by Liza Bennett
“He felt vulnerable about my book getting published,” Lark said. “He was having a hard time handling my success. It was a way of building his ego. I think it’s pretty simple.”
If only Ethan hadn’t first approached her before he even knew that Lark had sold her book, Meg thought. But tonight seemed the wrong time to try to correct Lark’s conclusion—there was too much else to cope with. But Meg was determined to help Lark face the truth someday; no good had come from letting her sister make up her own version of reality.
“Perhaps,” Meg said gently, rocking back in her chair. “But he was definitely working through some real conflicts, some serious problems. I’m afraid I was just too shocked by his behavior to be of much help.”
“It wasn’t your role to help,” Lark replied tersely. “I didn’t want to get into this, but I think now that I’d better. I know my husband is—” she hesitated and Meg saw her hands shaking again as she pulled at the afghan, “was enormously attractive. He had women throwing themselves at him. But I never for a moment thought that you—my sister—”
“What are you talking about?” Meg stopped rocking.
“How you felt about Ethan,” Lark said, staring blankly at the fire. “I don’t know why I should have been surprised. He’s so—that amazing appeal. And you’re lonely, you’ve been so disappointed—”
“Stop right there,” Meg said, standing up. “I never for one moment reciprocated Ethan’s feelings. Did he tell you that? What the hell did he say to you?”
“Please, Meg,” Lark shook her head. “Don’t shout. The children …” She hugged her knees to her chest. “Ethan was one of those men whom women just feel naturally feel drawn to. I’ve known this—I’ve dealt with it for years. It’s not a big deal for me—”
“Well, it is for me,” Meg interrupted again, crossing to the couch and sitting down. “I can’t have you thinking for even a moment that I felt anything for Ethan besides a—a sisterly kind of love.”
“It’s okay, Meg,” Lark said sadly. “It’s so relatively unimportant compared to what’s happened. God, this thing with Lucinda. My mind just can’t seem to process everything. The whole chain of events.” She paused. “Did you realize that Lucinda stole money from you? Off your dresser for a bus ride home?”
“No. I guess I was too upset to—”
“She took the bus to Albany,” Lark went on. “Called me from the station to pick her up. This was about an hour after you and Ethan had called. So I already knew what had happened when I went to get her.” Lark leaned back in her chair. “We had a good talk on the way home. It’s funny, but that’s the only decent conversation I think I’ve ever had with her. We bonded. We both agreed that men were shits. That you couldn’t count on them. You had to forge your own existence. We only spoke in general terms. She didn’t mention you and Ethan in particular. I assumed, of course, that she was upset about the situation for my sake. I was touched. I remember thinking that I really had never given her the chance she deserved….”
“You did everything you could—” Meg tried to reassure her sister, but Lark seemed determined not to let her have a say.
“No, wait! Listen. This is all much worse … more complicated … than you think.” Lark took a long, deep breath. She exhaled slowly, and said: “Lucinda was pregnant. She had a miscarriage last night in jail. That’s one of the things the police wanted to talk to me about this afternoon.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yes. Indeed.” Lark stared at the dead fire. “Though it’s hard to know at a time like this whether you really want there to be a God or not. I mean, what kind of a God would let things get so totally screwed up? I was telling Francine that the only way I know I’m still alive is because I’m so angry. It really feels as if my blood, my breathing … has turned into pure burning rage.”
“But what does Lucinda being pregnant have to do with her killing Ethan?”
Lark was silent.
“You don’t actually think that…” Meg couldn’t finish her thought.
“Yes. I think it is possible that Ethan was the father of Lucinda’s poor little … Remember, Ethan was Lucinda’s stepfather, not her real father, and—according to Ethan, anyway—they’d always had this very weird, strained relationship. She acted like she hated him, and she made such a display of her dislike. It was a very complicated kind of love-hate. In the last couple of months, she became so needy and aggressive. Hormones totally out of control.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t know what it was like here, Meg. Lucinda could be very provocative. She’d wander out of the bathroom half naked. And she’d taunt him constantly. Make fun of his ego … his manhood. I can imagine Ethan getting mad. And yes, I can even imagine him getting aroused. And, well, poor Ethan. He can’t resist.” Lark shut her eyes for a second. “Couldn’t.”
