Missing Pieces (34 page)

“We have a few minutes,” he said, pinning me against the glass. “Tell me what you want,” he whispered.

“I don’t know what I want.”

“I think you do.”

“Then you tell me.”

He kissed me, one of those soft, lingering kisses that leave you limp. “No, you tell me. Tell me what you like.”

“I like it when you kiss me,” I managed to say.

His tongue grazed the outline of my lips. “What else do you like?” His tongue grew more insistent, pushed its way between my teeth. “Tell me what else you like.”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me when we can be together.”

“I don’t know.”

“How about next week? I’ll arrange to take next
Wednesday off. We’ll go somewhere special, spend the day making love.”

“I can’t next Wednesday.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I can’t. I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“Cancel it.”

“I can’t. It was the only way I could get my mother to go.” His lips muffled the last of my words.

“When, then?”

“I don’t know.”

He pulled abruptly away. For an instant I felt as I had during my mammogram, as if part of my flesh were being ripped from my body. Robert straightened his tie, smiling sadly. “We’re not kids anymore, Kate,” he said. “There’s only so long I can play this game.”

“I’m not playing,” I told him, my body aching for his return.

“What are you doing?”

“Everything’s just moving a little fast for me.”

“It’s been thirty years,” he reminded me, and I smiled. “Look,” he said, walking to his black marble desk, leaning against it, “I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do …”

“I don’t know what I want,” I interrupted.

“I think you do.” The intercom on his desk buzzed. Robert reached over, pressed the necessary button. “Yes?”

His secretary’s voice filled the room, ricocheted off the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Melanie Rogers is here.”

“Send her in,” he said easily, eyes glued to mine. “The next move is up to you, Kate.” The door to his office opened and in walked a beautiful woman with dark red hair and a wide, full mouth. “Melanie,” he said, kissing the side of her cheek, as he had mine only moments ago.

I raised my hand to my face, stroked the place where his lips had lingered, felt it burn.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Her voice was soft, hypnotic.

“Don’t be sorry. It worked out perfectly. Let me introduce you to an old friend. Melanie Rogers, this is Kate Sinclair. We go back a very long way.”

I don’t remember Melanie’s reply. I only remember thinking she had the greenest eyes I’d ever seen, and wondering what she was doing having lunch with Robert.

I muttered something like “I won’t keep you,” then headed to the door.

“I look forward to hearing from you again soon,” Robert said as I stepped into the reception area. Seconds later, the door to his office closed behind me.

My mother moved in with us that Friday night.

She’d had another run-in with poor Mr. Emerson, this time attacking him with his own cane, whacking him against the side of his head and actually knocking him to the floor. Both Mr. Emerson’s family and Mrs. Winchell were now demanding that my mother be removed from the Palm Beach Lakes Retirement Home. Mr. Emerson’s family actually threatened to press charges if this wasn’t done immediately.

There was no question as to where to move her. We had no choice. She had to stay with us. “She can have my room for the weekend,” Sara offered, having made plans to spend the time studying for her history test with a friend from school. Without my prompting, she’d even supplied me with the name, address, and phone number of that friend, and granted me permission to check with the girl’s mother to make sure it was all right.

“How long do you think this will last?” Larry marveled.

“I’ll take whatever I can get,” I said.

My mother appeared disoriented by the move. She kept asking when it was time to go home. I told her she’d be spending some time with us. She said, “That’s fine, dear,” then five minutes later asked if it was time to go home.

“She’s going to drive you nuts,” Larry whispered, carrying his new set of clubs to the front door.

“Who’s that?” my mother asked, her head swiveling after him.

“That’s Larry, Mom. My husband.”

“Where’s he going?”

“Not going anywhere, Mom,” he answered. “I’m just getting everything ready for tomorrow.”

“Good idea,” she said, although the blank expression in her eyes indicated she had no idea what the idea was, let alone whether it was good or bad. “Is it time to go home yet?”

I tucked her into Sara’s bed at around ten o’clock that night, and she fell asleep almost instantly. “Sleep tight,” I told her, as I used to tell Sara.

