by Sharon Potts
He searched on other entries for incoming messages from [email protected]. There was just the one. So she hadn’t put anything about the fire and Marina in writing. It was looking like a dead end.
“Maybe we should look at the e-mails Dad sent out in the last week,” Elise said. “See if he was concerned about anything.”
Jeremy re-sorted the sent e-mails by date. His father had done a bit of e-mailing primarily to professors and students at MIU the week he’d gone to see Jeremy in Spain. There was nothing to Winter, nothing to Marina.
“[email protected],” Elise said. “That’s Dad’s old frat brother, Pete, right? Dad sent him three e-mails in the last two weeks.”
The subject line was: “Special consideration.” Jeremy opened the latest one. It contained a lengthy thread of correspondence. The last entry was:
Dear Pete,
I was disappointed to receive your e-mail, though I must admit, I’m not surprised. I will speak with Ms. Champlain when I get back into town on Monday. I hope this doesn’t present an inconvenience to you with your scheduling. Thanks again for your help and patience.
D.C.
The previous message from Pete was short.
Sorry to bother you, D.C., but I just received a phone call from Ms. Champlain telling me she’s changed her mind and won’t be coming to McGill this semester, after all. What’s up with her?
“I told you he wasn’t happy with her,” Elise said.
The blood had rushed to Jeremy’s head. His father had been trying to get Marina to transfer to McGill University in Canada? Marina had never let on there had been a problem with his father.
Jeremy scrolled down through the e-mail thread to the original email, which his father had sent to Pete in November. It was dated the day after his father had been scheduled to have coffee with Liddy.
Hi Pete,
Hope all is well with you, Kari, and the kids. I have a situation on my hands and wondered if you could help me out. My graduate assistant, Marina Champlain, is a bright, capable young woman, who has unfortunately developed what I’ll call an unhealthy attachment to a married faculty member. You know how that is. I suggested she continue pursuing her doctorate at another institution, but she refused at first. Then yesterday, I was finally able to persuade her that her interests would be better served elsewhere.
That brings me to my favor of you. Sorry for the short notice, but would you entertain Ms. Champlain’s application to your program for the upcoming semester? I feel fairly confident once she’s left this environment, she can return to being the productive, energetic graduate assistant I once knew her to be.
I’m attaching her C.V. She is, by the way, fluent in French, which I know appeals to you Francophone-loving Canucks. Thanks for your help, buddy. I owe you one.
D.C.
Jeremy felt icy, like he’d fallen into a glacial crevasse.
Elise drew her knees up to her chest. “Do you think he was talking about himself? That she’d had a crush on Daddy?”
“I don’t know, Elise.”
“I wonder why she finally agreed to go to McGill. What could Daddy have said to persuade her? Jeremy? Are you okay?”
“Sure.” His voice was as flat as the rest of him felt.
“Dad had a problem with this woman and she was supposed to have left MIU. Then she didn’t.” Elise sucked on the end of her braid. “Jeremy,” she said quietly, then stopped as though reluctant to go on. “You don’t think—”
Chapter 28
When Jeremy was a freshman at NYU, he’d fallen for this girl. She had reminded him of an injured sparrow. Her jaw and cheek were scarred and slightly askew, which he had supposed made her self-conscious and aloof. But he had pursued her: waiting for her after class, walking with her, trying to make her laugh. He wasn’t sure if he had befriended her out of pity or if something about her apparent needfulness made him feel vital.
One night they were at a bar and a group of drunken upperclassmen began teasing the girl. Jeremy, who’d had a few too many beers himself, took a swipe at the biggest, loudest one. Moments later, they had dragged Jeremy outside and beaten the crap out of him. Jeremy couldn’t get out of bed for three days. He had a broken rib and every time he took a deep breath, the pain just about caused him to pass out.
But when a week later he was walking on campus and saw the girl kissing the bigmouthed jerk who’d started the whole thing, the rage he felt at that moment far exceeded the physical pain he’d borne when he had believed himself to be her heroic protector.
Why had that memory come to him now? Perhaps the heaviness in his chest reminded him of that moment. Or maybe he was once again feeling betrayed.
He turned over the hot, damp pillow as he tried to sort through what he and Elise had discovered. It was difficult to be objective. Difficult to even consider without feeling as though he was smothering. Each time he tried, a louder voice said, she lied to me. She lied to me. But the extent of the deception went far deeper.
He saw her in his mind— the reluctant smile, the untamed hair, the feral eyes. Marina, you couldn’t have done this. But after a tormented night of reworking what he had learned in his father’s emails, he could only come to one conclusion. The one he didn’t want to accept. He’d found his parents’ murderer. It was what he had set out to do. But there was no elation in the discovery. No satisfaction. How could there be when the murderer was the woman he had fallen in love with?
“Doesn’t look like you slept either,” Elise said, coming into the kitchen in her school uniform. She rotated her head as though her neck was stiff.
He handed her a couple of pieces of buttered toast.
“What’s this? You made me breakfast?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Everything seems strange this morning, doesn’t it?” She sat down on one of the counter stools. “I mean, we should be feeling pretty good, right? It’s like we had a breakthrough.”
