“What do you want?” she said.
“Is Pete home?”
“He’s at the coffee shop.”
“Good, I need to talk to you alone.”
“What about?”
“About a text message sent from your phone to Colby Beaumont’s on the day before he died.”
Judy reached behind her for a pack of cigarettes, lit one, inhaled deeply and blew a stream of smoke my way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There’s no point in denying it. The cops will have detailed records of all activity on Colby’s number by this afternoon,” I lied. “Then they’ll check the number and find out it was registered to you.”
“Good luck with that. My phone was an unregistered prepaid,” she said, gleeful at having outwitted me, before she realized her mistake. “Fuck,” she said dully.
“Yup.”
“I’ll deny what I just said. It’s your word against mine.”
“I have a theory about what happened that night. And, I’m guessing that after what happened between you and Pete last night, what I reckon has been happening ever since you two were nicknamed Punch and Judy, you’re tired of protecting the real culprit.”
“I’m protecting the girls!”
“By letting them think it’s normal for a man to beat on his wife? You want them to imprint on that, replicate it in their own relationships?”
She sucked on her cigarette, said nothing.
“And what if he starts in on them?”
A flicker of distress contorted her features. It lasted less than a second, but it was enough.
“He’s already started, hasn’t he? Judy, this has got to stop. You owe it to them.”
“Easy for you to say, Miss No-kids, No-husband, Shrinky-dink.”
“Yeah,” I said. And waited.
When she merely continued inhaling nicotine in silence, I sat down in the middle of the swing bench and played my final card, loathing myself for doing it. “The other night, at the gallery, you know where I found Pete?”
Her gaze snapped to mine.
“In the back room, getting all hot and heavy with Jessica.”
Judy let loose a torrent of curses and kicked the scooter from one end of the porch to the other, narrowly missing hitting me.
“Are you going to tell the cops about your theory?” she demanded.
“Probably. But maybe not just yet.” I wanted to figure this thing out before I told another soul anything.
She ground the cigarette butt under a heel and immediately lit up another.
“How about you come sit here beside me, and I’ll tell you what I think happened,” I invited. “Then you can just confirm if I’m right.”
She sighed but sat down next to me — on my right side, I noticed.
“Even after Colby broke up with you, you still loved him and wanted him back. You hooked up with Pete — maybe you thought that would make Colby jealous.” I glanced sideways at her for confirmation.
She waved her cigarette in a carry-on gesture.
“But, instead, Colby and I started dating. I loved him, too, you know. I wanted him, too.”
“I know. I saw how you were … afterward,” she said grudgingly.
“And I think Pete could feel it, that you weren’t really in love with him. He knew that he wasn’t in Colby’s league” — Judy gave a tiny, involuntary nod — “and it drove him crazy with jealousy. Perhaps he was already hitting you back then.”
She didn’t deny it.
“That didn’t improve your feelings for him, probably made things worse. You felt scared and stuck. And Colby being Colby, I guess he stayed being your friend. Was—” I paused, but I had to know. “Was there more between you?”
She twisted her mouth in contempt at my question. “Colby being Colby, what do you think?”
“I think no. He was just being kind to an ex-girlfriend. But Pete didn’t see it that way; he wanted Colby to stay the hell away from you. He was simmering with anger and suspicion, and then something happened to tip him over the edge. You threw Colby in his face, maybe, or he saw the two of you together, chatting?”
“Asking advice,” she murmured, almost inaudibly.
“You were asking Colby for advice about something?”
“Deanna.” She jerked her head back to the screaming voices inside the house.
I raised my eyebrows in question.
“Pete had knocked me up. And I didn’t know whether to keep it or get rid of it.”
So that’s why Colby had been calling counseling services and looking up pregnancy sites online. He hadn’t guessed I was pregnant at all. He’d known Judy was.
“You thought Colby could advise you on the decision?” I said around the sudden lump in my throat.
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe it was just an excuse to talk to him. To get some attention, and a hug. Funny how you can be dating a guy so jealous he hardly gives you a minute alone, and yet you still feel lonely.”
“And Pete saw you. He blew up?”
“Nah. He went dead quiet — which is always worse, trust me. He took my phone, checked if I’d been calling or texting Colby — as if I’d be stupid enough to leave evidence — and then he sent the text to Colby. Once it went through, he deleted it. Said if I interfered, he’d kill me.” She wiped the back of a hand across her mouth, smearing lipstick. “I believed him.”
“Then he waited for Colby on Sunday night with one of his friends. I’m guessing Brandon Nugent?”
Judy nodded.
“And they attacked him, beat him up badly. Warned him to stay clear of you. But Pete didn’t drown Colby. He and Bran ran off, leaving Colby unconscious by the pond.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, clearly bewildered.
How to answer that question?
“I– There was a witness.”
“A witness who never said anything all this time?”
“There were … special circumstances that made it difficult for him to communicate what he knew.”
“But now he told you?”
“Judy, do you know who came afterward and killed Colby?”
“No idea. Honest to God.”
