In-Laws and Outlaws (18 page)

Everyone started talking again. We were all grinning at one another like a bunch of apes. A nervous, artificial laugh came from Joel; his mother frowned and the laughter stopped. Oscar announced, “This calls for a celebration! Time to break out the bubbly.” He disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Elinor sneezed and followed him.

Rob told us there wouldn't be any announcement of Zeitz's arrest in the news media; since his legal status was in the hands of state-appointed psychiatrists, the charge against him was only “suspicion”—of what, Captain McCarthy hadn't specified. But he'd agreed there was no need to make a big fuss about catching the Decker-killer until they were on more solid legal ground. So as far as the rest of the world was concerned, Raymond and the three kids all died in accidents.

Michelle nodded. “That's better for all of us.”

“Absolutely,” Tom agreed.

“How did you manage to talk him into that, Rob?” I asked. “Into keeping it out of the news?” His answer was lost in the general hubbub, perhaps on purpose.

“Well, at least that gets rid of Mom's objection,” Joel said happily.

“Objection to what?” I asked him.

“To Uncle Oscar's running for the Senate.”

Before I could ask him what he meant, Elinor and Oscar were back with two bottles of champagne and a tray of glasses. Oscar worked on the cork of the first bottle; it eased out with a sigh—no vulgar popping of corks in that house. The celebration was subdued, but there was no doubt that it was a celebration. Joel complained about not being allowed a second glass of champagne.

And yet, and yet … why didn't I feel relieved?

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. Whatever reservation Michelle had felt about Oscar's candidacy, it had disappeared with the news about Matthew Zeitz. They made plans, talked about people whose names meant nothing to me, drew up tentative timetables, made lists of contacts, talked strategy. Not one mention of issues or a platform. But even Connie made a couple of suggestions, surprising the others.

Something was wrong.

I sat and watched and listened, contributing nothing to the planning; it was if I were a one-person audience at a play. All the time they were talking politics, I was still thinking about the abrupt and unexpected end to the threat that had been hanging over the family all this time. The rest of them had taken the news, reacted to it, and now were getting on with their business. I was still reacting.

“Gillian, we're going to need your house, if you don't mind,” Oscar said in his actor's voice he'd put on for the occasion. “My campaign manager and several of my aides will be descending upon us ere long,” with a smile, “and we'll need a place to put them up.” He was enjoying himself.

“Feel free,” I answered vaguely.

“I think we'll move Nancy here,” Elinor said. “Best to keep all the campaign people together.”

During a lull I sought out Michelle. “Joel says you had an objection to Oscar's candidacy.”

She looked annoyed. “Did he?”

Why was she annoyed? “Then you don't have any objection?”

“Of course not. Why should I?”

Nothing there. She was lying, obviously; I didn't even have to wonder about that. I waited a while and got Joel off away from the others. “Why didn't your mother want Oscar to run?”

“Aw, she just didn't want him to run right now. Too close to, you know, to what happened to Bobby and the others.”

I nodded and let it go. Tom and Michelle were disagreeing on some point of strategy. Elinor excused herself to go take a pill. Oscar was pumping Rob for names of possible campaign contributors and Connie was asking questions every time anyone paused for breath. It wasn't until a good fifteen minutes had passed that the significance of what Joel had said hit me. I pleaded a headache and made my escape, refusing Tom's offer to walk me home.

I didn't go back to the house but went down to the beach instead. A cool breeze was blowing, something I needed to counterract the effects of the champagne. I found a flat rock and sat down, trying to get it all straight in my head.

Oscar had told me he'd been on the brink of running for the Senate once before, but he'd abandoned the campaign because of Theo. That seemed wise; the negative publicity, the sheer tastelessness of campaigning in the wake of the kidnapping and murder—that alone would be enough to defeat him. So Oscar's political career had suffered a setback because three would-be terrorists whose names I didn't know had zeroed in on young Theo Decker as their yellow brick road to fame and fortune. Running for office under those circumstances would have been impossible.

