Woman in Red (2 page)

Warren put his arm around her shoulders and said in a low voice, “I’m so sorry, Alice. We did our best.” But she was unable to respond. It was like when she’d given birth, a great, heaving pressure beneath the numbness from the epidural.

Then her sister Denise was at her side, a large, moist presence, looking like a very pregnant Holly Hobbie in her smocked maternity dress. Her brown eyes, pooled with tears, seemed to fill up her whole face, a face as incapable of concealing emotion as a child’s. Denise only shook her head, wise enough to know that there was nothing she could say or do right now that would help the situation.

It was their mother who rushed in to embrace Alice, while their father hung back, still wearing that stern look, though Alice could see now that his anger wasn’t directed
at her—he was staring hard at Owen’s back as if he’d like to plant a dagger in it. “Oh, honey.” Lucy’s voice was choked with emotion. “Don’t take it too hard. Look at the bright side. Now you and Randy can get on with your lives.”

As if such a thing were possible.

It wasn’t until Alice’s gaze fell on Jeremy, standing next to his grandfather, looking up at her with a pinched, worried expression, that she roused herself and spoke.

“I’m fine,” she said in a calm voice that seemed to be coming from outside her, that of a doctor assuring them that the patient was recovering nicely. “I just need to get home.”

“Let me drive you,” said Denise.

“No, really, I’m fine,” she assured her. In Denise’s present, distraught state, she appeared more at risk than Alice of getting into an accident.

For a moment Denise looked as if she were about to insist, but she let it go. Younger by four years, she’d always been the one Alice looked out for, from the time they were children. When the other kids in school had made fun of Denise for being fat, Alice had made sure the bullies knew who they were dealing with. And with her sister’s first baby, it had been Alice, not Denise’s husband, in bed with a herniated disc at the time, who’d seen her through a difficult labor. Now that the roles were reversed, they were both somewhat at a loss as to how to handle it.

Alice managed a small, bitterly resigned smile, as if to say that yes, it was a blow, but not entirely unexpected. And in a way, she wasn’t surprised. Owen White was a respected member of the community, the heir to one of the island’s great fortunes, and she . . . well, she’d become the resident crazy lady. Even those of her neighbors who’d gone out of their way to show support in the days after David’s death
now looked at her askance. Yes, it was tragic, their eyes seemed to say, but she’d gone too far. Was it fair to punish a man whose only crime was that he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Walking to her car, holding tightly to Jeremy’s hand, she thought that if there truly were a hell, she was in it now. The events of that terrible day ran like a film on a continuous loop inside her head, one she always hoped would have a different ending but never did.

It had been early evening and Randy had phoned to say he’d be working late, that they shouldn’t wait for him. But when she’d gone outside to call David in to supper, he wasn’t in the driveway shooting hoops, where he’d been the last time she’d checked, and there was no sign of him anywhere. Darkness had been closing in, the sidewalk in front of their house swallowed up by the shadows of the gingko trees that lined their street. Yet she hadn’t felt worried, not then. She remembered being annoyed at him instead. At eight and a half, David was far too independent for his own good. While Jeremy was content to play in his room for hours, David had been on the move ever since he’d learned to walk; it seemed she spent as much time looking for him as looking after him.

She’d walked out onto the sidewalk still calling his name. She was halfway down the block before she spotted him, a small, fair-haired boy in a white T-shirt and jeans pedaling furiously toward her on his bike. He’d lifted a hand to wave to her, and almost at the same instant a car had rounded the corner onto their street, a silver Mercedes moving at a speed well beyond the posted limit. Alice had opened her mouth to shout to the driver to slow down, but the words caught in her throat, swallowed by the shriek of brakes and the sickening
thud that followed, one that had slammed through her as if she herself had experienced the impact.

David,
she’d thought, breaking into a run
.

She’d found him sprawled facedown on the pavement, not moving. His bicycle, an old Raleigh that had belonged to Randy and that David loved above all things, had been flung into the middle of the road by the impact, twisted into something resembling bent coat hangers. Later, Owen would claim the boy had darted out into the middle of the road and that he’d been unable to brake in time. But that wasn’t what Alice had witnessed. David had been in the bike lane that she herself, along with those of her neighbors with young children, had campaigned for; she’d had a clear view of him from where she’d stood.

But it had been her word against Owen’s; by the time the neighbors had stepped outside to see what the commotion was about, it was all over. When Alice reported that the driver had been drunk, no one believed that, either. Owen White had a reputation as a churchgoing man, nothing like his flamboyant father, who’d been known to tip back a few in his day. Yet Alice had smelled alcohol on him even from where she’d knelt, clutching her son’s broken body to her chest. She’d screamed at Owen to get help, but he’d just stood there wearing a stupefied look, as if not quite grasping what any of this had to do with him, before he’d finally stumbled to his car and driven off.

It was several hours before the police finally caught up to him, by which time Owen had sobered up and gotten his story straight. If his behavior had seemed erratic at the time, he’d explained, it was only because he’d been in shock. As to why he’d left the scene of the accident, it was only to find a phone to call for help. After a cursory investigation that
was more a formality than anything, the official cause of death was ruled accidental. Another tragic case of a little boy riding his bike where he shouldn’t.

“Mommy, why aren’t we going?”

Alice roused from her thoughts to find herself sitting behind the wheel of her car, Jeremy buckled in beside her. He was solemn-faced little boy with her dark hair and fair complexion, dressed in the suit she’d bought him for his brother’s funeral, which he was already outgrowing. He was eyeing her quizzically, wearing the deeply worried look she’d seen too often of late. Jeremy had always been the more thoughtful and sensitive of her two boys, but since David’s death he’d been so withdrawn that at times it was almost as if she’d lost both her sons.

