Killer's Cousin (19 page)

My father was on his way. I was in terrible trouble; maybe headed for the psychiatric ward. I had nothing to lose any longer. “Lily,” I said, “I know. I know about you.”

Lily stilled. Her eyes slitted, ferocious. She said scornfully, “What do you know? You don't know anything!” But I could feel her fear. She couldn't fool me—not anymore.

Maybe, deep inside, she had never wanted to fool me.

I said it gently. “I know you killed Kathy.”

My words hung in the attic air like dust.

It felt different saying it aloud to her. The words made it real. And as I watched Lily's face and felt her reaction, I knew for certain—really for certain—that Lily believed it was true.

I wasn't crazy. Or, at least, no crazier than Lily.

I said to her, “Tell me how. Tell me why.”

Lily's chest rose and fell. For a moment I actually thought she would burst out with it. But then she caught herself, and the old Lily—distrustful; my enemy—was back, her emotions forced under by sheer willpower. She raised her chin in a Julia-like move. “I'll tell you about me if you tell me about you.”

I stared at her. “You already know about me,” I said. “Everybody knows.”

“But I don't know what you
felt
,” Lily said. Whispered. “Tell me what you
felt
after you killed her. And how you feel now. What you feel every day …”

Powerful
… “No,” I said, almost before she finished speaking.
No
.

Silence again. Lily bent over the scrapbook, her hair in limp strands over her face so that I couldn't see her expression. Then, softly, she asked, “Why not?” And when I didn't reply, she added, so quietly that it was barely audible, “We're alike, aren't we? You and me?”

If it had been anyone other than Lily, I would have thought she wanted reassurance. Comfort. If it had been anyone other than Lily, I might have found it in me to give those things. But this
was
Lily—Lily who had ruthlessly destroyed what remained of my life, and who might even now be pursuing her own peculiar and particular agenda. I didn't have anything for Lily even if I had wanted to give it.

“Won't you tell me?” she persisted. She looked up at me, her face very pale. “Don't you want to know, David?” She hesitated again. “I'll tell if you will; I really will. And … you did ask.”

She watched me like a starving mouse.

“You first,” I said finally.

She swallowed.

“Go on,” I said. “You owe me.” And when she still didn't respond, I prompted: “You wanted your sister dead.”

Lily's eyes begged me for something, but I didn't know what it was. She looked down. She said, all in a rush, “Everything was always about her. I hated her. Every night, I prayed for her to go away. To die. And then … then—it just happened. It was like an experiment …” She stopped.

I needed to know. I burned to know. I said, “She was taking a bath.”

“She knew I was here,” said Lily. “She asked me to get her a glass of water.”

I have never stood as still in my life as I did at that moment.

“I put some ammonia in the water,” said Lily. “I thought she'd smell it. I didn't really think she'd drink it. But she did. She did just exactly what I wanted.” Her fist clenched.

Powerful
, I thought, watching her, fascinated, horrified. Repelled. Understanding.
Powerful
.

“She had a cold,” said Lily. “She had a bad cold. She just … she just—” Lily raised her head, and her irises were impossibly huge, liquid with fear and memory. “She just started drinking. I couldn't believe it. I didn't think she really would … and then she dropped it. The glass. It broke. It broke all over the floor.”

Lily looked at me in wonder, then. “There were so many pieces of glass,” she said. “So many.”

A
cid filled my mouth. I ran for the bathroom, remembered, and diverted to the kitchen sink. I made it only just in time. My forehead, my armpits, exploded with sweat. I emptied my stomach and just kept on retching.

The bathtub. The glass. Lily's knees. My fist. My own fist, aimed at Greg. Aimed at Greg, and hitting Emily
.

What was Emily doing there? How had she stepped in the way?

I felt Lily's eyes on me. “Go away,” I said. If it hadn't been Emily, would it have been Greg? Would Greg have died, too? Was that what I'd wanted?

“But you promised you'd tell me—”

“Get the hell away from me,”
I said to Lily. I wasn't watching, but I felt her leave.

