After parking in his driveway, he instinctively checked to see if Henrietta and Lloyd’s car was parked in theirs. It wasn’t, which only told him that one of them was away. Entering his house, he was amazed that it looked the same as it had when he left earlier that morning. He half expected to find a squadron of police officers brandishing search warrants. It was only a matter of time. He didn’t think that Lloyd was going to report him for that morning’s altercation, but he did realize that the death of Michelle was going to put the spotlight on him again.
His phone rang—a 617 number he didn’t recognize—and he chose not to answer it, knowing that it would only be bad news.
He tried to reach his brother again, then checked the voice mail on his phone. It was from Iggy Martinez, the Cambridge police detective who’d come out to question him about Dustin Miller. “I was wondering if you could give me a call as soon as you possibly can,” he said casually. “It’s not a biggie, but I have a follow-up question for you. Okay, thanks.”
Matthew went into the kitchen and poured himself a large glass of ginger ale over ice, then brought it into his office, found the bottle that he kept there for when Richard was visiting, and added just a little bit of whiskey to his drink, enough to maybe take some of his nerves away. He called the detective back.
“Thanks for getting back to me,” the detective said, then cleared his throat.
“No problem. What’s up?”
“I have a follow-up question for you from the conversation we had earlier. I’m not even sure it’s relevant, but his name came up so I thought I’d ask you about it.”
“Okay,” Matthew said, not knowing what to expect.
“You have a brother named Richard Dolamore, don’t you?” the detective asked.
Matthew’s scalp turned cold, but he stayed calm and said, “Yes.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“I’m confused. Do you think Richard had something to do with what happened to Dustin Miller?”
“I don’t. Not really. This is what we do with cold cases. We follow up every little detail, no matter how insignificant, and then we can eliminate all the possibilities. Eliminate enough possibilities and maybe what’s left will tell you something.” Matthew heard the distant bleep of a horn through his cell phone and thought that the detective was probably driving.
“No, I understand.”
“Where does your brother live?”
“He lives in my parents’ house, last I checked. They left it for him.”
“And where’s that?”
“Right here in Dartford, actually.”
“Oh? So you see him quite a bit, then.”
“Honestly, I don’t. My brother keeps to himself. He’s kind of a misfit. I see him, but it’s pretty rare.”
“Okay. Got it. I won’t bother you anymore, except can I have his address? You said it was your parents’ house.”
“Sure. It’s 227 Blackberry Lane. On the other side of Dartford from where I am.”
“And what about a phone number? Do you have that for your brother?”
Deciding that any delay would be beneficial for Richard, Matthew said, “I don’t. Sorry. For all I know he doesn’t have one. The only way we keep in touch is if he drops by here or I drop by there.”
“Thank you, Matthew. You’ve been very helpful. By the way, I did hear you had a little bit of trouble with your neighbor.”
“Oh, that. I’m hoping I nipped it in the bud.”
“So she’s been leaving you alone, then?”
“Yeah, it’s been fine.” Matthew wanted to ask the detective how he even knew about the protective order, but he stopped himself. Of course, he knew. The police were putting it all together. “Look,” he quickly said. “I actually have to—”
“Yeah, you go. Sorry about that, and thanks again for the information.”
Matthew stared at the phone in his hand after the call had ended. He’d been pacing throughout the call and now was standing in the kitchen. Something smelled bad and he looked in the sink, where a cellophane-wrapped steak was floating in a bowl of pinkish water. He remembered taking the steak out of the freezer the night before for dinner and then forgetting all about it. He picked it up by one of its edges and dropped it into the trash. Back in his office, he stared at the one picture he kept of him and his brother, a faded print from when Richard was a baby. Their mother had insisted on the photograph: Matthew dressed in Sunday school clothes (chinos and a button-down shirt), holding Richard, bundled in a blanket, on his lap. Matthew was looking directly at his new baby brother, and he imagined that they were making eye contact, even though he knew that newborn babies had terrible eyesight. Still, it was a good picture, one of the few good pictures from their childhood. Looking at the picture now, Matthew wished he would hear from Richard. He needed to warn him that the police were coming. He needed to give him a chance to flee. Matthew kept calling.
“Yo, bro,” Richard said.
“Jesus, finally.”
“I’ve been busy. Also, I know exactly what you’re going to say to me.”
“I’m not sure you do, Richard. They’re coming for you. The police are coming. I just talked with one of them.”
“If they’re coming for me, then they’re coming for you, too. You know that.”
“Yes, I do. That’s why we need to get our stories straight; that’s why I need to talk with you. I’m not calling because of what you’ve done. I just need to know. Did anyone see you there? How careful were you?”
“See me where? What are you talking about?”
“We don’t have time for this, Richard.”
“Maybe we should meet and talk about this face-to-face. I’d feel more comfortable.”
“We don’t have time for that. Are they going to find evidence at Michelle’s apartment? They’re there now, you know, picking through every fiber, looking at every blood spatter.”
Richard was quiet for a moment, finally saying, “You were there, too.”
“How do you know that?”
“I watched you. How did it make you feel to see all that blood?”
