The Mirror and the Mask (26 page)

“What court records?” she asked, looking around for the bottle cap.

“Curt's. Don't any of y'all up here ever listen?”

“I'm a little slow. Tell me again.” Jane set the bottle on the floor.

“He tried to kill his mama about a year after his daddy died. He blamed her for his daddy's death. The boy simply lost his mind. But he was young, so the records were closed. Con-FI-dential. Nobody was told except the family.”

Jane covered Grace with the blanket. “What did he do to her?”

“He . . . he got his hands right there around her scrawny neck.” She reached toward Jane with perfectly manicured fingers. “He was a string bean, but tall for his age. And strong as the dickens. He tried to strangle her, and he woulda, too, if she hadn't fought him off. It was one hell of a brawl, and that's God's honest truth. Where'd I put the bottle?”

“It's on the floor,” said Jane, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “What happened to Curt after he attacked his mother?”

“He was arrested, a course. Spent some hard time in one of those private mental facilities. We all tried to help. But I tell you, he never forgave his mama, I know that for a fact. I warned her to be careful a him, but she would not listen. Nobody listens.” She opened her eyes wide, stared at the ceiling. “The kid's a nutcase. So much promise down the crapper. He's going to be a doctor, you know. Just like his daddy. A crazy doctor.” She sighed. “So many of them are. I can tell he knows I know he pushed his mama down those steps. Everyone thinks it was Jack, but it wasn't. Why doesn't anybody believe me?” Her eyes pleaded.

“I believe you,” said Jane.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Well, hell.” Her eyes drifted shut. In less than a minute, she was snoring.

 

 

 

A
fter a fight about who should drive—which Annie won by grabbing the car keys and refusing to give them back—Annie and Curt rode home in silence. Inside the condo, however, the gloves came off.

“I can't believe you and that Lawless woman were . . . were—”

“Oh, grow the hell up,” said Annie. Nothing infuriated her more than sexual naïveté.

“It's disgusting. What's wrong with you? Haven't you ever read the Bible?”

She threw the keys at his head. He ducked. She walked past him on her way to the bedroom to pack. Dooley hopped up on the bed and nestled in the tangle of sheets and blankets to watch.

Annie had just about finished when Curt appeared in the doorway holding a bottle of vodka. “You've been sleeping with her. Admit it.”

“Not that it's any of your business,” she said, pulling the top of her duffel closed, “but I haven't.”

“You're a liar. Just like—”

“Like who? Your mom? What's the deal with you, Curt? Do you
think every woman is an exact replica of your mother?” Hands rising to her hips, she waited for a reply. When none appeared to be forthcoming, she nodded to the bottle. “And what's with you and your family? Your aunt was totally blitzed at the reception. Are you all drunks?”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up.”

“You're pathetic.” She motioned for Dooley to follow her.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm leaving. Isn't that what you want?” She bumped past him into the hallway. Her backpack was leaning against one of the leather chairs in the living room. She swung the duffel over her shoulder and picked up the pack, ready to go. When she turned around, she saw that Curt had sunk down against the hallway wall, his knees pulled tight to his chest. His face was red and streaming with tears.

“No,” he cried, choking on his sobs. “That's not what I want.”

Lowering the duffel to the floor, she said, “I don't know what's going on with you. You think I can help, but I can't. You need to see someone. A therapist. A priest.”

“I said I would and I will.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Can't you cut me a little slack? I walk in on you and that woman and . . . shit.” He wiped his forearm across his face, struggling to regain his composure. “I feel like someone took a flamethrower to my life. Can't you stay, just for a few more days? Would that
kill
you?”

She didn't want to stay. She had only a little time left and she wanted to spend it with Jane. She'd had it with his drinking, his depression, and his secrets. But the sight of him there on the floor, so miserable, got to her in spite of herself. He was so enormously, cavernously lost.

Dooley trotted over and pawed his leg. Curt lowered it slightly and Dooley crawled into his lap. “Thank you,” whispered Curt.

Annie hesitated a moment more. “Okay. I'll stick around one more night, just as long as it's clear I'm leaving tomorrow.”

“I give you my word. I won't pressure you. Sure, I wish you'd stay
longer, but if you can't, you can't. Maybe . . . hey, let's go out to dinner tonight. Somewhere special. Are you hungry? I'll make reservations.”

Making reservations was the one thing he was good at. Annie glanced at her watch. It was going on three. “I ate at the reception.”

“But you'll be hungry by seven, right?”

She sat down on the arm of the couch. “Yeah, I suppose.” She was exhausted. She hadn't had a good night's sleep since the first night she'd stayed with him. “But you've got to promise me something. No more booze. I'm not going out with you later if you're drunk.”

“Deal.” He kissed the top of Dooley's head and scrambled to his feet.

“I've got some business I need to take care of this afternoon,” she said, thinking of Jane.

“You're leaving?”

“In a little while. I'm taking Dooley with me.” She wanted to take a short nap first. “What are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?” It was a dumb question. He didn't make plans.

“Don't know.”

“If I laid down on the couch in your study, would you wake me in, say, half an hour?”

“Sure. Maybe I can go with you, wherever you're going.”

He was turning into the human equivalent of glue. “We'll see, okay?”

As she walked toward the back room, he pulled her into his arms. “I love you, Annie. I just need you to know that. You don't have to love me back, it's okay.”

“Curt—”

He put a finger to her lips. “Go take your nap.”