Some time after that, my father came. By then I could stand upright. I had just managed to rinse out my mouth and wash my face when I heard the doorbell
ring. I heard his voice below. And then—too soon, I was not ready after all—I heard his tread on the stairs. For a moment, I thought my chest would explode.

He stopped in the doorway. We looked at each other.

He was wearing one of his expensive courtroom suits and I wondered fleetingly what he had been doing that day, before receiving Vic's call on his pager. He looked tired.

He came a little farther into the room, closer to me. “David,” he said. His arms twitched slightly, as if he'd been about to reach out, but then did not.

I couldn't help it. I practically lunged at him.

I was no longer a child. He wasn't any taller than me. But he closed his arms tightly around me, and said my name again. And I felt then as if I were once more small, and he were a giant. As if in some miraculous way my father could still make everything come right.

Later on he said, “Don't try to talk now. We'll sort it all out later.” He picked up the phone and booked a room at a hotel. He packed a few things for me: jeans, sweatpants, T-shirts. He said, “Let's go.”

My relief was overwhelming. I didn't care if maybe we were leaving immediately because Vic and Julia had said,
Get him out of our house
. I wanted nothing more than to leave. I walked away from the attic without looking back.

There were a few awkward minutes to endure downstairs. Vic said inane things to which my father variously replied, “I'll be in touch tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow. I'll call you tomorrow.” Julia was nowhere
to be seen, which felt fitting. She hadn't been around when I first came to Cambridge, either.

Lily stood apart from Vic. She looked whitened, shrunken. She said nothing to me, nor I to her. For a moment I felt that awareness between us, like a tug on my mind, but then it shut off.
Lily
shut it off. I was glad.

Good-bye
, I said silently as we left the house. Good-bye, Vic, good-bye, Julia. Good-bye, Lily. I didn't know what would happen next, but I knew I didn't want to enter that house, or see any Shaughnessy, ever again. Particularly Lily.

I prayed I wouldn't have to.

We're alike, aren't we?
she had said. It was true—of course it was true—but I could not live with Lily's intimate knowledge of who and what I had become. Could not bear to look at her and see myself reflected back. Did not want to know that she was there, with me, on the far side of the abyss …

Ten minutes later, my father and I checked into the Hyatt Regency on Memorial Drive. Our room was quiet and impersonal; it overlooked the river. I had a long, hot shower. Then I came back out into the bedroom, and looked at my father as he sat on his bed.

“I thought you gave up smoking,” I said finally.

He stubbed the cigarette out. “Sorry. I just … well, I bought a pack at the airport.” He looked at me. He said, “Can you tell me what's going on, David? Why Vic called me—what's going on with you?”

“I want to tell you. But—” I stopped.

“What?”

I said softly, “I'm afraid you won't believe me.”

“Why wouldn't I believe you?”

“Because you didn't,” I said. “You didn't … believe
in
me—before.”

He was very still then. “It was just at first … I didn't know what to think. And you wouldn't say, you wouldn't talk …”

“I know,” I said.

He said, desperately, “I love you,” and I knew that was true, and I knew it ought to be enough. Especially since—then as before—I still wasn't telling him everything.

I went to the window. I drew aside the curtain and looked down on Memorial Drive and the river. I knew what I wanted. I wanted my father to lie to me. I wanted him to say,
Of course I will always believe you, no matter what
. It was the same thing I had wanted him to say the year before. He hadn't said it then, and he still wasn't saying it. He was promising only what he could promise. He had not changed.

But I had. Somehow, I had.

He said, “Tell me what's happening, David. Please.”

I said, “Yes. I'll tell you.”

I
told him nearly everything. I related all my encounters with Lily, all Lily's pranks. I told him about my conversations with Vic and Julia. What Julia had said about me being crazy; making my own troubles. And, finally, I repeated to him Lily's confession.

The only thing I did not tell him about was Kathy. Kathy, the humming shadow. Kathy, the ghost. I had made that mistake with Frank. I wouldn't make it again.

