Beyond Suspicion (31 page)

•

Jack had a view of the restrooms from his seat in the hospital waiting room. Cindy’s mother was off to his left, several rows of seats separating them. Over the course of two hours, they’d made eye contact once. He’d just happened to look up and caught her shooting death rays in his direction.

A little after eleven o’clock, the doctor came out to see them. “Mr. Swyteck?”

Evelyn jumped from her seat and came between them. “I’m Cindy’s mother.”

“I’m Dr. Blanco. The good news is your daughter-your wife-is going to be just fine. She dodged a bullet. Literally. It scorched a path right past her ear. Right down to the skull. Still, it’s in the superficial category.”

Jack asked, “What about Katrina, the woman who came in the same ambulance? How’s she?”

“She’s in recovery. Lost a lot of blood, but she made it here in time. I’d expect a full recovery. Probably a couple months of rehab on the shoulder.”

“Can we talk about my daughter, please?” said Evelyn. “When can she come home?”

“That’s a little problematic. With any self-inflicted wound, we don’t want to rush these things. Before I make any promises, I want to get a psychiatric evaluation.”

“That seems wise,” said Jack.

“Psychiatric?” said Evelyn. “She’s not a-I mean, she’s a bright girl. She’s just been under so much stress.”

“Stress may be part of it. But let’s get a professional to take a look at the whole picture. Then we can make a judgment.”

“When can I see her?”

“That’s something our psychiatrist should determine. You can wait here, if you like. I’ll send someone down from psych just as soon as I can.” He offered a polite smile, shook their hands, and was on his way.

Jack returned to his seat. Evelyn started toward hers, then stopped and turned back. She took the seat across from Jack but said nothing. She just stared.

“I’m sorry for all this, Evelyn.”

“You should be.”

“No need to beat me up. I’ll be beating myself up over this for a long time. It’s so obvious to me now.”

“What’s so obvious?”

“Cindy and Jessie. There’s no good reason for Jessie’s body to have been found in my own house. Unless Cindy killed her.”

“Do you honestly believe that Cindy is capable of murder?”

“No. But the little things are starting to add up now. I remember one of the first nights we spent in your house. Cindy was all upset because she found out she wasn’t pregnant. We started talking about fertility, and she was so certain that the problem was with her, not me. Neither one of us had been tested. How would she have known it was her, unless Jessie had told her…” He stopped himself, suddenly uncomfortable about having this conversation with his mother-in-law.

“Told her that you had already fathered a child?”

“All I’m saying is, I just can’t believe it.”

“Then don’t believe it. Look, Jessie may have died in your house, but Cindy wasn’t even home when it happened. She was with me that whole day.”

“Nice try, Evelyn. But you’re not the first parent to concoct an alibi for her child.”

“You listen to me, smart guy. Cindy’s not well to begin with. That man Yuri knocked her out with some kind of drug and then put a gun to her head. How coherent would you be after all that? You can’t take anything she said this morning at face value.”

The elevator doors opened, and a woman stepped out. Jack caught her eye, and she walked toward him. Jack hadn’t seen her in a while, but it seemed that the older Cindy and her sister got, the more they looked alike.

“Hello, Celeste,” said Jack.

“Thanks for calling me. How’s Cindy?”

“She’s going to be fine.”

Evelyn turned and walked away, saying nothing to her older daughter. If there was ice between her and Jack, she and Celeste were glaciers apart. Jack had never fully understood it, just accepted it as part of a strange family dynamic.

He escorted Celeste to the vending machine, well away from Evelyn, then took a few minutes to explain everything over a cold soda. He glanced toward the in-take desk and saw Evelyn talking with another doctor, presumably the psychiatrist.

“Excuse me one second.” He quickly crossed the waiting room and introduced himself to the doctor. As Jack had figured, she was from psych.

“As I was telling your mother-in-law, I will probably want to keep Cindy in the hospital at least overnight, mostly for observation.”

“That’s fine.”

“If she does become violent or show some signs that she might injure herself, we may need to sedate or even restrain her. I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but to be on the safe side, I’d like your written authorization to do that.”

“You really think that’s necessary?”

“I’m her mother. I’ll sign.”

Jack deferred. The doctor handed a pen and clipboard to Evelyn. She looked over the form, then took the pen. Jack watched her sign.

He tried not to show it, but it was as if he’d been hit by lightning.

“There you go,” she said.

The doctor thanked her and tucked the executed form under her arm. “I should have an update for you later this evening. I’ll phone you.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

She turned and headed for the elevator. Jack checked his watch and said, “I have to go, too.”

“Fine. You’re not needed.”

“I’d like to stay, but the homicide detectives are already breathing down my neck.”

“What’s that all about?”

“Something to do with knives. Whoever killed Jessie also slashed up some pictures of me and Cindy from our wedding album. With everything that’s happened now, they want to check out our collection of knives, see if the slashes in the wedding photographs came from any we own.”

