The Secret Desires of a Soccer Mom (35 page)

“It is!” I cried. “No one watches more detective shows than
I do, and I didn’t know it!”

“Listen hon…” she said soothingly, coming toward me, “didn’t
you promise Paul that you’d let the police handle the investigation from now
on?”

“Yeah, but they’re not doing anything. They’ve closed the
case.”

“Then obviously they believe her death was an accident. Just
let it go…” Reaching out, she gently removed the book from my grip. “Maybe you
shouldn’t be reading detective novels in your current…
state
? I’ll go
put this back on my bookshelf.”

Oh God. Carly was right. I had done it again—flown off the
handle, jumped to conclusions, stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong… Maybe I
did need some professional help to get over this? But I had been so sure! No…
it was stupid of me. Brian had only known Karen a matter of months before he
ran off with the busty insurance adjuster. What possible reason could he have
to kill Karen? Or frame Javier for that matter? I was just relieved I hadn’t
expressed my suspicions to Paul. I wasn’t sure our marriage could survive
another of my insane theories. Slipping into my enormous shoes I waited at the
door for my friend to return. I owed her an apology, and I wanted to ask her
not to tell Paul the reason for my late-night visit.

“Oh, you’re still here?” Carly said, returning to the living
room.

“I wanted to apologize,” I said, sheepishly. “You’re right.
I’ve got to let it go.”

“You do, Paige.”

“I will.” I noticed that Carly still had the novel clutched
behind her back. “Why do you still have the book?” I asked.

“Oh,” she shrugged and laughed a little nervously. “I was
going to put it back on my bookshelf, but I decided to get rid of it.” Her eyes
moved involuntarily to the blazing fireplace. “I’m not in the mood to read this
kind of stuff anymore… too morbid.”

“It was
your
book…” I said softly, suddenly
remembering that day in my driveway. Carly had been clearing out her own
belongings as well.

“No. It was Brian’s,” she replied, flippantly.

“Carly…” I looked at her and I could feel my heart breaking.
“It was
your
book. You wrote that note to the police.”

“What are you talking about?” She asked, defensively.
“You’re going off the deep end again. Just stop, okay? Seriously, that’s
enough.”

But it had all come into focus: Carly’s
insistence that Karen’s death was just an accident and that I needed to let it
go; the way she had insinuated herself into Doug’s life, revelling in the
feeling of being needed by someone again. Karen’s demise had given Carly
purpose—preparing for the funeral, setting up the charitable trust, taking care
of the grieving widower, making memorial Christmas ornaments . . .
“Oh God,” I said, as the horror of realization dawned on me.
“It was you!”

In movies, when the main character discovers that her best
friend or boyfriend or whoever is the killer, I had always felt incredibly
frustrated. “Don’t just stand there waiting for her to kill you, too!” I would
scream at the screen. “Get out of there! Call 9-1-1!” But either I was as dumb
as those characters, or I was numb, too stunned to feel any fear. This was
Carly after all. Until about three seconds ago, I would have trusted her with
my life.

“Paige,” she said, her voice tinged with desperation. “This
fixation of yours… It’s not healthy.”

“You knew about Karen and Javier, didn’t you?” I continued,
standing stalk still in my clown shoes.

“No…” But her voice was weak. “I-I didn’t know.”

“Tell me, Carly. Tell me what happened.”

Her cool façade crumbled and tears instantaneously began to
pour from her eyes. “It was an accident, okay? I didn’t mean for her to die.”

“Of course you didn’t,” I said, gently. “What went wrong?”

She began to pace, stalking around her living room like a
caged animal. “I caught her with that Javier guy,” she said, not looking at me.
“It made me sick, Paige. It really did. I saw them making out in her car
outside the Dairy Queen. It was disgusting. They were like a couple of horny
teenagers. They were like Brian and that slut of his.”

I felt a slight twinge at the mental image of Karen and
Javier getting jiggy with it behind the DQ. So, there was no need for the
paternity test results. This confirmed that Javier and Karen were lovers. If I
was surprised, it was only at my own gullibility.

“They were making a fool of Doug,” Carly continued, wiping
at her eyes. “He didn’t deserve that. He deserved someone who appreciated him,
who treasured him…”

“He’s a good man,” I said, encouraging her to continue.

