The One I Left Behind (9 page)
Read The One I Left Behind Online
Authors: Jennifer McMahon
Their eyes locked. Reggie turned her head slightly, pushed the hair away to reveal the scars around her prosthetic ear. Proof. Vera smiled, then whispered something Reggie didn’t catch.
She leaned down. “What was that?”
“You have to be careful here. People aren’t who they say they are. Like her.” She stared past Reggie at Carolyn Wheeler, who hovered in the doorway. “She knows Old Scratch.” Vera’s breath was warm and yeasty smelling. She was missing several teeth.
“Would you like me to send her away?”
Vera’s eyes widened. “You can do that?”
Reggie smiled. “Just watch me.” She stood up, went over to the social worker, and asked if she and her mother could have some privacy. Carolyn looked flustered. Her eyes went from Vera to Reggie, then back to Vera. Was Reggie supposed to be untrustworthy? Dangerous even? Maybe she was in on it with Neptune?
“Of course,” the social worker said at last. “I’ll be right down at the nurses’ station if you need me.”
Reggie smiled sweetly but couldn’t think of a single situation in which she’d need Carolyn Wheeler. Reggie shut the door. She would have locked it if that had been possible.
“Better?” she asked, returning to her mother’s side.
Her mother. God, even though she was here, touching her, breathing her in, she couldn’t believe it. Vera, alive. Reggie did a quick calculation and realized her mother was fifty-nine years old. With her gaunt features and sagging skin, she looked closer to eighty. Was this the result of the cancer or years of hard living? What did it take, to break a person down like this? To turn them into a shrunken doll that only faintly resembled who they’d once been?
Carolyn Wheeler seemed to think her mother’s mind was too far gone to be able to reveal anything helpful about the killer. But she must remember something, right? And whatever details she did remember weren’t likely to get spilled to strange-faced detectives or a social worker with broccoli in her teeth.
“I’m going to take you home, Mom.”
“Home?”
“To Monique’s Wish. Would you like that?”
Her mother looked up at her with watery gray eyes. “Is that where you live?”
Reggie stiffened.
Hell, no. Not for over twenty years.
“No,” she said. “But I’ll stay with you there for as long as you like.” Reggie could see it so clearly: how she would bring her mother cups of tea and custard, and Vera would tell her all about what had really happened to her after she was taken. Reggie would get the answers the police hadn’t been able to. She’d crack the case wide open like a regular private detective, make sure that bastard got what was coming to him. If Reggie were in charge of the justice system, she’d have Neptune strapped to a table and give a big old carving knife to the relatives of the women he killed. An eye for an eye, a hand for a hand.
“Mmm,” Vera said, closing her eyes. Then, she opened them wide. “They do things to people here,” Vera said, lowering her voice and looking worriedly at the door. “They take them into the basement and slice them open. Then they put stuffing inside.”
Reggie stared down at her mother, unsure of what to say. She decided an understanding nod was best.
Yes, I’m sure they do, Mom.
Vera began coughing. It was a wet, racking cough. Her eyes watered and her tongue stuck out. Her whole body thrashed. She brought her arms out from under the covers and Reggie saw the stump: the cut had been made just below the knob of her wrist. The skin there was glossy and pale—ghost flesh. If Reggie squinted, she could almost see the shape of the missing hand still attached, pointing up at her. Her mother heaved forward, coughing and retching with such force it seemed like she’d crack a rib. Reggie’s hand hovered by the red button on the bedrail—should she call a nurse? And then it was over. Vera readjusted herself in bed, reached into her mouth with her left hand, going so far back she gagged. Then pulled her hand out and held it open.
“See?” she asked.
Reggie looked down. The knuckles of her mother’s fingers were swollen and her pointer and middle finger were stained yellow with nicotine. And there, in her heavily creased palm, was what looked like a tiny piece of mucus-slathered white thread.
Reggie shivered, felt bile rising up into throat. “Let’s get you out of here,” she said.
She found a plastic
PATIENT BELONGINGS
bag and hurriedly loaded what little she could find into it: hospital-issue toothbrush and toothpaste, shampoo and deodorant, yellow plastic comb and body lotion. There were no clothes hanging in the closet or in the dresser. Only a coat—a large black, man’s wool dress coat. The lining was coming loose and it was threadbare in places. There was a hole in the left elbow.
