The nanny murders (23 page)

At home, Nick held me, kissed me, and promised to return in a few hours. I accepted the touches, the kisses, didn’t question the fact that our relationship had somehow instantly resurrected itself. I watched Nick talk to Molly and hug her, then cross the street and talk with police before hurrying to his Volvo and driving off.

Women from gymnastics gathered with their children in my living room. I wasn’t comfortable. I didn’t want company yet couldn’t bear to be alone. I knew I should talk to Molly but had no idea what to say. I stroked her cheek and hugged her, whispering trite reassurances. But I couldn’t sit, couldn’t stay inside, paced from the kitchen to the office, the office to the living room. I couldn’t stay away from the windows where I could look out at Charlie’s house, as if somehow the house would explain things to me, set me straight. Finally, I wandered out the front door and sat on the dark icy steps, watching, waiting, realizing that what I was waiting for would never happen. Charlie would never again appear.

The police milled about. A couple of them protectively urged
me to go inside. But I couldn’t budge. Charlie’s blood had spattered all over me. His life had spilled onto my skin, soaked into my pores. And it was my fault. I should have stopped it, should have been more forceful, grabbed his gun, protected him. I’d never believe that he’d intended to shoot anyone, but he’d shot first, and with children around the police had had no choice. What had happened to Charlie? Had there been a turning point, a precise moment when he’d lost it? Did he have some chemical imbalance? A brain tumor? A split personality? In a way, it didn’t matter, now that he was gone. But I’d miss his pipe glowing in the dark, the warm aroma of his tobacco, his watchful concern, even his overprotective warnings. Tears stung my cheeks in the cold. Mourning Charlie, the irreversibility of death.

Suddenly, a policeman ran out of Charlie’s house. Before he reached his van, he dropped to the curb, puking. I went down the steps, but a strong arm restrained me. “Stay back, ma’am.”

Another officer yelled from the doorway, and radios began barking. Uniforms scurried into Charlie’s door as a guy strung more yellow tape around the property. Men in overcoats arrived. An ambulance drove through the blockade, lights flashing. Heavy men in navy parkas carried a stretcher into the house.

“What’s going on?” Karen stood beside me. She looked haggard.

“Dunno.”

“A stretcher? Is somebody else inside?” “He lived alone.”

Karen shrugged. “Hot tea?” She handed me a mug. “Thanks.” My hands were trembling. Tea slopped onto the steps, melting the thin coating of ice.

“You better come inside, Zoe. It’s really cold out here.” “I’ll be in. I just need to see this.”

“Are you all right?” She looked me over. “You’re not, are you?” Her eyes were sad, her voice gentle.

““No,” I said. “Are you? Is anyone?”

She put her arm around my shoulders. “Maybe you should get checked out at the hospital. You might be in shock or something. I can watch Molly.”

“No, I’m okay. Thanks.”

Men shouted back and forth, and we looked across the street. The men in parkas stumbled out Charlie’s door carrying the stretcher. They moved slowly, as if straining under its weight.

“What’s that?” Karen asked. “His garbage?”

“Oh my God,” I breathed. Karen looked bewildered. Across the street, Jake and his men stood at the curb among pedestrians, staring. Phillip Woods stepped over to the yellow ribbon edging his railing and watched. Victor’s blinds lifted; he actually pressed his forehead against the windowpane, straining to see. The ambulance crew yelled for police to help them carry the stretcher down the steps. It was apparently very heavy, loaded with lumpy green bags of trash.

FORTY

S
USAN ARRIVED AS THE PHONE RANG
. I
ANSWERED THE DOOR
with the phone in my hand, greeting Susan’s person and Nick’s voice simultaneously, hearing fragments of their conversations through ears still ringing with silence. “I’ll be there as soon as I can—”

“What’s with the ambulance? Did someone else get shot?” “—developments I have to look into—” “We heard sirens on the way—” “—we have to talk when I get there—” “Coach Gene was so pale—he was ice cold and couldn’t stop shaking—”

Susan stopped talking midsentence and gaped at me. Karen called down the steps, “Are you okay, Zoe?” Nick harmonized the question in baritone.

By their reactions, I understood that I’d done something inappropriate. Had I screamed EVERYBODY JUST SHUT UP or only thought it? I couldn’t remember, wasn’t sure, but I apologized, and they seemed appeased. My ears were ringing, head throbbing, and Nick began talking again.

“Zoe, I don’t want you there alone after what’s happened . . .” The words buzzed like mosquitoes. I wanted to slap them away.

