The Heat of the Moon: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (20 page)

When a clerk passed I turned and said in the most ordinary of tones, “Excuse me, could you help me make a copy of something?”

He did it for me. He copied the entire story, complete with pictures, and handed the sheets to me. I thanked him and went back to my desk. I placed the roll of December microfilm back in its box and carried all four rolls to the main desk.

***

When I emerged from the cool building, the humid hot air slammed into me, making me recoil. I stopped for a moment to get my bearings. I couldn’t remember how to get back to Union Station, where I’d parked my car. I walked half a block, past the Capitol on one side of the street and the Cannon and Longworth buildings on the other, before I realized I was going the wrong direction. 

I retraced my steps, one hand tight on my shoulderbag strap, the other crushing the copy sheets. After a time that could have been minutes and could have been an hour, I was driving toward the 14th Street Bridge on my way home.

Home. I glanced at the two sheets of paper lying wrinkled and twisted in the seat beside me. Home to Mother and Michelle.

Michelle. My dead sister.

The couple’s only child.

I couldn’t let myself think about this while I was on the road. I pushed it back, back, until it was a monstrous dark thing looming at the edge of my mind.

I drove in heavy traffic along the George Washington Parkway, my fingers tight around the steering wheel. Just past the Key Bridge I glanced down at the Potomac and saw a blue heron, motionless on a spit off the bank. Farther out, gulls bobbed where surface ripples hinted at the river’s undercurrent, and along the far shore the white trunks of sycamore trees gleamed like ghosts in the late day sun.

Chapter Twenty

On Wednesdays Michelle always came home in mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day working at the computer in her room. She was at her desk when I walked through her open door.

“Hi,” she murmured absently. She didn’t look up, but kept her eyes fixed on the word-filled computer screen.

I stood over her, my gaze following the curve of her long neck, the plane of her left cheekbone, the fall of her silky hair.

Who was she?

Who was I?

She glanced at me, a frown forming between her brows. “Did you want something?”

The folded copy of the newspaper story was in my right hand. “I need to talk to you.”

She gave a little sigh. The computer had already regained her attention. Touching an index finger to a key, she said, “Can it wait till after dinner?”

“This is important, Mish. Maybe the most important conversation we’ll ever have.”

She laughed and sat back. “My goodness.” Then she looked at me more closely, and a mask of wariness and reluctance came down over her face. “Rachel, I don’t want to talk about Mother. I don’t want to talk about our father. I don’t want—”

“Michelle!”

She flinched as if I’d struck her. Telling myself to calm down, I moved away from her, to a window, and watched two squirrels chase each other in a circle on the side lawn below. Mother would be home soon. I couldn’t imagine what was coming, what must come.

I turned back to Michelle. “Please hear me out, no matter how crazy it sounds.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake—” 

“Please. Can’t you just listen? Can’t you do that much for me?”

She let out a sharp breath and folded her arms. “Okay, I’m listening.” Her whole attitude said she didn’t want to hear a word I had to say.

“I thought if I could find out everything about the accident that killed—” I hesitated. What should I call him? For now, what Michelle would accept. “The accident that killed our father—”

“I knew it,” she said. “You’re obsessed, Rachel. It’s not healthy.”

“You said you’d listen.”

She unfolded her arms and lifted her hands briefly in a gesture of surrender.

Taking a deep breath, I started over. “I thought if I found out more about his death, I’d be able to understand all the secrecy. Why Mother won’t talk about him.”

“You know why. It hurts to dredge up those memories.”

I let this pass and hurried on. “So I went to the Library of Congress and looked at issues of the Minneapolis newspaper on microfilm.”

“Oh, I don’t believe this,” she said, shaking her head.

“I found the story.” I looked down at the papers I clutched.

“Okay, now are you satisfied? Did it help at all? I’ll be really surprised if you say yes.”

I met her gaze. Her cold blue eyes regarded me as if I were a nutty stranger who’d accosted her and forced her to listen to gibberish.

I had to make her see. The proof was in my hand. I unfolded the two sheets of paper. “The story wasn’t what I expected.”

“Oh?” A trace of curiosity.

“Mother was in the car with him.”

“Yes, I know.”

I stared at her. “You do?”

She nodded. “Mother told me.”

Wounded, thrown off track, I groped for words. “She told you, but she wouldn’t talk about it with me.”

“I don’t get hysterical when the subject comes up.”

Her superior tone jolted me into anger. She thought she knew everything, but she knew nothing, so cozy in her ignorance.

“Did she tell you a little girl was in the car with them?” I said. “Did she tell you that little girl was killed too?”

I watched the color drain from her face and her mouth open slightly. For a split second I wavered, as the enormity of what I was doing came clear. One step farther, and I would destroy my sister’s world. But I had to do this. I had no choice.

