“Margaret? You know, don’t you?” Mother persists.
“About the Leiberman woman? Yes, I know.” Margaret turns her attention back to the television.
Her mother crosses the room and sinks heavily into the couch beside her. “What are you doing up so early?”
“I couldn’t sleep—”
“I haven’t either.” Leave it to Mother to turn the conversation back to herself. And Jane. “I’ve had terrible insomnia ever since Jane—”
“—and I heard the sirens,” Margaret continues as though her mother hadn’t interrupted her original explanation.
“I can’t bear this,” Bess wails. “This other woman is dead. If this has anything to do with your sister’s disappearance . . .”
“Nobody has said that it does, Mother,” Margaret tells her.
“But she’s so like Jane. Beautiful—not in the same way, but very striking. Did you see her picture?”
Margaret nods. Yes, Rachel Leiberman was beautiful. And she, like Jane, had it all. Everything money could buy, and the precious things it could not: an adoring, successful husband, cherubic children . . .
The perfect life.
Now someone has taken it away.
Margaret eyes her mother’s trembling hands, wondering if she should reach over and hold them.
She rarely touches her mother these days. Never has, really. Not like affectionate Jane, who was always patting Mother’s arm or casually slinging an arm around her shoulder. If Jane were here and Mother were this upset, she would be hugging her, comforting her.
But Jane’s not here. Which, of course, is why Mother is upset.
And God help her, Margaret can’t quite bring herself to comfort Bess, even now. At least, not physically.
“This woman was found bludgeoned in her bed, Mother. In her own home. Jane hasn’t turned up dead. She’s only missing. One might have nothing to do with the other.”
“This is Townsend Heights, Margaret. For God’s sake, are you telling me that there are two homicidal maniacs on the loose in this town?”
“Jane hasn’t been murdered, Mother.” Margaret grips the remote control in her lap, tension aching in her fingers, her jaw, her shoulders. “She’s just gone. Nobody is telling us that she’s been murdered.”
Bess just stares stiffly at the television, her eyes brimming with tears.
Margaret looks at her for a long moment, then looks away, out the window.
On television the reporter is interviewing a woman who says she works in Benjamin Leiberman’s office. She’s sobbing, talking about how wonderful the doctor is and how tragic it is that something has happened to his wife. How his poor children have been left motherless . . .
Schuyler.
“I’ll go listen for the baby, Mother,” Margaret says, remembering her niece. “She should be up soon.”
“She’s already awake. Owen has her upstairs, in his room.”
“I’ll go see if he wants me to take her.” Margaret stands, putting the television remote onto the polished cherry-wood coffee table.
She hasn’t seen Owen yet this morning. Her hands flutter to her hair, making sure it’s neatly combed back. She was tempted to leave it loose this morning for a change. But then she lost her nerve, pulling it into a bun as usual.
Suddenly aware of her mother’s shrewd gaze on her, she quickly lowers her hands, thrusting them into the pockets of her black wool slacks.
“Leave Owen and Schuyler alone, Margaret.” Bess’s voice is stern. Knowing.
“But I’m not trying to—Mother, he must be exhausted. I heard him walking around the house at all hours. I’ll just go take the baby off his hands.”
“No. If he needs help with her, I’ll do it. Schuyler is more comfortable with me.”
Margaret spins on her heel and leaves the room, stung, yet knowing it’s the truth.
“Let’s go over this one more time,” the gray-haired police detective says, folding his thick arms across his broad chest. “Exactly when did you put the children to bed?”
“I already t-told you. . . .” Jeremiah’s voice cracks. “It was around eight.”
“And then you watched television in the Leibermans’ family room. But you can’t remember what you watched.”
Fletch looks at his nephew. The kid squirms on the couch.
“I w-wasn’t really w-watching it,” he says. “I was studying, t-too. So I wasn’t p-paying much attention t-to the TV.”
“I see.”
The detective turns to Sharon, who’s seated in a chair across the room. “Your nephew says Mrs. Leiberman sent him home at around midnight, Mrs. Gallagher. Did you hear him come in?”
“No. I was in bed, asleep. I sleep very soundly.” She looks toward Fletch, seated on the couch beside Jeremiah. Her expression clearly says, Back me up here.
He intends to say nothing until he realizes that the detective, too, is looking questioningly at him.
Fletch admits, “Yes, she sleeps soundly.”
“And did you hear your nephew come in, Mr. Gallagher?”
He shifts his weight on the cushion, forcing himself to say evenly, “No, I didn’t. I was asleep then, too.”
“And you sleep as soundly as your wife does.”
He shrugs. It isn’t a question. Is the detective suspicious of him? No, Fletch reminds himself. Jeremiah’s the suspect here. Not him, or Sharon. They’re just witnesses. Or not.
“And when you came home, Jeremiah, what did you do?” the detective asks.
“I w-went to b-bed.”
“And what time was that?”
“I t-told you already, I th-th-think it was around m-midnight I d-didn’t look at the c-clock.” Jeremiah looks at Fletch, his eyes pleading.
All right. It’s time to put an end to this. The police have been questioning the boy for hours, ever since the doorbell rang in the middle of the night and Fletch opened it to find two dour-looking cops on the step.
