Blues in the Night (26 page)

forty-three

I should have gone straight to Connors. I know that now. Instead I drove to Zena’s house. She had a pinched look around her mouth and was unhappy to see me. She probably regretted our last conversation and didn’t want to become involved, but she opened the door and invited me in. She was wearing an apron, which explained the wonderful aroma wafting in from the kitchen. Not apple this time. Peach, I think.

“I’m wondering if I could take a look in Mrs. Rowan’s house,” I said, standing in her tidy living room.

She wiped her floured hands on the apron. “Why?”

I explained that I was looking for Lenore’s journal. My guess was that Betty had made a copy, and had hidden it when she became frightened. She may have given the original to Saunders when he’d first asked her to get it. Or she’d handed it over to her killer, hoping to save herself.

“Shouldn’t you leave that to the police?” Zena asked, eyes narrowed.

“I intend to give it to Detective Connors if I find it. I’m anxious to see if it’s in Betty’s house.”

“A friend of Lenore’s came by here just yesterday and asked me to let her into Betty’s.”

“Nina?” I asked. My chest tightened.

Zena nodded. “We met one time before. She was in the car when Lenore came to see Betty. I happened to be there. She said she’d loaned Lenore a book, and Lenore may have given it to her mother, so she wanted to look for it. But I can’t let people in just like that. It’s not my place.”

“You can call Detective Connors,” I told her. “He’ll vouch for me.”

Zena thought that over, and I guess she decided it was okay. She left me in the living room and returned a minute later.

“My husband and I are leaving in five minutes to see a movie. Drop the key in my mailbox when you’re done.”

I promised I would.

It’s creepy entering a place when you know the owner’s been murdered. The house was hot and filled with dead air. I switched on a living room lamp and the chandelier in the dining room to dispel the gloom. Whoever had killed Betty Rowan had no doubt searched before me, but I checked behind crockery and glassware in the china cabinet and underneath the living room sofa and cushions.

Betty’s bedroom hadn’t been disturbed. The white eyelet coverlet, surrounded by blue and white pillows of different sizes and shapes, lay smooth on the bed. I unzipped the cases but found nothing. The dresser drawers were filled with packets of floral sachet whose cloying fragrance rose like ghosts when I touched them.

I had an uncomfortable moment as I entered the small, paneled den where Betty had been killed—an image of her struggling with her killer flashed in front of my eyes. I blinked it away. She had few photos. Most of them were in a cardboard box in a closet. Betty with Lenore’s father. Betty and Lenore. Betty and a series of other men, some more handsome than others. One photo was on a lamp table: Betty with Lenore and Robbie, her future secured.

She did have a dozen albums filled with pictures and articles she’d cut out from magazines of movie stars, old and new, and of Hollywood. Her true love. Some of the pictures and articles had yellowed beneath their plastic sheets.

I searched the rest of the house and returned to the albums. I opened one and flipped through the pages, and that’s where I found a photocopied page of the journal, inserted between a glossy, full-page head shot of Susan Sarandon and the narrowly corrugated backing that kept her from slipping. My heart thumped. I searched through each album, and when I was done, I had found fifty-four pages. I went through the albums again and searched behind every photo, but I didn’t find the list of names Nina had told me about, individuals Robbie had bribed and the amounts he’d paid them, and when. Lenore’s insurance.

I’d wondered earlier whether Nina had lied to send me down the wrong trail, but according to Lenore’s journal, it was
Lenore
who had lied to Nina.
I didn’t tell her the truth.

What truth? And if Lenore wasn’t holding that list over Robbie’s head, what had she meant when she’d warned him that she was dangerous? What information did she have that, according to Darren Porter, would send Robbie to jail for the rest of his life?

In the next-to-last entry, Lenore wrote that Korwin had figured “it” out and so had Nina. But what had Korwin meant when he’d told her “do what you have to do”?

And why would Lenore tell Nina she’d planned to kill her child?

I sat down in the middle of the room on the carpeted floor and spread out the pages, which were out of order.

I found the first entry, the one I’d seen, dated Thursday, July 18.

Dr. K says all his patients write journals, and I should, too. He said 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?

I thought I knew.

I’d been looking at Lenore through Donna Bergen’s eyes. People had told me Lenore was obsessed with Robbie, that she’d do anything to hold on to him, and I’d taken a giant leap and assumed that she’d killed her child.

But maybe she’d
lied
for him.

I read the rest of that first page, the part Betty had blacked out on my copy.

Monday, July 22

Robbie loves me so much. When they took me, he came every day to see me, to tell me everything was going to be okay.

