Gone for Good (33 page)

Uniformed police officers and paramedics remained at the house, milling around and discussing town and work gossip. They took turns showing Ronnie their cruisers and wagons, listening patiently as he asked questions about the most common reasons people dialled 911.

I used the phone while we waited. I called Paul and told him about the events of the night. He offered help immediately, insisting on coming over to the house to make sure we were all okay.

‘No, it's all right,' I said. ‘We're almost finished here. In fact, we're going to need a place to stay tonight. I don't think I want to stay in the house after … you know, another dead body and everything.'

‘Of course,' he said. ‘You can stay here.'

‘We might have to sell this house,' I said. ‘It keeps accumulating bad memories.'

‘Absolutely. Your mom was never attached to those kinds of things very much. Get a new house.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘I'll worry about that tomorrow.'

‘Are you sure you don't want me to come over there and pick you and Ronnie up?' he asked. ‘I can.'

‘I don't think so. I'm going to wait for Beth. She might come along with us. I don't know if she'll be up for driving back to Reston Point.'

Paul
fell silent for a moment. ‘Okay,' he said. ‘I just … Is she doing okay? Overall. You know?'

‘I don't know the answer to that either,' I said. ‘But I guess I have to find out now. She's my sister.'

It took another half hour for Detective Post to come back out of the house. Beth walked beside her, wearing a Dover Police Department sweatshirt against the cool night air. I walked up the sidewalk towards them, and the three of us met halfway. Post didn't stay long. She excused herself, saying she needed to consult with someone from the medical examiner's office out in the street.

I immediately wished she had stayed.

Beth and I faced each other on the narrow sidewalk. It took a moment, but I reached out to her, opening my arms. ‘I hope you're okay,' I said.

We hugged. She felt thin and insubstantial, almost as if she might slip away at any moment. She held to me longer than I held to her. When we let each other go, Beth said, ‘I think they're going to bring the body out soon. I could tell they were getting ready to move him.'

‘Would you like to leave?' I asked.

‘I guess I should,' she said. ‘There isn't much else to do here. And it's a long drive in the dark.'

‘I don't mean go home,' I said. ‘I don't think you should go back there alone.'

She looked at me, waiting.

‘I talked to Paul,' I said. ‘We can go to his house and stay there. He has room, and it looks like it will all be safe now.'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I don't –'. She looked around at
the night. She looked at the yard and at the sky. Then she turned back to me. ‘I can't be here with you if there's any chance you believe those things that Gordon said. Either about me or about Mom. I'm a mess – I admit that. But I'm not like him. I'm his daughter, but I'm not him. All I ever wanted was to see Mom again. If you can't understand that or accept it, that's fine. But it's not true. None of those things he said were true.'

I looked back at the house. It was still full of light, but it felt farther away than ever. Mom was gone. Dad was gone. At some point, a page had been turned. It was time to move forward, and I could do it alone or with the help of others.

‘I know,' I said. ‘Why don't we all go to Paul's house?'

Paul opened the door to our ragtag group. A long, awkward moment stretched out as he and Beth stood face to face on his front porch. They seemed to be taking each other in, examining and measuring. Ronnie and I stood to the side, watching. My body ached. I was sure Ronnie's did too. But I didn't move. On TV these reunions were always tearful and full of hugs. Seeing all this up close – living it – I could attest there was more awkwardness and uncertainty than anything else.

Paul blinked his eyes a few times and finally said, ‘Well, I can't really believe what I'm seeing after all this time.'

‘It's me,' Beth said. ‘It's really me.'

Paul finally got a hold of himself and stepped back. He motioned us inside.

‘Please come in,' he said, his voice turning more sombre. ‘I know you've all had a hell of a night.'

We all went in, then settled into Paul's neatly kept living room. Beth sat closest to Paul on the couch, while Ronnie and I were across the room in chairs. I watched Paul watch Beth. His eyes were misted with emotion. His cheeks were flushed. He sat with his hands on his knees, his posture stiff and uncomfortable.

‘I just can't get over the way you look,' he said. ‘Just like Leslie. Just like her.'

‘I
know,' Beth said. She swallowed and raised her hand to her eye, brushing at it.

I felt it too. The whole thing. I didn't know what happened to us when we were gone, if some part of us was still able to look back on this world and watch over our loved ones. But I wanted to think Mom was somewhere where she knew we were all together. The four of us at long last.

And I couldn't help but think of her absence. She should have been there alongside of us. Her three children. Her only sibling.

Her family.