“I guess.”
Elise broke off a corner of her toast. “Do you think once it’s over, things will be easier for us?”
“Easier?”
“You know. Having closure.”
“Closure would be good,” he said, knowing that’s what she wanted to hear, recognizing that if it was Marina, he would never know closure. “Do you want some eggs?”
She shook her head. “So what are you going to do?”
He cracked a couple of eggs into the frying pan and they sizzled. Geezer sidled up to the stove and watched. Jeremy wasn’t hungry, but he had to be doing something. Unfortunately, the sound and smell reminded him of the other night when Marina was making dinner.
“You’re not thinking of talking to her alone, are you?” Elise said. “Jeremy, you can’t. You need to call the police and show them these e-mails.”
“I’m not worried about being alone with her.”
“Right. Because a murderer couldn’t possibly hurt you.”
“I said I’m not worried.”
She slid off the stool and fed Geezer the rest of her toast. “I guess you know what you’re doing.” She gathered up her backpack and car keys. Her eyes were shiny. “So I’ll see you later, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“You know, I didn’t mean what I said yesterday,” she said. “About not caring if Dwight was my guardian.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“I, I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jeremy. You’re the only one I have. You and Grandpa.”
“I know, Ellie.”
“So you won’t do anything stupid? You’ll come home, right?”
“Hey.” Jeremy slid his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her head. She closed her eyes. “Look at me,” he said. Tears were running out from between her lashes. “Look at me, Elise.” She opened her eyes and bit down on her lip. “I won’t leave you alone again, Ellie. Do you hear me?” She averted her eyes from him. “I promise. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said softly.
“Okay the
n.” And he hugged her— longer than usual.
He drove to Marina’s house with the radio turned up. A couple of talk show hosts were making jokes. Jeremy tried to listen, but couldn’t concentrate.
The morning was overcast with no sign the sun might be breaking through. Even Mrs. Lambert’s green grass was covered by a purplish shadow like a creeping mold. The swing hung motionless on the porch.
Marina, satchel weighing down her shoulder, was walking toward her car as he pulled in behind it. “Jeremy.” She looked surprised.
He opened the passenger door of the Corvair. “I need you to come with me, please.”
“Now? I’m sorry, but I have a faculty meeting this morning. I’m already late.”
Jeremy held the door open. “Please, Marina. It’s important.”
“But where are we going? You aren’t still upset about what that girl said about the fire? You seemed okay with everything last night, no?”
“Would you please come?”
She touched his cheek. He tried not to wince. “What is it, mon amour? You seem so— je n’sais pas— so unlike yourself.” When he didn’t answer, she got into the Corvair.
Her eyes were on him as he drove. A heavy metal song on the radio and the throbbing of the engine made Jeremy feel as though he’d been chained to a speaker in a club, but he wouldn’t turn the volume down. At least it was drowning out the turmoil inside him. Marina was chewing on her fingernails. They didn’t talk until he got to the gatehouse on Lotus Island.
“We’re going to your house?” she said.
Of course, she’d have known that. She’d been on the island for his parents’ funeral and to drive him home the night his car had been towed. And how many times before?
When he opened the front door, Geezer began barking wildly. “What is it, boy?” Jeremy bent down to calm the dog.
Marina took a step back, away from the dog. Geezer was growling now, a deep guttural sound. “I’m not an animal person,” she said. “I think they can sense that, no?”
Jeremy stood up. “So, this is the place. Have you ever been inside before?”
She shook her head. She was wearing a loose white blouse and looked more like a nervous little girl than a murderess.
“I thought maybe my father had invited you and a few of his colleagues over some time. You know, for an intellectual powwow or something like that. ”
“Why have you brought me here, Jeremy?” Her hair was wild on her shoulders. She gathered it up in her hands, then released it.
“Didn’t you want to see where I live? Our housekeeper has the day off, so it’s just you and me.” The rage he had been holding back rushed to the surface. “Would you like to see where my parents were murdered?”
She turned pale. “I think I’d better leave.”
“Not yet, Marina. Come on. Let me show you.” He pulled her toward the stairs. He had loved and trusted her. She had killed his parents.
“You’re hurting me. Why are you doing this, Jeremy?”
Geezer growled as he followed them up the stairs, periodically letting out a sharp bark. Jeremy pushed open the door to his parents’ bedroom. “Here it is. The crime scene. Did you think it would still be bloody and all torn up?”
The room was stale, and the gray morning light that seeped through the closed shades and drapes did little to lessen the crypt-like atmosphere.
Marina was crying. “What do you want, Jeremy? What are you doing?”
“You tell me, Marina. You tell me why I brought you here.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Maybe this will help.” He pushed a printout of the e-mails between his father and the McGill professor toward her.
Her expression changed from fear to comprehension as she read. “Oh God.” She wiped her cheeks. “It’s not what you think. Believe me, Jeremy.”
