Last Day

by Luanne Rice

  “What did she say about it?” Kate asked.

  “She was under a lot of pressure,” Scotty said. “She felt she had to make everyone happy.”

  That’s what Jed said, Kate thought.

  “To the point it completely messed with her moral compass,” Scotty continued.

  “Her moral compass?” Lulu asked with complete incredulity in her voice. “She was an amazing, complicated woman.”

  “Yes, she was,” Scotty said. “She taught me so much. Even at the soup kitchen. She didn’t just serve the meals. She sat down with everyone, wanted to hear about their lives. She was interested. And I’ve gotten that way too. I don’t just go there so I can be all church lady and say, ‘Oh, I’m such a good person.’ I look forward to it. Getting to know new friends. People who got in trouble but are trying to turn their lives around.”

  “I had no idea you were so involved,” Kate said.

  “Well, like I said, Beth taught me. The ones who knew her miss her terribly. They want to know what’s happening with her case, and I do my best to fill them in and let them get their feelings out. You just wouldn’t believe the emotion. It’s a completely different perspective than you get in stuffy old Black Hall.”

  Kate smiled at Scotty. She could hear an echo of Beth’s compassion in her words. Lulu stretched on the blanket, September sunbathing. Scotty squeezed Kate’s hand, mouthed Love you, then peered at her phone’s screen, scrolling through Facebook.

  Love. Kate thought of the words in love. Love, in love, love, in love. Such different states of being, of feeling. An image came to her mind—a man and a woman standing in an art gallery, close enough to kiss each other. She remembered that moment of feeling desire. The memory of Conor came with an emotion too strong to bear, so she pushed it away.

  While the girls continued to scrub the garish paint off the granite boulder, as the muted soft browns and grays emerged again, streaks of pearl-white quartz, Kate walked farther down the beach. She pictured her sister and Scotty at the soup kitchen; it sounded as if Beth was guiding Scotty still.

  Just before Kate got to the next rock outcropping, she stopped. She cleared a patch of seaweed from the tide line and used her driftwood branch to write in the sand. Crouching down, she wrote her sister’s name. She wrote her own. She drew two hearts, two drops of blood. She drew a full moon and squiggled a path of light on the waves. She drew stairs leading to a basement. She drew stick figures of one woman and two girls tied together, heads bowed. She enclosed the entire tableau in a heart.

  46

  Scotty stared at Kate, halfway down the beach, and wondered what she would have thought to know Beth had considered doing something drastic about the baby. Beth hadn’t actually put it into words, but she’d expressed such misgivings. She’d been just a few weeks along, fighting morning sickness at the soup kitchen. Scotty had hustled her outside, away from the lunch line and the smells of roast chicken and sweet potatoes.

  “How am I going to do this?” Beth had asked. “I can’t handle it.”

  “You’re just upset,” Scotty had said. “Not thinking clearly, understandably.”

  “Scotty, I’m so worried. I’m terrified about what’s going to happen, how it’s going to affect Sam, our whole family. God, what a mess I’ve made of everything.”

  “A new little baby to love,” Scotty said. “How is that a mess?”

  “Pete? Jed?” Beth said.

  “It’s not about them,” Scotty said.

  “Well, actually it is,” Beth said. “And what about Sam? I feel as if we’ve already failed her—she’s going downhill. You see it when she’s with Isabel, don’t you?”

  “She’s holding her own,” Scotty said. She’d grabbed some saltines from the condiment table, and she ripped open the cellophane and handed Beth a cracker. Beth leaned against the church wall and took tiny nibbles.

  “I don’t think she is,” Beth said.

  “Frankly, Beth, I don’t see how that enters the equation. Look at my family! We were perfect—we thought we were—Nick, me, and our amazing Isabel. Then Julie, with her problems—you can’t imagine how hard it’s been. I don’t complain; I never would—but there have been sacrifices. Do we love her any less because she has issues?”

  “I know how much you love her.”

  “Both my children. And you’ll love both of yours,” Scotty said.

  “I know. Of course,” Beth said, slowly eating the rest of the cracker. “I’m just scared, Scotty. I never thought this would be my life.”