I couldn't help it. I felt the emotion coming over me as well. I took a deep breath and held it in. But I couldn't hide it all.

Ronnie reached over and rubbed his hand on my back. ‘You okay, sis?'

‘I am,' I said. ‘I'm just thinking about Mom.'

‘Me too,' Ronnie said.

We were all nodding. We were all thinking of her.

‘She's here,' Beth said. ‘I can feel her.'

‘Indeed,' Paul said. He seemed to have loosened up just a little. Relaxed. He didn't look at Beth, but he said, ‘I'm just so sorry for all the time you lost.'

Everyone was silent. His words hung in the room like an invisible weight. We all felt the same way. None of us could change it. That was the price Beth had paid for the events of her past: time. She'd lost years of precious time.

Yet she was back. We could all look ahead.

‘Sis?' Ronnie said.

I turned to him. He was looking down.

‘Your
hand,' he said.

I looked down as well. A bandage had come undone on one of my fingers. A bright drop of red blood flowed from beneath it, forming a nearly perfectly round bead.

‘Shit,' I said. And ran to the bathroom.

I peeled the bandage off the ring finger of my right hand. The butterfly strips the paramedic had placed on the cut had worked themselves loose, and the cut had reopened. A smear of blood ran up my finger. I turned the tap on and let the warm water run over my wound. I used a dab of soap to clean the blood.

Paul kept everything so neat. I made sure to drip into the sink and not onto the tile or the carpet. I used a tissue to stem the flow. I applied enough pressure and held tight against the cut until it seemed the blood flow had stopped.

I used my left hand to open the medicine cabinet.

‘Band-Aids, Band-Aids,' I said to myself.

I didn't see them right away, and I felt anxious to get back to the moment we were sharing in the other room.

I moved some things around and finally found the Band-Aids. I took one out, peeled it open, and managed to wrap it around my finger. It felt tight and secure. I tossed my trash away and tried to put the contents of Paul's medicine cabinet back in order. I righted some bottles, adjusted some creams and pastes.

Then I saw the prescription bottle with Paul's name on it.

My hand shook as I reached out and picked it up.

The cut on my finger became the least of my worries. Whatever blood was in my body turned to rock-solid ice.

As I walked down the hallway, the prescription bottle in my hand, I heard faint laughter from the living room. It was Ronnie and Paul laughing. Together.

I came to the end of the hallway and stood in the doorway.

Paul saw the look on my face. So did Beth.

Ronnie noticed something was wrong with me as well. For the second time that night he said, ‘Sis, are you okay?'

‘I stopped the bleeding,' I said.

No one said anything else. They were all looking at me, waiting.

Paul's eyes were wide. He looked stiff and nervous again. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Maybe Ronnie needs to head to bed –'

‘No,' I said. ‘He can hear this. He should hear this.' I held up the pill bottle and shook it. The pills rattled against the plastic bottle. ‘Digoxin, Paul? Do you take digoxin for your heart?'

Paul's face remained frozen, a mask showing uncertainty and nervousness. His eyes ticked back and forth. If he tried to lie, if he tried to create some excuse –

But he didn't. The mask crumpled. He lowered his head. His entire body was shrivelling into the couch. He raised one hand to his forehead, as if he wanted to shade his eyes from a bright light.

‘They're
my pills,' he said, his voice shaky. ‘But I didn't give them to Ronnie that day. That was Gordon.
He
took the pills. He went to the hospital and did it. He made a flood upstairs. He had some plan –'

‘But you gave Gordon the pills?' I asked. ‘Why?'

He lowered his hand to cover his eyes. I looked at Beth. She had scooted against the armrest of the couch. Then she stood up. She backed away from the couch. From Paul.

‘Why would you cooperate with Gordon on something like that?' I asked, moving towards him. ‘What did he know about you that would make you do that?'

Paul was sobbing now, his shoulders shaking. He couldn't have spoken even if he wanted to.

I said it for him.

‘It wasn't Gordon. It was you. You killed Mom, didn't you?'

He didn't show his face. He kept it hidden from us. He said something, something I couldn't make out. It was muffled by his hand.

‘What?' I asked.

He moved his hand aside and said, ‘She knew.'

She knew? What did she know?

‘What did she know, Paul? What could Mom have possibly known?'

He said nothing more.

‘Paul?' I said. ‘What? Did Mom know something … something about Gordon or you?'

‘I was there,' he said. ‘Beth … that night …'

‘Where were you?' I asked.