“And then she told me she was pregnant.”

“She told you?” I thought
I
had been Karen’s confidante?

“We were like sisters. I loved her… I really did.” Carly
moved to perch on the leather arm of her ivory couch. Her eyes stared blindly
into the fire. “She was so happy,” she continued, in a soft voice. “She had
everything she ever wanted… everything any woman could want… a good, faithful
husband… a baby on the way…”

“So… what happened?” I gently prodded.

She looked at me briefly before returning her eyes to the
fire. “I asked her who the baby’s father was and she said she wasn’t sure. To
Karen, it didn’t really matter. She was going to decide which man she wanted
and raise the baby with him. ‘You can’t’, I told her. ‘That’s deceitful… and
wrong’.” Carly stood and began pacing again. “I wouldn’t let her do it. I
couldn’t
let her do it to Doug.”

I waited on tenterhooks for her to continue, but it appeared
she’d said enough. There was so much more I needed to know. My voice was quiet,
but commanding. “What happened next?”

“Karen… Karen got so angry at me. I’d never seen her like
that before. She said it was none of my business how she lived her life. She
accused me of being jealous and… and pathetic. She said I could never be happy
for her because I wanted everything she had. I wanted to
be her
.” She
turned to me. “I
was
happy for her, Paige. But it wasn’t fair. She was
lying and cheating and yet… all her dreams were coming true.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, breathlessly.

“She said if I told Doug she’d call me a liar. She’d tell
him that I was psychotic, that I was secretly in love with him. She’d tell
everyone in the neighborhood that I was a bitter old maid who couldn’t get a
man of her own so I made up horrible stories to try to ruin Karen’s happiness.”

Carly looked at me then, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“She was walking to her car—probably off to see her
lover
.” She spat out
the word. “I needed her to stay and talk to me, burt she wouldn’t. She was so
angry. I… I grabbed her arm but she pulled away and… she fell and hit her head
on the toolbox.”

My voice was barely audible. “
Oh God
.”

“It was an accident, Paige. I didn’t want—” Her sentence was
cut short by a painful sob.

I gave her a moment to compose herself before I pressed on.
“And the letter?” I asked, when she had blown her nose loudly. “Why did you
write the letter to the police?”

“Because…”—her voice had suddenly turned angry—“Javier was
getting away scot-free. I mean, if anyone should be punished, it’s him. He was
using her, and abusing Doug.”

“That’s true… Then why didn’t you write a letter naming him
as the killer? Why pretend that he wrote the letter and claimed it was an
accident?”

She held up the novel, still clasped in her hand. “A letter
accusing someone of murder is too obvious. You knew right away that Annabelle
was trying to frame Patty. It didn’t take much for the cops to figure it out. I
thought if I cast just a little suspicion on Javier, made it seem like the
letter was written by an immigrant, the cops would find out about the affair
and assume he was responsible for her death.”

“Oh…”

“He’s the villain here, not me. What happened was just an accident.”

“But… why didn’t you call nine-one-one when Karen fell? Why
didn’t you try to save her?”

“I panicked,” she said, coming toward me. I involuntarily
jumped back a little. “I heard her head hit the toolbox. I saw the blood. I
knew there was nothing I could do. I just… I just ran home. Please, Paige.” She
was close to me now and her hands reached out to grasp mine. “You don’t need to
tell the police all this. They won’t understand and it won’t bring Karen back.
She’s our angel now, our precious angel. Please…,” She squeezed my fingers,
uncomfortably hard. “Let’s just keep this between us. We’re friends. I love
you.”

Tears were now pouring down my cheeks as well. “I love you,
too,” I managed to mumble. “I have to go.”

“Paige,” she said again, as I opened the door. Her voice was
cold and devoid of emotion. “If you love me, don’t destroy my life.”

I stepped out into the chill night air and stopped on her
doorstep. “I won’t,” I said, turning to face her. “You’ve already done that.”

Paul met me in the grand entryway upon my return. “Where the
hell did you go?” He took in my ensemble. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“I need the phone,” I said wearily, brushing past him.

“Why? What’s happened?”

