The rest of the previous evening came back to her in a sickening wave when she replayed last night’s events in her mind.
What was it she’d studied in college about Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. She’d passed the denial stage. She couldn’t deny the evidence right in front of her. Clearly, she was in the anger stage, big-time. She was looking to lay blame, on Mark and on Elizabeth. She was never going to accept what Mark had done to her, to their family.
She’d tried to rationalize the situation, but nothing justified his behavior. Where had they met? Maybe Elizabeth was a client.
Her head was pounding. It was all that wine she’d consumed at the opening to celebrate the successful show. Some things were clear. All of Nick’s sketches and her paintings in the Bald Cypress series had been purchased. They’d raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the shelter. Nick had been touched at her tribute to his dead wife.
Today’s papers would be filled with stories about the hurricane, stories of survival and probably death. Maybe they’d run a story about the opening and the glory of Dominick Anselmo’s reemergence onto the art scene. Maybe someone would even write a few words about her debut. But the gallery owners and museum curators were primarily interested in one thing: a glimpse, or better yet, a piece of the prodigal son.
Her name wouldn’t appear prominently in the paper, but she had made the event happen. She could at least be proud of that accomplishment. But that triumph would have to wait until she talked to Mark.
Alex clenched her teeth, picked up her cell phone, and dialed Mark’s number. Mark never usually worked on Sundays, but she would try his office anyway. Although she’d be surprised if anyone answered after a major storm. Mark had instructed her months ago not to disturb him unless it was an emergency. Or to call him on a special new line he’d established so it would be easier to reach him. Well, that number always rang to voice mail. And in her mind, a missing husband constituted an emergency.
She hated to be put in the position of chasing after her husband. Mark should be home with her. But Mark had undoubtedly spent the night with his mistress, his top priority. She’d called his cell phone and left a number of angry messages, but Mark hadn’t answered any of them. She’d stopped short of calling Elizabeth. She had too much pride for that. Eventually, Mark was going to have to face her. She stood motionless by their bed and waited for someone to pick up at Mark’s office.
“Outer Island Realty.”
Alex braced herself.
“Mark Newborn, please.”
Nothing.
“Are you still there? I’m looking for Mark. Mark Newborn.”
“There’s only a few of us here, checking on storm damage. Who’s calling, please?”
“His wife is calling, thank you. I’d like to talk to my husband, if you don’t mind.”
She could feel her blood percolating. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. It was probably too soon to confront the bastard. But no, she had her children to think about. She needed answers, and she was going to get them.
Thank goodness Emory and Ella were away at college. At least they had each other.
“Let me get Nona.”
This was obviously a new receptionist. Mark’s secretary would know where he was or if he’d come in yet.
“Alexandra?”
“Good. Nona, I’m looking for Mark. Could you put him on the phone, please?”
More silence.
What was wrong with these people? Mark must have instructed them not to take her calls.
“It’s simple enough. I want to talk to my husband now.”
“Alexandra, I’m sorry, but…Mark hasn’t worked here for months.”
Alex’s legs buckled, and she grabbed the end table for support, lowering herself onto the bed.
“Stop kidding around and put my husband on the phone. I have to talk to him. Please.”
“Alexandra, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a joke. Mark was, well, let go about five months ago. Didn’t he tell you?”
Now it was Alex’s turn to give the silent treatment. Dammit. What the hell was going on? Mark had lost his job and he hadn’t told her?
Where did he go during the day when he was supposed to be at work? Hang out at a bar? Play golf all day? Was he looking for another job?
Or did he spend every waking moment with Elizabeth? No wonder Mark put up such a stink about her not calling him at work. It was all starting to make sense. If she had just paid more attention to the signs…
It was humiliating that her husband’s secretary had to tell her that her husband had lost his job.
“Alex, if it helps, Mark was one of the last to be let go. It had nothing to do with his ability. The real estate market just tanked, and management had no other choice.”
She didn’t want to hear the details or the excuses. She knew all about the wretched state of the economy, the foreclosures, the fact that high-end properties were losing value faster than the speed of light, that no one was buying anything. The bottom line was her husband didn’t trust her enough to tell her something major that affected both their lives.
“Th-thank you,” Alex managed before she threw the cell phone across the bed.
“Bastard,” she swore at no one in particular.
Many of her friends’ husbands were in the same situation, but they hadn’t hidden from their wives the fact they were out of work. He should have known she would be understanding, that she would have done everything within her power to console him and help him. She could have gone back to work, taken a full-time job to help support the family.
No wonder he’d been after her to stop spending money. If she had only known, she would have. But she couldn’t have known because he’d lied to her.
He’d lied about their marriage vows. He’d lied about his job. What else had he lied about? Had he ever really loved her?
Alex grabbed the pillow and put it over her face. She crawled under the comforter and shut her eyes. She needed a plan—but she couldn’t think now. Her legs felt like blocks of cement. She was exhausted. She needed to rest.
