The Snow Garden (30 page)

     “I’m fine,” Randall said.

     “I remember the first time she came back from Duke after she met him. I had just dropped out of Syracuse and was living back home. I guess it was Thanksgiving. Gosh...” Her eyes went distant for a second. “Almost eighteen years ago to the date.” She took time to honor this anniversary silently before continuing. “She said he was a perfect gentleman, but he was obsessed with gargoyles and medieval stuff. That’s what she told our parents, at least. Later, she told me that he was a
challenge
.”
 

     She pulled on her cigarette, set it down in the ashtray, and then pushed herself out of the chair. Tim kept silent as she crossed to the window and cracked it. “How’s that?” she asked, back still turned as she steadied herself with both hands on the windowsill. “A challenge,” she whispered angrily.

     Randall looked at Tim to see if he was going to press, but Tim gazed fixedly at Paula’s back.

     “How often did you visit Lisa at Atherton?” Tim asked.

     “We stopped,” Paula said to the window. “Mainly ’cause Eric always rubbed Clark the wrong way. We used to do holidays there, especially Christmas. I don’t know—the holidays seemed more
right
up there on the hill, with everyone’s lights up. But on the drive home Clark would always complain that every time he tried to talk to Eric about real-life things he would just get this faraway look.”

     On the console table behind the La-Z-Boy, Randall saw an exact replica of the wedding photo hanging in the bedroom. This one in a different frame. He was silently shocked. “You talked about her reading the classics at a very young age. Do you think it’s safe to say that your sister was kind of a prodigy?” Obvious flattery intended to lull Paula out of the funk she’d slipped into.

     “Prodigy?” She braced herself against the top window with both hands before pushing it shut. “Know-it-all, maybe.”' She heard the echo of her own words. She whispered to herself, “That’s not fair. She wasn’t like that. Sometimes she even seemed sorry for being so much smarter than me. For being so ... brilliant.” Paula shook her head slightly. When she spoke again, her voice sounded as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “She could have been so many things other than that man’s wife. So many.”

     Randall looked at Tim, trying to ask silently how much longer they had to endure this.

     “But I guess you’re not going to print something like that, are you?” 

     Tim sat forward. “What would you like us to print, Mrs. Willis?” 

     Paula turned her head from the window. At first, Randall saw skepticism on her face, but as she surveyed Tim, who sat with pen poised over his pad, the look was replaced by one of confused gratitude, the look of a woman who had been led to believe her words carried little importance. “Say she was strong.”

     She turned to face the window again. “Maybe she drank. Does it matter? Does it change the fact that she was strong enough to stay with a man who didn’t care she existed? I
know
it doesn’t change the fact that she came here every weekend to take care of me, when all I had done most of her life was say stupid, mean things to her because I was so jealous.”

     Randall touched one of Tim’s knees gently, hoping the gesture said what he couldn’t. Enough. Lisa’s real now. A lesson has been learned, so can we please get the hell out of here? In response, Tim cleared his throat and closed his pad.

     “How are you feeling now, Mrs. Willis?” Tim asked as mildly as he could.

     “All right, I guess. I should be.” She managed a smile. “I’ve been cancer-free for almost half a year now.”

It was almost three o’clock and the Cherokee was doing seventy-five south on 95, away from Paula Willis’ double-edged guilt and grief and the photo of Eric and Lisa as bride and groom.

     “She was moving out, Tim!”

     “Randall, all you found was a bunch of clothes.”

     “Enough clothes to last her until spring. And she lied to Eric and told him Paula was still sick when she’s been in remission for almost six months. And the wedding photo—”

     “Which proves nothing! Start moving out on your husband and you take a symbol of your failed marriage as a souvenir. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? And why didn’t she tell Paula? You heard the way she talked about Eric. It’s not like she wouldn’t have been supportive.”

     “Maybe Lisa was doing it gradually. Eric had been the breadwinner for their entire marriage, so maybe she thought if he just told him she was leaving, he would have thrown her out without anything. Who knows. And you heard what Paula said? Lisa was the smart one, the know-it-all. Maybe she didn’t tell her baby sister about her failed marriage because she didn’t want Paula yelling 'I told you so!’ ”

     “It’s weak, Randall.”

