Suspicious Origin

by MacDonald, Patricia

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Ray hung up the phone and turned to Alec. “The only charge she’s made since she left your house this morning was at Lily’s Day, the flower shop.”

  “The flower shop?” said Alec.

  “I called Lily at home. She remembered perfectly. Your sister-in-law came in and said she wanted to buy a bouquet for your Greta. To say good-bye.”

  “Well, that’s not much help,” said Alec. “I was hoping there might be some charges that would tell us where she went.”

  “Well, the first thing you do is to find out where she went with the flowers. Trace her steps, so to speak. Maybe she told somebody where she was planning on going.”

  Alec frowned. “Did she take the flowers, or have them delivered somewhere?”

  “No, she took them with her,” Ray said.

  “To the cemetery?” Annabel asked.

  Ray shook his head. “The body just arrived back at the funeral home from the autopsy,” he said in a low voice, glancing apologetically in Zoe’s direction, but she was busily blowing on the soup in her spoon. “The body’s going to be cremated.”

  “I wonder if she went to the funeral home,” said Alec.

  “I’ll call,” said Ray.

  Alec sat down in a chair opposite Zoe to wait while Ray called.

  “You sure you don’t want a bowl?” Annabel asked him.

  “It’s good, Dad,” said Zoe.

  “No thanks,” said Alec as Ray returned to the room. “Anything?” he asked.

  Ray shook his head. “She didn’t go there.”

  “She probably went out to some place where they had fond memories together,” said Annabel.

  Alec and Zoe exchanged a glance. “They didn’t have any fond memories here,” said Alec. “Britt had never been here before the funeral.”

  “Oh,” said Annabel, seemingly chastened. “Is she religious? She might take them to the church.”

  “I guess we could try there,” said Alec.

  Zoe slurped down some more soup and then laid down her spoon. “I think she took them to our old house. I’ll bet that’s where she would have gone.”

  Alec studied his daughter with narrowed eyes. “You could be right. We can go out there and take a look.”

  “Maybe she stopped by the Carmichaels’,” said Zoe.

  “We’ll go ask them,” said Alec. “Come on, Zoe. Get your coat back on.”

  “Take these cookies,” said Annabel, slipping a couple of cookies into a plastic bag.

  Zoe took them and put them in her pocket. “Thanks.”

  “You know, she’s probably going to turn up at some spa or something,” said Ray “I’ve seen this kind of thing happen many times.”

  “I hope you’re right, Ray,” said Alec. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Ray and Annabel walked them to the front door and watched them go down the front walk to Alec’s Mercedes.

  “It does seem strange that she’d go off like that without telling anyone,” said Annabel. “Do you really think she’s gone on some impromptu vacation?”

  Ray thought about Britt, with her no-nonsense clothes and the grave expression in her eyes. She, who had been so determined, first to label Alec a murderer, and then to set him free. She seemed like a woman who always had a goal in mind. “I can’t really picture it,” he said. “But then, I really didn’t know her.”

  “Okay,” said Caroline, huffing as she slammed shut the passenger door on the car. “Okay.” She glanced at her husband. “Are you all right?”

  Kevin nodded.

  “Let’s hope this thing can pick up enough momentum to get up and over the ridge. Kevin, can you put it in gear and let the brake off?

  Kevin opened the driver’s side door. “You and Kent get out of the way,” he said. Obediently, Caroline picked up the baby and the carrier, and stepped back, far away from the cherry-red Toyota. She set the carrier down on the ground beside her, and folded her hands tightly, as if in prayer. Trembling, Kevin leaned in across Vicki and started the car, wedging himself in there, up against her lifeless body.

  “All right,” he cried out. “I’m going to let out the parking brake. Stand clear.”

  The car began to move, and Kevin backed away from it, closing the door on the driver’s side. The car rolled a short distance, and then came up against a sapling and stalled out.

  “Shit,” said Kevin.

  The baby, resting in the carrier on the ground, began to cry. “Kevin, you’re going to have to steer it until it gets going,” said Caroline.

