Through the Heart (32 page)

 

 

 

 

I don’t even remember leaving the room. That was the first of a number of blanks I experienced in the next few days. One minute I remember standing over Nora’s bed; then I found myself outside in the hallway.

For a split second, it was like waking from a dream, and I wondered if I had only imagined what I’d just seen. Maybe I was about to wake up in my bed, and it would be the morning of my wedding, and this would turn out to be a nightmare. That was the only thing that made sense to me. But then I looked over and saw evidence of the reality of the nightmare; Tammy was standing there crying—great shuddering sobs.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I had the thought that I should get the situation under control, even though at the same time, I had a sense that that nothing would ever feel under control again. But, still, I played out the role. I said, “Tammy, you’d better sit down. Is your room along here?”

She nodded and pointed. And I walked over and opened the door. She went in and sat down on the bed. I stood in the doorway for a moment. My brain had frozen, and I had no picture of what I should do next. I realized that usually there was a chain of events in my mind stretching into the future, so I was almost never at a loss for what to do next. But right then my mind was a total blank. I had no idea which direction to move. Then the phone on the nightstand caught my eye.

“I’m going to call the police,” I said. I walked over to the nightstand and dialed 911. They asked me the nature of the emergency. I don’t remember what I said. But I know I gave the address. Then they tried to keep me on the phone, but I hung up. I think I said, “I can’t talk to you now,” but I’m not sure.

After I hung up, I looked over at Tammy. She was still sitting on the bed, crying. “You should lie down,” I told her. “I’m going to go downstairs and . . . I’m going to go downstairs. I think we should try to keep the others from finding out until the police get here, so you should probably stay here. Will you be okay?”

It was a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t going to be okay, but she nodded.

Then she said, “I told Nora this was going to happen. I told her. Why didn’t she listen to me?”

I didn’t know what she was talking about. For a moment I thought she was saying that she had threatened Nora. Did that mean—had Tammy done it? A second later I knew that was ridiculous. But the question had come to my mind, and I couldn’t get rid of it: maybe Tammy hadn’t, but
someone
had.

In this situation, I would have thought that would be the first question in anyone’s mind. But reality never matches imagination, especially in extreme situations. Seeing Nora like that was such a shock that no thought found a foothold in my brain except for the one that I didn’t want to believe: the thought that she was gone.

I left Tammy’s room, shut the door carefully behind me, and went downstairs. I knew I couldn’t go back into the morning room. I couldn’t face it, but as I was walking past, I glanced in.

The scene there looked exactly the same. Everyone was sitting, drinking their coffee and eating their muffins. It was surreal. How could they be sitting there so calmly when upstairs—my brain shied away from the image of those brown sheets and the face that wasn’t Nora’s anymore. What if it was someone sitting in there who did it? I found myself searching their faces. Then I remembered who was missing. Marcus and Celia. Celia. Of course it had been Celia.

Strangely, the realization didn’t bring relief. But it did bring the first emotion I could remember feeling—it was rage.

My face must have reflected what I was feeling because at that moment Neil glanced over and caught sight of me, and whatever he saw made him get up and follow me out of the room. It was my one piece of luck that whole awful day.

Neil followed me out and found me in the foyer. “What happened?” he said point blank. Not, is something wrong? Not, is something bothering you? He knew just by looking at my face, as I had by looking at Tammy’s.

I said, “Nora’s dead.”

His face went very still, and he blinked very rapidly, but thank God he didn’t make me repeat myself, he didn’t ask me if I was kidding, and he didn’t try to tell me that it wasn’t possible. He reached out and gripped my elbow hard, but he didn’t say anything for a second. Then he asked, “Did she . . . ?”

“No. Neil, there was a knife . . . There was a knife . . .” I couldn’t finish. “I’ve called the police.”

He said, “Timothy, I think you should sit down. Maybe you want to go up to your room?”

It was exactly what I had said to Tammy.

“But the police—”

“I’ll wait down here for the police.”

“I was thinking we would wait to tell everyone else until after the police are here,” I said.

“Agreed. I’ll do the best I can.”

“Okay. I think I will go up to my room then.” The very act of talking was difficult for me. Words seemed inane.

Neil seemed to understand, and he didn’t say anything else. He just laid a hand on my shoulder as I went past.

I climbed the stairs again, went to my room, opened the door, then closed it behind me. I went over to the bed and lay down. How on earth had I imagined I could wait downstairs for the police? As soon as I lay down, I knew for certain I couldn’t have remained standing another second. I wondered if I would cry. I couldn’t even remember the last time I cried. But I just lay there. It was quiet for a few minutes. Then I heard footsteps running up the stairs to the third floor, where Nora had her room. Someone screamed. Actually, it was more like a wail, rising like a siren. And that wailing went on for I don’t know how long. Neil must not have been able to keep it a secret, and I wondered briefly who had insisted on going to look.