“Is this yours, Mom?” Reggie asked, taking the coat off the hanger.
Vera nodded.
The coat was heavier than Reggie expected and soon she understood why: the lining had been cut here and there and little makeshift pockets had been formed by resewing squares around the cuts. Reggie smiled at the magician’s coat her mother had created. That was Vera—ever resourceful, even homeless, even crazy.
Reggie reached into one of the pockets and pulled out an empty plastic grocery bag balled up inside a dozen rubber bands.
Rummaging through the other secret pockets, Reggie found matchbooks, a crushed cigarette, a broken cell phone, two cellophane packets of crumbling saltine crackers, bobby pins, and a wallet that was empty except for an expired coupon for Herbal Essences shampoo. Patting down the sleeves, she found one last hidden pocket at the end of the right sleeve, held closed with a safety pin. She undid the pin, reached in, and pulled out a worn red velvet jewelry box. Flipping it open, she discovered an engagement ring and wedding band inside. Reggie was no expert, but these didn’t look like cheap costume rings. A homeless woman carrying around valuable jewelry? It didn’t make sense. Unless . . .
“Are these yours, Mom?” she asked, lifting the wedding ring from the box. It was heavy and solid, no doubt real gold. “Did you get
married
?” The word caught on her tongue and she had to force it out.
Reggie knew her mother had never married her father. Vera had never even told her the guy’s name, claiming it wasn’t important.
Tusks
, Reggie remembered, visualizing the picture she’d once cut out of Ganesh—the peaceful look on the elephant-headed god’s face, the four arms outstretched, hands poised and waiting.
Vera whispered into her covers and the only word Reggie caught was the last one:
Soon
.
Turning the gold band in her hand, Reggie saw there was an engraving inside—words in neat script:
Until death do us part
June 20, 1985
Reggie nearly dropped the ring, as though the engraving had reached out and stung her.
June 20, 1985.
The day Vera’s hand showed up on the front steps of the police station.
Thirty-six-year-old Andrea McFerlin was a stylish woman with frosted hair and impeccable makeup. A certified public accountant, she worked for LaRouche & Jaimeson, where her coworkers described her as dedicated and conscientious. She was the one who remembered birthdays in the office and organized the secret Santa gifts at Christmastime. She had left for a weeklong business trip on Saturday, May 25, but never made her flight. Her family and coworkers thought she’d been too busy with the conference to check in by phone, and none of them worried when they didn’t hear from her. Her car was later found in the long-term parking lot at the airport, suitcase still inside.
On May 27, a hand with coral nail polish was discovered on the steps of the police station—a hand that would be identified as Andrea McFerlin’s only after her body was found later in the week.
“I didn’t realize she was dead at first,” said Rebecca Hartley, twenty-nine, who jogged through King Philip Park every morning and discovered McFerlin’s body just after dawn on May 31. “I thought it was someone playing a prank. A drunk high school kid in a game of truth or dare or something. Then when I got close and saw her, I knew.”
McFerlin was naked, her wrist bandaged, and she had been placed in a sitting position, her back leaning against the center of the fountain.
“Her eyes were open,” Hartley described. “You’d think a dead person would look all peaceful, like they were sleeping. Not her. I’ll never forget it. She was there, in the center of that fountain, water running down over her, and when I looked into her eyes, what I saw was pure terror.”
State of Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Aldous Ramsey determined that McFerlin had been killed by strangulation just hours before her body was found. Other than the missing hand and the ligature marks around her neck, there was no sign of any other trauma or sexual assault. There were traces of adhesive around her arms and legs, likely from being bound by duct tape. Dr. Ramsey found her stomach full of boiled lobster with drawn butter, eaten only an hour or two before she was strangled.
June 1, 1985
Brighton Falls, Connecticut
“I
KNOW THE LADY
who found her.”
The man behind the counter was named Dix and was an old friend of Vera’s. He owned Airport Lanes and was a thin, gray-skinned guy with a bulbous pockmarked nose that resembled the bowling balls he was surrounded by.