As Emily ran off to join the other children, Susan rifled through my cabinets, searching for something edible to relieve her stress. She found a bag of Cheese Doodles, frowned at them,
gobbled a few, and sucked cheese scum off her fingers. Red nails disappeared inside moist lips, slid out and returned to the open bag. As she stuffed her mouth, it occurred to me that Molly hadn’t had dinner. Were the children hungry?

“. . . somewhere for a few days,” Nick buzzed on.

Out the kitchen window, another ambulance pulled away Only one remained now, being loaded with the last of the garbage bags. Police cars still blocked off the street, and a bunch of uniformed men hovered on Charlie’s front porch.

“Dammit—they’re calling me, but I’ll be over as soon as I can. Who’s there with you?”

“A couple of people.” Gretchen had taken Hannah home a while ago, and Davinder had just left with Hari. “Susan, Karen—”

“Can I talk to somebody? Susan?”

I pressed my tongue against the spot where my lips had cracked, felt the thin, sharp pain. Susan chewed an oatmeal cookie. I handed her the phone without wondering why he wanted to talk to her. Upstairs a child—Nicholas?—was angry, yelling that something wasn’t fair; Karen’s gentle voice hushed him.

Susan’s head bobbed up and down as she listened. Mouth full of cookie, she made sounds of agreement, one syllable each. When she hung up, she said that Nick wanted me to stay at his place for the weekend. “It’s in Chester County. Go—it’ll be good for you.”

Good for me? Chester County? What was she talking about? Nick and I weren’t a couple. Were we? We’d called it off, hadn’t we? And what about his “deal” with Beverly Gardener? Still, I remembered his protective embrace, how naturally he’d gathered me up and cleaned me off. How safe it felt to be beside him as he’d taken us home. But Chester County? I’d had no idea where Nick lived. What kind of place was it? A condo? A farm? Was it clean? Child friendly?

“Zoe, you look—well, I love you dearly, but frankly I’ve seen murder victims who look better. Go with him. You need R and R.” I was too tired to discuss it, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t have the energy, didn’t want to bother, even if I were sure about me and Nick. And what about Molly? How would she feel, suddenly whisked away to Nick’s? She needed normal structure and familiar settings—stability after the traumatic events of the night.

“Go. Molly’ll be fine.” Had Susan read my mind? Or had I said my thoughts out loud again? I didn’t know. Did it matter? Did I care? I rubbed my temples and leaned back against the kitchen counter. My legs didn’t seem able to support me.

Upstairs, overtired children were slamming doors, running, jumping, an extension of gymnastics class. Molly’s soprano giggles flittered down the steps. For the moment, incredibly, she was fine.

Susan stared raptly out the window, biting into another cookie. “What about that? Trash bags full of nannies, just like the one I told you about. It’s their bodies. Gotta be. That’s why the ambulances. Otherwise, why not take trash bags away in, like, a trash truck?”

Her teeth tore off another cookie chunk. I was tired, floating. I closed my eyes and savored the burn. Outside, in the street, the ambulance doors closed, and I felt the pulse of flashing lights as the vehicle drove away.

FORTY-ONE

“WELL, THAT’S THAT
.
“ SUSAN FOLDED HER ARMS ACROSS HER
chest.

“What’s what?”

“No more serial killer. No need for a trial, either, since the dude’s dead. Just the coroner’s hearing to determine the facts.” A crumb stuck to the corner of her mouth. “It’s a shame, in a way. I might have got him off, if I’d had a chance.” She chuckled and suddenly stopped. “Oh, what am I saying? I’m such an ass, trying to make light of it. I’m still shaking, see? Look at my hands. I can’t imagine how you must feel. You were right next to him.”

“I’m okay.” She looked me squarely in the eye and licked away the crumb.

“No. You are not. But hey, thank God they stopped him before he hurt anyone else.”

I looked toward the stairs. “I should go check and see how Molly is.”

“She’s fine. Let her be with the other kids. There are moms around if she needs one. Who else’s here?”

“Karen.” I didn’t remember who else. “Maybe just her.” “Karen’s enough. Relax. You look ghastly.” “So do you.”

“Do I? Damn. Time for a dose of medicine.” She took a bottle of Scotch from my liquor cabinet. “Here.” She poured. “Drink.” “Susan.”

“Drink.” It was an order.

I drank. She made a toast in what sounded like Italian and gulped.