He rises from the couch. “Yes, you did tell him. Over and over again. Don’t say anything else, Jeremiah,” Fletch orders his nephew.
“Mr. Gallagher—”
“Yes?” He glares at the detective. Summers, he said his name was. Moved up here after spending almost two decades working in the South Bronx. He probably figured he would have an uneventful cruise toward retirement.
“If you’d let us finish questioning your nephew, we’d—”
“Not without a lawyer,” Fletch says firmly. “I should have called him in the first place. I would have, but—” He breaks off, clears his throat. Makes himself look directly at the detective, unwilling to appear as anything other than a concerned uncle. And neighbor. After all, Rachel Leiberman lived right down the street. . . .
“So you want to hold off on further questioning until your lawyer is present?” the detective prods.
“Absolutely.” Fletch realizes he’s been biting his lip. Hard. He tastes tangy, salty blood on his tongue.
“Fletch . . . are you sure?” Sharon speaks up from her chair across the room, beside the fireplace.
“I’m positive,” he tells her. He follows her gaze back to Jeremiah.
His nephew is the picture of pathetic, shivering in his short-sleeved T-shirt and boxer shorts, his scrawny white arms wrapped around his thin chest in an effort to keep warm. The big, seldom-used living room is chilly at this hour. Fletch absently reminds himself to turn up the heat after the detective leaves.
What more does he want from the kid now? Jeremiah has painstakingly given him the rundown of last night, several times. His story never varied. He said he had put the Leiberman kids to bed, then watched television in their family room for a few hours. Then Rachel had come home at around midnight and sent him on his way. He came straight home, let himself into the house, and went to bed.
Finally t
he detective does go—reluctantly, and only after telling the Gallaghers he’ll be in touch again later.
The moment he closes the door behind him, Fletch lets out an enormous, shaky sigh. He bows his head and rubs his burning eyes.
“You don’t think he did it, do you?”
He jumps at the whispered voice behind him; sees that Sharon has followed him into the front hall. She stands there, bundled in her white silk robe, staring up at him.
Is that an accusing look in her eyes? Is she suspicious of him?
Suddenly overwhelmed, Fletch abruptly strides away, first to the thermostat on the wall, which he adjusts to sixty-eight degrees, then back toward the living room and Jeremiah.
“Fletch? You don’t think he’s actually guilty, do you?” Sharon asks in a low voice, hurrying after him, touching his arm.
He stops, turns to her. “I don’t know, Sharon. I honestly don’t know.”
“My God, Fletch. Are you saying you think Jeremiah—”
“I’m saying I don’t know what I think. Just don’t say a word about him to anyone. Including the cops.”
He crosses the threshold into the living room. His nephew is still sitting on the couch. Tears are streaming down his pock-marked face.
“Jeremiah . . .” Fletch goes to him, sits next to him. He doesn’t know what to say. Finally, he settles on, “I’ll call my lawyer.”
The boy nods. “What ab-bout my d-dad?”
“I’ll call him, too. Unless you want to.”
Jeremiah shakes his head mutely.
Struggling to conceal his inner turmoil, Fletch pats the boy’s bony arm. Across the room, he sees Sharon in the doorway, watching him, an inscrutable expression on her face.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Tash?” Joel asks, watching her as she yanks a navy turtleneck over her head. They’re both in the master bathroom with the door closed, the air swirling with mist from their showers.
Yet somehow it’s freezing in here, she thinks vaguely. Or maybe it’s just me. Her entire body is covered in goose bumps. The cotton fabric of the shirt seems to irritate her skin everywhere it touches.
“Tash?”
She pulls her damp hair free of the neckline, then looks at him. He’s watching her, one hand on the knob of the closed door. He’s put on a dress shirt and has a tie dangling around his neck.
“So you really are going to the office today?” she asks him.
When he first said that he was, she reacted in disbelief.
After all they’ve been through in these past few hours . . .
Joel rushed back over to Ben’s right after he told Tasha what had happened. She had been torn between wanting to go and needing to stay here, with her children. The whole time Joel was gone, she prowled the house, going from window to window, from door to door, making sure the house was secure, never quite believing that it was, no matter how many locks she checked and rechecked.
Finally, Joel came back across the street, carrying one of the sleeping Leiberman kids. Mara. Tasha tucked the little girl into bed in the master bedroom, then swiftly set up their portable crib alongside the bed. A minute later, Joel came back with Noah, and Tasha gently laid the sleeping baby in the crib.
She and Joel tiptoed back downstairs to collapse into each other’s arms, Tasha weeping, Joel comforting.
Later, they drank coffee and took turns peeking out the window at the commotion in front of the house across the street. Police officers came and went. So did the coroner. The media came and stayed, their number growing steadily through the wee hours. By daybreak, the street was clogged with vans and reporters and camera crews.
The Leiberman children slept through all of it. So did the Banks children.
Joel told Tasha that Ben was a mess. Hysterical. In shock.
“One of us should go be with him,” Tasha kept saying. But Joel insisted that they should remain here at home, out of the way. Ben’s sister was on her way over from her home in Bedford. She would stay with him.
