Blood Bond (23 page)

After a few minutes a short, animated woman with close-cropped gray hair came in and sat down next to Joe, extending a hand.

“I'm Donna Vicencio,” she said. “I was looking after Aidan McKay.”

She turned and shook Bertrise's hand with a brisk, fleeting smile.

“Mr. McKay checked himself out?” Joe asked.

“Yes. He had quite a few stitches, over thirty, but they didn't present any complications. We generally like to observe concussions for a little longer, but he got through the night with flying colors, so there wasn't really any reason for him to stay, other than receiving follow-up care orders.”

“Can we speak with the doctor who was here last night?” Bertrise asked.

Dr. Vicencio frowned. “Well, you certainly could, if you feel like interrupting the first sleep she's had in twenty-four hours. Any chance it could wait?”

“That's fine,” Joe said. “Did Mr. McKay give any indication as to why he was in a hurry?”

“For that you'd have to talk to the nurses.”

“Could you help us find the ones who would have been caring for Mr. McKay? Or should we talk to the receptionist?”

Dr. Vicencio shrugged, not without sympathy. “You can ask, certainly, but they all got off shift, too. Maybe if you came back later . . .”

“It's all right,” Joe said. “We'll just go find McKay and ask him ourselves.”

THE CRIME
scene tape was no longer strung on McKay's garage, but loosely wadded and tossed in a corner next to the house.

No one answered the doorbell.

“He must have taken a cab here and got his car,” Joe said.

“You think he went to the service?”

“I don't know. I looked around pretty carefully. Between us you'd think we would have seen him.”

“Well . . .”

“You still have the consent to search?”

“Yeah.” Bertrise opened a folder and pulled out the document.

Joe hesitated. “We should probably go for the warrant, but—”

“Let's see if the door's open. People always leave the side garage doors open around here.” She shook her head in disgust. “Montair might as well have a sign on the edge of town, ‘Rob us blind, we don't mind.' ”

Joe laughed. “Odell told me they didn't even install a lock on their back door when he was growing up. You know he still never locks his personal car.”

“Idiot,” Bertrise said, not without affection. She led the way around the side and tried the door; it was open. “See?”

The interior door was open as well.

Inside, there was an odd smell, half disinfectant and half stuffy. The blinds were all lowered, the effect claustrophobic, as though McKay rarely let any sun or air in.

Joe snapped on all the lights and hit Gervais's personal number on his phone. While he waited for Gervais to pick up, he found a vantage point in the corner of the kitchen where he could see the entire first floor, the great room off the kitchen with its giant flat-screen TV and bachelor furniture suite, the serviceable beige sofa and love seat, the dinette set, the Bowflex.

“What do you want?” Gervais said groggily.

“Good morning, Edward,” Joe said primly. “Or I should say, afternoon. Don't tell me you're still in bed?”

“Yeah, me and a couple of Raiders cheerleaders. What do you want?”

“When you searched McKay's, did you go into the house or confine to the garage?”

“Of course we went inside. I don't run a kindergarten, asshole.”

“I didn't mean—”

“Yeah, whatever. We did prints and turned it over for possible weapons, didn't come up with anything.”

“Well, I'm here now. With Bertrise.”

“A regular mod squad,” Gervais grumbled. “I'll get back to you on the print results tomorrow, okay?”

Joe hung up and followed Bertrise up the stairs to the condo's second floor. There was a bedroom, bath, and open loft with a desk and a few bookshelves. Bertrise sat at the desk and examined its contents.

“What are you thinking about McKay?” she said. “I mean, he did take quite a hit on the head.”

“So he says.”

“I don't know. I mean, I don't know how you hit yourself on the back of the head with that kind of force.” She pantomimed bringing an object down on her skull. “You'd have a weird angle, and I don't know how much force you'd be able to get with your arm bent back.”

“Yeah.” That was tough to argue with. “Still—it's strange, leaving the hospital, don't you think?”

Bertrise shrugged. “Maybe he's a little delirious still. You know, not in his right mind. Hey, look at these.”

She picked up a pair of silver frames, small ones that held three-by-five snapshots, and held them where Joe could see. The first showed two smiling blond girls, dimpled with identical upturned noses and wide brown eyes. His daughters, no doubt.

The second showed a much younger Gail Groesbeck.

“Wow,” Joe said. He held out his hand for the picture, then opened the blinds so he could examine it in natural light.

Gail's hair was longer, highlighted and teased and curving around her face. She was wearing a lot of eyeliner and dark lipstick, and her top barely covered her shoulders, showing a deep tan, the effect barely short of garish.

“What was she, maybe twenty-two?” Bertrise said. “She was certainly gorgeous. No wonder McKay had a fit when she broke up with him. But it's a little weird that he still has that photo out, don't you think?”

