Читать книгу The Tanglewood Murders - David Weedmark - Страница 11

FOUR

Jennifer Voracci steadied herself on one leg and opened the screen door as wide as its spring would bear. Balancing the basket of towels on her bent knee, she brushed the hair from her cheek and readied herself to run inside. For the five years she had lived here, the spring on the wooden door had always been too tight. It reminded her of a giant mousetrap, poised at any time to catch an errant arm or leg coming through the threshold. With a sudden breath, Jennifer pushed hard against the door and took two quick steps into the kitchen, her white running shoes squeaking on the floor, before the door slammed shut behind. The sudden thwack of the door always made her flinch.

She clenched her teeth as a cool wave of relief slid down her spine. She was inside. Safe in her home.

Yes, it really was a silly game she played racing past the screen door. While she understood that, she still couldn’t seem to help herself. Perhaps it was because she had been treated as a child by Michael, her husband, for so many years that she now felt free to play the role. As ridiculous as it might be, it certainly wasn’t hurting anyone, and as long as it didn’t cause any harm, then it couldn’t really be that bad, could it?

More importantly, right now, the small thrill, if for even a few moments, had distracted her from the question that had been seeping up through her thoughts all day: What was going on near the river?

The question had been gnawing at her all day, ever since she’d seen the blonde teenager racing up to Michael on his tractor this morning. Jennifer had been in the kitchen, scraping egg yolk from Michael’s plate when she’d seen the tractor racing up the path from the direction of the river. Michael had been outside, cleaning his golf clubs in preparation for a morning tee-off with his brother Vic. From the kitchen window, Jennifer watched her husband put down his golf club and approach the boy, talking with both hands raised, calming the youth down. The teenager climbed down from the tractor, speaking quickly, very excited about something, while Michael nodded and listened before putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder, quieting him. The boy stopped chattering. His head fell and his shoulders slumped. Michael said a few words to him, his hand still on the boy’s shoulder. Then, with a final nod, the teenager climbed back onto the tractor and drove towards the warehouse.

When Michael came back inside, he was silent, his jaw set the way it usually was when plans were not going as expected. He took his cell phone and his golf hat from the table and paused at the door to say to Jennifer over his shoulder, “Something’s come up, Ginny.”

“What is it?” she asked, seeing the seriousness in his eyes.

“Nothing to concern yourself with,” he replied. He winked and tried to smile. But she could see something was wrong.

Michael never let the door slam. He always let it close slowly, the palm of his hand pressed against the wooden frame, controlling its force in the cautious manner that somehow defined in her mind the type of man he was. Unlike herself, he was a man who had grown up and who was always in control. So it was disturbing to see the worry in his eyes as he tried to wink at her. Nothing ever troubled him.

As she watched Michael direct his truck down the path towards the river, Jennifer knew in her heart what had happened. They had found Anna’s body, most likely washed up on the bank of the river, caught in the reeds somewhere near the old pump-house. Jennifer had no idea how long she’d stood at the sink, the water running before her, staring out the window. When the police cruiser drove past, she shook her head, turned off the water, and tried to put her thoughts behind her.

In small bursts and starts, memories of her dream came back to her, and of the last conversation she’d had with Anna.

Anna had been on her way to the warehouse that morning, and Jennifer had called to her from her gate to share with her one of the croissants she had baked. Anna’s tired eyes looked into Jennifer’s own as she complained about her lack of sleep. “Those trucks are so loud at night,” Anna had said. “And they shine their headlights right into my window. It was like they were having a party. Can’t they at least be discreet about it?”

Jennifer had promised to look into it and had asked Michael that weekend to make Randy at least have the trucks turn their lights off if they were going to be parked near Anna’s bedroom window all night.

Michael had nodded in his detached, methodical way. “That won’t be a problem,” he had told her. “Haven’t you heard? Anna and her boyfriend. It seems they ran away together.”

It had taken several minutes for the news to really sink in before Jennifer could reply. “I can’t believe she’d run away,” she had said, to what was by then an empty room.

Now, this afternoon, almost a week later, standing in the kitchen, with her laundry basket balanced on her hip, remembering that news, and remembering how certain she had been that Anna could never have done such a thing as to run away from home, Jennifer trembled. She shook her head and tried to clear the thoughts from her mind before pressing her toes to her heels, left and right, to pull off her sneakers. On her way upstairs, she looked at the mantle clock above the stone hearth. It was three thirty. The towels still needed to be put away. The beds were still unmade. The bathroom still needed a cleaning.

She had spent the entire day trying to ignore what was obviously going on down the lane. Perhaps it would have been better if she had stepped outside and taken a walk towards the river just to ask what was going on. But the thought of doing that was even worse. She really did not want to know the truth, not yet. If she could keep herself from knowing for certain what had happened, then she could still hold on to her hope that Anna was safe and sound, in the arms of her boyfriend somewhere in the warmth of Mexico.