  “None of us ever think our lives would be our lives,” Scotty said. She stared hard at Beth and wondered what she was planning. What had she really meant when she’d said she couldn’t handle it? Scotty had plenty of problems, and Beth had no idea. Beth had the perfect house, money, a business, a career. It gave Scotty a strange, shameful thrill to know that Beth had screwed up. Everyone idolized her. Scotty felt glad that Beth could turn to her. She was the only one Beth was expressing her doubts to. And it was up to Scotty to support her.

  Two clients from the soup kitchen walked out of the building. Rosalie, whose children had been taken from her by DCF, and Martin, one of the most tragic cases of all—a brilliant man who chose the wrong path in life.

  “Hi,” Beth called to them, waving. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m great, Beth,” Rosalie said. “I’m going to see my kids on Saturday. Two hours with them. We’re going to the aquarium.”

  “That’s fantastic, Rosalie!” Beth said. Scotty watched her. Even in her own despair, Beth was so enthusiastic in supporting other people.

  “You’ve got to take them to the Treworgy Planetarium too,” Martin said. “At Mystic Seaport.”

  “Oh, I love the Seaport,” Scotty said, entering into the spirit.

  “Have a good day, you guys,” Beth said. Rosalie and Martin waved and were on their way. Scotty had the feeling they were heading to the package store. She knew drinkers when she saw them.

  “Everything will work out,” Scotty said to Beth when they were alone again.

  “Are you sure?” Beth asked.

  “Honey, you have morning sickness. You can’t think straight when you feel like you might throw up at any moment.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “Let’s take a little walk,” Scotty said. “It will clear your head.”

  “Thanks, Scotty,” Beth said, giving her a big hug. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Life is going to get crazy when people find out.” She touched her belly.

  “Well, I’ll be there for you no matter what,” Scotty said.

  She held out the cellophane pack, and Beth took another cracker.

  “Chew it slowly,” Scotty had said. “Too fast and you’ll get sick. There you go; that’s the way.”

  It had touched her, the way Beth had listened to her. Respected what she had had to say. Complied with Scotty’s suggestions, even about eating a saltine.

  Sitting on the beach, Scotty reflected on how it had seemed almost as if Beth were a child instead of Scotty’s best friend.

  PART III

  47

  November 16

  Lulu counted the months without Beth. Summer ended; fall sped along. The holidays, starting with Beth’s birthday, would be here soon, and no one wanted to face them. A blast of Arctic air, extreme for November, slashed down from Canada. At dusk, when the light was lavender, Lulu bundled up in her red fleece jacket and drove north, past Mathilda’s stone gates, to one of the oldest cemeteries in Connecticut.

  She parked on the road, slung a brown leather bag over her shoulder, and climbed to the top of the hill. Heronwood Cemetery was surrounded by a wall built before the Revolutionary War. Colonists were buried here, graves dating back to the seventeenth century. The first time she had visited, on a late May afternoon two decades before, had been with Beth. Although Beth had had her driver’s permit, she hadn’t had her license yet, and Kate had been on a flying trip with Mathilda, so Lulu had driv
en her here. Beth had wanted to visit her mother’s grave.

  They walked past stones and crosses so old, time and the elements had scoured the engravings down to nothing. Other graves still bore ancient etchings of angels, death’s heads, sailing ships. Helen Woodward’s headstone was at the northeast end of the graveyard beneath a Norway spruce. A great horned owl roosted above, fast asleep in the middle of the day. The ground was covered with pellets of hair and bone. Beth knelt on the grass. Lulu sat beside her.

  “It feels so weird to be here,” Beth said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  At first, Lulu thought Beth was talking to her, but Beth faced the stone. She traced the engraving of her mother’s name and dates with her finger, leaned close, and whispered.

  “Well, I do know. What I want to say, anyway,” Beth went on. “I miss you. Do you know how much I miss you? Are you really here? Be here, please, Mom.”

  Lulu looked away, embarrassed. Should she leave? But Beth seemed barely aware of her presence. Lulu looked up into the branches of a nearby white oak, watched a downy woodpecker hop up a groove in the bark as if it were a well-worn trail.

