Married to a Stranger (19 page)

“Can I go now?” Alida said.

“Sure,” said Stephanie, feeling defeated and even a little bit foolish.

“I need that pass,” said Alida. “For health.”

“Oh sure, of course,” said Stephanie. She got up from the student’s desk and walked back to her own desk. She rummaged in the papers piled on her desk and found the form for a lateness pass. “Who’s the teacher?”

“Mr. Kurtis.”

“Okay.” Stephanie scribbled out the pass and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” said Alida softly. She did not meet Stephanie’s gaze but shifted her books from one hip to the other and hurried, pass in hand, out of the room.

Stephanie sighed and leaned back in her swivel chair. That went well, she thought, shaking her head. Of course, what had she expected? She couldn’t state her actual speculations aloud, and the kid wasn’t about to break down and tell her most intimate secrets to a virtual stranger. And it was frustrating, because she really wanted to offer the kid an escape hatch. It wasn’t so much that she thought Devlin was a killer. It was still Emma’s husband who was on the top of Stephanie’s not-to-be-trusted list.

But she did trust Emma’s instincts when it came to Devlin and his daughters. From what Stephanie had seen, Emma had a real gift for getting to the heart of other people’s problems. If Emma had a suspicion that Devlin was molesting his daughter, then Stephanie was willing to bet she was right. Too bad Emma couldn’t be expected to be that insightful about herself. We’re all blinded by love, Stephanie thought.

Stephanie stood up and wiped the marker off the board behind her so it would be clean for her next class and looked at her watch. She had just enough time in this free period to mark a few of the essays before the next class arrived. Alida’s class had left their composition books on their desks as she had asked them to. She got up and began collecting them. She walked up and down the rows, making a pile of notebooks in the crook of her arm. When she reached Alida’s desk and picked up the notebook, something purple caught her eye.

On the front of the composition book was a small, purple marker drawing of a girl’s face. Behind her pile of books, Alida had been doodling on it. The girl she had drawn had a ponytail that stood straight up from the top of her head, and the face was an inverted triangle with round vacant eyes and two dots for a nose. The mouth was a tiny bow. A balloon hovered cloudlike above the head, with tiny circular puffs, indicating thoughts, leading from the ponytail to the balloon.

Stephanie frowned and bent lower, looking closely at the smudged words. The letters were small and neat. Inside the balloon Alida had written, HELP ME.

E
MMA LISTENED INTENTLY
to Kieran’s dark ballad of teenaged angst and praised his grim images of death and destruction as sincerely as she could. She left him to keep her appointment with Tasha Clayman and her parents. Wade and Nell Clayman pleased and surprised Emma with their willingness to make the changes she had suggested. Nell had finally realized that the parade of swimsuit models through her sportswear design studio had made her teenaged daughter feel diminished and insecure. Their desperate love for their child was winning the day. Emma felt hopeful. As if to confirm her hope, she met the aide, Sarita Ruiz, entering with a lunch tray. “Yesterday, she ate a bite of her sandwich,” whispered Sarita, and Emma’s heart lifted. What was the old Chinese proverb? The longest journey begins with the first step. “Great,” she said.

Trailed by the security guard Burke had provided, Emma returned to the cubbyhole that was her office. As she unlocked the door, the phone was ringing. She picked it up and heard Burke’s voice on the other end.

“Emma,” he said. “We’ve got a situation here. Can I see you in my office right away?”

Emma’s heart skipped a beat. “Sure.” She hung up the phone and turned to the security guard, who had just settled down with his tabloid newspaper. “We’re being summoned,” she said.

Geraldine rolled her eyes in warning as Emma entered Burke’s reception area. She indicated that Emma should go on in, while the security guard settled himself on a chair.

Emma opened the door to Burke’s office and walked in. Burke was sitting behind his desk. Seated in one of the chairs facing his desk was Stephanie, who waved at her as she walked in.

“Steph,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Burke answered for Stephanie. “Based on the information you provided, your friend, Miss Piper here, decided to take it upon herself to investigate the Devlin family, Emma.”

Emma grimaced. “Steph, I told you not to.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said Stephanie. “I did not mention you, either one of you, or this place. I simply had a talk with one of my students. I told her I was concerned about her, and I offered to…what?” Stephanie opened her hands wide. “Be available if she needed to talk.”

Emma looked at Burke’s rugged face, which was now wearing a grim expression. “What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me. I mean, that’s something any teacher might do.”

Burke picked up the composition book on his desk and handed it to Emma. “Take a look at that.”

Emma frowned and then noticed the purple-outlined face with a bubble over its head. “Help me?” She felt a chill run through her. “Alida Devlin wrote that?”

Stephanie nodded.

“Did you ask her what it meant?” Emma said.

Stephanie grimaced. “I wasn’t sure what I’d do if she told me. So I decided to talk to a couple of experts. What do I do now?”

