Judy was three roofs away.
Frantically, I glanced around, hoping a solution would present itself. Nothing. Doing the only thing I could do, I lifted my knee and rested the sole of my scuffed-up Mary Jane on the end of the plank.
“What, what are you doing?” he stammered, and his face, which I could see clearly now, startled me. Its handsomeness was masklike, concealing something darker, unfathomable. What I’d taken for rage earlier now seemed like pain or confusion or even sadness.
Still, I feared him, so I ground my sole against the rough edge of the plank. Bits of wood splintered off. “Don’t come any closer.”
He stepped forward again, now in the middle of the bridge. The rain had flattened his thick blond hair and trailed through his chiseled features.
Judy was two roofs away.
He held out his arms like a tightrope walker. His muscular, top-heavy frame wasn’t to his advantage. He wavered, then steadied himself. The board bowed even deeper, a slight parabola. Stained with rain and sweat, his tie drooped crookedly from his neck, a doe-eyed pinup probably lurking on its flip side.
He took another step, his legs wobbly. I didn’t know what to do. Tension thrummed in my abdomen, along my thigh, in my calf, and in the arch of my foot. Why wasn’t he listening to me? As much as I was afraid of him, I was afraid for him, too. I wanted to scream: “Go back! Turn around!”
Judy was a roof away, lithe and intense, like a greyhound charging the finish line.
Cleve’s wounded and furious face rose up in my mind, followed by Jackie’s broken picture and Edith’s tears and Miss Martins’s bathtub tomb and Halo’s thrusting buttocks. Under the pressure of the images, a staccato of questions burst from me: “Why did you kill Cleve? And Jackie? And why—” The words caught in my throat. “Why did you rape and kill Christine Martins?”
His silvery blue gaze retreated. “I didn’t kill any of them—and I’d never hurt Christine that way,” he said, his face draining of anger. “I loved her. I’m chasing you and Judy because I need to know what to believe.” His eyes flickered with anguish. “I want to know if she’s my daughter.”
“Your daughter?” I said, dumbstruck.
“I think, I think so.”
Judy was nearly there.
“And her mother?” I asked. “Miss Martins?”
He nodded, sorrow working the muscles in his jaw.
My stomach twisted, churning its contents.
Miss Martins’s slender arm appeared in my mind’s eye, reaching out to me, her palm cupping the light from her bedside lamp—but that wasn’t what she was doing, was it? She hadn’t been asking for my help; she hadn’t been beckoning to me. She didn’t want him off of her. They were in love, and I was a blundering intruder, a stupid schoolgirl returning a book!
Judy was there, her foot slamming into the other end of the bridge. The board vibrated under my shoe, and Halo’s eyes flipped like shiny quarters.
His mouth gaped.
His arms shot out.
His knees broke.
Like a great dying bird, he flapped and screamed and pivoted away from me, the weight of his shoulders drawing him over—then, pure noise, white and terrible, inside and out.
He hit the alley with a dull cracking thud.
The board pursued him with a punctuated thunk, followed by the din of trash can lids.
Judy yelled at me: “Philippa! Come on! Wake up!” She was hopping up and down and waving her arms. I wasn’t sure what I was waking up from, but I shook my head to get the blood flowing. “You’ve got to hurry!” she said. “We don’t know who heard that.” I staggered over to the crumbling chimney, where she hid her cigarettes, and slouched against it. “Philippa,” she said, keeping her voice low, “you have to run and jump.” She was right. There was no other way down. My head spun, and I dropped to my knees and fell forward, bracing myself.
I didn’t know what to do. I was in no state to make the jump. With a bit more urging, I found my feet and walked cautiously to the edge. The rain was coming down harder, soaking everything. I peered over, and in the dim alley, I saw Halo’s mangled body and the plank at an angle next to him. He lay face up, legs parted and knees bent, one arm twisted underneath him, one arm outstretched. His tie was flipped up over his face absurdly, its blank interior covering part of his horrible expression. I stepped back. “I can’t do this.”
“You have to. It’s not hard. I do it all the time.”
