Suspicion of Innocence

by Barbara Parker

  A few years ago Gail had come by Irene's for lunch and had found her at the kitchen table, thumbing through a brochure for burglar bars. This in a walled neighborhood with a guard house and security patrols. Gail had been mystified until she remembered Irene was due for minor surgery the next week. Irene had come out of the hospital; the bars had never been installed.

  Gail berated herself for having let three days go by since she had last seen her mother. But the days were a blur; she could barely remember any of them.

  She got up and crossed to the window ledge, where Jimmy Panther had left his teacup. She picked it up. He had said Renee promised to bring the clay deer mask to him last week. That could show something about her state of mind, if he was telling the truth. If. Jimmy Panther could say what he wanted. And Renee had a history of forgotten promises. Gail tossed the cup into her trash basket.

  Four

  Irene Strickland Connor lived in a subdivision a few miles north of downtown called Belle Mar whose homes ranged from twenties Mediterranean to ultramodern glass and soaring wood. At the main entrance, Gail put on her blinker and turned from Biscayne Boulevard onto Seagrape Lane. The smaller street, bordered with royal palms and flowering hibiscus, divided at a tiny guardhouse. Ten years ago, nervous about civil disturbances and immigration, the residents had put up an eight-foot-high security wall.

  "Open the gate, sweetie," Gail said to Karen. The girl sat in the passenger seat of the Buick with a gate opener pointed at the striped barrier across the road. She pressed a button and the wooden arm swung upward.

  Karen closed her geography book, which she had been reading on her lap.

  "Did you finish the chapter?"

  "Almost." Karen leaned over to put the book in her book bag.

  "Almost?" Gail slowed over a speed bump. "You won't keep your A's that way. You can finish it while I'm talking to your grandma, all right?"

  Ben had called her at work that afternoon. He had prepared the estate papers for Irene's signature and wanted Gail to notarize them. He had insisted: No, no, I don't want to hear you 're too busy. Bring Dave. We’ll all have dinner together. Besides, Irene says she hasn't seen you all week. Trust Irene for melodrama. Gail had seen her three days ago.

  Seagrape Lane meandered past Banyan, Bottlebrush, and Jacaranda and finally ended in a circle. Gail pulled into Irene's driveway, tires crunching on acorns from the overhanging oak tree. The house was a rambling one-story with a facade of old brick and a white tile roof darkened with mildew. An orange cat sprawled on the porch, licking its paws. A tabby watched them from a window ledge.

  At the front door Gail used her own key, letting herself into the foyer. Karen followed, her school bag bumping past the screen door, which banged shut behind them. The painted metal decoration on it—a flamingo—rattled on loosened rivets.

  "Irene! It's us!"

  After a second, a muffled voice called out, "In the kitchen."

  Gail found her pulling plastic containers and foil-wrapped plates from the refrigerator.

  "You're early," Irene said. She set a casserole on the table, the glass lid clanking. "I was going to have dinner all ready for you, and here you are." Her voice was husky enough to make Gail wonder how much she had had to drink.

  Karen dropped her book bag in a chair. "Hey, Gramma."

  Leaving the refrigerator door wide open, Irene held out her arms. "Come here, precious." She enveloped the girl in a hug. "My goodness, you're so big."

  Karen's face was buried for a moment in Irene's flowered blouse. Gail noticed the rest of her outfit—parrot-green slacks and gold leather sandals studded with rhinestones. A scarf ran through her red curls, a perky bow tied behind one ear.

  Gail wasn't sure if the clothes meant Irene had cheered up or if she was going slightly dotty. She went to push the refrigerator door shut.

  "Are you hungry, baby?" Irene asked, straightening Karen's T-shirt over her jeans.

  Karen made a face. "I am not a baby."

  "Well, no. I'm so sorry." She spread her hand over her bosom. Gail saw she was wearing the white beads Jimmy Panther had given her at the funeral.

  Karen petted the gray cat curled up on a kitchen chair. "But I am hungry. Definitely."

  Gail said, "We’ll eat as soon as Ben gets here. Why don't you go out on the patio and finish your homework?"