“It’s not what I think? Tell me then, Marina. What’s going on here? You never told me my father wanted you out of MIU. That he was trying to dump you on his friend. And how do you explain that he was able to persuade you to leave all of a sudden? Could he have found out about you setting the fire?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I think I do, Marina. You were chasing after him, making his life miserable, and he was going to get rid of you. But you didn’t want to leave. You said you would, but then you changed your mind. Why did you change your mind? Because you had a better idea? Because you figured out a way to punish my father and still keep your position? Because you figured once D. C. Stroeb was dead, no one would ever know the truth about your sickness?”
“You think I killed him?”
“You killed my father, you killed my mother. And now you’ve been playing with my head so I’d never suspect you. You feed me, you fuck me, you act like we’re going to find the murderer— but it’s all a big game to you, isn’t it Marina?” His voice cracked. “Damn you, Marina. I trusted you. I—” But he couldn’t say loved. That he had loved her.
“Jeremy, no. You’ve got it all wrong. I didn’t kill anyone. I couldn’t kill anyone. Especially not your father.” She leaned against the wall as though she’d lost her balance. “Please, let me tell you what happened.”
“I know what happened.”
“Not all of it.” She took a ragged breath. “It’s true. I fell in love with him. And I believed he had fallen in love with me.”
She was lying. Trying to trick him again.
“He would come to my apartment and fix things for me: my car, the refrigerator, the leaky faucet.”
His father would fix things for her. Jeremy sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hands over his ears, but he could still hear her.
“And I would cook for him.”
She would cook for him.
“And I knew he was married, but then why did he keep coming back? Then, one day, we made love.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“And I was so happy. But he became upset and said he’d made a mistake.”
“My father slept with you?” It wasn’t possible. His father loved his mother. He never would have cheated on her.
“Once, Jeremy. Once. But then he couldn’t bear to be around me and he asked me to go away, but I said no; I wouldn’t go. Even if I couldn’t have him, being away from him was impossible. Impossible. And he started avoiding me. So I set the fire. I thought he’d believe the world was against him and he’d need me. But it didn’t work. Someone told him I’d done it. But I knew if I could just talk to him one more time and tell him how much I loved him, he wouldn’t send me away.”
Jeremy could hear her talk; it sounded garbled as though he had cotton in his ears. His father had fixed things for her; she had cooked for him. And he had slept with her. His father, perfect husband, exemplary family man, had fucked Marina.
Forgive me, Jeremy.
Jeremy held his hands tighter over his ears. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to hear any of this.
“I never got to speak with him. Someone killed him first. Believe me, Jeremy. I didn’t kill him.” She was speaking in short bursts and it seemed he could see her heart fluttering in her chest beneath the gauzy blouse, like a bird with a broken wing. That’s what she was— another injured sparrow. And somehow he knew Marina couldn’t have done it. She may have lied and manipulated and deceived, but she hadn’t killed. But there was no relief in that knowledge either.
“I was devastated beyond words when I heard your father had been killed. I barely wanted to live myself. Then you showed up that day. And you were so much like him.”
He went over to the covered, closed window. He needed air, but he made no move to open it. He had idolized his father. All he had really wanted had been to one day hear him say, “Good job, son. I’m proud of you.” Who was this man he had thought he’d known? Not a hero. Just a shattered memory. “Go away, Marina. Go away, please.”
Forgive me.
“Don’t be angry with me, Jeremy. At
first when I was with you, all I could think about was your father. But then, I realized I wasn’t thinking of him at all.”
“Go away, Marina.”
She was beside him, grabbing his hand, bringing his fingers up to her lips. “Jeremy, no. I can’t lose you, too.”
Her tears dripped on his hand. He didn’t move; he didn’t have the strength to fight anymore. She opened his hand and kissed each finger.
“They’ve healed,” she said in a whisper. “Your cuts have healed.” She rubbed his fingers against her cheek. “You see, my tears don’t sting. You don’t feel anything.”
She was right. Scar tissue had grown over his wounds. And that’s where he’d leave things. Covered with scar tissue.
So he wouldn’t have to feel anymore.
Chapter 29
He still wasn’t home. Elise pulled the Volvo into the empty driveway. She wondered if Jeremy had been by while she was at school, but she doubted it.
Yesterday had been one of the most anxious days of her life. When she’d left Jeremy in the morning, she’d had this bad feeling. It didn’t matter that Marina was a woman. If she had killed their parents, she could kill her brother, too. And Elise had sat in class, her cell phone on vibrate squeezed in her hand, waiting for him to call. Then finally, a text message from him. “It’s not Marina.”
That was all. “It’s not Marina.”
He didn’t call or text her again. That was yesterday around noon— twenty-eight hours ago. How could Jeremy be so sure it wasn’t their father’s graduate assistant? What proof had she given him? If Jeremy had been sleeping with her— which Elise was almost positive he had been— wasn’t he gullible enough to be pulled into her trap? So Elise was still worried. If Marina wasn’t the murderer, then why hadn’t Jeremy come home?
She put her key in the lock. This had become her pattern. She’d hold her breath as she turned the key, half expecting the door to be unlocked and something evil to be waiting for her on the other side. But the lock turned over with a small click and Elise released her breath. Safe, she thought, remembering a game she played with Jeremy when they were little. If you touched the base, you were safe.
