Last Day (41 page)

So many misconceptions about the moment of death. They say your entire life flashes before your eyes. You have time to make peace with your regrets, to forgive and let go of resentments, to fill your heart with love. I can see why people want to believe that in the minutes before death, a person can find perfect peace. For me, that did not happen. My entire wonderful life was wiped out, as if it had never been, in violent thrashing, despair, pain beyond belief.

I would have thought it was pure anger that drove my killer—a crazed moment that would surely end as the rage stopped, when realization that this was happening, that I was dying, would have halted the whole thing. But it didn’t. That’s when I saw that terrible calm enter the eyes staring down at me.

I was so focused on that familiar, once so-loved face, during those long minutes of death. At the very end, when I’d stopped breathing, before the last spark of consciousness left me, I heard the sigh. My vision was gone, but I heard footsteps across the room, the sound of the air-conditioning cranking up, and my sensation was of cold air blowing from the vent, a harbinger of cold beyond human understanding, the ice of death.

Until those final moments in my frigid room, I couldn’t spare a thought for my daughter. There was no clinging to the girl that I love, no sense of goodbye. It was all me and Matthew, because we were together, and my death was his death.

But at that last instant, when my life flickered and extinguished, it was Sam I thought of. It was all my daughter. I gave my entire self, my spirit, to Sam. It was all I could do for her, my daughter, my girl. The dead mourn the living, the loss of closeness and the future. I won’t be
there to teach Sam what I knew about growing up, and I have lost the chance to be guided by her.

When she was little, she would come to the gallery after school and paint and draw. The works that inspired her most were so different from my beloved American Impressionists. After my grandmother and Ruth took a trip to India and Nepal, Mathilda acquired several fifteenth-century Tibetan paintings and a hundred-year-old English translation of
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
. The illustrations were colorful, painted in shades of red and green on parchment, filled with images of protector and wrathful gods, bodhisattvas, and Green Tara, the mother of Buddhism. Sam was fascinated with all the characters, but hungry ghosts moved her most, and she drew an entire book of stories about the desperate souls who died in violence and misery, who haunted the earth without ever finding peace.

What would Sam think, to know that I have become a hungry ghost?

After my mother died, when I was too sad to do anything but dream about heaven, I read the book of the dead and learned that the bardo state lasts for forty-five days after death. The bardo is a ghost world, a period of time before a person is reborn. It gave me comfort to imagine that after a month and a half in the bardo, my mother could find peace in another life. I looked for her everywhere: in feral kittens, a bobcat that stalked the meadow, a new baby at the beach.

Will Sam remember those Tibetan-inspired drawings she did of beings in the bardo? Will they make her think of me?

Many more than forty-five days have passed since my murder. My death was in July, and now it is November, my birthday. A single birth, a death, and there has been no rebirth, no respite from wandering. I’m left to believe that there never will be. My violent end leaves me ravenous for justice, a hunger that hasn’t been sated.

Being a mother was the best part of my life. Scotty had nothing on me in that department—I remember how I scared her, upset her, in
that moment early in my pregnancy when I wavered, when I thought having Matthew might change everything too much, upset the order of things. It was just a few seconds, but it angered her. I didn’t appreciate her feelings enough; I wish I had been more sensitive.

Motherhood. Yes, Scotty understood more than anyone what it meant to me. When I think of Sam now, what she is about to face. How will she manage? I remember how I felt when my mother died. Scholarship and achievement had been my way of healing from what the Andersons had done. But once I conceived Sam, nothing else mattered in the same way. I wanted Kate to have this too—the eternal connection to a child, the transformation from a victim who had suffered at the hands of others to a powerful woman able to give life. Lulu too—our dear and not-so-dear secretive mystery girl Lulu. It sometimes felt so unfair to me that only Scotty and I had experienced motherhood. But frankly, not everyone deserves it—not just the childless, but not even every woman who’s become a mother.

I need Kate now. If justice is to come, my sister will deliver it. She is strong and furious, more single minded than anyone I know. It has served her well in the air, in her work. She thinks I look down on her for not having the life I do—family, children, my garden. But I don’t—she would never have created the mess I did. I took the painting, one I already owned, to prove to myself I deserved my own life.

