Dangerous Habits

by Susan Hunter

  “What are you talking about?”

  I dropped the bombshell and told her what Cole had said. She pulled out a stool and sank onto it.

  “I don’t believe it. I would have known. I couldn’t not know something like that.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  She shook it off. Her expression had gone from stunned to angry. “It isn’t true. It is not true.”

  “I think it is, Mom.”

  “No. Stop talking like that.”

  “I thought you wanted to know what really happened to Lacey.”

  “I know what happened to Lacey, and you do too. She wasn’t sexually abused. She would have told me.”

  “Mom, you have to see it makes sense.”

  “No. It doesn’t. This isn’t some front page story you’re trying to get. This is real. This is our family, and you are wrong. I won’t listen, do you understand?” She stood up without another word and left the kitchen. In a second, I heard the door to her room close with a violent thud.

  Well. That’s what you call a first rate day. A sleaze ball drug dealer informs me my sister was sexually abused and hints she was maybe murdered, my best friend thinks I’m an obsessed conspiracy nut; and my mother is so angry, she can’t stay in the same room with me.

  The next morning, when I wandered into the kitchen, I found a note. “I bought you some Pop Tarts yesterday. Coffee is made. LOL.” Which my mother persisted in thinking meant “lots of love” instead of “laugh out loud.”

  I tried to respond in kind. Food is the way we apologize, celebrate, comfort, and commiserate. Nothing says Nash family love like a heaping helping of something to eat. I took off early from work that day and hurried home to make the one thing I have in my cooking repertoire. Coincidentally, it happens to be my mother’s favorite meal: Grandma Neeka’s meatloaf and twice-baked potatoes. Her car pulled in the driveway just as I pulled the meatloaf out of the oven.

  The kitchen was still pretty much a disaster. I’m not sure how it happens, but whenever I cook, things turn chaotic. Every cupboard door was open, there were pans on the stove, spills on the counter, measuring spoons and aluminum foil on the stove, and pans soaking in the sink. But I hoped the tantalizing scents of dinner would blind her to the post-Katrina conditions in her kitchen.

  “It smells great,” she said, walking through the door. “What are you doing home already? And cooking?”

  “I have a ton of comp time, and I was just hungry for some meat loaf.” I moved around the kitchen shutting doors and sweeping errant utensils and cups into the sink.

  “That’s nice.”

  “How was work?”

  “Busy. Karen’s in the middle of a complicated probate case, and our secretary quit with no notice.” My mother was a paralegal for a one-woman law practice, and her boss, Karen McDaid, was also her closest friend.

  “Mom, about what I said last night—”

  She interrupted me before I could finish. “No. Stop. I shouldn’t have just walked out on you. We should have talked.” She put her purse on the bar and cleared a space in the sink so she could wash her hands. Looking over her shoulder as she lathered up, she continued.

  “Leah, I was in therapy for a year trying to figure out how I could make such a mess of two great kids. I finally got to a place where I could forgive myself for not being a perfect—or even a very good—mother. When you hit me with the idea that Lacey had been sexually abused, and I was too dense to see it, I—well, it took my breath away. I wasn’t angry at you, not really, but it was just so hard to hear.”

  She wiped her hands and walked over to where I was standing. “I’ve been thinking all day, and I don’t want to believe you’re right. But I do want to know the truth. And there’s a little part of me that says maybe, maybe. Lacey’s behavior was so different, so self-destructive. There has to be a reason. Doesn’t there?”

  “I think so.”

  She helped me set the table and get the food on. When we were seated, she asked me, “What does Coop say about what you’re thinking?”

  “He thinks I’m crazy, like you do, and there’s no point anyway, because Lacey is dead; and even if I found evidence, they wouldn’t prosecute; and what can I expect to find after all these years; and don’t be so stupid.”

  “Don’t exaggerate. I didn’t say you were crazy, and I’m sure Coop didn’t either. Isn’t he right, though? After all this time, what can you hope to find? And even if you do turn up something that supports Cole’s story, they won’t prosecute with Lacey gone.”

  “That’s true.” I paused a beat, then said, “Mom, there are so many off-kilter things about Lacey’s death. It really bothers me. The missing money, her phone with no contacts or anything else on it, the convenient story her roommate suddenly came up with, everything Cole said. Sister Mattea’s note with the newspaper clipping. Something is seriously not right with this whole thing.”

  “It seems like you’re taking it for granted that what Cole said is true. Why do you believe him?”

  “Because there’s no advantage to him in making up that story. In fact, it puts him in line for more trouble if it’s true. I know he’s a liar. I just think this time he’s telling the truth. I’m going to find out one way or another.”

  “How?”

  “I’m going to start at the beginning. Eight years ago, when things started to go to hell. The summer she was 14.”

  “But who are you going to talk to? You can’t think anyone we know, any of our friends could have molested Lacey.”

  “Most abusers are someone the victim knows, not some guy in a van with candy.” I was already running and rejecting possibilities in my head, but the next words I spoke I hadn’t intended to say out loud.

  “What about Paul Karr?”