“Think she’ll sleep through the night?” Larry asked as I crawled into bed beside him.

“I hope so.”

“Did you call Mrs. Sperling?”

“I said I was just checking to make sure that Sara wasn’t an imposition, and she said that Sara is a joy to have around.”

“Are you sure you called the right number?”

I laughed, settled into the crook of his arm, drifted off to sleep. At three-thirty, I awoke to find my mother wandering the house. I returned her to Sara’s bed, went back to my own. This was repeated every hour until, at six-thirty, I decided I might as well get dressed. Larry left for his golf game at seven. My mother asked who that nice man was and where he was going.

When Michelle woke up, she offered to take my mother for a walk, and they left the house hand in hand. I finished making my bed and moved into Sara’s room, picking up the covers my mother had kicked to the floor and straightening the tousled sheets. Sara had done a great job tidying up. “You can actually see the floor,” I marveled, picking up my mother’s housecoat and heading for the small walk-in closet.

I almost didn’t see the books. They were hidden behind some clothes in the far corner, and I was half out of the closet before I realized they were there. I’m not sure what made me look closer. Maybe it was just the novelty of finding books in a closet, or maybe it was my suspicious nature as far as Sara was concerned. At any rate, I picked up the books, opening them to confirm what I already knew: they were a history text and a world atlas. Didn’t Sara need these for her test?

I walked to the kitchen and quickly called the Sperlings. The line was busy. I hung up and tried again. Still busy, as it was five minutes later when I tried a third time. “You’re being silly,” I told myself. “Her friend has the same books; what do they need with two sets of texts?” But even as I found reasons to reassure myself, my fingers continued punching in the Sperlings’ phone number. “Damnit,” I said, giving up when I heard the front door open and close.

“Something wrong?” Michelle asked from the foyer.

“I have to go out for a few minutes,” I told her, returning to Sara’s room and gathering up the history books. If she didn’t need them, fine. That would be just fine, I told myself, asking Michelle to look after my mother, assuring my mother I’d be back before she knew I was gone. “You’re being silly,” I repeated as I drove to the Sperlings’. “This is not the same thing as finding those empty packages of cigarettes. This is not like finding those
bottles of beer. This isn’t the same thing at all. Sara has no reason to lie to you. She’s turned over a new leaf.” And if she hadn’t? “You spoke to Mrs. Sperling. She was expecting Sara. Sara’s a joy to have around. Remember?”

The Sperlings lived in the gated community of Admiral’s Cove off PGA Boulevard. I pulled my car up to the front gate, gave my name to the serious-faced security guard in the access booth. He peered at his clipboard. “I’m afraid your name’s not on the list.”

“Mrs. Sperling’s not expecting me. But my daughter is visiting for the weekend, and she forgot her books.” I indicated the books on the seat beside me.

“Just a minute, please.” The guard retreated to his station and used the phone. “I’m afraid the line is busy. If you’d like to pull your car over to the side there, I can try again in a few minutes.”

I pulled my car into the designated spot and waited, wondering who was on the phone for so long and would they ever get off. A minute stretched to five, then ten. “Just go home,” I told myself. “Sara obviously doesn’t need the books. What are you trying to prove?” She’s going to think you’re checking up on her, I continued silently, and that’s going to make her very angry. Is that what you want? Especially now when everything has been going so well? I looked toward the guard, watching his lips move as he talked on the phone.

As I was about to signal the guard my intention to leave, he hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth.

“Mrs. Sperling says your daughter isn’t here,” he announced, approaching my car.

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Sperling said to me over the phone in the guardhouse a few seconds later. “Soon after Sara arrived, she got a phone call. She said it was from you, and that something was wrong with her grandmother,
and you needed her back home. She said she’d meet you at the front gate.”

I listened in silence, too numb to speak.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say,” Mrs. Sperling continued. “You don’t think anything’s happened to her, do you?”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” I said, my voice expressionless, as if someone had sat on it, flattened the life right out of it.

“Do you have any idea where she is?”

“I know exactly where she is,” I said, returning the phone to the guard’s waiting hand and climbing back into my car, staring at my lifeless eyes in the rearview mirror. “She’s at a wedding.”

