Don't Cry Now (30 page)

“You know Sam didn't do this,” Lauren said again, less forcefully.

“Of course we have police watching the Gleason house as well,” Detective Haver continued. “In case they show up there.”

It turned out Diana's neighbor thought he'd seen two men in the car. Young men with long hair, he said, although he couldn't say for certain the young men in question had been Sam and Haze. It didn't matter. Neither Sam nor Haze had been seen since this morning. There was an all-points bulletin out for their arrest.

“Why would Sam want to hurt Diana?” Lauren asked, although her eyes were blank and her voice was directed at no one in particular. “He had this huge crush on her. He wouldn't hurt her.”

Bonnie tried to block out the sound of Lauren's voice by closing her eyes. If police suspicions proved correct and Diana had been sexually assaulted before she died, then Lauren was doing nothing to help her brother's case. The medical examiner's report would take at least several days to come in, but Captain Mahoney felt certain it would show that Diana had been killed by the same gun that killed Joan, and that she had been raped either before or after death. “Oh God,” Bonnie moaned, covering her mouth with her hand. It was all her fault. If it hadn't been for her, Diana would be alive today. Hadn't she dragged her friend into this mess? Hadn't she called her from the police station the day she'd discovered Joan's body, dragged her into Newton, even though she knew little about criminal law? Hadn't she invited her to dinner, introduced her to Rod's son?
Sam, this is Diana. Diana,
this is Death
. “Oh God,” she moaned again, burying her head in her hands.

Strong hands came to rest on her shoulders, their fingers massaging the muscles at the base of her neck. “I'll be staying here tonight,” Nick said, his fingers applying just the right amount of pressure. “On the couch in the living room.”

Bonnie nodded, looked toward Rod, wondering how he would react. But Rod said nothing. He sat at the far end of the table, staring blankly into space, seeming not to realize that Nick was even there, that his house was full of police officers, that there were more police outside. He was probably in shock, Bonnie thought, realizing he'd said almost nothing since she'd arrived home in the company of Captain Mahoney. Anger and outrage had vanished into horror and dismay. Diana was dead, the captain had told him, and his son was the prime suspect. He was also the prime suspect in both his mother's death and the attempt to poison his stepmother. Rod had listened to all this in stunned silence, then retreated into the dining room to sit down. He'd been there ever since, not speaking, not moving, barely breathing.

Bonnie wanted to go to him, to put her arms around him and tell him that everything would be all right, but something stopped her. How could she tell him everything would be all right when it might never be all right again? How could she comfort him when only hours ago, she'd thought he might be guilty of the crimes himself?

“I should check on Amanda,” Bonnie said, rising to her feet, swaying, sitting back down.

“I just did,” Nick reminded her. “She's sound asleep. Which is something you should consider doing. I doubt anything will happen tonight, and those pills you're taking are pretty strong stuff. You should be in bed. You too, Rod,” he said, shifting his focus.

Rod said nothing. He continued staring at the far wall as if no one had spoken.

“Daddy?” Lauren called. She got out of her seat,
walked to her father, put her arms around him, hugged him tightly, as if trying to squeeze life into him, her lips grazing the side of his cheek. “Come on, Daddy,” she whispered. “I'll help you up the stairs.”

Rod allowed his daughter to lead him from the room. Bonnie watched them mount the stairs slowly, planting both feet firmly on each step before continuing on to the next.

“You should really be in a hospital,” Nick said, turning back to his sister.

“Not till this is settled. Not till I know it's safe to leave Amanda.”

“They won't get far,” Captain Mahoney stated. “Two long-haired teenagers in a red Mercedes. Shouldn't be too difficult to spot.”

Bonnie shook her head, trying to imagine where they might be, where they were headed, why they would have killed Diana.

Why? she asked herself again, the word making her head spin. Why any of it? Nothing made any sense. Sam might not have been the son of most people's dreams—he had an earring in his nose and a snake in his bedroom—and he was withdrawn and angry, moody and shy. But he was also sweet and sensitive and caring and desperate to be loved.

Was that what had happened? Had his need to be loved resulted in his misinterpreting Diana's kindness? Had his pent-up rage surfaced when she'd turned down his awkward teenage advances? Had he raped her, then killed her to keep her quiet? Had her death been an isolated act of fury or part of a larger plan?

Or was Haze the prime culprit? Was it his sperm they'd discover in Diana's body? That was the easy part, Captain Mahoney said. If Diana had been sexually assaulted, DNA testing would easily ferret out the guilty party.

“It's almost over,” Nick told her.

Bonnie nodded, praying he was right. She stood up, walked to the stairs, Nick right behind her. Captain Ma
honey and Detective Haver remained at the dining room table. They would show themselves out when they were ready.

