Miss Me When I'm Gone (27 page)

Yeah?

Did you steal our toothbrushes?

What?

Diane says she thinks it must’ve been you. Once she heard you were here.

Now, why would I want to do that?

I don’t know. She says you’re the only one who’s been in the house. The only one with a reason.

Let’s talk about that later. Come on, now. We’re talking about the day you tried to save Shelly.

I don’t think I could have. She’d already bled so much.

Yeah. I understand. I’m sure you tried everything you could.

Yes. I suppose so.

Everyone knows you did. I didn’t come here to question that. I just wanted to ask you about what she said to you before she died.

Yes.

Are you ready to talk about that?

Maybe.

It was just a few words, wasn’t it?

Yes.

She said, “I can’t forgive him.” Right?

No. She said, “I can’t forgive you.” You. Right?

Right. And who was she talking to, Dr. Skinner?

I don’t know,
Dr. Skinner whimpered.

Are you sure? Was Frank Grippo in the room?

Yes.

Was she looking at him?

There was a long silence.

Was she looking at Frank when she said it?
Gretchen asked again.

Dr. Skinner said something inaudible.

What?
said Gretchen.

No,
he said.

No, she wasn’t looking at Frank.

She was looking at you, wasn’t she?

Yes. I believe she was.

Do you think she was really talking to you? Or to someone in her head?

Another long silence.

How could I know that? She’d lost so much blood.

Gretchen didn’t say anything.

I don’t know, dear.
Dr. Skinner sounded very hoarse now.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how it happened.

Sure you do. She looked at you and she told you she couldn’t forgive you.

Yes.

Why would she need to forgive you? You’re not the one who beat her up, are you?

No!
Dr. Skinner exclaimed.
Don’t say that. Of course not.

C’mon, now. Maybe you just don’t want to remember.

No. No!
Dr. Skinner was shouting now.

Then why . . .

I would never do that to her. I loved her.

Gretchen sighed.
Of course you wouldn’t. Of course you did.

I’m very tired, dear.

Gretchen didn’t reply.

Forgive me,
Dr. Skinner said.
But I’m—

I heard you,
Gretchen said.
No one is going to forgive you. No one’s left who can.

Oh, dear,
said Dr. Skinner.

Yes,
Gretchen said dully.
Oh, dear.

I’m awfully tired. Do you think you could come back again?

I’m not sure,
said Gretchen.
What for?

Oh. Well. I’ve missed you, dear. And you turned out pretty smart. Smarter than I thought you would.

Yeah. Didn’t I?
Gretchen said.

And then the recording stopped.

I waited for more. Nothing. I skipped to the next recording. Nothing. It skipped back to the first recording, with Phil Coleman.

“Oh God,” I said, getting up from the bed quickly. The baby kicked lightly. “Oh God, Charlie. What am I supposed to do now?”

No response from either God or Charlie Bucket.

I threw the recorder down on the bed and grabbed my keys.

Chapter 56

The Skinner house was the nicest on Durham Road. It was a colonial-style brick house with white-framed windows and a pretty, elaborate doorway: a house befitting the town’s beloved old doctor.

A petite elderly woman pulled the door open. Although her hair was white, she didn’t appear nearly as old as Dr. Skinner had sounded. Her complexion was smooth and pink, her bright green eyes complemented by a similarly colored twinset.

“Hello, Mrs. Skinner?” I asked.

“Yes?” She smiled at me, then picked up the black Pomeranian who’d been yipping at her feet. “Shut up, Libby.”

“I’m Jamie Madden. I’ve met your daughter . . . I’m a friend of—”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Skinner interrupted me. “Yes. You. I didn’t know you were expecting.”

“How would you know that?” I asked, then regretted how abrupt I sounded.

“Diane’s mentioned you. Gretchen Brewer’s friend, right? Please, come in.”

Libby gave a little snarl of protest, but Mrs. Skinner squeezed her a bit, which seemed to silence her.

“Well . . . Gretchen Waters . . . but yes.”

“Gretchen Waters. Yes. I always forget.”

“I was wondering if it would be possible to talk to Dr. Skinner?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Mrs. Skinner said, leading me to the kitchen and offering me a chair. “Not right now, anyway. He’s sleeping. And I don’t know how much you know about my husband’s condition . . . but won’t you sit down a minute? I was about to have a little snack here. Would you like a slice of banana bread?”

Did these Emerson women do anything besides bake? “Um . . . no thanks.”

“Here . . . please. Just sit a minute, at least.”

I did. “You don’t anticipate Dr. Skinner will be up for a while, I guess?”

“Oh . . . one never knows . . . I’d hate to have you sitting here for hours and hours, but . . . are you sure I can’t get you something to drink at least? How about some tea? I’m having some. I have a lemon kind. No caffeine.”

“Well . . . sure. That would be nice. Thank you.” I figured with a tea in my hand, I could sit here for longer—wait for Dr. Skinner to wake up.

