Fatality Page 13

  Except—Rose knew the guy. Who is it?

  Rose still had not thought of his name.

  Okay, she said to herself, he was the founding member of Tabor’s band. He didn’t stay long. He was—who was he? He’s—he’s —

  “Verne,” she said out loud, beaming at him, relieved to have remembered.

  He was not good-looking, although Halsey and Erin had thought him terrific at the time. Perhaps it had been just age; perhaps eighteen was so beautiful to a twelve-year-old that it needed nothing more. Perhaps with his guitar and his driver’s license, he had seemed the pinnacle of manliness.

  Rose hadn’t known that Verne and Tabor were still in touch. It did not surprise her, however, that Tabor would change his finals. He was probably in danger of failing something and Tabor was adept at excusing himself from difficult tasks. What a great reason to peddle to a professor—a sister who desperately needed him at home.

  Since Mom and Dad couldn’t afford to fly Tabor in again so soon, how was he paying for this?

  He must have a job, she thought, and he’s actually saved the money himself! Dad will be so proud. He loves it when his kids manage money well. It doesn’t happen often.

  She settled in for the ride to the airport. It was a relief not to have to talk to Anjelica after all. Rose had obediently written down Anjelica’s beeper number and car phone number and maybe she would call one day, because Anjelica had not seemed threatening, but sad and lost. What could beat down Anjelica Lofft?

  Verne left the school parking lot behind and turned toward the city. The airport was out in the country, miles from here. She wondered what they could talk about for such a long drive. She couldn’t remember where Verne went to college. Or if. Verne had faded toward the end of his senior year, as if he’d used himself up already. “How’s school?” she said, hoping for a clue.

  “School is fine,” said Verne. He gave her an exceptionally happy smile. She didn’t know what to make of it.

  “Where is it you’re going now?” she asked.

  “The airport.”

  She laughed. “I mean, which college?”

  He shrugged.

  “You dropped out?” she said anxiously. Parents were so disappointed and angry if their children dropped out of college. She couldn’t remember Verne’s parents. Had they ever come when the band played? They must have.

  Verne adjusted the volume of the music he was playing on the car radio, but instead of turning it down low enough for conversation, he hiked it so high that the car vibrated. Rose’s head hurt from the assault of heavy metal. He turned the bass up even more, until the drums seemed to beat on Rose’s skull.

  She pressed her hands to her temples and the volume of many voices roared in her ears, and most of all, the volume of Aunt Sheila’s voice.

  For four years, Rose had turned that volume down, until Aunt Sheila dwindled into nothing, and Rose could not hear those terrible words. Now, as if sneering inside the pounding scream of Verne’s tape, the bass spiked up until it controlled Rose’s heartbeat, and Aunt Sheila’s words blared forth.

  “Of course I haven’t seen Rose in five years,” said Aunt Sheila, “so I was holding my breath. How would she turn out? You are so lucky, Julia. A person could pretend Rose looks like Tommy.”

  “Tommy thinks Rose does look like him” agreed Mom. “Tommy likes to say Rose is just like her great-grandmother.”

  The sisters, Julia and Sheila, laughed.

  Rose, in the hall, inches from the final step into the kitchen, did not laugh.

  “It must have been such a relief to you when Bruce moved away,” said Aunt Sheila. “Did Bruce ever know you were going to have a baby?”

  “No,” said Mom. “I never told anybody but you.”

  “It’s safe with me,” said Aunt Sheila, “and of course since Rose hasn’t grown up to look like Bruce, nobody’s going to guess. Did Tommy ever even wonder?”

  “No. He was away on business a lot that year, starting up his company. He never suspected a thing.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t run into one of those awful DNA situations, or blood donor things, or genetic illness. What would you do then?”

  “Both our families have always been very healthy.”

  “Except,” pointed out Aunt Sheila, “Rose doesn’t belong to both your families.”

  “Well, and that’s the thing, Sheila. Tommy must never know.”

  Speakers roared.

  Voices screamed.