The complication of Jed. I tried so hard to keep them both happy: my husband and my lover. Giving Jed the photo of Matthew from the sonogram, encouraging him to think he was my baby’s father before I knew for sure. Playing with someone’s feelings, when the stakes are so high, is serious business. Leaving Pete with an empty frame on the wall. Lies and manipulations I hadn’t known I was capable of. They felt good at the time—vital, even. A good girl all my life, it felt exhilarating to step out of line. But why couldn’t I have been content with my children, living surrounded by the art that has sustained me from the beginning?

I lost myself in love. And then I lost my life.

53

On Beth’s birthday, Reid drove to New London to meet Tom for lunch. He had plenty to keep him busy at his desk, but the date made him uneasy, and he really needed to get away from the office. He had been sure he would have wrapped up the case by now. He had wanted it for Beth.

He parked in the Saint Ignatius Loyola Church parking lot at the end of Bank Street—just a few blocks from Kate’s loft. He walked slowly toward the Black Whale, keeping his eyes open for her. He had told Tom to meet here because Tom was lecturing at the Coast Guard Academy this week, and New London would be convenient for him. But he knew there was another reason. He hadn’t spoken to Kate in over two weeks; he felt ashamed of having nothing to report, but he wanted to run into her.

The place was packed with people from the courthouse up the street—lawyers, defendants, jurors, cops. Reid recognized half of them and said hello as he made his way through the restaurant. He spotted his brother in his Coast Guard uniform, sitting in a booth in the back.

“Hey,” he said, sliding into his seat.

“Thanks for meeting for lunch,” Tom said. “I was surprised to hear from you. You’ve been so busy.”

“I needed a break,” Reid said.

The waitress came over, and they both ordered fish and chips. Reid asked for a coffee.

“What’s going on?” Tom asked.

“Nothing, and that’s the problem,” Reid said, drinking the instant the waitress set down the cup, burning his mouth. “Ouch.”

Tom watched him, and Reid recognized the expression: half-amused, half-concerned.

“Here,” Tom said, reaching into his glass of water, fishing out a handful of ice cubes. “It’ll stop the burn. An old Coast Guard trick.”

Reid took the cubes, nodded across the table. Tom never stopped being an older brother. He thought about siblings, how strong the bond was. He wondered how Kate was handling the day. It must have shown on his face.

“What’s going on?” Tom asked. “You okay?”

“It’s Beth’s birthday.”

“Oh, man,” Tom said, leaning forward, watching Reid.

“Probably a really hard day for Kate and Sam,” Reid said.

“And you too?” Tom asked.

“A little,” Reid said. “But let’s talk about something else. How was teaching?”

“I’m done for the day,” Tom said. “It’s always good to be at the Academy, see the kids coming along.”

“So the Coast Guard will be in good shape with the next generation?” Reid asked. Their platters of fish and chips arrived, and he realized he didn’t feel hungry. He sat back, listening to Tom talk about the seamanship class he’d just taught. It made him think of sextants and celestial navigation and the astronomy professor at Osprey House, and when he glanced toward the lunch counter, there he was.

“The astronomer,” Reid said.

“Who?” Tom asked, his mouth full.

“Martin Harris,” Reid said. “The guy I told you about? Who knew too much about Beth’s crime scene?”

“Right—connected to Pete by the stars,” Tom said.

“Give me a minute,” Reid said. He left his brother sitting there and walked around the counter, right through the swinging door into the kitchen. It was a small space that smelled like fried food, noisy with clattering dishes and the hiss of the griddle.

Martin Harris carried a big rectangular gray plastic bin full of dirty dishes from out front, placed it in a deep stainless-steel sink, and turned on the water. Reid waved at Alma, the cook. They knew each other from his many lunches at the detectives’ table over the years. He raised his eyebrows in a question, pointed at Harris, and she nodded her okay.
Thanks,
he mouthed.

“Mr. Harris,” Reid said.

Harris glanced over his shoulder, his eyes as bloodshot as ever.

“I’m working,” he said.

“I see that,” Reid said. “I only want a few minutes of your time. Your boss doesn’t mind. Let’s step outside.”

