Bad Blood (Maggie Ryan Book 8)

by P. M. Carlson

  “What did youdo?”

  “I, uh, took a lude. And then he went out the window. And I couldn’t think very well, so I went after him.”

  “Stoned?”

  “Well, uh, yes.”

  Another French noise.

  “Maggie, are you okay?”

  “Fine. Sure. Perfect. I mean, for a woman who’s just learned that two of her kids almost killed themselves today!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have worried you, but I knew they’d tell you. Maybe scare you more.”

  “You got into that tree stoned!”

  “Blown away. I, uh, took along a bunch of Nick’s belts. Seemed smart at the time. When I got to Will we buckled ourselves to the tree. Later Sarah came home and threw us the ladder.”

  “Jesus. You goddamn idiot!”

  Ginny propped the receiver between her ear and shoulder so her hands were free to pour the children some milk. She said humbly, “You’re right.”

  “I could shake your teeth out! But I probably won’t. And hell, it’s my fault too, I forgot to take down the ladder.”

  “I didn’t know he could get to it. Even so—Maggie, how come you trusted me?”

  “Ginny, if there’s one thing you’ve made clear the past few days, it’s that you’d never hurt or abandon a little child. Never. And you didn’t. Also, you’ve been really responsible about your parents. Besides, you’ve been through hell with me already without trying to drown your sorrows. I figured—well, let’s just say I’m the kind of person who sometimes takes risks.”

  Her voice sounded breezy. She still didn’t quite understand. Ginny returned the milk carton to the refrigerator and took the receiver in her hand again. She said carefully, “Well, I know why you took this risk. And it paid off, damn you. I learned a lot in that tree.”

  “You learned a lot?”

  “About you and me. About love. Your mother the damn mayor is pretty sharp, you know. Her prescription really does cure illusions.”

  Silence. A long silence. Finally there was something like a snuffle.

  “Is that more French?” asked Ginny gently, feeling a little snuffly herself.

  “Yeah. Must be.”

  “Okay. Um, speaking of that tree?”

  “Yeah?”

  Ginny grabbed the cookie tin one-handed from the top of the refrigerator and handed it to the children, who were now caroling “Pop Goes the Weasel.” She said, “I want to tell you something else I found out in that tree.”

  “Good God, you mean there’s more?”

  “It was the lude. That hazy feeling, you know? I remembered feeling the same way when I was leaving home. Happy but not really, you know? Well, at home when I was getting Kakiy, feeling hazy like that, I looked over at my worktable. And Maggie, the scissors were gone.”

  “Gone? You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. But I was too foggy just then to worry.”

  “That means—oh, hell, and I thought—well, it’s back to square one. Unless—listen, Ginny, does the name Caroline White mean anything to you?”

  “No, not really.”

  “How about Maybelle Darcy? Or Belinda Johnson?”

  “Belinda and Caroline seem faintly familiar.”

  “Kids in school?”

  “No, something else. I’m sorry, I can’t place them. Except—you said Darcy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, when Mr. Spencer first arrived I think he said something about Mrs. Darcy.”

  “He did? Darcy? You’re sure?”

  “No. But—”

  “Hey, good-bye. I have to go to the grocery, love.” And the line was suddenly dead.

  The grocery? What could be so important about the grocery? Ginny shook her head at the receiver in fond exasperation. Not motherly, that one. Not at all. But that was okay, Ginny had a top-notch mother already. Mom was as good as they came.

  But Maggie, admirable and flawed and loving, was going to be a damn good friend.

  Thursday

  September 20, 1979

  XXI

  By Thursday morning they had not arrested anyone. Rina saw Clint off to work, sorrowing for the new furrows she saw in his forehead, and then pulled out pen and paper. She wanted to phrase everything exactly right, and had already torn up two versions when the doorbell rang.

  It was Delores Gallagher in her bright magenta raincoat. “Hello, Rina. How are you? You look a little worn. Children are such a worry, aren’t they? And all this about John—” She shook her head sadly.

  Mamma came up the stairs in time to hang up Delores’s coat. “Hello, Delores. Let’s go down to my room to work. Oh, wait, here comes Marie now.”

  “What are you doing this morning?” asked Rina.