I stared at her: Now shorter, Judy’s black bob was slick against her bony head. Edith hadn’t been able to force a new hairdo on her. Her loose button-up sweater hung wide from her shoulders. Her saturated camisole drooped away from her neck, exposing her clavicle and a slender pink bra strap. She was so beautiful and mad, so terribly mad. Why hadn’t I seen it before? I searched her eyes for recognition of what she’d just done, for a trace of remorse, but I only detected a heightened, feverish focus. I wanted to reach across the chasm and shake her and kiss her and shake her again.
“Come on, Philippa!” she said. “Just run and, about a foot away from the edge, jump. You’ll make it.”
I bent down and unfastened the straps on my Mary Janes, slid them off, and tossed them to the other roof. I backed away about twenty feet, took a deep breath, and sprinted. Every instinct told me to abort, to go back, to think it through, to recalibrate, but with the rain lashing my face, I rushed past the doubt, launched into the air, flew over the gap as if I’d grown wings, and landed on my feet, stumbling only a little.
Before I could fully recover, Judy threw my shoes to me and said, “We need to make sure he’s dead.”
I followed her down the fire escape in bare feet, the rusting metal tearing at my soft soles. A tetanus nightmare. At the bottom, I insisted that Judy stop, so I could put on my shoes. She frowned, glanced around nervously, and said, “Wait here.” I watched as she disappeared around the corner and into the alley beside Hill Estates.
The rain was coming down in waves now, so I sheltered behind a dumpster situated under an overhang. I brushed off my feet, rubbed my arches, and strapped on my shoes. After a minute or two, Judy reappeared. She was walking briskly, but not in a panic. I flagged her down, and as she neared me, she said, “I know what we’re going to tell the police. I’ve worked it out.”
I’m fairly sure that Judy didn’t overhear Halo’s revelation. She seemed too focused and too unaffected. Of course, she can be frustratingly unreadable; she’s made an art of it. She’s hot and then cold, leaning in for a kiss one day and shoving you away the next. You never know where you stand, or if she even still wants you around. One thing is clear, though. She was crushed when she discovered her birth mother wasn’t Miss Martins. If Halo knew the truth, if he were her father and Miss Martins, not the Peters woman, were her mother, the irony would be stark, a dagger in her heart.
I haven’t decided to tell her that secret, or if it’s even the right thing to do.
* * *
Before we alerted the police, we worked out the details of our story. It wasn’t difficult. After all, most of it was true. Detective Paulson, a handsome, soft-spoken man about Dad’s age, and the slim, somewhat effeminate Detective Kipps, the lead investigator on Cleve’s and Miss Martins’s cases, questioned us in separate rooms at the Peabodys’ for over two hours. I repeated everything that I’d told Quincy (who, it surprised me, wasn’t there) and then I told them something that I’d withheld—that we had followed Halo to the Daphne Arms, that he had bribed the desk clerk, and that shortly after that, we found the body. Paulson and Kipps blinked calmly at this news but said nothing.
When Paulson asked me why I went to the Closses’, I explained that I wanted to confront Halo. I knew he was Miss Martins’s attacker and suspected that he might have murdered her, Cleve, and even Jackie. “It was foolish,” I said, “but I wanted to prove he was the one—or disprove it. If he was, I wanted justice for Miss Martins and the others.” Judy had advised me to say the last part.
I told them t
hat Halo had barged in and attacked Elaine and me while we were chatting, and Judy had come to my rescue. Before the police arrived, Judy had told me that, when she heard the commotion, she’d leapt into action, rushed downstairs, and kicked a shim out from under the clock, destabilizing it. Using the wall for leverage, she’d tilted the bulky piece of furniture in Halo’s direction. I described how Halo chased us to the top of Hill Estates and, in attempting to cross on the plank, fell. “The board could hold us,” I said, “but not a man like him.”
After I’d run through the story three times, Detective Kipps asked me why Closs was chasing us. In my mind, Halo’s face warped from earnestness to horror and back again, looping like a filmstrip. I wasn’t sure how to answer Kipps’s question, even for myself. Had he been telling the truth about his relationship to Miss Martins? About who Judy was? Perhaps, but what difference did it make? He was dead. I could still feel the sensation of the plank trembling under my shoe, and my sole biting into the wood. Maybe he had been trying to find a way to explain himself to us, even if his attempts were blundering. Or perhaps he did want to shut us up or even kill us. What mattered now was protecting Judy, so I lied to Kipps: “I saw him attacking Miss Martins in her old apartment, forcing himself on her. He was a sex pervert, one of those maniacs who enjoy that sort of thing. He was going to kill us. I’m sure of it.” This seemed to satisfy them, but it made me uneasy; it felt like a line from a B movie. If they asked Judy, she’d tell them the same thing, but she’d come closer to actually believing it.