“Could it have been Pete? Could he have gone back to finish what he started?”
“No way.”
“How can you be sure?”
Judy made a harsh noise — something between a snort and a sob. “I was the getaway driver. I drove Pete and Bran back to my place, and they hung out there all night, with Bran getting stoned and Pete threatening me not to breathe a word to anybody, or else … The storm came in fast, and they were stuck there. My old man wasn’t too pleased to find them in our kitchen the next morning.”
The way she said the last bit made me suspect that, even before she hooked up with Pete, Judy was no stranger to being knocked around.
“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out to squeeze her hand, but she snatched it away.
“Screw you. I don’t want anyone’s pity. Especially not yours.”
“Okay, then.”
“Then Colby turned up dead. Pete and Bran said that even though he was still alive when they left him, they’d carry the can for his death if the cops ever found out about the beating.” She sighed. “I was pregnant. I wanted to get the hell out from under my father’s thumb. So I needed a husband. I needed Pete at home, not in the big house.”
A bloodcurdling scream sounded from inside the house. Without another word, Judy stood up and went inside, slamming the porch door behind her. I headed home, chin tucked into my chest, head bowed against the icy wind. I now knew Pete and Bran were the men who’d beaten Colby, but I was no closer to knowing who’d drowned him.
What am I missing, Colby?
I was instantly rewarded with flashes of Doc Armstrong — arguing with the mystery man, swallowing pills, drifting off into a lethal sleep. Was it possible that the killer could have been him? Perhaps, with his mania for justice and his crusade against the spreading sco
urge of drugs, Colby had confronted Armstrong about Blunt, threatened to alert the cops, to tell them about the fake prescriptions. I couldn’t remember whether I’d ever told Colby about those, couldn’t be sure that I hadn’t triggered a sequence of events that resulted in his death.
Hello, guilt, my old friend.
My visit to Dr. Armstrong, the fact that I obviously still hadn’t put my grief behind me, may have filled him with enough remorse to end his life, or he might have done it because he knew that the whole story would likely soon come out. On the other hand, maybe he’d just hastened the inevitable out of a desire to avoid more pain, and it had nothing at all to do with me or Colby.
When I got home, Ryan was already waiting at the house to take my statement. We sat in my father’s study with the door closed so my parents couldn’t eavesdrop. I’d simply told them I’d had an accident, not wanting to worry them with the fact that the car wreck had been intentional, that there was still someone out there who wanted me dead.
I told Ryan what had happened the night before, keeping my description of the events brief, explaining that I didn’t know what kind of car it had been, and insisting that I couldn’t guess who might have wanted to hurt me. He seemed genuinely troubled, and though I watched him carefully, I saw nothing to indicate that he himself might have been the very man whose description he so carefully recorded in my statement.
When we finished, he asked me, “What was it you wanted to tell me last night?”
I waved a dismissive hand. “It was nothing, really.”
“Garnet, you very obviously thought of something important. What was it?”
“Well, I just realized that whoever assaulted Colby might not have been the same person who drowned him.”
He canted his head at me in confusion. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He studied me skeptically for a long moment and then said, “Are you still going to the Beaumonts’ for dinner tonight? Can I give you and your parents a ride?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll see you at six.”
46
THEN
October 14, 2007
A blanket spread out on a soft, mossy patch of the forest floor was our bed, the fiery blaze of fall leaves in the tree canopy above, our sky. A leaf — ochre and orange with the promise of winter — drifted down and landed on Colby’s chest. He lay on his back with his head on the pillow of my stomach, panting and on the verge of drifting into sleep. I was also breathless, and energized, too, in a quivery way. A soft breeze cooled the sweat on my bare body, tightening my skin with its slight bite of cold.
The small clearing deep in the woods on Kent Hill was our eyrie, the place where we’d first made love, trembling with nerves and excitement. We often hiked up there — sometimes because we couldn’t get enough of each other’s bodies. And sometimes just to get away from the world and to talk — about our exhausting families, and what the lyrics of Chasing Cars really meant, and whether God existed. And about our future.
I picked the leaf up off Colby’s chest and tickled his face with it, giggling when his nose twitched. He opened his eyes and snatched it. Then, grinning, he placed it between my legs, like the fig leaf on Eve in an old painting.
He gestured to the colors above and the valley beyond, just visible through a gap in the trees. “Look at that. You won’t get this in the city.”
“True. But I won’t get anatomy lectures in Pitchford.”
“So you’ve decided then — you’re definitely going to study medicine?” he said, turning over and pushing himself up onto his elbows so he could see my face.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. All of the above.”
He captured a yellow leaf from its downward tailspin and laid it solemnly on my left breast, then found another of the same color lying on the ground and decorated my right.
“Do you know how magnificently beautiful you are, Garnet?”
Magnificently beautiful. I smiled and wriggled in pleasure, sending one of the leaves sliding off my chest.
“You’re ruining my art,” Colby complained, setting it back in position.
“The only thing I know I want for sure is you,” I said.