  “We have to write an insert for the church bulletin, about donations to John Spencer’s memorial fund,” Mamma explained.

  “Well, good. I hope it goes well,” said Rina lamely. This was not a helpful development. But they’d be downstairs. “You have coffee made downstairs, Mamma?” she asked anxiously.

  “Of course. Andbiscotti.”

  “Leonora, you spell doom to any diet,” said Marie Deaver, coming in. “But if we’re quick, maybe Delores and I will escape only a few pounds heavier.”

  The three trooped downstairs. Rina returned to the kitchen table, where she’d been working, and finished the page. Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she phoned Sergeant Trainer.

  “I have something important to tell you,” she said.

  “You’ve heard from your daughter?” he asked with unprofessional eagerness.

  “No. But it’s probably more important than that. It would be easier to tell you face-to-face.”

  “Okay. We’ll be there, let’s see, in thirty minutes or so.”

  She spent the time in an oddly detached calm, straightening the house. She put a log on the charred remnants of last night’s fire and lit it. She put all her scraps of fabric and thread and scissors into her sewing box and vacuumed the room, looking regretfully at the half-finished quilt. She tidied her bureau drawers and put her toiletries into a kit, and combed her hair carefully. She didn’t want to look disheveled and silly.

  When Sergeant Trainer and his officer arrived, she asked them in and sat at one end of the sofa. Trainer sat across from her in the big chair, the officer next to her. The early sun from the southeast slanted across behind them, casting leafy patterns across the sofa.

  “Well, now, Mrs. Marshall,” said Sergeant Trainer, “what do you want to tell us?”

  She heard Mamma’s step on the stairs. She had probably heard the doorbell. Too bad. Rina had hoped to be alone. But if it couldn’t be helped, it couldn’t be helped. And Mamma would have to know soon.

  She handed him her signed paper. “I wanted to confess. I killed Mr. Spencer.”

  “What?” Trainer was astounded.

  “I killed Mr. Spencer,” she repeated.

  He scanned the paper, his eyes narrowing. “Now, Mrs. Marshall, you’re telling us you killed John Spencer?”

  “No! She did not!” Suddenly Mamma was standing next to her, angry and protective.

  Rina repeated calmly, “I killed Mr. Spencer.”

  “Caterina, shut your mouth! Are you trying to killme? Have you gone crazy?”

  “I’ve come to my senses.”

  “Sergeant Trainer, don’t listen to this babble! My daughter is under so much strain. Let me talk to her!”

  Sergeant Trainer cleared his throat and waved the paper at Mamma. “Not now, Mrs. Rossi. We have to hear what she has to say.”

  “But it’s all foolishness!”

  He ignored her and looked back at Rina. “Mrs. Marshall, we’ll have to ask you some questions. Do you want to come down to the station?”

  “No.” She couldn’t bear that, not yet. “Here, please. I’ll go with you later. Mamma, please go downstairs again.”

  Trainer said, “I must inform you that you have the right to have a lawyer present before I question you further
.”

  A lawyer. Clint. “No, no,” she said. “No lawyer.”

  He glanced at the other officer. The officer pulled out a card. Trainer cleared his throat again. “Now listen very carefully,” he said, and began to read from the card. Finally he asked, “Do you understand?”

  “Yes. You’re explaining my rights. Warning me,” she said. She felt far away, as though she were watching from the moon.

  “Yes. Now listen carefully, Mrs. Marshall.” He began to reread it, phrase by phrase, patiently making her confirm each part. Halfway through, Mamma broke in again.

  “Rina, this is absolutely ridiculous!”

  “Mamma, I have to do it.”

  “You’re just trying to protect that girl!”

  “I just want to tell them what happened,” said Rina. “Yes, it’s for Ginny. I didn’t know I would be getting her into so much trouble.”

  “Rina!” But this time it was a cry of despair; Mamma subsided for the moment, unable to fight Rina’s calm resolve.

  Sergeant Trainer studied her intently when he had finished the warning. He set the confession on the end table and said, “Mrs. Marshall, you know that a false confession is an offense.”

  “Yes, Sergeant Trainer. My husband is a lawyer. Over the years I’ve learned a bit about it.”

