Chosen for Death (19 page)

"That's good news," Dad said. "The whole thing was quite a shock. It's not like you to drink and drive. Was it so upsetting, trying to pack her things?"

I realized I hadn't told them about the accident. "I didn't drink and then drive my car into a tree. I was put into the car unconscious and then the car was allowed to run into that tree."

"Oh sure," Michael said, "and I suppose someone else drank the beer from the bottles that were found in your car?"

He was beginning to get on my nerves. "Get real, Mike," I said. "You know I'd never drive around in my car drinking beer. That's not what happened. It's a long story, but put most simply, our sister Carrie had hooked up with her old friend Chuck again. You remember Chuck, the car thief? One of the waitresses Carrie worked with told me about this guy Carrie had been seeing. She described him. He sounded familiar, so I went to see him, to ask him a few questions. And he welcomed me with closed fists instead of open arms. He beat me until I passed out—at his house, not in my car—and when I woke up, I was in the hospital."

Mom stared at me, clutching her sherry with both hands, her eyes wide with shock. I told them, briefly, what had happened at the camp, and pulled up my sweater to show them my bruised ribs. "This is where he kicked me. I fell down and hit my head, and that's the last thing I remember. The police looked for him, but Chuck, or Charlie, as he now prefers to be called, was nowhere to be found."

I hadn't expected a great outpouring of sympathy—we tended to be a "buck up and get on with it" kind of family—but I hadn't expected this silent staring, either, as though it was my explanation that they found fantastic, not what had been done to me. "I can't believe you guys thought I'd had an accident because I was driving drunk. You know me better than that!" Not that I'd never driven in an intoxicated state, but it's rare. If anyone knew that, it should be my family. These people knew how cautious I was, but my explanation didn't seem to satisfy them. They sat staring until I began to feel like something from a sideshow. "Look," I said, "will you guys stop goggling at me and tell me what's on your minds?"

Michael's smile was malicious. "That's a hell of a story, Thea. So why did the police tell us the one about drinking and driving? It's a bit too convenient, isn't it, Chuck or Charlie, or whatever his name is, disappearing?"

"Come on, Michael, you can't think I'd make up a story like that, just because I was embarrassed? I was unconscious. The police read it the way they were supposed to, until I explained to them what had happened." Sonia was smirking behind her hand. "Mom? Dad?" No one said anything. How could they not believe me? The implication that they didn't made me furious. Unexpectedly, I felt disoriented, as confused as I'd felt when I first woke up in the hospital.

I think everyone has a secret fear of being crazy, or rather, a fear of being sane but unable to communicate it, and being considered crazy by everyone around them. I felt a little of that fear now, or like a character in a movie who discovers everyone else in the room has been turned into an alien. These people, my loving family, the ones I'd come to reassure, the ones I might reasonably have expected to cluck over me a bit and clutch me protectively to their bosoms, had turned into aliens. "Dad," I said, "do you really think I'd make up a story like this? Why would I?"

His face was a map of confusion, deeply etched lines leading nowhere. "Honey," he said, "it's not that I don't believe you. It's just such a shock, out of the blue like this..."

"Out of the blue! What do you mean by that? Everything's out of the blue the first time you hear it, right?" The nerve of this self-righteous crew, letting me do all the dirty work while they went on with their busy little lives, and then condescending to me because they thought I'd blown it. "Listen," I said, "you guys sent me up to Maine to do the cleanup detail because no one else would go. Mom was too upset. Dad, you were too busy. Michael had to work on his tan, so I was the one who got elected. Good old Thea, the lucky winner."

Mom was horrified. "Thea, please don't..."

I ignored her. "I'm the one who had to spend an afternoon with the police detective, discussing the details of Carrie's sex life. I'm the one who had to look at the pictures of Carrie's body. I'm the only one here who really knows how she died." I had to stop for breath. "If I told you how she died—all the terrible details—would you not believe me because you hadn't heard it before? Because it came out of the blue?"