  She looked stunned. I tried to backpedal. I didn’t really think it was Paul—at least I had no reason to think he was more likely than any of the other men Lacey was around a lot.

  “I’m not saying he did anything. I’m just thinking of adults she knew who had the opportunity.”

  “Not Paul.”

  I understood her reaction. I liked Paul too, though probably not nearly as much as she did.

  “Nobody can be off-limits. Not even people we like a whole lot. The police didn’t even try to find the pieces the first time around. I’m going to pick up every last one of them, and see what kind of picture I get.” I leaned across the table and covered her hand with mine. I’d taken the conversation this far, I might as well go the whole way.

  “Remember what Cole said? That whoever ‘messed’ with Lacey might be the one who really knows what happened the night she died? I don’t think Lacey’s death was an accident, Mom. You’re right. The DA will never do anything about an eight-year-old sexual abuse case with a dead victim. But if I find enough evidence, he’ll have to reopen it. This time as a murder investigation.”

  The word “murder” hung oddly in the air in our bright white and navy kitchen with the cheery yellow accents—as out of place as The Scream hanging on a wall of kindergarten drawings. But there it was.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  Eleven

  “It’s Paul!”

  We both jumped like guilty things surprised. Mom opened the front door just as Paul hit the buzzer again. He grabbed her hand and started an impromptu swing dance to the opening strains of In the Mood. I’m not much of a one for spontaneous dancing, and the sight of two late middle-age people engaging would be disconcerting under normal circumstances. In the current situation, it was all kinds of wrong. Paul caught my eye mid-twirl and his grin faded. He stopped, then looked at my mother and raised an eyebrow.

  “Carol? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she said with an attempt at a smile that didn’t get beyond a grim baring of her teeth. He looked back and forth between us, puzzled.

  “What’s going on?” he repeated.

  “Come on in, Paul,” I said.

  He sat on the c
ouch, then leaned forward with his long-fingered hands clasped in front of him. His sandy-colored eyebrows were drawn together in a frown that looked odd on his normally cheerful face.

  “Carol?” he asked again.

  “Paul, would you like a drink?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “I do,” she said. I waited while she made two strong bourbons on the rocks and handed him one.

  “Paul, you know that one of the nuns from DeMoss died last week.”

  “Sure, yes. Everyone knows. Someone’s head should roll for not putting a barricade up at the Point. Never should have happened. Was she a friend of yours, Leah?”

  “I knew her. The thing is, Paul, she left a message for me a few days before she died. A message about Lacey.”

  “Lacey?” His dark brown eyes registered curiosity but nothing more that I could see.

  “Yes. I think she was trying to tell me that Lacey’s death wasn’t an accident.” I explained about the clipping and some of the inconsistencies in the police report. “I’ve found out a few more things, too.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  My mother, who had been tapping her foot up and down and fidgeting in her chair, could contain herself no longer. “Oh, for God’s sake, Leah, just say it.” Then she proceeded to say it for me. “Leah thinks Lacey was sexually abused, and that’s why she started getting into so much trouble. And she thinks Lacey was killed by her abuser, because she was going to identify him.”

  If it weren’t so serious, it would have been funny to watch the slow motion changes on his round open face as the words sunk in. His jaw dropped, and his eyebrows lifted on his high forehead. “You can’t be serious! The police investigated—twice!”

  “They did a bad job. I should have seen it at the time.” I gave my increasingly familiar summary of what I believed had happened.

  “If your friend the nun knew about this, why didn’t she just tell you?”

  “I don’t know what she knew, Paul. Maybe she just had a suspicion, maybe she remembered something, maybe someone told her something. But she died before she could tell me.”

  “So now Leah is planning to investigate it herself,” my mother said, in the same tone she might have used announcing that I was planning to become a pole dancer.

  “How?”

  “By talking to people. Somebody could be holding on to a piece of information they don’t even know they have, or that they don’t understand the significance of.”

  He shook his head, ran his hand through his curly hair and then turned to my mother.

  “But if she were abused, wouldn’t she have told you, Carol? Surely Lacey would have said something?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe she didn’t feel like she could come to me. I don’t know.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Of course she’d come to you. You were her mother.”

  “Kids don’t always find it easy to talk to their parents. Sometimes they confide in other adults they trust,” I said. Now things were going to get really awkward. I mean, there’s no easy way to question your mother’s beau about your sister’s sexual abuse. It wasn’t that Paul topped my list of suspects by any means, but despite my mother’s understandable distress, I had to start somewhere. I had to ask.

  “Lacey didn’t say anything to you, did she, Paul? She worked with you in your yard a lot that summer you put in your rose gardens. You spent a lot of time with her.”

  “Yes, but we didn’t have that kind of relationship. She’d never confide something like that to me.”

  “She never said anything about a teacher at school, or a friend’s father or anything that seemed maybe just a little odd, something out of the ordinary?”

  “No, never.”

  “What about after she went to DeMoss? Did you ever see her? You used to volunteer with the mentor program there. Did you ever run into her? Did she seem any different?”

  “No. I never saw her.”

  “That last night, the night of the fundraiser. You told the police you left early with Miller Caldwell, because he had a toothache. You went to your office. Did you go by the main drive? It would have been shorter to take Baylor Road.”

