Since I still didn’t have a car of my own, Becca drove me home. We were quiet; each of us reflecting on the day’s events. Attending a child’s funeral—the child of my best friend—was the hardest thing that I have ever done and I hoped to never, ever have to do it again.
When we pulled up in front of my house, Becca put the car in park and turned to face me. “So, what do we do now?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Becca. Just get back to our lives, I guess.”
“What happens to the Lucys?”
“That’s over, Becca. Those days are done. We just need to go on with our lives and never, ever tell anyone about it.”
“I don’t ever want to tell anyone about it. I just want it to go away. I wish we had never done any of it.”
“I know, but we did and at the time we thought we were doing the right thing.”
“But we weren’t!” .
“
“We were trying to help our families. Maybe what we did was wrong but our reasons weren’t.”
“I know. I just feel soguilty all the time. And I don’t know how to get past it.”
“Time, Becca. Only time can help. We can get through this, I promise.” ”
I looked up at the house, and to my surprise, Andy stood on the porch. His expression worried me.
“Hey, Becca, I have to go inside. Andy has that look of his. I think something is wrong.” I leaned over and gave her a quick hug and then opened the door and got out of the car. Becca drove off and I headed toward the porch where Andy stood. He held a piece of paper as he watched me walk toward him.
“Hi, honey.” I greeted him as cheerfully as I could force.
“How was the funeral?” he asked.
“Hard. And really sad.But the home did a beautiful job. I think that when she looks back on it, Laura will appreciate all that they did.”
Andy opened the door and motioned for me to go ahead of him into the house. He followed and then turned and secured the locks on the door.
I walkedtoward the kitchen and he followed me, unusually silent for my husband. When we reached the kitchen, he handed me the piece of paper in his hand and stood watching my face as I opened it.
In big black letters, the word INTERPOL screamed at me from the top of the page. Below the letters a woman stared back at me. She had long, straight black hair with heavy bangs that reached just below her eyebrows and a serious expression. But what really got me were her eyes. They were familiar eyes. I recognized her almost instantly. A familiar pain shot through my head.
Claire.
“Who is it?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“She’s an international thief. We just received the bulletin from INTERPOL this morning.”
“Oh?” I murmured.
“Yes.”
“So, why are you showing it to me?” I asked Andy as he continued to eye me.
“Doesn’t she look familiar to you?” he asked.
“No, not really.” I absolutely hated lying to my husband.
“Look more closely. Look at her eyes.”
I held the paper close to my face and studied it intently. “She looks a bit like our neighbor Joan Crawford but much too young.” Ha! Take, that, Joan!
“Are you absolutely certain you don’t know her?”
“Yes. I have never seen her before.” I handed the paper back to Andy.
“You’re sure.”
“Yes. Why are you asking me?” I asked him when he just stood and looked at me.
He shrugged. “I think she looks an awful lot like your friend Claire.”
“Hmmm….” I grabbed the paper and looked at it again. “I suppose you could say that. But this woman has long, thick, dark hair and Claire definitely doesn’t. ”
Andy continued to study my face, searching for proof that I might be hiding something. He turned away abruptly and mumbled something that I couldn’t quite make out as he left the room.
I mopped at my forehead with the dishcloth and took a deep breath. The dread I had been carrying around with me in my gut spread all over me.
As I contemplated what to do next, the doorbell chimed.
Saved by the bell!
When I opened the door, the smiling, suspicious face of Joan Crawford stood on my front stoop. “Hello, Joan, what can I do for you?” The formality of my question seemed so ironic in the realm of why she was standing on my porch.
“Oh, Susie!” Her voice was smooth as caramel and laden with fake friendship. “I just came by to see how you are after the funeral. Is your friend doing okay?”
“Her daughter just died, Joan. I don’t think she’s going to be okay for a long, long time.”
“Oh,well, I suppose you might be right about that.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ve had a long day and I think I’m going to lay down for a bit.” I started to close the door but Joan stuck her foot in the way and stopped it.
“I was also wondering how you were doing after your fall last week.”
“Fall?” Andy asked, over my shoulder.. “What fall?”
Joan cranked up the fake sweetness as she batted her eyelashes at Andy. “Oh, didn’t Susie tell you? She tripped on your front walk the other day and hurt her knee pretty badly, bless her heart. I just wanted to make sure that she was all right. You know, with all of her other recent …problems.”
Andy pushed by me so that he was standing in the doorway. I saw him study Joan’s face, wondered if he wereactually comparing the nosey bitch to the picture he’d just shown me.
“Well, that was such a large bandage you had on it, I thought maybe you needed to get a few stitches.” She spoke the words with a smile but her eyes were sharp, watching my every expression and movement. She was testing me.
“I don’t know what you mean, Joan.” I sure hoped I sounded convincing. “It was just a scrape.”
Her gaze moved from me to Andy and back again. I kept my expression blank and my smile as fake as hers..
