“The ammo,” I explained. I looked back at the agent. “Did they get any prints?”
He shook his head.
I turned my attention back to the shells. “Well, they’re new. Can you still get these at any Wal-Mart?”
“All you need is a driver’s license,” he said.
“That narrows down the list of suspects,” Richard remarked sarcastically.
The copper jacket had mushroomed on impact, ripping through Jean Newcomb’s flesh, stealing her life. Surprise and disbelief had been plastered across her features. She was dead before she realized what happened.
“Can I touch them?” I asked Segovia.
“I'd prefer you to handle only one item.”
Terrific. And if I chose the wrong one . . . .
I picked up a shell casing, wrapping my fingers around it.
“Are you getting anything?” Richard asked.
I concentrated. “I’m not sure.”
Segovia waited for a better answer, his mouth a thin line.
I rolled the casing between my palms. I hadn’t sensed anything from the letters, but the killer had held the bullets in his hand. He, definitely not she. He’d caressed them, relishing the thought of delivering death. Only he’d missed the target.
“This isn’t what it seems,” I said, still rubbing the metal between my fingers.
“What do you mean?” Richard asked.
“This isn’t an issue-related shooting. It’s . . . revenge. The man who loaded the gun meant to hurt—to kill—Brenda.” I met my brother’s worried gaze. He swallowed, but said nothing.
“Who’d want to hurt your wife?” Segovia asked Richard.
“Her ex-husband, for one. When they were married, he used her as his personal punching bag,” Richard said.
“We’ve already ruled him out as a suspect,” Wilder reminded him.
I continued to roll the metal between my palms. “I don’t get a feeling of—” The words didn’t want to come. “Connection.”
“What do you mean?” Detective Wilder asked.
“The guy who loaded the gun doesn’t even know Brenda.”
“A for-hire hit?” Segovia asked, incredulous.
“Why not?” Richard said. “Willie could’ve hired someone to kill Brenda.”
I kept palming the casing. “I don’t know.”
Segovia looked skeptical. “Sorry, Mr. Resnick, but we can’t take your word on this. As far as the Bureau’s concerned, this is an issue-related shooting. Unless we find evidence to the contrary, that’s the route we’re following.”
I watched him replace the evidence into the numbered bags. He was wrong, but I wasn’t about to push it.
Detective Wilder lagged behind as Richard and I left the office building. The cold December morning was bright; branches on the leafless trees swayed in the brisk wind.
Richard shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Well, now what?”
“There's not much else we can do. You should be with Brenda.”
He frowned. “Yeah.”
We looked at each other for an uncomfortably long moment. Were our positions reversed, Richard would’ve asked me if I needed to talk. Spilling my guts was still a new concept. I’d done it with my boss only the day before. But experiencing the loss of a much-anticipated child—I still couldn’t fathom that kind of loss. I was sure if Richard needed to talk about it, he would.
I waited.
The silence lengthened.
Finally, I nodded toward the car. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER
18
As I pulled up the driveway, I noticed that Maggie’s car was back, too. Had she already brought Brenda home? Richard had spent the ride across town staring out the passenger window, his expression guarded, playing strong and silent all the way home. I was glad to get back to the house where Holly greeted me with a wet tongue and a wagging tail.
“Maggie!” I called, and rubbed the dog’s sleek ears.
“She can’t be very far away,” Richard said, peeling off his coat.
Approaching footsteps announced Maggie’s arrival. “I hope you don’t mind, but when I got to the hospital, Brenda was ready to leave. She’s upstairs now.”
Relief softened the lines in his face. “Thanks, Maggie.”
Maggie’s eyes filled. “It was kind of awkward. I didn’t know what to say to her. I just gave her a big hug and we cried. I feel terrible. There’s nothing I can do to make this situation better.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Richard said gently. “You’ve been a good friend and she needs you more than ever right now.”
“I’ll never have a child. That’s hard enough. But I never lost a baby,” Maggie said.
“Neither had I. Until yesterday. So help me God, Maggie, I don’t know what to say, either.” Richard’s voice cracked and his eyes were watery once again. She took his hand and squeezed it.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked away as guilt threatened to overwhelm me.
Richard cleared his throat. “I better go to her.”
“Wait,” Maggie said, wiping at her eyes. “The clinic called. One of your patients needs you. I told them you’d call as soon as you got in.” She grabbed a note off the Post-It pad by the phone.
Richard straightened, regaining his composure. “I’ll call them first.”
“I’ll hang up your coat,” I said, and he handed it to me before heading for his study.
A dejected Maggie leaned against the counter. Holly settled at her feet, her tail thumping the floor, her dark eyes filled with hope, wanting only to please. Maggie reached down and patted the dog’s head.
“I think I’ll go see how Brenda’s doing,” I said.
“Okay. I was just going to make some lunch and a fresh pot of coffee for Brenda. Do you want a sandwich? There’s ham in the fridge—or I can make you a grilled cheese.”
“Surprise me,” I said, and headed for the closet. I hung up the coats, then started up the main staircase. A veil of sadness clouded the long, empty corridor. The door to my former room—what was to be the nursery—was closed. The door to Richard’s and Brenda’s room was ajar.
