“I didn’t do it. Poison William. You have to believe me.” Jason’s eyes were wide and scared, and Marcie thought he’d dropped some pounds as he sat down opposite her. Not even so much as a How are you honey? before going straight to his denials.
It was just the two of them in the interview room.
“Well, neither did I, but that didn’t stop you from telling the police about the yearbook and Jonny.”
“Someone told them that they thought I’d been embezzling money.”
“What?” Marcie stared at him. “You thought that was me?”
He shrugged.
“God, Jason, whether you did it or not, it’s wrecked my life. They’ve frozen the accounts. I’ve had to borrow money from Iris and I’m never going to be able to pay for the house. Not even one payment. Even if I’d known there was anything wrong”—she knew as well as he did not to admit to any wrongdoing in a visiting room—“why would I have told them?”
“Because you don’t love me anymore.”
It was another slap in the face, even if there was an element of truth in it. He sounded like a petulant boy. “Me not love you?” she snapped. “You’re the one who’s been salivating all over Keisha since she arrived.” Marcie knew the best way to get the truth out of Jason was always to be aggressive. Put him on the back foot. “You know the police think that maybe you two are in it together? Tried to make me look guilty so you could run away into the sunset together. Maybe you met her in London when you were there.”
“Jesus, Marcie.” Jason leaned back in his chair. “She’s a cheap money-grubber. I flirted with her to make you jealous. Nothing was good enough for you anymore. I could see you growing colder to me. I wanted our fire back! Our passion! When you got so testy about her it made me unhappy. Sure, it was an unhealthy way to get your attention, but it worked. Also, if I was going to conspire to murder someone—which I didn’t—it wouldn’t be with someone as flaky as her. You’ve seen what she’s like!”
“But what about the money?”
“That wasn’t me. It’s all a misunderstanding.” He stared at her, a reminder, as if she needed one, that there was no way he was going down without a fight or at least a plea deal.
“But what if it was you? That’s what the police think. If William found out and reported it, you’d be sent to jail for God knows how many years. Were you just going to sit back and let him? I can’t see that.” She sighed. “But neither can I get my head around the idea of you trying to kill him.”
“Even if it was true—which it’s not—William would never have gotten the police involved, don’t you see that?” Jason leaned forward, taking one of her hands and gripping it tight. “He wouldn’t let the company get damaged like that. He’d have made me resign, claim some ill health or something, but he would never have let what I’d done come to light. It would have wrecked the partnership and ruined his reputation. People would have thought he was a fool. He was already feeling stupid for marrying Keisha so quickly. He would never have allowed me to make a fool of him publicly as well. Yes, we’d probably have had to sell and move, but we wouldn’t be poor and it wouldn’t have been worth killing him over. Someone trying to kill him has actually made my potential situation worse. You have to believe me, Marcie.” He stared hard at her. “You know me.”
He was right. She did know him, and odious as he could be, he was right. He’d have taken his chances with William’s wrath rather than kill him and face a possible death sentence. That was too real for Jason.
Whereas Jason had been immediately on the defensive, Keisha was the opposite. Even now, when she’d been locked up for nearly the maximum four days and was more than likely about to be charged with attempted murder rather than released, her first words were concern for Marcie.
“Are you okay?” she said, as she took Marcie’s hand. “I’ve been worried about you. About Jason being charged with all that money stuff. What will you do?”
“Survive, I guess. What else can I do?” It was strange being here with her again. Beautiful Keisha, a blend of such fragility and strength, who still, if her racing heart was to be believed, held a tight grip on her. “I’m so sorry I snapped at you at the party. Jason had just gotten my high school yearbook. I guess your attorney told you about that?”
Keisha nodded. “He told me. It’s so weird. Billy got an envelope that night too. It was a photo. From that voodoo rave thing we went to. The first time we . . . well, you know what we did. In the picture I was asleep on the grass and I only had my knickers on. Don’t look so worried, you weren’t in it. Your arm is but that’s it. No one would know you were pretty much naked beside me.”