  "Oh, let the child eat, Gail. She doesn't have to wait for Ben."

  Gail found an apple in the fruit basket and gave it to Karen. "Go on. I want to talk to your grandmother." Karen shot Gail a look, sighed pointedly, then dropped the apple into her bag. There were tables and chairs by the pool where she could study, if she weren't distracted by the view. Boats were crisscrossing Biscayne Bay, most of them heading back to their marinas at this hour. The distant grumble of engines wove through the chirps of mockingbirds in Irene's backyard.

  "Stay on the porch," Gail added. The cat shot through the sliding glass door as she closed it.

  Irene picked up her cigarette from a heavy crystal ashtray and eyed the table. "I thought we'd finish off this stuff so I can give the dishes back."

  Gail recognized plates and casseroles that neighbors had brought last week, but the contents had dwindled. A few slices of roast beef, drying at the edges. Meat loaf reduced to a corner of a square pan. Remnants and scraps of green beans, potatoes au gratin, creamed corn, pickled mushrooms, lasagna, half a key lime pie—and more dishes she couldn't see into.

  "Where's Dave?"

  "He's home," Gail said, "getting some papers ready for the accountant tomorrow." This was true, but Gail had also told him she needed Irene to herself.

  Irene took a last drag on her cigarette and crushed it out. "Let's eat in the dining room on the good china. We can have some wine." She laughed. "What goes with Jell-O?"

  After a second, Gail said, "Mother, we need to talk."

  "Oooh, that sounds serious." Irene picked up a short glass with a few ice cubes at the bottom, glanced at the contents, then pulled a quart bottle of Smirnoff out of a lower cabinet. "What can I fix you?"

  "Nothing, thanks."

  "You're no run," Irene said. She held her glass under the ice dispenser. It made a little grinding noise and spat out cubes.

  Gail said, "A homicide detective came by my office today, a Sergeant Britton with Metro-Dade. They want to search Renee's condo."

  Irene unscrewed the cap on the vodka and poured. "Yes. I hope it's okay if I volunteered you."

  She had thought Irene might explain, or even laugh. Oh, it all sounds so silly now. But she only took a lime out of the refrigerator and plopped it on the cutting board. She severed it neatly, the bow in her hair bobbing, a sharp smell of citrus drifting across the kitchen.

  Finally Gail said, "Why did you ask them to do this?"

  Irene squeezed the lime into her glass, then with a little flourish let it drop. "Who knows? They might find something."

  "Renee killed herself. Why would you tell them she didn't?"

  “I just said it bothered me. It doesn't matter now, does it? Let them have their little look. What's the harm?"

  "You could have talked to me first," Gail said.

  "You were busy."

  "Come on, Irene. When have I ever not talked to you?" There was no answer. Gail said, "They can go through the apartment with a microscope and tweezers, I don't care. But calling them at all is truly bizarre."

  Irene stirred her drink. "I didn't tell you because you would have tried to talk me out of it. You have to have a logical reason for everything. I just knew . . . I felt. . . that she would not have done this."

  "But she did. Look at how she was. She never finished college. She wound up at a part-time job behind a desk, something she swore she'd never do. She was never able to keep a man. She had a drug problem. She drank. And this after she grew up believing she could have anything she wanted."

  Irene yanked open a drawer. The silverware inside clanged. "I suppose next you're going to tell me it was all my fault. I spoiled he
r."

  Gail felt the full weight of her own fatigue. "I wish— for once—you would see things as they really are."

  Irene turned around with a handful of forks and knives. "Here, you can put these in the dining room for me." When Gail didn't immediately take them, Irene dropped them on the table. "The place mats are in the buffet."

  "I know where you keep things." Gail watched her take down plates and saucers, stacking them on the counter, reaching into the cabinet again.

  Irene spoke over the clatter. "Fine. I don't see things. I didn't know my own daughter. You never made the effort to treat her like your sister. If you had, you'd know Renee wasn't what you think."

  Gail's voice rose, lifted on a rush of anger. "Really? The medical examiner told me she was nearly two months pregnant when she died."

  Irene turned around, three wineglasses in her hands. She set them down slowly, one by one. "You . . . had no right—no right—not to tell me this before."