She forced a smile. “We are, honey. I just needed a minute is all.”

“Are we going home?” he asked, when she’d started the engine.

“Yes, honey. Straight home.” Where else would she go? To the grocery store for a quart of milk? To pick up her mail at the post office? Mundane chores she couldn’t imagine ever doing again much less tackling now.

“Will Daddy be there?” There was a querulous note in his voice that sounded almost panicky.

Alice realized now that it had been a mistake bringing him with her today. But she’d wanted so much to believe the jury would see things her way, she hadn’t been thinking straight. Now she was a bad mother on top of everything else. The thought pierced her like a shot through the heart.

She did her best to maintain an even tone as she replied, “Daddy’s at work, you know that. But we’ll call him as soon as we get home.” Even as she spoke, anger was rising up in
her again. Where had Randy been when she needed him most? Where was he
now
?

Alice backed out of her slot and was heading toward the exit when she saw Owen at the other end of the lot. She slowed at once, braking to a stop. He was walking with his wife, who had accompanied him every day to court. Elizabeth White, a tall, rail-thin woman, reminded Alice of a greyhound, with her narrow face and long, arched neck, her wide-set protruding eyes. They looked relaxed, smiling at their victory as they strolled along, arm in arm. They would go home to a celebratory supper and a good night’s rest, while Alice was left to pick up the pieces on her own. She watched Mrs. White step around to the passenger side when they reached their car, the same silver Mercedes that had mowed David down, while Owen paused to reach into his pocket for his keys.

Later, Alice would remember almost nothing of what came next. In that moment, though, every detail was magnified: a puddle of grease gleaming dully on the pavement near where Owen stood; the reflection of trees swimming across the windshield of a Chevy Malibu pulling out behind him; the innocent sounds of children playing in the small park adjacent the courthouse. The last signposts of the known world before it tilted on its axis, sending her spinning off into space.

Alice had no awareness of her foot pressing down on the gas pedal; it was as if the car were being propelled by a force beyond her control. Then there was only the startled face of her son’s killer as she closed in on him, and Jeremy’s high-pitched scream.

 

The dog was waiting on the landing when the ferry pulled into the berth. Black, with white paws and a white blaze on its chest, it made Colin think of an English butler in bib and morning coat, standing in readiness to greet guests arriving at the lord’s manor for a weekend of grouse hunting. A border collie, from the looks of it, a breed more common to sheep farms than the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. Yet it looked perfectly at home, sitting there on its haunches in the late afternoon sunlight that slanted over the sunbleached asphalt.

“Old McGinty’s dog,” volunteered the man at Colin’s elbow.

Colin turned toward him. The man was no youngster himself, with his rheumy eyes and thin white hair luffing in the stiff breeze. “McGinty, the artist?” he inquired.

The man gave a somber nod. “Sad about his passing. It was all over the news. Around here, though, we knew him just as Old McGinty. Him and his dog, you never saw one
without t’other.” He shook his head, eyeing the collie. “Poor thing. Ever’ day, rain or shine, he’s here to meet the four-forty from Anacortes.” Colin must have looked puzzled, for he explained, “The old man went to the mainland once a month or so, and he always took the same ferry back. Except this last time. When he didn’t show, that’s how we knew something must’ve happened to him. Weren’t nothing would’ve kept him from that dog, not as long as he had breath in him.”

Poor Dickie,
Colin almost muttered aloud before realizing that it couldn’t be the same dog he recalled from childhood. Besides, it would have sparked his fellow passenger’s interest, and Colin recognized a town crier when he saw one. He wasn’t ready for the whole island to know his business just yet. If people remembered him at all it would be as the boy who used to visit his grandfather every summer. They wouldn’t recognize the tall, solemn-faced man, his dark hair prematurely flecked with gray, as that eager, fleet-footed boy all grown up, except perhaps for the faint resemblance he bore to his grandfather—around the eyes and mouth mostly, which carried the same sadness as had the man they’d known as Old McGinty. “So who’s looking after him now?”

“Neighbor up the road took him in.” The old man wore a prideful look, as if to say,
Around here we look after our own
. “But feedin’ an animal and ownin’ it ain’t the same thing. That there’s a one-man dog.” He pointed a bent twig of a finger at the border collie now rising from its haunches, ears pricked and nose held high in anticipation of his master’s arrival.

The man said good-bye and joined the flow of passengers making their way toward the exit ramp, but Colin, lost in thought, gave no reply other than to nod. He remained
where he was on the upper deck, in no particular hurry to disembark, as the flow slowed to a trickle of stragglers. The chill of autumn was in the air, but it was memories of summers past that crowded his mind as he leaned into the railing, squinting toward shore, the sharp wind off the sound prying at the upturned collar of his jacket.

It had been more than a decade since his last visit, but not much appeared to have changed. Bell Harbor was just as he remembered it, with its picture-postcard marina and quaint, century-old buildings lining the waterfront—shops and eateries, like the Rusty Anchor, with its namesake anchor out front, where his grandfather would take him for fish and chips on Sundays; and the souvenir shop filled with items to fascinate a young boy. Higher up, on the hill, the commercial buildings gave way to houses and farms, then to unbroken tracts of evergreens as the island climbed toward its highest point, Mount Independence. Already, in mid-October, there was a sugar-dusting of snow on its peak. He was reminded of the time his grandfather had driven him up to the summit in his old Willys, the one year Colin had visited at Christmastime, how wondrous those virgin white tracts had seemed to a city boy used to snow plows and dirty slush clumped along the sidewalk.