“Are you sure dear? That was quite the nasty spill you took. I was certain that I saw you with a bandage.”
Andy eyed us both curiously, aware that something was going on but not quite sure what. The longer Joan stood on my front step the more nervous I got that Andy would start to catch on. I had to get rid of her and fast.
“I am not at all sure what you think you saw, but my knee is fine. I tripped. It was a scratch and it’s gone now.So, if you will excuse us please, it's been a long few days.” I slammed the door in Joan’s face.
“What was that all about?” I couldn’t really get a read on Andy as he waited for my answer.
“I have no idea.” I shrugged and tried to step around him.
Andy blocked my path. “Why didn’t you tell me you fell?”
“I didn’t think it was important.” Just then the telephone rang.
Saved by the bell again.
Without waiting for Andy to say anything I pushed by him and ran to the kitchen to grab the phone. I knew it was only prolonging his questions but at least it gave me time to work up a good defense in case I needed it.
“Hello?” I said into the receiver.
“Susie? It’s Laura!” Becca sounded borderline hysterical.
“What’s wrong, Becca?” I asked.
“It’s Laura. She's collapsed! They found some pills. Susie, she was unconscious!”
“Where is she? I will get Andy to take me.”
“At General. I will meet you there!” The connection went dead.
“Damn it!” I slammed both hands down on the counter and cursed loudly. “Andy! I need to go to the hospital!” I yelled down the hall as I gathered up my purse and slipped my feet back into the heels I had just removed.
Andy came back into the kitchen. “What’s wrong, Susie?”
“You have to drive me to the hospital. It’s Laura.”
I ran out of the kitchen and down the hall toward the door. I could hear Andy behind me calling out to his mother that we were going to the h
ospital. Without waiting for him, I climbed into the front seat of his cruiser and waited impatiently for him to join me, tapping my foot against the floorboard and my fingers on the armrest.
When he finally got into the car, he started it immediately and backed out of the driveway. Flipping on his lights and sirens he sped along the roads toward the hospital. I twisted my hands in my lap wishing Andy drove the Batmobile. Anything that could get me to Laura faster.
32
Never, Ever Ask What Could Happen Next
As tall as she was, Laura looked as tiny as Mia in the hospital bed in the intensive care unit. Wires and tubes were everywhere. Digital screens blipped and bleeped. The glow of the monitors in the dimly lit room, cast an eerie light on Laura’s pale face. I clutched Andy’s hand as I stood in the doorway looking at my friend.
How did we get here? How did things get so bad that my best friend shot someone, lost her daughter to cancer and tried to kill herself all in a week?
“You should go sit with her,” Andy said gently. “Hold her hand and talk to her. She will know you are here and it could help.”
I nodded slightly and took a step forward.
“Honey, you have to let go of my hand.”
“Oh, right.” I dropped his hand and took a couple of steps toward Laura. I wondered where the rest of the family was. Her husband should have been here at least.
“I will be right back,” Andy said from behind me. “I’m going to go and see what I can find out.”
I nodded as I looked down on my best friend and I wondered if she had felt so sad and scared when I was the one in the hospital bed. I picked up Laura’s hand with my left hand and pushed back her damp hair from her forehead with my right hand before leaning down and kissing her lightly where the matted hair had just been.
“Oh, Laura,” I whispered in her ear, “what have you done?”
Her hand twitched slightly in mine and I knew that she could hear me. The respirator in her trachea would prevent her from speaking but I didn’t care. As long as she knew I was with her.
“Oh! You are here already.” Becca said from the doorway. I looked over my shoulder at the woman standing behind me. Her eyes were red, her cheeks stained with tears. She kept wringing her hands and pushing her hair behind her ears. The stress of the events of the last week had created hollows in her cheeks and deep, dark circles under her eyes.
“You need to pull yourself together, girl. You’re a hot mess.”
Becca sniffed. “I know but I can’t help it. Look at her, Susie. And it’s all because of Claire.”
“How could it possibly be Claire’s fault that Laura tried to kill herself?” I snapped.
“It was all her from the start! She spent years making friends with us just so she could pull us into her little web of deceit. If she had never talked us into it, we never would have robbed the bank and Laura never would have shot that woman!”
“Shhhh! Come on, Becca. Let’s not talk about that here. You are going to give us away.”
“I don’t care!” She stamped her foot for emphasis. “I can’t live with myself. We werewrong, Susie!” She was sobbing, her pain and guilt pouring out of her with her tears. I had to suppress the overwhelming urge to slap her.
“What were you so wrong about?” Andy asked from the door.
Becca looked at me, fear in her expression and a plea for help shadowed in her eyes.
I gave her a look that hopefully said shut up and turned to talk to Andy. “To think that Laura would be okay after Mia died. We should have gone home with her.”
“The doctor says she should pull through. They got her here in time to get the majority of the pills out of her stomach.”
“Oh, thank God. Did you hear that Becca?”
I turned around to find my friend curled into the fetal position on a lounge chair next to Laura’s bed.