“The child’s name was Michelle Theresa,” I said, “and she was two years old. She died that day, with her father.”

I held her gaze, braced for anger, denial, an outburst. But she sat perfectly still, hands limp in her lap, and didn’t speak. A wren sang outside the window, a burbling happy sound.

“Mish,” I said, stepping closer. “I don’t know what it means, about you and me—”

She drew herself up in one long motion and was on her feet facing me, her body a rigid column.

Her voice was low, quiet. “You need help, Rachel. You’re not rational anymore.” 

I shook my head. “Mish, read this—”

I offered the two sheets of paper in my outstretched hand. Her eyes didn’t waver from my face.

“Read this.” I held the papers up, in her line of vision.

Her sharp slap across the back of my hand caught me by surprise, making me release the sheets. They fluttered to the carpet. I bent to retrieve them. When I straightened her face was contorted with fury.

“We’ve had enough of this from you,” she said. “You’re making Mother ill, she’s worried half to death about you. You need help, Rachel. If you refuse to get it, we—”

I grabbed her arm and shoved the story in her face, an inch from her eyes. “Read this, for God’s sake, read it! They had a daughter named Michelle and she died in that accident, and the story says she was their only child. And I’m not in those pictures, all those pictures Mother’s got hidden away, you’re in them—that girl is in them—but I’m not—”

With a jerk she freed her arm, then she backed away. “It always comes down to this. You’ve always been jealous of me. You’ve never been close to Mother like I am, and you’ve always resented it.”

I groaned. “No. This has nothing to do with—”

“What are you saying? That I’m not even alive, I died in an accident?” Her sudden laughter rose to a shrill note. “That makes a lot of sense, Rachel.”

“I don’t know what it means,” I said. “We have to find out. You have to read this, and we have to find out what it means.”

She’d closed herself off from me, put up a wall I couldn’t penetrate. Her voice cold and even, she said, “Don’t you dare bother Mother with any more of your weird ideas. This obsession is your problem, and you have to stop imposing it on other people. You need help, Rachel. You need to see a psychiatrist.”

I didn’t believe this. The story was here in my hand, in front of her, and I couldn’t make her read it. Even if she did, would she accept it as real, or would she think I’d gone to great lengths to fake it? Yes, that was exactly what she’d think. She’d rather believe I was losing my mind than face the secrets I’d uncovered.

Stepping back, I folded the sheets of paper. I would do this alone. I’d been alone from the beginning. Without speaking again, I turned and walked out of her room.

Sitting on my bed, holding the story, I listened to the small sounds of Mother’s arrival, the muffled slam of the car door on the driveway, her voice calling a greeting as she came up the stairs. She exchanged a few words with Michelle, but I couldn’t make out what they said.

After a moment she tapped on my door. “Rachel? Come help me get dinner on the table. I picked up something at Sutton Place so we don’t have to cook.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.” My voice lifted and carried and sounded perfectly normal.

When she’d had time to change her clothes, I heard her speak to Michelle again before she went back downstairs.

I was not losing my mind. The story in my hands was real, even though I didn’t know what it meant.

I rose and stuffed the folded sheets into the right pocket of my slacks. Then, feeling as if I were two separate beings, one sickened with dread and the other strong and sure and moving toward a goal, I went downstairs to Mother.

Chapter Twenty-one

Mother stood at the island counter in the kitchen, lifting cardboard and Styrofoam containers from a large white paper bag. On Rosario’s day off, we had to provide our own dinner one way or another.

From the doorway I watched her long slender hands dip into the bag, line up cartons on the counter. She’d loosened her hair and it moved along her shoulders, a gleaming fall of rich dark red.

I didn’t know this woman. I couldn’t begin to know what she had done and might yet do.

With a glance my way she said, “Would you wash the salad? Just to be on the safe side. You never know about salad bars.”

My mind ran in furious circles, trying to find a stopping point, but my hands popped off the lid of the salad container and emptied the lettuce, green pepper slices and cherry tomatoes into a colander. While I washed the salad, Mother lifted a knife from a drawer and began carving the chicken.

“I’ve decided to start a new fear-of-flying group,” she said, “so I’ll be tied up with that one night a week, probably starting next week.”

I tore a handful of paper towels from the roll above the sink and carried the dripping colander to the island. Standing across from Mother, I watched the long thin knife slice through the chicken breast.

“I can easily fill another group with people on my waiting list, if they’re willing,” she went on. “They always resist group therapy at first, but I can usually make them see the benefits.”

She arranged chicken slices on a white china serving platter. I patted the last drops of water off the salad, then tipped it all into the cut glass bowl she’d placed on the counter.

She laughed. “When they hear what it costs to charter a plane, they’re glad enough to be doing it with a group. Why don’t you add some mushrooms to the salad? If we have any.”