Marcie flinched at what Keisha was revealing but if perky Kate Anderson quizzed her on it, they’d danced at a party and gotten a little wild. So what? What was more important was that someone had been watching them. Taking photos.
“William lost his shit,” Keisha continued. “The final straw for me with him I think. But what’s so odd . . .” She leaned forward and Marcie thought that even here, her breath was sweet and warm and fresh, and she wanted to dip her tongue into that mouth.
“What’s so odd,” Keisha continued, “is that the police haven’t mentioned it. It’s gone. Someone must have taken it that night. But who?”
“Zelda? You thought you saw her.”
“Yeah, but she would have left it so the police would find it. And she wouldn’t do anything to William.”
“Maybe William destroyed it?”
“He wouldn’t have done that. It was evidence against me. That I was a bad wife.”
Marcie half-smiled, once again irreverent in Keisha’s company. “To be fair, you weren’t a great one.”
“I know I wasn’t. But I didn’t hurt him. Honestly. They think I did the conjure ball and the juju dolls myself, but I didn’t. I know I wished him dead, I know, but I didn’t do it.” Her eyes welled up. “It’s all so confused in my head. It’s dark magic, I know it is. I kept seeing that old woman with the orange hair. She’s something to do with all this. Her and Zelda together maybe. Remember when we first saw her in the square? She called us ghosts.” She shivered. “I’m so tired of ghosts. I think she knew I was cursed. From the boy. Could sense it maybe. Maybe I’ve tainted you all with it.”
Seeing how Keisha was drifting, Marcie switched topics. She didn’t give a shit about juju dolls, whatever they were. “That day you came around and I gave you the Xanax. Where did you go after that? William came to the house looking for you.”
“I went out to that place where the party was,” Keisha said. “The Truman Parkway. I figured I could score something down there to keep me going. The stuff you gave me wasn’t touching the sides and I knew I needed more. I did manage to buy a few pills, Oxy supposedly, but it didn’t really work. I should have taken the scrip you offered.”
When Jason had gripped Marcie’s hand, it was as if he were a drowning man determined to be saved or to make her drown too. With Keisha there was just warmth in it. Care. Love maybe. For all her tears and craziness, Keisha was tougher than Jason. She squeezed her hand back. If Keisha had been scoring drugs that day then she hadn’t spent it with Jason.
“God, no wonder they think I’m guilty,” Keisha finished. “I’m such a mess.”
“Anderson seems to believe maybe you and Jason did it together. Maybe you knew each other in London before you came here.”
“I know.” Keisha half-laughed. “How ridiculous. Like I could ever fall in love with Jason.” Her face dropped back into sadness. “I’m in love with you.” Despite everything, the words made Marcie’s heart soar.
Her spirits were still lifted when she saw Anderson and Washington waiting for her in the corridor. Kate Anderson was still riled at being coerced into allowing Marcie to visit, but there was also an amused glint in her eyes.
“So you were getting naked with the second Mrs. Radford. Now that would be quite the Savannah scandal, don’t you think? Your fancy legal connections might not have b
een so keen to do you any favors if they knew about that.”
“We took off a few clothes while dancing,” Marcie said, not pausing as she walked past them. “It’s nothing.”
“The first time we . . . well, you know what we did. Sounds pretty straightforward to me. How about to you, Washington?”
The big man grinned. “I’d watch the movie.”
“You’re disgusting.” Marcie couldn’t wait to get out of the station.
“Hey, not me.” Anderson held her hands up. “I’m a sucker for a beautiful woman and she’s a beautiful woman. I can see why you would.”
A dyke, Marcie thought. Of course she is. No doubt thinking Marcie was just a straight bored housewife wondering what it was like to act like a lesbian.
“So,” Kate Anderson said, as she held open the door, the sunlight making Marcie flinch, “it seems to me you had plenty to gain by William Radford’s death. A lover who’d be a rich widow or getting your thieving husband off the hook and keeping your life of luxury.”