They might not like what I was saying, but at least I had their attention. "I had to pack up her things and deal with her nasty landlady. And I'm the one—when the police weren't getting anywhere—who found out she was seeing Chuck again." I was out of control, and I didn't care. I wanted to bat the smug look off Sonia's face. I wanted to shock them out of their complacent disapproval. I started yelling. "I know you guys all remember Chuck, the guy who liked to hurt Carrie. We all had a big celebration when he went to jail. You haven't forgotten that have you, Mom? You're the one who used to throw away his letters. He said he was hitting me because he couldn't hit you." I pointed to my ugly yellow bruises. "I got these on family business."

They were all poised on the edges of their seats, waiting for a chance to escape. All except Sonia. She was smiling and swinging her foot like this was all a show being staged for her benefit.

"Michael, do you remember Chuck?" He nodded. "Dad?" A nod. "Mom?" Nods but nothing more. No support. There's a famous line that says home is the place that when you go there they have to take you in. If that was the case then I wasn't home.

These people whom I thought I knew so well were acting like strangers. Drawing away from me because I'd dared to challenge their assumption that I would always be there to quietly do their dirty work. Thea the fixer. Suddenly, as I sat there enduring the scorn of their disapproving faces, I understood better how Carrie, always the object of someone's disapproval, had felt. My perfect, happy, loving family looked suddenly different, like a junkyard glimpsed through a chink in a clean white fence.

Mom drained her sherry and stood up. "I just can't understand why you would take it upon yourself to go and see that awful Chuck character," she said. "That was so foolish of you. I think I'd better check the roast."

"I don't think so," I said, anger at all of them outweighing my usual reticence. "What you'd better do is stay right there until I'm finished. It's no wonder Carrie sometimes felt alienated from all of you, the way you can turn on one of your own. I never saw that until now. She didn't feel safe, and now I understand why. I came here tonight, still hurting from a beating and a contrived accident that occurred because I was trying to help find Carrie's killer, to reassure you that I'm OK, assuming that you loved me and were worried about me. I found a bunch of self-satisfied people feeling superior to me because they think I'm a weakling who got overwhelmed by my feelings, got drunk and ran my car into a tree. I can't believe you're treating me this way."

Sonia had stopped swinging her foot and was making strange mouth motions like a fish out of water. The rest of them were silent, unwilling to meet my eyes. They were astonished, I suppose. I don't usually make waves. "I don't care whether you believe me or not," I said. "I know what's true. I do have strong feelings about Carrie's death, but they aren't driving me to drink, they're driving me to try to find her killer. To keep pressure on the police. Which is what we all should be doing, unless you all think it doesn't matter, that it's OK to let her killer walk away."

"Don't be silly, Thea. Of course we don't want that. And now I really must check on dinner." Mom walked rapidly out of the room. This time I didn't try to stop her. Instead I fed myself some fortifying alcohol, followed by cheese and crackers. The silence was as thick as yogurt.

"The beaches in Bermuda were just as nice as the pictures," Sonia said. She looked tanned and gorgeous. I hated her. "We went snorkeling every day, and once a fish swam right up and bit Michael's finger. It was only a tiny fish, too. Have you ever been there, Mr. McKusick?" Sonia may blame Mom for all of Michael's faults, but she likes my dad.

"A few times," he said. "Linda and I like it a lot. We were talking about going this fall, before Carrie... before all this happened. Where did you stay?" And they were off, making polite small talk, as though the earlier conversation had never happened. As though I didn't exist and I'd never said anything. Bermuda carried us through the rest of cocktails and on into dinner.

Normally, the conflict would have ruined my appetite, but when I sat down and inhaled all the delicious smells, I realized I was starving. I didn't know if it was physical or psychological, but I felt like my body needed meat to recover. Meat and homemade bread. By my second helping of roast beef, I was ready to let go of some of my anger and move on to the second item on my agenda. "The paper that the police found in her car, and some I found in the apartment, suggest that Carrie's death is connected to her search for her birth parents," I said. Mom's fork dropped from her hand, bounced off her plate, and rolled into her lap.

