Blues in the Night (25 page)

forty-one

You probably think I was thrilled to learn Robbie had lied to protect Lenore because he’d felt guilty. Not only had he yelled at her, but he’d been two-timing her while she was home alone with a crying infant.

But I wasn’t. I was troubled. When you write crime fiction, you can go back before the book’s in print and change things you don’t like, things that don’t work. You made a character too old, too nasty, or too nice? Change it. You don’t like the dialogue you gave someone on page 127, or the facts of a case or a clue you planted, or the way characters behave or interact or dress? Change it. You can change it all. It’s just words on a computer screen or paper.

But I wasn’t writing crime fiction. I was writing about real events and real people whose actions and words were inconsistent. And I couldn’t go back and change anything. Not words I’d heard from those who had no reason to lie, not words in the court transcripts. I was writing true crime and was stuck with characters who didn’t ring true. My editor wouldn’t buy them. I didn’t buy them either.

For instance, why was Korwin so nervous and defensive? I didn’t believe that he’d never received Lenore’s late-night messages. If he was a caring, committed psychiatrist, why hadn’t he returned her call?

Why would Robbie, a nasty, self-serving, unethical man who had cheated not only on his wife but on his former fiancée, twice, and probably didn’t know how to spell “guilt” let alone feel it—why would he lie under oath for Lenore?

“Lenore would never have wanted to hurt our son,” he’d kept saying. “I believe my wife.”

Had she threatened Robbie even then to expose his shady business dealings unless he backed her up?

And what about Lenore? “I loved my baby,” she’d sworn. “I would never do anything to hurt my baby.”

My baby is alive, hers is dead. Her baby is dead, mine is alive.

Was Lenore a psychopath who had planned her child’s death to hold on to her man? Had she done it out of vengeance? Or was she a loving mother, frightened because she’d done the unthinkable after a tongue-lashing from her two-timing husband?

But if that were so, why had she seduced another woman’s fiancé and put on her nightgown?

Marie O’Day was shopping for groceries, something I should be doing, but her husband, Tom, was home.

“I guess you can take another look,” he said. “I’m wondering when we can clean the place up and who’s going to take her things, now that her mother’s dead.”

He walked with me to Lenore’s apartment and inserted a key into the new lock. “Let me know when you’re done, and I’ll come lock up,” he said, and left me alone.

The air-conditioning hadn’t been on in a week. The place was hot and smelled mustier, but it looked the same. Books and photos on the floor, goo on the linoleum, broken dishes, a pink pregnancy tester.

A lavender hatbox filled with broken dreams.

I wasn’t sure why I’d come—maybe to take a look at Lenore’s things, now that I was seeing her differently. Maybe I hoped I’d find something she’d hidden, something the vandal had missed.

Well, I didn’t. I searched for about half an hour and gave up. I looked in her closet and under her sink. I checked her refrigerator and freezer. I held her books upside down, one by one, and fanned the pages in case she’d hidden some evidence inside one of them. That’s when I noticed that one of the books was missing.
Rock-a-bye Baby,
by Lawrence Korwin.

“Done, are you?” Tom said when I knocked on his door and told him I was leaving. “Find what you were looking for?”

“No.”

“Neither did that other gal, Lenore’s friend.”

I can’t describe what I was feeling. A frisson, I think they call it. “Nina?”

Tom nodded. “Jittery thing, isn’t she? Came by Monday. Thought she’d left something when she picked up some things for Lenore. Didn’t find it. Hard to find anything in that mess. I asked her what it was, maybe Marie or me would find it when we clean the place up, but she said never mind, it wasn’t important.”

Sometimes when my mind is too crowded with thoughts, I need to do something physical. At home I changed into shorts, a tank top, and running shoes, and climbed onto the treadmill.

It’s boring, isn’t it? Tedious. Kind of pointless, too—walking or running, sweating and getting nowhere, tenths of miles and minutes creeping by with painful slowness and no frequent-runner coupons to show for them. I usually put on the TV or my CD headset, but today I stayed with my thoughts.

Lenore and Robbie, Jillian and Betty. All swirling around, talking to me. Korwin, who had been unnaturally nervous when I’d asked him whether he was close with Lenore—I didn’t care what Connors said.

And Nina. What had she been looking for in Lenore’s apartment, and why had she taken Korwin’s book? She’d probably noticed it last Wednesday, when Lenore had asked her to go to her apartment. Maybe she’d been jealous that Lenore had an advance copy, although as far as I knew, Nina had a copy, too.