  “Miller drove. He took us down the main drive. It was a toothache, not life and death. We didn’t need to save three minutes going the back way. Why?” His voice sounded puzzled.

  “You didn’t see anything, any cars parked where they shouldn’t be, any students walking toward the park trail?”

  “No.”

  “What time did you leave?”

  “I don’t know, maybe 6:30, 6:45.”

  “So, did you go back when you were through with Miller?”

  “I didn’t. Miller did. His tooth was fine. Sometimes that happens, just a sudden jolt, but there’s really nothing wrong. Those fancy dinners were Marilyn’s thing, not mine. Once I escaped, I stayed at the office and did some work. Marilyn wasn’t happy.”

  “How did you get home?”

  “My car was at the office. But when I went to leave, it wouldn’t start. I wound up walking five miles home. She was just pulling in when I got there, and she couldn’t have been happier to see me coatless and freezing. I damn near caught pneumonia. Why does it matter?”

  And here we go. Paul is not a stupid man, and he clearly got the implications of my questions. He was mad. I couldn’t blame him. But, as is my gift and my curse, I pressed on.

  “What time did you get home?”

  “I don’t know, somewhere around 11:30, I think.” His voice had hardened. “What is this, Leah? Do you seriously think I sexually abused Lacey? That I would ever do anything to harm your sister? What’s the matter with you?”

  “I don’t think anything, Paul, I’m just trying to gather as much information as I can. You’re not the only person I’m going to talk to.”

  He had placed his drink on the table and was standing. I stood too.

  “Strangely enough, it doesn’t comfort me to know that I’m only one possibility on your list of suspects. I did not molest your sister. I did not kill her to protect my dirty little secret. For the record, I don’t believe anyone did. I think you’re chasing after a bad guy who doesn’t exist. But you should be careful. Because if it turns out to be true and you ask the wrong person the right questions, you could find yourself in a very bad situation. Carol, I’ll call you later.”

  Then he turned and walked out without another word.

  I was afraid to look at my mother.

  “Could that have gone any worse? You really hurt Paul. Do you intend to interrogate every adult male who knew Lacey that summer? Miller Caldwell? Father Hegl? Max? Dr. Steffenhagen? Don’t let the fact he’s been in a wheelchair for 15 years stop you.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You can’t randomly accuse people we know, people who have been our friends for years, people who would never—”

  “I didn’t accuse Paul. Why don’t you ask yourself why he was so uptight?”

  “Why wouldn’t he be? He comes to what he thinks is a friend’s house and instead he walks into the lion’s den. He is not going to forget this. Neither is anyone else you talk to. This is going to hurt people, change lives. Our lives, if you go ahead.”

  “Mom, our lives are already changed. They’ve been different for the last five years. The only way I know how to go ahead is to go forward with this. I have to know.”

  We both sat quiet for a minute, then I said, “What did you mean just then when you asked was I going to talk to Father Hegl? Why him? ”

  “Because he was Lacey’s director on The Wizard of Oz, that summer she turned 14.”

  “He never said that he knew Lacey before she went to DeMoss.”

  “Well, he did. The first year he was here they asked him to step in when the regular director got sick. It was just after he arrived at DeMoss. He probably forgot.”

  “Hmm.” I was following another train of thought. “Remember how Lacey was babysitting for the Caldwells all the time that s
ummer? She was either at rehearsal or at their house. Saving money for her Spanish Club trip to Spain. And then, boom, she stopped. No reason, just didn’t want to anymore.”

  She sighed and stood up, taking her glass to the kitchen and putting it in the sink before she said, “Could you please stop, just for tonight? You do realize that you waltzed in here this evening and told me that my youngest daughter wasn’t only sexually abused, she was possibly murdered. And, oh yes, maybe by a man I really like. Someone who’s been a friend for 30 years. Or by one of our other friends. Once you get an idea nothing else matters. You’re ready to mow down everyone with a machete to prove you’re right.”

  “Mom, I—”

  “I really can’t talk about this anymore tonight. I’m going to bed.”

  “I’m sorry. Really. I just don’t know how else to do this.”

  She nodded, then turned and walked down the hall. It wasn’t until after I heard her turn off her light that I remembered something she’d said earlier. “I was in therapy for a year trying to figure out how I could make such a mess of two great kids.”

  Make a mess of two great kids—what did she mean by that? I wasn’t a mess. Was I?

  Twelve

  The interview with Paul had turned really ugly, really fast. And my mother and I were at odds again. Was I obsessing instead of investigating? I wandered, around picking up the glasses, loading the dishwasher, and wondering if I’d have any friends—or a mother—left by the time I was done. I looked at the clock. 11:15.

  On impulse, I grabbed my wallet and keys and headed out the door. In a few minutes, I was pulling up in front of a small brown brick bungalow. Through the curtains I could see the gleam of lamplight in the living room. I knocked on the arched wooden front door. I heard footsteps coming and the door swung in, revealing a short little man with fluffy white hair and a surprised but welcoming expression on his face.

  “Leah! How nice. Come in, come in.”