Last Day (42 page)

Rescuing Clementine helped her remember how protective she’d felt of her sister, of how it had helped to care at a level deeper than words, to feel it in her skin. They had had so much fun, sledding down and running back up the hill, but Kate’s mind would be busy formulating plans for what she’d do if Beth went into the icy pond. Kate weighed whether it would be better to kick off her boots, toss her down jacket aside first—without them she’d be more buoyant—or whether the extra seconds would mean less time to save Beth. It wasn’t actual fear, just a measure of how seriously she took her responsibility as a big sister.

“You ready?” she remembered saying to Beth. Kate was nine. She sat behind Beth on the sled—a Flexible Flyer that had been their mother’s when she was young—her arms and legs wrapped around her sister, holding her tight.

“Don’t go so fast this time,” Beth said.

“You don’t have to be scared.”

“I don’t want to fall off,” Beth said.

“I’ve got you.”

And they pushed off and flew down the hill again, shrieking with the thrill of it all.

After that, Beth couldn’t get enough. The speedier they went, the better. Kate had loved watching Beth find her inner daredevil.

When Kate had filled her basket with enough grass and clover, she checked her watch. The others should be arriving at any time. She
continued up the hill on foot, leaving her car parked on the side of the driveway. She opened the door to the garden shed, where the sleds had been stored. They were still there—their red runners rusting, the oak boards weathered and lettering nearly invisible with age. The shed’s interior was colder than the outside; she saw her breath.

Ice skates hung from pegs on the wall. Six pairs: Mathilda’s and Ruth’s, Kate’s and Beth’s, and Kate’s parents’. There was a time when the whole family had been happy together. Kate closed her eyes and saw her father building a bonfire down by the pond. Mathilda had filled thermoses with hot chocolate, and after skating, everyone drank from green pottery mugs, blowing on the steaming chocolate to cool it off while warming their frozen fingers on the hot cups.

Kate and Beth had always squeezed together on the rough wooden bench. They’d shared warmth through their jackets, arms pressing together, listening while the grown-ups talked. Back then, Kate had always been happiest when there was as little room as possible between her and Beth.

When she heard tires crunching on the gravel, she called Popcorn and drove the short distance to the turnaround in front of the house. She saw Pete’s car parked there. Her blood boiled. She had told him he couldn’t stay, but typical Pete, doing just what he wanted. She didn’t want him here ever but especially not on Beth’s birthday.

She reached into Clementine’s crate, gently touched her soft fur. It reassured Kate to feel her breathing in and out. Lulu pulled up the drive, then Scotty. Kate saw that Scotty’s car was full—Isabel in front, Sam and Julie in back. They’d all come to celebrate Beth. Popcorn bounded out of the car.

Everyone piled out, hugged each other. They all wore warm coats, and they squished together in a big circle and didn’t want to let go.

“I didn’t expect him to be here,” Kate said, gesturing at Pete’s car when they broke apart. She glanced at Sam, not wanting to hurt her, but unable to hold back her real feelings—especially today.

“Should we go somewhere else?” Lulu asked.

“Well, he is Sam’s dad,” Scotty said. “Beth’s widower.”

“He said he didn’t want to celebrate,” Sam said. “Maybe it’s better we leave.”

“We’re not leaving,” Kate said. “He is.” She had started toward the house when she heard Julie squeal.

“Bunny, a bunny!” Julie said, her palms pressed to the passenger-side window of Kate’s car.

“That’s right,” Kate said.

“What’s wrong with her?” Julie asked. “She sleeping?”

“She got hurt,” Lulu said. “Kate rescued her.”

“Want to see her; let me get close,” Julie said.

“Oh, come on,” Isabel said. “It’s freezing out here.”

Kate agreed, but Julie was so insistent, and she had planned to carry Clementine inside anyway.

“Her name is Clementine,” Kate said, crouching beside Julie.

“Little rabbit,” Julie said, reaching out one finger but not quite touching Clementine’s twitching nose. At the same time, she glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Don’t want to go in there.”

“In where?” Kate asked.

“Inside the house. Reminds me of Sam’s mom.”

“It’s good to remember people we loved,” Kate said.

