“Pissed as hell. Billy's my twin brother!”
“Yes, he is. And attacking him was almost like attacking you, wasn't it?”
“Well, of course.”
“But I imagine you're a stronger sort than Billy. Maybe you have a little bit more armor.”
Defensively, Carol Marie said, “Billy's an artist. Did you know that? He writes. He's a beautiful poet.”
“I'm sure he is,” Maddy said. “I imagine Helen went into a tirade. I imagine she was giving you a lecture, telling you that you were a no-good drunk. Or something like that.”
Billy bowed his head, let the night breeze wash over him. “Something like ‘You son-of-a-bitch! You lazy bastard!’ And then she said something like it was obvious I wasn't her true son. I was too stupid for that.”
“And she was yelling at you when she missed the turnoff, right? You went straight up Edens Expressway instead of turning on the Northwest. And that's how you ended up in Northfield?”
My stomach began to tighten, to fold in on itself. Billy had told me the truth earlier. He'd explained what had happened, only I'd jumped to the wrong conclusion. Back in that church basement he'd looked right at me and told me he hadn't been the one who'd gone racing through the red light. I'd thought Billy meant it had been Ray instead. But he'd really meant Helen had been driving, hadn't he?
Maddy said, “You see, Billy, Alex told me all about your conversation in Evanston. He told me all about a conversation he had with your stepmother, Helen, too. And there are a couple of things I don't quite understand.”
Billy twisted away, walked a few steps up the path. He stood there, staring into the black woods, and his shoulders started to shake.
Right at Maddy's side, Carol Marie blurted, “Billy wasn't driving, for God's sake!”
“No, of course not.” Maddy coaxed, “She was driving and yelling at him. It wasn't the other way around, as she claimed.”
He stood there, nodding. “She missed the freeway turnoff because she was shouting and I had my eyes closed,” Billy quietly confessed. “She was going on and on. She was hysterical.”
“So you went straight up Edens, and she got off at the Northfield exit. You crossed back over the freeway and headed west, toward your home, and—”
“And she started yelling at me again. She said I was a slob and a bum. I started yelling back, you know,” said Billy, his voice calm as he stood looking into the woods. “She was such a bitch. I always hated her. She never tried to be a mother, not a real one. She was too uptight. She was a cleaning lady, nothing more. I told her that, and that made her really explode. We were in the car, shouting at each other as loudly as we could. Turned toward each other, you know. Cursing and shouting. And then I looked up. There was this car pulling out. I screamed and Helen slammed on the brakes. But it was too late. We just went plowing right into that car, right into the side of it.”
“But the police found you behind the wheel, right?” asked Maddy.
“Right.”
I heard Maddy take a deep breath. I wondered if she were going into a light trance. Or perhaps she already had. Maybe she was under and she was pulling up all the bits and pieces I'd fed to her. Putting all the words and scenes back together. Making a picture out of it, one that she could study here and now.
“Helen told Alex,” began my sister, “that the car had come from the left and that you'd hit on the passenger side. But then she said she ran around the back of her car, saw that little girl, and she—Helen, I mean —claimed that she was so upset that she collapsed on the hood of Ray Preston's car. Is that what happened?”
“We hit them, you see. There was that horrible crash. And then there was all this blood on our windshield. Helen got out immediately. She went around and then she started screaming. Something like ‘Oh, my God! My God!’ Then she told me to back up the car, someone was hurt. So I slid over.”
“You did just like she said? You backed up a few feet?” asked Maddy.
“Maybe ten.”
“The police must have arrived fairly soon?”
“Exactly.”
“And they found you behind the steering wheel.”
Billy nodded. “They realized I was drunk. Which is when they arrested me. Helen was over there crying and sobbing. She was hysterical.”
Unable to hide her disgust, Carol Marie burst in, shouting, “She did nothing! Nothing! Helen should have told the police right then that she'd been driving, but she didn't. She was so scared! She wasn't any kind of mother—she let them blame the whole thing on him! She let them take him away!”
