False Mermaid (5 page)

Was it tragic, or merely ironic, to be written off as too good-looking by someone whose own appearance had made passersby walk into doors and lampposts? Nora had actually witnessed such occurrences, sad to say, on more than one occasion. To her credit, Tríona never had any idea about how her exterior affected people. Perhaps it was growing into beauty after an ugly-duckling childhood that made her so infuriatingly oblivious. And maybe it was that very indifference that piqued Peter Hallett’s interest; maybe he couldn’t resist a challenge. He could have simply toyed with Tríona and cast her aside—but it didn’t happen that way. He was the one who pressed for marriage, for children. Tríona had always expressed ambivalence about both, but for some reason she went along with Peter Hallett. Eventually, every one of them had fallen under his spell. Some were caught in it still.

Nora told herself she shouldn’t have been so surprised when her parents stood by him after Tríona’s murder. They were quintessentially decent people, and Peter knew exactly how to play that against them. Her father, especially, had always been uncomfortable outside the realm of fact; he was mistrustful of secondhand information, of shadowy suspicions and feelings. Tom Gavin was a scientist, after all, someone who lived in a world shaped and defined by demonstrable proof, so how could
he possibly condemn anyone without hard evidence? He had no choice but to believe that Tríona’s death was a random crime. Nora had seen flashes of doubt in her mother’s eyes, but Eleanor Gavin was possessed of an inborn pragmatism that would not let her risk alienating the one person who controlled access to her only grandchild. It was impossible to fault them, and impossible not to. Nora and her parents had lived the past five years in a state of artificial suspension, never speaking about Peter, never speaking about Tríona—barely speaking at all.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried. She had gone to them right after Tríona was killed, trying desperately to convince them that Peter was responsible. They had refused to believe her. And they weren’t alone—everyone who knew Peter Hallett thought she was certifiable. After all, what had she seen, exactly? Nothing obvious. Only tiny nuances, accumulations of behavior: a certain glint in Peter’s eye when he looked at Tríona, the faintly proprietary way he touched her. But whenever Nora tried to describe the things she’d witnessed, all those formless, nagging suspicions seemed to scatter, like so many slithering spheres of mercury. So she tried to ignore them, push them away. How could anyone fathom the intimate connection between two people from the outside? Again and again, she had to convince herself that whatever went on in Tríona’s marriage, it was none of her business. Until that night—

Nora stared at the picture in her hand, carried back once more, this time to a splendid May evening, the first warm night of burgeoning spring just five years ago. The trees along the river were beginning to leaf out in earnest, branches decked in shades of pale green. She had arrived at Peter and Tríona’s house just after five, to stay with her niece while they were off to the gala opening of his latest triumph, a gleaming new modern art museum in downtown Minneapolis. Elizabeth was supposed to go along, but she’d come down with a fever. Tríona had wavered about going out at all, but the museum was an important milestone for Peter’s firm, and he’d insisted on having his muse beside him. No excuses. A car would be arriving for them at six.

Tríona answered the door a little out of breath. “Oh good, you’re early. Sorry the house is such a disaster. I’m late for my half-hour call, as usual.” Tríona waved a hand as she bolted down the hall. “Why don’t you go in and talk to Lizzabet while I finish getting ready?” She seemed a little more distracted than usual, clasping a silky robe around her, trying to tidy up toys and clothes that were strewn about. The place wasn’t
usually such a mess. Nora thought she detected an extra glassiness in Tríona’s eyes, almost as if she’d been drinking.

Despite her fever, Elizabeth had Nora deep into negotiations about snacks and bedtime stories when Tríona came in to say good-bye. Though less than forty minutes had passed, her transformation from harried young mother to goddess was complete. Tríona had never looked more radiant. Her long red hair hung loose as she whirled before them in clingy, beaded silk that shifted from pale sea green at the shoulders to deepest indigo about her feet. At her throat hung a stunning mother-of-pearl pendant, set off by a wrap of some translucent fiber that seemed to have been spun from water and air. Her eyes glittered more intensely than before, and her limbs seemed to float. Elizabeth sat up in bed, wide-eyed and bright with excitement on top of fever. “Oh, Mama—you’re like the queen of the sea!”