“But I wasn’t there, was I?” Marcie said, her tone like sharp lemons on teeth. “I couldn’t have poisoned him.”
Anderson said nothing but raised an eyebrow as if to suggest that this wasn’t over yet.
“Have a good day, Mrs. Maddox,” Washington said.
“Screw you,” Marcie muttered under her breath in reply. “Screw both of you.”
56.
In Keisha’s dream, she was a marionette. She danced and danced, endlessly, her arms and legs pulled this way and that by wires that grew directly out of her skin. She was on a podium under a spotlight in a circus tent, and as she cried out to stop, exhaustion overwhelming her, the audience clapped and called out for more.
Uncle Yahuba, the ringmaster, cracked his whip, and overhead in the vast darkness her strings were pulled harder, the movement threatening to tear her flesh. A face lunged out of the crowd—Billy—laughing and applauding, cut wires dangling from his wrists. “Bravo! Bravo!” he called out. Beside him Auntie Ayo was on her feet, her whole body shaking as she yelped her delight. But they weren’t cheering for Keisha. Their shining eyes were turned upward. To whoever was making her dance.
She woke in a sweat, her heart racing, scratching at her arms to free herself, crying out for Marcie. She still hadn’t shaken the dregs of the dream away properly when her attorney arrived and told her the English police were flying an officer over. They had some questions of their own to ask.
When she got back to her cell, she scratched at her arms until they were nearly raw, and yet still she was sure she could feel wires tugging at her skin.
57.
Marcie had barely slept all night, a knot of fear in her stomach, her mind going over everything with a fine-tooth comb. Poor Jason, now charged and locked up and likely to stay that way until he was old. It made her feel strange, and despite her anger with him and her lust for Keisha, she had an awful ache of grief inside for him. So handsome. So charming. So youthful still. All that would be gone by the time he next saw freedom, if Anderson had her way. Love didn’t end overnight, she was realizing. She was still grieving for her marriage, for the man she’d fallen in love with, even if he wasn’t that person anymore. Maybe he never had been and she was mourning someone she’d invented.
She hadn’t poisoned William and she hadn’t embezzled any money, so that should have left her calm, but she wasn’t so sure that innocence was a guarantee of safety in this investigation. What if neither Keisha nor Jason had tried to kill William? Keisha wasn’t that calculating and Jason might be a lying thief but he wasn’t brave. This kind of murder required an element of bravery. And she figured he was right that William wouldn’t have wanted the scandal if he’d found out what Jason was up to. They’d both been so earnest when they’d spoken to her. No eyes sliding to one side, hiding truths. She’d bet money—if she had any—that they were telling the truth. But if she wasn’t guilty and they weren’t guilty, then who was?
She came out of her final jewelry stop—the diamond specialist—and as she tucked the envelope of cash in with the rest she’d gathered over the morning, the same name flashed in neon over and over in her head. Jacquie. It could only be Jacquie. The divorce had been bitter and now she wanted her revenge on Jason and Marcie for what they’d done.
In the car, she counted out five thousand dollars from her healthy bundle of bills and wrapped a band around it to take to Iris at the hospital before starting to reverse the car out of the tight space. She frowned as she looked in the rearview mirror. Something was stuck under the wiper on the back window. Irritated, she pulled the car level and got out to see what it was.
When she got close and realized what was trapped under the plastic, her skin crawled with horror. A coarsely made juju doll. She pulled it free, despite her revulsion, the fabric familiar under her fingertips—silk—a red slash of a mouth stitched in. Was this meant to be her?
She looked frantically around the parking lot for anyone familiar who might have left it, but all she saw were strangers going about their business, paying her no attention at all. Suddenly vulnerable, she scrambled back into the car and threw the doll onto the floor by the passenger seat, before locking the doors and turning the air-conditioning up high so the cool air would calm her down. She grabbed her cell to call Detective Anderson and then stopped. They’d probably think she made it herself to cast suspicion away from Jason or Keisha. She needed more than just this doll before she faced the police again.