T
he scene unfolds as if in a nightmare—in fits and starts, images fading in and out, no conjunctives to connect one event with the next, to provide context. I see my sister, dressed in a short, yet surprisingly traditional white wedding dress, a shoulder-length veil covering, but not hiding, her radiant smile. I see Colin Friendly, dressed in blue dungarees and death row orange T-shirt, laughing as my sister walks to his side, his eyes looking past her to the beautiful young girl who follows behind. The girl is wearing layers of black and white, much like her hair, whose dark roots are encroaching ever further into her blond curls. Her forest-green eyes are huge and curious; her mouth quivers uncertainly into a smile.

Close-ups of body parts: eyes, mouths, breasts, hands, fists, teeth.

Men in standard blue prison garb stand to either side of the spectacled prison chaplain, who cradles the Bible between steady palms.

More close-ups—stainless-steel tables and chairs, their legs bolted to the linoleum floor. Human legs mingle—white high heels, black Doc Martens, brown loafers, scuffed prison sneakers.

I watch helplessly as the chaplain opens his mouth to speak.

Do you take this woman?

Can’t somebody stop this?
Do you take this man?

Run. Now—while you still can.

If anyone knows just cause why this man and this woman …

Is everybody crazy? Why am I the only one to object?

Let him speak now or forever hold his peace.

I’m screaming. Why can’t anybody hear me?

He hears me. Colin hears me.

Fists clench beside blue prison dungarees. Piercing blue eyes narrow with hatred.

Long manicured fingers, nails painted bubble-gum pink stretch into the air. Fists unclench, slip a thin gold band on the third finger of the outstretched hand. The hand proudly displays the ring for all to see.

Sound effects: oohing and aahing, laughter. Someone breaks into song.
She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.

And now by the power vested in me by the state of Florida …

Don’t do it. There’s still time to get away.

I now pronounce that you are husband and wife.

A clock clicks noiselessly on the wall behind them. It has no face.

Colin, you may kiss your bride.

Lips connect, bodies sway together.

More laughter, cheering, congratulations all around.

Whoopee! Colin exclaims as Jo Lynn laughs, draws Sara happily into her arms.

I guess that makes us family, Colin says to Sara, beckoning her forward.

I guess so, Sara says, rough arms surrounding her as I
press my hands against my temples, trying to squeeze such images from my brain.

Of course, I don’t know exactly what happened that afternoon, because I wasn’t there, and I’ve never asked for the specifics. I know only that a wedding took place, that my sister married the man of her dreams and my nightmares, that my daughter acted as maid of honor, that several inmates served as witnesses, that one broke into song, that it was all perfectly legal, that my sister was once again legally wed.

The tabloids made much of the wedding. A picture of Jo Lynn in her wedding dress graced the front page of the
Enquirer.
Another inside photo showed her proudly displaying her wedding band, a ring she’d purchased, and paid for herself. “As soon as Colin gets out,” she was quoted as saying, “he’s going to buy me a diamond eternity band. This marriage,” she went on to say, “is forever.”

Till death do us part.

Mercifully, the tabloids hadn’t been allowed inside the prison, and so there were no pictures of Sara, although it was reported that Jo Lynn’s niece served as her maid of honor, an indication, the paper surmised, of her family’s support.

“It was everything I’ve always wanted in a wedding,” my sister babbled. “Low-key and beautiful. There was just so much love in that room.”

The paper then gave a brief description of Jo Lynn’s three previous marriages, and even carried an interview with Andrew MacInnes, husband number one, who opined that Jo Lynn had always been a little wild and reckless, and a handful for any man. He didn’t bother mentioning that his way of dealing with her wild and reckless nature was to beat her senseless.

My sister’s courtship with Colin Friendly was rehashed
and reprinted: her steadfast loyalty, her continuing support, her unwavering belief in his innocence. If you didn’t know the man had been convicted of torturing and killing thirteen women and girls and was suspected in the disappearance of scores of others, you’d swear they were writing about a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, a pair of star-crossed lovers whose misguided enemies were intent on keeping them apart.