I hadn’t checked the book’s inscription, but I assumed it was standard fare. “All best wishes.” “Enjoy the book.” Maybe something more personal: “I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together.” Unless the good doctor had written something intimate? “Let’s get it on—Larry”?

To tell you the truth, my suspicions had been leaning to Korwin. Because he had so much to lose. Because he’d been so nervous, because he had an ego and a temper. But there
was
something jittery about Nina: I’d noticed it during our phone calls and on our visit. And she hadn’t mentioned the call Lenore had made to her, until later. She’d told me Lenore had written in her journal information that could harm Robbie—names and dates and monies involved. But I only had Nina’s word for that.

She was passionate about Korwin and his work.
He gave me hope. He did that for so many other women. . . .
And if she thought he might not be able to help other women because of something Lenore had written and Betty had been about to expose?

Maybe Korwin inspired passion in all his patients. Maybe I was reading something complicated into nothing. I tend to do that. With Lenore dead, Nina may have taken the book to rescue it from the trash bin or from Betty Rowan’s shelves, where it would have moldered. And what was wrong with that?

I showered and changed, and after some hesitation, called Nina to sound her out. She wasn’t home. I checked on Mindy—the obstetrician had said nothing would happen for at least another ten days. As if he knew.

On a whim, I phoned my mom and talked her into joining me for a manicure and pedicure—my treat, I told her. It was five-thirty. On the way to my parents’ I drove to the post office before the lobby was locked for the night. I won’t lie and tell you I receive thousands of fan letters a week, but I do receive some, and I hadn’t visited my P.O. box in a while.

The pampering was a good idea, the time with my mom even better. We sat on adjoining chairs, our feet soaked in deliciously warm water, and she told me she was worried that Liora was rushing, for which I had no answer, and that my dad was working too hard, which all of us knew would never change.

She asked me about Lenore, and I told her what I knew. Too much, too little. “I think she was acting. She slipped up a few times, but they bought her story anyway. And when the D.A. asked her to demonstrate for the court what the voices sounded like, she couldn’t.”

“I have no sense of it now,” my mother said.

I frowned. “That’s exactly what Lenore said when she testified.”

“Mary Warren in
The Crucible
. That’s what Mary says on the stand when the judges want her to demonstrate how she faked hearing spirits along with Abigail and the others.”

Lenore’s favorite play, I remembered.

My mother asked about Zack. “I’m not pushing,” she said.

“I know.” I told her that I’d jumped to conclusions, that it was hard to trust. “But I’m trying. How did you know Dad was the right one?”

“I just knew.”

“I thought I knew with Ron. I thought I loved him.” Too much flash, I’d known even then. Too slick. But so full of life, so much fun.

We talked about other things. What did I think Mindy was having? How was my mom’s new book coming? Was she looking forward to classes in September?

When I dropped her off an hour later, our toenails and fingernails were buffed and polished and so were my spirits. Not bad for twenty dollars apiece plus a tip.

I stopped for a slice of pizza on Fairfax, then at a nearby supermarket where I filled a cart with enough groceries to last two weeks. At home I put away the perishables and stacked the cereals and cans neatly in my small pantry. I knew they wouldn’t stay that way.

I had forgotten my mail in the trunk of my car. I slit open the small envelopes first and scanned the notes. One from a man who loved
Out of the Ashes
. Another from someone who hated it and me and everyone who wasn’t pure white and hoped I burned along with every copy of my horrible book. One letter was from a young reader who hoped to be a writer someday and did I have any advice? Read, I would tell him. Read, read, read.

I’d been right about one of the larger envelopes. It contained a 467-page true-crime manuscript entitled
Love Me, Kill Me
, written by a woman I remembered meeting at a book signing over seven months ago.

The other envelope had no return address, but the letter inside was from Betty Rowan.

forty-two

There were pages accompanying the handwritten letter, which was dated Saturday, two days after Lenore died.

Dear Miss Blume,

Your probably wondering why am I writing to you, with my daughter just dead. I have been sitting here, thinking about my poor baby.

She was only twenty-six. She had a hard life, and she made mistakes. Which we all do, I think you’ll agree. But I think her story should be told, and I think you could be the person to tell it.

She liked you, Miss Blume. That day you visited with her, she enjoyed talking to you. I know because she told me.

Lenore wrote a journal, that she gave me just before she died. It tells her story—the good parts, and the ugly parts. She told me to ask would you be interested in writing about her life. Its one of the last things she said before I left her hospital room that night.

Your probably wondering, how can I be thinking about this write now with my daughter not even buried? Well, its hard, but it was important to my daughter, and I promised I’d ask. So here I am.