“It was strange, very,” Julie said. “Don’t want to go in. I will stay with Clementine.”

“God, Julie,” Isabel said. “Don’t be so annoying! This is about Mrs. Lathrop. We’re thinking about her on her birthday.”

“I will stay with Clementine,” Julie said, scrambling into the car.

“Julie, get out here right now,” Scotty said.

Kate leaned past her, face to face with Julie. The girl who never looked her in the eye suddenly did.

“Are you afraid of something?” Kate asked.

“I don’t like pretend talk. To Sam’s mom.” Her eyes darted to Lulu, then to her mother.

“Did something happen?” Kate asked, alarmed by Julie’s panic. “That makes you feel this way?”

Julie put her hands over her ears. “Stop it, stop. Mommy, no one listening like before, no one listening. Just talk to air, talk-talk.” Again, she looked at Lulu—whether in fear or a sort of pleading for understanding, Kate was unsure.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Scotty said, hugging Julie, “everything is fine.”

“Hey, where’s Sam?” Isabel asked.

Everyone stood still and looked around. Sam wasn’t there.

55

Pete wanted to feel amused to call this
home
. It had belonged to the great Mathilda, but he was here now. He sat in the recliner he’d brought from Church Street, making himself at home. He ate a big handful of Georgia peanuts, his favorite kind, from a tin Beth had given him for his last birthday. And today was her birthday. It made him feel terrible.
Melancholy
didn’t cover it. He couldn’t even enjoy the satisfaction of being in Mathilda’s house.

Kate had forbidden him to stay here, and even Nicola wasn’t very welcoming. That was their problem. He closed his eyes, going over the details for the many-hundredth time, sure that if he could put the pieces together, he would be able to figure out what had happened. He grieved Beth, and screw anyone who thought otherwise. But the events of the year prior, all the fights with Beth and Nicola, could cause him trouble, make him look bad, if they were brought into the open. And he knew the detective still thought he did it.

His back had healed from the scratches, the bite. He hadn’t meant to scare Nicola so badly that day. It had been a week before Beth had died, and Pete had been totally sick of women—of being torn in half. It was a beautiful day in July. Tyler was fussy, didn’t want to take a nap, so they loaded him into the car, went for a ride.

They wound up in the state forest near a waterfall. Tyler had finally fallen asleep in his car seat. Pete and Nicola sat in the front, windows open, listening to birds and the sound of rushing water.

She started in—
When are you leaving her? When can we be together?
—and he snapped.

“What the hell do you even want with me?” he asked. “All you ever do is complain about what I’m not giving you.”

“Why don’t you realize that it’s what I want to give you that’s killing me?” she said. “Not being able to do everything I want to do for you, for Tyler . . .”

He shook his head. “I can’t even remember the last time you kissed me.”

She smiled. She leaned across the console and kissed him the way she used to, the way that used to make him go crazy. Then he felt her hand between his legs. Next thing, they were out of the car. He took off his shirt, laid it on the ground for a blanket, and they made love right there in the open, not caring if anyone came along.

“Is that better?” she asked, smiling up at him.

“Yeah,” he said, rolling off her and smoothing her hair back from her face. She was so beautiful, young and bright eyed. If only they could go back to the way they’d been when they first started. “Can I ask you to be more patient?”

“I’m trying.”

“Doesn’t seem it,” he said. He hadn’t meant it to sound harsh, but she reacted as if he’d slapped her. Her face turned bright red, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Here they come. Here come the sobs, right on schedule.”

She pushed him away, hard, and tried to get up. He grabbed her wrist, yanked her down. Anger boiled inside him. She provoked him every chance she got.

“You know what I’m giving up for you?” he asked. “I have a wife, a daughter. Beth fucking told my mother about us—now I’m going to have to face that. For what? This? Someone who cries every time I open my mouth?”

She was weeping now. Sitting on his shirt, hands over her eyes. He had had enough. She wanted to walk away just now? He’d see how she liked it. He stood up, hurried toward the car. He’d leave her right where she was, let her walk down the road. He’d be waiting there, but just then he wanted to really show her what could happen if she kept this up.

“See you at home,” he said over his shoulder.

“Pete!” she cried.

Pete glanced in the back seat. Tyler was still sleeping.