  There was a long silence. Finally, painfully, Gail nodded. "Mom, I'm sorry. I should have."

  Irene picked up a dish towel and wiped a smudge off one of the glasses. "I don't suppose you know who the father is. Was."

  "No."

  She dropped the dish towel on the counter, then pressed her fingers to her eyes. She made a single, muffled cry. Gail stood up quickly and put her arms around her. In the flat sandals, Irene felt as fragile as a child.

  "I tried so hard with Renee. I did."

  Gail hugged her close.

  "I can't think about this anymore." She pushed Gail away and crossed the kitchen for a napkin to blow her nose.

  Gail followed. "Mother, let me help with Renee's estate. You shouldn't take it all on yourself. If you don't want to go through her things right now, I'll just have them packed and stored."

  "No, you don't have to bother."

  "I want to."

  The doorbell rang, and Irene glanced toward the living room. "Oh, lord. That's Ben and look at me." She dabbed underneath her eyes. "Am I all right?"

  "You're fine." Gail straightened Irene's bow.

  "You haven't said anything to him about the police, have you?"

  "No."

  "Well, don't. I'll sound like some hysterical female." She went to let him in.

  Gail stood in the middle of the kitchen, listening to Irene's cry of delight at the front door, as though Ben's visit were an unexpected surprise. She listened to their voices growing closer, then pushed open the sliding glass door and told Karen to come wash her hands for dinner. Karen furtively slid a half-assembled Lego moon vehicle into her book bag, then followed Gail back to the kitchen.

  Ben saw her and ruffled her hair. "Hey, Little Bit."

  "Hi, Ben." Karen hugged his waist.

  He carried a zippered leather folder and wore a pullover golf shirt which had faded to dull blue. He looked down at the food on the table, then grinned at Gail.

  "What's this? Irene, are you opening a cafeteria?"

  "Oh, hush." Laughing, she took a short glass from the cabinet and filled it with ice cubes. Ben was accustomed to a sip of Wild Turkey before dinner.

  Gail turned Karen toward the hall. "Go wash your hands, sweetie." There was a guest bathroom around the corner.

  "Where's Dave?" Ben asked.

  "He couldn't come. He had some work to do."

  "You should have given him the night off." When Gail only shrugged and smiled, Ben held up his folder. "All right. Grab your notary stamp. We might as well get this taken care of, if we can find room on the table." He sat down, stacking a plate of sliced tomatoes on the roast beef. "Irene, come over here, darlin'."

  Irene put his drink down on a cocktail napkin and watched him unzip the folder. "Not now," she said.

  Ben looked up.

  She went to rummage for candles in a cabinet drawer. "Dinner first. Dinner, then business. You all just serve yourselves whatever you want, and we'll pop it in the microwave."

  Gail exchanged a look with Ben, then put her inked stamp and the heavy silver-colored seal back into her purse.

  "All right, then." Ben tasted his bourbon. "Later. Say, what about eating on the back porch? We’ll have a picnic."

  Irene turned around with long yellow candles in her hand. "I thought the dining room would be nice. Karen likes the chandelier."

  "No, no. You sit in there and all you can hear is that damn clock ticking. Let's go outside."

  "Well, all right, if you'd rather." She laid the candles back in the drawer.

  Gail started to protest but went to look for Karen instead. Ben would only laugh and say he didn't need a lecture from somebody who didn't even use her husband's last name.

  Karen wasn't in the bathroom around the corner from the kitchen, but one of the embroidered blue hand towels was askew on the rod. Gail followed the hallway that connected the kitchen with the other end of the house. She passed the door that led to the den—once her father's study. Then the hallway opened into a larger area where Irene had hung framed family pictures. A tall cabinet held porcelain birds so realistic that when she was a small child Gail had tossed one into the air to see if it could fly.

  The door to her mother's room was half open. Gail looked inside. The satin comforter had slipped to the floor and Irene's clothes were tossed carelessly over the bed, shoes at odd angles next to it. On the nightstand were the two photos in the folding frame that Anthony Quintana had given her. The television was on, but the sound was off.