     Twenty miles outside of Atherton, the landscape had evolved from suburbs to rolling hills and the dark suggestions of the Atlantic beyond. Randall started digging into his pockets. Tim glanced over as he started dumping the mess of papers into the coin holder under the stereo panel. “What’s that?”

     “Probably nothing. Phone numbers. Grocery lists. There was all kinds of shit in the nightstand.”

     “And you just took it?”

     “I didn’t exactly have time to go through it.”

     “Anything else besides clothes?” Tim asked. “Boxes?”

     “Books. Some read, most of them new. Paperback mysteries. And that’s all.”

     “She was obviously a reader.”

     “She was obviously planning on doing a lot of reading. There. With a sister who’s been cancer-free for half a year.” Randall started sorting the papers.

     “All right. I’m not saying there isn’t evidence that she was leaving her husband. But do you think Eric would kill Lisa because she was leaving him? Why bother, when he’s spending every weekend with
you
?
There’s another possibility that you haven’t even considered — ” 

     “I know what you’re about to say, and don’t bother, because it’s bullshit.”

     “She left a
note
,
Randall!”

     “It’s too messy for a suicide.”

     “Maybe she liked the drama of it. Plunging to her death in the middle of town.”

     “Really? Is that why she rented herself a storage locker in her name in October? Because she was planning on killing herself?” Randall held up the receipt from Bayfront Storage. Tim looked back to the road before grabbing it out of Randall’s hand, flattening it against the steering wheel with one hand.

     “It’s in her name,” Tim finally said.

     “And her name only.”

     Tim furrowed his brow at the highway ahead before handing back the receipt. “The police might have already been there.”

     “Then why do we have the receipt right now?”

     “That’s a carbon.”

     “So? You said yourself the police don’t go poking around the belongings of a dead, drunk driver.” He checked the address on the receipt. “Jesus Christ, Tim. This place is on Walker Street. Do you know where that is?”

     “The Bayfront?”

     “How many storage facilities are there within spitting distance of the freeway and she goes into the worst neighborhood in town?” 

     “Maybe it’s cheap.”

     “Yeah, and maybe whatever’s inside it is a secret.”

     “Like what?”

     “Like the majority of her belongings.”

     “Find the key,” was all Tim said.

     “How am I supposed to do that?”

     “Randall, breaking and entering is not going on my resume. If Bayfront Storage is in Atherton, maybe she kept the key in Atherton.” “Yeah. On her
key ring
,
which is either at the bottom of the river or in an evidence bag somewhere.”.

     “What are Eric’s Thanksgiving plans?” Tim asked.

     “I didn’t ask.”

     “Does he have family nearby?”

     “His parents are dead. His brother lives in Seattle.”

     “What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Painting your nails with Kathryn?”,

     “Jesus,” Randall whispered.

     “Hey, if I remember correctly, this was our only advantage over the police—who have much more experience with stuff like this than us, by the way...”

     “Fine.”

     Automatic headlights were blinking on beneath a tide of bloated clouds threatening snow. “I’m flying out tonight,” Tim finally said. “It’s supposed to snow like a bitch too. I get back Sunday. Can you wait till then before you decide to break into any storage facilities?”

     “If there’s a key in that house, I’m going to find it.”

     “That isn’t all you should be looking for. See how much stuff of hers is still there. Maybe Eric got rid of some of it, but you should still be able to get some sense of whether or not she was really leaving him.”

     A memory struck Randall with surprising force. He tensed his hand around the door handle. Tim saw it. “What?” he asked.

     “Something he said the night of the accident.”

     “Uh-huh,” Tim said impatiently.

     Downtown Atherton came into view through the windshield.

     “He wanted me to spend the night. It was the first time he ever asked. And I wouldn’t. So he said he thought she wasn't coming back. At all, he must have meant.”

     “He thought she wasn’t coming back. Or he knew?”

“I have to connect twice?” Kathryn asked her father.