But I was too overwhelmed to explain. With the cordless in
hand, I turned to my husband. “Do you have a cell phone number for detective
Portman or Conroy?”

“Yes… but, can’t this wait until morning?”

“It can’t,” I said, tears spilling from my eyes. “I have to
talk to the police… now.”

“Oh, God,” Paul said softly, and somehow, he knew. “I’ll get
the number.”

Carly was charged with first-degree manslaughter. There
would be a trial and I would have to testify against her, but that was months
away. For now, I would focus on my grief: there were now two lost friends to
mourn. Trudy and Jane and I pulled together. In the days following Carly’s
arrest, we clung to one another, talking endlessly of Karen, of Carly, of what
went wrong… It was all out in the open now: the affair, the baby, and Carly’s
unhealthy obsession with a life she so desperately wanted, but couldn’t
achieve.

To be honest, I had briefly considered Carly’s request to
keep her role in Karen’s death a secret. She hadn’t intended for our friend to
die; that much I believed. But that night as she confessed, I saw in her a rage
and desperation that frightened me. Who knew what could provoke her to another
act of violence? Catching Doug and Jackie Baldwin out on a date? (They had
recently brought their relationship out in the open.) Witnessing the Diet Coke
man handing out a free beverage to some other single office worker? She was a
loose cannon! Besides, I was done keeping secrets.

The fact that my mother-in-law arrived a few days later
turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Given my current turmoil, Pauline was
more than happy to step in and take over the Christmas festivities. “There’s no
need for Paige’s melancholy mood to ruin this occasion for the rest of us,” I
heard her tell her husband. “I’ll do my best to salvage the holidays—for the
sake of Paul and the children.” Normally, this would have irked me, but under
the circumstances, I just felt grateful. I wanted my family to have a great
Christmas, and I knew Pauline would do a better job than I could this year.

I rested. I took long walks where I cried until my eyes
hurt. I played with my children and had deep conversations with my husband.
When Christmas was over and Paul’s parents left, I felt renewed. Yes, Carly’s
role in Karen’s death had been another staggering blow to suffer, but for the
first time, I had closure. There was no more doubt, no more suspicion… Karen’s
ghost no longer hovered above me pleading:
Solve my murder! Solve my murder!
Not that Karen’s ghost actually ever did that, but I had kind of imagined it to
justify my obsession with the case. In a few months, I would have to go to
court and send one of my closest friends to prison, but I found solace in the
fact that I was doing the right thing. Finally, after so many lies and
deceptions, I was being truthful.

There was only one loose end left. I don’t know why it
bothered me so much—God knows I tried to dismiss it—but it lingered. No matter
how satisfied I was with the current state of my life, I couldn’t let it go.
Despite his creepy, stalking gifts; his corny love notes; and his out-and-out
lie regarding the nature of his relationship with Karen, I couldn’t stop
thinking about Javier. I felt bad for him, even a little guilty. He was an
innocent man, and yet, he had been treated like a murderer. He’d been
interrogated by the police, rejected by me, and slapped with a restraining
order by a process server. All he had done was love my friend—my
married
friend, mind you, so, it wasn’t like he was an angel or anything, but that
didn’t make him a killer. I finally knew that my instincts regarding him had
been correct. Javier wasn’t dangerous. He was never a threat to me. In fact, he
had lost someone he loved, just as I had. It was normal for him to seek comfort
from me, to reach out to a friend who could understand what he was going
through. He was alone, so far from home… And I had turned the cops onto him.

The restraining order was still in effect, but I had to
contact him. I decided a letter was the most prudent way. I didn’t want to show
up at The Old Grind hoping for a conversation and have him run screaming from
me. I also didn’t want my husband to know I had unresolved feelings about my
stalker. So when Paul was at work and the children occupied with their recent
Christmas presents, I sat at the kitchen table and drafted a note.

Dear Javier,

I felt the need to contact you. I’m not
really sure why. I guess I feel I owe you an apology. You lost someone you
loved—at least, I hope you loved her. Karen was a really special person and we
were both lucky to have her in our lives for even a short time. It must have
been hard for you to mourn her all alone, trying to keep your secret. I suppose
my slapping you with a restraining order didn’t make it any easier.