“Good thing you’ve got me, then.”
He sat up, fanned my hair out around my face, and began threading colored leaves into it.
“You’re definitely going to do law enforcement?” I asked.
“Yeah. My father and uncle are playing the big disappointment card, but it’s my life, so it’s my choice.”
“What does your mom say?”
“To follow my heart — which will be in Boston.” As he spoke, he arranged a crown of golden leaves around my face. “So that’s where I’ll be going to school, too.”
Keeping my head still, I blew him kisses at this confirmation that we’d be there together. “It’s going to be awesome!”
He pinned my hair to the ground with a final scarlet leaf and sat back to admire the effect. “You look like a pagan goddess.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I said, shedding leaves as I sat up to claim his lips.
A drop of water hit me on the cheek. Another landed on my back, and then another. As if it had only been holding off while it waited for us to finish, the rain started splashing down in earnest. Laughing, we tugged on clothes, pulled the blanket over our heads and began stumbling down the forest path.
When I turned onto the path leading down to where we’d left the car, Colby yelled, “The bridge — it’s closer!”
The blanket was soon drenched in the deluge, and by the time we reached the covered bridge, we were wet to our skin. Colby tugged me inside, laughing and shaking the water off his head.
“I’m c-cold,” I said, rubbing the gooseflesh on my arms.
“Come here, you.” He pulled me close and held me tight against the warmth of his chest while the rain hammered on the wooden roof above and the river roared beneath us. “Isn’t this awesome, being inside the bridge like this?”
“No. It’s dark and creepy. This is what being in a coffin must feel like.”
“No way! It’s the opposite of that. Out there, behind you, it’s Pitchford. And out the other side back behind me, it’s not. But in here it’s no man’s land — we could be anywhere. It’s magic.”
I pulled back and made a face. “What are you even talking about, crazy face?”
“It is!” he insisted, his face intense with excitement. “We’re not on land, or in the water, or up in the sky — it’s like we’re between worlds. Can’t you feel it?”
“All I feel is a strong urge to run and scream.”
“Okayyyy,” Colby said, grinning. “Well, you know how I like to satisfy your strong urges.”
He grabbed my hand, and we hurtled through the tunnel, screaming and shrieking, pushing back the dank gloom with our fierce laughter, defying time itself with our youth and our love.
At the other end of the bridge I leapt out into the rain, eager for the open air. Colby stayed in the shadows, just under the cover of the eaves, watching me turn my face up to the sky, inviting the elements. Then he leaned out and kissed me with infinite tenderness.
“I’ll always love you,” I said.
“And I’ll love you forever,” he replied.
47
NOW
Sunday December 24, 2017
I spent the afternoon of Christmas Eve in town, replenishing my wardrobe. This had been a very expensive trip home — the estimate from the body shop for my car repairs was extortionately steep, and the insurance deductible would hit me hard, plus I’d ruined my favorite coat and running shoes and lost my boots. And quite possibly my mind, too.
That evening, I dressed for the Beaumont dinner in my new purchases — a pair of black pants, bloodred turtleneck, and flat-heeled, lace-up boots which ended mid-calf — and was just applying a last coat of mascara when my mother yelled up the stairs for me.
I stuck my head out my bedroom room
and called, “Yeah?”
“Jesus has brought a message for you, dear.”
Sweet suffering son of a bitch. My mother was getting more unhinged by the day. Like mother, like daughter?
“Yeah, alright,” I replied. “Just take it for me.”
It was one thing getting messages from Colby, but if Christ himself started appearing in my life, then it was time for a padded cell and straightjacket.
When my father yelled that Ryan had arrived, I touched up my lipstick, grabbed my new coat, and ran downstairs to find the two men chatting at the door. Ryan, jiggling keys, looked up and grinned when I appeared. Without meaning to, I found myself returning the smile. His blue sweater brought out the slate gray of his eyes, and the graze of stubble emphasized his jaw line. Too bad I’d sworn off all men, especially any involved in this case.
He greeted me with a peck on the cheek. “Looking mighty fine, Garnet. Ready to go?”
“Sure.” I opened the front door and saw a massive police SUV in our driveway. Was there a reason he didn’t want us to see his car — like maybe a dented front bumper? “Where’s your car?”
“I thought we could use this because it's bigger. And there are a bunch of us.”
“Right,” I said, all my suspicions about him flooding back.
“I’m calling shotgun,” my mother said, limping up to us just then.
Ryan supported her as she negotiated the front steps, then kept a steadying hand out as they headed down the icy front path. But polite and obliging meant nothing; I’d read enough of my father’s books to know that a psychopath could act like a regular Prince Charming.
My father was locking the front door behind us when my mother called over her shoulder to me, “Did you see your letter from Jesus, dear?”
“A letter? From Jesus?”
“Yes, a big fat letter. I put it on the table in the hall.”
I saw Ryan’s shoulders shaking, but I was more bewildered than amused.
“Sorry, Dad, can you open up again? I need to see this.”
The First Time I Died Page 29