I don’t know if you will think this would make a good book, or maybe a movie, too. There’s parts in it that don’t make me sound so good, but its Lenore’s story, and she has the right to tell it the way she saw it.

I am sending you a few sample pages which I copied from the journal. There is lots more, where she talks about the trial. If your interested, let me know, and we can meet.

PLEASE DO NOT TALK ABOUT THIS WITH ANYONE
!!

Betty Rowan

She’d sent me selected photocopied pages, the first dated a month after the trial. The bottom entry on the page, and several entries on the other pages, had been blacked out with marker. I suppose she hadn’t wanted to give away the barn.

Thursday, July 18

Dr. K says all his patients write journals, and I should, too. He says no one will ever see it but me, but how do I know he isn’t lying?

He lies, too.

Everybody lies.

Write that down.

He asked me if I think about the baby.

I told him I do, every day.

Write down what you think, he said.

Mirror, mirror on the wall.

Who’s the greatest liar of them all, you or me?

Monday, July 22

Dr. K assured me again that anything I tell him is confidential. Do you want to talk about why you lied on the stand?

I asked him if he was angry.

This isn’t about me, he said. You seem troubled, and I want to help you.

The truth will set you free.

Thursday, July 25

Dr. K won’t be happy until I tell him something, so I said I shook Max because I was exhausted and frustrated, and I panicked when I saw he was dead.

Tell me how you feel about that, he said.

Friday, November 15

Robbie brought me flowers and kissed me and
told me he can’t spend Thanksgiving with me. He said he
has to be with Maureen. I know Jillian will be
there.

Did you kiss her, too? I asked. Did you sleep with her?

I’ll not have your suspicion anymore.

Then let you not earn it.

Everybody leaves me, nobody stays.

I don’t know if I can stand one more month.

I don’t belong here.

I don’t.

Belong.

But I can’t tell.

Monday, December 9

I’m free at last—without the truth, Dr. K.

Where is Robbie? Why doesn’t he call?

The next entries were dated this year:

Wednesday, February 12

Robbie said filing for divorce is just for show. He needs Jillian’s father to invest in the company, and her daddy won’t do it unless his baby girl is happy.

You are my valentine.

It’s just for now.

My only valentine.

Promise.

Don’t tell.

Wednesday, March 7

The anniversary of our lie.

Wednesday, March 14

Nina’s baby sister drowned when Nina left her unattended in the tub for a minute. She blamed the Hispanic housekeeper, who fled the country.

Nina told me her secret, but I can’t tell her mine.

Yours and mine, entwined.

Promise, she said, don’t tell.

Wednesday, April 2

Dr. K says I have to let go of my fantasies of getting back together with Robbie if I want to get on with my life.

I told him it’s not a fantasy. Robbie loves me, too.

Get some sleep, he said. We’ll talk more tomorrow.

And I have many miles to go and many promises to keep.

Saturday, May 3

I told Robbie I’m tired of playing games. I’m tired of the lies, his and mine. He says he’s trying to work things out. These things take time, Lenore.

Suspicion kissed him when I did.

Nina heard me on the phone. I told her I know names to use if Robbie doesn’t stop the games and wrote them down. Robbie warned me that games can be dangerous.

I said, so am I.

I didn’t tell Nina the truth.

Promise.

Monday, June 9

Betty told me Jillian moved into our house. I think she enjoyed telling me, but I didn’t let on how upset I was. Betty knows. She guessed right away.

Sometimes I want to tell Maureen.

Shall I tell you what happened to your grandson?

You don’t want to know.

Only I know what I know.

And you, my love.

And I will tell,

I promise.

Thursday, June 12

Jillian will be away, the rats will play.

Sunday, July 6

I phoned Jillian and told her, and she called me a liar.

I wore your nightgown and lay with him on your bed. I wear it every time. Ask him why.

Friday, July 11

They set a date! I told Dr. K Robbie has been lying to me all this time, and he said, did you really expect him to take you back, and I said YES! and that’s why I did what I did. YES! and he said it would be all right, we’d be together. Yes! Yes! Yes!

Dr. K figured it out. He asked me and I didn’t say no. I’m not worried because he can’t reveal what I tell him, but I could tell he was upset. What are you going to do, he asked.

Promise, don’t tell.

I think he’s going to terminate therapy.

He is leaving me, too.

Saturday, July 12

Robbie says he set the wedding date because the Hortons are suspicious. After the election he’ll tell Jillian.

Dr. K is worried. Do what you have to do, he said again, but I see the lie in his eyes.

I played him for a fool.

And Nina. She knows.

There is nothing like the sting of betrayal.

Rock-a-bye Baby no more.

The truth doesn’t set you free.