Sisters (24 page)

Alex felt suddenly light-headed. She sagged against the wall. ‘Oh my God.’

At that moment the back door opened and Dory came in with Remus tethered to her on a leash. Her cheeks were pink, and she was wearing a knitted blue cap with ear flaps and long tassels in a Nordic design. She looked as if she had skated in on the Zuider Zee. She bent down to let Remus off the leash and he rushed down the hallway. Dory straightened up and looked at her sister and the two detectives at the end of the hall.

Detective Spagnola turned his back on Dory and began to murmur into a two-way radio which he raised to his mouth.

Dory looked from the police to Alex. ‘Why are they here?’ she asked.

Alex looked at her coldly. ‘They want to talk to you.’

The look on Dory’s face shifted from curiosity to anxiety. ‘What for?’ she asked.

‘They want to question you,’ said Alex.

Detective Langford raised a hand as if to silence her. ‘We’ll handle this, Ms Woods,’ he said.

‘Question me about what?’ Dory demanded. She glared at Alex. ‘Did you call them?’

‘No,’ Alex said.

‘Based on results of some tests conducted here after the attack on your sister,’ said Spagnola, ‘we obtained a search warrant and went to your parents’ apartment this morning. We found a knife in your room. We believe it is the knife which was used to stab Alex Woods in the attack which occurred in this house the other night.’

‘No,’ said Dory. ‘That’s not mine.’

‘Come along then, and you can tell us your version of what happened.’

‘Come along where?’

‘To the police station. We are taking you in for questioning.’

Alex looked on anxiously as Dory pointed an index finger at the detective’s face. ‘No. I’m not coming. You can’t blame this one on me,’ she said.

‘If you don’t come willingly, we’ll have to place you under arrest.’ With that Detective Langford walked up to her and put a hand under her elbow.

Dory twisted away from him. ‘Let go of me.’ She turned furiously on Alex. ‘Tell them. Tell them I didn’t do this. You know I didn’t do it.’

Alex felt her face flaming.

‘You leave us no choice,’ said Spagnola. ‘Dorothy Colson, we are placing you under arrest for the attempted murder of Alex Woods.’

‘NOOOO . . .!’ Dory shrieked, and her wails echoed through the house.

Detective Langford, aided by Spagnola, lifted her by the arms and started to half-drag, half-carry her down the hallway.

Alex stood back to let them pass. She didn’t want to look at Dory as they dragged her by. She was afraid to see the hate, the contempt in Dory’s eyes. But as her gaze inadvertently met Dory’s, she saw instead the face of a frightened child looking back at her. Confused, defenseless and utterly alone.

TWENTY-SEVEN

M
arisol Torres was sitting in the second-floor lounge of the Justice Initiative, eating yogurt and a payday candy bar, and drinking an Orangina while she reviewed a pile of notes spread out before her on the formica tabletop. Alex hesitated in the doorway of the makeshift lounge. The receptionist, who recognized Alex right away, had sent her up here, but now that she stood in the doorway, watching Marisol multitask, Alex was reluctant to disturb her.

‘Can I help you?’ asked a curly-headed, owlish-looking young man in shirtsleeves.

‘No, I’m fine,’ said Alex.

Hearing that familiar voice, Marisol looked up and saw Alex hovering in the doorway. Her serious face broke into a wide smile. ‘Alex!’

‘I hate to bother you,’ Alex said sheepishly.

‘I’m glad for the company. Come on in.’ She indicated a chair at the table where she was sitting.

Alex sat down across from her.

‘No offense,’ said Marisol, ‘but you’re not looking too good.’

‘I’m not feeling too good,’ Alex admitted.

Marisol looked at her expectantly.

‘Dory,’ said Alex.

Marisol sighed. ‘Well, you can’t have your money back,’ she said, only half-teasing. Alex had dropped off a generous contribution to the Justice Initiative after the DA decided not to refile the charges against Dory. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Do you know about the incident at my house?’

Marisol winced. ‘There was an incident? Oh, no. What?’

‘Somebody attacked me with a knife.’

‘Oh my God! No. Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Thanks to this vicious-looking dog named Remus that Dory got us while she was staying with me. He’s not really vicious. He’s actually a good boy. He prevented the attack from being much worse.’