But Meg could conjure up a very different scenario. She recalled the Ethan she had grown to fear: his raw power, his sudden bursts of emotion and need. She imagined Lucinda thoughtlessly provoking him—and Ethan losing control. She remembered his fierce grip, the feeling of utter helplessness when she realized that Ethan overpowered her. Meg had been lucky enough to escape. But if Lucinda hadn’t, if Ethan had indeed assaulted her, Meg could only imagine Lucinda’s rage, the dark underside of need. The hand groping blindly for the pontil—
“Lark, listen to me.” Meg touched her sister’s arm. “Nothing happened between Ethan and me … but I went through enough to realize he could be very aggressive and—”
“I told you I don’t want to hear about it.” Lark’s eyes flashed, and Meg saw the anger under the calm exterior. Meg had long thought she understood Lark better than anyone else in the world. Each sister, without having to say word, seemed always to know what the other was thinking. And over the years they’d developed their own shorthand way of communicating—a raised eyebrow from Lark had more meaning for Meg than a long, impassioned argument from someone else.
Yet tonight, trying to read Lark’s gaze, hoping to gauge the depths of her sorrow, Meg had to face the fact that Ethan’s death and the events leading up to it had severed the vital, intricate bond between them. The murder had hit their relationship hard, destroying connections, wiping out naturalness. Meg had been waiting for two days to be with Lark, to share her sorrow, to pour out her grief and love. But at that moment she might as well have been sitting across from a stranger.
“I need you too much right now to hate you, as I’m so tempted to do,” Lark finally told her. “The only thing that keeps me from it … is knowing that you don’t—didn’t—really understand Ethan and me at all.”
It was the most wounding thing she could have said.
13
Montville was the largest town in the county, though that hardly meant it ranked as a major metropolis. The summer visitors nearly doubled its population, but at the height of the season, that amounted to no more than fifteen thousand people. Its wide maple-lined downtown avenues had undergone a major face-lift during the last decade when the booming stock market had brought an influx of second-home buyers along with a fresh infusion of capital. Clothing boutiques, a gourmet cookware store, a wine merchant, and an ever-changing selection of restaurants now lined Main Street. The railroad station, abandoned for decades, had been converted into a mini-mall. Montville was the county seat, and its courthouse, an elaborate 1880s brick edifice, looked out behind its curving entranceway and well-tended green with the gracious,slow-paced solidity of a long-forgotten era.
Up the hill behind the courthouse, the Montville Medical Center, a modern, full-service hospital, served the neighboring communities with well-deserved acclaim. At ten-thirty on a Monday morning the visitors parking lot was half full.
“You’re coming in with me?” Meg asked Abe after he’d parked the car near the front entrance. He’d already done so much for the family, stopping by the house first thing that morning with sticky buns for the girls and some legal advice for Lark and
Meg. Lark had confided the facts of Lucinda’s miscarriage to Abe after the police interview and, though Lark’s anger toward Lucinda had now all but hardened into hatred, Abe had been able to convince her that Lucinda deserved a good criminal lawyer going forward. He’d suggested a friend of his—Peter Boardman—who worked out of Albany, and Lark reluctantly agreed to the suggestion.
“Yes,” Abe said, as he climbed out of the driver’s seat. “I want to get Lucinda hooked up with Boardman. And you look like you could use the support.”
Meg was not surprised to hear she appeared shaky. She had hardly slept again the night before, obsessively rethinking the events that led up to Ethan’s murder … and her role in them. Her passivity during those weeks haunted her—her procrastinating, her justifications. Though physically and emotionally exhausted, Meg wanted to spring into action, get things moving, try to right the wrong she had allowed to be done. At daybreak she decided that she had to visit Lucinda and hear her side of the story. She stuck to her resolve even when Lark announced coldly that she could really use Meg’s assistance around the house. Ethan’s funeral was scheduled for the following afternoon and she needed help with the girls, the arrangements, the visitors who continued to stop by. Lark was clearly unhappy when Abe suggested that he and Meg drive over to Montville together.