It was so bright in my room. I got up, pulled down the shade. I realized my teeth were chattering. When I got back into bed, I got under the covers. I didn’t even take my shoes off. Within a couple of minutes, I was sweating, but my teeth were still chattering.

I lay in bed, sweating and shivering. I heard when the police arrived. Their footsteps were like sledgehammers on the stairs. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I heard their voices out in the hall above.

A few minutes later there was a knock on my door.

I didn’t get up. I didn’t feel any desire to move.

Then Neil’s voice came through the door, “Timothy, it’s Neil.”

I got up and opened the door for him. He came in and shut it behind him.

Neil said, “I’m sorry, I had to tell them downstairs what happened. Nora’s mother was asking about what was keeping Nora, and she was going to go upstairs to get her. So I told her to keep her from going, but then she ran upstairs anyway before I could stop her . . .”

So it had been Nora’s mother who had screamed.

“It’s okay,” I said. Then, because it seemed like the thing you’re supposed to do in this kind of situation, I asked, “How is Nora’s mother?”

Neil shook his head. “Don’t ask. But Deirdre is with her now. So hopefully Deirdre will calm her down a little. And the police are here now. They’ve got the room cordoned off, and I think the detectives are coming soon.”

“And where is everyone else?”

“They asked everyone to go back to their own rooms and wait there to give their statements.”

I nodded.

“But I thought I’d come see how you were. I was thinking I could sit over here by the door. Not to talk. The police don’t want us to talk to each other about the events. But I don’t think they could object if I just sit here.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I told him.

“I know,” he said.

He took a seat by the door anyway.

So I went back over to the bed and lay down.

It was only later that I realized he must have sensed that I was worse off than anyone else, even though I wasn’t screaming or crying.

Over the course of the next hour or so, there were a couple of knocks on the door, but Neil slipped outside and dealt with them, and then came back in alone. At one point he came over and said, “Nora’s sister really wants to talk to you. Do you want to talk to her?”

I said no, and Neil went out to the hall and came back in alone.

A little while later there was another knock on the door, but this time Neil couldn’t send them away. He came over and told me there was a policeman who wanted to talk to me. He paused, then he asked me, “Timothy, do you need to have a lawyer here?”

It took me a second to realize what he was asking.

“No, Neil,” I told him.

“It might be a good idea anyway.”

“No, really. It’s okay. I’ll talk to them.”

He nodded and went to let the policeman in. The officer was about my age, and he looked embarrassed to take the statement from me while I was in bed, but I didn’t care. He asked me if I wanted to get up, and I said no. Then he asked a few questions, wrote down what I said, and went away. But not for long.

 

 

 

 

How did that first day pass? I have to admit, I escaped into my imagination. As I lay in bed I could hear the noises in the bed-and-breakfast. I could hear the voices of the policemen, and the specialists they brought in to work the scene, and the detectives, and God knows who else. There was practically constant activity, but I was somehow able to block it out for long periods of time.

In my mind, I created another reality. I imagined that Nora and I were married, that I was lying in bed, and she was next to me, sleeping. With my eyes closed, how could I know the difference?

The problems started when I had to open my eyes.

I had to answer more questions. A woman came in—I think she was a detective because she was wearing a suit instead of a uniform—and she asked me a set of questions nearly identical to the first set of questions asked by the policeman. And then, some hours after that, another man in a suit came in and did the same.

Neil didn’t stay in the room. The woman detective insisted that Neil had to leave. She said that in order to get the clearest picture of what had happened, it was vital that people not talk to each other. She told us that when people talked, they often unknowingly changed their story to fit what someone else had said. They sometimes confused something that actually happened and something they just heard had happened. So it was important to keep people separated. They couldn’t absolutely demand it, but . . . And she left us to finish the sentence for ourselves.

I didn’t care. Having Neil there was fine, but mostly because he didn’t try to talk to me, and he kept everyone else away.

After Neil left, I locked the door, then lay down again. A little while later, someone knocked. I didn’t answer. I didn’t even get up. My mother’s voice came through the door.

“Timothy. I need to talk to you.”

I didn’t answer her.

After that my father gave it a try.

“Timothy. Timothy, we need to talk about getting you a lawyer. And how you’re going to proceed with this. Timothy?”

I didn’t answer him either.

It was quiet for a while.

There was another knock on my door. I waited, but no one said anything. The knock came again, even more hesitantly. I wondered who it was—but not enough to get up and look. They must have gone away since I didn’t hear anything else.

Some time passed; I don’t know how much. Maybe I slept. When I next opened my eyes, the room was dark. Something had woken me. I heard a knock, then Neil’s voice.

“Timothy?”

I got up cracked the door for Neil. He said, “We’ve ordered food. I though you might want to come downstairs for a little while and get something to eat.”

“Why on earth would you think that?”

He made a grimace of apology. “Let me put it another way. You’re going to have to face everyone at some point, and I thought you might want to get it over with.”