The China Doll

by Deborah Nam-Krane

  "How many jet ski engines explode like that?" Lucy’s lips trembled. "It didn’t make any sense. Tom always had top of the line equipment."

  "My father eventually agreed," Robert conceded. "But the cash you offered didn’t hurt."

  Lucy swallowed. "I didn’t force him to take my money."

  Robert's jaw tightened. "You don’t have to force someone who’s already desperate. And don’t tell me you didn’t know that."

  "He agreed," Lucy insisted, "because it made sense."

  No one said anything for almost thirty seconds. Finally, Emily couldn’t resist. "What made sense?"

  "That his gold-digging tramp of a wife had too much to gain by killing him for it to be a coincidence!" Lucy spat.

  "Don’t you talk about my mother like that!" Jessie said. Emily let go of Mitch’s hand and went over to Jessie.

  Richard shook his head. "Mother, you’ve got it all wrong."

  "Yes, Lucy, he’s right," Joanna said. She wiped her tears. "What is it going to take for you to accept what happened?"

  "Don’t you breathe a word against Tom—not now!" Lucy shouted. Richard had never seen his mother shout.

  "Tom was a pig!" Joanna exclaimed. "I don’t care if he was your brother, he was a monster!"

  "Where’s your proof?"

  "Because I knew Josie!" Joanna said. "I knew her before, and then I knew her after." Joanna closed her eyes as if she had been looking at something revolting. "I know what happened, and so do you."

  Miranda remembered the pretty, young, sweet woman with the reddish brown hair who used to play tea party with her when Jessie was a baby. She’d always liked Josie, and that period between Jessie’s birth and Josie’s death was the only time she could remember feeling like she had a real family. "Professor Hazlett, how did you know Josie?"

  "She was one of my first students when I became an assistant professor," Joanna said. "And she was absolutely brilliant." She smiled. "She ripped through everything anyone gave her. She was like a sponge that had been left out to dry for years, and then someone threw her into the water.

  "She was one of the first Kay scholars, but the program wasn’t what it is today. It paid for her room and board the first two years, but then only half of it after that. And Josie came from nothing." She caught Emily’s eyes. "She came from less than nothing. She barely ate most of the time as it was. She couldn’t get a loan to cover everything. She wasn’t going to be able to stay."

  She looked at Jessie pleadingly. Jessie took a step back and Emily put her arm around her. "I thought I was doing her a favor, I really did. She could have gone on to do great things. I wanted her to stay. That’s why I introduced them. They’d just started the scholarship."

  Emily held her breath. "The Bartolome Scholar’s fund?"

  "That’s the one," Joanna said bitterly. "And Tom was the chair. He was the one who was going to make the ultimate decision. And Josie was so smart and so charming." She sniffled. "I thought it might help."

  "And don’t forget very pretty," Lucy hissed. "Did you think that would help too?"

  "Yes," Joanna said, the tears welling again. "And I’ve never been more ashamed of anything in my whole life."

  Jessie’s lip trembled. She looked at Miranda, who shook her head. She looked at Richard, who swallowed. "Richard, what are they saying?"

  "Jess." He walked over and embraced Jessie. "It doesn’t matter sweetheart. None of this touches you."

  She looked up. For the second time since she’d met her, Emily saw tears in her eyes. "You’re wrong, Richard. Tell the truth. They’re just going to keep lying like they always have."

  Richard’s eyes were red. "Jessie, it doesn’t matter."

  Jessie wept now into Richards shoulder. Miranda started crying too. "Richard, it does. She deserves to know."

  Richard took a deep breath and hugged Jessie. He glared at Joanna. "Finish what you started."

  Joanna took a deep breath. "I arranged for them to meet in a restaurant. I wasn’t there. I was crossing my fingers the whole night. I was planning what I’d say to Tom to help her—what I’d do—if I needed to. But then she didn’t come to class that day. I was worried. I thought he’d turned her down, and she was packing up. So I found out where her dorm was and I went to see her." She was silent for a minute. She finally found her words. "She was black and blue, on her face and her arms. She’d thrown her dress into the garbage, but I saw it. It was ripped. She screamed at me for making her go. She was hurt, but she wouldn’t let me take her to the doctors.