Despite her determination, Meg was feeling nervous and uncertain about her meeting with Lucinda. What did she possibly think she could do to help at this point? And though she wanted Abe with her, at the same time she wished she’d had the chance to tell him about her own complicated problems with Ethan on the way over in the car. But he’d spent the twenty-minute drive on his cell phone with Boardman, filling him in on the details of the case.
They learned from the ground-floor receptionist that Lucinda was being held in a special ward on the second floor under a security watch. Following a phone call from the receptionist, a policewoman came down to escort them to Lucinda’s room. After they’d been searched and cleared by the officer, Meg and Abe followed the nurse through swinging doors into the infirmary. Lucinda was at the end of the room, past a row of empty beds. Her hands, bandaged in gauze, lay on her stomach like two white boxing gloves. An IV stand stood beside the bed.
“Visitors, Lucinda,” the nurse announced, as they approached.
“I don’t want to see anybody,” Lucinda muttered, turning her face to the wall. Though Abe hesitated at the foot of the bed, Meg went quickly around and crouched down beside Lucinda, her heart aching as she took in the teenager’s clearly terrified expression.
“Hey, Luce,” Meg said.
“Go away,” Lucinda said. Her face was a puffy mask of tears. She tried to squirm down under the sheets.
“Sit up,” the nurse ordered her sharply. “You’ll pull out the IV.”
Whimpering, Lucinda obeyed, and the nurse and guard moved off together to stand by the door.
“Lucinda,” Meg said again. “We’re not here to blame you. We just want to understand … what happened.”
“I can’t. I really can’t.” She screwed her eyes shut. “I don’t remember.” Tears oozed from under her lids and slid down her chin. She kept biting her lower lip, and Meg saw that it was bruised and bleeding slightly.
“Listen, Lucinda,” Abe tried. “This is not a game. It’s very, very serious. You’ve got to tell us what happened Saturday morning.”
“I’m sorry.” Lucinda began crying in earnest.
“We know,” Meg said. “We know you are.” She sat on the edge of the bed. She brushed back Lucinda’s dirty bangs from her forehead.
“I mean, I’m sorry … I don’t remember.” She wept almost silently, though the sobs shook her whole body.
“Listen, Luce,” Meg began, trying to keep her voice calm while thinking how best to phrase what she had to say. “I think I understand a little better now about Ethan and you. I mean, what he did to you … I understand that what you did—it was a moment of a kind of insanity. And I think everyone can recognize, can somehow sympathize if not forgive, knowing that Ethan … I mean the fact that you were pregnant.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Meg. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what was happening to me.”
“You didn’t know you were pregnant?” Abe demanded.
“No,” Lucinda said. “Nobody told me until it was… gone.”
“But then, why?” Meg asked. “Why did you …”
“I don’t remember,” Lucinda said, pawing at her cropped hair with bandaged hands. “I remember deciding to go down to the studio. I was going to confront him, you know. Tell him to stay away from you. That you were better than that. I was going to finally tell him, face-to-face, what I thought of him. What he did to my Mom. To Lark. Then to you. I couldn’t believe he’d go after you. I was so pissed. Okay, I admit it. I was also totally drunk at the time so my thinking wasn’t entirely, like, clear.”
“What about you, Luce?” Meg persisted, “What did he do to you?”
“Ethan? That’s what you all think, right? That Ethan fucked me—got me pregnant—and so I murdered him?” Lucinda began to giggle, her shoulders shaking.
“This isn’t funny, Lucinda.” Abe said, pacing beside the bed.