  Hearts turned over.

  “I agree,” said Aunt Sheila. “If he knew, it would kill him.”

  It was the fear that had governed Rose’s life for four years: If her father knew, it would kill him.

  Which was more terrible? That she was not a Lymond, didn’t have Lymond genes, wasn’t part of the family she loved? Or that it would kill her father to know?

  All the rest of seventh grade, Rose assumed that it would kill Dad to look at her, knowing she was a sham, a stranger; he had not been part of the making of her. When she got older, Rose realized it might be the affair itself that would kill him, and the awful proof of Rose. His wife had once loved a man named Bruce more than she loved her husband, Tommy.

  It struck Rose as strange now that she had been angry at Aunt Sheila. In one of her war books—very early war; ancient Greeks or Persians, perhaps—they killed the messenger who brought bad news.

  I would have killed Aunt Sheila, she thought, and in my heart, I did. Whereas my mother, who had the affair, I didn’t want to kill her.

  She knew suddenly that was the reason she liked to read about war. She was at war. It was the reason she liked attacking the root system of an invading marsh grass. She, too, had been invaded.

  “Are you listening to me?” shouted Verne.

  I’m listening to my genes, thought Rose. They rattle around in me, some stranger’s genes. “I’m sorry, Verne. What were you saying?”

  We’re going to get my brother at the airport, she thought. He’s actually my half brother.

  She adjusted the treble and bass to normal and then lowered the volume level so they could talk.

  Verne watched her hand accomplish that. “I know why you’re protecting me,” he said, in an odd, proud voice.

  That got her attention.

  “You had some crush on me, Rose,” he said, smiling. His smile did not fade like a normal smile, but continued on, so that Verne was smiling at stop signs and beaming at yellow traffic lights. “I always meant to read your diary, you know, Rose, and see what you said about me. Every time I glanced up from band practice, you were sitting on that top step, hoping I would notice you.”

  She had never given Verne a thought. It was Alan who absorbed her then and absorbed her now.

  “I asked Tabor where you kept the diary,” said Verne, “and he even told me where to find the key. But I never got around to it.”

  His eyes were fixed on the road. A frown was taking shape above his smiling eyes, splitting him in half. “You saw me working in Frannie Bailey’s rock garden,” he said. “I was standing between those two weeping spruce trees, with those creepy long-armed branches, and you looked right at me, Rose.”

  I wish I had a jacket, thought Rose. I’m cold. I’m shivering.

  She remembered shivering all the way back to the Y, shivering almost uncontrollably in the locker room, shivering so hard it was difficult to get into her bathing suit. She rejoined the swim class, having missed three quarters of it. The instructor didn’t ask for an excuse. Rose didn’t offer one.

  She remembered the laps. She remembered getting out last, pruny and wrinkled. She had been crying underwater, but nobody knew. She cried in the shower, too, and when she got home her eyes were red and her mother said, “My, there was a lot of chlorine in the pool today, wasn’t there?” and her father said, “Rose, I’m going to miss you this weekend. I was looking forward to our movie and popcorn.” He told Aunt Sheila, “Rose and I still go to the matinee together. Any minute now she’s going to be
too old and have better things to do than hang out with her father.”

  “Go pack, darling,” said her mother. “Mr. Lofft will be here in a moment”

  And all through that night, alone in the Loffts’ strange and murmuring mansion, she had written and written, page after page, trying to get rid of the facts, trying to glue them to the paper, so they wouldn’t stick to her.

  They stuck.

  Verne’s jaw was jutting forward, as if he were biting hard on pizza crust and then pulling back to tear it off. It gave him an unpleasant caveman look.