L
IEUTENANT
J
OAN
A
TKINS,
accompanied by Detective Marbery, tapped on the door of the hospital room and stuck her head inside. There were two women in the room. A thin woman with a fringe of white bangs was lying on the hospital bed with an oxygen tube in her nose and an IV running from a suspended bag into her arm. She was so pale and bloodless that she was almost invisible against the white sheets.

Slumped in a chair beside the bed was another elderly woman, this one red-faced and healthy-looking. Both women were asleep. The woman on the bed made no sound, the rise and fall of her thin chest the only sign that she was still alive. The other woman was snoring loudly.

“Excuse me,” said Joan, touching the shoulder of the woman in the chair.

Birdie started and instinctively clutched her pocketbook to her chest, as if to protect, or hide, its contents. She blinked at Joan from behind her thick glasses. Her frizzy hair was in disarray, and she smelled distinctly of alcohol. She tried valiantly to look coherent.

“Is this Mrs. Webster?” Joan asked, pointing to the sleeping woman on the bed.

Birdie shook her head as if to roust the cobwebs and nodded. “Yes. Who are you?”

“I’m Lieutenant Joan Atkins of the state police. This is Detective Marbery. You must be Mrs. Theobald.”

“That’s right,” said Birdie. “I’m her cousin. I take care of her.” Birdie sniffed and straightened up in her chair. “I’d ask you to sit but…”

“That’s not necessary,” said Joan. “I wanted to ask you about yesterday afternoon?”

“Is this about David? Because they already asked me about this last night. Some detective called me at the hospital last night and asked if David was here yesterday.”

“That was me,” said Trey.

“I know. But I wanted to go over a few things myself, if you don’t mind.” Joan did not want to step on the toes of the younger detective, but she had not been present when David Webster was brought in, and she was not entirely satisfied with his alibi. It seemed too convenient. But she had been called away on a development in a case in Newark, and by the time she learned of Webster’s apprehension, his lawyer had already managed to demand and achieve his release. “Mrs. Theobald, were you here with Mrs. Webster all afternoon yesterday?”

“Oh yes,” said Birdie. “I never left her.”

“What about her son? David Webster?”

Birdie nodded as if trying to put events together in a sequence in her mind. “Yes, I told this fellow here. I called David because I couldn’t wake her up. Her breathing was really shallow. He came over and helped me get her here to the hospital.”

“What time was that?” Joan asked.

“Oh, it was around three-thirty. Maybe four at the latest.”

“And did Mr. Webster stay here at the hospital after that?”

“Oh yes,” said Birdie, nodding. “He was here. Until…it must have been nine o’clock.”

“That whole time. He was right here in this room.”

For the first time, Birdie looked at Joan suspiciously. “Yes. He was here.”

“And you were awake that whole time?” Joan asked.

Birdie sat up indignantly. “Awake? Of course I was awake. Why wouldn’t I be awake?”

“Well, hospital days can be very stressful,” said Joan. “Especially when you’re a little…tired.”

“I wasn’t tired,” said Birdie.

“Maybe you take…medications that make you drowsy.”

“Not me,” Birdie insisted.

“Mrs. Theobald, you were asleep when we walked in just now,” Joan pointed out. “And I have to say that there’s a strong smell of alcohol in this room.”

Birdie stuck out her chin defiantly and clutched her pocketbook protectively to her chest with a guilty look in her eyes. “I may have nodded off for a minute. But if I did, it was just for a minute or two.”

Joan looked at her intently. “Could you have been asleep here yesterday?”

“Not asleep,” Birdie corrected her indignantly. Then her bravado wilted. “I might have just…napped. Catnapped.”

Joan raised her eyebrows. Trey Marbery sighed as if acknowledging what he might have missed.

“So,” said Joan, “you can’t say for sure that Mr. Webster was here from three-thirty to nine o’clock yesterday. He may have left the hospital while you were sleeping.”

“I didn’t say that. As far as I know, he was here. Why don’t you people leave him alone?” said Birdie. “He’s never been in trouble. He’s a good boy.”

B
URKE UNLOCKED THE DOOR
to his silver Lexus and tossed his mail onto a pile of files and papers on the front seat. “Just shove those papers onto the floor,” he said.

Emma looked into Burke’s luxury car in disbelief. He was so orderly in his office and in the house. It was as if he reserved all the disorder in his life for his car. She could see at a glance that there were unopened bank statements, bills, and correspondence. “You look like you’re getting a little bit behind on things, Burke,” she said.

Burke sighed. “It’s true. I’ve had a hard time concentrating. Lately.”

Emma picked up the pile of papers and started to place them on the backseat, but it was too painful to twist her torso. “I’ll just hold them,” she said. She settled herself on the front seat, the pile of files and unopened mail on her lap.

“I must be crazy to do this,” said Burke as he pulled out of the center’s parking lot and onto the main street.

“You’re not crazy. You’re just not the typical administrator.”

Burke shook his head. “I could lose my job for this.” Then he glanced at Emma. “Don’t worry. I’m not changing my mind. It’s too important.”

Emma nodded and settled back in the seat. “Do you know where we’re going?” she asked.

Burke nodded. “It’s not too far.”

