Love You to Death (12 page)

“B
en, you will not believe what I found out about Mary-Kate Darling!” I said the moment he came in. He took off his coat, and for a moment I was dumbstruck by how incredibly
hot
he was. He wore a dark blue sweater with a hint of white T-shirt peeking out. Faded jeans. He looked like Ben instead of Detective Orr.

“Abby, I told you. I’m not interested in Mary-Kate. I’m interested in you.”

If only that were true.

I went into the kitchen and got us two bottles of Diet Coke. “What if I told you that Mary-Kate Darling was once a very unattractive girl named Mary-Katherine Mulch?”

“So being unattractive makes someone a killer?” he asked, taking a bottle.

“She had an extreme makeover!” I said. “Head to toe. Don’t you find that interesting?”

“Not really. And as a matter of fact, I’m well aware of Mary-Kate Darling’s history.”

Oh. “But—”

Arg! Why was he always seven steps ahead of me?

“Abby, having plastic surgery doesn’t correlate in any way shape or form to the word
murder.
”

“I just think there’s something suspicious about her,” I said. “Hiding that she grew up in Barmouth. Hiding that she used to be a completely different person.”

“So looking different makes you different?” he asked. “When you don your blond wig for Opal’s wedding, are you still Abby Foote? Or are you suddenly someone who’s capable of murder?”

“You’re very frustrating,” I said.

He laughed. “So are you.”

I sat down on my sofa, out of ways to pique his interest in investigating Mary-Kate. Though perhaps he already had, if he knew about her past. “Maybe someone
is
trying to frame me,” I said. “Someone I
don’t
know.”

He sat, too, flipping open the mini notebook. “If someone is trying to frame you for the murder of Ted, they would have been less subtle. There was nothing at the scene to connect you to the murder at all. There might have been a forged note from you in his pocket to meet him at the pier or something like that. But there wasn’t.”

Oh, again.

“And that would make the Riley and Tom incidents coincidental. And I don’t think they are. The timing, the viciousness, the connection of the three men as boyfriends of yours who broke up with you, tells me that either you or someone in your life is the perpetrator.”

“I prefer being called a perpetrator to a murderer,” I said.

“And I prefer that you stop making sarcastic remarks to people like Henry Fiddler,” he said. “‘Oh, she was just kidding,’ isn’t going to cut it with my captain, Abby. So please refrain from statements that will make my job harder. Okay?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Okay. So, following your theory, the killer won’t go after Henry because I liked him a lot, right?”

“There’s a big difference between love and like. Did you love Henry?”

“No,” I said. “But I liked him. I was excited about our relationship. I was finally moving on after Ted.”

“And that was common knowledge among your friends and family?” he asked.

I nodded. “Is he in trouble?”

“Maybe. Let’s just say I won’t remove his protection. He claims he felt like someone was following him all last week and this weekend. He said he felt eyes on him on the slopes, which is why he crashed.”

“Aha!” I said. “You know full well where I was Friday night, and it wasn’t following around Henry Fiddler!”

“Well aware,” he said, flipping another page. “Let’s move on to the list. Start from the beginning. You talk, I’ll write. Something you’ll say will lead to a memory or a segue or something I’ll write will lead me to remember something someone said when I initially interviewed them in connection with you, or it’ll lead to my having more questions.”

“Okay,” I said, settling back on the sofa. I curled my legs under me and took a sip of my Diet Coke. Here goes nothing.

“Let’s start with your stepmother,” he said, pen at the ready. “Veronica Foote.”

Margaret Hamilton’s green face immediately came to mind, but with Veronica’s namesake blond pageboy, down to the slight wave that made her still sexy at fifty-four. The tall, thin, big-breasted body helped, too.

“Don’t think, Abby,” Ben said. “
Talk.
Talk everything that comes to your mind.”

“I was just thinking about how sexy Veronica is for a fiftysomething. How even though she’s not mean—well, not really mean—she’s always reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West because she has the same shape face, like a triangle.”

“So would a not really mean Wicked Witch of the West try to rid the world of ex-boyfriends who hurt or humiliated you?”