  “Frannie Bailey paid real well,” said Verne. “And sometimes we’d talk, her and me. But then Milton Lofft showed up and her and Milton Lofft were yelling about money, and yelling about contracts, and when he finally left, she came out of that house saying what she would give for just one smart man. I told her to look no further. I’d take the job. I didn’t want to waste time on college. I’m too smart for that. I’m as smart as Bill Gates and those other Harvard dropouts. I could make a billion dollars before I’m thirty, too. I told her about my brains and my plans and she laughed, Rose. Frannie Bailey laughed and laughed. She said I needed help to dig manure into topsoil. She said she’d never met anybody who needed college more than I did. She said when she called the landscaping company to get a worker for a few hours, they told her I was on the bottom of their list. They said to wait until she could get somebody else but she said she didn’t like waiting.”

  Verne’s words filled the car like cigarette smoke. Rose choked on them. It occurred to Rose that this was a black SUV in which they sat. She squinted at the dashboard. A Dodge Durango. The second witness on I-395 had been correct.

  For a person who liked to surround herself with facts, she had been rather negligent about acquiring the right ones.

  “You’ve protected me all these years,” said Verne, “and don’t think I’m not grateful. I heard how you stole a police car so you could hang onto your diary. But they’re ganging up on you, Rose. Tabor, your parents, the cops, everybody. They’re going to force you to talk, Rose.”

  His frown had become so intense that his eyes bulged. His face and neck were bright red, like a man playing high notes on a trumpet and running out of air.

  Rose tried to ask what he had actually done, and how, but she could not seem to speak. “Frannie Bailey?” she whispered, finally.

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” Verne told her. “I didn’t plan it. I just got mad and I acted. That’s the kind of guy I am, I don’t hang around. I didn’t even know it happened until she was lying there.”

  This could not be true. Frannie Bailey had been killed inside her house, and surely Verne and the rocks and the landscaping project had been outside. Verne had had to follow her in, carrying his rock.

  Rose did not want to think about this.

  She reached for the door handle but there wasn’t one. She ran her fingers over knobs and latches, armrests and protrusions. There was no door handle. It was like the back of the police car. You could get in by yourself. But you couldn’t get out by yourself.

  “I removed it, Rose,” said Verne. “You can’t get out.”

  It was time to take Verne seriously. That had been Frannie Bailey’s mistake—not taking Verne seriously. But Rose could think of nothing to say or do. She continued to study the door, unable to believe that it was no longer an exit.

  She wondered when he had taken off the door handle. Recently? Just for her? Her mind felt as dislocated as a shoulder. Only the past was becoming clear.

  It didn’t kill me to know the truth about my parents and it won’t kill Dad, either, she thought. It will shock him and sadden him, but we will soldier on, because it will matter to him to be kind. What will kill me is Verne.

  So in the end, I suppose my father is never going to know he isn’t my father. It took me four years to get to a place where I could think calmly about the truth. But Verne isn’t going to give me four years.

  The phone in her purse rang.

  “Don’t answer that,” said Verne.

  She answered it.

  “Rose!” yelled her brother. “What is going on? Alan just reached me. I had to run all the way back to my dorm to look up your cell phone number! Alan has my number but nobody has your number. What else is new, Rose? Nobody has your number! I’m a lunatic here! Two thousand miles from whatever you’re doing!”

  My half brother, thought Rose.

  But his was not the voice of somebody half caring. Or half loving. It was the voice of somebody entirely furious and entirely scared.

  “Verne killed Frannie Bailey,” she told him. “I suppose that’s why he dropped out of the band that night. He really did have other things to do. I think he must be the one who tried to run over me.”

  She could actually hear her brother swallowing hard. “Where are you now?” he said.

  “With Verne in his car.”

  “God,” said her brother prayerfully. “Hand him your phone. Let me talk to him.”

  “Tabor wants to talk to you, Verne,” said Rose, passing the phone, and to her amazement, Verne took it in his right hand and continued to steer haphazardly with his left.

  “Tabor, she was protecting me, you know. She always had this huge crush on me. I never knew what to do about it.”

  It occurred to Rose that Tabor might believe this.

  How ghastly. She had been so careful to provide no reason for stealing the police car. What if people really and truly thought the reason for stealing the police car was to protect Verne from a murder charge? What if in some horrid way she was forever bracketed with Verne?