“Dad would like it if you'd call him,” Nick said in the hall. “He's been worried about you since your visit. He knows there's all sorts of stuff going on, and I think he'd rest a whole lot easier if you'd give him a call.”

“I don't know if I can do that, Nick. I don't know if I have the strength.”

“Oh, I wouldn't waste a minute worrying about your strength,” Nick told her. “You're one strong woman, Bonnie. If a shitload of arsenic couldn't finish you off, I don't think you have anything to worry about from a harmless old man who loves you.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was strong. “We can't do anything about the dead, Bonnie. It's the living we have to learn to pay more attention to.”

His arms reached out toward her. Slowly, Bonnie collapsed into them, folding like a soft tissue. After several seconds, she raised her head, kissed the tip of his delicate nose. Then she turned and followed her husband's path up the stairs.

 

He was lying on top of the bed, Lauren removing his shoes, when Bonnie entered the room.

“I couldn't get him to get undressed,” Lauren told her.

Bonnie stared over at Rod, curled into a semi-fetal position on top of the covers, his eyes open, though seemingly unfocused. Bonnie tried to imagine what he must be going through. How would she feel, after all, if a police captain were to announce some years down the road that her child was a psychotic killer responsible for the deaths of two people and the poisoning of two others? “Are you all right?” Bonnie asked her stepdaughter.

Lauren shrugged. “Do you think they'll find Sam?”

“I'm sure they will.”

“I'm so afraid,” Lauren cried softly. “I'm so afraid they'll shoot him.”

Bonnie went to the child, took her in her arms. “Nobody's going to shoot anybody,” she said. There's been enough shooting, she thought. “I think we could all use some sleep. It's been a long day.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“I'll be fine.”

Lauren returned to the bed, planted a gentle kiss on her father's forehead. “I'll see you in the morning, Daddy. You'll see, everything's going to be all right now.” She tiptoed to the doorway, stopped. “I love you, Daddy,” she said, then was gone.

Bonnie crossed to the phone by the side of the bed, her fingers moving automatically across the dial. Several seconds later, she heard her father's careful hello.

“It's Bonnie,” she told him. “Nick said you were worried about me.”

“Are you all right?”

“I've been better,” Bonnie replied honestly. “What about you?”

“Me? I'm fine.” He sounded surprised she would ask. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I'm fine. Don't worry.”

“A parent always worries.”

Bonnie smiled sadly, realized this was true. “Can I call you back in a day or two?” she asked. “Hopefully, by then, things will have settled down a bit…. we could talk.”

“Call whenever you like.”

Bonnie felt tears falling the length of her cheek. “You too,” she said.

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“Good night, Daddy,” Bonnie whispered, hanging up the phone. Then she climbed onto the bed beside her husband, and waited for sleep.

I
t was six o'clock in the morning when Bonnie felt someone moving across the carpet toward her. A sudden shadow fell over her still-closed lids, slicing a thick diagonal line through the early-morning sun. She felt fingers, as soft and light as a feather, brush against her arm, heard a gentle voice floating toward her ear. “Bonnie,” the voice said, “Bonnie, wake up.”

Bonnie opened her eyes, saw her brother's face only inches from her own, bolted upright on the bed.

“It's okay,” he reassured her quickly, taking several quick steps back. “Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you.”

“What's happening?” Bonnie looked beside her. Rod was still asleep. She hadn't felt him move all night.

“We just got a call from the New York State police. They stopped two kids in a red Mercedes for speeding on the thruway. Looks like it's Sam and Haze.”

“What happens now?” Bonnie asked, glancing over at Rod, his eyes still closed, though she noticed a slight stiffening in his limbs, as if he were holding his breath.

“They're bringing them into Newton. We'll talk to them when they get to the station.”

“How long will that be?”

“A couple of hours.” Nick sat down on the bed, took Bonnie's hands in his own. “You okay?”

“I just want it to be over.”

“And then you'll check into a hospital?”

“As soon as I know Amanda's safe.”

Nick's hand reached out, caressed Bonnie's cheek. “You're one tough cookie.”

She smiled. “I guess it runs in the family.”

“I better go,” he said. “I want to talk to Captain Mahoney before they bring Sam in.”

Bonnie nodded. “You'll call me as soon as you know anything?”

“I'll call you as soon as I can.”

Bonnie listened to Nick's footsteps padding down the stairs, heard the front door open and close. Then she lowered her head to the pillow, her neck and shoulders unable to support its weight any longer, and glanced over at Rod.

His eyes were open.

“You heard?” Her voice was detached, as if it were coming from someone else, as if it had no connection to her body.

“They picked up Sam and Haze on the New York Thruway,” he repeated, his tone flat and unemotional, as if he were talking about strangers.