“Go to her,” Andy said, giving me a nudge toward Becca. “I’ll be out in the waiting room. Your friends need you.”
I raised up on tip toe and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Thanks, honey. You’re the best. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
After Andy left the room, I walked over and crouched down in front of my friend. “Bec? Look at me for a minute.”
She peered at me through watery eyes and wet lashes. “This is so wrong, Susie.”
I picked up her hands and held them in mine. “I know, sweetie. But there is nothing we can do to change it.”
“Do you think we are being punished? For what we did?”
“I don’t for one second believe that Mia got cancer because of our actions. She definitely didn’t die because of it. And Laura’s choice to—do this—was just that—her choice.”
The movement of a shadow made me look up. There, standing in the doorway with an indescribable expression on his face, was Andy. I stood up and met his stare.
“How long have you been standing there?” I asked quietly.
“Long enough,” Andy replied, a coldness to his words that sent a chill through me..
For a few incredibly long seconds we just stared at each other. Finally, he broke eye contact and lifted a piece of paper up to eye level that he held in his hand.
“I knew you were lying to me when I showed you that picture from Interpol. I just didn’t know why. And then Joan Crawford showed up and I knew the two of you were volleying around something but I wasn't sure what. Well, guess who I just ran into out at the nurse's station? Tommy. He gave me this.”
He shoved the paper in my face. It was a grainy, black and white picture of me in my Lucy outfit standing by the front door of the bank, pointing a gun at the security guard. A perfect frontal shot. But there was no way anyone could tell it was me.
And then I saw it. The bandage on my knee completely visible below the hem of my skirt.
“I didn’t want to believe Joan but after hearing you and Becca and now this… Damn it, Susie! How could you do something like that?”
“I didn’t do anything.” The words were weak and pathetic and we all knew I’d spend years in pergutaroy for that lie.
“Let me see your knee, Susie.” Andy wasn’t asking.
I could feel all the blood draining from my face. From somewhere behind me I heard Becca whimper. As I looked into my husband’s eyes I saw all of the love, all our hopes, our dreams, just fade away and I knew. From this moment on, life would never, ever be the same again.
Slowly, I lifted the leg of my jeans. There, just below the knee was the last remants of the my fall—a scab and some leftover redness.
“No. You wouldn’t—”
“Andy, I can explain.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
“Andy…” I stepped toward him.
“Don’t, Susie. Stay away from me. The woman in the picture—.”
“You were right. It was Claire Mitchell,” I answered quietly. Becca had dropped to the floor in a whimpering mass.
“And it was Laura that shot that woman?”
“Yes. She had just found out about Mia.”
“Did you give this any thought at all?”
“Of course, I did! I thought about how I lost my job and nearly died. I thought about my children being cold and hungry when Lawrence repossessed our home! I thought about losing everything and how I had to do something!”
“And your solution was to become an armed robber?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have too. We both knew the answer. I felt my heart breaking slowly with every blip of the heart monitor as I watched my life slip away in my husband’s eyes.
Finally, he spoke. “You know I am going to have to arrest both of you, right?”
“Yes.” I nodded my acknowledgement. “I know.”
I turned to Becca who had curled up on the floor in the fetal position. I squatted down next to her and took her hand.
“Come on, Becca. Stand up. It’s over. Andy has to take us into custody now.”
“Are we going to
jail?” she asked between whimpers.
“Yes,” I answered. “It’s okay though. Andy will take us and it will be all right.”
She rolled over and took a seated position. “Okay.” She rubbed her eyes with her coat sleeve. “I’m sorry, Andy. I am so sorry.”
I stood up and offered her my hand to pull her from the floor. She accepted and stood next me, a bit wobbly but with a determined look on her face.
“Okay, I’m ready,” she said.
“Susie Timmons and Becca Hansen, you are both under arrest for armed robbery and attempted murder in the commission of a felony. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be assigned to you. Do you understand these rights?”
“Yes,” we both replied at the same time.
“All right then, let’s go. I am not going to handcuff you because I do not have any cuffs with me but I expect you both to walk out of here without incident. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” we replied in unison again.
Andy had turned all business. He didn’t say another word as we left the hospital. I could feel his anger at my betrayal emanating from him in waves. Everything I had ever known and loved was lost in that one moment.
For the first time ever, I rode in the back of Andy’s patrol car. Becca and I remained silent as Andy made his way through the streets of Virginia Beach to the police department headquarters. I heard him radio ahead and request other officers to meet him at the front door. When he was asked why, he simply stated that he had two suspects in the Lucy robberies.
I tried unsuccessfully not to cry but failed miserably. By the time he pulled up at the station I was a total hot mess.
Two uniformed officers stood on the steps waiting for him. Andy got out of the car and handed one of them his keys. As he walked up the steps one of the officers looked directly at me. I recognized him as a friend of Andy’s I had met at several police department functions. His mouth dropped open and his eyes went as wide as saucers.
The Heist Page 20
