Third Degree (5 page)

Definitely a birth defect.

One of my birth defects, discovered later in my life than most, was that I had become extremely nosy. I knew when it had started—right after I had almost been accused of murder—but it was something that I thought would go away with some introspection and self-reflection. Alas, it was still present and it revealed itself to be quite chronic. So, it was when I was sitting on my bed, drying my hair in a nice fluffy towel, that I realized that I needed to pay my respects to Mrs. Wilmott. After all, I had been there when her husband died. It was only polite.

Truth was, I wanted to know what it looked like when a presumably happily married woman, or so proclaimed Lydia Wilmott in her blog postings on Carter’s site, lost a husband. She had looked extremely composed yesterday when she had come to Beans, Beans to identify the body, but her eyes had been covered with sunglasses so I wasn’t sure if they were red-rimmed from crying. Maybe she had been in shock. Or maybe her blog posts covered a more serious problem, which was that while she was crazy about him, he wasn’t crazy about her. But after seeing both of them for the first time yesterday, it wasn’t hard to tell that he had gotten quite a good deal. The lady was a looker and Carter … not so much. If I were Carter—and right now, I was very glad that I wasn’t—I would have been thrilled to be married to such a gorgeous woman.

I took a circuitous route to the Wilmotts’, driving through town to take a gander at the spot where this whole mess began. Beans, Beans was closed up tight, but Greg had a sign on the door indicating that he would be open for business the next morning. There was still some yellow crime scene tape flapping in the wind, particularly around the area where the car had blown up. I shuddered when I thought about the damage that the explosion could have wrought and thanked God that nobody had been killed.

After my side trip, I arrived at the Wilmotts’ considerable Colonial, high on a hill, with a panoramic view of the Hudson River, and was let in by someone I later came to find out was Lydia’s sister, Elaine, who didn’t offer an introduction. The house was a beehive of activity; it seemed that every member of Lydia’s extended family had come to be with her during her time of mourning; they seemed to be scattered throughout the immense house, and I could hear conversations going on all around me in muffled tones.

After what I had read on the blog and from what I could gather from being in the house, there were two children but they were college aged and presumably away at school, somewhere I’d be in the next few days. Pictures of them—a boy and a girl—dotted every wall and flat surface that I could see from my vantage point in the foyer. I wondered where they were and how long it would take them to get back. I stood awkwardly in the doorway explaining to the sister that I was a fellow villager and that I had been present when Carter had died. I wanted to pay my respects. But I must have been a sight, the giant bruised eye and all.

Elaine, as she grudgingly offered after I asked, was a dour-looking middle-aged woman with a sparse sprinkling of mousy brown hair atop her head, clad completely in blue cotton sweats that did nothing to accentuate any good aspects of the doughy body beneath. She regarded me with suspicion for a few minutes and rightfully so: outside their beautiful house on their very quiet street was a news van from our local Westchester station, News47 Westchester, and a reporter just dying to get inside the house. Apparently, a man dying as precipitously as Carter was a story of major interest to the county residents.

As soon as Elaine was convinced of my good intentions, she ushered me into the house and back to the kitchen, where a grief-stricken Lydia Wilmott stood, washing a large glass pitcher at the sink. From where she stood, Lydia had a full view of the river, stretching out beyond the treetops in her backyard, but she clearly didn’t notice it at that moment. I wondered if she ever did. I knew that if I lived there, I would stare at it every day, the beauty of the river being something I never tired of. The house was tastefully decorated in period 1920s furnishings and light fixtures and would be exactly the kind of house I would love to live in, if I had three million dollars lying around. Lydia continued washing the pitcher, avoiding my gaze, her eyes fixated on the water rushing out of the faucet and down into the drain. Elaine explained to her who I was and why I had come.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked, thinking that she had hit the ground pretty hard when she had fainted the day before.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Thank you for asking.”

“I am very, very sorry about your husband’s passing,” I said, moving the potted plant that I had brought closer to the counter where she stood. I placed the condolence card underneath the plant. “You can read that later,” I said unnecessarily.

Elaine, who was close in age to Lydia but not as attractive, lurked around the corner of the kitchen, either trying to eavesdrop or make sure her sister was holding up, considering who I was and my relation to her husband. Lydia didn’t speak but continued to wash the pitcher, which was already clean by my estimation. I took in her pale complexion, beautifully coiffed auburn hair, and in particular, the impressive diamond tennis bracelet dangling from one delicate wrist. She was dressed casually in jeans and a white oxford but I could tell both articles of clothing were very expensive. They didn’t have the look and feel of my similar attire, both items purchased at T.J. Maxx. It was a few uncomfortable minutes before she spoke. I thought that maybe I had made a mistake by coming here.

“Tell me,” she said, finally finishing up the pitcher and putting it on a stainless-steel dish drainer. “Did he suffer much?” It was at that point that I heard her throat hitch and saw tears fill her eyes. She grabbed a Williams-Sonoma dish towel and pressed it to her face. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elaine lurch forward but Lydia held up a hand. “Elaine, please excuse us.”

Elaine looked none too happy about Lydia’s request but she also looked like she had been taking orders from Lydia for years. Like the little mousy woman that she was, she scurried away and took refuge in another room, where I could hear a muted conversation begin.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said after taking the towel away from her face. “She worries about me.” She wiped the counter unnecessarily with the towel; the granite gleamed in the morning sun. “She’s my older sister so she’s used to taking care of me.” She let out a sigh. “Right now? I’d just like to be left alone.”