     “Yes. Once in Chicago. Then Denver. You get in at midnight our time, but East Coast time it will be .. . well, you’ll be really tired.” 

     Over the phone, Philip Parker always adopted a placating and solicitous tone with his daughter, as if it were his goal to repair any damage her mother, Marion, might have caused in the conversation prior. ‘Your mom’s going to meet you at the airport because I’ve got a meeting with our new service provider pretty early.”

     “Gotta keep those doctors on line, bitching about their HMOs, right?”

     “My website provides an invaluable service for doctors around the world to provide much-needed medical advice. But I have a feeling you already know that, because I’ve told you a hundred times.”

     “You don’t ride around your office on a scooter now, do you?” 

     “Why do I have to defend the dot-com generation to my tech-savvy daughter?”

     “Just don’t go bust yet, okay? ’Cause I kind of like it here.”

     “Your mother could support us quite nicely, but you might end up working in the cafeteria.”

     Kathryn grunted. The cab would be outside Stockton in two hours, ready to take her to Logan. She looked down at the carry-on she’d hoisted onto her bed. The flap was open. It was empty.

     “Hellish as it is, there is a bright side,” her father added.

     “I’m waiting.”

     “Coach was full on your flights, so ., .”

     “Cocktails before takeoff. Woo-hoo!”

     “You are expected to behave like an eighteen-year-old flying first class, Kathryn.” But there was a hint of a smile in her father’s voice, so she 'didn’t bother telling him that save for a few swallows of scotch from Randall’s flask, she hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since arriving at Atherton. Jono Morton had mixed the last drink she had ever consumed. Now intoxication didn’t mean relaxation or fun, it meant weakness, having your common sense smeared, and your guard lowered before you noticed it was down. 

     “I know it sucks, Kat. Just get some magazines or a good book or something.”

     “I’m like three hundred pages behind in poli sci and I have to familiarize myself with just about everything the ACLU has ever said about anything, so I think I’m set.”

     She pushed her suitcase back to make a seat for herself on the bed. On the other side of the room, April’s duffle bag was packed and ready to go. She’d be taking the Metro Line North, leaving a couple hours after Kathryn. As Wednesday afternoon had turned into evening, the boisterous music of Stockton Hall had intensified with prebreak excitement. Now an eerie hush had fallen over the first floor as students departed or made final preparations.

     “One more thing. . . .” Her father hesitated. When he began again rather abruptly, Kathryn had the eerie feeling that he had changed his mind about what he’d planned to say. “I don’t want you to worry, but I’ve been watching the Weather Channel and there’s a big nor’easter headed your way. It might cause some delays.”

     Kathryn didn’t tell her father that as Thanksgiving had approached, the thought of her plane being grounded in Boston had grown more appealing. “Don’t get your hopes up,” Philip added. “You’re coming home if you have to stuff yourself inside a FedEx package.”

     “Then I miss the cocktails.”

     Her father managed a short laugh. Kathryn’s eyes shot to the door.

     Randall had been off gallivanting with Tim for the afternoon, probably sharing sweat for one last time before the break. He had an hour to come tell her good-bye before she got pissed.

     “Kathryn ...”

     She perked up, thinking her father was about to tell her what he couldn't a moment earlier, when he’d decided to discuss the weather. “Yeah.”

     “If I say I know how hard this is for you, you’re not going to believe me, right? You’re just going to think I’m saying whatever it takes to get you to come home.”

     Even though she knew her answer, she waited a polite amount of time before giving it. 'Yeah.”

     “Oh. Let me say this, then. After all the trouble your mother and I went through to try to make this trip happen, we’re
trying
to understand. Trying harder than we were before, which, with all due respect, was pretty damn hard.” Kathryn brought one hand to her forehead because it felt necessary to hold it in place. “I know you still look at us as figures of authority more than anything else,” her father went on. “But if that means you can’t discuss things openly with us, well... let me know what I can do to change that.”

     “I’ll think about it.”

     “Okay.”

     Kathryn just breathed for a few seconds. “Dad?”