  Kevin shot her a filthy look and then trudged back toward the car with a sigh.

  Britt closed her eyes. No. I don’t want to be a witness, she thought. If I am a witness, why would they leave me alive? She knew full well that closing her eyes to the actual event was similar to an ostrich, sticking his head in the sand and calling himself hidden. She had heard everything. She knew now that Caroline had killed Vicki and Dave. No, no, she told herself. They thought you were unconscious while they were talking in the car. But even as she reminded herself of that, she knew it was some kind of sick game she was playing with herself. Telling herself that there was a chance she was going to live through this. She had been holding out some obscure hope that Kevin would prevail. That he would convince Caroline to spare her life. Now, she realized that he had conned her into getting out of the car only so he could avoid lifting her. His ribs still hurt him from the night of the fire, when he had rescued Zoe.

  How could it be? she wondered. This was a man who had bravely entered a burning building, and risked his life to save a child. Now, he was covering up the killing of two people. Whatever reservations he expressed, he was still doing it. He hadn’t killed them, she reminded herself. Maybe there was still hope. She worked her hands, bound by the rope, trying to free herself. There was no way she was going to count on Kevin’s better nature. Obviously, he would do anything for this woman. And she…

  Britt kept her eyes shut as she stretched her hands apart, trying to loosen the rope. In her mind’s eye she saw Vicki and Dave, their bodies heaped like trash in the snow. She bared her teeth behind the duct tape and tried to chew through it. There was no one to find her. No one to save her. She had to get free.

  The car’s engine roared. “Stick her foot on the gas pedal,” Caroline cried. “You need to weigh it down.”

  Britt was able to get her hands far enough apart that she could feel one end of the rope. She worked her gloved fingers up the rope and encountered a knot. Her gloves made the knot feel like a formless lump. Reluctantly, because of the cold, she tried to work off her right glove, so that she could feel the knot to undo it.

  “That’s better,” Caroline cried. “Now you’ve got it.”

  Britt didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help herself. She opened her eyes and saw Kevin, running alongside the moving car. Its tail-lights were visible as it began to disappear over the ridge.

  “Kevin, get free,” cried Caroline. “Jump free!”

  Sitting in the carrier at her feet, the baby picked up on the panic in Caroline’s voice and began to shriek. There was a crashing roar from the other side of the ridge.

  “Kevin, where are you? Are you all right?” Caroline cried. The baby’s wails almost drowned her out.

  “Stop it,” she commanded. “Stop crying.” She gave the baby carrier a vicious kick with her ski boot and it tipped forward. The baby gasped, its face in the snow.

  Trudging back from the top of the ridge, Kevin saw his wife kick the baby carrier.

  Caroline, seeing the look in her husband’s eyes, began to wail. “I’m sorry,” she cried. She rushed to lift the carrier out of the snow, and unlatched its little seat belt. She picked up the baby and wiped the snow off its tiny, red face. She began to cuddle him against her chest. The baby was silent, his eyes open wide and wary.

  Kevin stared at her.

  Caroline began to cry. “Don’t look at me like that, Kevin. I didn
’t mean to do it. I’m just frightened. I’m at the end of my rope.”

  Kevin stood there, immobile.

  “I’m sorry,” she cried. “He’s okay. It didn’t hurt him. I would never hurt him. He’s my angel. I’d do anything for him. Stop staring at me.”

  Kevin walked slowly past her and picked up a set of skis. “We have to get out of here,” he said.

  Caroline brightened. “That’s right,” she said. “We have to go. We have to go, baby.” She put Kent back into the carrier, and picked it up. “Here, Kev, you have to help me put this on my back.”

  She walked over to him and held the carrier up, like a gift. Kevin did not look at her or the baby. He took the carrier from her hands.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  Caroline turned her back to him, so that he could affix the carrier, and as she did, she saw Britt, still bound and shivering, kneeling in the snow.

  “What about her?” Caroline asked.

  “What about her?” Kevin asked in a dull voice.