“I think we can cross her off the list, Ben,” I said. “Veronica tolerated me fine my entire life. I was invited to her and my father’s anniversary dinner every year, whether to remind me that he had a new family and lived with them or to make me feel included, I don’t know. My birthday cards from my father came signed in her handwriting, my gifts were clearly picked out by her. Opal and Olivia were always at my parties, at important events in my life. She did the right thing by me in that kind of regard, but she didn’t exactly adore me or hug me or make me feel like part of her family. I was separate, the daughter of her husband’s first wife. So no, I don’t think she feels this deep burning need to avenge my pain.”

He stared at me. “But maybe she feels guilty. Maybe she’s always felt guilty for stealing your father from your mother, stealing your father from you, and so she acted out. Your father died, what, three years ago, right? Perhaps she snapped. Perhaps the coldness you described manifested itself in some kind of vengeance against men who leave.”

“Is this what detectives do at work? Come up with this kind of crap?”

He smiled. “It’s not crap, Abby. It’s
possibilities.
You sort through all the maybes and you find answers.”

I leaned my head all the way back on the sofa cushions and stared up at the ceiling.

He f lipped a page in his notebook. “How did Veronica feel when your father died?”

Good. A question that wasn’t about me. I sat up. “She was devastated. She sobbed through the funeral. She cried for weeks afterward. Even I seemed to be a comforting presence for her. Anyone connected to my dad made her feel better.”

“So it’s conceivable that she developed a new kind of love for you, Abby. And it’s possible that she turned her devastation about your father’s loss into something very dark.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “I’d eat a bucket of crawling beetles if Veronica Foote had anything to do with Ted’s murder. Ben, you know when someone cares about you. Veronica doesn’t care about me.”

The moment the words were out, I froze. I’d never out-and-out said that before, never wanted to believe it, never wanted to feel it. But it was true and it felt damned good to not only acknowledge the truth but accept it.

“It’s strange that it doesn’t sting,” I said. “It used to kill me. Feeling like an outsider in my father’s house, with my father’s family. But it doesn’t sting anymore.”

He nodded. “Good. That means you’ve got it together.”

“Aha!” I said, sitting upright. “Murderers don’t have it together.”

“Ever read a biography of Ted Bundy?” he asked. “Cool as a cucumber. How many women did he kill?”

I scowled at him. “Who are you, your partner, Fargo? I thought he was the Bad Cop in Good Cop, Bad Cop.”

“Touché,” he said, shooting me a smile. “You know, Abby, sometimes I’m so hard on you because I want to see what provocation does to you. I’ve got to say—you handle it well. You’ve often surprised me.”

We eyed each other for a moment. I had nothing to say to that. I didn’t want to surprise him; I wanted him to just know that I couldn’t have done what he believed me capable of. If I could surprise him, I could be capable of what he believed me capable of.

Great. Now I was thinking in circles.

“All right. Let’s move on to your half sisters,” he said, flipping yet another page. “Olivia.”

“I won’t go there,” I said. “This is ridiculous. Olivia and Opal, murderers. That’s truly the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Abby, we’re just talking possibilities. Look, your loyalty to your family and friends is commendable. But it won’t be if you’re arrested for a murder and possibly attempted murders that you didn’t commit.”

“Olivia didn’t kill Ted. Trust me, she wouldn’t have had time. Ted was murdered the night of the bris, when Oscar was eight days old. All Olivia does is breast-feed, change diapers and rock the baby to sleep. Plus clean and cook and do the gazillion other things lazy entitlement-king Oliver doesn’t do.”

“For someone who sounds so frazzled, she certainly looks very pulled together,” Ben said. “Makeup, jewelry. Nice clothes. I’ve interviewed Olivia twice in the past week, Abby. She dressed up for the occasion. Or she always wears skirts and heels to care for a week-old baby.”

“She does,” I said. “That’s Olivia. That’s Veronica. That’s Opal. They’re not jeans people.”

“My point is that if she has time to dress up, if she has the
wherewithal
to dress up, she has the time that you say she doesn’t.”

I shook my head. “She makes time because she cares, Ben. It takes just as long to put on a pretty sweater as it does a ratty one. I’m a ratty-sweater person. I don’t even own nice sweaters. She owns only nice sweaters.”

“I like your sweater,” he said, eyeing my black wool V-neck. “That’s not ratty.”