I crept closer and poked my head inside. Original art decorated the pale blue walls; flowers . . . large watercolors of iris, pansies, and morning glories. Over the summer Maggie had helped Brenda redecorate the room. A loveseat by the large bay window overlooked the now-empty flower garden Brenda and I had worked on last spring.
I knocked on the doorjamb. “Anybody home?”
“Just me,” came the low reply from a mound under the quilt on the bed.
“Can I come in?”
No answer.
“I hope you’re decent—because I’m coming in.”
Still no answer.
“Brenda?”
The mound was silent.
I stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do—or what to say. I tiptoed closer, and finally sat on the edge of the bed. “Hey, friend. Where are you?”
“In a hole. A deep, dark hole.”
I swallowed, somehow managed to speak. “Can I crawl in with you—keep you company?”
At last Brenda raised her head and looked over her shoulder at me. “It’s not a place you want to be.” Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot from crying.
“I don’t want you to be all alone.” I kicked off my shoes, crawled across the large bed, lay beside her and put my arm around her. It felt so natural—so right. As her dark hand slid down to cover mine, all her sorrow and pain hit me like a sledgehammer. I winced, bit my lip and tried to breathe evenly. I deserved this. I’d caused this.
She noticed my reaction and pulled her hand back. “Go away. I’ll drag you down—make you sick.”
“If I share what you feel, maybe it’ll be easier for you.”
“You can’t. Nobody can. Not you, not Maggie, not even Richard. This is my punishment.”
“Punishment?”
She took a ragged breath. “W
hen I was married to Willie . . . .” She paused, her voice catching, clearly pained to remember. “It was no time to bring a baby into the relationship. He never knew. I went to a clinic alone—killed my own child. Now God is punishing me.”
Oh, dear Lord. “I don’t believe in a vengeful God.”
“Then why did He take my son?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. I didn’t know what else to say.
“As soon as I realized I was pregnant . . . I guess I knew all along something bad would happen. Somehow I knew . . . and so did you. Didn’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Jeffy? Didn’t you know?”
God, how I wanted to say no. How I wanted to be anywhere else on Earth. But I was with her, in her pain, and I couldn’t lie to her like I couldn’t lie to Richard.
“I didn’t know how or when . . . but, yeah, I knew. Richard blames me. I blame me. If I hadn’t been so rough with you that day at the clinic . . . .”
“You saved me that day. Richard knows that. We both do.”
I shook my head. “He thinks if I told him about my premonition we could’ve kept you safe. That we—”
She wouldn’t hear it. “No. This was preordained. It’s my punishment.”
“How do you know it’s not mine?”
She looked at me, puzzled.
“I have to live knowing that if I’d said something, you might’ve quit your job earlier. You’d both have been safe.” Dear God, had I just accused her of being responsible?
She shook her head—she still wasn’t listening to me. “No, no, no. You can’t take my punishment. It’s my pain. I want it all to myself.” She closed her eyes and rubbed at them, clearly exhausted. “That’s not right, either. I’m a nurse—a rational person. And I believe in God. God sends us messages. Maybe this is just another one.”
“What kind of cruel message?”
She pulled the quilt tighter. “Maybe . . . be grateful for what you’ve got. I don’t know. I’m no philosopher. But I can’t spend my days crying. I can’t do this to me, to Richard, or to you.”
“But you have to grieve. Brenda, you’re allowed to feel bad about this.”
She frowned. “Well, maybe for just a little while.”
I wanted to smile at that flash of the old Brenda.
She was quiet for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice cracked. “Richard called my sisters. They wouldn’t come.”
Her sadness found new depths, dragging me with it.
“Maybe . . . they couldn’t get away. Maybe—”
“I’ve been cut off,” she said, her voice calm. “According to my mother, I did a terrible thing. I married a white man. So I’m punished again. But if loving Richard is punishment, I’ll gladly take it. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
My throat constricted. “And you’re the best thing that ever happened to him.”
A small smile crossed her lips. “Yeah. I am.” She looked into my eyes, her own glistening.
Her sorrow eased, if ever so slightly. She let out a shuddering breath, reached for a tissue, and wiped her nose. Outside, snowflakes danced past the window. The branches of the oak tree in the back yard moved gracefully in the cold wind.
Brenda nestled against me and sighed. Eventually her breathing slowed as she drifted into sleep. Her sadness ebbed, leaving a hollow space inside me. I held her, stroked her hair, thinking about what she’d said.
Punishment. Blame. Death. Sadness. Guilt. We’d certainly had enough of them. Was happiness an illusion, a Disney dream that never happened in real life? It didn’t often happen to me. Did the black cloud that followed me extend to those I cared about?
My father was gone, taking with him any chance of understanding why he’d abandoned my mother and me.
Suddenly the sadness I felt wasn’t only Brenda’s. I hadn’t acknowledged my own loss. I didn’t want to admit it was a loss. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d wanted to care about the old man.
The bedroom door brushed across the deep pile carpet. I looked up as Richard stepped inside and stopped dead at the sight of me on his bed with his sleeping wife.