Remember Elizabeth Proctor, and this isn’t prison. I’ll be out in nine months at the most, maybe six, and then we’ll be together. The pills they watch me swallow make me drowsy, and sometimes I wonder what is real and what isn’t.

Tuesday, August 6

I was so angry when I phoned him at the office, and

A door opened.

I froze and stopped breathing for a few seconds. Maybe I was wrong. I strained, trying to detect something in the silence, but I couldn’t hear because my heart was pounding in my ears.

Another sound. The click of a door being shut.

“Molly?”

Saunders’s voice.

I’d locked the front door behind me and wondered how he’d gotten in, but then I remembered: This was his house, not Betty’s. He had a key.

There was a cordless phone on the small brown sofa. I stood, careful not to make noise, and walked to the sofa. My hand shook as I lifted the receiver to my ear.

No dial tone. The battery was dead. My purse with my cell phone was on the dining room table.

“Miss Blume? Where are you?”

I knelt on the carpet and gathered the pages, cringing at the explosion of rustling. There was an air-conditioning floor vent next to the sofa, against the wall. The door to the den was open, and I could hear his footsteps on the wood floor. Holding the pages in one hand, I removed the grate as quietly as I could and shoved the pages inside. I replaced the grate and was moving away from the vent when he stood in the open doorway.

“There you are.” He expelled a breath of what sounded like genuine relief, but I knew better. “For a minute there I was really nervous. Why didn’t you answer me?”

“Thank God it’s you,” I said, dancing the dance because I didn’t know what else to do. I placed my hand on my chest and felt my heart racing. “I didn’t recognize your voice. I was frightened.”

“I don’t blame you.” He took a step into the room. “Mrs. Lopost’s keeping an eye on the house for me. She phoned to tell me you were here looking for Lenore’s journal and wanted to make sure that was okay. She said Nina Weldon had been by to look for something, too, and I started worrying. This may sound crazy, but I’m wondering if she killed Betty and thought she’d left some evidence.”

“You may be right.” Terror was pinching my throat, and I found it hard to talk. “Nina seems extremely nervous and tense. I think she was jealous of Lenore’s relationship with Dr. Korwin. I think Lenore knew, and wrote about it in her journal. Maybe Betty blackmailed Nina with it. That’s why I was looking for the journal, but I couldn’t find it. I think we should phone Detective Connors right away, don’t you?” I made a move toward the door, but he just stood there, his large frame blocking the opening.

“Good idea.” His eyes were on the albums on the carpet, many of them still open. Vivien Leigh smiled at me.

My heart thudded. “Those are amazing, have you seen them? Betty has wonderful pictures of all these movie stars, she must have been a real fan.” I was babbling, and I hoped he didn’t hear the edge of panic in my voice.

“I have to hand it to Betty.” He shook his head in admiration. “I never thought to look there. You did. But I guess as a writer you have to have imagination. Where’d you put the pages?”

There was a door to my left, but I had no idea where it led. I took a baby step toward it. “I told you, I couldn’t find the journal.”

“Good try.” He smiled, apparently amused. “Betty gave me the original, then phoned me the next day and said she’d made a copy. She wanted money, as if I haven’t been giving her enough all these years. Greedy bitch.”

“Why?” I was nauseated with fear, talking to a man who had killed at least one person and wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, but I had to know.

“Don’t play games, Molly. You obviously read the journal. Lenore told Betty I was the one who shook the baby. It’s ridiculous, of course—Lenore was on drugs half the time, and the other half, she was delusional. But I wanted to keep Betty happy. She helped me convince Lenore to sign the divorce papers.” He took another step toward me. “Give me the journal pages, Molly.”

“I don’t have them. Maybe Nina found them after all.” I shrugged and used the opportunity to look around for a weapon. I didn’t see one. I took another step to my left.

“The journal’s crap, Molly. But it could be embarrassing to me, especially now. I’m willing to pay you for it. Not that I have to. But I’m willing to do it.”

Was this what he’d told Betty? “I wish I could help you.”

He sighed. “Molly.”

I’ve never heard the promise of so much menace attached to a name. “I put the pages back in the albums,” I told him and pointed to the carpet.

His eyes followed my finger. In two steps I was at the door. I yanked it open and ran through a laundry room into a long, narrow, dark kitchen. I found the nearest drawer, opened it, and felt around with desperate fingers. Towels and papers.

A pair of scissors.

He was right behind me. I grabbed the scissors. His hand clamped down on mine and squeezed my fingers until I screamed in pain, but I wouldn’t let go of the scissors.

He clamped his free hand on my mouth. I bit at the palm and tasted blood.