From her chair, Maddy said, “I'm sorry, Billy.”
He bent his head, began lightly crying, said, “Even if she'd told the police, they probably wouldn't have believed it.”
He was right, I knew. They'd found Billy behind the wheel, so even if Helen had told them the truth they would have thought this was a mother trying to protect her son. A son who'd already lost his license for driving under the influence.
Maddy said, “But in any case Helen said nothing. She let them take you to jail. And she was going to let them put you on trial as well.” Her voice gentle, Maddy asked, “Billy, will you tell me one more thing?”
He stood there but didn't speak.
Maddy continued. “Were you already at your step-mother's house that night? I mean, the night when Alex was attacked, were you already there? Had you come to visit Helen, perhaps?”
“No.”
Maddy couldn't hide her surprise. “No? Then where were you?”
He slowly turned around. Slowly raised his head. Slowly looked at his twin sister.
He said, “I was at her house.”
“Were you there when Loretta called?” asked Maddy.
“Yes.”
“Then what did you do after the call?”
“Nothing.”
“Weren't you worried about Helen? Weren't you worried that she might be hurt?”
“Hell, no.” He admitted, “I was thinking how wonderful it would be if Helen were dead.”
“But what about Carol Marie? What did she do?”
Billy didn't respond. Didn't say a word.
Maddy said, “Ah, I see. She got in her car and went right over there, didn't she? Maybe she made you stay at her house. Maybe Loretta had told her Ray was over at Helen's, so perhaps Carol Marie wouldn't even let you come.”
But before Billy could respond, before Carol Marie could confirm or negate, a voice boomed through the night. We all spun, saw a figure hovering at the very end of the dock.
“No, don't listen to either one of them!” shouted Loretta across the water. “I was there, I know the truth!”
Chapter 34
Oh, God, I thought, staring out there at Loretta, whose straight hair and loose clothing were flapping in the wind. I had been right. She had circled around, somehow gotten back into the house and, quite obviously, the kitchen, for I could see a metal instrument glinting in her hand.
“Maddy, she's at the end of the dock,” I said, my voice hushed, “and she has a knife.”
A horrible memory collided with a horrible premonition, and my stomach shrank into a fist. I'd been able to stop her from committing suicide once before, but she'd been just steps away. Now, however, Loretta was out there, the other side of the path and all the way at the end of the dock, nearly fifty feet away.
Carol Marie broke into a desperate run, charging toward the pier, calling, “Loretta, please!”
“Stop!” screamed Loretta.
“But—”
“Stop!”
Carol Marie halted at the very end of the dock.
Loretta flatly shouted, “I killed Helen.”
Maddy wheeled herself up behind Carol Marie, and with a firm but gentle voice, said, “We need to talk about that, Loretta, but not just now. First, I want to tell you something. Shall we go back to the house? You'll come with me, won't you?”
“No.”
“Well, then, I'll have to tell you
right here,” continued Maddy, undaunted. “Actually, it's something that my brother, Alex, pointed out. You see, you and I have something in common.”
I couldn't help but be surprised. I didn't understand why Maddy would want to get into this now, but then again, I wasn't a shrink. I only hoped Maddy's tactic worked to defuse the situation.
“I didn't see it before, but I do now, and I think there's something quite similar about the two of us. Perhaps that's why we've always gotten along, why the chemistry was right between us,” said Maddy, as she maneuvered her chair onto the boards of the pier. “I really haven't left this island since I bought it. It's easy for me to be here—safe, you know. It's important for me to have a place, a world, where I know nothing bad can happen, and that's what this place is for me. It's the same for you. That's why you didn't like to leave your house, right?”
One hand clenching the knife, with the other Loretta made a fist and nervously demanded, “Why do you want to talk about that now? It's not important.”
“It certainly is,” countered my sister. “You see, something bad happened to me—my accident—and something bad happened to you, Loretta.” Maddy gently but bluntly asked, “Loretta, you were raped when you were quite young, weren't you?”