  “Dad didn’t do it,” Beth whispered, touching the stone. “I mean, I know what they say, but I can’t believe it. I don’t believe it, Mom. He wouldn’t have; he couldn’t have; he loves us. I think it was those people, only those people, the Andersons. Joshua and Sally—they have such normal names. They look like regular people; Kate and I saw them in court. They look normal, but they’re evil. Dad’s not evil, Mom. He’s nothing like them. He wouldn’t have done that to you. They did it on their own. It was their idea, not Dad’s. You know that, right?”

  “Beth,” Lulu said softly.

  “Kate believes it was Dad, though. She said it was his plan, and that’s even worse than what the Andersons did. She’s glad he’s in prison. But we’re his family; he couldn’t have told them to tie us up. He would never have let us be hurt. Let you die. Mom, you and I know that, even if Kate doesn’t.”

  Beth was sobbing. She braced herself against the stone, as if it was keeping her from falling over. Still on her knees, she put her arms around it, embraced the gravestone as if it were actually her mother, not just the marker of where she was buried. Lulu had tried to pull her away, but Beth had wrenched her shoulders from Lulu’s hands and clung more tightly to her mother’s stone.

  Lulu walked to the spot now. The massive Norway spruce was gone, probably felled by a storm. Twenty-three years ago, Helen’s grave had stood alone here. Now it was one of four—Mathilda’s, Ruth’s, and Beth’s. Lulu stared at the newly engraved name, letters scored deeply into the granite:

  Elizabeth Woodward Lathrop, Beloved by Her Family

  “And friends,” Lulu said, kneeling on the ground, just as Beth had done. She stared at the dates. She and Beth had come here one Saturday in late spring; Beth’s father’s and the Andersons’ trials had lasted all through the winter, and by the time Lulu and Beth had visited Helen, the lilacs had already bloomed and leaves were on the trees. It had been a bright, sunny day.

  But now, all these years later, Lulu had come to the graveyard alone, and it was evening. The moon closest to the autumn equinox was the harvest moon, and tonight it would be full. Lulu had waited until this moment to visit Beth for the first time since her death; it seemed not only appropriate but necessary.

  She sat still. The cold air had silenced the crickets. The night’s first owl called from a pine up the hill. She turned her head to look and saw the moon. Just starting to come up, it was large and orange and filled the eastern sky. It seemed to rise fast, nearly clearing the tree line, just like the moon in the painting.

  “Beth,” she said out loud. “What did we start?” And what would Kate think if she knew? That sliced Lulu’s heart more than anything.

  Proof of love, Beth had said to explain her reasons. And proof of the opposite.

  Love had its own internal logic. What made sense at the start could spin out of control, turn into a mystery. An adventure of revenge could become tragedy. Had they thought of their act as vengeance? Beth hadn’t called it that. She had wanted to be bold and defiant, to send Pete a message, to take what was hers and, in doing so, reclaim her life.

  The moon was a silver disc. Its light dappled through the pine boughs, oak and maple leaves. Lulu stared into the glade beyond the graveyard. She was sure she saw an apparition, a young girl dancing in the moonlight.

  She reached into her leather bag and removed a pocketknife, the blade sheathed in bone. She’d had it since she was twelve and taking sailing lessons. The instructor had told the class that all sailors needed to carry a knife at all times, that it could save their lives. The wind had such strong force, filling the sails, driving the boat forward, tightening lines that could trap a person, wrap around a wrist or an ankle, drag a person overboard. With a knife, you could cut yourself free, save your own life.

  Lulu held her knife now. So often she had wished Kate had had one with her in the gallery basement. She could have sliced their bonds, rescued herself and Beth and their mother. It had seemed fitting that Lulu had brought this one to Beth’s house that hot day this past July, the week before Beth died. They had stood in the bedroom.

  “Why do I feel like a pirate?” Beth had asked, holding Lulu’s knife.

  “You’re Grace O’Malley,” Lulu had said. “Rebel woman, pirate queen, a quadrant of the Compass Rose, pillager of idiots, leader of your clan.”

  “My clan,” Beth had said, hand on her pregnant belly. Earlier that day, she had let Lulu feel Matthew kick. “And I am about to pillage.”