“She’s in the Friday night ladies’ league,” he was saying, “—was here last night, all shook up still. Sweet little gal. Becky, her name is. Real tiny, just like a doll. She runs through King Philip Park every morning around six. Don’t think she’ll be going back anytime soon.”
Dix passed them their shoes, the leather worn and scuffed, the sizes marked in stitched-on numbers at the back. Reggie was a six. Her mother an eight. Uncle George brought his own freshly polished ball and shoes.
“That McFerlin gal was totally naked,” Dix continued, “except for the bandages over her right wrist. Strangled. Had to be. Becky said she could see bruises all around her neck.”
Vera made a little tsk-tsk sound with her tongue, then reached up and touched her throat.
George, evidently thinking that this was too much information for a thirteen-year-old’s ears, grabbed Reggie’s shoulders and guided her away from the counter toward lane three. “Going to bowl some strikes today, right, Reg?” he said. He was a small man with receding hair and a pointy rodentlike face. He wore little round glasses but probably needed the prescription changed because he squinted all the time anyway. Reggie’s secret name for him was Uncle Mouse, but she meant it in a sweet way.
“How about it?” George asked again, a little too enthusiastically. “I bet you’re a natural with a bowling ball.”
Reggie shrugged. She really hadn’t wanted to come. She wanted to be back at home, nailing shingles to the roof of the tree house, stealing glances at Charlie and remembering the way he’d kissed her, even if he hadn’t really meant it. But her mom had insisted. “Georgie’s taking us bowling,” Vera had told her.
“I don’t bowl,” Reggie had said. “And besides, I thought you said George was a dud.”
Reggie loved George, but her mom was always teasing him, mocking him, making fun of him behind his back.
“Well, it’s time you learned to bowl,” Vera replied. “And Georgie may be a dud in certain ways, but he’s a gentleman through and through. After Airport Lanes, he’s taking us out to that new steak house for dinner. I hear you can get your baked potato five different ways! Get your shoes, Regina.”
George had been friends with Vera since high school. “He’s always been a little sweet on me,” Vera would say, smiling. “But he’s just not my type. I’m sorry to say it, but any man who spends that much time with a bunch of wooden ducks is kind of a dud.” George collected duck decoys. And he also made his own in the woodworking workshop he’d set up in his basement—he made other things too: wooden bowls and bookshelves. He’d even made a desk for Reggie and a big mirror for Vera.
The bowling alley was dark and smelled of polish and disinfectant. The rust-colored rug was full of stains and cigarette burns. Beer signs lit up the small lounge area in the back, which seemed almost cozy compared to the wide-open cavernous space where the ten lanes were laid out. Her mom headed straight back to the bar and ordered drinks.
There was a man in dress pants and a collared shirt sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of beer. He said something to Vera and she put her head back and laughed. She returned with a gin and tonic for herself and root beers for Reggie and George. Reggie felt awkward in the stiff shoes and walked like a penguin, which made Vera laugh.
“Will they catch him, Mom?” Reggie asked.
“Who?”
“The man who killed Andrea McFerlin.”
Vera nodded. “Of course they will. A crime that terrible. The police won’t rest until he’s behind bars.”
Vera picked a red ball out for Reggie and a sparkly silver one for herself.
“You know what to do, Regina?” she asked.
Reggie shrugged. She hadn’t bowled since coming here to a birthday party when she was nine.
Vera put down her drink and showed Reggie how to approach the foul line in four steps, back swing, and release.
“Let the ball do the work,” she instructed.
Reggie’s first tries were gutter balls, but her mother and George applauded anyway. George stepped up and bowled a strike with his custom-made ball. He bowled in a league and had won all kinds of trophies.
“Not bad, Georgie,” Vera said. “Not bad at all. I guess duck-making isn’t your only talent.”
He smiled at her, pushed his glasses up. “Everyone’s got more than one talent, Vera. You know that.”
“You know,” Vera said, taking a long sip from her glass, “honestly, I’m a little hurt. All these years you’ve been making your mallards and ringtails—”
“Pintails,” George interrupted.
“What’s that?”
“The ducks are pintails,” he said, looking sheepish as he stood, holding his ball. “A ringtail is a lemur. Or a mammal like a raccoon.”