She twisted to the side a bit, stood looking over the black waters of the harbor. In that long moment of silence, Billy and I came up behind Carol Marie, but then Maddy motioned for us to be still.
Finally Loretta muttered, “Who told you that?”
“At the car wash?”
“Yes, that's where it happened. Who told you?”
“I just pieced it together. You and I talked in my office, remember? I enjoyed talking with you and learning about your life,” said Maddy, who wheeled four or five feet down the pier before stopping again. “How old were you?”
“Th-thirteen. I was down helping a couple of the guys. We were drying cars.” She hesitated, then added, “Daddy was up in the office.”
“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Is that why you've been afraid to go out? Were you afraid it might happen again if you left the house?”
“Sort of.I…I was the bad girl.”
“Oh, no, Loretta, you did nothing—”
Carol Marie broke in, saying, “Go ahead, Loretta, tell her.”
Loretta spun, her eyes burning, it seemed, all the way down that long pier.
“I know,” continued Carol Marie. “I went to the lawyer's because I was worried about Helen selling the house and you getting thrown out. I wanted to see Daddy's will again. But when I went there, Daddy's lawyer was gone—he retired last year—and so this time they gave me his whole file. That's when I found it, our mother's death certificate.”
Next to me, Billy said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Carol Marie glanced at her twin brother, looked away, said, “Billy, she died from cancer three weeks before we were born.”
“What? That's impossible.”
“Don't you get it? Don't you understand, Billy? Loretta's fourteen years older than we are. She was raped, Billy, and she had two children. Twins.”
“Dear Jesus,” gasped Billy.
“She's our mother.”
“Yes, of course,” softly said Maddy, her hands trembling as she moved her chair onward. “And that was why you stayed home, wasn't it, Loretta?”
Loretta stood there, face blank, eyes hollow, at the very end of that long dock. “I had to take care of them. I had to always be there. I was their mother. My father and Helen pretended the babies were theirs. Daddy said that I was a bad girl, that it was my fault. He said I asked for it, being down there with those guys all the time. He said I was bad, which was why we had to move out of the city and up to the suburbs where no one knew us. I was bad and so they took away my babies. But I was always there, always home for them.”
“Yes, and you were the best mother you could be. You gave up your life for them.” Continuing to move on, Maddy asked, “So, Carol Marie, were you at the lawyer's that day Helen was killed?”
Carol Marie hesitated, then admitted, “I'd already been talking with the lawyer, trying to find a way to prevent Helen from selling the house. But… but, yes, that was the day I went there. That was when I found the death certificate.”
“And when you got that call from Loretta saying that Helen was unconscious, you came over. I imagine you were filled with rage.”
“Helen was never a mother to me,” she said, sounding worn out. “She denied me. And she denied me my real mother.” Billy muttered, “What… what are you saying, Carol Marie?”
“So you arrived at the house,” pressed Maddy, “and there was Helen lying on the floor. Maybe Loretta was outside seeing if Alex was all right. Ray was already gone by then. He was scared and so he left. But that's when you saw the knife, the one Helen had taken from the kitchen. It was lying on the floor, and—”
Loretta shouted, “No! That's not what happened!”
“You stabbed her, didn't you, Carol Marie?” demanded Maddy, now halfway to Loretta. “And then you went outside. You had blood on your hands. Loretta was there, and she was the good mother. She washed you off with the hose, scrubbed away all the blood. You just stood there, told her—”
That phrase that had haunted me was now demystified, and I repeated, “She said, ‘It's yours.’ She was talking about the house. She'd killed Helen so that Loretta would have the house.”
“Yes, so that her real mother wouldn't be forced out of the family home. And then you and Loretta took Alex back to the hotel. That would explain why his shirt was damp—from your washed hands—and that would explain why his car was so oddly parked. Loretta, who doesn't really drive, must have driven his car back to the motel. Then Loretta went home, became worried about who the police would suspect, so—”
“No! No, that's not what happened!” shouted Loretta, raising her knife. “Leave Carol Marie alone! She did nothing! I'm the bad girl!”
