The Abortionist's Daughter (26 page)

Fortunately it didn’t take long for Ernie to come back down and signal for them. They got out of the car and headed into the building, where a cold dankness enveloped them, a combination of stale beer and unwashed laundry and last summer’s refrigerant. As they climbed the stairs, their footsteps echoed off the cinder-block walls, and Huck flashed on a drug raid a few years back where they’d found a nest of dead squirrels under a pile of clothes.

“Now, I want to prepare you,” said Ernie when they reached the top. “It’s not just Bill in the room. There’s a campus police officer, along with someone from the local force.”

Megan laughed nervously. “He’s really not dangerous.”

“We’re just following procedure,” Ernie said. He pushed open the door to Bill’s room. There he was, sitting on his bed, dressed in shorts and a green T-shirt with a parks-and-recreation insignia. His cheek was purple and swollen where Huck had punched him the day before. Two uniformed men stood off to the side. Wall-to-wall clothes covered the floor, clean as well as dirty. Bill must have just burned something in the microwave, because the little door was open and the room smelled sour and tinny.

Without saying hello, Bill glanced from one man to the next, eventually letting his heavy-lidded gaze fall on Megan.

“What are we now, a groupie?” he said to her.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” she said coldly.

“Nothing, really. I just wanted to see you.”

“You scumbag. My mother wasn’t doing meth. What is wrong with you?”

Bill ignored the question. “Did you get in touch with Trigger?” he asked Huck.

Megan laughed sharply. “Oh, Trigger, that’s good. Is he another one of your inventions?” Suddenly she turned to Ernie. “Do these two other cops have to be here?”

“For now,” said Ernie.

Megan turned back to face Bill. She closed her eyes but simultaneously raised her eyebrows like she was using them to tug her lids back up. “Look, Bill. I know I wasn’t the most sensitive person in the world when we broke up, but you’re living in a fantasy world if you think my mother was doing meth. You’re also living in a fantasy world if you think that spreading rumors about my mother is going to get back at me.”

Bill gazed at her. “That’s cute, Megan,” he said. “Are we taking psychology this semester?”

Ernie stepped forward. “Actually, Bill, you don’t seem to have much more of substance to say to Megan, and we’ve got a few things we’d like to discuss. You agreed to this. Megan, why don’t you go back down to the car and wait. The officers here can escort you.”

“I’d rather not, actually,” said Megan.

“Yeah,” said Bill. “Why can’t she stay here? You already frisked me; I’m not going to hurt her. What’s the big deal?”

“That’s right,” said Megan. “You don’t need to treat me like a child, you know.”

“Because she’s hardly a child,” Bill added.

“Fuck you, Bill,” said Megan.

Bill closed his eyes and shook his head in reproach. Then he crossed his arms and looked at Ernie. “If she goes, I don’t really feel like talking to you anymore.”

Huck wanted to call the whole thing off; they didn’t need a confession, certainly not right now. But Ernie seemed to have come up here on a mission. “Fine. Megan can stay. Megan, take a seat over there, please.” He indicated a chair near the door. Megan sat down.

“Okay, then. This has to do with Diana,” Ernie began.

“Of course! Who else?”

“You and Diana.”

Bill shrugged.

“You want to tell us a little about your relationship with her?”

“Do I have to answer that?” Bill said, grinning.

“No,” said Ernie. “You don’t have to answer any of these questions, remember?”

“Well, it wasn’t sex-shu-al, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Bill said, winking at Megan.

“Not exactly,” said Ernie.

“That was a joke,” said Bill.

“Not really the time for jokes, Bill,” Ernie reminded him.

Bill nodded—a little too earnestly, Huck thought. “Sorry. Diana was an amazing woman. More like a mother to me than my own mother herself. Very sympathetic.”

“About what?” said Ernie.

“This is going to get personal,” Bill warned.

“We’re all friends,” said Ernie.

Huck folded his arms over his chest. As much as he and Ernie acted like peers, they weren’t. Ernie had ten years on him, and at times like this it showed, for even though Bill had managed to get his way by having Megan here, he hadn’t come close to tipping the balance of power. Whereas Huck feared there were some people out there, Bill quite possibly among them, who could twist things around on him before he realized what was happening.

“Continue,” said Ernie.

