Maybe he can sell some of the crucifixes he makes, instead. You have to admit, they are beautiful. You can see they’ve been crafted with reverence and awe, as though they were made to work holy magic by the skilled, practiced hands of a pious man—the hands of my father.
My dad gave one of the crucifixes to creepy Father Tim a couple years ago. It was after the Father said he couldn’t do anything for Becky. Father Tim hung it in the rectory and one Sunday morning announced that my father had made it. There were hushed whispers throughout the congregation, mostly about my tragic family, but no one came up to my dad after the service to congratulate him on his work.
It was just as well. My father thinks hubris is a sin.
A sin—just like he thinks it’s a sin that I don’t believe in the things he and my mother believe. Honestly, I can’t say for sure if there’s a God or not, but I know that going to church every Sunday morning, or getting on my knees in front of his beautiful pieces of crossed wood hanging all over the house, won’t help me to believe any more or less than I already do.
I do believe in evil, though. Not the supernatural kind, but the kind that festers in our minds like rotted meat. It makes people like my mother fall into the dark pits of their souls. It creates things that look like my sister but aren’t.
Maybe that’s what happened to Becky. Living in Apple fed her inner evil until it needed to be expressed.
Just when I’m sinking into my own little pool of depression, a stray thought flits by, and cold fingers dance up my spine.
Annie’s mother had to work late at Tenzar’s last night.
No.
No. No. No.
I have my jeans and a T-shirt on before I can let the stray thought form into something cohesive. Seconds later, I’m out the door and running across the street to Newie’s house.
There’s been enough death connected to us.
Too much.
34
“YO, CHILL,” NEWIE says to me as he stands in his front hallway in only his sweatpants.
“I’ve texted Annie like ten times,” I tell him. The frustration in my voice is palpable. “She’s not answering.”
“Maybe her phone’s off. It’s friggin’ seven in the morning on a Saturday.”
How can he not understand what’s happening? My guts are churning inside, and I can tell there’s something terribly wrong. You don’t live in a house like mine, day after day, without developing a feel for these things.
“What did your dad say?”
“About what?”
“Jesus, Newie.” How can he be so freaking obtuse? “What did he say about what’s happened at Tenzar’s?”
Newie shrugs and lumbers down the hallway to the kitchen. “Just that someone’s dead.” He opens the refrigerator and pulls out a jug of milk. “Asshole got the call this morning. That’s all I know.” Newie begins chugging the milk, the plastic collapsing in on itself each time another swallow gushes down his throat. “Ahhh,” he says when he’s done and the jug is spent. He belches, loud and long. “Why?”
I feel the blood drain completely out of my face. I’m probably as pale as the milk Newie sucked down. “I think it’s Mrs. Berg,” I say hoarsely. Her weary face and sad smile float behind my eyes.
“Shut up,” he says. “Why would anyone kill Annie’s mom?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Why would anyone kill Claudia Fish or Ruby Murphy or even Ralphie Delessio? Why would anyone kill Margo Freeman and cut her into pieces?”
“Yeah, that was messed up,” he says. “She was hot.”
“Jesus Christ, Newie. Really?”
“Okay, okay,” he says, starting to slip into cop mode. “Why Mrs. Berg?”
I shake my head. “She had to work late at Tenzar’s last night,” I whisper.
Newie wipes his mouth with his hairy arm and drops the plastic jug into the wastebasket. “So did Erika,” he says. “So did a lot of people. Erika said that they were doing inventory or something.”
I don’t get how he can be so callous about the whole thing. Someone’s dead—maybe someone we know—and I need my best friend right now, because I can feel in my gut that Mrs. Berg’s the one.
I don’t know how I know—I just do. There’s a strange emptiness inside of me that wasn’t there before. It’s the same kind of emptiness I felt when my grandmother died—like part of me was chipped away with a hammer and chisel. That’s what I’m feeling now—that another part of me has been taken away, leaving me a little less whole than I was before.
“Let’s ride our bikes down there,” I say to him. “I have to see.”
“No fucking way,” snorts Newie. “Asshole will kill me. The only thing that stopped him from beating the shit out of me last night was Mary Jane—but he’ll get around to it, don’t you worry. He’ll come home tonight, and he’ll be all moody and obsessed because there was another murder, and he’ll stare at those creepy pictures like he always does. Then right in the middle of it, he’ll stop what he’s doing, come find me, and wail on me. I know the drill. I’ve lived it enough times.”
I clear my throat, but no words come out. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say.
“One of these days I’m gonna hit him back,” he mutters. “I just want to make sure that when I do, he doesn’t get up. You know what he always says to me? ‘Don’t throw the first punch in a fight, Newton. Throw the last one.’ Well, one of these days I’ll hit him back when I know I’m throwing the last punch. Then we’ll see who the fuckwad is—that’s for damn sure.”
I look anywhere but at Newie. He’s got major life issues, and I know I need to be there for him, but I can’t take on one more person right now. I just can’t. One more piece of straw, and my back is going to break.
“I have to know about Annie’s mother,” I finally say. “I’m riding my bike down there.”