I understood. I noticed that the water was still running in the sink even though she had finished washing up. I leaned across the counter and pushed the handle down. “He didn’t suffer,” I lied. Not if you don’t count the massive blow to the head. “Maybe it was a heart attack,” I said, hoping that just one punch to the head couldn’t kill someone. And that was coming from a literature professor, an excellent source for cause of death if there ever was one. “He just fell to his knees and …” I thought of a more appropriate word. “Took his last breath. It was very fast.” More than I wanted to say but it would have to do.

“Did he say anything?” she asked.

I searched my memory. Although I thought the experience and every detail of it would be seared in my memory forever, I found myself losing pieces of it already. Was he wearing his glasses when he came back in? Did he ever retrieve the missing shoe? What color was his shirt? It was all a blur. I couldn’t remember if he said anything and I didn’t want to lie and say something like “tell Lydia I love her” because that would just sound too made up. But I couldn’t help myself. “He said, ‘Lydia.’ ” If she ever caught me in the lie, by trying to confirm this detail with Greg or the police officer, I would say that everyone was in a state of shock at the time and that their memories were betraying them.

“But he didn’t suffer,” she said, more of a statement than a question.

“No,” I replied. “He didn’t suffer. It happened very quickly.”

“Because I don’t know what I would do if I thought that he had suffered greatly.” Her gaze returned to the sink.

“I’m very sorry for your loss.” It was a sentiment that didn’t bear repeating but I had nothing else to contribute.

She smiled politely, but briefly, and leaned onto the edge of the sink, her sizable bracelet clanging against the side. “What happened to your eye?”

Again, a lie seemed better than the truth. “A door. Actually, a doorknob.” I shrugged as a way of conveying my klutziness. “Should have turned on the light when I got up in the middle of the night.”

She looked at me pityingly and pursed her lips, beginning to say something but thinking better of it. It was clear that she wasn’t buying my story, but she obviously hadn’t put two and two together about how I had ended up looking like this and I was glad for that. I wondered if the police had told her that because of her husband’s major brawl with George Miller, I was going to look like Rocky Balboa for the better part of a week. I’m guessing that they had but I was also guessing that she had decided to put that somewhere else in her brain where she wouldn’t have to think about it.

“The ME still doesn’t know for sure what he died of.” She was concerned obviously about that fact. “They suspect blunt force trauma to the head but they won’t be sure until the autopsy is done.”

“It was quick.” I decided that after adding that little repeated gem, I wouldn’t speak unless spoken to.

“What were you doing there?”

“Where?”

“Beans, Beans.”

Wasn’t that obvious? Maybe not. The coffee was horrendous. “Getting coffee.” I let go of the counter. I don’t know why I felt compelled to offer my unsubstantiated opinion, but I did. “Maybe it was a heart attack. Or an aneurysm. Something major and fatal. A stroke, maybe. There was no time.” I found myself choking up, something that I shouldn’t be doing in front of a dead man’s wife. “And they tried,” I said, a tear falling onto the counter. “I was there. They tried.”

Lydia came over to me and graciously put her arms around me. “It must have been horrible for you,” she whispered.

It was! I wanted to cry, but I gently disengaged from her hug and wiped a hand across my face. “I need to go,” I said. “I just wanted to say I was sorry.”

Lydia called out to me as I passed the powder room in the hallway. “Alison. One more thing.”

I went back into the kitchen, once again astounded by the view from their French doors. I went back to my place at the counter.

“It doesn’t matter how he died,” she said. “He would have died eventually.” She saw my face and quickly amended, “We all do.”

I thought about George Miller and his involvement in all of this. Was he the one who had attached the device to the car engine, sending pieces of it sailing through town? Or was the fight completely unrelated to what would have been the eventual murder of Carter Wilmott? I didn’t know, but I did know that I had spent way too much time in his house and I had to get out. I didn’t even think about asking the question that was on my mind but for which I already had something of an answer: who wanted your husband dead? Short answer? Everyone. I bid good-bye to Lydia again and left the kitchen. I went into the hallway and was just about at the door when I heard Elaine’s voice behind me.

“He was as healthy as a horse, you know.”

I turned and looked at her. “Pardon me?”

“Carter. Healthy as a horse. He just had a checkup last week.”

That’s great, I thought. That hadn’t helped him when he keeled over in front of me in Beans, Beans from maybe an aneurysm, maybe blunt force trauma to his head. I wondered if his doctor was hiding under his desk, his malpractice insurance policy clenched in his trembling hands. Elaine looked at me, waiting to hear my response. “Well, that’s interesting,” I said, for lack of anything else to contribute. I felt as if I had stumbled into one of those real-life mystery parties where there is a dead guy, lots of suspects, and one person who can figure the whole thing out.

“Don’t you think it’s strange?” she asked.

“People die of mysterious causes all the time,” I said. Or they die from getting punched in the head. If they don’t die of that, they get in their car and get blown up, particularly if they are Carter Wilmott, seemingly the most unlucky man ever to have lived. I didn’t say anything else because I didn’t want to incriminate George Miller any more than he had already incriminated himself. Although the ME suspected the blow to the head as the culprit, Carter looked way too winded and sick for someone who had only been in a fight. “He probably had an aneurysm. A stroke.” Brought on by getting boxed in the head. I was back to my old script. Who knew? I had no experience with people dying suddenly and of seemingly natural causes. Everybody around me lately seemed to die a violent, untimely death. What was I supposed to do? Assume that he was murdered by George Miller? From a punch to the head? Or was I supposed to sit around and wonder who had the means and motive to create a car bomb and attach it to his engine? Not much of a mystery concerning the punch to the head; the ME would be all over that in a matter of days if that was the case. The car bomb, however, was definitely a more interesting twist in the case.