“Okay, then,” said Bill. “I don’t know what Megan has told you, but I had a hard time when we broke up.” He bit his lip. “A very hard time, if you will. I had high hopes for the two of us, see. I saw us getting married. Having kids. All that stuff. But then Megan wanted out. I kind of fell apart. It was a bad time for me. I couldn’t let go.”

“And Diana?”

“She took me out for coffee a couple of times,” he said. “At my request. And she told me about her own experience, how when this one guy broke up with her in college, she completely fell apart. Dissolved. Didn’t know who she was anymore. Even tried to kill herself.”

“More bullshit,” Megan told Ernie, but he held up his hand to silence her.

“And that’s how she was sympathetic?”

“Sympathetic but firm,” Bill insisted. “She advised me to throw myself into hard physical labor. So I did. I got a job doing yardwork for the summer. Hot sun. Sweat. So tired I was asleep by eight o’clock at night. It helped. And then this fall, moving up here. That helped too. And of course meeting Amanda.”

“More bullshit,” said Megan.

Bill wagged his finger at her.

“You said there wasn’t any Amanda,” she said.

“Well, I lied,” said Bill. “I lied that I lied.” He winked, which caused Huck to feel sorry for Megan, right then.

“When was the last time you saw Diana?” asked Ernie.

Bill pursed his lips and thought hard. “August,” he finally said. “Right before I started school. We met for coffee one last time. She gave me a going-away present. An itty-bitty address book. Kind of corny. Nobody uses an address book anymore, you know? But that was the last time,” he said. “August twenty-fourth. August twenty-fifth I moved up here. August twenty-sixth I started classes.”

“So you had no contact with her after that?”

Bill’s face grew intense. Then he shook his head. “Nope.”

Ernie looked over at Huck, who knew the routine: wrap it up, bring them in for questioning later. Huck nodded back. Ernie gave a shrug. “Okay, then. But hey. One thing. We’d like to get a hair sample at some point, if you wouldn’t mind.”

It was the kind of cop moment Huck loved—seeing the color drain out of a person’s face, or even just watching them begin to fidget. Bill simply sat there with a blank look on his face. Then he straightened up and yawned. “Sorry,” he said. “A what did you say?”

“A hair sample.”

“Weird! But sure,” he said. “Now?” He reached up to pluck out a strand.

“No, not here,” said Ernie. “And not just now. Why don’t you come back to town with us, though. It’s totally up to you, of course. But we can take care of it this afternoon. Bring you back up here tonight. You don’t have classes, do you?”

Bill glanced at Megan. Huck did too: she was staring at Ernie, and for the first time since he’d known her, she looked truly perplexed—as though she’d switched on the radio mid-story and heard the word
assassination,
or
smallpox.

“Detective Vogel?” Megan asked.

“Yes, Megan?”

“Why do you need a hair sample?”

“It’s routine,” Ernie replied.

“No, it’s not,” said Megan. “My father’s a lawyer. Plus I watch cop shows.”

Huck caught Ernie’s eye. Picking up on his partner’s message, he moved across the room and gently touched Megan on the arm. “Catch some air?”

Megan ripped her arm away from him. “This is why we came up here? This is what you guys wouldn’t tell me?” She began shaking her head in disbelief, coupled with what Huck saw as a sense of betrayal. She stared from one man to the next, all enemies at the moment, her gaze finally resting on Bill. “They think it’s you,” she said with incredulity. “Was it?”

“Huck,” said Ernie, “if you can—”

“Did you kill my mother?” Megan asked Bill.

Bill’s face remained expressionless for a few seconds, and then his eyes crinkled up, and he nodded and smiled broadly, as though finally understanding the theory of relativity.

“That’s what you think?” He looked at all of them and shook his head. He gave a long sigh. “Oh my god. That’s what you think. Oh dear sweet Jesus,” he said.

“Did you?”

Bill shook his head. “Oh, Megan,” he said, closing his eyes. “Megan Megan Megan. How—”

“
Bill.
Did you kill my mother?”

Outside a magpie swooped in and perched on the window ledge. It flicked its blue-black tail twice, then flew off. The heater fan started blowing. Down the hall a door slammed. A burst of male laughter.

“Tell me the truth, Bill.”

One by one, Bill began to crack his knuckles. “You don’t know what it’s like to really—”

“Quit beating around the bush!” shouted Megan.
“Did you kill her?”