“Loretta, you're not bad and you never were!” shouted Maddy, who wheeled herself forward with a forceful lunge. “Something terrible was done to you. You're a victim of a terrible incident. Just—”
“No! Now… now you stay back, you just stay away, or I'll do like Lucretia!”
“Dear God, no!” begged Billy.
Carol Marie started rushing down the dock, screaming, “Loretta, please!”
Loretta lifted the tip of the long knife to her throat, cried, “Stop! All of you just stay where you are!”
Maddy came to a quick halt, begged, “Loretta, just… just calm down. We'll get everything sorted out. Don't worry. Take a nice deep breath.” Maddy breathed in and out, in and out.
“Just don't come any closer.” Loretta lowered the knife, looked skyward at the endless night. “It's all so messed up.”
I followed Loretta's upward gaze, then said, “Loretta, what do you see up there?”
“Just millions and millions of stars and a few—” She gasped. “Oh, wait. Yes, there's some red swirling up there. A little yellow. Are those the Northern Lights? Sort of undulating, you know?”
“That's them,” said Maddy. “Are they pretty?”
“Oh, yes. Very.” Her head tilted skyward, Loretta moved to the very end of the pier, then turned and looked past my sister and at Carol Marie and Billy. “I know I was a good sister to both of you, but all I ever, ever wanted was to be a good mother.” And then to her children, she recited, “ ‘For if I die, my honour lives in thee, / But if I live, thou liv'st in my defame.’”
We all knew what those words signified, what was about to happen. What poor Loretta intended to do. In wicked slow motion, I saw her raise the knife over her own chest, then clutch it in both hands. I started running. Maddy, who was so afraid of that dock, was racing forward, propelling herself as fast as possible, no thought about jetting off into the water.
“No!” screamed Maddy.
But Loretta was just too far away. With one hard thrust, I saw her plunge the knife through her chest and i
nto her body, spearing her heart of pain. Loretta didn't scream, didn't utter a sound as she pushed the blade as deeply as it would go. She gazed down at the handle sticking out of her body, looked up at her offspring, and then fell backward and off the dock. And like a bird who'd never left the nest, she tumbled through the air, crashing into the dark, chilly waters.
Epilogue
None of what happened that night will ever be pleasant to recall, and I hope one day to bury it all deep enough in my memory that nothing, not even hypnosis, will be able to unearth it. In the meantime, I keep reliving it, humming the sequence of events like a bad tune lodged in my head.
After Loretta crashed into the water, I lunged forward and grabbed the back of my sister's wheelchair before she, too, went tumbling off the pier. I then dove in and retrieved Loretta, but there really wasn't anything to be done, no way we could have saved her. The autopsy, which later found no water in her lungs, confirmed that Loretta had been dead by the time she fell into the harbor.
God, what a mess. It was such chaos and pandemonium, all of us yelling and crying, and my sister, who couldn't see how hopeless it was, screaming that I plug the knife hole and try mouth-to-mouth. Instead, as the blood dripped between the boards of the dock and into the lake, I just knelt by Loretta, watched as her body grew paler and paler yet.
The authorities—I guess it was the sheriff—arrived about an hour later. Questions galore, all that kind of stuff. It was suicide, though. All of us provided eyewitness testimony of that. But it was my sister who also informed the sheriff that he'd better arrest Carol Marie for the murder of Helen Long. That prompted a series of phone calls to Chicago, and when the police boat finally left the island that night, it carried not only the body of Loretta, but also her two children, both of them handcuffed, for it seemed that the inquiry to Chicago had turned up Billy's drunk-driving file as well. The last I heard, both brother and sister were still in jail, their independent cases pending. Ray Preston supposedly had some hot lawyers trying to prove Billy guilty of vehicular manslaughter. Who knew what would happen, what supposed truth they'd finally arrive at. I really didn't care. Or rather, I did care but I was doing my best not to.
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