But something I'd overlooked entirely: wasn't that exactly what Oscar was planning to do now? Four members of his family murdered, one of them his own daughter, and Oscar was ready to brave the campaign trails anyway? Why was it not all right for Oscar to run after Theo's death—but it
was
all right to run after the deaths of Lynn and the other three? If it had been bad after Theo's death, wasn't it
four times
as bad now? I might not ever have thought of that if Joel hadn't let it slip that Michelle had some reservations.

The only significant difference I could see was that as far as the world was concerned, Lynn and the three others had all died in accidents. Well, maybe that was all the distinction that was needed. Public opinion is bizarre; tragic accidents within a family generate a certain amount of sympathy, whether people know the family personally or not. But if a man running for public office should be identified as a member of a family of murder victims, then what would the public response be? An unambivalent thumbs-down, a shrinking away in distaste, a naked revulsion mixed liberally with guilt. Voters as well as Oscar's political cronies would all know they ought to feel sorry for him; and when they couldn't, that's when the guilt would start seeping in. Things would go from bad to worse: only supermen don't resent those who make them feel guilty.
What's going on in that family?
the question would be. And:
What have they done? What's wrong with them?
Suicide, political suicide.

What a secret to have to keep! Passing off murders as accidents. I stood up and started walking aimlessly down the beach. What a coldhearted bunch the Deckers seemed to me then; I could never have concealed the murder of my child, no matter how worthy the cause. But there was no point in putting all the blame on Oscar; Elinor made most of his decisions for him. Besides, they were all in it equally.

In a way, you could argue that the murders
were
accidents. It was sheer accident that that madman Matthew Zeitz picked out the Decker family as his personal whipping-boy. Any prominent, well-to-do family based in Boston would have fit the bill; it was just the Deckers' bad fortune that Zeitz had settled on them. But his arrest had come at exactly the right time; now the story about “accidents” could be disseminated without fear of contradiction by further murders. It was all very convenient.

Just a little too damned convenient.

This is where it got hairy. Oscar had decided (that is, Elinor had decided) to announce his candidacy presumably on the basis that the trouble was over. But that decision had been made
before
Rob rushed in with the news that Matthew Zeitz had been arrested. How had Oscar and Elinor known it was safe to go ahead? Wasn't that taking an awful chance?

It occurred to me it wouldn't hurt to talk to this police captain in Boston myself. Rob had mentioned his name several times—what was it? I waited. It came to me: McCarthy. I glanced up at the house overlooking the part of the beach I'd wandered to. It was Tom's; he was still at the Fergusons'. I climbed up the steps to the house and let myself in.

I found a phone and put in the call to Boston police headquarters. When I got through, I identified myself as Gillian Decker and asked to speak to Captain McCarthy.

It wouldn't have surprised me to hear he wasn't available or had gone home or something like that, but I was in no way prepared to learn there was no Captain McCarthy on the Boston police force. A patrolman by that name, a rookie, but no
Captain
McCarthy.

All right, then, Rob got the name wrong. I asked to speak to one of the arresting officers in the Matthew Zeitz case.

Shock number two. Matthew who?

My mouth had turned dry as the Sahara and I had to swallow a couple of times before I could speak. There can't be a whole lot of different ways of spelling “Zeitz” but I tried them all. Nobody by that name on the blotter. But he was arrested only a couple of hours ago, I insisted. No, lady, nobody here by that name. Well, a similar name? Nope. Nobody in the last two hours except a car thief, a small-time pusher, and a couple of drunk-and-disorderlies. I persisted until the desk sergeant started to lose patience; I thanked him and hung up.

No Captain McCarthy. No Matthew Zeitz. The whole stinking rotten story had been a lie.

I found the nearest bathroom and lost my dinner.

For a long time I sat on the bathroom floor and rested my head back against the wall. Why? Why in god's name had they done it? All along I'd felt something was wrong; on some level I'd recognized that I was watching acting, that I was an audience of one.

An audience of one? Delusions of grandeur. The show they'd put on must surely have been for Connie's benefit as well. And Joel's … maybe. Joel was still an enigma; I didn't know where he fit into all this.