  The dancing girl in the painting by Ben Morrison might have been any of them, but it had always reminded Lulu of Kate. The house looked as if it belonged in Black Hall. The moon cast a spell.

  Within seven days, Beth was dead. Lulu knew that what they had done that day had been the catalyst for Beth’s murder. She opened the pocketknife now and cut her finger. She watched four tiny drops of her blood fall onto Beth’s grave. Despite the frost, the earth was still soft, and the blood drained into the dark soil and disappeared, as if it had never been there.

  Lulu held the tip of her finger till the bleeding stopped. A few snowflakes began to fall. She stared at Beth’s headstone for a few minutes, focused on the date of her birth: November 21, five days away. The stark realization that Beth wouldn’t be here for it filled Lulu with more sorrow than she’d ever felt in her life. The owl had fallen silent. Lulu imagined she had flown out for a night’s hunting. The only sound was wind in the leaves. She slipped the knife back into her satchel and walked through the graveyard to her car.

  48

  Tests on the unpainted side of Moonlight came back. Reid sat at his desk in his home office, scanning the data. He was partly surprised by it. He had not expected the blood to be Pete’s—the romantic gesture of a drawn heart wouldn’t be Pete’s style, and besides, since meeting with Winnie, he had taken his focus off Pete. It had started to make sense the blood might be Beth’s—given the hiding place known mainly to her and Kate—but he hadn’t seen the Tallulah Granville component coming. The left side of the heart had been sketched with Beth’s blood, the right side with Lulu’s.

  There was also a tiny smudge—not red at all; it looked like a coffee stain, blood possibly older than the lines in the heart, or perhaps it had been there since the painting had been made. It had been left by a third person. Although the DNA wasn’t in the database, the markers indicated it belonged to a female.

  Lulu had been fingerprinted for her various airline jobs. Her DNA was on file because she had once been a suspect in an assault. Reid hunched over his desk, reading the report. Five years ago, a woman named Danielle Marvin had accused Lulu of domestic violence. They were both pilots at different airlines, sharing an apartment in Greenwich Village. Danielle claimed Lulu attacked her one night. The file revealed photographs of Danielle with bruises around her neck, a bite mark on her shoulder.

  From the s
tart, Lulu denied it. She claimed she had moved out a week before and that Danielle had become obsessed with her. Lulu had, in fact, filed for a restraining order, and it had been granted. Reid read the copy that was in the electronic file. The order of protection was based on an antistalking statute and detailed ways Danielle had installed spyware on Lulu’s laptop and a GPS tracker in her luggage. She told friends and coworkers that she and Lulu were lovers, while Lulu maintained they were just roommates. At the time, they each were based at JFK, and Lulu stated that the Village apartment was just a pied-à-terre for layovers in New York.

  According to the restraining order, Danielle arranged her schedule around Lulu’s, contriving to be in the same cities at the same times. They had some friends in common but separate social lives. Lulu said Danielle would often show up at the same restaurant, pretending it was a coincidence.

  The assault on Danielle occurred just after 10:00 p.m. in her apartment on Sullivan Street. She accused Lulu of attacking her in a jealous rage after a stroll through nearby Washington Square Park because Danielle had told her she wanted to break up with her. Danielle asserted that it was Lulu who had the obsession, who stalked her, not the other way around.

  In Lulu’s sworn statement, she said that at the time of the assault, she was with Richard Guerin, a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It was their first date, and they were seeing Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera. Reid was interested to learn that Richard was a longtime client of the Harkness-Woodward Gallery, that he’d been introduced to Lulu by Kate.

  Lulu had voluntarily provided DNA and bite impressions. Richard had corroborated her alibi. She’d been cleared of the crime, and no perpetrator had ever been arrested. If she had been involved, her airline job would have been history.

  Reid pushed his chair back from his desk, stretched, turned his head from side to side to relieve stress. His gaze fell on the news clippings from his career, including the crime against Kate, Beth, and their mother. He had recently tacked up newspaper and magazine stories about Beth’s murder, along with the time line he’d worked out about Pete’s movements in the months before Beth had been killed.