said, and immediately wished she hadn’t. It sounded like an accusation.
David didn’t seem to notice. He unzipped his jacket, shrugged it off, and threw it over a kitchen chair. He shucked his work boots and kicked them into a corner, then slid his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it onto the kitchen counter.
He smelled of whiskey. He’d probably helped himself to the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he kept in his desk. She could hardly blame him. He opened the refrigerator, pulled out a beer.
“Hungry?” she asked. “There’s another slice of pizza. Or we can order Chinese. Mrs. Bindel brought over banana bread.”
David sank down on a stool. He twisted off the bottle cap, tipped back his head, and drank. He closed his eyes for a few moments, then opened them and stared off into space.
“So?” she asked. “What happened?”
“Paper bags.” He smacked the beer bottle down on the counter. “They searched everywhere and took stuff away in goddamned paper grocery bags.”
“What…stuff?”
“They didn’t run that past me. Theo said they’ll let him know and then he’ll let me know.”
“When?”
“Later.”
“When later?”
“How the hell should I know?” David kneaded his fist in his hand. Finally he looked over at her. “Hey, I’m sorry. This is my first time being suspected of murder.”
Murder? Tears stung at Ivy’s eyes as she stared down at him.
Without a word David reached for her and drew her into his embrace, resting his head on her belly. She could feel him shaking, trying to stay in control.
“They think—” His voice broke off. He cleared his throat and looked up at her. “They think I had something to do with Melinda’s disappearance.”
“We both know that’s ridiculous.”
“What if they found something?”
“What’s to find?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” David said. “We didn’t think they’d find anything in that old trunk, and they did. And it’s not as if the police paid much attention to following up on the people you saw out there who could have planted those clothes.”
“David, you remember that woman I saw? Mrs. Bindel saw her, too. She thought it was me.”
David pulled away. “That’s what she told the police?” He groaned. “Great, now they think I have an accomplice—my own wife.”
“Can they really think we’d be that stupid? Stash bloody clothing in a trunk and then set it out at the curb with a Help Yourself sign planted beside it? Brilliant plan. If I wanted to get rid of evidence like that, I’d burn it, or bury it, or bag it and dump it in a trash bin at a rest stop out on I-95. Or better yet wash and fold it away neatly in my bureau with my own clothes. I’d put it in that wicker trunk only if I…” The thought chilled her.
“Right,” David said. “You’d only have done that if you wanted the police to find it.”
14
The next morning, after David left for work, Ivy called a locksmith. She watched as the polite young man with tattoos, like translucent sleeves running up his arms, drilled holes in the hundred-year-old oak front door. The shiny brass around the new keyhole was a further desecration.
Dead bolts for the front and side doors? It was ridiculous. The locks they had were perfectly functional. But with her life spinning out of control, Ivy had to do something to shore up her borders.
The locksmith left her two keys. One she attached to her key ring, the duplicate she hung on the hook in the mudroom by the side door for David. She’d get one more copy made as a backup.
Keep busy. Try not to think. Those were pretty much the sum total of her plans for the day. As she locked up the house, the sounds of the new tumblers falling into place and the brass bolts sliding home were comforting.
First she headed to the grocery store to pick up milk, toilet paper, and the ingredients she needed to make batches of Thai chicken and chili. She’d freeze dinner-size servings for after the baby came.
At midday the store was quiet, not the rush she was used to after work or on the weekend. She was in and out in under a half hour. She stopped at the library to return a book on CD—a Ruth Rendell mystery that had accompanied her commute.
On the way home, she stopped in Brush Hills Square, a stretch of squat, granite-faced, two-story commercial buildings, to get a spare key made at Three Brothers Hardware. The store had changed hands but kept its name after the last of the original “three brothers” retired years ago. She hadn’t been in there in eons, not since Home Depot had opened barely a mile away.
She parked at a meter and was pumping in a quarter when she noticed a police cruiser. It pulled up alongside her and crawled past. Ivy felt her cheeks grow warm. Was she being followed? Couldn’t she run an errand without being harassed?
She hurried past the doorway to a defunct bowling alley in the basement of the building. A bell tinkled overhead as she entered the hardware store.
Through the store’s plate-glass window, she saw where the cruiser had pulled in to the loading zone near the corner. Police monitored traffic all the time from there, she told herself, waiting for someone to run the light.
She dragged her attention away. The store, a throwback to the days when local hardware stores doubled as general stores, smelled of sawdust, sweat, and turpentine. There were narrow aisles with housewares—mixing bowls and kitchen utensils and dish towels—alongside weed whackers and paint supplies. Roofing nails, still sold by the pound, filled a barrel under a metal hanging scale.
A gray-haired man emerged from the back and settled himself on a stool behind a battered linoleum-topped counter. His face was pale and speckled, like the underside of a flounder. His gaze dropped to her belly.
Ivy offered the key. “Please, I need a copy of this.”
Ivy was still pondering the clerk’s apparent confusion later when she pulled out of her parking spot. The police cruiser was gone. She was halfway home when she noticed a large sedan with a tinted windshield that filled her rearview mirror.
She turned right. The sedan followed. Left. It was still on her tail. When she pulled into her own driveway, the sedan pulled in behind her. A car door slammed. In her side mirror, she saw Detective Blanchard striding toward her.
Ivy’s heart raced as she sat gripping the steering wheel. She felt hemmed in, trapped as her thoughts spun forward. Was there a new development? Was he arresting her?
Thock. She engaged the automatic door lock. She got out her cell phone. Fingers trembling, she called David’s office.
Lillian Bailiss answered. “Guess he’s not here,” she told Ivy after she checked David’s office and then paged him. “He left for lunch at eleven-thirty. It’s not like him to be gone for more than an hour without checking in. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you. You try his cell?”
Detective Blanchard stood at the driver’s-side window, relaxed, a genial smile on his face. He stiffened when he saw Ivy talking on her phone.
Ivy called David’s cell phone. After a single ring, her call went to voice mail. She left a short, semihysterical SOS.
Blanchard was now leaning against the hood of her car, whistling and picking his nails.
She called Theo. He wasn’t in his office. Where the hell was everyone?
Theo’s assistant gave her the number of his cell phone. Theo picked up after one ring.
“What does he want? He’s not threatening you with anything, is he?” Theo asked.
“He hasn’t said anything at all. He’s just standing there, waiting for me to get out of the car. I don’t know anything. How many different ways can I say that?” Ivy could hear hysteria rising in her voice.