“Oh, yes it is! If you only knew—the idea of Ethan fucking me! You can forget about it. Ethan thought I was a pig—big and ugly. He made that plenty clear. Couldn’t stand to even touch me for chrissakes. Though there were plenty of guys in that town who liked me just fine. Thought I was pretty okay. Even if my stepfather thought I was hideous. I guess that his stinking attitude toward me was enough reason to hate him. And I’m not saying that I didn’t hate him. I did.”
“But you didn’t kill him?” Meg asked.
“I don’t think I could have, though I’ll tell you right now I wouldn’t be sorry if I had. In fact, I think I would’ve been almost proud of myself. But, the truth is, I don’t have it in me. I literally can’t hurt a fly. I like lift them up by their wings and all and take ‘em outside to let them go free. You know what I mean? I can’t even begin to imagine having the guts to drive that thing through Ethan’s heart.”
“Luce, they found you holding the pontil,” Meg said sadly. “It was in your hands. Look at your bandages.”
The three of them stared at the white wrappings around Lucinda’s palms.
“You know what I was thinking?” Lucinda finally said. “What if I, like, found him that way? You know, with that thing, the pontil, already there?” Her words were coming out in a rush, the scenario obviously something she’d already played over in her mind already. “What if someone else killed him before I came in? And I see this pontil and Ethan, you know, like, dying. And I pulled the damn thing … out?”
“Is that how you remember things now?” Abe asked, skepticism clear in his tone.
“No.” Lucinda sighed heavily turning away from Abe and looking straight into Meg’s eyes. “I’m not going to lie. I know the shit I’m in here. I don’t remember a thing after draining that fifth of vodka and throwing the bottle under the studio. I don’t even remember walking up the back steps. It’s just—a blank.”
“You swear to God that Ethan never laid a finger on you?” Abe said.
Lucinda nodded her head, her eyes welling again with tears.
“Luce, do you think you might have done it,” Meg hesitated, glancing at Abe, then looking back to Lucinda again. “Do you think you might have done it… because of what Ethan tried to do to me?”
“Like I said. I went there to warn him off, you know? Not to fucking kill him. There’s a huge difference. I don’t know what happened exactly except for one thing: I didn’t murder Ethan. And if it wasn’t me, Meg, whoever did kill Ethan is walking around right now hoping nobody’s going to believe a word that comes out of the mouth of a total fuckup like me. You’ve got to believe me. You’ve got to help me.”
“We’ve hired a lawyer for you,” Abe said. “He’ll be coming down from Albany tomorrow to visit with you. We’
ll call him before we leave and give him your number here.”
“I don’t care about a lawyer,” Lucinda said, looking frantically from Abe to Meg. “I need your help, Meg.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” Meg said, standing up to go. She patted Lucinda’s shoulder. “But it’s really out of our hands now.”
“No, Meg, don’t say that,” Lucinda cried. “You’ve got to listen. You’re the only person involved who wasn’t at Red River that morning. You couldn’t have killed Ethan. Meg, you’re the only person I know who doesn’t have any reason to want to pin this thing on me.”
“She could actually be telling the truth about blacking out,” Dr. Sutphin, the chief resident, told Meg and Abe when they met with him afterward in his corner administration office on the ground floor. The psychiatric counselor, a Dr. Fredricks, joined them in the book-lined, sun-dappled room.
“That’s correct,” Dr. Fredricks added. He was a slight, balding man, with a pair of distinctive thick red-rimmed glasses and, it seemed to Meg, fidgety gestures. “In fact, I’d be alarmed and suspicious if she did claim a clear memory of the events leading up to the murder. She was still thoroughly intoxicated when she arrived here. Easily an hour and a half after she was charged.”
“She was drunk?” Abe asked. “You verified that?”
“We took blood immediately. She was high on vodka and Percodan. An extremely potent combination. Frequently toxic. Occasionally fatal.”
“It was a primary cause of the miscarriage,” Dr. Sutphin added. “That and a lack of sleep. Not eating correctly. The body can take just so much abuse—-even a teenager’s—and then it just rebels.”
“Tell us about that,” Meg said. “What happened, exactly?”
Dr. Sutphin glanced at Dr. Fredricks.