  “We have to get rid of her.”

  Kevin didn’t reply. “She didn’t hurt us.” He was busy fixing the straps on Caroline’s back.

  “She’s a nosy snoop, just like her sister.”

  My sister? Britt thought. Her leaden heart began to hammer.

  Kevin stopped. “What about her sister?” Kevin asked.

  “Nothing,” said Caroline irritably.

  “Caroline,” he demanded. “What did you mean by that?”

  “Look, I know you thought Greta was a real saint, Kevin. But she wasn’t. Okay? She snooped in our things. While she was supposedly cleaning up that flood in your study? She was going through all your papers. She read everything. She did.”

  Kevin kissed the baby’s forehead, and checked to make sure the straps were snug. Then he came around to his wife’s side. “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “Because she told me,” said Caroline indignantly. “She knew all about my case. She’d read every clipping and she knew all about it.”

  Kevin knelt down in front of Caroline with her skis. “We always knew there was a possibility people would find out.”

  Caroline nervously lifted up her boot. “She was planning on blackmailing us.”

  Kevin snapped the skis firmly onto his wife’s boots. “Greta Lynch? Blackmail?” he said softly. “I’m sorry I can’t picture that. Besides, we agreed that if people found out, we would live with it.”

  “This was different. She threatened me,” Caroline complained, warming to her subject. “I never told you, but she did. She said that Vicki had a right to know who she was giving her baby to. She thought it was her duty to tell Vicki. She said I had a week to tell her or she would. Now, I call that blackmail. Don’t you?”

  “Not really,” he said softly. “It was a kind of extortion, I suppose.”

  “Any court would say it was blackmail,” said Caroline.

  “Did she tell?” Kevin asked.

  Caroline stuck her chin up in the air. “She didn’t have a chance to,” said Caroline. “The fire put an end to that.”

  “The fire.”

  “It was her bad luck,” said Caroline.

  “And her bad luck,” Kevin said slowly. “That was your good luck, wasn’t it?”

  “Our good luck,” Caroline reminded him.

  He shook his head, and sighed, as if he finally understood. “I remember now,” he said. “Something woke me up that night. I thought it was a bad dream. But it was you, wasn’t it? Getting back into bed.”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Kevin,” Caroline pleaded. “Please, I had to act quickly.”

  Kevin shook his head. “Don’t you understand. I can’t just ignore it. Caro…”

  Caroline glanced over at Britt again. “I don’t want to talk about this. What are we going to do with her?”

  “We’ll leave her,” he said.

  “I don’t think that’s wise, Kevin,” said Caroline. She picked up her poles and shook out each leg. “Someone might find her.”

  “No one knows she’s here. It’s frigid,” said Kevin. “She won’t last the night.”

  “She’s all tied up like that. They’re going to know it wasn’t an accident when they do find her.”

  “What difference does it make?” he asked, hopelessness in his voice.

  “It makes a lot of difference,” said Caroline. “If you untie her, and throw her down into the ravine as well, if they ever find her, then it will seem like she fell, too… I mean, she saw you send the car down into the ravine. She knows what you did.”

  Kevin turned and stared at her. “What I did?” he said.

  Caroline shrugged. “Well…”

  “Yes,” he said. “What I did. That’s right. I sent the car into the ravine. But who killed them? How many people have you killed, Caroline?”

  Caroline’s mouth dropped open. “I can’t believe that’s coming from you. It wasn’t my fault. You’re the one who told me that. Now, you’re trying to change your mind. You told me that when you became my attorney, when Tim died. It was post-traumatic stress disorder. I’d never even heard of such a thing until I met you. You said none of it was my fault. And then you went into court and you proved it.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “So,” said Caroline. “It’s too late to change your mind. You can’t just turn around now and say you didn’t mean it. You proved I was innocent.”

  “So I did,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Zoe clambered up through the blackened struts and reached for the bouquet of flowers resting on the tiles. “Zoe, be careful. For God’s sake,” Alec scolded, coming around the side of the house, not quickly enough to prevent her scaling the cinder blocks of the basement.