Mrs. Skinner put a kettle on the stove. “Diane’s told me a little about you. Friend of Gretchen Brewer’s. That was a real shame, what happened to that girl. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. Yeah, it was.”

“So it’s the doctor you want to talk to, then?” Mrs. Skinner asked.

“If possible. I understand if it’s not—”

“Gretchen talked to him a great deal. I don’t think it could’ve been all that helpful, though.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure if it was.”

“But I kept letting her come back. He seemed to enjoy it, and if she didn’t mind, then, well . . .” Mrs. Skinner touched her white hair gently as she sat at the table with me. “I didn’t see any harm in it.”

“I see,” I said, wondering if Mrs. Skinner could possibly know so little that she truly believed what she was saying.

“Diane didn’t care for it, though,” Mrs. Skinner said. “When she found out.
She
thought it might become a problem.”

“For whom? Your husband, or—”

“Yes. My husband. She thought it was stressful for him.”

“Did you agree?” I asked.

“I didn’t so much at first. But since Gretchen’s not come anymore, he asks for her. ‘Where is that girl? That girl who was going to listen to me play the fiddle?’ And I have to tell him she’s not coming back. I’m not sure if I should tell him why, though. I don’t see any sense in it.”

“That sounds difficult.”

Mrs. Skinner got up and took a teapot out of her cabinet—it was a delicate white, decorated with little strawberries. She threw three tea bags into it.

“Yes. I suppose it is difficult.” She returned to the table with the pot. “He’s easy enough to distract, though.”

“I’ve wondered . . . how much did Gretchen talk to
you
?”

“Me? Oh, not very much. I didn’t know Shelly like Diane did. Just what she was like as a girl, coming over our house. And I think she was most interested in George’s experience that day . . . the day of the murder.”

“I’d think at this point your memory of what he’d said about it over the years would’ve been more useful to Gretchen than what Dr. Skinner could manage to put together.”

Mrs. Skinner shrugged. “You’d think, but that’s not what Gretchen chose to focus on. And I’m not the writer, so what do I know?”

“If
I
wanted to ask you some questions, to clarify what Gretchen had written . . .”

Mrs. Skinner looked surprised—then flattered. “Oh. Yes. I’ll talk to you about it, dear. Of course.”

“Well . . . Do you mind telling me about that morning? I mean, before we get to what your husband said about it . . . what you remember? Like, when did Frank come to the door?”

“Well, it was relatively early in the morning for a Saturday, I remember. I was dressed, but George wasn’t. We’d gotten a late start that morning.”

“Were you out the night before?”

“Yes. Quite late. We’d been to a dinner party at these people’s house, the Kings. Wilbur King always made his cocktails way too strong.” Mrs. Skinner chuckled self-consciously. “It always took an extra hour or two to recover enough to drive a car.”

“So you got in late the night before?”

“Yes. Anyway, when Frank Grippo knocked on our door, George was still in his robe and slippers. Which is how he ended up at Shelly’s that way.”

“Uh-huh. So you two were having breakfast when he came?”

“Yes. Well. Having coffee. Reading the paper. I don’t remember if we were really eating breakfast yet.”

“You’d been up for a bit, though?”

Mrs. Skinner shrugged. “Yes. Far as I remember.”

“Okay. So Frank Grippo comes to the door . . .”

“Yes. Ringing the doorbell and banging on the door all at once. I opened it and he pushed by me into the living room, yelling for the doctor. ‘We need a doctor!’ he was saying. And he had blood on his shirt. George heard the ruckus and came into the living room to see what it was all about. I was a little scared, because Frank seemed crazed. Still, George just followed him right out the door.”

“You didn’t think of going along?”

“No . . . he asked for a doctor. I guess I was afraid of him. And if he really needed a doctor, I knew I couldn’t help.”

“He did say that it was Shelly who was hurt, though, right?”

“Yes.”

“Were you worried about Shelly when you heard that?”

“Of course. It was a confusing moment, though. I didn’t know if Frank was telling the truth, or just going a little crazy. I never trusted that Frank Grippo.”

I studied Mrs. Skinner’s earnest emerald eyes and felt she was telling the truth as she knew it.

“Um . . .” I struggled to remember my next question. “Diane was living here at that time, wasn’t she?”

“Yes. She was in grad school, living at home to save money.”

I nodded. “Where was she during all of this?”

“She was sleeping, actually.”

“Hadn’t she been out jogging?”

“Yes. In fact, I was already awake when she came home. I was picking up the paper when she came in, I remember. But she said her knee was hurting her. She took something for it and went back to bed for a bit. She’s always had that bad knee, but that morning I ended up being grateful for it.”

“Why’s that?”

The teakettle began to whistle, and Mrs. Skinner poured the water into the pot.

“Because if it hadn’t been for that, she would’ve gone with her father to Shelly’s. I know she would’ve. But she was asleep when Frank came over. Didn’t wake up till her father came back, and Shelly was off in the ambulance.”