  "I checked on her every day for a week, and I somehow managed to convince her to come to class by the next week. At first she didn’t want to talk or do her work, but slowly she came around. I was going to help her, I really was. I was going to keep her there if I had to take out a loan myself."

  "Such dedication," Lucy said with a sneer. But Emily smiled in spite of herself, remembering the day Joanna had offered her the job of her dreams.

  "And then a few weeks later she came to class, but she couldn’t talk again. Her eyes were red from crying. I pulled her aside after class, and she broke down. I dragged her into my office, and I finally made her tell me." Joanna closed her eyes and put her face in her hand, trying to avoid Jessie’s eyes.

  Jessie couldn’t breathe. "Oh, God," she said softly. "Oh, no."

  "I think you can stop now," Richard said forcefully.

  "No!" Jessie shouted. "It was 1991. It doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t she..." She looked sick. "She didn’t have to keep me! I wouldn’t have kept me!"

  Miranda’s lip trembled. "I’m glad she did," she said quietly.

  "It wasn’t an option for her," Joanna said. "She couldn’t make herself do it, even though it meant everything was going to have to change." She shook her head. "And I was terrified for her. I told her to leave school at the end of the quarter. I was going to find her a co-op—something, anything—and she’d be gone until after...you came. And then maybe adoption, maybe foster care. Anything but…" She looked disgusted again.

  "So how did he find out?" Richard asked angrily. "You wanted to hide it so badly, what happened?"

  Joanna looked away again. "Tom owed her. I went to see him myself. I told him that I knew what he’d done, and that if he didn’t give Josie that scholarship, I’d go to the police and tell them anything I needed to. Whatever it took. He laughed at me. That wicked laugh of his. He said I had no proof of anything. And I told him he was sloppy, I had the best proof of all." She bit her lip. "I didn’t mean to," she said desperately. "I just wanted to shut him up so badly."

  "Oh, Joanna," Alex said disapprovingly. "What were you thinking?"

  Emily looked at Alex. "That’s perfect," she said contemptuously. "Because you’re the expert in blackmail, right?" Alex looked away.

  "I couldn’t stop him," she whispered. "He went straight to her. I tried to call her, to warn her so she could get out, but he was too fast. I was terrified. I called campus security, but by the time they got to her dorm, she was gone. I was frantic. I asked every one of her friends, but they had no idea." She sighed. "And it was like that for a week. Then one day I walked into my office and I find an envelope under my door. A wedding invitation."

  Jessie laughed. She knew how the story had to end, but it didn’t make any sense to her. "She married him?" she asked incredulously. "He raped her, and then she married him?" She shook with fury, and looked at Miranda. "Anyone care to explain that to me, because I still don’t get it."

  "Because he wasn’t a monster," Lucy said furiously. She turned on Joanna. "He didn’t hurt Josie, and I don’t care what you think you saw. And he wasn’t going to hurt his own baby!"

  "Funny, because that isn’t what I heard," Robert said matter-of-factly. "Mister Sheldon, you and Tom were friends—"

  "I wouldn’t go that far," Alex said quickly.

  Robert shrugged. "Okay, sure. But you saw each other. Socially. And his pretty young wife. Ever see any bruises? Did it ever look like she had troubl
e walking? Ever not see her at all for periods at a time?" Silence again. "Interesting. Because that’s what a couple of other people reported."

  "Now is that your information, or your father’s?" Lucy said icily.

  Robert smiled. "You’ll find I’m pretty thorough, Misses Hendrickson."

  Miranda looked at Richard. "Do you remember?" she whispered.

  "Please," Richard said pleadingly. "This isn’t going to help."

  "Mister Hendrickson, I don’t think I’ve made myself clear," Robert said. "This is in the context of a murder investigation."

  "Still open after all this time?" Mitch challenged.

  "Very soon," Robert said coolly. "Regardless, refusing to answer questions is not going to work in anyone’s favor."

  "Then why don’t I call my lawyer and we’ll meet you at the police station if you want to question me?" Richard offered.

  "Richard, please!" Jessie shouted, pounding on his chest. "Did he hurt my mother? Is this true?" She couldn’t breathe. "Tell me. I want the truth!"