I motioned him closer. “Take off your shoes,” I whispered.
He looked at me, confused.
“Take off your shoes,” I repeated, and watched as he complied. Then slowly, I extricated myself from the bed, pulled back the quilt and gestured for him to take my place. His expression was a mix of embarrassment and irritation, but he complied, getting under the covers beside his wife. Brenda snuggled close to him. Even in sleep she knew the difference. Richard’s angry expression melted as he gently placed an arm around her, resting his chin on the top of her head.
I grabbed my shoes, tiptoed across the room, and silently closed the door.
The kitchen table was set for three, with a lunch tray waiting on the counter. Maggie sipped her coffee, and looked up as I came into the kitchen. “Well?” she asked, unable to hide her concern.
“Rich is with her. She’s sleeping.”
Her gaze strayed to my ski jacket. “I thought you hung up your coat?”
“I did. I have to go out.”
“Where?”
“There’s someone I have to see.”
She looked at the sandwich on the plate before her, and pushed it away. “I guess I wasn’t hungry anyway. When will you be back?” Her voice was quiet, disappointed.
“An hour or so. It won’t take long.”
She nodded. I was glad she didn’t ask me where I was going. I couldn’t have explained.
The drive took fifteen minutes. The radio was background noise. Christmas songs had already joined the regular soft-rock rotation. I parked, headed for the door, and rang the bell. The storm door’s thermal glass reflected the gray December sky—reflected my somber face. I pushed the bell again, and heard the thump of footsteps.
Aunt Ruby opened the door, a smile of delight greeting me. “Jeffrey, it’s so good to see you. Come in, come in.”
“Sorry to drop in without calling,” I said, wiping my feet on the little throw rug.
“Why should family need to call? Would you like some tea? I was just going to make a pot.”
“Sure. Thanks.” I followed her to the kitchen and took a seat at the Formica table.
“Take off your coat, stay a while,” she said and filled a kettle at the sink. She switched on the gas burner, and put it on the stove. “What brings you out this way?”
“I need to talk about my—”
“I’ll be glad to tell you all about your father,” she interrupted me, her smile widening with a blush of pride. “Oh, he was a wonderful man, and such a good brother. I wish you could’ve known him better.”
“Me, too. But I really need to know about my mother.”
Startled, she stared at me for a long moment, and then glanced away, busying herself getting out china teacups and saucers. “That was a long time ago, Jeffrey,” she said at last. “I didn’t know her all that well.”
Ruby wasn’t a good liar.
“I made pound cake yesterday. Would you like a slice?”
“Aunt Ruby, you’re probably the only one left alive who knew my mother. Please, I have to know.”
She turned suddenly, her anger hitting me like napalm. “Why now? Why after all these years?”
“I’m remembering things that don’t make sense. All I know is what my mother told me. I don’t think she told me the whole truth.”
Ruby pursed her lips, and came to a decision. “Jeffrey, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. I never knew your mother before she married Chet. Of course, he’d known her for years. He always said she was a different person before she got sick.”
He knew her for years? “I thought they met at the dry cleaning store?”
“Heavens, no! They worked at the Statler Hotel, across from City Hall. She was a waitress in the restaurant. Chet worked in the hotel laundry. That’s where he got the experience to open
his own shop.”
My world wobbled. “They knew each other all those years ago?”
“Of course. He was sweet on Betty for ages. But Chet was Jewish and she was a good Catholic. And then she met that Alpert fellow. He was rich and a Catholic. You know the rest of the story.”
“They got married and had Richard,” I recounted.
Ruby nodded. “She loved that man and she loved his baby, poor thing. She fell apart when her husband died.”
“Her nervous breakdown,” I said.
“Chet said Betty’s mother-in-law drove her crazy when the old lady took her child.” The kettle began to whistle. Ruby made the tea and sliced the pound cake. She put it on a dainty little platter and set it on the table before taking a seat across from me.
“Chet had a thing for your mother,” she continued. “He was so in love he even converted for her. That didn’t sit well with Papa. Mama was disappointed, but somehow she knew it wouldn’t last.”
“They married in the Catholic church?” I asked, astounded.
She nodded. “None of the relatives went. It just wasn’t done in our family.” She shook her head sadly. “And we knew something wasn’t right. Chet was ashamed to come around. He told me most of this years later.”
Ruby spoke in riddles. “Most of what?”
She frowned. “It started soon after they married. Betty was obsessed with getting her baby back. Chet thought they should start a family right away. So naturally when Betty became pregnant he thought she’d get over it. Of course, she never did. How could any mother get over the loss of her child?”
Her words cut me as I thought of Brenda. She poured the tea, and pushed the milk pitcher toward me.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“After Papa died, Chet brought you and Betty around. You were such a cutie-pie, but oh, so solemn. We knew something wasn’t right, but Chet wouldn’t say—not at the time.”
Her refusal to come right out and say what was on her mind was maddening.
“Patty told me about the kidnapping stuff.”
Ruby stiffened in her chair. “Chet wouldn’t go along with it. And Betty—she wouldn’t accept that. Then she lost the baby—”
“Baby?” I interrupted her.
Cheated By Death Page 20