Newie rolls his eyes. “You’re a pain in my ass,” he growls. “If I get the shit kicked out of me by Asshole, it’s your fault. Give me two minutes.” He flies up the stairs, and I’m relieved that I don’t have to ride to Tenzar’s alone.
Five minutes later, we’re peddling down the street on our bikes. Newie looks a little like something out of a circus because he’s so big, and his bike’s so little.
Town is quiet. Most of the stores won’t open for another hour or two, except for Dippity Doughnuts and Tenzar’s. The supermarket’s always busy on Saturday mornings, because that’s when all the working mothers go to cash and spend their weekly paychecks. Too many have to spend the cash quick, before their baby-daddies can use the money at the liquor store or maybe down at the Indian casino in Connecticut. I’m not quite sure what actually goes on at a casino. All I know is that my father thinks gambling is a sin.
Sometimes he acts like breathing is a sin, too.
Newie has to stand on his bike as he peddles. If he sits, his knees are too high, and they bang against the handlebars. I do the same, because I feel as though standing on my bike, instead of sitting, will get me there faster. I hold my phone in my hand, because I’m hoping it will ring or ding, and it will be Annie, wondering why I’m acting so crazed—but I know that’s not going to happen.
Annie’s not going to call. She’s going to wake up with the same foggy headache that I woke up with, stumble downstairs, and make herself something to eat. She’ll never even notice that her mother didn’t come home last night. It won’t be until later, when her father gets up, reaches for his first beer of the day, and yells for Mrs. Berg to come and make him breakfast, all the time scratching himself and calling her a useless bitch.
And the whole time that my mind is racing with these thoughts, another thought is sidling up right next to them. It’s quietly whispering in my ear that all of this is just in my head, and Mrs. Berg is fine. Someone else was killed at Tenzar’s, like one of the m
anagers or maybe even Erika, which would be equally as horrible but somehow a little easier to take.
When we see the lights of the police cars up ahead, flashing red then blue, red then blue, all I want to do is cry.
35
OFFICER RANDY WANTS to know why we’re at the supermarket. There’s a small crowd of employees outside, and most of them look gray. An older woman is crying. She has her arms around a young guy with greasy hair, who looks like he might be the manager, or at least the junior manager.
“My girlfriend’s mom worked late last night,” I gasp breathlessly. Sticky sweat plasters my hair against my forehead. “I just want . . . I mean, I just hope . . .”
He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he waddles back inside Tenzar’s and leaves us there with the rest of the growing crowd. Newie and I sit silently on our bikes and stare at the double glass doors, waiting for someone to come out, but after ten minutes, nobody does.
Off in the distance, I hear a siren, and I rightly guess that it’s an ambulance. It’s coming from further down the street past the market. The wailing gets louder and louder, and right when I think that a white van with red lettering and flashing lights is going to turn into the parking lot, the ambulance speeds by toward the center of town.
Newie looks at me questioningly.
“Bad things come in threes,” I say. “Whoever got murdered, whoever needs that ambulance, and one more thing.”
“That would be Asshole killing me,” he says and turns back to the double glass doors. “That’s one more thing.”
On some level, I know he’s serious. Newie just tightens his jaw and waits for someone to come out of Tenzar’s and tell us anything.
Finally, Officer Randy comes back through the doors, followed by Chief Anderson, and I feel that all-too-familiar burning in my chest again, because the chief’s not looking anywhere but at the two of us. There’s something in his face that’s not anger. I can’t tell what it is because the chief’s always angry.
Newie puts his nails in his mouth as he stares at his dad.
“Fuck me,” I whisper under my breath. Newie doesn’t say anything. Neither does he move when his father begins to come towards us. It’s all happening in slow motion, and somehow I already know that whatever the chief says, it’s going to be like he’s yelling through a wind tunnel. The words are going to be muffled and far away, because the only thing I can really hear is the blood pounding in my head.
That’s when I really do start to cry. It’s not great, heaving sobs—only a trickle of salt tears that I barely know are there, until a gust of wind blows by, and I feel them grow cold against my face.
“Guys,” says Chief Anderson as he rubs the back of his neck and stares at the pavement. He doesn’t ask why we’re there. He doesn’t seem angry. If I had to guess, I’d say he seems as sad as I am and a little at a loss for words.
“Who?” I croak out, breaking Apple protocol by asking “who” instead of “how.”
The chief looks anywhere but at the two of us. He surveys the crowd, then he looks across the street, but I can tell his eyes are glassy. He doesn’t want to say the words, because if he says them, they’ll be real.
Finally, he sighs, and his nostrils flare a little. “Carla Berg,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
I feel like I’ve been stabbed. Newie’s mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. He stares at his dad like the chief is staring at us. Everything we’re supposed to say is being said with our eyes instead of our mouths.
Annie’s mom. Mrs. Berg. Why her? Why now?
I swallow, and that Apple word finally bubbles up out of me, simple and finite, but I need to know. “How?” I rasp.