To that end, she had absorbed herself in the piano for most of the day, playing straight since nine in the morning with no thought of lunch and only two bathroom breaks somewhere in the mix, until she remembered she had left the laundry on the line outside. Her beautiful piano was the focus of her life when she was alone. It had been hard getting into it today, but once she’d connected with the music and found the place that exists between the tips of her fingers and the touch of the keys, she’d escaped from the day. She did not want to think about what the men were doing by the river. Flashes of her dreams intruded on her, but she was able to keep them at a distance by changing the piece, always progressing to something with a different tempo, a different taste and feel, something more difficult, requiring more effort, more concentration, until she was able to forget what might be going on down by the river. A piece of her, anyway. Only a portion of her mind had been aware of the passing of the day, or what might have been going on down the pathway, just out of view of her window. She was aware of only the distant chime of the mantle clock every half-hour, the steady movement of the shadows of her pictures and candles on the top of her beloved baby grand, changing direction and length as the sun passed from the east to the south to the southwest. She now remembered several cars, including police cars, no doubt, going past her window today, moving towards the far end of the vineyard, towards the river.

Standing on the stairs now, Jennifer gave her head another shake. You could at least put the towels away and clean up a bit, she heard Michael’s calm and unsympathetic tones in her head. It doesn’t take long to clean up after yourself.

With the first murmurs of growing guilt, she bolted up the stairs, basket still on her hip, and carefully stacked the towels into the hall closet. She closed the door and put the basket in her own bedroom closet.

A few items of clothing littered the floor of her room. Like the unwashed evidence of a wasted day, the garments seemed to wait between her and her piano. Dropping her shoulders with defeat to her own guilt, Jennifer quickly stepped back into her room and scooped up the clothes, tossing them into the basket. She walked backwards towards the door then hesitated. Her blue cotton dress, worn for only a few hours for dinner with Michael last evening, was still draped across her chair. She hurriedly placed it on its hanger, straightened it, then straightened it again with a few slides of her hand to ensure the fabric was unwrinkled.

She stepped back now, surveying the room before pulling the sheets back over her bed and straightening the white pillows. Too many pillows, she reminded herself. Then the reply came like an echo: too big a bed, the pillows make it less lonely.

Stepping backwards to the door for the third time, she bent down to pick up a loose white thread that stood out on the dark green carpet. Forward again, to pick up her oversized t-shirt and track pants that were bundled and curled at the foot of her bed like a faithful sleeping dog. She stuffed them under a pillow, straightened the sheet once more and backed away. It looked fine. Everything looked fine, she told herself, before she stepped back into the hall.

What she wore now, faded jeans, white socks, a dark t-shirt, felt much more her style than any of the dresses Michael preferred her to wear.

At the top of the stairs, she paused to look across the vineyard towards the small apple orchard, where much of the day’s activity seemed to be centred. She did not tremble this time. After avoiding it all day, she already knew what had happened. There was only one explanation—they had found Anna’s body somewhere in the river.

Now, as she peered out between the slats of blinds at the top of the stairwell, she wished she could see at least a part of the river from here. Then, as the memories of her dream began to emerge and her hands felt, just for an instant, that icy blackness, she was thankful that she could not see the water. And she realized something else: even as she played, a portion of her mind had been playing out tragic scenes. Glimpses of sorrow and death faded in and out with every chord. It was odd how she thought the music could help her hide, when it was the music itself that evoked the truth.

Descending the stairs, Jennifer approached her piano once again. It was nearly four o’clock. She sat down and took a breath, pleased that she had at least another hour to play before it was time to think about dinner. She looked at the keys, which were waiting, teasingly, for her fingers.

Thoughts of Anna and the river, Michael, the police, and what they were doing at the back of the property began to run in and out of her mind as she played. She closed her eyes, trying to connect to that part of herself beginning to stir, trying to feel through her heart to discover what was trying to emerge. It felt warm and wonderful, dark and terrifying, bound to her heart, her dreams and her nightmares.

She opened her eyes and began to caress her beloved keys and, as if of their own volition, her fingers began to play Chopin’s Waltz in A flat, Opus Sixty-Nine. She never played it well, but it called to her. It was the piece that her fingers were most likely to travel to when left on their own. Jennifer continued to play while the sun descended and the planets became visible to anyone who might be listening to her music from the forgotten open window behind her arched back.

Although she seldom caught a glimpse of him when she looked out the window, she knew there was one man out there who could sometimes hear her play. For that reason, she played so much more often then she ever had before. In her heart, every song she played was dedicated to him.