‘Did they catch the guy?’

‘They think they have. This morning, they arrested Dory.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ said Marisol, clapping her palm over her heart. ‘You’re kidding me. Tell me you’re kidding.’

Alex shook her head. ‘It’s the truth.’

‘I’m so sorry, Alex. Did you know it was her?’

‘I didn’t know who it was. I didn’t know what to think. The cops arrived this morning. Said they found the knife under her mattress at the Colsons’.’

‘Why? Why would she do that? After all this . . .’

Alex shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. She was a little jealous about this guy, Seth, that I’m seeing now.’

‘Oh, right. The good-looking guy with the glasses who was at the courthouse. I met him at your house, after the appeal hearing.’

‘That’s the one. She was attracted to him, apparently. She asked me, and I told her I didn’t have a boyfriend, because I didn’t at the time. And then things happened between Seth and me and the situation changed. She didn’t like it when she found us kissing.’

Marisol shook her head. ‘And for that she stabbed you? I’m sorry. Are other people not allowed to have a life when Dory’s around? I mean, God forbid you should have a boyfriend. Oh, Alex, there is no help for this girl. Lots of people just can’t readjust to life on the outside of prison. It happens all the time. But I had hoped she might give it a little better effort than that. How long she been out? A week?’

‘The thing is, Marisol, I’m having trouble believing it. I mean, she seemed a little . . . miffed at me. But not that angry. Not like that.’

Marisol looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘What is this? Turn the other cheek week?’

‘She seemed . . . more hurt than anything else when they came to get her.’

‘Hurt that she got caught,’ Marisol fumed.

‘Maybe it is that. I don’t know. I was just wondering if you could talk to her,’ said Alex. ‘She really needs the advice of an attorney.’

‘I’m not an attorney, as you know.’

‘But she trusts you. And she needs someone to advise her. Even as a friend.’

Marisol sighed and shook her head. ‘Where’s she at now?’

‘I’m not sure. Two detectives – the same two that reopened Lauren Colson’s case – took her in.’

‘Then she’s probably at the Back Bay precinct,’ said Marisol. ‘I’ll make some calls and find out. I’ll go see her.’

‘Can I come with you?’ asked Alex.

‘No. You can’t come with me. You’re the victim,’ said Marisol.

‘Oh. All right,’ said Alex. ‘I know you think I’m crazy coming here, but if you had seen her . . . She was so distraught when the police came. She looked completely lost. She insisted that she didn’t do it.’

‘That’s what she said the last time,’ Marisol reminded her. ‘All right, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you later.’

Alex went home, took a shower, lay down on her bed and fell instantly into a deep sleep. She couldn’t resist sleep. She’d been up most of the night. But as she laid her head on the pillow, she had to admit to herself that she felt undeniably safer knowing that Dory had been arrested. There was something fundamentally alarming about her. Maybe it was just the unresolved fear that Dory had escaped her punishment for Lauren’s murder because of a judicial technicality.

In any case, Alex slept soundly and awoke at around four in the afternoon feeling refreshed. She began to busy herself with the small chores of the house and the laundry. She had to think about going back to work. She couldn’t stay out much longer if she hoped to hold onto her new job. However, as she went about folding her laundry out of the dryer, her good mood seemed to fade. In spite of herself, she kept remembering the look on Dory’s face when the detectives arrived to take her away. The look of a frightened child.

Don’t do it, she thought. Don’t talk yourself into feeling guilty. You did your best. You even got Marisol to help her. The situation was messed up from the beginning. This was not, as Mr Killebrew had said to her from the outset, the sister that your mother had in mind for you. Soon Seth would be back. He would be back, and she would tell him that she felt the same, and they would begin their life together. This interlude with Dory would just be a bad memory.

She decided to go down to the guest room where Dory had stayed and clean it up, almost as if she wanted to remove every trace of Dory from this house. It was over now. She had to put it behind her. She walked into the guest room and looked around. The room was in a chaotic state. The bed was unmade and looked as if wild horses had thrashed around in it. There were pieces of paper in the trash can but also scattered around it, as if Dory had aimed and missed. There were half-empty bottles of water on every surface and food wrappers on the nightstand. Dory’s duffel bag gaped open on the chair with the few clothes she had brought along spilling out of it. Her shoes lay at the foot of the bed. The television was on mute but was still playing. Alex went over to the remote and turned it off. She looked around the messy room with a sigh. She hadn’t cleaned it up since Dory first came to stay. She had expected that a grown woman would keep her own room clean. Obviously prison life had not turned Dory into a neatness freak.