Beth supplied the answer. ‘Oh, Jesus. It was you. You
drove the car that night. You were with Gordon, and you were the one who drove me to the bus station.'

I came farther into the room. I sat in the chair I had been sitting in before. I looked at Ronnie. He stared at Paul, his mouth open. He looked confused, angry.

‘You drove Beth away that night. And Mom found out. And you killed her because … she was going to report you? Is that it?'

He didn't respond.

‘That's why she changed the will before she died. That's why she removed you as Ronnie's guardian. She knew you drove Beth away. Who told her? Gordon?'

‘Yes,' he said, his voice feeble.

‘Why?' I asked.

‘Because she wouldn't give him any more money,' he said. ‘And he was a fucking bastard, and he wanted to make your mom feel rotten about me and everything else in her life. That's why.'

‘And when Mom found out, she cut you out of her life.' I looked at Ronnie again. ‘And our lives. But why did you have to kill her?'

Paul finally spoke. ‘She said she wasn't going to, but she changed her mind. She'd been reconnecting with Beth. I guess doing that brought back a lot of the old feelings from when Beth … went away. The guilt, mostly. Your mom experienced a lot of guilt. She hadn't fought hard enough to find Beth. She felt she could have pushed the police harder and made something happen. So she wasn't going to let me off the hook. She
was
going to turn me in. Gordon too.'

‘But after all that time?' Beth asked. ‘What could they do to you?'

‘We'd
have faced some trouble,' he said. ‘Real trouble. What do you think the police and the media would think of a story like that? What would people think here in Dover? You know, there's no statute of limitations on kidnapping a child. And that's really what we did. Beth was a minor. She didn't know what she was doing. Children are entrusted to our care. We can't just … cast them out. Leslie wanted to send me to jail. I went there that night to talk to her, to try to convince her that she didn't have to do it. She sent Ronnie away so we could talk in private.' He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. ‘I begged her not to do it. I really did. I told her that her whole family was back together again. She knew Beth. She had the two of you. I was still her brother. I told her that – I was
still
her brother. But she wouldn't budge. Her guilt was so strong, her instinct to do whatever she could for you kids. She just … wouldn't listen.'

I looked at Paul, the empty shell of the uncle I once knew. I thought that if I opened the front door and the wind blew in, it would turn him into scraps and whisk him away. He was gone. Whatever I once knew in him was gone.

‘I was going to tell the police,' Paul said. ‘That day at the hospital, when I asked to talk to the detective alone. I was going to confess. I wanted to. I thought … I thought I couldn't live with it all any more. I wanted to get caught, to have it all over with. But I didn't get my chance to talk to the police – you were there the whole time.'

‘You didn't have the guts,' I said. ‘You couldn't stand up to Gordon.'

‘No, I couldn't. You're right. I still can't.'

‘Still?'

‘That
night,' he said.

‘What night?'

‘We went to the diner …'

He didn't finish his sentence. But I remembered what Gordon had said at Mom's house – that when he broke into my apartment, he'd needed a little help.

‘You kept me there at the diner while Gordon broke in and trashed my place. You still let him use you that way. You put all of us in jeopardy.'

‘It's just –' He stopped. ‘Once I did live with what I'd done, I realized I'd rather live with the guilt and shame than go to jail. I just couldn't think about going to jail. You needed me. You and Ronnie. When your mom … when she was gone, I had a real purpose again. I was an uncle, almost a dad. I thought if I could be out here, I could do more good …'

‘No,' I said. ‘I'm going to finish the job for Mom.'

I took out my phone and dialled Detective Post. As I had hoped, she was still at Mom's house, wrapping up matters there. I told her where to meet us and what she could expect to find. She told me they would be there as soon as possible.

I wasn't really worried about them hurrying. Paul wasn't going anywhere – I'm not even sure he would have been capable of moving off the couch.

Beth remained on the far side of the room, as if afraid to come near Paul. And Ronnie – I turned to look at him. His face was blank, almost expressionless, except for the tears that ran down his cheeks.

I wanted to stop. I wanted it all to stop. But I had to know one more thing.

‘How
– Why did you ever get mixed up with Gordon in the first place? Why would you make those movies, or do any of those things?'

He didn't respond, but I wasn't going to let it go. I asked him again.

‘Why, Paul? Why that?'

Still silence. I stood up and took a step towards him.

‘
Why?
' My voice was a ringing shout. Ronnie jumped at the sound of it. But Paul didn't move. He didn't look up as he spoke.

‘I was divorced,' he said. ‘My wife left me. You and Ronnie don't remember your aunt Diana. But you do, don't you?'