"I know you didn't want her to search, and wouldn't help her, but you can get access to the papers, and no one else can. It can't hurt you now. If I can duplicate the search, and find out what she learned, I believe somewhere in that search is the clue to her murderer."

Mom stood up, clutching the fork like a talisman to ward off evil. "No, Theadora, I forbid it. It doesn't matter now. She's dead. Let the matter lie. No one will be helped... can be helped, now. She doesn't need a mother."

"Not for that, Mom. Not to challenge your position as Carrie's mother," I said. "This is not about finding mothers or fathers anymore, it's about murder. This may be the only way to find her killer. The police don't have any leads."

Dad was hunched over his plate, head between his hands, gripping two hunks of hair. When he looked up, his face was agonized. "Of course we want Carrie's killer found," he said. "You know that, but this is something you can't ask of your mother, after all she's been through..."

"I'm not asking
Mom
to do anything," I said, not understanding why my simple request was getting such a strong reaction. "She doesn't have to have anything to do with it or know anything about it. I'll do it myself. All you have to do is give me a signed authorization, agreeing I can see the records. You're Carrie's parent, too. You can sign it."

Mom dropped the fork again with a loud clatter, glaring at me. "Tom," she said, "make that child understand. There is absolutely no way we're going to get involved in reexamining Carrie's adoption. No way. Innocent people might be hurt."

"But, Mom," I repeated, "it may be the only way to find out what happened."

"Then I guess we won't be finding out," she said angrily. "What difference does it make anyway? Your sister's just as dead. I don't see why you want to hurt me any more than I've already been hurt."

"Mom," I said, "this isn't about you. It's about Carrie..."

She ignored me. "Make her stop, Tom," she said. She grabbed his plate and carried it to the kitchen. He stared sadly after his unfinished dinner, then got up, gathered the rest of the plates, and followed her out.

"Well, sister dear," said Michael, "what do you do for an encore?"

"I suppose you're with them?" I said. "You don't care if Carrie's killer is found?"

He set his glass down with a thump. "You can cut out the holier-than-thou act, Thea. Of course I do. We all do. But it's not our job. That's what police are for."

"And if the police aren't getting anywhere?"

Sonia snorted. "I don't know where you get this idea you can do anything, Thea. Why should you succeed if the police can't?"

"Because I care more," I said. "I thought we all did. You think it's just a harebrained scheme? A wild-goose chase? Stay tuned, guys, you might be surprised."

Dad came back for Michael's plate. "Thea," he said, "your mother is very upset. Can we just drop this and finish dinner in peace? You can call me at the office tomorrow. We can talk about it then. I don't think you understand the whole situation."

I was glad to drop the subject. He was right. I didn't understand. I couldn't understand how my own family could have treated me so scornfully earlier and I couldn't understand why they were reacting so negatively to my suggestions about Carrie's birth parents. It seemed like they were all eager to sweep the whole mess under the rug. I felt used and abused and had the unpleasant, unsettled feeling that I no longer understood my family. Like Carrie, I was an outsider in their midst.

The acrimonious evening had given me stomach pains. This must be what hell is like—an eternity at a great dinner with so much conflict you get an ulcer. As soon as I'd had some coffee I was getting out of there. And maybe I was overreacting. Maybe Dad's cryptic comment meant he was willing to help. If so, I'd accomplished my goal. I clung to that thought because I needed to, because I needed to take away something good, even though I knew I was fooling myself. "Sure," I said. "I'll call you."

Dessert was a lemon cake, filled with layers of lemon curd and fresh raspberries, topped with whipped cream. Even Sonia admitted it was good. As soon as I decently could, I grabbed my purse and coat and escaped.

It was a filthy night. Torrents of rain and patchy fog. I was glad I had a Saab. The rental car seemed to already have my own Saab's instincts, which was good, because my mind was on autopilot. Jackson Browne sang song after song to soothe my bruised spirit, while my car took me safely home.