“They think Cindy slashed her own wedding photos?”

“If she killed Jessie out of jealousy, that would fit, wouldn’t it?”

Evelyn mulled it over, then shook her head. “Just go, please. Can’t you ever bring anyone good news?”

“I’ll be sure to work on that.” He walked away but took the long route back to the elevators, making a point of passing by Cindy’s sister.

“How about a cup of coffee?” he said.

“Sure.”

He led her to the elevator and punched the down button. The doors opened, and they got inside. “There’s something I have to talk to you about,” he said.

“What?”

“Dreams.”

She rocked on her heels. “What kind of dreams?”

“For a few months now, Cindy’s been having this same nightmare about your father coming to her. And when he leaves, he wants to take me with him. Do you have any idea what that might be all about?”

She didn’t answer.

From inside the elevator, he took one last look at his mother-in-law seated on the other side of the waiting room. Then the doors closed, and the car began its descent.

The color had drained from Celeste’s face.

“I thought you might,” said Jack.

“I guess maybe it’s time you learned our dirty little family secret.”

“I’m all ears,” he said as the elevator doors parted.

•

Jack waited in the dark with the window shades shut. He was in the TV room, though he hadn’t so much as switched on a light bulb, let alone the set. For almost two hours, he sat alone, familiarizing himself with every sound of the empty house. The air conditioner kicking on, then off. The hum of the refrigerator. The Westminster chime of the grandfather clock.

Celeste had given him plenty to think about. She told him how her accusations had torn the family apart. Cindy had so fervently believed that her lies had driven their father to suicide that she’d even told Celeste of her fantasies about poisoning her older sister or causing her other bodily harm. Their mother had also turned against Celeste, but there was one major difference. Cindy had eventually made peace with Celeste and came to believe that the accusations were true.

Their mother had never made peace, and she’d known the truth from the beginning.

The clock chimed. It was quarter past two. Jack started to rise, then stopped. He heard something. He listened, then settled back into his chair. It was the sound he’d been waiting for. At last, a key turned in the lock on Evelyn’s front door.

•

Evelyn hooked her umbrella on the hall tree and switched on the light. It had been raining off and on since lunchtime, and, as usual, the gods had really turned on the faucets the moment she’d decided to sprint from her car to the front door. Even a hurricane, however, would not have kept her from coming home.

She walked down the hall and headed straight for the kitchen. There was an urgency to her step. She’d played it cool for over an hour at the hospital, fighting the impulse to rush home, which would have only raised suspicions. She’d used the time wisely, considering the things Jack had told her, weighing her options. This was no time for knee-jerk reactions, but now her mission was clear. She had to get home and secure one last loose end.

She flipped on the kitchen light. Her eyes fixed on an empty space on the countertop, which puzzled her. Her heart began to race. She canvassed the entire counter, one end to the other, then back again.

How can it not be here?

She went to the cabinet, opened it. Bowls, mixer, can opener-everything was in its place, except the one thing she was looking for.

Her hands began to shake. It
had
to be there. She tried the cabinet under the sink, but there was only a dish rack, detergents, and some paper towels. She went down the entire row of cabinets, flinging one door open after another. She found plates, her bread maker, pots and pans. Still, no luck.

A thought came to her, and she raced to the pantry, threw open the door, then gasped.

Jack was standing inside.

“What-” she started to say, then stopped. She saw it. He was holding it, protecting it the way a running back guards a football at the goal line. Only this pigskin was made of butcher block, and it came with an assortment of handles that protruded from the slots on the top. Knife handles. He had her collection of kitchen knives.

“Looking for this, Evelyn?” he asked.

•

Jack stepped out of the pantry. Evelyn slowly backed into the kitchen. He said nothing, waiting for her to speak. She continued stepping backward until she bumped against the sink.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had a meeting with the police.”

He stopped at the kitchen table and placed the knives on top of it. “There is no meeting. I lied.”

“Wha-a-a-at?” she said, a nervous cackle.

“I made it up.”

“Why?”

“It’s the strangest thing. I was watching my grandmother slicing sheets of dough the other day. She’s left-handed, so she typically cuts from the top right to the bottom left. To make a long story short, it helped me figure out that Jessie Merrill was probably killed by someone who is left-handed. It all has to do with the angle of the slash on her wrist.”

“And to think you were ready to convict your wife, and she’s right-handed. Shame on you.”

“No, shame on you. It didn’t occur to me until you and I met with the psychiatrist at the hospital. You so graciously took it upon yourself to sign the forms for Cindy’s treatment. And that’s when it hit me:
You’re
left-handed.”

“How dare you!”

He glanced at the cutlery on the table. “Which knife did you use, Evelyn?”

“This is ridiculous. The police have the knife. It was from your own kitchen. It was found floating in the bathtub with Jessie’s body, exactly where you’d expect to find it with a suicide.”