 

Kristjan was surprised to find Barbara on her way out of the police station just as he arrived. She tried hard to appear brisk and purposeful but couldn't quite pull it off. Her frizzy brown hair had been
pulled back into a loose, haphazard ponytail. She seemed ragged, worn out. Her eyes flashed angrily at him, but as he came closer, she seemed to deflate.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

She fell against him, shivering. It felt so good to have her in his arms again that for a moment, he didn't care about reasons.

Holding on to him tightly, she said, “The police called me in for an interview. I . . . I brought your laptop.”

He pushed her away. “You did what? I thought you'd at least give me another chance to explain.”

“They needed to know that you . . . might . . . have been planning to . . . to—”

“
Why
, Barbara?”

“I was scared.”

“I wasn't planning anything, I swear it. I'd never hurt you. I'd never hurt anyone.”

“Ramos and Sterling have been gathering evidence. They found some scraps of paper in Susan's briefcase with website addresses written on them in her handwriting. The same ones you were looking at on your computer. They also pulled a bunch of recent text messages off her cell phone.”

“God in heaven, didn't she erase them?”

“They found one you sent the morning of the day she died telling her not to do it. That it was wrong. Too dangerous. You never spelled out what the ‘it' was, but one theory is that Susan was planning to murder her husband. That she used your laptop to search those sites.”

“That never happened. They're dead wrong. What are their other theories?”

Her face had turned ashen. She looked back over her shoulder. “I don't want them to see me talking to you.”

“You've got to tell me. I need to know what they're thinking before I go in there. Honey,
please
. This is life or death.”

“They, ah . . . they think that I was the one using your laptop to search out those disgusting websites.”

“My god, why?”

“Because . . . because”—she struggled to find the right words—“they think I was trying to figure out a way to murder Susan and make it look like an accident. Because of the affair.”

He was so stunned, he couldn't speak.

“They asked if I'd take a polygraph. I refused. I told them I had to talk to a lawyer first.”

“But you've got nothing to hide.”

Her gaze darted away. “I have to go.”

“Barbara?” He reached out to her, but she was too quick. She ran off into the parking lot and disappeared down a stairway.

 

The cop at the reception desk told Kristjan to take a seat, that someone would come out for him shortly. Ramos appeared a few minutes later and led him to one of the interview rooms, a depressingly small, windowless space with a wood table and four corporate-looking chairs. Sterling was already seated, a file folder open with papers spread out in front of him. Kristjan guessed that dour was his permanent expression.

Ramos asked if he'd like something to drink. “Coffee? A Pepsi?”

Kristjan hated cola, but his mouth was dry. “Sure. A Pepsi would be great.”

Ramos left the room. When he returned, he set a can in front of Kristjan and opened another one for himself.

“Why'd you call my wife in here without me?” asked Kristjan, pulling the can toward him. “I ran into her on my way in.”

Ramos smiled pleasantly. Mr. Nice Cop. “Did your wife say anything to you?”

Kristjan could tell he was fishing. “Yeah, she told me everything.” That was sufficiently vague. He hoped it caused the cop a few problems.

Ramos glanced at his partner. “Well, I suppose there's nothing on the table here that's a secret. You know, then, that the car parked outside Susan Bowman's house the afternoon she died belonged to your wife.”

Kristjan tried to hide his shock by casually opening the can and taking a sip, but he wasn't much of an actor. “You're sure about that?”

“Your wife admitted it,” said Sterling. “She said she went there to have it out with Susan about your affair. Which means you and your wife were both lying about your whereabouts the afternoon Mrs. Bowman was murdered.”

Kristjan folded his arms over his chest, mainly so the cops wouldn't see his hands shake. “I had no idea my wife went to see Susan. She never told me. She lied about when I got home, and I'm sorry to say I went along with it.”

“She was giving herself an alibi, Mr. Robbe, not you,” said Ramos.

Kristjan had never considered that. “You don't really think Barbara had anything to do with Susan's death.”

Sterling turned slightly, one arm dangling over the back of his chair. “You're aware that your wife brought us your laptop.
Howtomurderyourwife.com
. She thought it seemed pretty clear why you were looking at those websites.”

“She's wrong.”

“Is she?” asked Sterling. “I suppose it's possible that your wife used your laptop to look at those sites—before she went to see Mrs. Bowman last Wednesday.”

“No,” said Kristjan. There was no point in letting them believe that. “I was the one who looked at them.”

“Why?” asked Ramos.

“Susan gave me the names, asked me to read through them.”

“Because?”

“You were right. She was planning to murder her husband.”

Ramos and Sterling traded glances.

“Any particular reason?” asked Ramos.

“She hated him. If they divorced, the prenup she'd signed meant Jack would walk away with just about everything. If he died, if she was able to make it look like an accident, she'd not only inherit his company and all his assets but also a million-dollar life insurance policy.”

Sterling dropped his pen. “Fascinating,” he said, folding his hands on the table, staring hard at Kristjan. “It's kind of odd that she'd want your opinion on something like that. Unless you intended to help.”

“That's why we broke up. I couldn't go along with it. I'm telling you the truth, I swear to god. If she were here, in this room, she'd tell you the same thing.”

“The problem is,” said Ramos, his expression kindly, “she's not here. But let's work with your theory for a moment. You suggested earlier that her husband may have murdered her. But if Mr. Bowman discovered what his wife was plotting, why not simply leave, let her know that he was going to the police with his fears, and then file for divorce? That would have effectively stopped her. You said he had a prenup. He wasn't going to lose much if they divorced, and she couldn't get away with calling Mr. Bowman's death accidental if the police thought she might be involved in a murder plot. Why would Mr. Bowman kill her and put his own life at risk?”