And Joel would stay with Tasha.
Or so she thought.
“Can’t you cancel your client meeting?” Tasha asks her husband now, not looking at him as she pulls on the same pair of jeans she wore yesterday. And the day before.
The washing machine, she remembers, distracted. She still hasn’t touched it. Well, it doesn’t seem nearly as pressing now. She can wear these jeans every day if she has to. It doesn’t matter.
“I told you,” Joel says wearily, with forced patience, wiping at the fogged mirror with a towel, “it’s not a meeting. It’s a shoot. I’m already late as it is. The CEOs of both the client and the agency are going to be there, and I need to be there, too. Like I said, I’ll come straight home as soon as it’s over.”
She knows.
He did say it all before. Went into detail, telling her that the shoot can’t be delayed because the talent is a supermodel who has a busy schedule, and they’re shooting on location in midtown, which means applying for permits galore. The bottom line is that Joel can’t cancel the shoot merely because of a murder.
While he swiftly knots his tie, standing in front of the mirror, Tasha jams her feet into her sneakers, not bothering to tie them.
“All set?” he asks.
She nods.
“Okay, I’m opening the door now,” Joel whispers.
She flips off the bathroom light and follows him through their darkened bedroom, glancing at the small figures huddled in the bed and crib. Rachel’s children are still sound asleep, unaware that they no longer have a mommy.
Will I have to be the one to tell them when they wake up? Tasha wonders in dread.
Damn Joel for leaving her alone with them at a time like this.
He holds open the door from the bedroom to the hall for her. She steps across the threshold. He pulls the door closed behind her with a quiet click.
“Are you going to be okay while I’m gone?” he asks her.
What will he say if she tells him that she won’t?
“Yeah,” she replies, walking toward the stairs.
He follows.
“Don’t open the door for anyone while I’m gone,” he tells her as they descend to the first floor. “Keep Hunter home from school.”
She nods. They already agreed to do that.
“I told Ben to call over here when he’s ready to see the kids.”
She nods again. He’s said this before, too.
At the foot of the stairs, he opens the hall closet and removes his trench coat. “The police are going to want to talk to you at some point, Tash.”
She looks at him in surprise. “To me?”
“You were over there yesterday—”
“They don’t think I had something to do with it, do they?” Her heart is pounding.
“I doubt it. But they’ll be talking to anyone who might know something.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Are you sure?” Joel looks carefully at her, seeming to probe her face. “Can you think of anything that might help? Anything at all?”
“I . . . I don’t know, Joel,” she says slowly, looking into his brown eyes.
A thin wail erupts overhead.
“There’s Max,” she says. “I’ll get him before he wakes everyone else.”
“I’ll be home as soon as I possibly can, Tasha,” Joel calls after her, picking up his briefcase and heading for the door.
“Okay,” she says, wishing she believed him.
Jeremiah hears a door slam downstairs. Going to the window of his room, he sees his uncle in the driveway below with Lily and Daisy. Uncle Fletch is no longer wearing the sweatpants and T-shirt he had on earlier. Now he’s in black corduroys and a plaid button-down shirt under his black leather jacket. The girls, whom Jeremiah hasn’t yet seen today, are dressed in jeans and s
weaters, carrying bookbags. They climb into the silver Mercedes. Uncle Fletch starts the engine and backs out quickly.
Obviously, he’s driving them to Townsend Heights Elementary. He didn’t even suggest that Jeremiah get ready for school after the detective left, and Jeremiah didn’t ask him about it. They both assumed he wouldn’t be going. Not after what happened. Not considering the fact that he’s the last person who saw Rachel Leiberman alive, and the police said they want to talk to him again.
Thank God Uncle Fletch finally interrupted Detective Summers. Jeremiah didn’t think he could take much more at that point. The detective kept grilling him about his actions the night before, wanting to know every single move he had made while he was at the Leibermans’ house.
When Uncle Fletch cut in and said he was going to call a lawyer, Jeremiah was actually on the verge of breaking down, perilously close to admitting everything.
Well, that didn’t happen, thanks to Uncle Fletch.
He turns away from the window. His gaze falls on his desk. It’s littered with piles of papers and books. On top of the pile is a newspaper clipping from a mid-August edition of the Townsend Gazette. He’s read it dozens of times, but he does so again now, after looking at the photo of his stepmother.
It was taken when Melissa was younger—maybe even before she had the twins. She’s smiling and tanned in the photo, her blond hair loose and falling past her shoulders. When Jeremiah met her it was shorter than that. And she hadn’t smiled much—at least, not at him. Not unless his father was around.
NORTH STREET HOUSE FIRE LEAVES ONE DEAD
By Paula Bailey
A deadly inferno on Friday night left a Townsend Heights family homeless—and three children without a mother. Melissa Gallagher, 40, of 27 North Street in the village, died in the blaze, which started in the kitchen in the early evening hours. The cause is still under investigation.
The woman’s teenage son, Jeremiah, and young daughters, Lily and Daisy, were not home at the time. Her husband, Aidan Gallagher, has been overseas on military duty since mid-June. He could not be reached for comment.
The Last to Know Page 19