Obediently I searched the refrigerator. When I bent over, the folded papers in my pocket made a crinkling noise. I found a carton of plump white mushrooms in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and took them back to the island.

After dinner, I thought. I would do it after dinner.

No, I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t sit through dinner silent, pretending I didn’t know what I’d learned that day. 

But I couldn’t imagine speaking it aloud.

I wiped a mushroom clean with a damp paper towel, then sliced it into the salad with a paring knife. The ripe rich smell of it reminded me of the woods in autumn.

“Did you have a good day?” Mother asked. “Did you do anything special?”

I jerked my head up.
Now. Tell her. Say it.
The words wouldn’t come.

She regarded me quizzically for a moment, and seemed about to say something when the front doorbell rang, loud and jarring through a speaker on the kitchen wall.

“Who in the world could that be?” she said.

She laid the long knife on the serving plate and went to answer the door. I stayed behind, gripping the edge of the counter, dragging in breaths with an effort, until the sound of Luke’s raised voice reached me and snapped me into action.

I raced down the hall.

He stood on the threshold, hands clenched at his sides. Hot air pushed into the house through the open door.

“Luke,” I said, “what—”

“Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

He didn’t know what he was doing, he’d blundered in at the worst possible time. Frantic, but unable to get my voice above a hoarse whisper, I said, “Don’t, Luke. Just leave, please.”

“Like hell I will. What’s going on?”

Mother slipped an arm around my waist. “Rachel asked you to leave, Dr. Campbell, and I’m asking the same. I don’t know what you’re after, but you’re not welcome in my house.”

I pulled away from her, felt her arm tighten for a second before she gave in and let go.

“Good night, Dr. Campbell.” She started to close the door in his face.

He slapped a hand against the door to stop it, then pushed past her and into the foyer. He glared down at Mother. “What the hell are you doing to her? What kind of crazy mind control game are you playing?”

“You really are trying my patience,” Mother said. “You burst into my home acting like—

“You’re fucking with her mind, you goddamn witch!”

“Luke!” I cried. “Stop it!”

“I want you to leave my house this instant,” Mother said, opening the door still wider. “Or I’ll call the police.”

“You’re not gonna do this to her anymore,” Luke said. He held out a hand. “Rachel, come on. Come home with me.”

I looked at his outstretched hand, his pleading eyes, and then at Mother’s face, all her fury on the surface, nothing hidden now.

“My daughter’s not going anywhere with you,” she said. “And I won’t have you harassing her this way.”

“Rachel,” Luke said. He stepped toward me.

I wanted to go with him, get away from Mother, go where I couldn’t see her eyes or hear her voice. But I had to face what I’d discovered that day.

“Please leave,” I said, trying with my eyes to tell him what I didn’t dare say aloud. 

He held my gaze for a moment. His face mirrored the struggle I felt inside. When he spoke again his voice was flat, resigned. “Will you call me later and let me know you’re all right?”

Before I could answer, Mother said, “Why wouldn’t she be all right? She’s with her family.”

After another long look at me he turned and walked out. Mother quickly shut the door behind him.

She grabbed my arm and steered me down the hall toward the kitchen. “I hope you realize now what a mistake it was to get involved with that man. I don’t want you working with him. You can find another job. Just put him out of your mind, don’t think about him.”

I stopped listening because I was seeing her when we were both much younger, and hearing her calm, relentless voice.
You will not think about those people. Whenever those thoughts come into your head you will push them out, you won’t think about those people ever again.

In the kitchen she picked up the knife, saw the chicken was already carved, laid the knife back on the counter. A flush reddened her cheeks. Her hands trembled when she removed three foil-wrapped potatoes from the carryout bag, stripped off the foil, and placed them in the microwave for reheating.

After punching in the timer setting, she turned to me with a tight little smile. “Well. I was asking how you spent your day.”

“I went to the Library of Congress.”

Her eyebrows lifted and she half-laughed. “Really? Why?”

Slowly I pulled the two sheets of paper from my pocket. I unfolded them and placed them on the counter. Seeing the words and pictures out in the open, in the bright light of our everyday life, I felt as if I’d stepped into space and was floating free, with nothing to hold on to.

Mother came closer, curious. Her eyes widened, her face went white and a gasp strangled in her throat. She swayed and caught the edge of the counter for support.

“Did you really think I’d never find out?” My tongue felt swollen in my mouth, my voice sounded slow and thick. “Did you think you could control my memory forever?”

She raised her eyes to mine. I told myself she couldn’t get inside my mind anymore, I didn’t have to fear her. But I backed away until I hit the refrigerator door.

“Who am I?” I said. “Who is Michelle? She’s not your daughter any more than I am.”

Her voice was a ragged croak. “Don’t say that, don’t.”

She stepped toward me, gaze locked on mine. A gush of pure terror made me wrench my head to the side.
You’re fucking with her mind, you goddamn witch.