But why tonight, on Oscar's big decision-making day? What had happened to prompt them to stage their little play at just this moment? Only one thing that I could see might have spurred them into it: I'd said I was going home. They'd tried to talk me into staying, into letting myself be absorbed back into the family. But when that didn't work—they'd determined to send me home thinking everything was peachy-keen in the Decker clan. I must have been asking too many questions, if they felt so strong a need to shut me up.

And so
The Rise and Fall of Matthew Zeitz
, tragicomedy in one act, was hurriedly staged for my elucidation and appeasement. The author? Rob Kurland, for one; Michelle was undoubtedly a co-author. But what of the others—were they in on it too? Elinor? Tom? Oscar? Did they know what was coming? Of course they knew; the only one I was sure had not been acting was Connie.

The only reason they would be going to such extremes was that they knew there'd be no more killings. I'd always felt they were too lacking in caution concerning their own safety—but now it made sense. They knew the danger was over … that
had
to be it. They were protecting one of themselves.

But
that
didn't make sense! Which one could it be? Would Rob and Michelle have killed their own child? Michelle's grief over Bobby's death had been genuine, I was sure; and Rob was the only one in the family who'd named his firstborn after himself. So what about Oscar and Elinor? Or Tom and Annette? Absurd. Connie Decker was the one truly innocent soul I knew on the face of the earth, but she was the only one left. I was back to Connie again. No, wait—there was one more.

Joel.

It all comes down to Joel
—I'd heard that sentence more than once since I came back. I'd assumed it meant he was the last one left of the younger generation, but what if it had a more sinister meaning? I thought of the picture of the four kids Raymond had taken the summer before, the picture now resting on the mantelpiece in my room at Connie's house. The four kids laughing, touching one another, at ease together. How true a picture was it? I knew nothing of the way the four of them got along; all I knew was that Joel was the youngest, traditionally the tagalong spot. Did he feel overshadowed by the others? Bobby, the golden boy, destined to take over the family business. Lynn, already started in a political career and a swimming champion to boot. Ike, the genius, the one most likely to make the history books. And what did Joel do? He windsurfed.

It was hard to realize I was sitting on someone else's bathroom floor thinking my fifteen-year-old nephew was a murderer. I started feeling sick again. Was Joel capable of that much envy and hatred? And the adults—they were
accepting
what had happened, in order to keep alive their one remaining hope for continuing the family line? I bent over the toilet bowl again.

I don't know how long I'd be going at it before Tom came in and found me. He gave me a glass of diluted mouthwash to rinse out the bad taste and helped me to my feet. Then he led me to a sofa and told me to lie down; he stacked a couple of cushions for me to put my feet up on. A moment later I felt a cool damp cloth on my forehead. Then Tom handed me something to drink; it was chalky and tasted terrible, but it did calm my stomach. Nothing like having a cardiac surgeon on hand to treat a case of nausea.

Tom looked worried. “What's wrong, Gillian? What caused this?”

I couldn't tell him; he was one of
them
. God, how I hated the Deckers and all the people they'd married! I wanted to get away from here, away from these awful people and their ugly murders! I was going to be on the first plane out tomorrow morning.

That's right, Gillian. Run away. As you always do
.

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes; it had been years since I'd last cried, but I couldn't seem to stop now. Tom sat quietly on the sofa by me, holding my hand and saying nothing, waiting. I turned my head away from him.

Oh, how I wanted to be back in my own house in Chicago! But as I gradually calmed down and the tears stopped, I admitted against my will that escape was not really possible. No matter how fast I ran or how far, I'd still be carrying the Decker problem with me. When I'd run away before, I'd thought I could make the Deckers one episode in my life, over and done with once I left. That must surely have been the most naive assumption of my life.

No, once you were exposed to the Deckers, they had you. They had you for life. Even if I moved to a mountain top in Tibet, the Deckers would be there with me. And how could I spend the rest of my life not knowing the truth of what was happening now? I couldn't go home yet; as much as I wanted to get away, I couldn't leave this problem behind me. If I was right about Joel, I didn't know what I could do about it. But I had to see it through. No running away this time.