Harris looked over at Alma, who was busy at the stove. He led Reid out the back door into an alley. It ran the length of the block behind the church. People were milling around outside the parish house, lining up. He realized they were waiting to go into the soup kitchen.

“That’s where you eat sometimes, right?” Reid asked.

“Yes, it is,” Harris said.

“It’s strange to me, Martin, that when I asked you about Beth Lathrop, you didn’t mention you ate there. Because she worked there.”

“Yeah, she and her friend. Two nice ladies from a fancy town,” Harris said. “Serving food to people like us. Who’d a thunk?”

“So you did know Beth.”

“Not really,” Harris said. “Yes, I’d see her at meals sometimes, and she was really nice. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t do anything, and I knew you’d think something bad.”

Reid didn’t say anything, held his emotions inside. But he thought of Beth feeding Martin Harris, being kind to him, having no idea of the kind of crimes he had committed, making herself vulnerable to what he could do to her.

“We never got together outside here or anything,” Harris said, sounding nervous. “I barely even talked to her, just thanked her for the food. I hang out more with her friend.”

“Jed Hilliard?” Reid asked.

“Who, that artist guy?” Harris asked. “I know him from here, but we’re not friends or anything.”

“Then who is it you hang out with?”

“You know, the other lady from Black Hall. She’s really nice. She buys us drinks once in a while, and she’ll join us.” He laughed. “She’s a hoot.” Then a serious look crossed his face. “But she is really broken up.”

“About what?”

“Beth, of course. They were so close. You could tell, just seeing them here. When she talks about what happened . . .” Harris closed his eyes tight, as if it was too awful for him to contemplate.

“What does she talk about?” Reid asked, feeling sweat run down his back.

“The death. What was done to Beth. The bruises. Those bone chips, pearls in the blood. The lace around her neck, the way it dug in . . .”

These were the things Harris had said before that had caused Reid to suspect he had been at the crime scene, or that Pete had told him about it. Harris was practically salivating now, and Reid saw him in the grips of a fantasy, made more thrilling by the fact the ingredients had come from someone so close to Beth.

“Did she tell you how she knew those details?” Reid asked.

“No, and I didn’t even ask. She’s tight with the family. I figured Beth’s sister told her, or you did, or someone involved with the investigation. I was just happy to listen.”

I bet you were,
Reid thought.

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Harris,” Reid said, filled with urgency, knowing what he had to do. He left him standing there in the alley and ran back into the Black Whale to tell his brother he had somewhere to be.

54

These feelings of pure connection were unfamiliar to Kate. When it was time to meet the others, she found herself not wanting to leave the house without Clementine. Online literature regarding the rescue of wild animals encouraged the rescuer to place the animal in a warm, quiet, dark place where it wouldn’t be disturbed. Kate had found the perfect corner of her loft and done that. But when she knelt on the floor and saw Clementine lying on her side, watching her with those wide velvet-brown eyes, she fought the urge to take her along.

“You’re coming with me,” she said after a minute, not even feeling foolish for speaking out loud to a rabbit.

She put Clementine’s crate on the car seat beside her and turned up the heat. Popcorn squeezed into the back. She drove straight to Mathilda’s. All the leaves were off the trees bordering the private road up toward the house. The bare branches interlocked overhead, forming a dark canopy against a white sky. Snow was forecast. Kate could feel it coming. The air was charged with static electricity.

It was only 3:15, and she was the first to arrive. She stopped at the head of the hillside meadow, got out of the car with the basket she’d brought from home. She left the car running to keep the heat going for Clementine. Popcorn went bounding through the field. The only sound was the November wind blowing through an acre of hay, whispers from the sea. She tugged handfuls of tall grass. When she got home, she
would weave them into a bed for Clementine. Crouching down, she ran her hand over a patch of dry clover, picking a bunch for her food.

The first snowflakes fell. She glanced down the hill, pictured how it looked when it was covered with deep snow. She felt a pull back to childhood. She could see children on sleds. Beth in a red snowsuit, Kate in blue. They would tear down the hill, top speed, hitting bumps, steering the best they could and hoping the long glide at the end would stop them short of the lily pond. The pond usually froze solid by mid-December, but Kate still worried about breaking through the ice.