  “And you’re still willing to answer my questions without a lawyer present?”

  Rina looked at the paper on the table next to him. “I’ve come to see that it’s unfair to let innocent people be suspected. It’s my duty to take the blame for what I did.”

  “I see.” He coughed circumspectly, his burlappy face neutral. “Why don’t you just tell us in your own words, then?”

  “But I wrote it down for you! It’s all there!”

  “It’s better if we hear it ourselves. Start with the reason you did it.”

  “All right.” She took a deep breath. Too bad Mamma was hearing it now. The first part was the hardest, but it was necessary. She steeled herself. “My daughter Ginny is adopted.”

  “Adopted?”

  “Yes. As a baby. We’ve been a normal family, very close. But often other people don’t understand. Children especially say very cruel things sometimes. You know, suggest that her birth mother was a prostitute, or something like that.”

  “Birth mother. You mean her real mother?”

  Rina damped the ancient familiar flicker of rage. He was just trying to get things clear. She said levelly, “I am her real mother, Sergeant Trainer. I’ve raised her.”

  “Yes, of course. I see. Birth mother. Yes.”

  “Her birth mother is the girl who gave birth to her, and had to surrender her for adoption.”

  “Yes. I understand. And the other children would insult your daughter because of her, um, birth mother.”

  “Who was not a prostitute. Right.” Rina tried to keep the weariness from her voice. “So you can see that Ginny wanted as few people as possible to know about the adoption. The same was true of us, of course, because we wanted to spare her the pain.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, the problem is that Mr. Spencer found out about it.”

  “Caterina!” Mamma burst in again. “That’s foolishness and you know it! In the first place, he didn’t know! Only Delores or Marie could have told him. Or me. And none of us—”

  “Mrs. Rossi, please!” Trainer looked thunderous. “I must ask you not to interrupt or we’ll have to finish this at the station.”

  “But it’s foolishness!”

  “Look, Mamma,” said Rina patiently. “First of all, Mr. Spencer did know. I think Delores told him. She was so indignant about the insults that Ginny was throwing around after the cat got hurt. Maybe she thought she was defending our family reputation. But whether she told him or not, I know he knew. He telephoned me. A few minutes after six on Thursday.”

  “I didn’t talk to him,” she objected. “And he was my friend, not yours.”

  “You were out buying fish, Mamma.” Sadly, Rina saw a glimmer of alarm join the confused anger in her mother’s dark eyes. This was the worst part: hurting her, hurting Clint. She turned back to Sergeant Trainer and forced herself to go on. “He asked if it was true that Ginny was adopted, and I said yes but we’d appreciate it if he kept it quiet. I explained that she didn’t like for it to be generally known. And then he said he understood perfectly.” She took a deep breath. Up to this point it had all been true. “And he said he would be happy not to tell if I would deliver a hundred dollars cash to him, out at the mall.”

  “Rina, you’ll never make me believe that in a hundred years!” exploded Mamma. Rina ignored her. Trainer’s eyes stayed fixed on Rina.

  “So I got my bank card and a pair of scissors, and drove out to the store he had mentioned. He got in the car with me and we drove to the bank machine. But I was just getting angrier and angrier. It was clear that he was going to keep asking for money, it wouldn’t let up, and Ginny would always have it hanging over her head. So instead of pulling out my card for the automatic teller, I pulled out the scissors and stabbed him.”

  Mamma snorted her derision.

  “It’s all in my confession! And then,” Rina went on, “I drove to the library book drop lane and pushed him out the door into the bushes, and came home. It was very quick. Mamma wasn’t even home yet.”

  “Rina, you’ve gone crazy!” said Mamma. “Sergeant, we need a doctor! A hospital!”

  Sergeant Trainer said nothing, his rough face a mask, his pale eyes thoughtful. Rina knew he was comparing the story mentally to the times and places he knew. It all checked out. It had to.

  Rina added, “My big mistake was taking Ginny’s scissors. I forgot her name was on them. I figured you wouldn’t have her fingerprints, and the scissors are a common brand. You shouldn’t have been able to trace them. But with the name, it called your attention to this house. Misdirected your attention toward her. And of course the last thing I wanted was for her to come to any harm. Keeping her from harm was the whole point.”