****
When she woke up, her head was still pounding. She glanced at the clock. It was flashing, another sign the power had gone out and was now restored. She’d have to reset all the clocks and the oven. She grabbed her watch. One p.m.? She’d slept the morning away. How could she have done that? She woke up in a daze and switched on the lamp. The pounding in her head wouldn’t stop.
Alex got up cautiously. The noise wasn’t emanating from her head; it was coming from the front door. Someone was pounding on the front door. She padded over the foyer in her slippers. Maybe it was Mark. Maybe he’d forgotten his key. If he thought he was just going to waltz back into their lives, without groveling, after what he’d put her through, he’d better think again.
She jerked open the door and stared open-mouthed at two policemen.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Under Arrest
What were the police doing here? Maybe a tree was down and blocking the road, or they were here to warn her about a live power line.
“Alexandra Newborn?” one officer asked, flashing his badge. A burly man with coarse dark hair, he was fairly bursting out of his uniform. She would have laughed if he weren’t a cop.
“I’m Mrs. Newborn.”
“I’m Homicide Detective Ted Rollins, and this is Detective Frank Nelson. We’re with the Detective Division of the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, the General Investigations Team. Is there somewhere we can talk?” Burly Cop asked.
The pounding had taken hold of her heart. “It’s not my kids, is it? Are my girls all right?”
The policemen exchanged puzzled looks.
“We’re not here about that. Is there anyone else at home?”
Alex stood there wondering why they needed to know that. Then she remembered that the detectives had said they wanted to come in. She motio
ned for them to follow her and directed them to the couch in the living room. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror. She was a mess. She had bed head, her eyes were practically swollen shut, she was still in her nightgown, for heaven’s sake, and there were smudges of red paint all over it. Why hadn’t she bothered to put on a robe? They must surely think she’d been drinking. Well, they’d be right. She certainly had something to drink about.
The detectives courteously waited for her to sit in the wing chair, and after moving some books and magazines to the coffee table, they took a seat on the couch opposite her.
“Sorry for the mess,” Alex apologized. “I’m the only one here. May I ask what this is about?”
“We have a few questions,” Detective Nelson stated. Jesus, he looked like he was thirteen. She wondered whether his mother knew he was out posing as a police officer.
Something about their tone was beginning to unsettle her. Then the Ted and Frank Show cranked up into high gear.
“When was the last time you saw your husband?” Baby Face Nelson asked.
Alex looked up at him, bleary-eyed.
Then she got mad.
“Last night,” she seethed.
“Where was that?”
“At the Diamond Gallery on the Beach. At an art opening.”
“And that’s the last time you saw him?” repeated Baby Face Nelson.
“Yes, he never came home last night, the bastard.”
The detectives nodded to each other knowingly, like they had this great big secret they weren’t going to let her in on.
“Was there a problem?” Burly Cop asked.
“You might say that. My husband was cheating on me. I’d say that was a problem. Why are you here?”
The detectives eyed each other again.
“Mrs. Newborn,” Burly Cop said, “there’s no easy way to tell you this, but your husband never came home last night because he’s dead.”
Alex stared at them, uncomprehending.
“W-what?” This was some kind of cosmic joke. It had to be.
“His body washed up on the beach early this morning during the storm, and some shellers called to alert us. When we came out to investigate, we found the victim.”
Alex’s emotions overwhelmed her, which was strange because she didn’t think she had any tears left. She was beginning to feel numb. She couldn’t feel her legs. But she wasn’t brain dead. They were referring to Mark as the victim.
“Mark’s dead? Are you sure? Because I just saw him last—”
“We found this wallet in his jacket pocket with his ID, but we need you to verify that it actually belonged to your husband,” Burly Cop interrupted. “There’s still money in the wallet, so we don’t think he was robbed. We’d like you to come down to the morgue to identify the body.”
Had they practiced that line? It was straight out of a bad TV cop show. Alex reached out for the wallet, which was preserved in a plastic baggie. She looked at the wallet and its contents for a long time. Everything was soaked and stank of the ocean and of rot, but there was Mark’s driver’s license, and a picture of her and the girls.
“This is his,” she confirmed. “This is my husband’s.” Then the world went dark.
“Mrs. Newborn, Mrs. Newborn, are you all right? Can we get you anything? Would you like us to call anyone?”
Burly Copy had covered her with a blanket. He was gently shaking her. She looked up at him blankly. Why was she lying on the couch?
“What happened?” she asked.
“You passed out,” the policeman explained. “Is there a friend we can call?”
“Friend?” she repeated, dazed. Had she suffered a stroke? She couldn’t move, and she could barely string two sentences together.
“Friend,” she said again. There, her brain was still working. “Vicky Scott, or the colonel. They live around the corner.” Alex gave the policemen Vicky’s number.
“Do you mind if we take a look around before your friend gets here?” Burly Cop asked as Baby Face Nelson dialed the number.
She shook her head. “I have nothing to hide.” She watched cop shows too.