Dad and Bonnie, who sat with me while I was questioned, ushered me from the house under a large, rain-pelted umbrella to the Chrysler. During the short drive home, neither Bonnie nor Dad spoke, but I knew what was coming: They would insist I end my friendship with Judy and stay away from the Peabodys. It would be a firm, absolute statement uttered by Dad with Bonnie hovering over his shoulder, poised to swoop in and offer a sympathetic smile and a plate of cookies.
The drum of the windshield wipers soothed me, and the knot in my stomach began to release. Exhaustion rolled through me, and I closed my eyes. Would I tell Judy about Halo’s last words? I wondered. What if I didn’t? God, what if I didn’t want to? After all, Judy kept things from me. She orchestrated little manipulations here and there. Most of all, she concealed her feelings from me—and was still holding back. No, I won’t share my secret. Not yet.
When we pulled up, someone in a gray raincoat was standing on our stoop. As I scooted across the damp seat and into the downpour, I saw who it was: Quincy. His shoulders were forward and low, and he wasn’t covering himself from the weather. Without asking, I knew that something terrible had happened. Dad tried to hold his umbrella over me, but I ran out ahead of him. My cousin’s face, as always, betrayed his feelings: Sophie was dead.
CHAPTER NINE
I’m sure you’re wondering: Well, now what? The villain has been vanquished (maybe), and Judy’s true parentage has been revealed. But look at all those pages. Please tell me that it’s not just one long denouement!
Of course not. Philippa and Judy, the white hat and the black bob, have secrets, and secrets, as I explained, are a girl’s best friend… and worst enemy.
Halo’s fall bonded us—a secret we shared—but Judy wasn’t ready to tell Philippa about Charlene’s journal, about what she’d gleaned from that random page, and Philippa, well, she liked having a secret of her own. It’s hard to blame her.
You’re probably getting frustrated with me. I understand, I do. We’re over three-quarters of the way through this memoir, this diary collage, this true-crime exposé, this novel, this… whatever you want to call it, and I still haven’t told you who I am.
The truth is that, after all these years, it doesn’t matter.
But I get it. You want to know. Soon. I promise.
Until then, I want you to reflect on something: What is it like to be lied to? To be on the outside of a secret, peeping over the edge of a window on your tiptoes, wondering at the darkness? Is it dangerous? Maybe. Is it hurtful? Sometimes. Is it entertaining? Hmm. Does it matter?
That I’ll answer unequivocally: Yes, it always matters.
I wonder if you agree.
* * *
JUDY, NOVEMBER 22, 1948
After the police left, we gathered in the kitchen. For a long time, we were silent, and rain splattered against the windows. Edith began chopping carrots and onions for dinner, and Bart sipped his brandy and stared into space. The news that Halo Closs had raped and killed Miss M and, most likely, committed the other crimes, especially Jackie’s murder, was settling in. For Bart, it might be hard to swallow. If I read his body language right the other day, he’s closer to Moira than he lets on, perhaps she’s even an old flame. And Edith, she’d been so focused on Bogdan, so righteously convinced of his guilt, that I know she’s a wreck. To have bet so much on the wrong horse is humiliating.
“We should go away,” Bart said, swirling his glass. “We’ll go somewhere warm for the holidays.”
Edith turned from her preparations, lay down her knife, and walked behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes were distant but not unkind. “That’s a wonderful idea,” she said with little enthusiasm. “We could go to Miami.”
“No,” he said, perking up. “A tour of the Caribbean. Do it up right?”
Edith smiled. “And then, after the New Year, Judy will go to boarding school.”
I glared at her, and she looked away, saying, “I should finish this stew. We all need something hearty to eat.”