“What have you done to us?” I choked out the words. “I remember—I remember—”

She seized me by the shoulders. I struggled to get free, but her fingers dug in, pinning me against the refrigerator.

“You don’t remember anything,” she said. “You can’t.”

“I do! I always have—” Memories floated like bubbles to the surface of my mind, distinct and perfectly formed before they burst and dissolved. A house, white with black shutters. A woman calling from a doorway.
Time to come in, girls.

“Listen to me,” Mother said. “Look at me, Rachel. Look at me.”

She gripped my chin and tried to force my face forward, but I twisted free, stumbled away from her, put the island counter between us. I heard my breath rasping in my throat. 

The microwave timer went off, a long shrill note. I glanced wildly around the kitchen, at the neat chicken slices on the serving plate, the salad in the sparkling bowl, the shining counters and rich oak cabinets. All of it was unreal, it was an illusion and the woman’s voice in my head was reality.
Kathy, Stephanie, time for dinner.

“Stephanie?” I whispered. “Kathy?” I felt time flowing around me like a physical thing, relentless.

Mother’s hand shot across the island and seized my wrist. “Stop it,” she said. “Don’t do this, Rachel.”

Stephanie, Kathy, time for dinner.
I was Kathy, Michelle was Stephanie. Our mother was calling us. Our real mother.

“Rachel.” Mother’s fingers tightened, sending a shock of pain through my hand. “Just calm down, calm down, relax, that’s what you need to do, relax. Let’s go sit down, we’ll talk—”

I jerked my arm free, making her fall forward and splay her hands on the counter for balance.

“Stephanie,” I whispered. I stood still and for a moment forgot where I was. I saw my little sister in the rain, heard her crying,
Mommy, mommy, where are you?
and me hugging her tight, crooning,
She’ll come, she’ll be here in a minute, don’t be scared.

“Stephie—Michelle—She was crying, she was afraid of the storm. I told her it’d be all right, but I was scared too—”

A long wail tore from Mother, an animal sound that began as a deep moan and rose to a scream. She clutched her arms about her and doubled over.

I watched her as if from a great distance, and I was untouched by her agony. “You drove up in a car,” I said. “You told us our mother sent you to get us, and we got in your car—”

“Oh, God,” Mother moaned, “Rachel, please don’t. Please stop.”

I remembered the way her car had smelled, like new leather. I remembered rain pounding the roof, streaming down the windows, closing us off from the world. I’d been alarmed at first, but I was lulled by this nice stranger’s voice, her smile, her attention to us and concern for us.

“But you never took us home.”

My eyes saw Mother and myself in this kitchen, but my mind was moving through a house filled with packed boxes, boxes stacked higher than my head. I heard her soothing voice.
It’s all right. Sit down and drink your milk and everything will be all right.

“Michelle—Stephie—she didn’t seem to care, she was playing, she was happy, but I kept asking questions—”

Mother shook her head back and forth, back and forth.

“What did you do to me?” I said. “Give me pills to make me docile? Then you hypnotized me. You confused me, you made me doubt who I was, you made me think I was your daughter—”

A savage swing of her arm came nowhere near me but startled me into stumbling backward.

“You’ve always fought me!” she cried. “Michelle was so good, she knew I loved her, she was grateful, but you fought me every inch of the way.” 

I barely recognized her twisted tear-wet face. “Why did you do it?” I said. “Why did you take us?”

“You should thank me! I’ve given you a good life, I’ve been a good mother. She didn’t take care of you, she was always leaving you alone on that playground. You were both so small, anything could have happened to you.” Mother dragged in a raspy breath. “Michelle was so frightened, out in the storm—I couldn’t bear it.”

She covered her face and sobbed. Seeing her broken, knowing I had broken her, I felt a stirring of pity and guilt. I crushed it.

“She was the one you wanted,” I said slowly. “Because she looked like your little girl who died in the accident.”

“That woman had no right to her!” The words were muffled behind Mother’s hands. “She had no right to have her child when mine was dead.”

The truth unfolded in my mind, like pages being turned back. “You didn’t want me at all. I just happened to be there.”

Her hands dropped from her face. Her anguished eyes pleaded. “I’ve been a good mother to you, haven’t I? I do love you, Rachel, I’ve tried so hard—”

“You’ve tried hard to control me.” I felt cold, and utterly calm. “You tried to make me forget who I was.”

“It was for your own good, so you could be happy—”

“But I never forgot. Not completely. Do you know I had an imaginary friend when I was little? A girl named Kathy, who looked like me. She was with me all the time. But she wasn’t imaginary. She was me.”

Mother moaned, a hand to her mouth. “Oh, good God, I never knew. I had no idea.”

A movement behind her caught my attention, and I shifted my gaze to the doorway that led in from the hall. Michelle slumped against the door frame. I could see that she’d heard everything or close to it.