“You know how it made me feel. It was sickening. What you did was sickening. She didn’t deserve to die, and you know that.”
“I couldn’t let you have all the fun, you know. It isn’t fair. And besides, just because you’ve killed a bunch of sleazy guys doesn’t give you the moral high ground. You’re like Mom that way. She thought her shit didn’t stink because her husband was worse than she was, but that’s not how it works, you know. Not in the real world. In the real world, you’re as sick and perverted as I am.”
“You’re right, Richard. I agree with everything you’re saying, now answer the question. What are they going to find in the apartment?”
Richard sighed. “We share the same DNA, you know. If I need to make a run for it, so do you.”
“I think that’s what you should do. I think you should run away. And do it soon, okay? I’m not going to help you if they come for you. I can’t. You’ll be on your own.”
“Thank you, my brother. I expected nothing more.”
“You killed Michelle!” Matthew screamed the words in a strange keening voice he didn’t even recognize as belonging to himself. “You killed Michelle,” he said again quietly. Then he waited for Richard’s response, but none came. “Richard?” he said. “You there, Richard?”
But Richard was gone, and Matthew had the feeling—the terrible, reassuring feeling—that maybe his brother would do what he’d been threatening to do for years: to leave Dartford for good, to leave the past behind.
Matthew realized that he was in the living room, standing in front of the window that looked toward his neighbors’ house, still no car in the driveway. It occurred to him that he could actually drive over to Blackberry Lane, to the house he’d grown up in, to the house where Richard still lived, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He hadn’t been there for years, and the last time he’d been there he’
d been shocked to see how much rot had settled into the house. Richard lived there, but he did nothing to maintain it. He hadn’t cleaned it or changed any of the furnishings for years. All the furniture, the shelves, the windowsills, were covered with a black film of accumulated dust. The upstairs rooms, including Matthew’s old bedroom, still with its single bed and its strange beige wallpaper with patterns of ferns, were infested with animal droppings, the walls dotted with black mold. No, he didn’t think he could bring himself to go back there. He’d done all he could, having warned Richard. Now he needed to protect himself. He needed—
He heard a click from upstairs. It was faint, but he heard it clearly, and it wasn’t one of the sounds the house occasionally made, the gas heat turning on, the icemaker in the refrigerator, the walls settling on the foundation. No, it sounded like a door shutting. He walked slowly and quietly to the base of the stairs. From there he could see up into the second-floor landing, see that two of the doors, the ones to Mira’s and his bedroom and the one to the upstairs bathroom, were both wide open. He began to quietly climb the stairs, then realized how that sounded and sped up, trying to walk casually, a man just heading up the stairs of his own house. At the top of the stairs, he turned left and walked into the master bedroom, his eyes quickly going to the closet door, that door open as well, although it was tight against the doorjamb. Could the click he heard have been a door opening up? It was possible, he told himself, and walked, casually again, toward the closet, swinging the door open wide and stepping inside, between Mira’s clothes on the right and his on the left. There was no one in there. He reached a hand up to the shelf above his hanging clothes, pushed aside a shoebox, and his fingers found the billy club made from hickory, one of the few items he’d brought with him from his parents’ and the only weapon he kept in the house.
With the billy club in his hand, he walked steadily from the bedroom closet back out to the landing. The other two doors on the floor—the one to the guest room and the one to Mira’s sewing room—were both open as well, but each had closets. He went into the guest room first. The closet door was closed. He walked to it, put his hand around the doorknob, and twisted, pulling the door open and taking a step backward, expecting . . . what, exactly? Hen looking for the fencing trophy? Lloyd waiting for him, eager to continue their fight from this morning? The closet was empty, and for the first time since he’d heard the click, he considered that it might have been nothing, maybe a branch striking one of the upstairs windows, or maybe just one of those phantom sounds that all houses make.
Matthew left the guest room and walked to the room at the front of the house, a small room with a sloped ceiling that once upon a time was going to be a nursery. It was now Mira’s sewing room, the walls painted a cheerful yellow, made more cheerful by the late-afternoon sun streaming in through the room’s single window. There was a closet in this room as well, a half-closet really, more of a crawl space. The door was shut, and Matthew stood for a moment, eyeing it. If there really was someone hiding up here, then this was where they were.
He put his hand on the doorknob just as the door flung open and a man bolted out, his head going directly into Matthew’s solar plexus, knocking him backward, both men sliding along the floor.
With the billy club that he still held, Matthew took a swing at the intruder, catching him in the shoulder. The man roared, more from fear than pain, probably, and raised his head. It was Lloyd, his teeth gritted, his eyes wide. He pushed himself up off the floor with his arms so that he was on all fours like a dog. Matthew, sitting up now, swung the club again, catching Lloyd on the bridge of his nose. There was a splintery crack. Lloyd’s roar turned into a howl, and blood spilled from his broken nose onto the hardwood floor.
Matthew, still sitting, scuttled backward, kicking out with his legs. Lloyd shook his head rapidly and blood sprayed from side to side, then he crouched, wiping at his face, smearing the blood. Both men stood, Matthew still holding the billy club, Lloyd clenching his fists, swaying slightly.