  Her own room was closed. What had once been her room, now a guest bedroom with a pull-out sofa. At the last bedroom Gail leaned against the open door with her arms crossed. "There you are," she said.

  Karen looked up from where she sat at the mirrored dresser, and her reflection grinned guiltily. She held up one hand. "See? I painted my fingernails." They were neon pink, garish on her small fingers. The bottle was open, the brush sticking out of it.

  It didn't surprise Gail that Karen had found nail polish rattling around in Renee's dresser. The drawers were full of odds and ends: hair clips, cheap jewelry, a curling iron, a broken Walkman. Renee had moved in and out so many times, before leaving for good, that Irene had never cleaned out her room. The bookcase was still crammed with romance novels and fashion magazines. If Gail opened the closet she would find cardboard boxes of Renee's old clothes, labeled whimsically in black marker: Aerobx. Shuz. Brrr—winter. And if she pulled aside the curtains she would see that the window had never been fixed, not since Renee broke the crank handle so she could sneak in and out at night. Gail had never told Irene about it, waiting to see if Renee would get caught. She never did.

  "Put the top back on the polish," Gail said, still at the door. "Dinner's ready."

  "I'll look stupid with only one hand painted," Karen said. She screwed the top on, holding the fingers of her left hand out stiffly so she wouldn't smudge them. "Can I take it home?"

  "No, you can't." Gail motioned for Karen to come out of the room.

  Karen swung her sneakered feet back and forth. "Who gets all this stuff?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Renee's stuff."

  "I don't know."

  "Can I have it?" Karen asked.

  "Certainly not," Gail said. "Come on. They're waiting for us."

  "Why not?"

  "Karen. Out," Gail ordered. "And you have to clean that off your nails before you go to school tomorrow."

  Then Gail remembered, though she hadn't thought of it for years, the Saturday Irene had asked her to take Renee shopping for school clothes. Renee's birthday had been the week before and Ben had asked her what she wanted. She had put her arms around his neck and pouted. Something to wear, please please please Ben, my clothes suck, Momma doesn't have any money and I look like a freak at school. He gave her five hundred dollars and Renee insisted on going all the way to Dadeland Mall, clear across town. At fourteen years old, with five hundred dollars in the pocket of her jeans, the first thing Renee did was have fingernails put on. Long, red acrylic nails,
fifty dollars, glued over her own ragged ones. Gail paced back and forth, grumbling. Then Renee walked casually from boutique to boutique. Everything was just so gross, she said. Gail screamed at her to hurry. Finally Renee found a store she liked, with exposed air conditioning ducts and salesgirls dressed in black. Weird clanging music came from somewhere. Renee stood away from the racks and pointed with her long red fingernails. That one and that one. No, not that. The salesgirls followed along, the clothes piling up on their arms. Renee didn't go to the fitting rooms, afraid to muss her nails. She never wore half the clothes she bought, or bothered to return them.

  Gail closed the door to Renee's room and followed Karen down the hall. Karen's long brown hair swung against her narrow back. She walked with a little bounce, then a skip. Even at nine years old, Gail thought, she knew who she was. Gail caught up and hugged her. "I'll ask if you can have the nail polish, okay?"

  "Thanks," Karen said. "Can I have the jewelry, too?"

  Gail laughed. "I don't care. Ask your grandma."

  They carried their plates out to the patio and sat around a glass-topped table on the other side of the swimming pool. Across the bay, the buildings on Miami Beach had turned pink in the setting sun. Beyond them a line of puffy clouds drifted above the horizon, their tops still brilliant white.

  Irene tapped Karen on the shoulder. "You see that little island out there?' '

  Karen turned around in her chair. "Which one?"

  She pointed. "With the tree broken off at the top. See? A pelican just landed on it." When Karen nodded, Irene said, "When I was a girl we used to row out there and have picnics. Grandpa would take our dinghy down to the boat ramp and we'd get in and away we'd go. A whole boat full of cousins. You remember that, don't you, Ben?"

  Ben pushed his plate away and reached for his cigarettes. "Good days, Irene. Gone and never to be repeated."

  Karen said, "Daddy takes me on our boat."