“More than a little,” Joe agreed, but he was thinking that Gail had become more beautiful as she aged, and if it really had been insecurity about aging that drove her to reconnect with McKay, it had been a waste. “Keep going here; I'm going to check the bedroom.”

It was a bland room, white walls and a navy blue comforter on the bed, oak furniture and brass lamps. Stacked on the bedside table were a couple of paperback novels; neither looked like they'd been read.

The closet held pressed shirts still in their dry-cleaning bags; slacks folded neatly over hangers. Jeans were stacked on a shelf, and belts and ties hung on revolving racks.

Joe was turning to go when he noticed something out of place on a shelf stacked with folded sweatshirts. Tucked to the side was a rolled white sweater, but the knit was lacey, not at all masculine. Joe slid it carefully off the shelf. Even before he shook it out he could smell the perfume on it.

“Bertrise,” he called, but he was already holding it carefully by the shoulders with just his fingertips: a cardigan with a bit of satin trim around the neckline.

Bertrise came into the room and stared with narrowed eyes. “And what is that?”

“Not sure. Maybe what Gail was wearing the last time she saw her old boyfriend.”

“That's a stretch, isn't it?”

“Maybe.” For a moment, Joe doubted himself—the sweater could have been left by a girlfriend; even an ex-wife who stopped in for coffee after dropping off the kids for a visit. But it was expensive and feminine and exactly the sort of thing he could picture Gail in, and that—combined with the photo of her—was enough to put him on alert. “Tell you what—I'm going to find Bryce at the reception and ask him.”

Bertrise snorted. “Don't be asking him, he won't know. To a man it's just another sweater. Ask Marva.”

Joe nodded. “Right.”

“You know, it's also possible he just wants to recuperate in peace . . . and if he doesn't feel safe coming back here, he might have just gone to a friend's house to get some rest.”

“Yes, I suppose.” Joe folded the sweater in quarters, inhaling the scent that rose from it. “But it seems like a guy in that much of a hurry to get out of a hospital bed has somewhere to be.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MARVA TAPPED A PIECE
of cold quiche with her fork and wondered why she hadn't cried today. She was at her sister's kitchen table, the place it had all started only a week and a half ago, where Joe had found her and sat with her and made his first mistake, that she was the caterer and not Gail's sister. She should have told him everything then. Only, what good would it have done?

Real caterers were here today, and in force—her mother had seen to that. A staff of six had brought food for hundreds, it seemed to her, and only this corner of the table remained clear; the rest of the table and the counters were covered with pans and baking sheets and trays, and every few minutes one of the white-shirted staff would bring back an empty plate and leave with a full one.

Still, it was here, in the midst of the chaos, that Marva had chosen to disappear for a while. Anywhere else she went, someone would find her: a guest bent on consoling her or, if Dilys represented the prevailing feeling of the guests, accusing her. She'd thought that only three people had known that Gail had slept with Harmon: her sister, her ex, and Marva, since Harmon evidently had to unburden himself of the guilt by telling her about it on his way out the door.

Marva had never talked to Gail about that one. But evidently word got around. Harmon had dated more than a few local women since leaving her; word eventually found its way back to Marva, who was forced to pretend she was happy for him. But she could easily see him explaining, over a glass of wine or propped on his elbow after sex, just how
terrible
he felt about hurting his ex-wife. She could imagine him getting points for it, even, that I've-learned-from-my-mistakes spiel that works for some men.

Marva didn't much care; right now she just needed to be invisible.

And to eat. She'd had nothing yesterday, that she could remember, and only some dry toast this morning, after she called Aidan at the hospital.

She took a bite of the quiche. It wasn't bad; heavy on the Gruyère, with a buttery crust. She had another bite. This one didn't go down as well. Marva considered getting a glass of wine instead of the club soda she was drinking—it had to be close to five o'clock by now, a civilized enough hour for a drink—but that would involve navigating through the butler's pantry to the sitting room where the bar was set up, elbowing her way through the crush of mourners.

Club soda would suffice for now. Besides, she had to keep her wits about her, didn't she? If the killer didn't come for her first, she would have to make at least some effort to prove she was innocent. Mildly amusing; at least if she got attacked or killed, people like Dilys Ellis would realize she didn't kill Gail. But for now she was a bona fide suspect.

Marva was tired, but it was a sweet, dizzy sort of fatigue, not the head-pounding exhaustion she usually suffered after a sleepless night. It had been such a strange night. She'd come inside with Joe's kiss still fresh on her lips and stood in front of the mirror above her fireplace, looking at herself, trying to find physical evidence of the change that had come over her. Everything looked the same, more or less, but now that Gail was dead, she was different. There wasn't anyone to compare herself to anymore. Her face was her own, as was her future.