“Bitch.”

I shoved my elbow behind me into muscle and heard him grunt. I shoved again and met air. He slipped something soft and smooth around my throat and jerked it tight. A scarf. I let go of the scissors, heard them clatter to the tile floor as I tugged at the silky length of fabric that was squeezing my windpipe. Oh God, was this how Aggie felt before she died?

I couldn’t breathe, I was dizzy and faint. Bracing myself against the counter, I lunged backward as hard as I could, surprising him. We fell together, the scarf around my throat looser, and I heard a thunk as his head hit first the wall, then the floor.

I used both hands to wrest the scarf away from him, but he pulled it tighter. Keeping one hand between my neck and the scarf, I reached behind me and pinched hard at the skin on the inside of his thigh, my freshly manicured nails digging deep. He yelled and grabbed my arm.

I pulled away, the scarf no longer a noose, and crawled on the floor, stretching out my hand in a wide sweep as I felt for the scissors. His hand gripped my ankle like a vise. I kicked free and scrambled to my feet, wheezing, my throat raw and aching, every breath a fiery pain, and still I couldn’t get enough air. He grunted again, and I knew he was getting up, too.

My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I made out the shape of an appliance on the counter. A blender. I raced for it, grabbed it, and turned around, holding the thick, heavy glass container high as Robbie came at me with the scissors aimed at my throat.

I slammed the container into his nose. He screamed. Blood spurted out of his nose, but he was still coming toward me. Raising the container higher, I slammed it into his forehead until he fell to the floor. I think it was only two times. It could have been three.

He’d dropped the scissors. I picked them up and approached him gingerly. The rise and fall of his chest told me he was alive, and though he looked unconscious, I took three dish towels and knotted them together, then rolled him over and tied his hands behind his back.

I found my cell phone in my purse and phoned Connors.

forty-four

Later, I read some of the other journal entries.

Tuesday, August 6

I was so angry when I phoned him at the office, and later on his cell phone.

Was I sleeping when he came home? He says I was, even though the baby was crying, but I was so tired. He tried holding him, tried giving him a bottle with formula, but nothing would quiet him.

I know he didn’t mean to hurt the baby. I know how tired he was because Max hadn’t slept all night, how frustrated from the long day. And I didn’t help. Calling him so often, bothering him at work, accusing him of being with Jillian. That really made him angry, and I don’t blame him. And I was the one who refused to have a nurse.

So it’s my fault, too, isn’t it?

He says he didn’t realize how hard he was shaking the baby until Max suddenly stopped crying and he saw that something was wrong. He was terrified, and I believe him. I would have been terrified, too. It could have been me, couldn’t it? He loved Max, so why would he want to hurt him?

He was sobbing when he woke me and told me the baby was dead. He wanted to call the police right away. If I were a mother they’d understand, he said, but now they’ll lock me away for years, and we’ll never be together.

Thursday, August 8

Sometimes I don’t remember who came up with the idea
first. I think it was me. Elizabeth Proctor lied for John, even though he cheated on her. She went to prison for the man she loved, and I didn’t want to lose my lover and my son on the
same day.

He came to see me every day. You’re so brave, he said. I can’t believe you’re doing this for me, and I told him it was for us.

Tuesday, September 10

I think about Max every day, and even when I press my
hands against my ears I hear his cry. Robbie says we can have another baby right away, but the emptiness will always be
there.

Three more months.

Maternity.

Eternity.

Friday, February 14

Sometimes I think he’s lying to me, and we’ll never be together. He says he can’t upset Donald Horton now, and I understand. But what if that’s just an excuse?

I threatened to tell the police the truth, but who will believe me?

Friday, May 5

Betty says if I don’t sign the divorce papers Robbie won’t let her stay in the house. Why should I care?

You owe me, she says. I could have had an abortion.

Sometimes I wish she had.

Friday, June 13

Robbie set the table with candles and wine. After dinner we went into the bedroom and he had me put on one of Jillian’s nightgowns. It’s exquisite, cream silk with lace.

It looks much more beautiful on you, he said.

Be patient.

You know I love you.

Friday, July 11

Dr. K says I should tell the police the truth, but I have to be prepared that they might not believe me. Don’t worry about me, he said. Do what you need to do. But I think he is worried.

What I need is Robbie.

I shouldn’t have told Nina the truth. She is angry that I fooled Dr. K, and hurt that I lied to her.

Saturday, July 12

Robbie told me Jillian’s away. He begged me to come, he wants to explain. I’m so angry, but he has a right to know about the baby.

A second chance, his last.