I lifted the cover and saw them, three dead parakeets, one white, one blue, and one yellow. They had been dead for a long time. There wasn’t very much left of them except bright feathers and brown bones.
I put the cover back and went out to report to Martha.
She was gone. Thinking about the open window the day before, the man with the cap that very afternoon, I panicked. “Martha!” I called, running down the hall.
There was no answer. Just as I reached the landing, I heard her. Snoring.
I turned into the master bedroom and found her fast asleep on the big canopied bed with her hearing aids beside her. Too much exertion, or too much Long Island iced tea, had done her in. I let her be, grateful for a little time alone to go back and look through Hillary’s room. The thought occurred to me that Martha was playing possum to that very end.
I left Hillary’s door open so I could hear Martha if she stirred. Then I began.
Hillary’s room was tidy, but otherwise it was a typical teenager’s dream room. The girl had fulfilled the entire alphabet of a youngster’s wish list: TV, VCR, CD, AM/FM, PC, as well as cable for MTV. Casey, overindulged by her guilt-ridden father in my opinion, didn’t have half the electronic junk Hillary had acquired.
All of her treasures, from media toys to an impressive collection of china dolls, were housed in custom-built cabinets with glass fronts. Her swimming medals and trophies were formally arranged in their own handsome case.
It was so puzzling. Everything I had heard, everything I saw, told me that Hillary had been taken seriously. Perhaps she had been spoiled. Perhaps she had been pushed to excel, as Lacy said. The important element I found was that she was treasured, adored even. The neighbors loved her. The community cared for her.
I thought about the birds moldering under the cover in the corner, and I felt prickly all over. It wasn’t normal to have left them in the house, dead.
When I was Hillary’s age, I used to hide comic books, Harold Robbins novels, and other contraband in my pillowcase. I checked Hillary’s pillowcases, her coordinated ruffled shams, the double dust ruffle, between the mattress and the box springs. Nothing there.
Her desktop was overly neat: textbooks lined up between marble bookends, fresh blotter, school-lined paper and stationery in folders, pens and pencils in a slotted tray, computer covered. Everything in place.
The drawers, however, were promising. They were crammed, as I thought they should be. Hillary had stashed away half-full tissue packs, broken swimming goggles, chewing gum and old holiday candy, used lipsticks, illicit notes from girlfriends written in goofy codes, hair ties by the handful, teenage romance paperbacks, and magazines with pictures cut out of them. The desk held exactly what it should have – her real stuff. But none of it helped me.
The books in her case ran to leather-bound classics. Hardly a spine was broken. Among them were her middle-school yearbook, The Mustang, and a gold-and-brown photo album. I took those two down and carried them over to the bed.
In her yearbook photo Hillary still had braces on her teeth. Her seventh-grade class had elected her best athlete. I managed to spot her in the Junior Scholarship Federation group shot, recognizing her from the pictures hanging on the walls of Randy’s study. Wholesome, tanned, athletic; she did not look very much like Pisces.
I put the yearbook aside and opened the album. The first picture was labeled “Hillary’s first day at school.” Her face shone with expectation. She had a ragged-looking stuffed dog under her arm, but everything she wore looked new, crisp plaid dress with a big bow under the collar, shiny oxfords and ankle socks with lace trim. Her dark hair was cut in a stylish shag that came low over her forehead and brushed her cheeks. A pretty, happy child embarking on a new adventure.
Hanna was in some of the album photos with her, and so was Randy. Someone had carefully preserved a record of family outings, holidays, other important events in their lives. Just the three of them. No friends, no relatives. They were attractive, and from appearances, they were happy. At least they smiled a lot.
The story in the album ended with a printed card from Hanna’s funeral and a pressed rosebud. There was no other album, no later photographs in the room. Nothing before kindergarten. Nothing after Hanna. I found that profoundly sad.
I slipped the kindergarten picture out of the album and tucked it into my pocket. Everything else I put away before I went into the adjoining bathroom.
Hillary had a drawer full of teenage makeup, the usual curling irons and electric curlers. In her medicine chest I found, among the half-used bottles of cologne and tubes of Clearasil, an unopened L’Oreal hair-tint kit, medium brown. Had I found hair color in my daughter’s bathroom, I would have taken a good look at her roots to see what she had done to her hair and what she was trying to cover.
When I met Hillary, her hair had been bleached white-blond. In her yearbook pictures her natural hair seemed to be a rather dark auburn. The dye kit in her bathroom was unopened. So maybe she had bleached her hair before she left home. Maybe she and Elizabeth had fought about it.
Hillary’s closet was full of trendy brand-name clothes. Casey had pouted for two days because I would not give her sixty dollars for a plain white cotton blouse that had a particular tiny label sewn onto the pocket. Hillary had three of them. And everything that coordinated with them, right down to the socks. I was grateful Casey wasn’t seeing this wardrobe; I would have taken heat for weeks.
I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. Hillary herself, I suspect. What I found was an indulged yet typical young girl. And a medium-brown hair color kit.
I closed the closet doors and went out to check on Martha again.
I found her sitting up on the bed, fiddling with one of her hearing aids. She smiled at me, not a bit sleepy-looking. I picked up the copy of Rebecca I had left on the bed the night before.
“Where is the maid?” I asked.
“Elizabeth fired her ages ago.”
“How many ages?”
“Why, right after she married Randy and moved in. He didn’t like the idea, but she insisted she could take better care of her house than a racist expletive deleted.”
“She was like that, was she?” I chuckled.
“Indeed,” she said gravely. “Elizabeth was no Hanna.”
“When did Randy marry Elizabeth?”
“No more than a year ago. I suppose you might say Randy and Elizabeth were newlyweds.”
“Ah.” I was surprised. “I thought they had been together longer. You said they fought.”
Martha gave me one of her wise, make that wise-ass, looks. “Elizabeth entertained.”
“She had a lot of parties?”
“No, dear. During the day. When Randy was out.”
“Men?”
She shook her head. “Man.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Why, you spent an entire day with Regina Szal. I was certain she had told you. How could she have left out that gem?”
“You saw him, the other man?”
“In passing.”
“Describe him.”
“He’s a bit heavy, I would say. Top-heavy. I don’t care for his type. I would describe him as oily. He must be very rich for her to prefer him to Randy, because she didn’t choose him for his looks.”
“When did this affair start?”
“I don’t know, dear. I do remember noticing him right after the honeymoon. The first time Randy left the house, the friend paid a call. A very long call. Of course, since February, he has been here almost constantly.”
Sly had said, “Her mother fucks at home and her father fucks a broad.” Accurate, it seemed. At least half of it.
CHAPTER 14
John Smith Investigations was a cubbyhole office in a handsome downtown high rise. No reception room, no receptionist, and no one waiting ahead of me. Sitting in the client chair by Smith’s desk, if I angled my head just so, I could see a tease of ocean shimmer in the single window.