They’d all laughed as Tríona spun around once more, careful not to lose her balance.

Peter’s voice carried from downstairs: “It’s time to go.”

“You can have a little ginger ale, and if you’re very good, maybe Nora will make some popcorn. I’m sorry to leave you—” She leaned down to kiss the top of Elizabeth’s head. “Wish me luck.”

They listened to the wonderful silk dress rustling all the way down the hall.

Nora had thought nothing at all of Tríona’s last remark. But a few minutes later, after venturing down to the kitchen to microwave some popcorn, she heard strange sounds coming through the intercom beside the front door. Ragged breathing, almost like a violent struggle—what was happening? Pressing an eye to the peephole, she saw Tríona pressed against the wall outside, back arched and eyes closed, fingers twined through Peter’s dark hair. Her bare legs cinched his waist as he thrust himself again and again into the billow of beaded silk that rode around her hips. Was he hurting her? When a car pulled into the driveway, it was Tríona who held tight, panting, “No—don’t stop! Don’t you fucking dare stop now.”

Nora had clapped both hands over the peephole, rigid with shock as the ragged breathing on the other side of the door continued just a few seconds longer. Then the intercom speaker suddenly went dead, and in the same instant, the smoke alarm in the kitchen began sounding a piercing protest. The microwave was filled with smoke that burned her eyes and throat as she opened the door. She felt her way to the switch for the exhaust, and eventually managed to stop the shrieking alarm by
flapping a towel beneath it. Once the noise was quelled, she emptied the scorched popcorn into a glass bowl, trying to regain her composure, when a small voice sounded from the doorway behind her.

“Nora? Where did you go?”

She spun around, startled, watching the bowl as it flew in slow motion. Clear glass and burnt popcorn seemed to explode everywhere, and in the brief, dead silence that followed, Elizabeth covered her ears and began to whimper.

“It’s all right, love, stay right where you are. It wasn’t your fault—I was just clumsy. Everything’s going to be all right.”

She never told anyone what she had witnessed that night. Not the police, and certainly not her parents. Looking back now, the paranoid part of her couldn’t be sure that Peter hadn’t staged the whole thing for her benefit. She pushed the thought away, telling herself it was a crazy idea. He couldn’t possibly have known she was there, on the other side of the door. He couldn’t have made Tríona behave that way—could he? And yet she was positive about one tiny detail—the hand she had seen pressed against the intercom definitely belonged to Peter Hallett.

The next troubling tilt of the seesaw came only a few weeks later, with Tríona’s final phone call. Nora had relived every word of their conversation, heard it in her head every day for the past five years.

“Nora—I’m sorry to wake you.”

“It’s all right, Tríona, I’m awake.” She sat up and looked over at the numbers glowing from the bedside table: 10:23
P.M.

“Is Marc there?”

“No, he’s on call—down at the hospital. What’s happening, Tríona?” Fear rose in her throat. “Is Elizabeth all right?”

“I sent her off for the weekend with Mammy and Daddy. I’m at their house now.”

“Something’s happened—what is it?” There was silence on the other end. “Tríona?”

“I’m leaving, Nora. I’ve got a bag packed. Can you meet me? Not your house, someplace else. You can’t tell anyone where I am—promise me.”

“I promise.” Still groggy from sleep, Nora seized upon the first place that came to mind. “What about l’Étoile?” The grand old hotel was a Saint Paul landmark. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“I need more time. There’s something I have to do first. There are things you don’t know, Nora. About Peter, about me—”

“Tríona, what are you talking about?”

“It seemed harmless at first, but now—I let everything go too far. It’s like he gets a strange sort of pleasure from hurting me. I couldn’t tell anyone, I was too ashamed. Because I’ve done things, too. You don’t know—unspeakable things. I’ve lied and deceived everyone. I don’t even know myself anymore—”

“If he’s hurt you, Tríona—”

“I can’t even tell what’s real anymore and what isn’t—I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not crazy, Tríona—you’re not. Listen to me—whatever it is, I will help you. We’ll get through this together, all right? Do you hear me?”

“I can’t talk anymore. I’ve got to find the truth.”

In the brief pause that followed, Nora heard her sister breathing at the other end of the connection. “Tríona, are you still there? Talk to me.”