  Richard looked at Miranda, who nodded her head. He closed his eyes, then kissed Jessie on the forehead. "I was only nine when you were born, and I didn’t know...I didn’t have much of a point of reference for what a marriage was supposed to be like." He didn’t look at his mother. "I thought your mother was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And she was barely a woman—just a little over twenty." Emily gulped. "And I had no idea why Uncle Tom was so lucky. I was pretty sure he didn’t deserve to be, because I always thought he was...strange. I didn’t like him at all until he married your mother.

  "She was so happy when you were born, Jess. I did get that. She was happy when she was with you, and she liked having me around to be the big brother. She liked when we all played at Miranda’s house." He smiled. "She even liked Michael, believe it or not. She called us all one great big family. And I knew why that was important to her." He sighed. "Because she always shrank away when Tom got too close. She was afraid of him." Now he looked at his mother. "And anyone who looked, who really looked, could see that."

  "You were just a little boy," Lucy insisted. "You didn’t understand all of the adult things going on around you."

  "Yes I did!" Richard shouted, and Lucy stood back. "I got it, Mother. Or haven’t you figured that out yet?" He took a second to calm himself. "And I got it when Josie came to my house—your house, Dad’s house," Richard said. Zainab held back her tears, watching all of Richard’s pent up bitterness flow out of him. "It was just me. The nanny had an errand to run, and who knew where you were? It was just me. It was nine o’clock. I was doing my homework, and there was a knock at the door. It was Josie. Josie and Jessie, and both of them were crying." He looked at his mother as if he tasted something rotten. "And they were both bruised. Josie didn’t have to explain because it was that obvious even to a kid who wasn’t in high school. She begged me to take Jessie for the weekend. She said she’d come back on Monday and everything would be fine. But please take Jessie, and don’t let anyone take her away." He looked at Jessie and smoothed her hair. "And you clung to me for dear life. How could I say no to you?

  "So I put you in the open room. The room you use now. We had some ice cream. But then he came. Uncle Tom. I told you not to cry, I told you that as long as you were quiet, everything would be okay."

  Richard scoffed, then went on. "I locked the door, and I hid the key. I came down and Tom was...well, I thought he was going to hit me. He demanded to know where Josie was, and I told him I had no idea. It was the truth. He pushed me. But then the phone rang, and he left. After that we were safe."

  Lucy was pale. "Why didn’t you ever tell me this?"

  "Because Uncle Tom never came back," Richard said. "Because after that weekend, he was gone forever."

  "So you took care of me the whole weekend?" Jessie asked, blinking through her tears.

  Richard smiled. "Believe it or not, Michael came over that Saturday and helped too." He looked at Miranda. "Just one of the reasons I always knew Michael wasn’t all bad." Then he looked back at his mother. "Are you satisfied now, Mother? Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures, but I remember it very clearly."

  "I would have killed him myself if I knew that he’d threatened you," Lucy said. "I wouldn’t have let anyone hurt you."

  "No," Richard said coldly. "Nothing too obvious with the Bartolomes." Richard turned to Robert. "But you didn’t know any of that, Detective. You couldn’t have."

  "No," Robert said after a moment. "I didn’t. But the bruises my father saw on Misses Bartolome—and he did take some pictures—were enough to get him thinking. That, plus the fact that the body was never recovered. It would have taken an unusually strong explosion to throw him that far and that deep."

  "Oh, so it started with pictures," Joanna said, staring coldly at Robert. "You think he liked to look at those much?"

  "Excuse me?" Robert asked.

  "She never said his name," Joanna said, "but she told me that there was a detective harassing her. Everywhere she went. And it sounded like his curiosity was a little bit more than professional."

  Miranda remembered Josie’s nervousness after Tom died, and the way she insisted that Richard accompany Jessie on all their play dates. "Wow, Lucy," Miranda marveled. "How much were you paying him to do that?"

  "And of course she wouldn’t have gone to the police," Joanna said angrily. "Because your father had her convinced that there was an active investigation, and that she was the prime suspect. It wasn’t until after she died that the truth came out."

  "The truth?" Robert repeated, barely concealing his rage. "Maybe he went a little too far, but he did what he did on her orders." He pointed at Lucy. "He didn’t deserve to have his career ruined. And you didn’t lift a finger, did you, not even after he became a person of interest."