“Look. At least we know they got him. We don’t have to worry about a loose psycho anymore. Maybe Bonita will come back to work.”

I looked at Susan as the Scotch slid down my throat, golden and warm. She held up her glass again.

“Here’s to the sharpshooters. And our luck that they shot straight.”

I nodded. “That thought occurred to me.”

“Shit. If somebody’d sneezed, if a guy’s finger trembled, you’d have splattered the walls instead of Charlie. Believe me, the cops haven’t heard the end of this. I intend to—”

Something beeped.

“Damn.” Susan reached for her bulky embroidered bag and took out a phone. I swallowed more Scotch while she spoke efficiently, rapidly, with few syllables, and stuffed the phone back into her handbag.

“Well, that was interesting.” She wrestled with a date book and a cosmetics case, jammed them together, and zipped the bag, fraying the edges of a manila envelope. “That was Ed. I guess he saw me at the shooting, so he thinks I’m an insider again.”

“What did he want?”

“To keep me informed.” She gazed out the window. “Guess what they’ve found in Charlie’s basement?”

I closed my eyes and drained my glass. “Don’t tell me,” I said. “I don’t want to know.”

But Susan had already started to tell me. With a trembling hand, I reached for the Scotch and poured myself another shot.

FORTY-TWO

“CUTTING TOOLS
.
ALL KINDS
.
SAWS, AXES, CHISELS, KNIVES—
“ “What a surprise, Susan. Charlie was a handyman. He worked with tools.”

“He had everything he’d need to dispose of the bodies. Even a big worktable. But that’s not all.” Her eyes widened. “Here’s the corker. He had their stuff. Claudia’s handbag, Tamara’s locket. Shoes. Earrings. Keys. Mementos. Something from each victim.”

I pictured Charlie’s bad legs hobbling down shadowy stairs to visit some gruesome shrine and shivered. Susan shoved a lock of hair behind her ear and frowned.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said.

“What?”

“Charlie. I just can’t believe it. He didn’t seem like a murderer.” “He was stark raving nuts, Zoe. He cut up women’s bodies in his basement.”

“But if he was a killer, why didn’t he kill me the way he killed the nannies? Why would he insist that he was protecting me? And why did he start shooting? Who did he think the killer was?”

“Whoa.” Susan put her hand on my arm. “Slow down. Don’t upset yourself more by trying to get inside a maniac’s mind. Stop applying reason to behavior based on insanity.”

She was right. I wasn’t thinking clearly

“Meantime”—she glanced at her watch—”I’m starving. We missed dinner, and the kids have to eat. I ordered pizzas.” “You did?”

“They said half an hour. If they don’t get here soon, somebody’s head’s gonna roll.”

“Somebody’s already did.” I didn’t intend to joke. “Really funny, Zoe. Bag it.”

“Now, there’s an advertising concept. For extra-heavy-duty trash bags?” I wasn’t smiling. I could see television commercials showing cleanup crews carrying green plastic bags from the guillotine, Jeffrey Dahmer stuffing them into his fridge, Ted Bundy storing them in his car.

I ripped skin off my lip with my teeth, tasted blood. Saltier, not as sweet as Charlie’s. Tamara’s head rolled across a shelf in Charlie’s basement, scowling.

Susan looked me over. “You really look awful.”

“You already said that.”

“Well, you do. You worry me.”

“I’m okay. Are you?”

“No, not even close. So how can you be?” “Well, I am. Or I will be.”

She picked at a cuticle. Her hands were trembling. “I wish Tim were here. Or Nick.”

I squinted, wondering why. What good could Tim or Nick or anyone do? Bags of body parts, weapons, and the personal effects of each missing nanny had been found in Charlie’s basement. Charlie’d been protecting me, but apparently it had been from himself, his own secret depravity. It was difficult to believe that old Charlie had been capable of such despicable acts, but the evidence was clear. Nothing could change that. Just as nothing could remove the warmth of his wet brains from my skin, or his surprised dying face from my memory.

From upstairs, a small voice called, “Where are you, Mommy?”

““Down here, Molly.” I felt wobbly.

“Can we have those whistles? Mommy?” Oh God. I hoped they wouldn’t start blowing those damned necklaces. “Not now.” I started to stand.

Susan put her hand up to stop me. “Karen’ll take care of Molly. Sit.”

Against my will, I sat. Actually, I sank. My legs were liquid, and I was groggy. The room tipped slightly, probably from Scotch on a shocked and empty stomach. Susan hefted her hip onto the table and leaned over me.