She played long after the shadows around her had lengthened to encompass the entire room, until she heard her husband’s familiar footsteps at the kitchen door. She quickly sat up and went into the next room to meet him with the smile he expected. It was a smile, she reminded herself, that for all he had done for her, he most probably deserved.

Jennifer watched with dismay from the edge of the living room as Michael, Vic, and Anthony all filed into the kitchen and pulled out chairs at the kitchen table.

“Some dinner, please, Ginny,” Michael called to her over his shoulder. “We all missed lunch today.”

She wiped her hands on her jeans and put on a smile as she entered the kitchen. Jennifer gritted her teeth each time he said her name. He used to call her “Jennifer” until they were married. Then he had begun calling her Jenny, for short. And then, when her drinking started to get out of hand again, he had revised it by calling her Ginny. It started out as a joke, but the name had stuck. He used it exclusively now and insisted to everyone that was the name she preferred, whether Jennifer liked it or not.

“I hadn’t planned—” she began. “I had pasta salad prepared.”

“That’s fine,” Michael said.

“But I don’t think there’s enough for all of you.Would sandwiches be okay with the salad on the side?”

“Sandwiches are fine,” said Michael.

“And some coffee,” said Anthony Voracci with a wink.

Michael’s father could never seem to look at her without taking a moment to look her up and down. Regardless of what she was wearing, she always felt underdressed in front of him. It made her feel dirty.

Lately, every time she saw him, she saw more and more similarities between Michael and his father. They had the same long nose, the same cheeks and the same receding chin. They had even had the same haircut for the last year, cut long, combed high, and she could not remember which of them had started the new style, the father or the son. Anthony’s hair was all silver now, whereas Michael’s was only starting to become grey. And he was certainly in better shape than Michael, with broader shoulders and not a sign of a pot belly, but other than that, Michael was looking more and more like his father every day.

Poor Vic was at least fifty pounds overweight, and except for his weak chin, had not inherited any of his father’s physical characteristics, or his father’s mental acuity. She would catch Vic staring at her breasts, or at her butt when he could, but she only felt sorry for him. He did not have the predatory nature that his father and brother had in abundance. Vic was a weak man.

As she prepared their dinner, none of them spoke about the events of the morning, and Jennifer didn’t ask about the police cruiser or the other vehicles that had passed by the house. No one offered to bring her into the conversation. As Jennifer pulled the bread from the cupboard and began making sandwiches, the three men discussed Michael’s odds at the upcoming wine contests and his plans for a wine show in Michigan. Anthony and Michael chuckled with each other; Vic did not say much at all. Compared to his father and brother, he looked grim, shaken. His light-blue golf shirt was stained dark below his armpits; his eyes were red. Despite his tan, he looked pale. He would not look Jennifer in the eye, and when she walked by, he did not make a point of staring at her breasts, as he usually did.

Across from Vic, there was the empty chair, where none of the men ever sat. Antonio’s chair. He had passed away almost three years ago. Jennifer missed Antonio. Of all Michael’s family, it was only his grandfather that Jennifer had ever bonded with. He had been the heart and soul of the family. Widowed for five years, he had given Michael and Jennifer his home as a wedding present. He had planned to move himself into a retirement home, but Jennifer had insisted he stay with them. He had lived with them for two years before he too had fallen ill. She missed him a lot.

“Busy day?” Jennifer asked.

“A bit,” said Michael.

“Are you in town long?” she asked Vic.

“Just for the rest of the day,” Michael answered for his brother.

Vic didn’t look up. “He’s got to be heading back to Toronto.”

“Does she know?” she heard Vic whisper. Then, “You should tell her.”

Jennifer turned to her husband and saw a momentary uncertainty pass across his face. When his eyes met hers, it was gone.

“She already knows,” he said.

“It’s Anna,” she said.

“Yes,” said her husband. His father and brother stared at their plates.

“They found her,” she said.

“She’s dead.”

“But how…”

“Don’t worry yourself with that,” he said. “Dead is dead.”

“But she eloped…”

“She’s gone, Ginny. You’ve been trying to convince me for days that she died. And I’m sorry to say you were right all along.”

“But someone killed her!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But it’s true. Do they know who did it?”

“Ginny.”

His practiced stern tone silenced her. Jennifer pulled the tea towel between her fists, fighting back the tears. She watched the men slowly returned their forks to their plates, tapping steady rhythms on the floral stoneware. The silence of the kitchen resonated with the sounds of their chewing, dry swallows of food, and slow measured breaths.

Jennifer retreated to the living room. She sat at the piano bench for a half hour, listening to the murmur of their words until she heard the men rise from the table, followed by the sound of the screen door gently closing by the effect of Michael’s firm hand.

Jennifer went to the window, looking towards the loading dock, hoping in vain to catch a sight of Ben. As tears filled her eyes, running down her face, she knew only one thing now. She needed Ben to finally take her away from here.