“Oh, Tatiana’s great,” Michelle assured Linda when she called her. “Rachel dropped her off this morning. But she had to go out to Baltimore County because of this whole thing with Mom.”
“What’s she doing that Bert can’t do?”
“She said the cops want to talk to her, too.”
“What? And you didn’t call me?”
“Rachel said it was no big deal, that she was just being supercautious, making sure she had a lawyer with her, that Dad always said that, never talk to the cops without a lawyer.” A pause. “Did he really say that, Linda? It seems like such an odd thing to say to your teenage daughters-”
“Jesus, Michelle, I don’t know. I mean-what the fuck? You just sat there and didn’t even think to call me?”
“I,” Michelle said with wounded grandeur, “have been watching Tatiana and Helena all morning. Have you ever tried to get two wound-up little girls down for a nap?”
Linda hung up and dialed the public information officer at Baltimore County police. They were friendlyish, usually playing on the same team more or less, even now that she was working for the governor. Oh God, the governor-that was going to be fun, explaining to him why her family was in the news.
“Linda Sutton!” the PIO said. “Damnedest thing to hear from you because I was wondering what you would do in my situation.”
“Don’t be cruel, Bill. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Detectives have given me two sets of facts to work with and asked me to write two press releases. In one, I’m to say your sister killed Julie Saxony. In the other, it’s your mother. Any idea which one is true? You could save me some work here.”
“Fuck you, Bill.” Maybe they weren’t as friendly as she had thought. She called her boss, pleaded a family emergency, a gutsy thing to do when the legislature was in its final weeks, then called Michelle and told her to find someone, anyone, to take the kids. But she and Michelle needed to go to their mother and sister.
March 27, 2012
6:30 P.M.
Bert and Rachel sat. What else could they do?
“What’s going on, Bert?”
“They expect you to confess. They’re bullying you. They think if they tell you that they’re going to charge your mom, you’ll break down.”
“Oh, I’m about to break down. But I can’t confess. I didn’t do it, Bert.”
“I know. Neither did your mother. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s a weak case. An earring. The confession of someone who couldn’t have possibly done it, an honest and plausible recitation of events that refutes the confession. I do wish you hadn’t been there that day, much less admitted to hitting her-”
Rachel smiled. “I thought the truth was supposed to set me free.”
“Not in this legal system, honey. The truth just gets in the way sometimes.”
“I’m free to go. That’s what they said.”
“Yes. And when you leave, they will charge your mother. They’re waiting to see if you’re up for that.”
“What can I do?”
“I don’t know, Rachel.”
A knock, the round face of the female detective. “Your sisters are here. We don’t have to let them in to see you, but we’re nice that way.”
“They’re here? Both of them? Who’s taking care of Tatiana?”
“I got the nanny to come back early from her day off,” Michelle said, pushing her way into the room. “And you’re welcome.”
“Bert, what’s going on?” Linda asked, right behind her. “Why is Mother doing this?”
“I don’t know, girls. I just don’t know.”
Rachel looked at her sisters, at Bert. She wondered if they had ever longed, as she had, to have him for a father. Or, more accurately, to have Felix be like Bert-steady, loyal, there. There. She thought about the famous children’s book, the one she was reading to Tatiana now, the special pang that only a nonbiological mother can understand. Are you my mother? Why can’t a bulldozer or an airplane or a frog be a bird’s mother? Pretty-but-ordinary Rachel was the mother to beautiful Tatiana, with her silky hair and perfect eyes and her soon-to-be-perfect face, although it was incomparably lovely to Rachel even before the surgeries. She didn’t, couldn’t, judge the woman who had abandoned her. She owed that woman everything. And her father had abandoned her, so there was that.
Another knock. The male detective this time. “She wants you.”
“Me?” the sisters chorused.
“No, him, the lawyer. We’re going to allow it, although we don’t have to. She says she has to speak to him before she signs the confession.”
6:45 P.M.
Bambi was exhausted, but it was that weird kind of exhaustion that leaves one wired. Yet she was sad, too. Life was so horribly sad. Didn’t anyone get what they wanted? She thought, hoped, her girls had. They had used her as an example, choosing men unlike Felix. Although Marc, Rachel’s first husband, had been very much like Felix, too much like him. Worse, actually. Felix never would have done what Marc did. She wished Bert hadn’t told her that. But Bert always told her everything he knew about her girls, even when he shouldn’t.
“Bert,” she said when he came through the door. “Remember the first time we met?”
Clearly not the opening he was expecting. “Of course I do.”
“We had grown up in the same neighborhood, only a few blocks apart. Only a year apart at school, although it might as well be ten years when the girl is older. Then, at least. Rachel’s Joshua is almost two years younger than she is. You were handsome, too. Yet I looked right through you. I only had eyes for Felix, as the song said.”
“That wasn’t the song, though. It was ‘Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Bill Me.’ The lawyers’ anthem.” Making a small joke, out of bravado.
“So you remember?”
“Well, you and Felix told the story so many times, it’s hard to forget.”
“You were always there. Always there.”
“Yes, I’ve tried to be there for you and the girls.”
“No, I mean before. We went everywhere together. Felix and Bambi, Bert and Lorraine. She’s a good person, Felix. She really is. A good mother, a good wife.”
“She is.”
“And you were there when Felix met Julie, weren’t you? You were with Tubby when he ‘discovered’ Julie, suggested he take her to the club. You knew Felix’s type by then. He liked them long and leggy. You know, as a contrast. I was many things, but long and leggy isn’t one of them.”
“Bambi, I didn’t condone what Felix did at all. Not at all. I’m not that kind of a guy.”
“Really? You never cheated on Lorraine, not even once?”
“No.”
“Not even in your head?”
He sighed. “Bambi, what is this about?”
“It’s about alibis, Bert. Yours and mine. That was the word you used. You have a perfect alibi. I mean, I know it’s a legal term, but it just struck me a little while ago. Yes, I did. And so did you. Rachel would have, too, if she could have borne to come to the beach that weekend, but she was moping. We all had such perfect alibis. You saw to that. The elaborate party for Lorraine-a surprise for her forty-first birthday, thrown after the actual date, pulled together in just a matter of days. Because, you said, that’s the only way to keep a surprise. I’ve never seen you do anything like it.”