“I don’t mean the knife you used to slash Jessie’s wrist. I mean the knife you used to slash up our wedding album.”

Her mouth opened, but she didn’t speak.

“That’s what you were looking for, wasn’t it? I bluffed you into thinking that the police were looking for a match between our knives and the slashes in the wedding album. It got you to thinking: Maybe they’ll come looking in your house, too.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“When Cindy and I moved in with you, we took just a few personal things with us. The wedding album was one of them. Funny, but it wasn’t until after we’d spent some time with you that Cindy noticed it had been mutilated. Someone had taken a knife to it.”

“Probably that tramp, Jessie.”

“Not her. You did it when I decided it was time to move out of your house. Cindy decided to come with me, rather than stay with you.”

“You are so wrong.”

“Am I? Then I don’t suppose you’ll mind if I take these knives downtown to have them analyzed. I noticed that one of them has a nice serrated edge. There might even be a few microscopic traces of photo paper on the blade. You’d be amazed by these lab guys and the things they can find.”

Her bravado slowly faded. Her eyes filled with contempt. “This is all your fault.”

“That’s what Cindy said.”

“If you’d truly loved her, you would have stepped aside and made it possible for her to move on and start a new life without you, without the nightmares about that deranged client of yours.”

“The nightmares aren’t about me or Esteban. They’re about your husband. I know. I talked to Celeste.”

“Celeste,” she said, practically spitting out the name. “You two are just alike. But I see through your phony concern. You don’t love Cindy. You love rescuing her all over again every two months, six months, a year-however long it takes for her nightmares to start up again. That’s your kind of love.”

“What do
you
know about love?”

“I’ve known this much for a very long time: Cindy will never be happy so long as you’re in her life.”

It was like hearing Cindy’s speech all over again, only this time it was coming from the speechwriter. “You fed this to her, didn’t you? You convinced her that I’m the source of all her fears.”

She flashed an evil smile. “It didn’t take much convincing. Especially after Jessie ‘fessed up about you and her.”

“Jessie was a liar. This was how she got even with me when I refused to help her wiggle out of her scam. Ruin my marriage.”

“She did a very convincing job.”

“Are you saying you heard her story?”

“I was sitting next to Cindy in the car when she got the call. I heard everything. Cindy didn’t want to believe it. But Jessie said she had proof. She wanted to meet at your house to deliver it personally to Cindy.”

“The tape?”

“Yes. The tape.”

“So you and Cindy went to our house together.”

“No.
I
went. Alone.”

Jack paused, stunned by the admission. “You were there waiting when Jessie came by?”

“What decent mother wouldn’t do that much for her only daughter?”

The reference to her
only
daughter wasn’t lost on Jack. “What did you do?”

She walked as she talked, not a nervous pacing, but more like a professor who was enjoying her speech. “I was extremely polite. I just asked her to remove all of her clothes, get in the bathtub, and drink from a quart of vodka until she passed out.”

“How did you get her to do that?”

“How do you think?”

“The knife?”

“Hardly.” She walked a few more steps, then stopped at the end of the counter. She opened a drawer, then whirled around and pointed a gun at Jack. “With this.”

Jack took a step back. “Evelyn, don’t.”

“What choice have you left me?”

“You won’t get away with it.”

“Of course I will. I came home, you startled me, I thought you were an intruder. What a tragedy. I shot my own son-in-law.”

“This won’t solve anything.”

“Sure it will. Right now, it’s my word against yours.”

“Not quite.”

She tightened her glare, then blinked nervously, as if sensing that Jack had something to spring.

“I’m afraid your timing is really bad,” he said. “You caught me right in the middle of a conference call.”

“What?”

He pointed with a nod toward the wall phone beside the refrigerator. The little orange light indicated that the line was open. “You still there, Jerry?”

“I’m here,” came a voice over the speaker. It was Jerry Chafetz from the U.S. attorney’s office. Jack had dialed him up the moment he’d heard Evelyn put the key in the front door.

“Mike, you there?”

He gave Mike Campbell a moment to reply, then Jack said, “Turn off the mute button, buddy.”

There was a beep on the line, and Mike said, “Still here.”

“You guys didn’t hear any of that, did you?”

“Sorry,” said Mike. “Couldn’t help but listen. Hate to admit it, but I heard everything she said.”

“Ditto,” said Chafetz.

Jack tried not to smile, but he knew he had to be looking pretty smug. “Tough break, Evelyn. I’m really sorry. Your bad luck.”

The gun was still aimed at Jack, but she seemed to have lost her will. Her stare had gone blank, and her hands were unsteady. It was as if she were shrinking right before his eyes.

Jack went to her and snatched away the gun. “You’re right, Evelyn. I do love this rescue stuff.” He took her by the arm and started for the door. “Even when Cindy isn’t around.”