She studied herself in the mirror, and thought about Joe outside, waiting for the other police officer, the one assigned to babysit her, and the thought of Joe so near made her happy—happy! She hadn't thought it possible, that she would feel that way ever again. Not since before her divorce, before she met Harmon and decided he was the best she'd ever do and married him. Not since before Gail moved to Montair and set up her empire, casting Marva's small world into shadow. Not, if truth be told, for thirteen years, since before the death of Jess Bartelak. Because that was the last time that she'd ever been on equal footing with her sister, the last time she'd been free to manage only her own dreams and disappointments and fears, before she'd taken on the yoke of Gail's fragile, beautiful life.

Now Gail was dead and Marva was in danger and someone had tried to kill Aidan, and Bryce might be a murderer, and if he was guilty her niece and nephew would be fatherless as well as motherless—and yet despite all of that she looked at herself in the mirror and she thought about kissing Joe, and it wasn't that she had any illusions that he was going to be her boyfriend or even that he particularly wanted her. Perhaps he'd even be the one to come and arrest her. But she'd
kissed
him, and he'd kissed her back, and in that moment she realized that from now on the things that happened to her happened to her alone, without the specter of Gail hovering over everything she did.

She'd seen Joe at the funeral. Seen him, and been glad of it, but she'd been looking around the church for Aidan. And Aidan hadn't come.

She'd sat through the service with Bryce and the kids, alternating between a sort of dreamy half presence and the needs of the children. People had pressed against her afterward, half-supporting her and her mother, flowing around them like dancers at a cotillion, and other than Dilys Ellis they'd seemed content to carry Marva along in the tide. But Aidan hadn't been there, not in the church, not at the grave side, and not here, in Gail's home. Was he too ill, had he left the hospital and found that he was too weak to travel? An image came to Marva of Aidan in his flapping gown, struggling through the streets of town. And some of the ice forming around her heart gave way, because he'd always done whatever it took to get to them, to get to Gail, from the start.

Marva finished her drink and pushed the half-eaten plate of quiche away from her, sliding it under a discarded foil lid from one of the catering trays. She picked up her purse and made her way out the back door, the one they'd used that other recent evening, the one Tom Bergman had used on his way out to smoke.

There was still light in the sky, a pallid, unenthusiastic evening light that brought no sunset with it. Marva leaned against the house, sheltered by a twining bougainvillea that was dropping its leaves on the slate path, and got out her phone.

Aidan picked up after a couple of rings.

“It's Marva. I didn't see you . . . and I'm worried about you.”

“I was there. I just came early. Before the service.”

Aidan didn't sound weak. On the contrary, he seemed almost hearty. Marva was put off balance.

“But—I was there,” she said. “Early. I didn't see you.”

“I wanted to see her privately. I went by the mortuary before they brought her over.”

“But . . .” How would he have convinced someone to let him in? Who would even be around, other than the attendants whose job it was to ferry the dead, who melted into the background once their job was done and waited for the mourners to leave so others like them could put the earth over the fresh grave?

“I just explained,” Aidan said simply. “They seemed happy to let me.”

Marva was doubtful, but then again, it was Aidan. Greaser of wheels and palms, smooth talker, alterer of realities.

“And then . . . what did you do after?”

“Well, I spent my day mostly praying. I went for a walk. I got some persimmons at the farmers' market. Gail liked those.”

“Are you well enough to be out and about?” Marva asked, but she was thinking that it was true, Gail had loved the persimmon bread their grandmother baked every year, but how had Aidan known that? Grammy Pru had still been alive when Gail was in college, sending the plastic-wrapped loaves in the mail; Gail must have shared some with Aidan. A treat from home. But such a small detail. Such an odd thing for him to carry with him all this time.

“Yeah, now that my head's cleared up I'm fine. My stitches itch, though.” Aidan laughed, and his mirth sounded genuine, and that chilled Marva even more. “I keep having to work hard not to scratch.”

“Why aren't you here?” Marva asked.

There was a pause, and she shivered a little in the evening cool. Marva had left her wrap somewhere; probably at the church. Someone would pick it up. Someone would bring it to the house; it was probably folded neatly in the foyer. Bryce would see it tomorrow and know that it wasn't Gail's and give it to Isabel and not think of it again.

“I don't know,” Aidan said. “All those people.” A pause, and then: “Do you want me to come?”

And no, she didn't. What Marva really wanted was for everyone else to be gone, including Bryce, including—God help her—the children; she wanted to be alone in the big house so she could go from room to room and see Gail one last time in the beautiful furnishings and the clothes in the closet and the bottles on the vanity, and she wanted to pick up her sister's things and put them down and let her go. Let her be gone.