Beth nodded.

‘She left me, Diana. She … eviscerated me when she left. She cheated on me. She just … gutted me. That's the only way I can describe it.' He sniffled.

‘So,' I said. ‘What does that have to do with Gordon?'

‘I was vulnerable. Weak. Gordon was my brother-in-law. He was older. You have to understand, I knew him and remembered him from high school. That was imprinted on me. But Gordon wasn't the same guy he was in high school. He wasn't the big man any more. His life was sliding when Beth was a teenager. He lost his sales job. Did you know that, Beth?'

Beth shook her head. ‘He changed jobs when I was about twelve, I guess.'

‘He was let go,' Paul said. ‘He was a big talker but not much of a doer. A blowhard, and his bosses could see it. But I couldn't really. I still saw him as that guy from high school. I fell for that memory. I was swayed by it. He took me down a dark path I shouldn't have gone down.'

‘What
dark path?' I asked.

‘It started small,' Paul said. ‘Gordon was receiving stolen property. I knew that. I let him store things at my house for a while, and he gave me a cut of the proceeds. I knew it was illegal, but I went along. Something about the sense of danger and recklessness made me feel alive again. Hell, I didn't really care if I got caught or not. I didn't care about anything then. I told myself I wasn't hurting anyone, that I was a passive participant in those things. It was an excuse and a poor one at that.'

‘I agree,' I said.

He smiled a little. ‘You sound just like your mother when you say that.'

‘How did this lead to the night you drove Beth away?' I asked.

‘Like I said, the things I did were small. Mostly. Once I helped Gordon with a stolen car.' He shook his head. ‘He didn't tell me it was stolen. But I knew. I drove it for him, and another guy picked it up. By that point, I was starting to get worried about myself. I knew I needed to snap out of it. I had a job. I needed to get back to having a real life again. That car thing, it was a turning point in my mind. I told myself that I wouldn't do that any more, any of it. But then Gordon contacted me and asked for one more favour.'

‘The movies?'

He nodded. ‘I didn't know that's what they were going to be doing that night. Gordon told me we were just going to be hanging out and drinking, that there would be women there. He dangled that in front of me. Women. I guess he knew what I desired deep down. Maybe I did need that.'

‘Sex?'
I asked.

‘I was
alone
when Diana left. We didn't have kids. I didn't think I'd ever have kids. Being alone that way … I was lost. Empty. Believe it or not, Gordon's suggestion of sex helped. It brought me along. I went along. I needed to. I wanted to feel … I don't know …'

‘Like a man again?' Beth asked. ‘Desirable?'

Paul looked at Beth. He seemed to be seeing her for the first time. ‘That's right.'

‘I've been there,' Beth said. ‘I didn't respond to it the way you did. But I know how that feels.'

‘I didn't know they were going to be making a movie like that. I wouldn't have gone along with it. I showed up and walked into the middle of that. That was … across the line. Disgusting. I took a stand, believe it or not. I told Gordon I was going to leave.'

‘Why didn't you?' I asked.

‘He asked me to do one more thing,' Paul said. ‘He told me one of the girls needed a ride to the bus station, and he asked me to drive the car. I didn't know it was Beth at first. I thought it was strange. Gordon rode in the back with the girl. He had her down low, a coat or something over her. I didn't ask questions. I didn't want to know. I just turned the radio on and drove, kept my eyes on the road.'

‘Classical music,' Beth said, her voice small and hollow. ‘You were listening to classical music.'

‘You didn't know it was Beth at first,' I said. ‘When did you find out?'

‘When she was gone,' Paul said. ‘Right after that, she was gone. I put it together. Gordon's secrecy that night.
The girl hidden in the backseat. I was an accessory to Beth's disappearance. Or her running away. Whatever it was, I had played a big role. I'd helped it happen.'

‘So why didn't you come clean?' I asked. ‘Tell Mom? Tell the police?'

‘I went to Gordon and told him what I knew,' Paul said. ‘I asked him where Beth had gone and told him we needed to make it right.' Paul sighed. ‘He had leverage over me. The crimes I'd been involved in. Even driving Beth away. He knew those things, and he threatened to use them against me.'

‘You gave your niece away,' I said. ‘She was a kid. You couldn't stand up to him?'

He didn't answer me.

‘Well?'

There was a long silence. When at last he spoke, he looked at Beth. ‘I'm sorry, Beth. But the truth is … it sometimes seemed Leslie would have been happier with you gone. And you seemed like you might be happier as well.'