Why did he do this? Why did he stop me cold, mid-thought? Was this good police work? Rattle the suspect?

“I got it at a thrift shop for seven bucks,” I said. “
Maine Life
doesn’t pay their assistant editors or associate editors too well.”

He nodded, glanced at my sweater again—my chest?—and then f lipped another page. “Would you say Olivia was or is suffering from postpartum depression?”

I stood up. “That’s it,” I said. “I’m not answering that. I’m not answering anything anymore. Arrest me, Ben. I’ve had it.”

He stood, too, and f lung the notebook on my coffee table. “Abby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just trying to establish potential state of mind—”

“Well, you did offend me. If you want to establish Olivia’s state of mind, go talk to her yourself. I won’t talk about my sisters behind their backs. They mean too much to me. I spent years trying to get closer to them, and we’re finally just now getting there, after the death of my dad, and I’m not going to talk crap about them.” I pointed to the door. “Just go, Ben. Either arrest me or leave.”

He stared at me for a moment. “Abby, I’m not going to arrest you. And I don’t want to leave. I want to help you.”

I flopped down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling.

“What about Opal?” he asked. “I won’t ask specifics. Just tell me what you want.”

“Opal’s not that giving, trust me,” I said. “Being a bridesmaid in her wedding is contingent upon being blond for the night.”

“Was she Daddy’s Little Girl growing up?”

I rolled my eyes. Mostly because I’ve always hated that expression. Maybe because I wasn’t Daddy’s Little Girl. Ever.

“I suppose,” I said. “She was the baby and so, so pretty, with those huge blue saucer eyes and her light blond hair. And she was the ultimate girlie girl as a kid. Not a tomboy bone in her body.”

“Was Olivia also Daddy’s Little Girl?” he asked.

“Not to the extreme that Opal was, but yes. She was his star princess, with her Princess Di looks and maturity and great grades.”

“And you were?” he asked, staring at me.

“I was just me,” I said. “It made me independent.”

Once, when we were young kids and Veronica had invited me to my father’s birthday party at their house, Opal had had a tantrum. She’d seen me coming in wearing my stiff party dress and shiny black shoes, a big wrapped gift in my arms, and she’d screamed at me,
“Go away! He’s our father now. Not yours anymore!”
I’d been frozen to the spot. Tears had fallen down my cheeks, but my dad had gone to Opal. “Of course I’m still Abby’s father,” he’d comforted Opal, scooping her up in his arms. “I’ll always be Abby’s dad. But that doesn’t make me any less your dad.”

I waited for him to tell me the same, that being Olivia and Opal’s father didn’t make him any less my dad, but he didn’t. And it did.

Once, I made the mistake of opening up to a boyfriend about my family (Tom Greer, who was a therapist), and he said, “I think the reason you’re holding on to this relationship and why you stayed too long in other bad relationships is because you don’t have a family. So you try to make your boyfriend your family, but we’re not your family. We’re just a
short-term
boyfriend.”

We’d been in bed—his—which meant me huffily pulling on my clothes and demanding he drive me home that minute, even though it was snowing and two in the morning. The next day he broke up with me via e-mail on the night of my company holiday party.

“Abby, think out loud,” Ben said, tapping his pen against my knee.

“Nothing relevant,” I said. But from the way he looked at me, I knew he didn’t believe me. He’d gotten me where he wanted me. Thinking. Remembering. Wondering.

“Let’s move on to your friends,” he said. “Jolie Olensky and Rebecca Rhode.”

“Oh, because talking about them behind their backs is okay with me.”

“So let me turn the questions around,” he said, sitting back down. Guess he wasn’t leaving. Guess I was actually answering questions I’d just said I wouldn’t answer. As I mentioned, I knew from watching
Law & Order
(all versions) that you could demand a police officer leave your property. Not that this $850-a-month rental was technically my property. “Tell me why Jolie or Rebecca could not possibly have killed on your behalf, in the name of friendship.”

“Because Jolie marches for the abolition of the death penalty,” I said. “She doesn’t believe in two wrongs making a right. That’s how she puts it.”

He scribbled in his notebook. “And Rebecca?”

I smiled. “Rebecca marches for handgun control. She’d never touch a gun.”