They opened drawers, walked into her bedroom, invading her space, their space. She should have been embarrassed because the house was such a mess. Mark should have been here. She couldn’t go through this alone. Shouldn’t the police have a search warrant? She started to shiver and sob.
“Where does this door lead?” the detective asked.
“Into my laundry room, my studio. Be careful of my rabbit. I put her in there because she was scared of the storm.”
“You have a rabbit?”
“Is there a law against owning a rabbit?” she asked.
“No, I guess not. It’s just…unusual…is all.”
Detective Rollins opened the door, and Joplin skittered across the living room, looking for cover behind the wall unit. After about five minutes, the detective stuck his head out from her studio.
“Uh, Frank, you might want to take a look at this. It’s a bloody chamber of horrors in here.”
Alex lifted her head out of her hands. She knew her house was messy, but a chamber of horrors? What had Burly Cop found? Did he have the goods on her?
She laughed like a loon. It helped ease some of the tension. She’d fallen down the rabbit hole, which reminded her she needed to feed Joplin. She was going to have to get dressed to go down to the morgue, but she couldn’t move. Vicky would help her. What should she wear? The orange shift? No. Mark hated that dress.
Both cops were staring at her now like she had her head screwed on backwards.
“Mrs. Newborn, would you please come in here for a minute?”
She couldn’t make her legs work, so they each took her arm and supported her as they walked her into the studio. Talk about a mess. Were they going to interrogate her? That’s what they did in all the cop shows.
“Can you explain this?”
“Explain what?”
“Is this blood on this table?”
“Blood?” Alex tried to focus but she couldn’t concentrate.
“Mrs. Newborn, we need you to answer the question.”
“Blood?” she repeated inanely.
“This splatter all over the table and the floor and on this ice pick? Is this your husband’s blood?”
“We’re going to have to take your nightgown as evidence.”
“My nightgown?” She looked down at her worn negligee and laughed hysterically, this time like a hyena. The detectives looked at each other in their practiced good-old-boy way and whispered something about probable cause.
“That’s not blood. That’s alazarin crimson hue.”
“Speak English, please,” Burly Cop said.
“Red. That’s red paint. I was distressing a kitchen table for a client. De-stressing myself at the same time.” Alex laughed again. It was more of a howl this time. She had finally broken the bounds of sanity. She expected the detectives to pronounce her certifiable any minute.
“Ma’am, this isn’t a laughing matter.”
“I know. Distressing a kitchen table is hard work. It’s strictly about how the shape of the dent looks on a piece of furniture. The trick is to be inconsistent, to try to make it look as real as possible by beating the piece up near the floor where it would most likely have been nicked or scratched by a dog. Or simulating a gash that might have been made with a toy. Then sanding, painting, re-sanding, and glazing, which is essentially using a color that represents years of collecting atmospheric dirt, before applying the final color. I hope the client likes red. The color’s a little lively for Mrs. Evans, but then her room demands bold.”
The policemen were looking at her strangely.
“You sound a little nervous.”
“I tend to babble sometimes,” Alex agreed.
“Do you have an attorney?”
“An attorney? Why would I need an attorney?”
“Because, Mrs. Newborn, you’re under arrest for the murder
of your husband, Mark Newborn.”
Chapter Thirty
In the Slammer
Being in the slammer was just like it was portrayed in the movies. Alex was stuck behind bars, caged like a zoo animal in this cramped jail cell. At her house, she’d been read her rights before they cuffed her and hauled her down to the police station, with a brief stop at the morgue on the way. They processed her and allowed her one phone call.
Her first inclination had been to call Mark, until she remembered Mark was no longer just a phone call away. He was way beyond her reach now. She hadn’t quite accepted the fact Mark was dead. But she’d seen him in the morgue, all stiff and cold and lifeless. Not Mark, she corrected herself—the victim, the officers had called him. She couldn’t call her girls. She wanted them as far away from this dismal place as possible. She’d called her mother.
Normally, she would have turned to anyone else but her mother, who was going through some issues of her own. Her mother knew more about saving the earth than saving herself. The woman saved wishbones, for heaven’s sake, and she hadn’t cooked in years. She had a drawer full of them—unbroken and bleached—carrying the heartbreaking promise of unfulfilled wishes. But Alex knew instinctively that as crazy and out of touch with reality as her mother was, right now she was exactly who Alex needed.
She hoped everything she’d seen about jail in the movies wasn’t true. Wasn’t there a classic Women in Prison film? Maybe, like in the movies, someone would break her out of the “joint.”
Her heart was crumbling, and she didn’t think she could go on. She clung to the fact that Vicky was right outside, waiting, and she had brought the colonel.
She heard his voice barking orders, calling her name, asking—demanding—to see her. Thank God for the colonel.
“Are you her attorney?” she heard one of the guards ask.
“I damn well am her attorney, son, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll bring her out here right now, or I’ll have the full force of the U.S. Army breathing down your neck. I don’t think you want that.”
Groundwork for Murder Page 16