  Telling her parents the truth seemed good after all. She even wanted CJ Pierson to know, and Megan Moran, and Craig Gretzak. She wanted Alan and Chrissie and Ming to know.

  Up ahead were a lot of emergency lights. They swirled around, heating the pavement, glaring across the intersection, the way they had at her own house only a few weeks ago. It occurred to Rose suddenly that there had been no emergency that day. Questioning her about a four-year-old crime did not require strobe lights.

  Those cops were just being hotshots, she thought. Those lights were half the reason I went squirting out of the house like water from a firehose. If they’d been calm, I would have been calm, and none of this would have happened.

  She craned her neck to see what was going on ahead of them. Somebody must have had a terrible accident to require so much assistance. Rose twisted in her seat to look behind them and see if an ambulance was coming, in which case she must convince Verne to yield, but behind them were even more police cars.

  Verne was still talking to Tabor. Rose had failed to listen in on them. She wondered briefly how she had ever achieved honor roll, she who checked out of listening mode when it mattered.

  Verne caught sight of the chaos in front of them. “What is this?” he demanded irritably. He did not slow down, although every car in front of him did. Rose threaded her fingers along the edges of her seat belt, wondering whether the air bag would work, as they were about to crash into several police vehicles. Bad enough I stole one, she thought. Now I’m going to wreck an entire convoy.

  At last Verne braked, the car skewing to the left since he was driving one-handed and still talking to Tabor.

  “I can see a terrible accident way up the block,” said Rose, leaning forward and squinting. “Oh, wow, it looks as if two cars flipped. One is a white van. Verne, it’s little kids! They’re crying. They’re hurt! Oh, Verne, it’s really a mess. Those poor people.”

  The landscaping company had been right to put Verne on the bottom of their list of recommendations. It never occurred to him that Rose could be lying, that she didn’t see one thing farther up the block except more police. She had, however, seen Megan Moran and Craig Gretzak.

  Verne came to a full stop.

  An officer walked slowly toward them. Verne lowered his window one inch. Through the slit, the officer asked courteously to see Verne’s license. Verne told Tabor he’d h
ave to call back and handed Rose the phone.

  “Rose,” whispered her brother. “Get out of the car.”

  But Rose could not get out of the car.

  “License?” said Verne to the policeman, frowning. “I thought there was an accident.”

  “Yes, sir. Bad one. Real mess.”

  Verne twisted in his seat in the way of men who keep their wallets in their back pockets.

  He doesn’t think he’s guilty of anything, thought Rose.

  A terrible comparison crept into her thoughts. Her mother, too, never felt guilty of anything. Like Verne, she simply didn’t want to be caught.

  But I loved her, thought Rose. And I wanted Daddy to go on loving her. I wanted them to love each other. I wanted them both to love me. I was so afraid they would get a divorce and I would be the one and only single and complete reason.

  Verne removed a small plastic rectangle from his thin wallet. He handed it through the slit of the window.

  “Mind lowering the window a little more, sir?” asked the officer.

  It was clear that Verne minded a lot. Rose understood. Opening the window would let the law in, like a breeze.

  Verne pressed the button that lowered his window.

  The officer’s hand was inside immediately, fingers feeling for the lock.

  Rose released her shoulder strap.

  The click was unmistakable. Verne whipped around. The fingers that had once brought a rock down with sufficient force to break a skull now closed on her wrist with sufficient force to snap it.

  But Verne could not prevent his own door from being opened. There was a horrible scrabbling moment of wrestling and grunting.

  Frannie Bailey died like that, thought Rose, watching Verne fight. One horrible scrabbling moment and then nothing.

  Megan Moran opened Rose’s door. She was no weakling, this former basketball player who had made it to Boston. She whacked Verne’s knuckles with the handle of her gun and he screamed in pain and let go and Rose was yanked out of the car and onto the pavement and hustled to safety.

  Rose thought of happy young men—boys, really—making music in a basement, dreaming of becoming rock stars even though they had only basement talent.