  “There would have been a lot of blood, Mrs. Marshall. How did you—”

  The doorbell interrupted him. Trainer snapped, “Would you get that, please, Mrs. Rossi?”

  It was Aggie, cheerful and breezy as ever. “Hi, Mrs. Rossi. I was driving by and saw the police car. Thought something interesting might be going on.”

  “My idiot daughter is confessing to a murder!” Mamma wailed, with a dramatic gesture at the paper on the end table.

  “Really?” For an instant the hidden eyes behind those lenses took in the scene up in the living room: Sergeant Trainer and the other officer looking uncomfortable, Rina calm and resolute. Then Aggie laughed merrily and bounded up the stairs. She picked up the confession, glanced at it, then hugged Rina.

  “Rina, you tiger, bless you! But all this isn’t really necessary. Oh, dear, Sergeant Trainer, I’m so sorry!”

  Somehow, in her enthusiasm, the coordinated and graceful Aggie had stumbled clumsily on the rug. And somehow, as she threw out her hands to catch herself, she had flipped Rina’s confession into the fire. The paper caught, crackling and curling into smoke. Rina gazed at the ashes in dismay. She’d have to do it again, she realized. All over again.

  Sergeant Trainer gave Aggie a long look. She said nervously, “I’m so sorry, Sergeant Trainer. Terribly clumsy of me.”

  “Yes,” he said, “terribly.”

  “Tell me, Mrs. Rossi,” Aggie went on, “are Mrs. Gallagher and Mrs. Deaver here? I saw their cars outside.”

  “Oh, God, they’re downstairs! Rina, you crazy idiot, you made me forget!” She hurried to the stair railing and called downstairs. “Marie! Delores! Help me! My daughter’s gone crazy!”

  With suspicious speed, the two appeared. They’d probably been listening too, Rina decided, unwilling to interrupt a family crisis but hanging onto every word. Well, she’d better get used to having an unwanted audience.

  “Great! Have a seat,” said Aggie brightly, waving a hand at the ch
airs as though she were the hostess. She turned back to Sergeant Trainer. “I’ve found out some interesting things, Sergeant.”

  “A lot of people seem to have interesting things to tell me today,” said the sergeant dryly. “Well, let’s hear it quick.”

  Rina felt deflated. Why wasn’t he interested in her confession? Why was he so easily distracted by Aggie?

  “First let me show you something.” Aggie swooped across the room and picked up Marie Deaver’s handbag. With one long finger crooked under the handle, she dangled it in front of Sergeant Trainer.

  “Aggie, really!” Marie Deaver looked startled.

  “Just for a moment, Mrs. Deaver. I won’t hurt anything. Sergeant Trainer, you probably aren’t allowed to search this bag without good cause. But you can see plainly that I’m not slipping anything inside it. Now, you see I’m dumping it on this nice clean rug.”

  “Aggie! What’s got into you, dear?” Marie hurried across toward her things.

  “Wait.” Aggie, still standing over the contents of the handbag, gestured her to stop. “I just want to show Sergeant Trainer something I noticed when I happened to peek into your handbag Monday. Your ID cards.” She dove like a falcon toward the little heap and brought up four plastic card folders. Marie rushed toward her, but before she could reach her, Aggie had tossed the folders into Sergeant Trainer’s lap.

  “Here, don’t you think the sergeant should have a look before you take them back?”

  Marie studied the sergeant. He was frowning at the cards. She said, “It was just for a joke.”

  “Maybe,” said Aggie. She picked up her own shoulder bag and rummaged in it. “But there are a few other things for Sergeant Trainer to consider. First, these photographs.” Aggie handed Trainer two pictures. Rina, craning her neck, caught a glimpse of the group pose Aggie had taken that first day at Delores Gallagher’s, and Mr. Spencer’s face in the other.

  Aggie crossed to the stair railing and leaned against it. She said, “Cathy Smythe, at the check approval counter of the Thriftway Grocery, out at Eastland mall, will identify that man as Mr. Spencer, a frequent customer. And she will identify the woman who is circled in the other photo as Maybelle Darcy, who frequently cashed her welfare checks at the store.”