“Well?” I said into the quiet room, when I was done. “What do you think?” My voice strained a little. “Do you think I made it all up? Like Julia?”

“No,” said my father. His voice was strong and sure and thoughtful. “No, I don't think you made it all up. I believe you. Oh, there are a few points on which I'd like more information. Particularly about Lily being responsible for Kathy's death … I wonder if Lily has
conjured up her own guilt. Children often believe in the power of thought; that wishes can be magical. She certainly
thinks
she killed her sister, but did she? I doubt it. I think she made up a story. But apart from that, yes. Yes, David, I believe you.”

He looked straight at me then.

I would have said thank you. I would have said many things, if I could have. I couldn't. Not then. I couldn't speak, even as I heard my father say what I wanted him to say, about talking to Vic and Julia about Lily. I couldn't speak.

Not from relief, although I felt that. Not from gratitude, although that too was strong. Not even because I was afraid I might cry. But because, just then, I heard Kathy whispering once more, in my head.
Lilyhelplilyhelplily
. I stiffened.

I said, to still the voice, “She needs help. Lily, I mean.”

“Yes,” said my father. “Yes, I think you're probably right. But …”

“What?” I said.

“Ultimately, that's up to Vic and Julia.” My father pushed his fingers through his hair. “I'll be honest, David. I don't think they're going to listen to me. And I can't
make
them do anything.”

I felt as if I were trying to seize hold of air.
Helplily
, came the voice, frantically.
Helplily!

“I promise to try,” said my father. “But you're my first priority. You do see that?”

“Yes,” I answered. I sat down on my bed. If my father had not been there I'd have pulled the pillow over my head, squeezed it tightly over my ears.
Helplily
.

My father yawned hugely. “Listen, it's after two in the morning. Let's try to get just a few hours of sleep, okay?” Miraculously, as he spoke, Kathy's whisper faded into silence. My relief was profound.

My father turned off the light. And to my great surprise, with him in the next bed, I slept immediately, and deeply.

I was on my knees by the tub in the attic apartment, vomiting into it. Kathy knelt beside me, the fingers of one hand clawing my arm. She whispered in my ear:
Lilyhelplilyhelplilyhelp
. Around us the air pulsed with intense heat, and the smell of smoke filled my nostrils. Kathy shook me.
Helplilyhelplilyhelp
—

I woke up in the dark. Beside me, my father breathed heavily in sleep. I lay there. And the beat picked up, strengthened, increased in urgency. It pulsed in my ears, then throbbed through my entire body.
Lilyhelplilyhelplily
.

I could not make it stop. And by 3:27 on the digital clock, I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to get away from the pounding.

I padded barefoot to the balcony windows, parted the curtains again, and looked out. The Charles River was iced over and beautiful in the moonlight. Across it I could see the buildings of Boston University, to which I'd applied. Directly in front of me, on Memorial Drive, streetlamps threw regular, dim washes of yellow light onto the pavement. I stared at the lights, at the river, knowing a way to get rid of Kathy's voice, knowing I shouldn't do it. Winter snow and sand had scarred the city streets with potholes. It was purely stupid, dangerous,
to go running in the middle of a winter night.

I pulled on sweats despite the thought. I scrawled a quick note in case my father woke up:
Couldn't sleep. Gone running. Back soon
. Then I grabbed socks and my running shoes, and headed down to the ground floor in one of the Hyatt's glass elevators. I couldn't wait to be outside, to race alone through the dark streets, to try to catch up with my own pulse, to drown out Kathy's voice and my own renewed irrational fears.

It was quiet out. Cambridge isn't much of a night town. At first I ran along the river, but it was extremely cold there and I soon headed through the neighborhoods of West Cambridge, running down streets choked with parked cars and snowbanks. The occasional dog barked at me. One even joined me for a mile or so, loping ahead in the dark, then racing back. By the time I hit the Fresh Pond rotary—part of my usual route—I was sweating freely, breathing well. And Kathy's voice had ceased completely.