Bonnie observed the interaction between her husband and herself as if she were watching a television program, one of those true-life docudramas that had become all the rage since fact had outpaced fiction in matters of the entertainingly absurd. She saw a man and a woman, both in yesterday's rumpled clothing, their faces pale and bewildered, their postures equal measures of defiance and defeat. She wondered who these two people were, so estranged from their own lives and each other, reciting their lines as if they were actors, ill-matched and badly cast, reading from a script they couldn't quite understand. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Are you?” he asked in return.

“I'm feeling a little stronger. Not great, but better.”

Rod said nothing. He shifted onto his back, stared up at the ceiling.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Bonnie asked.

“No,” he said. “What's the point?”

“The point is he's your son,” Bonnie said.

The sound that escaped Rod's mouth was halfway between a laugh and a cry. It chipped at the air like a shovel through ice.

“Maybe it wasn't Sam,” Bonnie offered weakly, sitting up and drawing her knees toward her chest. “Maybe it was Haze. Maybe he dragged Sam into all this….” She stopped. Was she trying to convince her husband or herself? “I just can't believe that Sam is a killer,” she continued after several seconds. “I've spent a lot of time with him these last weeks, and I just can't believe he'd do something like this. He's a gentle boy, Rod. He's unhappy and he's lonely, but he's not a psychopath. He couldn't murder his mother. He couldn't hurt Diana.”

Rod flipped over onto his other side, burying his face into his pillow, not quite muffling the sobs that twisted through his throat. Bonnie watched the trembling of his back, the spasmodic jerkings of his shoulders. She wanted to throw her body over his, to warm and protect him, like a child's security blanket. “Everything will be all right,” she wanted to tell him, as Lauren had told him the night before. And yet, something stopped her. An invisible hand kept her an arm's length away, pushing her back into her own little corner, not letting her connect with her husband. What was stopping her? she wondered. What was keeping her from comforting the man she loved?

“It'll be all right, Rod,” she said, but the words sounded hollow, even to her own ears.

Rod continued crying softly.

Was he crying for his son or himself? Bonnie wondered. Maybe for both of them. For the relationship they'd never had; for the relationship they would probably never have now. It was too late, too late to play the doting parent, too late to make up for all the lost years, too late to cement the parent-child bonds that had never been properly set in the first place.

Or maybe not, Bonnie realized, thoughts drifting closer to home, understanding that the need for a father was
something a child never really outgrew. Maybe there was no such thing as too late for a father to reach out to his child.

Bonnie watched her husband's shoulders shudder to a halt. Was the enormity of all that had happened just now sinking in? That his child could have murdered his mother? That he could have raped and killed a woman who'd tried to befriend him? Certainly, Rod would waste no tears over Joan, a woman he'd despised, or Diana, a woman he'd barely tolerated. So why such bitter tears?

“Rod….”

He sat up, wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand. When he turned to her, his brown eyes seemed more opaque than ever before, like the very bottom of a mud-filled river.

“What is it?” she asked.

He shook his head, as if to shake loose whatever unwanted thoughts had settled there.

“Rod, please tell me.”

“The police will be conducting tests,” he said, as if he were taking part in a different conversation altogether.

“What do you mean?”

“Blood samples, sperm samples,” he continued in the now-familiar monotone. “For their DNA tests.”

“Yes,” Bonnie said, not sure where Rod was going with this.

“It's over,” he said. “Everything's over.”

“Rod, what are you talking about?”

There was a long pause.

“Sam didn't rape Diana,” Rod said finally. “Neither did Haze.”

“What?”

“The sperm they'll find in Diana's body, it's not Sam's,” he repeated.

Bonnie found herself inching off the bed, backing toward the wall, though she could scarcely feel her feet on the carpet. “What are you saying?”

“I think you know,” he told her.

Bonnie tried for several seconds to find her voice, was finally able to croak out a hoarse whisper. “You're saying the sperm is yours?”

Rod said nothing.

“You're saying that you killed her?” Bonnie looked toward the doorway, silently measuring how many steps she'd need to the door.

“No!” Rod said adamantly, snapping out of his lethargy. “Although that's what the police will think, that's for damn sure. They can't wait to get their hands on me.” He laughed, a strangled sound that punctured the air like a nail going into a balloon.

“I don't understand.”

“I didn't kill Diana, for God's sake. I could never do anything to hurt her.” Rod's face contorted with undisguised pain. “I loved her,” he whispered, burying his face in his hands so that his words were muffled. “I loved her,” he repeated, the words now as clear, and as cold, as a mountain stream.

“You loved Diana,” Bonnie said, and waited for Rod to continue, but he said nothing further, just stared at her with those opaque, bottomless eyes. “How long…?”

“About a year.”

“All those nights you were working late, all those early-morning meetings….”

Rod nodded, recognizing there was no need to say the words.