“I’ll take good care of him,” Pete said, dangling the car keys. “Just think about the way you act, how you’re pushing me away. You’re the one destroying us.”

“Don’t leave,” she cried.

He opened the car door fast, wanting to speed away.

“Don’t you take my son!” she screamed, and he felt her on his back—clawing, biting him as if she were an animal. He yelled, trying to shake her off, but she held on tighter. It was as if every emotion in the universe filled him, turned her into a monster, tore around them like a tornado.

When she finally stopped, and Pete had wheeled to grab her in a tight hug to keep her arms from flailing, it turned into an embrace, and he was the one sobbing, telling her he didn’t know what to do, that he never would have left her alone in the woods. Meanwhile, his back was on fire. It felt as if she had bitten a chunk out of his shoulder.

And Nicola was whispering into his ear, “Forgive me; I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to hurt you.” They had driven back to the house, where she had dressed the nasty wounds, dabbing at them with hydrogen peroxide, covering them with gauze.

Reason it out,
he told himself now, sitting in Mathilda’s house.
If you can give the police more of the truth, you’re off the hook. Tell Reid about the fight with Nicola.
But it would make her look terrible. Pete didn’t want Reid going after her. What if he thought she was violent? He could become suspicious of Nicola, think that she could have been the one to kill Beth, shift the investigation to her.

As a child, his passion had been chess. He had grown up in the part of Providence you wouldn’t want to be seen in, and most Saturdays and Sundays he would take the bus to the East Side, where he would wait for a spot outside the Chess Shop on Thayer Street and with total confidence take on all comers.

He played Brown and RISD students and professors, retired physicists, math prodigies, and a Russian grand master who had coached Boris Spassky, but his greatest teacher was Max Brandt, a homeless man who slept in Prospect Terrace Park and who regularly beat everyone. It just went to show that the educated, the so-called elite, could easily be bested by someone overlooked by society.

Pete had learned that staying one move ahead was pleasant but nowhere close to the rush of letting the opponent think he was winning and blindsiding him with an attack he didn’t see coming. Max had shown him that over and over.

Beth’s death wasn’t a game of chess. It was nothing but sorrow for most of the people in her life—including Pete. But dealing with the police, his friends, her sister, Sam, even Nicola, required careful maneuvering. Pete couldn’t expect anyone to understand his point of view. He was alone in this, as he had been in most things.

Throughout his entire life, he had been told by his mother how brilliant he was. His entire extended family had acknowledged that he was the brain of the family, and many had been resentful. He’d gotten into Saint George’s, one of the best prep schools in the country. If he had wanted, he could have gone to any Ivy, but he hadn’t gone that route.

Pete was modest about his looks, but he couldn’t help being aware that women who’d been buttoned up their whole lives enjoyed the attention of a handsome bad boy who happened to be brilliant. He had dated several possibilities before Beth: another heiress, a principal in a private equity firm, a top-earning sales rep for a major pharmaceutical company. Beth had had the most potential. And surprise: he had actually loved her. In the early days of their relationship, what was not to love? She’d believed in him, almost as much as his mother had. She had handed him the keys to the gallery, the art world, and the quiet blue blood society of shoreline Connecticut.

By the time their marriage was in trouble, he’d found Nicola. As a graduate student at Bard, Nicola would be attracted only to the smartest men, and she had chosen Pete.

Beth had stopped appreciating him the way he deserved. She had at the beginning of their relationship, but it had dwindled away. She had demeaned him and had never let him forget that she owned everything.

He thought back to their early days, when he had been so full of hope and dreams. He was working for the insurance agency that had underwritten the art stolen from the Lathrop Gallery. Pete researched the case thoroughly. Back then it had been called the Harkness-Woodward Gallery. Once Pete understood the dynamics of how Garth Woodward had hired the Andersons to steal
Moonlight
and tie up the family in the basement, he decided it was time to meet the daughters.

He showed up at the gallery for an opening. They were both there, Kate and Beth, but Kate barely gave him a look. Beth did the opposite—drew him in with her warmth and bubbly personality. When he told her where he worked, no doubt stirring up traumatic memories, she didn’t turn away.

He remembered the sensitivity in her eyes.