  "Good!" Joanna railed. "Because he made the last year of her life miserable!"

  "Yeah? Wouldn’t you be happy if you knew how he spent the last ten of his life?"

  "There was blood," Jessie whispered. "Lots of blood. In the bedroom. On the sheets." Jessie blinked. "There was a knife. Someone stabbed her."

  Richard’s eyes widened. "Jessie, do you remember that?"

  Jessie nodded. "Yes."

  Robert looked at her for the first time. "Are you satisfied now?" Emily hissed.

  "No," Robert said finally. "Because that isn’t the whole truth, is it?"

  "Do you think anyone’s going to report me if I kill you?" Richard asked fiercely.

  "Right, that’s how you people do it, isn’t it?" Robert looked at them in disgust. "Who do you think you’re really protecting with all of your secrets?"

  "It doesn’t matter!" Richard said, and now Jessie had to hold him back. "Get out of my office now!"

  "I want to know!" Jessie sobbed. Now she collapsed into Miranda’s arms. Miranda shushed her, but looked at Richard, begging him to make it stop.

  "She was stabbed," Robert said in a cold voice. "But that wasn’t all. She was raped before she died."

  Jessie dry heaved. Now no one held Richard back as he punched Robert in the face.

  Robert fell back onto the floor. Everyone else stood in shocked silence. "Get up, Detective. If I’m going in for assault, I’m going to make it worth my while."

  Robert helped himself up and wiped his mouth. Jessie shook her head. "Why didn’t you tell me?" she whispered, and Richard turned around.

  Before he could say anything, Lucy answered. "You were just a little girl, Jessica. You had nightmares about it for a very long time as it was. There was no reason to make it worse." She stepped toward Robert. "There still isn’t."

  "They looked at my Dad for it," Robert said. "Did you know that? No, you wouldn’t care."

  "Did he do it?" Emily asked scornfully.

  Robert smiled. "No, he didn’t. But thank you for asking. You know how long it took to clear him? DNA testing just wasn’t what it could have been back then. And he was dead before they could run it."


  "After your little performance, Detective, I hope you’re here to tell us just who did," Alex said with exasperation.

  "I’m still working on it. But we do have the DNA. Care to volunteer a sample, Mister Sheldon?"

  Alex scoffed. "What?"

  "You knew the beautiful Misses Bartolome, did you not? And I think everyone knows by now that you aren’t nearly as clean as you’d like people to think."

  Alex narrowed his eyes. "I’ll give you a DNA sample—I’ve got nothing to worry about. I don’t think I was ever even alone with her."

  "Great, thanks. I’ll be in touch," Robert said, then turned to Richard. "And you, Mister Hendrickson? You did say she was the most beautiful woman you’d ever met."

  Miranda and Zainab held Richard back before he could punch Robert again. "Richard, don’t!" Miranda pleaded. "He isn’t worth it." She turned on Robert. "You bastard. I don’t care what you think of us. We’re not murderers, we’re not rapists. And Richard is the best man I have ever met in my life. You say one more word against him and you will have to deal with me."

  Robert burst out laughing, but Miranda didn't flinch. Robert looked at Alex and pointed at her. "Wow, you are one lucky son of a bitch, aren’t you? She’s gorgeous, but she doesn’t have a clue, does she?"

  "I’ll punch you myself if you say anything else about her," Alex said menacingly.

  Robert smiled again and turned back to Miranda. "You know what? I think you deserve that clue. I think you should know the truth about your knight in shining armor over here, and over there." He turned around. He looked at Lucy, then his gaze landed on Joanna. "Or would you like to tell them?"

  Alex looked at Joanna and Lucy, and took in a sharp breath. He grabbed Miranda’s hand. "We’re leaving now, and in the morning I’m calling the commissioner."

  Richard held Zainab’s hand. "Oh, Mother," he said softly. "Are you that bad at keeping your secrets?"

  Lucy licked her lips. "I only ever wanted to protect you."

  Richard shook his head. "Funny how that blew up in your face."

  "Miranda, now!" Alex bellowed. Miranda pulled her hand away and stepped back next to Emily and Mitch.