“But you never liked Diana,” Bonnie protested weakly, feeling as if the floor beneath her feet had vanished, as if she were standing in the middle of a vast void, and it was only a question of time before she was sucked into its center, before whatever was left of her disappeared altogether.

“It just happened, Bonnie.” Rod lifted one hand in the air, let it float aimlessly about for several seconds, then drop to his side.

What could he say after all? That they never meant for it to go this far? That they never meant to hurt her?

“She didn't go to New York,” Bonnie said. “She was with you in Florida.”

Rod nodded.

“She was standing right beside you when I told you I'd been to see Dr. Kline, and I said Diana had recommended him.”

“She said she never heard of him.”

“That's how you knew that her doctor's name was Gizmondi, because she told you.”

“It was so unlike you to lie. We thought you might have gotten suspicious and were trying to trap us.”

Bonnie lowered her head, thinking of her misguided suspicions. “I thought it was Marla you were having an affair with.”

“Marla?”

Rod actually managed to look offended by the suggestion. Bonnie almost laughed. It was all starting to make sense, she thought, gathering all the pieces of the puzzle together, pushing them into their designated slots.

“The lingerie I found in your bottom drawer, that wasn't for me,” she stated, slipping into Caroline Gossett's habit of stating all her questions. “It was for Diana.” She pictured her former friend, luxuriant dark hair resting atop high ample breasts. “No wonder the bra size was too big.” She remembered the conversation she'd had with Diana right after finding the sexy undergarments in the bottom of Rod's dresser drawers. Obviously Diana had called Rod immediately afterward, informed him of his wife's untimely discovery, sent Rod home with instructions to be extra loving and attentive.

“So, you've been sleeping with Diana for almost a year,” Bonnie began. “The times the three of us were together, the times you supposedly put up with her for my sake, you were actually putting up with me. That time in the police station when you were so angry about finding her there, you weren't angry at her at all. You were angry at me. Because I dragged you away from your little tryst. Isn't that so? Isn't that the reason I couldn't locate either
one of you? Isn't that the reason you didn't have an alibi for the time of Joan's death? Because you were out fucking my best friend!”

“Bonnie….”

“The whole time I was sick, you were with her,” Bonnie said wondrously. Could she really have been so stupid? Was she such a pitiful cliché? The wife who's the last to know? “Even after you came back from Florida, you were with her.”

“We flew back together, I dropped her off, then came straight home,” he volunteered, the words spilling from his mouth, almost as if he were eager to finally be able to talk to her about it.

Perhaps he
was
eager, she thought, listening helplessly, wanting to tell him to shut up, but unable to do so. He was making her an accomplice, she thought uneasily. “So, you came home, checked in on me for a few minutes, then put me to bed like a good little girl and went back out to play.”

“You make it sound so callous. It wasn't like that.”

“Wasn't it?”

“It wasn't meant to be.”

“So you were there when Sam and Lauren showed up to finish wallpapering the bathroom,” she stated, picturing the scene, wondering whether she would have found it amusing had it happened to somebody else.

“I told them I'd flown back early and stopped in at Diana's to find out how you really were, if there was something you weren't telling me. They seemed to buy it….” His voice drifted off, as if suddenly cognizant of the fact that he should at least have the decency to be embarrassed by these revelations.

“And then you came home and found out your wife had flown the proverbial coop.”

“I was frantic. I didn't know where the hell you'd disappeared.”

“How thoughtless of me,” Bonnie said.

“I didn't mean….”

“So, you went back to Diana's. You must have been very relieved when I phoned.”

“We didn't know what was going on.”

“So, of course, you had to comfort each other.”

“I didn't stay the night,” Rod said.

“But you did make love.”

A minute's silence before stating the obvious. “Yes.”

“And then you left.”

“I came home.”

“What time was that?”

“Around midnight.”

“And the next thing you knew, Diana was dead, shot through the heart just like Joan, in all probability by the same gun, undoubtedly by the very same hand. But, of course, you had nothing to do with either killing. Is that what you're trying to tell me?”

“I didn't kill them, Bonnie. I swear I didn't. You have to believe me. I'm devastated by Diana's death.”

“The reason you're so damn devastated has nothing to do with the fact that Diana is dead,” Bonnie snapped, “and everything to do with the fact that you were stupid enough to leave your sperm in her body. Isn't that true? Your tears have nothing to do with Diana, or even your son. They're all about you. Tell me, Rod, have you ever cared about anyone other than yourself?”

He regarded her plaintively. “I care about you,” he said, holding out his arms.

Bonnie approached him slowly, drawn by the power of his need into a tight embrace. She felt the warmth of his arms as they snaked around her body, the softness of his cheeks as they pressed against her own. How she'd always loved the feeling of being in his arms.