When Tríona did speak, her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Isn’t it shocking, what you’ll do when you love someone?”

How many times in the last five years had she relived that fatal night? Pacing up and down the hotel lobby under the watchful eye of the night desk clerk. She had tried calling Tríona’s cell phone, but was diverted each time into voice mail. Two hours went by, then three, then four. At first light, Tríona had still not appeared. Unable to wait any longer, she had driven to the house along the river. Peter had looked genuinely surprised when he answered the door. It was just after eight on a Saturday morning, and he’d already been for a run, showered, and dressed. His hair was unusually wet, dripping onto the collar of his shirt—for some reason, that point had stuck. So had the fact that he stood blocking the door so she couldn’t see into the foyer.

“Where’s Tríona?” she had asked. “What have you done with her?”

He drew back slightly. “What have I done with her?”

“Is she here?”

“No, she said something yesterday about going for a massage—”

“At this hour?”

“Why not? I assumed she left while I was out for a run. You’re acting strange, Nora. Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know, Peter. You tell me.”

It was impossible to explain what she had seen in his eyes at that instant. No worry, no puzzlement. He was an island of calm and self-possession in the eye of a storm. He said: “I’ll leave a note, ask her to call when she gets home.”

Nora had often relived that conversation, imagining Tríona’s packed bag just out of sight in the front hall, the ghost of her scent still in the air, and somewhere deeper, behind closed doors, a swirl of pink-tinged water sluicing down a shower drain.

The whispering campaign had started almost immediately. A very efficient apparatus, the rumor mill, to anyone who knew how to operate its machinery. And Peter Hallett knew exactly how. In the days after Tríona’s death, people who’d been at the museum opening a few weeks earlier began to talk about her steady consumption of champagne. Nora realized she hadn’t been alone in her assessment. Something about Tríona had clearly been off that night; she hadn’t been herself. The glittering eyes, that strange note in her voice over the intercom. When the police found a bottle of liquid ecstasy in Tríona’s purse after her death, and as additional bottles of the stuff turned up hidden around the Halletts’ house, even uglier rumors began to surface. Some people were no doubt relieved to find the perfect couple were not so perfect after all. Everyone—including people who didn’t know Tríona—had pet theories about what had gone wrong in the marriage and who was to blame. A kind of protective wall had sprung up around the grieving widower.

Of course Nora told the police about Tríona’s final phone call. But in the end it came down to her word against Peter’s. It wasn’t as if the police didn’t want to believe her; the truth of the matter was that they had no other viable suspects. But without Tríona to back her up, without physical evidence, that last phone conversation had been rendered useless, reduced to hearsay. All Peter had to do was deny, which he had done, quite convincingly. And so the case had remained in limbo, with no new leads, for five long years. To those who only knew Peter Hallett’s public side, the notion that he was even capable of such a brutal murder seemed ludicrous. How easy it was to deny a shadow that came to life only in private, in that secret, intimate space between two people. Nora looked down at the photograph in her hand. He must have made some mistake. There must be something she could do or say to trap that warped creature who lived inside him. Perhaps the worst of it was that he actually enjoyed the cat-and-mouse aspect of his ghastly game. What would happen if she refused to play the mouse any longer? Holding the snapshot against the wall, she reached for a red pushpin and stuck the sharp point through Peter Hallett’s handsome forehead.

Elizabeth let herself into the house and ran straight up to her room to stow her backpack. She peeled off her wet clothes and put on a dry pair of jeans and her favorite shirt. No sign of the movers—maybe she had it wrong and the moving men weren’t coming until tomorrow. It wasn’t like they really needed movers anyway. The house in Saint Paul still had all the old things inside—everything they would need, her dad said. She could just move back into her old room. It felt a little weird, to know the old house had been there all this time, waiting for them to come back.

As she toweled the rain from her hair, Elizabeth’s eyes flickered across the broad flat glass of her fish tank. She felt reassured by the familiar and silent presence of the fish, swimming in their underwater world. What would happen to them during the move? Maybe the moving company had a special way to transport fish. Her dad had told her not to worry about them, but she couldn’t help it. She sprinkled a few flakes onto the water and stood watching them nibble at their food, darting to the surface, then back to the bottom again.