Emma shifted her weight, uncomfortable under even the stack of envelopes, files, and papers she was holding. That realization reinforced the sense of frailty she was trying so hard to resist. It also made recovery seem a faraway prospect. She thought about putting the papers on the floor of the passenger side, as Burke had suggested. She glanced down at the manila envelope on the top of the pile and lifted her eyebrows at the return address on the envelope.

“The coroner’s office?” she said.

Burke glanced over at the envelope. “Oh, did that come?”

Emma lifted it from the stack. “Yeah. Who died?”

“Natalie,” he said grimly.

Emma felt chastened. Embarrassed. “I thought it might be about a patient.”

Burke shook his head. “I wanted to see the final autopsy report. I’ve wondered if maybe…”

“What?” she asked.

“Well, in light of what happened to you…if it might not have been suicide.”

Emma frowned at him. “You think she might have been…killed?”

Burke shrugged. “It didn’t seem possible, but after what’s happened to you…I don’t know. I guess I’m just not sure of…anything anymore.”

“Burke, what about the suicide note? It wasn’t cryptic. It was handwritten, and she was pretty clear about her intentions.” The contents of Natalie’s note had been obtained by an enterprising reporter and published, to Burke’s anguish, in the newspaper, under a photo of the beautiful Natalie.

“That’s true,” he said. “But I keep thinking that…maybe there was something I…overlooked. The change in her was so abrupt. Usually, the descent from one of those highs was more gradual. And there was often some kind of trigger. She’d been on such a high over the Solomon Medal, I keep wondering if I missed something….”

“Oh, Burke, don’t do this to yourself,” said Emma. “No one could have tried harder than you. And you know that she’d made other attempts. There is very little you can do when a person is truly committed to the idea of suicide.”

Burke did not reply. “There it is,” he said pointing to a white cottage nestled in a grove of leafless trees with a fish scale–shingled roof and arched windows. Emma felt her heart start to pound. They knew from Stephanie that Alida had drama club this afternoon, so this was the perfect opportunity to speak to Alida’s mother without the girl—or her father—knowing about it. There was one car in the driveway—a minivan. Devlin drove a sports car, which meant he was probably at the university. “Okay,” said Emma. “This looks good.”

Burke got out of his car and came around to Emma’s side. Once she was on the sidewalk, he locked the car, and together they walked toward the front door. Emma hoped someone was home. Despite the minivan being in the driveway, the shades were all drawn, giving the house a gloomy, deserted look. Emma knocked and waited. From inside the house, she could hear the televison blaring. Emma knocked again, harder this time, and called out, “Hello?” When Risa Devlin did not come to the door, Emma tried to bend down and peer into the space between the lowered, scallop-bottomed shade and the sill. But she gasped at the pain in her side.

“Let me,” said Burke. He crouched down and peered in.

“What do you see?” Emma asked.

“The light from the television,” he said, “but there’s no one in the room.”

“Maybe she’s in the yard,” Emma said, “and she can’t hear us.”

“Let’s walk around back,” Burke said.

Emma descended the front steps and scuffed through the leaves around the side of the house. The yard was empty. At the back of the house, a glassed-in solarium had been added that looked out of proportion and out of place on the historic cottage. Emma could see large plants and a piano in the glass room, the piano topped with tottering piles of sheet music. She could see that there was no one inside, though the inner door to the back of the house was wide open. Emma turned the outside doorknob to the solarium without thinking, and the door swung in. “Oops,” she said.

“That’s all right. Open it,” Burke said. “It’s obviously not locked.”

“I’ll just call out to her from that inner door,” she said. Emma and Burke picked their way gingerly across the cluttered floor of the solarium. As Emma passed a pair of closed casement windows, she looked in. The windows gave on to the kitchen, and Emma was startled to see a large, blond-haired woman, barefoot, wearing faded jeans and a satiny, low-cut blouse, seated at the kitchen table. The table was littered with dirty dishes, cutlery, and wadded-up napkins. There was an open half-gallon container of ice cream on the table in front of her, and the woman was slowly spooning the ice cream into her mouth, staring all the while into the glass of a makeup mirror, which sat on the table directly in front of her. She gazed at her own reflection intently, but without expression. She seemed to be studying herself putting the ice cream into her mouth as if she needed reassurance that she was really there.

Emma tapped on the window, and the woman jumped and turned to look, her eyes wide with alarm. Emma waved a hand and grimaced apologetically. The woman yelped and shoved her spoon into the open carton of ice cream. She did not seem angry, although, Emma admitted to herself, she had every right to be. Risa Devlin rose from the table and came to the window, struggling to crank the window open. Emma thought what a pretty face the woman had, even though it was somewhat swollen, and there were dark circles under her large, cornflower blue eyes.

“Mrs. Devlin, I’m so sorry to startle you. I tried knocking at the front door but no one answered.”

Risa Devlin blinked and glanced behind her, looking vaguely in the direction of the front of the house. “I didn’t hear you,” she said. “The TV, I guess. Sorry. What are you doing here?” she said, almost as an afterthought.