  “I was right,” she crowed, holding up the bouquet and waving it aloft like a jockey in the winners circle.

  “Give me that. Come down from there,” Alec insisted.

  Zoe climbed down, her face, her jeans and her pink jacket smeared with soot. She handed the bouquet to her father, who held it, blooms down, like a club, and stared at the remains of his home.

  “So, she was here,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Zoe.

  Alec held up the flowers and frowned at them. The blooms were already stiff and lifeless from being left out in the cold. “Beautiful,” he said. Then he tossed them gently back onto the rubble.

  “Now what?” Zoe said.

  Alec shook his head. “I have no idea.” He studied the snow-covered field in the cold, bright moonlight. “I guess we could go over and ask the Carmichaels. Maybe she stopped to say good-bye.”

  Zoe shrugged. “Okay. You want to walk over?”

  “No, take the car,” he said. “I’m just gonna look in the barn.”

  “Ill beat you over there,” she said. She began to run, her hair lifting off her shoulders, her jacket flapping around her.

  Alec smiled at the sight of her. You probably will, he thought. He walked back through the trampled snow to the door of the barn. It seemed a little strange that there should be so many tire marks in the yard, but the workmen had been cleaning up the site for days. He hadn’t paid much attention to what they were doing out here. In a way, he didn’t want to know about it. He opened the door of the barn and looked in. Moonlight filtered in the windows, illuminating the empty space. “Britt,” he called out. But there was no answer. Not here, he thought. Not that he expected her to be. Everything was gone.

  Alec closed the barn door and walked back to his car, past the skeleton of his home. All that remained of the haven that he and Greta had made. Gone. Happy memories flooded his heart, with bitter ones hard on their heels. Why did it matter so much about your mother? he thought. Why weren’t Zoe and I enough? He knew no answer would ever be forthcoming. That question would torment him to his grave. He sighed, and got into the Mercedes. By the time he drove the short distance down to the Carmichaels’ driveway, and rolled up to the house, Zoe was already
standing on the front steps.

  “Nobody’s home,” she called out, as he got out of the car and started toward her.

  “Both their cars are here,” he said.

  “I know,” said Zoe. Alec walked up the steps and joined her. He pressed his face to the door lights and tried to look inside, but the house was dark and clearly empty.

  “Well, she’s not here,” he said.

  “What’ll we do now?” said Zoe.

  “I don’t know,” said Alec with a sigh. “I guess we’d better go back.”

  “Aww, Dad,” Zoe pleaded.

  “Honey, I don’t know where else to look.”

  “You want to wait until they get home?” Zoe suggested.

  “Are you kidding? It’s freezing out here. We’ll call them later. Ask them if they saw her.”

  “But Dad, we can’t just stop looking.”

  “I’ll try calling her apartment again,” he said. He took out his cell phone and consulted the list of numbers. He dialed Britt’s number, but all he heard was the voice on the machine and the click of messages. He signaled to Zoe that there was nothing new.

  Sighing, Zoe began to descend the steps. She walked over to the car, starting to get inside, when suddenly, something caught her eye and she began to walk down the driveway.

  “Zoe,” Alec called as he punched in another number. “Don’t go far. Yeah, can I speak to Mrs. Lonergan?” Alec waited while he was transferred to Nancy’s extension.

  “Nancy Lonergan.”

  “Its Alec Lynch. I just wondered if you’d heard anything from Britt?”

  “No, I haven’t,” said Nancy. “I was hoping you might have some news.”

  “Nothing,” said Alec.

  “I’m really a little bit worried,” said Nancy.

  “It’s probably nothing,” said Alec, but the downturn in his voice belied his offhandedness.

  “I’m going to keep calling her,” said Nancy.

  “Well, we’re going to head home,” said Alec. “If you hear anything…”

  “I’ll let you know”

  Alec punched the off button and went down the steps to his car. “Zoe,” he called out. He could see her down the driveway, her blond hair and pink parka visible even in the darkness.