“Don’t send me away,” I said, pleading to Edith’s back and then to Bart, who sat across from me at the breakfast table. A flash of life without Philippa shot through me. As ridiculous as it sounds, until that second, I didn’t believe we’d be separated. “You have Jackie’s killer,” I said, my voice emitting a frantic squeak. “There’s space here for me now.”
Bart stared at his snifter. “I know it seems harsh, but it’s not a punishment. It’s for your own good.”
Philippa is the only person who understands me. The only one! I respect Iris, of course, but Philippa and I, we’re meant to be together, two halves of the same heart, two heads of the same monster. Sure, on the surface we’re different, but underneath we’re the same. We can’t be pulled apart. It would be fatal surgery. Neither of us would survive—and why should we be separated? It’s Moira’s nasty scheming, and B and E’s morose blundering. Heat rose through me, and I blasted back at them: “First, you tell me that my mother—my real mother—was raped and that I was, I was the…” I grabbed the sides of the table. “And now you’re fucking abandoning me.”
Bart turned his chin up and sniffed. I was getting to him. “Look,” he said, “it’s just for a semester. You’ll be an adult next September. You’ll be free to do whatever you want. You can find a fine young man. Go to college. You can make a life for yourself. We’ll support you financially, but you can’t stay here. We can’t have it, either of us. I’m sorry.”
“That bitch Moira. This is her idea!” I remembered her telling Bart that I needed “an environment that encourages structure and discipline.” “Why in the hell would you listen to her after everything that’s happened?” I said, nearly boiling over.
Edith stepped forward and forced a smile. “Moira has been good to us. She didn’t know what her son was capable of. We can’t punish her for her son’s evil deeds, can we?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, then a lightbulb went on. I finally understood something about B and E. Because Bogdan worked with his hands, because he was a boat mechanic, he was an acceptable choice for the role of super-evil murderous sexual pervert. This new revelation threw a wrench in their bone-deep snobbery. “Yes, okay, fine.” I imagined them telling themselves. “Halo was bad but surely he was an exception to the rule. One bad seed.”
“Besides,” Bart said, “Moira has been so helpful. She’s used her connections in the local government and the police to keep Jackie’s case alive. She di
dn’t know, she couldn’t know, that she was working to uncover the truth about her son. And now, although I wish it hadn’t happened this way—and hadn’t happened to you and Philippa—her son is dead. She’s devastated, and for us, this chapter is closing.”
B and E’s bizarre defense of Moira chilled me, but I didn’t have the energy to fight them, so I hung my head and studied the scars on my arms. I needed to see Philippa, to lay out all the pieces, to make a plan, to be near her. That’s when I first thought of it as a possibility: Could Halo be my father?
At that point, I’d only had a brief glance at Charlene’s journal. In an entry from 1929, I’d read these lines: “I met this handsome fellow—Howard ‘Halo’ Closs—and we hit it off. He’s tall and wide-shouldered and charming. He’s the center of his social circle—not my usual type, but that made it even more exciting.” Because I jumped to Philippa’s rescue, I didn’t have time to read more, and there hadn’t been time since.
As I sat across from Bart, I thought it over: If Charlene and Halo had met in 1929, then I could be their daughter. The timeline worked. Perhaps he was her rapist, and she, his victim. Or perhaps that was a big lie, too. Maybe they were lovers, not victim and villain. In my rush to protect Philippa from Halo’s thrashing, I hadn’t stopped to consider whether or not he was “our man.” In the moment, his behavior seemed to prove his guilt.
I ran my fingers over my scars. The questions Philippa had pelted at me after we discovered Miss M rose up, as if summoned by my gesture: Why would Halo unframe Bogdan? Why would he do something so damning to himself? I didn’t know, and she was right: the shamrock tie didn’t make sense. If the crime was committed impulsively, a reaction to something the goons in the gray suits told him, wouldn’t he have used his own tie or, hell, his hands? He was strong enough. For that matter, what did the scarecrow and penguin tell him? How were they involved?
I rolled back through the scene at Daphne Arms: Miss M submerged and shrouded, AHKA written in lipstick, and the pinup tie around her neck. The arch of the recessed bathtub resembled a miniature proscenium stage, and we were the audience. It was designed to free Bogdan and implicate Halo. But designed by whom?
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