Chief Anderson rubs his chin. He’s not supposed to say anything. I know that. I watch murder shows on TV like everybody else. Saying something will supposedly compromise his investigation, but this is Mrs. Berg. She’s one of us. She’s connected to Annie, and Annie’s connected to me, and I’m connected to Newie. We’re family, sort of.
Family has a right to know.
“How?” I ask again, but the chief can’t bring himself to tell us.
“Shit,” he whispers under his breath.
“Please.”
His nostrils flare, and he rolls his eyes, because he knows he’s not supposed to tell—but he does anyway. “In the fish section,” he says quietly. “On the ice.”
I remember Mrs. Berg once complaining about how the fish section at Tenzar’s was one of the toughest places to work, because every night, after the store closed, all the fish had to be taken off the ice and put into refrigerators. The next morning, it all had to be taken out again and placed back on the ice in little displays of layered filets.
Only this morning, whoever went to Tenzar’s early to open up the store and lay the fish out on the ice found something already there.
Something cold and dead.
The double glass doors to the market open again, and Erika Tenzar comes out wrapped in a blanket. She’s pasty-white and shaking. That white-haired cop, the one who looked like he wanted permission to shoot me yesterday, is by her side. Erika’s crying, and her face is screwed up into a horrible grimace that seems permanent—and all I can think is that I have to know.
I have to know now.
I drop my bike to the ground and push past Chief Anderson to where Erika’s been deposited in the open back seat of one of the cop cars. She’s sitting sideways, and her feet are pigeon-toed on the tar.
“Erika?” I say to her. She doesn’t move. Newie appears next to me, and the chief is behind both of us, but not stopping me from doing what I need to do. “Erika?” I say to her again, and this time she slowly raises her eyes and looks at me. She blinks a couple of times as if she doesn’t quite know who I am. Then her gaze passes beyond me to Newie.
“I saw it,” she whispers to him.
Newie gets down on his knees in front of her, but still, his head towers above Erika’s. “What do you mean?” he asks as he gently takes her hand. “What did you see?”
“I saw a murdered person,” she whimpers, her lower lip pouted and trembling. “I’ve seen death.”
“What happened?” I blurt out, although I already know that I don’t want to hear the answer. Still, I need to hear her say the words.
“All wrapped and packaged,” she gulps. “On the ice in the fish department. She’s all wrapped and packaged.”
It takes me a second to realize what she means.
Then it actually hits me that it’s Annie’s mother she’s talking about. She’s laid out on the ice, all wrapped and packaged like a smallmouth bass from one of the fishermen at the Quabbin.
Wrapped and packaged.
Wrapped and packaged.
Wrapped and packaged.
I close my eyes and clench my fists.
Meanwhile, Erika realizes how awful the words are that are coming out of her mouth, quickly lowers her head, and pukes all over the pavement in front of Newie. He doesn’t move or say anything stupid like Newie always does. He holds her hair as she coughs and sputters. When she’s done, she accepts a tissue from the white-haired officer and wipes her mouth.
When she looks up, her eyes search Newie’s, and I can tell she sees safety in them.
Her gaze moves to me.
“She looked co-cold,” she says. “She looked so, so cold.”
A shiver rushes through my body. It’s not because of what Erika says. It’s because of what Becky said to me last night.
“Co-cold,” she whispered through her chattering teeth. “So, so cold.”
36
ERIKA IS SITTING in the back of the police car with Newie. He has one arm wrapped around her shoulder, and she’s leaning up against him. He’s biting his nails like he always does.
Meanwhile, the chief is standing ne
xt to me, talking on his cell phone. I can hear him, but whatever he’s saying isn’t quite registering. The only things that stick with me are the names “Berg” and “Dunhill Road,” where Annie lives. Other than that, there’s only one thought that keeps running through my head over and over again.
Becky.
Last night when Not-Becky was hiding somewhere in the depths of her brain, Becky told me she was cold. Then she flip-flopped around in the folds of her blanket and called herself wrapped and packaged.
How did she know it would happen that way to Annie’s mom? How the hell did she know?
The chief keeps talking, but his words mean nothing to me. The only thing that means something is my sister and her connection to the murders this year. Somehow she knows. Somehow, from the prison of a bedroom where she’s been locked away like a princess in a tower, she knows.
For the first time in a very long while, I want my mother—not the person who huddles in her bed all day with her cigarettes burning to ash between her fingers. I want my mother from before Becky got sick. I want my mother from before my grandmother tumbled down the stairs to her death. I want the woman who scooped me up into her arms when I was a kid and smothered me with kisses and sometimes made pancakes from scratch on school days just because, and who read me bedtime stories before I went to sleep.
Hell, I need my mother right now, because Annie’s is gone, and I have to somehow make sense of it all.
My brooding thoughts are interrupted by the chief’s gruff voice. “Annie Berg?” he says into his cell. “You gotta be shitting me.”
I turn and look up at him as he clutches the phone to his ear. His eyes are shut, and he looks even more concerned than before. When he opens his eyes they find mine.
“Yes,” he says. “I’m looking right at him.”
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