The room fell silent again.

“Yes,” said Bill.

For Huck, it was always a shock when someone actually confessed, no matter how certain you might have been of his guilt. It was like opening the gift you wished for but didn’t really expect, or getting an A on a test you hadn’t studied for. And here, today, having woken up in the morning with not only no expectations but no wishful thinking as well (he was, after all, working down in Records), he found himself listening to Bill’s words in part as though they were a distant news story, someone else’s scoop, for which he didn’t deserve any credit at all. In the end he would probably get that credit, along with Ernie; there would be praise, recognition, maybe awards and promotions as well.

Still, he would see his role in this case as more personal than professional, and this would always keep him grounded, whenever he started to think too highly of himself.

As he spoke, Bill mostly just sat hunched on the edge of his bed, letting his hands dangle between his knees. Sometimes his voice was barely audible. Sometimes he paused.

“But how could you?” Megan would whisper, whenever this happened.

And Bill of course would not reply. Huck could have told her this would happen. Rarely did anyone in this business know how or why they’d done what they’d done. Most of the time it just happened—to a wife, a friend, a lover, a business partner; over love or money, usually. Anyone who could explain it—well, they were a different breed, the ones you had to be truly afraid of.

When Bill was finished, there were still many unanswered questions about Diana’s day. But that would come. Hour by hour it could all be accounted for now—either by Megan, or by Frank, or by Steven O’Connell, or by Jack Fries. It was, in the end, simply the story of a long and complicated day, just like any other of Diana’s long and complicated days, only this one had an unfortunate end.

“But how could you?” Megan asked once more, when he was through.

And the room simply rang with silence.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

——————

ON THE MORNING
of December 17 Diana woke to the sound of the shower. Frank had slept in the guest room the night before; he’d said he was coming down with a little something. Or maybe he had gas. It didn’t matter. She slept better alone.

At 6:20 Diana herself rose. Dressed in her robe, she went downstairs and made coffee and got the newspaper and defrosted some bagels. Having slept well without Frank’s presence, she was upbeat; although she had a busy schedule that day, darned if she wasn’t going to find time for a little Christmas shopping in the afternoon. Frank was determined to give Megan a new set of tires for Christmas, which made Diana equally determined to buy her something frivolous on her own.

Just as she sat down with her coffee and the newspaper, she heard footsteps on the stairs, and Frank appeared. “Hey,” he yawned, setting his hand on her shoulder. It was cold and weighed heavily, like a gel pack.

“Hey yourself,” said Diana. “There’s coffee.”

“Half decaf?” asked Frank.

Diana nodded. Actually the coffee was as leaded as it could get. It wouldn’t kill her husband to get a little buzz once in a while.

“Don’t cook for me tonight,” he told her. “I’ve got racquetball with Richard, and then we’re having dinner.”

Again, Diana didn’t mind that he would be gone; she liked having the house to herself. She would swim, make a salad, read a book.

“Hey—isn’t Megan almost finished with her exams?”

“Tomorrow,” replied Diana.

“It’ll be nice to have her around, won’t it?”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Diana said. “She’s going to be much more interested in hooking up with friends than hanging out with us.”

“I hope you don’t mean Bill,” Frank said darkly.

Diana sucked air with her teeth. “Bill’s out of the picture.”

“I wonder about that.”

“Give it up, Frank. Trust me. He’s gone.”

“I trust you—it’s him I don’t trust. By the way, have you given any thought to what limits we’re going to set while Megan’s here at home? I don’t want to start waiting up for her all night again.”

Diana looked up from the paper. “She’s a freshman in college, Frank.”

“Who can respect our needs.”

Your
needs, she thought. I like staying up late.

“Never mind, we’ll cross that bridge later too,” said Frank. He swallowed the rest of his coffee and put the cup in the sink. “But we should figure out a policy. Don’t forget the bills, by the way.”

“Cup goes in the dishwasher.”

Frank opened the dishwasher and placed his cup in the center of the top rack, where it took up more space than necessary. “You always jump before I have a chance to do anything.”

“That’s because I know you, Frank. You were going to leave it in the sink for me. I’ve lived with you for twenty-two years, and you were going to leave it there because you know I’ll put it in myself since it bothers me and not you to have dirty dishes lying all over the kitchen. Did I leave my gloves in your car, by the way?”