Alex began to pick up. She collected all the trash into the trash can and emptied the water bottles into the sink in the guest-room bath. She folded up Dory’s clothes and repacked the duffel bag. She put Dory’s shoes on top, wondering if she would ever have any need for the clothes and toiletries she had brought along. Not if she ended up with a jail sentence. And this time, Alex thought, I won’t be bailing her out. She was almost tempted to take the duffel bag downstairs and put it in the trash. But it seemed as if she would be prematurely sentencing her own sister. She zippered it up and, after a moment’s hesitation, placed it on the floor in the closet instead.

Finally she went around to make the bed. She knew she should strip off the sheets and wash them, but it just seemed like more than she was capable of doing at this point. The wounds in her back, though healing, began to ache as she finished the chores. She pulled up the top sheet and tucked it tightly in. Then she pulled up the bedspread and the blankets, smoothed the bedspread and shook out the blanket ready to fold it and replace it at the foot of the bed. But as she shook it, something fell out onto the white counterpane.

It was a dingy stuffed elephant, homemade from a faded flowered fabric. It had been stuffed when it was new, but its body had become flattened with the passage of time. It had large floppy ears made from the same fabric as the body and the trunk, and matching buttons on either side of its head for eyes.

As Alex stared at it her knees began to feel wobbly and she had to sit down on the bed. She knew this elephant. She had had one exactly like this when she was a baby. Different fabric but the same simple pattern sewn together by hand. Her dad had called it her ‘guardian elephant.’ She kept it for years. It might still be in her toy box in the attic. She knew exactly where it came from. She had heard the story dozens of times. Her mother had made it while she waited for Alex to be born. She told Alex that she had sewn it from a pattern she got when she took home economics in high school. Clearly she had made one while she waited for Dory too. Perhaps she slipped it into the carrier with her when she gave her up to be adopted. Dory probably had no idea where it came from. But for some reason that defied reason, she still secretly carried it around with her and slept with it in her bed.

Alex looked at her watch. Marisol still hadn’t called. Clutching the elephant to her chest, she left a message for Marisol to call her as soon as she could. Almost as soon as she hung up, the phone rang. Marisol, she thought.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘This is Cilla Zander. Is this Alex?’

‘Yes.’ Alex recognized the name immediately, although she was taken aback to hear from her.

‘I’m a talent manager,’ said Cilla in a rich, languorous Southern accent. ‘I manage Walker Henley and, at one time, I managed Lauren Colson.’

‘I know who you are,’ said Alex.

‘Oh, you do. OK. Well, Walker asked me to call you. He told me about meeting you and your sister last night in Providence.’

Was that only last night? Alex thought. It seemed a lifetime ago. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was very nice of him to talk to . . . us.’

‘Well, he’s a very nice guy. And he thought I might be able to help you.’

‘Really?’ said Alex cautiously.

‘You live in Boston?’

‘Just outside of . . .’

Cilla Zander, for all the honeyed civility in her voice, wasn’t interested in specifics. ‘Listen, Ms Woods, I’m going to be flying into Portsmouth, New Hampshire tomorrow. They’re trying to set up a kind of Bonaroo North for the summer, and they want three of my clients to appear. I need to check out the venue. I know that Portsmouth’s not too far from Boston. About an hour’s drive, I think.’

‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘That seems right.’

‘If you want to talk about Lauren, you can meet me up there tomorrow. I’ll text you the location.’

Alex didn’t want to go to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She had to get back to work. Besides, what was left to discuss? Dory was in jail for trying to kill her. Obviously it was exactly what she had done to Lauren. What difference did it make what Lauren’s life had been like? The police had been right in the first place. Right all along.

‘Ms Woods, are you there?’

‘Yes,’ said Alex. She looked down at the elephant tucked under her arm.

‘Shall I send these directions? Do you want to meet with me?’

‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘I do.’

TWENTY-EIGHT