“I heard you,” Lloyd said.
Matthew took a step toward him. “You’re trespassing,” he said.
“I heard everything, you freak,” Lloyd said, as Matthew swung the billy club.
Chapter 35
Just being in the studio, with its low lights and clanking pipes, surrounded by everything she needed in order to create art, Hen was finally able to slow down her thoughts, to begin to rationally think about the events that had happened to her in the past few weeks.
She made herself chamomile tea, put on Iron and Wine on the CD player, and set about cleaning up and organizing her space, a ritual she often did before settling down to more serious work. As she became calmer, she internally listed out her current problems in order of importance, something she’d taught herself to do years earlier when small problems would sometimes make her feel as though her life was unlivable. The idea was then to focus on one problem at a time. The other purpose of the exercise, of course, was to show yourself that your problems—no matter how crippling—were often not so bad when you listed them out. But that was clearly not her current situation. Her number one problem right now wasn’t even the cheating husband and whether her marriage could be saved; it was the psychotic murderer who lived next door. After those two issues, nothing else seemed to matter much. Still, she forced herself to list her additional problems. She needed to visit her parents more, especially now that they were getting older. Also, she was a little past her deadline for the next two illustrations for the Lore Warriors book, although she hadn’t heard anything threatening yet from her agent so she wasn’t too worried. Besides, it was only work. It could wait for a little while.
That left her two main problems, and they were big ones: what to do about Lloyd and what to do about Matthew. It made sense, what Lloyd had said, that they should go away. It would get the two of them out of harm’s way for a little while and allow them to work on their marriage. The problem was that she didn’t want to work on the marriage. Ever since she’d discovered what he’d done, a part of her knew, down deep, that they were over. She wasn’t an overly jealous woman—she was pretty sure she could have forgiven a one-night fling—but there was something about the year of sneaking around behind her back, about the constant lies. And there was also something else: she felt wronged, definitely, and pissed off, but she didn’t feel overly hurt. Her heart wasn’t breaking. She loved Lloyd—she’d always love Lloyd—but she could imagine her life without him. And wasn’t that an indication . . . that maybe it wasn’t a marriage worth saving?
If it wasn’t for the situation with Matthew next door—the potentially dangerous situation—then she’d tell Lloyd to go live somewhere else for a while, that they needed a break so she could figure things out. Maybe she should just make him do it anyway. He was the guilty party, after all, and she should be able to make him leave. Where would he go? she wondered. He’d probably wind up moving into Joanna Grimlund’s place in—where was it?—Northampton. She tried to think about how that made her feel, and she wasn’t sure. She just didn’t care very much, although she did wonder if it really was over between Lloyd and Joanna, the way he’d claimed. She also wondered what their affair had been like. Was it intense, the two of them talking about their future lives together? Or was it one of those relationships that always felt stamped with an expiration date from the moment it started? What did Joanna think about what had happened?
Maybe I’ll call her, Hen thought, and as soon as she had the thought she decided to actually do it. She wanted to hear Joanna’s voice. She wanted to hear what she had to say for herself. Joanna had always been someone whom Hen had liked. As partners of two best friends, they’d been forced into a lot of time spent together, but happily, not reluctantly. Joanna had an irreverent and dirty sense of humor. While Rob and Lloyd got drunk and high and reminisced about shit they’d gotten up to in college, Joanna and Hen would drink wine and have intense conversations. Hen had told her almost everything about her psychotic
episode in college, and Joanna told her about her alcoholic father who was now in prison for securities fraud. When Rob and Joanna split up, Hen had thought about getting in touch with Joanna directly, maybe even meeting up, but she’d never done it. Lloyd, clearly, had had the same thought.
Hen didn’t have Joanna’s cell phone number, of course, and she almost considered calling Lloyd and demanding he give it to her, but even if he did give her the number he’d probably manage to call Joanna up first, or at least text her, and warn her about the impending phone call. Hen wanted the element of surprise.
She called Rob, who picked up almost instantly.
“You couldn’t open them?” he said into the phone.
“What?” she said, figuring he thought she was someone else.
“The pictures I sent you. I realized after I sent them that maybe I should have reformatted them.”
“Oh, the bonfire pictures,” Hen said. “I haven’t even gotten them yet, but I’m calling for another reason.”
“You haven’t gotten them yet? I sent them right after we talked.”
“Maybe it went to spam, Rob. Listen, I’m calling because I need Joanna’s phone number, and I thought you’d probably have it.”
“Sure,” he said. “It’s her phone number from a year ago, but I doubt it’s changed. What do you need it for?”
“I just need to talk with her. It’s important.” Hen hoped that the truth, however vague, would be enough.
“Let me get it for you,” Rob said, his voice already faint, Hen realizing that he was probably scrolling through his phone right now. “Okay, ready?”
He read her the number while she wrote it down in her sketchbook with a pencil.
“Thanks, Rob, you’re awesome,” Hen said.
“Not a problem, but I’m confused. Why do you want to talk with her?”
“She’s been having an affair with Lloyd for a year and I wanted to hear her side of the story.”
Before She Knew Him Page 23