Jacquie, Jacquie, Jacquie. The name rang like a death knell in her head. Jacquie had Creole roots, isn’t that what Iris had said? Did Jacquie believe in all this shit too? William and Keisha had dolls made in their likenesses and now William was half-dead and Keisha was locked up. Marcie didn’t believe in the magic but she did believe in the symbolism. That there was a message being sent in this doll. Was it a threat? A warning? What fate did the doll maker have in store for Marcie? Death or prison or what? And if this doll was telling her anything it was that the clock was ticking. She needed evidence against Jacquie. And fast.
Marcie raced through the hospital so fast she was breathless by the time she reached William’s room.
Elizabeth was in what Marcie was coming to think of as her “vigil chair,” a carpetbag on the floor beside her, Moby-Dick resting on top of a sweater and whatever else, perhaps toiletries, she’d brought with her. Emmett was standing behind her, one hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder, a gesture of support, as they both watched the shell of a man in the bed. Emmett immediately began babbling some apology for not telling Marcie about Jason’s investments, presuming that she’d known—which she didn’t believe for a second, he just hadn’t cared in that boys’ club way—and she wanted to change the subject and save them both the embarrassment.
“Isn’t Virginia with you?” she asked. It was odd seeing William still the center of attention but so passive. What conversations had they had around him? Could he hear them talking as if he weren’t there or were dead already, or discussing the twenty-four-hour care he was going to need even if they did ever let him out of here? How awful that must be. Did William even like Moby-Dick? She tried to imagine Elizabeth attempting to do characters’ voices and reading loudly when maybe all William wanted to do was rage at her to shut up and leave him in peace to sleep. But maybe not. Maybe he cherished every word of company. He should, she thought. People moved on. If he didn’t die quickly he’d be spending a lot of time alone in the dark with his thoughts.
“She was here earlier,” Emmett said. “She’s at the church helping prepare for tomorrow’s special service to pray for William’s recovery.” He looked back at the body in the bed, instilling his nasally voice with false good cheer. “A lot of people will be sending prayers to the big guy on your behalf in the morning, buddy. I fully expect you to be up and tap-dancing by lunchtime.”
Buddy. How William would hate the lack of respect wrapped up in that word, and she couldn’t imagine Emmett’s ever having used that mildly patroniz
ing tone around William when he was his normal self. But then William’s power was gone now. Washed away. He’d been reduced to something less than a child. He would never be William as they knew him again, and whatever he was hearing or thinking there was nothing he could do about it anymore. It was a horrific thought and she couldn’t bear to stay in the room. “I was hoping to find Iris here. I needed to see her.”
“She’s getting us coffee. Just down the hall,” Elizabeth said. “In the family room.”
“Thank you.”
Marcie hadn’t realized she’d been breathing shallowly until she was scurrying back around the corner near the reception desk, as if what was wrong with William was infectious, and she sucked in three deep breaths before going to join Iris, who looked up as she poured cream into china mugs. “Oh, Marcie. I didn’t realize you were coming in today.”
The coffee smelled strong and rich. Nothing about this place was cheap. “I called your house earlier and Noah said you’d be here,” Marcie said. She pulled out the bundle of cash from her purse and held it out. “Your money back. Thank you so much for lending it to me.”
“That was quick. Are you sure you don’t need it?” Iris looked surprised, as if she’d never expected to see her cash again.
“I sold a few pieces of jewelry. I’m okay for now.” Marcie smiled, as sweetly as she could muster. “But it was so lovely of you to help out. I know it can’t be easy after what Jason has done. I feel awful.”
Iris softened and squeezed her hand. “You haven’t done anything, Marcie. And you really didn’t have to sell anything to get me that money back. No one is judging you for what Jason has done.”
Marcie thought the sentiment was sweet but found it hard to believe, especially with her own past now in the mix.
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