But Aidan had left her alone to deal with this day, and resentment bubbled up. He had been there for her before, because it had brought him closer to Gail, but today when she was most alone he'd given her no thought at all.

“Yes,” she said, surprising herself with the insistence in her voice. “You should be here.”

“All right.” There was no change in his tone.

Marva looked back toward the house, the light spilling from the kitchen, the sound of conversation coming through the open windows. She couldn't face all those people now, but maybe when Aidan came, when she wasn't alone. “I'll wait for you out in the backyard. Come find me.”

“I'll be there soon.”

BUT BY
the time he got there—ten minutes, maybe less—Marva had let herself through the side gate and was waiting, hidden under the overhanging branches of the magnolia tree in the front yard. She couldn't face the idea of going back inside, back among the murmuring crowd and the pallid expressions of sympathy, all those people watching to see how she was holding up, wondering which ones had heard the rumors about Gail and Harmon. Wondering who pitied her and who suspected her.

She wished she'd poured a drink after all. Club soda didn't do much to dull the edges.

When she spotted Aidan's blue Volvo, she made a run for it. Opened the passenger door and slid inside, giving Aidan a brief apologetic smile. “God, I'm glad to see you.”

“Hey,” he said, leaning over the console to give her cheek a papery kiss. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I mean, mostly. I just can't stand . . .” Her voice broke and she waved in the direction of the house. “You know, everything. Can we go get a drink? Somewhere else?”

Aidan looked at her with concern, then patted her knee and pulled slowly away from the curb. “Of course we can. Whatever you need.”

Inside the car it smelled of his aftershave and of the leather seats and something else, something vaguely fruity and overripe. “Sorry about the smell,” Aidan said. “The girls—we went to Jamba Juice and Shannon left her drink in the car. I didn't catch it for a couple of days. They're always leaving things in here, and then I don't get it back to them for another week, if I'm lucky and their mother decides to let me have my time with them.”

Marva murmured sympathetically as Aidan rounded the cul-de-sac and headed for the main road. “How about the Sheraton?” he asked. “The bar there's open late. And it's quiet.”

“All right.” Marva got her lipstick out of the purse, applied it in the dark, smearing her lips together to distribute the color. She returned it to the purse and then set it on the floor; it dislodged a small cylindrical item from the seat bottom, and it rolled onto the mat at her feet.

Marva picked it up and examined it in the light from passing streetlamps. It appeared to be a toilet paper tube that had been covered with fabric, a loop of ribbon attached at the top. Yellow and orange flowers poked out of the top.

“Oh, that.” Aidan laughed. “It was my turn to lead the Girl Scout meeting this month. I brought the snack and ran the craft. Found that on the Internet; it's supposed to be a tussie mussie.”

“A what?”

“From Victorian times. It's a little basket thing you fill flowers to send someone a message. Asters and mums—they both mean ‘love.' Hey, it might not look like much, but it sure works on the other moms.”

Something about the craft was setting off alarm bells. Marva bent down her visor and opened the mirror, examining the humble thing in the dim light.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, single dad, doing the Scout thing—kind of makes you a hero, at least in the eyes of middle-aged women. A couple of the moms have slipped me their phone numbers. Just in case I wanted to ‘talk parenting.' ”

As he made imaginary quote marks in the air with his free hand, Marva realized what she was looking at.

A loop of orange wired ribbon.

“You bought all the supplies?” she asked, her throat dry.

“Well, yeah. You can turn in the receipts and all that, but what am I going to do, hit them up for a few bucks? You have to figure it all evens out in the end, you know?”

But on the last syllable his voice faltered; he'd put it together. He knew she knew. They didn't keep secrets from each other, did they? That's what made it all work—for thirteen years, they'd been a team, neither more important than the other, and with Gail their focus. Together they'd kept her afloat, fulfilled their modest roles so that she could shine. Aidan had sacrificed everything once, lost Gail to Bryce, seen his dream shattered, but he'd picked up the pieces and made something new; he'd been willing to wait all this time for her. And what about Marva? She'd sacrificed, too, but at least she'd never been under any illusions that Gail would change. She'd taken up the yoke knowing it was eternal and that it gave nothing back.

Marva realized that Aidan had eased his sleek car into the turn lane; they were headed onto Diablo Road, not toward the Sheraton, but the opposite direction.

“Why?” she asked quietly. Then, because she had never met the little girl who made the fabric and paper project, and never would, and hence would never be obligated to love her the way she loved Lainey, she threw the thing into the back of the car, where it bounced off the leather seat and disappeared on the floor.