“How long did it take Dr. Skinner to get back?”

“Oh . . . I don’t recall exactly. About forty-five minutes. And when he did, he was like Frank—blood all over his clothes. It was terrifying. And he looked so terrible. He told me later that in all his years as a doctor he’d never seen anything so brutal. He didn’t say that in front of Diane. Just later. But it was clearly terrible for even him to see. He was quite shaken. Just imagine how it would’ve been for Diane, having to see her old friend . . .”

“But when your husband got home, how did he describe what he’d seen?”

“He told both Diane and me that Shelly had been beaten very badly. So badly he thought someone had tried to kill her. That he thought it was Frank. Diane kept asking, ‘Did you save her, Dad? Did you save her?’ And he had to say that he had tried, but he wasn’t sure. It didn’t look good.”

Mrs. Skinner got up and took two mugs out of the cabinet, handing me one.

“Diane was in shock. She stared at him like he was crazy, like she didn’t know what he was saying. Like . . . ‘Did she come over here asking for help? Was she bleeding? What are you talking about?’ It was so awful. And he had to start over, telling about Frank coming over, and trying to save her, and the police and the ambulance. And she kept asking him, ‘Did you save her, Dad?’ And he had to keep saying he’d tried his best and he was hopeful, but it didn’t look good.”

Mrs. Skinner shook her head, gazing at the teapot. I wondered if Gretchen had ever heard this story. I suspected not.

“But the news just wouldn’t quite sink in for Diane,” Mrs. Skinner continued, sliding her mug between her hands. “Because then she started pushing her father, hitting him. She started screaming at him, ‘Why, Dad? Why?’ She was hysterical for a few minutes. I had to pull her away and sit her down. Got her a drink of water while her father went and changed out of those bloody clothes.”

Mrs. Skinner stood up and pulled the teapot toward her, gripping the handle. It seemed to me the graphic detail of the bloody clothes disturbed her, so I changed the subject slightly.

“I would think the police would’ve wanted to talk to your husband right away about what he saw,” I said.

“Yes. They did, right on the scene. Then a couple of times later.”

“Did Dr. Skinner tell you about what Shelly said right when he got home that day?”

“Oh . . . that.” Mrs. Skinner poured my tea carefully. “Gretchen did seem terribly interested in that. No. I think he was too much in shock about everything he’d seen. And maybe it didn’t seem as significant till after she died. I don’t think he would’ve talked about that in front of Diane, anyway. Not right away, I mean.”

“So what Shelly said . . . that didn’t come up right away. Do you remember the first time he talked about it?”

“No.” Mrs. Skinner put a near-empty squeeze bottle of honey on the table and got us each a spoon. “I believe it wasn’t till a few days later. He told the police one of the times they questioned him about that morning, and he came home and told me.”

“And what were her words . . . to your recollection?”

Mrs. Skinner paused to attempt squirting honey into her tea. The bottle wheezed a few times and finally produced a few drops.

“She looked up at Frank standing there, and said, ‘I can’t forgive you. I can’t.’ ”

“He talked about that a lot, didn’t he?”

Mrs. Skinner stirred her tea, considering the question.

“Well. He talked about that morning a lot. Her saying that, actually not so much. Just . . . what she’d looked like, how brutal it was.”

“And he pretty firmly believed it was Frank?”

Mrs. Skinner took a thoughtful sip of tea, then nodded.

“Yes. And me, too.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well. Maybe this doesn’t sound very smart, but who else would it be? She’d taken up with this alcoholic who didn’t treat her well, and maybe she was cheating on him. Not that that excuses it at all, of course not. But all the signs were there.” Mrs. Skinner sighed. “I . . . um . . . hope that doesn’t sound too harsh. Shelly was a lovely girl. She was trying really hard. I didn’t mean to say she deserved to be killed. Frank Grippo was an animal and should have gone to jail for the rest of his life.”

I nodded. Duly noted. It was the sort of line everyone around here had about Frank Grippo. Then another question occurred to me.

“Your newspaper. Was Kevin Conley your paperboy?”

“Yes. Oh. You must have read about the trial. The business about the cars.”

“Yeah. You said you were just picking up the paper when Diane came home. What time was that?”

“I don’t know, dear. I don’t check my watch every minute. And it was over twenty years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess it’s not important.”

The paper couldn’t have been delivered until around seven, according to Kevin. Mrs. Skinner went out to get it at that time or later. And Diane was just coming in from her jog then? After seeing Frank’s car in Shelly’s driveway at five forty-five, just five houses down? Either she wasn’t as certain of her timing as she’d claimed to be, or that must have been one hell of a bad knee to take her over an hour to make her way home. But maybe Mrs. Skinner’s memory of the timing was, understandably, shaky.

“Won’t you have a slice of banana bread with me?” Mrs. Skinner asked.